October 2026

The arrival of a new Jaguar is always an occasion to be celebrated. A beautifully proportioned British motor car, featuring new technology, a luxurious interior and just enough sporting character to remind its owner that life was supposed to be enjoyed.

During a recent visit to Witchmark Distillery in Wiltshire, the team made no secret of their ambition: when their inaugural spirit emerges from cask, it is intended to compete squarely as a super premium single malt.

Yet in spirits marketing, "super premium" is a term thrown around with easy confidence. What does it actually mean in practice?

One of the things I enjoy most about writing Drinks Diaries is that there really are no boundaries to what might end up in my glass. This time we travel from the vineyards of West Sussex to the shores of Lake Geneva, through Tuscany, Austria, Portugal, and the far south of Italy, before heading north to Islay and Skye. There are familiar grapes in unfamiliar places, including a Tuscan white from a region better known for Sangiovese, alongside Chasselas from Switzerland, a country whose wines we rarely get the opportunity to drink in the UK.

The Suzuki GSX-S1000GT is Suzuki's sport-tourer that replaced the older GSX-S1000F. It takes a legendary superbike powerplant and houses it in a sporty but comfortable, long-distance chassis built for high-speed touring and spirited backroad scratching, and boy, does it deliver.

My bike was the GT+, which includes factory colour-matched 36-litre hard panniers (capable of holding a full-face helmet in each side), and heated grips as standard.