iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 28/01/2026

Also, flashback to the two hours I spent arguing with ChatGPT last week when it couldn't fix a problem it had created due to its inability to update a pretty simple piece of code in an Excel task list...

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 15/12/2025

#Gift #shopping for the #whisky lover that has all the bottes? How about my chapbook of whisky tasting notes as short fiction? The Scotsman has called it 'an ideal gift'. 68 of 100 copies left. menniedrinks.com/product/the-night-afore/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dec_promo"

menniedrinks.com

The Night Afore - Glenfiction Christmas Chapbook - Mennie Drinks

A winter whisky chapbook from Glenfiction: literary short stories inspired by single malt tasting notes, folklore and the Christmas season

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 19/09/2025

The first Bar Tab zine is here. Three Bars & A Pool Table. Monty's | Satan's Whiskers | All My Gods. Fifty numbered copies. Once they're gone, they're gone. menniedrinks.bigcartel.com/product/thre...

menniedrinks.bigcartel.com

Three Bars & A Pool Table Zine

The first Bar Tab Mini — a zine about where we drink and the people we meet there. Featuring three London institutions (Monty’s, Satan’s Whiskers,...

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 18/09/2025

Here they are in all their tactile print glory, being hand-numbered. A print run of fifty will be available from tomorrow.

A stack of zines on a table. Then one zine open on the copyright page with a pen resting on top.

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 18/09/2025

My first Bar Tab zine - Three Bars & A Pool Table - is released tomorrow. It's a literary-led look at three 'dive adjacent' bars in London, and the first in a series looking at where we drink and the people we meet there. Visit menniedrinks.substack.com to learn more!

menniedrinks.substack.com

Mennie Drinks | Substack

A slow publishing platform dedicated to the stories, spaces, and people that shape global drinking culture. Offering a literary, narrative-led take on bars, whisky and cocktails for those who prioriti...

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 18/09/2025

That any of the current platforms are capable of thought and not just fancy autocomplete!

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Reposted by Alex Mennie

Snackcube @snackcube.co.uk · 26/08/2025

Shameful that you have published this glaze for the LLM industry. AI doesn't exist, and the products that have been branded as such are little more than clever parlour tricks. Can my graphics card feel pain? Does my printer yearn for the steppes? No. Stop being fatuous and stop gassing up "AI"

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 26/08/2025

Absolute nonsense in The Guardian on generative AI having feelings, which suggests that no one at The Guardian understands anything about how LLMs work...

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 03/07/2025

Hmm, will any of the jobs it replaces be those of the CEO? If you've appointed a good team, then 'senior decision making' seems ripe for automation...

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Reposted by Alex Mennie

Simon McGarr @tupped.bsky.social · 22/06/2025

Good news everyone, they’ve finally built a machine to make good writing bad for you. You need never be moved, startled, challenged or changed by prose emanating from the human imagination ever again.

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 22/04/2025

Nicely dystopian top three there...

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 07/04/2025

"Humans discovered fermentation and started making alcohol...sometime between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago. Several thousand years later, the first civic governments were formed. The first efforts at restricting alcohol consumption probably followed not long after." reason.com/2025/04/05/t...

reason.com

The new prohibitionists are hijacking federal dietary guidelines

The campaign to make America dry is as dubious as the campaign for the food pyramid.

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 03/04/2025

Well quite. The smugglers’ route via Miquelon is back on for Canadian whisky...

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 03/04/2025

To be fair, those Peaky Blinders used Miquelon to smuggle whisky in during prohibition. It’s about time someone cracked down on that.

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 30/03/2025

Barges? I thought it was badgers.

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Reposted by Alex Mennie

Felipe Schrieberg @schriebergfr.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Hopefully the BBC specials on whisky scammers will lead to meaningful change in the industry. If you want to understand how they work and do their dirty business I wrote about it here on Forbes: www.forbes.com/sites/felipe...

forbes.com

Is This The Beginning Of The End For Whisky Cask Scammers?

A story from the BBC reveals how Scotch whisky cask investment scammers do their dirty business. It also marks the first time victims have come forward to warn others.

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 27/03/2025

Which just makes it clear that publishers have been hiding their contempt for creators for a long time. Until it was no longer useful (I.e. profitable) for them to continue to do so.

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 27/03/2025

Presumably not one of the publishers currently suing OpenAI..?!

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 17/03/2025

Hi @shannonvallor.bsky.social - very interesting to hear from you at the Edinburgh University event this evening and delighted to find out I was already following you here! Must have been an AI/tech/Edinburgh starter pack. I look forward to hearing about more of your work.

bergmayer @bergmayer.net · 17/03/2025

Reposted by Alex Mennie

are you doing your part to generate novel training data today?

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 14/03/2025

It's like Prohibition all over again. Can Scotland take advantage of this and see its growth rates in the US overtake those for Irish whiskey?

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 14/03/2025

Finally a Brexit benefit for the Scotch whisky industry?!

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 12/03/2025

Oh thank goodness. Now I can concentrate on being a good value-creating node and leave an AI tool to all my creating, dreaming and reflecting on the human experience. About time.

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Not sure - that’s why I asked!

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Is there a batch code? Should begin with L then 4 numbers…

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Yup. The treatment of women in the ad did come up in (private) discussion with some of my whisky pals. The brand claims to be poking fun at the old tropes. But I really struggle to see how perpetuating them (at a time that diversity and inclusion is being rapidly rolled back) does that

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It's not minor at all. It's another clear example of the power of privilege over talent that has got this man to the position he is in.

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Oh and of course he's writing books for children now as well...

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 05/03/2025

Love it when that happens. Assume you’ll now be ‘off the list’ that you weren’t on, and the big boys will face no repercussions for breaking an embargo. Classic of the genre.

It’s true. Sometimes I like to use numbered lists. Sometimes letters. Just to mix things up.

Or indeed to change anything about Scotch whisky.

As a reminder, the English Whisky Guild has applied for a GI for ‘English Whisky’ which also included a sub-category of ‘Single Malt English Whisky’. At no stage was this an attempt by ‘the English’ to change the definition of ‘single malt’ which is set out in EC Reg 110/2008.

Well no, you won’t be. Because no one asked you to. It’s quite an easy question for someone at DEFRA (who presumably understand the rules) to answer.

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No one was talking about the definition of ‘malt whisky’ at any stage. On any side.

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See the work that ‘made’ is doing here? Currently single malt must be distilled in one single distillery. The English GI application would keep this requirement.

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No. It hasn’t. There was no “English bid to change the definition of single malt whisky”.

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This whole 'spat' has been reported terribly from day one. This is just the latest example...

Bennett Institute for Public Policy @bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk · 20/02/2025

Reposted by Alex Mennie

New report published today says the unregulated use of Generative AI in the UK economy will not necessarily lead to economic growth & risks damaging the UK's creative sector. www.bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk/blog/ai-ip/

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 17/02/2025

There's that, but then there's also the fact that (we?) are a generation who grew up being told not to blindly trust anything we read on the internet by a generation who *checks notes* now blindly trust anything they read on the internet...let alone the one coming along behind us...

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 17/02/2025

The level of fact checking and transparency in publishing (in all sectors, but not least ours) is at an all time low these days...

Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 24/12/2024

Yes, it was those I had in mind…

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 23/12/2024

One assumes Mark means good for him?

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Alex Mennie @menniedrinks.com · 19/12/2024

It is excellent, isn't it? Your post has just reminded me that mine is nearly empty...