2016 Whisky Wind-down, 3: Blended


Today’s dram: Johnnie Walker, Double Black

Today’s tasting notes: I haven’t said much about blended Scotch whisky.

In truth, I’m not a huge fan.

What a lot of people think of as everyday or ordinary Scotch whisky, the sort of thing you might mix into a Rob Roy or a Rusty Nail, isn’t to my taste. I find most blends too easy-going, and I prefer the more interesting profiles of single malts.

Having said that, ain’t nothing wrong with a good blend. And I try, really try, not to be snobbish about this. (Or other things. Success is variable.)

Johnnie Walker makes some of the best-known and best-selling Scotch whisky around, and it’s all blends, sold by color. Hell if I can be bothered to get into figuring out what the various colors represent.

What they are, though, is successful. John Walker & Sons started blending and bottling in 1820, and they’re still around for a reason. They make good whisky.

Back in Whisky Wind-down 23 I wrote about Johnnie Walker Black: “There is smoke there. Not faint, either. Distinct. Not Laphroaig, mind, but then what is? Otherwise, smooth. Very. Not much peat to speak of, but there. It’s Scotch whisky, for sure, and if you’re not a Scotch whisky drinker this might well bowl you over.”

Double Black, then, is a more intense version of Black, per the marketing.

Since Black is smoky enough to get your attention if you’re used to easy-going Scotch whisky then Double Black should be more so, yes?

Oh, yes.

It has an aroma of smoked honey, and it tastes sweet and smooth. There is peat and smoke on the tongue, and on the finish, but it glides down and fades fast. I’d call this a very approachable whisky. Maybe it could be a gateway whisky for someone looking to get more adventurous.

Today’s thoughts: I grew up in a fairly conservative part of the country. I had what you might call a traditional evangelical upbringing, and though I don’t intend — today, at least — to get into religion as a topic unto itself, I want to make the point that this upbringing included homophobia. I say that not to lay blame or make attack; it is simply a fact of how I was raised.

The first gay person I knew personally was a band-mate who came out toward the end of his junior year of high school. I was a freshman at the time, and while I “knew” then that gayness was “wrong,” I also knew this guy personally. Not well. We weren’t in classes together, and we were in different sections of the band, but I knew him. The fact he was brave enough, in a small rural southern high school, to come out at 17 and boldly be who he was, to weather the storm of small town scorn … 25 years later I think of him as a hero.

I only wish I had been brave enough, myself, to realize that at the time and tell him so. To have gotten to know him better. To have been not just a fellow musician, but a friend.

The fact that I wasn’t actively rude to him isn’t enough, to me, to justify not being a better person. Standing by isn’t collaboration, but it might as well be. I wanted to be a better person, but I was afraid.

Afraid to step up, yes, but mostly afraid that maybe the bigots were right.

Fear, coupled with religion, held me back. When “God” tells you it’s okay to fear The Other, well, shit, what’s a fellar to do, son?

Get out.

I left that small rural town and that evangelical faith and, eventually, that homophobia.

It wasn’t overnight, and it wasn’t because of any one person.

It was, like much else in my education, a matter of getting away from myself and my upbringing and the tiny world I grew up in and finding the larger, more diverse world around me.

Then losing my fear of it.

Friendships came later.

Good friendships. The sort who share milestone birthdays and good whisky.

Day to day, I don’t think about this much.

Then sometimes I look around, at the game table, or at the bar, or at a party, at the people surrounding me, and I realize how far I’ve come from that scared kid I used to be.

I don’t pretend my journey is anything next to theirs.

Ultimately, a straight white guy is likely to be comfortable pretty much anywhere.

Too many, though, prefer to stay comfortable where they started.

As much as I’d like to go back and tell my scared former self to get over it, I want to tell the rest of the scared folk back home, the ones who stayed, the ones who cower, the ones who still hate whom the preacher tells them, just how very small their world is.

Today’s note on compassion: We’re all afraid. Those of us who have it easiest have the greatest obligation to overcome our fears and stand for others.

Today’s toast: To growing up, breaking out, and journeying on.

2016 Whisky Wind-down, 4: Taste Memory


Today’s dram: The Balvenie, DoubleWood, 12-Year-Old

Today’s tasting notes: Before I tell you about the whisky, let me remark on the glass.

That is one of a pair of genuine Glencairn glasses, a holiday gift from The Empress of Whisky. Naturally, I had to pour my next dram into one of these beautiful glasses, the design of which is said to be ideal for appreciating whisky.

Hell, the Queen of the United Kingdom agrees — the design won the 2006 Queen’s Award for innovation. Also, many master distillers swear by this as the perfect vessel in which to properly appreciate a dram of whisky; in particular, the shape concentrates the aromas for easier sniffing.

The joke, of course, is on me.

A fucking head cold has settled in, and my sense of smell is wrecked. My sense of taste isn’t that great, either. Fact is, I might not be able to properly taste whisky for the rest of the year.

Blarg.

You’ll just have to trust me that this one is good. 

The Balvenie isn’t the only distillery to use multiple casks to mature a single whisky, but the DoubleWood is famed (or well marketed, anyway) for the technique. After an initial rest in used American bourbon barrels (very typical for Scotch whisky), the DoubleWood ages in used sherry casks. According to the distillery, it is this second rest that imparts so much of the sweet character for which this whisky is known.

Today’s thoughts: I remember.

I remember the joy this particular whisky brings me.

I picked it up at my favorite bottle shop a few years back. The Empress of Whisky and I were there — on what you might call “routine business” — when she remembered some gifting occasion for which she had promised me a bottle.

Pick one, she said.

So I browsed a bit and my eye fell upon The Balvenie DoubleWood.

And I half-remembered something one of my whisky heroes, the writer Barry Eisler, said about this one, a memory he related about trying it for the first time by the fireplace in a bar on a chilly day while reading a book about Tokyo, and how drinking it takes him back to that moment and time.

I am enamored of that story probably because I have long been the sort who can place my first tastes of particular drinks at certain points in time, with certain people, certain moods … they are personal hallmarks of history, treasures in my mind. 

Sometimes, I plan for them.

So I picked the DoubleWood, and I set it aside, waiting.

The moment came when I invited some friends to join me at a mountain cabin to celebrate my 40th birthday. Much whisky was had that weekend, but two particular drams stand out in memory. One is the subject of a Whisky Wind-down post yet to come. The other is the DoubleWood.

I opened it, and poured a dram, and walked outside, to where there were several friends lighting a fire, including The Empress of Whisky. And I stood back, and watched, and smiled at their antics, and enjoyed that these people were here together, because I had invited them, because they cared enough to travel to this remote location, to share a fire and drinks and friendship.

It doesn’t matter what The Balvenie DoubleWood 12 actually tastes like; I will always think of my friends when I have it.

Today’s note on aging: I was a bit bummed to turn 40. I think that’s required, isn’t it? 

It’s an auspicious age, the middle of most lives, the turning point when less lies ahead than behind.

Yet less isn’t lesser.

The years before me, whatever their number, I intend to spend in good company, in the best cheer possible, fighting the good fight where I can, making my little observances, attempting to add wit, whimsy, and ruminations … ’til darkness falls. 

Today’s toast: To aging: It beats the alternative. 

2016 Whisky Wind-down, 5: Home, Health, Heartache

 

Today’s dram: Conecuh Ridge, Clyde May’s Alabama Style Whiskey

Today’s tasting notes: This is borrowed. Specifically, I begged a sip from The Empress of Whisky, who received it as a gift from her sister this Christmas. 

Conecuh Ridge is something of a newcomer, one of few distilleries operating in Alabama. 

This bottle is an homage to Clyde May, who was something of a legend among the state’s moonshiners.  Whereas his contemporaries were content to sell the raw product of their stills, May aspired to something greater. Inspired by the great bourbons of Kentucky, he aged his spirit in new charred American oak, but he included a twist — dried apples. The result he dubbed “Alabama Style Whisky.”

Roughly a century after May’s heyday, the Alabama state government finally got around to legalizing the distilling of spirits. Enter Conecuh Ridge. Among their offerings is this homage to the late great May and his innovative whisky. 

I think it tastes like apple juice spiked with vodka. 

Today’s thoughts: I had not intended to write about this one, but life intervened. Between a long drive home, a sore throat (that might be the foretelling of something worse), and the news of Carrie Fisher’s death, I am just burnt today. This is my token effort, based on a sip I begged yesterday. I am currently drinking bourbon for medicinal purposes. May tomorrow be better. 

Today’s note on the passing of an icon: If you read Whisky Wind-down 17, you know something of what Star Wars means to me. This year has been relentlessly reaping celebrities, many of them icons of my youth, but Fisher’s death is a stab in the damned heart. I know only little of her struggles with substance abuse and mental illness, but she is a hero for the way she openly wrote and talked about those issues, aside from anything else she ever did. Obviously, she will always be Leia. I can barely begin to say how important she was as an icon to young girls, but I know just how much she meant to one young girl in particular, my younger sister, whose love of Star Wars is second to nobody’s, my own most definitely included. I’ll write more about that in happier times, I’m sure. Today, though, I’m going  to leave the last words to my favorite Star Wars fan. 

Today’s toast: Courtesy of Jennifer Pierson: “To my favorite princess, thank you for inspiring me at a young age to speak my mind, take no crap, stand up for what’s right, and be brave. You’ll be missed.”

2016 Whisky Wind-down, 6: North, South, Shalom


Today’s dram: Highland Park, 12-Year-Old

Today’s tasting notes: This is a new one. At least, I don’t recall having tried it. It’s the product of another venerable whisky distillery, the northernmost in Scotland. 

There, on Orkney Island, they still malt their own barley before drying it over a fire fueled by peat with a heavy dose of heather. 

The marketing spiel says that heather gives the whisky a floral character. I can’t say I detect that by smell, but then I may be a touch stuffy at the moment. On the tongue, it is warm and smooth. It goes down easy, leaves a lingering pleasant warmth with maybe the faintest kiss, almost a memory, of smoke. 

Today’s thoughts: I grew up in the South. Rural southern Georgia, if specifics matter. There are things about Chrismas in the South that are different than Christmas elsewhere. 

We don’t expect snow, for starters. 

Sure, we dream of a white Christmas, but we know it’s just that — a dream. Actual white Christmases happen to other people. Northerners, mostly. 

My first Christmas in Maine was a bit of a revelation in that regard. Christmas there is like the Christmas I had only seen on greeting cards. Snowy landscape. Smoke curls from cute chimneys. And everywhere everyone was eager to stay indoors, playing cards and drinking something warm.

Also, they have this weird substance called “stuffing” which is used in place of dressing* at the holiday meal. I can’t say I completely understand the reasoning, but it is enjoyable enough. 

Also, wine. 

I realize I am at risk of generalzing too much, but wine was never a thing at my southern family’s dinner table. We had sweet tea. (They call it “the table wine of the South” and that really isn’t an exaggerattion.)

Something else I never encountered? Chanukah. It’s not that we don’t have Jews in rural, southern Georgia, but they are few and far between, and I was a young adult before I knew any personally. Today I am friends with a few, inlcuding my sister-in-law’s husband.** 

He’s a New Yorker by birth, but now he and his Maine-born wife are raising a Texas-born son in Alabama. That kid has culture out the wazoo, even before his aunt and uncle come calling.***

This is the third evening of Chanukah, and I have enjoyed the past two, so today shall I stand respectfully quiet as the family kindles their menorahh and my five-year-old nephew tries to keep up with the words of prayer and song that go along with the lighting of candles. 

Today’s note on passive-agressive holiday greetings: There really is a lot to celebrate. Be gracious, wherever you find yourself . 

Today’s toast: L’Chayim.

—–

* — If you are not from the South, I will forgive you not knowing about dressing. I am not talking about the stuff that goes on salad. Think of southern dressing as a stuffing casserole and you will have close to the right image. I miss it and will very probably have to make my own before the year is out.

** — Is there a word for that relationship?  A proper word, I mean? Some people would refer to the two of us as brothers-in-law, but that is both confusing and technically incorrect. As Ann Landers put it, “You are no relation; you are just two men who married sisters.” But we are family. We need a word. 

*** — I am not the drunk uncle. Mostly. I try to restrict my uncling influcence to hats, beards, and Star Wars. Sometimes I consult on train layouts or LEGO arrangements. Also, I make pancakes. 

2016 Whisky Wind-down, 7: Pleasant Surprises


Today’s dram: Bowmore, 12-Year-Old

Today’s tasting notes: The aroma is captivating — you opened open a jar of honey minutes after lighting the fireplace. Someone nearby sliced a lemon. 

On the tongue it is soft and mellow. Swallow it, though, and feel a gentle burn, with a kiss of smoke as it fades away. 

This is an Islay whisky, but it is unlike other Islay whiskies I have known. 

I am mostly familiar with the big peaty, smoky works of Laphroaig and Ardbeg. 

If that whisky is a dragon that grabs you by the throat, Bowmore is a dragon that seduces you first. 

Today’s thoughts: This one was a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law, and oh, was I delighted to find it addressed to me. The magic of Christmas may be mostly reserved for children, but now and then a glimmer lands even on a sot like me.  

As my five-year-old nephew ran from sparkling toy to joyful book to holiday sweet, I could just sit back, smiling. He’d wear out eventually, then the adults could settle and sip. 

Today’s note, as an observing uncle: Did I ever have that much energy, even in my single-digit ages? I think not. 

Today’s toast: To families everywhere: Happy holidays, whatever yours may be.