Glencairn glasses; I can smell things too!

well spotted. One of these is not a Glencairn glass. So?

I’d like to revisit a theme now that last cropped up in my Am I becoming a bit of a snob? post – the question of whisky glasses. I had started to bemoan the fact that whenever you order whisky in a pub, it seems to come in either what are known as ‘rocks’ glasses or even in small straight glasses – like what you’d normally expect to receive with a bottle of J2O.

Whisky though, is renowned for being a very complex spirit that can impart a huge variety of scents and flavours, yet the kinds of glass that most people seem to begin their whisky journeys drinking out of don’t facilitate the experiencing of this complex spirit to the full. Anyone who’s anyone in the world of whisky knows that there exists a glass that supposedly will help you make the most of your whisky tasting experience – the Glencairn glass, which first came into production in 2001, so quite recently.

This blog has up to this point been a journey of discovery for me, so that should explain some of my naïve questions and opinions. I’ve been somewhat sceptical of all those things people report experiencing in their whisky because I just enjoy whisky, and a part of me wanted to continue doing that without having to get all finicky about details like glasses and techniques, and am I tasting what you’re tasting and all that. The other part just felt like a teenager that had discovered a new favourite band and wanted to absorb all their recordings and discover their influences, and just immerse themselves in it.

When I heard about the Glencairn glass (£6.90 on Amazon – why are they not available in like, John Lewis or Debenhams or Ikea?), it didn’t really occur to me that there was any point in getting one, but then, as you might have read in previous weeks, I visited some distilleries in Islay, and not only did all the tastings involve Glencairn glasses, but also they were just throwing them at me, so I came home with five – branded with Lagavulin, Laphroaig and Caol Ila. Honestly, you get more of these in one day on Islay than you get napkins in two visits to a fried chicken joint – here’s your massive box of greasy chicken that you have to eat with your fingers, and here’s one single play napkin the size of a postage stamp.

Can I have some more napkins, please?

No.

I decided it was time to put the glasses the test, and started using them. Now I can give you the results of my experiments.

So how good are they? Well, let’s get some aesthetic and practical considerations out of the way first. They are small, and they aren’t exactly masculine. Nor are they particularly comfortable to drink out of, since my nose gets in the way when I tip one back, which means I also need to tip my head back.

However, they are comfy to hold – they sit nicely between my index finger and thumb, and the base then sits pleasingly on my curled middle finger. You can swirl your spirit vigorously around the glass, and it doesn’t spill out the top as it might in certain other shapes and styles, and the bulb shape makes it easy to pour a suitably sized measure consistently without having to use a measuring cup; should you be concerned about such things, just pour until the liquid reaches the point where the curve begins to turn back on itself. And despite having to tip your head back a bit, the shape facilitates getting just the right quantity smoothly into your mouth for enjoying.

The important considerations though are:

                Is there any improvement in terms of nosing my whisky?

                Does it make the whisky taste any better?

I’m not going to keep you waiting here; the answer to both of those questions is a resounding yes. Seriously. They are not making this shit up.

I think there might be a tiny element of the immersion in scotch on the Island of Islay having a positive influence on my enjoyment of whisky overall, but I now feel that these Glencairn glasses really help me to enjoy my whisky to the fullest extent. Let me give you some examples.

Firstly, I’ve never really been able to identify any individual scents or tastes in the whisky I’ve drunk beyond smoky, salty, peppery – to me those are very basic. When it comes to blackberries, chocolate, honey - I don’t know, some people can find anything in there – I was all at sea. Straight away though, I started finding things.

The first whisky I tried on my return home from Islay was my Balvenie 12 year old, double wood (40% ABV), earlier impressions on which you can find here and here. Immediately, on the nose I detected liquorice and vanilla, while on the palate I could taste oak, mint and (later – not on the same occasion) strawberries. I went from being non-plussed about this malt to being im-pressed in just a couple of tastings.

With the last of my Grant and MacPhail bottling of Scapa (43% ABV), I got tobacco on the nose and citrus on the palate. Sadly that was it, there was none left to analyse any further – but that’s still a massive improvement.

Next I moved on to my Woodford Reserve bourbon (43.2% ABV) and found caramel and dark chocolate on the nose, with sweet apple juice on the palate that actually took me right back to a school trip to the Jorvik Centre in York, where part of the tour takes you through a strong smell of apples that is supposed to represent the Vikings’ cultivation of orchards.

The most I’ve experienced in a single glass so far comes from a bottle of 10 year old Bladnoch (46% ABV). It’s a real delicate and mellow scotch that doesn’t give away its above average strength, and on the nose for that one I got something quite weird. It was incredibly familiar, but I couldn’t quite pin down what it was at first. Finally it came to me; ice cream cake, like your friend’s mum used to serve at birthday parties. I know, it sounds silly. Perhaps that’s the vanilla that everyone’s always finding. Then there was tobacco, and later, cheese – though not as strongly as Bruichladdich’sOrganic expression.

The palate was spicy and contained a hint of orange, followed by chocolate truffle.

Finally I was starting to see what everyone was talking about – not because I had to really strain and grasp in order to convince myself that I could detect these things, but because they were just sitting there at the top of my Glencairn glass, and (inexplicably) on my tongue. How the glass could possibly affect the overall flavour, I don’t know – perhaps this is the Islay immersion’s effect – but all I know is that I definitely noticed a difference.

Oddly though the cagiest whisky I’ve tried so far in terms of giving up distinct scents or flavours is my Caol Ila Distillers Edition that I’ve been enjoying immensely. It’s sweet like nectar, but I’m getting nothing familiar from it – excepting the mellow peatiness that causes it to act like God’s own room odouriser, and on my 6^th or 7^th tasting, a mild suggestion of sizzling bacon.

Previously I simply enjoyed whisky (among other spirits) very much, but the Glencairn glass has opened up a whole new layer of possibilities for me to explore, and that’s pretty exciting, so I’m not exaggerating when I say I’m delighted. However, in some small way, the universal laws of physics are reflected here, in that there have turned out to be drawbacks – perhaps not to the point of an equal and opposite reaction, but just drawbacks.

Firstly, you can forget about enjoying a nice glass of whisky on a night out anymore. You’ll just be throwing your money away, paying over the odds for something that you’re not going to get the full benefit from.

It’s getting a bit silly really. I was thinking about buying a half bottle in the Duty Free at Manchester Airport to take to Vietnam with me, and I started thinking, but they won’t have the right type of glasses in Vietnam… Honestly, what a geek.  Did it anyway.

Secondly, these glasses only seem to work with whisky. I’ve tried my 20 year old Armagnac, my 10 Cane rum ,and my Blanc e Neri grappa and neither of them has benefitted in the slightest, which only goes to reinforce the supposition that whisky is the most complex spirit there is. Previously I loved all kinds of spirits, but now I can’t help feeling that in some way they are all inferior to whisky, and that maybe this matters. And that’s no way to be!

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I feel like so much of my whisky tasting up to now has been a waste of time, and that perhaps I need to try so many of them all over again – the Black Grouse, Aldi’s Highland Black, definitely the Highland Park 12 year old. Whether it’s because I think maybe I didn’t like them when I might have, or whether it’s a case of if it was that good, imagine how good it could be… it doesn’t matter; I’ve wasted so much time! And money! And words!

Ah, whaddaya gonna do? Life goes on, so get on with it. Whisky is awesome with or without fancy glasses. If you want to know exactly how awesome it can be though, just get one. Totally worth it.

Out with the old [brandy], and in with the new

Last night I said a final farewell to the litre bottle of St Remy that Mrs Cake had brought back from Paris, and a quick perusal of my previous posts shows that I barely even acknowledged its existence. Well, that’s not fair. Once I’d gotten past the incredibly sturdy cardboard box and the plug-ugly bottle, and then allowed its charms to grow on me over a few weeks, it proved to be a very enjoyable brandy. So I’d like to pay it a little tribute today.

“Rémy XO is a brandy of character with complex aromas and a robust taste. It is recognised for its elegance, smoothness and the way it lingers on the palate. Enriched by a multitude of flavours that make it irresistible to the connoisseur, St-Rémy should be savoured at leisure in an intimate setting, as an aperitif or after-dinner drink”

So says St Remy cellar master, Martine Pain and yes, I could go with that – robust taste. It’s certainly preferable to the Courvoisier VSOP that, due to its bitter aftertaste, I keep being so disparaging about. No such problems here.

luminous amber?

The website claims it’s a luminous amber colour, again showing how much variety there can be in shades of amber – and indeed, luminosity. Does this look luminous amber to you? I would say it’s dark. I don’t know; really fricking dark.

In terms of nose, it’s supposed to be “mature… followed by a… woody and vanilla aroma” then with ripe fruit, jam and honey. Once again I failed to detect any of that. On the palate: “gingerbread, candied apricots, dates, figs and nuts… subtly spicy and aromatic”. Gingerbread?

I was thinking for a while that a litre of it was going to be hard to shift (the last time Mrs Cake brought me a bottle of brandy back from holiday, it stuck around for 3 years), so I took it on my golf-related stag do to help account for a bit of it, but it came as some surprise yesterday when I could tell by the trickle emerging from the bottle that it wasn’t much longer for this world. I hate dark bottles  – I always like to e able to see how much is left.

Now that I’ve had time to properly appreciate it, I think for the time being I am going to have to award this brandy the accolade of “Best Brandy I Have Owned So Far”. No, it doesn’t have much competition, but as you will see, I intend to work on that. I’d have to say the Cardinal Mendoza is a challenger, but I was still drinking my spirits with ice when I had a bottle of that (imagine!). In fact, I had thought this was only good enough to drink with ice at first. How wrong I was.

It’s good stuff. As I say, it may not be the most enticing bottle in the Duty Free shop, but you could do a lot worse. I’m sure it didn’t cost much (Mrs Cake wouldn’t want to waste too much money on it), and it’s probably one I would never have picked for myself, but I’ll keep fond memories of the short time we spent together: Me, holding the glass up to the light and admiring it. That brandy wore its glass like lingerie. It looked good, and it tasted soft and sweet, but also a little fiery - like a beautiful lady. Mmm…

Sorry. Did I type that out loud?

 I didn’t even ask Mrs Cake to bring me any brandy (though I was going to), so it was a nice surprise when she did. And now it’s gone, I can move on to my next one.

I’ve always thought that brandy is an easy spirit to like in comparison with other spirits. Whisky, for instance, can take a bit of getting into. In my experience, people don’t even try to like vodka or tequila – they just treat them as fasttracks to getting drunk. As for gin… well, that’s just for drinking with tonic, isn’t it?

I do have a healthy appreciation for brandy already, but I’m nowhere near as experienced in it as I am in the field of whisky, so with my next purchase it was time to tread some new ground.

I don’t want to get all factual on your ass here - as ever, if you want to know factual stuff, you’re on the internet already, use it. Wikipedia is a decent place to start. No, this is a blog, not an encyclopaedia…

There are numerous countries that produce brandy, but French brandy seems to fall into three categories, Cognac and Armagnac – named after the regions that produce them - and… other. St Remy falls into the other category.

Having tried one or two brands of Cognac previously, I decided to keep an eye out for some Armagnac. If you look in the supermarket though, most types of brandy available are cognac – that’s your Courvoisier, Remy Martin, Martell etc.

Cognac is distilled twice in pot stills, and is bottled fairly young. Armagnac on the other hand, is distilled only once, in column stills, and as a result is known for being a less smooth spirit, though it tends to be aged for longer, allowing for development of the spirit and certain aromatic elements. Presumably this makes for a more complex spirit. I’ll be the judge of that!

It is produced in smaller quantities than Cognac, and tends to be made by independent producers, as opposed to the giant brands that dominate Cognac production.

Really, that information was more than enough for me. You had me at ‘less smooth spirit’. I made sure to stop by the booze aisle in the big Tesco the last time I was there, and had a look around. As I say, I saw five or six varieties of Cognac and, hidden away, underneath the shelf all the other brandies were on, and at the side, next to one of those large labels that sticks out saying “Whisky”, was a single bottle of Armagnac, £20. It didn’t look like much – in fact, it looked more like a bottle of balsamic vinegar. The label was tatty, and it said “Tesco” on it, so this was clearly the bottled for Tesco variety. I decided I didn’t really want to risk that.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I got my next chance. This time I’d called into the Marks and Spencer supermarket in town, armed with £9 in vouchers that were the reward for using my credit card so profligately.

fancy

Well, they had an Armagnac and it came in a nice box with a picture of a very attractive teardrop shaped bottle on it. It was 20 years old and £33. Most importantly, it looked interesting enough to part with my cash for – and at 20 years old, that meant that I would be beating my oldest spirit record by 2 years within a couple of weeks of setting it. I had to go for it really – particularly since I found another voucher offering £3 off purchases of food and wine. I asked if brandy counted as wine, and the cashier said it did.

I’ve been wondering since the last time I had a look at the booze in Marks and Spencer, whether their own brands are any good. Every supermarket has its own brands, but you’d generally expect them to be pretty poor. Marks and Spencer have a bit of a reputation for quality though, and when I saw they have their own brand of Islay scotch for around the price of an actual bottle of Laphroaig, it made me wonder. In this instance though, £33 seems far too cheap for a 20 year old spirit in a fancy bottle…

What a bottle though! Look at that! I love that solid glass bit at the bottom. I let it sit on the coffee table for a few hours, just so I could keep looking at it. It reminds me of the body of a beautiful electric guitar, curvy and solid.

Now, a couple of weeks have passed since I wrote the St Remy tribute, and followed it up with the story of how I came into possession of my 20 year old Armagnac, so I’ve easily had plenty  much chance to ease that oversized cork out and splash it out into a glass. It certainly made Christmas with the family easier to handle! Just being a bit flippant there. I did take it with me, and enjoy it on a few consecutive nights, playing Trivial Pursuit and watching Preppers UK on the unbelievably annoying SKY box.

Do you know? I know what they mean by ‘rougher spirit’ too. It really is, but it’s no less enjoyable for it. It has an unusual mouthfeel, but also a complex taste. I can’t make a direct comparison with any particular brand of Cognac, since I passed the last of the Courvoisier onto someone else some time ago, but I can be fairly certain that I’m enjoying this one much more. It isn’t as sweet for a start, nor is its aftertaste bitter. In addition you get a nice burn, which I think is an essential part of any spirit drinking experience – though I’m sure real aficionados will disagree with that.

There’s still just about more than half a bottle to go, so it’s a good sign that I like this one so much already. Long may it continue. I read on Wikipedia that once opened, Armagnac stays drinkable for years – unlike scotch that is supposed to oxidise after just 3 months – so I don’t need to hurry on this one, which is a good thing because I’ve opened a few bottles of special whisky recently, and I need to start polishing them off.

It could be a while before I actually take a risk on M&S own brand scotch, but at least I’ve been able to find out what their Armagnac is like, and maybe that will be a suitable barometer. It makes me wonder though, what’s the Tesco Armagnac like? I suppose I’m going to have to get that one now as well.

It’s just occurred to me that perhaps I should offer some comparison with the St Remy that opened this article. Well the reason I hadn’t before is that I don’t really consider them all that comparable. It’s almost as if they are a completely different spirit. Brandy comes in many guises – the Armagnac being a kind of amber colour, while the St Remy was more of a dark ruby, and in terms of flavour… sure, they’re both unmistakably brandy, but they belong to different genres. I’d like to be able to break it down to constituent flavours for you, but I’ve still got a lot to learn in that regard, and I’ve got nothing for you at the moment. Which is best? It’s all a matter of taste, isn’t it? The St Remy, I’m sure, is better value for money, but the Armagnac comes in that impressive bottle, and that’s got to count for something (a lot). I’m going to have to hold off on the matter of flavour. There’s still half a bottle of Armagnac to go, and I’m not going to make the same mistake I always do where I judge something too soon. I’m just going to enjoy it.

Now, as I write this we’re just approaching the weekend once more, and once again it has the potential for being a good one. What have we got going on? Well, I’ll tell you. First, you should know that Drink it How You Like it has joined the 21st century, and now has its own Twitter account; @alcothusiast, so you can follow me, and keep up to date with what’s going on there. I’m not really sure what the point of it is yet, or how I’m going to use it, but I understand lots of people are using it to their advantage. I’ll probably just use it to let you know what I’m up to, and maybe throw some random thoughts out there, see what comes back.

I can’t say I was particularly bothered about joining all the younger generation and the celebrities in this whole Twitter debacle, but The Manchester Whisky Club that I blogged about last week was holding its first Twitter tasting event last night, so I figured I’d join up for that. You can read more about it on Twitter (#mcrwc), or in a future Drink it How You Like it post (presumably).

What else is going on this weekend? Well, I’ll be meeting up with some friends for my latest pub crawl, which has been christened birthdaywinesuitchops - presumably because it’s someone’s birthday, but also because last time we were out we thought it would be fun to do a pub crawl where we all drink wine instead of beer, and wear suits. The ‘chops’ part relates to the fact that one of the group has finally given in, and decided to grow some sidies. I’m not sure whether I’ll stick to the part that says we have to drink wine, but we’ll see what the mood is like on the day.

This pub crawl thing is getting pretty desperate now. We need a new town or something. When you have to start drinking wine and wearing suits just to make it interesting, something’s wrong! It would definitely be better if it were summer.

Finally, there’s just one more thing I want to promote. My friend Rob Riot’s band, PreciousMcKenzie has a free gig at Gulliver’s on Oldham Street (Mcr) tomorrow, so I’m considering popping in for some of that. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

Have a good weekend then, and I’ll see you on Twitter and back here next week for another post. Nice.