Mad things people taste in liquor - it's like a clips show, but written down

Inspired by recently attending the first meeting of the new Manchester Whisky Club (which you can read about on other blogs here and here), I’d like to revisit a theme from my Whatis it with whisky reviews? feature. The club is basically an [admittedly excellent] excuse to mix with other people that have an interest in drinking whisky, and taste some different drams. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever used the word ‘dram’, not really feeling qualified to do so generally. There were five to try at this first meeting – one from each of the whisky producing regions of Scotland – and they were all of excellent quality, being selected as they were by club founder, Andy.

Andy allocated us five glasses each, and poured a generous quantity into each one. Each whisky and region was then introduced, and we commenced with the nosing and tasting, pausing to share our impressions.

Now, I don’t want to get into too much detail about the club itself (that’s for another time), but what is important is that none of the impressions any of us had of the various scents and flavours in those five glasses were particularly outlandish, but as you’ll see in the rest of this article, sometimes they really can be. I’m more of a wide-eyed enthusiast than an expert, so it’s not for me to say whether any of these flavours are actually in the drams in question, and there are no right or wrong answers anyway, apparently. So no judging, please. Just have a look at some of these examples, and marvel at the ingenuity and realms of possibility within human experience.

Some of these excerpts are from what we’ll call ‘expert’ reviews, and are therefore examples perhaps of someone letting their imagination run away with them a little. Conversely, some are ‘customer’ reviews, and therefore borne out of boredom and naïve fascination, so some of them may be explained by error, lack of experience or even facetiousness (much like this blog) – you know what people on the internet are like. I think they’re all worth looking at and even celebrating to some extent.

Combinations

A common practice I’ve noticed is that of mentioning what I’m going to call combination flavours. By that, I mean where someone doesn’t just mention a flavour, but that flavour in a particular state, so for example, instead of vanilla, they will say vanilla ice cream, instead of grass, they’ll say wet grass etc. Grass? No, wet grass. You get the point. You can see real examples in these next few entries:

Gibson’s 12 year old – “on the nose; canned fruits.”

Here’s a good one: canned fruits. So generic fruit in a can? Does that seriously sound like a good thing, notwithstanding that the smell of the canned fruit should differ, depending on what fruit is actually in the can? I don’t think canned fruits was supplied as a value judgement in this instance, more an observation. It is an interesting one though. To me it begs the question: if you’re going to analyse flavours, how specific do you need to be? Is ‘canned fruits’ good enough? Is it in juice or syrup?

The Glenlivet 12 year old – ‘dark toast’ from The Whisky Exchange

Dark toast. Again, I’m just not sure whether some things people get an impression of are supposed to be good or not – does it matter? Let’s imagine you’re considering purchasing the whisky in question; are you supposed to ask yourself, do I like dark toast? If you don’t, I don’t think that necessarily means you can’t enjoy a whisky that someone has tasted dark toast in, so it’s not particularly useful, but it is a real impression someone had, so there.

Perhaps you should ask, whether or not I like dark toast, would I like it in whisky?

The book I’m currently reading (but skipping through most of), Peat Smoke and Spirit by Andrew Jefford also mentioned dark toast in a description of a whisky recently, and in that instance it was a bad thing, so that at least clears that up. To some extent.

Poetic Licence

Then of course, you’ve got the people who take the whole thing a little too far. Like this guy:

Jura Superstition – “I immediately noticed rich scents and aromas climbing out of the glass to greet my nose. If I closed my eyes and held the glencairn under my nose I could imagine I was in an evergreen forest with damp moss covering the ground. A boggy meadow must be nearby as I smell the damp peat under the meadow grass, with lush ferns and willow bushes clinging to its edges. Saw grass and timothy are growing in the meadow with summer flowers just beginning to bloom. Sweet malted barley smells have wafted in from beyond the forest and light scents of marmalade, vanilla and baking spices have drifted in. I find the overall effect to be marvellous.”

From therumhowlerblog

Now I don’t want to ridicule that one (too much), but if I hold a glass under my nose, I can imagine literally anything. The mind is a powerful thing – sometimes I don’t even need to hold a glass under my nose. I can imagine for example, that an otter is playing the trombone. Get that into a glass of whisky.

I might try that at the next club meeting; [sniff…] I’m getting a sense of… an otter… playing a trombone…

But seriously; that’s got to be some fricking good whisky, in order to transport you to the Land of Narnia, just by sniffing it. Alas, no; it’s just Jura Superstition, which didn’t impress me much at all when I had a bottle of it. Maybe if I’d been putting the washing away in the wardrobe, as Mrs Cake reminded me this morning that I never do, things might have been different.

Maybe that’s a good excuse, I just thought to myself before common sense intervened and reminded me that fear of Narnia is never a good excuse for getting out of anything.

The Whisky Magazine’s review of Glenrothes Select Reserve also indulges in this flowery opulence:

TasteTasting Notes:

Nose: Lots of zesty rich fruit on the nose. Thick Seville marmalade, bubbling on a hot stove with notes of toasted cereals. 

Palate: Silky smooth and utterly supple. Gentle barley whispers sweet nothings to the/its honey. A little vanilla and malt with toasted cereal and sumptuous oak.

Finish: Long with mocchaccino and barley sweetness. 
(Tasting Notes by Whisky Magazine.)

Looks like someone’s missed their calling as a poet. A few things stand out about that one. First you’ve got a combination flavour – Seville marmalade, rather than just marmalade. You don’t want to give the wrong impression, do you? I don’t know what Seville marmalade tastes like, and how it differs from regular marmalade, but it’s nice to be given something so specific. That’s better than canned fruits, isn’t it?

Then you’ve got that it is supple on the palate. How a liquid can be anything but supple is beyond me. Let’s just look that word up…

sup·ple  (spl)

adj. sup·pler, sup·plest

1. Readily bent; pliant.

2. Moving and bending with agility; limber.

3. Yielding or changing readily; compliant or adaptable.

Hmm… looking at that, you could argue that a liquid can’t be supple. Moving on…

Finally you’ve got the bit where gentle barley is whispering sweet nothings to the/its honey. That is so annoying, how he’s chosen to suggest the barley speaks to the honey flavour, and then suggests that perhaps the barley is speaking to its lover [… bleurgh!] with the use of a forward slash to shoehorn both those points into one phrase. I’ll tell you what though; I can imagine a stalk of barley leaning over to some honey and whispering to it. What would it be whispering, I wonder? I’m going to destroy you!

Tee-hee-hee-hee-hee!

That’s the honey giggling, though there’s nothing about it doing that in the review.

Nutcases

If that wasn’t mad enough, then you have the nutcases. When this next one says ‘pork’, I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt, and assume he means port, though I can’t really see the relevance here – unless he’s describing a meal. Maybe he had pork for dinner, with a glass of wine, then decided to finish off with a whisky. Whatever; he goes on to mention meerkats, and seems to think whisky is made by baking, so whatever he says has already been undermined. I know sometimes sarcasm can be lost in the written word, but I don’t think this one is a joke. I think it’s safe to say; this guy isn’t a pro.

 “After trying Wine and then Pork I thought I would try whisky. The colour is almost like a Meerkat when it is 2 year old. The taste was good to start but not really baked enough. Not recommended by me!” from www.masterofmalt.com

The colour of a meerkat? Is he a zookeeper? Perhaps I was misguided when I started comparing the colour of my whiskies to a Dulux colour chart; I should have been comparing them to animals – orangey-yellow animals like lions, hyenas and foxes.

Communicating enthusiasm

Finally you have the reviews to which I give the greatest credence; ones that actually give some semblance of what it is like to experience a whisky, rather than attempt to impress you with a series of flavours. The way so many reviews rely on lists of flavours reminds me of reading a menu in a vegetarian restaurant – that’s not a dish, it’s just a list of vegetables!

Perhaps it helps that this next one is a review of a personal favourite, but nevertheless, I can identify with this one, and I find it amusing.

Caol Ila Cask Strength – “Very strong stuff!The oils seep out of the whiskey when you add a drop of water to your glass.Its Medicinal, carbolic, salty fume fills the room and scares my wife into the next room. It’s beyond comprehension that this whiskey was crafted by man.” From the whisky exchange

I suppose it takes a particularly interesting whisky to inspire that kind of description, and perhaps that’s the problem; most whiskies aren’t that interesting (to me, at least… yet). They are enjoyable and mildly interesting, but they don’t jump out of the glass and demand attention, so you’re left sticking your nose in there going, “toffee? Caramel? Banana milkshake? Vanilla?...”

I’d like to leave you then, with one more excerpt that I was made aware of by Andy of the Manchester Whisky Club. He said he found this in a review on Twitter:

'I'm back in the playground with bleeding knees after a conker match - I'm getting childhood fruits'

Regardless of what childhood fruits are, that one is just bizarre! How do you get bleeding knees from a conker match? Do I have an impression of what it was like to be at school all those years ago? Yes. Would I ever expect that impression to be reflected in the flavour or aroma of whisky? Again no, but that would be interesting, wouldn’t it?

I’m afraid I don’t know what whisky was being described there, so I may never come across it. I hope I do, just as I would like to understand this one day, and perhaps experience such a vivid impression of my own. I’m going the right away about it - in that I’m trying plenty of whisky – but sadly, I can’t say I’ve come anywhere near yet. Drinking whisky tends to just remind me of another time I was drinking whisky, though they do all smell and taste distinct from each other.

I’m still slightly mystified over what the point is, but since I understand that some whiskies are better than others, and that you can get mad impressions from them, I suppose you should at least share them. Otherwise, what’s the point in experiencing anything? That there are no right or wrong answers almost renders the practice redundant, but I think you should accept that as encouragement to throw your own mad descriptions out there, rather than dwell on what you can’t taste.

Well, all that doesn’t matter. I’d be delighted of course to hear what you think about all this. The important thing I think, is that whisky can be so complex, evocative and enjoyable that it transcends simply being an alcoholic drink. You can get lost in it, and when you get lost in it, getting drunk on it isn’t the main motivation behind drinking it – and that’s got to be a good thing for those of us who are approaching middle age and the onset of all manner of maladies and deterioration. All this evolved because it’s fascinating and enthusiasts want to communicate and share their experiences. So it’s all good.

That was quite fun, then. I think I’ll return to this theme at some time in the future when I’ve come across some more mad reviews, so keep an eye out for it. We can open this up to audience participation if you like. If you see a particularly weird booze review, let me know.

Being Daft: What is it with whisky reviews?!

In one of my earliest posts I asked the question: why is alcohol so fascinating? I didn’t really have an answer at the time, nor did I look for one. It was more of a rhetorical question that I used in order to ease my way into the new blog. Because alcohol is fascinating, though it is only a drink and there are lots of other types of drinks in the world that aren’t nearly so interesting. What makes alcohol so special, besides its capacity to alter mood, boost confidence and transform one into a witty raconteur?

Since I asked that eternal question, I’ve read a lot of comments and blogs about different drinks and it occurred to me that my palate is remarkably uncultured in comparison to most other people who write about strong liquor. They seem to be able to taste and smell all kinds of different things within a glass of whisky – a whole host of different flavours and scents in one glass, while I just know whether I like it or not – and sometimes it takes me a whole bottle to decide that. I can tell that all the different whiskies smell and taste distinct from one another, but I lack the ability to separate the flavour of any particular whisky into the constituent parts that experienced reviewers can.

That’s always been the main reason that I don’t write straight reviews of drinks – apart from the fact that reviewing something you drink seems pretty pointless to me. It’s like when you see reviews of things like airports on the internet. Airports! Who gives enough of a shit about airports to actually review them? 

I don’t particularly want to start taking careful note of everything I’m experiencing and I’d much rather focus on anecdotal stories and mindless ruminations about booze than provide a list of flavours.

I don’t even know if a list of flavours is useful to anyone, or whether it just satisfies a person’s need to classify things. It just seems to take a lot of the fun out of it for me, as well as seeming to suggest that you can’t really be enjoying what you’re drinking unless you’re able to describe the experience in minute detail, unless you have the right kind of glass, and you follow the correct routine.  I certainly don’t want to sit there deciding what I can taste in every glass I drink, but maybe as time goes on, that’s what will happen… Maybe I won’t have to decide – maybe it will become obvious…

the glass I used to drink whisky from

Incidentally, the best account I’ve found of why the glass you drink your whisky out of is important can be found here. Not so long ago, I replaced the standard whisky tumbler type thing I was using with a smallish wine glass… and I have to say that there was a definite improvement. I have now become quite picky about the glass when I order a whisky away from home. It makes ordering more complicated, but it also makes the drink more enjoyable – and if you’re paying bar prices, you want to make sure it’s worth it.

the glass I now like to use

The flavour of liquor can be very complex - so complex that enthusiasts separate the experience into stages; generally some combination of nose, palate and finish, and these can all be very different. I enjoy the experience and appreciate the differences, and that’s enough for me. Ian Buxton’s book, 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die also classifies the colour – golden amber, mellow gold, molested apricot etc... Obviously whiskies all differ in colour from each other, but how the hell do you describe that colour? Is he working from a Dulux colour chart?  

I think the tendency to intellectualise though, is a natural human trait. Just liking something isn’t enough. You have to know why you like it, describe it, critically evaluate it, and then look down on people who don’t agree with you. You can see that in all spheres of human creativity; music, food, film, it even starts to proliferate further and further down the scale, elevating everything to the status of art. So, theatre devolves to film, film to TV, literature to comics, pictures of ladies in the nude to pictures of sexy ladies in the nude… doing dirty things… art seemingly to the simple act of doing something merely to provoke a reaction. We need to be able to say ‘this is great, but that is rubbish for these reasons’.

And so it went (probably) for alcoholic beverages like whisky. Way back in the beginning, I suppose whisky was made because people took pleasure in drinking it (getting drunk – though apparently it was first consumed as a medicine), but somewhere along the way a need developed to be able to compare and contrast, and then describe – and presumably to make better ones.  So you have people ascribing a list of flavours to whatever they drink. Sometimes they even agree with each other. The tasting has become more important than the getting drunk – which is actually a good thing; I can have a drink for enjoyment now, instead of for the buzz multiple drinks provide.

It does fascinate me though that those flavours that whisky experts are at pains to relate to us aren’t really there. They don’t put vanilla and cloves in whisky, but the flavours are there (apparently). Frankly, I should know. I’ve eaten cloves and cinnamon and a lot of those things that are used to describe the many flavours of whisky – and I don’t mean in food; I’ve eaten them whole, but I still don’t taste cloves in a glass of whisky. I wonder whether whisky reviewers have tasted them, or whether these terms are merely words that they have learned to apply practically. Or maybe my mind just can’t make the connection between a dry spice and an alcoholic beverage.

And how come a lot of these things are flavours that, in their actual state, are things I don’t like? Honey, butterscotch, citric zest…

One of the reviews I read (concerning Gibson’s Finest 12 Year Old Canadian whisky) reported the presence of crème brulee, oak, cedar, spicy pepper, cloves, citric zest, black fruits (?), strawberries and cream, fresh-cut wood, ginger ale, cinnamon, toffee, burnt sugar and molasses, while a review of Jura Superstition claimed to find mint and lightly smoked kippers.

Is this a competition to taste as many things as possible? Now I know for a fact that mint and lightly smoked kippers weren’t used in distilling. Lightly smoked kippers – not a slight taste of smoked kippers, but a taste of lightly smoked kippers! Is that even a good thing to be able to taste in whisky? “I’m a fan of the fishy malts…”

These aren’t flavours that you grew up liking, so you have to develop an appreciation. Perhaps, once your subconscious is hooked, and you’ve started to like the flavours, this complexity that some people represent as a combination of so many commonplace (and some not so commonplace) flavours is what is so interesting.

Back when I started this blog I said that people don’t get obsessed with trying all the different colas that are available. Well, perhaps some people do, but I’ve never read a review of a cola that tried to dissect its flavours. Have you? It’s just cola flavour.

Well apparently, it does happen occasionally.

Check the entry for Virgil’s Cola – “With notes of vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, the cola smelled as good as it tasted”. Why is it always vanilla and cloves?!? If the flavour (and smell) of cloves is so desirable, why don’t we have a fizzy Cloveade drink? Why don’t we just make everything taste of cloves all the time, and we can all sit back and relax, revelling in the fact that everything tastes as good as it’s going to get, because it tastes of cloves? Who’d have thought cooking spices could make such tasty drinks? Forget your fizzy orange, make mine a fizzy cumin.

In order to put this practice of describing flavours and aromas to the test, I came up with a plan to make a list of a selection of the liquors I had available, and seek reviews of them. I made notes of the various flavours and scents they are supposed to impart, and the aim was to try each one with a copy of the notes on hand. As ever, I figured the method might develop as I went along, but my plan was to place a tick next to any taste or smell that I could detect from any of the reviews.

Unsurprisingly, this experiment was short-lived since the first time I sat down with my notebook and pen, I realised that this was the absolute antithesis of everything Drink it How You Like it stands for. It’s supposed to be fun, not meticulous! It’s supposed to be about enjoying alcohol, not classifying it. What am I turning intoooooo?!!

Did I detect any of these flavours? No, not really. Was I able to detect any single discernible flavour from whatever I was drinking? Again, sadly, no – unless you count whisky as one – does that count?  I could definitely taste whisky. Does that mean I am enjoying this whisky less than anyone else? I don’t think so. Maybe I can’t tell you exactly what you’re going to experience when you drink it, but why should you want that? You’re supposed to experience things for yourself, and take from them whatever you get.

Does it mean I’m not doing the tasting properly? Again, no – I’m not just knocking it back. I swirl it round the glass, stick my nose in there (I actually also like to breathe into the glass, through my nose to stir up the vapour before inhaling until my eyes water slightly – that way you get the taste in your nasal passages and your mouth at the same time), have a little think, take a sip, roll it around, enjoy it (I also like to suck a little air through the whisky on the front of my tongue), swallow, and enjoy it some more. Yes, I look like a twat when I drink whisky. It’s difficult to enjoy whisky with friends because you can’t talk when you’re tasting it. Someone asks you a question, and you have to mime, ‘hang on a minute, I just need to finish tasting this mouthful’, by which time whatever your answer is doesn’t seem relevant anymore. In general conversation with a person, have you ever thought of something that it would be possible to say, but you’re not sure whether to say it because a) it might not be funny or b) it might be misconstrued, and by the time you’ve finished deciding whether to say it or not, you realise that the moment in which you could have said it was very small, and has in fact expired already? You might wonder what would happen if you said it anyway, but you think about that too, and realise that for some reason it wouldn’t make any sense at all anymore. You might find this happening more frequently if you become a bit more considered in your whisky tasting.

You might say, ‘other people’s reviews give me an idea of whether I will like a whisky’. I don’t even think that’s the case. If someone says a whisky is good, I’m likely to give it a try, but you cannot deny that people’s tastes vary so much that what amounts to an unpleasant taste to one person is delicious to another – you see this anywhere that you find a number of reviews of one product from different people. And they say there are no right or wrong answers anyway…

So what’s the point? Is it just a vehicle for someone to feel more knowledgeable than someone else? Or is there actually anything useful about it? I can only tell you what I think, and at the moment I’m not bothered how many flavours people can taste in a whisky and what they are. I’m more interested in trying it for myself, and getting the visceral experience of enjoying a whisky immensely, enjoying every drop to its fullest extent. Reviews can act as a reference point to try and determine what your next purchase should be, and they can be interesting, but I tend to think that lists of flavours is overdoing it.

I guess ultimately, it’s not just a case of snobbery, or wanting to seem knowledgeable, or intellectualising something. Imagine if two people meet who both like whisky. Perhaps they want to talk about whisky. Well, if a language and culture develops around whisky, then they can. Conversation isn’t limited to, “I like this whisky, I don’t like this one.” They can actually go on to discuss the topic in depth, and we’ll assume, for the sake of argument, that this is worthwhile. Sharing experiences usually is worthwhile.

Irrespective of that, my point is when you find a new interest, it can seem like there’s a lot to take in, like there’s an exclusive club that no one wants you to be part of. But there isn’t. It just means there’s a lot to learn, and learning is a big part of the fun. Just don’t think you aren’t allowed to have your own opinions or to disagree. And don’t let it put you off.

I am starting to develop a more sensitive palate. I may have detected a scent of nuts in a glass of Highland Park 12 year old, and the other night I thought maybe I could smell pears in a glass of wine, so I guess it’s just practice – but there’s no pears in there! Or nuts! Let’s just hope I stop short of bombarding you with a list of random flavours.

classy bottle

Thanks for reading another rambling and ill-conceived treatise on the delights of strong alcohol. I might return to this theme once in a while just to humorously highlight the odd flavours people are finding in their booze – maybe I’ll even find some of my own.

Here’s a good one from Spirit Journal’s review of a favourite of mine, Bruichladdich Rocks:

Nose: fruitcake, banana nut bread, sweet malt. 7 minutes later, crispy pork rind, sweet oak, vanilla, red grapes and blackberry jam.

I love how specific some of those things are – crispy pork, and seven minutes later.

So moving forward, let’s not attempt to belittle or look down on this. Let’s celebrate it. Tell me what mad flavours you can find in your strong alcoholic drinks. And don’t make them up! I’m serious. Let’s see how creative and sensitive to flavour you are.

Booze Tourism Part 3 - Canada

Popular Canadian souvenirs - maple syrup, mountie stuff, smoked salmon.

Being Canadian but living in the UK, my fiancée Brenda has to alternate her Christmases - spending one with me and my family, and the next back in Canada with hers, so this year it was time to go back to Canada, and I had promised to go with her. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been to Canada, but it would be my first Canadian Christmas, and my first visit since becoming a booze tourist.

On my first visit I’d made sure to bring back a bottle of Wild Turkey, because I wanted to feel like Hunter S. Thompson (some say he drank Chivas Regal, but from reading his books, I remember a lot of Wild Turkey…), but as I said; I wasn’t a booze tourist then.

Canada is a good place to be a booze tourist. They have lots of different varieties of beer, and they are well situated geographically to take advantage of imports of bourbon and Tennessee whiskies from the USA as well as tequila from Mexico and rum from the Caribbean. I like all of those varieties of liquor, but they wouldn’t be on my shopping list this time. I had already decided that I’d be sourcing some Canadian whisky, and I made sure I was fully prepared with some pre-trip internet research.

I’d just like to namecheck a couple of websites here that I found useful. The first is http://www.canadianwhisky.org/. It focuses exclusively on Canadian Whisky and is filled with in depth reviews utilising a simple 5 star scoring system. The second is http://therumhowlerblog.wordpress.com/. This site contains tons of reviews of different kinds of gin, rum, vodka, tequila and of course whisky, as well as having a list of cocktails, and serving suggestions for each spirit reviewed. I have no idea how this guy has had enough time to try all these drinks, but it’s quite a collection, and I can only assume he doesn’t have a wife telling him that he drinks too much. He has a much more complicated rating system than canadianwhisky.org, but it certainly proved very useful for me.

Both these sites are valuable resources if you’re researching purchases for your next trip to Canada, and you’ll probably find the information on them far more useful than anything you’ll find on my blog, so go and check them out once you’ve finished reading this post.

I had tried some Canadian whiskies before, including Highwood and a couple of varieties of Canadian Club (thanks, Brenda!), but this time I was determined to be a bit more choosey. Visiting a liquor store was pretty much the only thing on my to do list for the trip, and I actually visited three or four before we left Calgary. They tended to stock (pretty much) the same stuff, so it was just a matter of finding the most competitive prices.

So where should you be focusing your attention when making purchases during a booze tourism adventure? Set your own rules here (because remember; there are no rules), but I like to look for something local, authentic/traditional, and something I can’t get at home.

I did quite well with my purchases on all those scores, though neither of my choices were local to Alberta (which is where Brenda’s family lives, and where my booze shopping took place) they are specifically Canadian.

Crown Royal is one of the most popular Canadian whiskies, so I decided to go for the Crown Royal Black, with is 5% stronger and a few dollars more expensive (but significantly cheaper than at www.thewhiskyexchange.com) . It is darker in colour than the standard, and the flavour is similar, but a little richer – I know because the future mother-in-law bought me a bottle of the standard Crown Royal for Christmas. That’s a nice whisky too, and probably the pick of all the bottles I have available at the time of writing. Crown Royal also comes in a nifty cloth bag, that I suppose serves to protect your liquor from sunlight if you haven’t got a cupboard to keep it in.

I’d decided to buy a second bottle to bring home with me, and for that one I went with Gibson’s Finest 12 Year Old. Again, this is the next step up from the normal Gibson’s, and it’s only available in Canada – I read that they can’t produce enough of it to export for some reason – maybe the Canadians drink a lot of it. This one has a very mild flavour compared to the Crown Royal. It’s sweet and pleasant, but not full-flavoured enough to dilute with ice.

The Crown Royal comes in a weird crown-shaped bottle, while the Gibson’s comes in a portly one, not dissimilar to the Bailey’s Irish Cream bottle in shape, though it is transparent so you can see how much is left – unlike Bailey’s where you’re always asking, “have I got enough left to make this cocktail?”  

There is one drawback with the Gibson’s – it has a screwcap with such a smooth action that it is almost impossible to resist spinning it off at high velocity. This almost always results in a series of fumbled catches leading to a frenzied chase around the kitchen floor – and if you’re extremely unlucky a foray into the furry depths beneath the fridge, or even having to pull the fridge out. Be warned; go easy on that cap.

Now, you’re only allowed to bring one 1.14l bottle of hard liquor back from Canada – that’s a good deal larger than a standard bottle, but not as big as two bottles, so if you do want to stick to your limits and you want to bring more than one variety home with you, you’re going to need a friend. I bought 75cl bottles. Brenda kindly offered to carry one for me. That still left me with two, but I was able to polish off the Crown Royal Black by New Year’s Day, thanks to a late night cigar/whisky-share deal I was able to arrange with someone we met at the Toronto wedding we’d been invited to on New Year’s Eve – though he was calling it ‘scotch’ for some reason. It seemed inappropriate to correct him.

 I’d opened it a week or so before so that Brenda’s brother Brian could try it (he was familiar with the standard Crown Royal, but likes to mix it with coke – still, it’s nice to share… and have an excuse to open a new bottle) and then I was able to dip into it from time to time in the evenings.

So given that the remaining bottles were 75cl that left us a little under the limit, even with the little Bruichladdich Rocks bottle (20cl) that Brian gave me. So it was a most successful trip. Not that anyone ever checks at Customs, but maybe they will one day.

I finished the Bruichladdich Rocks a couple of months after returning home, having been hanging on to the last drop for a while. I didn’t want to fritter it away willy-nilly because, even though it’s a blend of young single malts (6-8 years old), it had a complex flavour, and was one of the most interesting whiskies I’ve tried so far. It did tend to cause a slight burn on my tongue though, which is something I don’t notice very often, and is supposed to be the reason that real whisky experts add a drop or two of water. I still haven’t tried that, but I have heard that you can tell how aged a whisky is by where on your tongue it burns – young ones at the front, older further to the back.

I tried the standard Bruichladdich 10 year old recently on a recent visit to the Lake District and, while it was nice, I actually prefer the Rocks so far. It can take a few more drinks to really know what to think about a whisky though, and I only had one double. I think I’ll be investing in a full bottle the next time I’m in the market for a single malt - it’s among the contenders, anyway.

Canadian whisky is in nature very different to scotch. In my layman’s terms I’d say it tends to be sweeter and less complex but still enjoyable and worth getting your hands on.

I had been tempted to pick up some ice wine before returning home, but it’s fairly expensive, and my budget was worryingly stretched by that point, so I didn’t even pick up anything else in Duty Free. We get paid early in December, and my November wages was all gone on gifts, so December’s had to last 6 weeks. I don’t usually have to fit a two week holiday (and the necessary booze tourism that comes with it) into that equation, so I had to forego the ice wine.

Ice wine is made by leaving the grapes on the vine until sometime after the first frost, so that they freeze. Then they are pressed, making a sweet, syrupy wine that is very pleasant for sipping. The bottles are only half the size of normal wine bottles, but I recommend you give it a try - they were doing a nice German one in Aldi at a reasonable price a while ago, so there’s no excuse for not seeking one out - unless you’re ashamed to be seen in Aldi.

In Canada they have a huge fondness for beer. I’ve found that people will offer you a beer the moment you arrive at their house – even if it’s 10 in the morning. It seems that the general rule is: if beer is available, then it is acceptable to drink it. Most times 10am is even a little early for me, but it certainly is encouraging – especially when it’s your future mother-in-law. She stocked up on some cans for our stay – some Coors Lite (which isn’t light in alcohol compared to most British lager) and a selection of beers from the local Big Rock brewery, which we’d actually toured during our last visit. That had been the first time I’d ever visited a brewery, and I have to say: I don’t find information about how beer is made very interesting. Just get me to the tasting part, and the part where you can choose any six varieties to take home.

In general your Canadian beer is like a cross between lager and ale, so it’s perfectly drinkable and comes in a staggering number of varieties. It was nice to have my own private stash that I was expected to polish off during my stay – and the quantity was sufficient, so there wasn’t any awkwardness about drinking too much - which is ideal, because I wasn’t drinking too much. Good.

Frankly, to give a full impression of the drinking culture in Canada, I’d probably have to write a PhD, so that ain’t happening. I can tell you we had a pretty terrific time – without going into too many details about what we did (stick to the booze, stick to the booze) and I hope I’ve given you at least a little useful information should you be planning a trip there. Be sure to check out those websites if you do. I’m sure they’ll help you make the most of your Canadian booze tourism experience.

I’ll see you next time for some more general ruminations on booze and booze related products.

Quick post: First impressions of Gibson's 12 Year Old

As usual, my interest in something (call it ‘obsession’ if you like) has led me to taking it too seriously, and has threatened to take all the fun that led to the interest in the first place… away.

Almost immediately after starting to write this blog I found myself – almost subconsciously – trying to analyse whatever I was drinking, rather than just enjoying it, as I used to a couple of days before. Goddammit! That wasn’t the point.

Anyway. I decided to crack open the Gibson’s 12 year old Canadian rye last night. And I decided to try it with ice. So far, it seems Canadian whiskies are best enjoyed with ice – though I did develop  a taste for the Crown Royal Black (which I drank a whole bottle of with only a little help) while in Canada over Christmas and New Year - with and without ice. Time will tell how the Gibson’s fares, though first impressions are that the flavour isn’t very strong. There’s a chance that this impression was down to the fact that my freezer door had been left partially open, and the ice was already beginning to melt, so perhaps they watered my drink down on entry. 

Nevertheless, in my experience it takes nearly a full bottle to make a judgement, so first impressions is what you get for now. Hopefully I’ll be able to make comparisons between the entry level Crown Royal, the slightly fancier Crown Royal Black and this Gibson’s 12 year old later on.

I actually neglected to take a fresh picture of it, but you can see it in the family booze porn (that sounds so wrong) from previous posts.

Booze: the more you drink it, the better it tastes - but why is liquor so fascinating?

Here you go; I was thinking for a while. What would be the best subject for my first actual post? I’ve found the answer: why is alcohol so fascinating? You know; why isn’t tasting all the different varieties of cola as stimulating as trying the different varieties of whisky? I like cola, but I LOVE whisky. It can’t all be down to the alcohol, can it? 

I don’t believe I’ve ever tried alcohol-free beer; I don’t see the point. But why? I once remarked to a co-worker who said he didn’t drink beer because he didn’t like the taste when I was 21 or 22 that ‘if you don’t like beer, you haven’t drunk enough of it’. And that’s true. Because you don’t like it at first. Do you? 

So what is it? Is it the alcohol content? With beer, yes; the buzz is important, I think. But what about whisky? Vodka? Rum? Brandy? I really like the flavour of those drinks – the subtle differences. Sure! I like the buzz as well, but I feel like I like the flavour so much that I’d maybe drink them if they were alcohol free!

But would I? I’d probably not get into them if there was no alcohol. Has anyone ever made an alcohol free whisky? I guess it wouldn’t be the same, would it? I read recently though, that alcohol is flavourless, so couldn’t you make a drink as subtly flavoured as a fine whisky without it being alcoholic?

Ok, well I’ve decided that the point of this blog isn’t to answer all these questions, but maybe just to make you think about them. So I’m not going to trawl the internet finding out whether alcohol is particularly prone to absorbing flavour from oak barrels, or… just whatever. I’m sure there are loads of possible factors. I suspect that part of the fascination with alcohol is chemical – our brains like the sensation, and encourage us to indulge, perhaps by convincing us that it tastes nice.

Anyway, I did do a quick internet search for alcohol free whisky, and this is what I came up with:

http://whiskey-store.co.uk/index.php?type=page&pageid=2&mid=3

Perhaps I’ll try it… um, one day…

Look at this, though: “Black ZERO non alcohol whisky tastes and looks exactly like traditional Scotch Whisky.” What does that mean? Scotch whiskies all taste different!

No reviews (at time of writing):

http://whiskey-store.co.uk/eshop/products.php?reviews&whiskey&osCsid=77203780892baf6c5ed2187a96e48112

Hmm… it turns out alcohol free whisky raises other issues [that I don’t want to get into]:

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2011/11/row-over-alcohol-free-whisky-deepens/

Anyway. It's time for a picture - let's call it "Booze Porn". Here's the whiskies I have to choose from at the moment.

 Left to right you've got the standard Crown Royal (Canadian rye), Aldi's finest blended 8 yr old Highland Black (a personal budget favourite - I'll probably write more about this at some point), Gibson's 12 yr old (another Canadian whiskey), the Aberlour 10 yr old single malt, and a small bottle of Bruichladdich Rocks which, depending who you listen to, is supposed to be drunk with ice. Or isn't - I don't know; I haven't opened it yet.

The Whisky Exchange is an invaluable resource for a boozehound, so here are some links:

http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-1380.aspx

http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-140.aspx

http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-11265.aspx