Surprise!

My regular day job offers only moderate opportunity for wearing a jacket, errr…sport coat or what some might call a blazer. I have a small collection in my closet; a couple of tweeds, a navy with a light chalk line, my old crested school jacket (posterity’s sake) and a couple of shades of black for formal occasions. It’s the blacks that I like the most. Not because they look or fit better, nor are they of finer quality. Their purpose is solely a treasure trove of unexpected nostalgia. I wear these more formal jackets so infrequently I can never remember where I wore them last until I put one on and start rummaging through the pockets. Springtime weddings or funerals are usually a good time as I often end up recovering items deposited during the annual St. Patrick’s Day black tie dinner and following debauchery. Its usually best not to go snooping in the middle of a church service, oft times the items are just as likely embarrassing as they are a ten dollar bill. The bottom line is I like a surprise!

So you can imagine how happy I was when I went sorting through the bar tonight looking for a bottle of liqueur and stumbled across a bottle of whisky that I completely forgot I had, Blackadder’s Old Man of Hoy, Single Orcadian Scotch Malt Whisky. This is a whisky from the Orkney Islands, either Highland Park or Scapa. From the nose to the finish this whisky has a wonderful balance of peat with a touch of oil and citrus. The first time I had this whisky, or any of Blackadder’s bottlings for that matter was in a tiny bottle shop in Boston. After a New England Patriots football game my wife and I missed our flight home. With no more flights for 24 hours we headed back into the city. We stumbled across the small liquor store in a Flatiron style building on State Street (which we merrily stumbled out of later but I’m getting to that). Whenever we are in a foreign place we always look for new additions to our collection or a Christmas gift for my father. Federal Wine and Spirits offers everything you could ever want in a bottle shop. Furthermore, it was here that we met Joe working behind the counter.

Joe…how do I begin to describe Joe? He has jet black hair which is completely slicked back with enough grease to keep a farm tractor going for years. When he opens his mouth and speaks his voice is so low it rumbles. Imagine a chain smoker who takes the odd break to inhale a juicy Cuban cigar. He is also one of the most knowledgeable whisky aficionados I have met to this day. He is always generous with a complimentary tasting from the row of bottles lining the floor and wall. It is because he is such a hospitable shop keep that his service is often spastic. In the middle of honoring a request he will often drop everything and offer assistance to another shop patron who has just come in. In the middle of all of this he will stop, sometimes mid sentence and step outside to have two or three drags on a cigarette, coming back and picking up as he left off without missing a beat!

Ever the diligent host Joe worked hard to chisel away exactly what it was we were looking for even if we truly didn’t know ourselves! Joe took us through several of Blackadder’s offerings including the Peek Reek, the Smoking Islay and the Orcadian. We finally settled on a bottle for my father who prefers the peat of an Islay but in this instance ended up with a release from Talisker that was not available in a Canada (don’t ask me how we ended up there after an hour we left in a bit of a haze)…either way my father was pleased. Fast forward two years when a friend mentions he was heading to Boston I asked him to stop and pick me up a bottle of Blackadder. By this time I had long forgotten what they offered…I could only remember that it had a very robust peat head and the bits of char floating in the bottles (I think it was actually the Peet Reek I was looking for). Being a dedicated rum drinker Peter had no idea what to get and picked somewhat at random. So I guess everything about this whisky has been a surprise for me. Being that whisky is all about the experience and given that I like to experience a surprise...I like it even more!

Speyside Here We Come!

Glenfiddich 21 year old Havana Reserve. A single Speyside malt scotch whisky given to me as a Christmas gift. It is one of my favorite whiskies…mind you I’m starting to realize I have a lot of favorites. It has a beautiful apricot colour, a toasty chocolate nose and a very smooth palette with hints of vanilla and coffee (according to those who describe whisky in this manner…I prefer “damn tasty”)! One of the major complaints that my non-whisky drinking acquaintances mention when asked if they enjoy whisky is that it is too harsh. The Havana reserve would be one of the whiskies I would give them to try to dispel that myth…if I was they type to be dead set on converting the nonbelievers or wasting good whisky on those with no appreciation…in each case the answer is no (I am of Scotch ancestry after all)!

As I sit enjoying this tipple I easily drift to a landscape where I imagine the tipped pagoda roofs stretched far as the eye can see, where the air smells of barley and oak and the water of life flows in the river Spey (sort of like the episode of The Simpsons where Homer is dancing through the land of chocolate…only everything is whisky related…ahhhh, what a beautiful place). Ordinarily I don’t imagine the landscape of origin when I enjoy a drink but I am forced to wonder due to a phone call I received about 3 weeks ago…

“You have a minute?” It was my Father. I was just getting out of the car, balancing an audio mixer and a small stack of cables while trying (unsuccessfully) to cradle my Blackberry between my neck and shoulder.
“I have about as much time as it will take to walk across this parking lot, I’m late for a press conference.”
“Good. Now; (Dad starts just about every important statement with “Now”) I need you to do me a favor…
“OK”
“…find me some accommodations in or near Dufftown.”
“Dufftown? You mean the Dufftown in Scotland?”
“That’s right.”
“Ok. So, when, for how long, how many people…maybe you can email this to me, I’m at the doors?”
“Spirt of Speyside Whisky Festival runs from May 1st to May 10th, so some time in there for 7 days.”
“Whisky festival, great, Mum is going to love that.”
“Your Mother isn’t going…Me, You and your Brother are…”
CRACK! The sound of cold cell phone plastic hitting ice always sounds so much worse than it really is. It’s actually quite remarkable how indestructible they are making cell phones these days.
“Dad! Hang on…I’ve dropped you…you still there?”

Ever since we returned from a trip to Scotland 16 months ago my father has been doing this. He’ll show me a website or a magazine advertising a whisky tour or festival. Being a sailor “Tour the Isles by Sailboat” was my personal favorite so far! I knew Dad would be going back to Scotland eventually but I didn’t realize it would be this soon…or that I would be going with him along with my brother (one of those “non-whisky drinkers” but one who is making a concerted effort to change all that).

So now I enjoy a dram of whisky crafted half a mile north of the very town I am going to be staying in and I drift a little…Speyside here I come!

In the beginning....

So I'm not much of a writer. In fact, given my failing track record of trying to keep a journal over the past 15 years this whole thing may end up being a huge flop. Further more I should not be held accountable for any reckless use of a comma or run-on sentence...so to all you university English majors or aspiring harlequin romance writers, you've been warned!


On the other hand...I, like so many others, love whisky and this is the purpose for this blog. I am not a complete amateur to the world of whisky drinking. I do know my way around many of the whiskies of the world. I've read some books, have a second-hand subscription to "Whisky Magazine" by way of my father, who is also very fond of the water of life (and has the means to support a much more diverse collection than I). I also love food, wine, cocktails and flavors in general. This is why I want to go deeper. So often the world of food and wine is so pretentious and tries to be "upper crust" when all it is really about is pleasure. Can you taste the red currents and dark cherry undertones? No? Who cares? Are you enjoying what you taste? Yes? Perfect! This is what I strive for in food and wine and something I found immediately with the culture that surrounds whisky. Whisky started and continues to be the common man’s drink (I use the term in the most gender non-specific way possible, my wife has a more sensitive pallet and can hold her booze better than me any day…I resigned to that fact years ago). Of course there has to be a way of conveying what you taste, I appreciate that fact. I just want to make sure that the enjoyment is the fist part and everything else comes second. So, in this blog you will find the descriptions like “it tastes of dried raspberries and burning car tires” but you will hopefully find foods you may want to pair your drink with or historical anecdotes that help to explain why you are tasting what you are. Besides…I love things that strike the curiosity and any drink that has tasting notes that include hints of seaweed, medicine and tobacco, well I just have to find out more!

So, if you are new to the world of whisky and want to come along, feel free (ha! I'm writing this as if someone else other than my wife, father and mother are going to be reading it for anything else other than moral support!). My plan is to taste...and provide background to what we taste (as if I needed another excuse to drink more whisky!). So here goes....