Christopher Ian Thoma's Blog, page 11

The Kurayoshi, Sherry Cask, 8 Years Old, 46%

[image error]Ah, the Florida vacation home. Everything the sun-loving visitor could need is in its place and ready.

The air conditioning is set at 70. The carpet still retains the tracks from a recent vacuuming—although there is a rather obvious splatter stain in one of the hallways. Even so, the excitement is blinding—and so are the kitchen and dining room tiles as they beam brightly from a recent mopping.

The beds are squared in bright colors. The master closet is abundantly stocked with fresh towels, linens, DVDs, and board games. The toilets and showers are virtuous. The washer and dryer doors are open to remind of the freedom to use them. Through the patio door, the pool chairs are pleasantly arranged in a row. In their embrace are brightly colored floating devices meant for adult and child alike. Just beyond them, the sparkling blue swimming pool catches the sun’s smile and sends it glistening through to the windows to the kitchen’s ceiling where the refrigerator hums as it waits to be filled with the travelers’ favorite treats.

The cupboards are stocked with a single-family’s measure of plates, bowls, and various sorts of drinkware. The cabinets offer cookware in the same proportions. Two drawers hold the necessary utensils for meal preparation. Another drawer, cleanly sorted by category, holds the silverware required for the meal’s consumption. A fourth drawer is hefty and opens with a clank.

It’s filled with knives—like, a billion of them.

[image error]

Sure, there’s a pizza cutter and a cheese slicer in there, but there’s also a gazillion duplicates of just about every type of knife known to man—butcher knives, steak knives, boning knives, bread knives, paring knives, and a multitude of other types. One glance at the drawer’s contents has its inspector wondering out loud, “If after the final episode of ‘Game of Thrones,’ was the Iron Throne disassembled and all of its cutlery brought here? Would a trip to the garage reveal the throne’s skeletal frame and only confirm my concern?”

[image error]

Another glance at the stockpile stirs uneasy suspicion regarding the stain on the carpet near the front door. Was someone trying to escape this place?

No one needs this many knives, folks. Not Gordon Ramsay. Not Hannibal Lecter. Not a circus family intent on perfecting its knife-throwing routine. No one.

On second thought, there might be at least one legitimate reason for having this many knives at the ready.

Guns are essentially banned in England, so if there’s an outbreak of zombies, it’s pretty much going to be a hand-to-hand combat situation involving knives. I would suspect that most folks in England have at least one drawer like this in their kitchens. They know they need some sort of self-defense arsenal.

But there’s still a problem with this particular drawer. It’s not in England. It’s in Florida.

You know, Ted Bundy lived in Florida for a while, and I’ll bet it was a badge of honor for Ted to have a drawer like this in his home.

But again, for the rest of us, there’s no reason—not one that aligns with normalcy—to have a drawer brimming with knives in our home. It gives the wrong impression.

There’s also no reason for the Kurayoshi Sherry Cask edition to be topped with a screwcap instead of a cork. I know it sounds a bit snobbish to say this. And I know that screwcaps are becoming more and more popular because they seem to do a better job at protecting whisky from oxygenation and crumbling cork residue. But like it or not, we remain well-entrenched in the mess of first impressions steered by assumptions. A screwcap remains a badge that communicates little more than efficient production leading to massive distribution and a place on the bottom shelf. Until one of the luxury whiskies begins using screwcaps—someone like The Macallan or The Balvenie—this stigma will remain.

Kurayoshi is an exceptional whisky worthy of top shelf placement, and I fear its screwcap might give the wrong impression.

An initial nosing of the Kurayoshi is a penetrating pear slice sprinkled with almond cocoa. A second sniff is sharpened by the sherry.

The palate is a little harder to discern at first. But given a moment to open, the sherry emerges, and behind it comes the pears and cocoa promised in the nose.

The whisky’s finish is merely a surgeon’s mark past the edge of short. It cuts along this border with malt, wheat toast, and little bit of blackberry sour.

Too bad I didn’t find a cupboard or cabinet filled with Kurayoshi Sherry Cask editions instead of a drawer brimming with knives. A locker with forty or fifty bottles of this stuff certainly would’ve been a lot less weird.

The post The Kurayoshi, Sherry Cask, 8 Years Old, 46% appeared first on angelsportion.

It has arrived!!!

It has arrived!

Everything has its story.

In this fourth installment of The Angels’ Portion series, both the gentle and jagged (and almost always hilarious) rites and ceremonies of life’s narratives pour once again from Reverend Thoma’s pen. More than the observations of a social critic, The Angels’ Portion is a plentiful collection of whisky scribblings in whismsical examination of all things human. Every sip proves itself generous and thirst quenching.

Endorsements

It’s the various distilleries throughout the world that make the whiskies, but it’s Reverend Thoma’s eloquence that makes me want to try them. He’s incredibly clever, being careful with his wit and sorting his words so that the reader can’t resist the lure of his narrative style. But often in the midst of his humorism, one realizes he’s not just having fun. He’s teaching, too, and as he does, he reveals a friendly depth as a storyteller that’s refreshing for our day. His observations in all things—literature, family, culture, theology, politics, you name it—cause one to stop and think more intently than before. By the end of each review (if that’s at all what you can call each of the chapters in this delightful volume), you will have discovered something of yourself and the world in which you dwell, and you’ll be better for it.

DINESH D’SOUZA
Author and Filmmaker

Likely the real mind behind the incandescent light bulb, I’m betting Thoma invented the skull that goes on top of the Hurst floor shifter, too. He’s a remarkable man. Chris—a glass of whiskey in one hand, a Bible in the other, AC/DC blaring at ear bleed levels—is my kind of Reverend. And I know he’s armed to the teeth. I like that. If he writes something, read it. The man is all the way live and genuine, and his writing is the proof. If you’re shy and don’t get out much—basically introverted—make sure to read this book. It’ll add new dimensions to your life you didn’t even know existed. Who knows? You may even run away from home and become the leader of a pack of super models. Dig in. And dig in DEEP. Get, read, and share The Angels’ Portion!  You’ll be more than glad you did.

THAYRONE X
Host of “On the Edge with Thayrone”
WAAM Radio, Ann Arbor, Michigan

It seems the saying that the loneliest person in the world is a man on a rainy day with nothing to read may be only half true. Add whisky to the list of miserable omissions and only then is the saying complete. Chris Thoma—a Lutheran pastor, author, family man, and humorist—demonstrates this in the fourth volume of his The Angels’ Portion series. He depicts both the wisdom and joys of an angelic palate, and he gives all glory to God, the generous giver of the divine elixir. Move over Mark Twain. Thoma is vying for your crown!

JIM WEST
Author of
Drinking With Calvin and Luther: A History of Alcohol in the Church

This is the fourth book in a must-read series of hilariously endearing stories. Some are sweet. Some are sour. All are completely relatable. Most of all, while they prove Reverend Thoma’s mind is versatile, they also prove he’s pretty twisted.

LAHNA TURNER
Comedian, Actress, & Songwriter

The post It has arrived!!! appeared first on angelsportion.

COMING SOON!

COMING SOON!

Everything has its story. In this fourth installment of The Angels’ Portion series, both the gentle and jagged (and almost always hilarious) rites and ceremonies of life’s narratives pour once again from Reverend Thoma’s pen. More than the observations of a social critic, The Angels’ Portion is a plentiful collection of whisky scribblings in whismsical examination of all things human. Every sip proves itself generous and thirst quenching.

Endorsements

It’s the various distilleries throughout the world that make the whiskies, but it’s Reverend Thoma’s eloquence that makes me want to try them. He’s incredibly clever, being careful with his wit and sorting his words so that the reader can’t resist the lure of his narrative style. But often in the midst of his humorism, one realizes he’s not just having fun. He’s teaching, too, and as he does, he reveals a friendly depth as a storyteller that’s refreshing for our day. His observations in all things—literature, family, culture, theology, politics, you name it—cause one to stop and think more intently than before. By the end of each review (if that’s at all what you can call each of the chapters in this delightful volume), you will have discovered something of yourself and the world in which you dwell, and you’ll be better for it.

DINESH D’SOUZA
Author and Filmmaker

Likely the real mind behind the incandescent light bulb, I’m betting Thoma invented the skull that goes on top of the Hurst floor shifter, too. He’s a remarkable man. Chris—a glass of whiskey in one hand, a Bible in the other, AC/DC blaring at ear bleed levels—is my kind of Reverend. And I know he’s armed to the teeth. I like that. If he writes something, read it. The man is all the way live and genuine, and his writing is the proof. If you’re shy and don’t get out much—basically introverted—make sure to read this book. It’ll add new dimensions to your life you didn’t even know existed. Who knows? You may even run away from home and become the leader of a pack of super models. Dig in. And dig in DEEP. Get, read, and share The Angels’ Portion!  You’ll be more than glad you did.

THAYRONE X
Host of “On the Edge with Thayrone”
WAAM Radio, Ann Arbor, Michigan

It seems the saying that the loneliest person in the world is a man on a rainy day with nothing to read may be only half true. Add whisky to the list of miserable omissions and only then is the saying complete. Chris Thoma—a Lutheran pastor, author, family man, and humorist—demonstrates this in the fourth volume of his The Angels’ Portion series. He depicts both the wisdom and joys of an angelic palate, and he gives all glory to God, the generous giver of the divine elixir. Move over Mark Twain. Thoma is vying for your crown!

JIM WEST
Author of
Drinking With Calvin and Luther: A History of Alcohol in the Church

This is the fourth book in a must-read series of hilariously endearing stories. Some are sweet. Some are sour. All are completely relatable. Most of all, while they prove Reverend Thoma’s mind is versatile, they also prove he’s pretty twisted.

LAHNA TURNER
Comedian, Actress, & Songwriter

The post COMING SOON! appeared first on angelsportion.

Where’ve you been, Reverend?

Dearest friends of The Angels’ Portion,

My apologies for it having been a few months since my last post. I know, I know. I’ve read the messages. I hear you. All I can say is that not only have I been extremely busy in a great deal of other arenas, many of which steal away the maximum of my waking hours (and in some cases, my sleeping hours, too), but I’m also hard at work putting the finishing touches on two new manuscripts, one of which is The Angels’ Portion, Volume IV.

If all goes well, I would anticipate Volume IV being available very soon.

Perhaps something else you’d like to know is that I’ve been hard at work formulating my own blends of whisky. Yes, I’m making whiskies I enjoy drinking. I call my efforts “CLERGYMAN WHISKeY.”

I’ve been at it for some time. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also wasted quite a few batches (along with a few rolls of cash) trying to get the right formulas. Currently, I have four editions I’ve created—and I’m really quite happy with each.

With that, I’ll set a few images at your feet and then leave it at that.

In the meantime, I do promise to get a few reviews accomplished very soon. I certainly have a back log of editions at the ready.

Cheers and blessings to all!

The Reverend+

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The post Where’ve you been, Reverend? appeared first on angelsportion.

Where the hell have you been, Reverend?

Dearest friends of The Angels’ Portion,

My apologies for it having been a few months since my last post. I know, I know. I’ve read the messages. I hear you. All I can say is that not only have I been extremely busy in a great deal of other arenas, many of which steal away the maximum of my waking hours (and in some cases, my sleeping hours, too), but I’m also hard at work putting the finishing touches on two new manuscripts, one of which is The Angels’ Portion, Volume IV.

If all goes well, I would anticipate Volume IV being available very soon.

Perhaps something else you’d like to know is that I’ve been hard at work formulating my own blends of whisky. Yes, I’m making whiskies I enjoy drinking. I call my efforts “CLERGYMAN WHISKeY.”

I’ve been at it for some time. It hasn’t been easy. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve also wasted quite a few batches (along with a few rolls of cash) trying to get the right formulas. Currently, I have four editions I’ve created—and I’m really quite happy with each.

With that, I’ll set a few images at your feet and then leave it at that.

In the meantime, I do promise to get a few reviews accomplished very soon. I certainly have a back log of editions at the ready.

Cheers and blessings to all!

The Reverend+

[image error] [image error] [image error] [image error] [image error]

The post Where the hell have you been, Reverend? appeared first on angelsportion.

The Kurayoshi, Sherry Cask, 8 Years Old, 46%

[image error]Ah, the Florida vacation home. Everything the sun-loving visitor could need is in its place and ready.

The air conditioning is set at 70. The carpet still retains the tracks from a recent vacuuming—although there is a rather obvious splatter stain in one of the hallways. Even so, the excitement is blinding—and so are the kitchen and dining room tiles as they beam brightly from a recent mopping.

The beds are squared in bright colors. The master closet is abundantly stocked with fresh towels, linens, DVDs, and board games. The toilets and showers are virtuous. The washer and dryer doors are open to remind of the freedom to use them. Through the patio door, the pool chairs are pleasantly arranged in a row. In their embrace are brightly colored floating devices meant for adult and child alike. Just beyond them, the sparkling blue swimming pool catches the sun’s smile and sends it glistening through to the windows to the kitchen’s ceiling where the refrigerator hums as it waits to be filled with the travelers’ favorite treats.

The cupboards are stocked with a single-family’s measure of plates, bowls, and various sorts of drinkware. The cabinets offer cookware in the same proportions. Two drawers hold the necessary utensils for meal preparation. Another drawer, cleanly sorted by category, holds the silverware required for the meal’s consumption. A fourth drawer is hefty and opens with a clank.

It’s filled with knives—like, a billion of them.

[image error]

Sure, there’s a pizza cutter and a cheese slicer in there, but there’s also a gazillion duplicates of just about every type of knife known to man—butcher knives, steak knives, boning knives, bread knives, paring knives, and a multitude of other types. One glance at the drawer’s contents has its inspector wondering out loud, “If after the final episode of ‘Game of Thrones,’ was the Iron Throne disassembled and all of its cutlery brought here? Would a trip to the garage reveal the throne’s skeletal frame and only confirm my concern?”

[image error]

Another glance at the stockpile stirs uneasy suspicion regarding the stain on the carpet near the front door. Was someone trying to escape this place?

No one needs this many knives, folks. Not Gordon Ramsay. Not Hannibal Lecter. Not a circus family intent on perfecting its knife-throwing routine. No one.

On second thought, there might be at least one legitimate reason for having this many knives at the ready.

Guns are essentially banned in England, so if there’s an outbreak of zombies, it’s pretty much going to be a hand-to-hand combat situation involving knives. I would suspect that most folks in England have at least one drawer like this in their kitchens. They know they need some sort of self-defense arsenal.

But there’s still a problem with this particular drawer. It’s not in England. It’s in Florida.

You know, Ted Bundy lived in Florida for a while, and I’ll bet it was a badge of honor for Ted to have a drawer like this in his home.

But again, for the rest of us, there’s no reason—not one that aligns with normalcy—to have a drawer brimming with knives in our home. It gives the wrong impression.

There’s also no reason for the Kurayoshi Sherry Cask edition to be topped with a screwcap instead of a cork. I know it sounds a bit snobbish to say this. And I know that screwcaps are becoming more and more popular because they seem to do a better job at protecting whisky from oxygenation and crumbling cork residue. But like it or not, we remain well-entrenched in the mess of first impressions steered by assumptions. A screwcap remains a badge that communicates little more than efficient production leading to massive distribution and a place on the bottom shelf. Until one of the luxury whiskies begins using screwcaps—someone like The Macallan or The Balvenie—this stigma will remain.

Kurayoshi is an exceptional whisky worthy of top shelf placement, and I fear its screwcap might give the wrong impression.

An initial nosing of the Kurayoshi is a penetrating pear slice sprinkled with almond cocoa. A second sniff is sharpened by the sherry.

The palate is a little harder to discern at first. But given a moment to open, the sherry emerges, and behind it comes the pears and cocoa promised in the nose.

The whisky’s finish is merely a surgeon’s mark past the edge of short. It cuts along this border with malt, wheat toast, and little bit of blackberry sour.

Too bad I didn’t find a cupboard or cabinet filled with Kurayoshi Sherry Cask editions instead of a drawer brimming with knives. A locker with forty or fifty bottles of this stuff certainly would’ve been a lot less weird.

The post The Kurayoshi, Sherry Cask, 8 Years Old, 46% appeared first on angelsportion.

Review – Penderyn, Welsh Gold, Madeira Finish, (No Age Stated), 46%

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Do you want to know how I know that alien lifeforms aren’t being kept alive in captivity or stored in glass jars filled with formaldehyde in a government vault somewhere?

Because it’s hard to keep secrets from a pastor.

Most folks take us for innocent dolts. But they forget that we interact fairly regularly with the underbelly of mankind’s visceral grotesqueries. Infidelity, drug abuse, you name it. I’ve seen and heard just about every veiling lie for covering a human’s tracks. I’m more than accustomed to the facial expressions and I’m overly familiar with the accompanying body language.

If you’re hiding something from me, ninety-nine percent of the time I’ll know just by listening and watching. It’s almost eerie how accurate I can be in this regard, too. And again, it’s also why you can trust me when I say we’ve never experienced first contact.

Here’s why.

The President of the United States holds absolute executive authority. Absolute executive authority assumes full access to all government facilities, programs, and documentation. This means that no sitting U.S. president is subject to security clearance requirements. It follows then that the only thing keeping a U.S. president from knowing every single one of the highest tier secrets of our nation, past or present, is the level of his own personal interest.

You’ll never convince me that any of the men who’ve ever achieved the highest office in the land did so without feeding the beast of self-interest. And so once again, the reason I know the U.S. government isn’t keeping any other-worldly secrets hidden away in steely bunkers six miles below the earth is because if it was, the presidents would have been asked this on camera, lied about it, and ultimately been discovered by guys like me who know what to listen and look for.

I mean, just think about it simply. They’re human, like the rest of us, right? Not that we’re all chronic liars, but rather just imagine if you were newly elected as president. You and I both know that the first thing you’d want to know is what’s going on in Area 51. And once you learn that we’d been visited by beings from another planet, and you actually held their technology in your hands, do you really think you’d be able to hide the knowledge of all this so easily behind a stale faced persona? I don’t think you would. Certainly, you’d hold to your oath of office and you wouldn’t betray the secret verbally. But my guess is that you’d betray it visibly when you struggled before the cameras to find any bit of interest in the major geopolitical situations going on around you. My guess is that at your first run-of-the-mill press conference with another world leader, it would be easy to tell that you’d found out.

“Thank you for taking my question, Mr. President,” a reporter would say, his recorder outstretched toward the two dignitaries. “You’ve only been in office a few days, so with that, what points of discussion took place between you and the French Prime Minister regarding the war in Syria?”

“Yeah, well,” the President would reply, a distant stare revealing his struggle to care much about the here and now. “I told him some stuff. He told me some stuff. Then we ate lunch.”

“What did you eat for lunch, Mr. President?” another reporter would call with a chuckle from the back of the room.

“Well, the Prime Minister had soup. I had an alien spaceship—I mean, um, an Episcopalian sandwich.”

“Sir,” the same reporter would ask, “what makes a sandwich Episcopalian, exactly?”

“Um, because, everything on it is out of order. The meat’s on the outside and the bread’s on the inside. Very weird. Thanks, everyone. No more questions.”

It’s true that the government lies to us about a lot of things, but alien contact probably isn’t one of them.

Do you want to know how I know that the folks at Penderyn must be lying about using Buffalo Trace and Evan Williams barrels for the aging of their whiskies? Because Penderyn whisky is good. It’s well balanced and crisply sweet—especially this particular edition of the Welsh Gold finished in Madeira casks.

Okay, so maybe Penderyn isn’t lying and I’m merely betraying my dislike for Buffalo Trace and Evan Williams. With that, the truth to Penderyn’s story remains sturdy, just as Oliver Wendell Holmes said truth would be:

“It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening.”

No matter the barrels, Penderyn has a fine dram here. It’s round and full all day long.

The nose of the whisky is one of malt and dark fruits—back raspberries, perhaps. There’s a flow of warmed vanilla that tapers into a stream of honey.

The palate is generous with the malt. At first, it feels like the whisky might be hiding something metallic behind this particular flavor, but then it comes clean on the copper still used in distillation, and then rounds a corner toward balance with a well-timed dash of wood spice.

The whisky’s medium finish is as it began in the nose—malty, fruity, and warm. It’s the perfect dram for a summer evening on the deck beneath the stars. It’s even better to have in hand if that star-filled night is suddenly disturbed by an alien spaceship landing in the back yard. Your best bet for establishing peace between two worlds is to make the strange beings an Episcopalian sandwich and then let them wash it down with this particular edition from Penderyn.

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The post Review – Penderyn, Welsh Gold, Madeira Finish, (No Age Stated), 46% appeared first on angelsportion.

Review – Douglas Laing & Co., Scallywag, Small Batch Release, Speyside Blended Malt Scotch Whisky, (No Age Stated), 46%

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The Thoma family just returned from visiting the Kennedy Space Center, and because I remain absolutely enthralled by what I experienced there, I took to doing a little reading on the history of the Apollo 8 mission—which is the one aspect of our visit that marveled me the most.

In my casual study, one thing led to another, and I ended up swimming in various aerospace articles that did far more to harm my self-esteem than actually inform me.

I’m a moron beside these people.

I say this not only in comparison to the details surrounding the men and women who were the first to figure out how to get a spacecraft to orbit the moon, but also in response to the well-versed writer who scribed one particular article in which the word “cabotage” was used with the casual assumption that I actually knew what it meant. I’d never seen this word before in my life. As far as I knew, it described the moment when one person successfully hails a cab only to have another person come along and steal it.

“Spell ‘cabotage.’”

“Please use it in a sentence.”

“That stupid s.o.b. stealing my cab was a clear case of cabotage.”

“Cabotage… c-a-b-o-t-a-g-e. Cabotage.”

“That is correct.”

But cabotage has nothing to do with cab-stealing. And for the foodies out there, it’s even further from meaning to slip a little bit of cabbage into a dish where it doesn’t belong. It’s the term used of a country’s right to both operate and monitor all transportation within—and in some cases just beyond—its own borders.

[image error]Colliding with my own ignorance, and sipping a rather pleasant dram of Douglas Laing’s Scallywag Small Batch Release, I wondered about the etymology of the whisky’s title. I already knew it was a derogatory term used during the time of the Civil War by Democrats in reference to the Republicans intent on freeing the slaves, but I figured it had a deeper meaning in Europe. I thought perhaps it might’ve had something to do with a particular historical character in Scotland who stood against the travesty of high taxation of whiskies, ultimately making the individual malts of this blend somehow possible. You know, something like that—something deeply inspiring.

Well, let’s just say that the previously mentioned blow to my self-esteem caused me to over compensate on this one. It’s nothing more than the name of Douglas Laing’s toothless dog.

No worries. For as derogatory as the term might be, as it relates to this namesake whisky, it suggests Scallywag is an exceptionally refined pooch, one that is a well-bathed, affectionate, and steady companion in all of life’s circumstances.

The nose is crisp and fruity, not only giving over the remnant scents of the sherry casks, but other candied tree delights as well—bruised peaches and warmed plums. There’s an initial waft of vanilla, but it dissipates shortly after the pour.

The palate maintains the vanilla. But like a well-trained canine friend, it fetches a few other enchantments and sets them at its master’s feet, its only expectation being that of a loving pat and a “Good boy.” It runs out to find milk chocolate, but returns with cherries, too. It fetches the nutmeg, cinnamon, and citrus zest noted on the whisky’s canister.

The medium finish sees one more round trip from the pooch, a venture that results in a fading, oaky ember from an extinguished fireplace.

Come to think of it, since we’ve been playing with words, I sure hope Laing wasn’t pulling a fast one on us when he named this after his dog. I sure hope he chose the title as he did because Scallywag is (or was) a well-mannered and faithful pooch, and not because his fox terrier, like his whisky, was so incredibly delicious.

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The Thoma family with our new bestie, astronaut Ken Cameron. What a genuine gent, one who was kindly enough to take time out of his day to sign autographs and take pictures with the lower life forms. Turns out he lived not too far from us in Michigan when he worked at General Motors. I did a little reading about Ken, and for the record, I gave a silent toast to his more-than-astounding list of accomplishments when I sipped this Scallywag. Slàinte mhath, Ken!

The post Review – Douglas Laing & Co., Scallywag, Small Batch Release, Speyside Blended Malt Scotch Whisky, (No Age Stated), 46% appeared first on angelsportion.

Review – Aberlour, A’bunadh, Batch 56, (No Age Stated), 61.2%

[image error]The Florida sun was beaming. The sky was blue. Our vacation was unfolding as pristinely as so many before it.

“So,” the eager parent began curiously, working to get the attention of all four of the children, “your dad and I were thinking about taking the family somewhere other than Florida next year for vacation.”

“Where?!” all four called out simultaneously. Three seemed enthused. One was suspicious.

“How about we try going out of the country?” I asked.

“Like where?” Josh replied, eagerly.

“We were thinking some place like Ireland,” Jennifer said, intoning her words as if she’d given the big reveal on a reality show.

But before the others could speak, the most routine-oriented child in the bunch seized the tenor of the conversation.

“Are there palm trees is Ireland?” Madeline asked, her expression and forward-leaning posture already betraying her thoughts on the matter.

“No,” her mother answered.

“Will there be a swimming pool for us in Ireland?” Madeline continued.

“Probably not,” Jennifer added.

“So, just to be clear, will there be palm trees beside our own private pool in Ireland?” the young girl finalized, ending the conversation having covered all angles of her concern and the concerns she knows are shared by at least two others of her siblings.

“No, Madeline, there won’t be palm trees beside any private pools.”

“Then, there you have it,” she concluded, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair with satisfaction. Her grin revealed a confidence that the adults’ case against her client, Florida, could not meet the burden of proof, and she’d more than cemented reasonable doubt in the mind of the jurors.

Madeline knows what she wants when it comes to the prospect of “family vacation.” She wants palm trees. She wants sunshine. She wants heat. She wants to see bright-beaming flora and daily afternoon rainstorms. She wants a private pool with just her family and no one else. She wants pretty much everything that Florida has offered her ever since she was little. And quite brilliantly, her strategy for defending this routine was to go straight for the jugular of our idea’s unknowns, being sure that the first comparison to any existential plan that didn’t involve Florida was met by the tangibles of our immediate surroundings.

“Look around, folks,” were the essentials of her words. “Ireland won’t be anything like this.”

Well played, Madeline.

And yet, her argument disregarded the realm of possibility for fresh joys somewhere else. Possibility is born from the sphere of imagination. The members of the jury—her siblings—exist in that sphere. All I needed to do was unpack the possibilities, and present a counter narrative of exciting possibilities.

But I didn’t. And why? Because I’m like Madeline and Madeline is like me. I like routine. I like familiar. I like the security that familiar brings. Every time we go to Florida, while each trip is a little different, the expected rejuvenation is always so wonderfully consistent.

The various editions of the Aberlour A’bunadh are the same, which is probably why I like the whisky rendition so much. No matter the batch, it never misses the mark.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed a fair number of the various A’bunadh batches, and for the most part, they remain true to the first I ever tried. I know that each batch does have its cult—some more so than others—but again, for the most part, each one continues in the footsteps of the one that came before it, reassuring the consumer that he or she is about to meet up with something enjoyably familiar.

At 61.2% ABV, the nose of Batch 56 is piercingly ornate. It streams up like the decorative fountain in front of your favorite vacation resort, rich in sherry, chocolate, and cinnamon.

I drink my cask strength whiskies without water in order to get the full effect. That being said, this one struts with a full bloom of singeing spices peppered into a lava-thick sauce of cherries and vanilla

The finish is long. If anyone else out in the whisky world claims it is medium or short, then either they’re lying or they have a paralyzed tongue. There’s no mistaking the staying power of this candied firebomb of whisky joy.

My guess is that Batch 57 will be just as wonderful as the fifty-six batches that came before it. Although, one unforgettably bad batch and I could end up with a Jameson in my hand.

But not in Ireland. In Florida.

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Review – Clyde May’s, Straight Bourbon, Batch No.: CM-079, 5 Years Old, 46%

[image error]I’m a wordy guy. I get it.

But I would submit that in an age where the normal pace of life is the sharing of minuscule snippets barely capable of communicating fractional thoughts, a moment of wordiness is what’s required to acquire the passerby’s attention and get the job done.

Take for example the time I discovered a recycling bin in my garage that didn’t belong to me. I don’t know how it got there, I only know that in my neighborhood, both the 50-gallon trash and recycling receptacles have serial numbers and are assigned to each house.

Yes, it would make better sense for each receptacle to be identified by the street address. Nevertheless, the nine-digit codes branded into the sides of the bins allows for the waste removal company to know which house owns which receptacle.

Step one: Call the company. Result: They can’t deduce by their records which house the receptacle belongs to.

Step two: Assuming such a large receptacle couldn’t have traveled all that far from its home, visit with the neighbors to discover its rightful owner. Result: Like the waste removal company, they have no idea whose bin it is.

Step three: Put the bin out near the street with a cardboard sign on it which reads “Is this yours?” Result: The receptacle sits in front of my house for about a week. But eventually it’s discovered up near my garage accompanied by an anonymous note from a thoughtful neighbor reminding me it’s against association rules to leave my garbage cans out at the street for so long after trash pickup.

Step four: Assume I live in a neighborhood full of people who are either blind, illiterate, or steal and collect cardboard “Is this yours?” signs so that the blind and illiterate among us can help me with my trash can problem. Roll the can right back down to the street, and while I’m in the mood, set beside it a few more of the larger items in my garage I’ve been meaning to give away. Fashion a much wordier message on a large piece of scrap drywall and lean it against the receptacle.

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Result: All the items at the street are snatched away, my garage is cleaner, and the stray receptacle is retrieved.

Conclusion: A wordier message produced the greatest result.

[image error]The folks at the Conecuh Ridge Distillery took the same chance with the labeling of their Clyde May’s Straight Bourbon. Scanning the shelves of my favorite store, the bright fullness of its label in comparison to the other editions beside it is what caught my attention. There’s a lot happening on this thing. A slight turn of the bottle reveals an expansion of its busy wordiness through a somewhat lengthy story of the edition’s namesake beneath a title of “Say Whatcha Be & Be Whatcha Say.”

While I’ll admit it sounds a little gimmicky, I’m also willing to conceded to the premise. Sometimes what needs communicating takes a little more work than “Is this yours?” And if you get the message just right, it’ll achieve the zing necessary for producing results. The story of Clyde May is indeed an interesting angle for a craft distillery to take. But unless you actually know the story—true or untrue—you could become as a blind, illiterate, cardboard sign-stealers in relation to this product and overlook it. And you don’t want that, because this whiskey is really pretty good.

The nose of the Clyde May’s is one of oak, barrel spice, a stranger wrestling between vegetal and fleshy fruits, and a caramel.

The palate is an undiluted gathering of corn, vanilla, cola, and ripened nectarines. A drop of water sends the vegetal to the back and ushers the fruit forward.

Its medium finish brings back the cola from the palate while adding the barrel spice from the nosing.

Step five: Set a lawn chair at the edge of my driveway. Pour a dram of the Clyde May’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey and have a seat. Draw up a wordy plan for celebrating Earth Day, one that almost certainly involves dumping the contents of my trash cans in the yard of the anonymous note-writing neighbor (because I’m pretty sure I know who he is). Result: Reconsider the plan. Refrain from dumping my trash in the neighbor’s yard. Go inside. Pour and enjoy a dram of Clyde May’s Straight Bourbon Whiskey in the comfort of my living room instead of a jail cell.

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