Christopher Ian Thoma's Blog, page 18

Review – Dillon’s Rye Whisky, Three Oaks, Batch 01, 3 Years Old, 43%

[image error]You know you’ve raised your kids right when you’re in the middle of a thumb war with one child and the other offspring in the room breaks right into the montage song from the 80s film “The Karate Kid.” Suddenly, everything in that moment changes when you hear, “You’re the best around! Nothing’s ever gonna keep you down!”

Mr. Miyagi would have been proud.

That song alone—as bad as it was then and still is today—had magic in that moment and turned what was to be a mere passing-the-time-at-the-doctor’s-office into a full-fledged twenty minutes of stretches, thumb warm-up routines, and a final sweat-drenched, digit-flicking moment of combat stupendous between father and son. The only things missing were the karategi uniforms, cheering spectators (although, we did have one), and the Chinese-themed motivational posters made especially for adorning the walls of a dojo.

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It doesn’t matter where you are or what you are doing, kids have a way of making certain moments much more enjoyable. But this means you have to give a little to their expectations. It means dropping yourself into their imaginary worlds as soon as they appear, filling any of the particular roles they’ve designed. This doesn’t mean you go along with the storyline completely. I rarely do that. In fact, I do what I can to twist the story’s expected outcomes and make it a little more fantastical. That never ends with sour faces.

Take for example the thumb war I shared above. When Evelyn began to sing, right away Joshua assumed the role of the movie’s protagonist, Danny LaRusso. At one point, he even did the infamous crane stance. I became Johnny Lawrence, the leader of the Cobra Kai gang and Danny’s arch rival. Of course Evelyn was rooting for Danny, the underdog, the one who is supposed to win. I was talking smack and pretending to be tough and unforgiving.

And then I actually was. I beat him down badly—seriously—and in the end, I told him to leave my girl Ali alone, get his loser self out of the valley, and go back to Jersey.

Yeah, sort of harsh. I guess he wasn’t the best around. I was. Still, the moment was unforgettably gratifying even as it was unexpected. We all laughed. At least I think remember that Joshua laughed.

[image error]The Dillon’s “Three Oaks” Rye was a bit of a surprise, I must say. It’s not that I expected it to be either good or bad, but rather I’ve only ever experienced such a multihued involvement with Scotch. Sometimes with Japanese whiskies, but never with Canadian whiskies. Almost certainly never with Bourbons.

And yet, kind of like sitting at the doctor’s office with nothing to do but instigate a thumb war, this whisky has a chorus singing in the background that makes it a bigger deal. The nose alone has lemon, ginger, and maybe even a toasted and well-buttered bagel.

In the mouth, there’s a coconut sprinkled doughnut dipped in cinnamon applesauce. The spice gives it some bite.

The finish is the whisky’s only hang-up. With a medium to long draw, it wanders away from everything I just described and lands in vat of sour chews that never actually received the sugar required by the recipe. Everything was looking good for Danny, until Johnny dodged that crane kick and knocked the Italian kid’s nose a little bit left of center.

Still, in all, it’s a complex whisky. And maybe even fun. It won’t get “Best Picture,” but it will be remembered for a long while as having used up a moment on the timeline in a most enjoyable way.

Review – Gooderham & Worts, Little Trinity, 17 Years Old, 45%

[image error]So, how do you respond to someone who walks out of the Christmas Eve worship service and says to you in the greeting line, “Thanks for calling me out for never coming to church except at Christmas and Easter”?

I hope that responding with “You’re welcome” suffices, because that’s exactly what I did.

Of course, there were a few other things I managed to say, softer words like “We miss you here at the church,” and “Let’s get together for coffee sometime—I’ll buy—and we’ll figure out what’s keeping you away.” Funny thing is, the gentleman returned the next day to the Christmas Day service, which for the most part, isn’t well attended.

Nevertheless, the particular portion of the Christmas Eve sermon that I’m guessing stung the most was when I discouraged the listeners from resting too comfortably in the privilege of calling themselves Christians if their only motivation for attending the night’s service was due to their family dragging them along by a leash of guilt, or because they were sensing the first of the only two seasonal obligations to their church community that they feel all year, the other arriving at Easter. From there I pressed that calling oneself a Christian means having an innate and steady awareness that not only knows that there’s no other place on earth for a Christian to be on Christmas Eve than in worship, but that regularly attending worship is crucial for healthy faith.

I don’t know how that meets with your senses, but I would surmise that almost anyone who knows me also knows how I feel about tip-toeing around issues. It never works. Most often, in fact, it only makes things worse. It’s better to steer into the painful discussion and deal with it. It’s rarely easy. Sometimes it takes a good long while before results are seen. Sometimes results are never seen at all. Other times it’s all that was needed and things turn around right away. But every time it needs to be a communication that pulls back the curtain to shine the light on the excuses.

Besides the paragraph above, I’ll give you another example. Here’s a pretty typical conversation that takes place in a church on Christmas Eve:

“It’s great to see you, Bob!” the pastor says with a pleasant smile.

“Yeah, well,” Bob replies sheepishly, “things have been pretty busy. Life just gets so busy.”

“Oh, I know,” the pastor offers, missing his chance. “Life keeps us running. Be sure to say ‘hi’ to the kids.”

I’d rather see the conversation go this way:

“It’s great to see you, Bob!” the pastor says with a pleasant smile.

“Yeah, well,” Bob replies sheepishly, “things have been busy. Life just gets so busy.”

“Did you die and then come back to life?” the pastor asks, seizing his chance. “Or have you been in a hospital quarantine since last Easter? You know, being dead or infirm are some of the only allowable excuses in the Scriptures for missing worship. And even with a quarantine, when you can’t go to church, the church is supposed to go to you. I’m sure they would’ve let me speak to you through your plastic bubble.”

Another example might be:

“It’s great to see you, Bob!”

“Yeah, this evening worship service works out pretty well. With everything going on in my week, it’s really hard for me to get here for the worship service on Sunday morning.”

“How’s that new TV working out for you?”

“Wha—?”

“Yeah, that 70 inch flat screen I saw you carrying out of the electronics store at 4:30 in the morning on Black Friday. How’s the picture on that bad boy?”

The point is, be ready for the typical defenses, and then be ready to steer into them in a way that shows the person you aren’t so easily fooled. I guarantee that a conversation—easy or hard—will be stirred by the effort. If it’s an easy one, roll with it, and then be glad that a door has opened for an honest and contrite conversation between two people. If it’s a hard one—one in which you find yourself in the crosshairs of a venomous person doing everything he or she can to project the guilt upon you—roll with that one, too. When they point to your failures and inconsistencies as a person—shining the light on all of your warts—take it in stride as best you can, maybe even agreeing to some, and then steer back into the topic at hand. The humility and diligence will eventually accomplish something.

Unfortunately, I fear that in our post-modern, radical individualistic society filled with “who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are-to-tell-me-I’m-wrong” kind of people, the chances are better that they will leave the church. This, too, you must take in stride. Consider that the seed has been planted, and if they transfer to another congregation’s roster, maybe what you’ve given to them in honesty will be to their good, maybe even helping to encourage them to keep connected in the new place. Or maybe they’ll just stay put because they’ve realized the friend they have in their pastor, and they know that with such an association, they have a friend with whom they can exchange their warts for something better—namely, a churchly dram from Gooderham & Worts. And I must say the 17-year-old “Little Trinity” edition is an exceptional reward for heartfelt repentance and faith.

[image error]Inspired by the namesake church that Gooderham built for his employees in Toronto, the nose of this whisky is one of vanilla soaked pears and coriander, as well as a touch of cinnamon. This complexity carries over to the palate, revealing in the first sip a wash of raspberries atop a rye bread slice and gladdened ever so slightly by the already familiar vanilla.

The finish is shorter than I expected, although even in its hasty passing, there’s enough time to gather wood spice and a pale sense of the pears from the nosing.

In all, when it comes to the opportunities for giving the best dosage of lawful reality to certain folks, Christmas and Easter are some of the only chances I get. And so, in these instants, I try never to shy away from seizing the sermonic moment before a relatively captive audience. That being said, if you’re the listener in the pew, let the whisky description above be an enticement to venture beyond the horizon of insufficient excuses to your clergyman. We’re not all as dumb as many of us look, and we’ve probably heard everything you’re about to create so many times before. It’s really not new. And like I said, with the possible endpoint iterated above—at least in my church—you might be really glad you came clean.

Review – Forty Creek, Double Barrel Reserve (2012), Lot 25, (No Age Stated), 40%

[image error]It’s Saturday during my Christmas break, the one bit of down time I’ve been eagerly anticipating since September, and I’ve been dreadfully ill since Tuesday.

The whole break is spent. Go figure.

It started with some pretty incredible chest pain. It was so bad, in fact, that I thought I might’ve been having a heart attack. Nevertheless, I took some Tylenol and went to bed. I know my eternal fate, and so with that, I figured that if Jennifer discovered the next morning that I was dead, she’d be sad, but she knows it, too, and in the meantime she’d be able to collect on a life insurance policy that would make life a little bit easier.

I’m definitely worth more dead than alive.

But I didn’t die. I woke up Wednesday morning, and apparently at some point during the night, I’d traded my chest pain for full-body aches, an irritating cough, a massive headache, skin and muscle sensitivity, and chills. I must have been swindled in that midnight exchange because I’d gladly take the chest pain over the way I’m feeling right now.

Needless to say, the only real positive thing I have to share with you about this long-anticipated but swiftly shattered time of rest is that while I’ve lost my taste for all things edible, I haven’t lost my taste for whisky, which is why I’m actually willing to steam forward and write a review for you even in my current state of abysmal anguish.

It’s all for you, friends.

And me, too, I guess. Whisky is medicinal, you know. Seriously. Whisky has ellagic acid, which is an anti-oxidant that absorbs rogue cells in the blood stream. Among the many gatherings of data, a Harvard University study and “The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition” both settled on what they would call “beneficial drinking,” which is defined as seven drams a week, or at least one dram a day. Doing this, they say, reduces the risk of heart disease and heart failure. It’s a good thing I’m pretty much on track with what they discovered, which is probably why I didn’t die on Tuesday night. And there’s an additional perk here. Because the National Institute of Health discovered that folks who keep to such a regimen are half as likely to get dementia, which means I’m not likely to forget to thank the Lord above for not calling me home just yet on Tuesday night.

Also, and finally, whisky fights common cold and flu infections. Funny thing is, this is nothing new to anyone who spends time enjoying whisky. We’ve known it for years. Like five hundred years to be a bit more precise. Truly. Take a look at the following paragraph from page eight in Volume VI of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland published in 1586. He gives a pretty explicit listing of everything whisky (or “aqua vitae” as they called it during his day) is good for curing. I’ll wait right here while you read. And have fun with the Old English, by the way.

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There’s a lot of stuff in that list, eh? As I said before, no surprise here. Of course, today we know a little bit more about why whisky is a formidable foe for such pesky human ailments, namely the common cold and the frightful flu. Whisky dilates blood vessels, which means that more ellagic-toting plasma can make its way through the system shackling the bad guys, while at the same time, the mucus membranes open up more widely allowing for the body to deal a little more conclusively with the residual gunk. I’m living proof of the science. I rarely get sick. So when I do—like right now—you can pretty much guarantee it’s not the flu, but rather I’ve been infected by an otherworldly microbe that fell from space and is trying to gestate in my abdomen. But even as it does, my daily regimen of whisky is making it far too difficult for the xenomorph to actually grow into a mature chest-burster. Although, it sure felt like the little bugger was close to hatching the other night, which is why I fought the good fight with a dram of the Laphroaig Quarter Cask before tucking myself into bed.

[image error]Today’s medicine is a little sampling of the 2012 edition of the Forty Creek Double Barrel Reserve which I received from my pal, George, in Canada. But before I share my thoughts, you need to know that Forty Creek and I haven’t gotten along too well in the past. In my opinion, it pretty much always has a caustic exit from the bottle, and it’s one that lingers through each of the stages of review.

Unfortunately, this time it was no different. The first gale across the nose is a briny mixture of alcohol and vinegar from a jar of mild peppers. This doesn’t mix well with what seems to be a secondary gust of wood spice and caramel. It leaves the impression that the wood is rotting and the caramel is spoiled.

The palate is considerably better, offering up some rye, a scrap of cornbread, some buttered popcorn, and a remnant of the wood spice from the nose. All of this carries over into a medium finish that matches its beginning. Its end is sour, but it’s a stale sour, as if whatever is making it sour sat out all night on the kitchen counter when it should have been placed into the refrigerator. That kind of sour.

In the end, I’d say the whisky serves well alongside the white blood cells at the battlefront, but it’s not necessarily one that I’d recommend to anyone in search of something that will help to turn an illness-influenced frown upside down. For that, you need to look somewhere else.

Review – Highland Park, Valkyrie, (No Age Stated), 45.9%

[image error]Sometimes as my wife Jennifer is departing from any particular occurrence, she’ll turn back to me and intently say, “That’s not an AngelsPortion post!”

“Ah, but it is, my dear,” I’ll whisper under my breath. “It most certainly is.”

She knows me all too well.

She knows I’m always watching. I’m always paying attention. I’m always ready to take the simplest of happenings, examine it, and then set it before all of you in all of its pure or profane glory.

And why shouldn’t I? What is to be gained by keeping these little life gems hidden away?

I mean, why wouldn’t I tell you about the time my daughter Madeline, as a one-year-old, caught the Rotavirus? And what is this illness? Well, I can tell you that explosive diarrhea is pretty much its defining characteristic. I can also relay that it is never a good idea to let your infected child bounce happily in an excersaucer wearing only a diaper—that is, unless you want to see the watery contents of her tiny intestines jetting out the sides of her little Pampers with each bounce’s impact, drenching everything within a two-feet radius of her bright smile. Oh, and by the way, she was only wearing a diaper because I had to cut her out of a similarly soaked onesie she was previously wearing. Yep, I grabbed the scissors, cut it off of her, and threw it away. There was no chance in this lifetime that I was going to try to work her out of it and then put it into the washer.

Nope. Not a chance.

Okay, so, maybe that’s not the kind of story you want to hear. And perhaps Jennifer is right to a certain extent. Some of these gems are better left unmined. But in truth, I think in certain moments she stops to level her mandate because she doesn’t want to reveal her darker side—which I must say, is one of the facets to this beautiful woman that makes me love her so much.

By darker, I mean the following.

[image error]Are you familiar with the horror film entitled “Annabelle”? Briefly, it’s about a doll that is possessed by a demon. I know that Jennifer has never seen it. In fact, she won’t even watch the movie trailers for it. They are terrifying enough. I know that my seventeen-year-old son, Joshua, has seen it. In fact, he saw it with his friends in the theater when it first came out. When it finally made it to video, I rented it and he watched it with me. I thought it was lame—as I think pretty much all horror movies these days are lame—but I can tell you that by about half-way through the film, Joshua had moved from the end of the couch to within inches of me.

Now, as I’ve learned, the movie claims to be based on true events, and it turns out that the real doll is not at all like the amped up prop in the film, but is instead a rather soft and inconspicuous “Raggedy Anne” doll.

Guess what. We have one. Jen’s mother made it for her when she was a child.

So, now that both Jennifer and Joshua know the doll’s origin and style, Jen’s childhood cuddler has taken on an ominous presence, and with that, they’ve both been working overtime to frighten one another with it—setting it on top of partially open bedroom doors so that it will fall on mom when she enters, or sticking it in a child’s chair in the shower so that when the young man pulls back the curtain, he is startled enough to be heard downstairs.

But last night, I think it could be said that Jen took the lead in this little dance.

In the midst of midnight’s pitched darkness, Jennifer crept into Joshua’s room. He would be returning from a friend’s birthday celebration in moments, and so she’d need to be swift.

With the doll in hand, and one of our son Harrison’s remote control cars in the other, she duct-taped the doll to the top of the car and set it under the edge of Joshua’s bed.

And then she waited.

Joshua came home, and after visiting with us for a few minutes, he made his way into his bedroom. But before he could flip the switch to bring his room to a comforting glow, the dimly beaming light from the hall barely washing the right measure of his bed, Jennifer hit the gas on the remote and out came the doll with a mechanized screech.

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Let me tell you, if Joshua had been wearing a onesie, I’d have needed to cut him out of it. The Rotavirus has nothing on Jennifer, even as the boy promised his mother that she would pay for her crimes.

“And this is not an AngelsPortion post!” he said angrily.

“Oh, yes it is, my good man. Yes it is. In fact, I have just the whisky in mind.”

Alas, the Highland Park Valkyrie edition.

In Nordic lore, Valkyries were vicious female spirits—emissaries of Odin sent into the battles of mortal men, angel-like beings arriving with a measure of judgment, choosing the loathsome and cowardly for the Underworld, while selecting others for Valhalla or for joining the spiritual regiment that would be required for the final battle of the ages known as Ragnarok.

Yep, sounds like something Jen would be a part of if she were a Nordic demigod in service to Odin. Too bad she despises whisky, because this namesake dram is fit for such otherworldly deviants as she.

The nose of this delightful dram is one of cranberries and white chocolate—almost feminine in its initial gentleness. There’s barely a hint of smoke. And I mean barely. In fact, you might not even discover it unless you know to expect Highland Park’s signature incensing—this time reminiscent of smoked citrus zest.

The first sip is incredibly sweet, offering an inviting and generous splash of the citrus noticed in the nosing. Alongside, this beauty unsheathes an additional armament of honied cinnamon. But then its alluring smile turns to a more serious and menacing grin, reminding you of its rightful station at Odin’s side with a tarry stir of cinders reminiscent of the Nordic god’s furnace. This stays through the medium finish, with barely a mention of the fruiter delights that were first to arrive.

If anything, it makes for a great dram while following around and watching an otherwise gentle and kindly wife, a mindful and loving mother of four doing all that she can to set the stage for terrifying her seventeen-year-old son. It’s nothing short of being the perfectly consumable soundtrack to her twisted scheming at 12:30 in the morning.

Review – Johnnie Walker, Blue Label, Ghost and Rare, (No Age Stated), 46%

[image error]“Hey, Daddy,” the little girl sing-songed while thumping down the stairs. “Do you wanna play a game with me?”

“Sure,” I replied, knowing full well that I’d denied her too many times already. “What game do you want to play?”

“Let’s play that game where we slap each other’s hands,” she said with just as musical a voice.

“You mean the one where I put my hands under yours like this,” I asked and demonstrated, “and then try to move as fast as I can to slap the tops of your hands before you pull them away?”

“Yep, that’s the one. Let’s play that.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, who goes first?”

“You can try to slap my hands first,” she replied. “But before we start, let’s see if Joshua wants to play with us.”

“Okay. He can go next.”

“Oh, no,” she said resolutely. “I was thinking that instead of you actually slapping my hands, you could slap Joshua, instead.”

“Um, but, that’s not how the game is played, honey.”

“I know. But I don’t really want you to slap my hands, and I think his room is messy. He won’t be ready for you, so you’ll definitely win the first game, and then you can just tell him you did it because his room is so messy.”

“How messy is it?”

“Very,” she reported sternly. “I can’t even see his floor.”

“But you’re a much bigger slob than he is,” I volleyed.

“Yeah, but I’m only eight. He’s seventeen. He should know better.”

A contemplative moment passed.

“Josh!” I called out to my eldest son.

“Yeah,” returned a somewhat muffled voice.

“Do you want to play a game with me and Evelyn?”

“Sure. What are you playing?”

Now, I know what you’re thinking about the scene I just described. And you’re right. Making up new rules is a great way to spice up any particular game. I mean, who of us really wants to play Monopoly when there’s no chance of a financial windfall from landing on “Free Parking”? Not me, that’s for sure. And who wants to play Scrabble without being able to use proper nouns, spell a word backwards, or use foreign languages? Oh, heck no. As a pastor, what’s the use of learning a bunch of different languages if I’m forbidden from employing any of them to destroy you during full-on Scrabble combat? Let me tell you, if I discover that the letters in my stash can be rightly arranged to spell out in Latin “aquabubalus,” you’d better believe I’ll be slapping those tiles down and asking, “So, who else wants some of this?”

In short, rule breaking can, sometimes, lead to a fuller enjoyment of God’s gifts in any particular moment. Take for example the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Ghost and Rare.

I’ve never been a big fan of Johnnie Walker, and I must admit that when I received this generous Christmas gift from some very dear friends—Ed and Harry—I thought there might be a chance I could end up offending them when it came time to write the review. I have to be honest in the expressing of my impressions of every whisky I drink, otherwise my credibility as a reviewer will be shot. And Johnnie Walker and I haven’t had a very good relationship over the years.

But here I am with what I would say is one of the best blended whiskies I think I’ve ever tried—even better than the Ballantine’s 21-year-old. In other words, the time has come to break my “never-buy-Johnnie-Walker-whisky” rule, knowing that if I do, in the case of this whisky, it will be to my benefit.

As an inhalant, the Ghost and Rare is relatively mild—not stodgy like most of the other Johnnie Walker editions. This one offers up caramel apples, and maybe even an after dinner dessert plate of warmed brownie and ice cream. A little longer with the dram and there’s the certainty of a pinch of mint in the ice cream.

The palate is incredibly delightful, carrying through with a deliciously buttery cream of toffee, sweet doughnut glaze, and blood oranges.

The medium finish—bearing an almost unnoticeable kiss of smoke—singles out from the nose and palate the apples and the buttery toffee, ultimately jettisoning pretty much everything else.

This is a costly dram, one that would almost certainly cause you to break other rules in order to purchase it, rules like the those communicating that society typically looks down upon people who withhold food and clothing from their children—or rob banks—in order to afford such whisky.

Don’t break those rules. Feed and clothe your kids, and earn your own money. But let’s say you find yourself at a friendly dinner party where you just so happen to stumble across a bottle of the Ghost and Rare in the host’s liquor cabinet. In that case, I think it makes sense to set fire to a couch so that while everyone else is distracted and working to put it out, you could fill a flask or two to take home.

I won’t judge you. Unless, of course, the dinner party is happening at my house, and that was my couch and my bottle of the Ghost and Rare. In that case, I’ll call the cops and let the local magistrate do the judging.

Review – The Glenfiddich, Project XX, Experimental Series #2, 47%

[image error]“Evelyn, honey, I’m tired and I just want to pour myself a whisky, sit by the fireplace, and rest in the quiet.”

“But you look like you need some joy.”

“No, I look like I need some restful quiet. And a whisky.”

“And some joy. You need some joy.”

“Honey, I love you, but you need to go play somewhere else right now.”

“I’m just gonna go right over here.”

“And do what?”

“I’m going to get some of my joy out on the piano.”

“Hey, Evelyn?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you see the top of the piano?”

“Yes.”

“It opens.”

“It does?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Why?”

“Two reasons. First, so that when the piano needs tuning, the guy who does it can access the wires and make it sound as nice as can be. Second, so that fathers in need of restful quiet beside fireplaces can put their joy-filled children inside where no one will find them—at least not until the piano guy comes to tune it.”

“I’m going to go be joyful upstairs with Madeline and Harrison.”

“Thanks, honey. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Off she goes to spread her noisy joy with the others in the brood. But that’s just it, right now her joy is noisy. I love joy. And I want it, too. I just don’t want it to be in the decibel range of an eight-year-old girl singing “Jingle Bells” at the top of her lungs. I certainly don’t want joy delivered by way of that same little girl beating our piano to death with her fists. Maybe tomorrow, but not right now.

[image error]Right now I want quiet joy—timid and caressing—lazily undulating around me with sounds no louder than the crackling of a fire and the accidental clink of a rock glass against a bottle of something nice. And perhaps a book. Something from Dickens would be suitable. It’s been a while since I’ve read either of the two parts to Dombey and Son. Or I could go for a hasty tour through The Cricket on the Hearth, an original edition hand signed in 1846 by a Miss Milly Edgar and gifted to a man named Robert. It’s a cherished edition, as well as an easy read, one I could complete by a third of the bottle. But it would need to be a savory bottle. Alas, as with the book, the answer is before me.

The Glenfiddich Project XX edition is at hand and available for completing the scene.

Its cork on the table beside me and two fingers worth in the crystal, a generous scent of spiced fruitcake and sweet cream is free to roam among the warmed airstreams curling up from the fireplace’s flame. A sip and a savor allows red berries, caramel, and ginger to meet me just after eyeing the dedication page.

TO

LORD JEFFREY

THIS LITTLE STORY IS INSCRIBED

WITH

THE AFFECTION AND ATTACHMENT OF HIS FRIEND,

THE AUTHOR.

December, 1845.

The finish heartily negates any thoughts of choosing a different book or whisky for the moment. The mid-lasting citrus and cinnamon affirms that all is well, and that little else would match the delight being fostered.

Ah, but by the time I gather to page nine, I can hear so conspicuously and so cheerily a song drifting down to me from the upper floor of my home. It is one that speaks of jingling bells, a super hero who smells, and a sidekick who lays eggs. It is a tragedy of sorts, in that the hero’s transport has lost a wheel resulting in the villain’s escape.

Still, such a tragedy cannot pall my quiet joy. By way of the Project XX, it has, for the most part, been assuredly accomplished.

Review – Laphroaig, Cairdeas (2017), Cask Strength Quarter Cask, (No Age Stated), 57.2%

[image error]It’s Christmas Eve and I’m sitting at my computer in my office at the church. The second of three services just received its benediction, and with that, the attendees have all departed for their homes. There’s another service tonight, but it isn’t for another four hours.

“You should probably go home for a little while, Reverend.”

You’re right. I probably should. But I won’t. It just snowed several inches, and as I write this, I can see that it’s still coming down. I live about twenty miles from here, and even though I drive a Jeep Wrangler, I don’t necessarily feel like pitching myself into a thirty minute white-knuckle ride home and then the same, if not worse, adventurous ride back. And don’t forget, I’ll make that same drive one more time at the end of the night to get back home, and then the following morning for our Christmas Day service.

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Making this trip once tonight is quite enough. And besides, if you think about it, in everything I just described, you have all of the fixings for a Christmas Eve tragedy. You know, a straight-to-Netflix movie with a title like “All He Wanted Was Some Glazed Ham” and a brief synopsis that reads: “A family of six endures unexpected tragedy when the father, a minister, is killed in an auto accident while driving home on Christmas Eve. Struggling to understand the untimely event, will the love they have for one another be enough to keep them together, or will their relationships melt away over time like the last of the drifting snow in the ditch that consumed dad?”

I’m just going to stay put.

[image error]Not to worry, though. I came comfortably prepared. I have a benevolence closet at my disposal. I would’ve had two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but my daughter Madeline—the one tasked with creating and bringing them for me—forgot to do so. Still, Campbell’s soup will make a fine Christmas dinner. And maybe a can of sweet corn, too. Additionally, I brought along a couple of bottles of Scotch that I’ve yet to try—one of which you’re soon to hear about. Thankfully, my wife provided a sturdy Tinkerbell bag to make safe their transport and impress onlookers. I even have a Waterford Crystal rock glass. Lastly, my office is warm, my cot is in place, and I’m listening to ACDC—“Nervous Shakedown” to be precise. Not exactly a Christmas carol, but still something to offset the snarling winds just outside my window and upsetting the stillness of my current solitude.

As I said, I’ll be fine, especially since I have before me the 2017 edition of the Laphroaig Cairdeas Cask Strength Quarter Cask.

I received this whisky from my good friends Scott and Georgie Rhodes, and I must say that having just loosed its cork and given it a go, already I can attest to it being the perfect dram for the night I’ve described, especially since no one is here, and I like it so much I’d have trouble sharing.

The nose of this delightful invention sets free an initial pother of simmering citrus and white chocolate chips, all hovering above a well-stoked peat fire beside which bread crusts have fallen and are being blackened. I’d say the bread was generously buttered before it fell.

A sip reveals a pasting of tar and lemon jelly atop a wedge of warmed sour dough.

The smoke delivered in the palate is relentless, and it carries well over and into a longer finish, one that brings along a morsel of the sour dough, now a little sweeter, and a hint of the oil used to grease the bread pan before baking.

I’m glad I brought this whisky tonight. And yet, had I decided to drive home, increasing the possibility of ending up hanging from my seatbelt overturned in a ditch, the Laphroaig would have been there, and it would have well-sufficed for keeping warm until I was cut free and rescued—be that sooner or later. Either way, while there is something to be said about enjoying it here at my desk as opposed to a snow bank somewhere off of US-23, I’ll give it a gracious nod and say that it would be quite pleasing to most Scotch whisky drinkers no matter where it was consumed.

Still, I’m not going anywhere.

Slàinte mhath and Merry Christmas.

Review – Valentine’s Distillery Company, Mayor Pingree Small Batch Rye Whiskey, Batch 002, 45%

[image error]I walked into the store, and much like that first step from the plane onto the soil of a foreign land, its culture washed over me like a rogue wave. It was, as if suddenly, I’d grown claustrophobic.

My breathing became heavy. My heart began to race. Even more so did my hands become sweaty when Jennifer offered with a smile, “We’re going to need a shopping cart,” insinuating that we’d be traversing each of the aisle ways of this strange terrain in search of these and those things of all natures and styles, none of which could be carried in a smaller tote basket.

The store? Michaels Arts and Crafts—a supply house for those with the skills for precision home décor and needful hobby provisions.

When it comes to makin’ stuff, you name it and this place has it.

——

“Got any titanium templates for making Kim-Jung-Un-shaped paper weights from molten steel? The Christmas party for our local communist club is tonight, and I don’t want to show up with nothing to share.”

“Yep. Aisle ten. And by the way, what time is the party?”

——

“Say, where might I find what I need to make a manger, but one that’s exactly thirteen millimeters tall?”

“Aisle four has all of our miniature manger supplies.”

——

“Excuse me, where might I find your paintable glass geckos?”

“We have a wide variety of paintable reptilia over on aisle eight’s endcap.

——

“Hi, um, I’d like to use my Bedazzler on my cat, and—”

“—All our Bedazzler supplies are in aisle one.”

“Oh, no, I already have all the bedazzling gems I need, I just need to know what kind of lacquer I should dip him into after I’m done. I want it to be harder for him to scratch them off.”

“Oh, gotcha. All animal fur shellac and polyurethane is over in aisle six.”

——

It wasn’t until I saw what I thought was a rather unique flower pot—which in the end, turned out to be a product called a “scene garden”—that I thought to myself, This place needs to change its name. As far as the name change idea goes, I was thinking we could go from this…

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…to this…

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Anyway, a scene garden is, essentially, an elongated flower pot that people fill with a base element—like gravel, sand, dirt, puke, or whatever you feel like filling it with. The pot is then arranged with tiny adornments that portray a scene, such as an oceanfront affair with little plastic people resting in chase lounges beneath beach umbrellas and surrounded by palm trees. Maybe there’s even a little guy on a tiny surf board floating in the basin of water serving as the ocean. Really, a scene garden can be anything—a family having a picnic, a fairy garden, a shark attack, or a bar fight. Just know that no matter what you choose, Michaels will have the stuff you need to make those free hours in your day fly right by toward a successful conclusion.

They have everything a bored, but crafty, person might need.

At first nosing of the Mayor Pingree Rye Whiskey, I got the sense that the Valentine’s Distilling Company—a native to Detroit, Michigan—found time in its busy schedule to stop by Michaels to pick up a few key ingredients from somewhere between the heat pens used for pyrography (wood burning art) and the edible, but nearly tasteless, birthday cake sheets printed with a little girl’s favorite Disney princess character. To translate, I took from the dram a mild, but singed, sniff of oak, as well as a slight hint of something candied. A second sniff affirms that whatever is sending up the candy smell is far too thin to be of any consequence. It may even have been the perfume emanating from the lady in the next aisle over. Yeah, the one accompanied by the shiatzu dressed like Santa Claus. Cute? Nope. Those tiny glossed eyes aren’t natural. The pint-size creature is merely holding back its little doggie tears.

The palate is an altogether different visit to the all-giving craft store. There’s an initial creaminess to the whiskey, one that delivers what seems to be an attempt at typical rye components, such as spice and honey. I say “attempt” because along the way to the checkout, I’m guessing the formulators stopped by an artificial flavoring aisle and dropped in a few waxy morsels—compounds meant more for scented candles than food. In particular, I tasted something chemically floral. If I had to say what candle I may have been nibbling, I’d guess it was lilac or something. Yeah, probably lilac.

The medium finish is crisp enough, giving over a nip of allspice and oak. Unfortunately, just as those two characteristics are peaking, the finality turns a tad sour. Once again, I’m guessing it’s whatever candle scent found itself in the mix.

I wish I could say more—especially since these guys are from my neck of the whiskey woods—but in the end, the Mayor Pingree Rye is only a scene garden. It’s a crafty effort at representing what others have offered and experienced in reality.

Review – Lot 40, Cask Strength, Canadian Whiskey, 12 Years Old, 55%

[image error]“You’ll be so happy, Daddy!” the little girl delivered with a brightly beaming smile as she hurried through the door.

“Why’s that, honey?” I inquired, attempting to match her exuberance.

“God fought for me today,” she said confidently and dropped her jacket to the floor.

My interest piqued, I opened my arms to what I thought was an approaching hug. “What did He do?” I asked, as she ran past me.

“On the way home,” she called, slamming the door of the bathroom near the kitchen, “I had to go potty so badly.”

“You did?!” I called back, changing my excitement to a tone of faux concern.

“I didn’t think I’d make it.”

“So,” I said assumingly, “God helped you hold it until you got home?”

“Oh, no,” she said resolutely. I could hear her spinning the toilet paper roll. “I totally would’ve peed in the car, but God didn’t let us get stuck at Satan’s stoplight!”

My daughter was right. The event she described clearly involved the hand of the Divine.

There are two traffic lights in our little town. One of those lights I’ve come to believe is controlled by Lucifer. Even my kids have learned to call the stupid thing by a variety of names—Lucifer’s light, Satan’s stop light, the thorn of the Devil in Daddy’s side.

This particular device designed to foster traffic safety has garnered these titles for a good reason. Over the past four years we’ve called this place home, I’ve rolled up to this singular traffic light at least a thousand times, and I can tell you with all certainty that it’s only been green maybe three or four times. All other times, no matter the traffic volumes or the time of day, I always get the red light. And the fact that the light turned green—most especially when my daughter was about to let loose in the minivan that I just spent an hour cleaning—and the fact that my wife was allowed to roll right through like the people of Israel crossing the Red Sea is nothing short of the Holy One boxing back the Devil. It has to be. I always get stopped at that stupid light. Because it’s possessed by Satan.

Maybe Jen got through because she called out “The power of Christ compels you” on approach. Or maybe the hidden factor in this scenario is that I wasn’t in the car. It wasn’t me in a dreadful hurry. If it would’ve been me needing to pee, the car would be at the detail shop right now. Or at the auto auction in Flint. There’s no way I’d be keeping it.

Or maybe my wife and child are actually in cahoots with Satan so he gave them a pass. I sometimes wonder.

Anyway…

The more likely scenario is that God just favors them more than me. He knows the best way to chastise me, and apparently, the traffic light at the corner of Silver Lake Road and Hyatt Lane is one of His preferred means.

It’s my lot in this mortal sphere.

[image error]But I do have other, more enjoyable lots in this life, too. I mean that literally. At this very moment, one of them is the Lot 40 Cask Strength edition.

A sample I received from my friend George, this 12 year old Canadian Rye is proof that even as the Lord chooses to chastise me, He often deigns to shine the bright beams of His love upon me, too.

With a nose of walnuts, cinnamon, and salt, this whiskey is reminiscent of the sweeter scents wafting in the little bakery downtown at Christmas time.

A sip reveals the bite you might expect from a cask strength edition, although it is in no way unpleasant. The elixir maintains its nuttiness—namely walnuts sautéed in a butter-soaked mixture of cloves and cinders.

The finish is the only downside to the dram. I figured I’d get a minute or two out of this dram, but alas, its butter-cream goodbye was less than half a minute.

Oh well. I suppose not everything can last as long as the two or three minutes I sit alone at Satan’s stoplight at the corner of Silver Lake Road and Hyatt Lane in Linden, Michigan.

Review – Wayne Gretzky Canadian Whisky, Red Cask, (No Age Stated), 40%

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“Oh, you’re selling books,” the woman said scanning my table at the craft show.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied with a smile.

“And you’re signing them, too,” she chimed with surprise.

“Indeed, I am.”

“Did you write them?”

“Um…”

Now this could have gone one of several ways. The one that happened in my mind but never made it past my lips sounded something like:

Oh my, no, I didn’t write these books. I stopped by a bookstore and grabbed a bunch of random volumes written by other people. I figured I’d set up shop here at the craft show and sign my name to their works. So, wanna buy one? I’ve got a pen. It’s not my pen. I stole it from the bookstore where I got the books.

Fortunately for both of us, as I already noted, I managed to keep from such a response. I steered clear of it by restraining the effects of the hormone oozing from my sarcasm gland. But I’ll admit, it was a struggle—even more so when she walked away without purchasing a single volume.

By the way, after her comment, she offered some casual conversation as to how her pastor just wrote a book, as well—a collection of ten of his best sermons.

Oh, did he write the sermons?

To at least participate in the conversation, I mentioned to her that if I collected all my sermons into a single volume, at about five pages of text per sermon, I’d have about five thousand pages in my book.

“You mean you never reuse the old ones?” she asked. “My pastor does that all the time.”

Oh, so he’s not doing his job, huh? That’s cool. Well, at least now you’ll not only be able to hear the same sermons over and over again, but you’ll be able to read them, too. Maybe after a while you won’t even need to listen to your pastor anymore. Heck, you might not even need to step foot in the church ever again.

As you can see, my gland’s beta-cells were working overtime. Unfortunately, other versions of the same conversation happened at least three or four more times throughout the morning. On the bright side, I used some of my profits from the books I sold to buy a hotdog and a bar of scented soap.

I ate both—one to quell my hunger, and the other to punish myself for my sarcastic thoughts. Sort of like that bar of soap mom would grate into my braces when I said something I shouldn’t say.

Believe it or not, I feel bad when these thoughts pop into my head. I guess I felt I needed to go a little further with this one.

[image error]Okay, so maybe I didn’t eat the soap. But I thought about it. I also thought about how having a flask in my pocket during such conversations would be just as salving to the soul as a punitive soap munching. I own three flasks, and with that, I won’t be making the same mistake the next time I do a book signing at a craft show. I might even bring along the Wayne Gretzky Canadian Whisky Red Cask edition.

In the midst of an elementary school hallway filled with essential oils, overly fragranced lotions, and homemade pumpkin spice holiday candles, a nosing of the Red Cask offers a distinctness of character that cuts through the hovering cumulus with rye spices and a dry sauvignon. A little more concentration added to a second and third sniff reveals the smoked, but damp, finishing barrel.

The palate—a milky and well-balanced amalgam of raisins, vanilla, and allspice—teases interest in what other wonderful concoctions might be hiding just over the border at Gretzky’s distillery. The medium finish of biting berries and nougat affirms the desire to find out.

As I noted before, it’s a pacifying dram, and I suppose that had I been fiddling with a flask-full in my back pocket while entertaining conversations that require me to coldly explain why it would be ridiculous for me as an author to be signing books that weren’t my own, knowing that a sip was only moments away, all would be much easier to swallow. And I dare say that the hotdog probably would have paired well with it, too.