Christopher Ian Thoma's Blog, page 26

Review – Spey River, Rum Cask Finish, (No Age Stated), 40%

[image error]“No man ever steps in the same river twice,” Heraclitus so famously posited, “for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Brilliant. And he’s inarguably right; that is, at least if you’re willing to bare yourself honestly.

All of us are changing from moment to moment. And even if one is unwilling to admit the constant variations, the river into which we just took a careful step, when we take another, it will have already been revised. It will have already seen the tiniest of fragments of stone and silt and life in general carried away to another place—to create and then lose in that same millisecond what was new.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice.” Thankfully this maxim is sometimes true when buying cheaper whisky to review.

Most often when I buy a cheaper whisky to sip and then tap away at the keyboard in reflection, the review almost always takes shape as a warning for all of you—strictly selected words to shape a precise landscape of imagery so that you will be well-informed and enabled to beware.

Price matters.

Okay, go ahead and mutter those words at your florid screen. Go ahead and call me an ignorant snob. Take a quick second to howl at the screen (even though I can’t hear you) and tell me just how misguided I am and how you just adore Scoresby, and Lauder’s, and so many other streams of sewage that roll from the globe’s corners into 2-Liter plastic containers destined to flank the booze aisle at Walmart. I’ll wait right here.

Okay, finished? Good.

When it comes to whisky, you get what you pay for. Price matters.

But sometimes—just sometimes—this rule doesn’t meet up with the bottle’s contents as it should, and not because the rule is unreliable, but because sometimes a distillery with a good whisky underestimates its own value. The Spey River Rum Cask Finish is an example.

You can get your hands on a bottle of this stuff for about $40. Not bad. But here’s the thing. I’d be willing to bet that if I poured the contents of this whisky into an empty bottle of the prized RumCask 17-year-old edition from The Balvenie (which is currently worth a few hundred dollars in the marketplace of rarity), I think most whisky drinkers might not be able to discern the imposter. It’s young and inexpensive, but it tastes a little higher up the shelf than where I discovered it.

It’s really pretty good. In this instance, the riverbank canon of “cheap” has changed course.

The nose of the Spey River Rum Cask steps very carefully, giving up in its foaming current spices such as anise and cloves. The longer and higher the aroma is permitted to rise, the more the rum begins to stand alone.

There’s a sweeter grip in the mouth, one that sees something fruity, maybe sugared apples—or even cinnamon applesauce—before engaging in a cereal complexity which adds wonderful highlights to what is an already pleasant surprise.

And the finish, well, that’s something else entirely. Here you find yourself savoring warmed caramel and the cloves from the nosing. There is a slight nip, but it is in no way suggesting an imbalance with the alcohol. It’s more like the cloves got a little excited and decided to grab hold of the tongue—like curious little river creatures taking to the canoe bottom.

So, yes, price usually matters. But ignore it when you’re considering the Spey River Rum Cask edition. In this circumstance, $40 doesn’t mean it’ll be one of those “Yeah, um, I don’t know about this” moments, but rather it means that the folks at the Spey River Whisky Company might not fully recognize the value of their own Scotch.

Right now, that’s a good thing for the rest of us.

Review – The Quiet Man, Single Malt Irish Whiskey, 8 Years Old, 40%

[image error]“So, what’s your field of study?” I asked the first-year college student.

“I’m majoring in Philosophy,” he answered, “with a minor in Anthropology.”

“Wow,” I said and did my best not to betray my truest response. Those will keep you on your mom and dad’s insurance and living in their basement for a good long while, I thought to myself. “What do you intend to do after you graduate?”

“I dunno,” he answered. “I want to keep my options open. I’m just really interested in understanding the human race—where we’re going and why we’re here.”

I appreciate deep thinkers. I really do. And the list of impressives is long—Socrates, Descartes, Lewis, Tolkien, Shakespeare, Eliot, and the like. These are the ones who asked the deepest questions—the ones who spent time contemplating and then giving equal time toward expressing those contemplations for the rest of us to ponder. But unless I am mistaken, I believe only a handful of such minds actually held degrees in philosophy. I know Eliot earned a doctorate in the field. But still, most were philosophers by nature rather than pursuit. With that, I wonder if the folks who actually pursue professional degrees in fields such as philosophy—the ones who register to sit around in college classrooms and dormitories asking, “Where are we going? Why are we here? Will we ever arrive at humankind’s destination?”— I wonder if they are in some sort of arrested state of cognitive development. Quite honestly, these folks don’t sound all that different from a minivan filled with Thoma children.

Child: “Where are we going?”

Me: “I already told you five times where we’re going.”

Child: “Why are we here?”

Me: “Because this is where I told you we were going? Weren’t you listening?!”

Child: “Are we there yet?”

Me: “We’ll get there when we… You know what, never mind. How about I just pull over so you can hop out? Here you go. You’re there. Here’s my cell phone. Call your mother if you get scared or confused and need a ride to where we’re actually going.”

On second thought, while I appreciate deep thinkers, I appreciate even more a shallow thinker with a plan—someone who is mindful of his own bearings, pays close attention to the details, and employs every option reasonably available to understand in order that he would eventually discover success in his endeavors. With such folks, the word “shallow” is no longer a fitting descriptor. In fact, they begin to epitomize philosophy in action, which is “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence.”

I have a quiet appreciation for such folks, and it’s one that will always stir me to share the best of my drams with them. Speaking of quiet…

The Quiet Man 8-year-old Single Malt Irish Whiskey is a quality dram for both the truest of philosophers—the folks with drive—as well as the post-graduate basement dwellers with philosophy and anthropology degrees.

When it comes to the true philosophers, this is an honest saying because this particular edition of The Quiet Man contains a trophy wafting of malt and meaty fruit darlings like pomegranates and kiwi. In the mouth, the malt is quite definitive, eventually leaning into the oaken Bourbon barrels mentioned on the label while drawing into the experience a fresh slice of warmly buttered pita. The whole thing finishes as pleasantly as it began, offering a shadow of the fruits and a tinge of the malt.

This is a dram due the go-getters.

As it relates to the insurance-sucking parasites living in the basement, this whiskey is within reach only because of its price. At about $45, it’s something they may be able to afford when they stop by the liquor store on their way home from a grueling day behind the register at the bowling alley.

You know, because they’re keeping their options open.

Review – Two Brewers, Yukon Single Malt, Peated (Batch 3), (No Age Stated), 43%

[image error]Life is full of milestones.

Birthdays. College degrees. Marriage. The first child. The new house. The second child. The third child. Another degree. The fourth child. A little bigger house.

Okay, enough of the milestones. Especially the ones involving procreation.

I hit a milestone the other day while driving our 2011 Chrysler Town and Country. Yeah, I was pretty excited. See for yourself.

[image error]

You guessed it. I hit 100,000 miles.

Now, you might be thinking, That’s not all that many miles for a car that is (at the time of this writing) only six years old. That’s only about 16,600 miles a year. What you need to know is that we bought the vehicle in early 2014. It had 52,000 miles on it. That means we’ve put 48,000 miles on it in a little more than 3 years. But you also need to know that my wife has been the primary driver for the van, at least until we traded six months ago—she took the Explorer and I took the Town and Country—and when we did this, it had 79,000 miles on it. In two and a half years, she put 31,000 miles on it. Not bad. But if you continue with the math, you’ll discover that I managed 21,000 miles in six months. Goes with the “traveling clergyman” territory.

A bit of advice—never buy a used car from a clergyman. You’ll get something with high mileage, a whole lot of duct tape, homemade seat levers, and most likely some rear seat cushions permanently creased by child safety boosters.

[image error]I hit another milestone today. I came full circle on my conversion to Canadian whiskey, and it would seem that the Two Brewers Yukon Single Malt was the one to do it. After a 160 mile round-trip jaunt to and from a funeral just beyond the borders of Detroit, this lightly peated delight really hit the spot.

The nose reminded me of a familiar Speyside attempt at peating a Scotch—The Balvenie 17-year-old Peated Cask—accept the Yukon Malt (and I’m having a hard time believing I’m saying this) was better, less forced—subtle, in fact. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love The Balvenie’s rendition, but when the scent of the sweet vanillas over the oven-baked challa breads begins to rise from the dram, you’ll realize that Two Brewers has managed to kick the bar up a notch in comparison to its Scottish counterpart.

The palate is a fascinating tour through a fresh-fruit market—honeycrisp and gala apples, Asian and duchess pears, and maybe some nectarines—all downwind from a newly kindled peat fire on a cool autumn day.

The finish is somewhat bizarre in that I expected it to be longer and a bit dirtier, but it wasn’t. It’s short and really rather clean. There’s a little bit of the peat that lingers, and perhaps a tad bit of alcohol, but not enough to ruin the experience.

And now I’m praying that Two Brewers doesn’t get consumed by some massive conglomerate so that it ends up among the likes and of the quality of Crown Royal. I’m sure there are some who would consider such an event to be a positive milestone for both the conglomerate and Two Brewers. I’m thinking it would be more like buying a used car from a road-weary clergyman.

Once again, thanks for the sample, George!

Review – J.P. Wiser’s, Legacy, Rye Blend, (No Age Stated), 45%

[image error]I feel like I’ve been sucked into a star-consuming black hole and have ended up in some sort of alternate universe.

Here I am again with a dram of Canadian whisky in hand and I’m not disappointed. What the heck?

Seriously, what’s going on? The second coming of Christ has to be near, and with that, the fabric of space and time is beginning to fray. And although Christ said that the day and hour is unknown and indiscernible to all, that it would come upon the whole world as a thief in the night, still, I thought I knew the end time signs pretty well—wars and rumors of wars, the moon turning to blood, earthquakes. I don’t remember reading anything in the Scriptures about Canadian whiskey suddenly becoming good.

Well, it takes courage to do any number of things in this world, but in my opinion, it takes a much more powerful courage to admit when one is wrong. So here goes…

Canada, you were wrong for hiding these things from us—at least us folks in Michigan.

Okay, that wasn’t much of an apology, was it? Let me try that again.

Hey, you. Yeah, you, the Michigan State Liquor Control Commission, why aren’t you jerks letting this stuff through? You’re wrong for doing this to us. It’s another one of your ungodly displays of fascist ignorance. Well, the truth always manages to find the light of day, doesn’t it? You should be ashamed.

Yeah, missed it again.

One more try.

I was wrong. Indeed, there are good Canadian whiskies out there.

But not Crown Royal. Sorry. I don’t care what the infamous whiskey authors say. Crown Royal—in any of its forms—is most appropriately served with a formaldehyde chaser, some Vicodin, and a teetering desire to go on. The same goes for Canadian Club. I just haven’t been able to find joy in that black bottle of drain leavings. I suppose I might at some point. My experience with Canadian Club has been extremely limited.

Perhaps I’ll get a few samples and be forced to choke down the need for another apology. We’ll see.

[image error]In the meantime, I can’t thank my friend George enough for sending these little gems to me. He has opened my mind to one fact in particular—that J.P. Wiser’s is picking up the slack for the mass producers and is actively working to convert guys like me to the possibility that there may be better things just over the national border which lies only a few clicks north of my home. The Legacy edition is a certainly a perfect example of their diligent evangelism.

An easy sniff from the glass draws up and into one’s mind an early morning scene in no significant bakery in Quebec, just before sunrise, as the rye breads are being taken from the oven, set on the preparation table, and given a slight glazing of butter and a dash of cinnamon. And just to test the worthiness of one, the artisan behind these splendid loaves takes a quick nibble and discovers that the barely-singed oak boards used for letting the dough rise before baking has crept into the recipe, and it has brought along with it other fanciful aspects from previous designs, delicacies such as almond cakes and crème brulee.

The medium finish burns the tongue, but only a little. A drop or two of water and the bread cools enough to highlight the sweeter contours of the almond cakes.

Now, don’t get your hopes up. I’m listening, trying, and considering, but I’m not a convert to Canadian whiskies just yet. The only image that comes to mind to describe it is that I’m sort of like C.S. Lewis walking along with J.R.R. Tolkien to the zoo. All along the way, Tolkien used that time to talk with the atheistic Lewis. He didn’t become the world-renowned apologist and well-beloved author instantaneously. Instead, after a great many conversations, Lewis simply noted one day that he began his walk to the zoo with his friend as an unbeliever and by the time they arrived at the gates, he was a Christian.

I’m now quite interested, and with that, I’ll continue to walk with you. I can promise you that.

Review – Sutcliffe & Son, Exceptional Grain, Blended Scotch Whisky, 2nd Edition, (No Age Stated), 43%

[image error]I am, by no means, an expert in whisky. And I’ve never staked such a claim. Go anywhere you like within the confines of AngelsPortion and you’ll discover that I never even come close to hinting at such a title.

I refer to myself as an enjoyer—one who prefers whisky to beer, and a fine dram to a slender glass of wine.

You’ll notice that when you visit with me here in this place, you’ll rarely discover anything other than narrative reviews—stories—each one emerging from this or that corner of my imagination, all in place to help you in an original way to meet, remember, and perhaps choose this or that whisky.

Sometimes I’ll write a mildly tangential essay about something that interests me, such as ice in whisky as a sinless endeavor, or whether a Glencairn glass is actually better than a rock glass. I’ll even toss in a few short stories and a little bit of poetry just to keep you on your toes—but you won’t find articles, news items about distilleries or concerned dialogue expressing how Brexit is affecting the spirits market. When it comes to whisky, I would only be recycling what I’ve read as there are plenty of other sites that do this and with far better knowledge and skill. In fact, there are plenty of magazines and online news outlets to match and exceed them. I don’t like to re-tell the dry things. And I get the impression that you don’t need such information from me. Most folks who end up at my doorstep don’t require it. A singular stopover and they know that when they return, they’ll be welcomed to come right back in, they’ll take a seat at the bar, and they’ll choose from a selection of hundreds of yarns designed to do the one thing I told you already—assist in meeting, remembering, and choosing a whisky you will appreciate.

It is one thing to provide a litany of notes regarding congeners and formulas and processes and geography. It something altogether different when you’re standing in a shop and eyeing a particular edition on a shelf, and not only do you recall it being Darth Vader’s favorite, but you know why, and you know that it was a deeply emotional experience for the heart-broken Sith Lord. This stays with you. In the same way, it’s helpful for getting the upper hand in acquiring desirable whiskies when you know the latest release dates for the international duty-free shops around the world, but it is quite another thing to know that the whisky your friends sent you out to purchase was actually squeezed from the veins of the devil, and if you want to survive the night, you should choose another edition.

It takes a different sort of expertise to do this. This one I will claim. I am a story-teller. I adore language, almost as much as whisky, which is probably why I have invested such time and energy throughout the past few years into seeing the two of them married.

Some appreciate it. Others, as I know all too well, don’t. That’s okay. I’m not here to save the world. I’m here to make introductions. You can do the rest.

[image error]There’s a story behind this edition of the Exceptional Grain, but since I’ve already taxed enough of your time by way of explanation, I won’t give you the fuller rendition. Just know that there’s an authority that must come down from the realms of the divine before proprietors of such things have license to use the term “exceptional.” God does not deal lightly with the ones who steal it, neither does He forget to bless those who use it as He has afforded.

Rest assured that Sutcliffe & Son have a wonderfully gilded vellum, signed and rolled by the Lord Christ’s own hand, and wax-stamped and delivered by the Archangel Michael. Of course, I can only say that I know of it—particularly because of the whisky before me, now—but I cannot say that I’ve actually seen it. I know this much, that if anyone other than the recipient looks at it, that person dies. The Bible is pretty clear about the fact that the unrighteous cannot look upon the righteous and live.

Either way, I’m pretty sure the certificate exists because this is a righteously exceptional dram.

In the very first nosing, I took in some rather commanding peppermint notes. Once this was up and out of the glass, it was followed, almost rhythmically, by blood oranges and an emerging wash of vanilla. Some of it stayed for the first sip.

On the palate, there are cereal grains that emerge, and as they do, the citrus and vanilla return from their hovering realms, coming down alongside to flank as angels to the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant. Again, another hint that Sutcliffe & Son have permission to do this.

The finish is medium in length—just long enough to usher out what was mentioned above and then gather a taste of the altar incense that is the sherry oak barrel used to bring this delightful dram to maturity.

If you haven’t yet, give the Exceptional Grain a try, because I dare say that if all those days sitting at the feet of that kindly old Sunday School teacher wasn’t enough to convince you of the Divine Hand so regularly and generously giving over to the realms of man, my guess is that you didn’t stick around long enough for her to pull the object lesson from the satchel behind her back.[image error]

Thanks for sending along the sample, Scotch Test Dummies!

Review – Kavalan, Single Cask Strength, Peaty Cask, (No Age Stated), 58.6%

[image error]The conversation went something like this…

“Do you always dress like that?” the young girl at Panera Bread, maybe in her twenties, leaned over and asked. She was referring to my clerical collar.

“Yes,” I said not necessarily surprised. I get these kinds of questions a lot. “It’s the uniform for the office,” I said and took a sip of my coffee.

“But don’t you want to blend in a little more with rest of us?” she continued. “You know, to put yourself where everyone else is?”

“The absolute last thing I want to do is to blend in,” I answered. “And besides, my clerical collar has never really gotten in the way of putting myself into the situations of life where everyone else is.”

A look of astonishment emerging from her face, beginning first at the eyebrows and trickling down to a half smile, she offered, “But my pastor wears a tie. In fact, he wears some pretty crazy looking ones. He even has one that has Homer Simpson on it.”

“Great,” I said. “If that’s what he wants to do. I think it’s a bad idea. But hey, that’s just me.”

“Why’s it a bad idea?”

[image error]“Well, in a basic sort of way, uniforms help us know who to go to in certain situations. Say you suddenly found yourself in a sticky situation and in need of a police officer, would you hope to spot one by what he was wearing, or would you run around asking everyone if they happened to be one?”

“I’d probably just call 9-1-1,” she said trying to remain in her position.

“You could do that,” I affirmed. “Still, when help arrives, I’d be willing to bet that they’ll be wearing uniforms. You’ll know who can help you right away and you can go to them.” I could see that what I was saying was gaining some traction. “It can be the same for a pastor.” I called up another very practical example.

“Not all that far from my church is a very dangerous intersection. More than a few tragedies have occurred there, and of course if I’m ever travelling past an accident, no matter where it is, I always stop to ask if there’s anything I can do. A couple of years back, a man was in pretty gruesome accident at that intersection, and as I drove by, I stopped and got out and went to one of the officers to ask if I could help. He saw me in my collar, and said, ‘He’s probably not gonna make it, Father. He needs you right now.’ And then he let me pass straight to the scene. He knew why I was there just by looking at me. What I came to discover later was that his own Methodist pastor arrived right after me. Dressed in his business casual attire, in the swirling details of the event, he couldn’t get anyone’s attention through the police lines, and he didn’t have a form of clergy identification on him. No one asked me for ID. I was wearing it. Just because of the way I was dressed, I was able to be with that man in his last moments. I was able to hold his hand, to feel it clutching mine as he acknowledged his sin, and then I was able to tell him the good news of forgiveness in Christ. I was able to be there when he died. I was able to do all of this precisely because I didn’t blend in.”

“I never thought of it like that,” she said.

“Unfortunately,” I added, “fewer and fewer clergymen do either. They seem a little more interested in trying to be, do, and say what they think is culturally relevant, when in the end, like I sort of said already, what we do as pastors has never really run into the problem of being culturally irrelevant. In so many ways and for so many people, the pastors end up doing that to themselves. I mean, they make themselves irrelevant to what people actually need.”

She was still pondering, when I added a quick conclusion to opening point.

“I guess that in a way, the uniform of the pastoral office does more than make us stand out in a crowd. I think it sometimes puts a real person’s face to ‘hope’ in the middle of the daily chaos.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe.”

“But like I said,” I kept on, “this is just my opinion. I’m sure there are others out there who would argue everything I just said.”

“I think my own pastor would be offended by what you just said.”

“I’d hope not. I’m not offended by his ridiculous Simpson tie. I just wouldn’t ever wear one while serving in my role as pastor.”

The conversation continued for only a few more short moments, sharing back and forth what we love about our individual churches. We spoke to a few important doctrinal differences before she finally let me get back to my chicken salad sandwich that had gotten somewhat warm. In all, it was a pleasant conversation. I think it went well. And when it comes to post-modern millennials, these types of conversation can get ugly pretty quickly.

[image error]I should probably tell you something that I did not share in that conversation. I remember that day by the side of the road, not only as one where I was privileged to be part of something reaching well into eternity, but as a day I went home and popped open a bottle of whisky that had been sitting on my shelf unopened for some time—The Dalmore King Alexander III. Besides a prayer of humble thanks, that was the only other way to memorialize the moment. Now, the Kavalan Limited Edition Peaty Cask is not necessarily in the same arena as The Dalmore, but it is top-shelf enough for marking a day when a theological conversation in public had the potential for going south in a hurry but didn’t.

This is good stuff, a well-dressed Christmas gift to me from a fellow pastor who spends time in Taiwan where he acquired it.

The nose of this splendid undersized bottling is that of sour citrus—bitter oranges with barely smoky, cindering peels. The palate turns more toward lemons, but with a drop of water it becomes charred sugar and dried pine. In its conclusion, takes a rather drastic turn and washes out in a medium finish as corn peppers, wood char, and salt.

There’s a lot in this dram, and I would suggest a careful savoring of each sip before swallowing. You’ll remember it well. You’ll remember the day. And I dare say that if you manage to get your hands on your very own bottle, you’ll know toward which bottle you should steer when it is time to celebrate and remember.

Review – Laphroaig, PX Cask, (No Age Stated), 48%

[image error]Right now there are several pastor friends of mine on Facebook who appear to be nearing a cataclysmic brink. A few of them, in my opinion, need a stiff drink. Many, if not most, of these guys are brilliant, to be sure, but they also seem as though they may not have enough to do these days because they’re spending a good portion of their time looking for certain posts so that they can micro-criticize other pastors who, in my opinion, are cut from the very same theological cloth and are actually on their side.

Unfortunately, the situation has gotten out of hand. I say this because one fellow in particular targeted another fellow he considered an opponent, and then that other fellow made the stupid mistake of calling him out on Facebook, and for a short while it escalated to the other doing something similar followed by a massive conglomeration of oatmeal-brained supporters jumping in to secure the battle lines with some pretty ridiculous commentary.

And the whole thing went nowhere.

It’s very sad, but it’s also somewhat humorous. I wish I could say that the whole thing is stodgy and off-putting, but it’s not. It’s rather intriguing to behold, and here’s why.

First, because people have been using Facebook for a crap load of years now and they still haven’t seemed to figure out that it’s not the place for substantive debate or resolving differences of opinion. I’ve never seen anyone reconcile an argument through social media. Social media is the trough at which most folks gather to read and share only those articles that fit their well-established opinions, and it is the same place where you can take a quick and securely distant potshot at someone, and then when that person responds, you can accuse him of being a narcissist for thinking that the post was about him. And when that isn’t enough, in the commentary that follows, you can work to gather your forces to annihilate all those in opposition to you.

Oh yeah, and Facebook is also where you can keep up with old friends, that is until they feel as though you’ve offended them and they decide to annihilate or unfriend you, too.

Second, the situation I’m referencing above is intriguing because as you read the circus of words surrounding what could have been an important point, you come to realize that there are at least a few in the mix who seem to be more so aimed at showing themselves to be smarter than others rather than actually trying to reconcile any particular issue. I say this because one observer appears to have introduced himself more deeply into the mix by charting the microscopic layers of the rather innocent words and actions of one of the original players in order to find weaknesses, when in reality, I dare say that he’s probably said similar things before and neither he nor his Facebook friends have ever taken issue. And had this whole thing never occurred at all, odds are that no one in any of these threads would even be seeing these ghosts.

In the end, Shakespeare said it best: “One sees more devils than vast hell can hold.” This band of frenzied theologians is seeing a whole bunch of devils where there aren’t any. Wait, there are some, and they need to be stomped, but just not as many as some may think or believe. Just mostly egos.

So, like I said, a stiff drink is in order. My suggestion, friends: The Laphroaig PX Cask.

In this dram you’ll smell a little bit of the hell some of you seem so desperately set upon discovering in each other, but only in the sense that there’s smoke right out of the gate—not much, but some. It’s more of a gentle, more calming smolder, and as it turns out, you got this one all wrong. It isn’t a hellish foe, but rather a friend. It’s a peated campfire in Saint Peter’s back yard in heaven, and he’s got a newly uncorked bottle of sherry sitting downwind of the flames and sending what smells like dried Morello cherries to your nostrils.

Welcoming you to a seat by the fire, well aware that you are intent upon using some really big words while acting as children—some more so than others—he doesn’t differentiate between you, but rather hands each of you a dram. With a singular digit, he reaches out and tips the base so that you get a sizeable gulp. This stuff hurts you a little. It stops you where you are and prods you to take time to think things through before you post on Facebook. And as you do, you sense smoked and leathered fruits—plums and black raspberries hammered together and dried—two distinct fruits found as one palatable chew. Peter forces another swig, and this time you sense oily cloves.

The finish drifts away at a medium pace, leaving behind the campfire’s peat embers and more so the plums than the raspberries.

It’s nice. It’s a reconciling dram.

And if the clergy-foes would only allow a moment together with such a dram, they might be calmed and a tad more willing to look inwardly and realize, again, as Shakespeare said so well: “Small things make base men proud.”

Review – Sutcliffe & Son, The Exceptional Malt, Blended Scotch Whisky, 2nd Edition, (No Age Stated), 43%

[image error]Hey, look, a new Twitter follower. I love new friends. Let’s check this one out.

Seems interesting enough. Looks like he has a few thousand followers, but he’s just sort of retweeting a lot of what other folks are tweeting. Although, he does have a few original posts here and there. That’s cool. Yeah, I’ll follow him back. It seems like he could be an interesting source for whisky news and conversation.

Let’s see what’s going on in the Twitter whisky world…

(Click.)

Dum-dee-dum… hmm. Mark over at the Whisky Whistle has another great video review. And so do the Scotch Test Dummies. I need to remember to take some time tonight and watch. Always good stuff.

What I really should be doing is scrolling through my followers to jettison the spam accounts. There’re always a few that manage to sneak in. Might as well do it now while I have some time.

Hey, there’s the new guy I just followed. Right at the top of the list. Cool.

Okay, let’s see… Hmm… Good. Good. Good. Oh yeah, gotta get rid of this guy. With a handle like @12nxq09_ovbeXXX, there’s no way you’re legit. Click, and bye. You too, @place98_updistinctX20754. What the heck kind of Twitter handle is that? Sheesh. Click, and buh-bye.

Yep. Yep. Good. Good.

(Ding.)

Looks like @scotch_trooper just posted something. Let’s go check it out.

(Click.)

Nice. That Stormtrooper bottle is pretty nifty. Need to find one for myself. That’s something Darth would appreciate the next time we get together. I wonder if they sell a version of the Sith Lord’s helmet. I’ll look later. Okay, back to the cleanup.

(Click.)

Hey.

What the…?

The new guy is gone.

Wait… You’re kidding, right? Did he…? I’d better make sure.

(Click. Click. Click.)

He did! Man, I hate that.

You just followed me. I followed you back. Now you just unfollowed me? That’s a real cockroach thing to do. That’s right, you’re a Twitter follower-hoarding cockroach. Your goal isn’t to strengthen the whisky fabric, but rather to ascend toward popularity by stacking and staging your numbers.

Listen, pal. Numbers don’t necessarily prove anything. They’re nice, and they can certainly make someone appear prominent, but there needs to be a substance, an integrity, behind those numbers. When you do things like this, you sir, are a cockroach. You’re a Twitter scavenger—a bottom-dwelling, bait-and-switch scumbag set upon taking and giving nothing in return.

Say goodbye to @angels_portion.

(Click and click.)

I probably shouldn’t get so worked up over things like this, but hey, it’s all the reason I need to calm myself with a whisky sample recommended and sent by a Twitter pal who isn’t a cockroach.

[image error]This sample of the Exceptional Blended Malt that’s been sitting here a while, let’s give it a go.

Mmm. Smells nice. Malt. Go figure. There’s something fruity in there, too, though. (Sniff.) I’m guessing burgundy sweet-tart cherries. They’re sour cherries that want so desperately to be sweet. (Sniff.) There’s something else in this fine little dram. I smell Cheerios in warmed milk.

(Sip.)

Wonderful. I was right about the cherries, although they seem to be wrestling with a more neutral fruit—something like, I don’t know, maybe unsweetened applesauce. Could be. (Sip.) There’s the cereal, again. It’s not Cheerios, though. It’s a little sweeter than that, and it has some nuttiness. It’s Raisin Bran Crunch.

The finish is nice. Not too long. There’s the malt, again. The warmed milk in the nosing has become a little more like creamy vanilla.

Just what I needed to lower the blood pressure. Gentle and calming—integrous, well-crafted, and honest.

Unlike the Twitter insect I just flushed.

Review – Sutcliffe & Son, The Exceptional Malt, Blended Scotch Whisky, (No Age Stated), 43%

[image error]Hey, look, a new Twitter follower. I love new friends. Let’s check this one out.

Seems interesting enough. Looks like he has a few thousand followers, but he’s just sort of retweeting a lot of what other folks are tweeting. Although, he does have a few original posts here and there. That’s cool. Yeah, I’ll follow him back. It seems like he could be an interesting source for whisky news and conversation.

Let’s see what’s going on in the Twitter whisky world…

(Click.)

Dum-dee-dum… hmm. Mark over at the Whisky Whistle has another great video review. And so do the Scotch Test Dummies. I need to remember to take some time tonight and watch. Always good stuff.

What I really should be doing is scrolling through my followers to jettison the spam accounts. There’re always a few that manage to sneak in. Might as well do it now while I have some time.

Hey, there’s the new guy I just followed. Right at the top of the list. Cool.

Okay, let’s see… Hmm… Good. Good. Good. Oh yeah, gotta get rid of this guy. With a handle like @12nxq09_ovbeXXX, there’s no way you’re legit. Click, and bye. You too, @place98_updistinctX20754. What the heck kind of Twitter handle is that? Sheesh. Click, and buh-bye.

Yep. Yep. Good. Good.

(Ding.)

Looks like @scotch_trooper just posted something. Let’s go check it out.

(Click.)

Nice. That Stormtrooper bottle is pretty nifty. Need to find one for myself. That’s something Darth would appreciate the next time we get together. I wonder if they sell a version of the Sith Lord’s helmet. I’ll look later. Okay, back to the cleanup.

(Click.)

Hey.

What the…?

The new guy is gone.

Wait… You’re kidding, right? Did he…? I’d better make sure.

(Click. Click. Click.)

He did! Man, I hate that.

You just followed me. I followed you back. Now you just unfollowed me? That’s a real cockroach thing to do. That’s right, you’re a Twitter follower-hoarding cockroach. Your goal isn’t to strengthen the whisky fabric, but rather to ascend toward popularity by stacking and staging your numbers.

Listen, pal. Numbers don’t necessarily prove anything. They’re nice, and they can certainly make someone appear prominent, but there needs to be a substance, an integrity, behind those numbers. When you do things like this, you sir, are a cockroach. You’re a Twitter scavenger—a bottom-dwelling, bait-and-switch scumbag set upon taking and giving nothing in return.

Say goodbye to @angels_portion.

(Click and click.)

I probably shouldn’t get so worked up over things like this, but hey, it’s all the reason I need to calm myself with a whisky sample recommended and sent by a Twitter pal who isn’t a cockroach.

[image error]This sample of the Exceptional Blended Malt that’s been sitting here a while, let’s give it a go.

Mmm. Smells nice. Malt. Go figure. There’s something fruity in there, too, though. (Sniff.) I’m guessing burgundy sweet-tart cherries. They’re sour cherries that want so desperately to be sweet. (Sniff.) There’s something else in this fine little dram. I smell Cheerios in warmed milk.

(Sip.)

Wonderful. I was right about the cherries, although they seem to be wrestling with a more neutral fruit—something like, I don’t know, maybe unsweetened applesauce. Could be. (Sip.) There’s the cereal, again. It’s not Cheerios, though. It’s a little sweeter than that, and it has some nuttiness. It’s Raisin Bran Crunch.

The finish is nice. Not too long. There’s the malt, again. The warmed milk in the nosing has become a little more like creamy vanilla.

Just what I needed to lower the blood pressure. Gentle and calming—integrous, well-crafted, and honest.

Unlike the Twitter insect I just flushed.

Review – J.P. Wiser’s, Last Barrels, 14 Years Old, 45%

[image error]Reality TV. Puke.

How real is it, truly? Probably not very. I mean, these folks can’t be for real. She’s gotta be, what, fifteen? And he couldn’t be much older… with that trimmed Prince-like beard. He’s an engineer? She’s an interior designer? They were approved for a mortgage? And the budget is… wait… what? Seven hundred thousand?! I wouldn’t even let these two kids jump off of the high dive at the public pool without their parents signing a waiver and then getting it notarized. And even then, I’d make these tots wear life preservers. There’s no way they’re old enough for anything they’re doing right now.

As you may have guessed, I’m sitting in my chair, computer on my lap, and the blinding glory of house hunting millennials on HGTV.

I didn’t choose this channel. Jennifer did.

“You’re kidding me?!” she gasps. “Five hundred thousand for that?!”

I look up to see little Susie and Jimmy admitting to the ugliness of the home, but also talking about how they could spend the remaining $200,000 to make it—in their words—livable.

I say they should spend it to make the show watchable.

Good thing I have this sample of J.P. Wiser’s Last Barrels 14-year-old edition in hand to get me through this brain rot. It is one of several samples sent to me by a kindhearted friend from Canada who took a chance at sharing a few of his favorites; and what makes the gifting so tremendous is that my friend did so even as he was well aware that I might say before the multitudes—you—what I’ve said about so many other Canadian whiskies that have crossed my path. Sure, I’ve discovered one that goes well on pancakes (actually, scratch that; it ruined a perfectly good stack of flapjacks), I’m yet to sip one that is worth my hard earned dollars.[image error]

[image error]

But I have a feeling that’s about to change when I start popping open the various samples, because this Last Barrels edition isn’t half bad. In fact, it’s really pretty good.

The nose of this Canadian bauble is a friendly handshake and kindly track of butterscotch that’s trying really hard to be caramel. A swig reveals that the butterscotch is a little saltier than expected—but this is a good thing because it reveals a balance between the sweetness and the warmth of the alcohol. There’s also some woodiness to the palate, but it isn’t until the finish that the spiced oak truly reveals itself.

[image error]Again, I like this stuff. In fact, I’m at the edge of suggesting that some of our American whiskey producers could learn a thing or two from the folks at J.P. Wiser’s.

I wonder if the producers of America’s lame television selections could learn anything from the Canadians. I mean they did give us “Kids in the Hall,” Lorne Michaels, and so many other concretely entertaining shows and people. I recently discovered the “Trailer Park Boys” on Netflix. Now that’s superior reality TV for you, right there. Albeit staged liked “The Office,” but still, quality stuff. It’s like watching someone gut a talking fish. It doesn’t make sense, is humorous in an existential sort of way, and it’s guts are on display.

Okay, so I may be somewhat of a walking contradiction when it comes to discerning quality TV, but I do know my whiskies. Give the J.P. Wiser’s Last Barrels a try. It won’t disappoint.

Now, may we please change the channel and watch something a little more intellectually stirring—something like “Finding Bigfoot” or “Drunk History”?

———

* Thanks for the samples, George! I’m looking forward to trying the others!