A short review of whisky

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 January

Not in general, but a 16yo single malt*, which - for sport - I shall not name.

It has never been a great dram in my opinion, but I do still have a fondness for where it comes from, and from having it on board early on in my Scottish travels** (as the bottle lends itself to stowing away), and before I knew that place (and others and their scotch):


Here, where the human population is significantly outnubered by that of the fauna, one is two ferries from anywhere, and with a capital (where the distillery is, together with a small shop and the hotel, with its lively public bar and nice restaurant) that you can drive through in not much more than thirty seconds, I have twice stayed the night, and neither time did I have the inclination to do the morning distillery tour.

What the box (not a tube, in this case) told me, on the top and front, was that this one is dedicated to the inhabitants, and is 'rich and full-bodied' (on tasting, it was not, no more than the 10yo).

Drowning my sorrows later at spending £20 on the unremarkable (and, then, with the same distillery when I last did so on a dubious recommendation, at least I got a full bottle - 70cl - for only £2 to 3 more than this one, with its claims), I studied the piece of marketing that the box is:

* Well, there is the burnished bronze printing, including a special emblem, with which the photograph of what I take to be that place is overlaid - very classy!

* Then, along with that emblem and the attribution to the locals, the assertion that they 'are drawn to it above all others' - not at that price, I'll warrant (and there are, as I have said, very few people there)!

* Then, for all that the wording in the text above says, and also that a mathematical diagram puts it into a quadrant that denotes 'unpeated' and 'heavy / rich', another description states:

It's a subtle malt - unassuming, understated yet intriguing. Qualities often attributed to the [regional name for the locals] themselves.


Or what they meant was:

It tastes pretty much the same as the (supposedly contrasting) 'light / delicate' 10yo, but we're charging more!


End-notes

* I am glad that I only bought a half-bottle - 35cl - as a friend, who's in the trade, told me afterwards that he agrees that there is nothing special about it, even if it has been 'Nurtured for sixteen long years'. Sure they had some craic determining the wording on this box!

** It was also where I first learnt, from reading it in German on the box (it was not there in English), about adding caramel to malt whisky, which some say is fine and just evens out variations in colour (but caramel, of all things! how can that not affect the taste?), but others say imparts one that was not there - and some whiskies are sold on that feature (this one used to be - hence the bronze printing on the box ).


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