Fortan

The Cabinet had it's 99th meeting on Thursday evening. You read that correctly. We have met 99 times since that auspicious inaugural event on January 15, 2010 (subsequently proclaimed as "World Cabinet Day", if you weren't aware). You can be assured that the 100th meeting this December will be appropriately marked. Dignitaries have been invited at attend. Complex preparations are being made.

This 99th meeting was more ordinary. No dignitaries. No pipe and drum band. No extra extra special bottle. During most of our meetings, we examine a region, or a style, or find some other common thread to bind the selected whiskies. This time, however, we left it up to luck, or "fortan" (FOR-shtan), as they allegedly say in Scottish Gaelic. This meant writing the names of the 44 bottles of whisky we currently have in our stocks on slips of paper and placing them in the Ceremonial Laphroaig Hat. Six members were in attendance and each drew a selection. As we only do four pours per meeting, the last three draws were pooled for us to pick a favourite from. This was to mitigate the possibility of drawing only unloved whiskies. (Which was, in fact, The Cabinet Secretary's dark purpose as he continues to seek ways to make use of those bottles.)

But there was no need. "Fortan" smiled, and all six selections were greeted with delight, or something very closely resembling it.

1. The King's Inch - A lovely full-bodied lowland, with notable sweetness. A good opener, but alas there was only enough left in the bottle for each member to have a dribble. (Insert obvious joke regarding the King's "Inch".) 

2. Caol Ila 12 Year Old - This is the business. Old leather and pipe tobacco.

3. Laphroaig Select - The is the business's cooler older brother. As one member put it, an ashtray that's been left out and covered in morning dew. Now, if that doesn't make your mouth water, you have no business being near a bottle of scotch.

4. Bowmore 15 - To be frank, by this point my palate was blitzed, but the dark fruit and subtle peat still came through. I'm sure there was "a bunch of other stuff" too, and we all loved it, but we were also all distracted by stories of dead Delica vans and giant metal moose.

5. Two Brewers (Yukon) - To compensate for the very low volume first pour, we allowed ourselves a fifth. This is obviously not a scotch whisky, but it is a good whisky nonetheless. Very round in the mouth and pleasingly malty. 

(Incidentally, the remaining draw was Kilchoman Machir Bay, also very worthy.)

On to Meeting #100!

Slainte!

It's All New

The Cabinet met last week in our Summer Quarters on the banks of the Assiniboine River to enjoy four whiskies that were new to us. The Two Brewers Yukon Single Malt was a donation from a traveling member, whereas the Ardnahoe Bhosa, Highland Park 15, and Macaloney Peat Project were purchased from the leftover stock of a local whisky festival. None of these are normally available in Manitoba.

In keeping with the theme of newness, I will present this post in the form of a tanka (a slightly longer haiku):

The cool night seeps in,

Seven friends, drinking, talking,

Whisky and words flow,

 It is all new, yet old too,

Like the darkening river.

Slainte!

Going Low

Asked to picture "Scotland", almost everyone thinks of the Highlands. On the one hand, it makes sense because the most iconic scenery is there and it comprises about half the land mass, but on the other hand, only 10% of the population lives there. 80% live in the Lowlands. (For the mathematically inclined among you, the missing 10% is distributed between the islands, and the non-Highland areas north of the Lowlands.) Moreover, and of interest to the readers of this blog, the Lowland Whisky region has 20 distilleries, only 5 less than the mainland portion of the Highland Region. However, whereas I'd be surprised if you couldn't rattle off the names of a dozen Highland whiskies, I'd be even more surprised if you could name any from the Lowlands other than Auchentoshan. If this is true, you're in for a treat. By the end of this blog post, you'll be able to name two more. (Maybe three if you pay careful attention.)

But first a short anecdote about Scottish drinking habits. A couple of years ago my wife and I were staying at a small castle hotel in the Highlands. The other guests were a group of serious looking Scandinavian women and a stag hunting party from just outside Edinburgh, i.e. in the Lowlands. My favourite thing to do at the end of the day was to go get a whisky from the bar and sit in a big leather armchair by the fire in the lounge. You'd think that that would be everybody's favourite thing to do, but I was often there by myself. Go figure. However, one evening I was joined by a gentleman about my age all kitted out in what I took to be stag hunting attire. We exchanged pleasantries and then we got into a detailed discussion about his day stag hunting, or rather, 'deer stalking' as it was done on foot with a small group, whereas 'stag hunting' is more accurately applied to a larger group on horseback with dogs. He had a fascinating story, but it is well beyond the scope of this blog, so you can relax, I'm about to mention scotch. He eventually asked what I was drinking. It was a Talisker. He scoffed. "You Americans..." he said. I cut him off, "Canadian!" "Right, sorry. Americans and Canadians, then. You're always drinking that peaty crap. We Scots don't touch that stuff."

And he's right. Famous Grouse and Dewars far outsell the single malts in Scotland, and among the single malts, the lighter Highland and Lowland whiskies are favoured. Islay mostly produces for export. 

This implies that the Highland and Lowland whiskies are similar, which is true, but there are a few theoretical distinctions. The Lowland whiskies are often triple-distilled, similar to Irish whiskey, and they are never peated, whereas some Highland malts may be lightly peated. 

Historically, we've only been able to get the Auchentoshan in Winnipeg, and occasionally a Glenkinchie. But a couple years ago, the King's Inch was briefly available, and now the Glasgow 1770. So those two, plus an Auchentoshan Three Wood became our Lowland lineup. 

What can I say about these? They're all very simple and straightforward. No faults or unpleasantness. Just rich malt and alcohol. Also a touch floral perhaps, and the Glasgow 1770 hinted of peach or apricot. Nothing here to blow your socks off. But sometimes, you just want to keep your socks on. Sometimes you want to be like a proper Scot. They may not always wear pants, but, to make this metaphor scream in pain, they apparently always wear socks. Also, these Lowlands were very inexpensive, so from a value for money perspective, they did very well.  However, we finished with the non-Lowland (Islay, in fact) Scarabus. Yes, it was time for the socks to come off, which they did. It was good to be proper Canadians again.

Given that two of our selections were from Glasgow (King's Inch in addition to the obvious one), I'll close with a brief Glasgow anecdote. A  number of years ago a friend and I hiked the West Highland Way. The night before flying home we hit the town in Glasgow. We were at one pub, which was quiet by local standards, when the door opened and someone in a full hazmat suit walked in. He strode purposefully across the room and went out through a door behind the bar. Nobody batted an eye. We didn't see him again. This sums Glasgow up nicely. I loved it.

Slainte!

p.s. Special thanks to our guest, James, for his marvelous painting of our group.

The Sea, The Sea

The Cabinet assembled last week with a full complement of members, plus an excellent guest. That already was an auspicious start to what became a most excellent meeting. 

As Cabinet Secretary, it is my job to select the whiskies to be sampled for most of the meetings, the year-end "Member's Choice" night being the exception. This is obviously undemocratic, but it is done for sound practical reasons. Identifying mutually acceptable dates for our meetings is already so complex that I quail at the thought of what picking whiskies together would look like. Not even herding cats. More like herding cheetahs. I usually pick the whiskies in accordance with a theme, however loosely defined. This is, of course, unnecessary, but it's nice to have some sort of organising principle, and anchor for comparison and conversation. 

With that in mind, I cast about for options and noted that our local liquor purveyor had recently brought in a few bottles of Old Pulteney 15 year old. The Cabinet holds the 21 year old in very high esteem, so this seemed like it would be worth a look. I noted that the label promised a "hint of sea salt", and several reviewers mentioned this as well, including one who promised "salty pretzels". This struck me as improbable, but I was curious. This may make me a Bad Scotch Drinker, but I'll confess to having only very rarely detected salt in whiskies that were alleged to feature it. And then, only a faint trace, and only on suggestion. For seaside distilleries, the theory behind how salt would get in there in the first place is sound, I suppose, so maybe I just hadn't paid enough attention, or the right kind of attention. It was time to find out.

We had an Oban 14 and a Talisker 10 in our stocks already, both of which have been reported to have sea salt in their flavour profile, so that was the evening's tasting lined up, plus a surprise brought by the guest. I'll get to the surprise in a moment.

First the Oban 14. A nice opener. Relatively simple, but never disappointing. But no salt. Not for me or anybody else.

Then the Old Pul 15. A lot of this is a question of expectations, and the expectations were high, so perhaps the disappointment was more related to that than to the objective quality. But we were disappointed. It came across as a touch thin and one-dimensional. Not terrible. Not at all. But not $160 worth. And no salt.

What can I say about the Talisker 10 that hasn't been said before? It never disappoints. It is a classic for a reason. But again, no salt.

Now, the guest's whisky. He brought an Octomore 14.2. You can hardly imagine a more generous or apt offering. This was not only the best whisky of the evening by a wide mark, but the best whisky we've sampled in many meetings. Depth, complexity, finish, it was all there, including the much sought after hallelujah moment*. Oh, the glory! And salt? Yes, even a doubter like me tasted salt. I wasn't imagining it. I'm sure of it.

Slainte!

*The scotch tasting equivalent of the moment when the sun suddenly breaks through the clouds, illuminating you like a blessed figure in a Renaissance painting. The world is flawless and bright, and, ever so briefly, it makes perfect sense.