The Whisky Differential

From Glenfiddich website

Well, it pays to advertise!

          I swear, when I ended my last post with a plea for a supply of whisky, it was a joke, and not meant to influence Christmas presents - but I can't honestly say I'm sorry that it did.
          My lovely Scot usually buys me a bottle of whisky for Christmas, and he came through, as always, this year, with a bottle of Aberlour.
          My older brother (the one who does my indie covers) always complains that he never knows what to buy me - and that I'm no help when I say, 'Nothing. Or maybe a tobelerone.' Well, this year, he bought me a bottle of Glenfiddich.
          And my younger brother and his lovely wife bought me a bottle of - yes - Laphroig. Whether this means they read my blog or whether there was just a certain amount of fraternal discussion, I don't know.

          Anyroad up, Shucks, this puts me in the happy position of being able to make direct comparisons between three single malts. Believe me, this is a blog I am going to enjoy writing.
         I can't claim any expertise, or a refined palate. I just like

The red circle shows (very roughly) the Speyside area

single malt whisky

Monday
Glenfiddich. The distillery is in Speyside, up in the Highlands. and it's still independent. The nearest big town is Inverness. The name means 'Valley of the Deer.'
      I haven't drunk a glass of Glenfiddich for many a long year and remember it, and Glenlivit, as being pale and lemony. 
     So the first surprise is that it's much richer and more golden in colour than I remember. The scent was different from my memories too: richer and, while fruity, not citrus or lemony at all. I sniffed it for a while, trying to place the scent - until I read the label and it claimed 'pear' as the fruit it resembled. And yes, though I'm wary of being influenced by advertising, I can go with that. There's that round, sweet, juicy pear-drops smell.
     So I took a sip - and it's very sweet. And very warming. I don't find the lemon flavour I remember at all. Complete memory fail there. Instead, it's all honey - with just a little hint of fire as it goes over the tonsils. (I gave the older brother a nip. He claims not to like whisky at all - but he certainly took to the sweetness of Glenfiddich.)
     The distillery claims it has earned the highest awards of any single malt, and I can understand why it would be popular. I don't mean that as a put-down, either. I mean, simply, that it's honey-sweet and warming, slips down like a bedtime drink, and is delicious. Why wouldn't a lot of people like it?

Tuesday.
Aberlour. Another Speyside malt, made beside the river Lour. It's pronounced 'Abba-LOW-er, and the name means 'Mouth of the Chattering Burn.' Or so it says on the website. If you want to see beautiful photographs, combined with loads of old tosh about druids and ancient traditions invented last week in an advertising agency, I recommend the websites of single malt whisky distilleries. But that's by the by. I'm here to drink whisky.

From the Aberlour website

          When poured into the glass, Aberlour is a much deeper gold than Glenfiddich, an autumnal orange. My first sniff immediately made me think of fruit-cake. There is that spicy fruitiness.
          Despite smelling like cake, the taste is much less sweet than Glenfiddich, though just as warming. There is a rather citrus taste to this one, like candied peel in a fruit cake. And that smell... What is the most predominate smell of fruit-cake? Warm, slightly burnt sugar perhaps? Butteriness? Raisins? Nutmeg?
          Then, when you swallow, there's a slight bite, a little heat, but nothing harsh. The warmth stays with you. It's delicious.

Wednesday
Laphroaig. The famous Laphroaig  - which I realise I've been misspelling. Here's Brian Cox, showing how to pronounce it.

          It comes from the opposite side of Scotland to the other two - from Islay in the Hebrides. Their advertising company isn't as keen to find a romantic sounding translation of the name, but manage to suggest that it derives from the Norse for 'broad bay.' They boast about being 200 years old and put film of Charlie Windsor - in a kilt yet - on their website. Honestly, if I didn't like malt whisky so much...
          But the whisky. When poured from the bottle it's much

darker than the others, almost the deep orange-brown of tea. And the smell is very different. Seaweed and smoke - it's always referred to as 'peat-smoke' but reminds me of the scent of woodsmoke from bonfires on the beach. There's still a little bit of that nutmeg, spice and honey.
          The longer you hold the glass to your nose and sniff, the more the smell of smoke fades and the honey comes through. Something of chocolate and something of flowers.
     When you taste it - there's almost too much going on for an amateur like me. It's less sweet again, and that slightly bitter, smoky bite hangs around warmly at the back of your throat for quite a while, as with ginger or chili in a curry. I suppose that's what the tasters call 'the long finish.'
         I suddenly realised what an element of the taste and smell reminds me of - tar! The hot tar that used to be spread on the roads when I was a child, and which we would go and sniff.
          Laphroaig has a whole section of its website dedicated to fans' descriptions of its flavour. 'Deck shoes' and 'sailors' socks' seems to feature quite a lot - and tar. Tar and honey.
          And ashes, I would say. And earth.
          It's delicious.

          Thank you to all the lovely people - take a bow, Patti and Adam, Davy and Andrew - who bought me a bottle of single malt. And all different! It has been a real pleasure, trying them in turn like this and comparing them.
          Conclusions? - I love them all! It's been great getting reacquainted with Glenfiddich, which I had unfairly come to think of as rather bland. It is a very approachable and friendly single malt, but so sweet and warm and delicious, how can you not love it?
          Aberlour has been a favourite for a while - it's like drinking fruit-cake, so how can you not love that?
          Laphroaig is the scary, peaty one, with the difficult name and the smell of kippers and rubber. The brother recoiled from the glass when I offered him a nip. "Too much for me," he said - but, y'know, once you get to know it, it drops the hard-man act and you find the honey.
          I really couldn't choose a favourite - and I'm going to have a difficult decision to make with every dram over the next few months. Which bottle?

          I raise to you the parting-glass...
          Goodbye! - And a happy 2016 to you all! 

A Spiritual Revelation: Single Malt Whisky

Comedian Rich Hall

I once saw the comedian Rich Hall addressing an audience. He asked if there were any Scottish people in. Answering roars told him that some people came from Edinburgh
          "Ah, Edinburgh," he said. "I once had a spiritual revelation in Edinburgh. It was called, 'Single Malt Whisky.'"
          I feel much the same, though my spirituous revelation didn't happen anywhere in Scotland - and it happened well before I met my Scottish partner. I was already a faithful drinker of single malts by the time I met the Scot.
          It was another man who, one evening, asked me what I was drinking. "Whisky." I said, and his interest was piqued. Which whisky did I favour? - and he reeled off a few of the single malts.
          "Oh, just get me a whisky," I said, in my ignorance. "Doesn't matter which one - I don't believe in all that marketing hype about single malts."
          He was offended. It was not mere marketing hype, he said. A single malt was vastly superior to the cheap, blended stuff. It was made in the place it was named after, from local water and grain. It was lovingly aged - and ya-da-yah, as I thought then, he spouted all the marketing rubbish about sherry and oak casks.
          "It's just branding," I said. "It's just an excuse to charge more."
          Allow him, he said, to do me a kindness and prove me wrong. Allow him, if I would, to buy me a couple of different single malts. Taste them, and then tell him that there was no difference between them and the likes of Jack Daniels, Bell and Johnnie Walker.
          Well, okay, I said, if you're paying.

          I always liked whisky best, of all spirits, ever since I used to sip from older relatives' glasses as a child. But whenever I drank it, the harshness of the alcohol made me shudder to my toes. That was the price, I thought, of liking whisky. You had to put up with the shudder.
  

        I can't remember which whiskys the gentleman bought me. Since he knew he was dealing with a beginner, it was probably a couple of the softer ones. Maybe a Glenfiddich or a Glenlivit for one - they are light, pale yellow and have a lemony, citrusy taste. And perhaps a richer, fruit-cakey one, aged in sherry-casks, such as an Aberlour.
          And it was a spiritual revelation. I drank and I didn't shudder. I realised what 'smooth' means, when applied to spirit. The single malts were so well made and aged that they slipped down with nothing more than a warm glow - and a wealth of flavours.

          Once you're converted, there are so many to try! Jura, Auchentosh, Glenmorangie, Talisker, Dalwhinnie, Craganmore...
All of them a little different. When I did meet the Scot, he told me that his father had been a whisky cooper, and in the course of cooping barrels for many different distilleries, had sampled many, many different whiskys. It was his experienced and considered opinion that the best of them all was a 10-year old Macallan. It didn't, to his taste, improve for being 12, 15 or 30 years old. The ten year old Mac: that was the one.
          And it is excellent - as is Bushmills Irish single malt, though the Scots of my acquaintance frown on Irish whiskys (and, for that matter, American and Japanese 'whiskys.' If it's not from Scotland, it's not whisky, is their thinking.)
          Personally, though, after years of trying different single malts, I'm coming to the conclusion that the best of the lot is, as many agree, Islay's Laphroig. (It's pronounced 'La-FROYg.)

          Scots friends have put forward Lagvulan as their favourite. It's very good - I've yet to meet a single malt I didn't like - but good as it is, it's not Laphroig. 

          I didn't think so when I first tasted Laphroig, years ago. I thought it smelled and tasted like burning rubber or kippers. I much preferred the lighter malts, like Glenfiddich or Oban. Or Highland Park from the Orkneys.
          But, gradually, I learned to like it. Peat smoke and honey is one of those poetic tasting descriptions for Laphroig, and the last time I drank some, I could appreciate what that meant. I could taste the sweeter honey notes coming through the harshness of smoke and iodine. I had another spiritual revelation: I realised I loved Laphroig.

          Still, it doesn't matter: mild Glenfiddich or smoky Laphroig, or spicy Aberlour, or any of the others, there is no spirit that has so much warmth and so many layers and variations in flavour as single malt whisky. I love the stuff.
          I tried to repay the gent who convinced me of the worth of single malt a few months ago. I was passing the shelf of whisky in a well known supermarket, and saw a lady looking confused in front of them. So I went over to check out my next purchase (single malts are my only extravagance) and asked her which one she fancied herself.
          She told me she knew nothing about whisky, but had been charged by her friends with the task of buying a bottle for their retiring manager - who it seemed they all liked. He was a whisky drinker, she said, so they thought a bottle of - and she waved vaguely towards the blends. But now she was here, there were so many different kinds and she was confused.
          Buy him a single malt, I said. If he's a whisky drinker, he'll be grateful. I think I steered her to an Oban in the end - a little bit smoky, but with a spicy, citrus sweetness too.

          This blog comes to you with the faint, but very real hope, that a whisky distillery will be overcome with Christmas good cheer and grant me a lifetime's supply of single malt.
          Or even a single bottle. Go on.
          Just one.
          Go on, go on.