Due to inability to cope with excessive sun and heat and a high quantity of work I am still working my way through this backlog of tastings that I managed to amass back in Scotland earlier this January. I have a few more to publish so hopefully by the time I get the last of them out my body will have fully aclimatised to Peru and I can find some time to sit down and write a lengthy report about Pisco and its surrounding culture. Till then though there is the small matter of this and a couple of other interesting tastings to get through. Also I’m off to Huacachina this weekend. Huacachina is a small ‘Oasis’ in the desert that is supposed to be quite touristy and full of ‘Gringos’. Needless to say I am intrigued by the idea of an Oasis full of sunburned white people all attempting to find the gift shop. I intend to go along, drink cocktails in the shade and learn all about it. Stay tuned…

Today we’ll batter through three different Lagavulin. I don’t think there’s any need to repeat how frustratingly, frequently brilliant this distillery and its whisky is so lets just knuckle down and get on with the weighty task of tasting three almost certainly gorgeous Lagavulin. Lets start with an all time classic to establish a benchmark…

Lagavulin 16yo. OB. 2009/2010?. 43%. 70cl.

Colour: Light Amber

Nose: One of the most unmistakeable aromas in whisky land: Lagavulin. Wonderfully wild and vibrant coastal notes of brine, powerful seaweed, lemon juice, oysters and some rich, salty sherry notes in the background. Fantastic combination of the coastal aspects with all the medicinal complexities as well, mercurochrome, tincture, iodine and antiseptic all blustering around with more background notes of menthol toothpaste and mouthwash. Some wet earth and muscular, gristy peat as well.

Palate: Wonderfully dry and intense notes of seaweed, medicine, peat, tar and smoke, that intense dryness is the most unmistakable aspect of Lagavulin for me. Some gloriously chewy berry fruit qualities underneath all that Islayness and lots of sub flavours of kippers, old rope, sea salt, calpol and iodine. Perfect balance between classical peat flavours and medicinal notes. More seaweed and rugged briny seashore notes. Just brilliant!

Finish: Long, peaty, earthy, seaweedy, medicinal and Lagavuliny.

Comments: For me this is the not just the best standard bottling from all the Islay distilleries but arguably the best from any distillery, the unending consistency and quality is just spellbinding. Well worth the £45 price tag.

Score: 90/100

Lagavulin Managers Choice. OB. 1993-2009. 15yo. Sherry butt. Cask 4477. 612 bottles. 54.7%. 70cl.

Colour: Pale Gold

Nose: At first buttery and then pin sharp coastal notes full of kelp, kippers, iodine, lemon juice, sea salt, brine, crab meat, fresh fish, oil boilers, dill, marzipan, sack cloth and kreel nets. Staggeringly coastal and fresh, this eats right through to your brain with its witheringly precise aromas. Coal tar soap, pristine minerality, wet rocks, sheep’s wool, big notes of gentian root and some very clean, biting saltiness. With water: Little flecks of white stone fruits now with floral notes and a more delicate angle on the coastal elements. More sooty, gently waxy and citrusy.

Palate: Big and dry with lots of different herbs, peat oils, seaweed, lobsters, hessian, a little icing sugar and odd notes of mead. Very classical Lagavulin, in keeping with these various single casks they have been releasing for the feis ile in recent years. More notes of sheeps wool, iron, boiler sheds, iodine, lemon juice and coal. With water: notes of rusty iron, wet leaves, forest flora, mercurochrome, bandages, more minerals, flints and codliver oil.

Finish: Long and massive, full of brine, steel wool, wet rocks, menthol and sharp peat.

Comments: Top notch Lagavulin, as with all the various single casks and 12yo annual releases from recent years this should start to become utterly stellar after a couple of decades in the bottle. With most new peated whiskies these days being pretty boring these Lagavulins remain some of the few last outposts of phenolic fascination.

Score: 91/100

Lagavulin 21yo. OB. 1985-2007. Spanish sherry casks. 6642 bottles. 56.5%. 70cl.

Colour: Amber/Bronze

Nose: Like raw tar and jam in some kind of mad cocktail. Sweet, very oily peat with a creamy sherry quality bubbling underneath and then lots of smoky bacon and other cured meats. Freshly ground black pepper, fresh mint leaf, espresso, big notes of iodine, seawater and cigar smoke. Tincture, diesel oil, gentian root, juniper, manure, farmyards, cow sheds, fresh oysters and more thick, flinty sherry that carries hints of struck matches. Pretty stunning stuff really. With water there are lots of wet pebbles, hessian, sheep’s wool, minerals, struck matches, sinewy peat and punchy coastal/medicinal notes.

Palate: Coal and resinous peat at first, intensely rooty, earthy and oily with massive notes of soil, tar, hessian, damp dunnage warehouse, wild mushrooms, blue cheese, cigars, molasses, mint choc chip ice cream and boisterous, arguably dirty sherry. I can understand why some people don’t like this but I love it, I think the rugged and slightly unclean nature of the sherry really bolster the classical Lagavulin characters. With water: it is still massive with immense peat, coal, tar, lanolin soap, grizzly phenols and engine oil with walnut oil and marzipan in the background. Camphor, rapeseed, gorse bushes, big bonfire smokiness, massive notes of creosote and preserved lemons.

Finish: Epic!

Comments: This dram divided people on release, some love its dirty aspects some just think it’s unclean. I love it, I think those slightly dirty sherry notes are never overpowering but are in fact playful and gloriously balanced with the natural characters of the Lagavulin make. Maybe I’m biased because it was distilled in the year I was born, anyway, it’s stunning.

Score: 94/100

This post is something out of time a little bit as it concerns neither whisky tasting nor peruvian travels, it is also sadly overdue as it really should have been written a couple of weeks ago when Gerry Rafferty sadly passed away. For those of you who are not familiar with Gerry Rafferty you will probably know him as the author of the famous song ‘Baker Street’ with its timelessly mind burrowing saxophone solo. To me and countless others though he remains one of the finest Scottish songwriters of all time. He was a quiet musician, unconcerned with the trappings or powers afforded a man by fame and money. He was concerned more deeply with the point and craft of songwriting and the expressive powers that lay within.

Gerry’s first serious musical foray was with Billy Connolly in The Humblebums, after which he formed Stealers Wheel with Joe Egan, a partnership which produced his other famous composition ‘Stuck In the Middle With You’. But with Gerry Rafferty the devil really is in the detail, his finest songs are his quieter more reflective ones. I always thought he shared something with George Harrison in that he is often brushed aside as easy listening MOR fare by most brainless music critics who’s sole investment in the music is a quick skim through a greatest hits album. In reality his songs display a rare maturity, their taught and disciplined structures are designed around melody and precision rather than excess and self indulgence. The lack of garish or intrusive solos and instrumentation (Baker Street is the one notable exception here) leave harmonically lush platforms from which to let the lyrics and melody speak loud and clear. If you read much of the music posts on this blog you’ll know my musical tastes lean heavily towards the idea of songcraft and the work of the song writer. Gerry Rafferty was one of the great unsung song craftsmen, he had great natural affinity with the ticks and bones of music, it makes so many of his songs feel effortless. Perhaps that’s why he was so often dismissed as ‘easy listening’, maybe people were just not really aware of what they were hearing.

That was ‘Night Owl’, the title track from his 1979 album. It’s one of his best songs in terms of sheer craftsmanship, emotive yet precise and controlled, every instrument in close alignment with each other, in other words every individual part serving the greater whole of the song. It is the radio side of Rafferty, the side that is often played on classic rock stations, the sort of music that is too easily filed under the ‘Dad’s driving music’ category. It is an odd state of affairs that the moderate success he had actually served to make his greatest abilities more obscure in many ways. But that obscurity was perhaps inevitable, he disliked the music industry and there was always a distance inherent in his songs. There is no overt effort in them to lay the narratives bare or hand their meanings to the listener on a plate. He wrote and sang those songs most of all for himself, a musical pressure valve that he periodically tapped into because it was what made him tick, not for the gratification of those that might hear it. He enjoyed the ultimate obscurity he achieved, he was rarely recognised in the street and was at liberty to record if and when he felt like it with little pressure for commercial success. He lived comfortably due to his yearly income of at least £80,000 per year from the revenue of Baker Street alone, although this was probably his undoing in the end. At this point I would usually write some nonsense about pairing a suitable whisky to go with his music but Gerry Rafferty was an alcoholic, a vice he never conquered and from which he died only a few weeks ago, so I think on this occasion we’ll forgo the whisky pairing. After all, who really needs anything to drink to truly enjoy music, who needs anything but ears? Gerry was a valuable commodity in this world, a creature that arrived and created honest and meaningful music. Music that was conjured up without political design or strange motivation. He did not use what fame he garnered to grind a personal agenda or half heartedly attempt to raise awareness on behalf of issues or causes that tickled his fancy. He simply wanted to make music and he did so in a unique and beautiful fashion, and although he paid a heavy price for it in the form of alcoholism and depression in parts of his own life, the rest of us are a little richer for having his songs to listen to. This is my favourite, ‘Whatever’s Written In Your Heart’ from his finest album ‘City To City’, an album you should all own.

STOP THE PRESSES!!!!

It seems that there is a God. Well, at least there is someone with a good sense of humor in the ‘Scottish Spirits’ Company, this bastion of malty goodness from the global whisky capital of Panama has come up with this…

Whisky right... but in a CAN!!! How post-modern is that!

Yes… Whisky in a can!!!! It’s on sale in South America and the Caribbean only right now sadly but on the plus side I am spending a whole heap of time in South America this year so I hope to bring you tasting notes very soon on this piece of tinned history. It seems that there is some controversy however from the boring old farts err… I mean the good folks at the Scotch Whisky Association. Read all about it in this article in the Daily Record, Scotland’s daily chip wrapper. It seems they also thought to ask a certain Mr Murray what he thought of ‘cangate’, let me nab a wee quotation for you…

“It might catch on somewhere, but you probably wouldn’t want whisky in cans for too long because it would affect the taste. And this isn’t proper Scotch. I taste around 3000 types a year and I’ve never come across these brands. I can’t see it taking off in Scotland. A can would cheapen a product that Scots are rightly proud of.”

Well Jimbo of the 3000 drams, it seems like someone needs a sense of humor transplant. Affect the taste? Yes but who gives a great big dollop of flying pot ale what it tastes like, it’s whisky in a bawbaggin can for fuck’s sake! Its a novelty, a party piece, it’s 33cls of pure, tin wrapped cool and the guaranteed focal point of every awesome party worth its weight in whisky. I’m sure you do fling your whiskery gums around 3000 assorted drams every year Jimbob but seeing as you once scored the Ardbeg/Glen Moray redux bottling ‘Serendipity’ an astonishing 96 points out of 100, I’m inclined to think that you wouldn’t know a good whisky if it gave you a haircut and shat in your cornflakes. I suspect you would score any canned whisky low, even if the content was nectar from the teat of the whisky goddess herself. As for it not taking off in Scotland, when was the last time you visited a part of Scotland that isn’t Bonnie Doon Jimmy? I don’t know if you’ve heard but Scottish people rather like drinking, partying and generally having a laugh, this can needs to be brought forth into celtic climes. It is virtually crying out to be quaffed ironically by students while they make witty comments about how bad it is and wash it down with a quick frosty flagon of Tennents on the side. As Serge Valentin wrote on whiskyfun the other day…

“…we need more fun, but the way single malt Scotch is marketed is generally everything but fun…we need more fun, and perhaps a little more humility…”

Well I don’t know about you all but I think whisky in a can sounds pretty fun, it might not be great whisky but then who ever expected to stagger into the party at 1am and shout loudly to you host: “Hey Jimmy, crack us a can of that 1946 Macallan!” I welcome the can, long may it provide some much needed comic relief.

Anyway this is what this post was originally going to be about… a simple Glen Ord tasting.

I remember when there was a deal on in most whisky shops, and even some supermarkets, about ten years ago now, where you could buy two bottles of any of the classic malts and get a bottle of Glen Ord 12yo free, they couldn’t even give the stuff away. It’s a shame really because Glen Ord is a delicious wee dram when it wants to be, a big, bold, muscular, honied highlander, it reminds me of my first girlfriend in many ways. So today, in the name of fun and science, we’ll try a couple of ‘Ordies’.

Glen Ord 21yo. Douglas Laing OMC. Ref: OMC1935. 50%. 70cl.

Colour: Very pale white wine.

Nose: Very crisp notes of white fruits, flowers and minerals initially with quite a bit of citrus, motor oils, camphor, hessian and flinty notes. Quite an old school nose with a taught and well structured aromatic profile. Dried herbs, chicken liver pate, lanolin, more lemony notes, sherbet, icing sugar, candy floss and wild flowers.

Palate: Soot, ash, tar and big white fruits with lots of elderberries, minerals, smoky bacon, nettles, pebbles, flints, dusty malt barns, mixed nuts and herbs like dill, chives, thyme and oregano. Then flavours of tapioca pudding, cactus, nutmeg and quite a big dollop of honey. Not particularly complex but this is wonderfully austere, bold and unsexy highland whisky. I love it.

Finish: Long, mineraly, earth and herbaceous.

Comments: I think Glen Ord is one of the few distilleries that is still producing a make similar to many of those old Highlanders that Diageo closed in the eighties. This one was a great surprise and very typical of the make.

Score: 89/100

Glen Ord 1973-1997. 23yo. OB ‘Rare Malts’. 59.80%. 75cl.

Colour: A richer white wine

Nose: It is quite striking how similar this one is to the OMC bottling in many ways. This one is just richer and oilier with big notes of petrol, old herb liqueurs, white stone fruits, ripe pears, big minerality, some coastal notes, coal tar soap and brown bread. It becomes maltier and meatier with time with notes of cooked ham, smoky malted barley and salty pancetta coming through. Really old school and rich on the nose so far and surprisingly the high alcohol is quite unintrusive. With water: lots of drying cereal notes and some hints of starfruits, mangoes and candied citrus peel.

Palate: Lots of heather, massive herbaceous qualities and really oily notes full of wax, minerals and lots more of these beautiful white fruit notes. Some salty phenols, soft honey notes, more petrol, guavas, apricot eua de vie, paint and baking soda. With water: lots of waxy hessian, engine oil, sheeps wool, little metallic touches, wet earth, mushrooms and steak pie. The flavours remain big, powerful and focused, very compelling whisky.

Finish: Long, salty, meaty, malty, oily, difficult and fruity.

Comments: This is surprisingly similar in many ways to the Douglas Laing bottling, it’s just a much richer and more powerhouse version of the same distillate. I really think Glen Ord is a truly unsung whisky, but then again that’s a good thing too because it helps keep the prices down for those of us that have seen the light. Shame they’ve moved it to foreign markets are are no longer giving it away. Wonderful, flavoursome, individual and very charismatic whisky.

Score: 91/100

Glen Ord in a can… now there’s an idea…