Well I’m back from my holidays and I was going to start up again with a tasting but sadly I am still shaking off the after effects of the man-lurgie. Hopefully tomorrow will bring clear noses and fresh palates but in the meantime we can while away the time with some meandering cinematic musings, namely around the film Lawn Dogs.

Lawn Dogs is one of those rare things, a great wee film. Its the sort of film you sit down to watch and as it unfolds you quickly start to wonder why you haven’t seen or heard of it before. It wasn’t particularly obscure when it was released but for some reason or another it has slipped out of people’s collective mind with the passing of time. Maybe its the fact that it touches on some quite thorny issues and does so in a wholly uncompromising way. It is also an unashamedly intellectual, imaginative and emotional film, a funny, complex and ultimately tragic modern fable. One of those films that restores any cinematic faith that might have been recently shaken free by a trip to see 2012 or Transformers 2. You watch with that glowing sense of joy that you have stumbled across a hidden gem, something you can then take further joy in sharing with someone else, watching them glow with the same rush of discovery.

It is ultimately quite a sad film in many ways, even the most private and joyous moments between the two central characters are set against a dark, invisible social backdrop that bears down increasingly upon them. The film laments the failing of human relationships and the ruinous victory of ignorance and narrowness of mind over love and understanding. It also turns in a heart rending expose of the pain of growing up and coming to terms with the fantasy crushing reality of adult life. It is poignant but funny and beautiful in its execution.

Queen Of The Moorlands 1997 heavily peated Bunnahabhain, hits you in the face like a shovel of peat that's been marinading in oloroso sherry overnight.

Those films like Lawn Dogs that have that ‘hidden gem’ quality to them have a natural affinity with the whisky lover’s mentality, we’re always on the lookout for new, obscure, undiscovered glories. That sense of excitement when a whisky takes us completely by surprise, it can’t really happen with many obvious drams, if we’re presented with an old single cask Ardbeg or an early Macallan 18yo for example, we’re obviously expecting great things. Its when we get the rug pulled from under our feet by a random Braeval or Edradour (ok maybe not an Edradour), whiskies that are not always the most earth shattering posses the greatest potential to wow us when they really shine. Bunnahabhain, in all honesty, perhaps belongs more to the former category than the latter but it can be variable. Anyway one of the last drams I had that really surprised me was a Bunnhabhain. I tried it at a tasting during the Islay festival in May, it was the Queen Of The Moorlands festival bottling, a heavily peated 1997 Bunna from a sherry hogshead. It had that wonderful flavour that you can only get in whisky when you combine massive peat with thick, heavy sherry character. It was sweet, oily, briny and full of that wonderful medicinal sarsaparilla character. Sometimes the best things in life are those that take us by surprise and whisky is no exception.

Ardbeg circa may 2010, not much different to circa may 2005 really.

My first festival on Islay was 2005, I had visited the island back in 2004 for the first time and been understandably very taken with the place. I remember visiting Ardbeg for the first time in September and tasting a 1976 single sherry cask that they had bottled for the festival back in June, there were 504 bottles and I was impressed they had nearly sold them all within a few months. It was going for about £160, I remember thinking that was pretty expensive at the time but as soon as I tasted it…well, you’ve heard it all before.

Sampling six different unforgettable 1990 refill-barrels. One of the many joys of working at Ardbeg.

When I returned in May 2005, this time to work for the summer, Ardbeg had two festival bottlings, a 1975 ex-fino and a 75 ex-oloroso, both hogsheads, both exquisite whisky, both £190. This was in honour of the Cuban theme that year, remember the military coo, the false moustaches, the bandoliers with miniatures, the food, the epic tours. It was not an experience you forget in a hurry, it was Islay and it was fantastic. I met people in that first week during the festival that have become great friends, I learned more than I thought possible about whisky and I count myself fortunate to have been there. My experiences on Islay have rippled out through my life and led me to many other great friends and experiences.

Ardbeg 'tache' finish.

The last Islay festival is still fresh in the memory ending as it did only a few weeks ago. I wasn’t there for the whole week but I saw a fair bit of the Island and the other distilleries, things I hadn’t normally managed to do in previous years. I had a great time, I tasted some incredible whiskies, I saw some great friends, there was sunshine, wonderful food, great music, it was Islay but there was also something else. There were mutterings, you start to hear these stories about ques at four in the morning for festival bottlings, you hear fleeting grumbles about prices and unfairness. You hear snapshot blether but you ignore it, its just part of the hubbub of a festival. Then you start to see them, massive ques of people outside Lagavulin, some people that were new to the festival didn’t even know what they were queuing for. Whole sherry butts bottled specially for the festival selling out in hours. Then you eventually get the impression that you’re not in a festival anymore that you’re an observer looking in on a mechanised process of bottle selling, a controlled and targeted mass exchange between producer and consumer. These products are then processed through the next levels, some will join collections, a few consumed and many will be placed in the jaws of ebay, the beast that guzzles limited bottlings as soon as they are release and promptly spits them back out at new price levels.

One of our escapades from last year's festival, an Ardbeg that failed to make it to ebay. Now that's a real Ardbeg Supernova!

Now Islay is fine if you don’t bother with the festival bottlings, I gave up a long time ago, it’s a game I can’t afford to play and I’m often fortunate enough to taste most of them anyway. Its just that people are coming to play the bottle game these days, they dive headlong into the whirligig. And the companies know this all too well, just look at the prices rise and rise every year. Its understandable, its profit, single casks are not always financially sensible to produce but for some the prices are now becoming daft. Ardbeg’s ‘people’ were originally planning to sell this years 15yo festival cask for £220, only an intervention from the distillery staff themselves got it down to £120, still ruinously expensive for a 15yo whisky. Bowmore’s 25yo limited to 100 bottles for £300 or thereabouts had people queuing from four in the morning to get into the distillery. Then you hear the people who don’t get bottles grumbling, the people who have come for years, the locals, the retailers, the regulars, there’s more disappointment year after year and it breeds bad vibes through the whisky world.

Some say the festival is just pants these days.

The cumulative effect is the dawning realisation that its not really about the music or the whisky, its not about Islay or the people that live there and the visitors who flock there, it is just about turning bottles into money. Its just another extension of the industry at large. I stayed at Lagavulin hall with some very good friends and it felt like we were conducting our own festival, tucked away from the madness outside. We ventured out and bought some bottlings but it was always a source of frustration, never of joy, it led to standing in queues lamenting the prices and reminiscing the long gone days of the 2002 festival.

Standing in line for bottles at Caol Ila. Nae joy.

However for all the moaning and the criticising it must be remembered that these are things out-with the control of distillery staff. They are people just doing their jobs and they take a hell of a lot of flack over it. They have to put a face to these prices and it reduces their enjoyment of the festival too. It should also be remembered that the distilleries do put on a good show, Ardbeg, for all its ridiculous prices, still raises a lot of money for charity on its festival day as it has always done. Laphroaig remains the only distillery to put out a widely available, reasonably priced festival bottling that is in the spirit of inclusion and fairness, Cairdeas being a very apt name. I didn’t rate this years Laphroaig bottling as one of their best but it was top by far in terms of price and availability. It was on offer all week, people could buy a few bottles, sit down outside, crack one open and share it with their compadres. There were no daft queues, no squabbles, no bitching about someone who got more than the regulation 1 bottle per person. It was as a festival bottling should be.

Well done Laphroaig. The master edition goes exceptionally well with Actimel yoghurt drinks.

The island is still a vibrant place to be, it is after all Islay and no amount of overpriced nonsense bottlings and bad feeling can take that away. There are still those dazzling, deserted beaches, places where you can stand amongst a thousand different breezes and feel part of the endlessness of nature. There are still the silent evenings, the aching stillness of summer nights. You can dive into the cold brilliant blue of the Atlantic and come out breathless beneath the heavy afternoon sun. There is still the laughter of whisky-fuelled nights and the froth of music that bubbles in and out of every corner.  These are the things that stick in my mind when I think of Islay, its easy to get distracted by the endless festival bottling madness, its pissed a lot of people off and justly so but it needn’t be this way. How many festival bottlings do we really need? We know they probably taste good, we can try many similar whiskies, the sheer quantity of independent bottlings these days is mind boggling. There will always be something new and amazing to taste, or to sell if that’s your thing. If you’re genuine about whisky then why not reclaim the festival, lets boycott the distillery bottlings, lets make the Islay whisky festival the biggest BYOB whisky fest in the world. Everyone next year just bring a few amazing bottles to open and we’ll all just hang out play music enjoy the Island and share these great whiskies with our friends. It really works, that’s what we do every year now and we have a much better time for it.

BYOB-1. Festival Bottlings-nil.

The Islay festival’s engine does not run on money just yet but you can sadly feel it spluttering with the wrong type of fuel. In the end these bottles are the prices they are because there are enough people willing to pay them. We all lament the old days, it would be great if, just in the spirit of the festival, having a passion for whisky, for sharing and fairness, the distilleries could produce larger bottlings at prices we could all afford. But that is just a pipe dream, it won’t happen and we all know it. So maybe we could just make things better ourselves by not being so bothered with these bottlings, they’re frustrating and daft why let them spoil an otherwise great week of whisky, music and friendship. We have the power to change this ourselves by not indulging in overpriced gibberish, by choosing to have a good time without yet another single cask Caol Ila or Bunnahabhain. Yes this process of ever more expensive bottles has been damaging but it is only as damaging as we allow it to be.

Surely this is what the festival is really about...?

Havent uploaded any new tasting notes since last week so I thought I’d have a go at the recent Laphroaig festival bottling, the so called Cairdeas ‘Master Edition’. The less said about that name the better in my book. I last tried this bottling on Islay a couple of weeks ago with some ‘crazy Belgians‘, I remember we weren’t too impressed considering the fruity wonder pixie that was last years 12yo Cairdeas. So lets have another go at it now. This year the label states that the whisky comes from casks aged 11 to 19 years.

Laphroaig Cairdeas Master Edition. 2010. 70cl. 57.3%

Colour: Very pale, dull straw.

Nose: Not much happens at first, its hot, ashy and alcoholic. zzzzz…after a few minutes it perks up a bit and we get some oysters and lemon juice, wet seashore aromas and a little flutter of burnt acrylic. Its not without its charm but this is a very closed and austere Laphroaig. Quite a difficult style really. There are some pleasant citrus notes but the peat seems to just manifest itself as very dry, ashy and smoky. It becomes quite bitter after a while. With water…not much development really, the peat is perhaps a little more pronounced but its still very straight and closed. More bitterness.

Palate: Neat it is quite aggressive with the alcohol bringing plenty heat along for the ride. This Laphroaig is doing its best to be difficult. The palate is very concise with the nose, virtually the same profile in many ways. Some lovely minerality and the dryness is quite refreshing in a modern Laphroaig but it doesn’t quite compensate for the fact that there isn’t a lot else going on. With water: again not much development which I suppose is more consistency with the nose. Perhaps a little more medicinal after some time in glass, finally that Laphroaig iodine comes through.

Finish: Medium length but still with lots of that bitter ashiness hanging around.

Comments: Ho hum. I find this whisky very frustrating. For me its like an old school Laphroaig with all the fruitiness sucked out of it. Its interesting and quite heart warming to taste modern Laphroaig that hasn’t been molly coddled in boring old first fill bourbon barrels its whole life but this is just a little to…uncomplicated for lack of a better word. I think the cask selection could have been better, especially considering how good we all know this style of Laphroaig can be. Having said all that its not without its charms and in my humble opinion it still deserves:

84/100

note: pics to follow as soon as I get round to emptying all the photos from Islay off my camera.