After, ahem, an eventful couple of years, culminating in a five-month closure for refurbishments, Cadenhead's London shop is reopening today. An event that was widely communicated via the Club newsletter. To make it more special, the company announced that they would release a forty-year-old Caol Ila for the occasion.
Also released today, in all Cadenhead's shops, is a charity bottling of Springbank 10yo, the proceeds of which will go to Ukraine relief. There are to be five hundred bottles spread across those shops.
The shop, they said, would open at noon, and close at 17:00. Staff from the head office in Campbeltown would be down to raprezents and pour good stuff.
Since he is in the general vicinity, and since there is nothing on the telly, tOMoH thought he would pop round the shop to say hello, see the new interior, and see what else is available.
Armed with the certainty that many things will be limited to one bottle per person and that there will be some crowd showing a certain level of interest, tOMoH braces himself for a reasonable wait before accessing the wares. No matter: the weather is clement, and the bus journey there is not only fast, it restores faith in Humanity (or in TfL's drivers, at least: the bus is ready to leave, yet a wave and a short trot results in the driver waiting for us -- yay).
It is 11:30ish when I arrive near the shop. From a short distance, there seems to be a decent crowd -- it is with no little surprise that, coming closer, I notice it stretches halfway up the street.
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| If you know the area, you know this does not look good |
In the multitude of unknowns, familiar faces are spotted (JS, WK, MSo, SOB, soon SA too, then DW and JF), altogether weighing less than ten percent of the queue. Conversations start to fuse. 12:00 arrives in no time. The first few people in the queue have been there since 21:00 last night, we discover, probably feeling withdrawal symptoms from not being allowed to queue on Islay for almost three years, and making London pay for it. We estimate the queue is roughly two-hundred-people long, which is way more than I had expected. Anyway.
12:15 comes and goes, 12:30, then 13:00. It dawns on everyone that we have not moved one metre in that time. Passers-by, intrigued by the crowd, start asking why we are queueing. They will do so until the end. Tired of answering seriously, we start the comedy: "Justin Bieber concert tickets," "the new iPhone," "shoes," "I hope to find out at the end of the queue..."
The first customers come out with bags (or boxes, for some) full of bottles. The very first guy in will walk up and down the queue with those very bags for five hours, "doing the peacock," says WK. "There is no pea," fuses MSo's answer. He says he is waiting for a friend who is behind us in the queue. He will end up leaving alone regardless, shortly before we reach the doorstep.
But let us not get ahead of ourselves.
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| Long is the road |
A little after 13:00, a police car arrives: Queues News Network informs us that they are here to disperse queue-jumpers. Soon, we progress a little bit (literally a couple of metres). Then we are immobile again for the longest time.
With impatience settling in, news slowly travels up the queue: the queue-jumpers, in hoodies and classy JD Sports bags, are back. The staff have made it clear they would not serve them or indeed allow them into the store, but they will not budge. The staff have therefore barricaded themselves inside and are waiting for the police to remove the nuisance. Said police, probably busy elsewhere and annoyed at having to intervene once again in something that, ultimately, does not concern them, are taking their sweet time. It is yet another hour before they show up, on foot, this time, and sporting an air I hope never to be the cause of (read: exasperated and clearly ready to use force).
Once on site, they appear to try to reason the queue-jumpers (who seem to be beyond reasoning), then trap them to have a, ahem, more-serious conversation. They trap them... inside the shop. That move prevents anyone from entering the shop, and also the punters inside from exiting. Great.
Regardless of the excitement that that causes, it feels like another eternity passes before anything happens. Eventually, they all come out and a kerfuffle erupts, ending with one of the misfits pinned to the ground by the cops, while the other miserably protests and films the scene ("He's not resisting, bro! You're getting fired for that!") People left, right and centre start filming on their phones, not just in the queue (that now looks like a blob), but from windows around the scene too. Shouts are uttered, and a general sense of adrenaline-fuelled excitement rushes through the crowd.
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| The queue-jumpers were just as interested in that wedding dress |
Click here and scroll through the comments to watch a video, because I do not see how to embed it.
In the meantime, it is long past 15:00, and we still have not really moved.
The weather has been variable, with a few drops, a few snowflakes, some sun rays. Fortunately, it is mostly dry, if cold. WK in particular is ill prepared, wearing just a sweater and not even a scarf.
A police van shows up, nicks the handcuffed bloke who was pinned to the ground, drives off as the other, who filmed the whole scene, scuppers, tail between his legs. The creaky shop door opens, and the "hostages" come out under a round of applause. I joke that the police are now on the same level as the NHS: unloved, unsupported, underfunded, but paid in crowd-clapping instead.
With those two mischiefs no longer around to cause mayhem, we are relieved that the queue will move at last.
It does not. 16:00 comes and goes; we have made two steps towards the front door. That is not a figure of speech.
Many pace up and down just to keep a little warmer; it helps strike up conversations. Friends come back with stories, most of which go like this: "Do you know what you are getting, once you are in?" "The limited one." "Which one is that?" "There is one for £1,000." A phone is then produced with a picture of the Caol Ila on it. It quickly feels as though at least sixty percent of the people in the queue do not know what they are queueing for. It kind of shows too: amongst the groups, mostly of Asians, are obvious wives, girlfriends, sisters, and even children in prams, who look like they walked out of a West-End musical to spend their London city trip queueing instead. Earlier, a couple of visitors from the Netherlands left the queue: one of their friends had asked them to pick up a bottle for them, and they let him know after a while that they were only in town for a few days and were not going to sacrifice one to pursue a bottle for someone else. Some are more dedicated.
Random acts of generosity are much welcome, on the other hand: MSo shares a pack of almonds, and JS visits a branch of Crosstown Doughnuts before sharing the bounty.
MSo also fetches a coffee from a local shop. He tells us how he heard the staff there talk about the queue: "They are queueing to buy the last-ever-bottled Ukrainian whisky!"
We are amused.
All that is well and swell, but we are still moving nowhere fast. With a promised closing time of 17:00, it dawns on us that we might not make it in at all: It is now 16:30, and there are still in excess of fifty people ahead of us. Quick mental calculation: there were one hundred and fifty, five hours ago. It took four-and-a-half hours to process one hundred of them. The remaining should then take two hours and fifteen minutes. That does not bode well.
The pace picks up for a bit, then it grinds to a halt again. Rumours start emerging that there is not much left to purchase.
A bearded guy sporting a cap comes out with a box full of bottles. "Yes, they still have the Caol Ila. I bought it. I'm not selling," he tells someone in the queue who may have offered to take it from him. "I'm buying, though. If you're selling, I'll buy it."
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| The end of the river |
It is 17:40 when three customers exit and WK goes in -- alone. Up to this point, they allowed six people in at a time, operating a one-out-one-in policy. Now, and with no explanation whatsoever, it is down to one person at a time. The first customers were also offered a dram and a chat, we understand, as well as a more or less lengthy browse, delaying others getting in and resulting in there still being a healthy queue now.
WK goes and comes out. Halt again. Cameron McGeachy and Grant Macpherson come out: they have a taxi to take to the airport, now. Urgently. WK came down from his remote neck of the woods because those two were down from Campbeltown, and barely had a chance to greet them. Clearly, I will not even have that opportunity. They look mightily annoyed when they leave too. Brian Jackson, the new shop manager, recruited from the now-defunct London branch of Royal Mile Whiskies, locks the door behind them. For a while, it seems as though the shop is now closed for business, right as JS reaches the front of the queue, and I immediately behind her.
Eventually, BJ returns and allows JS in. Then it is my turn. It is 17:45. The atmosphere inside is tense. I do not feel welcome.
"What are you after," BJ asks me. "Well, what is left?" I ask. "Not much."
Allow me to point out, here, that the selection is not advertised anywhere that I can see. All this is on the back of an email announcing that one Caol Ila, a separate advertising campaign on social media about that Springbank for Ukraine, and rumours from the queue. Apparently, they released some aged Springbank, bottlings from a few months ago, when the shop was closed -- Longrows, Hazelburns and Kilkerrans -- and the most recent Local Barley. None of that is left, but one would not know if one did not know they were available in the first place.
Conscious that I am annoying more than thirty people outside who are waiting to get in, and, let me say it, at the tail end of my own patience, I dodge the opportunity to express my appreciation of this court exchange with the new manager. I give the names of two bottles which, fortunately, are still available, pay and leave. It is now 17:47.
Outside, the mob is eager to know what is left. In particular, if that "rare bottle that costs £1,000" is still there, picture at the ready, to make sure I understand which one they are talking about. Even now, almost an hour after the announced closing time of the shop, I am baffled at how desperate some people seem to be to get their hands on something they clearly cannot even name.
Well aware that the shop has a hard stop in just over ten minutes (their licence allows the sale of alcohol until 18:00 only), and no-less aware that a significant number of those still in the queue will not even make it inside in that time, I decide not to be there to witness the inevitable riot and bugger off. The bus ride home is easy and quick. Phew.
As a side note, I, like everybody I know, did go by the assumption that everything was limited to one bottle per person and self-imposed that limit, yet that was not explicitly advertised either. In hindsight, seeing the boxes others brought out, it cannot have been constrained in that fashion: at one point in the afternoon, a Tesla stopped in front of the shop and a bloke loaded five boxes of six bottles into the boot. Thirty bottles. Good for him if he can afford it; that is not the point. The point is: there were likely multiples amongst the lot; how many of those bottles were then no longer available to the seventy-or-so remaining people when he came out?
Impressions
Was it all worth it? No. Would I do it again. No. It reminded me, as if I needed it, why I do not attend Fèis Ìle. I take no pleasure in queueing for hours for dregs, thank you very much. If anything, it put me off going to that shop again.
It is frankly a miracle the kerfuffle with the two queue-jumpers was the only major mishap. Queueing on a Scottish island may be civil, courteous and good-spirited, but London has a collection of shadier characters who can spot an opportunity to cause disruption for their personal gain. It appears those things happen regularly upon release of mobile phones, watches, video-game consoles, trainers etc.
Even if we make abstraction of the fact I personally do not enjoy queueing for six hours, it is hard not to feel that the whole thing could have been handled differently. No-one ever came down the queue to explain the hold-up, the in-out policy, announce what was sold out, or even what was for sale in the first place.
It is equally hard to believe that many of these people who did queue will become loyal customers. In fact, it is hard to think that the shop sold much of the regular stock, today, and hard to imagine that they will have many customers for the rest of the month. They probably made a fortune in little time, but at what cost?
Sadly, it is almost certain many of those bottles sold today will be found on auction sites from next week onward. The only thing that was missing today were the auctioneers' vans waiting for the flippers to offload their bottles. If you think that is cynical, know that it is exactly what happens at Fèis Ìle, where the vans are next to the queues, ready to collect bottles bought sixteen seconds earlier.
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| And in fact... |
Right. In keeping with my self-imposed discipline of never posting anything without a tasting note, it seems fitting to have some Springbank, after all that. We have it three days later, to be precise.
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| Two contrasted ones |
Springbank 27yo 1993/2020 (51.3%, Whiskybroker for IAAS, Refill Bourbon Hogshead, C#26, 200b): nose: representative of that famous distillery, the nose has an earthy minerality to it. It is indeed a combination of fruit stones, ploughed fields and hay bales. Semi-hidden behind that is a drop of green-grape juice, adding a sweet fruitiness on what is otherwise a little austere, perhaps. In the fruit's wake is a pinch of ash and a dollop of hand cream. Unexpectedly, a couple of sniffs in, that all changes, and it is plump peaches that come to the fore, wrapped in their velvety skin. They merely announce the return of hay and ash, themselves precursors to woodier tones, such as lacquered chairs that are starting to gather patina. What a nose! A soft salinity emerges in the distance, a combination of iodine-laden air and rollmops, both equally subdued. The second nose seems to highlight the wood, and it adds freshly-dyed wool. Even later, a dash of liquid laundry detergent rocks up, which is quite the surprise. Mouth: robust and not a little rustic, projecting grape pips, toothpicks used to impale rollmops, hay bales and straw, and a dry bitterness that, for some reason, makes me think of ground flint and powdered peach stone. That is to say it just might be ashy, yet it does not have the sulphur-y or carbonated touch that one would associate with ash. Maybe soot? Some kind of dusty compound, in any case. Each sip seems dryer than the previous, reaching Muscadet levels. Sucking on rocks from a sandstone sea-cliff. Maybe someone spilled orange juice on that sandstone a week ago, leaving but a fading memory of fruit. It is dry. Finish: a tranquil force, it seems to disappear unnoticed. It is not soo, however: it simply purrs in the background until it catches the taster's attention. Then, it is an obvious powerhouse that blends the hay, fruit and fine ash to provide a comforting warmth. The second sip has a flash of honey, then swiftly mutates: now, it is burnt wax, mixed with the ashes of burnt peach stones. Further sips bring back more vivid fruit, but this is not one of those Brazilian-fruit-market drams at all -- oh! no. It is more intellectual than that. Cracking cask selection! 8/10 (Thanks for the sample, RG)
Springbank 19yo 1997/2016 (58.8%, Cadenhead Warehouse Tasting, Recharred Sherry Cask, C#606): nose: more different, this could hardly be. We have nail varnish and molten seal wax dripping from the glass, honey-glazed pineapple rings, a drop of surgical ether on baked peaches -- no! On tinned peaches that have been heated in the oven (the nuance is tiny, but important). All that before Springbank's trademark farm-y notes take off -- farmland, farm paths, muddy boots, rich soil and a shovelful of muck, sprinkled with ash. Oh! there are hessian sacks too, and Belgian White (a chalk-based floor disinfectant). Both are well distant, however. Inside the farm, breakfast is served: Weetabix. Far away, behind closed doors, yet still providing a distant note of cereal. The second nose sees firewood and sweetened latte, augmented with a dash of fruit juice, very comforting indeed. Mouth: nail varnish is first, promptly joined by dark pouring honey and metal -- a tin knife to spread the honey, no doubt. It is pretty lush on the tongue, and, if cereals are still present (honey pops), the farmyard takes a seat at the very back of the bus, if it has not entirely disappeared. The second sip has pineapple skin, freshly torn off the fruit, and an anaesthetising strength, it turns out. To call it medicinal would be a stretch, yet it absolutely has something antiseptic -- in a good way. Repeated sipping brings out a more austere facet, with bone-dry hazel and slate. Finish: !!! Where did this lovely milk chocolate come from? Out of nowhere, that is where! Ovaltine, chicory instant "coffee", lukewarm cocoa. Here too, it is augmented with a drop of fruit juice, which provides some acidity. Mind you, there is a tiny bitterness too, reminiscent of chococino. In the long run, the finish becomes dry, not quite ashy, closer to sucking on pebbles. Leafy spices come out too, combava or curry leaves, lemongrass, maybe even bay leaves, at a push. They are so diffuse and integrated that they are hard to identify. Unexpectedly, I prefer this one, today. It appears I tried it a few years ago already, but I like it more today. 9/10 (Thanks for the sample, WK)
