OB, Cavalier66 and JS join me on this opening day of the Islay Festival to celebrate something completely different: the opening of the Elizabeth Line (of Crossrail, a new public-transport service in London), the impending jubilee of the Queen, who has been on the throne for close to seventy years, now, and, generally, the royals.
The soundtrack: Imminent - Cask Strength
When the line-up is assembled, I sneakily pour an apéritif for the boys (JS had it last week and does not want to try it again).
Grand Royal Special Reserve (43%, International Beverage Trading Company, LM006/0281N 6027) (tOMoH): OB and Cavalier66, who seem to like it, reckon it is a Lowlander, or an old blend... and indeed. I take no notes, today. Full notes can be found here.
JS offers whisky from a rare Royal distillery.
Glenury Royal 1984/2007 (43%, Gordon & MacPhail Rare Old, JG/AEB) (JS): nose: very fruity (Cavalier66). I have nail lacquer, wood varnish, then seal wax, hot linen, and even a few coffee grains. Mouth: fresh, it has a minor mocha bitterness. Finish: long, acidic, here are some fruits and a pinch of ground coffee grains. "It does what it does brilliantly, which is fruit and malt, not layered. The only potential criticism is that there is a slight harshness." (Cavalier66) Full notes are here. It is still excellent, despite a slightly lower score, today. 8/10
Cavalier66: "It's because I upgraded. I didn't go for Coton Doux, I went for Paul Smith, the queen of fashion."
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| I will wait for nibbles (a selection of British cold cuts and cheeses). Cavalier66, of course, has had neither lunch nor breakfast, and is starving |
OB: "Yes, but British."
tOMoH: "It's Counted."
Soundtrack: Imminent Starvation - Human Dislocation
The Old Man of Huy presents a whisky bottled by a bottler given the royal warrant (the only one, in fact).
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| Frustratingly, since this was bottled for someone else, the warrant is neither on the label nor on the box. It is on the stopper fold. |
Cavalier66 brought another expression from the same distillery, so we have them in parallel. "Mine is just because the Queen has a turret in her castle."
Glenturret 31yo 1980/2012 (42.5%, Malts of Scotland, Bourbon Hogshead, C#MoS12008, 96b) (Cavalier66): nose: more subdued than the other (OB), it has icing sugar, though subdued indeed. It becomes bolder with time, sweet and lovely. Old-school sweets such as red bootlaces and Cherry Gums. Is there a puff of smoke? Maybe. Mouth: it is more subdued on the palate too (Cavalier66). It is tame alright, but well fruity all the same -- melon, plum, even gentle yellow maracuja. Finish: long, fresh and fruity, this sees fruity sweets rolling on the tongue. 8/10
vs.
Glenturret 35yo 1977/2013 (47.5%, Berry Brothers & Rudd for La Maison du Whisky, C#25) (tOMoH): nose: old Fruit Salad sweets (Cavalier66), which is to say artificial fruit aroma. It is immensely more expressive than its young sibling. Mouth: fizzy and amazingly fruity, with fruit sweets, mostly, some chewy, some in a crystallised form. Finish: it has more depth (Cavalier66), but also cooked vegetables (Cavalier66, who adds it is asparagus). JS and Cavalier66 find it an intense fruitiness that turns into liquorice. OB specifies that it is waves of fruit, not an explosion. We all agree it is a fruit tide. Full notes are here. 9/10
OB: "Rectal-nasal!"
For the next whisky, OB explains it is an anniversary bottling, celebrating a jubilee of sorts. Also, it is twenty-six years old, and the Queen was born in 1926.
Littlemill 26yo 1990/2017 (52.6%, Cadenhead 175th Anniversary, Bourbon Barrel, 180b) (OB): nose: custard and a general creaminess, lemon curd and crushed Aspirin. I am struggling to put words on the scents, partly because they are well integrated, partly because I am enjoying the company. All the same, this nose, if not overly evolutive, is excellent. Mouth: on the palate, it has mellowed, since last time (Cavalier66). It is not that kaleidoscope of tropical fruit (OB), but it has ripened (Cavalier66). JS points out how creamy it is. They are right and wrong: I find it potent, displaying the bitterness of crushed Aspirin. The second sip focuses on citrus (a blend of calamansi and grapefruit), with Kaffir lime leaves and bay leaves balancing the acidity with bitterness. Finish: big, wide, gently bitter and pretty fruity. Next to that fruit, we see chocolate emerge. The crushed Aspirin remains rather prominent all the same -- something that may bother some. Further sips turns to pudding and custard, both vanilla and mocha-flavoured. 9/10
Cavalier66: "As is the royal family."
JS: "Yeah, it all becomes more reasonable, all of a sudden..."
Soundtrack: Ravi Shankar - Rāgas & Tālas
JS offers an Old & Rare Platinum Selection for the platinum jubilee.
Brechin 33yo 1970/2003 (52.4%, Douglas Laing The Old & Rare Platinum Selection, 479b) (JS): nose: ozone and photocopier ink (Cavalier66), blue ink, and a pinch of dust. A bit of cask (Cavalier66). I have crisp apple and shreds of ginger. Mouth: blush-orange juice, sangria-soaked fruits. JS and I find it spicy, OB finds it more peppery than spicy (Is pepper not a spice, then?). This shows nigella seeds, chutneys and relishes. Finish: intermittent waves of cinnamon (Cavalier66), bread dough, yeast, loads of fruit. This is excellent. It is almost yoghurt-y in the way it delivers fruit, with crushed apricot, peach, squashed cured plum... Phwoar! I am looking forward to spending more time with it, as these notes obviously do not make it justice. 9/10
Cavalier66 tells us the Queen Mary was known as Bloody Mary because she used to kill people for heresy. And how did she kill them? By burning them. We shall therefore have a Millburn. "Also, we all know the monarchy should be bloody silent, like this distillery."
tOMoH and OB: "Well, it is a Rare Malt..."
Cavalier66: "Long."
OB: "Thick, it's got body."
Cavalier66: "Bodies."
OB: "It's got decaying corpses."
Cavalier66: "At this point in the line-up, this is exactly what we need."
OB: "Corpses."
Cavalier66: "Oily, encompassing, developing. It's not actually corpse, which I'm familiar with."
Millburn 35yo 1969/2005 (51.2%, OB Rare Malts Selection) (Cavalier66): nose: a lot fruitier than I remembered it, it has dried apple slices and raisins, with a drop of vinegar. It is also less funky than I remembered it (a memory that made me agree with the corpse note before I even smelled this). It still has hairballs. Also, shoe polish, walnut stain, spicy sweets (cinnamon and ginger, then, I guess). Mouth: wide, invasive, more in line with my memory, it has the taste of corpse, yet that is almost overshadow by an abundant shoe polish. There is plenty of leather and waterproofing grease on this palate too. The second sip is leafier, with hazel leaves and chestnut-tree leaves. It still has a lot of shoe polish, mind. It stays very strong on the palate, fiercely gingery. Finish: long, sweet, and a little bitter, it has cola, ginger-and-cinnamon Boules Magiques, but also a pronounced bitterness, in the long run that flirts with liquorice. 9/10
Soundtrack: Imminent Starvation - Nord
Cavalier66: "The music is quite anarchic, today, which may reflect your anti-monarchy sentiment."
Cavalier66 proudly presents the next one.
OB: "Thank you."
Hanyu 1988/2006 (56.3%, OB for Full Proof Holland, Puncheon, C#9204, 204b) (Cavalier66): nose: an obvious sherry maturation, but a dirtier one (Cavalier66), some more obvious decay in this (OB). It has soot and coal dust, burnt-walnut shells, and hard-as-rock orange peel. Further nosing brings out plastic buckets. Mouth: smoke on the back (Cavalier66), coal smoke (OB). Yes, it is rather dirty, with lots of dusts -- coal dust, sawdust, ginger shavings. It is spectacularly gingery and hot. The second sip is drying, sucking up all moisture from the mouth. That later turns into grape-pip oil, oily and bitter. Finish: big and powerful, rich in ginger and embers, it has a dusting of ash, but little smoke, now. Water does not alter it much, though it does take some heat off the palate and renders it more balanced and more approachable. 8/10
We talk about how there is a contest to decide what the official jubilee food is going to be. Cavalier66 explains that is precisely how the coronation chicken recipe got that name: it was created for the banquet of the coronation in 1953. A piece of trivia the other three of us never knew.
Soundtrack: Pye Corner Audio - Entangled Routes
OB notes that the Queen's name is Elizabeth the Second, therefore, we will have the second official bottling of Brora 30yo. Since I am severely behind, I give the boys the remainder of a sample of Brora 20yo 1982/2003 (58.1%, OB Rare Malts Selection) to have as a sparring partner.
Cavalier66: "You do get some cow dung."
tOMoH: "It has some cow dung alright, but the cow didn't have curry the night before."
Cavalier66: "No coronation cow dung."
Brora 30yo b.2003 (55.7%, OB Natural Cask Strength, 3000b, b#2570) (OB): nose: a sour vinegariness barely conceals a humongous drop of cow dung. This is farm-y to the extreme, with sheep farts, curd, whey, soured milk, rancid butter, horse's behind, baby sick (JS), Comté, cheese rind, butyric. Much later on, it becomes ashier. Not candles (Cavalier66), maybe ass-candles? "They are the best type." (Cavalier66) Horse manure and cow dung are what dominate, though -- by a long shot. Mouth: very peppery, almost too much so. Who swapped my dram of Brora for a Talisker 10yo? Then, it is dried cow dung, ginger shavings and cinnamon-stick splinters. Further sips seem more fruity, with gingery citrus and dried lemon zest. All the same, it does not shake off the farmyard. Finish: lovely, it displays powerful ash, crusty earth, dry as fuck, dried muck, and dried raspberry slices. To wet all that somewhat, we have a dash of squid ink and some juicy berries. Cavalier66 claims it is worth 11/10; I disagree. It is great, there is no debate, but not that great. Perhaps less my preferred style than his. 9/10
Cavalier66 teases me about a famous note I gave a Glen Scotia.
OB: "How would you call a donkey's behind? An ass's arse?"
JS: "British people call a donkey an ass? Or an arse?"
Cavalier66: "Well, you'll call an ass an arse if it's being a pain. But an ass is a crossing between a donkey and a horse. Like a mule, though it depends which is the mother and which is the father."
OB: "Is that so?"
Cavalier66: "Yes. And both the ass and the mule are sterile. So you can have as much sex with an ass as you want without consequence. Sterile."
OB [indeed, dear reader: it does not stop there!]: "There is also the liger, a crossing between a lion and a tiger, but what do you call the opposite?"
Cavalier66: "A tion."
OB: "It's a tigon, but tion is also accepted."
tOMoH: "What do you call a crossing between an elephant and a rabbit?"
All: "?"
tOMoH: "A dead rabbit with a twenty-centimetre-wide arsehole."
JS: "You took the conversation to a new low."
Cavalier66: "Yes, the level has seriously declined."
tOMoH: "Declynelished!"
Cavalier66 checks his facts online.
OB: "According to the Cambridge dictionary, the first definition of an ass is a donkey."
Soundtrack: Phelios - Astral Unity
Cavalier66 produces 53.193, because the Queen's coronation was in '53 (1953, obviously). He then points at the name the SMWS gave this: "And the jubilee of our beloved Queen brings a smile to every face." Tomorrow, he will add that our very own OB, in fanboi style, adopted the nom de plume caolivier, and that he is a bit of a drama queen.
In an unequal versus, we oppose it to my own Caol Ila, which, of course, is from Islay, Queen of the Hebrides.
53.193 22yo To bring a smile to every face (49.9%, SMWS Society Single Cask, Bourbon Barrel) (Cavalier66): nose: a bit of hay and lots of kelp and seaweed, then goat's cheese and dry earth. It smells like an SMWS Caol Ila of that era: reliable, good, yet also predictable and same-y. That said, it does have lemon and a lick of limestone, as well as new bandages to boot. Later on, we have... We will never know what, because I do not finish writing my sentence. Mouth: mercurochrome and a dash of citrus juice (lemon and pomelo). It hits pretty hard, in terms of power, though that heat is also balanced by some lemon juice. Finish: long, muddy and kelp-y. It really is muddy, full of silt, sea-harbour bed... and melted chocolate. Repeated sipping adds crystallised citrus drops, wrapped inside kelp and rehydrated nori. This is the weakest dram in this line-up, which says a lot, considering this dram is very good. 8/10
Caol Ila 31yo 1983/2014 (48.7%, Signatory Vintage Cask Strength Collection, Hogshead, C#5300, 248b, b#172) (tOMoH): nose: ripe citrus here too, more mellow than it was on the SMWS offering. Pomelo, ripe lime, smoked preserved limes, and citrus-wood embers. Mouth: lovely citrus again, with lime paste, lime marmalade, and pomelo jelly. It has a big cloud of smoke, yet that does not eclipse the citric goodness. Further sips have a notch of candied angelica, adding a sweetness to the otherwise acrid and acidic palate. Finish: hugely long, it showcases lime juice on oysters, citrus paste, and candied angelica again. The finish has little smoke to speak of, amazingly enough. Probably that is only by comparison with the previous two drams. Full notes here. 9/10
What a tasting! We flew high, today.
Dram of the day:
OB and Cavalier66: Brora and Millburn
tOMoH: Brechin and The second Caol Ila
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