23/10/2022 West Side Story

Sixty-one years ago this week, on 18th October 1961, West Side Story was released in cinemas, following the success of its Broadway predecessor of the same name. JS, PS, SW and Cavalier66 join me to celebrate.

The soundtrack: Sp@sms - From A 20th Century Box

We all brought too many things, and discard a few of them to avoid an alcohol-induced coma. One such reject is a Glenallachie 1973 Malts of Scotland that Cavalier66 has brought. The connection was that, out of the two -llachie distilleries, Glenallachie is the westernmost (with Craigellachie being slightly to the east of it). Teh lollez.

Cavalier66 presents East Side Story.

Yamazaki 18yo (43%, OB, b. ca 2015): nose: "can you smell the mizunara?" (Cavalier66). Blush oranges, mulled wine, to some extent. Yes, cinnamon, cloves, sumac, sandalwood. More and more blush orange, dried blush-orange slices and peels. Finally, a handful of jasmine buds. Mouth: the bitterness of unripe plants (JS), hay harvest (SW), candied marmalade, honey-glazed cinnamon sticks, crushed cloves. This really is mulled wine and a half. Finish: here, it has more wood bitterness, with white pepper, pine planks, still a lot of blush-orange skins, dried to bits and ground into a powder. 7/10

The Soundtrack: Ravi Shankar & Yehudi Menuhin - West Meets East: The Historic Shankar/Menuhin Sessions

The Old Man of Huy presents Mull, an island off the west coast of Scotland.

Ledaig 1974/2000 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail Rare Old, JJ/CB): nose: bursting grapefruit, cosmetic powder, peach-scented moisturiser cream. This is extremely fruity, today. Mouth: soft, custard-y grapefruit turnovers, juicy pineapple and a dollop of earth. Cavalier66 finds plasticine too. Finish: long, rancio-y, fruity, with pineapple in all stages of ripeness, from greenness to decay. Glorious Ledaig. Look here for full notes. 9/10

PS [pointing at Cavalier66]: "I'm shy and retired in the way his wardrobe is."

SW shows that, if one travels westward enough, one ends up at Macallan.

Macallan (unknown ABV, cask sample): nose: a burst of fruit, initially (peach and apricot, says PS), that turns into something very different, with minty toothpaste, sandalwood sawdust, unlit incense. A minute in, there is even a note of chargrilled meat. What? It comes back to sweeter territories, with Turkish delights, and warm face towels, talcum-powder-coated jackfruit and peaches. Further nosing has fleshy peach, flirting with mango. Mouth: soft, mellow and peachy, with talcum powder and confectionary sugar, in a Turkish-delight way. Keep it in the mouth for thirty seconds, and it flips to deliver tropical fruits -- persimmon and dragon fruit. The next sip has mango skins and fruit stones (whole, and shavings). Finish: sandalwood and incense precede a slap of tropical fruits. Persimmon, jackfruit. Turkish delights follow, covered with confectionary sugar sugar. It has a gentle fruit-stone bitterness too. Phwoar! 9/10

The soundtrack: Peat & Diesel - Uptown Fank

JS and tOMoH present West Clydeside Story. The distillery is in the western half of Scotland, in the west end of Glasgow...
Cavalier66: "...and the stillhouse is on the west side of the distillery."
tOMoH: "It is, actually!"

Clydeside 3yo Stobcross (46%, OB, b.2021, CBSCS 09845) (JS): nose; pears and apples (Cavalier66), crumble (PS), but crumble that has not caramelised, yet (Cavalier66), Apfel Strudel (SW), strawberries, and a twist of the black-pepper mill. Mouth: "very good, but... pepper!" (PS, whose tolerance for pepper is very low). I find it creamy and custard-y. Finish: peppery custard. Short notes for a great whisky. Full notes here. Today, it is 7/10

vs.

Clydeside 34mo (unknown ABV, cask sample, re-racked ex-Sherry Cask + ex-Bourbon Casks) (tOMoH): do not ask how I obtained this. Nose: more ester-y, it has after-shave lotion, a whiff of raw grain, and flowery hand cream. Mouth: a tad youthful, perhaps, with the usual apples and plums associated with young age. Finish: I feel the pepper more than in the Stobcross, but PS says the higher ABV balances it out. I neck it to catch up. More about this on another day. 7/10

The soundtrack: Lesa Listvy - Way Home

JS [sensing a breaking stopper]: "tOMoH, where is that thing that JK gave us?"
Cavalier66: "A headache?"

JS presents whiskies from Saint Louis aka the Gateway to the West.

StilL 630 24mo 2015/2017 X-8 Chocolate RP (50%, OB Experimental, C#15-38, b#47): nose: herbaceous and sweet, straight from an ancient herbs garden, but also liqueur-like, with an exuberant sweetness that touches Irn Bru. We have herbs-coated pineapple too. The next nose is full-on candied angelica, lichen, dry moss, and humus (Cavalier66). Mouth: super herbal, here are thyme, lemon thyme, eucalyptus shavings, and citrus aplenty -- citrus foliage, to be accurate. Next is shy moss, but again, a tad citrus-y. Finish: long, round, embracing, choc-full of citrus and chocolate. SW has katsu curry. It is a little overwhelming to command a higher score, yet I love it in small doses. 7/10

vs.

StilL 630 4yo Missouri Straight Bourbon b.2019 (45%, OB Bill 266, B#10, b#177): nose: this is lighter and airier, ethereal, with tamer citrus and lichen on stone. At some point come dry earth, dry clay, and bone-dry citrus peels. Mouth: watered-down orange juice, tangerine juice. Finish: astonishingly, this seems to have more chocolate than the chocolate one, this time with milk chocolate. I empty the glass without taking more detailed notes. Will have to come back to it, at some point. Cavalier66 is not convinced. 7/10

Cavalier66: "This is the dirty one. The other one is the 4yo Bourbon."
PS: "We know which one you like..."
Cavalier66: "The dirty one."
tOMoH: "I like the young one, of course. 4yo is borderline, already."

A storm arrives. It is as if night had come early. Soon, it is lightning, thunder, and buckets of rain.

The soundtrack: Pet Shop Boys - Somewhere

Cake enters. It does not last long

tOMoH presents Glenugie, the most easterly distillery in Scotland, compared to which all is a West Side Story.

Glenugie 26yo 1982/2008 (50%, Douglas Laing Old Malt Cask 50º, ex-Bourbon Barrel, C#4703, 310b): nose: "old school, but not austere" (Cavalier66), it has a burning-hot-griddle note. Further nosing sees tanned leather, desert dirt, and hot metallic boilers. Mouth: quite a bit of wax, juicy apricots and tangerine segments, kumquats. It is strong, acidic, but balanced. Perhaps a tad of lichen. Beside the clearly acidic note is a certain bitterness (leaves of some kind), yet it remains acceptable. Finish: phwoar! Flint, metal, dry lichen and lots of citrus juice, melon skins. There is even a waxy cheese's paraffin rind. Love it, and will come back to it when I can take more time. 9/10

Cavalier66 presents a Penderyn, because it is westerly, west of the West Country. Also, West Side Story reminds Cavalier66 of a certain person who shares the same (almost) last name, and spends his time at the SMWS, who bottled this. Finally, West Side Story, he tells us, is the story of a rivalry. The longest rivalry is that between France and England. This, with 'frogs' in the title, represents France (whatever the Welsh may think of that).

128.15 10yo d.2010 As mad as a box of frogs (58.2%, SMWS Society Cask, Charred Refill Barrel, 182b): nose: hairballs, clogged sink and hiking boots. Next are chocolate milk and crushed apricot, as well as rosewood and crushed raspberries. The second nose has mint lozenges and nail-varnish remover (JS). Water makes it more minty and increases the sweetness. Herbal custard. Mouth: one can picture a genie climbing out of hiking boots, and slapping one in the face. Very fruity, with buttery mangoes, ginger and chilli-powder-coated pineapple chunks. Water removes none of the edge; if anything, it increases the intensity. It does, however, remove the candied citrus (SW). Finish: a bit too gingery to score higher, this has lots of wood and almost as much fruit; cinnamon splinters, bay leaves, squashed apricots, peppermint. Water increases the fruit, apricot, mint-y peach flesh, mint lozenges, pine-jelly drops. 8/10

The soundtrack: The Pussycat Dolls - PCD

PS: "Nothing to do with the theme, but JS likes Littlemill, so..."
tOMoH; "Well, it's west of Glasgow, innit."

97.9 17yo 1990/2007 Clean spirit in a quality cask (56%, SMWS Society Cask): nose: it is rather fierce, with that Littlemill-y Aspirin touch (Cavalier66), lemon and chilli (red, not green, says Cavalier66). It also has metal, and PS specifies it is zinc-coated bicycle clips. Metallic as fook indeed, though it also retains a mint-y, custard-y side, with a lick of bright shoe polish, cow pastures and hides. Mouth: another intense number, packed with pineapple shavings, and a hint of soot, which is most surprising. Further sips are pretty metallic, in a brass-door-handle way, though it is tolerable. Then, we have mint lozenges again. Finish: long, fresh, metallic. This is warming, yet refreshing at the same time. A blend of custard, citrus, mint and metal. My notes are dreary, at this point, but this is good. Very good. 8/10

SW: "I saw this Hare Krishna guy in Soho Square, meditating topless. There were a couple playing ping-pong, and another bloke shooting up just next to them."
PS: "Which one did you join, then?"

PS: "We had a mice problem in our office. During lockdown, they survived for a while, because of the food people left, such as protein powder. But then, they died, because there was nothing left to eat."
JS: "Were they all muscular, when they died?"

PS digs deep into the West Side Story (musical) and brings us I Feel Pretty-vaich.

90.10 14yo 1990/2004 A game of two halves (57.8%, SMWS Society Cask): nose: sourdough, warm and rising, hot grapefruit peels, sour berries (SW), cut straw, porridge, cardboard. It does not read sexy, probably, but it works for me. Earthy pineapple, and, generally, dirty and farm-y fruit, whatever that means, dusted with confectionary sugar. Mouth: gingerbread and lemon-sponge cake. This has lots of fluffy, crusty bread and fruits, now (an hour in, or so -- I take my time), with grapefruit rinds, pomelo zest, crushed and rehydrated combava leaves and some kind of lime ice cream. That is to say it turns more acidic with time. Finish: now, it is a weird mix of porridge and grapefruit PiM's (the superior kind of small cakes). It certainly has that moist-cake-base consistency, and reminds me of a lemon drizzle. I love it. 8/10

SW: "I was ??kg before, lockdown; I am ?*kg now."
Cavalier66: "That is a 15kg difference. That is sixty packets of butter."
tOMoH: "Imagine how many cakes you could bake with that!"

SW presents another island off the west coast of Scotland.

Undisclosed Islay ~3yo b.2020 (~57%, cask sample, Cognac + Armagnac Casks): an unlikely thing from the south coast. It is unclear what it is, but definitely not Laphroaig, nor Lagavulin. Mmmmmkay. Nose: cardboard and paint (SW) over a hammy note, says Cavalier66 (as in: ham), ink, farmyard, scorched earth, crusted mud. The provenance seems to become clearer, with tarry ropes, algae and wax paper (PS). Xylene (for stencil fans) and cured ham. It grows more and more farm-y with time, and more moist like a peat bog. Mouth: chocolate custard, mocha custard, and, if one leaves it long enough on the tongue, roasted coffee beans, and Mokatine. It is also chewy as a fistful of clay. Finish: long, drying in an evaporated-watercolour way, it has ink slowly drying on parchment. It is increasingly farm-y, the more one drinks; earth, farm paths. Further sips seem hotter, with scorched earth and fierce peppermint, drowned in baskets of mud. Lastly, stagnant water comes up. 8/10

The soundtrack: Ambre - Le Mensonge

What a tasting! So much variety! Happy birthday, SW!