16/05/2026 Slag heaps of the Black Country

GD and ydc are hosting this one, and they intend to celebrate their corner of the world with the theme. They went all in with invitations in local dialect, themed t-shirts, badges, stickers and other promotional items.

GD's tee

Tèje tu Boyard!

ydc's tee

sonicvince, Bishlouk, dom666, Psycho and I join GD and ydc for an afternoon of fun.

And work.

As I ask for a pen and warn that I may need a sheet of paper, at some point:

GD: "An Englishman without paper."
dom666: "That's called a clandestine."

GD opens the dance: a gin produced in Charleroi. It is called 972, which is the depth (in metres) of the deepest pit of the Martinet site.

MF-M-NC 972 Cuvée 2020 (42%, LaM-U, 3000b, b#0053) (GD)

Nose: hay, lime zest and parsley-topped goat's cheese. sonicvince has cloves and Granny Smith apples, while I find green peppercorns.
Mouth: it is very citrus-y on the palate. Acidic lime.
Finish: creamy, custardy, even, it has lots of lime zest again. GD detects black pepper, which, ydc points out, is wild. Wild black pepper. It also has génépi, though much less syrupy, naturally, more gin épais (boom-tsch).
Comment: this may be my favourite gin to-date. The acronyms mean Monceau-Fontaine, Marcinelle, Nord Charleroi and La Manufacture Urbaine respectively.
Score: 8/10

tOMoH notes that mines (coal mines are the reason this is called the Black Country) have pits. Here is a Pit-tyvaich.

Pittyvaich 14yo 1986/2001 (43%, Ian McLeod Chieftain's, Hogsheads, C#9519-22, 1074b, L1212BB 3 11 58) (tOMoH)

Nose: wet sands, vanilla (sonicvince). It is acidic, then soft (sonicvince), with dried fruits (Psycho) and apricot (ydc).
Finish: liquorice (ydc).
Comment: full notes here. I am pleased that it is very successful, today. This group's experience with Pittyvaich was, so far, limited to one or two d.1993 by Gordon & MacPhail, and those have been less appealing.
Score: 8/10

Two kinds of dried sausage
Ossau Iraty
Homemade savoury cake

Psycho: "Are you saying I should inject alcohol with a syringe?"
dom666: "Do what you want with your own body."
ydc: "Impossible. He cannot stand needles."
tOMoH: "Psycho will never be pictured in a pine forest."
sonicvince: "I'm not a fan either."
Bishlouk: "You don't like pine trees?"
tOMoH: "That horrible smell of freshness..."

Psycho plays dyslexic and presents a Black-nod.

Bladnoch 1987/1999 (40%, Gordon & MacPhail Connoisseurs Choice) (Psycho)

Nose: pears (sonicvince), daisy stems (Bishlouk), flowery and vegetal (Bishlouk), Littlemillian (Bishlouk). It has wet pebbles (sonicvince) and apricots (Psycho). It is fruity, light and ethereal.
Mouth: pear and frangipane (sonicvince), though that is fleeting and turns medicinal (sonicvince). ydc finds elderberry. The dilution is noticeable, but tolerable.
Finish: fruits and wood. Here are balsa and dried pineapple. It kicks harder than expected too.
Comment: we had not had this in many years. Time in an open bottle seems to have improved it and turned it into a lovely, fruity drop. Bishlouk seems impressed. That happens rarely enough to mention.
Score: 8/10

tOMoH: "GD, you were showing dom666 your glass collection, earlier. Dangerous."
GD: "No, we don't have the same criteria."
tOMoH: "What's dangerous is not that he would steal them, but that he talks about his collection for three hours."

Psycho tells us that slag heaps are nothing but little mounds. A mound, he continues, is a high land. This Glenmorangie is from the Highlands. Groan.

Glenmorangie 12yo The Lasanta (43%, OB imported by MHCS, Bourbon & Sherry Casks) (Psycho)

Nose: syrupy, it has distant toasted cereals, then cinnamon rolls, Cured blush orange segments and dried pine cones. There is a whiff of apple in the second nose.
Mouth: soft, this is very syrupy. A syrup with a mineral side, mind. Then, we pick up dried coconut flakes cured in wine.
Finish: blackberry drops and blackcurrants. Chewy for a while, it leaves the same impression as a chalky paste on the palate. The second gulp brings a thick custard.
Comment: honest drop that grows on me.
Score: 7/10

Smoking in the sun

dom666: "LVMH and their handbags made in China..."
tOMoH: "What is not made in China, these days?"
Psycho: "Me. I was not made in China."
Bishlouk: "I can see that. You're losing oil."

sonicvince brought a bottling from the Mission Gold collection, because coal in Charleroi used to be the local gold.

Bishlouk likes Fabrizio from Charleroi, who talks about 'kete' a lot (Walloon for 'cock'), so he brought a Glen Keith.

With exactly zero surprise, that leads to this timeless masterpiece of Belgian television, with GD performing the choreography and all.

Since they are from the same distillery, we have them at the same time.

Glen Keith 32yo 1993/2025 (47.9%, Murray McDavid Mission Gold exclusively selected by The Whisky Mercenary, First-Fill Koval Bourbon Cask Finish, C#97174A, 140b) (sonicvince)

Nose: hyper-fruity sweets, mint (sonicvince). It gains a certain herbaceous note, indeed mint. Starburst/Opal fruits/Sugus (depending on where in the world you are), pineapple drops. There are fleeting glimpses of gelatine capsules, followed by candied angelica.
Mouth: more fruits, here, but it is actually pretty mineral. The second sip has bitter fruits, perhaps carambola with a dusting of crushed Aspirin.
Finish: quarry chippings sprayed onto vanilla custard augmented with cut apricot. The second gulp brings forth poached apples and Doyenné du Comice pears.
Comment: amazeboulanger.
Score: 9/10

vs.

Glen Keith-Glenlivet 43yo 1973/2017 (43.2%, Cadenhead Single Cask, Bourbon Hogshead, 156b, 17/192) (Bishlouk)

Nose: hyper fruity too, at first, it soon picks up leather and hay. Then, it progresses towards sherbet and crushed peaches.
Mouth: closely related to the other one, this has peach yoghurt and a stronger bitterness. That evolves to give a leafy fruitiness -- kumquat foliage.
Finish: long, full of fruity sweets and a soft lick of woody bitterness. The second gulp brings clay floors and Turkish delights.
Comment: we tried this three years ago and thought it would improve in the open bottle. It did. What is amazing is that it does not crush its younger sibling.
Score: 9/10

dom666: "When I was younger, I listened to another good little band from Liège called Prïba 2000."
All: "Errr… They were from Charleroi!"
dom666: "Are you sure?"

Here is the evidence, dom666.

dom666: "Mine is a forty-year-old Strathisla at 48.3%."
tOMoH: "And the link to the theme?"
dom666: "No idea."

Strathisla 40yo 1967/2008 (48.6%, Duncan Taylor Rare Auld, C#2716, 160b, b#98, 107 08/113) (dom666)

Nose: dusty (Psycho), herbaceous, close to a rye, which prompts dom666 to shout the link to the theme: "C'est comme un rye de coke!" (For those readers who are not aware of the Industrial Revolution, coke is a coal-based fuel that enabled ironworks.) It has a pinch of lemon thyme bathing in custard. Is that maracuja? It may well be! To follow that, we find a bite of marzipan and a dollop of shoe polish too.
Mouth: powerful (Bishlouk, not used to alcohol at more than 24%), it has a note of fruits immediately followed by smoky flavours: smoky roasted apples, tarts in a dusty boiler room.
Finish: strong coffee (sonicvince). I find it a tiny bitterness, almost mineral.
Comment: this is incredible. dom666 opened it, ahem, almost eighteen years ago, which prompted me to procure my own bottle, which we opened ten years later. It remains a killery. Notes here.
Score: 9/10

dom666 [about Dune]: "Nice images, but -- pffft! Long and slow."
Bishlouk: "So are the books."
dom666: "The books you can put down and do something else."
Bishlouk: "You can press pause on a film..."
dom666: "At the cinema, it is difficult."
Bishlouk: "There is an interval. You can go take a wee."
dom666: "The interval is a year between films."
tOMoH: "You can take a long wee."
dom666: "Great for you, that!"

dom666 [about Gotlib]: "The second genius of comic strips."
Psycho: "After Léonard?"
tOMoH: "That's a character, not an author."
dom666: "Léonard... He was a lumberjack. Car c'est en sciant que Léonard devint scie."
tOMoH: "You are quoting Psycho in his presence."
dom666: "No, I read that elsewhere."
Bishlouk: "In the bingos, it is definitely in the Psycho bingo!"

ydc introduces Old Black Cane, a nod to the Black Country.

Bologne Old Black Cane (45%, OB, b. ca. 2025) (ydc)

Nose: plastic pipes and herbs. Rum baba, baked pineapple rings.
Mouth: rum-y, it has metal, melted plastic and sugar. All of them are rather discreet.
Finish: cane sugar, black garlic. It has that charred-garlic bitterness, yet it is also pretty juicy, somehow.
Comment: nothing could have followed that Strathisla. A rum is the perfect solution: so different it resets the palate. This one is good to boot.
Score: 7/10

tOMoH: "dom666 and Bishlouk both like Talisker, neither likes cucumber tart... Clearly, they're the same person. They have no hair, they wear glasses, they both live in Liège..."
Bishlouk: "We have no hair..."
tOMoH: "Neither listens..."

We move to the dining table. ydc and GD made Nasi Goreng. I worry that the spices will impair our taste buds, but it is perfectly balanced. And delicious.

We discover that dom666 has never had Nasi Goreng.

tOMoH: "I don't know how it is in Charleroi, but in Liège, it's like this: Belgians of Italian descent discover after they're forty that Belgium also has Chinese restaurants. All they know is the Italian ones. dom666 is not an isolated case."
dom666: "This isn't Chinese. It's Indonesian. I know Chinese restaurants in Liège. There is one rue Aaa, there is a Thai rue Bbb, a Viet-Namese rue Ccc…"
Bishlouk: "There is also one rue Ddd."
dom666: "There is also a good pizzeria in rue Ddd."
Bishlouk: "It's not as good as the one rue Eee."
tOMoH: "Unbelievable. We do a Charleroi tasting in Charleroi, and those two only talk about Liège!"

We talk about fried food.

tOMoH: "The Chinese have no lesson to take from anyone, when it comes to fried food. The best fried spiders, I've had were from a Chinese restaurant."
dom666: "Have you had them from many other places?"
tOMoH: "No. That's the joke."
dom666: "I know."

Dessert is served. rhubarb tart and rice tart, and apple turnovers for Psycho, which he will not share.

Rhubarb and sugar tart

Rice tart

Bishlouk tells us that Ben Nevis, the United Kingdom's tallest mountain, is but a large slag heap in Scotland.

Ben Nevis 15yo 2010/2025 (56.9%, Liquid-Treasures bottled for Espirits Whisky, Bourbon Hogshead) (Bishlouk)

Nose: fish (sonicvince), dusty hot metal, hydrocarbons (Bishlouk). It smells industrial (Bishlouk) or farm-y, with horse's dung (GD). I find horse's hair and lots of oxydised and dusty metal. Apple and quince come out in the long run, while Bishlouk finds peat.
Mouth: it is peaty alright! Crushed peach stones and decaying fruits provide backing vocals. It has a bitter lick of tree bark, though peach custard rises a bit, timid.
Finish: peat and hot metal, and the bitterness associated with the latter. Sea spray (ydc), lots of hay, a handful of horse's hair and Mokatine, maybe. Mocha is bitter after all, is it not?
Comment: another one that will likely improve in the open bottle. It is promising, but a bit unruly, as it stands.
Score: 7/10

Les Gayettes
A special kind of local truffles

sonicvince shows us a whisky distilled in 1987 and explains that the 1980s were the golden age of socialism in Charleroi.

Tomatin 27yo 1987/2014 (46.3%, Morrison & Mackay Càrn Mòr Celebration of the Cask imported by The Stillman's, Hogshead, C#495, 187b, b#10) (sonicvince)

Nose: berries jelly to me, though sonicvince detects a touch of sulphur.
Mouth: unctuous and ripe with berries.
Finish: lemon zest (ydc), lemon pith (ydc), astringent (Bishlouk).
Comment: full notes here. Long discussion about Bishlouk's impressions -- he calls this not horrible and the previous not bad. ydc cannot figure out if one is better than the other, or if Bishlouk is simply difficult. We all know the answer to that, do we not?
Score: 8/10

Second serve

dom666 brought a peaty whisky and tells us that peat is nothing but wet coal.

Ardbeg 30yo (40%, OB, LS67462) (dom666)

Nose: lichens, an elegant vegetal peat, ashes, dried algae stuck to the side of an empty vase, sphagnum moss.
Mouth: ashes, smoked currants. One can feel the dilution a bit, and that pushes algae, sphagnum moss and dried ferns to the fore.
Finish: an onslaught of dried algae and lichens, stagnant water, empty vases. It leaves an extremely-dusty mouthfeel, bitter and ashy.
Comment: unique profile, especially in the world of ancient Ardbeg. I like it.
Score: 8/10

tOMoH unveils a Laphroaig, famously adorned by the seal of HRH the Prince of Wales, who favours Laphroaig. Naturally, Prince Charles was promoted, since this was bottled and became king. In French, one would say he is now Charles Roi. Check. Mate.

Laphroaig 28yo b.2018 (44.4%, OB Limited Edition, Quarter Casks + Bourbon Barrels + Sherry Butts) (tOMoH)

Comment: I take no notes for this today. It was a long day and time is running out. It is universally liked, which pleases me. Full notes here.
Score: 9/10

What a day. The amount of nonsense was epic. These notes do not show it, but the word of the day was clearly 'bite' ('dick'), to the point Bishlouk is henceforth known as Bite-louk. His final words are: "I don't know how many times we said 'dick', but I'm satisfied with the tally!"

An hourglass, a diabolo, or a butt plug, depending on whom you ask