Don’t call it a whisky
My housemate came back from the Isle of Man, and brought back a bottle of Manx. At first glance, we thought it was new make spirit – whisky that’s not old enough to be called whisky (3 years), but then we looked into it properly and were surprised to learn that it’s not.
It’s something much stranger.
Slàinte mhath! A very Happy New Year to you all.
Although we’ve only just said farewell to last year, I’m going to ask you all to come on a journey with me back through time….
Cast your minds back to seven months ago, and some of you may recall that on the 12th June we staged a mammoth tasting of twelve blends. It was a great night, and although it may have taken us a while to collect our thoughts in the few days following, the feedback that we got showed that a lot of you out there welcomed the chance to get more acquainted with the vatted, the grain, and the blends.
So why the big delay in the blogging? Well, between us we’ve been incredibly busy over the last few months. Dubber’s been globetrotting away like there’s no tomorrow (Holland, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Belgium, India) whilst I have been thoroughly consumed by fatherhood and all that that entails. So I’m hoping that you can see your way to excusing us on these grounds….?
It being the time for resolutions, we’ve got it in our heads to do a power of blogging this year – and we’ve got some big things planned…
In the meantime, below are our tasting notes from “The Night Of The Twelve Blends”:
Hi – Compliments of the season and all that.
We’ve been having a bit of a hiatus from the online whisky tastings for a little while. I’ve been travelling rather a lot these last six months, and Clutch has been altogether too wrapped up in the whole new dadhood thing.
Plus, when we have been getting together, it’s simply been a case of a casual, unscheduled malt or two for a bit of a catch-up as and when. Tastings – even online ones – take a bit of organising. Something neither of us have had much opportunity for recently.
But even though we’re going to be in different parts of the country, we thought it would be a shame to let Hogmanay (that’s New Year to you) go past without getting online with the whiskies we picked up for Christmas, share a few stories and hear what you’ve been enjoying over this festive season.
UK trumpeter Matt Halsall with Mario from Mario’s bar
Another tale of European travel.
I was in Genoa in the northern part of Italy a week or so back, and as is my way, I decided to go looking for a single malt. To my delight, it seemed that every bar in town had a genuine Scottish single malt whisky.
To my dismay, they all carried the same single malt whisky, it was cheap, abundant, a mere 5 years old – and not one I’d encountered in Britain.
I was a little surprised to find it somewhat unremarkable. I thought it’d be downright awful. Still – it was 2am, I was hanging out with musicians, I didn’t know the Italian for “no ice, please”, and they were pouring generous measures. I was delighted to find a single malt at all – not least of which one that was perfectly palatable.
I’ve been doing a little travel lately, and have found myself in some interesting places. And while the travel itself wasn’t whisky-related specifically, I did take it upon myself to at least inject a bit of a whisky theme into the proceedings.
I was in the North of Holland doing some (un)consultancy and was taken out to dinner in Leeuwarden by my hosts. I thought I’d check the wine list to see if there were any interesting drams to be found – and sure enough, Frysk Hynder was on the list.
It’s the only Frisian single malt there is, and production numbers are small – as low as 77 bottles a day. The lid has a distinctive horse statuette sticking out of it, so it’s hard to miss if you do ever encounter it – and there is glassware specifically made for it.
