Eating, drinking, driving, laughing.
May. 17th, 2009 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3A good weekend. Up to the cottage on Friday, and up early enough to head off to the Spirit of The West festival at Inverary. A funny event, part food fair, part whisky tasting, part music festival. I think the parts never really gelled, due to some sloppy timetabling and lack of a real musical focus. The food was fine, although almost identical to what was on offer a week ago at Loch Fyne (since this includes some of my favourite things, that isn't a very damming criticism).
The whisky line up, on the other hand, was fantastic. They'd themed it around the Island Trail, a marketting invention that takes in almost all of the Western distilleries. So that includes Islay, Jura, Kintyre, Oban and, unusually, Ben Nevis. There were 16 stalls in the Dram Tent, and all of them were offering samples. What makes this sort of thing special is the chance to try something unusual, and hopefully something you can't get anywhere else. There were also "masterclasses" focussing on one distillery, or a theme. I signed up for the Springbank and Bruichladdich sessions.
Springbank offered four whiskies for tasting, Bruichladdich five. I've always been a fan of Campbeltown whiskies, and the best news in their tasting was that Campbeltown, which used to be a distinct whisky region with 38 distilleries, has been recognised as a region again, now that Springbank have reopened the neighbouring Glengyle distillery. The Glengyle bottling is a work in progress just now - a five year old that was pleasant enough but nothing to knock your socks off. It was the first time it had been tasted in public, though, as it won't be launched until Thursday. The other three drams were Hazelburn 8 (heavily peated on the nose, a match for most Islays of the same age), Longrow 14, a beautiful, rich dram, with peat on the palate, not on the nose, and a Springbank Madeira Expression (aged for all of it's 11 years in Madeira casks, not "finished" in that wood) which was a huge and welcome surprise. A Christmas pud of a dram, that went straight on my "must buy" list.
The Bruichladdich tasting was today, and had five drams, one of which was unique, and being tasted for the first time, three of which were excellent, and one has just become my new favourite dram. The unique one was the X4 - quadruple distilled, and 73 degrees at three years old. As the master blender pointed out, it could age for 60 years and come out at 45 degrees. As I said to him, I now have a reason to live to be 100. Startling as it was, the X4 wasn't my favourite. Neither were the Peat, 2001, or Waves expressions. All very good, and as refined as I expect the Laddies to be. What knocked my socks off was a 16 year old Bourbon cask, which just pulls everything out of the wood, and is really startlingly good.
The tasting was hosted by Jim McEwan, and it's the first time I've seen him in action. Probably the best I've ever seen. He's knowledgeable, witty, but most of all he's passionate. He spoke about how whisky has moved him to tears, when he was responsible for selecting Bowmore's 40 year old casks for bottling. He talked about sampling the casks in Bowmore's cellars, on a dark and stormy day, and holding the test dram in his hand, realising that he knew everyone who'd put it in the cask 40 years ago, and that every single one of them was dead. He said that every one of them was represented and remembered in that cask, and that all of them were to be honoured and thanked for that.
He spoke about whisky as being the blood of Scotland - that it was all we had left, now that the coal had gone, the ships have gone, the cars have gone, the computers have gone. That without whisky Scotland would be nothing, and his island, Islay, would be nothing. I don't entirely agree with him - Scotland's richest resource remains what it's always been, the people who dug the coal, who built the ships, the cars, the computers. But I heard and respected the passion in his voice.
I heard it again from the cooks and chefs working with salmon and venison and beef and aye, with whisky. From the farmer who sold us the fillet steaks we had for dinner on Saturday night, from the wee lassie serving macaroni cheese made with cheese from her parent's creamery. I came away from those tents proud of what Scotland produces, and proud of the produce those people make.
The whisky line up, on the other hand, was fantastic. They'd themed it around the Island Trail, a marketting invention that takes in almost all of the Western distilleries. So that includes Islay, Jura, Kintyre, Oban and, unusually, Ben Nevis. There were 16 stalls in the Dram Tent, and all of them were offering samples. What makes this sort of thing special is the chance to try something unusual, and hopefully something you can't get anywhere else. There were also "masterclasses" focussing on one distillery, or a theme. I signed up for the Springbank and Bruichladdich sessions.
Springbank offered four whiskies for tasting, Bruichladdich five. I've always been a fan of Campbeltown whiskies, and the best news in their tasting was that Campbeltown, which used to be a distinct whisky region with 38 distilleries, has been recognised as a region again, now that Springbank have reopened the neighbouring Glengyle distillery. The Glengyle bottling is a work in progress just now - a five year old that was pleasant enough but nothing to knock your socks off. It was the first time it had been tasted in public, though, as it won't be launched until Thursday. The other three drams were Hazelburn 8 (heavily peated on the nose, a match for most Islays of the same age), Longrow 14, a beautiful, rich dram, with peat on the palate, not on the nose, and a Springbank Madeira Expression (aged for all of it's 11 years in Madeira casks, not "finished" in that wood) which was a huge and welcome surprise. A Christmas pud of a dram, that went straight on my "must buy" list.
The Bruichladdich tasting was today, and had five drams, one of which was unique, and being tasted for the first time, three of which were excellent, and one has just become my new favourite dram. The unique one was the X4 - quadruple distilled, and 73 degrees at three years old. As the master blender pointed out, it could age for 60 years and come out at 45 degrees. As I said to him, I now have a reason to live to be 100. Startling as it was, the X4 wasn't my favourite. Neither were the Peat, 2001, or Waves expressions. All very good, and as refined as I expect the Laddies to be. What knocked my socks off was a 16 year old Bourbon cask, which just pulls everything out of the wood, and is really startlingly good.
The tasting was hosted by Jim McEwan, and it's the first time I've seen him in action. Probably the best I've ever seen. He's knowledgeable, witty, but most of all he's passionate. He spoke about how whisky has moved him to tears, when he was responsible for selecting Bowmore's 40 year old casks for bottling. He talked about sampling the casks in Bowmore's cellars, on a dark and stormy day, and holding the test dram in his hand, realising that he knew everyone who'd put it in the cask 40 years ago, and that every single one of them was dead. He said that every one of them was represented and remembered in that cask, and that all of them were to be honoured and thanked for that.
He spoke about whisky as being the blood of Scotland - that it was all we had left, now that the coal had gone, the ships have gone, the cars have gone, the computers have gone. That without whisky Scotland would be nothing, and his island, Islay, would be nothing. I don't entirely agree with him - Scotland's richest resource remains what it's always been, the people who dug the coal, who built the ships, the cars, the computers. But I heard and respected the passion in his voice.
I heard it again from the cooks and chefs working with salmon and venison and beef and aye, with whisky. From the farmer who sold us the fillet steaks we had for dinner on Saturday night, from the wee lassie serving macaroni cheese made with cheese from her parent's creamery. I came away from those tents proud of what Scotland produces, and proud of the produce those people make.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-18 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-18 02:38 pm (UTC)N "I've made you a whisky cake as a surprise. I've been feeding it secretly for the past fortnight"
J *look of panic* "Whichofmywhiskysdidyouuse???"
Glad you enjoyed yourself and felt so proud :o)