Macallan 18 yo 1989/2007 cask strength (Christmas time, mistletoe and wine)

I don't really like Macallan that much. There's nothing objectionable about the whiskies in the range, but of the ones I've tried (about 4, so far, some of which didn't make it into the tasting notebook), there hasn't been much dimension of flavour. They're all sherry sweet, some with a little nutmeg, others with a little oak, but there's nothing that's come up and whacked me in the mouth.

This one though, is different. The 18 year aging, as well as the higher ABV, has achieved what 10 and 12 years couldn't do, which is to infuse it with spice, wood and fruit all the way through, rather than having the flavour elements remain on the surface. Given the season, I'm going to try and pair this with something Christmassy.

The trusty tasting notebook says:

Macallan 18 yo 1989/2007 Cask Strength (from the cask, Whisky Shop)
Single malt - Speyside
Dark amber, almost mahogany
55% ABV

Nose: Oaky, sherry, winey and rich. Oranges and honey. Alcohol prickle and candied ginger.
Mouthfeel: Thick and full-bodied. Doesn't expand much.
Tasting: Sweet and tangy. Woody pine notes, fresh reams of paper. Toffee and honey, orange peel and cherry syrup.
Finish: Long but faint. Caramel fudge. A little woodsmoke at the very end.

And the experiments:

1. Eggnog.

Christmas eggnog, thick with brandy and cinnamon, nutmeg on top. I've had to make this myself, so it's probably not great, and sans brandy too, but otherwise this should be suitable for experimental purposes.

Ah, same problem as with sticky toffee pudding - the heat from the 'nog evaporates the whisky and sends it straight up the nose. Ouch. This is cask strength! But not unpleasant - oak and spice in the whisky marries well with the thickness of the egg. The cinnamon stick in the 'nog complements the pine in the whisky well, and brings out some nutmeg notes that weren't there before. Or maybe the nutmeg comes from the 'nog - it's hard to tell. Overall, tasty, and the 'nog actually benefits from having the whisky in it instead of boring old brandy.

2. Mince pies.

Plain mince pie with butter pastry, no brandy butter sauce. This actually came from Sainsbury, although I'm reliably informed that Marks & Spencer ones are the best.

Interesting flavour combinations. The sweet and fruity mince brings out a lemony metallic taste in the Macallan. Notes of lemongrass and galangal, with a little aluminium foil thrown in to liven things up, all wreathed in winey oakiness of the Glengoyne kind (as opposed to the spicy oakiness one tends to get with whisky - I'm thinking Clynelish). The finish is surprisingly smoky.


3. Christmas pudding.

Slight disaster while attempting this - part of the pudding caught fire (must have been the cognac) and burned a small hole in the container. Nevertheless all one needs is a mouthful, and I managed to salvage a little piece.

The pudding was too sweet, and made the whisky seem faint and far away. Interesting fruity notes though - kiwi and blueberry? But still predominantly orange and cherry. Not a success, but that could be because I burned most of the pudding...


And the winner is number 2, the mince pies. I think I'll chuck out the rest of the pudding, and enjoy another mince pie with rest of the whisky.

10 best whiskies tasted in 2007

I'm off on holiday tomorrow till the end of the year. And as I'm diving for some of the time, and driving for most of the rest, there won't be any whisky action going on (unless I get lucky). So it's a good time to list my favourite whiskies tasted this year. In 2007, I've tasted (properly tasted, not just knocking back shots at the bar) about 30 or so, of which only 25 of which made it into the tasting notebook for one reason or another. I had a slow start to the year. However, I think 30 whiskies are enough to pick a top 10 from, especially if they were without exception enjoyable.

I don't like to rank my lists (who's to say that Deinotherium is cooler than Gomphotherium?) but in this case, why not? In order, from the most scrumptious, right down to plain tasty:

1. Rosebank 17 yo 1990/2007 Cask Strength (Whisky Exchange).

I got this straight from the cask at the Whisky Exchange in Vinopolis. Lovely, complex, fruity nose, wonderful flavours - reminds me of rhubarb and custard sweets, something I'll forever associate with Scotland. Also pear drops, which I first sampled in St Andrews next to the seaside. A brilliant, warming, delicious whisky, and it's so sad that the supplies of Rosebank are limited. I think I've got enough left to attempt some food pairing experiments though.

2. Clynelish 15 yo 1992/2007 Cask Strength (Whisky Exchange).

I tried this in 2 incarnations - straight from the cask at the Whisky Exchange, and a bottling from their indie label, the Single Malts of Scotland. The cask expression was better, because Duncan and Matt at the Whisky Exchange moved the cask around before filling my bottle, giving the whisky a good shake and a lot of extra spice from the wood. Ginger biscuits,
spiced apple, wheat beer, fig jam on toast, burning wood - so interesting, and so very tasty. I can't wait to try pairing this one.

3. Bunnahabhain 27 yo 1978/2006 Cask Strength (Signatory).

This was FM's birthday gift, and also the first whisky I've tried that's older than I am (by a few days, but who's counting...). Very big flavours, Highland-like, with woodsmoke, papaya (drizzled with lime, hurrah!), fermented fruit, and a very interesting mix of land and sea at the finish - whiffs of seaweed followed by cut grass. It's FM's, and it would be a shame to deny him the pleasure of finishing it, so no pairings - yet.

4. Glengoyne 17 yo (OB).

Sweet child of mine! The oak aging gives this whisky flawless spice and fruit notes. Chocolate covered raisins pop out everywhere. I did try to pair this, but nothing worked - this whisky is best as a dessert all on its own.

5. Talisker 18 yo (OB).

I actually finished this bottle just before I had the idea of blogging about food pairings. What a shame. But this one was a food in its own right - the smoky, meaty, peppery Talisker had somehow been enhanced with bittersweet orange and toasty, bready notes. Smoked bacon and Seville marmalade sandwiches, a wonderfully satisfying combination.

6. Kilchoman New Spirit (OB).

Strictly speaking this one isn't really whisky, but if the new make spirit tastes like this, the properly aged stuff is going to be a world beater. Fish sauce, dates, tangerines, butter and butterscotch, all cradled in a gentle peaty cloak. The label claims one can taste pear, but it's overpowered by the ABV I think (there might have been some pear in the finish). Scarily drinkable at 63% ABV!

7. Macallan 18 yo 1989/2007 Cask Strength (Whisky Shop).

This one was a gift from my parents. I ordinarily wouldn't choose it myself (I'm not the biggest fan of Macallan), but the age of the whisky has really improved and enhanced the characteristic Macallan sweetness with cherry syrup and orange peel. This is a Christmas whisky, and with any luck I'll be able to have a post describing my food pairing experiments tomorrow.

8. Monkey Shoulder.

This is a vatted malt made from Balvenie, Glenfiddich and Kininvie. William Grant, the bottlers, don't release Kininvie as a single malt, so this is one of the few ways to find out how it might taste. Plums is my answer, plums and plum pudding. In addition to that, this whisky has Balvenie orange, Glenfiddich pear, and an undercurrent of honey and figs. I know many aficionados treat this with disdain, as it's marketed as suitable for mixing, but it is really very tasty neat. And that's how I'll drink it, despite the cocktail recipes on the website.

9. Edradour 10 yo (OB).

Minty, grassy, Kendal cake! This is a spring whisky, something to drink on a picnic in the countryside. It's got fruit (blackcurrant lurking somewhere), pick-me-ups (there's coffee and chocolate too), and the refreshing mintiness running through all aspects of the dram. Highly enjoyable, and very interesting.

10. Highland Park 12 yo (OB).

This is a very nice dram, and from all reports it's much inferior to its 18 yo cousin, the new member of the Highland Park range. I can't wait to try that one... But this 12 yo was very interesting in the sense that it created an instant impression - that doesn't normally happen when I taste. It made the words "chocolate milkshake" pop into my head upon first nosing. And it does taste like chocolate milkshake, if chocolate milkshake had raisins, grapes, melon, butter and was served in a leather cup...


Honourable mentions to a Connemara 12 yo I had in Soho's Toucan Bar and the Scapa 14 yo I had at FM's party.

That's it for 2007, whisky-wise. Hopefully I'll have many more (30 is a poor, poor score, but I was busy from January to June) in 2008!

One hell of a drinking party

Last Friday, the Pretty Lady and I went to FM's flat with some other friends for a wine tasting party. For wine, read champagne, red, white, whisky and brandy... although it started as a tasting party, within a few minutes it became a drinking party - and rightly so. FM knows his booze, and everything he served up, including the food, was delicious. It would have been a shame to spit any of it out.

We started with a Canard-Duchene champagne - don't think there was a vintage year attached. Very nice - my kind of champagne, tart and dry, very bready, hint of floral perfume at the end. To accompany - hang on, I say accompany, to clarify it actually means scoffing food as fast as we could, while juggling the champagne flute, chatting, and simultaneously trying to pat Tootsie the Highland terrier. Anyway, to accompany, we had cheese (Stilton with blueberry, gouda, and a camembert with truffle oil are the ones I remember), cherry tomato upside-down tart, stuffed peppers with mozzarella and basil, and seared aubergines and courgettes.

Then we moved on to a Spanish white - albarino in this case. Can't remember exactly which bottle it was, but it was rounded and semi-sweet, with some faint peaches lurking somewhere - not too dry, and therefore very nice. I do agree that dry Chablis goes very well with fish, but with little else. If you want refreshment, drink water, Guinness or a mizuwari (make it with crap whisky please, don't waste the good stuff). I had some more cheese, and ciabatta slathered with pate, by the way.

FM then opened the oven and took out the pork rack that had been roasting in there for the last hour and 20 minutes. Brilliant - marinated with white wine and cider, roasted on a bed of green apple. Tender and flavourful (shame about the crackling - I think I had the one nice piece), and went very well with the spicy Australian shiraz. My memory again fails me as to which bottle it was, but it had overtones of lemon and chilli, with loads of oak.

Then we moved on to dessert, which I declined but the Pretty Lady had. I think it was creme caramel with whipped cream and raspberry sauce - pretty tasty, but I only had a mouthful, so can't judge.

FM whipped out his whisky tasting glass and we opened up a Scapa 14 yo. The Scapa 12 yo reminds me of pineapple, and with this expression it was closer to the top. It might have been the pork, but the 14yo was had beefsteak tomatoes and some big meaty notes in the tasting. Pretty nautical nose too - wet stones, sea salt and seaweed, which appeared again in the finish.

We then had 2 bottles which I brought along - Dalwhinnie 15 yo (cotton candy, peanuts, salted caramel - a fairground whisky, but more later, as my new cousin 飞 has kindly given me a bottle to taste and match), and a SMoS Clynelish 13 yo 1992 Cask Strength (spicy, sweet oak, big fruity flavours, vanilla - very very good indeed, and I do have something from a sister cask waiting to be tasted).

And FM then broke out the best whisky of the night - this year's birthday gift, Bunnahabhain 27 yo 1978 Cask Strength. I was pretty sloshed by this time, but was still sober enough to appreciate the wonders of this dram - sweet burnt sugar and walnuts in the nose, accompanied by burning driftwood (salty smoky), papaya, fermented fruit and limes in the tasting, in addition to delicious sherry, toffee and caramel. Big sherried beast.

So we closed with 2 brandies, Hennessy XO (opened for Shy Lion), and Louis XIII de Remy Martin. Wow. I ran out of words while trying to describe the whisky, so I can't really say much about the Louis XIII except that it was one hell of a dram. Full on, rich winey grape, with mushroom, apricots and hints of truffle and coriander. My palate was pretty much saturated by this time, and I wish it hadn't been, so that I could have appreciated this lovely cognac more. Hey ho.

A massive thank you to FM, whose hospitality, cooking and generosity was immense.

No transactions = no prices

The price finding process depends in part on how quickly transactions take to complete. If there are no transactions there are no prices, and therefore no signals of how much goods are worth. This occasionally happens in illiquid markets - in a housing market, say, house values may be falling, but the official prices show no decline, because house sellers are aware of the fact and are holding out for better prices before they complete a transaction. No transaction = no price.

This has now happened at the economy-wide level, in Zimbabwe. Basic goods, presumably most of the consumption basket, have now disappeared from shop shelves, so the local statisticians cannot observe the prices. They therefore cannot compute an inflation rate. According to the article, September's inflation rate was 8,000% p.a., and judging by the rate of increase, October's rate must be in 5 figures now. The loans that the central bank is extending to businesses will simply increase the money supply and boost inflation even further. When there are no goods available, there's no point giving people more money to buy them.

The goods have disappeared because President Robert Mugabe has imposed price controls on the basic goods in question - not a good idea, obviously. For all his erudition Mugabe doesn't seem to have picked up the basic tenets of supply and demand - low prices = high demand, low supply. Or, more possibly, he simply doesn't care about his people.

Either way, he's unfit to lead his country.