Trouserpress

Here is a sobering thought.

“Each of us is 750 times more likely to be killed by an asteroid than to win this weekend’s lottery.”
Not that I have much interest in sobriety. This also implies that 750 people a week die of asteroids. Could that be a misspelling of haemorrhoids? Be very afraid.
The thought comes from an article about our imminent demise from deep space objects. No, the objects are not deep, they come from deep space. You can read the story here.

More on sudden and imminent death here — but at least our fried bones will look good garlanded in space jewels.

So given the facts of our impermanence and vulnerability why are we fussing and fighting?

Right, another month, another bottle of single malt. This time it’s The Macallan Fine Oak 12 year old.

I skipped last month so that my liver could get its breath back, but I’m gagging for a whisky, I am. I couldn’t hold out any longer.

One of the fun things about single malts is that they are all so different while supposedly being the same drink and I enjoy the fact that the flavours are so complex. I find some tasting notes and then try to spot the flavours. One day, perhaps I’ll have a go at thinking for myself.

Meanwhile, the tasting notes I am using today are from The Whisky Magazine (read here) and also those handy little notes printed on the packaging.

As an aside, I have to complain briefly about the marketing blurb on the box. It is an example of how marketers will write any old bollocks without regard to sense or meaning. The whisky is described as “sublime”. Well, if you tried the drink and thought to yourself ‘I like it, but I prefer a peaty Islay’ then it wouldn’t be sublime, would it? Do they honestly think I am more likely to buy a bottle if told by complete strangers who are trying to flog the stuff that it is sublime?
Whatever.

Back at the table, I haven’t opened the bottle yet. These days I approach a new bottle of scotch with a similar tingle of anticipation to sleeping with someone for the first time, but with no anxiety about my performance. I’m very good at drinking whisky and I don’t need any reassurance.

According to the box, the nose is “complex, with hints of fruit, vanilla and cut grass.”

I can’t be bothered to quote the Whisky Magazine. Just see for yourself.
[reverential pause while I open the bottle and pour a glass]
Ah. It just dawns on me that I have a blocked and knackered nose today. The smells are not getting through very well. I think I got the fruitiness, and for a moment possibly the hemp that reviewer Dave Broom mentioned. I suppose that could be the cut grass if it had been laying around on the lawn going brown. I like the word ‘complex’ in this nose test. It is safe and covers about everything.

The palate is said to be “medium, balanced with fruit, oak and spice” and the finish ought to be “long” with more of that fruit — now dried, apparently — oak and spice.

I am drinking this without ice or water, as is my habit.

My God, that’s good. Well, I won’t be going anywhere tonight or getting anything done.

The reviews talked oodles of sweet marmalade flavours and so on, which I am not getting. Oak. I am getting something woody which is presumably the alleged oak mentioned on the box, but not by the reviewers. I can get something like dried fruit in the finish where it is supposed to be.

It is rich in flavours, and speaks of open fires and cold windy nights, and yes, dammit, it is complex, and I’m not embarrassed to say so.

I have tried the Macallan 10 year old before and enjoyed it enormously, but I like this one better. Only two years older and there is a real difference in the taste. This is much more mature (the oak, presumably). In the 10, I can really taste the sweet toffee-ish notes. Not so with this one.

It has been a good year for whisky. Before January 2006, I had tried the following single malts:
Glenlivet
Glenmorangie
Glenfiddich
Laphroaig
each in their 10 year old incarnations

This year I have added to that list:
Macallan 10
Macallan 12
Glenmorangie sherry wood finish
Glenmorangie port wood finish
Talisker
Jura
Bowmore
three limited edition and antique expressions from Bruichladdich

I’ll probably go back quickest to Bowmore and Talisker as I have discovered a great partiality to that peat, but there are so many other flavours to explore it might not be soon. Next stop: either Strathisla or Highland Park.

Yet more research that proves beyond any doubt that red wine is the elixir of life: read here.

Red wine not only prevents heart disease, cancer and liver disease, it improves longevity (well, I suppose it would if it fights all known diseases - duh!). It also stops you putting on weight (I’m obviously not drinking enough).

Red wine also enables the drinker to fly, see through solid walls and develop muscles of steel.

The amount I drink, I will be around till the end of time.

See you there?

Six-thirty Friday morning (yesterday) I was woken by the house juddering around me. It was an earthquake.

‘I hate these things,’ I thought, turned over and went back to sleep.

Today, my eight year old daughter was Googling Disney images and copying them carefully onto sketch paper I had given her. Meanwhile, I was absorbed in my own work on the laptop and paying little attention. Eventually, I looked up to find my daughter laboriously copying this image (click).

She thought it one of the most amusing things she had seen. I thought it one of the most amusing things I had seen.

Google picked up the image from this site, which in turn had linked to this.

(I would love to post her rendition of the image, but the scanner is up the creek.)