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When plans were first afoot to drop by a few more of Scotland’s excellent whisky shops, I could have had no idea that by the time it came to write about them on the Scotch Odyssey Blog the mood of optimistic malty materialism would have soured to one of grudging destitution.

Whisk(e)y – and this is the honest truth - constitutes my only financial weakness. I don’t own a games console, I don’t buy clothes, I don’t go to concerts more than twice a year or sporting events at all. Yet here I sit, gently shivering in my student flat, more acutely aware than ever before of the dwindling loan money, incredulous at what it costs to be in a position to pour yourself a dram once in a while. Electricity, rent, internet, food, phone: all must take precedence.

Inside the Good Spirits Co.

It was under a cloud of such dark thoughts, on an otherwise spotless Glasgow day, that I ducked into the Good Spirits Co. in the city centre. A few weeks previously I had sent an excited message to Mark Connelly, co-founder of the independent spirits shop, asking for Bourbon or Rye recommendations. His pick was a Noah’s Mill, a brand I had never heard of but which receives rave reviews from what I could glean from a quick traipse across the internet. The batch Mark was so keen on was bottled at 57.15% and would come in at £49. My eyes struggled to ignore the handsome black wax-sealed bottle, but I would have to scan other shelves.

On a single level, just beneath the street, a flight of stone stairs conveys you from the battle royal of Glasgow buses pulling up and roaring off again into the soothing company of fine spirits. I was impressed with its size, a large and long cuboid extending from the door to the far wall, where the only Spanish cedar wood, walk-in humidor in Scotland lurks fragrantly. In whisky shops now, my gaze flicks to particular areas, expecting to see the same brands. Not here. There are some of the usual suspects, but the packaging of independent bottlers enlivens the displays with A. D. Rattray, Hart Brothers and Duncan Taylor well-represented. However, I get the feeling that were I to go back in next month Adelphi, Douglas Laing and Signatory may well have taken their places. Mark told me that his customers are increasingly interested in ‘good spirits’, not ‘the same stuff I have always drank’. This, he says, is especially true with his gins and allowed him to stock different brands of rare or small batch products which would always sell. Gin nudges Scotch for the top seller in the shop.

The impressive selection of world whiskeys section.

The world whisky section is particular impressive also, with two separate offerings from South Africa in the shapes of Bains and Three Ships. From different parts, there is Lark, Mackmyra and a healthy showing from Ireland: Cooley in particular.

As I mentioned before Christmas, my promise to myself and my palate was that no more Scotch would be bought until I had explored one other region first. The Noah’s Mill may have been off-limits, but I was delighted to see a solitary bottle of Four Roses and a legion of Buffalo Trace, both for £26. It would have to be between these two, and Mark made the decision still harder but informing me that the Buffalo Trace was now bottled at 40% abv, but what he had was a consignment of some of the last 45% ers.

It was the Four Roses I ultimately handed over the exquisite counter: a design based around the staves of three Sherry butts with more straightened staves for the counter top. ‘We looked at getting it for the whole floor,’ Mark mused, but then quoted me a three-figure price per square metre and the decision to go with standard wooden flooring looked a sound one.

The Good Spirits Co.'s Living Cask. What Dr Frankenstein was really after, I think.

I was not allowed to leave before having tried their ‘living cask’, a tiny Sherry wood cask which originally held Highland Park and Bunnahabhain but always receives a top-up of something else when the level in the barrel reaches the tap. Batch 4 dribbled into my Glencairn glass and it was rather excellent: coastal with plenty of Sherry fruit and spice on the nose, there were also notes of rich honey and earth – possibly the Ardmore and the Aberfeldy fighting for supremacy. The palate was sublime with red fruits and pale creamy oak leading into plenty of toffee. A second sip revealed an aggressive saltiness and a fizzing sweet cereal quality. £15 will buy you a 20cl bottle and it is certainly worth a look.

With directions to the Chinaski’s Bourbon bar and the Bon Accord lodged in our brains, my friends and I reascended to street level in very good spirits.

The Good Spirits Co., 23 Bath Street, Glasgow

0141 258 8427

http://thegoodspiritsco.com

Karen and Matt at The Glenlivet, one of my picks for a good distillery tour.

If proof were needed that whisky is a convivial drink elevated by the enlightened and considered folk with whom one savours and discusses it, I present to you Karen and Matt of Whisky For Everyone. Since beginning their democratic investigation into whiskies of the world in 2008, they have become my go-to blog for incredibly in-depth reviews, the latest news and always informed comment. With the same zeal today to discover more about the spirit, Karen and Matt are a credit to the industry and those who endeavour to write about it.

Following on from a guest blog I wrote for them earlier in the week, here is the Whisky For Everyone lowdown on distillery touring in Scotland. I was eager to source their perspective on this matter because I must often concede that while the Scotch Odyssey sought to present a picture of Scotland-wide whisky tourism in the recent past, my encounters can be no more helpful than the restaurant critic who only witnesses one service. Tours vary throughout the day according to a myriad of factors, let alone across the country, at different times of the year with different compositions of tour parties.

I find Karen and Matt’s experiences fascinating as testimonies to the diversity of approaches deployed by distilleries throughout Scotland for welcoming visitors. I hope you will, too.

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Through writing our blog, we are in the lucky position of getting the occasional invite to a distillery.  This may be for a number of reasons – they
want to raise awareness of their brand, to launch a new whisky, to open a new visitor centre or any combination of the three. This is great for us and is one of the perks of something that we do not get paid for and write in our spare time. Invariably these visits are a lot of fun and you get to meet some of the people that work there, while getting the ‘access all areas’ treatment.

However, these VIP tours are not what most people will experience when they turn up at adistillery.  This is why we enjoy joining
a general tour – it is by doing this that you truly experience what makes a distillery tick, what it is like when the spotlight is turned away and everyone is not on their best behaviour, trying to get you to write about their whisky brand.  On these occasions we very rarely ‘reveal our hand’ and try to find out as much information as we can by being ‘whisky beginners’.

From our experience, there seems to be two types of distillery tour available to the whisky tourist in Scotland – the ‘sanitised, see what they want you to see’ tour and the ‘warts and all, see how it really is’ tour.  We have been on a number of both types during our occasional holidays to Scotland. The format of the tours are basically the same – arrive, pay, be shown around, have the whisky making process explained, finish off with a dram or two in the visitor centre/shop.  But, this is where the similarities normally end.

The ‘sanitised, see what they want you to see’ tour is normally found at the larger distilleries or those that are the home to well known brands.
These places can cope with large numbers of fans and visitors that their brand generates. This tour will begin with a brand video showing barley swaying in the breeze, water babbling in a stream, an old chap from the distillery pushing a barrel, or scenes of a similar nature.

Coaches at Cardhu, home of Johnnie Walker. Not a bad tour by any means, but a distillery and approach catered towards the larger parties.

You will then be whisked around the distillery, or part of the distillery (normally not in operation), while the whisky making process basics are explained by the tour guide.  Questions of a more advanced level seem to be discouraged and you are also usually asked not to take any photos or video for ‘safety reasons’.  You will then get a dram of whisky, possibly two if lucky, to send you on your way (usually the basic expression/s from their core range), while they deal with the next coach-load of tourists.

The ‘warts and all, see how it really is’ tour is usually found at the smaller or cult distilleries, or those of smaller and less well-known brands.  There will be no corporate video here, just an informative ‘down to earth’ tour that takes you through the sights and sounds of a working distillery and the whisky making process. It will also not be clean and pristine with lots of shiny new metal on show. The tour guides always seem to be more engaging and open to any questioning, be it at a beginner or connoisseur level.  You may even have the chance to speak with a member of distillery staff who always seem happy to have a chat or answer any questions.

You will invariably get to try more than just the most basic whisky from their core range. You will also be allowed to take photos, including putting your camera lens in to mash tuns, fermentation tanks etc.  This leads you to think – either these places care much less about ‘safety’ than the distilleries in the first group, or there are no real ‘safety reasons’ to worry about.  Maybe those that use that as a reason for no photography, just don’t want you to take any …

Naturally, there are exceptions to both types of tour and ultimately, many visitors will leave both types happy.  However, we always look at them with our slightly critical eyes and guess that it depends what you want from the experience – do you just want to tick off a ‘distillery tour’ on your Scotland must-do list or do you want to really learn something about a place, brand or the whisky production process?

One of my favourite distillery tours, too. You see absolutely everything at Glen Moray.

Our favourite distillery tour to date was found at Glen Moray in Elgin.  Here, we rushed to try and make one of the advertised tour times and were late. Despite this, our soon-to-be tour guide (Emma) stopped what she was doing and offered to show us around anyway. After a tour, which involved seeing almost every nook and cranny of the distillery, we felt like we had an affinity with the place.

We were allowed to walk around freely, ask Emma anything we wanted and get in depth replies, speak to the distillery workers about what they were doing and take as many photos as we wanted.  After that sort of experience, the whisky was always going to taste good. We were given a tutored tasting of three whiskies from the core range, plus a couple of special editions (one of which we ended up buying).

A few months ago, we were invited back to Glen Moray as their guests for a product launch and dinner.  As part of this, we were invited on a VIP tour of the distillery.  This tour proved to be exactly the same and as in depth as the regular tour that we had experienced previously.  That tells
you plenty about how Glen Moray value their visitors and some other distilleries can learn a lesson from that. After all, it could be someone’s first ever distillery tour …

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A massive thank you again to Karen and Matt, and I would urge you to follow their discoveries within the whisky world at Whisky For Everyone.

'Eh?!' 'Mmmmm!'

And then I thought John MacDonald was going to hit me. My tasting note of ‘guinea pig hutch’ had not gone down well.

When nosing and tasting whisky, our brain has a habit of surprising us with a suggestive vista of just what sensory memories we have folded away in the darkest recesses. The conversion by our imaginations of these hints and fragments which those few molecules of distilled, oak-matured malt spirit disturbed when they pottered past our hypothalamus into an image or reel of footage can, however, appear so far removed from anything you might wish to detect in a fine single malt, bourbon or blend once we concretize them in writing.

The exercise of producing tasting notes works on association, putting into a system of signs for mass-consumption and comprehension what is only a deeply private impression. Tasting notes, therefore, work best only for the taster who can unlock the subtext and allusions to the words on the page. This is not quite on the same topic as Keith Wood and I discussed at the beginning of last year whereby particular scenes and whole memories are triggered by a mysterious aroma or flavour but instead aims to broach the subject of the unexpected – but appreciated – when encountering whisky. As I have said before, it is powerfully rewarding when the surface level of our awareness is broken by a whisky, and we can go beyond ‘malty’, ‘honey’, ‘vanilla’, ‘smoky’ in our evaluations to something that challenges how we perceive and contemplate sensory information. When sharing that whisky with others – as should always occur - it can be fun and illuminating to compare our most outlandish impressions, to explain how as individuals in the same sensory world we could possibly have ‘come up with’ that particular tasting note.

To return to that ‘guinea pig hutch’ descriptor above. It referred to the cask strength sample of the new Balblair 2001 and, as I tried to placate the distillery manager, I did not mean it as a criticism. Simply, in that moment my mind had stamped a sign on what I am by now used to finding in younger Balblairs – a sweet cereal character with light wood and a grassy/spicy aroma. For whatever reason, these had combined and reformed into an image of a rodent residence.

Mortlach is another that can generate some fairly unusual descriptors: rotting logs, lamb stock – what are these doing coming out of a whisky? What is important is the atmosphere these objects suggest to me, of late winter forest walks in Northumberland or left-overs from the Sunday roast.

Drams from Islay have more than a little drama to their personalities, with endless interpretations of just what quality of smoke there is in evidence possible. Bowmore Legend pushes out damp cigarettes while Kilchoman blends smoke with peat, which in turn evokes muddy farmyards and cowsheds. Pleasant? Absolutely. The classic case-in-point is ‘TCP’ for the likes of Laphroaig and Ardbeg. Some shrink away in fear of a pungent and oft-abused medicine cupboard, while others revel in the aromatic challenge.

All I would say is, put down what feels right to you. Why play it safe with what you worry you ‘ought’ to notice? You will come to understand the whiskies you come across far more intimately and meaningfully if those deeper and more esoteric responses are not repressed but are instead celebrated. After all, they acknowledge how diverse each of our experiences with food, drink and anything else that might have caught our noses or tastebuds over a lifetime are and with any luck might bring them into the discussion, too.

Perhaps it is the heavy emphasis on the great indoors, induced by the clammy cold, rain, and days which darken before ever having really brightened, that is to blame for my distillery yearning. It struck at the same time last year when glimpses of the snowy Perthshire Hills provoked a pining for the Valley of the Deer, Glenlivet and the delicate camomile tea light of the West Coast as seen from stillroom windows or a visitor centre cafe.

The new, tasteful extension to The Glenlivet.

I long to subsititute the heat of a radiator for a mash tun, the fragrant smoke of a wood-burning stove for the earthy wisps escaping from pagoda vents and their peat kilns beneath. Christmas cake baking in the oven cannot hope to match the curranty richness of a really excellent Oloroso sherry butt. You can see my problem. Life is simply better in a distillery.

Given the choice, therefore, where would I go right at this very moment? If I had my Christmas wish, it would be an amalgam of the very best, most nose-titillating, mouth-watering and compelling whisky-producing spaces, a Franken-distillery tour if you like. Allow me to take you round.

With snow on the higher Braes and a keen, clean wind ruffling the grass and heather, there can be few more stirring distillery journeys than that to The Glenlivet. I would depart from Tomintoul, pass through Auchnarrow and Tomnavoulin, and skirt the Packhorse Bridge over the river Livet itself before launching into the Cairngorm National Park and trundling into the distillery grounds. I would sprint from the car, up the stone steps to the spacious, warm and welcoming visitor centre which combines the scents of wood and whisky so wonderfully. As this is my ideal Christmas, I can stretch to a bottle from the Cellar Collection prior to the tour.

By some miraculous feat of malty teleportation, I troop up a spiral staircase to the heady, embracing sweetness of the Auchentoshan mash tun. Wood-lined and copper-domed, it dominates the room whilst churning that pure, gentle barley.

I have to negotiate a couple of close-fitting corridors and a flight of metal steps before Aberfeldy’s tun rooms appear, some of the washbacks hidden around the corner. Tropical fruits burst in front of my nose, together with a creamy orange aroma. By happy accident, Glen Grant has some of their vessels in the corner which exhale their juicy apple and biscuity cereal breath, too.

Past the chimney into sensory Nirvana.

Clicking my heels together, I duck through another doorway to the whitewashed still house of Lagavulin. Huge burnished onions squat and sweat in front of me, milking the spirit into their condensers. Like a bullock with a ring through its septum, I’m tugged to my right and the spirit safe. I sag against the pillar and do my level best to drown in that heart-of-the-run fragrance: burnt toast, wood smoke and hedgerow berry conserve. When a decent amount of time has passed – say about a week – Malcolm Waring beckons me outside to a bright Islay south coast afternoon before pole vaulting to Wick.

Pulteney manager, Malcolm Waring, in a delicious bonded warehouse.

I’m caught in two states of being, here in the Old Pulteney warehouses. The heavy honey and spicy toffee of so many exquisite ex-Bourbon barrels leaves me slack-jawed – seduced – while the cool, violent saltiness invigorates. A few spot lamps breach the fecund darkness as I caress hoggies and butts, alive now to the sizzling thread of citrus in the air.

Finally, say ten days into my distillery tour, I reach the Balblair distillery office. Highland sunshine slides into the room, adding a gloss to the display cabinets and antique table having bounced off the slick tarmac and the newly-corrugated warehouse rooves outside. John MacDonald has poured a generous measure of the 1978 into my Glencairn – and left the bottle – and I can process its marvellous deep floral aromas, together with honey and dried citrus fruits. I toast Scotland and I toast her whiskies and give eternal thanks that a significant imprint of the former can so readily flow out with the latter no matter where you happen to be.

An exterior shot of a great interior.

Merry Christmas, one and all, and may the new year yield many distillery tours.

I make no secret of the fact that independent whisky producers have my approval. Independent whisky producers who capitalise on their minimal-strings business models to do something different are the subjects of my most blissful dramy daydreams.

BenRiach: showing the Speyside old dogs some new tricks.

The people behind the purchase of this Speyside distillery in 2004 have lifted the lid on this previously shy dame: there is a lot going on just off the main road between Rothes and Elgin. In 2008, GlenDronach joined the stable and dazzling standard together with bespoke bottlings have appeared in gratifying number. The BenRiach 12yo is as clean, soft and fruity as you could wish a Speysider to be, and its peated Curiositas 10yo takes peat in utterly new directions. I adore the complexity and power of the GlenDronach 15yo, and one of their single casks from a couple of decades ago is on the shopping list for next autumn.

From Batch #4 of the single cask releases, this highly praised specimen is out of my budget.

GlenDronach might stick to its guns with bruising, darkly fruity Sherry monsters, but the BenRiach portfolio is kaleidoscopic with triple distilled spirit having been produced since 2005. They have also reinstated the floor maltings. I can only imagine how extraordinary a heavily home-peated malt will taste like in a few years.

Of 2011, however, Managing Director for the two distilleries, Billy Walker said: ”we have been very fortunate to win a couple of top awards this year which reflect the passion our people bring to the art of whisky creation. They are also testament to the huge amount of time and energy we dedicate to our wood management programme.”

The awards he alludes to include the 2011 Malt Maniac Awards, the logistics of which I learnt from Keith Wood and that these are dedicated, passionate and discerning people singling out areas of the industry for special mention there can be no doubt. In addition to two gold, four silver and three brinze medals, the GlenDronach 1972 #712, from Batch 4 of the single cask releases, stood head and shoulders above the rest of the candidates.

Praise came not only from the collective of the whisky appreciation world but one of its solo grandees. Jim Murray was especially complimentary about the company’s products. Billy Walker’s response was:

“Jim made a number of very kind comments in his new book, but the highpoint was his singling out GlenDronach as the distillery with the most consistently impressive output throughout 2011.

“He very generously concluded by saying: ‘If there was a Whisky Bible Scotch Malt Whisky Distillery of the year, GlenDronach would be it.’ That was very special.”

Between the pair of distilleries, they claimed nine awards at the International Wine and Spirits Challenge, two of which were top gongs and went to the BenRiach 12yo Sherry-matured. “For a small independent distillery like BenRiach, to win two trophies for the same single malt is astounding,” said Alistair Walker, Sales Director. “IWSC is the one every whisky producer wants to win.”

Congratluations, then, to the men and women behind these rejuvenated distilleries, whose products have always been recognised as distinctive, but are only now coming before a global audience.

Maturity, supposedly, is defined by the ability to learn from mistakes. Politicians are forever assuring the electorate that shortcomings in the decision-making process have been apprehended and addressed, and that government is a savvier place as a result. Perhaps, on second thoughts, this isn’t the most clear-cut example of the development I am talking about as endemic errors have the habit of undermining whatever edifice of wisdom even the most adept spin doctors can construct. Therefore, I offer up an instance from my own life to illustrate how redemption is possible.

When the 25th of October hove into view for the second time on my higher educational calendar I improved upon my strategy for the first occurrence in a number of key areas. Firstly, I circled the date in thick red pen, which instantly lodges it in the medium-term prioritisation agenda. Secondly, I ensured that I would not lament the lack of any outstanding malts for company on that evening. Thirdly, with a proud fist and booming voice I cried ‘Essays be damned!’ With these simple measures I had no reason to fear a frazzled repeat of 25/10/2010 and could have a lot of fun instead.

Four years and here is one shelf I can be happy with.

Between my flat mate, Gareth, Camel, Aerosmith and Dream Theater and a potent delegation from the whisky community, I raised a thoughtful glass to my fourth year since shuffling, wide-eyed, into The Glenlivet. In fact, I raised three. Beginning with the pale, unctuous fruitiness of the Aberlour 16yo Warehouse No. 1 bottling, moving to a sociably spicy Balblair 1989 (supplied by Gareth), and concluding my meditation with the Dewar Rattray Caol Ila, I could not reproach myself for not having taken the time to recognise and celebrate the inescapable hold malt whisky has over almost every aspect of my world view - and practically my identity, too.

The Caol Ila in particular, possibly the most richly phenolic specimen from that distillery I have ever been fortunate enough to come across, delineated and hyper-extended the critical moments in my whisky life so far, and stoked the fires of my passion for the stuff once again. Indeed, I rather suspected it might have been the blackened, oily residue of that very engine room of distilled spirit enthusiasm so intensively potent, rib-tickling and galvanising was it. Lime cordial and heavy thick peat on the nose gives way to tart, caramel-covered influences from the first-fill Bourbon cask, and a finish as delicately sweet yet fragrantly dry as you could wish for in a dram.

Sipping the water of life while head-banging to ‘Learning to Live’, I had a malt-soaked manifesto thrashed out there and then. Durkheim, Milton and Homer, I decided, proffer only one perspective on the world. Within and around them is a universe of flavour no less surprising, instructive or eternal. Indeed, as Housman said: ‘malt does more than Milton can / To justify God’s ways to man’. We’ll see how well that goes down with my tutors.

Many of the most passionate devotees across numerous diverse pursuits would agree with me when I say that, irrespective of the favoured activity in question, cogitating upon and talking about it contribute enormously to maximising appreciation and enjoyment. Every interest – and I feel this is especially true of whisky - benefits from equal portions of anticipation, evaluation and participation. I am only too aware – and if I forget, the twice-monthly Quaich Society meetings and their aftermaths remind me – that one cannot be forever drinking whisky; but one can sure as hell natter on about the subject indefinitely.

I will go into far greater depth in a later post, but the Scotch Malt Whisky Society rolled into St Andrews for this week’s tasting with five bottles of single cask, cask strength, distilled discussion. The epithets for each expression assert this quality, and as we tucked into Old Jazz Bar and The Antagonist, tongues were loosened. I had Quaich Soc old-timers come up to me afterwards and beam that it was the best tasting they had been to. Ever. Much of the credit – maybe around 99.9% – must go to our host, Craig Johnstone. With charm, affability, professionalism and frankly frightening levels of knowledge and expertise, he imparted the confidence I suspect some of the 60 tasters were in search of when contemplating the wild beasts in their Glencairns. That production details and histories were interspersed with Craig’s own extensive encounters with the drinks industry internationally, with many of these boasting hilarious consequences, the entire room could put their trust in his juggernaut of an interest.

And without a doubt this is what makes whisky such an eminently-discussable topic. Those who speak for whisky, when hangovers, deadlines or time of day preclude sipping the stuff and communing with it personally (although on the latter criteria, Craig was very forthright in his condoning of “breakfast whiskies”), are so often engaging and dynamic also. To nurture a fledgeling hobby they brought their powers of curiosity and investigation to bear; to transform it into a pre-eminent passion they sought out personal interactions with the spirit, its people and process, to sustain the obsession they battled to make it their job. Who wouldn’t want to talk to those who suit up to go to work, but for whom the whole exercise is simply constructive, engrossing leisure time with a pay cheque at the end of it?

I’ve been very fortunate over the last couple of years to tap into this whisky conversation, encountering people who go beyond the off-licence for their drams. With distillery managers and staff, brand ambassadors, shop owners, other bloggers and even fellow students I am engaged in a free-flowing, richly-layered dialogue, not just about whisky in the bottle, but about how we have been compelled to experience whisky in the distillery, in the landscape, in the bars, in the trade shows, in the homes of those who make it.

Whisky is a launch pad to other matters – other cultures, other flavours, other ways of seeing the world. The borders of a love of whisky are contiguous with an appreciation of all artisanal products; when the plethora of pockets of Scotland have been explored, there is always the rest of the globe, and the people you meet in the process will continually amaze and surprise you with their generosity, knowledge and enthusiasm.

After having given me five single cask, cask strength drams of his, I thought I had better show my appreciation for Craig’s performance by offering him one of mine. The Aberlour 16yo was uncorked, and the conversation continued.

Keep track of what whisky matter Craig is presently mulling over via his blog – it’s as diverse (and brilliant) as he is: Whisky Adventures.

I offer first a belated Hello from the Scotch Odyssey Blog, followed by an apology. Succeeded by an explanation which I will try and supply as concisely as possible.

Nearly three weeks. Nearly three weeks of silence as far as you, my readers are concerned, although I have been screaming into pillows at the top of my lungs for the last two. Having told you all about the fourth release of single casks from GlenDronach I took my twenty-year-old self up to Carron, Speyside, in order to undertake the transition to 21 in the most comfortable and Scotch whisky-saturated surroundings that I know of. My seven days in the north were expected to yield relaxation, fine company, outdoor pursuits and, of course, blog posts. True to form and forecast, they did.

However, well aware that my return to St Andrews for University Year 2 snapped at the heels of my holiday with only a couple of days of transition, I did my best to compile drafts detailing some of my distillery tours and shop tastings thus mitigating the panicked chaos of last year when time and attention post Freshers’ Week derailed the blog for some time. The plan was that until I secured internet access in my new flat, I would find some elsewhere around the town and simply ‘Publish’ that which I had sensibly prepared earlier. My WordPress platform has had other ideas, however, and it wasn’t until yesterday and the joyous advent of home broadband that I could work out why my best laid plans had been so scuppered. For whatever reason, posts containing images (if I could upload them into the post at all), thoroughly upset whatever permalink-generating or content transfiguring mechanism it is that enables what I write to be read by you. Cue further screaming.

Updates haven’t worked, permission changes haven’t worked, scouring the WordPress support forums hasn’t worked. Until I can sort this out – or, more likely, track down someone in possession of the technological logic nodule which I so patently lack – the Scotch Odyssey Blog will be back to its ‘good old days’ when I was pedalling around Scotland at the mercy of truculent hostel PCs: a thousand words will have to take the place of one glossy picture.

My apologies again, therefore, but I still intend to bring you tales of Speyside, and other whisky news from Scotland when I get it.

Just the kind of precious Scotch whisky experience I need my drinks cabinet to recall.

No sooner had a stabbed the ‘Publish’ button on Tuesday than I realised my pontifications concerning whisky-consumption, far from reaching a conclusion, had simply shifted into new territories. I stand by the argument and extended sporting analogy posited in the previous post, but I now understand that it will soon cease to have any relevance for me.

When I talked about assembling ‘Whisky United’, that was a project born out of the pressures of the here-and-now, although in practise my future purchases ought to be made with the there-and-then foremost in mind. Over the lazy and meandering course of this summer vacation, however, I have been fortunate enough regress to my Before University habits with the whiskies to oblige me readily available: pre-dinner drams abundant in citrussy and green fruitiness conspiring with sweet caramel oak flavours. So limitless is the blissful pleasure I derive from these vibrant, delicate whiskies, is it any wonder that I should crave their like again when they finally expire? It was under such an influential and suggestive mood that I wrote the last post.

Of course, my final sentence was tellingly ambiguous, “Perhaps it is not for me yet to dictate where and when a malt is allowed to be extraordinary”, and already hinted at the turning mental cogs. Even if I shall no longer be in Halls when I return to St Andrews, I cannot expect my moments for malt to mirror those of home. The reasons are soberingly plentiful: food will not appear on the table without my participation and historically I have found my whiskies to become muted in a cookery atmosphere. More often than not the aperitif period is consumed with work, socialising or society gatherings – I cannot guarantee being anywhere near the flat and my precious pre-dinner comrades. On the subject of academic demands, it is nothing short of hopeless delusional optimism to think that second year shall concede a reduction in the workload. In order to complete reading, essays and presentations I shall need to preserve a compus mentis state until, at best, 11pm.

I can promise you that a Glencadam 15yo will struggle to impose itself on a listless, dim-eyed shell of a man at that hour. I don’t need a drinks cupboard, stuffed full of polite if artful drams with infinitesimal degrees of complimentarity. I need something more akin to a medicine cabinet stocked with a few choice potions certain to revive me irrespective of the time or how attritionally awful John Dryden might prove to be. This, I admit, requires an entirely inverted approach to buying drams but I am certain it will reward the exploration and increased investment.

For the coming months, I sense that textural, accompanist whiskies will be simply inadequate and money wasted. I must instead be on the hunt for true iridescent personalities which can inhabit my precious instants of relaxation with genuine physicality and idiosyncracy, thus reasserting the imponderable majesty of malts. This ability I noted with the Adelphi, a whisky so passionately individualistic and untampered with it quite happily mauls and mugs those mundane moments.

As a whisky consumer and purchaser, then, I am no longer Sir Alex Ferguson tasked with maximising sporting performance. If anything, I am a Don King – the manager of a glittering stable of champion boxers. For my drinks cabinet, I need the best pound-for-pound whiskies bursting with formidable flavours, unique selling points and quality. Suddenly, the £15 discount on the Benromach bottle-your-own with a Manager’s Tour ticket appears too good an opportunity to miss. Likewise, if that Aberlour single cask is the equal of April 2010′s, £65 will be nothing short of a steal for so magnificent a whisky.

Over the course of this academic year, I intend to right a few wrongs made during the first. An on-going project shall be to ensure that I am never underwhelmed when I do find time for a dram. I see it as vital that, however viciously deadlines harrass me and however meagre my food budget may be, this burning passion of mine for all aspects of Scotch whisky should never lack for the most potent and dependable fuel.

The depleted whisky shelf.

Putting together a satisfactory whisky cabinet is much like building a successful football team. A collection of individuals it may be, but only as a cohesive unit can they hope to secure long-term glory. Likening whisky to a team sport may sound odd, but my relationship with it is such that I can only conceive of it in this way.

For me, whisky is precisely like a game football: the malt I happen to be drinking is simply the one in control of the ball while round about it are many others engineering its direction, providing supporting angles and ensuring collective success. One whisky is never consumed in isolation for it evokes so many elements in my whisky explorations, not just of places, people and processes, but of flavours and possibilities, too. The inclination to have a dram stems from all of these considerations and betrays not a craving just to consume alcohol but a need to savour again the past successes and delights associated with drinking whisky. It is therefore a polymorphous, composite inclination in its own right and highly complex. The challenge which it lays down is never the same and requires an elite assemblage of malts whose qualities enable them to engage in the contest dynamically and inspirationally.

This does not mean, however, that the brashest, showiest and above all most expensive whiskies make it into the team. I have learnt that my Whisky United, while expected to perform on the most glamorous nights of the Champions League, must chiefly earn their bread and butter in the quotidien grind of the Premiership. As I have already described here, my very favourite moment for a malt whisky and therefore by far and away the period of time in which most is consumed, is before dinner and this calls for a relatively light, fruity dram with ideally a strong citrussy and vanilla-accented ex-Bourbon influence. Peat is not unwelcome either. This, therefore, is the spine of my team from the centre halves to the holding midfield players. Of these latter, I have recently recognised that the Compass Box Asyla is my Iniesta: a player whose merit far outweighs his initial asking price. The likes of Linkwood and Caol Ila are the star strikers.

As I alluded to above, however, there are some late evening kick offs where a dram must possess the requisite power and artistry to shine on the biggest stage. It is not often that I call upon a whisky to serve as a digestif, but when I do there had better be one ambitious enough to seize the opportunity and make the moment. My Adelphi can do this tremendously well. It is the Didier Drogba or Cristiano Ronaldo of my drinks cabinet.

However, with the new season imminent, I have a problem with personnel. Many of my try-outs from the youth academy did not impress (Tomintoul Peaty Tang, Tormore 12yo, Glenmorangie LaSanta) and my old stagers have retired (Longmorn 15yo, Old Pulteney 12yo). The team needs rebuilding and I’m putting my limited budget towards quality players perhaps overlooked by many. They must be distinctive, individual and roar with eloquence about how fantastic unadulterated whisky can be. Presently I have my Adelphi (which qualifies handsomely), the Ardmore Traditional, Auchentoshan 1978 and tiny amounts of Glen Garioch Founder’s Reserve and Compass Box. Not a collection guaranteed to best the hurly-burly of forthcoming opposition. I need additional vibrancy, delicacy and long-term commitment.

I’m struggling to channel Sir Alex Ferguson on this one, though. I’m due in Benromach for a Manager’s Tour next month and cannot overcome the temptation to take them up on their offer of £15 off the bottle-your-own single cask. The excellent 10yo may be more consistently amenable, and there is much to be said for drinking a whisky at 43% abv when there is still much academic work to be done over a cask strength brute. But the ‘cask strength brute’ is precisely what interests me about whisky right now: in its raw state, pure, simple and unique. There is a similar conundrum associated with the Aberlour bottle-your-own. It is a lot of money (although I would drink it) and despite the ex-Bourbon genesis, is it simply too rich to serve as an aperitif whisky?

My response has been and continues to be: wait and see. The Benromach single cask may be first-fill sherry, in which case it is a big no-no; the Aberlour may underwhelm so impossibly high are my expectations for this next single cask. Or, I may elect to trust in my holding midfielder (the Compass Box Asyla) and maybe a G&M Longmorn 12yo, while investing in the promises made at the time by whichever luminous malts I succumbed to that they can and will set the pitch on fire when necessary. Perhaps it is not for me yet to dictate where and when a malt is allowed to be extraordinary.