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Daniele's journey
Let me tell you about my whisky story.
My journey started in the early years (I was not a young alcoholic promised!). Before going to ski, we used to put a little teaspoon of grappa in our white coffee. I did actually like coffee and zabaione the most.
Then at a more “civilised” drinking age…I did quite enjoy grappa especially those matured in barrique (casks) like amarone.
Then I met this guy from the local parish. We used to meet at his place quite often and he started sharing some of my first single malt whiskies. Imagine these dark, cold, winter-y nights in the north of Italy…I tried a few. The more and the less known plus some other spirits: Bourbon, Irish Whiskies, Armagnac, craft Grappa. That’s how my passion for whiskies began.
Now I find myself consulting with my friend and brother-in-law who tried a few more. We share opinions, suggestions on what to try next…Unfortunately in Italy it is hard to find good quality single malt at a reasonable price – especially those non-mass market brands.
I really enjoy peated whisky. Those kind of whiskies I only need a dram to make my night.
And now the journey continues…with the good old commercial companions and “Whiskypedia”, but also looking at more quality malts (thanks Jack for suggesting Bunnahabhain 12 – amazing stuff!).
Probably it’ll be a long journey with few stops and discoveries…but I don’t want to set a specific goal.
I just want carry on trying and trying…matching visual and tasting memories…will keep you posted.
Daniele
Joseph's journey
Sweetness was never something I’d associated to whisky.
I’m young, I went to university in London. Unlike my – more fortunate – friends from school, I didn’t go to an Oxbridge college. So no Port for me. That was a guilty pleasure, something I conceded myself only when I felt most soured by life. It was all shots from some dainty boozer somewhere in Central London’s peripheries. It all burnt, it was not pleasurable; I did it to finish off an evening – or to get one started. Whisky was this: it was the burn of necessity, not the sweetness of luxury.
But I was wrong. Oh God was I wrong.
A friend of mine, and not one from University – it’s important I add that, it’ll become clear by the end – brought over a bottle of some Scotch distillery I’d never heard of. Bannhavin, Bunnahb, Bunna something…I didn’t quite get the name. His accent, southern European, hid the bottle’s Celtic origins. He knew I liked port, he would occasionally call me a bitch (another useful fact for later on), but also as convinced I had misunderstood whisky.
He drew me a ‘dram’ – new word of the day; he brought his own glasses. Yes, he’d exaggerated, I thought that then and I know that know: it didn’t need the formalities out Scottish cousins abscond from in principle but require in practice. But honestly this is all over-intellectualising that comes with the want to recreate a lost moment. The first and last note: sweetness.
But a sweetness deserved, not one to be taken for granted. The sweetness of your grandmother’s grapes she bought a week or so before; the sweetness of Christmas cake eaten in January, where nostalgia that gets you more than the barrels of sugar and liquor. It’s the sweetness of a bad satsumas but an all too needed snack on a hike. It’s a flavour that asked me to look for a reason for my excitement, for some explanation of why I kept sniffing the glass without wanting to drink its content.
I still fail to spell the distillery’s name. But Bunnahabhain taught me several things: I like Sherry casks, I’m a bit of a (sherry) bitch because of that, I know whisky can’t be shotted. But I also know – and this owe to the Bunnahabhain Manzanilla as much as I do my friend – all a Port (or a Sherry) is good for is giving its womb to a Whisky.
And one last thing: Oxbridge got it wrong, I wish Islay had a university.
D. Joseph P.
Hana's journey
I once met a woman called ‘Carry’. That was my name for her, not her own; don’t ask me to explain. She bought me a dram of a 12-year-old indie-bottled Linkwood. That should be enough.
Bit for the uninitiated, here goes…
The smell was good, but the look wasn’t. And this applies to both woman and dram. I felt some sweetness, but all I saw was a wall. And same goes as before. There was an acidity you can only get with a certain cheeses; and a bitterness I’ve only tasted in our women. But there was also a depth I’d only hoped for. I once went to a distillery, two decades back, when I’d just moved to this country. A guy called David told us: ‘I’ve never understood those who talk about bananas, about fruits; I’ve never understood this obvious references.’ I agree.
Yet the profundity remained. And no, it was not banana, but I can see a weak palate reaching for that. I can see a woody forest, an earthy mushroom: old, unseen, oft-untouched, but there for your to taste.
There was a taste I desired, and did so deeply: a flavour of the unknown, of the untouched, of the never tested.
Carry had never touched a man, and so I’d hoped. The Linkwood also, at least I felt, had never been tasted by those unable. And those profoundly ignorant.
The Linkwood, as with Carry, are the specimen of a deep-throated taste that never forces itself but is only ever sensed in thought and memory. It’s that unctuous, buttery slide that only gives itself after long silences and suddenly pangs of joy. It is a taste that comes when the need for patience is known and the terror of the ill-felt overcome. It is strong, it can be bitter; it can hit you – and it does – with the burn of the unattended.
Yet after all this, after all this diligence, what remains with you is one sweetnesses. Not that of chocolate, not that of fruit; nor even that of the balsamic notes of the instructed or grapes tangs of the endowed. It is the sweetness that comes with that last slurp of a Flak99, of the vanilla ice cream that you thought you hated but then adored when the moment was right. It’s that ‘rightness’ that can only come when that’s good is gone, and what’s left is what’s needed.
All these feelings mix into one. You can’t, and I can’t, understand if it’s Person or Drink that I speak of. But all I can say, after having given my adieu to Carry two year now, is that I taste her in every dram of Linkwood.
Hvala (thanks),
Hana
Richard's journey
I hadn’t spoke to my stepdad since his wedding to my mother. That was a choice. I broke that decision to ask him to buy by a Black Art 7. I have no regrets.
I discovered the bottle on an odd night in Islay with a few friends. We’d just arrived after half-a-day’s drive. I slept all the way. Well almost: I woke up for a butty somewhere close to Campbeltown. I then slept through their visit to a distillery; my big regret, and their laugh.
But then we arrived at our small B&B on Islay. I was wide awake (as I’d slept all the way). The others wanted to be frisky for the morning, I wanted to drink. The one who remained wanted to juice the trip to its last drop.
We went through a fair bit of the whisky menu. I’d just got a bonus, and my friend was in a spenny mood. We drank, and drank, and drank. Lots of water, we didn’t want to be drunk. I’m naturally inclined to the peat, I like its saltiness. But we tried everything.
And then we finally reached that point: we began spending in the thirties. Our financial pools (for the day) were running thin. We then came across a Bruichladdich. And one we’d only read about.
It was the Black Art 7.
It converted me. It changed me. It violated me, and I liked it. It made me feel like I wanted to be opened by it, to swim in it, to drink it from its nipples. This may seem strong, but it’s true: I lost myself in that dram. The sweetness was right, as was the wheat and the salt and oils. It was a simply good dram, it was perfect: it voted my mouth, it filled my nose, and it gave me a sense of having eaten. It was, and is, a whisky as it’s intended.
A few months went by after that evening. I’d forgotten about the trip, but not the whisky. Then by chance I met that friend again, that one who accompanied me into that dark night. My broker-stepdad was with me. We had steaks, then went to a cute whisky bar in London’s Soho, and then I asked him.
We’re all lucky owners of a Black Art 7.
Richard