It is Livestock Show and Rodeo time in Houston and that means it is "cowboy" time.  Seeing all the hats, boots, big belt buckles and slightly too tight jeans (which can be a good or bad or bad thing depending on the wearer) got me thinking about the link between cowboy culture and whiskey and that is of course specifically rye whiskey. 

Many cowboy movies contain the iconic scene of cowboy walking through the saloon doors (often the music stops and the locals turn and stare at the stranger), striding up to bar with his spurs jangling and ordering a whiskey.  The timid and nervous looking barman (always in a bowtie for some reason) pulls a cork out of a bottle, pours a shot and the hero throws it back, stamps his foot, pulls a face then orders another or says " ...leave the bottle".  In many cases that same bottle is smashed over the head of Bad- Breath Pete (that's a good name for independent Islay bottling) later in the scene.   In the cowboy-comedy-cartoon version the drinker's hat flies off, steam comes out of his ears and the barman then makes a comment about it being "the good stuff".   You never see the cowboy comment to the barman about the nose and making some notes in his leather bound whiskey journal.   The overall impression you are left with is that rye whiskey is stuff to get down as quick as possible and is about getting drunk and quite often leads to a gun fight.  In the politically incorrect movies the local tribes were always keen to drink the white man's "fire water".  That name is not exactly positive either and would have the marketing guys today reaching for their six guns (or at least their iPhones).

Then I tried Sazerac Rye and that all changed.  The standard Sazerac rye is good.  It is cotton picking, rooting tooting good.    I have also now tasted and reviewed the Sazerac 18 year old, Thomas H Handy and Pappy Van Winkle rye whiskies and find they are also as complex, rich and rewarding as any single malt.  I can't recommend them enough (other than the fact they are hard to find and not cheap) and as yet since I started drinking ryes I have not been involved in single gun fight and considering I live in Houston, Texas that is not something you can actually rule out.  So my advice is if you also have the image of rye whisky as the cowboy whiskey, you need to go to your local store or favorite online retailer and order a bottle of Sazerac.  You can thank me later pardner or to paraphrase John Wayne... "Get off your horse and drink your whiskey".

No more beer and wine for me.  I like beer and wine and there are times when they fit exactly the mood I am in, but now the whisky bug has bitten and the fever taken hold I don't spend any time in the store browsing the latest wines and beers.  Instead I am drawn like a moth straight to the whisky section. With my beverage budget blown more often than a Euro Zone government, other drinks simply don't get a look in any more. 

When your hobby involves alcohol, Texas and getting home.  For some reason, in most of the USA, the idea of clean, affordable public transport seems to translate to a concept bordering on communism.   It limits or even eliminates the enjoyment of whisky at events and bars due to the simple fact I have to drive home.  Take a taxi I hear you say?  You have never been in a Houston cab at night I say back.   I once saw a Houston taxi driver threaten someone because he didn't like the tip with a hammer he kept in the front seat.  I rather skip the drink. 

Whisky websites that require me to enter my age.  This is getting really annoying and seems quite pointless to me.  The delinquent web page user can simply enter an incorrect date and access all the whisky pages their heart desires.  I understand if I am buying something there is an obligation to confirm my age, but to browse a web page?  If you must, at least keep it simple and ask to me to confirm with a simple click if I am of legal drinking age rather than selection of country, and the entry of a specific birth date via drop down menus.    Please.

The Tyranny of Choice.  OK, it's not the worse problem to have maybe but nonetheless still an annoyance as every day there is a new bottle on the store shelf or a new expression released.  Which whisky to choose from a well stocked bar or even from my home selection?  Do I enjoy an old a favorite or try a new bottling?  It's all so good I find myself some just staring at a menu or at my whisky shelf like a "deer in the headlights" and trying to keep up now is simply impossible. 

The lack of respect for American and Canadian whiskies.  Too often I see people pass over Canadian and even American whiskies in preference for the Scottish varietals.  People also sometimes seem more interested in the products of new countries like Sweden, Taiwan, Finland, India and Australia which are priced high (due the nature of their limited production and high fixed costs per bottle) and to me often don't represent good whisky value.  It seems that people are  overlooking some great North American products and some great value as well.  I believe a bottle of bourbon is usually better than an equivalent priced scotch, in part, I accept, because it matures quicker so it costs less to produce.  Jim Murray stated in no uncertain terms that he feels today the average barrel of whisky maturing in Kentucky is better quality that the average barrel maturing in Scotland.   I tend to agree.

Based on web page hits I know there are at least 100 people out there who read these random ramblings... what about the wide world of whisky annoys you?

I have been very fortunate in my life to travel and have had many food, drink and cultural experiences.  I have always believed in eating what the locals eat and drinking what the locals drink.  Local food and drink will have higher turnover, the ingredients will be fresher, the cook will be more familiar with the recipe and in my experience the locals or your hosts will appreciate you expressing an active interest in their culture.  I think it is the best way to maximize your travel experience (and is often much cheaper and healthier as well).

These travel experiences are usually very hard to recreate back home.  For example, no matter how closely you follow the recipe or seek out the right ingredients, it always seems to be impossible to recreate a French dish in your own kitchen.   The ambiance is different and therefore taste is different.    (Perhaps if I got a slightly aloof waiter to hang around the kitchen and pull faces at my mispronunciations that would create the right ambience?)   Similarly I have many times tried whisky in the distillery, sharing the experience with someone who cares deeply about the place and the product and then bought a bottle only to find at home it slightly misses the mark, and that it wasn't quite the whisky I was convinced it was when in their tasting room.  There is no doubt some of my favorite whisky (and other drink) experiences are tied directly to the location in which I first tasted them.  A few examples are drinking Penderyn from a hip flask in Cardiff with old friends outside the stadium before the start of a rugby test match.  There are numerous distillery examples, but certainly the tasting of Bowmore Darkest in their delightful tasting room overlooking the Loch at the end of great trip to Islay stands out as well.  I also fondly recall drinking Jose Cuervo Reserva de la Familia tequila with colleagues at a dinner in Villahermosa, Tabasco to celebrate winning a large contract.   In the right circumstances the most mundane drinks can be elevated to special and in the wrong circumstances the most spectacular sprits just don't work.   When you get the right drink in the right place... that is really special.

It is no coincidence I first started drinking Irish whisky after a trip to Ireland in 2006, and that fell in love in with Scotch whiskies while living in Scotland in 2009.  I also think I am enjoying bourbon a lot more now I live in Southern USA, often with a cube of ice to cool those peppery rye and spicy oak notes found in some many types of bourbon.  Drinking a peated Islay scotch in Texas sometimes just doesn't work.... especially between May and October.   This is one of the reasons it is so difficult to choose a "favorite" whisky.   When I hear people talk about great whiskies, many times it accompanied by a story around the first time they tried it or how they discovered the distillery.  This emotion all goes into the tasting experience and it is why two people can have entirely different opinions about the same whisky.    

So remember when you find a drink you don't like, the problem is not the liquid... the problem might be you are standing in the wrong place.

The last edition of Whisky Magazine was a milestone 100th edition and in recognition of that the publishers included a list of the 100 Greatest Distilleries to Visit.  As anyone who has seen my website knows, I like lists. In fact my website was really born after reading a list of 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die, an excellent book by Ian Buxton.  I also like visiting distilleries and a quick count revealed that I had indeed visited 18 of the 100 listed, 2 in Ireland, 1 in Wales and the rest in Scotland. (http://www.somanywhiskies.com/distilleries?Name=Value )

The St George's Distillery in England was notably absent, which is a pity because I had visited that one as well and I felt it was a great visitor experience, better than some of the named Scottish distilleries, where else does the distiller actually lead the tour? It also happens to make a great product. http://www.somanywhiskies.com/distilleries/item/62-st-georges-distillery-norfolk-england

I decided I would like to take my family on a road trip this summer and visit some USA distilleries in Kentucky and perhaps Tennessee on the way back.  We did similar road trip for two summers in Scotland (not to Kentucky - very long drive) and they turned out to be great family vacations, at least I thought so,  so I was pretty sure I could sell my wife and 6 year old daughter on the plan.  So I carefully picked my moment, and announced I had a great idea for a family road trip this summer, and then asked what Kentucky is most famous is for?  As my wife likes whisky and my daughter loves horses and horse riding I was confident in their response.  After a pause and a moment of consideration my wife offered the suggestion "Fried Chicken?"

She was of course, as usual, right.  Other then the whiskey obsessed, I think the thing most people around the globe will always associate with Kentucky first is fried chicken and a man in white suit called Colonel Sanders.  It is one of the truly global brands and according to their website (www.kfc.com) is in "109 countries and territories around the world ..... operates more than 5,200 restaurants in the United States and more than 15,000 units around the world."  As I was  thinking about this blog, on my last business trip to Lagos, Nigeria just before I pulled into my hotel I was greeted with familiar KFC logo and took a quick picture to include with this entry.

I recently read Ian Buxton's excellent article in Whisky Advocate's winter 2011 edition asking if whisky has a soul.  An interesting question and his article made for a good read.  That article also triggered in me another thought, if whisky has soul, then does it have a gender?  Is whisky male or female?  My friend Ding of www.dingsbeerblog.com on Twitter recent stated, quite simply and in way less than 140 characters, that beer was male.  However, if you are willing to entertain this abstract concept, I think the answer is not as simple when it comes to whisky.

My initial reaction was whisky is male.  Of course it is.   It is very hard to imagine anything that is regularly associated with the smell of alcohol, smoke, leather and tobacco that is not male.  Perhaps what springs to your mind is a chain smoking, alcoholic dominatrix (in which case you may need some help) but my guess is most people will think of a man first. 

However whisky is often characterized as a "man's drink".  This is a generalization and even a stereotype I accept,  I have seen plenty of women at recent whisky tasting events enjoying the water of life,  however if we accept men are preferentially attracted to whisky then doesn't that make whisky more likely to be female?  For example women, boats and cars, other known interests of the male, are referred to as female.    Don't opposites attract?

I also think there can be little argument that distilleries are female.  They are often described as beautiful and picturesque (two words I have never heard applied to me).  The rounded sumptuous curves and seductive smoothness of the pot still need no further explanation or evaluation, when up close you simply have to touch it, ideally when it is not running, and the spirit produced, often called new make spirit will sometimes be referred to as "mother's milk" and is matured, like a young child, in the distillery family home of warehouses until ready to go out in the world as whisky.  Distilleries are definitely female and should be referred to as she. When I asked Jim Martin the Malted Muse the question of whisky and gender he came to same conclusion in his podcast (www.themaltedmuse.com) that distilleries were female.  Countries are usually referred to as female as well.  As we often refer to whisky by the country of origin (Scotch, Irish, Canadian) would that also imply the product of that country, their whisky, is also female? 

All things considered, against my initial instinct, I think there is very strong case to be made that whisky is female, especially when you consider the sweetness of bourbon and the light and sophisticated triple distilled Irish whiskies.  Those spirits have to be female right?   But how can you reconcile female with the earthy, smokey Laphroaig, a cask strength mouth puckering Glenfarclas or fiery, precocious young rye whisky?  You can't.  Those aren't female, they are men.  Big hairy men.  Jim Martin also suggested that whiskies can be male or female depending on their individual character.

So I have a suggestion.   My mother is of Irish heritage and her middle name is Frances.  Her father was called Francis.  The Irish spelling of the female version of the name has an "e" and the male version has an "i".  They sound the same when spoken but when written you can tell the female from the male.  I suggest those whiskies that use an "e" in the spelling of whiskey, such as Irish and Bourbons, will be female.  Those that spell whisky with no "e" be male.   I think as broad based solution it is not bad, female for bourbons and Irish and male for scotch seems to work for me anyway and if a particular distillery or brand feels strongly their spirit is female or male then they always have the option to change the spelling to suit the convention I am now proposing.   Therefore whisky can be male or female and the spelling can be used to determine which is which. 

I don't write this blog worried about what a reader might think of me.  This is just my hobby (now grown into a fully fledged passion) and a way to keep track of all the fantastic whiskies I have tried.  I also really like the mental challenge of trying to write a weekly, coherent missive on whisky and who knows, maybe one day I will actually succeed in doing that.  It is certainly not about the feedback or adulation I get.  Just as well, because I get none.  Nada.  Zip. Big goose egg.  (Insert sound of crickets chirping and lone bell ringing in background.)  However I am writing this particular entry because I feel guilty, a bit of a phoney, somewhat shallow and need to publicly express my remorse.

You see I have espoused previously on the subject of very exclusive, expensive whiskies and my feelings about those.  In general I have been, what you might describe as, slightly negative on that subject.  I have instead preached virtuously of moderately priced, great value and ubiquitous whisky over the evils of ultra premium limited edition whiskies.  Hell I even been known to say in public I like blended whisky.  So why the guilt?

It is because I recently tried the $20,000 a bottle Gordon and MacPhail Glenlivet 70 year old and.... I liked it.  I really liked it.  Damn Michael Urquhart and his generosity for exposing me.  I really wanted to say I have had better, that it was OK but I prefer the 21 year old Archive or anything else.  But the problem was it was really good.  Really, really, really good.    There is even the remote possibility it might be worth $20,000 a bottle.   I won't reproduce my tasting notes here but I have posted them under my Reviews if you are interested.    I assume this must be how the  left wing Socialist Worker student who after leaving college settled down, got married, started reading the Guardian and voting Labour must feel in the wee small hours of morning, wracked with middle class guilt  

Sidebar:  One of my favorite stories from college was a friend telling about the time he "resigned" from the Socialist Workers Party.  When his comrades pressed him to stay committed to the cause he told them he would give it another week but if there was no workers revolution by next Friday he was quitting.  They agreed, there wasn't and he quit a week later.

I have to accept that these old and rare whiskies are extraordinary and to some people they are worth it.  I must also say again how incredibly generous it was of Michael to pour that whisky (he must be one of the people who has never read my blog) and also point out that at $20,000 a bottle of his 70 year of Glenlivet is still $230,000 less than The Dalmore 1926 single malt recently released and in that context it still represents a veritable bargain.  In my own rating system I could only rate the Glenlivet 70 year old 3 stars – simply because I would not buy a bottle to put it on my whisky shelf – but it is still, without doubt, one the finest drams I have ever tasted.

Perhaps at the next whisky festival I attend Richard Patterson will have read my blog and pour me a dram of that 1926 Dalmore?  I know it is not likely... after all Richard Patterson will, like the vast majority of the human race, never read this blog.  So perhaps a more realistic expectation is at the next Whisky Festival I go to "someone other than me or my immediate family" will read my blog.  (Re-insert sounds of crickets chirping).

I am not going to be posting a blog entry this week (well... except this one).  Why?   I spent the weekend at the Victoria Whisky Festival and I am still a little overwhelmed from that experience and to be honest I haven't really been able to concentrate on a single entry or idea (and I have a business trip to prepare for this week).  Highlights included an eight whisky / whiskey master class from Jim Murray (see picture), an unbelievable chance to sample the Gordon and Macphail Glenlivet 70 year old, participating in another WhiskCast virtual tasting and meeting Mark Gillespie, Grant Stevely, Simon Brooking, Ashok Chokalingam and many others.  Oh and I have a Glenlivet Nights of Passage tasting event tonight.... still someone has to do it.

As I look back on my first 100 plus formal tasting notes and reviews I am ready to grade myself and now you can use my system below to grade yourself.  Welcome to the whisky dojo…  hajime!

My first grade is a white belt.  If you drink alcohol and know what whisky is you can award yourself a white belt.  If you don’t drink alcohol or have no interest in whisky I am not sure why you are even reading this.  What does white belt mean?  It means that your trousers won’t fall down.

The next grade, yellow belt, is awarded to those who like and enjoy the taste of whisky.  As I mentioned in my first blog, everyone seems to skip over this rather basic step.  Whisky tastes like whisky, and you should like it to reach yellow belt grade.  If you don’t like whisky then you stay at white belt grade (and probably need to surf along to a new website).  

The next grade is all about the basic split in whisky types, whether it is the old world genre, primarily Scotland, Ireland and Japan (ie usually malt and grain whiskies) or the new world such as USA and Canada (ie usually bourbon, corn and rye whiskies).    There are often noticeable differences in the tastes between these two types which I believe most whisky drinkers can differentiate on their nose and palate.  If you can usually tell the difference between scotch and bourbon, award yourself an orange belt.

The green belt grade in tasting is awarded to those who can identify further subdivisions of these two main types, and I would call it the style of whisky.  A peaty Islay single malt is very different in style to a triple distilled Irish blend.  Rye whisky can be very different from wheated Bourbon.  The green belt requires some experience and knowledge, this grade starts to separate the whisky drinker from the whisky taster.   I suspect people who claim to have a favorite style, “I like peaty whiskies”, “I like bourbon”, “I like Irish” or even express a specific brand preference, “I like Johnnie Walker Black” are probably green belts.  This was my grade when I moved to Scotland in 2009 as “I liked Irish”.

I would now grade myself as a blue belt (on a good day).  I am now tasting the whisky and looking for specific aromas, flavors and notes.   However I have noticed a tendency to refer to a “pool” of certain flavors of about 20, including peat, smoke, caramel, vanilla, malt, honey, pepper, spice, oak, toffee, dried fruit, citrus and sherry.  However there is still an endless combination of these major tastes and aromas and I find it is possible to define most whisky uniquely with these descriptors.  If you can do that as well, welcome to the blue belt grade.

The brown belt is the grade I aspire to, but I am also reconciled to the fact that I may not have the palate to reach, and is the grade many of the professional writers have achieved.  They draw on seemingly endless analogies and variations, breaking “dried fruit” down into specific types of dried fruit (prunes, raisins, sultanas, currants), spicy into multiple different spices (pepper, cayenne, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg), floral notes into specific flowers and specific type of wood notes (oak, pine, cedar even sandalwood).  They also seem to find levels of subtlety and that I simply cannot pick up or at least consciously identify. 

Finally we have the black belt, the ultimate in whisky tasting.  As well as having all the palate and skills of a brown belt, they are blessed with the writing skills to write an evocation of sensations rather than just a lengthy list of obscure flavors and smells.  Dave Broom (definite black belt) recently tweeted this whisky review (@davebroomwhisky on www.twitter.com) …. “An out of control kid's party. Burst balloons, broken pencils, sweets on the floor, masses of chocolate & Nutella. Feisty & fun!”    That is a whisky tasting black belt and he can kick my a**.  Going forward I will be awarding the occasional whisky black belt on my blog.

One whisky story (actually two) caught my attention over the holiday season.  My first reaction was to ignore them, but like so many slightly irritating things, by leaving it alone the itch just grew and grew and in the end I had no choice but to scratch (and write this). 

First l became aware that Dalmore had released a single bottle of a 1926 vintage whisky for the staggering price of 250,000 EU.  One quarter of a million Euros for a single bottle of whisky!  I can buy one bottle of Ardbeg Alligator for $100, and I suggest that it is highly unlikely this Dalmore actually tastes 2,500 times better than that Ardbeg.  OK, so Dalmore throw in a 1.83 carat diamond in the stopper –deduct $60,000 or so – which means the actual whisky is only 1,900 times more expensive than the Ardbeg.  I haven't tasted it of course (and never will) but I seriously doubt it is worth it.   I have written (ranted) about whisky pricing and speculation before and will not repeat myself here and if that had been the only story I would not even have mentioned it. But then I saw that the Dalmore's parent company, Whyte and Mackay, reported a significant drop in year over year profits.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/company-news/whyte-and-mackay-not-for-sale-despite-profits-plunge.16250673

The Whyte and Mackay position is that they are investing in promoting their premium brands and that is why their profits have dropped, a short term dip while they refocus their business.  I am sure (and hope) that is the case but this to me, as a business person first and a whisky aficionado second, is a red flag.  I happen to think their blends and the Jura and Dalmore single malts (the ones that cost $100 or less) are great value whiskies.    To my mind all whisky is luxury product, no-one has to buy a bottle of whisky, and certainly none of the whisky people I know are multi millionaires who will be willing or even able to spend 250K on a bottle.  Whisky lovers simply wants good product at a reasonable and fair price (taking into consideration this is often a hand crafted, artisan product).  I believe if Whyte and Mackay focus on producing good, accessible whiskies I am sure they will be successful.  If this business "re-focus" goes towards more of the "ultra premium" brand stuff and 250,000 Euro bottles with 1.83 carat diamond stoppers, I suspect this may not be the last we hear of their financial concerns.

OK I admit this is a VERY clichéd thing to do, but I promise to avoid all of the obvious traps about drinking less or spending less.  Instead, I have decided that instead of sticking to budgets I will stick to my opinions as my first resolution of 2012.  I still sometimes get an emotional reaction that "I got it wrong" about my reviews and tasting notes after I read others, even though rationally I know that there is no right answer.   I taste what I taste and I like what I like, so I am resolved to resist the temptation to "review my reviews" in 2012 based on the opinions of others.  That said, I may from time to review my review based on my own tasting experiences, and I have already revisited some after a later tasting and updated the notes. 

I originally wrote that my second resolution was to complete my 101challenge and find a new whisky adventure for 2013 and beyond.   But then as I was drafting this piece, I read a very interesting blog by an old friend of mine (www.dingsbeerblog.com) and it has made me reflect at this time of year as to WHY I drink whisky and why I have become so passionate about whisky over the last two or three years.  In his blog of December 7th, 2011, Ding discusses the danger of "pursuing the thrill of accumulation, and, in turn, had lost all perspective in terms of the very essence of what beer is all about".  I must confess to seeing a little of that in my behavior at times, such as buying the next bottle "on my list" when there were several very good bottles already open at home, just waiting for me to drink or share with others.   

So my second resolution is to make sure I take the time in 2012 to stop and smell the "whisky", not simply run around glugging down the next or newest whisky to add to a list of reviews, to check off a list or to be one of the "cool people" who has tried the latest bottling.  Rather than those slightly fanatical and obsessive behaviors, I will focus on what I love about whisky, the simple enjoyment I get drinking a whisky at the end of the day (or sometimes in the middle of the day), sharing something I love with friends and family and the great people I meet at whisky events and online.  If I get to finish my list of 101 whiskies in the course of 2012.... that's just a bonus.

Thanks for that reminder Ding, and for giving me a resolution in 2012 that is truly worthwhile. Cheers!