Weekly Mash Friday 13th (eeek!) June

I’m not a fan of reducing a whisky to numbers, hence the fact that this a score-free zone. What I taste, by and large, is here because I like it. Its presence is a recommendation. 

Each week, the aim is to feature a whisky at under £100, ideally closer to £50. There will also be one or more above that. These might be part of a news story, or the trigger for an idea I want to work through – and hopefully you’d like to read about.

Let’s call the former ‘On My Shelf’ – a bottle I would reach for on a regular basis. The latter are  ‘In the Cupboard’. Bottles to be opened (and shared) for a special occasion of my (and by extension your) choosing. This cupboard has a glass front and isn’t locked.

The (almost) Lost Art of Lunching

It was a given in those olden times that any meeting with colleagues in the drinks trade would involve Lunch being taken. My first encounter with this tradition came in the late 80s during my first assignment to Glasgow for OLN. I was to interview the great and good of the whisky world and find out what the hell was going. A working week’s worth of work. Why five days? Lunches. 

You’d arrive at 10.30-ish. There would be coffee, the interview, and then came the suggestion, ‘Have you time for Lunch?’ We’d move to the board room/dining room/industry restaurant where (large) G&Ts would be poured and sunk. Then a three-course meal with wines (white and red) followed by drams. Enough to guarantee that no work would be done in the afternoon. Back to the hotel. Sleep, then dinner with another contact. More gin, wine and whisky. Bed. Repeat.

In time, I began to realise that Lunch was not only an act of hospitality, but also a test to see if I could be trusted, how discreet I’d be when rumours were shared, did I understand that anything said while Lunching was off the record? Could I cope with the booze? I appeared to pass.

The same rules applied in London. I had made the innocent mistake after my first proper wine tasting (which also included Lunch) of weaving my way back to the office. 

‘Dave’, the editor called, ‘can I see you for a minute?’ I propped myself up against the door frame like a teenager pretending to be sober. This was it. Sacked during the probation period. 

’My fault,’ he said. ‘I should have told you that after you’ve been to Lunch you just go home. Office rule.’

In time, I became features editor which I figured necessitated using the Lunch gambit to get better stories… and I had an expense account. 

Lunch was where the real work was done. The chat, the loosening of tongue, but also the founding of friendships, the idea of a collegiate industry. We were in this together. It all changed by the turn of the century. Water (and a sandwich if you were lucky), phone interviews, then emailed questions and bland replies that had been filtered through corporate comms. The chat went, the stories dried up. The message became controlled, bland, useless. We Who Lunched became an endangered species. Amateur Lunching by a new generation of writers was a sad thing to behold. Not their fault. The landscape had changed.

… but then there’s Ian Macleod Distillers. Upholder of Lunching. It wouldn’t surprise me if MD Leonard Russell had ‘Ability to Lunch’ included in the job description for new potential new employees. 

Which is one reason why I went to St.Pancras Hotel for the launch of Tamdhu 21yo. ‘There’s no agenda,’ Gordon Dundas tells us as we sit down. ‘Just good company, good chat. There’s wine, there’s food, there will be drams going round if you fancy. We’ll get to the 21yo in due time. Relax and enjoy.’

So we did. The wine was poured, the food eaten, the drams distributed. Laughs, news, theories. Conversation flowed at the same pace as the wine and whisky – thoughts on the current state of the industry, production chats, then jokes, tall tales from the road. 

The clock ticked on past the three hour mark. ‘We’ve not got to the 21yo yet, have we?’ asked someone.

‘I was meant to be at another tasting,’ says another. ‘I never expected… this.’ 

‘This is Lunch,’ says Gordon. ‘Take the rest of the afternoon off. Let me tell you about this 21yo.’ 

In The Cupboard: Tamdhu 21yo

Before we get to the newie, a quick reminder of the 15yo (46%, £99) and 18yo (46.8/£175). The former is warm with the aroma of freshly polished furniture, fruit bread, pot pourri, roasted almond and Lady Grey tea. The palate layers chocolate-covered Brazil nut and has liquid liquorice running down the centre of the tongue. Demerara sugar, orange, spice, ginger, dried fruit. A classic. 

The 18yo is more overtly ‘sherried’ (in a winey rather than tannic/oxidised sense). Dense and sweet with plums, bramble jelly, a hint of balsamic. Concentrated with silky tannins, prunes (Armagnac) then the citrus – here as thick-cut marmalade.

21yo 47.5%/£299

This is a combination of the previous pair – the structured feel of the 15, with the weight of the 18 – and then more. There’s ginger cake, raisin, mulberry then mixed peels, dried flowers. It’s elegant and luscious. The palate is thick, gently spiced with supple tannins, Darjeeling tea, dried orange peel. Has the gentle faded quality you get from mature spirit. An elegant, sherried dram that’s up there with the best of them. It’s a range that is well worth your time exploring.  

[For reference, all of these were tasted at a later date, at home, in the morning] 

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On The Shelf: London Distillery Co Renascence 58%, £89 (exclusive to Berry Bros & Rudd) 

I was wondering recently whatever happened to the LDC, then this popped up. The distillery began with a fascinating project which predated the current fascinating trend of studying whisky’s history to move the spirit forward. 

Opened in 2011, it was the first whisky distillery in London since Lea Valley closed in 1903. The concept was imagining how a London whisky would have evolved had the shutters not come down.

This led to matching the barley varieties used in each era with the yeasts which were being used at that time. Out of these permutations would come a history-aware LDC template. 

A move to a new site in Battersea Power Station was mooted, but the company folded, was sold, then resold. It’s now owned by Gleann Mòr, which hired Matt McKay (ex Bimber/Dunphail) as MD. 

This, the first release, is from the original regime and is a blend from the remaining ‘legacy casks’. Made from Plumage Archer barley fermented with a 1920’s beer yeast, it has a firm, malt-driven quality (husk, dry grass) but that’s balanced with lemon peel, herbal tea and an almost smoky treacle-like back note. Water brings out some honey and daffodil.

The palate is oily, slightly hot and mouth-filling and is substantially sweeter than the nose: orange jelly, mint chocolate with the dry cereal running through. The end has a mead-like quality. 

The question is… what now?

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Just Add Water

‘Now add water.’ It is the standard phrase when doing a tasting. The drop or two to release aromas, to show the viscimetric coils in the glass, to get into the whisky, to kill alcohol, reveal what’s underneath, be that good or be that fault. 

That great distiller Kenny Gray likes to say that whisky making is simply about moving water around: add it, take it away, add it again, remove, add it one last time. Let it rest than add it before bottling and then in the glass. 

We take it for granted. We turn on the tap. It flows. We steep the barley, fill the mashtun, flow water through the condensers and worms. Millions of gallons. Pure. I have a glass and a jug in front of me. One for sipping, the other for diluting the six drams to be tasted.

But what if I had to walk miles to get that water? What if the water I drew was  dirty and bacteria-ridden, but that was all which was available? What if I knew that this water could possibly kill my child? Is there a way to change that? 

That is why the three MacLean brothers (Ewan, Jamie and Lachlan) are currently rowing 8,000km across the Pacific. Non-stop. Their aim is to raise £1m to provide clean water for communities in Madagascar. 

As I write, they are 60 days in somewhere west of the Marquesas Islands, which is more or less half-way. They’ve traversed Point Nemo, the most isolated spot on the planet. 

Row, sleep in foetal position in a cramped locker, then back on the oars. 24 hours a day as waves break over them, their hands cramp. Sit, pull, pull, pull.

The world expands, then it contracts. The enormity of the ocean and expanse of sky, the endless horizon, the implacable sea is too large to comprehend. Don’t think of how long to go, just the next stroke. Just them, in a tiny boat of humanity and compassion heading slowly towards Australia.

Yet their world’s contraction increases connection. Every stroke is a watery thread linking them, and us to Madagascar. Salt to fresh. They are not alone. Their efforts link them to us. 

Every morning, I sit with breakfast and cup of tea and open their daily log with a degree of trepidation – has Ewan managed to fix the water pump, were they dashed into the rocks of the Marquesas, has that marlin attacked, or another fish flown into Jamie’s ear? I click. There are words, they’re alive, still heading west. 

You can donate to the MacLean Foundation here  or you can buy a bottle of whisky (exclusive to Royal Mile Whiskies) whose proceeds go directly to the cause. Two (one from Ardnamurchan, the second from Glen Scotia) have now been joined by a single cask from Isle of Raasay. As water is dropped in, you think about its addition in a new way.

Raasay #557, The MacLean Foundation Bottling, 61.1% £115, Royal Mile Whiskies exclusive 

Bosky aromas, sharped pencil, then wax crayon, box fresh trainers. Add water (!) to ease, relax and reveal grape jelly, blueberry pancake mix, balanced by a prickly, moor-like element. Add more and it’s cooked fruits, softening by the second as drop after drop is added. 

Neat, the mouth is tingling and hot – paprika, bacony, sharp apple. Adding water provokes oils, dusky jellied fruits, calmer but with a sinewy strength. There’s some coriander seed and mineral quality as it resolves, settles and opens. 

A single borehole can provide water for a community for over 60 year. Water for life and for lives. Add water.

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In My Ears

It’s not been a great week for music fans with Sly Stone and Brian Wilson both dying. What to choose from the latter? It could be In My Room, Caroline No, or Cabinessence, but with thoughts of the MacLean brothers, it must be Surf’s Up … both borne along by the tides. Safe passage to all souls.