LAZY DRINKS

It's been far too long since I have written anything here - but so be it. Now I have...

In recent weeks, or indeed months, I have found myself surrounded to a steadily increasing degree by bottles of whisky and bourbon with all kinds of strange additives – lime peel, lemon peel, honey and god knows what. I find it rather strange. Not that anybody wants to add extra flavour to their tipple - if you like it that way – drink it that way. But what I simply cannot understand is why there is a market for these concoctions. I mean how lazy do you have to be, if you are not capable of buying a lime, slicing it, and putting it in your whisky should you so desire. Is it really necessary to buy a specially prepared bottle of the stuff? And is it actually worth drinking?

So off to the local supermarket I went (they had some special offers going), and there I purchased two different bottles, and brought them home for a little try and taste – with vastly different results I might add.

Ballantine’s Brasil

To be fair they call it a spirit drink, but still… Apparently it’s made by steeping Brazilian lime peel in Scotch whisky.

So what do we make of that – well, at 35% it is rather weak, although the lime peel is rather overpowering. The colour is nice, some sort of deep amber, but the taste is two points beyond artificial. I don’t care where the lime peel comes from the finished product still tastes like somebody have steeped lime-flavoured wine-gums in window-cleaner. I tried adding some freshly squeezed lime juice to see if that would straighten out the taste, but that only made it worse. It would conceivably be drinkable if it had a bit more bite, but it’s just boring. I also tried putting it in the fridge to see if the cold could camouflage some of it, but no, that just made it cold… and boring. Finally I tried the taste-killer of them all – Coca-Cola – but even that couldn’t hide the artificialness of the lime peel. Don’t waste your time, money or taste-buds on this.

Jim Beam Honey

This is a bourbon take on ”How to add strange things to your booze and see what happens”. And in this case the result is much better. It is still only 35%, but this one has some resemblance of personality. There is a distinct honey-flowery tinge if you let your nose get in close proximity to a glass of the stuff, but also a sharp stab of alcohol in the background, and something sulphur-like, almost as if someone has lit a match at the back of your nose. Rather weird, but luckily also rather weak.

Being Danish I couldn’t help but rejoice, when I had my first taste. It was almost completely un-bourbon-like, but very much mead-like, and this of course was the tipple of choice among the Vikings. You get a very juicy sense of honey, but because of the clear and present alcohol, it is not overpowering in any way. Rather nice actually, and even more so, if you serve it cold. Then it becomes a strong almost caramel-like liqueur. Perfect with a good slab of cake and a cup of coffee (not that I drink coffee, but trustworthy people have told me it is so). Might be worth a try instead of the usual Cointreau and similar stuff.

The Quiet Irishman

I am lucky enough to count a handful of Irish people among my friends. I like them a lot, they are nice, gentle and caring, if a tad sentimental people, with a penchant for story-telling and a distinct twinkle in their eyes. For some reason their whiskey is the same – that is most of it. Unfortunately their two most well-known brands are a bit lacking in this respect. Tullamore Dew, the eternal irish coffee ingredient, is one of them, but that will have to wait. The other one is Jameson. And that is by far the best selling Irish whiskey of all time.

I am writing this on a cold, dark and dismal October night in a rainy and windy Copenhagen, trying my very best to feel comforted and warmed by the glass of standard Jameson standing in front of my computer-screen, but to tell you the truth, I am failing a bit. I mean there is nothing particularly wrong with Jameson, it doesn’t taste bad or anything, but the twinkle is missing somehow. Perhaps John Jameson forgot to put it in, when he started making Jameson whiskey back in 1780. He was a Scotsman after all. Or perhaps the personality has been breed out of it over the years. I am quite certain Jameson whiskey can be drunk by practically everybody, from an Australian housewife to a Swedish teenager on his first binge, but when you are trying to meet everybody’s taste, you end of being well, dare I say it, slightly boring.

But still, let’s take a closer look. It is a very nice looking whiskey, a light golden and very beautiful colour – I would hate being the painter having to reproduce that in a portrait or something – a quiet and very discreet smell, nothing much, a slight touch of something fruity perhaps, but nothing that my nose can detect besides that. Perhaps it is the elusive pear something so strangely common in Irish whiskey but almost non-existent in all other kinds of whisky.

The taste – again very discreet, very mild and gentle - like an old butler wafting in soundlessly on the evening breeze, and placing your drink on the table with a soft “Your drink, Sir”. There is a slight hint of something nutty and a certain raisin-like sweetness, but that’s about it. The finish is surprisingly long and varm for something that gentle, but quite nice. Nothing complex, no hidden depths of taste that I can discern. Again nice, mild – and ever so slightly boring. Although I am quite certain it would do excellent as an additive to various drinks, coffee and so on. I one tried making a chocolate cake with a generous dollop of Jameson in it. That went down quite well, but as a drink, there is lots more interesting stuff out there. Although to be fair – if you add a few drops of water, Jameson does liven up a bit, but it still lacks that famous Irish twinkle.

But do please bear in mind, this is the standard Jameson – there are other older and beefier variations, but those I will try on another and even colder evening.

Twaddle, turkeys and whisky (of course)

It is my considered opinion that connoisseurs of any kind (wine, whisky, cheese, food, cigars, you name it) are basically much to full of themselves for their own good, and usually have an extremely inflated opinion of their own vocabulary. I can’t stand it when I read something about “a light floral nose” on a whisky, or “a sparkling almost caramel-like palate with hints of amber and burnt almonds”. What a load of pretentious twaddle. If you think that it has a nice flowery smell and tastes of caramels and roasted almonds, why not say so???



So in the interest of future readers of this blog, and to give them some idea of the level and style of writing you can expect (kindergarten playground!) here is my version of a recipe that I think is rather well known in shall we say, whisky-circles. Never mind, it is still worth a repeat.



TURKEY WITH WHISKY (OR VICE VERSA)
(Serves 6)
1 small turkey (10-12 pounds)
1 bottle of whisky – preferably Scottish single malt
Salt
Pepper
Oliveoil
Strips of fatty bacon



The turkey is covered with bacon strips. They can be fastened with cooking pins or tied with cotton string. Pour a little olive-oil on the turkey and sprinkle with salt and pepper.



Turn on the oven (200°C).



Pour yourself a glass of whisky, and drink a toast to the result of your culinary efforts. Put the turkey in a big oven-proof dish and place in it the oven.



Pour another two glasses of whisky and have another couple of toasts for the turkey. After about twensy minutes you raise the temperature in the oven to 250°C to make sure the bird gets a thorough going over.



Then you pour another three glasses of wissy and drinks dem. After about half an h-h-hour you have tsu turn the blo-ho-dy bird. Remember tsu keep and heye on it all tse time.



Tsen you grap, grab, grabp goddammit, tse wissybottle and have another wun. After abo-hout anudder half aan-hour you walk vehery schchlo-howly towarchts ze uven, oven, whatever and turn it over. The bird, not ze uvven you twit!!! But watschst it!!! Its hotzch!



Andzenyougrahabanudderfihiveorseeevenwipskys while ze kurtey, turkry, kyrtu,oh for Gods scjakes, the blohody birds friesss away for anudder zree or fo-hour aaahours. (Who cares, it dossnt make anny difrence anyway!).



Zhen yuu haf tsu crawl to ze uvven and sry to get ze fuuucking BOID OUT!!!



Take anuzzer zihip ann sry to gedid out AGAIN!!!



Pick ze blooooody tweedy boid up frohom ze flooooorf an, an, an, an srow id on a scherwing disssch. Be cairfful not tsu schlep in ze ovivl, olivlvl, OLIVE OLIE!!! on da flo-o-o-o-orr!



Get up you dwunken buzzard, bastard, waddever Yii-piii!!



Eat the bird cold the next day with mayo and plenty of Aspirin.

A drink fit for the gods

Ever since my first trip to Scotland at the tender age of 17, I have had a weakness for the golden drops of the water of life, or whisky if you like. Since then I have tried to taste as many as possible - not just the socttish ones, but Australian, French, Japanese, Swedish and countless others. And one dark and dreary night I suddenly realized that other whisky afficionados might benefit, if not from my wisdom, then at least from my tasting - so here goes. Dewar Rattray Cask Collection Sherry Cask no. 1143 - 573 bottles 17 years single malt, distilled April 30. 1990 Balblair Distillery, Cask Strenght, bottled November 20. 2007 Un-chill filtered 62,4% Now this is a good and potent dram! I am quite certain you could run a starship on this. The colour is a beatiful amber - enough to bring tears to the eyes of any Scotsman. I've tried it with and without water, but in both cases it is a whisky to be treated with some care. Without water it has a rather weak sherry-like aroma with hints of caramel. The taste is powerful and warming, and the finish goes on for hours. It is actually so strong you can hardly taste it, but there is definitely some sherry and caramel and a touch of TNT. If you add some water things starts to calm down, and suddenly a Spanish citrus grove starts to make its presence felt. Here be lemons and oranges - and perhaps some abricots somewhere in the background - something sweet anyway, dates perhaps. It is still powerful, but its quite an experience because you can now really appreaciate the very complex taste. When your tastebuds have gathered themselves from the initial chock you start to register melons and more caramel and a faint touch of licorice, like someone has just carried an open tin of licorice through your living-room and past your chair. The fire is out though, there is no trace of smoke anywhere. All in all a great and powerful whisky with an interesting and complex taste - but almost to powerful to handle. Don't start your friends off on this one, if they are new to whisky. It will knock them out of their seats. Keep it for a couple of years, and then bring it out on a chilly autumn evening after af brisk walk in the woods. Then it will be priceless!