A recipe for getting over yourself
Ingredients
1 bottle Murray McDavid Caol Ila Maverick (Islay single malt scotch, distilled in 1993, Chenin Blanc finish, 46% alcohol by volume).
1 jug of still spring water or filtered tap water
1 copy of Jackie Leven’s album ‘Fairy Tales for Hard Men’, for his reading of the traditional Scottish poem Sir Patrick Spens
1 copy of Portknockie, from Russell Hoban’s collection of stories and essays, ‘The Moment Under The Moment’
1 glass (ideally a tapered copita, not a tumbler).
Garnish (optional)
1 misty, wet and, ideally, windy winter’s evening
1 open log fire, or dim the lights and turn off the TV.
Caol Ila, pronounced “cull-eela”, means “Sound of Islay”, as in a narrow strip of water. The drinking experience benefits from a few additional ingredients, but don’t worry if you don’t have them because this particular whisky comes with a few special effects of its own.
Before you even take a sip, add a splash of water; not to thin the whisky down, but to coax out its flavour and fragrance. You may be surprised by the difference it makes.
If you’re not passionate about the things you eat and drink, what follows will seem like a conceit. But since whiskies have fuelled much of what I’ve written over the last 15 years, I believe I’m qualified to say that the ‘nose’ of a good whisky is an instant transport mechanism that’s particular to your experience. And I think it’s in the instant you realise that the intensity of a whisky’s aroma is beyond description that it takes you outside of yourself.
This Maverick Caol Ila takes me in a great circle, back to the Scottish Highlands around 10 years ago. In the evenings, I’d put on a jacket, pour myself a scotch and step outside where, in the failing light, sitting in the shadow of a small holiday cottage, I’d watch the sun set slowly over the fields and gorse and sheep, with a glass of Islay whisky in my hand. It would slowly grow darker as the essence of lucidity drained out of the glass and into me.
There’s nothing like the taste of some quality whisky for getting over yourself. It seems to contain a built-in bullshit detector, at least until you go over your own limit and start spouting it yourself.
Introversion and self-absorption can be useful at times. On other occasions, you find you need a little clarity to reflect on the difference between the way you perceive things and the way things seem to be to everyone else. Guess what: you’re not at the centre of the Universe, but way off on the sidelines of the action. Get over yourself. For this kind of perceptual shift, a glass of Caol Ila will act as a catalyst.
The independent bottling I’m presently sampling is 11 years old. It comes in a bright-orange box with greenish-black trim, inscribed with the McDavid crest of a West Highland white terrier and its motto Clachan A Choin (pronounced “clack-ann-na-coin”), the Gaelic for “exceptional”. It was distilled in 1993 and bottled in 2004 as part of the ‘Maverick’ range and exceptional it certainly is. The casks once contained some Pithon’s Quarts-de-Chaume, a sweet white wine from the Loire valley. I’d like to be able to say that I could taste a trace of it, but my taste buds just aren’t that sophisticated. It does, though, have a delicacy I haven’t noticed in previous bottles of Caol Ila I’ve tasted. Mind you, my first was a cask strength 1988 Signatory bottling that, pure, would have been strong enough to strip paint.
Murray McDavid is a relative newcomer to the world of independent whisky bottling. This firm does not blend whisky, and never adds colouring or chill-filters its products. For those less familiar with the pleasures of the single malt, this Caol Ila will seem anaemically pale once exposed. It doesn’t have that bright, golden chemical glow of a blend. But appearances can be deceptive. Instead of being colourful, it’s powerful and extraordinarily complex.
Although it’s difficult to pin down flavours — and malt flavours are about as elusive as they come — even a beginner would be able to isolate at least three distinct areas of the palate beyond the grain in this Maverick: a thick, unguent, peppery quality reminiscent of good, extra virgin olive oil; an intensely smoky tang; and an earthy base-flavour of peat. On the nose, it has less of a seawater, iodine-like quality than Laphroaig, but the earthiness cuts through the alcohol. It’s pungent and covers the tongue with its long finish, like a mouthful of distant bonfire smoke.
It’s exactly the kind of dense and inexpressible taste you’ll need to accompany the weathered and wintry night sounds of Jackie Leven reading the traditional Scottish poem, Sir Patrick Spens, the story of a knight who goes to sea in winter on a mission for the king. It’s from the oral tradition, based on an early Scottish ballad, and dates back to the 14th Century. From the outset, there’s a sense of doom about Sir Patrick’s story that’s intensified by the howling wind framing the Leven recording. Sir Patrick and the Scots lords are drowned on their voyage and there’s a raw authenticity about this rendering that makes you glad to be indoors, drinking Caol Ila, and not out in a Scottish storm where the sea is fifty fathoms deep.
The writer Russell Hoban went north to Portknockie to write ad copy for a scotch whisky when he was still working in advertising in the 1960s. He’s written in many of his later novels about whisky and, in particular, his taste for Glenfiddich. But in this essay, Portknockie, his special field of attention is tuned to the shape of the rocks, the lie of the land, and the rusty rope rings around the edge of the inner harbour of the old herring port. Most of all, he’s captivated by the idea of the place.
Sipping this whisky on a rainy, winter’s night in Auckland with ‘The Moment Under The Moment’ open in my lap and Sir Patrick Spens on the stereo, I’m captivated by trying to evoke the idea of a taste.
I’ve written before that to drink a single malt whisky is to drink the landscape of Scotland. Even without romanticising about it, you’re drinking not only the toasted, germinating barley; the peaty water; a hint of sea salt that infiltrated the casks during one of those winter storms that claimed Sir Patrick; the smoke from the peat fires that malted the barley; you’re drinking the essence of the land and sea.
I can still feel the rough touch of the rusty farm gates and the dry stone walls and taste the peppery, smoky pungency of the whisky on my one and only trip to Scotland, and every time I sip this Maverick Caol Ila, my consciousness goes back there instantly.
Travel broadens the mind, they say. But transportation along the space-time continuum for $83.75 seems a very reasonable proposition to me, and fine whisky really is the liquid distillation of a time, a place and a state of mind.
I ordered this Caol Ila from an online place: Whisky Galore in Christchurch. Online shopping need not be an impersonal experience.
Michael Fraser Milne at Whisky Galore is a gentlemen retailer with an Old World pedigree. He signs off his email, charmingly, “As aye”, and took the time to write back and suggest a number of alternatives to me when the first Caol Ila I ordered was out of stock. That’s the kind of canny customer relationship management you might not expect from an internet transaction. Michael tells me Whisky Galore organises regular whisky tastings around the country, and I definitely plan to take part in one of those. Who knows where the Glenfarclas, Tamdhu and the Old Malt Cask Range from Ledaig to Mannachmore might take me.
1 bottle Murray McDavid Caol Ila Maverick (Islay single malt scotch, distilled in 1993, Chenin Blanc finish, 46% alcohol by volume).
1 jug of still spring water or filtered tap water
1 copy of Jackie Leven’s album ‘Fairy Tales for Hard Men’, for his reading of the traditional Scottish poem Sir Patrick Spens
1 copy of Portknockie, from Russell Hoban’s collection of stories and essays, ‘The Moment Under The Moment’
1 glass (ideally a tapered copita, not a tumbler).
Garnish (optional)
1 misty, wet and, ideally, windy winter’s evening
1 open log fire, or dim the lights and turn off the TV.
Caol Ila, pronounced “cull-eela”, means “Sound of Islay”, as in a narrow strip of water. The drinking experience benefits from a few additional ingredients, but don’t worry if you don’t have them because this particular whisky comes with a few special effects of its own.
Before you even take a sip, add a splash of water; not to thin the whisky down, but to coax out its flavour and fragrance. You may be surprised by the difference it makes.
If you’re not passionate about the things you eat and drink, what follows will seem like a conceit. But since whiskies have fuelled much of what I’ve written over the last 15 years, I believe I’m qualified to say that the ‘nose’ of a good whisky is an instant transport mechanism that’s particular to your experience. And I think it’s in the instant you realise that the intensity of a whisky’s aroma is beyond description that it takes you outside of yourself.
This Maverick Caol Ila takes me in a great circle, back to the Scottish Highlands around 10 years ago. In the evenings, I’d put on a jacket, pour myself a scotch and step outside where, in the failing light, sitting in the shadow of a small holiday cottage, I’d watch the sun set slowly over the fields and gorse and sheep, with a glass of Islay whisky in my hand. It would slowly grow darker as the essence of lucidity drained out of the glass and into me.
There’s nothing like the taste of some quality whisky for getting over yourself. It seems to contain a built-in bullshit detector, at least until you go over your own limit and start spouting it yourself.
Introversion and self-absorption can be useful at times. On other occasions, you find you need a little clarity to reflect on the difference between the way you perceive things and the way things seem to be to everyone else. Guess what: you’re not at the centre of the Universe, but way off on the sidelines of the action. Get over yourself. For this kind of perceptual shift, a glass of Caol Ila will act as a catalyst.
The independent bottling I’m presently sampling is 11 years old. It comes in a bright-orange box with greenish-black trim, inscribed with the McDavid crest of a West Highland white terrier and its motto Clachan A Choin (pronounced “clack-ann-na-coin”), the Gaelic for “exceptional”. It was distilled in 1993 and bottled in 2004 as part of the ‘Maverick’ range and exceptional it certainly is. The casks once contained some Pithon’s Quarts-de-Chaume, a sweet white wine from the Loire valley. I’d like to be able to say that I could taste a trace of it, but my taste buds just aren’t that sophisticated. It does, though, have a delicacy I haven’t noticed in previous bottles of Caol Ila I’ve tasted. Mind you, my first was a cask strength 1988 Signatory bottling that, pure, would have been strong enough to strip paint.
Murray McDavid is a relative newcomer to the world of independent whisky bottling. This firm does not blend whisky, and never adds colouring or chill-filters its products. For those less familiar with the pleasures of the single malt, this Caol Ila will seem anaemically pale once exposed. It doesn’t have that bright, golden chemical glow of a blend. But appearances can be deceptive. Instead of being colourful, it’s powerful and extraordinarily complex.
Although it’s difficult to pin down flavours — and malt flavours are about as elusive as they come — even a beginner would be able to isolate at least three distinct areas of the palate beyond the grain in this Maverick: a thick, unguent, peppery quality reminiscent of good, extra virgin olive oil; an intensely smoky tang; and an earthy base-flavour of peat. On the nose, it has less of a seawater, iodine-like quality than Laphroaig, but the earthiness cuts through the alcohol. It’s pungent and covers the tongue with its long finish, like a mouthful of distant bonfire smoke.
It’s exactly the kind of dense and inexpressible taste you’ll need to accompany the weathered and wintry night sounds of Jackie Leven reading the traditional Scottish poem, Sir Patrick Spens, the story of a knight who goes to sea in winter on a mission for the king. It’s from the oral tradition, based on an early Scottish ballad, and dates back to the 14th Century. From the outset, there’s a sense of doom about Sir Patrick’s story that’s intensified by the howling wind framing the Leven recording. Sir Patrick and the Scots lords are drowned on their voyage and there’s a raw authenticity about this rendering that makes you glad to be indoors, drinking Caol Ila, and not out in a Scottish storm where the sea is fifty fathoms deep.
The writer Russell Hoban went north to Portknockie to write ad copy for a scotch whisky when he was still working in advertising in the 1960s. He’s written in many of his later novels about whisky and, in particular, his taste for Glenfiddich. But in this essay, Portknockie, his special field of attention is tuned to the shape of the rocks, the lie of the land, and the rusty rope rings around the edge of the inner harbour of the old herring port. Most of all, he’s captivated by the idea of the place.
Sipping this whisky on a rainy, winter’s night in Auckland with ‘The Moment Under The Moment’ open in my lap and Sir Patrick Spens on the stereo, I’m captivated by trying to evoke the idea of a taste.
I’ve written before that to drink a single malt whisky is to drink the landscape of Scotland. Even without romanticising about it, you’re drinking not only the toasted, germinating barley; the peaty water; a hint of sea salt that infiltrated the casks during one of those winter storms that claimed Sir Patrick; the smoke from the peat fires that malted the barley; you’re drinking the essence of the land and sea.
I can still feel the rough touch of the rusty farm gates and the dry stone walls and taste the peppery, smoky pungency of the whisky on my one and only trip to Scotland, and every time I sip this Maverick Caol Ila, my consciousness goes back there instantly.
Travel broadens the mind, they say. But transportation along the space-time continuum for $83.75 seems a very reasonable proposition to me, and fine whisky really is the liquid distillation of a time, a place and a state of mind.
I ordered this Caol Ila from an online place: Whisky Galore in Christchurch. Online shopping need not be an impersonal experience.
Michael Fraser Milne at Whisky Galore is a gentlemen retailer with an Old World pedigree. He signs off his email, charmingly, “As aye”, and took the time to write back and suggest a number of alternatives to me when the first Caol Ila I ordered was out of stock. That’s the kind of canny customer relationship management you might not expect from an internet transaction. Michael tells me Whisky Galore organises regular whisky tastings around the country, and I definitely plan to take part in one of those. Who knows where the Glenfarclas, Tamdhu and the Old Malt Cask Range from Ledaig to Mannachmore might take me.
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