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Brideshead Decanted
Dec. 31st, 2006 11:52 amI was at a party recently, and the subject of single malt Scotch came up.
A friend flat out asserted, "There's really only the Islays to consider. No one who likes single malt would drink anything else."
As I've said before, I'm more of a "let a thousand flowers bloom" kind of guy. I enjoy (and learn a lot from) other people having different tastes than I. So I didn't mind he's an Islay enthusiast. No, it was the implicit, "...and if you don't agree with me, go to hell," that rankled.
I gave it my weak try: "Well... There are others, you know."
"Oh?" He looked at me skeptically. "What do you like?"
"Springbank. Macallan. Bunnahabhain. Aberlour. Edradour."
He snorted, opined that the Scotch world started and ended with Lagavulin, and that was all there was to it.
It reminded me more than a little of the following section of Brideshead Revisited. The narrator is Charles Ryder (the part played by Jeremy Irons in the TV adaptation -- and if you like that sort of thing, he also recorded an unabridged reading of the book on tape that's very good). Charles is just out of Oxford and living in Paris as an art student. Rex Mottram, a Canadian who's both nouveau and a bit of a crawler, has a dinner with him. At the end of the meal (paid for on Rex's dime for lots of plot reasons), they bring out the after dinner drinks:
*^*^*
The cognac was not to Rex's taste. It was clear and pale and it came to us in a bottle free from grime and Napoleonic cyphers. It was only a year or two older than Rex and lately bottled. They gave it to us in very thin tulip-shaped glasses of modest size.
"Brandy's one of the things I do know a bit about," said Rex. "This is a bad colour. What's more, I can't taste it in this thimble."
They brought him a balloon the size of his head. He made them warm it over a spirit lamp. Then he rolled the splendid spirit round, buried his face in the fumes, and pronounced it the sort of stuff he put soda in at home.
So, shamefacedly, they wheeled out of its hiding place the vast and mouldy bottle they kept for people of Rex's sort.
"That's the stuff," he said, tilting the treacly concoction till it left dark rings round the sides of his glass. "They've always got some tucked away, but they won't bring it out unless you make a fuss. Have some."
"I'm quite happy with this."
"Well, it's a crime to drink it, if you don't really appreciate it."
A friend flat out asserted, "There's really only the Islays to consider. No one who likes single malt would drink anything else."
As I've said before, I'm more of a "let a thousand flowers bloom" kind of guy. I enjoy (and learn a lot from) other people having different tastes than I. So I didn't mind he's an Islay enthusiast. No, it was the implicit, "...and if you don't agree with me, go to hell," that rankled.
I gave it my weak try: "Well... There are others, you know."
"Oh?" He looked at me skeptically. "What do you like?"
"Springbank. Macallan. Bunnahabhain. Aberlour. Edradour."
He snorted, opined that the Scotch world started and ended with Lagavulin, and that was all there was to it.
It reminded me more than a little of the following section of Brideshead Revisited. The narrator is Charles Ryder (the part played by Jeremy Irons in the TV adaptation -- and if you like that sort of thing, he also recorded an unabridged reading of the book on tape that's very good). Charles is just out of Oxford and living in Paris as an art student. Rex Mottram, a Canadian who's both nouveau and a bit of a crawler, has a dinner with him. At the end of the meal (paid for on Rex's dime for lots of plot reasons), they bring out the after dinner drinks:
*^*^*
The cognac was not to Rex's taste. It was clear and pale and it came to us in a bottle free from grime and Napoleonic cyphers. It was only a year or two older than Rex and lately bottled. They gave it to us in very thin tulip-shaped glasses of modest size.
"Brandy's one of the things I do know a bit about," said Rex. "This is a bad colour. What's more, I can't taste it in this thimble."
They brought him a balloon the size of his head. He made them warm it over a spirit lamp. Then he rolled the splendid spirit round, buried his face in the fumes, and pronounced it the sort of stuff he put soda in at home.
So, shamefacedly, they wheeled out of its hiding place the vast and mouldy bottle they kept for people of Rex's sort.
"That's the stuff," he said, tilting the treacly concoction till it left dark rings round the sides of his glass. "They've always got some tucked away, but they won't bring it out unless you make a fuss. Have some."
"I'm quite happy with this."
"Well, it's a crime to drink it, if you don't really appreciate it."
