Categories
Foundations

The Taxonomy of Liquid Texts

What do I mean when I say that liquids – especially distilled spirits – have textual characteristics? I didn’t exactly boss the literary theory module I took at university – don’t worry, I’m not about to invoke Habermas or Lacan.

In simple terms, therefore, drinks are made by people and reflect their creative decisions. The more creative decisions that underpin a brandy, whisky or rum, the more complex and communicative that liquid becomes to someone like me, a person perhaps a little too willing to read more deeply into things.

My thesis emerged in the course of blending Scotch whiskies. The moment you consciously combine one spirit with another, you have created a drama with two characters. The potential for conflict and transformation is vast but not entirely predictable: the blender gives a degree of autonomy to her creations.

Whisky, just like everything else we humans make, has context. The phrase ‘liquid history’ is so often used of older spirits, or those from long-lost distilleries. Truly, however, every liquid tells a story. Some stories just happen to be more nuanced, powerful and enchanting than others.

While the objective principles behind distillation and cask maturation are of course scientifically understood, liquid creation remains an experiment in self-expression.

Below is my own taxonomy of liquid texts, based on a lot of thinking around whisky.

Single Casks = Tweets

A given percentage are amusing, rich with reference; a handful can be dazzling and draw the eyes of the world. Most are insipid and interchangeable, lacking in originality and promptly forgotten. Brevity may be the soul of wit but, as Twitter shows, not in all cases. As I shall discuss at some length in a future post, single casks rarely need more than the original 140 characters in which to say their piece because wooden containers are not intrinsically eloquent. Owing to the fact that most barrels and butts originate from the same three or four cooperages, a lot of single cask bottlings tend to have tremendously similar backstories when left to their own devices. What meaningfully separates this cask/Tweet from another?

Mainstream Single Malt Bottlings = Haikus

Though targeting somewhat different people, your standard core range single malts and conventional single cask releases have some commonalities. Both tend to do two or three things quite well. Mainstream single malt bottlings, however, benefit from humans arranging those three tricks so they perform reliably; they are precise, measured, allusive. They are designed: to capture a mood, to fit a particular moment. A good example would be Ardbeg Wee Beastie 5YO, for which my haiku would be:

This peaty caper,
A comic book printed on
Pear Drops with squid ink.

Limited Editions = Short Stories

Whisky is almost as awash with special, ‘limited’ releases as it is single casks. I don’t share the suspicion of many towards these latter bottlings because I care about the context as much as the liquid character. Chances are the release in question has been a dedicated project, worked on by a specific team of people, maybe bringing some new creative thinking to bear on a liquid. Going back to Ardbeg, Scorch is a short story, just as Blaaack is. They are pacy, fun, with an often singular intensity. Ardbeg is a prime example of a producer creating liquid texts.

Recurring Limited Editions = Sci-fi and Fantasy Novels

Certain releases come about regularly. Compass Box Flaming Heart is one example, Ardbeg Supernova or 19YO Traigh Bhan are others. Each instalment refers to and builds upon characteristics and plot lines introduced in prior releases. There is a heavy reliance on mythmaking and the kind of easter eggs beloved by Trekkies. If you are scouting out these bottlings, chances are you are already some distance down the rabbit hole – and loving it.

Aged Blended Scotches = Modernist Novels

There is something truly powerful to me about the allure and mystique of aged blends. The interplay between malt and grain is usually a mystery, the cast of characters dimly perceived. Plot is more a function of taster interpretation. Nevertheless, when faced with a glass, you know you ought to be impressed. The more deluxe expressions from Johnnie Walker, and others such as The Last Drop, all play with signs and symbolism; they are as much about aura as aroma.

Small batch blends of aged spirits, especially French brandy and malt whiskies = Palimpsests

The highest form of textual intrigue in my book (!). Dave Broom was the first writer, that I observed, to bring the concept of palimpsests into whisky. He discussed it in relation to the ghostly, pyrrhic presences of closed distilleries – I mean to show that palimpsest spirits can be very much alive. To my mind, they are more common in the independent bottling space, where a third party reconstructs spirits, drawing on their own sensibility to add layers of annotation and, occasionally, doodles in the margin. What’s important is that specific makers layer their creativity on top of one another, interacting across different moments in time through spirits. Samaroli’s blended malts from the 90s and early 2000s are great examples.

Armagnac Sponge No. 1 from this year is another. Grapes were grown in two regions, over two separate vintages; the wines were possibly distilled using equipment loaned from a cooperative rather than owned by the domaines in question; the spirits were put into casks of who knows what antiquity from specific black oak forests, then somehow acquired by Grosperrin in Cognac. Thanks to a long-standing relationship with Grosperrin, a Scottish independent bottler and satirist tastes through a range of spirits and, subject to his own creative caprice, blends them together. Stories accrue like lacquers, on the bottle and within it. The label shows that this is very much a work of the moment, but the traditions and statements of the past flow in constant colloquy behind it.

Categories
Adventures

The Long Walk to a Small, Adventurous Distillery

Wishing everyone a bibulous and bibliophilic Burns Night.

Conflict or kindness – which best characterises our vision for life beyond Planet Earth?

Sci-fi, having set itself this question, typically frames adventures in outer space as bloody and brief without the correct artillery. With Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars, the clue is in the title. If there is any intelligent life out there, they recommend getting a high-calibre round into wherever its digestive system might be before it does the same to us.

Becky Chambers’ ‘Wayfarer Trilogy’ makes a charming and powerful case for cooperation instead. In The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, we discover a race of humans who have limped into space rather than leapt, our divisions on Earth hindering our attempts to understand life among the stars. Chambers writes:

Scholars of sapient life note that all young civilisations go through similar stages before they are ready to leave their birth planets behind. Perhaps the most crucial stage is that of ‘intraspecies chaos.’ This is the proving ground, the awkward adolescence when a species either learns to come together on a global scale, or dissolves into squabbling factions doomed to extinction, whether through war or ecological disasters too great to tackle divided.

The rich left Earth behind when the atmosphere got too poisonous and settled on Mars (Chambers is nothing if not prescient); later, another band of humans also elects to leave, but heads for the vacuum of space instead. They become the Exodan Fleet, zero gravity nomads, orbiting suns that lack the warmth of home. Those who remain are ‘Gaiists’, and nobody wants to hang out with them.

There are numerous forms of sapient life that make up Chambers’ universe, and they all harbour the suspicion that the humans now in their midst have not grown out of intraspecies chaos. We are, in the words of one Quelin representative at a Galactic Commons hearing, an ‘unstable element’. Maybe the Quelin have a point. If we cannot have a conversation about the wearing of masks without screaming at one another, we have no business roaming the solar system. For starters, space suits are way more complicated than little scraps of fabric with elastic ear loops, garments that have seemingly defeated millions.

Reading this trilogy during 2021 and a global pandemic has been an emotional project. Especially in The Long Way, characters grapple with connection: how to facilitate it; how to deal with the loss of it. We have all had to come to terms with our social fabric disappearing like a sock in the washing machine. My focus here is on what happened to my wider community, that of whisky.

After an initial horrified pause, companies pushed out new releases at a considerable rate of knots. With so many bored whisky fans out there, either furloughed or no longer spending what they would in a typical working week, splashing out on bottles became irresistible. As lockdowns lengthened, the desire for connection with others only grew but, worryingly, certain brands and retailers started to raise concerns about interactions they were having.

In a small but distressing number of cases, acquiring desirable bottles was more important than treating others decently. Many retailers I know fielded furious calls or were badgered over email and social media. All while also staffing shops, open as ‘essential services’, and exposing themselves and their families to the whim of Covid. Auction sites boomed. Some got quite rich – just about everyone got angry/scared. Intraspecies chaos, played out over 700ml units of brown liquid that no one needs to actually stay alive. A definite case of misplaced pandemic priorities.

The crew of the Wayfarer offered much needed escape and a window onto empathy (although something tells me that Corbin would definitely flip Springbank 17yo Madeira if given the chance). While people don’t get on all of the time, especially crammed on board a spaceship, they do their level best to accommodate the other side. Whether it is Rosemary joining the Wayfarer in The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Sidra navigating life as an embodied AI programme in A Closed and Common Orbit, or Ghuh’loloan, the Harmagian anthropologist studying the Exodans in Record of a Spaceborn Few, the customs of others may not be comprehensible but they are always worthy of respect. The Galactic Commons goes out of its way to support and sustain humanity, despite our weaknesses and shortcomings. Kindness comes our way, if we are ready for it.

If there was a plotline calling for a whisky company in Chambers’ books, Adelphi would be one contender. While I was reading A Closed and Common Orbit in early June, the Adelphi team were walking from their bottling hall in Fife to Ardnamurchan Distillery, raising money for The BEN. At 180 miles, this was a very long walk indeed. I managed to speak to Connal Mackenzie, Sales Director for Adelphi, about the AD/venture Walk.

Liquid Texts (LT)Connal, I hope the blisters have faded since June. How did the idea for the AD/venture Walk come about?

Connal Mackenzie (CM) – I first had the idea probably between Christmas and New Year – I decided I just needed to do something pretty stupid this year. Me and Graeme [Mackay, Sales Executive] were chatting one day, and I asked, “why don’t we walk from our base to Ardnamurchan?” It was initially just going to be sales and marketing but my director, Alex, and Antonia [Bruce, European & UK Sales Executive] both agreed to join us. We had five months to get some training in, which got us out and going in the middle of winter, which was great.

LTWith the AD/venture Walk, the Ardnamurchan Trust, and the regular bottlings for the RAF Benevolent Fund, work with charities seems to be very important at Adelphi. What is the origin of this philanthropic spirit and how has it grown?

CM – The RAF bottlings started a couple of years ago – Alex’s father is close to the forces and has served before. The RAF held an event at Broomhall House, the Bruce ancestral home in Fife, and we teamed up with Arthur and Keir at Royal Mile Whiskies to release some whiskies. I like to support local charities when I can – The BEN is a huge worthwhile charity, but we are also going to bottle an octave, 70-80 bottles, to raise money for the Acharacle kids’ play park on the peninsula. With the AD/venture Walk, the final amount of £27,500 is the most I’ve ever been involved in raising. Everyone was so generous.

LT – How many bottles of whisky were stashed away in backpacks?

CM – We had rules on this – you had to bring a bottle, but it couldn’t be Adelphi or Ardnamurchan. We did take a bottle of the AD/venture Club release as we had an Instagram Live with the Good Spirits Co. during the Walk. Alex’s wife, Victoria, runs MacLean and Bruce [a high-end whisky travel company in collaboration with Charles MacLean]. She was our support vehicle, carrying all the camping equipment – and the whiskies – in a Land Rover Defender.

LTWhat was the most challenging day?

CM – Personally, I had two challenging days. The first one was going over the Ochils in Perthshire – they were so hard, so early in the Walk. They didn’t seem to end! The other was when we walked from Fort William to Strontian. For most of the Walk, the weather was fantastic – it was 32C that day and at first we thought we were making great time. We swam in a river; the tunes were playing – morale was high. Then we started ascending into this glen and our walkie talkies lost signal. Vikki in the support vehicle couldn’t get hold of us for a long time. She approached the local mountain rescue and was asked how many we were, did we have food and water. We were classed as very low risk, and we made it out again without support, but it was so intense. That day we did 54,000 steps over gruelling terrain, bog, no tracks. Up to your knees in God-knows-what. That was also probably the most real day, though, where at times you felt like you might not get there. If we’d had really changeable weather, would we have managed it? You just don’t know. Fortunately, when anyone was going through a tough period, the other folk on the team would come and raise your spirits. You’d be there for them when they were struggling a wee bit.

LTHow do you feel now, looking back on the Walk?

CM – It’s all happy memories now! You think you’re going through such a tough time at the time – in the moment, you don’t know if you’ll make it. It’s like on the penultimate day I was walking away and heard this crack. I heard it and definitely felt it. I started limping instantly. So I sit down straight away, get my shoes off – the top of one of my little toes just exploded, no better word for it. I couldn’t put any weight on it at all. I was picked up and taken to Acharacle surgery. They were super busy doing Covid vaccines, but a locum came in, had a look and told me, “You have the beginnings of trench foot.” They iodined me up but things didn’t look good. I insisted on finishing the Walk so they asked what other footwear I had. When I mentioned a pair of trainers, the advice was to cut a hole in the front of the trainers so the toe can pop out and relieve the pressure. I managed to limp the 11 miles to the distillery the next day. It was pretty awful, but I was so pumped to finish.

Huge thanks to Connal for answering my questions, and congratulations to the Adelphi team for such a huge amount of money raised.