Continuing today’s boozy Dabbler Soup double-bill…
Let’s be clear – what follows is a blatantly self-interested plug, so look away now if you are troubled by naked opportunism.
But Brit did kindly invite me to review my own new book 101 Whiskies to Try Before You Die so you can hardly expect balance or objectivity.
Not that there would have been any point in the last fortnight as the blessed thing had sold so well it was out of stock in most bookshops and the main on-line retailer (oh, alright, Amazon). But they’ve printed another warehouse-load full and we need to shift them if there’s to be turkey on the table in my house this Christmas. And Mrs Buxton has told me there had better be.
The idea of the book is to take a fresh and hopefully not too serious or sycophantic look at the world of whisky. There are no scores, no “world’s best whisky” nonsense (a sophisticated readership such as assembles here would see through such flim-flam) and there are even some whiskies I don’t like. Asked to describe what it was about in five words, I told someone it described “accessible whisky for real people”.
That’s to say no single cask bottlings that have sold out long before the book is published; no specials that you can only get at the distillery and nothing over £1,000 a bottle. This is not for Russian oligarchs (though they’re very welcome to buy a copy, you understand).
Now £1,000 a bottle may strike you as a lot (largely because it is) but we live in a world in which Glenfiddich 50 year old will run you £10,000 a bottle; Dalmore Trinitas £100,000 a bottle and a decanter of 64 year old Macallan just sold for $460,000. I’m not making this up by the way.
In fact, the highest priced recommendation out of my 101 is Highland Park’s 40 year old which I saw last week in Heathrow’s World of Whisky at £549 or you can find on-line for around £750. Does that strike you as a lot of money?
Well, this was made around 1970, which happens to have been a great Bordeaux vintage, drinking very well now. You would expect to pay at least £200 for a bottle of claret of equivalent quality and that would be gone at one sitting. So the whisky is actually pretty good value (debate and enraged comment can start now).
Oh, you can buy it here, where you can get 40% off the cover price (author sobs quietly) and help stuff that turkey.
Is it me, or is The Dabbler on the sauce? The other week it was mother’s ruin (yes Brit, I did get my Fever Tree samples from the fragrant Saskia), and today, in the space of a few hours, we have Ruskie Wodka and ‘a spirit distilled from malted grain, esp. barley or rye’ – and this from a ‘culture’ blog. As an occasional
contributor, I may have to review my position.
I suppose one of the good things about buying a vintage whisky is that at least you can be fairly certain that it’s not going to be sour or spoiled
I just bought my brother a copy of your book Ian, he’s into his Islay creosote stuff
Why don’t you review the Fever-tree instead, Mahlerman?
what could be more cultured than trying 101 whiskies and then dying?
Having just skipped through the obit. for Bernard Matthews (crafty of him to slip away in the run-up to Christmas), and noting that he alone was responsible for producing turkey meat that was cheaper than cat-food, I don’t think the ire of Mrs B will be upon you in 25 days Ian, even if the sales of the second shed-full turn out to be sluggish.
But I’m puzzled. Just 15% of the population of these islands earns £44K or above. I am one of their number. I am also a drinker – once upon a time on a really heroic scale; these days much more modest. And you suggest Ian, that because there are whiskies out there that retail at £10K, £100K and more, that I should not blink when considering a bottle at £1K? Well, I have to admit that Ernie would need to come up before I would even consider handing over £549.00 to Heathrow’s World of Pain. Is there anything at around £35.00?
Jolly decent of them to decant that $460,000 Macallan. Do you get to keep the decanter – a crystal job, one would hope?
Mahlerman – loads at 35 quid and under. You can get great stuff for two tenners. And no need for tomic either.
Gaw – yup, the decanter is Lalique’s finest. Did you expect any less?
Have spent the day ‘battling’ through London’s 1″ of snow, surrounded by traumatised citizenry. How come I chip my car out of 2 feet of the stuff in Perthshire to get here to find that a gentle powdering represents the coming of the apocalypse? Does it only snow when it snows on London?
As a callow youth, I worked my way up to the dizzying heights of Macallan 25 year old single malt, before realizing that (a) I missed the bite of younger whiskey and (b) the 25 year old was getting really expensive. $60 a bottle when I started drinking it, it had more than doubled by the time I stopped. Now I see it in my local shop for $480 a bottle, and am not tempted to go back.
The plot thickens, the book is free, yikes, in the Royal mile’s (think Edinburgh’s tacky end) at the whisky emporium (that’s Gaelic for taking the punters to the cleaners)
Slight snag…..not free as in beer, one has to purchase all 101 whiskies @ circa six grand.
KInda, sorta means the book is worth more than The Book of Kells.
Rain check taken.
David, I don’t know, you young ‘uns, the last bottle of 25 year old I bought I now fill with 15 year old and pretend.
In any case there are many Schnapps, Tequilas and Grappas that are the equal of whisky, at non stupid prices. There’s this little Mexican restaurant in Biebrich, next to the Schloss, that serves a stonking Tequila, the owner takes off the labels so the customers can’t nip out and cut off his supply, it is as good as 35yr old Springbank at one quarter of the price.
Malty:
We all have to find a way to deal with reality. You put young wine in old bottles; I tell myself that the true connoisseur prefers the younger, cheaper stuff.
I love the idea of a Mexican restaurant in Germany. But then I’m always surprised to find Chinese restaurants when I travel overseas; they seem so quintessentially American.
they seem so quintessentially American…or Chinese, even.
No, all they have in China is restaurants.
Depends how deep and how far north in China you go, they mostly have abattoirs with menus. Brandy, forget it, bulls bile and six straws.