I won our 3-person office NFL ‘Pickem’ this year. We each had to try to correctly predict more winners than the others from every game, every week throughout the 18-week regular season. It’s not a trivial pursuit, it’s not just guessing a result by looking at what other people are thinking.
Before we started none of us really spent time choosing a reward from the others for gaining the ultimate victory.
Anyway one of the guys pushed me a bit for an answer, and so did the other. And today, one brought in his treasured shiny hipflask with something special sloshing gently inside. For me to try.
It’s a ‘Longrow’ 18 year old single malt.
And I’m just about to take my first sip.
And I’m going to make the most of it.
I don’t know much about whiskies or whiskeys, but I do know, when I’ve tried one, what I like.
It smells perfect. It’s peaty, which I like. Love.
Ideally, and it seems extraordinarily churlish of me to say this given the circumstances, my choice would be a Laphroaig 15 year old – probably the most rounded (most polarising) whisky I’ve ever tried. But the price went silly after the company withdrew it then brought it back. It would have been silly to even ask for a miniature bottle.
Ok, I’m going to sample this ‘water of life’ neat from my 20 year old ‘Glencairn’ glass – a most-treasured present from my wife 3 days after we got together.
Please don’t be disappointed that I’m not briniging you an evocation of a Scottish loch in the autumn, crushed walnuts or burning tyre smoke. Naah, it’s unlikely I’d be able to separate stuff out like someone trained in this sniffing, sipping, swirling thing.
I cup the glass across my fingers and palm, take a long sniff, swirl, sniff, anticipation, sip. Think.
Same again, swill it round the old gums. Think.
Feel it going down. Think.
It’s a really good-sized measure this.
Because I’m bloody-well worth it!
Anyway, as an experience after almost-exclusively drinking Bud Light for the last couple of years it’s beyond my ability to describe.
Honestly, I’m not keen on the aftertaste. The initial taste though is awesome, and as it grabs the gums adds to the ‘experience’ a drink costing almost the absolute top end of my limit back when I had…
It slides down really really well too. Really well. Did I mention that already?
I can’t wait to sniff the empty glass in the morning. Trust me if you’ve never tried it, just have a go. I first did it with a Maker’s Mark – a whiskey I hated from the very first sip.
I feel nice and warm now. Nice. Warm.
Onto the second half then.
Cheers!
I’d better remember to give the hipflask a bit of a polish before handing it back, but I’m not washing it out.
Some context:
A post from 2016: ‘Hic‘.
One from 2017: ‘Drunkard‘.
A bit later in 2017: ‘Makers Mark review part 6‘.