World / International Whisky Day - March 27
It seems that yesterday was International Whisky Day (read about it here, and/or here, and about the controversy that seems to have erupted over trademark infractions here). Needless to say, after Rowan was in bed, and Meg was out at her running clinic, I settled in for a nice quiet evening with a glass of whisky, a book, and two cats (one of which is still very much a kitten, so things weren't perfectly quiet...).
The whisky was a glass of Amrut Single Malt, which is distilled and aged in India using malted Indian barley (a different strain of barley from that used in Single Malt Scotch), and with which I am still experimenting as it has gotten extremely mixed reviews. Chip Dykstra, over at The Rum Howler Blog, really likes it, while Nathan Keeney, over at The ScotchNoob, isn't keen on the banana notes that he picks up from it. To be honest, I can't find banana in it at all, instead, I smell some spice, some vanilla, and a bit of peat, sort of like a milder version of the Jura Superstition, and the palate reminds me a little bit of Glenlivet 12 year-old or Johnnie Walker Black Label, but there is also something else in it that provides a nice, mildly spicy burn with no bitter aftertaste, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Of course, this is the danger of whisky reviewing, since it is a very subjective experience, and what I get out of a whisky isn't necessarily what others will get out a whisky.
As for the book, I'm working my way through the Hunger Games Trilogy, but only because Meg insisted that I read it. What can I say about it? Not much, for now, as I'm only part-way through the second book, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself for the moment. Maybe I'll post them later. As I write this I realize that lately I haven't been keeping track of the books that I've read; I did for three years, and posted the lists as part of this blog, but 2010 and 2011 seem to have escaped me somehow. Perhaps it was because of the school work, or perhaps it was the fact that after I finished my MA last April, the last thing I wanted to do was read...
The whisky was a glass of Amrut Single Malt, which is distilled and aged in India using malted Indian barley (a different strain of barley from that used in Single Malt Scotch), and with which I am still experimenting as it has gotten extremely mixed reviews. Chip Dykstra, over at The Rum Howler Blog, really likes it, while Nathan Keeney, over at The ScotchNoob, isn't keen on the banana notes that he picks up from it. To be honest, I can't find banana in it at all, instead, I smell some spice, some vanilla, and a bit of peat, sort of like a milder version of the Jura Superstition, and the palate reminds me a little bit of Glenlivet 12 year-old or Johnnie Walker Black Label, but there is also something else in it that provides a nice, mildly spicy burn with no bitter aftertaste, and I can't quite put my finger on what it is. Of course, this is the danger of whisky reviewing, since it is a very subjective experience, and what I get out of a whisky isn't necessarily what others will get out a whisky.
As for the book, I'm working my way through the Hunger Games Trilogy, but only because Meg insisted that I read it. What can I say about it? Not much, for now, as I'm only part-way through the second book, so I'll keep my thoughts to myself for the moment. Maybe I'll post them later. As I write this I realize that lately I haven't been keeping track of the books that I've read; I did for three years, and posted the lists as part of this blog, but 2010 and 2011 seem to have escaped me somehow. Perhaps it was because of the school work, or perhaps it was the fact that after I finished my MA last April, the last thing I wanted to do was read...