I make it my general practice
not to drink and write.
At least, I try not to drink
when writing fiction,
where the prose should be clear
and lucid as water,
even as it refracts the light.

But poetry's a different matter.
A little whisky never
hurt a poem. Not much, anyway.
Certainly not this
glass of it, distilled from smoke
that might have
scribbled words like these in
the air as it
jittered away, leaving only this
amber residue,
not so transparent as it appears.

While Laura and I were in New York City about a month ago, we were introduced to a drink called the "pickle back"—a shot of Irish whiskey followed by a pickle-brine chaser. Yes, I was dubious too, but it was the best new drink I'd tasted in ages. Of course, the pickle juice needs to be of high quality. You can't just use the liquid from a bottle of Vlasic dill chips.

We first experienced the pickle back at Sweet Afton in Queens (ecmyers was there!), so imagine our surprise when at Whiskey Tavern in Chinatown the next evening we found two varieties of pickle back on the menu! It's apparently a growing trend in bars in the know, as detailed in this New York Post article:

Give Pickle Juice a Shot

Time to invest in cucumber futures?

(To my Blue Heaven peeps, don't lump this tasty treat in with the horror that is Gherkinbräu. Here, of course, the pickle taste is deliberate.)

According to Whisky Connosr: "Some ideas are so brilliantly simple you wonder why no-one has thought of them before."

Now, I love me some gimmicky new ways to quaff my favorite hoity-toity single-malt scotches, but seriously? No one's ever thought of "drinks by the dram" before? Maybe I'm revealing myself for the old fart I am, but in my day they called those "minibottles." And they were perfect for sneaking into a laser show at the Hayden Planetarium.

Okay, so that was only a few short years ago. My point stands.

My scotch-loving friends in New York will want to hear about an email I just received from the Brandy Library. (Yes, I can't bring myself to unsubscribe from their mailing list.) The 16th Annual Single Malt & Scotch Whisky Extravaganza is coming to the Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday, May 7. Find all the information you need here. And if you go, knock one back for me.

I had intended to tweet live from WhiskyFest Chicago last week but was thwarted in my efforts because I couldn't get a signal in the underground ballroom at the Hyatt Regency. I did, however, faithfully take notes as I went. As I transcribe them, we'll be able to see together 1) how poor my whisky-tasting vocabulary is, and 2) how far downhill that vocabulary rolled as the evening progressed. Ready?

WhiskyFest Chicago, 4/1/09

TOMATIN 18yo sherry finish

delicious, light, a bit caramelly, bright bright finish on front of palate

ARDBEG Airigh Nam Beist

more refined than Uigeadail peaty but a bit lighter

ARDBEG Supernova

Holy peat, Batman! It's like a scouring pad made of peat! I loved it!

GLENROTHES 1975

bursts in your mouth like a buckyball unfolding, nutty, strong flavor

SPRINGBANK 11yo madeira wood finish

very purple flavor, strong, delicious is that a winey taste?

BRUICHLADDICH Links

very subtle sherry-ish flavor. Yum! Not fireworks-y. Caramel.

TOMINTOUL Peaty Tang

Peaty but tastes more watery than I like—no competition for the 27yo

HIGH WEST

Fantastic ryes interesting vodkas, peach vodka

CHARITY POUR—BALVENIE 1976 single cask

bright, in your face, caramel explosion

EADES blends—

Islay—Bowmore 60%, Caol Ila 40% Highland—Ben Nevis 85%, Clynelish 15% Speyside—Longmorn 50%, Glen Moray 50%

MICHAEL COLLINS Irish (peated)

BULLEIT bourbon

ARRAN

reg (10yo) cognac

Another high point of the evening came early, at the Ardbeg booth. When I professed my adoration of their Uigeadail, they insisted I sneak back for a sample of their rare Supernova, of which they had only brought 500 ml. So peaty it just about knocked me flat, but fantastic.

I started off the evening on the wrong foot, confusing Tomatin and Tomintoul at the Tomatin booth. Now, come on, I know the difference, and I'm a fan of both the Tomatin 12yo and the Tomintoul 27yo. But for some reason I tried to impress the Tomatin folks by professing my love of their 27, which earned me a gentle yet still embarrassing correction.

Charity tickets benefiting the Greater Chicago Food Depository were available for $20 a pop, entitling you to half an ounce of one of several rare donated whiskies. I went with a Balvenie 1976 single cask that was more than worth the money.

At some point in the second half of the evening, I stopped recording my impressions and wrote down only the names of what I tasted. I tried every Eades blend, but realized after two of the Arrans that I was probably approaching my limit. Free coffee, Fiji water, and a nice cabbie in a Scion helped me get home quickly and in one piece.

Next year I need company!

So, as threatened, Paul (of theinferior4 fame) and Colin and I went down to the Brandy Library yesterday evening to attend a Spirit School class in rare & precious scotches at the feet of Ethan Kelley (hereinafter referred to as my hero).

I'm hoping Paul will post more about the evening's de-scotch-ery, along with the photo our estimable server Raj took of us, but for now I will simply post the evening's menu:

Before class at the bar

• 1 Godfather (scotch and amaretto) (me)
  
• 2 Old Fashioneds (rye, muddled orange, and cherry) (Colin and Paul)
  
• 1 Imperial 16yo(?) single-malt (calvados cask) (me)

• Buchanan's blended scotch over ice (warmup drink)
  
• Glenlivet 31yo (bottled by Glen Master)
  
• Tomintoul 27yo (this one just keeps turning up)
  
• Macallan 1876 replica
  
• Dallas Dhu 27yo cask strength (bottled by Dun Bheagan) (rum cask?)
  
• Glen Grant cask strength (notes incomplete)
  
• Bunnahabhain 25yo bourbon cask
  
• Highland Park 30yo (sherry cask?)
  
• Springbank 1969
  
• Edradour 30yo (bonus spirit)

Next up: rum class?

Hey, New Yorkers! Like scotch? Have a $120 burning a hole in your pocket? Free tomorrow night?

The Brandy Library's weekly Spirit School features a tasting of precious and rare scotches Tuesday at 6:30 pm. I'll be there along with a couple of friends. Why not give the Brandy Library a call and see if there are any other spots free in the class?

I plan to arrive at 5:30 and enjoy a leisurely cocktail before class. That's what Laura and I did two weeks ago for the calvados class, and it definitely gave us a chance to soak up the ambience of the place. The class itself was a small, informal affair in a tasting room in the basement. We started with a Jack Rose cocktail (calvados, lime juice, and grenadine), then were regaled with the Story of Calvados while tasting 8 progressively more aged calvadoses (sp? calvadi?). Hors d'oeuvres were served between each tasting. At the end, we each were served a large snifter of a super-mega-fabbo calvados as a bonus spirit. That was 10 drinks over the course of the tasting, albeit not full glasses, plus the earlier cocktail in the lounge. We felt awfully good on the way home.

"Spirit sommelier" Ethan Kelley is a great teacher and raconteur, and he told me that the rare scotches class would be a somewhat looser affair than the normal classes, and would focus on learning how to get the best value when purchasing expensive scotch. To that end, we would taste some phenomenal scotches and maybe a couple of awful ones. But he promised it would be fun. I don't doubt it!

The Brandy Library is in Tribeca at 25 N. Moore St. You don't need a reservation to drop by for a drink, but it's not a bad idea to have one.

What a long, long day! Laura went to Long Island to partake of Easter dinner with friends and their families, whilst I wrote pretty much from 5:00 am to 10:30 pm—with breaks, of course, for food, playing with the dog, a nap, coffee-brewing, and general screwing around.

Anyway, I took a break from novel-writing today to write a 2,500-word short story entitled "Care and Feeding of Your Piano." Or maybe Perry Slaughter wrote it, I haven't quite decided yet. It's a narrative cast entirely in excerpts from a fictional future product manual. Light, offbeat, and nasty in a way Perry could certainly claim responsibility for with pride.

I never mix writing and alcohol, but now that the story is done I'm enjoying a celebratory Talisker and some nicely atmospheric music. The Talisker bottle has at most two pours left, which means I'm about half a week away from clearing one more of the low bottles from the liquor cabinet in preparation for the big move. Woo-hoo!

Anyway, this story's title is one that's been hanging around in my files without a story attached for maybe a decade. In fact, it's been a title without a story for so long that it feels a little surreal now to be on the far side of the divide. That's all right, I guess. There's plenty more titles and ideas where that one came from.

And now back to my regularly scheduled novel, already in progress.

I must share part of a letter I've received referring to my podcast and commenting on my many comments therein about scotch:

I'm a Scot living in London and can I first say how much your knowledge of my home country's national drink (Irn Bru excepted of course) shames me? I tend to stick to Talisker myself and very rarely stray from that and a few other tried and tested favourites. Lagavulin—which I think you were drinking with podcast 40—stops me in my tracks. Waaaay too rich for my blood, and I shudder to think that it might be some people's first taste of a malt whiskey. I mean, the way I see it is, there's peat, and then there's Dr Peat's Patented Concentrated Peat Drink, and then beyond that in a place that even peat-eating mammals only talk about in hushed tones there's Lagavulin.

We didn't originally mean it to be a substitute for our Valentine's Day jazz-and-wine date. It just worked out that way, since I was stuck in Dallas all day on the 14th trying to get home to New York. (And unable to post to LiveJournal from a Neptune Networks kiosk, because for some unfathomable reason they consider this LiveJournal page to contain adult content. Not all of LiveJournal, mind you. Just the posting page. But that adventure is another story.)

So on Monday night, Laura and I ended up doing two things we've always wanted to do, and got them both done at the same time: taking a cheese class from Artisanal, and taking a spirits class from Brandy Library. The two birds were killed with a single stone called "Scotch Whiskey & Whey" at the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center at Tenth Avenue and 37th Street.

The instructors were Jon Lundbom from Artisanal and Ethan Kelley from Brandy Library. They were both excellent, engaging teachers, and they had selected a set of six pairings of scotch and cheese for us each to sample at our little benches. For some of you, reading this list will make your eyes glaze over; for the rest of you, reading this list will make your eyes glaze over, if you know what I mean.

1. Berkswell, Great Britain, sheep's milk
   Balblair 16 yr., Northern Highlands
   
2. Livarot, France, cow's milk
   Bunnahabhain 12 yr., Islay
   
3. Gouda, Netherlands, cow's milk
   Bruichladdich 15 yr., Sauterne cask, Islay
   
4. Isle of Mull Cheddar, Scotland, cow's milk
   Ledaig Sherry Cask, Isle of Mull (probably 4 yr.)
   
5. Valdeon, Spain, mixed milk (cow/goat)
   Cragganmore 13 yr., Distiller's Edition, Port Pipe Finish, Speyside
   
6. Bayley Hazen Blue, Vermont, cow's milk
   Ardbeg Uigeadail, Cask Strength, Islay (probably 8 yr.)

All the pairings were interesting at the very least, and it would not be hyperbole to call some of them revelatory. Looking over my notes, it seems that my favorite pairing was #5, though with the port finish that makes me feel uncomfortably close to a wine-and-cheese taster. #3 was a terrific pairing too.

Some of you know that Ardbeg Uigeadail is my very favorite scotch, so I was amused when Mr. Kelley warned everyone how violent the final pairing would be. According to my notes, when I went to record my impression of pairing #6, I couldn't even remember what the cheese tasted like. This may be because the Ardbeg was so powerful. It might also be because it was my sixth taste of whisky.

But we had a terrific time at the class, and we'd strongly urge you to save your pennies and try a class at either or both establishment. (And for our bourbon-drinking friends, we'll note that Artisanal has an "American Whiskey & Artisanal Cheese" class coming up at the end of May.)

I know I was only recently urging you to visit St. Andrews near Times Square, but now you will be as likely to find us lapping up knowledge at the feet (literally) of Ethan Kelley at Brandy Library. Possibly even at their upcoming calvados class! (Mmmm, calvados!)