Glen Moray

On Saturday, when I stopped at White House to pick up an extra ticket for the upcoming Aberlour tasting, I told Ben I needed an everyday malt, having run out of the usual tens and twelves that I reach for, when it’s not a special occasion, when all I need is a decent glass of whisky. He recommended Glen Moray, which was moderately priced, very moderately priced, at only $26.

I had been introduced to Glen Moray a couple years ago, at a Glenmorangie tasting. Glen Moray was a bit of a throw-in – an additional malt to round out the variety of tastes for the evening. I recall the Glenmorangie guy telling us that Glen Moray is distilled in these old onion-shaped stills, short and stout. By way of contrast, Glenmorangie is made in stills which have these long necks, and which prevent impurities from getting out of the still and into the malt. The upshot is that Glenmorangie has a taste that is very light and clean, probably the purest and lightest malt. But Glen Moray, with its short fat stills, doesn’t aim to get rid of its impurities; rather it allows these impurities, mostly oils, to give the whisky a richer texture.

And that’s really the defining characteristic of Glen Moray, its texture. The taste is OK, but nothing really special. And it’s a 12 year old, flavorful enough, but not terribly complex. Jackson isn’t terribly impressed with any of the Glen Moray offerings; nothing scores above an 80. But curiously, Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible is very taken with the Glen Moray 12, noting the “perfect harmony between sweet malt and drier malt”. Murray gives it a 91. But neither of them, in my opinion, makes note of the defining characteristic of this otherwise unremarkable Speyside malt – its rich buttery texture. I know that Danny appreciates a whisky with this rich feel on the palate – I can think of Johnny Blue and Bunnahabhain 18. But that rich texture is available here for a small fraction of the price of these more exclusive malts.

So there you have it, a rich velvety whisky for the same price as blended scotch. I think it needs to become a staple in the cabinet.

March Mediocrity

With about six minutes to go in today’s loss at Notre Dame, Donte Greene fouled out. But really, it was a net gain when he went to the bench, because it’s better for him to do nothing on the bench than on the court. At least that way we were playing five on five. I don’t mean to lay all of this on Donte, but in the eight conference losses, Greene has shot 22 percent from beyond the arc. And those aren’t just missed shots; they’re typically turnovers, because a 6-11 forward is twenty plus feet away from the boards. Matt says he hopes Donte jumps to the NBA, because his play is so selfish. He rarely passes to advance the ball, but only to give it up when for some reason he can’t get his shot off. But after the past year, I can’t see how anyone drafts him, certainly not with the expectation that he’s ready to play. Soft play inside; lazy passes leading to turnovers; out of position on defense leading to dumb fouls. I’m ambivalent, because a big man who can shoot from the outside can create havoc for most defenses. But in truth, this is a project, and we’re going to need major improvement if he sticks around.

Used to be that we always looked forward to March. Orange always made the tournament, and in Boeheim’s tenure, made it to the Final Four three times. So once football season ended, usually with an anticlimactic Super Bowl, and the excitement of the swimsuit issue had passed, we settled in for the end of the conference season, for the Big East tournament, for selection Sunday to learn the seeds, and then for the big dance, March Madness, the road to the Final Four. All that.

But things have changed. No more is Cuse assured a place in the tournament. Probably, this March, for the second straight year, we’ll be playing in the NIT. I don’t remember last time that happened two years in a row. But with the Big East so tough, with so many mid-majors improving to the point where they’re competitive with the best of D-1, and then this year, with injuries to Devo and Rautins, the NIT is really all we could reasonably hope for. I mean, after all, this is really a freshman team that’s playing. Of the seven scholarship guys, four are frosh; one (KO) is playing in D-1 for the first time; another (AO) is getting major playing time for the very first time; and only one guy (PH2) had any real D-1 experience before the season. OK, I recall the fab five going all the way to the finals, but the fab five were unique. Our guys have had a pretty good year for a bunch of freshmen, with a short bench, with no upper class leadership to rely on in close games, and with two great shooters going down with injuries.

In fact, if we want to look at things from the silver lining perspective, today was another close game were we in, until the end, against a ranked opponent, on the road. Plus, ND shot the lights out. Fifty-five percent from the field; fifty-six percent on three-balls. McAlarney an unbelievable 9 for 11 beyond the arc, some of those shots from way beyond the arc. Despite that, Cuse was within six late in the game. If we had knocked down a few more lay-ups; if Flynn had hit a couple more threes…. We played G-Town and UConn close; we were in the Louisville game till the very end. This short-handed group of freshmen has, all things considered, played pretty well this year.

Matt says this year is really just next year’s pre-season. It’s a two-year, sixty-four game season, at the end of which we should be ready for the NCAA tournament. Only problem is that it’s making for a real gloomy winter.

God and Whisky

Malt whisky has been one of the core subjects of this blog from its inception. Everyone knows all about that. But over the past year, I have been posting regularly about Genesis, the patriarch Abraham, the authorship of scripture, and matters of faith. Perhaps you, my loyal reader, have wondered how these two topics, God and whisky, came to coexist on the same page. What could they possibly have to do with each other? We got the answer this past week, as Danny proved to our mutual satisfaction that God indeed exists.

I heard about a scotch tasting next month. The two featured malts will apparently be Aberlour, one of my favorites, and certainly one of the most underrated whiskies, and Glenlivet, which is now available on some airlines. And for five dollars a pour, that’s not a bad deal. A few months ago, I would have turned my nose up at Glenlivet, notwithstanding its historical significance, as the first single malt to market itself successfully. Still, its 12 year old, the one that’s found even in Cortland, is easy to drink, but lacking in much character. Too inoffensive to have much appeal. I’ve tasted an occasional interesting Livet over the years that was better than the 12, for example a first pour which a friend picked up at duty-free; still, Livet never held much interest for me, and I’d be more inclined to order a Johnny Black, for instance, when I found myself in a spot short on good malts. However, Glenlivet has recently introduced a 16 year old cask strength whisky which is quite good – Nadurra. Much more flavorful than the 12; a bit of a citrus taste lurking inside the malt; plenty of distinctiveness for a change.

Anyway, Danny heard about this upcoming tasting, but was troubled because it was scheduled for a Wednesday night, and he’s taking a course at Chabad on Wednesdays. Could he cut class to attend a scotch tasting? So what is the very next thing that happens? His class for March 5, (which is the night of the tasting) and only for March 5, got cancelled. Danny deduces from these events that God exists. And I have to admit that it’s tough to argue with his reasoning.

And as for mannymontaigne, it’s now obvious that these two topics belong on the same page. After all, if God didn’t want us to drink good whisky, why would he have cancelled Danny’s class to allow him to attend the tasting? And beyond that, why would he have made the stuff taste so good?

Abraham's Originality

I’m back to Abraham, and I want to discuss his originality, which must be distinguished from his otherness. I’ve referred on many occasions to his otherness; to the fact that he was Ivrit; to his physical separation from family, from country, from culture. But equally important, and perhaps even more central to the whole consideration of Abraham is the originality of his thought.

I’ve recently finished only the second book which held any real interest for me in this exploration of Genesis : Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Elliott Friedman. The book is on the dry side; I don’t really recommend it unless one is actively interested in this particular topic. But it manages to explore this difficult topic without stepping over the line in either direction. Friedman is not wedded to traditional beliefs about the origin of scripture; but at the same time, he feels no compulsion to write a feel-good book about how we all should get along. Rather, he looks back in time to the era when the Tanach was written, and tries to figure out who wrote what, and why.

I’ll save the detailed explanation for some other time; suffice it to say that, according to Friedman, J and E wrote the original texts (no one really has any idea who they were); Jeremiah (or his scribe) wrote Deuteronomy; one of the priests wrote most of the ‘law’; and then Ezra compiled (redacted) the whole thing into a single volume, so as to allow for inclusiveness among the competing Jewish interests.

But the departure point for this posting is the Jews’ return to Israel after Cyrus had conquered Babylon. It was around fifty years after the destruction of the first Temple, and the exile was ended. People streamed back to Zion. Friedman points out that, even at that time, the Jewish religion differed from all other religions in the region. Everyone else worshiped a multitude of gods. Think of Olympus. No one else had a god like our God; and our God was unlike any of the pagan gods.

But this was fifteen hundred years after Abraham had first heard the call. Fifteen hundred years after he had left his home and wandered to Canaan; Fifteen hundred years after the Akeidah; Fifteen hundred hears after he argued with God in defense of the innocent Sodomites. And still, despite the passage of those fifteen hundred years, other than his followers, who else on the planet had caught up to Abraham’s consciousness, and reached the level of his thought? And so think back to that time fifteen hundred years earlier, and try to imagine the gulf between Abraham and his neighbors. It’s no wonder he had to leave home and family, and settle in a new and distant region. At that time he was far too original, far too strange I’m sure, for any acceptance among those who had known him previously.

I can’t really think of anyone else who stepped so far ahead of his time. The closest I can come is Archimedes, whose understanding of math and geometry was not surpassed until the Renaissance. Even so, Archimedes didn’t reconfigure the entire universe; he just took his mathematics so far along, and so far ahead of his times that, particularly with the destruction of the classical world, it took a long while for everyone else to catch up. I think that what Abraham did was more remarkable. Before Abraham, the world was a very different place; and after him, it was never again the same.

David Tyree

David Tyree. I’m giving the Super Bowl MVP to David Tyree. After catching Manning’s first touchdown pass of the day, Tyree ran downfield on the ensuing kickoff, and made the tackle. That’s really been his day job for the Giants – Special Teams. I don’t know how far down the depth chart he’s listed as a wideout, but I know he’s not one of the statistical leaders. But the award really goes for the remarkable third-down catch that saved the final drive – after Manning had somehow escaped the pass rush, and then tossed what was essentially a Hail-Mary right down the middle of the field, into traffic. Tyree grabbed the ball at the top of his leap, with Rodney Harrison draped all over him, pinned the ball to his helmet as he fell, and as Harrison struggled to knock it loose, and despite all that, maintained possession . The Giants had the ball in New England territory, inside the thirty as I recall, with a minute on the clock. After an ill-advised scramble, Manning completed another two passes, the last to a wide open Burress in the endzone for the winning score. None of that would have occurred had Tyree made the best catch in recent Super Bowl memory.

Everyone immediately compared it to “The Catch”, Dwight Clark’s grab at the back of the endzone, that gave the Niners a championship win over Dallas, and their first trip to the Super Bowl. OK, that was a good catch; Clark had to go way up for it; but he had no defenders draped over him; in fact, there was absolutely no contact after the catch. For a more athletic receiver (think of Moss), it would have been totally routine. The better comparison was Lynn Swann’s great grab in Super Bowl X, when the Steelers beat the Cowboys. Swann had to go up in traffic, and literally take the ball away from one of the Cowboys safeties. Still, that catch, as great as it was, never led to a score, let alone the go-ahead score.

As this year’s game started, I felt no great rooting interest, and after the first quarter, found my attention waning. I know Giants fans liked the great defensive effort, but the second and third quarters produced little that was memorable. However, in the fourth quarter, I found myself pulling for Manning and his Giants. And that final quarter made this one of the most exciting Super Bowls ever. When it was over, and New England’s perfect season was spoiled, the 72 Dolphins remained the only team to have run the table, and I was glad to see them receive a bit of belated recognition for that achievement. So often this past year, the media assumed that the Pats would go undefeated, and once that occurred, would be crowned the greatest team ever. The coronation pieces were probably written, ready for filing the moment the game ended. A bit premature, however. Now, the only place you’ll read about those undefeated Pats is in the recycle bin. I remember that despite their 16-0 record, the Phins were underdogs in Super Bowl VII. Vegas gave them points; and SI picked the Skins. Of course, had it not been for a bad snap, and Garo’s ridiculous attempt to pass the ball, the Phins would have pitched a Super Bowl shutout, the only one ever. The game would have finished the same as the season, 17-0.

And as long as we’re giving awards, Victoria’s Secret ran the best commercial. I thought Charles and Wade were funny, but for a one-time commercial, run especially for the Super Bowl, VS beat out all the unfunny beer ads, and the movie parodies, and the pretentious computer spots. So if I ran things, Tyree would get the Escalade, and he’d get one of their hot models to ride shotgun, so to speak.

Super Bowl Sunday

It’s Super Bowl Sunday; the last game of perhaps the most dismal football season ever, at least from my own personal perspective. Cuse went 2-10, and finished 101 in the Division I-A power rankings, out of only 119 teams. Check back to the November 25 posting, “A Year to Remember”, for all the gory details – all the scary statistics. And although Cuse has had a few miserable years of late, including one where they only won a single game, this year’s fiasco was compounded by the collapse of the Dolphins. A comeback win over the Ravens saved the Phins from the ignominy of the only 0-16 season in NFL history. SI lists their power ranking as 31, but who could possibly have been worse? So anyway, I’ll be watching later today, but not with any real rooting interest. Just hoping for an exciting game.

I’ve never been a Pats fan. For some reason, my five years in Boston never ignited any interest in that franchise. Perhaps it was the Pat’s obscurity in those days, or the fact that the team didn’t play in town. Although honestly, I can’t recall where they played in the late sixties. On the other hand, I’ve never really hated on them either. They were an AFC East rival, but never a team to inspire hatred, like say, the Cowboys. I have pulled for the Colts these past few years, in their annual struggles with the Pats for AFC dominance, but not out of affection for the franchise, more that they have consistently played a high number of Cuse alumni. Marvin, Freeney, Mungro (for a while), Josh Thomas. And who didn’t want to see Peyton win his ring? It would be nice to see the Pats upset, because that would confirm how remarkable the achievement of the 72 Dolphins had been. They remain the most underrated team of all time, despite having gone to three consecutive Super Bowls, having won two of them, all the while winning 32 of 34 over the latter two seasons, one of those losses having been by default, when Shula sat all his offensive starters. So a Giants win enhances the recollection of that perfect season. On the other hand, I admire the Pats for their elevation of team over individual, for their ability to adapt to all conditions, defenses, personnel – no matter who they seem to put on the field, nor whom they oppose, the Pats figure out a way to win. I’d also like to see them win simply to shut up everyone in the media (and now Congress, hard as that is to believe), about spygate. How did that possibly make a difference, when everything the Pats were taping was patently obvious to anyone who chose to watch the opposition carefully on the sidelines? It’s not like anyone stole a playbook, or bugged a locker room. Really, it was already blown way out of proportion. But to keep dwelling on it, after they ran the table this year? What is the point? To quote DeNiro in Midnight Run: “I’ve got two words for you. Shut the fuck up!”

But at the same time, I’ve never been much of a Giants fan, and even less of a Tom Coughlin fan, despite his Orange ancestry. In the old old days, when I first watched the NFL, I became a Browns fan because of Jim Brown. And in those old old days, the Giants and Browns had a fierce rivalry, personified by the matchup between Brown and Sam Huff. I admired the Giants this year for their blue collar approach to the game, playing tough defense, running the ball, and learning to play without making mistakes. Also, as the season wore on, I found it remarkable how they managed to win each week on the road, often against very long odds. Coughlin too because less unlikable. Not more likable; he’s still a long ways from that. Just don’t feel the need to hate on him quite so much. Too bad for Tiki, who I always thought was a class guy, and who deserved a shot at the Super Bowl. He left a year early, to do the TV thing, and make Cadillac commercials.

I’m left wondering whether Belichick didn’t manipulate the whole spygate thing simply to motivate his players. After all, the veterans already had their three rings, and really didn’t have much of anything to prove to anyone. Even with the addition of the new receivers, would Brady and an aging defense find it in themselves to go the extra mile, to push themselves all season for one more championship? So Belichick somehow turned this spygate thing into a demonstration of how no one respects the Pats, or their three trophies. There was no dynasty if the team didn’t deserve to win those earlier Super Bowls. Then all year long, the Pats played with a chip on their shoulder. And it wasn't enough merely to run the table; they had to rewrite the record book at the same time. And why does Arlen Specter feel the need to revisit this old news just a week before the Super Bowl? Were the Pats getting complacent? We’ll find out in a few hours if it worked, but I’d like to think that the whole thing was just a Bill Belichick mind game, and that everyone else, the league, the commissioner, even Congress, got played, big time. Someone should make a movie.