Benriach 12

It’s not easy any more to find a new single malt Scotch whisky. Whiskies are not like wines; there aren’t thousands of distilleries all over the world. More like a few hundred. And that’s especially true for Scotland. And let’s face it, as good as craft whiskies in the States have become, and as good as the Japanese have become at imitating malt whisky (last week we had a couple of very nice glasses of Yamazaki, the twelve year old offering from Suntory) there really is no place like Scotland for the production of malt whisky. After all, there’s a reason they call it Scotch. So how nice was it to taste a previously unknown, and surprisingly tasty highland malt at the Chophouse last weekend?

According to Jackson, Benriach is a companion distillery to Longmorn; its twin, so to speak. Jackson’s 2004 Complete Guide lists only a ten-year offering from Benriach. The distillery is owned by Chivas brothers, so I’m guessing the whisky has, for the most part been used in the production of blends. We tasted the twelve.

For a Speyside whisky, Benriach is noticeably clean and light. Those among us with the more sensitive and discriminating noses picked up vanilla, honey, crème brulee (crème brulee??) and a hint of citrus. I just thought it tasted like a mild highland malt. It’s perfect for that first whisky of the day, the one you have immediately after walking through the door, when things have been particularly aggravating all afternoon long. But I guess that the time for enjoying Benriach depends on your perspective. Jackson calls the ten year old, a “mid-afternoon malt.” After tasting Benriach at the Chophouse this weekend, and without having seen what Jackson had to say, John proclaimed it, “the perfect breakfast Scotch.” So five o’clock, mid-afternoon, breakfast, whatever…. It’s a good scotch to enjoy before the meal.

I was especially impressed with the long finish. Younger whiskies, particularly those with a light taste, don’t typically come with a long finish. But for such a mild malt, Benriach carried a surprisingly long and satisfying aftertaste. I went on-line to check prices (unfortunately, I did not see it listed at the New Hampshire store) and it appears to be very moderately priced -- consensus seemed to be somewhere in the neighborhood of forty dollars.

We have a number of lowlands in the cabinet, and I also like to stock one or two mild highland whiskies (Dalwhinnie at the moment). But I intend to add Benriach to the cabinet; and I recommend all of you consider doing the same.

Boston’s Best Bars

The December issue of Whisky Magazine features an article about Boston’s Best Bars.(You mean to say you don’t regularly read Whisky Magazine? What? You prefer the New York Times, or the Economist? Keep in mind that there’s always good news in Whisky Magazine, and these days, rarely any bad news. It was bad news in the early nineties, when they reported that the Rosebank distillery was closing. And it was pretty bad news to hear that some folks may very well be mixing Highland Park with sweetened iced tea, which according to the same December issue, might be happening in venues located in the Far East. But on balance, it’s far more pleasant to read than most other print publications.)

In any event, the article about Boston’s Best spotlights seven establishments, three of which have been the subject of our postings. That’s a pretty good average, considering that I’m not a Boston resident, and have only a few days each year when I’m actually within the Boston city limits. And that means if you are one of the six or seven intermittent readers of this blog, you knew about some of these establishments long before they were publicized in Whisky magazine.

For instance, The Last Hurrah. Not only have we written about The Last Hurrah, but we’ve made it a regular stop on almost all of our Boston visits. John takes us to a variety of eating and drinking establishments, many of which now have terrific cocktail bars. One example would be Eastern Standard in Kenmore Square, where they are doing classic cocktails in a big way, with knowledgeable bartenders and a deep inventory of spirits, liqueurs, aperitifs and mixers. And they have a good selection of whiskies made remarkable by the fact that Hirsch is still available at an affordable price. But for variety of malt whiskies, and more importantly, for the opportunity to drink stuff that’s hard to find elsewhere, the place is the Last Hurrah. Not to mention that the owner, Frank, who is often found behind the bar, really, really knows his stuff. It’s almost impossible to duplicate the experience of talking whisky, drinking great hard-to-find malts, and even learning about new, previously unknown malts.

Unless of course, you walk a couple blocks down toward the waterfront and visit Joe Howell at Federal Wine and Spirits. Federal is not a bar; it’s a retail shop. Still, Whisky Magazine included Federal in its short list of great Boston bars. And maybe they did that because once Joe figures out that you love whisky, it’s hard not to taste a number of different malts before you figure out what to buy. I recall stopping in Federal to look for Rosebank, and being introduced to Bladnoch, the other great lowland distillery, which incidentally has reopened. More recently, Joe has been evangelizing about Glenfarclas, mainly because it is such a great value in today’s overpriced market. And that’s the right term for Joe -- he really is a whisky evangelist, doing his best to spread the good word about all the wonderful spirits he stocks in that tiny little shop.

Whisky Magazine also selected Drink, which is John’s favorite watering hole, in part because it’s only about two blocks from where he lives, but also because they are as fervent about cocktails as Joe and Frank are about whisky. It’s not just the recipe, nor the spirits in the drink, but the mixing technique, the glass, even the shape and quantity of the ice. Attention is paid to every detail, as a result of which, the drinks are fabulous.

Anyway, the point of all this is that you can learn all this important information, not just in Whisky Magazine, but right here in this blog. And you can learn about it much earlier. I know that at least one reader, who formerly resided on Hatherly Road, has been to Federal, and has received personal recommendations from Joe, and as a result has bought some great spirits for loved ones in his family, and he did this a couple years before he could have learned about it from the magazine. So stay tuned for other great whisky news. And also stay tuned for some postings about this year’s Orange crop, which seems to be promising, although it’s admittedly early in the season. More on that to come very soon.

Pasqualoni’s Revenge

UConn came from behind yesterday to beat the Orange. It was the second road loss in a row, Cuse having fallen to Louisville last week. Now all of that sounds like it might have happened in the thick of the Big East hoops schedule, but the problem was that it was a football story. The Orange are rebuilding their football program, after it was demolished, not merely disassembled, but razed, destroyed, leveled, by the John Robinson era. Last year, a plus five hundred season led to a bowl invitation – the Pinstripe Bowl in Yankee Stadium, and SU topped K-State, who by the way carries a top-20 ranking this year, and narrowly lost to number three ranked Oklahoma State yesterday.

Anyway, after starting 5-2 this year, the Orange seemed destined to move up a notch, improve their ranking, and play in a more established bowl game. After all, they had decisively beaten then ranked West Virginia, in what was seen as the biggest home win for the program in half a dozen years. Only it turned out that neither West Virginia, nor the Orange were as good as reported, because both have struggled since then. After WVU, SU lost badly to Louisville; they couldn’t muster a touchdown until late in the game, when things were out of reach. And yesterday, they carried a seven point lead into the fourth quarter, but could not hold that lead.

I was surprised that ESPN downplayed the story, but UConn’s win brought a measure of revenge for its coach, Paul Pasqualoni. Remember when we thought Pasqualoni’s perennial 6-5 records were not good enough? Of course we were then unhappy because Pasqualoni had inherited a top-20 team from Coach Mac, and then had mediocritized that team. In the early nineties we went to a major bowl almost every year, winning six bowl games in a row at one point; but a decade later were struggling to play above five hundred. Still, we didn’t know how good we had it then; or rather, we didn’t really know how bad it could get.

For four years, SU was on average, the worst team in what used to be called Division I-A. (Today it’s FBS, meaning that anyone with a better than five hundred record gets to play in a bowl. That puts last year’s invite in prespective.) Now we’re no longer the worst, but by any major statistical measure, we’re bad, worse than more than half the teams in the country. We’re struggling for wins in a weak conference, and will be lucky if we end up in another low grade bowl game after the season.

Not to make any of my many readers feel bad, but I can recall when we were playing and beating the likes of Florida (Kirby DarDar returned the opening kickoff for a TD, and the Orange never looked back); a Kordell Stewart led Colorado in the Fiesta Bowl; Michigan, in their house; Texas; and even a then-number-one ranked Nebraska, the win that announced Syracuse’s return to big time college football in the eighties. Hard to imagine even playing any of those teams today. Forget about winning. How about even keeping it respectable?

Good thing the hoops season has begun. The Orange are over-ranked, but should be good nonetheless. And if they can get some decent play in the middle, and if someone can step up and shoot the ball with any consistency, well then maybe they’ll have a chance at road wins when they go to UConn and Louisville. Those will be ranked teams for sure, UConn being the defending national champ. So those road wins would count heavily when the RPI wizards are trying to figure out tournament bids and seeding. But losing to UConn and Louisville on consecutive weeks in the football season? It’s only a measure of how far the program has fallen.