etnobofin

A few cat-sitting gigs here in Montpellier have not filled the wallet, but they have filled the apartment with cat hair, and the whisky cabinet with new bottles, allowing some interesting comparative tastings.  I’m no expert on single malts (as compared to, say Dubber and Clutch), but increasingly I know what I like.

To me, (and I’m going to sound like a complete tosser when I write this), whisky doesn’t taste of things like wine does. Rather, whisky tastes of ideas and images. Short scenarios that shoot out of the glass at you.

I’ve been progressively tweeting descriptions as I open each bottle. Here are those tweet-sized chunks, assembled in one place:

Cragganmore: felt-tipped tulip petals, newly unfurled bracken fronds, and the kitchen door of a Birmingham curry house.

Talisker 10 yr old: charcoal oxygen filters, aluminium window-frames and dodgy 1940s fuseboxes. Like drinking C-3PO. Délicieux.

Oban 14 yr: this is definitely what Maurice Sendak used to clean his paintbrushes while illustrating “Where the Wild Things Are“

Dalwhinnie 10: Wednesdays at boarding school. Freshly laundered woollen socks, a locker room full of rugby balls and matron’s stern gaze.

Lagavulin 16 year old: Wow. Salty. Driftwood and neptunes necklace. Spicy treacle and seagull feathers. Mooring ropes at half-tide in a November sea-fog.

Aberlour 10 year old: you remember that class trip to the colonial museum with the old sweet shop, the stuffed elephant and Melissa wetting her pants?

Glenkinchie 12 year old: weekends on your uncle’s farm, amidst Victorian furnishings, mouldy tourist calendars from 1954

Bowmore Islay 12 year old: fossilised kauri gum, barnacles left too long on the mantlepiece and the bilge water from an Arthur Ransome novel.

This is Seb Clarke – …and a blue bottle and a candlestick
From Rover: Sons Ltd [Buy]

“If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you.” – William Gladstone

Tea is a punctuation mark in the day. The first cup in the morning through half-closed eyes and unbrushed hair. The brief pause between phone calls or project reviews. The sharing of stories and time together. A secular sacrament. In the middle of a chaotic swirl of activity, tea provides that clear moment of repose or refreshment, before plunging back into the maelstrom.

For those who remain doubtful about how to make a good cup of tea, George Orwell (for it was he) provides an indispensable guide, first published in the Evening Standard in 1946.

I pretty much concur with Orwell’s recipe, (especially his thoughts about sugar) although I would add a few new rules for the 21st Century:

1. Never, ever buy a cup of tea at a restaurant/coffeehouse/café/railway kiosk. It will be disgusting, weak and taste of bleach. Railway kiosks are why God invented coffee and hot chocolate.

2. If you do like tea, and can afford it, it is worth spending a little extra for good quality leaf or teabags. I’m currently working my way through a box of Nilgiri, which is definitely not up to par with the Assam I was guzzling last week.

3. Tea on aeroplanes will always disappoint you, especially on Lufthansa. On British Airways, the tea may taste fantastic, but this is a sure sign that you will hit turbulence and spill it everywhere

Tea (along with expensive train tickets and resentment of the weather) is a key pillar of British* civilisation. When our beloved American cousins started throwing tea into the harbour 200 years ago, it was a clear sign that our ways were destined to part. The Americans also decided that civilisation was spelt with an “z”, not a “s”, and that tea should be thrown into a “harbor”, which pretty much spelled the end to any chance of North America could be saved from bottomless cups of filter Arabica.

And NO, America, Starbucks does NOT redress the balance – it may be a nice dry place to get wireless access, but I have yet to find a Starbucks that does good coffee. Visit a café in Wellington or Melbourne and you will never darken the doorway of a Starbucks ever again.

Sorry, I got distracted by coffee. Tea. Whether you’re in a tent beside some roadworks in the pouring rain, or taking elevenses with and Ango-Irish duchess in the drawing room, tea is the one drink that never fails to elicit a little mantra when the steaming elixir is poured:

“Ooooh, lovely.”

Cartoon from Natalie Dee

*Yeah OK, so I was born in Christchurch. But my British passport is available for inspection when necessary.