Whisky and Words Number 15: Auchentoshan 12

Auchentoshan 12 – triple distilled, sherry finish. Nice color.

Well, here we are with yet another sherry-cask-finished whisky. But this is the last sherried whisky I review for a while, then we get into the smoky Island whiskies. (The Island whiskies are like crusty steamships entering the quiet mouth of the of Spey river with their stacks burning seaweed — threatening the genteel palates of the lowlands). But let’s address the 12-year-old expression of this distillery first.

Auchentoshan was founded in the early 1800s, but has been a holding of Beam Suntory since about 1994. The Suntory folks have let the distiller express their whiskies in their traditional way, and they’ve done well. Auchentoshan is most notable for the fact that alone among Scotch distilleries, they triple-distill the whisky, which is more the Irish approach. Rumor has it, it was Irishmen who founded the distillery, hence the style. Also, they have an informative web site with some nice details about how they make their whisky.

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Book Review: Servants of the Storm

Used under Fair Use doctrine
Used under Fair Use doctrine

This is not the first Delilah S. Dawson book I’ve read; I have read one other, a more adult oriented book (The Peculiar Pets of Miss Pleasure) and I found Dawson very engaging, unerring in description (we get everything, how things look, feel, smell), delivering lifelike, sympathetic characters, lively dialogue and in that case, a plot that enticed. Servants of the Storm is different – but mainly in the target audience, YA, and that the plot is like a tree chipper, it drags you in right off the bat. (BTW, yes I read YA. I look a good book, whatever the genre.) There are a few times where the McGuffin aspect driving the protagonist wears a bit thin as there really is one primary goal for the whole book. But the side dishes to this meal are superb and on the whole it works fine.

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Whisky and Words Number 14: Glenfarclas 17

As I wrote in the Glenfarclas 12 review, the J&G Grant company is singular in their transparency and focus on product, producing whisky and marketing materials which go light on glitz and heavy on information. I think their entry in scotchwhisky.com says it best:

The Grants’ philosophy is to present their single malts with minimum fuss in terms of packaging and at sensible prices. The aim is to get consumers drinking the whisky, even the really old bottlings, and then come back for more. Essentially, Glenfarclas is a whisky for drinkers rather than collectors.

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Book review: A Swollen Red Sun

Cover art used under fair use doctrine
Cover art used under fair use doctrine

McBride has come out of the gate with a very different book than the frenetic (and fun) pinball game that was Frank Sinatra in a Blender. That was a wild ride, focused set of characters, brash, loud, gory as heck and gleefully so. A carnival ride. In Red Sun, McBride establishes an entirely new genre: Southern Literary Tweaker. That’s not a slight nor is it sarcasm – the mood and descriptions in ASRS are finely crafted, and where the character set and pace in FSIAB was about right for a Tarantino-styled Sam Spade noir takeoff (which it was), this has all the breadth and slower pace of Faulkner. There’s cousins, wives of cousins, lovers of wives of cousins, cops, convict brothers-of-cops/nephew of someone else, young, old, older….everything but a jimson-weed slobbering mute. And dogs. And they are all presented in an unrelentingly unforgiving lack of flattery. These are People of Walmart: rotten gums, overweight, unclean, beer-swilling, rampantly crazy or drug-crazed. Their unifying characteristic is crystal meth and the book could be called a Tweaker Procedural — lots of detail on smoking meth, some on production, logistics, etc. McBride opens with a beautiful presentation of the country life, in all its down-home, poverty-wretched glory and builds tension nicely. We get into the mind of the chief protag and quickly stumble across the catalyst of one of the main story lines, and we are off.

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Book review: A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century
A Distant Mirror cover. Under fair use policy.

I like history a lot – especially history which gets into the nitty-gritty of what people did and their motivations. That is often lost in histories, especially histories which are of large temporal scope, as this on (the entire 14th century). The tendency in many histories is to discuss events, as if they just happen, with insufficient setting as to understand why people pursued the amazing things they did.

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