20 June 2013

Impromptu Whisky Tasting (Cabal free)

I remembered I had a few tasters and a few new whiskies lying around, so since it's that kinda of evening...tasting!There's also a cabal meeting next week so expect a larger writeup of stuff then.

Inverarity 14yo 40%
N: v sweet, parma violets, caramel, leather, strong,
P: very sweet, citrus tang, dry sherry feel, not hugely complex, possibly too much sherry as it hasn't allowed much else to develop
F: med-long, dry,

6/10
This is the house blend for LFW. It's very drinkable, and would be an excellent intro whisky, or a useful dram to have lying around the house. I'm not convinced the balance is quite right, my mouth seems full of cotton wool after drinking it - possibly too dry?
Any way, it's worth trying and if you need a reserve malt for under £40, it gets my vote.

Clynelish Signatory 58.3%
N: earth, musty, honey, fresh opened pea pod, sweet tobacco, citrus
P: warm, honey, chilli?, oil, hint of salt, pepper, chewy, tobacco, caramel fudge
F: med-long, spicy tobacco

8-8.5/10
You all know my love for Brora, so Clynelish has often been a disappointment. This isn't. Signatory have a reputation for delivering damn fine drams, and this is great. I maybe a little harsh with the 8, it could be higher.  It's a weirdly chewy dram, and doesn't feel like cask strength (oh dear), the tobacco hints keep growing with sips and on the finish.
Yup, I like this.

Glenburgie 14yo 60.5% 
No link for this one as it was a gift, it's from LFW if you do want it.
N: earthy, sweet, honey (clover?), lemonade, fresh cut lawns, oak sap?, marshmallows, icing sugar
P: fizzy homemade lemonade, caramel, sweet, delicate, floral, parma violets?
F: short-med, but tingly afterwards - nice
8/10.
Google informs me Glenburgie is near Moray with most of their production heading to blends. I do have to link to the distillery homepage as it's brilliantly bad, 1995 calling...
The whisky is light, delicate and yet interesting. It's very very smooth - smoother than a 14yo at 60.5% deserves to be. Rather too quaffable. Actually its bloody nice and warm and drinkable at cask.

Add water
N: all of the above, but the spritzic lemonade becomes more promient
P: levels it all out, bringing out the sweetness and very very smooth honey flavours (and yes, it seems clover-ish),
F: med-long? more tingly and hint of pepper

I don't think the rating changes And the flavour smoothes out, it's good with and without water. Huzzah - and thanks :D

B

Movie Day 1 : Maniac Cop

Nominally live blogging today. First up is Maniac Cop.
Bruce Campbell, Richard Roundtree and a high body count. Cop is killing people, he's called the Maniac Cop by the press. No one believes there's a rogue cop, the public kills cops, New York has gone feral (can anyone tell?).
Cop is arrested (Brucie baby), what a jaw, what a goddamn jaw.There's quality time in dive bars, loner cops, piss weak looking beer. And most importantly, cheesy 80 electronic drums. Brilliant.
"Fuckin' A I'm a cop, whadya fuck are you?","Fuck you".
Genius.

They've found him! they've shot him, he's not dying!!! OMFG. And she's got crimped hair, 80s FTW.
Things have slowed as they try to work out how the rogue cop is getting info, but now it's picking up, there's a slow car chase. Although there's been no death for a good 10 minutes, which is a downer.

"do you always take a leak with a gun in your hand? that's a good way to blow ya balls off"
there has been an extended sequence about finding out the supposed dead cop is not actually dead (imdb informs me that the coroner was the directors real-life doctor), and convincing other cops that this is the truth. Dramatic times in New York. Thankfully the body count is going up again, Bruce (and his jaw) are still suspects, but crimped hair blonde is on the case.

Is it possible for a US cop to start a car without wheel spinning? That maybe a rhetorical question. Blonde has shotgun, there's a denouement a'comin'. And a sequel.

Well I enjoyed that, cheesy, rubbish, and thoroughly watchable. Huzzah !!

15 June 2013

Charlemagne

Just because.

9 June 2013

Cooking with Bruce : Chicken and mango curry

This should work with anything, fish, tofu, whatever.

Spice Paste

1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
2½ tbsp sambal oelek
3 medium-heat red chillies
30g fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
2-3 lemongrass stalks, either whole (sliced) or paste
1 tsp ground turmeric
12 small shallots
10 garlic cloves

Combine all in a blender, drizzle in oil to make it a paste.

Score some chicken breasts, then put half of the paste on them and leave to infuse for a couple of hours, turning occaisonally.

Fry chicken at very hot temp to sear on each side (2-3 mins)

Add remaining paste, cook for 10 mins (ish) until it turns a deep brown/red colour. Add in some veges (carrots, beans, capsicums), mango and 150ml coconut milk, cook for 5 mins, chop up the chicken and add that. Cook for 5 mins.

Flick some lime juice through it, and serve on rice.

Gigs wot I has seen: Enid, Phoenix Foundation, Mark Knopfler, Handsome Family and Iron & Wine

May had set itself up as a big gig month, well big in terms of numbers of gigs.
First up were the Enid, a band who have gone from strength to strength over the last few years. It's the second or third time I've seen them in the last couple of years, and whats become clear is that their vocalist (Joe Payne) has taken over effectively conducting the band which has made them much tighter. He's also a brilliant vocalist, with an excellent range and very smooth transition into his falsetto.
Excellent gig. and I their most recent album, Invicta, is a superb combination of symphonic with hints of rock. Buy it from the band.

Next up was a brace of Phoenix Foundation gigs. We trundled up to Liverpool, discovered good coffee and great beer around Parr Street. The venue, Kazimier, is small, quirky, and throughly recommended. James was support, or rather Lawrence Arabia, who was on fine form - crowd seemed to enjoy him, except the rather pissed Liverpudlians.  I can thoroughly recommend his new album, The Sparrow, it's quirky, interesting, and sweet. BBC review here. So to the Phoenix lads, my major issue with their recent gigs has been their professionalism - an ironic thing to complain about - but I do love the early gigs where the excitement was added to with (a) are they all playing the same thing and (b) will they all finish at the same time?
The Liverpool gig was similar to this, although not by the boys' choice - a bunch of rather inebriated chaps were wanting specific songs, and ruining their setlist, but adding to the cool vibe. Enjoyed it.
Pottered along to the Glam show at the Tate Liverpool the next day, it seemed to lack focus and context, but enjoyable.
The PB London gig was in a larger venue, no Lawrence (sadly), but by god did they go off. Strong kiwi contingent, but seemed a large number of locals - huzzah.

Next up, Knopfler in Cardiff. I've raved about his new album, Privateering, and I like Cardiff. Good pubs, inclduing The Goat Major, who do a very good line in pies (hear that Mr Thompson?). And the Cardiff Art Gallery, really is superb.
So the gig, I've seen Knopfler a few times now, first time with Dire Straits, and the others as a solo act. This was a seated stadium gig (Arena Motorspot in the Cardiff central area), and sadly it showed. The band, who were brilliant, weren't really given their lead and so seemed to lack passion - except for a couple of pieces where they could do what they wanted. Some of it was sublime, and the new album sounded good and bluesy brilliant, but over all I felt it was a bit flat. Enjoyable, but not memorable. Not enough to make me buy a copy of the concert at £25.

Back to Lboro, and across to Leicester for The Handsome Family. Again, a bit of a favourite live. And this time they had a real drummer, rather than the *dodgy* drum machine they've had previously. This made a difference, stopping Brett playing with the machine was a good move. The banter is still brilliant, and the songs are dark, twisted, funny and great. Really enjoyed the gig, and it looks like I might pick up the new album shortly...dammit.

And down to London for Iron and Wine. Pottered along to the Bowie exhibition at the V&A, which was crowded, and enjoyable, but to be honest I'm still not taken with Bowie as a musician, but came away with appreciation of his contribution as an artist (does that make sense?). But probably worth getting the V&A membership for, particularly as I pottered along to the treasures of the Russian and English courts exhibition, which I enjoyed far more than the Bowie (to be honest).
So iron and wine, hmmm, grumble, he had a big band with him almost trying to swing the songs - and having seen him before, I don't think it worked. I thought the intimacy of the songs was lost. The newer stuff worked better, but songs such as Jezebel, was a nightmare for me.
On the strength of this concert, I didn't buy the album. I will spin it on Spotify, but I'm not rushing. Felt a bit grumpy after this gig for the lack of vibe I'd had from the albums, and the gig I'd been to.


17 May 2013

Internet browsers and recruitment

I hate browsers, or more specifically browser specific applications. Two examples have pissed me off today.
firstly, a recruitment/request page wasn't allowing logons in safari, so I tried chrome. Same problem. Emailed the contact, to their credit had a very quick response, which said we've reset your password and you'll need to use IE.
Well fuck that for a joke. So I replied back saying thanks for the response, but I won't be recommending your company in our review.
Just after that I was on our recruitment page, also running a buttfuck useless java based system, which has decided to not let me on. *win* no really, I don't have to shortlist a bollocks load of potential minions by Monday. You just carry on with your abortion based system.
And an update: apparently my account had been marked as inactive, however changing it back to active has made no difference. WTF. Arse scratching monkeys could do a better job.


21 April 2013

Cooking with Bruce: Carrot Cake

This is my carrot cake recipe, which is an amalgamation of 3-4 other recipes I've used over the years. It's bloody good.


Carrot Cake - Bruce's Recipe

Cake ingredients
175g soft brown sugar
175ml vegetable oil / sunflower oil
3 eggs lightly beaten
3 medium carrots grated
100gm raisins
grated zest of one orange
175g self-raising flour (gluten free is fine)
1t bicarb of soda
1t vanilla extract
1t ground cinnamon (ideally freshly ground)
1/2t nutmeg (ideally freshly ground)
100gm chopped roasted walnuts

Icing ingredients
75gm butter
150gm cream cheese
350gm (roughly) icing sugar
1/2t vanilla extract
1-2t orange juice (and any zest lying around)
more walnuts to sprinkle

1. Preheat oven to 180C, oil/grease cake tin
2. Mix sugar, oil, eggs, carrots, raisins orange rind
3. Mix in flour, bicarb of soda, spices. Mixture will be runny, stir in walnuts.
4. Pour mixture into cake tin, bake for 45-60 mins until it springs back. Cool slightly, then turn out.

Icing
Mix all (except walnuts), and when cake is cool, spread over cake then sprinkle walnuts over the top.

2 April 2013

Whisky Cabal 9: where no bottle is killed

The gap between this, and the previous cabal meeting ( July 2012), conclusively proves we are incapable of organising a piss up anywhere. Sure, we'd made some beerfests and the whisky show, but cabal meetings? pah. useless. oh hang on, we had an unofficial one before xmas.
Due to the (un)seasonal snow, we were one drinker short, thankfully the remaining three were prepared to take some for the team. Go us.

As usual links for purchase go to our favourite lads at Loch Fyne Whisky. We've got to the point where we run bets on how quickly they'll get our order in the post, 6 hours has been the worst, and generally its 1-2 hours. These people understand our need for booze.

You'll notice our usual range for gradings. This is related to one of our number who complains about standardisation, and is at heart, a contrary bugger. Impressively, it's not me.

Harris 12yo Cask 4519 183/260 : Blair Athol : 58.6%

Nose: PVA glue, bourbon, ester-y
Palate: fighting yet smooth, sweet, citrus, fizzy, 80s sweet, oak
Finish: warm, honey, smoke
7-8 /10
Addition of water made it less fighty, but didn't really change the flavour of rating. An interesting dram, quite drinkable, but possibly bottled a little young?

Blair Athol is the mainstay of Bell's, but don't let that put you off.

G & M Mortlach 15yo 43%

Nose: meat (?), sulphur, egg, wet heather
Palate: warm, sherry, light, lemon, lilac sweets
Finish: short
6.5 - 7 /10
We like Mortlach, and the 15yo is a great easy drinking dram. Not very sherried (for a Mortlach), but it's a great introduction to good whisky.

G & M Mortlach 21yo 43%

Nose: sherry, spicy, honey, leather, salt
Palate: chocolate, honey, cinnamon, fruit, cakes
Finish: warm, lingering

8.5-9 /10
Ahhh yes, that's more like it. I repeat this story too often, but the first real whisky i bought was the 21yo Mortlach. I was at the whisky shop in Heathrow and the final call for our flight, Frances was dragging me out, and I was about to buy the 15yo as I'd just tried that, and the guy said for an extra fiver, get the 21yo. He was right. Very very right.
I do like my Mortlach. The two SMWS bottles in my cupboard support that thesis.

Glendronach Cask Strength 54.8%

Nose: sweet sherry, condensed milk, caramel, leather in a sports car (sorry, that was mine), butterscotch, xmas, ginger, lemons
Palate: sultanas, coriander and tandoori, aniseed
Finish: medium-long, very tasty, long warm, apples/sultanas
9/10
Yes, all three of us agreed.
This is a bloody stunning dram. Go forth young 'uns and buy, a bargain at just under £50.

Longrow - Rundlets and Kilderkins 51.7% 11yo

Nose: salty, bacon, smoke, reminded me of the 16yo Lagavulin
Palate: honey, salt, warm, peaty
Finish: long, salt, long standing tingle
8.5 - 9.25 /10

Don't ask about the .25, just don't.
This is year 2 of the R & K range, last year was the Springbank (also favourably reviewed here). The advantage of the smaller casks is that the whisky matures quicker as more liquid is exposed to the oak, and so picks up flavour quicker. Very very nice whisky, island-like without being overpowering.

Arran 53.9% Cask 1968 21 / 263
dist: 11/12/96  bot: 1/10/12

Nose: sweet tea, sherry, dessert wine, nutmeg, spices
Palate: aniseed sherry, wow
Finish: very very long, warm, happiness
9/10

The Arran distillery has become a bit of a favourite, there was a concern they were bottling a little young - but they are definitely hitting the sweet spot now. This was an utter corker. And yes, all three of us agreed. Twice in one evening.

Cask Strength and Carry On: Benriach 22 / 296 16yo 55.2%
Dist: 1996 bot: July 2012
Nose: sherry, salt, xmas cake, lemon/lime,
Palate: chilli, aniseed
Finish: long, spicy, fiery

7-7.5 /10
This from great lads at the Cask Strength blog who are aiming to work their way through the alphabet (C, for Cutty Sark, has just been released).
We liked this, but it suffered a bit following two blinders, it seemed a little vigorous to me - maybe it needed a few more years in the cask? Wouldn't turn down more of it tho'...

Talisker Storm 45.8%

Nose: salt, bacon, smoke
Palate: sweet, prawn cocktail, raspberry
Finish: short, peppery
6,7,8 /10
This divided our group, we'd all been looking forward to trying it. Especially me, after my recent conversion to Talisker at the Whisky Show (admittedly their 25 and 30yo expressions).
I gave it the 6, as I found it one-dimensional. It's good for what it is, but it lacked anything after the initial flavour hit.
I'll still try more Talisker, as those old ones were winners.

Port Charlotte PC10 59.8% 

Nose: phenol, salt, smoke (but only a little)
Palate: sweet, Fuck, huge, salt, honey, tangy, citrus, pepper
Finish: long, salt, pepper

9.5 - 10 /10
Yeah, they've done it again. It's a stunner. Absolute belter. We kept this as the last whisky as we knew it would cut through anything else we'd had. And it did. Bloody hell it's good. And scary. No links as it had pretty much sold out before release (make me an offer if you really want a bottle...)

B



1 April 2013

Cooking with Bruce: salmon with honey lime chilli glaze & white bean salsa

Righto, this isn't one of mine. This comes from the lovely kiddiwinks at Cuisine, and it's damn good.


Barbecued side of salmon with honey lime chilli glaze & white bean salsa

We had it the other night, and it's full of tangy mexican goodness, chilli, lime, salsa, hell I felt like diving over fences or setting up a cartel.
One probable reason why it's so good, is that it's Al Brown's. Go Al. 


B

31 March 2013

Like Jesus


in the spirit of the suffering of jesus at easter, our household has embraced the season. rather than risk tetanus, we've got for a more modern approach. food poisoning. brilliant. 

my immune system took the pragmatic approach and collapsed early, so i'm now fine. S's took on the bacteria, fought a valiant rear-guard action, and has now succumbed.
this has, needless to say, cut severely into chocolate, beer, wine, whisky, and hot x-bun consumption. 

coming soon: another cabal review.

b