Whisky Cabal XIV

A quorate cabal assembled to damage bottles, and in a shocker the review is posted the next day. Wonders, they never cease.

All of us had one or two bottles for tasting, and unusually, no SMWS featured. We did think about grabbing some while raiding Alec's cabinet, but decided no, not this time.

Links are to the Good Spirits Co. in Glasgow, who we've adopted after the debacle of Loch Fyne Whiskies. So far they've been helpful, funny, and get the booze to us the next day. Withnail would approve.

Glen Grant 1974 Cask #7646 49.3% 37yo bottled 2012 Berry Bros Rudd
Nose: sherry, oak, old house, raising, figs, xmas cake
Palate: xmas cake, sherry, 'raisin glove' 'hulk smash'
Finish: medium-long, dry, Pinocchio finish, sweet, warm

A bottle for Rich's birthday, this was a sherry monster of superb quality. And yet, for a 37yo whisky, it had attitude, there's fight left in the old bugger yet [makes you wonder what it tasted like 20 years ago...]. Absolutely superb example of an old, classy, sherried Glen Grant.
9/10

Adnams Single Malt #1 43% 3yo matured in french oak
N: rubbery, burnt caramel, musty
P: neck it, honey, weird, rubbery
F: medium, warm

It's only just whisky (3years 1 day), and there's something about it that we thought tasted wrong. It's not bad, it's just not good. There's also an absence of complexity (and aggression) that suggests more ageing won't improve it either. We all agreed that if you saw it at the pub, we'd drink it in preference to a number of other pub-type whiskies, but over all - not a big win.
4-5 /10

Kilchoman Loch Gorm II 2014 release, 46%
N: salt, rubber, creosote, cream
P: warm, salt, sherry, spiky, smooth, peaty, quaffable
F: warm, med-long

In the interests of disclosure, I love both Loch Gorm releases. It's a beautifully balanced whisky with the Islay flavours perfectly married to a creamy sherry background. I do wonder if it missed a bit in the tasting as it's more subtle than you'd expect, so could have been killed by residual glen grant ? Anyway, it was liked, but did split the cabal with ratings of 6,7,7,8, averaging out at: 7/10

Arran 17yo 46%
N: subtle, bourbon, caramelised demerara sugar
P: grapefruit, fruity, tangy, spritzic, apples
F: medium-long

Arran have been quite interesting to follow over the last few years, their 10 and 12yo releases promised much, but had the feeling they were still too young. But every so often an independent bottler (SMWS usually) released an absolutely stunner - our group reviewed their ginger release way back at Cabal 2 - with all of us picking up a bottle, apparently Dr Death still has some and has promised to bring it to the next meeting (huzzah!!).
I've picked up Arran's every so often and liked them, and what we've noticed is that their house style has settled to a light, floral and fruity whisky with an interesting background of ginger. Obviously their sherry finish loses the ginger, but still we like those too.
We liked this one, a lot, it's quite surprising with the nose and palate not really matching up, but in a good way. Arran are releasing an 18yo next year, and will continue with an 18yo in their standard range.
Very recommended.
8-8.5 /10

Springbank Gaja Barolo 9yo 54.7%
N: ginger, apple, pear drops, oak, rubber
P: crystallised ginger, 'eric type drink', mental
F: short

+H2O: warmer, smooth, honey 'cream not crunch'
Alec picked this up as we all like Springbank, and it's an interesting wee dram. Very fighty (eric) neat, but quite warming and pleasant with water.
6/10 (neat)
7/10 (water)

Glendronach 21yo 48%
N: sherry, xmas cake, monster, bandages
P: sherry, oak, monster, honey
F: warm, long, so very very long

Good Spirits Co describe this as "Christmas pudding in a glass". We can't improve on that description - it's damn near perfect as a sherry monster. With the Glengoyne teapot dram increasing in price every year we think it's worthwhile keeping an eye on the Glendronach range - we've never had a bad one, in fact we've had some very very good ones. Like this. Go forth, buy it.
(the second birthday whisky for Rich, sadly he turned selfish and took the bottles away from us...pout...foot stomp...)
9.5-10 /10

Laphroaig PX
N: TCP, salt, peat, bacon
P: wrong crazy, dry, salt, 'mmm whisky', sherry
F: long, smokey, spiky

Only available in duty free (hence link to Laphroaig's homepage, not Good Spirits Co.) we've tried this before, but as Alec wasn't at that tasting I dragged it along again. We do like it. And none of us are fans of Laphroaig - aside from the very expensive old ones [me] and the Quarter-cask [also me], most Laphraoig is too vicious and not very complex.
So if you see the PX in duty free, pick up a bottle, it's everything Laphraoig isn't.
8.5-9.5 /10

So, another good tasting with a wide range of flavours - and scores. I'm also going on record to say I'll produce a Pub Whisky summary within the next month. There, happy now? eh? bastards.

Love, B

more metal from the netherworld

Today I've been spinning new music on Spotify. This started out reasonably well with a swedish metal band 'Astrakhan', sort of Symphony X but more under control, and yeah hints of Pain of Salvation. I liked it, possibly not enough to buy the album, but I'll spin them again and if/when a new album comes out will give it a go.

Next up was Sean Kuti + Egypt80's new album 'a long way to the beginning' which is brilliant. He's quite pissed off, and that's a good thing (musically).

And then things took off on a tangent. Actually tangent maybe being too kind, I found Troll Bends Fir. A folk-metal / beer-folk band from Russia, where most lyrics, songs, albums appear to focus on beer and brewing. This I can both cope, and get onboard, with. Wikipedia. There's a lot of tin whistle/flute, and violin, and one song appeared to consist of singing 'slainte' over a metal beat and fiddle accompaniment. Ideal drinking music.
Album titles reflect their central premise: Hopheart, Brothers in drinks, 1516/Order of the Holy Hop.
A clear magnificent manifesto.

Can't seem to find a band camp link for them, and kinda refuse to link to myspace or facebook. so have a youtube video instead.

Customer Service and Loch Fyne Whisky

Yes I know LFW have been idolised in these pages. Their customer service was second to none, delivery was brilliantly quick, and any queries were dealt with. For that reason our cabal's non SMWS purchases went through LFW if at all possible.

Last year LFW were bought out by one the bigger boys, the Whisky Shop. Article here.

Things didn't seem too bad, but a recent experience means I won't be ordering from them.

So we placed an order for four bottles, one very nice old Glen Grant, a Springbank and a couple of the Hazelburn Rundlets and Kilderkins release.
I had to email twice before getting a reply - asking if they had the R & K.

As the R & K wasn't on the website yet, I had to call through the order.
We realised pretty quick that the price we'd been charged wasn't what was advertised on the website. So I email back and pointed this out, got a reply saying sure we'll sort that out.

Yeah about that.

There were over 12 emails, 8 phone calls, and two weeks before the difference was refunded. Sure it wasn't a significant amount, but really - getting assured every time that 'yes, that'll be refunded today' - effectively a repeating lie - doesn't make it likely that I'll think happy thoughts about the company, or want to spend more money there.

So LFW are off our xmas card list, and our whisky ordering list. I think we'll add Whisky Shop onto that blanket ban too.

So who does that leave? I'm quite happy to order from the distilleries themselves, unfortunately not all of them have online ordering (Benriach, Glenglassaugh are you reading this?!) so I'm open to suggestions. I've used Royal Mile Whiskies and Whisky Exchange a few times, and aside from WEx being a little pricey I've been happy with them.
But we'd rather support a small company, so suggest away....
I'd say we'd order 4-6 bottles about 4-6 times a year, obviously slightly more at Xmas :)

B

Stupid ignorant surveys

I'm pissed off.

I have had to fill in some forms tonight. For a place in Ulster. I am seriously pissed off at the pig ignorant questions for the HR side.

These included:
Religion - where they listed a number of god-bothering twats, then had none, and other.
Now, religion is a choice. Therefore the null position is always nothing, but not 'none', anything else is the alternative hypothesis (it's kinda similar to smoking, we're all non-smokers until we start).
so I'm going to guess that the correct response is other and something else - however you define the null hypothesis.

the next question had sexual orientation, which had 'decline to answer' as an option. now surely sexual orientation is genetically determined (or at least influenced), so why does that have decline to answer - and the god *choice* doesn't?

ignorance.

and stupidity.

I may have pointed this out on the survey feedback.

Metal

Just a couple of videos today, but quite brilliant ones.

First up, Amon Amarth. Yes, named after a Lord of the Rings location. I think AA have popped up before, but this video from 2013 makes everything else they've done seem a little small minded. Let's see, we have a 4 minute song, what could possibly make it better? How about a full backstory which takes longer than the song itself? Yeah, that could work. Anything we base this on? Well y'know, there's that LotR thing, that George RR Martin malarky, and well pretty much all other fantasy stuff. Hey, yeah, that'll do us. I present to you, Father of the Wolf.



Next up, the new single from Polish metal lads, Behemoth. Safe to say, NSFW, it's also brutal but rifftastic and suspect it may not find a lot of love from my usual readers.
But hey, I like them, and the new album is a lot of win.

BEHEMOTH "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel" Official Video Uncensored from Behemoth Official on Vimeo.

me

Whisky Cabal XIII : The Return of Death

Again we'd lost 25% of our membership, but we did have the return of Dr Death - but the absence of Alec-of-the-rating-problems meant that numbers were likely to be less controversial. Swings and roundabouts.

A reduced number of whiskies this evening, which may account for how good we all felt the next morning - possibly something in that.

Kilchoman Machir Bay 2013 edition 
Nose: peat, rubber, uncomplex, salt
Palate: vigorous, salt, whores breath, peat, sweet, honey  [apologies, that 3rd one was mine]
Finish: long, very long
7.5-8 /10

Bottled from 4 and 5 year old bourbon casks, this expression from Kilchoman got a thumbs up from us - admittedly most of their whiskies have. And thanks to Neil, I've now tried the Loch Gorm, which would probably get a 10/10 if I had any to review.
This whisky is very good at what it does, and it's not trying to be anything other than a peaty whisky - but again, it's well balanced and not over the top as you'd expect from some young Islay's.

The fightyness of this dram suggests it should be called : Eric.
And another one we'd add to our Pub list (list of whiskies likely to be found in pubs that are drinkable). At some point, I'll collate that...

SMWS 35.94 'Fruits and nuts and Indian spices' 26yo 52% ex-bourbon
N: marshmallows, not peaty, hint of sherry, strawberries
P: tropical fruit salad, fudge, passionfruit, golden syrup, cumin, ginger
F: med-long, spicy

8-9/10
addition of water gave more honey and smoother : 8.5-9.5 /10 "quaff ability"

A distillery our cabal is quite partial to, and very drinkable. SMWS appear to have their title about right for this one too. Very tasty.
Note: at the time of posting there were 11 bottles left...

SMWS 76.105 'A continuous snow-fall of curiosities' ex-sherry 59.3% 19yo.
N: marzipan, new leather, sweetness, hint of lavender
P: spicy, big, smacks you and leaves,
(addition of water gives: smoother, ginger, chilli)
F: med-short
Cask: 5/10
Addition water: 7/10
I am typing this while snow falls gently outside, which seems appropriate.

Not a quaffing whisky, at cask strength this is one vicious bugger. But we did agree it would make a good 'Camping Whisky' in that it would cut through a chilly evening.
Addition of water was definitely required.
It's also an unusual example from this distillery (Mortlach) who we like, and are more known for sherry monsters rather than this quite un-sherry-like dram.  At 59.3% after 19 years, it makes you wonder what another 10-15 years in cask would have done...
at time of writing, 17 bottles left.

Laphroaig PX 48%
N: salt, TCP, peat, bacon, sherry
P: salt, sherry, 'wrong', smooth, like the Benriach solstice, sweet, truffly
F: short

None of the group are big fans of Laphroaig, but this is a wee bit special. It's not over the top (unlike what the nose suggests) and it's definitely an Islay - but moderated by the sherry to produce a smooth very very drinkable whisky. As Dr Death summarised it 'messes with your head'.
I've only seen it in duty free, and it's around £55
9/10

Springbank 12yo cask strength
N: dark chocolate, smoke, peat
P: dark chocolate, spicy, manuka honey
F: med-long, warm
8/10

I like Springbank, and Id' asked Neil to pick me a bottle to have over Xmas since I couldn't guarantee what East Mids Airport would have (in the end they had the Laphroaig PX), and so he grabbed this. Very good choice sir! it's not hugely complex, but it is very nice and comforting. Quite ideal for the current weather.

Slainte, B

6 nations 2014 predictions

I do have another whisky tasting report to put up, but that can wait since the 6 nations kicks off this weekend. And I feel I need to inflict my views on this on you.

Scotland
Last year was (another) rebuilding year for Scotland. I thought they made progress as a team under Scott, and without any major stars they seem to play better as a team than some others. I'm also encouraged that Stuart Hogg is back in as fullback.
I'd like to think that this year those last minute defeats will be turned around, but then again I've been supporting Wellington for years and live in a state of constant optimism which is continually dashed by reality.
Should beat Italy, and maybe Ireland. So let's say position 4 or 5. In my world, they'll come 2.

France
Bugger all idea, they'll have a blinder game and decide 'eh bof, we proved how good we are last week, no need to continue like that'. And therefore go on to lose to Italy. An incredible number of players will go through the team, and there is unlikely to be a halfback/first-five combination that sticks for more than one game. There will be fighting, and potentially intervention from Hollande - to distract from his current infidelity problems. Position 2 or 3.

England
The papers will claim this is the year that England deliver on their potential. This will be true, except their potential will be significantly lower than the papers are expecting. This will be a cause of considerable mirth for the other five nations, and indeed most of the rugby playing universe. Huzzah. I would like to see Chris Ashton make a tit of himself, and predict that Owen will once again fail to deliver at international level.
Position 3 or 4.

Ireland
Getting old as a team, and showing no real creative spark. Some flashes of brilliance, but generally playing old style rugby, badly. I find them really boring to watch, and hopefully the other teams have figured there's not much in the way of creativity from Ireland. They will be hyped tho', on the basis they almost beat the All Blacks (hahahahahahahahahah).
Position 4 or 5.

Italy
Actually getting better, and have claimed a few unexpected scalps in recent years. But no real change in position so 5-6.

Wales
Even hamstrung by injuries, they should still be strong enough to beat everyone else. Their injury toll is horrendous, and their inability to manage the club side is going to affect the team in the next few years, but this year - should be still be ok. Actually the injuries appear largely self inflicted, watching their tackling suggests an enthusiastic puppy dog diving in, and unfortunately getting their head on the wrong side - leading to the concussions that dog (heheh) the team. Having said that, their front row is superb, and the demolition job they did on England last year was very very sexy. It was so beautifully it should be used as a training video for how tight head and loose head props should work, truly a masterclass. I am, however, upset that WazzaG hasn't caught on as the media reference for Warren G.
Position 1.

Interesting BBC video blogs

Parisian abandoned suburban railway

Royal Mail tube system to be opened up

Medieval Paintings found in Welsh church

See, it's not just food n booze here kiddies.

Cooking with Bruce : Caramelised shallots, fig and beetroot tart with French goat’s cheese and red wine syrup

Yes, I know it's been awhile since the last instalment of cooking with Bruce. I have been cooking, but have forgotten to post the recipes i liked. However yesterday I felt the urge to go a bit over the top so:

Caramelised shallots, fig and beetroot tart with French goat’s cheese and red wine syrup

100g Turkish dried figs

400ml red wine

300gm caster sugar

300gm puff pastry

4 large beetroot

400g chopped shallots

1t chopped thyme

200gm French goat’s cheese

Simmer figs, wine and caster sugar for 30mins then leave to cool overnight.

Cut puff pastry 5mm thick and cut into squares or circles, place on baking tray and rest for 30min before baking at 200C until golden.

Wrap beetroot individually in tin foil and bake until tender (rest on something to stop base burning), cool and chop into rounds, or boil gently until cooked.

Sweat shallots in olive oil, salt, and thyme, cover and cook until caramelised.

Drain figs and reserve the liquid, chop figs finely and add to shallots - cook for 5 mins. Allow to cool, reduce the liquid to a syrup. 

Top the pastry with the shallot mixture, then beetroot, top with goats cheese, season and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 5min at 200C. 

To serve, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, spoon some of the red wine syrup around the outside, with a green salad on the side. 

Love, B

Google Nexus 4 and Kitkat (4.4) vs Jelly Bean (4.3) : dialler issue

I switched from iOS to Android when my iPhone 3G (not 3GS) finally gave up the ghost, and by that stage Apple weren't doing any OS updates to it either. That was a few years ago. On the whole I'm pretty happy with Android, since v4 it's felt less like a hobby OS and more stable. Even if it doesn't seem as stable as iOS, which is understandable since it gets skinned for each manufacturers hardware- making it akin to Windows in trying to accomodate everything.

I've got a Nexus 4 (the google phone) so you'd expect Android to play nicely with Googles own hardware, and yeah, upto 4.4.2, it has - it seems noticeably quicker doing things than on equivalent hardware.

So far, so good.

Android 4.4 came out late last year and it's caused problems on a number of devices. But the problem I had was when I made, or answered, a phone call - the dialler pad went black and inactive. The only way I could hang up was by holding the power button, or waiting until the caller hangup. And I couldn't use phone banking, or put the phone on speaker.
Sometimes hitting the power button on the side showed a brief glimpse of the panel. couldn't do anythnig with it, so presume this is Google's attempt at teasing me.

Not really the best look for a device marketed as a phone.

Even for me who doesn't really use the phone as a phone much.

So I've written this summary to bring together the number of pages and things I tried, eventually taking the phone back to Android 4.3.

What did I try
The internet is full of suggestions. Here's what I tried and what happened.

Tried alternative dialler
Kinda improved things, but still when receiving phone calls everything went dark.

Safe Mode
This is similar to booting into Safe Mode on a PC, it disables 3rd party apps etc. Instructions here.
Result: same problem, so it's Android and not an app I installed.

Restore to factory settings
Your phone has a restore to factory settings somewhere. It'll clear everything, so back up if you don't already sync to Google.
Result: as expected, same as Safe Mode.

Clean Install of 4.4.2
I'll give more detailed instructions under the restore to 4.3 section below. But figured before I took it back, I'd try a clean install of 4.4.2.
Result: phone seemed more responsive, but same problem with dialler.

Restore back to 4.3
And so, after being unable to get some voicemail, I decided to go back to 4.3. This involved a few webpages, and wasn't very Mac focussed, so here's my attempt at bringing it together - hopefully making it reasonably straightforward for most users.
Sources for this:
Cult of Android
Android Developer Site
Unlock bootloader for Nexus 4

Software you'll need
Android SDK- Developer Tools and API libraries
Android Factory Images - choose the 4.3 version
Android File Transfer Agent (maybe already installed if you move files/music around)

Instructions
Your Mac should already have the drivers to see the Nexus, if not install the Android File Transfer agent from here.
Extract the Android SDK, it will say you need to have a Java environment installed, but all you want from this large bundle is a small file called Fastboot.
Extract the 4.3 Factory image.
I kept both extractions in Downloads, as it was easier to keep track of where they were. But that's just me.
Find the file in the SDK called 'fastboot' and move this into the extracted 4.3 directory (called occam-jwr66y). Fastboot is probably in a subfolder called 'platform-tools'.

Put Nexus into Bootloader mode
Turn the phone off, then switch on by pressing the power key, and Volume Up + Volume Down simultaneously.
Connect the phone to the computer.
Start up a terminal window (Launchpad / Other / Terminal). Use the cd command to get to the directory you've saved everything into, for example mine was:
cd ~/Downloads/occam-jwr66y

type:

./fastboot oem unlock

You will be prompted on the phone to verify the process.
Open the script flash-all.sh using TextEdit from the occam-jwr66y folder and edit it so that all of the fastboot commands read ./fastboot my script now looks like:

./fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-mako-makoz20i.img
./fastboot reboot-bootloader
sleep 5
./fastboot flash radio radio-mako-m9615a-cefwmazm-2.0.1700.84.img
./fastboot reboot-bootloader
sleep 5
./fastboot -w update image-occam-jwr66y.zip

Back to Terminal, and type
./flash-all.sh

Your phone will automatically reboot, and ask you to set it up again. Things worked fine for me here.
But I also rebooted into the Bootloader, connected my phone up, and typed the following into the terminal window to lock the bootloader again:
./fastboot oem lock

It was then an annoying process of going through the Android store for My Apps, then clicking on the All tab and choosing what I wanted to reinstall.
However the phone dialler now does what I want it to do. 
Hope this helps someone...

B