The first episode of Mr Bean was aired on ITV in January 1990 as a stand-alone episode and a new documentary, Happy Birthday Mr Bean will be shown this weekend on ITV to celebrate the 30th anniversary. 'It was almost as though Stan Laurel or Charlie Chaplin was amongst us,' Yule recalled of his early contact with the stars at Oxford.įor the next five or more years, he spent time on tour with Atkinson and in portrait sessions capturing 'the magic of the transformation into his spectacular comic characters', including the earliest incarnations of the rubbery-faced Mr Bean and Blackadder. PS: I find it just a little bizarre that while people drink fewer and fewer sweet wines, there's more and more of them in our whiskies or rums, flavourwise.The first episode of Mr Bean was aired on ITV in January 1990 as a stand-alone episode Comments: next, molecular malt whisky! Read my lips! Seriously, I find this 'deliberate' experiment excellent and surprisingly dry, I'm just wondering what rum geeks would/will think. We're clearly 'trans-category' at this point, but I'm not finding it too Zacapa-y. Finish: a little sweetness coming out indeed, as well as a small molassy side. Other than that, I'm finding some spicy raisin bread, plus rather a lot of cinnamon. With water: careful, as with any old whisky, too much water will make it too drying and let notes of pencil shavings and oversteeped tea come out. Hoisin is back too, mango jam is coming out, while our beloved big black raisins would be ruling the whole thing. I do not find any of Zacapa's usually insane amounts of sweetness, but there is some precious chocolate that should have been generated by the encounter. With water: butter pie, apricot cake, some English tea, hazelnut paste (we said no brand names)… Mouth (neat): it's seriously 'double-sexed' this time, but rather towards very old PX or cream sherry, or indeed VORS. We all know Ord is a fantastic distillate and the very idea of dumping some old one into Zacapa was frightening, as was the idea of letting Mr Bean alone with a Whistler. There's even some white chocolate, then touches of hoisin sauce, American barbecue sauce… Now after ten minutes, I would agree this is rather 'out of the box', without killing the whisky. Second, it's full of Jaffa cakes, gianduja, Corinthian raisins, indeed moscatel (this time), very old PX or VORS and prunes. Nose: first, it's malt whisky, it's not some kind of trans-world, trans-category spirit so far. Let's see what happens… Colour: deep gold. Sounds pretty Warholian, doesn't it, they even call that some 'deliberate enhancement'. To achieve that, they've re-racked this whisky for some additional 28 years of maturation and then finished it in Diageo's own ex-Zacapa XO and ex-Zacapa Royal 'solera' rum casks. Singleton of Glen Ord 40 yo (55.4%, OB, Epicurean Odyssey, 2023)Ī very crazy new bottling that's connected to 'Sensorial maximalism', a new neuroaesthetic theory on how to achieve exceptional gustatory experiences. They're superb and the colours never exactly the same.Īnd now, let's dive into plain and pure metanoia. It reminds me of very old wine bottles, particularly in Champagne that were used during the war because glassmakers couldn't supply perfectly white bottles. PS: I love the blue-tinted glass that Diageo often use. Wondering about the casks they've been using… Any friends who would usually find whisky too harsh will probably enjoy this one. Comments: possibly an excellent 'category access' malt whisky. Finish: rather short but that's the low strength. Did they use ex-muscat casks? Some sweet apple juice too, apple liqueur, mirabelle liqueur, even pineapple, plus icing sugar and even a wee feeling of aspartame. Very appealing and much less 'slutty' (sorry, I know, but I don't think this classic descriptor has been cancelled yet…) that you would think. Then honey, orange blossom, rose petals, apricot, tinned lychee… And toasted bread. It's even got rather a lot of fresh muscat (small grains), Beaumes de Venise, even Alsatian muscat. Nose: extremely fruity, in the style of a young Sauternes, or Monbazillac (or Ste Croix du Mont, Cérons or else, Asti…). There was an earlier version with another livery, which was rather palatable in my opinion. Singleton of Dufftown 15 yo 'Fruity Decadence' (40%, OB, +/-2022) I suppose you have to adapt to change…ĭomaine des Bernardins, probably our favourite Muscat de Beaumes de Venise (Twil) > We'll have both a young one and an old one today, but not, perhaps for the first time, from the same distillery. I believe, but I'm not sure, that their Flora & Fauna counterparts have been discontinued. Remember 'The Singleton' is a kind of umbrella brand that would gather official Dufftown, Glendullan, Glen Ord and, formerly, Auchroisk.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |