Today's Shoes

Gravati four-eyelet plain-toe bluchers in dark brown Lama calf (16493, 640 last). These were a special order from about four years ago, and I waited about nine months for them. They never did get as much wear as I had intended, mostly because I made the mistake of putting a rubber sole on them. I just have a mental block about wearing rubber-sole shoes with nice clothes, so these are mostly relegated to wear with jeans on rainy days.

I did stop by Harold's in the Heights this afternoon to place another special order. These will be long-vamp penny loafers with twin-needle stitching on the apron in a medium brown textured calf on the new 701 last. Since it's almost July and since Italy shuts down for the month of August, it's likely that these won't come in until late September or early October at the earliest. I think that I'll have plenty of shoes to wear until then.

Last Night's Tipple

Bruichladdich (pronounced, more or less, like "brook-laddie") is an anomaly in more ways than one. Modern Scotch whisky-making is dominated by multinational corporations and marketing experts, but Bruichladdich is independently owned and for the most part eschews the marketing hooey that afflicts spirits of all kinds but Scotch whisky especially. Once shut down, distilleries are rarely revived, but Bruichladdich was brought back from extinction when a group of buyers including a former manager of Bowmore distillery and former representatives of independent Scotch bottler Murray McDavid bought the distillery, which had been silent since 1993, from Jim Beam Brands. And Islay whiskies are supposed to be toe-curlingly peaty, but Bruichladdich is not always (although they are capable of producing some of the peatiest whiskies in the world and do, on occasion). In fact, if you placed a glass of Bruichladdich 10 year old in front of someone who knew something about Scotch but was not intimately familiar with Bruichladdich and its Scotch, it's highly unlikely that he would identify it as an Islay. But an Islay it is, and one of the great ones. It's fresh and malty on the nose, and that same maltiness comes through on the palate, along with a mouth-watering creaminess. There is some smoke and some brine, but it is not overpowering. It is a fresh, clean, enjoyable spirit. If I were stranded on a desert island and could only have one bottle of Scotch with me, that bottle would be Highland Park 12 year old. If I could have two, the second would probably be Bruichladdich 10 year old. It's exactly what a Scotch should be. Drinking whisky should be pleasurable, not a test of one's manhood.

Today's Shoes

Gravati chelsea boot in tobacco suede (16366, 655 last). These are beautiful boots. The only problem is that the elastic is tight enough that I have to use a boot jack to get them off easily, which means that they're not the ideal footwear for flying, as I had hoped they would be.

I Love Bureaucracy

A few weeks ago, I ordered a wireless headset for my phone at work so that I wouldn't have to endure hour-long conference calls with my phone handset cradled between my shoulder and my ear. My company has some Ariba software to manage the catalogue of approved products and the order and approval process. My $190 headset was automatically approved without any humans actually looking at the order. Yesterday, I ordered a $26 handset lifter to allow me to use the headset without manually taking the handset off its cradle and putting it on the desk. That required four separate approvals, including two from the same person. That makes sense, doesn't it?

Last Night's Tipple

I read an article once that claimed that rum was unique in the world of spirits in that it was made from industrial waste that otherwise would have been completely unused. This is a little bit of an overstatement. While it is true that rum can be made from fermenting a mash of spent sugar cane, which is waste from sugar production, it can also be made from fermenting sugar (but only sugar made from sugar cane), sugar cane juice, and molasses, none of which are waste products. Most of the rum produced today is pretty close to neutral spirits: it's distilled off to a proof high enough to strip the spirit of most of its character, diluted down to 80 proof, and sold unaged. It might as well be vodka. Even most of the products labeled "añejo" really just have caramel coloring added to make it look like they have been aged in oak for a while. Fortunately, it is possible to make a quality product that has some character, and the trend toward luxury spirits has ensured that some of the good products that have always been out there can be easily found on liquor store shelves.

Ron Zacapa Centenario 23 year old rum is made in Guatemala. Yes, Guatemala. Just about every country bordering the Caribbean Sea has rum distilleries, and Guatemala borders the Caribbean Sea. Like most rum produced these days, Zacapa is distilled in a column still. Given the heat of the Caribbean region, one might suspect that a 23 year old rum would be dried out and unbearably woody, but it is not. I suspect that there are two principal reasons for that. First, it's aged in used Bourbon barrels, so there's less woody goodness for the spirit to leach out. Second, it's aged in the mountains, where it's a lot cooler. Even though it's only 80 proof, the rum is very dark. On the nose, there's a lot of molasses that gives way to vanilla and butterscotch. The palate is sweet and very spicy, with loads of cinnamon and nutmeg. There's a good deal of fruitiness there, along with a little bit of an estery candy aftertaste. This is an outstanding product. Try it next to a Baccardi Silver rum and see if you can tell that the US government considers them to be equivalent.

Layoffs

Monday's Wall Street Journal had a column by Carol Hymowitz about layoffs and some of the mistakes that managers make when handling them ("Though Now Routine, Bosses Still Stumble During Layoff Process", p. B1). According to Hymowitz, these mistakes include waiting until the last possible moment to notify those being cut, failing to provide necessary information about severance benefits, blaming those laid off for their own job losses, and failing to appreciate the impact of layoffs on those who are not cut. An interesting passage toward the end of the column reads

An equally big challenge for managers at companies contemplating layoffs is figuring out the actual benefits. Numerous studies by business professors and management consultants conclude that layoffs, while perhaps boosting the bottom line momentarily, rarely yield companies sustainable long-term savings.

Staff reductions cost companies valuable talent that frequently must be replaced at an even higher cost at a later date. They also hurt morale and productivity among survivors.

I'm not exactly sure how layoffs should be handled, but I've been through enough of them to have a pretty good idea of how they should not be handled. Here are Soletrain's Infallible Rules For What Not To Do During Layoffs.

1. Do not overestimate how much money you will save by laying people off, and do not underestimate the damage that laying people off will do to your organization. This restates and expands upon the portion of the column quoted above. Managers like to tell themselves that there are plenty of people in their organizations like Milton from Office Space who do very little except use their red Swingline staplers. Alas, this is usually not the case; and in any event, managers often do a poor job of identifying the Milton-like characters. The Miltons often stay after layoffs, while the anti-Miltons get axed. This means that layoffs will usually cut people who actually do work essential or at least very valuable for the organization (often times in ways that are poorly understood by management before the axe falls), and getting rid of them carries costs.
2. Do not lie, and do not pretend to know something that you don't. Lying during layoffs often takes the form of claiming that no more layoffs will happen. Managers can't really promise this, and employees know it. Making statements like this destroys whatever credibility managers might have left after layoffs. It can also work the other way: insisting that no more layoffs are currently planned when it's perfectly obvious that there will be more is also a bad idea, even if your claim is technically correct because upper management has not told you about their future plans yet.
   
3. Do not euphemize. People are losing their jobs. Do not sugar coat it or try to make it sound better by dancing around what actually happened. In the wake of a round of layoffs at my company in 2003, the president of the unit that I work in sent out an e-mail that was intended to announce what had been done. It did not. It was so couched in euphemism that one would have had to have known what happened to understand what it was announcing. Never once did it say that people had lost their jobs. Harvard Business School ought to do a case about it as a warning to future managers about the dangers of incompetent communication.
4. Do not obfuscate. At the very least, you ought to tell both those laid off and those remaining how many people are being let go, specifically what the layoffs are supposed to accomplish, how management will measure whether the layoffs actually accomplished their purpose, and what, in detail, the severance benefits being offered those laid off are.
5. Do not denigrate those who have been laid off. You'd think that this would be obvious, but you would be wrong. The same division president who sent out the worthless e-mail that I mentioned above later visited our facility. We should actually feel good about the layoffs, he said, because those of us who were left had obviously adapted to the changing global economy, while those who had been laid off obviously had not. I'm not kidding. He actually said this. He's one of only two people that I have met professionally who I think deserves to have bad things happen to him. Fortunately, he was forced out of the company earlier this year, although his despicable performance during layoffs probably had no role in his demise.
   

Today's Shoes

Day

John Lobb Paris austerity brogues in tan calf (Widner model, 8695 last). This is the fourth of my four pairs of austerity brogues. 8695 doesn't fit me particularly well in the heel, unfortunately, which is why these shoes don't get a whole lot of action.

Evening

John Lobb Paris three-eyelet V-front derbies in tobacco suede (Perrier model, 8896 last). This is one of the near-perfect shoe designs. The only thing that could improve this shoe is a more stylish last.

Last Night's Tipple

Did you think that the adjective "straight" (as it pertains to spirits) could only be applied to whiskey or that only a whiskey could be bottled in bond? So did I. But I was wrong, so wrong. "Straight" can apply to any spirit type and means that the spirit has been distilled to no more than 160 proof and has not been mixed with any grain neutral spirits. In the case of straight apple brandy, I would imagine that the mash that it's made from would have to be at least 51% apples, but I don't know what else could be in the mash. Pears? Grapes? Grain? (I know: grain sounds revolting, but who knows?) And any spirit can be bottled in bond, provided that it is made at one distillery in one season, aged for at least four years in oak casks, has not had any flavoring or other adulterant added to it, and is bottled under government supervision at 100 proof. So it is thus possible for Laird's to produce Laird's Straight Apple Brandy, Bottled in Bond. The label says that it is bottled at DSP-NJ-1, Laird's Scobeyville, NJ facility. For some reason, it doesn't say where it was distilled, although Laird's website says that all distillation is now done in North Garden, VA.

Applejack has a venerable tradition in the United States, particularly in the Northeast. In colonial times, people would leave barrels of hard cider out during the winter and repeatedly skim off the ice that formed inside. Because alcohol has a much lower freezing point than water, the skimmed ice would be mostly water, which would have the effect of increasing the concentration of alcohol in the liquid that remained. This method of production is called fractional freezing. The problem with it is that ethanol is not the only kind of alcohol in hard cider that is concentrated by fractional freezing. Fermentation of apples (and of grains and other fermentable substances) does not just produce ethanol. It also produces small quantities of methanol and fusel alcohols, which are highly toxic. They're not a problem in hard cider or beer or wine, but they are a problem in a spirit produced by fractional freezing. Nobody with any sense makes spirits this way any more, and it has been thus for more than two hundred years.

The Laird family has been making applejack since 1698. Their first commercial production was in 1780, making them the oldest still-operating American distillery. Up until the 1970s, their applejack was pure apple brandy; but they have since blended it with grain neutral spirits to lighten its flavor and reduce their costs. Their bottling labeled applejack is currently about 35% apple brandy and 65% GNS. They label all the pure apple brandy as apple brandy instead of applejack. The BIB bottling that I tried last night is probably four years old or maybe a bit older. There are also 7.5 year old and 12 year old versions. All of Laird's apple brandies are aged in charred oak barrels, which brings me to my initial impression of the BIB: it's like apple whiskey. I can't claim credit for that phrase, but it is accurate. The barrels give the brandy lots of char and vanilla aromas, just like Bourbon. There's also a distinctive apple juice aroma, but the char and vanilla dominates. On the palate, it's fruit-dominated, sweet, and a little rough. It could use more time in the barrel, but it is pleasant.

Oh, and it is nothing at all like the Calvados that I had a few days ago. I'm eager to try the Laird's 12 YO to see if the age gives it more of a Calvados character. But this is enjoyable enough for what it is. *

* And before Mamacita points it out, yes, I did try this out of a plastic cup while watching fireworks at New Year's; and I didn't like it much then. Of course, drinking anything out of a plastic cup is not perfectly calculated to show it at its best advantage. It was much better last night.

Today's Shoes

Day

Stuart's Choice plain-toe bals with a floating toe medallion, a heart-shaped throat, and a vamp/quarter seam that intersects with the heel counter to echo the shape of the throat. The color name for these was dark khaki, for some reason, even though they really are dark brown. These shoes, like a lot of what Paul Stuart does, are interesting and unique. I have never seen anything quite like them before, and I don't think that I ever will (unless I do something bespoke). The Stuart's Choice shoes are made by Grenson, another Northampton shoe manufacturer that has always played second fiddle to its bigger and better-reputed neighbors. They can, however, make very good shoes, as illustrated by the Stuart's Choice line.

Evening

Alden cap-toe blucher in walnut calf (972, Aberdeen last). Another of my earliest pairs of "good" shoes. These, like the suede wingtips from yesterday, suffer from the heels being a bit too wide. Nevertheless, when I got these out this afternoon for the first time in two years or more, I was surprised by how much wear they have gotten and how nice they still look.

Of Corks and Screwcaps

In recent years, the wine industry (or at least some portions of it) have begun to face the problem of cork taint, which is the result of cork contaminated with a certain kind of fungi that produce 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA). TCA can cause a number of effects in wine, ranging from a muting of the aromas and flavors present in wine to an overwhelming moldy cardboard smell. If a wine is corked, it will not be as enjoyable as it should be, and it very well may have to be dumped down the drain. The answer to the question of how prevalent cork taint is in cork-closed wines depends on who you ask: the cork industry swears that the incidence is less than 1.5%, while some in the wine industry cite 10% or higher. Complicating the picture is the fact that certain people are more sensitive to cork taint than others: one taster may not notice anything amiss at all in a wine, while another might not be able to drink it. I don't know whether I am particularly sensitive to TCA or not, but I do know that an annoying percentage -- probably 7% to 10% -- of the bottles of wine with cork closures that I open are bad. I suppose that the problems could stem from incompetent wine-making, but I doubt it. The flavors and aromas are just so off that nobody in his right mind would sell such a product. All I know is that if 7% to 10% of the product sold in any other industry was defective, there would be a hue and cry, with foaming-at-the-mouth exposes in the news and Congressional investigations. Not so the wine industry for reasons that I don't fully understand.

Nevertheless, a growing number of winemakers, particularly in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, are no longer closing their wines with corks. Some are using synthetic corks instead, but the most popular alternative to real cork is a screwcap. Yes, a screwcap. Screwcaps don't go bad, you see, nor do they ruin wine. But, you object, won't the lack of a cork prevent air from getting into the bottle and helping the aging process of wine along? Well, yes, screwcaps will prevent air from getting into the bottle. This is a good thing. Air ruins wine. It's not the air that causes aged wine to age. A properly-inserted cork is virtually impermeable. It is possible that there is something else about cork that allows or encourages the aging process, but Australian vintners, who have been using non-cork closures in their Rieslings for thirty years, haven't seen a degradation in aging ability from it. In any event, very little wine produced, even in the premium category, benefits from aging. But, but, but corks are prettier, you say; I like the ritual around cork removal. So do I, but not enough to pour 10% of the wine I buy down the drain. The single best thing that the wine industry could do to improve quality of their products across the board would be to replace cork closures with screwcaps. Let's hope that the Old World producers wake up to this reality sometime soon.

(Incidentally, cork taint can afflict liquor in bottles closed by corks, too. And yet the way that every producer chooses to announce that his product is upscale is by putting it in a bottle with a cork in it. Screwcaps are the domain of middle- and bottom-shelf brands. This is a pity, but it goes to show you that the consumer's perception of quality is more important than the actual quality. Alas.)

Today's Etymological Trivia

The phrase "fifth column" comes from a statement that Nationalist General Emilio Mola made to a journalist as his troops approached Madrid in 1936, which was then controlled by the Spanish Republicans. He would take Madrid, he told the journalist, because he had four columns of troops marching on Madrid and a fifth column of supporters inside the city.

(And, incidentally, Mola did not take Madrid in 1936.)

Last Night's Tipple

There's a practice in Bourbon country (and in Tennessee Whiskey country, too) called squeezing the barrel. Temperature variations during aging forces a surprising amount of whiskey into the barrel, and distillers want some of it back. They will typically pour a few gallons of water into a recently-dumped barrel, slosh it around, and let it sit for a while. A decent amount of whiskey will have filtered back into the water, and the distilleries will use the resultant liquid to dilute their whiskey down to bottle proof. A variant of this is practiced by Kentucky teenagers, who somehow manage to get their hands on an empty whiskey barrel, which they fill with a few gallons of water and roll up and down a hill for about an hour.

Why do I mention this when what I had to drink last night was Lustau Solera Reserva Brandy? Because it tastes like Lustau squeezed an empty oloroso sherry butt with brandy and sold the result under this label. The nose is all nutty oloroso sherry. The palate is exceptionally sweet and sherry-like. It's sherry, sherry, sherry. That's not a bad thing: Lustau is one of the best producers of sherry, so something that tastes like their wines is something good indeed. The sherry influences also make this brandy exceptionally smooth. The only down side to it that I can see is that it smells and tastes so much like sherry that one might be tempted to drink it like sherry, which is not a good thing for 80 proof liquor. I bought this bottle several years ago, and I didn't remember it being so pleasant. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Spec's carries it (or any similar brandy) anymore, so I'll be out of luck when the bottle is gone.

Today's Shoes

Day

Gravati three-eyelet wholecut bal in burgundy Lama calf (14391, last 683). This is another special order. I would have been better-served to have picked a last less elongated than 683 is, and four eyelets would have worked better than three.

Evening

Alden wingtip bal in dark brown suede (904, Hampton last). This was my second "good" pair of shoes, purchased maybe eight years ago. I just had to have a pair of suede wingtips, and these fit the bill. I don't wear them that much anymore, but they are still great shoes.

Last Night's Tipple

Armagnac is Cognac's poor country cousin. Both Cognac and Armagnac are regions in southwestern France, with Armagnac to the south of Cognac in Gascony, that give their names to distinctive kinds of brandy. But Cognac gets all the glory, and Armagnac is not well-known. Both Cognac and Armagnac are primarily based on the Ugni Blanc grape, which makes bad wine but very good brandy. Cognac, though, is double-distilled in copper pot stills, while Armagnac is (usually) distilled only once in a distinctive continuous still. I have heard this still called a column still, and I suppose that it might be. Here's the problem, though. Everything that I've read indicates that the Armagnac still was invented in the 18th Century, but the modern column still was invented in the early 19th Century by Aeneas Coffey. So reason dictates that the Armagnac still must differ in some ways from the column still. In addition, note that Bourbon producers, in an attempt to raise production and lower costs, attempted to make Bourbon with a single column-still distillation (ie, they dispensed with the traditional second distillation in the doubler or thumper). It didn't work. The Bourbon produced by this method was not good. Brandy is different from Bourbon; but if something was missing from a Bourbon produced by a single column-still distillation, it seems reasonable to think that something might also be missing from a brandy produced by the same method. But nothing is missing from Armagnac, which suggests to me that the continuous stills that Armagnac producers use differ in some important particulars from traditional column stills.

Armagnac is Cognac's country cousin in another way, too. Cognac (at least good Cognac, which is not what most Cognac sold in the US is) is polished and urbane. Armagnac is not. At its best, it's bolder and more rustic. Armagnac is subdivided into three subregions: Téranèze, Haut-Armagnac, and Bas Armagnac. Bas Armagnac is widely acknowledged to produce the best brandy. My drink last night was Grassa et Fils Bas Armagnac Cuvee Speciale. There was no age statement on the bottle, but its color was dark enough that it must have been in barrel for a number of years. It had the same metallic nose that I associate with Cognac, but there was a good bit of vanilla and soot on the palate. It had more personality than most Cognacs that I have tasted, and I liked it. Unfortunately, I won't be drinking it any more: last night's drink finished the bottle, and it doesn't look like it's imported into the US anymore. Alas.

An Etiquette Question That May Interest Only Me

Around here, men typically wait for women to board an elevator before they get on, regardless of who was waiting for it first. The reasoning behind this, I suppose, is "ladies first." Is this correct etiquette? Miss Manners has pointed out that the ladies-first policy is not always the most polite one. For example, when accompanying a woman through a circular door, a man goes first so he can push. Likewise, when a man and a woman are descending a flight of stairs too narrow for them to walk abreast, the man should go first so that the woman will fall on him if she accidentally falls. In the same vein, the ranking officer present would always board a boat last and get off first because an open boat was dangerous, wet, and uncomfortable; and it was a privilege of rank to endure that for as short a time as possible. So is an elevator the modern-day equivalent of an open boat in the Age of Sail? Well, probably not. But I have to think that men preceding women into one may be more polite than allowing women to go first. Of course, I doubt that I'm going to buck convention any time soon.

Today's Shoes

Day

Grenson three-eyelet utility brogue ankle boots in British tan. As I have written, I have a thing for utility brogues, and I have a total of four pairs of them. These are the most unusual, both because they are bluchers and because they are boots. I would like the idea of these better than the practice for two reasons: first, they are a bit too big, and my heel slips; second, they aren't cut high enough, which causes them to dig into my ankle bones. Consequently, they are one of my pairs of rain shoes; and it was very rainy today.

Evening

Santoni rubber-soled chukka boot in mid-brown calf. Another pair of rain shoes. Like I wrote, it was very rainy today.

Last Night's Tipple

Calvados is apple brandy from the Calvados region in Normandy, double-distilled in alembic pot stills. It hasn't gotten a whole lot of traction in the United States, so the selection that one sees in liquor stores is rarely more than a couple of different brands. Lecompte is apparently one of the better-reputed producers, and I was lucky enough to find a bottle of their 12-year old version a couple of years ago, and I have been drinking it very slowly because there's little hope that I will be able to replace it once it's gone.

Calvados (at least good Calvados) smells strongly of apples (shocking, huh?). This Lecompte is good Calvados, so once the alcohol blows off a bit, one gets a big whiff of apple. But it's a bit more complex than that. The 12 years in barrel has given this brandy a deep amber color that's a little bit surprising. The barrel time has also given the spirit a good dose of cinnamon and vanilla. This isn't alcoholic apple juice: it's apple pie in a glass. The only negative thing that I can say about it is that it has that metallic twang that is typical of Cognac and that I associate with copper pot stills. I'd rather that it not be there, but it's not terribly distracting. Drinking this makes me want to go out and buy all the Calvados I can find. Unfortunately, that would only be about three different bottlings.

Today's Shoes

Mantellassi split-toe Norvegese-constructed bluchers with reversed apron and toe seams in a light tan calf. This is a take-off on the split-toe model pictured in yesterday's post. The apron and toe seams on that shoe are not actually seams. The vamp of the shoe is actually one piece of leather. The shoemaker simulates the seams by pinching the leather of the upper together and using two needles to create a molehill-like faux seam. When this is done on the top side of the leather, the result is the shoe shown yesterday. When this is done on the under side of the leather, the result is the pair of shoes I wore today. The "seams" are still visible, but they are ghosted and indistinct.

Lingerie Wars

The Wednesday Wall Street Journal reports that

Retailers including JC Penney Co., Target Corp. and Kohl's Corp. have discovered that fashionable underwear for women is a hot trend. To cash in on it, they are launching lingerie lines or giving old ones a makeover or redecorating dressing rooms and offering professional fitting services. Other companies, including Chico's FAS Inc., American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and Charming Shoppes Inc.'s Lane Bryant, have created stand-alone lingerie stores.

The retailers are hoping to steal some thunder from the Limited Brands Inc.'s Victoria's Secret chain, which has dominated fashion lingerie in the U.S. for many years.

("Retailers' Panty Raid On Victoria's Secret", p. B1). According to the story, US sales of women's underwear grew at a rate of 10% last year, making it the second-fastest growing apparel category after handbags. Despite the growth in the category, Victoria's Secret appears to be vulnerable: while net sales were up 14.8% last year, sales at stores open more than a year were up less than 2%, which indicates that Victoria's Secret is primarily fueled by opening new stores. As we have seen from other retailers (think Gap, along with many more), this is often a recipe for trouble.

Not being a consumer of women's underwear, I have no particular knowledge or expertise in the subject. I can say, however, that as one who is in a major mall four or five times a week, Victoria's Secret bags are probably the most common ones that I see mall patrons carrying. It's possible that all those bags contain token purchases, although I doubt it. I will also say that there is a fundamental difference in presentation between Victoria's Secret and Kohl's, and I doubt that the typical Victoria's Secret customer will shift allegiance and purchasing dollars to Kohl's any time soon. Of course, there is the possibility that she will graduate to La Perla, which the story says that Bloomingdale's is expanding its selection of and which I find much more interesting than any of the other ventures and brands mentioned in the story.

Quote of the Day

From the snarkolepsy blog:

Why is it the only choice consumers have is between "sucks ass" and "sucks donkey balls"?

Last Night's Tipple

I first had Young's Double Chocolate Stout at the Richmond Arms pub in Houston, which is one of the few bars that I actually like. They happened to have it on tap, and my friend Ben said that he thought it was pretty good. "It's double, it's chocolate, it's stout! What's not to like?" I thought, and so I ordered a pint. I thought that it was very good, and I ordered it subsequently just about every time they had it available. A couple of years later, I noticed it in bottles at the grocery store, but the effect just wasn't the same. There's something about the thick head that a nitrogenated tap gives a beer that a bottle can't replicate. A few years after that, I began to see it in those tallboy pub draft cans that have nitrogen capsules inside, and I tried it again. This time, it was the real deal. When poured from one of those cans, the beer has that thick, creamy head that is part of the reason that it is so good. I happened to be at Central Market yesterday and saw that they had Young's Double Chocolate Stout in the cans, and nostalgia overcame me. I bought a four-pack for $7.29. The stuff inside is as good as I remember. Despite the name, this is not a sweet stout. It's big-bodied and bitter, with flavors and aromas like strong dark coffee. Every now and then, I caught a whiff of dark chocolate. It's just delicious. It almost makes me want to go over the the Richmond Arms.

Today's Shoes

Borgioli split-toe bluchers with a short apron and Norvegese construction in tan calf. The shoes to the right are made by Sutor Mantellassi and represent the look that I was going for when I placed this special order, although the design itself is a classic Italian one that many makers produce. Norvegese construction is, paradoxically, an Italian specialty and consists of the upper leather being turned out onto the sole edges, with a row of stitching affixing the upper leather to the sole there. There is then either a single row or two braided rows of stitching attaching the upper to the insole of the shoe. This manner of construction makes the shoe especially waterproof, but that's not the reason that the Italians like to use it so much. They like it because it's flashy and it shows off the shoemaker's skill very well in a way that would not be possible with standard Goodyear construction. The Borgioli shoes are extremely well-made, almost as well as the Mantellassi model that I intended for them to imitate. The only bad thing about them is that they don't fit particularly well, a result, I think, of the fact that Borgioli does not have separate sets of lasts for European and American production. American feet, you see, are typically different from European feet: they're narrower, particularly in the heel, and they usually have lower insteps. I don't have a low instep, but I do have a narrow heel, the result of which being that my beautiful Borgioli Norwegians slip there and prevent me from wearing them for very long at a stretch. Oh, well. Such is life.

Saturday Morning Movie Review

I actually watched My Mother's Castle (the unsatisfying translation of its French title, Le Château de ma mère) one night this week, but I have been too lazy to post about it until now. This may come as a shock to some readers, but this actually is a French movie subtitled in English (gasp!). It's a coming-of-age story about the son (Marcel) of a Marseilles school teacher (Joseph) and his wife (Augustine) at the turn of the century. The family spends an enchanting summer vacation in the countryside of Provence; and the mother decrees that they will come back more frequently, returning at Christmas and other holidays until Augustine decides that they go to the country every weekend, even sweet-talking the wife of the headmaster of Joseph's school into convincing her husband to give Joseph no classes on Monday mornings to make it possible.

The movie has a predictable cast of characters, including the country-boy friend of Marcel, the highfalutin daughter of an alcoholic Marseilles newspaperman who also takes refuge in the country, the eccentric uncle, and the dull rectitude of French officialdom. I won't reveal what happens (for those who want to see the film), but the central conflict and its impact on Joseph strikes me as implausible and overblown, and the postscript detailing how life went to hell for everybody after those idyllic days in Provence seems out of place and just tacked on. Still, I can't dislike period-piece movies, and the cinematography of the Provence countryside is beautiful. Not a wonderful movie, but not a waste of time.

Last Night's Tipple

Old Charter is one of the venerable brands in American Bourbon, having been founded in 1874 by two brothers in Bullitt County, Kentucky. Its name refers to the Connecticut colonial charter, which was hidden in the Charter Oak in Hartford in 1687 to keep it from falling into the hands of royal officials bent on abrogating it and consolidating Connecticut into the Dominion of New England. The story of the Charter Oak is a classic in the history of colonial resistance to British tyranny, but it does seem to be a odd thing to name a Bourbon brand after. Nevertheless, the silhouette of the Charter Oak on the bottle's neck brand illustrates that name it after the Charter Oak the brand's founders did.

The sad fact is that most of the old-time Bourbon brands that are still around are mere shadows of their former selves. Old Crow has been reduced to under-aged squeeze-bottle stuff by Jim Beam, which now owns the brand and distills the whiskey for it. Ditto for Old Taylor. Ditto for Yellowstone. Old Fitzgerald is not bad whiskey, but it no longer is among the best that can be bought, as it was when it was produced at the Stitzel-Weller Distillery. Fortunately, this has not happened for Old Charter. It has been passed from owner to owner over the years and most recently came to rest in 1999 with Sazerac, the corporate parent of Buffalo Trace Distillery, which now produces Old Charter. Its current corporate owners are apparently committed to maintaining the quality of the brand, albeit at prices that are rumored to be on the rise. There are four different expressions of the brand: an 8-year old 80 proof version, a 10-year old 86 proof version, a 12-year old 90 proof version (also called "The Classic 90"), and a 13-year old 80 proof Proprietor's Reserve. I haven't ever seen the Proprietor's Reserve, but Spec's carries the other three, and at very good prices (around $20 a fifth for the 12-year old). All four versions are distilled from Buffalo Trace's low-rye mashbill, which contains the highest percentage of corn in the business. This makes the 12-year old relatively soft. The nose has a big dose of vanilla and especially butterscotch, with a dose of mustiness, too -- not unpleasant mustiness, but maybe the inside of a humidor or something like that. It's very sweet, too: smooth and without a whole lot of bite. A nice Bourbon at a nice price.

Today's Shoes

Gravati ankle boots in antiqued tan calf and a rubber lug sole (15950, last 640). This is one of the best patterns that Gravati makes, principally because the character of the boot can change radically depending on the detailing options that one chooses. Changing the last and the sole details can turn a boot appropriate for wear with jeans to a beautiful dress boot. I could wear different versions of this boot every day of the week, and it would never occur to the casual observer that I was doing so (not that I have seven pairs of it; but if I did, I could).

Last Night's Tipple

Sometimes you'll find all Scotches distilled on one of the many islands off the coast of Scotland referred to as Island Scotches. This seems like a logical classification at first blush, but it really isn't. The implication is that these Scotches share common traits like the Islay Scotches do, or even that these Scotches are baby brothers to the Islay Scotches. This isn't the case. Talisker, from the Isle of Skye, is known for its intense peatiness; and Highland Park, from the Orkney Islands, has a distinctive smokiness. But others, like Arran (from the Isle of Arran) and Scapa (from the Orkney Islands) have more in common with their Highlands or Speyside brethren than they do with Islay Scotches.

So it was with the Isle of Jura Scotches, which were all unpeated, until Superstition came along. Perhaps because they were trying to capitalize on the recent fashionability of Islay Scotches, or perhaps they were just curious about how it would turn out, the Isle of Jura Distillery decided to produce a peated Scotch, which they named Superstition. It's smoky and peaty and briny, all right. For some reason, to me, it just doesn't work. Where a Laphroaig or a Caol Ila has its peatiness integrated into the structure of the whisky, it tastes like it's just sitting on top of the Scotch, if that makes any sense. I don't like this whisky very much, and I will be glad when the bottle is gone.

We Wuz Robbed!

Well, not really. The Rice Owls lost to UNC 7-4 this evening, eliminating them from the College World Series. Alas. Maybe next year.

I Wish I Were in Connecticut

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT is presenting through September 9 an exhibition entitled Fakes and Forgeries: The Art of Deception showing a collection of 60 forgeries of famous Western works of art. As someone who actually liked the 1999 remake of The Thomas Crowne Affair with Renee Russo and Pierce Brosnan, not least because of the (probably amazingly cartoonish) portrayal of art forgeries and the techniques used to detect them, I think that this exhibit would be fascinating. If I were going to be anywhere near Greenwich between now and September, I would be there in a heartbeat. Alas, it seems unlikely to be.

Hamilton Shirts

For a number of years, most of the dress shirts that I have purchased have been made by Borrelli, the Neapolitan manufacturer responsible more than any other for the fetishization of hand-stitching on shirts in the American luxury market. Borrelli's buttonholes are hand-stitched, and the collars, cuffs, yolks, and sleeves are hand-attached. And it's done in a manner that intentionally calls attention to itself. I liked romance of the hand-stitching, and I liked the selection of fabrics. After about five years of purchasing them, however, I was forced to admit that I wasn't particularly happy with the product. They didn't fit. Their sizing was inconsistent. The hand-stitching, particularly at the sleeve attachment, was very prone to failure. And Borrelli is remarkably poor at delivering its orders complete, correct, and in a reasonable amount of time. So I made a New Year's resolution to find another shirtmaker.

I have mentioned before that Alex Kabbaz is the best shirtmaker that I know of or could imagine. The two shirts of his that I own are miracles of design and construction. If I could afford to use him exclusively, I would. I like both of my kidneys, so I can't. I have a friend who is starting up a shirtmaking business in Chicago, and I considered him. I imagine that I'll give him a try at some point, but he's not completely set up yet. And he's in Chicago, which would make fittings expensive. And then there was Hamilton Shirts.

Hamilton has been making shirts in Houston since 1883. Yes, you read that correctly: 1883. That's something in a town where a can of Billy Beer qualifies as an antique. Hamilton remains a family-owned business, and Jimmy Hamilton, the man in the picture above, is the current shirtmaker. His two children handle the business side and most customer relations. The shop is a little place on Richmond just west of Chimney Rock, and all shirts are made on the premises. I gather, although I do not know, that the core of the business is making ready-to-wear shirts for a variety of men's stores, the most prominent of which is Barney's in New York, but Houston-based clients just stop by the shop and have their shirts custom-made. At the initial meeting, the client's measurements (and there are lots of them, not just neck and sleeve length) are taken (in my case, by David Hamilton, Jimmy's son) and styling options discussed and settled upon. The client then selects the fabrics for his initial order (a minumum of four shirts; subsequent orders can be in any number). Based on those measurements, a shirtmaker cuts an individual paper pattern for the client (those folders behind Jimmy Hamilton above contain clients' patterns); and the first shirt is cut (by hand using a knife -- shears cannot make an accurate enough cut) and made. The client then tries on that shirt, and alterations, if necessary, are made. After client approves the first shirt, the remaining shirts in the order are made. For me, this whole process took about six weeks, but I ordered in January, which is a busy time. Subsequent orders have been faster, one in as little as five days.

So how are the shirts? Very good. They aren't to the level of Alex's shirts, but they aren't priced like his, either. They have single-needle stitching, unfused collars and cuffs, a split back yoke, and pattern matching at the shoulders and pocket. The stitching is not as minute as Alex's is. The split back yoke is not chevroned, as it ideally would be. The interlinings of the collars and cuffs is a bit too stiff and lifeless. Pattern matching at the sleeve yoke is not always present. The fit is not exactly perfect. But these are still very good shirts, and Hamilton is still a very good company. I asked them to shank my buttons. The woman taking my order didn't know what that meant; but once I explained and she went and asked the shirtmaking staff whether it was possible, they did it for me. They cheerfully and immediately correct their mistakes, something that is unfortunately rare, even in the world of expensive, high-end clothing. And they let me prowl around the back room looking at the whole bolts of fabric (which are all of Italian or Swiss manufacture and are among the best available) rather than looking at piddly little swatches that you normally have to use. And the sleeves don't fall off. The best part? The shirts aren't exactly cheap, but they are significantly cheaper than Borrelli. Better, too.

Today's Shoes

Day

John Lobb Paris two-eyelet plain-toe bluchers with V-shaped quarters in London tan calf (Tamar model, 8000 last). I don't wear these shoes much, and I was reminded why today: the last makes my feet look huge, and it doesn't fit my feet very well. This is a problem with most JL Paris lasts. They're too big in the heel for me, which causes blisters with extended wearing. A shame, really, because the V-front blucher is one of my favorite shoe designs.

Evening

Martegani six eyelet plain-toe blucher with a floating medallion in London tan calf (Lucca model, 3B last). A good looking shoe on another last that doesn't fit me particularly well, again in the heel. Alas!

Last Night's Tipple

If an American whiskey had spent fifteen years in barrel, it would be dark, dark, dark. You might have trouble seeing through it, even if it had been diluted down to 86 proof. Not so Scotch. Both because Scotch is aged in used barrels that have less color to impart and because the weather in Scotland is not as warm as it is in Kentucky or Tennessee and will consequently not force the aging spirit into the barrel as it will in the United States, it is not as deeply-colored as American whiskey. And Scotch producers, unlike American whiskey producers, can use caramel coloring if they wish; and most of them do wish, probably because the drinking public likes dark whiskeys. At 15 years old, Dalwhinnie is still only straw-colored in the glass. I have no doubt that the barrel has had a massive influence on the taste, smell, and character of the Scotch, but it's hard to tell it from the color.

Dalwhinnie is another of Diageo's Classic Malts and was the original representative of the Highlands region. It has a little label just under the throat of the bottle reading "The Gentle Spirit," and that moniker is accurate. Some Scotches will grab you by the throat and slap you around a bit. Dalwhinnie isn't one of them. There's some honey and smoke on the nose, and the taste is very, very sweet. With some time in the glass, the Scotch develops some nice vanilla aromas, which, along with the absence of any winey or nutty aromas or flavors, suggests that it's aged exclusively in ex-Bourbon barrels. A very enjoyable Scotch, although the price is a bit steep.

Today's Shoes

Day

Gravati plain-toe double monkstraps in Radica 033 calf (13618, last 500). These were yet another special order; and, while I like the result, it would have been better if I had opted for a slimmer waist and a close-cut heel. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I imagine that I'll live.

Evening

Crockett & Jones plain-toe single monkstraps in tan calf (Mortimer model, 330 last). These shoes are from C&J's Handgrade line, which is designed to compete with the likes of Edward Green and John Lobb Paris. They're nice shoes, but not quite on that level. The degree of attention paid to the sole and heel edge finishing is not as great, and the lasts aren't as stylish. They're cheaper than the other two, but I don't wear my pairs as frequently as I do my Edward Greens. What does it matter if one pair of shoes is cheaper than another if you don't wear them.

License Plate Holders

On August 14, 2002, the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found in US vs. Granado that evidence seized in a traffic stop was inadmissible because the traffic stop was illegal. A Texas DPS trooper had pulled Gilbert Granado over because the minivan that he was driving did not have a front license plate and because the rear license plate was enclosed in a license plate frame such as those that are commonly installed on new cars by virtually every car dealership in the United States, which the trooper contended violated Texas state law. The court of appeals disagreed, saying that the stop was illegal because Granado's minivan was not registered in Texas, which meant that the Texas law requiring a front license plate was inapplicable, and because the relevant statute, which banned displaying a license plate that

(5) has letters, numbers, or other identification marks that because of blurring matter are not plainly visible at all times during daylight;
(6) is a sticker, decal, or other insignia that is not authorized by law and that interferes with the readability of the letters or numbers on the plate; or
(7) has a coating, covering, or protective material that distorts angular visibility or detectability.

was inapplicable to license plate frames alone.

In May, 2003, the Texas legislature passed a law (SB 439) amending the Texas Transportation Code to ban displaying a license plate

(1) has identification marks that, because of reflective matter, are not plainly visible at all times during daylight;
(2) has an attached illumination device or emblem not authorized by law and that interferes with the readability of the letters or numbers on the plate or the name of the state in which the vehicle is registered; or
(3) alters or obscures the letters, numbers, color, or original design features of the plate.

Many jurisdictions in Texas viewed this revised law as rendering US vs. Granado moot and began to issue traffic tickets to cars pulled over with license plate frames, despite protestations from the bill's sponsor that that had not been the intent of the law. On February 14, 2007, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in Texas vs. Johnson that these tickets were not, in fact, contrary to the law because license plate frames clearly "obscure[d] the letters, numbers, color, or original design features of the plate" and because this change in the law after the US vs. Granado decision could be could be construed to have been made in response to that decision.

In response to the enforcement actions of various Texas jurisdictions and to the Texas vs. Johnson decision, the legislature passed and the governor signed SB 369, making clear that license plate holders were not illegal so long as they left more than half of the state name unobscured and did not interfere with reading the actual numbers on the plate. This law goes into effect on September 1, 2007. The fact that the legislature has clarified the license plate holder law has not stopped the Houston Police Department from continuing to issue tickets for license plate holders. The Houston Chronicle found, in a story published this past Sunday, that HPD has written more than 9500 tickets for this since January and that Chief Hurtt intended to continue to do so until the new law went in effect in September. The story had other interesting tidbits, including the fact that a single HPD officer was responsible for more than 1200 of the 9500 tickets written since January and the fact that Mayor Bill White's car, driven by HPD officers, had a license plate holder.

Apparently, the publicity generated by this story (and the pressure exerted by SB 369's sponsors) was enough to shame the mayor into crying uncle. The Chronicle reported yesterday that

Mayor Bill White on Monday said Houston police shouldn't ticket motorists for having common brackets around their license plates that will no longer be illegal when a revised state law takes effect in September.

Whatever White's motivations for doing this, it is good that he did so. The tickets that HPD wrote for "illegal" license plate holders were not about public safety. They were a revenue generation tool. They were an attempt to shake down the residents of Houston and Harris County and represented a de facto arbitrary tax. When real, dangerous traffic offenses are commonplace on Houston streets and violent crime is rising in the city, it is utterly despicable that HPD chose to dedicate resources to extort money from Houston drivers rather than dealing with real problems. This kind of behavior makes people contemptuous of law enforcement, and justifiably so.

Last Night's Tipple

One of the great divides in the world of Scotch is between those distilleries that age their whisky in used Bourbon barrels and those distilleries that age their whisky in used sherry butts. Used Bourbon barrels are more traditional (although the most traditional method probably would have been to put the fresh distillate in whatever container was available and to consume it as quickly as possible), and they impart the same vanilla and butterscotch flavors and aromas to Scotch as they do to Bourbon. Those flavors and aromas are much more muted in Scotch than Bourbon, of course, but they will still be there. Recently, however, more and more distilleries have been offering Scotches aged or finished (ie, aged for the last year or so) in used sherry butts. The sherry butts not surprisingly give the Scotch a sweet, grapey, nutty taste and flavor, not unlike the sweet sherries that Brits love.

Macallan is the prototype of a sherried Scotch. They take their used sherry butts very seriously, having them made to their specifications before they're filled with sherry. The arrangement strikes me as something of a rental agreement whereby Macallan owns the barrels and the sherry producers rent them for a few years, although I don't know if this is technically correct. Unlike many producers of sherried Scotch, Macallan doesn't age their whisky most of the way in ex-Bourbon barrels before transferring it to sherry butts for the last year or two: the entire aging process is conducted in sherry butts. That is, Macallan has done this until recently. Within the last two or three years, Macallan has introduced a range of whiskies they call Fine Oak. If you read their marketing fluff for the Fine Oak bottlings, you'll find that this whisky is aged in ex-Bourbon barrels, sherry butts made from American oak, and sherry butts made from European oak. The goal, I think, was to make a Scotch that was less overpoweringly sweet and winey than standard Macallan.

This isn't to say that Macallan Fine Oak Scotches don't have lots of sherry influence. They do. The 10 year old version is big-bodied, creamy, and has a big sherry nose, although not as big a sherry nose as the standard Macallan 12 year old. This was a pleasant and enjoyable whisky. The worst thing that I can say about it is that it was one-dimensional. One of the things that I really about fine spirits is the way the nose and the taste develops in the glass and changes every time one takes a sip or nose. That didn't happen with this whisky. Both the taste and the smell were the same throughout the pour. The one dimension was very good, but it was still just one dimension.

Today's Shoes

Day

Gravati plain-toe side elastic shoes in Radica 055 (deep burgundy -- 16624, last 683). Harold's in the Heights had this shoe made up in black calf with close-cut soles for use as a formal shoe. I liked the pattern so much that I did a special order of the pattern in Radica. Side-elastic shoes are tremendously versatile, and I like them a great deal. I'll have to redo this pattern in other configurations.

Evening

Martegani Cortona penny loafers in British tan calf. Yes, I've posted about these before. Even I have to repeat shoes sometimes. It just goes to shoe that I could use some more loafers. I'm thinking of a long-vamp penny from Gravati in a mid-brown shade of some grained leather. That'd fit the bill.

Last Night's Tipple

Diageo has gone a little crazy with their Classic Malts series recently. When it started out a few years ago, it included only Scotches (Talisker, Oban, Cragganmore, Dalwhinnie, Lagavulin, and Glenkinchie) representing a wide variety of styles and flavor profiles. Within the past year or so, Diageo has expanded the lineup to include several others, including Caol Ila, Royal Lochnagar, and Clynelish. Good as these additions may be, they largely duplicate the styles that previously were represented in the collection. It seems like Diageo has noticed that they can sell their Classic Malts for more than they can their unclassic malts, so they decided to label all of their malts Classic Malts. That seems a little cheesy to me, but I might be willing to forgive them if they distributed the one new Classic Malt that I really want to try (Royal Lochnagar) in the US. Alas, they don't, at least not yet.

Regardless of the degree to which the expansion of the Classic Malt program represents cheesiness, when I saw Clynelish 14 year old at a local liquor store recently, I decided that I had to have it. What can I say? I'm both slave to marketing and constitutionally unable to pass up novelty. In any event, the whisky is, um, interesting. It's a Scotch from the Highlands, but it struck me more as a mellowed-out Islay. I get a good dose of peat on the nose and a decent amount of brininess on the palate, both of which are notes that Islay Scotches are noted for. With some time in the glass, I also started to pick up some sherried sweetness that was very pleasant. I can't say that I loved this whisky, but it was complex and challenging and ultimately enjoyable.

Ugly-ass Bruno Magli Shoes

This morning, the side-kick personality on the morning radio shoe that I listen to while getting ready for work (I know, I know, it's shameful that I listen to such a thing. Get over it. No snide comments, Mamacita, or I shall reciprocate.) told a story about his fiancee making him buy a pair of $400 Bruno Magli shoes at Saks Fifth Avenue over the weekend. The patter went something like this:

Side-kick: The salesman said that they could be resoled. I don't even know what that means.

Female lead: You take them to one of those shoe hospital places when the soles wear out.

Male lead: Who the hell uses those places? I mean, maybe if they were a pair of cowboy boots that you've had for 20 years or something, but I just throw them out when they wear out.

Side-kick: I'm not throwing them out if they cost $400.

Any quality shoe, provided that it does not have a molded rubber sole, can be resoled. In fact, it should be resoled. Expensive shoes are only profligate if they are abused and destroyed before their time, and throwing shoes out rather than resoling them is abuse. Perhaps the male lead of this morning show doesn't realize this because all he wears are ugly, plastic shoes from Kenneth Cole, but this is a fact. A decent pair of shoes can last 20 year or more if they are taken care of and resoled when necessary. They are not meant to be ridden hard, put up wet, and tossed out when they are showing some wear.

(And, incidentally, I went to Saks this afternoon to see what $400 Bruno Magli shoes they had. There were about 4 different models, all ugly as sin, none of them worth anywhere close to $400. You might as well stick with plastic shoes from Kenneth Cole.)

Today's Shoes

Day

Gravati punch cap balmoral high-lace boot in dark brown calf (10278, 683 last). No, not the shoes to the right. Balmoral boots are rarities: virtually nobody makes them anymore, which is a great pity because they are wonderful. I had been searching for a pattern to have made up for less than Edward Green would charge for its Shannon model when I happened to see an eBay auction for the pair of Gravati boots to the right. The auction did not specify the model number, and I couldn't seem to make the seller understand what I was talking about when I asked him for it. That's unfortunate, because you absolutely need the model number in order to get the boots made up. No worries, though: I sent the picture to Jim Pierce, who owns the shoe concession at Harold's in the Heights, and he got the people at Gravati to track it down. Three months later, the boots arrived, and they're lovely.

Evening

Gravati plain-toe monkstrap in dark brown peccary with a combination leather/rubber sole (16371, 640 last). This shoe was inspired by a 1930s picture of a bespoke pigskin monkstrap in Alan Flusser's Dressing the Man. Peccary is commonly called a species of wild boar, although that's not really accurate. Pigskin's grain is slightly different, and it takes a shine much better than peccary does. Nevertheless, I do think that these shoes are a reasonable facsimile of the 1930s originals.

Last Night's Tipple

In recent years, a plethora of barrel proof spirits (ie, spirits that purport to be bottled straight from the barrel without being diluted with water first) have come onto the market. I'm not exactly sure what accounts for this phenomenon, although it probably has at least something to do with an opportunity to sell what is essentially a novelty product to the collector population and with the knowledge that some segments of the liquor-buying population view high-proof spirits as tests of manliness that they're going to pass, by God. Barrel proof spirits are (somewhat) appealing to me mostly because of the lack of dilution. Let's face it: most of the flavor in Bourbon or any other wood-aged spirit comes from the barrel. In Bourbon's case, it's the barrel that imparts the vanilla, butterscotch, creme brulee, and bread pudding aromas that I like so much. Not diluting the liquor before it goes into the bottle means that the finished product will have more of that vanilla-y goodness that I love. I'm not crazy about the added alcohol, but it's a trade-off that I'm willing to make.

Wild Turkey Rare Breed is one of the original barrel proof Bourbons on the market, and it's more than a little bit unusual in that it's only 108.4 proof. That sounds high, but consider that Bourbon by law can go into the barrel at up to 125 proof, and it typically gets higher in alcohol with age (the reverse of what happens when Scotch ages). One of Buffalo Trace's barrel proof offerings, George T. Stagg, typically comes in at proofs in the high 130s or low 140s. Booker's, Jim Beam's barrel proof offering, is around 125 proof. That Wild Turkey Rare Breed is only 108.4 illustrates one of the things that makes WT unusual in the Bourbon world: they distill their whiskey to a lower proof than anybody else in the business on the theory that the additional congeners that this process leaves behind in the finished spirit enhance the flavor and character of their whiskey. Whatever the reason, this Bourbon is a very good one. It's typical Wild Turkey in that its body is huge, that it has quite a rye kick, and that it tends to slap the drinker around a little bit. It's older than regular old Wild Turkey, though, and more polished. There are some pipe tobacco and some cinnamon bread pudding aromas, and some yeasty brioche on the palate. All-in-all, a very enjoyable tipple.

Stand and Cheer/Drink More Beer

The Rice Owls defeated the North Carolina Tarheels 14-4 today at the College World Series in Omaha. This means that the Owls will play the winner of the Louisville-North Carolina game being played Tuesday afternoon.

(For those of you who don't know but actually care, the College World Series is composed of eight teams divided into two brackets. The four teams in each bracket play a double-elimination tournament, and the winners of each bracket play a best-of-three series for the national championship. Both UNC and UL have one loss while Rice has none, so whichever wins Tuesday's game will have to beat Rice twice in a row to advance to the championship series.)

Today's Shoes

Gravati three-eyelet modified U-thoat cap-toe bluchers in dark brown waterproof suede with a rubber lug sole (16407, 640 last). I have this shoe in tan calf with a leather sole, too; but given the thunderstorms that rolled through Houston today, waterproof uppers and soles seemed like a good idea.

Bourbon Tasting

Here's a Bourbon tasting presentation run by Dave Pickerell, master distiller of Maker's Mark, that I found interesting.



I don't necessarily believe everything that Pickerell has to say, in particular the bits about which areas of the tongue taste which kinds of flavors, which recent scientific study has suggested is a bunch of hooey. In addition, keep in mind that his primary mission in conducting presentations like this is to explain and justify Maker's Mark's distillation practices. He says that he views his primary job as to eliminate bitterness from the finished product. I don't view bitterness as synonymous with bad, though, and while Maker's Mark is good Bourbon, there's a lot more out there that is more interesting.

Last Night's Tipple

Before Prohibition, rye whiskey was the American whiskey. It outsold Bourbon, and it was the spirit that American distilling was principally known for. There were dozens of distilleries in Maryland and Pennsylvania primarily making rye. Almost all of them were killed by Prohibition. After it ended, distilleries made a conscious decision to emphasize Bourbon rather than rye for three principal reasons. First, more Kentucky distilleries survived than Pennsylvania and Maryland distilleries, and Kentucky distilleries had never made much rye. Second, most distilleries no longer had any aging stocks of whiskey, so they had to make and age new spirits before they could sell anything. They therefore had a very large financial incentive to get the new distillate to market as quickly as possible, and young Bourbon is typically more palatable than young rye. Third, Prohibition had changed American's tastes in liquor. A lot of the liquor smuggled into the country during Prohibition had been light-bodied blended Canadian Whisky, and American drinkers took to it. Bourbon could hardly be called light-bodied, but it is less massive and brooding typically than rye whiskey and was therefore a better fit with American palates in 1933 than was rye. And so rye whiskey largely died out in the United States by the 1980s.

In recent years, though, it has come back with a vengeance. It is certainly no threat to overtake Bourbon as the American whiskey of choice anytime soon, but all major distilleries now have rye whiskey products, all of which I've tried have been at least very good. Wild Turkey has Wild Turkey 101 proof straight rye, Jim Beam produces both Jim Beam rye (in the bottle with the bright yellow label) and Old Overholt, and Heaven Hill has various Rittenhouse rye bottlings. Buffalo Trace had the Antique Collection Sazerac 18 year old that I wrote about yesterday and the 13 year old Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye, but both of those are rather expensive boutique bottlings. Fortunately, they decided to come out with plain old Sazerac Straight Rye Whiskey (colloquially called "Baby Saz"). There is no age statement on the bottle, but I believe that it's around 6 years old. It's a typical rye whiskey, with the characteristic rye fruitiness and spiciness on the nose, along with a bit of mustiness that I've heard described as the way a rickhouse smells. With time in the glass, it also develops a heavy vanilla aroma, but this does not predominate as it often does in Bourbons. On the palate, it has the typical rye spiciness and a little bit of alcoholic burn. There's also some bitterness, but pleasant bitterness, not bad.

Today's Shoes

Mantellassi Norwegian-constructed chukka boots in navy suede and a rubber sole. These shoes are a special order, and I waited more than 9 months for them. They look better than they fit, but such is life with Sutor Mantellassi shoes.

Three Sheets to the Wind

Have you ever noticed how many phrases in idiomatic English have their origins in nautical terms? What's that you say? You never considered it before? Well, consider it now! Here are some of my favorites.

• Three sheets to the wind -- a sheet is a rope that is attached to the corner of a sail, so if a sail has three of its sheets unattached to a mast or anything on deck (ie, to the wind), then it is going to be flapping about wildly and uncontrollably.
• Try a different tack -- in sailing, the word "tack," when used as a noun, refers to the side of the boat of ship that the wind comes over as the boat or ship is sailing. If it comes over the starboard side, then the boat or ship is said to be on the starboard tack; if it comes over the port or larboard side, then the boat or ship is said to be on the port or larboard tack. When a ship was trying to go in the direction of the wind, it would have to change from the starboard to the larboard tack every so often, with each course being several points (each point is 11.25 degrees) away from the direction that they were really trying to go. When a ship "tried a different tack," it would change direction by going from one tack to the other, a maneuver which, while routine, still entailed a number of risks for the ship.
  
• Taken aback --in sailing, when a gust of wind hits the sails in a direction opposite of the direction of travel. This has the effect of destroying a ship's headway, or forward momentum, and if the person sailing the ship is competent at all, is typically very surprising.
  
• The devil to pay -- in a wooden sailing vessel, the devil referred to any seam that it was particularly difficult to caulk, e.g. the seam in the planking at the waterline. "Paying" was the act of sealing a seam, so paying the devil was a particularly difficult task.
  
• Doldrums -- a region with typically very little wind around the equator. When a ship was in the Doldrums, it would frequently be becalmed for days on end roaming aimlessly one way and another.
  
• Jury-rigged -- when one or more of a boat or ship's masts and rigging were damaged by storms or enemy action, it was necessary for the crew to improvise new masts and rigging with whatever materials they had on hand. These improvisations were called jury rigging.
  
• Leeway -- a ship can sail in directions other than the direction that the wind is blowing toward by adjusting its sails. However, whenever it does so, the wind will also skid the ship to some degree in the direction of the wind. Leaving yourself plenty of leeway means giving yourself plenty of room when the wind is blowing towards shore to account for this force so that you don't wreck your ship.

There are many more, of course, and I may discuss them as I think of them in the future.

Last Night's Tipple

The Four Roses Distillery was founded by Paul Jones Jr. outside Lawrenceburg, Kentucky in 1888 and was so named in honor of the bouquet of four roses worn by Jones's wife on the night that she accepted his proposal of marriage. The distillery managed to survive Prohibition by obtaining a license to sell medicinal whiskey, and by the time Seagram bought it in 1943, it produced the top-selling Bourbon in the United States. And then Seagram went and ruined it all. They decided that what Americans needed to drink was blended whiskey, so they took Four Roses Bourbon off the American market and replaced it with Four Roses American Whiskey, which was a blended product very much like the Canadian Whiskies that Seagram is famous for (the most famous being Crown Royal). Four Roses Bourbon was only sold overseas. And so the situation remained, even after Seagram's attempts at diversification ruined the company and the Four Roses Distillery passed to the ownership of Diageo in 2002. Only when Diageo sold it to the Kirin Brewery Company (a Japanese company; Japan is, not coincidentally, Four Roses' biggest market). Kirin decided to discontinue the blended whiskey and offer the Bourbon in the United States again. Alas, distribution has not reached much outside of Kentucky yet, but there is hope.

But there is one commonly-available Bourbon distilled and aged at Four Roses Distillery: Bulleit. Bulleit is a brand owned by Diageo, and it's promoted to be competition to such upscale-but-not-horribly-expensive Bourbon brands as Brown-Forman's Woodford Reserve. The label calls Bulleit "Frontier Whiskey", and the Bulleit website spins a tale about an Augustus Bulleit becoming known in Louisville in the 1830s for his high-quality Bourbon. I don't know; maybe the Augustus Bulleit story is true, although it reads like a bunch of marketing hooey to me. I can say that Bulleit Bourbon is much unlike any whiskey found on the frontier before the Civil War, and that's a good thing. Before the second half of the 19th Century, most American whiskey, particularly that produced on the frontier, had more in common with today's moonshine than with today's Bourbon. It was raw, green, and harsh, either unaged or aged only a short amount of time. It probably would not have been very pleasant to drink. Bulleit Bourbon is aged six years, and as such is pretty mellow stuff. It does have the highest rye content of any Bourbon currently being made, and that rye gives Bulleit the distinctive rye fruitiness and spiciness. The other Bourbon that I've tried that it most resembles is Old Grand-Dad 114 proof, which makes sense because OGD is another high-rye Bourbon. There's also some tobacco on the nose (something that I haven't experienced before) and some bread pudding. If it fails as "frontier whiskey," it succeeds as Bourbon. It's not the greatest Bourbon that I have tasted; but it is distinctive, and it is pretty good. And it does hold out hope for those of us waiting for Four Roses Bourbon to be available in our neck of the woods.

Sammy Leads the Way

The Rice Owls baseball team defeated Louisville 15-10 today in an opening-round game in the College World Series in Omaha, overcoming deficits of 5-0 and 10-4 with a 6-run 8th inning. Baseball is the only sport that Rice has been consistently excellent at, appearing several times in the College World Series and winning the NCAA championship in 2003. Last year's CWS was excruciating for Rice: they were the #2 national seed and won their opening game but were shut out in back-to-back games by Oregon State, the eventual champions. Let's hope that this year will be better.

Rice's next game will be Sunday at 6 PM against the winner of tonight's Mississippi State-North Carolina game. Go Owls!

Today's Shoes

Edward Green split-toe bluchers with handsewn apron and toe seams in midnight antique calf (Dover model, 606 last). The Edward Green Dover is one of the most sublime shoes in existence, and it's especially striking in dark blue. I covet them in olive antique, too. There's absolutely nothing wrong with blue shoes.

These were a special order from Tom Park at LeatherSoul in Hawaii. And yes, that's a picture of my actual shoes.

Last Night's Tipple

The original Sazerac cocktail was a concoction including absinthe, bitters, simple syrup, and rye whiskey (other liquors, including cognac, were apparently used from time to time, but rye is the one most associated with the drink). The cocktail was invented by Antoine Peychaud, a New Orleans pharmacist who operated in New Orleans in the first half of the 19th Century. It later migrated into New Orleans coffee houses, most significantly the Sazerac coffee house, from which it takes its name. In the second half of the 19th Century, Thomas H. Handy, began to bottle and sell Sazerac cocktails and quickly expanded to buying up and distributing various liquor brands. Eventually, Sazerac bought the Buffalo Trace distillery.

I would imagine that the association between Sazerac cocktails and rye whiskey explains why Buffalo Trace includes Sazerac in the names of all of their rye whiskeys. The flagship of this line is Sazerac 18 year old Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey. It's a member of the Buffalo Trace Antique Collection, which is released once or twice a year in limited quantities. This is some whiskey. At 18 years of age, you'd expect the wood to dominate, but that's not really the case. There are pleasant butterscotch and toffee aromas, but the whiskey still has that distinctive rye fruitiness and bite. There's also a good bit of cocoa on the nose and the palate, which I haven't really experienced before from any whiskey. Like the Van Winkle 15 year old that I had a couple of days ago, one should buy this when one sees it. It's exceptional, and it's hard to find.

Something Cool That May Interest Only Me

Perhaps this is indicative of what a geek I am or perhaps it proves how easily I'm amused, but I think that the Texas Legislature's web site is extremely cool. Not because of design, but because of the information one can find there. Say that you see a news story about SB 1229 and want to know what it's about without the journalistic gloss. Simply type in the bill's number, and you can find out just about anything you want to know about it, including its legislative history, its text (both as introduced and as passed, if it was passed), House and Senate committee reports, fiscal analyses, records of votes, and much more. Too often, what one reads about pending or passed legislation has so much interpretation and simplification imposed on it when it's mentioned in the newspapers or on television that it's difficult to tell exactly what its provisions are. Well, go to the Lege's website, and you don't have to rely on inadequate news reports any more.

Today's Shoes

Edward Green split-toe double monkstraps in burnt pine antique (Fulham model, 82 last). This is a take-off of Edward Green's classic Dover blucher, which features the same pie crust-style apron handsewing and the same ghosted blind toe seam. Edward Green does this type of work better than anybody else in the world, and this is a wonderful shoe. I saw a picture of it in a Last, a Japanese magazine dedicated to shoes, and I decided that I had to have a pair. Tom Park, from LeatherSoul in Hawaii, liked it so well that he tacked on an order for himself. A friend who also has a thing for shoes decided that he couldn't bear to be left out, and he ordered a pair, too. Witness the power of Japanese shoe magazines! I have since seen the same model (also on 82 last but in cognac antique) at Venanzi in New York. I don't know if Gene Venanzi will end up making a go of that store, but he has great taste in shoes. ;->

Last Night's Tipple

Makers of Scotch would probably confirm that it is very difficult to sell their product at a premium price if it's less than twelve years old. There are exceptions, of course: Scotches like Talisker and Macallan can sell ten year old versions, but only because their reputations are so high. In the United States, at least, consumers tend to view age as a proxy for quality. To them, a twelve year old Scotch is necessarily better than a ten year old Scotch, and an eighteen year old Scotch is necessarily better than either of them.

This age-ism seems to have come to the world of Bourbon and other American whiskey. Van Winkle has 15, 20, and 23 year old versions. Heaven Hill has an 18 year old Bourbon sold under the Elijah Craig label. There's an AH Hirsch 16 and 20 year old Bourbon, a WL Weller 19 year old Bourbon, and a Sazerac 18 year old straight rye. And the number of brands that sell ten or twelve year old Bourbons is almost too large to list (Old Charter, WL Weller, Van Winkle, Elijah Craig, etc., etc., etc.). What's going on here? Kentucky isn't Scotland. It's much hotter, and the heat causes Bourbon and rye to age more quickly than Scotch. A twelve year old Bourbon is typically older than a twelve year old Scotch. Part of it is undoubtedly the overproduction of Bourbon in the '70s and '80s. Producers had more Bourbon than they could sell, so there were lots of barrels that just sat in their rickhouses aging. Eventually, the producers decided to bottle what they had and see how the market liked it. Well, the market loved it. And so longer-aged Bourbons are now a feature of the landscape. In the process, producers have discovered what Scotch producers discovered long ago: the older the stated age, the more they can sell the product for. American consumers associate older with better.

As a matter of fact, this isn't always the case. A Bourbon that has been aged too long will dry out and be overpowered by the wood. I recently had a taste of the Elijah Craig 18 year old, and it was like sucking on charcoal. It was not pleasant at all. And because of Kentucky's heat, it's a lot harder to get a drinkable 18 year old whiskey there than in Scotland. So what are Bourbon distillers to do? They want to sell old whiskey because they can do so at high prices, but they want to make it drinkable so that buyers will come back. Well, the answer is that age is not age. Whiskey ages differently depending on the kind of rickhouse it's in (masonry vs. steel-clad, heated vs. unheated, etc.) and where that rickhouse is (on the top of a hill, near a body of water, etc.). Older whiskeys like the Van Winkle 12 year old Family Reserve Bourbon typically come from barrels that are subject to less extreme temperature fluctuations, like, for example, those in the center of a rickhouse.

Originally, Bourbon bottled under this label was distilled at Stitzel-Weller. Alas, since the distillery closed in 1992, the stocks of 12 year old Bourbon distilled there expired a few years ago. What's in the bottle is now mostly distilled at Bernheim distillery in Lousiville, just like the Old Fitzgerald that I had on Tuesday. I might be imagining things, but nose of the Van Winkle shares a lot of the Crown Royal overtones that Old Fitz has. The difference is that the Van Winkle's nose develops into something else, with lots of vanilla and creme brulee and leather. Like the 15 year old Van Winkle, it's unctuous and extremely sweet. It's not as refined or as much of a dessert in a glass, though. That's okay: it's still excellent. As with any other Van Winkle product, buy it when you see it. There's not much to be had.

Wednesday Evening Movie Review

For the life of me, I don't understand why I have heard several media types call Knocked Up a sleeper hit. Anybody with a pulse who saw it before it was released could have predicted that it would make a lot of money. Maybe not Spiderman 3, Ari Gold hug-it-out-bitch money, but a lot of money. It stars a pretty young thing (Katherine Heigl) who I understand is also the star of a ridiculously successful television show. It's directed by the same guy (Judd Apatow) who directed The 40 Year Old Virgin, and it stars many of the same people (Paul Rudd, Seth Rogan, Leslie Mann, etc.). It's got a cute, feel-good plot. And it's very, very funny. As one could probably imagine from the title and the poster to the left, Alison Scott (Heigl) gets a promotion and goes out with her sister (Mann) to celebrate. There she meets Ben Stone, and the two consume an obscene amount of alcohol on the way to a one-night stand. Of course, she gets pregnant. Of course, he's an unemployed Canadian stoner illegally in the country with a bunch of similarly-situated friends. Of course, hilarity ensues. This might not be the greatest comedy of all time, but it was just the thing for a Wednesday night when I wasn't in the best of moods.

Today's Shoes

Day

Edward Green austerity brogues in burgundy antique (Beaulieu model, 888 last). These shoes differ from the Gravati shoes that I wore the other day in that the leather edges have been pinked (ie, a zig-zag pattern) on the Edward Green shoes but not on the Gravati. Pinking strengthens the leather edge, so the EG shoes have the toe cap and heel counter stitched to the vamp and quarter using a single row of stitching. Because the Gravati edges are not pinked, they have to have a double row of stitching.

Evening

JM Weston canonical demi-chasse blucher (Ref. 598) in tan.

Allow me to vent

The word "realtor" is not pronounced "ril-TOR". People who read advertisements on the radio should know this. Thanks for listening.

Last Night's Tipple

Bourbon distilleries are notorious for bottling products under the name of all-but-fictional distillery names. Knob Creek is not distilled by the Knob Creek Distillery; it's distilled by Jim Beam. Old Grand-Dad is not distilled by the Old Grand-Dad Distillery; it's also distilled by Jim Beam. And Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond is not distilled by the Old Fitzgerald Distillery. It has been distilled by many different companies, most recently by Heaven Hill. One nice thing about Bourbon that's bottled in bond, though, is that the law requires that the Distilled Spirits Producer (DSP) number of the producing and bottling distillery to be printed on the label. A company can invent whatever half-assed DBA name they want for their whiskey, but the DSP number is definitive. In the case of my bottle of Old Fitz BIB, the label says that it was distilled at DSP-KY-1 and bottled at DSP-KY-31. With a little research, I found that DSP-KY-1 is the Bernheim Distillery (owned by Heaven Hill) in Louisville and that DSP-KY-31 is the Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown. The Bardstown distillery burned in 1996, but Heaven Hill still has bonded warehouses and bottling facilities there. If you ever happen to see a bottle of Old Fitz or anything else with DSP-KY-16 on the label, buy it: that means that it was produced at the old Stitzel-Weller Distillery, which is renowned for its quality but which closed in 1992.

It's amazing how much Old Fitz BIB smells like Crown Royal: light vanilla and toffee aromas that are very appetizing. It has a lot more body than Crown Royal, though, and it has a lot more flavor, mostly something grainy and yeasty, but with some orange peel. It's also a good bit rough around the edges, which makes since because it's young and 100 proof. Not the best Bourbon in the world, but pretty good for $14 a fifth.

Today's Shoes

Day

Alden wing-tip high-lace boots in cigar shell cordovan on Plaza last. Alden is one of the two remaining American manufacturers of decent shoes (Allen-Edmonds is the other), and it is known far and wide as a shell cordovan specialist. In fact, shell cordovan is probably the reason that Alden is still in business. While almost all of the other American shoe manufacturers were either going bankrupt or moving their manufacturing offshore, Alden was busy turning its shell cordovan shoes into objects of adoration in Germany and Japan, where they can command prices almost twice as high as they can in the United States. This last little tidbit of information explains the business plan of Tom Park, proprietor of LeatherSoul in Hawaii. Hawaii gets oodles of Japanese tourists. Tom figured that if he sold shoes that the Japanese fetishized, like Alden and Edward Green, at full retail US prices, these Japanese tourists would think that they were getting fantastic bargains and would stock up. So far, it has worked very well for him. It doesn't hurt that he's a great guy who loves shoes and comes up with fantastic ideas like these Alden boots.

Evening

Santoni Goodyear-welted chukka boots in dark brown suede with a thick latex outsole (Neville model). Nice boots, and it was wet outside this evening.

I Get Letters

I received a letter yesterday from IBM marked "Urgent Message From IBM. Please Open Immediately." In pertinent part, it read:

We are writing because of an incident that has resulted in the loss of information relating to your IBM employment, and we wanted to inform you about what happened and explain steps IBM is taking to help protect you.

Recently, data tapes were lost while being transported by a vendor. Those tapes contained primarily archival IBM employment-related information, including Social Security numbers. After a thorough investigation of the incident, we have concluded that the tape loss was inadvertent and not associated with theft or any other unlawful activity. We have no indication that the personal information on the missing tapes, which are not the type that can be read by personal computer, has been accessed or has been used for any improper purpose. Nevertheless, IBM takes any loss of personal data very seriously and has taken steps to protect you and your data.

Ignore the irony of IBM claiming to take steps to protect me and my data when they contracted with a vendor that allowed tapes containing my Social Security number to fall off the back of a truck in Westchester County, New York (which is, in fact, what happened) and then waits almost four months to tell me about it. Ask not about why it is that companies only seem to take protecting sensitive personal data seriously after it has already been lost. Don't complain about how ridiculously inadequate IBM's response to this incident is (a year of ID theft monitoring from a company named Kroll, but only for those who choose to sign up). Instead, consider these two questions:

1. How many employees and former employees did IBM loose data for? IBM won't say "[i]n order not to impede any continuing investigative efforts." Of course, they'll have to disclose that once they get sued, and I'm sure that they will.
2. How in the heck did they find me? My employment with IBM was a long time ago in a state far, far away. I haven't exactly kept in touch. How did IBM get my current address?
   

Last Night's Tipple

There is a great divide in the Bourbon world between those Bourbons that use rye as a small grain in their mashbills (along with corn, which legally must be at least 51% of the mashbill but usually makes up a much higher percentage, and malted barley, which provides the enzymes necessary to convert the starches in the other grains to sugars that can then be fermented) and those Bourbons that use wheat as the small grain. Rye is a very assertive grain, and those Bourbons that use it typically have a "bite" that wheated Bourbons do not have. Instead, they're typically smooth and mellow. All wheated Bourbons -- and these include Old Fitzgerald, Maker's Mark, WL Weller, Rebel Yell, and others -- can trace their recipes back directly or indirectly to the old Stitzel-Weller distillery. This distillery came up with a wheated recipe for Old Fitzgerald and later applied it to various other brands. When Bill Samuels came looking for a good recipe for his proposed Maker's Mark brand, Julian "Pappy" Van Winkle II, who owned Stitzel-Weller, gave him his. Van Winkle sold Stitzel-Weller in 1972, but he retained the right to bottle and sell Stitzel-Weller Bourbon under the Old Rip Van Winkle label (and also labels with other permutations of the Van Winkle name). And that's exactly what Pappy and his son Julian Van Winkle III proceeded to do: they selected and bought barrels of Stitzel-Weller Bourbon, aged them at their own facility, and bottled and sold them under their own label. The Stitzel-Weller distillery had a number of owners after 1972, eventually passing to UDV (a predecessor company to today's Diageo), which shut it down in 1992 and sold the brands and the stocks of aging whiskey to Heaven Hill and Buffalo Trace. Julian Van Winkle, realizing that he had to have access to good whiskey in order for his brand to survive, entered into some sort of arrangement with Buffalo Trace under which they distribute his whiskey and he has access to their aging stocks to select the whiskey he bottles.

The Van Winkle whiskeys currently available are Old Rip Van Winkle 10 year old (a 90 proof version and a 107 proof version), Van Winkle Family Reserve 12 year old, Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye 13 year old, Pappy Van Winkle 15 year old, Pappy Van Winkle 20 year old, and Pappy Van Winkle 23 year old. All of the Pappy Van Winkle Bourbons are still made from Stitzel-Weller whiskey, although that's going to end soon for the 15 year old. The Old Rip Van Winkle and Van Winkle Family Reserve Bourbons are made from wheated Bourbons distilled at Buffalo Trace or Heaven Hill's Bernheim distillery (although both may have a stray barrel of Stitzel-Weller thrown in).

Since the Pappy Van Winkle 20 and 23 year old versions are extremely expensive and difficult to find, I contented myself with the 15 year old. It's amazing. There's vanilla, butterscotch, maple syrup, and bread pudding on the nose. It's unctuous and extremely sweet, which I don't get from very many Bourbons. There's also some orange peel and creme brulee. And it's still alive: it's not dried out or woody, as could happen with American whiskey this old. I wish I could find more. It's simply outstanding and probably the best Bourbon I've ever had.

Today's Shoes

Day

Edward Green half-brogue bals in chestnut antique (Cadogan model, 202 last). Purchased at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York after a long day walking, which caused me to get the E width rather than the D. These would be better-looking shoes if they were the narrower width. Of course, they would be better-looking shoes if they were on 82 last instead of 202, too.

Evening

Continuing the theme of Saks-New York Edward Green purchases, monkstrap ankle boots in dark oak antique (Olney model, 606 last). These are both great-looking and unusual, and they would be perfect if they were about an inch taller. Either that or a half an inch lower. As it is, they hit my ankles right at the bone, which can be irritating.

Liquor Abecedary

This was originally going to be just whiskeys, but you try coming up with a whiskey that starts with the letter X.

Aberfeldy
Bowmore
Crown Royal
Dalwhinnie
Edradour
Four Roses
Glenlivet
Highland Park
IW Harper
Jim Beam
Knob Creek
Lot 40
Macallan
Noah's Mill
Old Forester
Pappy Van Winkle
Quintessential
Redbreast
Scapa
Talisker
Usher's Green Stripe
Virginia Gentleman
WL Weller
XO
Yamazaki
Zapopan

Last Night's Tipple

Believe it or not, doctors used to prescribe whiskey for medicinal purposes. More than one distillery was able to stay open during Prohibition by making and selling medicinal Bourbon to doctors. It was because of this medicinal market that Old Forester Bourbon came to be. George Garvin Brown and his half-brother, John Thompson Street Brown, were well-aware of the problems with whiskey adulteration that the Bottled In Bond Act was later passed to address. They figured that if they sold Bourbon in sealed glass bottles with a guarantee of authenticity, they would find a ready market amongst the doctors of the country. Because of the expense of bottles before the invention of an automatic bottle-making machine in 1903, it was unlikely that ordinary members of the general public would buy it; but George Garvin Brown must have figured that the medical market was large enough for him to make a good deal of money. Old Forester was first sold in 1870, and it was the first bottled Bourbon. Brown's company, which became Brown-Forman, today not only sells Old Forester Bourbon but also owns Jack Daniel's and Early Times, two of the largest-selling whiskeys in the world.

Brown-Forman releases a limited bottling of specially-selected Bourbon every year in honor of George Garvin Brown's birthday, called, amazingly enough, Old Forester Birthday Bourbon. My bottle was distilled in the fall of 1990 and bottled in 2003 at 89 proof. It's a very robust Bourbon, with powerful aromas of creme brulee and vanilla. Its palate is spicy and full-bodied, with a good dose of candied orange peel. A nice Bourbon, even if the bottle is annoying.

Today's Shoes

Gravati austerity brogues in larice (chestut brown) Lama (14953, last 640). No, the shoes to the left are not the shoes I'm wearing today, although I do own a pair of them, too. I included the picture to illustrate what an austerity brogue is: a wing-tip bal, only without any of the broguing (punching) that one typically sees on such a shoe. The story is that austerity brogues originated in Great Britain during World War I as a war-time measure to save leather: on a wing-tip with broguing, there has to be a piece of leather underneath the entirety of the wing cap so that the holes and backed by a finished piece of leather and don't look silly. Not so an austerity brogue: the piece of leather comprising the vamp can end just past where it is stitched to the wing cap. How much leather this would have saved, I don't know. I can't imagine that it would have been very much, especially since no self-respecting Briton would have worn a wing-tip in town anyway. The shoes that I'm wearing today comprise my other pair of Goodyear-welted Gravatis. These were a special order, and the only thing that I regret is having them made on the 640 last. Something narrower like the 500 would have been better. Alas.

Operation Roundup

In his comment about my D-Day post earlier in the week, Ben asks:

Do you have an opinion on how successful a 1943 landing would have been? It's a highly politicized question hinging largely around wartime russophilia, but it came up lately on alt.books.george-orwell and I realized I had no idea whether it had even been an option.

In commenting about counter-factuals, one should bear in mind what David Hackett Fischer has to say about the Fallacy of Fictional Questions (Historians' Fallacies, pp. 15-21):

There is nothing necessarily fallacious in fictional constructs, as long as they are properly recognized for what they are and are clearly distinguished from empirical problems... Fictional questions can also be heuristically useful to historians, somewhat in the manner of metaphors and analogies, for the ideas and inferences which they help to suggest. But they prove nothing and can never be proved by an empirical method. All historical "evidence" for what might have happened if [John Wilkes] Booth had missed his mark is necessarily taken from the world in which he hit it. there is no way to escape this fundamental fact.

In other words, this is an interesting question, but there is nothing definitive or even convincing that can be argued about it.

That having been said, let's start with a little background. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Dwight Eisenhower, as chief of the War Plans department, proposed that the United States adopt an offensive posture in one theater and a defensive one everywhere else. He believed that the offensive theater ought to be Europe and that the United States and Great Britain ought to plan for a cross-Chanel invasion of France with 48 divisions on or before April 1, 1943. The codename for this proposed operation was Roundup. In the event that the Soviet Union appeared to be on the verge of collapse before that date, Eisenhower proposed a smaller invasion with five divisions in the fall of 1942 (codename Sledgehammer). The Europe First strategy that Eisenhower proposed did not endear him to Douglas MacArthur or to the US Navy, both of which wanted the emphasis to be on the Pacific theater; but George Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the US Army, adopted Eisenhower's arguments, and he convince President Roosevelt to adopt them, too.

The British government, however, was not enthusiastic at all for a cross-channel invasion. They were worried about the cost in men and materiel, and they consequently preferred a strategy of attacking the Germans around the periphery of their empire. This had the effect of them dedicating resources to North Africa to protect the Suez Canal and their route to India. Initially, the British agreed to go along with the American plan, but later in 1942, they reneged on their commitments to it. The Americans then agreed to invade French North Africa, and Operation Torch was born. The diversion of American and British resources to the North African campaign and later to the invasion of Sicily and the Italian mainland in 1943 essentially ended all possibility of a cross-channel invasion in that year and set the stage for the Operation Overlord planning for an invasion in 1944.

So what would have happened if the British and Americans had attempted a cross-channel invasion in 1943? I don't know, and neither does anyone else. Such an invasion would have implied the abandonment of the invasion of Sicily and Italy, since the Western Allies did not have enough men and materiel to do both. In all probability, it would have also implied that they did not attempt the Torch landings in 1942. That would have meant that the men and commanders in both armies but particularly the American one, would have completely lacked experience when they landed on the beaches of France. The paratroop drops during Overlord weren't an example of anything other than what not to do, but they were still better than the fiasco during the Sicilian campaign. The North African, Sicilian, and Italian landings were smaller scale than what was attempted during Overlord, but they gave staffs experience in planning such things and the Navy practice in getting the men and equipment on shore. They wouldn't have had that experience if the cross-channel invasion were undertaken in 1943.

More than the experience, the Allies wouldn't have had the same resources available if they had attempted the landings in 1943. Sufficient numbers of specialized landing craft had not been built then. The P51 Mustang, which gave the Allies air superiority over Western Europe, did not enter service until early 1944. The number of trained personnel that the US Army had available in 1943 was significantly smaller than it was in 1944. The incredible buildup of supplies that preceded the 1944 invasion would not have been nearly as far along if the invasion had taken place in 1943. And then there is the incredible deception campaign that the British and Americans conducted prior to the 1944 invasion. It succeeded so well that Hitler was convinced for days after the Normandy landings that they were a diversion. The confusion that the deception campaign sowed among the Germans kept German reinforcements off the battlefield until the Allies could consolidate and secure their beachheads. That deception campaign would not have had a chance to work if the invasion had taken place in 1943.

Finally, there is the question of the German Army. It is true that the Germans took advantage of the year between the spring of 1943 and the spring of 1944 to build and strengthen the Atlantic Wall of fortifications and that these fortifications made the invasion more problematic. Still, the Allies managed to breach those fortifications with relatively little loss of life within hours of the landings. More important was the fact that they were facing a German Army that had been depleted by another year of fighting against the Soviets. It is true that the Germans were preparing for the Kursk offensive in the spring of 1943 and consequently had fewer men immediately available then on the Western front than they would have to face Overlord, but the German Army in 1943 had more and better men than it did in 1944.

All of these considerations lead me to conclude that a cross-channel invasion in 1943 would have stood less (and probably considerably less) chance of success than Operation Overlord did in 1944. Ultimately, this conclusion is impossible to prove or even to justify satisfactorily but I think that it is accurate nonetheless.

It's Called Rum, Vijay

With a population of more than a billion people, rapidly rising prosperity, and a more and more Western popular culture, India represents a tremendous opportunity for Western companies, particularly those that manufacture or sell consumer products. One problem for them has typically been that India's trade policies since independence have been resolutely protectionist. Although that has changed somewhat in recent years, protectionist tariffs still represent a considerable barrier to entry. Take, for example, liquor: import duties on foreign liquor can be up to 550% ad valorem. At that rate, even the cheapest American or Scottish rotgut would cost $40 or more a fifth in India, and the price for decent liquor like Johnnie Walker Black Label could easily be over $100 a fifth. Friday's Wall Street Journal has a front page article ("Western Liquor Makers Eye Rich Indian Market") that explores the potential and the problems of the Indian market for big Western spirits companies like Diageo (which owns Johnnie Walker and many other liquor brands), Pernod Ricard (Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Ballantine's, etc.), and Fortune Brands (Jim Beam, Laphroaig, Dalmore, etc.).

Problem #1 is the aforementioned exclusionary tariff rate. Problem #2 is a traditional antipathy to alcohol by both Muslims and Hindus, who make up the vast majority of India's population. Gandhi famously disliked liquor, and his home state of Gujarat still bans it. Nationwide prohibition was attempted as recently as 1977, and alcohol advertising is still completely banned. Problem #3 is Vijay Mallya, whose United Spirits company has a stranglehold on the Indian spirits market (his beer company, Kingfisher, likewise has the lion's share of the Indian beer market). Modernization has helped to break down the anti-alcohol taboos in India, particularly in the cities, and Mallya and his company have been very successful at grabbing market share through Western-style marketing and distribution practices. If the Western spirits companies succeed in getting Indian liquor tariffs repealed or reduced, they're still going to have to deal with Mallya.

All of this is very interesting, but there were two sentences in the article that was almost an aside that caught my attention:

Indian whiskies are usually made of sugar-cane molasses, and can be bitter. Western whisky is made of grains.

We have a name for a distilled spirit made from a mash of sugar cane and/or molasses. It's called rum. There is nothing wrong with rum, and, when properly made, it can be sublime (Ron Zecapa Centenario 23 year old is an example of a sublime rum). But it is not whiskey. It is not better or worse for not being whiskey; it's simply a different category. Beer can be wonderful. So can wine. But beer is not wine, and wine is not beer. United Spirits wants to call their rum whisky because whisky apparently has more prestige in India than does rum. Well, tough. It must be made from grain to be called whisky. Calling a molasses distillate whisky twists the meaning of the word so severely that it can no longer be said to have any meaning. For shame, Vijay Mallya!

Last Night's Tipple

Jim Beam bottles three expressions of Old Gran-Dad Bourbon: the 114 proof version, which I have previously written about, the 86 proof version, and the 100 proof version. In addition, Basil Hayden's, one of Jim Beam's Small Batch Bourbon Collection, is made from the Old Grand-Dad mashbill and is named for the man who was the original Old Grand-Dad. As you can see from looking at the picture to the right, the 100 proof version has the word "bonded" in big letters at the top of the label. In addition, in small letters at the bottom of the label, it also says that it is "bottled in bond under supervision of U.S. Gov't". What exactly does that mean, you may be asking yourself.

In the 19th Century, whiskey was shipped in barrels. The distiller would sell barrels of his product to a wholesaler, who would typically "rectify" the spirit contained therein by adding other whiskeys, flavorings, and sometimes adulterants to make the resulting product more palatable to his customers or more profitable to him. He would then sell the whiskey to retail customers, typically bars and saloons. The problem with this system was that fraud and other abuses were rampant. A wholesaler's salesman would have tasting bottles to give retail customers some idea of what they would be buying in barrel, but there was no guarantee that what the customer tasted and ordered would be what he actually got. Furthermore, less scrupulous wholesalers would add all manner of noxious and dangerous adulterants to the whiskey to make it look and taste better. In response to this problem, the US Congress passed the Bottled In Bond Act in 1897, which provided that whiskey distillers (and distillers of other spirits, as well) could set up bonded aging warehouses supervised by the US Government. Whiskey from those warehouses could then be bottled, and the bottles could carry the Bottled In Bond designation and the statement that it had been bottled under government supervision. In order to qualify, the whiskey had to be straight (ie, distilled from a mash at least 51% of a particular grain and without the addition of grain neutral spirits), aged for at least four years, and bottled at 100 proof (exactly 100 proof, not at least 100 proof). Furthermore, it had to be made at one distillery (identified by number on the label) in one season (spring or fall of a particular year). These provisions gave assurance to consumers that the whiskey contained in bottles so labeled had not been adulterated and conformed to minimum standards. The act, and the invention of a bottle-making machine in 1903, revolutionized the American whiskey industry. Since there are now other legal definitions of what characteristics a whiskey has to have to be called Straight Bourbon, and since the American consumer largely prefers his liquor at a proof lower than 100, there aren't a whole lot of Bottled In Bond Bourbons out there anymore. The Old Grand-Dad is one of maybe three or four Bottled In Bond offerings that I saw recently at my friendly neighborhood liquor superstore.

Because of its rye-heavy mashbill, Old Grand-Dad is not like any other Bourbon that I have tasted. There's a lot of grainy spiciness on the nose that I associate with the rye content. There's also a good deal of cinnamon and cloves. Surprisingly, since this Bourbon supposedly spends around six years in barrel before bottling, there's not much char or vanilla, even after it has been in the glass for a while. On the palate, there is some of the cinnamon that I noticed in the 114 proof version, but it's mostly a savory yeasty, bready taste. That might not sound particularly appetizing, but it is. Blame the writer, not the whiskey. Old Grand-Dad is a distinctive American whiskey and a legitimate classic. I'm glad that Jim Beam has preserved the brand and its recipe despite the fact that it long ago ceased to be a top-seller.

Today's Shoes

Vass half-brogue bals in cognac Scotch grain calf on Peter last. The closed lacing may make you think of a formal shoe, but the pebble grain, the color, the last, and the double soles all conspire to make this a shoe that's perfectly appropriate with jeans. The medallion, which overlaps the edges of the toe cap and goes almost all the way down to the sole, is a hallmark of central European shoemaking.

Last Night's Tipple

After tasting some Jim Beam Black Label on Thursday night, I thought that it might be interesting to contrast it with another Jim Beam product, Knob Creek 9 year old Bourbon. Knob Creek is another of the four Bourbons in Jim Beam's Small Batch Bourbon Collection, and it's the cheapest, most heavily-promoted, and most readily-available of them. It has one year of age and 7% alcohol on the Jim Beam Black, which would lead one to think that the two would be very similar given that they have the same mashbill, are distilled using the same methods, and are aged in identical barrels with identical char levels in the same warehouses.

And there are elements to both that are in fact very similar. Both have the orange peel flavor that I alluded to yesterday, and both are a little rough around the edges -- the JB Black more so, which is surprising given that it's lower in alcohol. Neither one ever evidenced much of the vanilla that is so common in Bourbon, even after a long time in the glass. But there are a lot of differences, too: where the JB Black's dominant aroma was char, Knob Creek's is maple syrup and brown sugar. In fact, there's not much char to be found in Knob Creek at all. Too, there is much more alcohol on the nose with Knob Creek than with JB Black. This is logical given Knob Creek's higher proof, but I haven't noticed it so much with other Bourbons of similar age and strength. Wild Turkey Rare Breed, for example, which is about 8 years old and bottled at 108.2 proof, doesn't burn my nostrils when I smell it like Knob Creek does. Some of the alcohol blows off of the Knob Creek with some time in the glass, but it's not that pleasant to smell at first.

I first bought Knob Creek several years ago, and it didn't really do much for me. I thought that it was rough, and it didn't have the flavors that I like in Bourbon. It took me a long time to finish that bottle, and I didn't think that I would buy any more when I did. What can I say? My will is weak, but I'm not sorry that I caved and bought this bottle. It's not my favorite Bourbon by a long shot, but it's not bad -- certainly better than the JB Black. It's also an example of how two whiskeys can be made and aged in exactly the same way and have significantly different characters. Every barrel is different, and this fact is what allows distilleries to have lots of different brands that all taste differently out of a warehouse of whiskey that was all made in the same way from the same recipe.

This Week's Grocery Store News

Wednesday's Wall Street Journal contained a couple of interesting articles about the grocery business. Unfortunately for this post, the WSJ's website isn't free, so I can't link to them. But I won't let that stop me! (As an aside, the WSJ is just about the only newspaper I know of that has been successful at charging for access to their website. There really is no "across the street" from the Wall Street Journal.)

The first story, starting on the first page of the Marketplace section, is entitled "Not Copying Wal-Mart Pays Off for Grocers."

Earlier this decade, the hidebound supermarket business was expected to fall before Wal-Mart's aggressive supercenter rollout and the rise of membership clubs like Costco Wholesale Corp. and high-end specialty chains like Whole Foods Market, Inc. Many chains did collapse -- 26 filed for bankruptcy earlier this decade, unable to match the falling prices of their better-run rivals -- and a wave of consolidation swept the business. But the survivors rallied by redesigning stores, introducing a more relaxed shopping experience and marrying low-priced staples with higher-margin breads, meats and wine. ow, the stronger chains like Kroger Co. and SuperValu, Inc. are taking market share from weaker, often regional grocers.

Well, of course. It may be possible to compete with Wal-Mart on the basis of price, but it's not likely that such a strategy will succeed. Wal-Mart is more efficient than any of its rivals, often by a wide margin. They have been squeezing efficiencies out of their processes for years, and they are very, very good at it. Competing with them on price plays to their strength. Instead, the smart competitors compete with Wal-Mart on the basis of things that Wal-Mart isn't good at, like offering clean, non-claustrophobic stores that have many unusual items.

The second article, entitled "FTC Deals Setback to Whole Foods", says on page A3 that

[t]he Federal Trade Commission, which said yesterday it plans to file a lawsuit as soon as today in a Wachington federal court to block Whole Foods from purchasing Whole Oats [Markets Inc., a Colorado-based organic food market chain] for $565 million, said the combination would reduce competition and quality and raise prices. It is taking the position that the natural- and organic-foods market is distinct from the wider grocery market.

This strikes me as being an unsound argument. In the first place, it's not the case that Whole Foods is a "natural- and organic-foods market." It is true that they like to portray themselves as being such and that they carry lots of natural and organic foods. But it would be more accurate to call them a high-end specialty market that carries significantly more natural and organic products than a typical grocery store. There are too many non-natural and non-organic on the shelves to argue otherwise with a straight face. In the second place, has anybody at the FTC been to main-stream grocery store in an affluent neighborhood? Have they seen the mountain of natural and organic products that can be had at a Super Kroger. Whole Foods is not fundamentally different from Super Kroger. The difference between them is a matter of degrees. Wild Oats isn't Whole Foods' real competition. Super Kroger is. Whole Foods buying Wild Oats does very little to alter the competitive landscape.

Today's Shoes

Gravati split-toe bluchers in larice (deep chestnut) Lama calfskin (16532, last 655). These shoes are interesting for two reasons. First, they're not standard split-toe bluchers. They have only four eyelets, and the pieces of leather containing the eyelets are attached to the vamp/quarter panel with a reversed seam that runs all the way to the heel of the shoe. Second, they're Goodyear-welted, which Gravati typically does not do. Most of their shoes are Bologna- or Blake-constructed.

Last Night's Tipple

Jim Beam likes to make a lot about its history. On the side of its bottles, there are line drawings of six generations of Beams, back to Jacob Beam, who, the company likes to claim, made the first Beam Bourbon in 1795. On the Beam website, prominent mention is given to the "Seven Generations of Distillers" (the seventh being Frank Noe, the late Beam Master Distiller Booker Noe's son, who now has the title of associate distiller at Beam). Marketing fluff makes mention of the Beam recipe being unchanged since Jacob Beam made the first barrel back in 1795. And on and on. Most of this is simply mythologizing. If Beam were making their whiskey the same way that Jacob Beam made it in 1795, they couldn't legally call it Bourbon (because it probably wasn't aged and certainly not in charred new oak barrels) and you probably wouldn't want to drink it (because it would resemble modern moonshine more than modern Bourbon). Those seven generations of distillers? Well, you'd have to take out at least three of those generations. Jim Beam (the man) was on the business side of the house; his brother Park did the distilling, and Parker is not mentioned. Park's offspring currently are distillers at Heaven Hill Distillery, not at Beam. Jim's son Jeremiah likewise was on the business side of the company, not the distilling side. And Frank Noe is primarily a Beam company spokesman who apparently only has the title associate distiller to add to the marketing.

In fact, the Beam family has a long history of whiskey- and Bourbon-making, dating back to, yes, Jacob Beam. Jim and Park Beam owned the operation in the early 20th Century, and their flagship product was called Old Tub. When Prohibition came into force, the Beam brothers sold the distillery. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, a number of investors bankrolled Jim Beam in setting up a new distillery, and Jim Beam, the brand, was born. Jim Beam, the man, had no ownership interest in the new distillery: he was simply the front man.

None of this is to say that Beam can't make great Bourbon. They can, as evidenced by, for example, Baker's, which can hold its own with any Bourbon in the world. Beam introduced the 8 year old Black Label in the late '80s or early '90s, at least partially, I think, to compete with Jack Daniel's -- the bottles, labels, and prices are similar. The whiskey inside those bottles isn't bad. At first, the nose is all charcoal. With time in the glass, it evolves into something more pleasant, with some vanilla and butterscotch and at some times simply savory butter. It tastes a lot like orange peel, without a whole lot of the sweetness that one typically finds in older Bourbons. It's not bad. I don't know if it would be my first choice in the price category ($17.50 a fifth), but there is something to be said for consistency and reliability, both of which Beam in all its incarnations has in spades.

Name of the Day

I'm watching The First 48 on A&E (I know, I know; save the wisecracks about my TV-watching preferences), and one of the suspects is named Royal Cola. I kid you not.

Thursday Evening Movie Review

The Netflix DVD sleeve for The Postman Always Rings Twice plays up the controversy that the movie generated when it was released in 1946, saying that "although the sex scenes were watered down to conform to industry standards, the movie was still considered shocking for its time". Well, that's a bit misleading. There are no real sex scenes in the movie. There are only kissing scenes. It turns out that the controversy was over the fact that male lead John Garfield apparently used his tongue in one of the kissing scenes with Lana Turner.

And why is Garfield's Frank Chambers kissing Turner's Cora Smith? Why, because he's young, handsome, and dangerous; and she's bored by her loveless marriage to Nick (Cecil Kellaway), a man old enough to be her father. Frank Chambers is a drifter who gets a job at the Smiths' roadside lunch counter-cum-motel and promptly begins to put the moves on Cora. Cora responds to them soon enough. This being film noir (the novel upon which this movie was based was written by James M. Cain, who also wrote Double Indemnity, which was made into another film noir classic), the next step is that they begin to plan Nick's murder, both so that they can be together and so they can continue to operate the Smith's business. I won't give away the rest of the story for those who haven't seen in and want to, but suffice it to say that it includes bungling plotters, clumsy cats, unscrupulous lawyers, and blackmailing private investigators.

This was an enjoyable movie. The plot is entertaining and engrossing, although there are parts where it is a bit thin. The acting is good, particularly that done by Hume Cronyn, who plays one of the aforementioned unscrupulous lawyers. Lana Turner is beautiful, and there is a good deal of sexual tension despite the lack of actual sex scenes. What's not to like?

Today's Shoes

Day

Cleverley bespoke half-brogue balmoral in British tan calf. A balmoral (in the British sense of the word "balmoral") is an oxford (ie, closed-laced) shoe where the vamp/quarter seam runs parallel to the ground from the throat all the way to the heel of the shoe. The shoe to the right is identical to mine, only in suede instead of calf. This style of shoe is also called a galosh. It derives from the original balmoral boot of the late 19th Century, which was a high boot with the same vamp/quarter seam, only with canvas above the seam instead of leather. The boot also buttoned instead of lacing. It was the most correct footwear for daytime formal wear up until the 1930s, after which it began to fall into disuse.

Evening

Moreschi tobacco suede and chestnut calf penny loafer driving mocs. It's hot out, and I don't feel like wearing socks.

Last Night's Tipple

Scotch whisky was transformed from a regional specialty to the most popular spirit in the world in the second half of the 19th century by blenders who realized two things: first, that many malt Scotches were too strongly-flavored to appeal to a mass audience and second, that many malt Scotches didn't have the consistency necessary to make them successful brands. In other words, when a consumer buys a bottle of Brand X whisky, he expects it to taste like the last bottle of Brand X that he bought. There was too much variation in the quality and flavor of different barrels of many malt Scotches for that to be the case. Blenders would buy Scotch in barrel from many different distilleries and blend it (sometimes) with grain whiskies that were more mildly flavored, and sell the resulting product under their own label. Their products were smoother and had more mass appeal than single malts and, more importantly, the blending process insured that bottle after bottle of their Scotches tasted the same. Many of these blenders were Scottish grocers, and the most famous of these were Johnnie Walker and the Chivas brothers. (As an aside, at one time, the Chivas brothers' grocery store was known as the Harrods of Scotland.) Not as famous, but still prominent, was Matthew Gloag, whose store was in Perth. He called his blend The Famous Grouse, and today it is the eighth best-selling blended Scotch in the world.

In addition to their various Scotch blends, The Famous Grouse also has a number of vatted malt Scotches. A vatted malt is produced from all malt whisky (ie, no grain whisky blended in) but from various different distilleries. The Famous Grouse 12 year old vatted malt's label says that among the distilleries used are Highland Park and Macallan, but I'm sure that there are many more than that: blenders typically use dozens of malts for each of their blends, and I would imagine that they would do the same for their vatted products. In any event, the Macallan character is more prevalent than the Highland Park character in this product. It is malty, smooth, and has sherry overtones. It tastes like a nice sherried Speyside single malt, and I would imagine that that's mostly what goes into it. A very enjoyable dram for a very good price.

(And yes, that picture is of a mini, not a full 750 ml. bottle. It's the only decent picture that I could find.)

D-Day

On this day in 1944, elements of General Sir Bernard Montgomery's 21st Army Group of the Allied Expeditionary Forces landed in Normandy, thus beginning Operation Overlord. In honor of the men who fought and died that day, consider watching Band Of Brothers, HBO's miniseries based on Stephen Ambrose's book of the same name about Company E of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. The 101st Airborne dropped into Normandy on the night of June 6th ahead of the Allied landings and fought extensively until the German surrender, most notably at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Band Of Brothers is the finest film treatment of World War II that I have ever seen. It is extremely realistic, and it honors the bravery of the men who fought without being sentimental or mythologizing them. The episode dealing with D-Day is #2 ("Day of Days"), but all of them are worth watching. Oddly enough, the book is worse than worthless. It's poorly-written, poorly-researched, and falls into the hero-worship and mythologizing that the miniseries avoids.

Today's Shoes

Day

Vass punch cap high-lace blucher boots in tobacco suede on F last. Yes, I know that suede is supposed to be worn in fall and winter and that high-lace boots might not be the coolest footwear in the summer, but I like them. F last is round-toe last that Vass developed for the ready-to-wear shoes that they make for Roberto Ugolini, a Florentine bespoke cordwainer (U last is the square-toe last developed for the same purpose). It is one of the best round-toe lasts out there, along with Edward Green's 82 and Gaziano & Girling's DG70.

Evening

Crockett & Jones split-toe blucher with hand-sewn apron and toe-seam in tan pebble-grain calf (Cornhill model, 330 last). This is C&J's version of the quintessential Edward Green chasse model, the Dover. The hand-sewing isn't as well-done as it is on the Dover, but that isn't surprising: no hand-sewing on ready-to-wear shoes is as well-done as it is on the Dover. These shoes were a very good bargain, but the last doesn't fit me particularly well, thus proving the adage that price is irrelevant once something is in your closet.

Last Night's Tipple

The Highland Park Distillery on the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland was founded in 1798 by Scottish preacher named Magnus Eunson. Since distilleries weren't legal under any circumstances in Scotland until the 1820s, he was also a bootlegger. Unlike many illegal distilleries, it managed the transition into a legally-licensed entity successfully, and the whisky that it produces has been well-regarded for over a century.

The 12 year-old bottling is Highland Park's entry-level offering, at least in the United States; but it is in no way ordinary. If someone who had never had any Scotch wanted to experience both its breadth and its essence, he should try HP 12. It's smoky, but not overpoweringly so like an Islay. It has the honeyed sweetness that one associates with the Highlands and the smoothness associated with Speyside. There's even a hint of brininess, which is a hallmark of island whiskies. If there is a better 12 year old Scotch, I don't know what it might be. If someone doesn't like Highland Park 12, chances are that he will not like any Scotch. It's fantastically good, and at around $32 a fifth in Houston, it's extremely reasonably-priced.

Incidentally, Highland Park has changed its packaging recently to what you see above. The bottle is now flask-shaped and the lettering is intended to evoke the late 19th Century. This is appropriate because the late 19th Century was the golden age of Scotch whisky. Many of the prominent distilleries of today were founded during the period, and the giants of Scotch blending like Johnnie Walker and Tommy Dewar (yes, they were actual people before they were international brands) turned what had been a regional spirit into the national drink of Great Britain and the spirit of choice of the entire British Empire (and assorted other locales around the world). The Scottish have been distilling for hundreds of years, but Scotch did not assume a form that would be recognizable to us today until the second half of the 19th Century.

Oil

For today's economics lesson, consider this fact: oil is fungible. Well, not perfectly fungible, but mostly so. It may be that some crude oil is better than others, but refineries can make gasoline and the other petroleum distillates from bad crude as well as good. Because oil is fungible and because a world-wide market for oil exists, it doesn't matter much where the oil we use comes from. If there is a significant disruption in the supply of oil produced anywhere, prices will rise here. Even if the United States produced 100% of the oil that it needed. This is why (or at least one of the reasons why) people who blather on about energy independence either don't know what they're talking about or have other agendas that they choose not to discuss.

Today's Shoes

Day

Cleverley bespoke side-elastic shoes with handsewn apron in burgundy calf. George Cleverley's trademark shoe model was a side-elastic shoe. Tony Gaziano, formerly a lastmaker at Cleverley and Edward Green and now one of the principals in Gaziano & Girling, tells me that that was partially out of laziness. On side-elastic shoes, the last doesn't have to be as perfect because the elastic gores will cause the vamp of the shoe to conform to the foot even when the fit is slightly off. This may be true, but side-elastic shoes are tremendously useful. They can be made in just about any style that a lace-up shoe can be made in, and they're just about as formal as the equivalent lace-up shoe. But because they have no laces, they're easy on and easy off (a useful feature when traveling by air). More than that, they're more comfortable because there are no laces to dig into the wearer's instep. And you don't have to worry about the laces coming untied.

Evening

Vass wingtip bluchers in burgundy shell cordovan on Banana last. Shell cordovan is a leather tanned from a subcutaneous membrane in the rump of a horse. It's very tough and weather-resistant, but it's known and loved by many because of the patina it takes on with age. It is not very porous, which means that dyes do not permeate it very thoroughly. With wear and buffing, regions of a shoe made from shell cordovan will lighten, giving the shoe an attractive variegated appearance. Shell cordovan also takes an outstanding shine. Traditionally, it was used for razor strops and laborers' shoes; but its status rose immeasurably after it was used for US Army paratroopers' jump boots in World War II. Burgundy shell cordovan (usually called Color #8) is by far the most common, but one can get it in black, dark brown, mahogany, tan, blue, green, and other colors. Horween, based in Chicago, is by far the best tanner of shell cordovan; and all high-quality shell cordovan shoes use Horween material. Mr. Vass does not like to work with the stuff because it is easy to split when being lasted, but he really has no choice: Germany is an extremely important market for him, and the Germans love shell cordovan.

Last Night's Tipple

Canadian Whisky (whisky spelled without the "e", as it is for Scotch) is almost always blended. In this context, it means that "flavoring" straight whiskies, which are distilled off at less than 160 proof and consequently have lots of the congeners that give spirits their flavors, have been blended with other, lighter whiskies that have been distilled to a high proof, high enough that the spirits are nearly neutral. (As an aside, both vodka and gin are made from grain neutral spirits, which means that the mash used to make the spirit is grain-based but that it is distilled to such a high proof -- 190 proof or thereabouts -- that it retains none of the character of the mash. The light whiskies used in Canadian blending aren't quite neutral, but they're close.) The result is a whisky that is light in body and subtle in flavor.

Wiser's DeLuxe 10 year old Canadian Whisky is distilled by the Hiram Walker & Sons distillery in Ontario. Hiram Walker's flagship brand is Canadian Club. Wiser's is more of specialty brand, but it still is very much a Canadian Whisky: light in body, subtle in flavor. So subtle, in fact, that it doesn't taste like much of anything. There are just some pleasant hints of vanilla on the nose and some pleasant hints of walnuts on the palate. There just wasn't a whole lot of anything in this whisky. I can't say that it was bad, but I think that I prefer something more robustly-flavored.

Good on you, Alex

Alexander Kabbaz is one of the best custom shirtmakers in the world. I say "one of the best" instead of "the best" out of inborn caution, not because I can think of any or even conceive of any who are better. Alex has great technical skill and an excellent eye, but that's not what makes him so good. It's the fact that he is intolerant of imperfection. Most shirtmakers will cut the first shirt in an order as a sample, make a few adjustments, and declare success. Not Alex. He makes a muslin fitting shirt (not really muslin but ugly mustard-colored broadcloth). It fact, he makes muslin fitting shirts again and again and again until the fit it perfect (his definition of perfect, not the client's: his definition is much more exacting than that of any of his clients). Then and only then does he cut the order. The construction is impeccable. I have never seen better at any price. He matches patterns at both the shoulders and the plackets. I know of no other maker who systematically matches the plackets. He is willing to try anything. If you wanted a shirt made of Kevlar, he would make it. Old-fashioned nightshirts? No problem. If you can imagine it, he can make it. And it will be perfect, or it will be fixed. Not fixed well enough so that all but the pickiest clients would shut up about it. Fixed. I have two shirts that Alex made for me. I wish that I could have more, but his prices are as high as his shirts are excellent. I would quickly go broke.

Alex has been selling his clients underwear, socks, and other accessories for many years, both as a service for his clients and to increase his sales. A few years ago, he figured that he might as well see if he could sell some on the Web, so he put up a site and began to take orders. Business has exploded. He is one of the largest retailers of Zimmerli underwear, and he sells more Pantherella seasonal socks than anyone in the United States. This has been a mixed blessing: sure, the business has been good, but his website hasn't really been much help to him. The entire process of order fulfillment was largely manual, and the fact that he was only set up to take Paypal cost him sales. And so he embarked on a modernization project: new server, new software, new processors, new methods of payment (credit cards and Google Checkout). He did the migration on Saturday night, and it has been successful. Two things about this amaze me: it was a tremendous amount of work, and it required a great deal of technical savvy that Alex didn't have when he started the process. He taught himself what he needed to know, and he did the work (along with his lovely and talented wife Joelle Kelly and their ever-resourceful assistant Monika) without allowing either his custom shirt business or his existing accessory business to suffer. It's a tremendous improvement, and I think that it will explode an business that is already exploding. He certainly deserves for it to do so.

(And, if you're looking to buy ridiculously expensive socks, go for the Sea Island ones. Sure, the cashmere ones are more decadent, but they'll wear out in a few wearings. Plus, it's way too hot for cashmere this time of year. And the pictured socks from Marcoliani are also nice, if not as nice as the Pantherella Sea Islands.)

Today's Shoes

Day

Gravati split-toe monkstraps in Radica 03 calf (17194, last 697). Radica 03 is the approximately the same hue as Radica 033, but it has less red to it. A beautiful color, and a very nice shoe.

Evening

Gravati split-toe ghillie-tie split-toe bluchers in tan suede (13555, last 500). The shoe pictured above (the Glyndibourne from Edward Green) has ghillie lacing as it is traditionally configured, with eyelets in tabs for the laces and with no tongue. The Italians picked the idea up and, as they are wont to do, took the idea and put their own distinctive twist on it. Their version of ghillie lacing has tunnels for the laces instead of simply tabs with eyelets, and they don't dispense with the tongue. These were the first Gravati shoes that I ever bought, and they remain some of my favorites.

Last Night's Tipple

Mamacita decided that she wanted to sit outside last night while Papi Chulo grilled the hamburgers, so, given the fact that it was hot and sticky, something light and thirst-quenching seemed appropriate. Saint Arnold's Summer Pils fit the bill very well. Saint Arnold Brewing Company is the only craft brewery that I know of in Houston, and I like their beer a lot. The Summer Pils may not be Pilsner Urquell, but it is bitter, clean, flavorful, and well-made. Just the thing for a sticky summer evening. If only it could do something about the mosquitos, too.

Today's Shoes

Gravati cap-toe whole-cut bluchers in navy Lama calf (15537, last 640). No, not llama. The tannery calls this particular leather Lama for reasons known only to themselves. I've heard it called "shrunken" calf, too. It's a soft, grained calfskin that takes a great shine. It looks very good in navy, too. I saw Jim Pierce, who owns the shoe concession at Harold's in the Heights, wearing a pair of these, and I decided that I needed a pair, too.

Sunday Afternoon Movie Review

After E&B were scammed into falling asleep last night, Mamacita, Papi Chulo, and I watched Little Miss Sunshine. The Little Miss Sunshine of the title is a pageant for seven year old girls, and Olive, a geeky but darling girl with huge owl-eye glasses, learns two days before the California state pageant that the winner of the regional pageant that she finished second in has been disqualified and that she is eligible to compete at the state level. The problem? She lives in Albuquerque, not California. Not only that, but her family can't afford plane tickets for her mother Sheryl and her to fly there, so they have to drive. But it can't be just Olive and Sheryl because Sheryl's brother Frank just tried to commit suicide and she has to keep an eye on him, and Olive wants her grandfather to come along because he's the one who choreographed her dance routine for the pageant. This presents more problems because the only vehicle the family has big enough for all these people to fit into is an old yellow VW bus, which Sheryl can't drive because it's a stick shift. That means that her husband Richard, a frustrated motivational system-maker, has to come along to drive; and Olive's fifteen year old brother Dwayne, who has taken a vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force Academy, has to come along, too to watch over Frank and because leaving him home alone doesn't seem like a good idea. So this dysfunctional family sets out on an 800-mile trek to get Olive to the California state Little Miss Sunshine pageant; and, predictably, hilarity ensues.

And there is a lot of hilarity. I won't spoil the surprise for anyone who hasn't seen it, but there are a number of gut-busting scenes, in particular Olive's dance routine. This movie won two Oscars (one for the screenplay and one for Alan Arkin, who plays the grandfather); and while I haven't seen the movies that it competed against for those awards, I can say that it is not a travesty of justice that Little Miss Sunshine won. It was the funniest movie that I have seen in quite some time. Highly recommended.

Last Night's Tipple

I went to Spec's yesterday with Mamacita, and I could not resist the lure of Elmer T. Lee single barrel Bourbon. This is another fine product from the Buffalo Trace distillery, where Elmer T. Lee is the master distiller (hence the name). Conceptually, this Bourbon is similar to Wild Turkey's Russel's Reserve Bourbon: each is selected by the distillery's master distiller from barrels that display characteristics that he personally likes, not necessarily with an eye toward making a blend that is consistent with the distillery's mainline bottlings. The biggest difference in product type (not flavor and character -- that's a whole different ballgame) between the two is that the ETL is a single-barrel Bourbon where the Russel's Reserve is not. "Single-barrel" means that the distiller selects the barrels that he likes, and each barrel one at a time is dumped, diluted, and bottled. Because no two barrels of Bourbon are exactly the same, no two bottles of single-barrel Bourbon will be exactly the same unless they come from the same barrel. This bottle-to-bottle variation is both a blessing and a curse for the distillery: a curse because some consumers may get frustrated by the lack of consistency in the bottles they buy and a blessing because other consumers will chase the dragon in an attempt to find the bottle from the perfect "honey barrel" and thus will buy more of the brand than they otherwise might. I think that most distilleries have concluded that single-barrel is more of a blessing than a curse for their top-shelf boutique Bourbons. At least, there has been an incredible profusion of single-barrel bottlings over the past few years.

The bottle pictured to the right has a foil-wrapped top. Mine was dipped in gold-colored wax, which means that it's at least 18 months old. I don't know if Spec's is having trouble moving their stock of ETL or if they stumbled across some stock that had been sitting forgotten in some distributer's warehouse. Once I managed to get through the wax and into the bottle (wax is an attractive but non-utilitarian way to seal bottles), the Bourbon inside was very good. Lots and lots of butter and vanilla on the nose. There's also something slightly savory going on every so often. One review that I read called this note "buttered popcorn", and I suppose that that is as good a description as any. Regardless, it was a very pleasant smell. On the palate, it's spicy with some vanilla and maple sugar notes. Very nice.

Today's Shoes

Gravati cap-toe blucher spectators in light tan and bone tumbled calf (14990, last 500). The second of my two pairs of spectators, bought two summers ago on sale. A good day for them, too: it was hot and humid here.

Bayou Goo

Mamacita's post about her top 5 pies from House of Pies reminded me of a story told to me by my college roommate Steve. He was a physics major, and one of the graduate students he worked with was from Russia. Soon after this guy had arrived in the United States, some other students took him to House of Pies, which is one of the big restaurant hangouts for people from Rice. He looked at the pie menu and asked the waitress "What is this Bayou Goo?" (imagine that in a Russian accent). She told him ("a pecan crust with a layer of sweet cream cheese,then a layer of vanilla custard swirled with chocolate chunks and topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings"), he ordered it, and he loved it. He loved it so much that thereafter he could be spotted frequently walking from the Rice campus to House of Pies to have another slice of Bayou Goo.

The Legislature Gets Something Right For Once

There hasn't been a whole lot about this in the news that I've been aware of, but the Texas Legislature sent a bill to the Governor on May 29 to regulate the authority of local governments to install red light cameras and to collect fines for alleged violations recorded by those cameras. These things have been springing up in Houston over the last few months, and I do not like them one little bit. The stated justification for them is that they will help to prevent rear-end collisions, but I don't think that that's the real reason that the City was so eager to set the cameras up. Rather, I suspect that the prospect of an easy, consistent, and low-cost revenue stream proved to be too much of a temptation for the mayor and city council to resist. Why? Well, if they were that concerned by accidents caused by drivers running red lights, they would have increased the yellow-light times, which is much more effective than red-light cameras have been in other jurisdictions. This is an important point in more ways than one: increasing yellow-light times decreases the incidence of red-light running; but if a jurisdiction has red light cameras, it also reduces the amount of revenue that that jurisdiction can collect from those red-light cameras. In other words, it is in the monetary interest of a jurisdiction to yellow-light times, which increases the incidence of the very accidents that proponents of red light cameras claim they're trying to prevent. Red light cameras give jurisdictions a financial incentive to degrade public safety; and because of that, installing them is very bad public policy.

I would have preferred that the Texas Legislature just prohibited Texas municipalities from installing red light cameras at all. There wasn't the support for that, apparently, so they did the next best thing: they forced municipalities to put their money where their mouths are:

Sec. 707.008. DEPOSIT OF REVENUE FROM CERTAIN TRAFFIC PENALTIES. (a) Not later than the 60th day after the end of a local authority's fiscal year, after deducting amounts the local authority is authorized by Subsection (b) to retain, the local authority shall: (1) send 50 percent of the revenue derived from civil or administrative penalties collected by the local authority under this section to the comptroller for deposit to the credit of the regional trauma account established under Section 782.002, Health and Safety Code; and (2) deposit the remainder of the revenue in a special account in the local authority's treasury that may be used only to fund traffic safety programs, including pedestrian safety programs, public safety programs, intersection improvements, and traffic enforcement.

In other words, half of the money collected in fines by way of red light cameras goes to the state. The other half can only be used to fund traffic safety and enforcement programs. This bill removes the financial incentive for local governments to degrade traffic safety to increase the fines they collect because they no longer get any general-fund money from those fines. Not only that, but the bill also requires local governments that install red light cameras to report yearly to the state about the incidence and severity of accidents at intersections with the red light cameras and to evaluate whether the red light cameras are helping or hurting public safety.
I don't think the results will be favorable to red light cameras, but let's see what happens. Of course, local governments may stop rolling these these things out now; so we may not get much of a trial.

Let's hope that Governor Perry signs this bill forthwith.

Last Night's Tipple

Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation was a washed-up actor in Tokyo to tape a commercial for Suntory whisky. "For relaxing times, make it Suntory time" was the tag line. It may shock you to know that Suntory is an actual Japanese distiller, brewer, and liquor distributor and that they produce excellent malt and blended whiskies.

Suntory Yamazaki 12 year old is Suntory's flagship single malt whisky. The Yamazaki distillery was built in 1923 in the mountains on Honshu, and its distilling operations were overseen by Masataka Taketsuru, who brought Scottish whisky-making techniques back to Japan after working in distilleries in Scotland. Yamazaki was the first real whisky distillery, and it remains one of the best (along with Suntory's Hakushu and Nikka's Yoichi). Its 12 year old and 18 year old bottlings are also just about the only Japanese single malt whiskies available on the US market outside of specialty stores catering to Japanese and Japanese-Americans. That's a shame because tasting Yamazaki 12 year old makes me want to try the others. It's light, fragrant, and sweet. The flavor is dominated by malty sweetness -- it reminds me of an unpeated Speyside malt. After a while in the glass, its aroma takes on some vanilla overtones. There's also a hint of Bourbon, which makes me suspect that this whisky is at least partially aged in refill Bourbon barrels (although some of what I have read about Suntory says that they use Japanese oak for aging). A very enjoyable dram.

And for those of you who haven't seen Lost in Translation, here's the scene where Bill Murray is taping the Suntory commercial:

Today's Shoes

More Russian reindeer from GJ Cleverley, this time a three-eyelet plain-toe blucher. When I ordered this shoe, I had wanted them to have V-shaped quarters. Instead, Cleverley delivered a shoe that had nearly straight-sided quarters, which ended up making the shoes very similar to the straight-sided two- and three-eyelet bluchers that are the trademark of such Parisian makers as Corthay and Dimitri Gomez. Well, okay, it doesn't have as much style as the same shoe from Dimitri Gomez, but it's not bad. I ordered these when I found out that the man who had the license from the Duke of Cornwall/Prince of Wales to salvage the hides from the wreck of the Metta Catharina had retired and was no longer diving, which means that there will be no more hides coming up from the bottom of Plymouth Sound. I figured that if I wanted another pair of Russian reindeer shoes, I had better act quickly.

The Best of Ari Gold

Please tell me that you haven't deleted this season's Entourage episodes from your DVR, Mamacita.

Last Night's Tipple

After the pour of Old Grand-Dad on Wednesday night, it was perfectly natural that I would go for the Laphroaig 10 Year Old last night. Why natural, you ask. Well, Laphroaig and Old Grand-Dad are both owned by Jim Beam! Okay, that's a bit misleading. Both are owned by Beam Global Spirits & Wine, Inc., which is the subsidiary of Fortune Brands that owns Fortune's liquor and wine properties. It's not like the people who distill Beam Bourbons have any hand whatsoever in running Laphroaig.

Which is just as well because Laphroaig is completely unlike Bourbon. It's a single-malt Scotch, which means that it's made from a mash composed of 100% barley malt, distilled twice in pot stills (unlike the column stills and doublers or thumpers that are typical for American whiskey), and aged in used oak barrels (typically either Bourbon or sherry barrels). On top of that, Laphroaig is the most well-known of the Islay whiskies. Islay is an island off the west coast of Scotland and is home to a thriving Scotch industry. Traditionally, the malt used in Scotch was dried over peat fires. This practice has largely stopped; but it still is a feature of Islay (well, mostly), which gives most Islay malts their distinctive smoky aroma. It's also part of the Islay propaganda that aging the whisky in warehouses that are within a stone's throw of the sea imparts a certain briny quality to the aged spirits. I don't know if I buy that (how exactly would the salt penetrate the barrels? Besides, more than one Islay isn't actually aged on Islay anymore), but that's their story. Laphroaig calls itself "the most richly flavoured of all Scotch whiskies", and while there are a couple of other Islays that might give it a run for its money, its claim is not without basis.

There isn't much that I can say about this whisky other than that it tastes like beef jerky in a glass -- smoky and salty. It's darker than I would expect for a 10 year old whisky aged in Scotland, which leads me to suspect that the distiller has added caramel coloring (legal in Scotland); but if they have, it doesn't do much to the flavor of the whisky. I like it, in moderation.