Whisky Online Blog

Cinema Paradiso is one of those films that everyone remembers. Its the sort of epic, passion infused, sumptuous narrative that reeks of masterpiece. Its a kind of cinema that I think really doesn’t exist outside Europe, sure there are many life affirming films from many parts of the world, its just something about the sheer celebratory joy of this film that is so unmistakably… continental.

One of many famous images from the film.

Taken from a critical standpoint this is, on the surface, a film that is probably overly long, over indulgent, shamelessly sentimental and melodramatic. In short, its not without its flaws, its just very difficult to care about any of them. When I was at university, I did four years of Film and Television studies. Four years of analysing films and learning to deconstruct every shot and frame to wring meaning from a complex canvas of dialogue, music, mise en scene and narrative. You learn to read a film, it becomes second nature and after this it is difficult to switch it off, even during something as disposable as Transformers 2 you can still find yourself subconsciously deconstructing what’s going on. This is not as annoying as it sounds, for me it adds to the richness of the film experience but it is something that is almost impossible to loose. Cinema Paradiso is one of the rare films where I find myself just getting lost in the film, I often react against a film’s attempts to pull me in but with Cinema Paradiso the joy is in letting go, surrendering to the film and being dragged down into it.

The film is basically an unashamed celebration of the joys of cinema and film. It is a love story on many levels, romantic love, love of cinema, love of life, family and, perhaps most crucially, friendship. It is long and sprawling but its length is so liberally filled with moments of overwhelming beauty you can’t help but become caught up in its narrative. It is really a film that is defined by its moments, whether they are single, beautifully realised shots or tiny classic scenes that brim with wit and pathos. Its beauty is in the sum of its parts and its greatness is in the majestic skill with which it weaves those smaller parts together so seamlessly. It is one of those rarest of films, one that revels in beauty and joy, there is no bitterness, no cynicism, no hyper-stylised excuses for lack of substance, it is simply masterful, joyous story telling. If you can make it to the end scene in the cinema with the kissing montage without shedding a tear you should see a doctor about the shard of ice in your heart.

This delicious Bruichladdich is just one of many utterly mind blowing Italian bottlings from the seventies and eighties.

It seems appropriate that such a masterful piece of cinema should hail from Italy, especially when considering matching it with a whisky. I say this because Italy, during the 1970s and 80s probably had a higher and more consistent stream of world class bottlings done for it that any other country at any time. Samaroli, Intertrade and Sestante, to name but a few, between them managed to import some of the greatest whiskies yet known to man. It was a stroke of ingenuity and foresight that was largely thanks to a pioneering whisky enthusiast named Edward Giaccone who imported some utterly stunning casks (particularly some legendary Clynelish). Of course others soon followed of which the most famous is undoubtedly Mr Silvano Samaroli. I recommend here the Bruichladdich, shown above, because it is a fantastic example of beautiful, old school, life-affirmingly good whisky. However you could pick almost any of the Samaroli bottlings from the late seventies and eighties, he selected stunning examples from Bowmore and Glen Ord for his glorious ‘Bouquet’ series, wonderful aged speysiders like Glen Moray, Strathisla and Glen Grant, top class Ardbegs and not forgetting the 1967 black sherried Laphroaig. These were whiskies that give you the same overwhelming sense of joy that is to be found in the film. Some whiskies are so spellbinding with their depth of flavour, balance, complexity and seemingly endless and multifaceted characters that they offer something of an affirmation that life can, on that rare occasion, be fucking marvelous. Obviously many of these whiskies are neither cheap nor common these days but this is to be expected. If you do want to try them then the best bet is, as usual in these cases, to check the multitude of rare dram stands at some of the more serious festivals in Europe. Still, its always worth keeping an eye out for the occasional bargain bottle here and there, you never know, there are always hidden gems to be found gathering dust on obscure shelves in the darker rural recesses of the continent. These are drams that truly make life worth living and liquid worth drinking. Just remember, if you do happen to crack one of these bottles open, make sure you have some sound friends around to help you send it on its way.

I couldn't have put it better myself.

There is something about a good quotation. Apart from the immediate ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ reaction, there is something wonderful about a quick flutter of words that so neatly and perfectly sums up something that others might take pages to express. Like all good art it is often a case of less is more, the short and stunningly fitting instrumental part in a song, the simple yet perfectly composed frame in a film or a photograph, the minimalist sweep of great poetry and literature. A good quote is a distillation of many greater ideas and themes or, as is often the case with great whisky quotes, just bloody funny.

Mark Twain, one of the greatest contributors to the whisky quotations cannon.

I have recently discovered a wonderful new website called Quotables, it is a fantastic new social media idea, a place for you to share and enjoy quotations of all kind. A sort of online repository for wit, wisdom, fact, insight, poetic snippets and a celebration of the quote in all its glory. I highly recommend you join, although it is a little addictive I must warn you. Anyway I have been putting up as many whisky quotes as I can find and think of, you check out my profile here. It would be fascinating if we could create some kind of compendium of whisky quotes, a place where they can all be collated together in boozy harmony. I’m sure there must be many other more obscure quotes about whisky lurking in your collective brains. We’ve all heard the great ones from sage gents like Churchill, Twain and W.C.Fields but I’m sure there are more obscure ones to be found and celebrated as well. Anyway get on Quotables and in the mean time here area few of my favourites to get some inspiration started:

“I just had 19 shots of whisky. I think that’s a record.” - Dylan Thomas’ very appropriate last words.

“The light music of whiskey falling into a glass – an agreeable interlude.” – James Joyce

“Great fury, like great whisky, requires long fermentation.” – Truman Capote

“Once, during prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water.” – W.C. Fields

“Reality is merely an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol.” – Anon

“Today’s rain is tomorrow’s whisky.” – Anon

“Men are nicotine-soaked, beer-besmirched, whiskey-greased, red-eyed devils.” – Carry Nation

Beautiful little nuggets of hilarity and insight as you can see. There are lots of other things on the Quotables database so its worth checking out but I’d really like to hear more whisky based quotes so leave some in the comments below or add more on Quotables yourselves. Lets get a database together.

I have been busy these last few days so imagine my surprise when I emerge from my cocoon of bluster to find everyone sniggering about some newfangled urine based whisky, or ‘Pissky’ as it has been affectionately dubbed. Indeed it has even prompted some deeper philosophical musings of the relationship between whisky and art and even the old chestnut “What is Art?” I have nothing to add to the general chatter, everything witty that could possibly be said has probably already been said by Tim and Serge, what’s more I don’t have the energy to think about the implications of whisky made from juiced grannies right now. One thing is for sure though, I’m in no hurry to try it, the very thought gives me the willies (so to speak).

Joni Mitchell in 1968.

Most of my recent posts have been quite tasting driven since I cleaned up at Whisky Fringe so I’m quite keen to get back into doing some music and whisky parings. Listening to some Joni Mitchell the other day I was moved to do some digging on the tube of you, I wasn’t surprised to find many great videos, as is common for any major artist, but I was still blown away to find this one in particular.

I, like many other occasionally sane people, have a wealth of love for Joni Mitchell. There are many great songwriters and musicians in this world, the problem is that in order to achieve their influence and legend they have to compromise by being a colossal twat in their personal lives. Millions love Lennon and McCartney but they don’t have to deal with their egos, tantrums and general mentalness on a one to one scale. They can sit back and let their music score the pockmarked plateaus of their lives to great emotional effect. Joni Mitchell seems to be one of the few people who actually manages to transcend this rule and has retained a shade of humility and genuine humanity about her. In short, she comes across as a lovely person. However this is just a base attraction, it really is her music that hooks you in. There are so few truly genuine voices in this world, voices that have no artificially implanted vibrato, voices rich in naked honesty, voices that are instruments in their own right. Joni is one of those rare creatures that can stand so unassumingly and casually then she just opens her mouth and this sound comes out, its a rare and breathtaking thing to behold. Those songs she plays in the video are among her most popular but they are also some of the best examples of why she is brilliant. She is a performer who truly understands the idea of the song as a communicative device, she writes very beautiful, evocative lyrics but the expressiveness of her voice seems to bypass all potential boundaries of language. She is one of the few artists where all you need to understand her are a working pair of ears. Here is another one of my favourites from 1970.

She is a mesmerising performer to watch. Her little quirks of humour, a fleeting grin here and there and then back to some deep, focused boil of beautiful sound as she finds new subtle angles on her familiar melody lines. She is also an often overlooked guitarist as well. She is one of the greatest exponents of the alternative tuning on the guitar, throughout her career she must have used upwards of a hundred tuning variations. She is a master of taking a sideways view of melody, the hidden potential in otherwise familiar chords wrought from strings at different tensions and resonances, one of her greatest hallmarks is that it is impossible to sound quite like her. She is one of those musicians that you almost don’t want to share, there isn’t much that needs to be said about her, little to be defended or argued, she’s just Joni Mitchell and she just needs to be listened to. She transcends the arenas of arguments and pub debates that haunt the legend of other famous bands and artists. Sometimes you don’t want to prattle on about what you’re listening to, its much better just to listen to it.

The Bowmore Bicentenary. The 'Joni Mitchell' of malts?

When I do these matching things I usually try and pick whiskies that are not impossible to get hold of/afford/try. However on this occasion I don’t care, I doesn’t matter to me if this bottling is in the realms of possibility for anyone to get. In fact it doesn’t even need to be able to see the realms of possibility, this bottling might as well read to you like bottle number 0 of 0, available only through selected retail outlets. On the moon. This is pointless and verging on cruel but its Joni Mitchell and sometimes you just need one of those whiskies that shuts you up a bit. When you listen to Joni she tends to have that same effect of disengaging your vocal chords for you, the Bowmore Bicentenary is something of a whisky equivalent. Distilled in 1964 and bottled for the distilleries 200th anniversary in 1979, there are several versions available, I’ve tried two different ones so far and I would score them both 94/100 minimum. There is cask strength version too but, in an unusual inversion of bottling strength lore, it is reputedly not as good as the others. More importantly, it is one of those very rare drinking experiences that can change the way you think about whisky. It is whisky of such bewilderingly intense flavour and complexity that people trying it tend to be left more than a little speechless. I watched several people trying it at the Limburg whisky fair the other year and they were visibly occupying a different space to the rest of us, it was as if the thronging mass of nerderati around them had just melted away and they were tripping through a daze of tropical fruit and salt laced, heaven sent phenols. There is something about this whisky, its ability to be so soft yet at the same time bearing such a weighted depth of flavour. its the same sense of awesome humility you get when confronted with anything so perfectly crafted and beautiful. It is whisky that banishes all bullshit, all petty conversations about eras and bottling codes and tax stamps. It suddenly makes all these things irrelevant, just as the simple sound of Joni Mitchell singing and casually strumming a guitar can stop you dead in you tracks and you realise there is no need to say anything, these things exist and we all know how wonderful they are, we don’t need to say anything, to try and put such things into words can only spoil them. So I’ll shut up and we can finish with another video.