Whisky Online Blog

La Paz at night.

La Paz is a fascinating mixture of scattered and maddeningly odd architecture, high rise buildings, that seem to have sought their inspiration from a rare psychedelic 1960s edition of Lego, face up against a worn brickwork urban scrawl that reminds you just how poor most of the people outside the central gringo bubble are. In fact it is mind frying to look out at the rim of the crater that caps the top edge of La Paz and see the endless carpet of square houses that seem to grow out of each other like a cubic fungus on the side of a mountain. At night the lights come on and it is as if the stars just fell out of the sky and lie around on the sides of the mountains, like discarded cosmic christmas lights. In short, La Paz can be a sensory overload. The streets rise and fall and the people scatter amongst each other like marbles, short inclines leave you remarkably out of breath and you have to remind yourself that you are 3800 meters above sea level. A place where the oxygen thins out, minds are lightened and your faculties natural defenses against alcohol, drugs and love are diminished by a startling degree.

Little wonder then that La Paz attracts as many western visitors as it does. Often young people, on the look out for the South American experience, yet most end up getting seduced by the many home comforts that can be found here. Bars like Oliver’s Travels offer quality English pub grub, the promise of bacon, steak pies and even HP sauce (which is sold in dishes for 5 Bolivianos) is often too much for many to resist. The main hostels are famous amongst travelers, The Wild Rover, Loki and The Adventure Brew are places of varying madness, alcohol soaked, pot infused and scattered with moments of odd serenity. Most end up at Route 36 as well, the Gringo drug haven, a place of strangely low key coke dens that look like they were designed by Guardian readers and modeled on the old set from Top Of The Pops. The La Paz experience can feel like a diluted scene from Scarface or a meditative stroll through an Al Paca laced brickscape. Yet somehow, between the two it ends up being a very genuine and grand experience.

My own particular vice in La Paz was the beer. For some reason there seemed to be a variety of fine beers available. This is partly due to the Adventure Brew Hostel that has a microbrewery in its basement, the world’s highest apparently. The beer is called Saya and they offer a lager, a blonde beer, an amber ale, an IPA and a dark ‘Negra’ beer. To come from four and a half months with nothing but the poisonous bubbles of Brahma to quaff, the first pint of Saya IPA was like a well hopped pitcher of chilled holy water. All the beers they brewed were fantastic to me, not in the same league as some of the best English and Scottish brews back home but the balance of hopps and malt in all the beers was just wonderful. It is surprising how quickly you forget just how good simple, pronounced, clean flavours can be in a drink. The citrus of the blond beer, the bitter, zingy hopps of the IPA and the chocolate/coffee sweetness of the Negra were fresh air to this gasping palate.

There was a fair share of the usual gassy, lageresque abominations but their presence was somehow tolerable with the knowledge that most places had a Saya of some sort. I had to work most of the time I was in La Paz, the upshot of which is that I have finally completed writing distillery profiles for each whisky/distillery on the website. The result was that I didn’t do much else, but I am not sore about this, I don’t really go in for the tourist thing so much. I am happy to simply wander streets and let the atmosphere of a city bustle over me through the turn of a day. I found La Paz to be a wonderful place for this, it is a city that truly moves around you.

Now I am safely in Mexico, the lego metropolis of La Paz is something that I will have to return to someday but for now it’s time to keep moving forward. Mexico is so far entirely seductive, there are many things to say about it but that will have to wait. However, I suggest that if you don’t like Tequila or Mezcal then you might want to look away now… (well tomorrow)

As I write this I am sitting in a shop that is doing its best to morph into the world’s first walk in microwave. Should I be working? Probably. Should I be drinking this beer under the counter? Probably not. Do I care? Nope.

Cold Beer. Two words that are to me this hot evening like a bubbly, well hopped symphony.

So it is with a fair measure of weary trepidation that I meander into the quagmire of this latest post. For I have decided that I will add my two farthings to this great big Hornet’s nest of a debate that Chivas have stirred up. When I say stirred up what I really mean is they’ve take a nest of Hornets, put it in a re-fill hogshead for at least 12 years till they’re really pissed off, then rolled it down a hill and released it as a special surprise bottling at this years whisky live. Its safe to say that everyone has aired their dirty laundry over this one. The whisky blogosphere has gone into indignant overdrive, some applauding and some bitching furiously about Chivas’ latest promotional, marketing thingy. Anyway before we go any further, here is the offending ad…

Now firstly lets get one thing clear, there are loads of shit whiskies in this world. There are young shit whiskies, ones that taste like nail varnish strained through a sock-full of pear drops. There are of course also a shed load of shit old whiskies, ones that are akin to a tannin smoothie garnished with a twist of sulphur. So obviously regardless of age there are badly made, badly matured whiskies. Now on one hand I have issues with what Chivas have said, specifically this bit from their PR bumf “One of the greatest influences on the flavour of whisky comes from maturation. Much of the complexity of Scotch whisky comes mainly from its time in oak casks in Scotland; with outstanding spirit and excellent wood management, it follows that the longer the maturation period, the more complex the whisky” Well that’s plainly a big pile of gibberish, yes of course good casks are important and when expertly handled in conjunction with great spirit there is the potential for fantastic whisky at a variety of ages. However it doesn’t mean that whisky can just keep on improving with age, the spirit of most distilleries declines in cask after 30-40 years. Distilleries that produce spirits that can age exceptionally and consistently are rare, Glen Grant, Strathisla, Macallan, Dalmore, Longmorn, Glanfarclas and maybe Balvenie spring to mind but there are many that simply fade out after too long. Wood inevitably conquers all, given enough time it consumes all traces of distillery character and complexity.

Bottled at around 45 years of age this is probably one of the finest 'old' whiskies ever bottled. But for this beauty how many 45yo, over oaked duds have there been?

However part of me really does sympathise with Chivas on this one, I don’t think their point is to get everyone to believe that older is better, just that no age statement, designer, youngsters dressed up in premium branding are not the way forward. I agree with this sentiment, there have been a plethora of NAS overpriced young bottlings in recent years, with quality and price very out of sync. There are exceptions of course, Chivas’ own A’bunadh, Longrow CV, Caol Ila Cask Strength and Laphroaig Quater Cask, although those are all either bolstered by peat or sherry. There is obviously the problem for many companies now that they have insufficient stock as well, the demand for premium malts, single casks and the increase in independent bottlers have all put a big strain on supplies of aged malts.

Glenmorangie has been holding the flag for a different attitude towards premium whiskies, that of the NAS designer, cuvée style malt.

I tend to lean toward supporting Chivas on this one because, for me personally, the best whiskies tend to be between 12 and 25 years of age. There are many older malts that I love but they become quite hit and miss after they get past 30. There are barely a handful of bottlings I can think of under ten years of age that would be considered great bottlings. But then there is the issue of bottle aging seeing as most of the ones I can think of were bottled some time ago. However I don’t think we need to open a big can of worms to go with our already ungainly Hornet’s nest.

A handy visual metaphor for the bottle aging debate which we'll tackle another day methinks.

Obviously this is very much IMHO, everyone enjoys different styles of whisky. I remember when many of the very young heavily peated malts started appearing, they were fun but I think the novelty is starting to wear off now. We’ve all grown up a little, they’re like cannabis, something you flirt with giddily as a young student but that you ultimately grow out of. However maybe that analogy isn’t so good, I don’t want to compare the finest aged whiskies to class A drugs, who wants to inject 1937 Strathisla when you can drink the stuff? Lets forget that one. Sometimes it is very refreshing to enjoy a young malt, their zingy, vibrant, youthful characters can be nourishing and fun. However I can’t help but feel that they just don’t stand up to their slightly older counterparts. I love complexity, balance and depth of flavour in whisky (who doesn’t?) and this just cannot be developed without time. No amount of wood technology can sufficiently accelerate the process and too long a time, even in great casks, can just as easily undo all a spirit’s luster. As I said before there are many dreadful whiskies of all ages, but there are also many great whiskies of all ages, its just that in my experience the greatest ones have had a little bit longer in the cask to come to their full potential. I suppose in the end we arrive back at that old chestnut “Its all about balance”, yawn. Sod whisky, I want another frosty beer…