Getting rid of baseball cards

I gave up 17,000 baseball cards last week.  Seventeen thousand.

Let's break this down, list-style:

1. Reasoning – This massive stash had been holed up in my old bedroom in Santa Barbara.  My mom was in the process of putting her home on the market, so this had to be cleared out of the house along with other old belongings.

Then the boxes took up space in my Accord’s trunk since Kristen and I didn’t have room for them in our apartment.  When we decided to move, the cards had to go due to the sheer weight and space they took up.

2. Quantity – 95% of these cards were commons, thus the bulk.  And at least half of them were from my efforts to assemble Topps sets (1986, 1987, 1992, etc.)  The other 5% were “semi-stars” (a mixed blessing of a label if there ever was one) of which I’d already had double or triples.

3. Finance – These cards made up 67% of my collection, but less than 25% of its value.  This lot’s High book value was about $1200.  Its Low book value – or the price one should expect to sell – was $600.

I failed to sell it for $100.

One month of craiglist posts went nowhere.  My sale price started at $200 with all sorts of sweeteners: better cards, unopened packs, and video games.  No takers.  Week after week, I dropped the price.  $175, $150, $125, $100.

Simultaneously, I listed the same lot on eBay for a few rounds, starting at $150.  eBay and PayPal would take a cut but I didn’t mind.  Even at a Buy It Now price of $100, drew nothing.  I actually wound up taking a hit of a couple bucks.

4. Donation – Long before I attempted to sell the cards, I had made a dozen phone calls and emails around Los Angeles to see what organization would accept the cards as an in-kind or re-sale donation.  Children’s hospitals?  Goodwill?  Religious centers?  Shelters?  Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Nope.  Not only were these cards unsellable, but I couldn't give them away to a non-profit because the batch was virtually valueless and required labor to move and process.

5. Emotional value – I’d thought that getting rid of these would be difficult.  A shedding, abandoning of my childhood.  But really, most of them were acquired as I was assembling sets which was actually done in 2002, post-college.  No baby was I then, just unemployed and wasting time.

So I felt nothing.  In fact they became a burden as they blocked half of my trunk. They were always there, slamming around every time I took a right turn. When I walked to my car, I kept picturing those 3200-count boxes taking up space.  If I could only get rid of them, I would be free of ballast.

With two weeks remaining before the move, I tossed up a hail mary (or Baruch Hashem).  I hit up Collectibles With Causes California which I found via Google searches.  They were quick to respond and very friendly.  A couple of phone calls and emails later, a laid-back buzzcut guy in a big white Ford traded me 1 donation receipt for 17,000 cards.

As the pickup drove away, I was surprised that I didn’t feel wistful; just thankful that my car was 100 pounds lighter and that there was one less thing to do for the big move.

---

In the larger picture, the collections market is dead.  If no one even bites at $100 or makes a counter offer – hell, I would have taken $50 – for 17,000 cards AND if no donation center will take them because they know that they can’t sell them, then all of that cardboard is basically valueless outside of the $5-$10 in recycling redemption value.

Actually, while I was asking a card dealer for advice about this lot, he offered me $15 in case nothing else worked out.  A $15 offer thus establishes the actual Low bid value, not $600.  One could also argue that it represents the High value as well.

At some point I’d like to do a follow-up post about collectables.  I’ve been a collector of different kinds of stuff throughout my life.  And I know some hoarders pretty well; they're a very special breed of collector.  We hold onto things from the past, important to us but worthless to others, and I really don't know why.

The George Herman Hitchcock project, Chapter 2B: The Ring

Introduction

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2A:


HITCHCOCK
(1927-1928)
continuing from Chapter 2A...

The Ring (1928)

After Downhill and Easy Virtue, Hitchcock directed another drama, The Ring.  Sadly it has nothing to do with the future horror series or vice versa.  It's a love-triangle tale about two boxers (wait, there's more!) and a woman.

Not much happens over the 89 minute cut, goodness knows how the 116 minute UK cut played out.  The events are simple.  Jack is a local boxer who fights in front of small crowds (think Rocky Balboa as a carnival attraction).  Nellie's his girl.  Bob is a world-class boxer who has a crush on Nellie.  He fights Jack and defeats him.  He hires Jack to spar with him, but really just wants to get his gloves on Nellie.  Jack and Nellie get married, but when their marriage goes sour she runs off with Bob.  Jack gets back at Bob by fighting him at Albert Hall.  During the match Nellie sees Jack getting his butt kicked, so she goes back to his side of the ring.  Jack is instantly Popeye-ed and defeats Bob.

It's edited at a good pace, but not much seems to happen.  There are no surprises or twists.  The knockout at the end doesn't make any sense.  There's a quick final scene that at best is unnecessary and at worst deflates whatever emotional/sexual tension that had existed in the film.  The long shots of the boxing matches look great, but then Hitch intercuts awkward melodramatic close-ups that don't match the action.

On the positive side, there are a lot of great double-exposure shots.  Plus there's a fantastic time-lapse shot of champagne going flat.  It not only serves to telescope time, but also serves as a metaphor for the moment when the marriage goes flat.

The male leads seem to have gotten their direction switched.  Jack is whiny, spastic, and vengeful while Bob is calm and friendly.  Nellie on the other hand is another example of an early-Hitchcock flirty destructive coquette.  She's eyeballing Bob from the first moment, but marries Jack anyway, then leaves him for Bob.  It's unclear what her character's values or intentions are other than to be a jerk.  This in turn makes it even more challenging for the viewer to care what happens next.

So what I'm saying is:  Where are the thrills, Alfred?

---

The Farmer's Wife (1928)

The thrills are not here.

The Farmer's Wife is, I think, a comedy.  I don't know.  I couldn't finish it.

It starts off looking like a drama.  An idyllic farm.  The farmer's wife has died.  As the farmer sits in his chair staring off into space, Hitchcock lingers on his face.  Over and over and over.  I began to wonder if this was going to be some sort of awesome Scandinavian-style film about a man pondering existence.  But, nope, suddenly it's a comedy!  Whee!  Thirza Tapper, Churdles Ash, and Dick Cooker (actual character names) run around the house mugging and hamming and falling down.  The farmer is pushed to find a new bride, so he invites over All the Single Ladies for a party at which point they all make F*** Me eyes at him.  But when he later professes his humble marital hopes, they're all offended.  He then responds by making fun of how old, fat, and ugly they are.

I fell asleep right there, 40 minutes in.  I was irritated about how this was beginning turn into a proto-Sandler film: "You're fat and ugly.  Wackety Shmackety!  Oh no, my pants are falling down!"  I was disappointed in the abrupt tonal changes.  The ending was as obvious as a turd in the pool.  And the poorly chosen film score was lulling, sleepy sleepy sleepy.

When I woke up and saw the DVD sitting there, I went back to sleep.

I understand the class themes that are confronted when he ultimately marries his housekeeper, but that doesn't negate the fact that the rest of the hired help act like they're mentally disabled.  Add to that my disappointment that Alfred Hitchcock was responsible------

It's amongst the five worst silent films that I've ever seen.  It's even worse than all of the films starring this guy:

---

Hitchcock achieved a certain level of attention with the artistic and financial success of The Lodger, yet followed it with four films fully outside that thriller genre.  None of them lost money, but none of them garnered any attention.  One can applaud him for the efforts, his attempts to expand his craft.  But as a viewer, one yearns to see him take on a subject ripe for suspense, twists, and the macabre.  Would such a film be on the horizon?


Sources:
Spoto, Donald. The Dark Side Of Genius: The Life Of Alfred Hitchcock. De Capo Press, New York. 1999.
Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock. Simon & Schuster, Paris. 1984.

---

RUTH
(1916)

Source: Major League Baseball

As Hitchcock was experiencing moderate box office success, while treading water (at best) artistically, after his initial successes, Ruth erupted onto the baseball scene, albeit differently than what would later make him famous.

Ruth was the best left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball in 1916.  It really did happen that quickly.  While Grover Cleveland Alexander was decimating the NL, Ruth and Walter Johnson were nautical leagues ahead of every other pitcher in the AL.

Ruth was first in ERA, first in Opponent Batting Average, first in shutouts, and third in strikeouts.  In advanced stats, he was first in Advanced ERA+ and led pitchers in Wins Above Replacement.  This wasn't due to a small statistical sample size since he led the league in games started and was third in innings pitched.

He also won his very first World Series ring as the Red Sox beat the Brooklyn Robins four games to one.  In Game Two, Ruth pitched a 14-inning complete game, a World Series record that still stands today.  Ruth's only weakness was his lack of control.  Like everything else about him, Ruth's fastball was big.  Though he'd learned to mix in an off-speed pitch from time to time, batters were tied up by the erratic hammer.

Walter Johnson was the best pitcher of the decade and has been considered by many to be the greatest of all time.  Johnson's only weakness in 1916 was Babe Ruth.  They faced each other five times, Ruth went 5-0.  Ruth actually won six in a row against The Big Train, something no other pitcher ever accomplished.

Johnson and Ruth each allowed zero home runs for the entire season.  Meanwhile, Ruth's crowd-silencing home run feats from the previous season didn't repeat in 1916.  He did hit three home runs, which was tied for the best on the team (even though he played in only 43% of their games).  But all of his batting statistics dropped off.

His focus was on his pitching (and hookers and blended whiskey, but I digress) which now garnered attention and provided his first championship ring.  Like Hitchcock, Ruth was succeeding outside what had first caught him high regard.  But while Ruth's acclaim was much larger much quicker, Hitch would venture back to his bailiwick sooner......in Chapter 3: Champagne.


Sources:
Creamer, Robert. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. Simon & Schuster, New York. 1974.
Jenkinson, Bill. Baseball's Ultimate Power: Ranking the All-Time Greatest Distance Home Run Hitters. Lyons Press. 2010.
Jenkinson, Bill. The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs: Recrowning Baseball's Greatest Slugger. Carrol & Graf. 2007.
Montville, Leigh. The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. Broadway Books, New York. 2006.

The George Herman Hitchcock project, Chapter 2A: The Ring

Introduction

Table of Contents

Chapter 1


HITCHCOCK
(1927-1928)

Like the American film industry, production and distribution at British International Pictures and Gainsborough Pictures occurred with assembly line efficiency.  Audiences turned over their nickels, dimes, and quarters at an intense rate so the supply needed to meet the demand.  Individual production budgets were smaller, sets were few and recycled, location shoots virtually non-existant, stories were kept short, and editing began the moment the exposed film was printed.

Today our favorite director's films release once every 18 to 24 months.  It's not unusual for features to take almost a year to develop, then spent many months in complicated post production.  But between 1927 and 1928, Alfred Hitchcock had a new film out every four months.  He proved to executives he could run streamlined productions that found moderate box office success.  He continued this pace right through 1931, after which he rarely made more than one film a year.

I'm sure that most artists would prefer more time to work through their creations, but it's debatable whether having that luxury would have benefited Hitch.  For instance, he pushed out Dial M for Murder and Rear Window in the same year (1954), but it took him two years to release I Confess, his only (rightfully) dismissed film from the '50s.  In 1955, he directed two films (To Catch a Thief and The Trouble With Harry) and three television episodes for a series he had created himself ("Alfred Hitchcock Presents"), while it took him over a year to complete Jamaica Inn.  Never heard of Jamaica Inn?  There's a good reason for that.  I still haven't finished it myself.

After his success with The Lodger, Hitchcock was hired to direct four films over less than 16 months.  Curiously, none of these were thrillers, horrors, or mysteries.  By this date in the American film industry, directors were assigned to specific genres per their box office successes.  Yet it would still be a few years before Hitchcock would be consistently hired for thrillers.  Instead, over this 16 month period, he directed three dramas and a comedy.

Downhill (UK) or When Boys Leave Home (US) (1927)

(This film wasn't part of the cheapie Hitchcock DVD set that I'd picked up for this study.  Instead it's available for viewing right on YouTube!)

After his friend impregnates a party girl, Roddy, a promising student from a wealthy family, takes the blame and is kicked out of his boarding school.  His father then kicks him out of the house.  A theatre's lead actress marries him when she discovers that he's inherited 30,000 from a relative.  She spends all of his money, cheats on him, then ditches him.  Roddy then becomes a escort/prostitute to earn a living.  He winds up on the docks broke, starving, and insane.  He stumbles home and is welcomed back by his father and the school who have learned that he was innocent of the original accusation.

First, the title.  "Downhill" is appropriate, kudos to the UK distributors.  There really is no story arc here, it's just downhill.  The character is completely passive, continually getting beaten down by the world.  The title that the American distributors gave it is "When Boys Leave Home", which is so wrong it's as if they never saw it before they named it.  It's not about "boys", it's about one guy: a schoolboy played by a 34 year-old Igor Novello.  And he doesn't leave home, he's kicked out of the house.  That's the whole point of the first act.  Why change it from "Downhill"?  Did they think American audiences would expect skiing?

Aside from the cloying melodrama, lack of rounded characters, and no real story momentum, Downhill is the best of these four films.  I'll focus on the positive elements.

Hitch's past experience as an art director shows.  Every set is full of dimension, depth, and detail.  Columns, arches, windows, bookcases, vertical lines, and boxes frame the continually trapped Roddy.  There are also some nice effects shots -- upside down, diagonal, double exposures.  They may be jarringly obvious, but they do serve the story.  And there are also nice visuals of descent.  Roddy rides an escalator downwards after being booted out of his house, then he takes the elevator down when he's kicked out of his marriage.

Hitch also introduces a repeating theme here: the flirtatious, scheming, backstabbing woman.  We'll see this type of character reappear often throughout his silent films.  I'm not sure what to make of it yet, it's unsettling to witness it so often.  In "Downhill" both of the female leads flirt, consume, then destroy.

In fact the only person who is nice to Roddy is a transvestite.  Yep, I'm saying it here.  There's a tranny in this film and no one writes about this, yet.  At the tail end of his male escort career, a "woman" invites him over to her table.  Hitchcock's camera focuses on her masculine face, too much makeup, huge arms, hidden Adam's apple, distinct facial hair, and labored attempts to look ladylike.  Before "she" asks him to dance, she expresses affection and concern for him.  No one else does that.  And it's actually kind of moving.  And riveting.  For a moment the film seems to poised to take risks.  Then he ditches her out of disgust for himself.  This viewer says  :(

---

Easy Virtue (1927)

"I'm afraid that I have no eyes for anything but you."

That odd dialogue title card is the most memorable thing about this film.

Though it's based on a Noel Coward play, the story is piffle and even pains me to type it.  C'mon Noel.

Larita marries a jerk, he catches her not cheating on him with an portrait artist.  He divorces her and she gets publicly labelled a woman of easy virtue.  Though it actually sounds like a positive thing presently, it was once shorthand for SLUT.  Larita runs away to another town, marries a rich guy who takes her home to his manipulative hateful mother (future Hitchcock theme!).  When Larita's easy virtue past catches up with her, she ends marriage #2 to allow that guy to marry the woman (Sarah) he really loves.

"Shoot!  There's nothing left to kill!" Larita exclaims at one point.  I would have shot her.

What I mean to say is, maybe if she died at the end the film would have been lent a degree of tragedy.  Otherwise Larita's somehow both passive and accusatory, whiny and sullen.  Husband #2 is constantly grumpy, dismissive, and never defends his wife.  So yes, in addition to a weak narrative, the characters are not interesting.

There is some innovative cutting between the past and present in the first act.  There are some heavy-handed eye-piece and tennis racquet effects that highlight trapped characters.  Hitchcock shows some better instincts when instead of filming the proposal scene, he shows us a telephone operator listening in and reacting to it.  Finally, there's this moment between Sarah and Larita at the very end of the film:

It's the most intimate moment in any of Hitchcock's films so far.  It's a pity that these two don't wind up with each other at the end.  Now THAT would be a great twist.

......Goodness, there are two films left AND Babe Ruth's 1916 entry...... Coming soon...

Enter Sandman

"First you get the sugar, then you get the power..."

It started last Friday.  It won’t stop until next Sunday.  We are at the new home until the sun sets every day, all while I battle it out with food poisoning (Thanks Subway! You disgusting hive of vile bacteria-infested meat product. Hugs!).  We soak and scrape the ceilings.  We spackle and sand them.  We dust, tape, prime, and paint them.  (I hate cottage-cheese bumpy popcorn ceilings.  I see them in the street, in the carpet, in the clouds, in my dreams.)  We’re pulling out cabinets.  We’re tearing down wallpaper.  We are cleaning, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming. 

Physical labor is not romantic.  You can work out at the gym every day of the week for years.  It doesn’t matter.  You will hurt in weird places.  Your hands will be sliced, papercut, splintered, blistered, bruised, and callused.  And that’s just in the first 15 minutes.  You’re going to be sanding the ceiling for another four hours.  No matter what protection you wear you will get paint dust in your eyes, your pores, your throat, and your soul.

Maybe you’ll think about what your grandfather and great-grandfathers did for a living.  Maybe you’ll consider what our country’s migrant laborers do for a week’s wage that’s less than a day’s pay for you.

And then you will go home and drink whisky.  Scratch that.  I will go home and drink whisky.  (Take that, food-borne virus!)

My brain feels different.  Maybe it’s the paint dust.  My nerves are numbed and I can't think beyond what we’re building.  Amongst the tension, there's a calm certainty.   Kristen and I will own the end result.  Whatever it may be.

And maybe, just maybe, we will report back with tips and pics.

And Single Malt Reports.

I don't even have a caption for this.

Single Malt Report: Glenfarclas 105

Distillery: Glenfarclas
Age: 8-10 years
Maturation: Sherry casks
Region: Highland (Speyside)
Alcohol by Volume: 60%

Glenfarclas, "valley of the green grass" translated, is the last of the family-owned distilleries (courtesy of the Grants, since 1865).  They're operators operators of the largest Speyside distillery stills, about a mile from the Spey River.  They are known for natural-colored big, juicy single malts.

I had the pleasure of drinking Glenfarclas 105.  Positively soaked in sherriness and weighing in at 60% alcohol, it immediately reveals why it's known in some circles as the The Sherry Bomb.

To provide some perspective, I experienced this immediately after the Bowmore tasting (posted here last week).  This was an incredible shift in the whisky spectrum.  From a bunch of peat-smoky Islays to......this.

First, I tried it neat, just for kicks.  Some cask strength whiskies can numb one's cheeks, while others have flavors that fight to the surface. 105 sits in the latter category.  BIG sherry nose.  More sherry and cream and oranges in the palate.  Creamy soft texture.  It starts off mellow in the mouth then gets incredibly hot at the finish.

Then, I added some water to see what would happen to the heat and the sherry.  Once the water drips hit, the whisky clouded quickly which meant that it was (happily) not chillfiltered.  Before the drink hit my lips, the sweets availed themselves.  Mmm, sugar and caramel scents, but softly, tricking me into thinking that it had mellowed.  It had not mellowed.  Still spicy and sweet, ripe plums and jam.  And then the finish -- my tastebuds still remember it -- a cherry lollipop.

The youth, the sherry maturation, and the high ABV make this a singular experience.  It's clearly a dessert dram.  Probably would be stellar with some fresh-baked apple pie. [Guess who just finished his Yom Kippur fasting?]  Though, I do not recommend going from an Islay directly to this one as it might come across as too sweet.  It's also not for all palates or all occasions.  And it's not inexpensive.

Pricing - Good at $85-95
Rating - 90

We are moving

Down payments, points, interest rates, buyer’s realtors, seller’s realtors, loan company, loan agent, underwriters, loan company buying our loan from the other loan company, mortgage, mortgage insurance, condo insurance, supplemental insurance, property tax, property tax credit, escrow, HOA dues, plumbers, electricians, locksmiths, inspections, appraisals, termites, bird poop, lots of bird poop, utilities, telephone lines, internet, cable, HD cable box, address changes, condo keys, complex keys, mail keys, garage door openers, intercom doesn’t work, scraping patching sanding priming painting ceilings, vacuuming, removing mirrors, de-uglifying, new appliances, escrow errors, balancing multiple accounts, multiple runs to Lowe’s, renting a moving truck, finding movers, praying for a full security deposit return, High Holidays, producer’s notes on script, generating new story ideas, broken router, scheduling donation pickups, massive stack of empty boxes, packing boxes, early start on moving boxes, avoiding injury, pre-moving injuries, new neighbors, new town, new kitchen, new bedroom, new view, more escrow errors, f**k escrow, crowded old living space, dust, carpet off-gassing, suspect dishwasher, bad backsplash, bad counters, painted over wallpaper peeling, terrible paint jobs, unwanted new flooring, pretending to be good at handiwork, shift in diet, insomnia, lots and lots and lots of money leaving aforementioned accounts, I AM FINE I AM NOT STRESSED NO PANIC HERE TOTALLY RELAXED MELLOW CALM SUNNY CHEERY MEDITATIVE I DON’T KNOW THE DEFINITION OF ANXIETY

anxiety (a ng ˈzī-itē) - noun ( pl. -ties)

a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event

Did I mention that we bought a condo?

Single Malt Report: THREE(!) Bowmores

So far I've posted about only single malts distilled in the Highlands and Speyside regions.  These regions make up 75-90% of the single malt labels you'll see at the bars and liquor stores in the US.  They're the highest producing Scotch whisky regions due to their rivers and climate.  These malts are also the starting point for most of us Scotch lovers.  Their often creamy, mellow, vanilla, and dried fruit notes suit the American palate very well -- so the distributors load our shores with the Glenlivets, Glenfiddichs, Macallans, Balvenies, and Glenmorangies.

Though most of my Reports will be on that region, I'm going to make an effort cover the other regions as well since some spectacular and unique flavors are found in their single malts.

Today, I'll start with a distillery from the Islay region.  The Islay island sits at the far southwest corner of Scotland, just north of Northern Ireland.

Islay (pronounced eye-lay) single malts are often known for their peaty palates.  Peat, partially decayed vegetal turf, can be found in bogs all over the world, but especially in Scotland and Ireland.  Many distilleries use peat fires to dry their barley at the start of the whisky making process which is where that flavor often sneaks in.  And not all peat patches are equal.  In Islay, specifically, the heavy sea air and coastal seaweed gives the peat salty, menthol, and iodine flavors.  It's those sorts of strong aromas and tastes that turn off many scotch drinkers (and their significant others).

But, dear friends, don't let that scare you away from the Islays.  They may take some time to warm up to, but those peat flavors provide a nice counter volley to the barley and wood elements in your drink.  Whisky guides claim that more that 80 aroma compounds have been found within peat, plus it's full of antioxidants!

---

Bowmore.  Sitting in the mouth of Laggan Bay, Islay's capital Bowmore is a little village of about 860 folks.  Its distillery produces some of the most popular of the island's whiskies.  Bowmore peats its barley malts for a lesser time than most of the other Islay distilleries.  As a result, their bottlings have less of the intense medicinal phenol flavor that hits Lagavulin, Ardbeg, and Laphroaig.  Bowmore also tends to smoke the barley rather than heavily heat it which also results in different flavors than those distilleries to the south.

Normally, I report on one whisky at a time.  But this past August I attended a free tasting at The Daily Pint, which provided the opportunity to sample three Bowmore whiskies.  The atmosphere around these tastings can get a bit intense.  There's six people per tasting shift, and about a dozen shifts.  So while one is trying focus on the free delights in a LOUD dark bar, 50+ people are waiting impatiently all around.  I'm not knocking the process.  I'll never gripe about free whisky.  The atmosphere just slightly compromises one's sensory skills, especially if one is a relative newbie.  Amongst the hubbub of happy whisky fans, I tried the following:

---

First tasting:

Distillery: Bowmore
Age: 12 years
Finish: unknown
Region: Islay
Alcohol by Volume: 40%

Mild.  Mild in everything.  Color, nose, alcohol content, texture, flavor, finish.  When in the aforementioned whisky tasting situation, sussing out subtleties is a struggle when given a 0.5oz pour.  And this one was a challenge.

The color was a medium brass-like tone, the lightest shade of the three.  Mild peat (more smoke than wet seaweed) on the nose and the palate.  Otherwise, a little bit of lemon.  Sweetens up at the very end which is a nice counter to the smoke.

Frankly, it was the least interesting of the three.  But at the same time, the least peaty.  So it's a safe way to ease into the Islays and it's one of Bowmore's cheaper bottlings.  The prices are all over the place for this, as noted:

Pricing - Good at $35, Acceptable at $50
Rating - 77

---

Second tasting:

Distillery: Bowmore

Age: 15 years

Name:  Bowmore Darkest

Finish: Oloroso Sherry Casks

Region: Islay

Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Darkest indeed.  Looks like maple syrup!  It's been said that Sherry casks can impart the deep shades but this is so dark that I wonder if they hit it with some carmel coloring just to make sure that it is indeed "Darkest".

Immediate sherry on the nose.  Sweeter aromas than the 12yr.  The palate starts a little peatier than the 12, then sweetness zips in from behind.  The sweetness isn't dried fruits nor caramel.  Maybe toffee?  It finishes with the same peat & sherry dance, though it sustains less than the 12yr.

These dark whiskies are always fun.  They look like candy in a bottle and are often tasty even if the whole package isn't working.  Another good way to introduce oneself to this whisky region, but more expensive than the 12.  The prices are also spread out for this one, as noted:

Pricing - Good at $60, Acceptable at $85
Rating - 80

---

Third tasting:

Distillery: Bowmore
Age: 10 years
Name:  Bowmore Tempest, Batch 2
Finish: First-fill Bourbon Casks
Region: Islay
Alcohol by Volume: 56.5%

Cask-strength!  Always a fan of cask-strength whiskies.  If you check out the ABV, you'll see what I mean.  Cask strength whiskies keep the alcohol content of the product sitting in the final maturation casks.  They vary anywhere from 48%-62%.

The bad news about these hefty bottlings is that the ethanol can overpower all flavors and aromas.  So most whiskies are diluted by the producer to both increase the amount of product and to make it better.

The good news is that you can play with cask-strength whiskies more, adding a little water at a time to find out what happens to the nose and the palate.  Or you can sip them neat, but beware......it can numb your face.  I know this from personal experience.

The Bowmore Tempest was done well.  The alcohol does not overwhelm.  In fact, this is like the 12 but a little hotter and crazier.  It's not sweet like the 15yr.  There's smoke and cinnamon on the nose.  A little vanilla with some smoke in the palate, followed by some citrus.  The peat remains in the background throughout.  The finish is loooooong, warm, and spicy.

Though the emcee of this tasting was prone to exaggeration, he wasn't kidding when he told us that The Tempest was limited and difficult to find.  Production was kept at 2000 cases so I'm not sure how much actually made it to The States.  Dear Scotland, please share!

Pricing - Good at $80-90
Rating - 89