Single Malt Report - The Glenrothes 1998

Distillery: The Glenrothes
Age: 10 years (bottled in early 2009)
Finish: mixed casks
Region: Highlands - Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

From Royal Mile Whiskies:
The official bottlings are bottled by the wine merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd who offer them as vintages, which is not surprising given their status as respected wine merchants. Their distinctive dumpy bottles are massively popular and have been highly praised. The casks they select, carefully chosen from 2% of the distilleries annual output, are mostly matured in sherry casks with 25% being fresh, and a few bourbon casks occasionally used to provide balance and extra depth. There is absolutely no colouring in any official Glenrothes whisky. It is all natural colour from the casks.

thekrav's notes:

The second 100mL bottle from a three-pack of Glenrothes that I purchased at Royal Mile Whiskies in London.  My post about the first bottle, the Select Reserve, is here.  I also sampled this at the splendid free Scotch Tasting at The Daily Pint back on June 16th.  (The 1998 is very difficult to find in the US, UK, and online.  Per notes I've seen online, I think the '98 was primarily released in Asia.)

I mostly just wanted to post the above pic of the quaint label and the tiny bulb-like dumpy bottle.  Though the "handwriting" is likely digitally printed, it's a nice touch.  I really like the birth and bottling date listings which many of the independent distributors choose to include on their labels as well.

While I understand that providing tasting notes somewhere on the packaging makes for an acceptable tasting guide, listing the "character" so prominently (the top of the front label) strikes me as a bit heavy-handed.  Taste and smell are linked to an individual's sense memory and chemoreception system.  Whisky is a work of art, so the author's intent doesn't matter; everyone takes something different from the experience.  Six professional tasters will generate six different sets of notes on the same bottling.

For instance, the folks who compile the Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch reference lots of orange, toffee, and vanilla in this specific single malt.  Serge Valentin tastes honey, marmelade, apples, and toasted bread.  Those are the pros.

This amateur's notes were:  "HONEY. Honey prominent in the palate and finish. There's even honey in the nose. Looks like honey too. A tiny bit of vanilla. And it shares that butterscotch moment the Select Reserve had. But mostly honey. The jury's out if this is a good thing."  Additionally, the texture is thin and the finish is very clipped.  And yet again, this whisky was not memorable.  I'm thankful for my notes.

It's a half step up from the Select Reserve overall.  Though I wouldn't call that a ringing endorsement.

Pricing - Overpriced! at $55-65
Rating - 73

The George Herman Hitchcock project

(Getty Images)

I've been an avid baseball fan since I was five.  I've been a cinema student for half of my life.  But those two subjects never intermingle.  (Note:  Field of Dreams and Bull Durham are great movies because they are great movies, not because they're about baseball.)

I genuinely enjoyed collecting my 20,000+ baseball cards.  But it was obsession that drove me to buy almost 100 baseball statistic books before I turned 13.  Numbers Numbers Numbers.  My two most prized tomes were the 1988 edition of the Baseball Encyclopedia (Macmillan Publishing, 2875pp) and Total Baseball (1991, Warner Books, 2629pp).  Every day, I'd pour over the thousands of pages, always finding players, seasons, teams, and league leaders that I'd never seen before.

One thing that I would never acknowledge was that George Herman (Babe) Ruth was the greatest player of all time.  Every book said he was.  New metrics kept being introduced into the baseball stat lexicon and each one of them showed that Ruth was the best - SLG, OBP, OPS, OPS+, ISO, Batting Runs, Batting Wins, WAR - individual seasons, prime, and career.  But I stubbornly dug in, looking to prove them all wrong.

Then at some point in high school, I yielded.  I objectively looked at the numbers and comparables.  There's no dispute, there never was.  Ruth is the best, in his time and for all time.

* * * * *

(from allposters.com)

I enjoy and respect Alfred Hitchcock's work.  Rear Window has always been one of my favorites.  Vertigo expands and mutates, changing colors every time I see it.  I appreciate Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, and Psycho, though considerably less than others do.

La Nouvelle Vague worshipped him, as his films helped define the auteur theory.  Major film journals still list him amongst the greatest or most influential filmmakers of all time.  He is credited for sculpting and perfecting cinematic suspense and The Thriller, which is my personal bread-and-butter genre as a screenwriter.

Yet I was never swept up by Hitchcock as so many others were.  Fellini, Murnau, Keaton, Welles, Kurosawa, Polanski, Kieslowski -- these were the directors whose art consistently captured me, intellectually and emotionally.

But as I continue along my screenwriting career, I've found myself being drawn back to Hitchcock's oeuvre......though not to those titles for which he's most famous.  Rather to the films earlier and in between.

Lifeboat was much better than I'd expected.  The Lady Vanishes, great; The Trouble with Harry; warped.  But it was when I was blindsided by the excellent Foreign Correspondent, that I began to reconsider my view of Hitch.  Throwing in The Birds, Rope, To Catch a Thief, and Notorious, that's already thirteen films of considerable quality.  Not only were these movies built around brilliant basic premises, but the execution in each production was consistently spot on.  I began to wonder...

How were all of his other films?  What was his early work like as he began to hone his craft?  When and what was his peak?  Should I go the Full Truffaut and watch all of his available feature films?

(Source)

Because I'm a man of modest means, I purchased one of those ultracheap 20-film Hitchcock DVD packs that are abhorred by films purists (among whom I'm usually counted).  20 films squeezed onto 4 DVDs means that the video quality is nigh abysmal.  But it's $5, man.  And it contains almost all of his British Films.

Sure he'll fumble a bit as he finds his style.  Heck, at the start of his own career, Babe Ruth was a pitcher.  Though a damn good one (curse you, Ruth!).

So, I would like to invite you to join me as I explore Hitchcock's career.  Every Tuesday I will post my discoveries.  I'll watch the crummy films so you don't have to.  I'll recommend the best of the lesser known flicks.  And maybe I can even work in some references to Ruth, comparing their progressing careers.  I don't really know how or if this is going to work, but I'm going to find out.

Single Malt Report - The Glenrothes Select Reserve

Distillery: The Glenrothes
Age: no vintage
Finish: mixed casks
Region: Highlands - Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

From Royal Mile Whiskies:
The official bottlings are bottled by the wine merchants, Berry Bros. & Rudd who offer them as vintages, which is not surprising given their status as respected wine merchants. Their distinctive dumpy bottles are massively popular and have been highly praised. The casks they select, carefully chosen from 2% of the distilleries annual output, are mostly matured in sherry casks with 25% being fresh, and a few bourbon casks occasionally used to provide balance and extra depth. There is absolutely no colouring in any official Glenrothes whisky. It is all natural colour from the casks.

---

One tweet:

@kravitz_hubris Glenrothes Select Reserve, 100mL bottle from UK - olive oil color, dried cherries and butterscotch palate, spicy finish. #SingleMaltReport6/5/11

---

thekrav's notes:

Part of a 3-pack of 100mL Glenrothes bottles that I purchased at Royal Mile Whiskies in London.  The other two bottles from this set will be reviewed very soon.

So let's start with the positives!  The design is fantastic.  As per the pictures, the bottles (big or small) are of a squat "dumpy" shape, unique amongst whiskies.  The label looks as if it's been partially handwritten with signatures, tasting notes, and dates of birth & bottling. [I'll have a better pic of it in the next review.]  The Select Reserve has received some good reviews at the '06 World Spirits Competition and also from BevMo's cellar master, Wilfred Wong.  Finally, there's no artificial coloring, which is nice to see since so many of the major bottlers use carmel coloring to manipulate their whiskies' tint.

Despite all of that, I wasn't too crazy about it.  In fact if I hadn't written down some notes, I would have forgotten its flavor entirely.  What I do remember is that its natural color is that of extra virgin olive oil.  The texture is light and smooth.  The nose is sugary but mild.  The palate begins as dried cherries and ends with butterscotch, all followed by a spicy finish.

If those notes don't sound very negative it's because they were written after drinking more than three normal tastings' worth.  One final note reads: "Yeah, I don't need to drink this again."

Compare all of that with this review from Dave of the LA Whiskey Society:

"I was given this bottle as a gift. The gift-giver is no longer my friend.... Some of the worst swill I have ever had the unfortunate experience to try.... My dog has produced better smelling liquids."

There's no actual vintage for this bottling nor description of its makeup.  Glenrothes has been mum on the recipe.  It is the lowest priced of their bottlings and the easiest to find online or in liquor stores.  But the fact that one can purchase a bottle of Macallan 12 for less than this whisky makes little sense to me.

Pricing - Overpriced! at $45-50
Rating - 69

Monday Movie Miscellaneousness

Happy Monday!  Here's a rundown of some movie-related subjects that have surfaced over the past couple of days:

1. i can has blooray?  I birthday-gifted myself the LG-BD670 Blu-Ray player.  I tested its visuals with Baraka and its sound with Fight Club (you don't need a link to this).  I approve, thus far.  But I'm not buying the new Star Wars set (not linking to that, either, but for other reasons).

2. Breaking Bad on Netflix (streaming) - Previously only available on disc, Netflix gained streaming rights to Breaking Bad's last three seasons!  Finally, I can start catching up on that show.

3. The Wire, Season 1 Disc 1 arrived on Saturday.  My wife doesn't know this, but I was about to drop $124 on the entire series.  I've been that desperate to watch this show since its first season.  I'm a total Wire virgin.  But not for much longer.

4. Netflix/Qwikster - In some wider-reaching news, last night Netflix officially announced that it is splitting its DVD service off into its own separate company, Qwikster.  Some background:

Two months ago, Netflix released a press statement that it was dividing/expanding the fees for its disc rental and streaming services.  The statement provided very little explanation.  Their customers who weren't informed until a couple days afterwards, suddenly found their total monthly fees jumping 20-50%.  Online outrage was extreme, as it always is, and the company had to hire extra customer service reps to handle the complaints.  But most effectively, customers actually left.  Then one of Netflix's largest streaming providers, Starz, did not renew their streaming deal.  In its following quarterly statement, Netflix fell short in its revenue and customer estimates.  The stock price followed, losing 24% last week alone, on its way to being the biggest S&P loser of the week.  Then today's announcement was made.

I can't decide if that image is vaginal or ocular. It's a weird design choice, Qwikster.

Before this kerfuffle started two months ago, Wired Magazine was a huge supporter of Netflix's business model.  Not so much since these events.  Here are a few short articles with their takes on the developing issues:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/07/netflix-dvd-not-dead/
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/netflix-jump-too-soon/
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/netflix-quickster-separate/ (from this morning)

I have enjoyed Netflix's DVD service for years.  Their catalog is amazing.  My queue is perpetually 300+ deep because I keep finding films I've always wanted to see.  And for the sake of the art form, Netflix has brought independent, cult, foreign, classic, and avant garde films to the widest audience yet.

Their streaming library is about 1/4th the size of the disc selection.  That's largely due to the continuing difficulty for any streaming service to get rights to studio owned films.  But the available selection has been growing, especially with full seasons of TV series.  It's great to have so much available on demand on multiple platforms.

But my fee has gone up almost 50% over the last three years without a single alteration to my account status.  I'm not a fan of that.  I'm also not a fan of this most recent price hike and the poor way it was handled.  For now, I remain with Netflix and Qwikster (ugh, crap name).  But the moment I find a better streaming deal with Hulu, Apple, or Amazon, I'll be the next customer to leave.

5. Not Movies - The Glenrothes - And finally, in not-movie news, I'll be reviewing four bottlings from The Glenrothes over the next couple of weeks.

Single Malt Report: Tomintoul 33 year old

Distillery: Tomintoul
Age: 33 years old
Region: Highlands - Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

From Royal Mile Whiskies:
Tomintoul - pronounced 'Tomintowel' - is Scotland's highest village and has become infamous for regularly being cut off due to heavy snow.

From The Guide:
The distillery was built in the 1960s and is modern in appearance, with large warehouses and no pagoda roofline.  The wildness of the surroundings contrasts with the delicacy of the district's malts.  Tomintoul has traditionally seemed the lightest among them in flavor, although it has a little more body than its neighbor Tamnavulin.

thekrav's notes:

Part of a 3-pack of 50mL Tomintoul bottles that I purchased at Fortnum and Mason in London.  I reported on the first bottle, the 10-year, here, and then the very good 16-year.  At 33 years this is the oldest bottling that Tomintoul has ever put out, replacing their popular 27-year.

You read that right, this is the 33-year-old.  The whisky and the blogger both.  I actually saved this specifically for my 33rd birthday in August.  Three months of antagonizing anticipation for this, the oldest drink I've ever had.

I won't bury the lead here.  I like the 16 year-old better.

That's not to say that this dram isn't lovely.  It's smooth as water.  Light and airy like a whisper.  The downside: it's neither particularly interesting or unique.  This is a $200 whiskey (for the 700mL bottle), so it should be a little memorable.  OR perhaps, this was the moment that I began to tire of ultra-gentle Speysides.

So what I'm saying is that it's me.  Not the Tomintoul 33.

The color isn't that dark from all of those years in the barrel, maybe even a tad lighter in shade than the 16.  It has a light nose, a touch of sherry and sweets with a bit of ethanol.  As I mentioned, it's incredibly smooth to the feel and palate.  Like sherry and cream and clouds.  But mostly clouds.  It finished warmly and evenly.

Even though it was the oldest whisky I've yet tried, it wouldn't make it into my Top 10.  In fact, I kind of forgot about it by the end of the night, but that's probably because I later sampled two other (much younger and cheaper) whiskies that are currently Top 5ers.  But more on those another time.

Tomintoul 33 was quite good, but at this age and this price range (and within Tomintoul's whisky range alone) one can do better.  But the 33-year was the smoothest of the three Toms that I had sampled.  So if gentleness is one's desire, and if one has the financial means, then this is a good match.

Pricing - Overpriced! at $200
Rating - 82

Spin class

A couple months ago, as a little bit of a change of pace, I decided to try out the beginners' spin class at my gym.  I'd heard tales of vomiting and blackouts during folks' first spin session.  I thought, "Really? How hard could this be?"

Here is a lightly fictionalized account of my first spin class, interpreted in the style of Twitter:

@kravitz_hubris Minute 1. This song the instructor’s playing is great!

@kravitz_hubris Minute 3. This is kinda hard.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 5. My legs have stiffened completely but the 2 pedals create a perpetual motion machine so I can’t stop!

@kravitz_hubris Minute 7. I have sweat through my towel.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 10. I have sweat through my second towel.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 15. Is my heart supposed to hurt?

@kravitz_hubris Minute 20. Guh. Calf muscles. Trying to pull away from body.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 25. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 26. I’m supposed to be OFF my seat?

@kravitz_hubris Minute 32. Someone here has sh*t their pants but has continued pedaling.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 33. That person is me.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 37. Instructor has put on a song that never ever ever f*cking ends.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 42. The song is still going. Does sweat hide tears?

@kravitz_hubris Minute 47. It’s still going. I look up at the instructor for a sign. She’s the demon from Jacob’s Ladder.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 51. The world. So dark.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 52. So this is how I’m going to die. Not during the best shtup of my life...

@kravitz_hubris Minute 53. ...nor while trying to finish a 20x20 @ In 'n Out nor taking a bullet for the Dalai Lama…

@kravitz_hubris Minute 54. …no, I had to die during beginners spin class @7:30am on a Tuesday morning. Congratulations, a**hole.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 60. Two nice grandmas help me off my bike. Then they scurry away cuz I smell like a fertilizer truck collided w/ the rotten meat van.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 62. Cold floor nice on cheek. mmmmmm

@kravitz_hubris Minute 77. Fitness club had to call wife to pick me up. Wife pretended to not know me.

@kravitz_hubris Minute 83. I sleep now. Back to the elliptical machine tomorrow. :)

Hall Pass review

Kristen and I watched Hall Pass last night.  I was looking forward to it since the subject matter seemed ripe, especially in the Farrelly Brothers' hands:

Rick and Fred have been given "hall passes" from their wives so that they all may have one full week away from marriage to do whatever they want, free from consequences.  With Jason Sudeikis, Owen Wilson, Christina Applegate, and Jenna Fischer as leads it sounds like it can't miss, right?

It does.  Significantly.  To start with, most of the good stuff from the 105-minute movie is right here in this 2 minute 45 second Red Band trailer:

Warning:  Video not safe for work


Yep, that's about half the laughs.  The other half consist of an extended (take that as you will) penis joke and the postscript in the end credits.

I am very aware of the many hands involved in script development.  Many conflicting voices and notes are heaped upon the writers and directors before production can begin.  But whatever the collaboration of dissimilar voices may have been on this project, it does produce a singular writer's voice.  The film seems like it was written by a bunch of 19 year-olds who mined sitcoms and bad stand-up routines for their research into marriage.  So any honest, unique, or creative jabs at this institution are missing.  We're left with bland overused tropes and clumsy jokes about fake sex.

Also missing is the sense of danger that lingers in the best of the Farrelly Brothers' work.  There's Something About Mary had the zipper sequence, the violent retarded brother, gay sex rest stops, voyeuristic leering, and the low grade menacing insanity of all of the male characters.  And then there's the majority of the wrongheaded and refreshingly tasteless Me Myself and Irene and Kingpin.  But in Hall Pass even the profane pick-up lines, drug references, and graphic poop jokes are so harmless that they're kind of cute.

Finally, a note on product placement.  I understand the need for it in order to obtain funding to get some films off the ground.  But putting product placement in a film's dialogue is more awkward than a fart at a funeral.  Lines like, "I'm hungry, let's get some Mickey Dees" or "Chili's" or "Applebees" or "TGI Fridays" or "Subway" are distracting and stop a film in its tracks.  By Hall Pass's eighth dialogue product placement, I realized I was watching a glamorized commercial.  And it had lost me.  It clearly wasn't parodying product placement.  Because if it was, then the old Farrelly Brothers would have had that brave actress shart all over the walls at "Mickey Dees".