Lefty Gomez, a dead hamster, and Fujikai 10 year old

Lefty Gomez, the always quotable ace of the Yankees pitching staff across the late Babe Ruth era, Lou Gehrig era and early Joe DiMaggio era, passed away on February 17, 1989.

A week later, my family bought our first pet, the most adorable of domesticated rodents, a hamster. I named him Lefty. I don't know if he was really a southpaw (zing!), but I was a baseball history geek who'd just turned 10½, so it didn't matter. Lefty was fuzzy and fast, didn't mind being held, and had a great time making nests in his wood shavings. He also had virulent case of wet tail, and had to take medicine every day.

Seven months later I found my hamster on top of his bedding, expired from dehydration, having shit himself to death. It was summer, we wrapped him in a sock and buried him in the backyard. My mom and I cried.

This is a bottle of whisky someone abandoned at a Columbus Scotch Night event this year:

Distilled at Japan's Monde Shuzou distillery, Fujikai 10 year old single malt is loathed by the whisky world. Of course I had to try it.

Fujikai 10 year old, 43%abv, aged in bourbon casks, 8088 (lucky?) bottle-outturn

Well, it smells of garbage. Rubber garbage, cardboard garbage. Someone tossed new sneakers into the bin, doused them in armagnac eau de vie, and lit them on fire with dry peat.

There's a lot of bitter wood and soy sauce on the palate, along with menthol, raw wheat, oversteeped pu-erh tea, and hamster piss.

It has a WOWEE level of bitter oak in the finish, along with burnt wheat, burnt hair and tar.

That was Fujikai 10 neat. I thought perhaps a proper mizuwari would salvage the whisky.

A proper mizuwari did not salvage the whisky, but did change it.

Into my dead hamster in liquid form.

I can't rate this. The remaining liquid will be buried.