Single Malt Report: Balvenie 12 year old Doublewood

Distillery: The Balvenie
Age: 12 years old
Finish: Doublewood (matured in Bourbon oak 12yrs, finished in Sherry oak for a few months)
Region: Highlands - Speyside
Alcohol by Volume: 43%

Distillery Description, from Royal Mile Whiskies:
Right next door to its sister distillery Glenfiddich, and owned by the Grant family which founded both distilleries. Balvenie was built next to the castle of the same name in 1892, on the back of the success of Glenfiddich. The distillery still uses some of its own malt from barley produced on the Grant family farms. Although Glenfiddich is still the market leader in terms of sales, Balvenie is generally regarded as the stronger of the two in terms of quality across the range, which include some stunning wood-finished whiskies produced long before it became fashionable to do so.

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I've tweeted twice about Balvenie 12 year old Doublewood:

@kravitz_hubris Balvenie 12yr Doublewood @ Oak Fire - priced hi, generous pour - Speyside creamy, a nutty start, sternum heating finish. #SingleMaltReport

3 June 2011

@kravitz_hubris Balvenie 12yr DblWd - A little water brings bananas & caramel to the forefront in both nose & palate. Preferred neat. #SingleMaltReport

7/24/11

Source

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thekrav's notes:

Balvenie is the next door neighbor to Glenfiddich, their land actually abutting, both owned by William Grant & Sons Ltd.  Lining up their 12 year olds, Glenfiddich is more popular, but Balvenie is richer.  I first enjoyed it at Oak Fire Grill on La Cienega.  It didn't come cheaply but the pour was a nice size.  It was a surprisingly smooth drinking experience, so much so that a bottle of it wound up in my liquor cabinet.

When served neat, the sherry is very up front in the nose.  It has a almond nutty start then gets very buttercreamy.  The finish is hot and full of stamina.

When served with a little water, bananas and caramel push the sherry nose aside.  They're also in the far forefront of the palate.  The finish mellows out and almost vanishes.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the banana flavor so I prefer it neat.  It's an easy Speyside so it makes a great gateway Scotch.

Pricing - Acceptable at $45
Rating - 84 (when served neat)

Orpheus deux fois

Last night, I spent most of my dreamtime getting stuck in labyrinths.  That’s probably my Unconscious working through my conscious struggle of trying to breakthroughs with my new writing project.

I’m going to honor Hypnos (and perhaps one of the Muses) by presenting these reviews of Orphée (Jean Cocteau, 1950) and Orfeu Negro (Marcel Camus, 1959), two takes on the story of Orpheus.


The story of Orpheus

According to the greek poets, Orpheus was the son of King Oeagrus and the muse Calliope.  Thanks to the gifts from his mother and her friend Apollo, Orpheus was the master of song.  His music could shame birdsong and cause the rivers to change course.  It was greater than any music the gods themselves could create.

Orpheus fell in love with Eurydice but on their wedding day she was bitten by a viper and died instantly.  In his grief, Orpheus travelled to the underworld in order to get her bring back from the dead.  His music gained him entrance, got him onto Charon’s boat, soothed Cerebus, and won the hearts of Hades and Persephone.  They agreed to let Eurydice return with him to the upper world, but with one condition: as she would walk behind him during the trip back to the earth, he could not, under any circumstance, turn around to see her until they were both above.  Orpheus agreed to this and began his travel back with Eurydice behind him.  At the edge of the upper world, out of anxiety and excitement, Orpheus turned around to see her.  But it was too early; she had not yet crossed out of the underworld.  She vanished, forever.

Orpheus finished his life angry with the gods, no longer worshiping any of them.  Dionysus’ followers tore his body to pieces and scattered them into the river Hebrus.  His lyre went to the heavens to sit amongst the stars.  The Muses buried his body at the base of Olympus, where the nightingales still sing over his grave.  Ultimately, his soul joined Eurydice in the underworld.

Now I’m going to take a look at two cinematic takes on this tale:

Orphée (Jean Cocteau, 1950)

One important element in film (and art) criticism is to ignore the author’s intent and instead focus on the individual film’s standing within the medium and its relationship to the viewer.  Unfortunately, all of the formal studies on Orphée that I’ve read focus entirely on Cocteau’s intent:  “Cocteau said ____ meant ____”.  I’m going to ignore Cocteau’s intent because his work should stand on its own.

(GREAT screenshot from sohothedog.blogspot.com)

Orphée takes place in an alternate version of post-war France.  Death falls in love with Orpheus.  Eurydice can’t get Orpheus to love her.  Death’s chauffeur falls in love with Eurydice. Orpheus is perpetually in love with Orpheus.  Death is ultimately willing to make great sacrifices in order to bring Orpheus and Eurydice together.

Let me focus on the good stuff first.

My favorite conceit (in a film of plenty conceit) is that Death, known as The Princess, falls in love with Orpheus.  María Casares (fantastic in Children of Paradise) is luminous and lovely as The Princess.  Conflicting emotions burn quietly within her until they tumble out in short bursts.  The struggle between her job and her desires really makes her the protagonist as she undergoes the deepest arc of all the characters.

The special effects surrounding Death are done all in camera and so well placed that despite of (or because of) their dated nature they work hypnotically.  Bodies are lifted up off the floor.  Walls are climbed horizontally.  People glide through watery mirrors effortlessly.  It sets up an atmosphere of dream and dread.

François Périer (great in Le Samourai) shines in his ghostlike role as Death’s chauffer, torn between being Orpheus’ confidant and Eurydice’s lover.  The leather clad motorcyclists as the harbingers of Death are a great touch; you know someone’s dying when they come racing through the scene.  I liked the quick camera-negative Nosferatu homage in the first trip to the underworld.  The mysterious radio station from nowhere, churning out poetry, works well as a metaphor for that stream of inspiration that all artists desire to capture.

So, now the rest.  Jean Marais is Orpheus in name only.  He’s really Narcissus.  The film gives very little proof -- via his words and actions -- that he’s in love with anyone but himself.  Obsessed with his poetry and his artist’s voice, he pays little attention to the women who love him.  All the mirrors, though they visually represent gateways to death, work doubly as a mode for Narcissus Orpheus to gaze at his handsomeness.

(Source: filmreference.com)

Marais was Cocteau’s longtime lover and muse (also cast in Beauty and the Beast).  I only bring this up because the emotional/sexual bias behind his casting does not affect the film positively.  Marais doesn’t act or emote other than to sneer at the people caring for him.  He verbally abuses his wife, sneers (again), sneers some more, ignores her, and is complicit in her death with little believable remorse.  Because Marais brings nothing else in his performance to clear up the character, there’s no reason for the audience to care if he winds up with Eurydice at the end. 

And that’s not a good thing…unless Cocteau’s intent was for the word of the poet to supersede all emotional attachments – but again, if Cocteau can’t communicate it in his storytelling without external explanation, it’s not successful art.

Orfeu Negro (Marcel Camus, 1959)

If Cocteau’s take on Orpheus was Theory and Brain, Camus’ interpretation is Passion and Heart.

(Source: downtownindependent.com)

Running away from Death, Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn, even her name is pretty!) escapes to Rio de Janeiro on the eve of Carnival.  There she meets trolley driver Orfeo (Breno Mello) who has just gotten engaged to the psychotic Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira).  They fall in love, make love, then head out to the big party.  Though he tries to protect her, Orfeo ultimately loses Eurydice to Death.  He searches the city for her soul.  Finds it, then loses it when he gazes back to look at it.  He winds up only with her dead body and a dark fate of his own.

Often this sweaty, fleshy, feverish film feels like it was just a good excuse to plop a film crew in the midst of Carnival.  There’s non-stop music, dancing, and swirling color.  And it works so well for the storytelling.  Crazed, the worlds of reality and magic crash together until you can’t tell one from the other.  You feel the South American magical realism, present in so much great literature, burst forth.

(3 screenshots, courtesy of my MacBook)

The film, so rich with Brazilian flavor, keeps the original Greek story elements intact.  Orfeo is a grand musician.  All of the animals throughout (including Cerebus, the underworld's guard dog) are inspired by his music.  His voice calls Eurydice’s soul forth from the dead.  And, in a brilliant switch, Orfeo repeatedly ascents into death.

So many great images. The hospital as the land of the dead – a body on a stretcher is wheeled into a room, where despite overhead lights, remains pitch black.  A Limbo of a bureaucratic hallway swirling with papers.  An intense Macumba ceremony, glowing with reds and oranges.  And Rio itself, playing a main character.

The biggest contrast between these two films lies in the final images.  In Orphée's last moment, we see the fates of The Princess, Orpheus, and Eurydice and, because of Orpheus’ deep narcissism, the fates feel unearned.  In Orfeu Negro, the final shot of the children playing music and dancing amongst the animals is a lovely coda to which all of the preceding story and images build.  In neither case is the message blind hope, but – like the original Greek story – our world continues after the players have met their fates.

(Lovely screenshot from thisismyrelaxedexpression.blogspot.com)

Making amends for violating principle #2

Yesterday's post repeatedly violated "Principle #2" from The Declaration.  Now I must make amends to this blog.  And the only way to apologize and properly cleanse a blog is to post an adorable baby animal video.

Please enjoy the following 28 second video of a cat hugging a tiny kitten having a nightmare.

We cool now?

When St. Bernardus and I assembled a grill

Happy Labor Day!

In honor of this last good weekend of grilling for many Americans, I’m posting this live diary that I wrote on the evening of June 10^th.  Please note, the following contains language that is NSFW (not safe for work). Though this violates Principle #2, I've chosen to present this unedited.

6/10/2011

Okay, here’s the situation.  Kristen is away on an extended business trip.  Kristen wants a grill.  It’s Friday night.  I need to combine all of these elements.  So this is what I’m doing:

A bottle of St Bernardus Abt 12 (delicious!) Belgian Ale and I are going to assemble a Char-Broil 2-Burner Grill…unbeknownst to my travelling bride.  (I can still call her my bride as we haven’t been married for a year as of this typing.)

I’m not the handiest of men and my 750mL bottle of Patience is always half-empty.  It’s not that I’m trying to prove my virility to my woman, but I seem to turn into a childish dingbat every time I’m left to myself.  So this time, I going to prove myself useful and get drunk while doing it.

Here’s the bottle:

The bottle on the right

Here’s the box:

(Terrible pictures courtesy of my terrible BlackBerry Bold)

One thing to note, the majority of online reviews for this grill state that the assembly is unnecessarily complicated by poorly labeled parts, bad directions, and missing pieces.

So this should turn out well.

8:45pm – Going to the bottle.  Going to the box.  Charging my phone in case I lose a finger.

St. Bernardus 12 is 10% alcohol by volume (3x the strength of Amstel Light).  The bottle is 25.4 fluid ounces.  So this will be like doing five shots.  Good for coordination and dexterity.

How genteel it looks in a wine glass.

There are a lot of parts.

There are A LOT of parts.

Already found a piece that’s not part of the parts diagram.

9:30pm – So, I finished my first drink before starting step 1.

And it took 45 mins to complete 1 & 2.  The parts take up the entire living room.  I have found the pieces I’ve needed, but really after 45 minutes I’ve only partially assemble the two legs.

Already bent the metal on a support beam, out of brute fucking strength or maybe just on accident.  Time for another round.

9:45pm – So, yeah, step 3.  First cognitive issue...

Ever stare at a three-dimensional illustration and not see the exact three dimensions that the artist(?) had intended? Apparently the M.C. Esher-motherfucker who drew diagram 3 had me seeing the legs inverted.  I got concerned that the hole were misdrilled in the main front piece, but once a gained a moment of ocular clarity, I realized that I was screwing in the wrong holes…

10:10pm – The girl’s got wheels! And by girl, I mean grill.  And by grill, I mean this thing that looks nothing like a grill.

Had my first stubbing-of-the-baby-toe.  I think I wept blood.

And by the way, what’s up with Step 4?  Step 3 required two actions.  Step 4 requires TEN actions.  What’s up with that?  Fuck you, Step 4.

10:25pm – Step 5 & 6 had fewer actions combined than Step 4.  Fuck you, Step 4.  

The grill now has the hose attached as well as the ignitor!

Had a moment of panic because I didn’t think they’d included the Stamped Nut (GAH!).  I searched the floor, the packing, the bags, the counters, my pants, and my empty glass.  And then at the most desperate hour, I found the Stamped Nut (GAH!) already screwed onto the piece that it needed to be screwed onto.  Good sentence structure, there.  Comma.  Drink break.

10:35pm – You ever find yourself in a situation where you’re assembling something, then you discover a whole bunch of parts are missing, so then you freak out thinking that the manufacturer forgot to include those parts, and you panic for ten minutes, only to realize that you fucked up an earlier part of the process?  Yeah, I used the wrong screws in Step 6.

Did I mention that I had a generous glass of Guinness an hour before starting this drinking?

10:40pm – Step 7 complete.  You may be wondering how many steps there are.  The answer:

More than 7.

I haven’t looked.  I just want to be done by midnight so that I won’t be an asshole neighbor to my Asshole Neighbor.

11:00pm – So yeah, I screwed up something royally somewhere around STEP ONE.  Spent the better part of the last 20 minutes attempting to fix it.

Step 9 is like Finnegan’s Wake.  There are like 50 actions that are diagrammed non-linearly.  Just like Finnegan’s Wake.

11:40pm – It’s been 40 minutes.  Step 9 was as epic as it had seemed.  I assembled the firebox (not a venereal disease).  The whole contraption is beginning to look like something that could be used for something useful.

Poured an extra large final glass.  Dexterity failing slowly.  Neighbor just came home.  I’ll bet he’s gay.  Pride Weekend started tonight, locally, and he just came home late.  Do the math.  In Bewitched the nosy, pushy neighbors were the Kravitzes.  Bunch of anti-Semites wrote that show.  Or Jews, I don’t really know.

12:05am – Fuck the neighbors I’m going to complete this damn thing right now.

At 12:32am Pacific Daylight Time I id it.  I really can’t believe I finished it.  The bottle of ale, i mean.

Sincerely, though, I really dint foresee actually finishing the grill.  But instead, here it is:

I don’t recommend what I did, though I do recommend St. Bernardus if you like your Belgian Ales like you like your men, pale and emotional, I mean, dark and strong.

I needed to accomplish something this week.  And I’m glad that this was it.  I’m reminded by a quote...... that I can’t fucking remember.   Sweet dreams.

Postscript:  Though the legs were assembled backwards, the grill works very well.

BRONSON review and The Rum Diary trailer

Happy Friday!

The only bit of booze in today's entry arrives in the form of the newly released trailer for The Rum Diary, adapted from Hunter S. Thompson's novel.

I would pay to see this movie:

If I were to have provided career advice to Johnny Depp back in the '90s, I would have recommended that he focus on playing Hunter's drunken alter-ego and ignore offers to play a drunken pirate.

And that is why I am not a talent agent.

The Rum Diary opens in theaters next month.  Opening this month: Drive, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn; and Warrior, starring Tom Hardy.  Hardy and Refn actually once worked together on BRONSON to which I now awkwardly segue...


BRONSON

92 minutes of untempered unexplained rage.  And in its depiction of this rage, the film is wholly successful.

In the UK in 1974, Michael Peterson was given a seven-year prison sentence for robbing a bank.  Due to his favorite pastime of delivering vicious beatdowns to prison guards, he's been in various British prisons ever since.  In the process, Peterson gave himself the moniker of Charles Bronson (after the late star of the Death Wish fascist wet dream series) and gained considerable notoriety in the UK press for his persistent violence.  The film, BRONSON (2009), is a first-person portrayal of this deeply unhinged individual.

Tom Hardy turns in the most physically intense performance that I have ever seen.  That's not hyperbole.  He spends most of the film howling, screaming, singing, and getting bludgeoned.  And he's naked.  Yes, European naked.  A lot.

While heaps of Hardy penis might be a draw for many of you, keep in mind that while the penis is out, Hardy is bleeding from the skull and screaming, "YOU F***ING C**TS!"  For an hour-and-a-half.

Though there is little doubt of writer-director Nicolas Winding Refn's immense talents, the dialogue is Guy-Ritchie-meets-Coen-Brothers, the violence staging and pop music utilization is Scorsese heavy, and the fantastic fourth-wall-stomping storytelling device vanishes abruptly for almost the entire second half.  His visuals and editing are plentiful though occasionally strain towards quirk.

There's an epic sequence based on an actual prison riot for which the production clearly did not room in the budget.  Refn's bargain depiction is brilliant, complete with singing, face paint, and real life footage.  He also works wonders in tandem with Hardy, creating a stunning performance -- which clearly won over Christopher Nolan's heart -- so one can't complain about Refn's actor-direction.

So is it good?  It's effective.  (I wanted to smash something after it was over.)  Because Bronson/Peterson purposely remains a mystery, there's no character arc.  When he gets his Bronson moniker, we see that there's no profound explanation behind it.  Similarly, there's no profound meaning behind the man's rage.  It's just there: an extreme depiction of the volcanic force inside us all.  And the film hangs it out there for us see, every inch.

What Are You Drinking? -- Part Three

This is the third installment of a three-part series.  Part One is here.  Part Two is here.  I'm including a link to the Google Docs file on which the table screenshots are based.


Part 3:  A Slender Bender

Looks like Saturday's spoken for. What'd you get for Sunday?

You will hear from every fitness maven, nutritionist, diet guru, and many other well-intentioned but spiritually-confused experts that alcohol is nothing but empty calories.

They are correct.

But, you don't drink so that you look sexy.  You drink so that I look sexy.

And may I say we're all looking quite fine tonight.

Here's the truth that the sad people are referencing:  Ethanol = 7 calories per gram.  Carbs are 4 cal/g, proteins 4 cal/g, and fats 9 cal/g.  You can hit the gym to burn off those nutrients.  Alcohol doesn't make it so easy.  Due to the depression of the drinker's synaptic transmission (mentioned in Part One), the booze doesn't promote activity.  Instead it slows things down.  A canter along the beach isn't a bad idea, but drunken sprinting on the treadmill would be a poor decision.  And lifting weights would be downright hazardous.

Those calories that are neither burned by exercise nor processed in your body's daily needs are stored up as Tubby molecules.  Happily, due to the laws of physics, energy still exists in the Tubby.  So nothing (except life) is stopping you from exercising vigorously when you're sober.

What most of the diet folks are not divulging is that caloric value between drinks varies considerably.  Two-and-a-half shots of tequila still has fewer calories than one serving of Baileys.  And don't get me started on whiskies.  Sweet sweet whiskies.

The table!

Orange = beers; Purple = wines; Pink = liqueurs; Blue = spirits; Brown = whiskies

As you may note, the caloric differences in this chart quickly become significant at the bottom.

"Why do spirits and whiskies fare so well, calorically?"
Hello again, Blue Text.  Due to distillation processes, liquors are just ethanol, water, and microscopic natural favor and aromatic compounds.  No lesser sugars, no proteins, and no fats.  So their calories come from alcohol, nothing else.

Beer contains a small amount of sugars from the barley and hops needed in its production.  For instance, Budweiser has 10g of carbs and Miller Lite has about 3g.  Those carbs exist because they haven't been distilled into ethanol.  Wines still have a little sugar left from their grapes.  Liqueurs like Amaretto are generously sweetened with sugar.  Bailey's has been fattened and sweetened; that 2oz serving has 8g of fat and 10g of sugary carbs.

"What about mixers?"
Here's about mixers:

Sour mix (4oz) - 107 calories (water, high fructose corn syrup & chemical additives)
Coke (8oz) - 100 calories (water, high fructose corn syrup & chemical additives)
Ginger Ale (8oz) - 84 calories (water, high fructose corn syrup & chemical additives)
Tonic (8oz) - 88 calories (water, high fructose corn syrup & chemical additives)

A wise Wonka once whispered, "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker."  If you're adding mixers, they almost always have more calories than your booze.  More calories in the tonic than the vodka.  Many more calories in the sour mix than the tequila.  If you're tarting your tipples (drinking mixed beverages) every night, consider what the double-barreled blast of corn syrup and ethanol is doing to your liver.

Here are the ingredients to the real skinny Margarita: tequila, shot glass.

Thus ends my health-nut-style diatribe.

"Getting a little amorous with the hyphens today?  Next thing you know, I'll be Blue-Text."
Do you have something meaningful to contribute?

"Club soda, ice, or lime squeezes make healthier mixers."
Thank you.

So let's pull this all together:

• Alcohol content:  Wine, and strong liquors (like gin, vodka, and whiskey) have more alcohol in their single servings than sparkling wines, light beers, and liqueurs.
• Cost per serving of alcohol - Strong liquors (especially gin) and beer provide more buzz for the buck.  Liqueurs, not so much.
• Calories per serving of alcohol - The spirits win again, thanks to the magic of the distillation process.  While beers and liqueurs get to be on the heavy side.

In the end, drink what you enjoy.  Take pleasure in the unmeasurable.

Now, let us return to our regularly scheduled drink.



(Sources: my liquor cabinet; Tap 'n Track App by Nanobit Software;
beveragewarehouse.com; beer100.com; caloriecount.about.com;American Medical Association; Indiana Prevention Resource Center;
Feller, Robyn. The Complete Bartender. New York: Berkeley Books, 1990.
Pendell, Dale. Pharmako/Poeia. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2009.)

What Are You Drinking? -- Part Two

This is the second installment of a three-part series.  Part One is here.  I'm including a link to the Google Docs file on which the table screenshots are based.

I  <3  California grocery stores

Part 2:  What'd you pay for that?

In this troubled economy we should consider where we're putting our money.  Buy a sixer of Miller Lite?  Or a mid-range whiskey blend?  Miller's going to set you back $6.  Johnnie Walker Black's on sale for $28. Then there's that $8 wine at Trader Joes.  What's going to give you more booze for your buck?

OR sometimes a opportunity comes around to buy something nice for yourself.  Are you going to go for that bottle of great real champagne for $35 or how about that good bottle of 18-year-old single malt for $100?

"$100!  That's ridiculous!  Why would you dump so much money into some liquid that you're just going to drink up anyway?  Let's skip the middle man and flush that cash directly down the toilet."
Good question, Blue Text.  We'll get to that.

Now, assuming for a moment that you enjoy all of these alcohols relatively equally, how much drank can you actually get for your dollar?  See here:

Orange = beers; Purple = wines; Pink = liqueurs; Blue = spirits; Brown = whiskies

To answer the first question: While it's closer than some may expect, Miller Lite does give you more for your money.  The beers tend to.  So do the mid-range liquors, as can be expected.  It's interesting to note how close everything lines up at the top.  That makes it convenient to choose whatever your tastebuds call for.

Beers hold their own pretty well throughout.  The liqueurs really don't, again due to their low alcohol by volume.  Conversely due to its higher content, gin shows up as a cost-effective option, whether you're aiming high or low.

Now, to address the second question.  Compared to the $35 champagne, that $100 whisky doesn't seem so bad now.  Alcohol content is 16% more expensive in the bubbly.  Meanwhile the whisky is an investment.  And that's a major premium that's difficult to measure.  To note:

Once you open that champagne, it must be finished within the next couple of hours, even if you seal it up Vacu-Vin-style.  But that whiskey?  You can go back to it whenever you like.  A pricey bottle like the one in the example above can last you two months if you don't abuse it too badly.  Liquor bottles thus become luxurious.  A long-term relationship, as opposed to a one-night stand.  Something you don't have to rush.  Did your work day suck?  Enjoy a sip.  Is it Friday yet?  Have two sips.  How much are you willing to pay for that?

"But you can't drink liquor with a meal!"
Yes, you can.  Vodkas are designed to be flavorless -- they're basically ethyl and water -- so you can enjoy it with anything you like.  No two decent brands of gin are the same, resulting it different balances of herbs which in turn can be paired with the herbs and seasonings in your dish.  Great whiskies are known to have 10-15 separate flavors and aromas that can in turn be matched to nearly every food.

"But a glass of wine is romantic!"
Perhaps.  But Oban 14-year served neat is damn near erotic.  And it's not $100.

"But I like Budweiser."
Don't tell me you like it.  Tell me you bought it because you were financially responsible and reviewed my chart above.

Have I sold you on liquor yet?
"No. I like Budweiser. And Baileys. Together."

Wow.

Well, wait until you see Part 3...

(Sources: my liquor cabinet; beveragewarehouse.com; American Medical Association; Indiana Prevention Resource Center;
Feller, Robyn. The Complete Bartender. New York: Berkeley Books, 1990.)