Caol Ila 12 yo

Not having had the time to have a good dram in weeks, I finally got the time and opportunity this week. Caol Ila. I had brunt myself with an island sounding name two weeks back – “Isle of Jura” which neither tasted like an Islay malt nor like a whisky I’d go back to. More on it later.

May be because I was having a runny nose (which my wife attributes to Swine flu) and craved medicines, or may be because it is a real good whisky, I liked it a lot.

Notes — Sea, peat, smoke and iodine. A bit watery at first, but gets drier in the end. Pretty neat.

Radio ads

1. “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has allocated $27 billion for highway and bridge construction projects. Until then, to navigate the bad roads, buy a Land Rover”.

2. “Looking for a good investment vehicle in these tough economic times? Look no further than the 2009 Range Rover Sport”.

3. “Friends, it gets gloomy in September because Summer is coming to an end. To cheer you up, we are offering 1.5 gallon icecream, any flavor just $4.99. To overcome the guilt of eating icecream, we are offering tender, juicy, boneless chicken breast, just $1.99 a pound.”

4. “abc criminal services. We can help your criminal records disappear. Stop paying the lawyers. Call 800-xxxx-xxx”.

5. “To succeed in the corporate world, you need ilities. Like ability, adaptability, capability… The only MBA program that helps you attain all these is …”

6. “Lady gaga and Kanye west”.

Prediction

I chanced to visit the local temple on sani peyarchi when they were auctioning off sarees worn by the deity vigraham. The winning bids were all in the $3500+ range with at least two dozen bids in the 2000+ range. Which is why I predict that the October numbers for assorted economic indicators will look better. By 2015, at least one study will be published which will discuss historic sani peyarchi dates and their impact on economic indicators.

You can copy-paste this in longbets.org and thank me when you win.

Noun class

Many years ago, in an attempt to add a bullet point to his otherwise thin resume, Mannangatti took up classes at Alliance Fraincaise. Meandering through the noun classes, he asked the teacher (who by the way was a hot chick working as a receptionist in BNP Paribas or AxA or some such hideous company) what he thought was a brilliant question — “who decides the gender of nouns in French?” He was promptly asked to shut up. He couldn’t understand — what if Tamizh Nadu seceded from India? Will it be masculine or feminine? Or what if someone invented a new type of boob implant? Later, he found that it is quite fashionable in the cocktail circuits to extol anything French, from idyllic and romantic cities to the supposedly superior cuisine. For reasons beyond his grasp, anything French was considered effeminate which kind of appealed to the feminists. By extension, most other cultures, like the Tamizh culture, with their “gendered upbringing” represented the draconian patriarchy which they came to detest. Whatever.

Testosterone

A man wants to be the only man in the household. Given the singular nature, some adjustments are necessary to prevent men from killing each other in their quest to be “the man”. Thus evolved packs which further evolved to nuclear families as we know it today. The smart people of the Tamizh land further devised a plan to address possible flashpoints. They devised customs that mandated a man to never eat a meal in his son-in-law’s house and to never sleep more than two nights at a stretch in his father-in-law’s place.

The problem cannot be fixed but only worked around, imperfectly. In recent years, the increased empathy the father shows for the daughter and plummeting telecommunication costs have been cause for much alarm. The twice-weekly phone calls seem to discharge an inordinate flux of sentiments between the daughter and the father. To what end? The expansive conversations on health, sibling’s prospective matches, husband’s job stability and general future plans and the advices offered and received thereof create uncomfortable levels of testosterone. What is a man to do when his wife goes “enga appa idha sonnar.. adha sonnar”?

The imperatives of living two oceans across and gene propagation give an excuse for the wife’s parents to spend the summer months in the cooler climes of the son-in-law’s house. At the insistense of the wife, the man shares his cologne and after shave with his father-in-law and takes him out for t-shirt shopping. The father-in-law repays him in kind by changing channels when he is watching his favorite sitcom.

The simmering tension feels like an Islamic bomb about to explode in an Israeli elementary school.

Screenplay by I.

Steam Whistle

A name like that brings to mind a train driven by a steam engine, which is not incorrect about the background of this beer. There are a lot of really good Canadian beers. Steam Whistle is definitely one among them, a Pilsner.

Notes:  Bread, malt, hay and subtle hops. Lighter body than expected and a little salty near the finish. Very nice to drink and before you know it, you are down the third. Though Steam Whistle is nothing unique, it is better than most (all?)  local popular beers and some European imports in the same league.

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Ardbeg Uigeadail

This whisky came highly recommended by the friendly guy at the local liqor store, who was candid enough to admit that he could not pronounce the name. I have been eyeing this for a while now, but at $120+, I convinced myself that I should wait for an occasion. It is funny how things turn up. The said occasion was my inlaws going on a week long bus tour. The guy at the store was being a pain in the ass and lectured me on the virtues of free trade and how he could not get some good whiskies from Canada even for his personal consumption. When I finally got home, I could not wait.

Notes — Peat, iodine and salty sea water. Tobacco. Sweet, overpowering and evaporates immediately inside the mouth leaving a minty feel. When a splash of water is added, it is more drinkable and one could feel malty and peaty tones.

Overall, pretty intense stuff at about 54% abv. It is definitely not the kind that you can have 3-4 glasses. I am not sure I liked it the first day, but I kept drinking a glass everyday for a week. It is either the complex and unwelcoming taste or the high alcohol content, this one has a dark allure to it. I will definitely drink this if I had the money and time again. The best Islay malt I’ve ever tasted.

Home

Driving home from work, I was mesmerized by the darkness of the roads. They were blankets of black, straight and winding (what are the odds!) at the same time. The rhythmic hum of the engine and the radio kept distracting me from the thought of beer and chips I’d have after I got home. Beer is harmless, easy on the liver and lands on the stomach like fluffy flowers. Soft like a newborn’s cheeks, the head of a North Indian who eats dosai with knife and fork, and soft porn.

An idiotic woman driver cut into my lane and an iPod punk took his own sweet time to cross the road, making me miss the green. Just as I got the green again, another idiot pedestrian jumped out from nowhere. I motioned him to go ahead and he smiled at me. That is when I realized how much I feel at home here. This is my home. I live, work, sleep, shit and drink here. This city is as comforting as a mother taking care of a baby, spinning a cocoon of warmth and coolness at the same time, maintaing thermal equillibrium. It shelters and houses me, like Michael Jackson took care of teenage kids.

I am not quite given to homely sentiments. But this city is same and different as Madras, yet it is 8600 miles away.

The best sign board ever