The Macallan
Come The Macallan tasting at ONE and the setting was dramatically different. A conference attended by Toronto’s bloggerratzi and their entourages. Eau de vie became “eau de get drunk (bitches)” when the promise of complimentary alcohol was defined by many as the primary allure. Admittedly, I took a sip every time I heard “can’t let good booze go to waste.” – it turned into a fun game, with extra points awarded when the nearby table cracked open the clearly labeled display bottle.
The event unrolled with a slideshow and a Japanese ice ball maker – a machine so impressive it dominated conversations and emerged to be more interesting than the samples of $200+ scotch infront of us. True scotch lovers littered the event and I was surrounded by five of them who ended up nicking my samples before the night was over. Fine scotch seems like a sin to go to waste, each dram was a part of an intensive 12 year aging process – us food writers do have reverence for the spirit even if it does taste like the inside of an old man’s boot.
The Conclusion
I was down with the chaos of the WYW event, I got bored at The Macallan tasting. I understand that there’s a lot that goes into a bottle of The Macallan and by far I preferred The Macallan 18 year old scotch over its Canadian counterparts but, in all honesty, after mainlining the 40 proof for over 30 minutes there’s a lot that gets lost in the haze of a finely cultivated buzz… unless of course you’re a $200 Japanese Taisin Ice Ball mold that’s able to pump out 30-40 perfectly round ice balls in an hour.
The Macallan = tastes better
What’s Your Whisky? = more fun
Me = more fascinated with balls than I ever thought I would be.
I nicked the opening image from a random Swedish scotch ad from Vimeo – I don’t understand a word, but it’s beautiful to see!
Want to help a charity by filling in Matchstick Marketing’s survey on The Macallan? Here’s the link, fill your boots with survey awesomeness.
2 Comments
Loved the article, and I completely agree with you on the appropriate uses of scotch – clean the showers, scrape paint off the walls, etc. Oh, and if you need to drink something? Buy a can of turpentine – it’s cheaper, and tastes about the same.
I don’t drink scotch et al, and get bugged about that on occasion by various friends. But when they tell me that it’s something you have to “develop a taste for”, I find the perfect response from Jackie Mason – “because it doesn’t taste good! Does anyone need to develop a taste for chocolate? No, because chocolate tastes good!”
haha nice point Elie!
but yeah, that ice ball maker was intense!
Nothing says ‘Stay Classy’ better then a woody booze smelling drink with a cue ball sized ice cube in your glass!