possession

HARVIESTOUN OLA DUBH 12

My Fellow Inebriates,

It’s a million degrees. If ever there was a good time for a lingering soul to depart a furball like Fluffy, this is it. He’s panting with the heat. If it gets much hotter, he might end up dead, and then where will Granny be?

The weekend didn’t feel quite as hot, and I think I know why. The icy refreshment of our Gin Shoot-Out lowered everyone’s temperature, and once we were half-drunk, we stopped worrying about things like Fluffy surviving his first summer in Langley. But after we’d declared GORDON’S the winner of the gin showdown, we decided to take a break from gin and try something from Christine’s canvas bag.

If you recall Christine’s last visit, she brought HARVIESTOUN OLA DUBH 18, a cask-aged ale that had us reeling with bliss. For comparison, this time she brought OLA DUBH 12.

Now you may be wondering, at this point, how we can mooch off Christine so dreadfully. And the answer is, I really have no idea. My parents are socially retarded. But we were all grateful, and poured the OLA DUBH 12 three ways into Reidel stemless glasses, because they happened to be clean.

Like OLA DUBH 18, OLA DUBH 12 is visually striking for its black opacity and creamy beige head. Maturation in Highland Park 12 casks should, we expected, impart almost as much nuance as maturation in Highland Park 18 casks. So it was a bit of a shock to be bowled over by one predominant aroma: molasses. No word of a lie, it was like taking a whiff of a carton of straight molasses. And sure, molasses is nice—the food-eaters at LBHQ tell me it’s great in gingerbread—but it was so dominant in OLA DUBH 12 that it was hard to pick out any other background olfactory chords.

Once we started sipping we could pick up espresso, cocoa, and perhaps some peat. But the strongest note on the tongue was molasses. It was so overwhelming as to be out of whack, if you ask me. As for the mouthfeel, it fell a little short, especially given Harviestoun’s own descriptor, “viscous and gloopy.” Instead it was light- to medium-bodied—certainly too light to stand up to the molasses—and not as creamy as expected.

According to Christine’s sources, the sweet spot for OlA DUBH is 16 years, so that’s next on our list. The 18-year vastly outshone the 12-year, so we’ll see what a Highland Park 16 cask does for this viscous and gloopy beer. We’ll see…

In the meantime I’ll check to make sure Fluffy’s not dead.

RIPTIDE PALE ALE—Get thee behind me, weird-tasting beer

My Fellow Inebriates,

The other night Fluffy started using his mind powers again—this time making one of the kitchen lights stutter with a freaky high-pitched sound. Holy crap, I’m glad my parents were home; it was so scary, and there was Fluffy, just sitting there, impassive.

So I decided I’d had it with Fluffy and his weirdness. It was time for an exorcism. My first thought was to contact the Pope, but he is surprisingly impenetrable, although he does have a Facebook page. 

Anyhow, I sent off my little query, but as usual it went into the ether, just like my letter to Bono regarding a Gin-Aid concert to raise money for a kick-ass premium gin selection at LBHQ. 

Then I found an organization called Exorismus. They seemed to know their shit, so I contacted them.

Still, I had a sinking sense of being alone on this. I realized I really didn’t know anything about exorcisms, but fortunately the Internet abounds with instructions.

  1. Exorcise in pairs. Just like exercising, exorcising works better with a buddy. If one of you starts feeling doubtful, the other one can spot for you.
  2. Make sure that the possessed person has nothing that may be possessed. Such things include religious artifacts, voodoo dolls, unholy writings, etc. But what if the possessed person is a thing like Fluffy?
  3. You don’t need to cast a circle of protection. Good, because the kids threw all their new sidewalk chalk into a bucket of water and turned it into soup. My mum says there’s no way they’re getting any more.
  4. Only attempt an exorcism if you can’t contact a trained exorcist. Trust me, I don’t really want to spearhead Fluffy’s exorcism. But the Pope’s probably less likely to call me back than Bono.
  5. The “Exorcism” movies are not valid guides for performing your exorcism. Dammit!
  6. Do not converse with the demon. My granny may have had some personal demons, but she’s certainly not an actual demon, although Fluffy might have some of his own. It could be crowded in there.
  7. Do not challenge the demon. OMG, to what? High-jump?
  8. Do not command the demon to do anything on your own authority. Well, I wouldn’t, would I? I can’t even get Fluffy to move over on the couch when we’re watching TV.
  9. Do not be afraid. Sure.
  10. Do not get angry. Supposedly demons thrive on anger and fear, just like that energy ball on Star Trek that made the Klingons and humans fight. Perhaps getting drunk would help.
  11. This process should NEVER be performed by anyone who is not a bishop or an exorcist, because it will cause a disaster. Okay, so maybe this point should have been number one on the list. If my parents come home and find me performing an exorcism they might get really freaking mad, especially if it damages the house. They are already in a world of shit with the strata council because they broke the garage door. (Or maybe Fluffy did that.)

So there you have it. No exorcism, at least for today. Instead, let’s kick back with a RIPTIDE PALE ALE from Lighthouse Brewing. Hazy-looking with a thin head, RIPTIDE has the same funky aroma as RACE ROCKS ALE—musty rotting orchard notes with some citrus thrown in. Sweet malt and floral notes chime in on the palate, but the carbonation is insufficient to counterbalance the funky taste. The body is medium—not satisfyingly substantial, yet not crisp or refreshing. This beer is mired in a limbo between the solid ale I hoped it would be and the fizzy summer sipper I would have settled for. Much the way Granny’s stuck between two worlds, housed in a musty furball named Fluffy.

If I could perform an exorcism on RIPTIDE PALE ALE I would cast out its “sessionable” aspirations. Whatever it’s trying to do with the overripe fruit, it doesn’t do it well. And if there were other beers in the house, well, it would languish in our fridge like a limbo-trapped soul*.

*The Vatican declared limbo non-existent in 2007.

TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA (2010)—Well done, Tom

My Fellow Inebriates,

Mum and I both feel fully justified having a glass of wine (or two) every single night my dad’s away on his corporate team-building week. After all, he’s getting paid to golf. He’ll come back bronzed and well exercised, wined and dined, and, as I pointed out to my mother, no doubt there’ll be strippers and hookers and who knows what else.

Despite this last bit, my mum kiboshed any additional booze spending. LBHQ has some upcoming expenses, including a change of digs, which means we need to sock away some moving money.

When I asked how on earth I would manage without a new wine to review, my mother said, “Well, how did you manage before last October?” I said I didn’t have the same maelstrom of anxieties to contend with back then—the school hadn’t begun scaring us about lice yet, no one had shown me any handbags made of severed teddybear heads, my granny was alive, there wasn’t a haunted bear named Fluffy living in the house (he turned the alarm clock off on us with his mind yesterday and almost made us late, would you believe it?), my nana didn’t have any bionic bits yet, and we weren’t facing a change of headquarters.

“Too bad,” said my mother, “and half these things have nothing to do with you anyway.”

With that I had to scour my furry head to remember a recent tasting. Last time my nana and papa were here they brought over a 2010 Italian Valpolicella by TOMMASI VITICOLTORI, translated “TOM’S WINE.”

Left to my parents’ buying habits and almost Parkerite leanings, Valpolicella is as unlikely to enter LBHQ as, say, a Canadian Pinot Auxerrois. The style—a mixture of Corvina Veronase, Rondinella, and Molinara—is typically light and aromatic with a lower alcohol content. Nana and Papa came away from a 2011 tour of Italy with an appreciation for lighter Italian table wines that can be sipped at length without getting you plastered, and which are often dispensed from giant grocery-store wine machines for about a buck a litre.

I don’t know if TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA is the sort of wine you’d find in an Italian grocery store’s bulk section, but if so, we should pack our bags for that sunny country and stop messing around in Langley.

I suspect my dad’s parents, knowing their son’s preference for big, weighty wines, had some mischief in them when they brought it, and may well have been testing to see if he would dismiss it out of hand. Even the appearance of TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA would worry my dad, with its vibrant ruby clarity and brightness.

When swirled in the glass, it releases a sumptuous fruity bouquet dominated by fresh cherries. Fruit bursts on the palate with lovely acidity and balance. The body is light to moderate without being astringent, and at 12% alcohol TOMMASI VALPOLICELLA won’t land you on your back unless you bogart the whole bottle. For solid-food fans, it would pair nicely with sharp cheese and tomato-based dishes (I imagine).

Predictably my dad had faint praise for Tom’s wine, most likely because he hasn’t acquired a taste for the style. Everyone else thoroughly enjoyed it with dinner (or without, in my case), although—if we’re being honest—my parents and I do prefer heavier wines that get us gooned faster. But it’s always nice not to throw up after a family gathering, isn’t it?