I am looking at a bottle, a dark one. Clan Campbell Pure Malt Whisky Aged 8 Years – declaims the label.
But I have started in mid-story. I am selling my mother’s flat in Cannes, on the exclusive Palm Beach peninsular. Less than five minutes walk to four great beaches. Only €320k if anyone is interested. ‘Why is it so cheap?’ I hear you ask. It’s by the railway line. If it were not, it would be a seven figure sum. We deal as we find. I am hoping to find either a train enthusiast or a deaf person.
My mother was 99 years old, bless her, in December. She is in a rest home, still very mentally alert, but she is tiny. Always was. Five feet nothing. She doesn’t like me hugely, never did. I was a 10-pound baby, so understandable really. To my immense chagrin, I only grew to 5 foot 11¾ inches … I could never manage that last bit to six feet. Damn! But it was sufficient to tower over her, which simply made matters worse.
I must have been a stupid child. She used to beat me with a wooden spoon, when I was naughty, and boy was I naughty! One day she broke the spoon on me and then admonished me for breaking it. I went out and bought her another. That was not clever for a nine-year old but she never beat me again as she clearly loved the spoon more than me.
Now, decades later, I have to sell her flat. My parents bought it some 40 years ago. My dad liked do-it-yourself and painting, he was very good at painting…
I drove 500 miles and stayed for two weeks. In that time, 40 years of accumulated stuff was sorted, given away or saved for posterity. 40 years of horrendous DIY was eliminated. Where his many paintings were taken down the walls looked as they did decades ago, except with loads of screw holes. So the whole place had to be painted, ceilings and walls, in August, in Cannes. 40° heat. Not good.
Back to the Clan Campbell. When clearing the flat, I discovered it. It was in an innocuous dark-coloured cylindrical presentation box.
Last night, back home, I was looking for a suitable nightcap and my eye alighted upon this box. When I extracted bottle from box, I discovered it had a smart black top with a Gaelic inscription in gold. I went to draw the top which held a cork but it crumbled! So I took a corkscrew to the remainder, eased it out with meticulous care and a miracle occurred. No cork had entered!
Then my reward. I poured out a small glassful and smelled the aroma. It was so smooth! I tasted the smallest sip and it was smooth. Regrettably, I have never developed a lexicon of olfactory terms, such as a sommelier might employ, due to childhood hay-fever. But by golly it was good!
So the question was: How old was it and where had it come from?
My guess is that she could have kept it for 20 years or more. The distillery no longer produces an eight year cask. Wine corks can last for centuries, so why not whisky corks? Whisky corks are rare. Is this, with its decomposition, an indicator of age?
Knowing that neither of them drank spirits, my hunch is that it got put away and forgotten. Probably they were given it as a gift. Knowing it to be expensive, they could neither dispose of it, nor use it. The classic ‘unwanted gift’ dilemma!
Of course, with presents like that, people sometimes recycle them as presents the following year to someone else! I know this to be the case because I once got back an expensive bottle, which we had given a friend, four years later but from someone else! I knew it was the bottle we had originally given, due to a tiny nick in the label which I had spotted when gift-wrapping it. I did not give it away again but drank it, as it was clearly meant for me!
This bottle will not go to waste. I still (groan!) have a bottle of Bushmills in the ‘medicine’ cabinet, which I was given in 1991 and ‘visit’ maybe once a year, perhaps even less. Not because I don’t like it – but because I want it to last.
But the ‘eight years old’ must now be 30 years if it’s a day, because no cork would diminish that quickly. On the assumption I am spared, by the time I drink the last drop, it might even be half a century old…
There is a thought to conjure with, on the feast of Saint Sylvester!
This chappie was Pope from 314 to his death on 31 December 335, hence he got the last slot in the saints’ days calendar and this day is actually called ‘Sylvester’ in Europe by many. Now, in one apocryphal account, he cured Constantine the Great of leprosy by the administration of water, possibly even a baptism. Maybe it was really whisky?
Happy New Year and may the Spirit be with you all!
Happy New Year to all of you. May it be even better than 2016!
Me again. (Ukip & landlord). Cork. .bottle stood up, it’ll dry out. Wine will go off (hence corked… ie smells of. Contact with oxygen). Whisky won’t. Given a chance it’ll evaporate but if kept cool, it’ll just sit there.
And in glass, it won’t change.
It’ll be as smooth as the day it was bottled.
Enjoy
Or if passing Cumbria, I’ll check it for you….
Thanks SC, and a happy new year to you, sir.
The Spirit is certainly with you.
James!
What a hero in 2016!
Keep gunning at them. I know you will do even better in 2017!
Sincerely
SC
Thanks SC,
Flu ( not) man, Serotonin sydrome Headace, Hallucinations, and Mrs ill too
happy new year
U taKe care In Post-holiday times.
The above post contains a hidden message, as do all my writings… 😉
Have a good recovery, both of you, RealEmotion!
Dear All,
Do you not think we are going off the subject somewhat talking about our mothers and age old whiskey? It is all quite interesting but hardly relevant, sorry to be a bah-humbug on this, but really…….
Oh! How disappointing,Donald Duck…
I had hoped that someone of your acknowledged intellect would have read through to the subtext and not jut the superficiality of these seemingly humdrum events.
We are talking of Clan Campbell, prominent and powerful Scottish clan.
They intermarried frequently with Clan MacLeod. Do you see it yet? No? OK.
At Tong, on the Isle of Harris in 1912, was born Mary Anne MacLeod. She emigrated to New York in 1930. Not yet?
She married a German American called Fred and they had five children together. One was called Donald.
On 22 January, Donald will be inaugurated as 45th President of the United States.
The United States is going to shed much of its statist behaviour and show the world how a country can flourish when individuals are given their head.
That will help ease the current moribund path to Brexit and thus help UKIP.
But you did not really want me to make it too obvious. Did you?
Happy New Year!
God, I am thick! I did not know you are all talking in code, I am just straight talking me you are talking politician speak, something of which I do not wish to have any truck with. Sorry, if that makes me sound ignorant but why hide the truth? It is not like you are saying something nobody already knows or has this suddenly become a M15 site!
P.S. Likewise Happy New Year to you or should I have scrambled that? We do not want the enemy to know too much do we?
P.P.S You don’t think you have had a bit too much of that whiskey do you?
We tend to look back at this time of year, I always go out and look at the stars (if visible) on New Year’s eve and contemplate the past. I “benefited” from a private education and left home at 12, returning 5 years later, except on holidays, often spent with wonderful grandparents. I think this may have had more to do with Mum’s social life than anything else but it has made me something of an individual. Fortunately in those days I could run very fast, so school was fine after the first year, provided you could do one sporty thing well you were fairly safe.
Since then, I’ve had a Spanish wife for 19 years, changed to a new much younger English one, ( not my fault, I think), been a policeman of sorts, worked in the public and private sectors at management level, run my own small business, completed over 21 years of assorted voluntary service and am now a UKIP councillor and Branch Chairman. It’s been fun and the thing is, with luck there is more to come. I do enjoy pulling the establishment’s tail and it’s so very necessary for some of us to keep tugging hard.
We all need to keep the faith and stay united this year, UKIP is the only group able to ensure government delivers a proper Brexit and with Labour now consisting of two separate parties, our time may have come, again.
I hope SC enjoys his bottle, shortly before she died, dear old Mum presented me with a similar one she must have kept for 30 years, unfortunately it slipped from her hand as she passed it over and the kitchen floor still stank of scotch when we sold the house to pay for her care home fees. Such is life.
You do a great job, icini123!
Thanks for your kind wishes and let’s take UKIP forward to even greater heights.
The Metropolitan Elite have not been neutered – yet!
All the best to you & your Sir ! I hope the sombrero has frequent outings in the year to come , you are indeed correct regarding the anti democratic fascists clogging up our legal system with their futile attempts to remove democracy from our country .My feelings are the democratic will of our people far out weighs the alternative ,if our will is not carried out. It appears to date ,the only people who are yet to have a say in a referendum ,are the 17.4 million victors, I still pray for the whole EU to implode before art 50 has to be used ,a day I have waited for since the last referendum to see & nearly 40 years on I still only know one guy who admits to voting join the EEC (not the EU)Great days lie ahead for our children & our country , we didn’t vote out for ourselves , we did it so our kids could enjoy growing up in the same Free country we did , Have a great year my friend & may all your liaisons be with Emily lol
Greetings, MFHSoC&CoS!
Even Rousseau, that famous lefty said: Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains
I am in fullest agreement with you but please can you be circumspect about my liaisons with Emily. I can’t risk people finding out! You never know who is looking in…
Sorry if this upsets you but if you have a bottle of 8 year old whiskey you can keep it for a hundred years and it is still 8 year old whiskey. It is a drink that only matures in the cask
Not upset at all!
I was simply influenced by the sign on my approach to New Cuyama
Population 562
Ft above sea level 2150
Established 1951
—-
TOTAL 4663
SC, the French have never been kind to their children – see Zola. Napoleonic Law has deeply embedded this into their mentality.
The English were not much better but have never had to contend with the rapaciousness of their children (apart from eldest son) endeavouring to send them to an early death. I may leave my estate to the cat’s home in England.
Happy new year.
Thanks OT!
My mother is English but retired to France in 1970. I wasn’t really trying to paint her as unkind.
She is far worse… 😉
Happy New Year to you too.
Nice one SC, glad to see you are back with us having sorted out the family flat sur le continent, must bring back so many memories. I can just imagine my offspring hiring a skip to dispose of the family treasures and all the keepsakes from our cabinet of tat.
Enjoy the Whisky you old smoothy and enjoy the Bushmills when the going gets tough!
Always great to see you RB!
Have a great 2017! It has only just started… 😉
My mother didn’t like me either, SC and Dee: maybe it was because I was also over 10lbs at birth; but it’s more likely that (like you) I was an intelligent child and parents of my mum’s generation did not take well to being asked questions they couldn’t answer, or having it pointing out that they had contradicted themselves. Such children were told off for being ‘cheeky little *******’ and chased into the back alley with the threat of a smack.
My mum was also jealous of me as a teenager because all the baby boomers were allegedly having a fantastic time in the sixties, whereas her teenage years had been blighted by the war. I could sympathise, but you’d think she would’ve been glad I didn’t have to spend the nights in smelly air raid shelters, wouldn’t you?
Oh, well, it doesn’t matter now: my mother doesn’t remember who I am anymore and I’m just hoping I won’t go the same way.
My mother does. Remember I mean. And her sister who is 105 !! I’m sorry to learn that yours doesn’t but don’t give up hope. That why we support ukip! Xx. H N Year
A lot of truth in what you say, Panmelia. As always.
I have enjoyed my life and it is most important to keep learning.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, SC, and I do love your story of the Campbells, the MacLeods and Donald’s mother. With Scots and German ancestry, no wonder the man is a force to be reckoned with.
I reckon Donald has told all those Russian diplomats Obama hoyed out to go no further than a hotel just over the Canadian border. On the 21st January they can nip back and be in the audience for his inauguration on the 22nd. Obama, outsmarted by both Putin and Trump, can go off in high dudgeon and watch as these two co-operate to neutralise the threat of IS and islam to the civilised world.
A very Happy New Year to you too, SC, and I hope that when we finally drop the last shackle of the European Union into the dustbin of history you will take out that bottle and toast the future – or it might be that the EU collapses before we leave, but either way, cheers to come!
I don’t know quite why it was, but in bygone days a lot of parents didn’t seem to like their children very much, I know mine didn’t, but it was par for the course then, and to be honest, the feeling grew to be almost mutual in my own case. Perhaps it’s why some of us spoilt our own children, though nowadays it goes too much the other way sometimes!
Thank you Dee and a great New Year to you too!
The US are lucky with TRUMP taking over on 20th. They have got their freedom from oppression before we have.
We now see all sorts of pasty white nasties who never normally see the light of day, crawling out from under stones, and taking their frivolous cases to the High Court, stuffed as it is with Blair toadies.
But the boom over there will show our doubters that they are missing out. Then we can break free of those chains which bind us.
I did tone down the mother thing, as I did not want to scare my readers…