Travelling Spaces

Travelling Spaces

by | Apr 7, 2016 | Culture & Ideas

I’m trying to make space in my life right now – space to have moments with people and in places, to have moments at home, because space demands to be filled. And I’ve learned where there is space demanding to be filled, something will come along to fill it. Space is what allows us to be open and to encounter the new in the everyday.

People. Ideas. Thoughts. Perceptions and patterns. Stories. Characters. Relationship and connection.

And this is why I always find new ideas or new perspectives while travelling. I’m open because travelling strips away the responsibility and burdens of everyday life, creating vast openness. I don’t have to decide anything but what to watch or when to sleep or where to explore in my rental car. The same principle works in retreating: an escape from the noise and clutter. A filtering and rebirth into wide open spaces.

painting_art_1016It is universal; the artist will tell you without space, creativity cannot happen. And by creativity, I don’t mean the abstract state or the manner of being – I mean the gritty, raw practice of making. Making of words and songs, poems, ideas, new intentions, new ways of thinking and seeing the world. All of that is the product of making. 

When I travel, the space clears for me. I am one of those clichéd writers that can produce great work on a plane or a train. I think and then I write, and thinking happens well in those metal tubes. I dictate story lines and sing melody lines into my phone, saving every drop of making that is in me. I have a habit of falling in love with fascinating ideas (and occasionally people) right before I travel anywhere. There’s something about leaving a place that makes me want to hold on to it, even if my return is imminent. A fragment of home that I can carry with me. What I’ve learned is that every journey leaves a mark on me this way, it carries its own theme and everything I see or touch or taste while I am travelling carries that mark on it.

So space happens in the movement, in the between, in the transitions between train stations on the way, on highways or in airport lounges. It is peace, to a busy mind. I retreat inward and while my smiles remain gracious, my words become few. The interior dialogue between alter-egos dominates all and ideas pour forth. Space happens on the long, twisting back roads of a foreign land and in days spent in silence because you do not have the language of the place.

Space, because the clutter of what you are used to seeing is stripped away. Your mind can wander freely and your eyes see things – new.

For example, there is a man in a well-cut suit drinking coffee at the cheap café in the center court of the transit lounge. He has status privileges but he hasn’t taken advantage of them. I can tell why. He has the look of a man who is thinking of home, his eyes fastened on the handbag store across the hall. He is thinking about how his wife, whose blue eyes look particularly weary and love-worn lately, might like the one in peach. It’s a practical but fashionable design and it would go with the dress she was wearing the last time he was home; which might have been last week or maybe last month. Maybe it was the second to last time he was home.

Either way, I wish I could tell him, yes – she would love the handbag but he should just send her a letter. A letter to tell her he is sitting in an airport on his way home and he is not thinking about how the meeting went or whether he thinks Rob will close the deal. No, he is simply thinking of her and whether he has done enough to keep her love this month, because he worries so that his absence is too much and too often. He fears becoming one of those men whose love fades away before his eyes because of inattention. He could simply write that and send it to her. Sign it ‘much love from Changi Airport, Singapore.’ And he could do it from the next airport too.

‘Dear Grace, I am thinking of you and that orange dress you were wearing. I like how you wear that dress and I am coming home soon. Please be there, because you are home to me. I am doing my best and I think you are doing yours; let’s carry on.’

There’s a story in that and some truth about how we relate to one another, how we long for one another. How we try and how we fear failure even in the midst of circumstances that should provide us with security and hope.

Or the young man in well-worn denim and faded t-shirt but brand new shoes. Shoes so pristine they must still be giving him blisters. He looks nervously at his travel wallet for the third time, lifting his phone to the horizon a couple of times and checking his watch. He is all coiled energy, anticipation and anxiety. His eyes are unable to stay in one place too long because his thoughts are stretched between here and there, wherever he’s headed to. His carry-on looks uncomfortably full and he has not one, but two hoodies wrapped around his waist. Ah, I see it now. He is travelling from home for the first time and doesn’t intend to return home anytime soon. He’s not just travelling, he’s planning on landing somewhere for a while. These shoes were one last splurge before he has to face the challenge of finding a job or making new friends and becoming accustomed to life away. Sure as the sun rising, he’s wondering if it’s too soon to let his parents know he’s made it this far.

The man sitting in the café, thinking about his wife.

The young man moving to a new country, alone for the first time.

The girl travelling to her sister’s wedding, feeling alone.

The child gazing out the airport window, beginning the first inkling of a dream to be a pilot.

The woman who hosts travellers every day, but has never left her island home.

Without distraction, the mind falls to thought more intentionally than you realise. If you pay attention, it is a wonderful way to discover what matters to you. First your happy thoughts will come to you, followed by your fears and then whatever is making you hopeful. Once you have worked through all of those things, then you might discover what sadness you are carrying. Go even further and you will find yourself at the deep, deep happiness, where you are completely yourself.

I discover myself, at the end of the silent-not silence and the travelling spaces; still myself. A storyteller. A poetry-lover, wanderer and mystical romantic. A hopeful idealist, pragmatic optimist. I am home; in my skin and my places. I have space now; I have made space for the new and whatever stories that will give me to tell. You live with yourself at the end of the day, no matter where you are. So be brave enough to be yourself – complex, simple, passionate, chilled out … Whoever you are, be unapologetically yourself. Be yourself as a friend, yourself as a lover. Be a fighter for that which you care about. Be a giver of whatever you have. Be you. Please. The world is better that way.

I have travelled all the way to here – home where I began, to begin again. Life is after all, beginning after beginning overlapping and colliding with each other.

 

The Glenturret, 17 years

The Glenturret, 17 years

by | Apr 7, 2016 | Tasting Notes

There are two real benefits to drinking out, instead of drinking in – no matter how great your home selection is.

The first, is and will always be, the company you keep when you go out. Fellow lovers of whisky and good people congregate in good places. Second, you get to taste a much broader range of drams, that are frequently changing.

So this week at The Jefferson, this bottle of Glenturret was new to the shelf.

If you’ve never heard of Glenturret, don’t worry. They are one of a select few distilleries that claim to be one of the first in Scotland. Glenturret are mostly famous now for being home to the Famous Grouse experience. I drove past the distillery last month but didn’t stop. They are found in the lower reaches of the Highlands.

Back to the tasting: this bottle is from a single sherry butt cask and one of only 283 filled. So .. you’re not going to find this on any other shelves easily (this is why we go out).

Aged 17 years, it’s really taken everything the sherry cask has to give.

The nose is massive, even in first open. Toffee, rich dried fruit and spice – just like a rich Christmas pudding. That’s the sherry doing it’s work.

First taste: at 46% it’s not the alcohol that hits you first but the first blast of that dry spice, because I’ve just had my nose in the glass. It gets right into the palate and softens quickly, into a more traditional Highland malt. Sweet, smooth, soft, easy-going and relatively light. Juicy raisins reminding you this was a sherry cask. I found this to be consistent through drinking, it didn’t open up too much more.

The finish: the spice and sweetness of the raisins lingers but not too long.

It has given me a taste for the Glenturret.

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Cadenhead’s Springbank 15, sherry finished 

Cadenhead’s Springbank 15, sherry finished 

by | Apr 3, 2016 | Tasting Notes

I was recently in Scotland and visited Kintyre, home to Campbeltown. Which is, in turn, home to Springbank. Few distilleries remain in Campbeltown, because there are comparatively few Lowland malt distilleries in production. New distilleries are being built, but mainly in the Highlands, Isles or Speyside/Fife. More on that later. 
Perhaps it is the vast distance and isolation of Springbank, in fact Campbeltown itself, that gives such a unique character to their malts. They are confrontational at first introduction, on the nose they promise sweetness through layers of leather and bitters. 

So – this bottle, a cask end from an independent bottling (Cadenhead’s) is actually relatively typical of a 15 year old Springbank. Sherry casked during maturation and I’d say fairly heavily, this is a banger of a wee dram at only 46%.

Purchased at Cadenhead’s on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Opened with some whisky friends in downtown Auckland – April 2nd, 2016.

The official tasting notes on a typical Springbank 15.

Nose: Sherry, dark chocolate, christmas cake, almonds, toffee and oak. 

Palate: Creamy, raisins, dark chocolate, figs, marzipan, brazil nuts and vanilla. 

Finish: Oak and sherry notes sustain, mingling with hints of leather. Sweet & spicy.

Now, this isn’t exactly the same, but obviously similar process and maturation, this cask just didn’t make the bottling. Here’s what I got from it:

Nose: dark toffee, bitter chocolate (think 70%), giving way to big dry spice of the sherry. You can smell the richness of the sherry and promises a lot on the tongue. Good to note here that it opened up dramatically after breathing for 5mins, which is where the almonds and oakiness have a space to be seen. 

Palate: sherry first, those juicy raisins and the rich spice promised on the nose. There is little butteriness here – as you might expect with the Christmas cake flavours going on. But it’s very round and full, well-balanced. 

Finish: medium long in the mouth, the spice gets bigger at the end. The hints of oak and earthiness promised on the nose deliver now, leaving that classic sweet/dry counter play of sherry. 

Why You Need More Whisky In Your Life

Why You Need More Whisky In Your Life

by | Apr 2, 2016 | Opinion

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Whisky has something to teach even smart women (people). You can tell a smart woman (person) by if she knows that, or sees whisky as just another thing to be mastered.

Whisky might be the most romanticized spirit on the planet – more accessible than absinthe and more challenging than gin.

Whisky is part of cowboy folklore, Celtic heritage and appears in more genres of music than any other. Everybody who ever sang the blues, or rock’n’roll or country songs, sang about whisky probably more than they ever drank it. Every flawed hero of literature and television knows how to drink it and yet for all the saturation of whisky into our culture; I’ll bet it’s not enough alone to make you order a glass in a bar. We have these ideas about whisky, but we rarely talk about how to approach it, how to begin, how to introduce people to the concept of it. When we do, we talk about facts, flavor profiles and palate preferences and how to smell, taste and cut with water.

But that’s not the thing. That’s the thing after the thing. The thing to understand is the concept of what has been poured into your glass. It’s a story. It’s all that romanticized, stuff-of-legend that you imagine and a little bit more. You just have to start at the beginning, with the idea of what whisky is. If you can grasp the idea of it, you’re ready to drink almost any malt you find yourself in possession of.

Whisky is elemental; it is earth, fire, water and air each playing its part in telling you the story of a place. And it is soul, the spirit of the people who made it that finds its way into the glass as well. Eventually you’ll taste the alcohol volume, the sweetness, the salt, the floral notes – but first, know what you’re tasting.

Earth
The grain grown and harvested under utmost care. Like grapes for wine, if it gets too wet, too cold, too hot it can ruin the flavor profile. But barley carries the unique properties of the region it was grown in, as well as the very type of grain itself. Not all barley is suitable for malting, not all barley is of the right quality.

Fire
The heat of the mash and the malting of the grain over peat, or the scorching of those virgin oak barrels for bourbon with blistering heat. Temperature, its presence or lack of is a vital component of the story that ends up in your glass.

Water
Crystal clear from a Highland spring or silky from a limestone acquifer, water is unique as grain in its particular mineral composition and will make this whisky claim some geography too. The better the water, the better the whisky – after all, whisky is uisge beatha, the water of life.

Air
 Invisible like the wind but you can taste the change the air makes. The heating and cooling of the air will expand and contract the barrels, pushing and pulling flavor from the wood to the whisky. Just as trees collect their stories in growth rings, barrels collect flavor in their reuse journey. Bourbon first, or sometimes sherry, a variety of red wines, port – each leaves a distinct impression in the wood and that is then passed to the whisky too. Where the air is particularly salty in a warehouse set against the sea, like on Islay – you can smell and taste the saline quality of that ocean storm.

Whisky is about its place and its people – where the earth, fire, water and air of that whisky can be found and the people who gathered it, tended it, turned it and blended it. Their stories, hardships and triumphs turned into the taste of sweet victory and the bitterness of a cold winter. A whisky takes on a spirit in the same way it gives away the Angel’s Share and you can taste it, if you just try. There’s a story in the glass, an expression of something.

Which is why you can’t argue that Scotch whisky is better than bourbon or rye, Japanese, Indian or even New Zealand whisky. Whisky is all the elements of wherever you are. Japanese whisky tells me a different story, about different mountains, grain and different water. And whisky drinkers should be lovers of story, first and foremost.

Now, there are plenty of people who will try telling you that story is about the alcohol percentage or the cask finish or whether or not it is a single malt, a blend, a non-age-statement whisky… but those are just signposts and markers that the story leaves behind.

 

A whisky tells its story by the paradoxes and complexities it can hold in amber suspension. A little savory while also sweet, a touch of bitterness that follows sweet floral roses. Umami notes of seaweed darting in and out of coffee and chocolate sherry notes that tease the tongue and that is just the beginning. When you begin, you might taste alcohol burn and nothing but peat even in the most delicate drops – but give it a little time and you’ll taste ocean currents, mountain passes, long summer days and winter storms.

So why should you drink whisky?

Because whisky can be as simple or as complex as you like. It can tell you a different story at any time of the day. It can be sweet and soothing when you want something simple, or as complex as a degustation when you feel like a challenge. Because whisky will demand your attention, quietly and persistently once it’s in the glass. Whisky will make you think and the more you think about it, the more it will reveal itself to you. Because whisky will share a story with you and invite you to tell one of your own – I have whisky for heartbreak, for triumph, for funerals and for lovers.

I was once told my love of whisky wasn’t particularly feminine. It seemed strange coming from a tattooist who draws half-naked women for a living, but apparently that makes you an expert on femininity. I was offended at the time (I was drinking a very reasonable Auchentoshan Three Wood that I nearly gulped) and perturbed for much longer.

Whisky has something to teach even smart women (people). You can tell a smart woman (person) by if she knows that, or sees whisky as just another thing to be mastered.

You see, this is where I will digress to romanticism for a moment. Of course whisky is a woman’s drink – if for no other reason than women make it and I, being all woman, drink it with passion and respect. I believe whisky itself is more feminine than masculine. It can be like a woman – warm and approachable one moment, artic the next. Complicated but still simple. Can be beautiful to look at but too sharp on the tongue to be savoured. But for a good one – a whisky or a woman, you go to the ends of the earth.

I drink whisky because I’m not afraid of complexity, of a challenge in the glass. In fact, too sweet or too simple and I might soon be bored. A woman who drinks whisky isn’t drinking to pass the time or just to escalate a party, because she’s very comfortable with the drink in her glass demanding some attention.

And yes, a woman who drinks whisky can be assured she can sit alone at a bar with confidence and conversation will find her if she wants it, or leave her well alone if she chooses. A woman who drinks whisky is still defying a needless stereotype and redefining her own rules of engagement.

A woman (or anyone) who drinks whisky isn’t afraid to go the distance and learn something new along the way. Not every whisky I taste for the first time wins me over, sometimes I have to work through layers of spice, heat, salt and fruit before I find the story the glass is trying to tell me – but I have patience and endurance, because women who drink whisky know that sometimes it just takes time. Whisky has something to teach even smart women (people). You can tell a smart woman (person) by if she knows that, or sees whisky as just another thing to be mastered.

Sometimes you have to learn something new. Too many people start drinking whisky in a sweet Jack’n’Coke or a Woodstock and Cola. Worse, they took shots of moonshine equivalent and haven’t touched it since. But just a little knowledge is dangerous; whisky is the drink of a life-long learner. You simply need a new story to go with your whisky.

When you learn to drink whisky properly, you learn to smell, then taste and taste again. You learn to know the story before you lift your glass and how you really can, cut it anyway you like with ice or water. You’ll cut it too far in order to pull out every drop of flavour for your tastebuds and olfactory to savour. You will learn the delight of a whisky sour, a Sazerac, the Manhattan, the Julep and that you most definitely do not require Coca-Cola. Whisky will teach you patience, to listen to more than words, to seek out new paradigms.

You will travel around the world and taste the earth, fire, air and water from far-flung corners of the world. From a glass of whisky, you can explore countless new territories without boarding a plane or catching a boat. Maybe that’s why you should drink more whisky, to see the world through different eyes and to learn stories other than your own. Stuck? I’ll take you for a drink and tell you a story or two.

The Sun Came Out On Islay

The Sun Came Out On Islay

by | Apr 2, 2016 | Travel

It has rained on Islay for 105 days in a row. But today is the 106th day, and the sun has arrived back to Islay after a long, damp, dark winter. I too, have arrived. Whether I brought the sun, or the sun brought me is moot; although sometimes I like to believe I have magical powers, it is enough to know there is magic in the place.

Islay is soft earth; like many islands. Heaving with moss and peat, the hills and landscape of the island is a vessel for water that lands up high from the rain and makes its way into the lochs, then into the rivers and streams and back out to the sea. The sea itself encroaches on the island at every opportunity. The moss and grass grows down between the jagged rocks at the shoreline and the rockpools are sometimes hard to discern from the land. Soft earth, that moves under your feet but is teeming with life.

Islay is soft earth; like many islands. Heaving with moss and peat, the hills and landscape of the island is a vessel for water.

There is magic in this place, I’m sure of it. As I walk over shorelines and climb jutting peaks for views of the Atlantic on one side and the Lochs on the other, seals appear, head bobbing and looking straight at me. We stare at each other; the occasional head tilt from side to side. I smile and the silkie disappears below the sea crest once more in a dive, his back slick like oil and inky black against the blue of the tide.

As I step, I see feather after feather along my way. There is an old legend that says when you see those small white feathers appearing around you, it’s a sign that someone is watching over you, thinking of you. I have found those feathers in the back country of Kentucky, the suburbs of Tennessee, the steps of St Pauls in London and here, in Islay – in the hallway of the Port Charlotte Hotel, on the foreshore of the Singing Seas and on the steps of Bruichladdich Distillery. Perhaps my Scottish ancestors are smiling that I’ve returned to the land of my forefathers and to this island of most famous malts. It’s remarkable that one small island of eight remaining distilleries can have such an impact on the world whisky stage. Islay malt is a thing of legend.

The island is sweet to smell with her salty air, endless vegetation, and the Port Ellen maltings running from early morning til night, the warm, malty smell hovering over the bay. In Bowmore, the distillery sits in the heart of the administrative capital of Islay, just tucked into a side street. Kilchoman is a farm distillery – no distinctive stacked hats, just stone buildings tucked into pasture. Life is built around whisky here, in more ways than one but life is also more than whisky. It is people, farmland and the weather.

I’ve come to Islay for the whisky, yes but more than that. To explore this tiny island of single lane roads and step back in time for a moment, going as far as I can to this edge of the world and breathing deeply. And I’m glad of it; glad for the way each passing driver lifts their hand in greeting, glad of the easy manner of suggestion and introduction. There is a hospitality here that flows easily between people and you can feel it from the moment your feet hit that soft earth. You could cover the main roads of this island in a day and still have time to spare. Villages might be as small as six houses, but there are coves and hills, lochs and lighthouses to see as well as 8 distilleries in operation, running tours and tastings. The best way to stay on Islay is at one of the local hotels or in the myriad of guesthouses and B&Bs. They are all over the island, in every crevice.

Beyond the long road that runs past Laphroaig, Lagavulin and Ardbeg, I reach the Kildalton Cross. Amongst this graveyard there are stones are carvings that seem to predate words, ancient Celtic carvings alongside burials as recent at 1903. The gravesites are littered inside and outside of the ruin of a church and outside it, the Kildalton Cross. There is an old spirit in this place for certain, echoed in more than just the ruins that scatter the shoreline. At Lagavulin, the church used to be beside the distillery but it was moved to make room for a carpark, only to have the church bell returned to the hilltop overlooking the old malthouse. It’s bad luck to move a church bell, they say. There is old magic here.

At the Mull of Oa, there is a square lighthouse that marks the entrance to the channel. Behind that lighthouse, a flock of wild goats that have free run of their hill and the coastline there. A colossal bull with ivory horns turns to stare me down as I walk past him. I can’t resist the urge to poke my tongue out at him and he, unimpressed I assume, turns away again. I laugh out loud and he looks back, but it’s impossible to be here and not feel connected to the land and all that lives on it here.

Islands, and island people have much in common no matter where you find them. They make life from what the island gives them. In this instance, the farms are full of fat cattle and sheep and the whisky makers are happy; very happy. I have eaten salmon from local Loch Fyne, venison from the central hills and fennel grown wild with homemade bread that yearns for Scottish butter. I oblige happily; and indulge in Botanist gin, made with 22 botanicals foraged from the island. There is a married couple, botanists, who were enlisted by Bruichladdich to help them create an Islay dry gin. It’s delicious and comes in a bottle the shape of the square monument.

Bruichladdich has become my favourite of the Islay malts, by nature of their people. The warmest and kindest of all the whisky people I have met. Mary is a kinswoman as soon as we meet and the hour or so I spend wandering the distillery with her will stay in my mind a long while. A family-style business despite having lost their independent status, what they haven’t lost is their progressive approach to single malt.

Late at night once my exploring is done, I venture onto the top of the hill that heads out to Kilchoman Farm Distillery. Word is that the Northern Lights will be making an appearance in the clear skies overhead and what few town lights exist on Islay disappear up here. I sit out in the dark, nothing but the wind and the stars beside me. I can smell the peaty residue in the air from a fire burning on the west side of the island. I saw it earlier and because there is no wind, it hangs in the air. Somewhere to the east of me, there is a riverlet running, I can hear it gently trickling down the bank. That water is likely clear as glass but inky brown, like all the water that runs through the peat banks.

While technically spring, the earth will need a few more days of sunshine before the islanders can start cutting the peat. Too soft, it won’t burn but too dry it will crumble. It’s impossible for me to think of Islay without thinking of peat, but the truth is you can only smell the smoky, iodine nature of it once it’s burning or faintly in the water.

The water runs gently, the faint smell of smoke is in the air and then, just a hint of green glow starts dancing on the horizon. It’s not as dramatic as I was expecting or hoping for, but as my eyes adjust, I see it stretching up and then rolling, listing slightly to the left. In an unexpected turn, not only has Islay given me sunshine but she’s also given me the lights. There is magic running in this place.

I have tasted whisky straight from the cask here, roamed on hills and rugged coastlines, breathing deeply of this rich, island air. As I drive out to meet the early morning ferry back to mainland, I see great flocks of birds dancing in the morning light. The dawn is slow here, taking from just before six in the morning to half-eight. Their graceful dance against the indigo sky is mesmerizing. Even the skies above this soft and fertile earth are alive.

The two hour ferry crossing back to mainland sees me leave the sunshine behind, a gentle grey blanket resting over Kintyre. The sun is trying to push through with the same urgency that the boat pushes through the current. I came to Islay for whisky but I found magic and I leave, hoping I have breathed some of that magic into my bones and blood.

This post was originally published on tashmcgill.com