In the mid-eighties, "Happy Days" a TV show created in the '70's about the '50s, was in its final throes. Ron Howard was looking to get out and direct the hot new property he bid on, a little movie called "Splash". Chachi, the Evil Spawn from Hell, had his own show with Joanie. The Cunninghams were in the midst of a divorce (or at least they should have been). And with 50's actor Ronald Reagan in the White House, we didn't need a nostalgic reminder of "the golden days", because through him, we were living in it. That left poor Fonzie, Arthur Fonzarelli, the bit part that shot to stardom through the talent of Henry Winkler, to carry the show alone.
He should not have been the last one left to turn out the lights. Bereft of ideas, the writers subjected poor Fonz to one last humiliation, long after we'd tired of the leather jacket, the thumbs up and the drawled out "Aayyy". Bizarrely, the script got him to Florida where, as the picture shows, he mounted a set of water skiis, was pulled along the water and over a ramp, where underneath there was...yes, a shark! A friggin' shark! A fake cool Brooklyn nice-guy-cum-hoodlum-with-a-pompador-and- leather-jacket was on water skiis jumping over a shark in Florida. That was it, at that point the world knew that there were no more happy days to be had. The fifties were over in one last pathetic and water-soaked episode.
Let me put this out there right up front: I love Islay whiskies. Hell, I gew up in Pittsburgh and worked enough summers in the steel mills to soak up enough soot, grit and carbon flakes to help me adjust to any big peat coming out of the 6th ring of Dante's hell at the south coast of the island. I laughed at Laguvulin and Laphroig, smiled whimsically at the Ardbeg Uigeadail from the putting green of the 8th hole and thoroughly enjoyed Port Charlotte 6 on a warm day. But after a tasting of Jim McEwan's Octomore at Jeffrey Karlovitch's Whisky Classic in New Jersey, I was more than a little distressed at what I found in the glass. This was insanity at the expense of reason. Many people like to swim against strong tides in deep water and chase sharks. No one jumps in to get bitten and drown. Unless you buy a bottle of this. Then you're jumping the shark.
This is eminently undrinkable. Let me amend that: its drinkable, but its not enjoyable. And at the end of the day, isn't that what this is all about, enjoying the drink? But its going to sell like crazy, even if short-sellers like me blog on it adversely. And I will tell you this: it will sit on your shelves for a long time after you buy it, and as you invite your friends over to sample this expensively-wrought concoction and allow them to finish what you won't want to. What I found in the glass was not the beguilement of the isles, not the half-crazed lunacy of sipping fire and chewing smoke. I was appalled at the bottom-line driven, corporate front office swinging dicks daring each other to push McEwan further into the bog by making the peatiest spirit on earth at 114 ppm. "Can you imagine the press on this?" they told each other. "We're going to blow Ardbeg out of the water", came the dyspectic reply. High-fives all around as Jim succumbed to the Murray MacDavid corporate edict and created this monstrosity of a spirit. But I'll tell you, its going to sell, because you're going to want to have the peatiest spirit on earth at 114 ppm. But then, people want those blow-up cartoon characters on their lawns around Christmas time. Neither one makes the world a better place.
What was it like? Imagine this: strip all the wood from a carpenter's pencil, and push the remaining carbon in and out of your mouth. I don't even care enough to write the rest of the tasting notes. The drink was pointless, and everyone involved should rent the above episode on Netflix and remind themselves why we don't think too much of Fonzie these days. Ask Henry Winkler: I'm sure he would have loved to have been out of his contract before succumbing to this.