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Water of Life – Arnolfo di Cambio

No matter if it is fashion, interior, urban or architectural design – the Italian way of doing things has consistently been pushing boundaries in any conceivable way or form and firmly established itself on the worldwide firmament as a trendsetter.

When it not only comes to the application of traditional techniques to the production of objects made of crystal but maximising its natural characteristics, Arnolfo di Cambio is no exception.

Founded in 1963 in Colle Val d’Elsa, the company has been thriving on innovation and unique designs for nearly six decades and a focus on not only negotiating between the past and present by combining the art of glassblowing, manufacture and new technologies, but extensive involvement and collaborations with genre defining luminaries from the world of design who infuse their alchemy into the DNA of di Cambio’s DNA.

Needless to say that di Cambio’s emissions are not only considered pieces of art but have found their way to become fixtures of permanent art exhibitions and infiltrated mainstream media, such as the Ridley Scott’s movie Blade Runner with an idiosyncratic set of custom-made tumblers.

Now, when it comes to the enjoyment whisky, personal preference as to the choosing of the right vessel varies as it can be seen as both an extension of one’s personality as well as one’s taste in the water of life. My trusted go-to is usually the Glencairn glass, as it proves to be particularly well designed to channel the aromas and flavour nuances to both the nostrils and the palate and anyone remotely into enjoying a good drop would be able to attest that the right glass can significantly enhance the sipping experience.

However, special occasions demand special drinkware, which is where Arnolfo di Cambio enters the stage with its Cibi collection.

Structure-wise, the retro futuristic, hand-crafted Blade Runner rocks glasses are optimised for breathability to enhance the aeration of molecules, with ideally a finely calibrated distance to your nose.

What I love about the Blade Runner tumbler is that its balanced weight adds a premium touch when nursing a drink, which it has a deliberate understated aesthetic that offers something for the eye – an aesthetic that pays homage to both the original movie from the early eighties as well as the recent sequel to the science fiction saga, marrying past, present and future in iconic crystalline form.

David Lee Roth once quipped that he used to jog but he quit as the ice cubes kept falling out of his glass - fitting 370ml, the heft of the Cibi tumbler would have helped Diamond Dave to continue his workout regimen as it  not only accommodates rocks galore but serves as the ideal glass for a well-made Old Fashioned.

A statement piece that instantaneously adds character and style to its surroundings.

Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To Happiness

Hachette Publishing

Bill Bailey is an interesting one. I remember watching him incarnate in the third dimension and after the first fifteen minutes, I was going to give ten more to see where his performance was going to go and I ended up having one of the best evenings with a comedian that I have ever had. This means to say that Bill is not your run-off-the-mill comic, but an artist that has accomplished everything from music to acting and one that has a refined and well-calibrated approach to comedy that slowly unfolds its hilarious potential.

Following his, Remarkable Guide To British Birds, Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To Happiness is not a comedian’s piss take on a collective effort towards self-optimisation and happiness – au contraire – the book is thoughtfully comprised of essays aimed at cutting through the noise of our modern age.

Reminded of mortality by entering the fifth decade of his earthly existence, Baily was inspired to explore the chasm between what our life has transpired to be and our expectations of it, i.e. the pressures and competition of the quantifiable and more and more confusing realities of modern life.

Not being averse to change and innovation, Bailey explore the state of mind that constitutes happiness, which in his mind seems to occur when you least expect it.

Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide To Happiness is both a whimsical, warm and thoughtful compilation of exposes that contain a lot of personal facets to convey the pleasure simple things like e.g. being in the outdoors can bring.

Accompanied by Bailey’s illustrations, the book is a pick-me-up in times when contentment seems hard to come by.

High Adventures in the Great Outdoors - Nudie

Laid back with his mind on the money and his money on his mind, Snoop Dogg used to roll down the street, smokin’ indo, sippin’ gin and juice – without the latter of which, the whole thang would be a trite and juniper berry heavy affair.

There was a time that given the current circumstances seems utopian, i.e. one where I was travelling a lot, especially in interesting terrain where at times it proved to be difficult to get something resembling the beverages or meals one had in mind or the nutritious equivalent thereof.

At many an ungodly early hour at e.g. the airport of Ulaanbaatar or in the middle of nowhere en route to Phnom Penh, there are few options apart from chocolate bars and soda pop. However, there were locally freshly pressed juices, which seemed like a wholesome way to get come vitamins in the system in the process.

With fruit juice that one finds in most supermarkets – even if they contain vegetables – due to fibre having been large chaffed off, unwholesome free sugars that are absorbed almost instantaneously into the bloodstream contribute to world of nastiness – think 2 diabetes and whatever else a spiking of insulin levels encompasses.

Summa summarum – commercially available juices can have some healthy qualities, however, oftentimes you are basically ingesting sugary water with some vitamins.

Enter an entity I was delighted to discover during my first travels to the Southern hemisphere, i.e. Nudie.

Inspired by the lack of juices that met the standards the founders set as a benchmark for juices to proffer to their families at home, they decided to refine their home-made 100% fruit recipes and offer it publicly at local stores with the first batch resulting in less than fifty bottles, which the founders’ families were sent to buy back to create the illusion that it was massively popular.

Many trials, tribulations and upgrades later, Nudie’s simple yet effective formula resulted in something that I struggle to find elsewhere, i.e. easily available, vegan-friendly flash-pasteurized juices and blends that leave up to the name, i.e. purity with no masking or dress up: No cryogenically frozen concentrate, additives or other preservatives.

Apart from tested and tried staples, there are constantly new adventurous concoctions, e.g. Aloe Vera & Rosehip or Chamomile Tea & Lemon Balm, which if not for the ingredients and flavours, win me over for the witty and cheeky blurbs that adorn the respective bottles.

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image from company website

The Formative Years – Soundtracks part II

Let’s start the second part of the series dedicated to movie companion albums off with a bona fide classic:

Curtis Mayfield’s Super Fly soundtrack is another example where the soundtrack has been tailored to become an integral part of the story telling, at times challenging the script and expertly balancing the link between the musical portrayal of the complexities and ambiguities of the protagonists’ lives and a fantastically sensuous, bittersweet and fun listening experience.

The soundtrack to David Fincher’s Fight Club, written specifically for the movie by the Dust Brothers is one of the few instrumental soundtracks that work for me outside the confines of the film, as it is not only a time capsule of the darker and better moments of the trip hop genre of the nineties, but it effortlessly evokes a wide array of feelings that reverberate with the alienating core themes of the movie.

Then there are movies like Judgment Night, which bore for the time and age new smash-up collaborations between genre-crossing rock and hip-hop acts that document the context of when the forgettable movie was incepted. Despite being a deliberately planned marketing coup, the high calibre of the contributors result in a whole that is much more than the sum of the individual parts of rhymes and riffs would suggest.

In my world, finding a flaw within The Beatles’ oeuvre would be nigh impossible and their A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack  is an example par excellence for the cinematic emission being overshadowed by a fantastic soundtrack. While their transition into light entertainment could have gone terribly wrong, it is testament to their creativity that both the soundtrack and the feelgood movie elevated their career to new heights.

From when I first watched it at the movies to this day, Oliver Stone’s infamous love story Natural Born Killers has not lost impact as it pushed  boundaries in every way possible – from the way it was shot via the dialogues, parodies and symbolism to the sensory overload. No matter what Stone’s actual intent was, it remains a unique piece of cinema with an even better soundtrack. With Trent Reznor at the helm of the curation, the result is a collage of twenty-seven tracks interweaved with skits and snippets that creates both a subtle yet schizophrenic sonic equivalent to channel-flipping while still managing to convey a cohesive whole.

In an idiosyncratic way, Reznor skilfully caters to the younger testosterone driven audience as well as an arthouse crowd, with specifically Leonard Cohen’s, Diamanda Galas’ and Nine Inch Nails’ contributions accentuating the core themes of the movie and the underlying angst of existence.

Water of Life – Provenance matters

There are many factors that contribute to the creation of a whisky - there is maturation, wood and cask work, the distilling process and – not unlike it is the case with good wine – the terroir along with the local climate. While there are many great whiskies whose idiosyncratic character is defined by the provenance, it is safe to say that there is none like Octomore.

The etymology of Bruichladdich’s most heavily peated expression Octomore is an anglicised version of ‘Ochdamh-mòr’, derived from the name of the farmland in the hilly regions of Port Charlotte on Scotland’s Isle of Islay, where the barley for the distillery is grown from.

With its first bottling in 2008, Octomore has firmly established itself on the smoky and peaty firmament of whisky lovers, and its expressions since incarnated in usually four variations each, with the common denominator being that I have yet to come across one that does not offer an unrivalled complexity of layers offering so much more than the astronomically high phenol parts per million component would suggest.

New Octomore expressions are usually unleashed on a yearly basis with the variations of each being classified into four categories:

• .1 is distilled from Scottish Barley and matured in American Oak.
• .2 matured in European Oak and usually the most difficult to track down due to being a travel retail exclusive.
• .3 is all about Islay down to locally grown barley.
• .4 matured in virgin oak, and usually one of the more interesting variants of the quartet.

While up to Octomore 8.3, PPM levels were consistently upped and the character was mainly defined by smoke and peat, expression 9 and especially the 10 series saw an interesting departure – one that saddened me at the beginning but has since made me appreciate Octomore even more, i.e. the foot was taken off the peat and smoke gas and instead the focus was set more than ever on working out flavour nuances.

The benchmark pale golden 10.1 expression of the tenth series, was released after a five year maturation in American oak casks and while smoke is still dominant, what tickled the nostrils is a delicate melange of embers that carry characteristics of vanilla, citrus, leather, gingery baked apples, backed by the duality of syrup and sea salt, pervaded by subtle tropical fruity flavours.

What I have always liked about Octomore is that once you break through the smoke, unexpected flavours unfold, which in this case materialize on the top of the mouth via a chewy texture in form of honeyed oak, almonds, earthy moss and peppery vanilla, underlined by a divine industrial ashy oiliness – sound oxymoronic? Try it, I dare you!

Octomore 10.3 has been aged for six years, clocks in at 61.3% ABV at 114 PPM and things get even more interesting here: On the nose, it reminded me of smoky añejo tequila, tropical fruits, strawberry marmalade and smoke oysters.

What might sound slightly contradictive, starts to make sense on the palate where citrussy vanilla breaks through a barrier of ash, accentuated by peppered pineapples that give way to an elongated, reverberating finish.

Given its unorthodox character, I labelled the 10.3 the “summertime” expression – definitely unexpected, but delightfully so.

Octomore 10.4 takes things to the next level: Colour-wise, it is mind-blowing that a drop that has merely been aged for three years materializes with such a tawny shade due to being matured in virgin oak barrels, with Bruichladdich having refined their approach to how they calibrate their work with wood.

With merely 88 phenol parts per million, vanillin oaky smoke is still dominant but quickly gives way to molasses reminiscent of dark rum with highlights of balsamic vinegar and charred meat.

Not unlike with the other variants of the 10 series, there is a lot going on with the 10.4 as vanilla wood notes compete with peat and smoke, resting on a battlefield of charcoal, toffee and Indian relish.

Summa summarum: While I was sceptical at first because of the lower PPM levels, expression ten of the Octomore series is one of the most interesting ones and is testament to Bruichladdich’s commitment to not only blindly following tried and proven paths but to honour traditions and take things skilfully to the next level with how they channel their alchemy in the most refined manner.

I cannot wait to see what the Octomore 11 series has in store, which was just recently released.