A Wee Dram

Finally found out what that smell was!

Man, if I had a nickel for everytime I said that in my life. But this. This was the particularly confounding case of the Edinburgh Smell.

And yes, there is an Edinburgh Smell. I'm not just imagining it. In an older blog post https://auld-riecke.ghost.io/auld-reekie/, I identified it as the Macaroni and Tomato smell.

Someone asked the question in the r/Edinburgh/ Reddit: "What do you think the smell smells like?"

There were lots of responses, none of which were: "what smell?" Oh no. Everyone knew what smell the poster was talking about. They just couldn't pin down an adequate description for it. The attempts:

• Bread
• Wotsits (the UK equivalent of Cheetos)
• Mildewed Carpet
• Pot noodles
• Stew
• Halfway between Cat Food and Wheetabix
• Slightly Burnt Baked Beans
• Ham and Marmite

My favorite comment: "When I stayed in Gorgie [an Edinburgh neighborhood], waking up to that smell on a Sat morning let me know I'd survived Fri night happy hour(s) in Club Mercado. It was the smell of life."

But never mind trying to describe it. Pray tell, what is that heavenly cloud of perfume wafting through the Edinburgh morning?

Ta Da

It's the North British Distillery in Gorgie. Purveyors of fine Scottish whisky ... nae Scotch, and nae "e" in whisky!.

In other words, the smell is malted barley, muh friend.

It used to be worse. In 2014, the City of Edinburgh forced North British Distillery to cover their smokestack with an odour filter. Now that lovely smell is a shadow of its former self. But still lovable and unique to Edinburgh.

While we're on the subject of Scottish Whiskey, lemme give you the quickest of primers. The world is awash in whiskey-with-an-e, but whisky-without-an-e is different in a few ways:

• It's 100% malted barley. No corn like bourbon or Canadian whisky.
• It's aged in used barrels. This is a real nice for Continental Europe, which produces wine then has a trillion leftover barrels. Answer: sell them cheap to the Scots for whisky. They can't make wine anyway. Nae grapes. Nae trees for barrels ... when it comes down to it.
• It is aged longer. 8 years is standard.

There are two types:

• Single Malt comes from one distiller and one year of crops. It is a hugely risky method. If you screw it up somewhere in its more-than-8-year lifetime, you have to throw it out. So you had better be good at it, e.g. have hundreds of years of experience. The payoff is whisky with oodles of character.
• Blended Whisky is just a bunch of single malts throw together until it tastes uniform. North Britain Distillery does not bottle any product of its own, but produces whiskies strictly for blending.

The big difference between this whisky and all others is Scottish whisky is yummier. It's hard to believe that something and rich and distilled is not syrupy, harsh or overpowering. But is subtle, complex and lingers for minutes on the tongue.

Forgive the gratuitous lyricism, but it's like drinking distilled antiquity. You know the smell when you walk into old libraries or mansions. It's the smell of old books and slightly decayed wood. Sipping good whisky is like conversing with the ancients.

It is hard to believe the smell turns into this. But it does. We all stink a little on the path to glory.

Speaking of Antiquity...

Like many Syracusans, my road to perdition began at Liquor Square. Liquor Square was a the size of a supermarket - literally an entire square city block. Its neon sign would blind airline pilots attempting to land at Hancock International Airport.

It was big. It was big at a time when Carrier, the air conditioner company, was just down the road and employed 7000 people. It needed to be big.

Liquor Square sold its own private label jug o' whiskey. 1 gallon for five bucks. This was 1990, mind you. You could power your car with it in a pinch.

Not that I had a car – luckily I lived only 3 blocks away from Liquor Square. I was working for the Literacy Volunteers of America at the time, and just scraping out a meager existence. Yet even I could afford a Liquor Square jug o' whiskey for five bucks. I couldn't afford a mixer, but ice was free ... if I could manage to rip out the tray from my almost-frosted-shut freezer.

Was that jug o' whiskey "Scotch" ? I think so. Or maybe it was Canadian. I don't remember much from that period, strangely enough.

As the Internet bubble grew, so did my paycheck, and I switched my whiskey preference to Old Grandad 100 Proof Bottled in Bond. This was precipitated by my friend Karen Jarzynka, who always had Old Grandad at her place. She was learning the saxophone at the time, and always ended a somewhat-squealy practice session with a shot of it.

Old Grandad is bourbon. A little sweet, a little salty, a little rough. I would never drink a top-shelf Scottish whisky back then. That was too expensive, and I was convinced the extra money went into packaging. You know, the gift canister and box?

Then someone gave me a shot of Ardbeg, a fine Islay whisky. I don't remember the person, but I remember that wee dram ... so smoky and peaty. It tasted like the Earl May Garden Center, a Sioux Falls institution from my youth. I was hooked. I couldn't afford Ardbeg very often, but I indulged one or two times a year when I felt peaked.

Back in 2016 when we first visited Scotland, I was amazed at the cheapness of really good whisky. I remember a restaurant menu chalkboard that advertised the Soup of the Day for £4 and a dram of 10 year old single malt for £3.

It is not that way now. In the 8 years since, Scotland has exported more and more whisky, driving the prices up internally. What is left here in Edinburgh is priced for tourists, meaning about £20 more than it should be.

Bluggh, tourist booze. I stupidly bought a bottle of Johnny Walker Spring/Summer 2024 Edition from Princes Street. The manufacturer and I disagree on its flavor profile. The whisky is supposed to emphasize notes of fresh cut grass, honeysuckle, and candied lemon. I couldn't taste that. More like notes of Ronsonol lighter fluid.

Still...

Still, here in Edinburgh I got a shot of 25 year old Ardmore for £12. It was one of the best shots of whisky I have ever tasted. So I am not complaining.

It was at the Kay Bar, a pub right around the corner from me, in a street where you can't drive a car. The Kay Bar is a very old stone house, converted to a pub. It left the room divisions intact, and there's a library where you can take your dram, pull a Robert Burns volume off the shelf and indulge. Gentrified American bars aspire to this.

I have been making notes of my favorite whiskies along the way, with strange names like:

• Craganmore
• Bunnahabain
• Clynelish

If I didn't take copious notes, I'd never be able to re-order them.

After a couple of months of this, I saw a problem. When October rolls around and I must return to the States (again, kicking and screaming), I'd never be able to get these bottles again. Or they'd be way too expensive.

But I'm gonna make a plug for Highland Park, which is one you can get in just about any reputable US liquor store.

I was on a bus driving around the Orkney Islands, which are a group of islands north of the Northernmost coast of Scotland (though not as far as Shetland). We drove by a huge distillery covering both sides of a hill, and the name was Highland Park. It's pretty popular. But I didn't know any Whisky was brewed in Orkney.

At the Kirkwall Hotel I had a Highland Park 12 year old, and it was an interesting cross between a smoky, peaty Islay and a fruity, floral Highland whisky (it's technically a Highland). A lot of people get turned off by an intense Islay whisky like Ardbeg. Highland Park has plenty of Scottish character but without the "Band Aid taste" as Amy likes to call it. Highly recommended.

Now I am forced to live life day-to-day. Enjoying a wee dram, knowing it will not last. Poor me.

Many tourists try to grab souvenirs or take a picture of every little thing, hoping to replay the feeling at will when they return home. I have since given up on that. I know ... every once in awhile, a waft of perfume blowing through the New York will take me back to that wee dram I enjoyed in some coastal pub in god-knows-where-Scotland.

The smell of something halfway between cat food and Wheetabix.