Dailuaine 10yo Fragrant Drops
Refill Bourbon Barrel | 56.6% ABV
Score: 7/10
Very good indeed.
TL;DR
Patience elegantly rewarded
Antidote Whisky and Slow-living
“Generation Z (often shortened to Gen Z), also known as Zoomers, is the demographic cohort succeeding Millennials and preceding Generation Alpha. … The generation is most frequently being defined as people born from 1997 to 2012. … As the first social generation to have grown up with access to the Internet and portable digital technology from a young age, members of Generation Z have been dubbed "digital natives" even if they are not necessarily digitally literate and may struggle in a digital work place. Moreover, the negative effects of screen time are most pronounced in adolescents, as compared to younger children.”
So, according to Wikipedia, that’s me.
And that last bit is frighteningly applicable.
It’s true that I reached puberty at the time when smartphones started their rise amongst my peers and the rest of the world. I was at the height of my all-consuming, teenage, hormone-infused anxiety and insecurity when the social media platforms that utilise those qualities as a business model shot out of the ground like mushrooms in autumn.
And so I too fall into the category of people who rarely brush their teeth, wait for a bus, or “remove a railway sleeper” without staring at that magical little screen in my hands. My eyes and my brain constantly bombarded with information in the form of visual stimulants, shocking videos and photos, one extreme opinion after the other, and celebrities, influencers and brands fighting for my attention to buy their stuff, look better, feel better, and shove short term gratification in the form of overconsumption down my throat.
You might know what it feels like to get sucked into that for a moment or a day or even longer.
Now, I’m from 1998. So I can still imagine a time where I wasn’t exposed to all of the nonsense 24/7, but the people born three or so years after me cannot even imagine that anymore. They think that their overstimulated state of being is normal and don’t realise why every older generation is worried about them. We’re in too deep, and our mental health is hopelessly corrupted by it. And yet, in that grim picture I just painted for you, there is a light on the horizon.
Over the past year or two, I’ve noticed something shifting in my generation, especially in the older half of Gen Z. It’s the so-called romanticisation, or idealisation, of what the online community now calls ‘slow-living’.
Slowly but surely, my timeline on Instagram started to show people sharing their calming, soothing hobbies. Like crocheting, fishing, woodworking, painting, or replacing screen time with reading books or baking. My girlfriend, who is quite the gamer now, often plays something called Animal Crossing, in which you have to set up and run an island for its cute animal inhabitants: gardening, designing houses, picking apples and such. All to the tune of low tempo brass music.
Granted, it’s still screen time, but it is the on-screen equivalent to building and arranging a model railway; complete with foliage and infrastructure. Some of us (now semi-) youngsters are starting to seek out hobbies and activities that purposefully take us away from the frenetic, time and brainpower-consuming bucketload of information and content.
For me one of those things is whisky. Mind you, I also like to just go on walks, make music, or read books (highly recommend that last one paired with a dram, by the way), but it’s the water of life that has made me more aware of the qualities of, well, life.
Whisky, I find, can be enjoyed thoroughly in good company or while watching a film or your favourite YouTube content. But for me, if I want to really appreciate it, find every tasting note it has to offer, if I really want to dive deep into everything a dram has to offer, I’ll be sitting in my chair, probably alone, with every distraction of daily life muted, turned off, and out of sight.
In my hectic, irregular life as a musician and actor, often travelling, working late, having month-long bursts of over one hundred hour work weeks followed by periods of free time in which to catch up on my studying, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed. Especially if you’re also slightly addicted to whatever the online world has to offer.
In the moments I turn away from all of it; that’s when I can appreciate stillness of mind, of thought, of being, and of the things around me. And this whisky provides me with the perfect opportunity to do so.
It requires time, attention, and a lot of patience. And I’m happy to give it that.
Review
Dailuaine 10yo, Fragrant Drops, Refill Bourbon Barrel, 255 bottle outturn, 56.6% ABV
€70 paid (£60)
Score: 7/10
Very Good Indeed.
TL;DR
Patience elegantly rewarded
Nose
Tight and a bit prickly at first. It doesn’t specify being cask strength, but the high and very specific ABV makes me assume that it is. That tight prickle fades to make way for beautiful crème brûlée vanilla. There’s also a whiff of young, sweet cheese. Floral notes float above that. Wild peaches. Minty. But quiet. It’s elegant and those notes come floating up gently, rather than jumping out.
Water and a long time in the glass amplifies it all beautifully without losing any intensity. I found myself adding up to five teaspoons. It takes it really well and opens it up completely. I’d go so far as to say it needs it.
Palate
Parma violets. A burst of crème brûlée vanilla again. Effervescence. Then, halfway through, there are green apples, bitter lemon and Haribo bananas. Barely ripe pineapple. White grapes. The finish gives way to the aftertaste you sometimes get from grapes.
The Dregs
It took me a while to dissect this malt. Not because it’s overtly complex, but because it doesn’t give away its secrets easily. It’s not a bombastic sherry bomb or a dirty spirit character that slaps you about the face with weight and loudness. This needs generous amounts of water, a lot of time in the glass and not too many things to distract you from it.
And that’s why I’m happy to have it. It convinces you to sit down, put away the distractions of cluttered, rampant, frenetic life, and appreciate its hidden goodness in a cool, calm state of mind. I also reckon its green and yellow fruitiness and effervescence will also make this a lovely summer dram, as I sit outside. Face in phone.
Score: 7/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. MM
This is a Friday First: a debut piece for Mason. We hope you’ll join us in welcoming him into the Dramface community in the comments below…
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