The Open Special Edition 2021 | 46% ABV
Score: 6/10
Good stuff.
TL;DR
A competent and flavourful entry point
If it's good enough for Archibald, it's good enough for me.
Georges Prosper Remi was a master of his art, or perhaps more accurately, he was a master of the line. I’ve loved his work since I was old enough to sit up straight and his illustrated worlds were to me what Star Wars is to others - significant.
Ligne claire as it’s known, is an uncompromising art form. Remi pioneered the technique through his work as a newspaper comic strip artist in the 1920’s - little story-snippets released daily that, when combined together, formed a longer narrative arc. It was the foundation of what would become a lifelong passion and a legacy that today is loved the world over. The ligne claire, or “clear line” technique is synonymous with Remi and his most famous body of work, but has been adopted over the intervening decades by many artists - the pristine penwork style is very easy to spot, even if you don’t know what it’s called: “Where’s Wally?” is a great example.
Widely regarded as one of the great artists of the 20th century, Remi’s ability to weave engaging, exotic adventures through exquisitely produced vivid art has transcended generations and geographical borders. The main catalogue of 24 albums has been translated into more than 110 languages and has sold more than 270 million copies since its first edition in 1929. Born in Belgium, Remi produced artwork mostly for newspapers until the German occupation in 1940, at which point he and his wife fled to France, only to return months later at the behest of the surrendering king.
Remi’s time in occupied Belgium was fractious and challenging - his decision to continue working under the now Nazi-controlled publications saw him labelled a traitor and a propagandist, despite the clear anti-fascist stance in his work. His insistence that he needed to work and earn money, much like all the other trades during the war, was ignored. Post-war his reputation was in tatters - his blacklisted status not helping - but through friendship and a few lucky breaks, he resumed working in 1946 and carried on to complete the long-running adventure series, as well as create many other illustrated worlds.
In more recent years Remi has been reassessed under modern standards of tolerance and acceptance, and his earlier works specifically have been found wanting. Retrospectively appraising conduct and parlance from the early 20th century through the prism of current thinking will more often than not highlight transgressions - who knows how we would react under such duress - but Remi was very clear on his misgivings and sought to clarify most objections people held against him. A very private person, he spent his final years holidaying, performing promotional duties and working. You might not know yet of whom I speak, but if you reverse his main initials (G and R) and pronounce it in a French accent, you will discover that this artist is the Belgian master Hergé, and his body of work was The Adventures of Tintin.
Such is my admiration for Hergé and Tintin that as I’ve grown older, I’ve found myself dipping in and out of his adventures periodically, each time captivated by the narrative arcs and the beautiful style. Hergé curated each cell of his comic albums with a photographer’s eye for composition, capturing movement and dynamics that genuinely excited me as a younger man, and suitably impressed me as an older one. Facial expressions, textures and lighting all rendered in expert detail, despite the limitations of the ligne claire style, as well as beautifully imagined vehicles, scenery, architecture and characters. It’s safe to say that the worlds Hergé created were fully resolved.
It wasn’t until book number nine, The Crab With the Golden Claws, that the inimitable Captain Haddock arrived and with his introduction so too a renewed dynamic of fun and frolics. Hapless and bumbling, Haddock spends most of his time drinking whisky and getting Tintin into (and out of) trouble. A competent merchant mariner with a wealthy family legacy, he traverses the world with Tintin and Snowy, the always immaculate Wire Fox Terrier for the remainder of the books, never veering far from his trusty bottle of whisky (and/or any other alcoholic spirit). He’s fiercely opinionated and quick to react, but is the first one to help when it's required. His love for whisky often becomes a pivotal plot point, not least of which in the thrilling Explorers on the Moon when, upon re-entry to Earth, Haddock passes out only to revive at the sound of the word “whisky”. I’m sure we can all relate.
At the time of Tintin’s publication there wasn’t a Loch Lomond whisky in existence. The fictional brand was first mentioned in the 1966 English adaptation of Tintin adventure The Black Island, a story that was re-developed twice before its English language release to bring it up to date. The original whisky featured in the story was Johnnie Walker, replaced with a fictional brand called Loch Lomond - the publisher of the UK version not too pleased with having real world brand names of whisky inside a book aimed at children. In The Black Island Tintin travels to England initially, before heading north to Scotland following the trail of a band of crims, to an island where they’re holed up.
A few years ago when holidaying on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, we took a day-trip to the Isle of Mull - a lovely drive over to Lochaline where the ferry transported us to the island. While there, I nipped into the wee bookshop on the main drag and through the window I noticed there was a stack of Tintin books. Ever the geek, I perused this selection diligently, despite owning all of them already, and noticed one book I didn’t have - a unique adaptation of The Black Island that had been translated - be still my patriotic heart - into Scots. Entitled The Derk Isle and released in 2013, I immediately grasped it to my chest and quick-walked over to the till. On the ferry back to our digs, from Fishnish to Lochaline, I poured over the pages like a wee boy again and spent the rest of that evening reading it with a huge smile on my stupid face.
“Knowing I’ve wanted to try Loch Lomond for a while, I decided it was time to embrace my inner Haddock.”
I’ve said all that to say simply this: I’ve been aware of Loch Lomond as a fictional brand of whisky for decades, but until now haven’t touched a drop of it! How un-geek of me. You’d have thought the first port of call for such an ardent Hergé fan would’ve been to seek out and destroy Loch Lomond, but for some reason I’ve never done it. Until now.
Review
Loch Lomond The Open Special Edition 2021 Release, 46% ABV
£40 and widely available
Wally reviewed this very bottle as part of a 3-way comparison in August… and I forgot to check before writing this review, so forgive the duplication. Wally’s fave, however, is a 12 year old bottling - one of 3,000 released in 2020 under lockdown conditions as part of the intended Open Golf Championship that was cancelled. It’s apparently, as his review shows, utterly dreamy. Using a part-chardonnay wine yeast fermentation, it offered effervescence and joy through tropical deliciousness and was delivered to faceholes at 46% ABV. Non-chill filtered, but coloured due to market expectations.
When I was looking around recently for the new Ardnamurchan cask strength, I arrived at Robbie’s Whisky Merchants website. They were offering the new release the evening before everyone else, so being the superfan I just had to grab one there and then… just in case. Seeing that postage was free over £100, I looked around for a bottle that could take me up to that threshold - £35 was the golden number. Looking around, I saw a bottle of Loch Lomond that was called The Open Special Edition. Not the same one as Wally’s uber-fizz age-stated dram, this one was instead a non-age-stated whisky matured in three types of American oak casks. Knowing I’ve wanted to try Loch Lomond for a while, I decided it was time to embrace my inner Haddock.
Nose
Sawn oak. Poached pears and vivid tropical notes. Fresh and engaging.
Palate
Touch of warming oak, stewed apples and leather. Juicy toffee and a bit of purple fruit. Gingerbread with a nice thin sugar icing. Cherries and petrichor.
The Dregs
I’ll tell you about my pilgrimage to the Hergé Museum in Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve another time, but I’ll say this - seeing Hergé’s work up close and personal was incredible. A reaffirmation of my belief that he was a master of his art form. It also, for the first time in my adult life, exposed me to the idea that even masters like Hergé made mistakes. You see, before visiting the museum I thought that all the “plates” for the books - the original pieces of paper with the artwork hand drawn upon it - were beautifully finished, rendered artworks unto their own, which were then scanned or photographed, coloured and collated into book form. We now live in an age of Photoshop and editing out mistakes is easy, but back then there was no Photoshop - as an extension of that logic, the artwork must have needed to be perfect.
The realisation arrived while looking at the original plate for the scene in Explorers on the Moon, where the iconic red and white chequered rocket blasts off the Moon on its journey back to Earth. Before me wasn’t the pristine artwork I expected, but instead a ghostly tip-ex’d outline of a rocket in the foreground, and a glued patch at the top with a smaller rocket penned in; Hergé had changed his mind. Having the rocket zooming up towards the viewer in the foreground of the picture would've been exciting, but by placing the rocket further back and smaller, relative to the backdrop of the moon’s surface, it introduced fragility and vulnerability as a result. Looking around all the other plates I saw that most of them had these little corrections and adjustments, each one made in the pursuit of creating more engaging art. He’d made a change to that beautiful Indian ink and gouache drawing, which must’ve taken countless hours, so that the emotion of that image would be more visceral, more emotional and more engaging.
Loch Lomond, as a brand, is sort of the same thing. It looks very good now - recently undergoing a bit of a rebrand - it feels coherently together; established. However underneath the surface is a bit of a shift, a bit of a change of mind. Loch Lomond whisky has been around for a while but has never been firmly in the enthusiast’s wheelhouse. For a long time the distillery produced only for blends. More recently they have begun offering core bottlings of their whisky with quality at the forefront of the operation - a slow sea-change to offer a more engaging and emotional whisky. I’d urge you to head over and read Wally’s far more descriptive words for this distillery than I could ever write and see how much it means to him. I’m pleased Loch Lomond have made the change and are entering the transparency age in whisky with an open mind - very much led by their master blender Michael Henry, it seems.
This bottling, at £39, is priced ever so very slightly too high, considering you can find both Arran and Ledaig 10yo priced the same if not cheaper, but it’s presented with two of the three ticked from the enthusiasts wish list - 46% ABV and non-chill filtered. It’s a whisky you can sit down with for a few, to get the palate going, before tackling more challenging whiskies - or not. I’ve sat for an evening with just this bottle. It’s flavourful, interesting and definitely one for someone new to whisky to use as a starting point. For the love of all that’s good in the world, buy this before you buy any of the 40% shunkers, like the recent Aberlour Triple Cask fiasco. I’m a little bit torn with what to score this whisky, given I’m a staunch defender of good whisky being good whisky regardless of age statements or colouring. I don’t place as much importance on age or colouring as others if the whisky is competent and engaging. For that reason, I must look at this through the prism of experience and score this accordingly. It’s good stuff.
Score: 6/10
Tried this? Share your thoughts in the comments below. DC
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