Boozehound - Jason Wilson [9]
He looked up from the computer and began swirling the third glass. “I think I like the Cordon Bleu better. But jeez, what are we talking about here?”
Finally, we tasted the Creation Grand Extra. After I took my swallow, I ventured a meek opinion, in the form of a question. “Do I taste bitter chocolate here?”
“Yes,” Pacult answered. “You know, I taste, like … a cocoa pod.” He typed, “Concludes extended, but dry and cocoa bean–like. Superbly satisfying at every step.”
As Pacult saved the newsletter file and started cleaning up, he told me that the Cordon Bleu would receive five stars, and that the XO and Creation Grand Extra would receive four or five stars, even with the offending sediment. How was he so immediately sure, I wanted to know. It’s just one man’s opinion, he said. Of course, this man estimates he’s tasted more than twenty thousand spirits over his career. “I don’t think I really hit my stride as a taster until about fifteen years into this, tasting every day,” he said. “The only reason I can do this at all is that I’ve built up a library of impressions. Fifteen years of data is in my head. Anyone can do this, provided you’re willing to put in the time.”
After the tasting, we sat out on the patio while I drank another glass of ice water, then I bid him adieu. I wasn’t exactly drunk—I’d been very careful, since I had several hours’ drive home. But I was really hungry. The only thing I could find on the way to the highway was a McDonald’s, and so I followed my expensive cognac tasting with a five-piece Chicken Select with barbecue sauce and a large fries. As I ate inside my car, in the parking lot, I did the math on how much catching up I’d have to do before I’d be able to duplicate Paul Pacult’s memory library of twenty thousand spirits. I am nowhere near an abstemious person, and so I shuddered to imagine that I actually might die before I even came close to drinking twenty thousand spirits.
No, no, no, I thought. I’d have to find a different way of going about this. It’s all fine and well that Pacult can confidently make a split-second distinction between a four-star spirit and five-star spirit. But what does it mean to most people that a spirit is “prickly” or “silky and rich” or that it tastes of “Danish and black raisins”? If I tell people that a cognac is “mature yet owns the promise of youthfulness,” will they now understand what I mean? Do I understand what that means? No, this was no way to change people’s hearts and minds and introduce them to the wide world of flavors. This was too much like the language of wine, and so many critics had already ruined the enjoyment of wine. I wasn’t going to be an accomplice in that sort of thing when it came to spirits.
No, I needed to go out into the world and taste. I needed to continue the journey that began so long ago in my parents’ kitchen pantry.
A Round of Drinks:
Old-Time Tastes
It seems patently unfair—rude, in fact—to have started talking about booze without actually fixing any drinks. So allow me to break this narrative for a moment, step behind the bar, and offer you, dear reader, both a cocktail and a few thoughts. If you’re going to make it through two hundred–plus pages with me, you’ll probably be needing a few more cocktails. Consider these chapter-ending interludes as sort of like big, boozy endnotes. (And if you happen to need a bit more cocktail-making advice, on anything from stocking your bar to glassware to the proper way to garnish with a citrus peel twist, be sure to turn to the appendix.)
Since the Stinger is the first real cocktail I ever enjoyed, with that dapper gentleman in the hotel bar, it is the first drink I will pour. Years after that day, I learned that the Stinger is traditionally served straight up and not on the rocks. This means, of course, that my mentor was wrong. But no matter. I still take my Stinger on ice.
Sometimes, I’ll even add a dash of absinthe to the mix.