TravelinDave: "Maybe it's my wallet talking, but I consider 15-18 years the sweet spot for my scotch. Anything older tastes great, and if you're buying I will surely drink it and enjoy it, but I feel older than 18 years and scotch gets too smooth and starts to loose it's distinctive characteristics."
It's not just you, there's a whole school of thought that says the ideal age for Scotch is around 14 years. Personally, I adore the Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban, which is a fourteen-year-old with the final two years in Port casks.
There are two kinds of people who buy 18+ year-old Scotch: Snobs, and those with delicate palates.
Snobs are not necessarily bad people. Yes, there are those snobs who have an overweening need to project their superiority. Those are elitists. But there is also that class of snobs who derive pleasure from treating you to the niceties their wealth can afford and yours, frankly, can't. May their tribe increase.
I've known two of this latter class - Tim Corley (who I've posted about here in the past and given the title "The Tycoon") and John Blair, who I introduced yesterday as the "Hardware Magnate." Both men are very wealthy. Both earned their wealth. Neither tries to hide their wealth or minimize it or pretend it isn't there. They are rich men, Tim more than John, but still. Rich men.
Both came from nothing. Tim grew up in Iran, the son of Christian missionaries who had to scamper out of Iran during the revolution. He had every intention of returning to Iran after he completed training as a Bell Helicopter mechanic, but a fortuitous encounter with a guy who needed a mechanical appraisal of a secondhand airliner got Tim hired into a used airliner brokerage, and intelligence led him to end up buying out the partners. John's tale is much simpler and more old-fashioned. He went into the hardware business, treated people right, expanded to several stores, sold out to Ace Hardware for a killing and kept his one store here in town.
Neither grew up rich, they earned theirs. Some would say they are self-made men, but they would both insist that they have what they have by God's grace. Neither tries to disguise their wealth. Both are generous to a fault. Tim was the guy who gave me my monster humidor. Actually, he didn't give it to me. After I turned it down a half-dozen times, he pleaded with me to come get it out of his way. Many years ago, when my eldest son was a kindergartner, we stopped at the local grocery store, and there in the parking lot was a yellow Ferarri. Tim's. We were admiring it when he came out of Starbucks. We greeted him. He reached out the keys to me. "Take Christian for a spin." I declined. He turned to my wife and asked, "Could I take Christian for a spin?" Christian got the ride of his life that day, and the local constabulary just shook their heads and smiled.
John? Well, John buys old Scotch. John doesn't really understand Scotch. He has a delicate palate, so he prefers the smoothness of old whiskey. He frequently asks me to tutor him. But he can afford the best, and by the case, and that's what he does. And when he goes shopping, he takes somebody along who couldn't even dream of spending what he spends - frequently, it's my dad - and he buys cases of expensive Scotch that he's going to share, and he insists that his guest pick out a bottle or two to take home. And if you pick something modest, he gently says "We're not spending your money, we're spending mine. Don't cheat me out of the opportunity to be your friend."
Swear to God. That's John. Somebody broke into his hardware store and stole a Traeger smoker. He got interviewed by the Seattle media. He looked into the camera and said, "Please. If you took the grill, just drop by the store and ask for the warranty paperwork. You'll get the papers and no questions asked." The guy's a complete mensch, and his wife is a goofball who never got to meet my mother, but those two would have been fast friends.
So...TD? You ever find yourself making your way out to this corner of the country, you give me some advance notice. Tim has retired to Cujo Key in Florida, but John's here, and if you make your way out here, I'll ask, and he'll treat you to some really fine Scotch on his deck overlooking Lake Sawyer. He'll ask me to pick out the cigars, and I won't disappoint you.
