I think Spirit Animal is (for better or for worse) a review site, which sort of makes me like Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, giving a thumbs up to those products that gave me a good show, and a thumbs down to those I’d throw to the lions. That sounds cool and all, but I do want to be remembered as an emperor who was at least fair and just.
Out of that spirit of trying to meet everything in good faith, let me instead tell you about a real head scratcher: something I thought about writing up for the site as a review, but instead I figured I’d simply turn it into a story of how weird some things can be and where I feel it might make sense to lay off.
Part I: The Prologue
About once a month now, I meet with my friend Michael on Zoom and we try something (usually) new to us both to taste and compare notes. Picks tend to alternate, but we’ve settled into a gentlemanly process of presenting the other with a curated list and seeing what most strikes the other’s fancy. For our last meeting, one of Michael’s most intriguing selections was a brandy. Not just any brandy, mind you: this was a plum brandy made in the Czech Republic by the Rudolf Jelenik distillery. I like brandy, and I like plums, so this was not an exceedingly hard sell.
Where the site is concerned, I thought it might be a home run, or a possible diamond in the rough. Aged for ten years, and with a price of about forty bucks, I was ready to see if we had another contender to some of the excellent (or often just plain good) Armenian brandies, where anything that isn’t Hennessey or Remy Martin tends to fly under the radar. And, the plum thing was great, too: the Hibiki 12 and the St. George Baller are excellent whiskies that derive their “secret sauce” from being aged in barrels that formerly held Japanese plum wine. (“Umeshu!” the nerds are shouting.)
And so we meet on Zoom, and we sip.
Part II: I mean, I think I know what I’m talking about, right?
Both Michael and I agreed that if we were to settle on the parlance of the site, this is a one-star thingamabob. Both of us went in expecting some plum, and some of the candied fruits that are hallmarks of an excellent brandy. What we got was a spirit that had some charm: the plum was there, but the spirit was dry as hell and the ten years of aging gave you more oak in the glass than just about anybody on the planet would have asked for. On the whole, the brandy was heavily perfumed, which provided a standoffish, stodgy quality to it.
I mean, I think I know what to do with stuff
like this by this point in time.
In the days to come, we played with it. I think where both of us settled is that it makes for a half-decent old fashioned: give it some simple syrup and ice to dial back the oak and add the expected sugar (I would argue that fruit should be at least somewhat sweet), with some angostura and orange bitters for complexity. If poured straight, the bottle disappointed, but the juice was savable, and something people might want to try. Not a sink-dump, but probably something I wouldn’t tell you guys to rush out and buy. That plants it pretty solidly among the one-star crew around here.
As I continue to refine my palate, it’s interesting to note that for about 70% of products out there, one finds a convergence of expert opinions. So it went with a similar “gold” variety of plum brandy; Christopher Null over at Drink Hacker (one of the good’uns, let the record state) has about one of the only reviews of this stuff on the internet, and it’s about where we landed. Christopher is a good writer, so I’ll present his thoughts unadulterated:
“On the palate, the fruit is more evident, but it’s fairly astringent, with a surprising degree of youth and a camphor note that isn’t wholly appealing. The finish is drying, rustic, and rough, though again quite floral (with elusive fruit). Clearly an acquired taste. ”
So like I said, one star. It would be easy enough to pour it in a glass another evening, sip, hit some keys while I sort through my opinions on the second sitting, and post another review.
Part III: Just who in the hell do you think you are?
The Rudolf Jelenik Plum Brandy isn’t a one-off. In fact, it’s a representative member of an entire category of spirit known as Slivovitz, and has a huge, centuries-long following among Jews and within Eastern Europe. It’s the national drink of Serbia, for example. There are versions of Slivovitz that are branded as being explicitly kosher.
When you taste something that doesn’t agree with you, especially when it’s new, I think it requires taking a step back and re-calibrating your expectations and knowledge base. I wanted the Slivovitz to taste like plums. And maybe it truly does—but the plums are Damsom plums, which I had never heard of. Rather than the sweet, round dark purple varieties you’d encounter in any American grocery store, these things are oblong and colored not unlike a bowling ball.
These guys.
I also read that Slivovitz would often be served at Passover, where the adults at the table would get a little nip. To me, the qualities of the spirit seemed to make that a fitting choice: it’s a drink that seems to say, “Hey, a little fun is okay, but not too much fun.” Like, one could get drunk from hitting the communion wine a little too hard, but is that really going to be in the cards for most reasonable people?
As a result, the lovers of Slivovitz—“sliv,” as the few afficionados refer to it as, or “Silver Tits,” as I read of one Serbian’s loving nickname for the stuff—tend to say that it might not be a taste other people like at first blush, but often reminds them of family meals, or the weather back in Eastern Europe, or any number of cultural links.
Too many candles! Light temperature too warm! Fire hazard!
From that vantage, trashing Slivovitz as a whole category seems almost like going on Amazon to rate a menorah as a candle holder. “Could have held fewer candles! Awkward design! Base could be sturdier!” Or if you were to review a Dreidel for a tabletop gaming website. “Boring! You’re going to see all that this game has to offer in about six spins!”
Part IV: I don’t know, man!
And so we come back to the R. Jelenik Slivovitz. I don’t think it’s good, but I also didn’t think that bourbon or tequila were good when I first tasted them. But on the other hand, I’m in my forties now, and would like to think that I’ve developed at least a decent knowledge base to evaluate any distilled spirit, really. But then again, I’m not from Eastern Europe nor an Ashkenazi Jew, and so I’m not being transported to something larger and more comforting when I sip this stuff. But on one more other hand, it’s a challenging cocktail ingredient, but an intriguing one that has so far presented a puzzle to me as a lay mixologist that will really feel great if I can crack it.
At the very least, sometimes it’s super fun to try new things. Sometimes the joy comes not necessarily from the quality of what you’re drinking, but the novelty of it and the awareness that you’re certainly learning something about the world and about yourself in the process of stepping outside your immediate frame of reference.
An old math teacher told me a parable once that I think can apply here. As a response to an entire class bellyaching about a homework assignment, Fred shared the tale of a young scribe who asks for a different transcription task. When the aged librarian asks why he’s unable to finish his work, the young scribe replies, “Well, master, this manuscript is as dry as dust.”
Books! What’s a guy to do?
“If the manuscript is as dry as dust,” says the mentor, “I suggest you moisten it with the sweat of your brow.”
I don’t think everything deserves the benefit of the doubt, not every spirit has centuries of cultural tradition behind it, and not every bottle deserves to at the very least be appreciated if it underwhelms. But, sometimes I have grown and learned through oddball spirits I wouldn’t normally drink and may not drink again. The Slivovitz definitely presents one of those cases.
