“These reviews are all over the place!” (Said no one.)
Okay: “Wrong” might be too strong of a word. Still, I wanted to share a small moment the other night that might not be surprising when you really think about it, but at least it caught me off guard.
Recently, my partner and I have been playing a fun game called “Let’s see if you actually know your ass from a hole in the ground and can guess what you’re drinking.” (My phrasing, not hers!)
A sure path to humiliation!
I realized that with more than a hundred and fifty different bottles in my home bar, this is a pretty difficult ask. Some of the insights I’ve gained while playing this game are good fodder for a separate Yips and Barks — maybe even a full article — but I’ll cut to the highlight. Karen poured me something I knew was an Irish Whiskey, but I didn’t love it. I thought it was kind of middling, and so my final guess was some variety of Teeling’s. (I might have guessed something out of Cooley if that distillery had ever given me any positive reason to buy their shit on the basis of what I’ve tried prior.)
To my surprise, it was Green Spot, an Irish Whiskey I reviewed fairly well several years ago.
However, tasted blind and devoid of any other context, I wasn’t able to access just about any of what I remembered about my experience with Green Spot. Somewhat stunned, I tried it alongside Jameson Black Barrel and the Powers 12. To my palate, Green Spot earned the third place spot rather decisively. Karen liked it better than I did.
In the aftermath of this “huh” moment, I realized I had two options:
Retread old ground, going back to maybe not just the Green Spot, but possibly other reviews, and trying to update them if there was a mismatch between my thoughts then and my thoughts now.
Saying, “Well, them’s the breaks!” and generating new content for the site.
“Aw, shit! How many of these reviews are still good?”
Option two seemed a lot more compelling to me, and I’ll explain why. Permit me one small aside first.
My sister is very heavily tattooed. Two full sleeves, back tats, legs, neck, knuckles, etc. She’s also an entrepreneur and built her own fragrance business, so it’s not like the tattoos she acquired in those places one should definitely not get tattoos (as conventional wisdom goes) ever held her back. I asked her once several years ago if she regretted any individual piece, and her response was one I’ve heard quite a bit since from other body art enthusiasts: not really. With so many different pieces, even the “stupid” tats represented a time, place, passion, hobby, or mindset. It was a map of where she’d been.
And so it goes with my Green Spot review. I tried it at the time and liked it. Perhaps the me of 2023 finds it mediocre. Maybe the bottle has oxidized, or maybe my tastes have changed, or perhaps the new bottlings aren’t as good as the old ones, but who can say for sure?
Rather than tear Spirit Animal down to the studs and start again, let me do some quick revisions, at least for the reviews I can think of that I’m scrolling through and really represent a significant enough change of opinion that bears mentioning. I have no intention of going back and stealth-editing my old work, but at least I can make some small call-outs here for the few readers who may be interested.
Let the recalibration begin!
Part I: Shoulda been lower?
El Silencio Mezcal: Since I wrote the review, the Mezcal market has blown up and we’re spoiled for choice. Today, I find El Silencio to be a little pedestrian and a bit abrasive. It’s still less expensive than most entries in the category, but I’d definitely spring for the Fidencio Unico today now that the financial difference continues to diminish. It’s possible that, like Scotch, Mezcal is becoming a pay to play category. Now that there’s no clear “value” Mezcal (Del Maguey Vida, maybe), I may as well spend a few more dollars and get something I really enjoy. Rating revision: 2 stars > 1 star
Dewar’s 12 / Bank Note: Same story for both. They’re still good, but I think both my father and I have had them so much as house “value” Scotches that the bloom is a little off the rose. Bank Note has also gotten a little pricier. Nevertheless, I continue to buy and cheerfully drink both. They’re still echelons better than most blended crap you can score at the same price. Rating Revision: 3 stars > 2 stars.
Part II: Shoulda been higher?
Oban Distiller’s Edition: I mentioned that the only real knock was the price. It turns out I’m willing to pay it. Revisiting what I don’t like about the standard Oloroso sherry-finish scotches, I think the Oban DE deserves a bump because of the fino sherry use, which you don’t see too often. Rating revision: 2 stars > 3 stars.
Bowmore 15: Even at the time, I was torn between two and three stars. This is such a delightful blend of salt, smoke, and chocolate that I was able to pick it out easily in a blind taste test — so much so that it was like running into an old friend. I tend to re-buy it when I run out, and that’s saying something in a saturated space and given its price. I still don’t care that it’s dyed to shit. Rating Revision: 2 stars > 3 stars.
Part III: seriously, dude: that’s all!?
Yeah, honestly. My period of self-reflection past the Green Spot revealed a whole five other reviews that I might have maybe done slightly differently if I’d written them today as opposed to years ago.
I certainly don’t mean that to sound self-aggrandizing, as though my taste is so rock-solid that I can’t normally be swayed from my original opinion. If anything, I think it’s testament that my decision to have a really basic, four-value rating system works for me now just as much as it did then. The Green Spot represents the largest jump from “wow” to “meh,” but all of the other things I mentioned above were basically jumps from “wow” to “good,” or from “good” to “wow.”
Supposing I have another weird moment of self-reflection in several years, I might do another one of these. For now, I think this suffices. If I got into a time machine and started drinking with the me of seven years ago, it wouldn’t require much adjustment or recalibration for either of us. And, in turn, it means that as a reader you can be pretty certain that any old article you stumble across represents an opinion I’d continue to stand behind today. Maybe that’s not true of all of my work, but in hindsight, the figure is far closer to 100% than it is to zero.
