The anCnoc Flaughter

Tasting notes:
The anCnoc Flaughter inspired a lively debate amongst us and our sentient ferrets. Is “flaughter” pronounced to rhyme with slaughter, as in: I led the figs to their flaughter; or, does it rhyme with laughter, as in, “I was filled with such flaughter, I sharted my shorts,” ? Consultation of venerable tomes, i.e. websites, ensued and a verdict was reached. On the advice of counsel, however, we eschew telling you the Impostor-certified pronunciation, as we are currently in the process of applying for overseas patents.

On the nose: A well-used waterpipe on the wetbar of a music industry executive who spends a good bit of time each day remembering how he signed the Buzzcocks to a four-record deal. The fumes rising off the back-end of a radio-controlled speedboat undergoing tests on your uncle’s workbench that’s in the boiler room in the basement. It’s like sitting in the infield of a quarter-mile track dedicated to races between Cold War-era Trabants, Yugos, and Ladas, each of which must be painted a vegetal color: pea green, maize yellow, raspberry red, etc.

The mouth has the guts of the peat; branches, brambles, bits of heather, the odd bog body. Birds’ nests, but not birds’ nest soup, red squirrel hair, and the inexpressible malice of a kitten WHO WANTS THAT CATNIP TOY NOW, but can’t get at it. The usual peaty chagrin of remembering teenage gaffes and the sense that one’s recent sins—although slight—are probably unatoneable.

The finish is Jerry Lee Lewis’s unlistened-to and not very well known B-side: Little Balls of Fire. It’s authoritative because it engenders respect, not because it insists upon it. It lasts longer the attention span of an archaeologist puzzling to fit her latest find into her evolving matrix of sober speculation about the material culture of Hittites. We also found lump charcoal made from Tanzanian baobab limbs that had fallen naturally and been fair-trade harvested by children as part of a school fund-raiser.

Rating: