"We do not remember days...we remember moments." — Cesare Pavese
I can still remember the room...if I let my thoughts linger long enough I swear I can actually taste the air.
Memories are odd things...not to be fully trusted as the memory fades our minds working to fill in the gaps with anything that makes sense.
Sometimes, the memory sears into our brains, a moment so impactful we can return again and again and relive that moment, or at least what we remember of it.
Shag carpeting, worn armchairs, wood paneling and an old fireplace. The stains of cigarettes' smoke from years past and the faint smell...of Scotch.
Years ago there was a trend on the internet of taking quizzes about your personality. What movie character are you? What sport describes you? What movie genre is like your personality? And then there was Which alcoholic beverage best describes you?
When someone would come across one that looked interesting in college my friends and I would attempt to answer it just based on our knowledge of the person. One friend was beer, lite beer at that. Another was a fancy fruity tiki drink, always the life of the party. They didn't hesitate with me...Scotch, always Scotch.
Now, having never actually had Scotch I wasn't always sure what to think of this but it sounded good at least. Scotch had a reputation, a serious drink for serious people, libraries and fireplaces, smoking a pipe in a big leather chair.
A few years later I became curious and tried finding out more information on this Scotch, my apparent avatar in life. But the internet was young then, and information on spirits wasn't that abundant so there wasn't much I found useful but after some time and effort I came across some tasting notes that sounded interesting, or at least represented what I thought would be a good representation of Scotch.
I was living in Central Tennessee at the time, trying to figure my life out after getting thrown a few curve balls in life and planning my next steps. I was poor, picking up odd jobs where I could and construction when it was available installing granite and stone countertops in Southern summers hoping to save enough to live off of all year. To save money I went to my breaker box and turned off everything but the most basics like the refrigerator and thought I would just suffer through the heat and hope for a good breeze. Unfortunately, the designers of this particular apartment building decided to build long apartments going down the sides of the building which meant all of my windows faced the same direction and no cross breezes would be comforting my long humid nights. To top it all off, it was a dry county, so even after finally discovering this information I couldn't find it to try it. Looking up the prices they suggested online I knew I was going to have to save up for this bottle for a while to get it anyways so I could worry about that later.
Reflecting now, I think this was one of the reasons I became so curious and so willing to put aside money I didn't have to spare on a bottle of something I had no idea about. When your world's foundation is shaken and you find yourself stumbling trying to find your footing unsure of what to trust, what to put your weight on for support, and what you always assumed would be there that isn't any longer...you question who you are. Maybe, as I thought back to the old quizzes and personality traits and discussions I wanted to find out if my friends were right back then...or was it all just more smoke and fallacy?
Months passed and I needed to visit Knoxville towards the east side of the state and knew this was my chance to look for this bottle. I went into the fanciest store I knew of in area, thinking it might have what I was looking for, as the gas stations and pharmacies I had visited in the area before had never had something so fancy on their shelves. I walked through the aisles trying to remember the picture of the tube I had seen online that it came in and I finally found it. Overjoyed, I slowly took the bottle out of the cardboard tube to examine my journey's denouement. There, the same tasting notes printed on the label I had found online and I was sure this was the bottle.
Placing the bottle carefully back in the tube I went up to the cashier to pay for my prize. He scanned it and it rang up, "Wow, that's a fancy bottle, what are you getting something like that for?"
I panicked...I hadn't prepared for this.
"It's...a gift...for my grandparents." I answered half asking him.
"I don't love my grandparents that much." he laughed to himself and bagged the bottle for me.
I got in the car and after I finished up my other activities that brought me to the city I drove home with my prize.
It took a few days for me to have some time to ponder what to do next with my whisky...when I looked at the bottle I pondered the things I knew about drinking...I could have it by itself, I could have it over ice, "on the rocks" they always said on TV and film, but then I remembered my grandparents.
My grandparents had lived in the same house for decades, and the interior decorating showed it. Wood panels, shaggy carpets, burnt sienna and avocado green with harvest gold. We hadn't been close, they lived up in Michigan and I grew up down in Virginia, but we would see them every few Christmases as travel allowed.
They were people of habit and one of their habits was pouring themselves a tumbler of Scotch, water, and ice and sipping it all evening while they watched the news and their shows. From day after day after day of that habit, I think the smell of Scotch permeated their recliners, the carpet, even the walls.
I popped the cork on my new bottle of Scotch and slowly took a long sniff...and I was 6 years old crawling into my grandparents TV room after the long drive up.
It was the smell of Christmas and long hugs and the barrage of:
"How was the drive?"
"You are getting so tall!" and other pleasantries.
It was the smell of home.
So I grabbed a tumbler, filled it with ice and poured a couple of ounces of Scotch then filled it with water...like they did. Sipping it, slowly, savoring this treat...
Today, I can easily tell you heathered honey, barley sugars, vanilla butterscotch, and a thread of red plum weaving its way throughout.
That day, I just smiled.
I drank my Balvenie 12 Doublewood and said to myself "The quizzes were right."