Sunday 21 June 2009

Original Cin and cultural degradation


Drinking a glass of Achouffe’s N’ice and it reminds me of Cinzano…Ask the wife to confirm this taste memory and she agrees. I thought Martini at first and recalled the advert: we sang (well declaimed more like it) the line together — ‘any time, any place, anywhere, it’s the drink (?) you can share, it’s…Martini’. Or something like that — it’s a sign of cultural degradation when you can half-remember the lines from a rubbish drink advert but not some of the characters from Anthony Powell’s Dance To The Music of Time, which is one of the best series of novels ever (a rack of them stand to the right of me on the bookshelf). Going back to N’ice, another sip and there’s still the Cinzano meets dark malt effect, which is rather beautiful (botanicals and barley in one gulp).

Went to Achouffe several years ago and finally ‘got’ their McChouffe (toffee, caramel, whispers of milk chocolate) — but have still to really ‘get’ their Houblon beer, which I had in Delerium in Brussels last December; I know the place has a mega following but I was underwhelmed by it and it reminded me of a 1984 Simple Minds gig which I was so excited about after interviewing Jim Kerr. The result was total deflation and an emotional void as Simple Minds evolved (or degressed?) from an interesting Euro-band to pomp rock.

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