Rewind about three weeks and Vanoord is in what passes for Duty Free in Manchester Airport, although Europe being the happy cluster**** that it it now is, Duty Free is nothing of the sort.
Fearing a week without whisky in the barren wasteland that is Greece (well, as far as whisky is concerned - otherwise it's rather pleasant) and at the same time fearing that a litre of whisky can not be consumed within a week if the days are to mean anything, Vanoord's eyes alight on a three-pack of Bowmores.
The thing is, Bowmore lives in the Duty Free shop. Yes it's an Islay single malt, but of the Magnificent Seven, it's the dull one which keeps the receipts.
The Laddie is the expressive one, Lagavulin is the old hand and Coal Ila hasn't shaved for a week; Bunnahabain hasn't changed his clothes for at least a week, the Ardbeg is the professor and Laphroaig will is the doctor who'll smack you round the head to calm you down.
Yet the Bowmore is the accountant of the group: for sure, it may have its pretensions of grandeur, but in reality it just produces Scotch that happens to come from The Island.
And so to the 12 year old, which occupies Vanoord for the week in Greece. Yes it's a single malt with a hint of peat, but - to be brutally honest - it's something which finds its home in Duty Free. A friend from home, but not the sort of friend you'd like beside you at a mass brawl in a Shanghai brothel.
Which brings me, neatly, to the 15: a whole different kettle of aquatic life-forms.
The bottle claims the following:
Nose: peat is complimented with toffee and fresh green apples.
Palate: creamy oak smoothness with sweet stewed fresh fruits and just a hint of sea salt.
The finish is long, complex and subtle.
To be fair, they're not far wrong.
This is a much more interesting experience than the 12, with a lot more going on. I'll just about agree with the apples on the nose, but the toffee must be for schnozes far more subtle than mine. For an Islay, it lacks the general violence that's generally associated - but to an extent that not necessarily a bad thing.
The palate definitely heads towards oiliness - not necessarily that of a Louisiana sea bird, but there's certainly an underlying nature of it that's more prominent than the oak. It's certainly a son of Islay, though, with a fair burst at the back of the mouth as it departs.
As for the finish, well... it disappoints, then it promises great things, then it fades away. Perhaps that's the complexity?
This is an interesting dram, for sure: it's at its best on the back of the tongue with something approaching fireworks, but in the end it leaves you wondering quite what all the fuss was about.
At this point, I turn to Jim Murray's Whisky Bible and notice the following:
there is something not entirely right here
And there, I fear, is where we are.
Balance is lacking: there is promise but no delivery. There is complexity, yet simplicity. There is something, yet nothing.
A perfect airport romance: a brief glimpse of something beautiful; a nagging doubt that it may not be quite right; and then forgotten about.
The 18 beckons...
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