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Whisky Memories

He was certainly not an alcoholic, my grandfather I mean. When I was little I remember he had only bottles in the bar at his house, but his passion for collecting it grew and it was necessary to upgrade and move into a place that had a cellar. Whisky bottles filled every little space of that room. We used to play inside the cellar, my cousins and I, comparing bottles and acting as if we were vendors trying to sell the most expensive thing in the world. Every once in awhile we would find my granddad cleaning and rearranging bottles to make the cellar look as perfect as possible. On rare occasions he would go down, take about half an hour to forty minutes, come back with a bottle and open it. These occasions were mostly because of celebrations, happy ones, but other times when there were funerals, he would also get one out. I don’t know when it became an automatic response to think of him every time I see a bottle of whisky; my thoughts go straight to my grandfather. And apart from that, whenever my dad buys a bottle, black label specifically, I know for sure my granddad will stop by for lunch or dinner maybe. Just last year he went to Europe and tasted different whiskeys in every country he visited. When he goes on trips he brings back at least one new bottle. What people don’t know about whisky, and this I learned from him, is that it does not age the same way wine does. Wine can mature in the bottle but whisky can only mature in barrels. There is an interesting history in the processing of this liquor and I believe that learning all of it is what makes my grandfather so keen of it. Once, I heard him having a conversation with my uncle, he said that if he could he would love to have a distillery but for now he was satisfied to have the pleasure to taste different kinds of such fine liquor. Many times when the family reunions took place at his house, he would give me a taste of different bottles, behind my parents back of course, to show me how to distinguish the different flavors. I, knowing so little about whisky and having undeveloped taste buds, thought they all tasted quite the same, terrible. He would laugh at the faces I made, and every time he says the same thing, someday Mariana, someday.