So last night I finally cracked open my tiny souvenier bottle of Edradour 10-year Single Malt. I bought it on my trip to Scotland just before September 11th.

So what made me take so long to drink it? Maybe it was the tendency to imbue everything that happened that September with special significance, maybe it was that the Edradour was my first serious Scotch, and I felt it should be accorded proper respect. Who knows?

Whatever the reason, I held on to the bottle. Even after I started ordering other single malts like Macallen and Bowmore at bars. Even after I left New York. Even after I made the changes in my life that my trip to Scotland made clear needed to be made.

I decided that I wasn't going to drink the Edradour until I reached a milestone that I had set for myself. And finally, after longer than I would have liked, it happened.

Well, like many things long anticipated, it didn't quite live up to expectations. (Not the event itself. That was all good. I mean the Edradour.) Although I remembered the Edradour as being strong enough to make me cough, when I finally tried it again, it actually seemed too sweet in comparison with big, peaty malts like the Bowmore. (Hey, according to the Edradour website, I'm not wrong! It's actually supposed to have "a nutty, honeyed finish.")

So what am I trying to say? I don't know. Something about the taste of nostalgia, and the way things are never quite the way you remember them. And something about how you can never recapture a moment in time. Nothing original, really. Just the way that the past can taste unexpectedly... sweet.