Celebrity booze brands, from Jay-Z’s cognac to George Clooney’s tequila, are an unseemly fad — how much money and branding do these flush hobbyists need?
Yet the new Metallica Blackened Whiskey has me rapt, not only because I’ve been a band fan for years, but because the snarling spirit trumpets its own acrobatic gimmickry, something that recalls how members of KISS mixed their own blood into the ink of the 1970s KISS comic books for an extra drizzle of puerile publicity.
This is far less theatrically cynical. But still comical. Metallica’s zesty drink — notes of honey, oak, caramel, the usual — has been given the band’s trademarked “Black Noise Sonic Enhancement” while in the finishing whiskey barrels.
It’s as dorky as it sounds: songs from Metallica’s landmark 1991 Black Album — “Enter Sandman,” “The Unforgiven,” etc. — are “played to the barrel causing the whiskey inside to move and interact with the wood. The whiskey is pummeled by sound, causing it to seep deeper into the barrel, where it picks up additional wood flavor characteristics.”
I believe that (ooh, shake it, Sandman). I just don’t believe it makes a whit of difference. As it is, the sip is solid — toasty, tangy — especially when tippled to “Whiplash,” circa 1982.
The market is lousy with famous booze dilettantes. Cameron Diaz moves her own wine. Bob Dylan hawks Heaven’s Door Whiskey. Wild Turkey Longbranch Bourbon reeks of Matthew McConaughey’s honeyed East Texas drawl. And coolest of all, Irish Celt-punk rockers The Pogues push Pogues Irish Whiskey.
Thrash royalty that they are, Metallica aren’t too dignified to gussy up their whiskey with frippery — don’t forget the dubious Black Noise Sonic Enhancement process. Lending it a luster of collectibility, the painted corked bottle comes in a Black Album-emblazoned box and includes a cocktail recipe booklet and a (totally useless) Metallica whiskey coin that’s worth minus 50 cents on the black market. (For the record, “Blackened” is the title of the first track on the group’s elephantine 1988 LP “… And Justice for All.”)
So how, really, is the stuff? At $45, it’s no hooch. I admit my face puckered into an asterisk on the first dram of Blackened, but that’s normal for me — I feel the burn. Notes of butterscotch and mint soon blossomed from the mix of bourbons and ryes selected by Master Distiller Dave Pickerell.
I poured more, though not too much, lest Blackened become blackout. I bet the guys in Metallica, who were once dubbed Alcoholica for their prodigious swigging skills, would love that. They might even dedicate a song to me, perhaps one of my favorites off the Black Album: the aptly titled “Sad But True.”
GNASHING. 