最近看到這款 (又是『桶陳』…！白蘭地，這次) 酒不由得莞爾一笑；酒名的關係，倒不是嘲笑它釀得不好 (笑它品質不好是喝時的感想…)。

底下借用一家十分棒的北倫敦酒吧對自己名稱 - 也正好就叫 “Tapping the Admiral”  - 的歷史介紹，解釋一下這句調侃英國民族英雄尼爾遜海軍上將 (的下場!) 的諺語。愛偷喝兩口酒的人，可要小心嚥下喉嚨的是甚麼啊~~

So, What's Tapping The Admiral?

After Nelson's death in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, his body was placed in a barrel of brandy to preserve it on the long journey home. Legend has it that the crew drilled a hole in the top of the barrel and would use macaroni straws to draw off a little brandy to drink to the naval hero, Admiral Horatio Nelson, hence the term used to describe a sneaky drink: Tapping the Admiral.

Who's The Admiral?

As a child who lost his mother aged just 9, Nelson, hero of the battle of Trafalgar, loved to visit his maternal uncle, William Suckling, a customs house official who lived beside The Castle Tavern. In those days, the river Fleet ran close to what is now Castlehaven Road towards Sainsbury’s car park.
It was William Suckling’s brother, Maurice, who encouraged the young Nelson to join the navy. Maurice, himself a naval officer could surely never have expected his poor orphaned nephew to become such a high achiever. Nelson rapidly progressed up the ranks becoming Captain in 1778, at the age of 20. His most famous victories came in the Napoleonic wars, winning a number of great victories but at the cost of an arm and an eye.

* 原文出處：http://www.tappingtheadmiral.co.uk/history.html

** 完整一些的解說可參考這裏：http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-tap1.htm

Shepherd Neame, Tapping the Admiral, 4.0%abv. (English Bitter)

Purchased recently at the Lidl supermarket, coming in a clear 500ml bottle; served cool in a straight imperial pint glass. Notes: the back label gives a detailed account for the meaning of "Tapping the Admiral", supposedly suggesting that this beer is related to some brandy-cask-ageing during the maturing process...? Also, the back label says the taste is "brandy, sweet, rich". Based on info. as such, I'm rather interested in seeing what these notions of "brandy" have to render to the overall performance.

3.5/5 Appearance: burnished gold in colour, coming with a thin layer of beige foam that settles slowly to a thin cap to last; carbonation remains moderately fizzy, not too lively.

3/5 Smell: sweet pale malts, citric hops like Goldings, plus an intriguing mixture of sweet woodiness (a bit like vanilla-ish oakiness) and milk or buttery candy. Quite different, if not strange.

3/5 Taste: toffee for sure, but it's not balanced with the hop or bitter elements; rather, the flavour is messy, with bits of rough bitter hops here, buttery/toffee-ish malts there, plus dispersed notes of sweet vanilla in between... after these flavour elements settle, the orangey-citric fruity hops linger along with a rough palate in the end.

3.5/5 Mouthfeel & 2.5/5 Overall: not too fizzy, not very smooth; the body is lighter than medium, the flavour is messy. I suppose a traditional brewery like Shepherd Neame, while stepping into the more unconventional terrain to brew a brandy-cask aged ale (which I'm not sure this is), could make some understandable mistakes. If this is truly a brandy-barrel aged ale, then I hope the next experiment would go slightly more smoothly.

--Yau (notes transcribed 29/04/2013)