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11 years ago
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Just for fun: A Whisky Mystery
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systemdown replied
Nice work @WhiskyBee! Something very different and fun indeed! Good luck everyone!
11 years ago 0
two_bitcowboy replied
Great fun, @WhiskyBee. Don't mean to pick nits, but is it Mack Allan, as Dolly said, or Mack Allen?
11 years ago 0
Anxyous replied
The OP 40 is pretty strong stuff... Madame Hazel Burns should (perhaps?) have been asleep after that, but she was at least awake for the first four whiskies. Must be her.
11 years ago 0
Victor replied
Woody O. Cooper was present with both Miss Dolly Whinny and Mack Allan for the last tasting-order dram of Octomore Orpheus. Cooper, being cheap and greedy, took the first dram of Orpheus before Dolly and Mack had any, this being the last whisky in the tasting order, and with only five drams of it consumed. Cooper had had enough alcohol at that point to come on strong to Dolly, which led the vain Mack Allan to bash Cooper over the head with a bottle, in this case the black glass of the Octomore Orpheus bottle, which was later found in the wound.
Miss Dolly Whinny and Mack Allan then alibi-ed each other out to deflect suspicion.
You know, @WhiskyBee, I am not at all sure you couldn't make this into a "Shear Madness" and do a different version of the play each night of the week with a different guilty party.
11 years ago 0
WhiskyBee replied
Somebody here is on the right track. ;-)
I'm guilty of not doing my homework at little better on one point. Somehow I thought OP 40 was at 46%. Let's just say that at 51%, it's almost a cask strength-er.
11 years ago 0
cherylnifer replied
My reasoning skills are not so good, but I will take a flyer and say it was Madame Hazel Burns. If she was indeed asleep on account of having sampled a cask strength whisky (assuming that Miss Whinny's Kilchoman selection from a hand-picked, sherry-finished cask meant it was uncut, and therefore cask-strength), how would she know that Mr. Cooper continued to rave (or was the only one to do so) about her Glen Grant Diamond Jubilee 60 yo contribution? Like I said before, reasoning is not one of my strengths. But it was fun to try.
11 years ago 0
conorrob replied
Great discussion!!!! Can't work it out myself .. I'm thinking between Sir HP and Tom A Tin for the fact they would have hated his selection and both would have been up and about until the end of the night with no real alibi... unless the 'usually abstains when the heavily peated ones are cracked open' is a way of telling us that Ben cracked a bottle of Octomore over Woody's head before abstaining ;-D . Sorry really bad detective work from me but I loved trying to work it out haha !!!!!!
11 years ago 0
Anxyous replied
@cherylnifer I'm with you with this one - even if she didn't fall asleep after the Kilchoman, she surely would after the Octomore!
11 years ago 0
wtrstrnghlt replied
I think it was Tom A. Tin.
He lied about not drinking young gimmicky stuff. Everybody drank a dram from the first four whisky's. After that came the Kilchoman, a young cask strenght peated Whisky, with a modern finish. Something 2 people would not like. Tom a Tin and Benjamin Romach.
Benjamin Romach did not lie. He doesn't like peat, so so he didn't drink the Kilchoman, or the Ardbeg or the Octomore.
Hazel Burns did drink the cask strenght Kilchoman and fell a sleep after that. (Even if she didn't fall a sleep after the first CS, she must have been knocked out by the Octomore)
Hazel and Ben didn't taste the last two whisky's. So every one else must have tasted them, because there were 5 drams consumed. This means that Tom did taste the Octomore, and lied about not liking young gimmicky Whisky.
He even liked it so much he wanted to take the bottle when everyone went to bed. But of course Woody already stole it. Tom sneaked into woody's room, but woody woke up when Tom grabbed the bottle from under his pillow. The only way to not get caught was to bash the solid bottle to woody's head.
Yes, 140 ppm can really be a slap in the face.
11 years ago 1Who liked this?
SherryCask replied
@WhiskyBee Oh, this is so awesome!
The order of the tasting and the number of drams missing from each bottle would indicate that everyone had a sample of the first four bottles. However, Madame Burns did indeed fall asleep after the OP 40, so only six tasters properly tasted the Glen Grant QDJ.
The tasting continued with the remaining six conscious tasters until it was time to drink the Octomore and Madame Burns began to awaken.
Cooper left the tasting early with the bottle of Glen Grant.
Burns attempted to catch up on the tasting and discovered her bottle missing. Looking around, Cooper was gone! She knew Cooper was known to steal the expensive bottles. She confronted the thief in his room as he finished the second dram of Glen Grant, and bashed his head.
The shape of the Glen Grant QDJ 60 bottle has a unique "perfume bottle" shape, making the identification of the murder weapon easy against the the marks on the skull.
The inspector led away Madame Burns in handcuffs.
Madame Burns was found not guilty by reason that anyone who'd steal a bottle of Glen Grant QDJ 60 deserved what they got.
11 years ago 2Who liked this?
Nozinan replied
Several plausible solutions, all with different culprits.
Fun exercise...
11 years ago 0
systemdown replied
@SherryCask The OP 40 was ruled out as a "cask strength" dram (@WhiskyBee made an error there), but you implicated the Madame regardless - my pick as well, reached in a way that has the Octomore play the role of "cask strength" dram and filling in the blanks around that; resulting in the establishment of the lie and the ultimate manner of the demise of one Woody O. Cooper.
11 years ago 0
WhiskyBee replied
Nobody guessed the butler? Or Colonel Mustard in the lounge with the candlestick?
I never tried anything like this before. If anything, I gained a new appreciation for mystery writers. Thought I checked and double-checked the details, but I shouldn’t have relied on memory for the ABVs. But that didn’t keep a few of you from guessing correctly.
A couple of you also explained it as well or better than I could. In fact, you added some details I didn’t consider that made everything more plausible. The morning after posting it, I got the following PM from @systemdown, who was the first with the correct solution:
“Nice riddle. Was it the Madame?
Woody took (well…stole perhaps) her expensive Glen Grant Jubilee bottle.
The Madame, perhaps noticing her bottle missing some time after the tasting, assumed Woody had taken it since he was raving about it all night and went to fetch it.
Of course, she wasn't asleep because curiously, she seems not to have partaken of the Octomore (if she had there would’ve been an extra dram in the bottle) which allowed her to be awake well after the others had retired for the night.
The bottle in question was hers indeed - its distinctive angular shape a) would have left an impression and b) withstood being used as the weapon without breakage.”
@cherylnifer also caught Madame Hazel’s lie. @SherryCask was the most outside-the-box thinker, but also identified the killer and offered some explanation to cover my goofs.
Many thanks to those who responded and had fun with it. I’m working on another one, but it’s coming along slowly. No ABVs shall go unchecked this time. I don’t want to do it too often and ruin the novelty of it all, so expect something for the holidays.
11 years ago 3Who liked this?
SherryCask replied
WhiskyBee: What great fun! Thank you for taking your time and energy to compose this!
11 years ago 1Who liked this?
systemdown replied
That was really fun and the variety of answers shows how creative we all are! Look forward to the next one @WhiskyBee! Cheers.
11 years ago 0
two_bitcowboy replied
Anything new shakin', WhiskyBee?
This one was a lot of fun. When do we get to enjoy the next edition?
11 years ago 0
+ 1 others
A little something different. Hope you enjoy.
Inspector Drammer received an urgent call to go to the H.P. Rounder estate, where Rounder and six other whisky anoraks had gathered for a tasting that evening. One of the attendees, Woody O. Cooper, had been murdered by a wicked blow from a whisky bottle to the head.
After questioning everyone, Inspector Drammer concluded that the murder must have been committed by one of those participating in the tasting. The information he gathered from his questioning was all he needed to solve the case. His notes read as follows:
Sir H.P.: Hosts a tasting evening every few weeks. Asks everyone to provide a personal favorite whisky to share and discuss. Tends to be the harshest critic of everyone else’s choices, although he never refuses a dram. Bought an Old Pulteney 40 year old for tonight’s gathering. Sir H.P. said that everyone had retired to their rooms for the night when he heard shouting and a loud thump from Woody’s room. Claimed he was the first on the scene to discover the body.
Lord Benjamin Romach: The Speyside aficionado; likes them sweet and hearty. Usually abstains when the heavily peated ones are cracked open. Often on the receiving end of insults from Woody for his limited tastes. Brought an IB 30-year old Glenrothes to the evening. His alibi was that he was on the phone to his wife when the murder occurred. The time stamp on his cell phone confirms that he did indeed place a call to his wife’s phone at that time, although it could not be determined if his wife actually took the call.
Miss Dolly Whinny: The youngest member of the group. Something of a chatterbox. Very attractive; the object of much flirting among the men. Her Kilchoman from a hand-picked, sherry-finished cask was enjoyed greatly by nearly everyone. Rumored to have had ongoing affairs with at least two of the men in the group, although she denied such gossip. Said she was visiting Mack Allan in his room during the time of the murder, and that that visit was purely platonic.
Mack Allen: Vain and handsome; lives the life of a playboy, even if he has to spend beyond his means to do so. Loves fast cars, beautiful women, and strong whisky. An Octomore Orpheus 2.2 was his contribution on this night. Confirms that Miss Whinny was in his room, but contradicts her “purely platonic” claim. Says things were just about to “get serious” when the shouting and thumping was heard from Woody’s room.
Madame Hazel Burns: The snob of the group who usually provides the rarest bottles. Brought along a Glen Grant Diamond Jubilee 60 year old tonight and complained that nobody except Woody, who continued to rave about it after the evening had ended, had much to say about it. Loves any whisky, enjoys drinking late into the night, although she always nods off after a dram of the cask-strength stuff. Says she couldn’t have been the killer because she was sound asleep at the time.
Tom A. Tin: The “quiet one” whose “participation” in the tasting evenings consists of sipping, nodding, and smiling. As long as it’s whisky, he likes it, “except that young, gimmicky stuff,” he declared in one of his more loquacious moments. Usually provides a popular dram, such as an Ardbeg 10 on this evening. Another of Woody’s favorite targets for insults. Says he was in his room “reading some Proust” at the time of the murder, although nobody remembers when he retired, or any of his activities that evening for that matter.
All suspects provided a rather unflattering portrait of the victim. Woody always brought a cheap blend to the tastings, though he could afford better things, and he had a tendency to come on strong to both women in the group after the first few drams. Expensive whiskies would occasionally go missing after some evenings, and everyone suspected Woody of theft, although nothing could be proven. The nature of his fatal head wound helped to determine the bottle used to kill him.
After meeting with all concerned, the inspector inspected the bottles of whisky from the evening. According to Sir H.P., the order of tasting was: Teacher’s (from Woody), the Glenrothes, the Old Pulteney, the Glen Grant, the Kilchoman, the Ardbeg, and the Octomore. Four of the whiskies were down by seven drams, two were down by six drams, and the other was down by only five drams. “Good thing I know something about whisky,” declared the inspector.
With the above information, Drammer sifted through several red herrings and determined that one small lie identified the murderer.
Who done it? Explain.
Answer in a few days, or confirmed if and when somebody figures it out.