Earlier on in the week we published the first part of our Icelandic Escapade; an indulgent mission to witness one of nature’s greatest wonders – the Aurora Borealis – and to sample one of man’s finest achievements – 45 year old single malt, ‘The Dalmore Aurora’. Part 2 begins with a ropey head from the night before and a cosy – if increasingly bumpy – two hour super-jeep ride to the site of 2010’s infamous Eyjafjallajokull volcanic eruptions…
So it’s a little cloudy inside my head, and the super-jeep bouncing over ravines may well be churning last night’s dinner, Brennivín and Eskimojitos into some kind of potent Icelandic soup but, as the landscape outside comes into focus, all ill-feeling quickly subsides. This is the Iceland you see on TV. Raw, unrelenting terrain. We’ve just freshened up at Seljalandsfoss, a 60m high waterfall that you can walk behind, and now rough volcanic rock is where the road should have been for the last 30 minutes or so.
Finally, we stop and are instructed to exit – with the help of a small step ladder – the jeep. We’re standing in the Gígjökull glacier lagoon [first photo], or at least what once was the lagoon. Last year’s Eyjafjallajokull eruption filled the former lagoon with ash and volcanic debris, creating a thoroughly eerie space, a lunar landscape that quite literally transports you far from the earth you’re familar with, to something that is extraordinarily unique. We take off and are soon bouncing around a volcanic beach. Reynisfjara beach to be precise. Iceland’s southern most tip, and quite possibly the most remote beach we’ve ever been to.
We happen upon a U.S. Air Force plane that crash landed at the end of the second world war, it hasn’t been touched since, but then why would it? We really, really are in the middle of nowhere, and I like it…
After crossing streams, just missing crashing waves and scaling enormous, black sand dunes in our seemingly indestructible super-jeep, we finally pick up a road. With tarmac and everything. We pull up at some traditional farmhouses, it is in fact Þórður Tómasson’s Skógar Museum; a thoroughly eccentric collection of artifacts from Icelandic farms that Tómasson himself has been gathering for some 70 years. The man himself welcomes us, highlights his prized pieces – that include cow bone ice skates and furniture made from whale bones – and then plays us a song on his harmonium. Icelanders, it would seem, easily outdo us Brits in the eccentricity stakes…
It’s time to start making our way back to the Hotel Ranga and to that whisky tasting, needless to say my tastebuds are beginning to get somewhat excited, but we’ve another couple of stops before we taste almost a half a century of matured single malt. The first being one of the country’s biggest waterfalls, Skogafoss, is a breathtaking vision. Standing at the base of its furious fall is certainly one way to blast away any of the remaining cobwebs from last night’s shenanigans. The spray from the thunderous cascading water is quite possibly the most refreshing thing I’ve ever experienced and the hiking trail by its side is a welcome opportunity for both a much needed stretch of the legs and to build up an appetite for our next stop; dinner at the Riverside Restaurant at Hotel Selfoss. There’s local mountain lamb in abundance on my plate, and it tastes good, but the distraction of a £3,000 bottle of whisky sat half an hour away is a little too much…
The Dalmore Aurora was put into a cask the same year that The Jackson 5 formed. The Beatles hadn’t gone psychedelic, and Bob Dylan hadn’t gone electric. Aged for 45 years and only 200 bottles released, this is a serious drink. We estimate that a dram alone of this would set you back around £500 in a London hotel bar. There’s something special in the air, and hotel owner Fridrik Palsson knows it; like an excited schoolkid he joins our party, with his sommelier – and one of Iceland’s top whisky experts – Stefan Olafsson.
The pressure’s on now as I ‘nose’ the ‘liquid’; I’m a whisky fan, but some of these guys really know their stuff. Like, really. But then, in a flash, as soon as I taste it the pressure is off. It feels as devilishly rich and luxurious as it should. The opulence achieved by maturing for so long is immediately evident. The fruity, orangey warmth delivered by spending its final 18 months in a 30 year old Spanish sherry cask hits you before you’ve even noticed. The table is buzzing. The experts are throwing out superlatives like they’re going out of fashion, and words like “cinnamon”, “blood oranges”, “dark chocolate”, “banana” and “caramel” are all being quickly attributed to this discerning bottle of booze.
Everybody is very excited, and that’s probably the best way I could sum up this most special liquid. It’s rich. It’s luxurious, and it’s very, very exciting…
The excitement surrounding the whisky means we almost forget its namesake, the staggering natural wonder that is the Northern Lights, the Aurora Borealis. It’s pretty easy to forget right now though, it’s damn inhospitable out there and, well, it’s warm and cosy inside, and we’re drinking a £3,000 bottle of single malt. But in the interests of good journalism we take a short walk outside to gauge whether or not we’ll be lucky tonight. It doesn’t take long for the realisation to set in that the Aurora Borealis will evade us once more this evening, but, as we venture back into the warmth and to our very own Aurora, the disappointment doesn’t last long…
