I’m sure that I’ve shared with you before that I’m not one to participate in trends. Certainly I follow them to some extent in order to understand the ever-fleeting cultural context in which I am definably entombed, but I rarely succumb to their pressures to participate. They knock at my door, doing their best to present a tantalizing allurement, pleading to come in, but I’ve been blessed with an immunity to the sirens. I am rarely seduced.

Now having said all this, there is a current trend that seems to have slipped through, although you need to know that it was something that I willingly accepted long ago, long before it was ever classified as a trend.

I’m speaking of the beard.

I’ve had one before. I’ve always liked it. My dear bride has not, thusly, it comes and goes with the seasons.

The great thing about beards now that they are trendy is that it is not only much easier to convince my wife that I should be allowed to own one, but for a guy like me, they provide for a near perfect combination – that is, I can cut my morning bathroom routine nearly in half while at the same time knowing that such half-hearted expediency leads to being considered fashionable. Yep. Lazy and chic.

Well, maybe not chic. Such a term implies a certain caliber of handsomeness. My wife reminds me often that when I grow a beard, she begins to feel as though she’s married to a lumberjack. And when she kisses me, she complains and prompts that she didn’t intend to marry a Wookie.

And still, because she loves me, as the saying goes, “Let the Wookie win.”

With the beard comes the ’stache. I think that this is my favorite part of the beast because while I’m sipping a fine Scotch, it isn’t uncommon for a portion of the dram to climb aboard and provide for a longer term nosing that I hardly find unacceptable – most especially when I’m tipping The Balvenie 12-year-old DoubleWood.

This particular edition has become a standard line amidst a vast Balvenie catalogue. And as is true for most all of this whisky’s kindred editions, The Balvenie’s master distiller, David Stewart, proves himself to always be before and after the trends with something that has staying power.

Aged in Bourbon casks and then finished in Oloroso Sherry casks, the DoubleWood’s nose is a gentle graze of apple and cherry fruit syrup joined with the signature honey. The palate dabs the honey and follows with a pronounced sweet sherry but a mere mentioning of the Bourbon. It’s slight, but it is there.

The finish is short, clean, and delightful. Or as Jen would probably say, the opposite of my beard.

Oh well. She just doesn’t know. Maybe I’ll hop on the internet and order some testosterone tablets to drop into her breakfast cereal. If she could just grow a beard, too, I’m sure that she’d understand. Heck, she might even suggest we pack up and move to Kashyyyk, the Wookie home planet, so that we can be among others who trendlessly embrace the furry truth.