brandy – Red Branch Chronicles

Yerevan and Environs

During the Yalta conference towards the end of the Second World War when the three Allied leaders, all with a penchant for booze, (Winston Churchill favoured champagne and brandy, Franklin D Roosevelt enjoyed martinis while Jozef Stalin, a native of Gori in Georgia, indulged in vodka and – to the detriment of the Georgian wine industry – super-sweet red wine), met to carve up post-war Europe, Armenian brandy was served which, apparently, won over Winnie’s heart. Good enough reason for me to relinquish the delights of Georgian wines for Armenian brandies.

The overnight train from Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, groaned in past grimy, dis-used lots, abandoned factories and unfinished, ugly concrete slab buildings – an air of neglect, lovelessness, and dilapidation, dismal and decrepit. Not the most welcoming entrance into Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, sandwiched between Georgia, Turkey, and Azerbaijan.

It was early morning and still cool so I decided to walk from the, admittedly, statuesque central station to the hostel I had booked at random before leaving Tbilisi but the walk didn’t change my initial opinion of the city despite the plenitude of park benches and drinking water fountains. Overall the impression was one of grey, concrete drabness. The hostel was small, cramped but cheery with two Filipina girls laughing and cooking breakfast in the tiny kitchen but only a small, top bunk was available and I decided to move on.

Untended vines, the thickness of my thigh, sprouted from broken pavements, climbing above fashionable shops on the ground floor, masking the ugly, squalid looking apartments two, three, four and five stories above while a dusty church topped a small bare hill opposite a Carrefour supermarket. I was beginning to regret having made the sweaty overnight trip here until I turned a corner and ended up in the English Park, a shady, fountain filled park with a cafe and bar in its centre beside the big screen showing the latest matches from the 2018 World Cup. Just around the corner from my new hostel was an elegant and upmarket food hall leading to a broad, pedestrianized avenue with a stream of fountains running down the central area, culminating in Republic Square. Massive, monolithic buildings of naturally coloured tufa, a rock made of compacted volcanic ash, in various shades, ranging from light pink pastels with a hint of orange formed a semi-circle around the Central Bank, and the National Art Gallery and Museum, almost completing one arc around the huge central fountain – musically choreographed and floodlit by night, as I was to discover later.

Fountains, parks, churches – Armenia was the first “European country” to become Christian in something like 330 A.D. – almost a century before St. Patrick arrived in pagan Ireland in 432A.D – and grapevines seemed to crowd the city, which I could look down on after climbing the endless steps known locally as ‘the Cascades’ to the multi-level Cafesjian arts centre, named after the Armenian-American who funded the completion of the former Soviet era construction.

Cold beers – I loved the Name ‘Zadecky Goose’ – and lamb kebabs in the English park, watching the world cup matches at the convenient time of 4PM followed by classical concerts at the National Concert Hall with brandy chasers afterwards began to pall and it was time for a change of scenery.

I have spent twenty-odd years living in Asia and during that time visited most of the ruined and fabled lost cities and temples – Pagan in Burma, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Ayutthaya in Thailand and My Son in central Vietnam, so I decided to do something similar here in Armenia.

Garni is the only pre-Christian structure remaining in this devotedly Christian nation. Built by Tirdates I around 77A.D., with reparation payments of 50 million sesterces along with Roman craftsmen provided by Roman Emperor Nero, the classical Graeco-Roman style building may have been a tomb, thus explaining why it escaped destruction during Armenia’s militant Christian past. Possibly

a temple dedicated to Mihr, the sun god in the Zoroastrian mythology, the massive colonnaded building, perched on the edge of sheer cliffs, would have been a perfect spot from which to hurl sacrifices! Huge steps led up the front entrance, forcing me to scramble up, practically on my hands and knees, proper style for entering a pagan temple, I thought.

A twisting road lined with cherry and other fruit trees led to a spectacular monastic settlement at Geghard a few kilometres away. Established in the early 4th century by Gregory the Illuminator, on a former pagan sacred site, inside a cave with a freshwater spring, and surrounded by towering cliffs and tumultuous drops on every side, the incredible monastery huddled in the rock face where ascetic monks must have eked out a precarious existence in caves in the cliffs reached only by ladders or ropes, ‘adding prayer to shivering prayer’* and exposed to the elements. Apparently, the old monastery had, along with the monks’ quarters, churches, shrines, a seminary, an academy of music and, of course, a manuscriptorium where, presumably Gregory hung out. And all this was all just as the Armenian alphabet was being invented! To add gloss to the whole place, relics included the original spear used by the centurion to pierce Christ on the Cross, brought here by St. Jude – known, inexplicably here as Thaddeus The spear pictured here was just the case for the relic now kept elsewhere in Armenia, – as well as a chunk of wood said to be from Noah’s Ark!

Lake Sevan, about 70 k outside Yerevan and at 2,000 metres, promised cooler weather from the city’s stifling, hot summer where daily temperatures seemed to always be north of 38°C and the idea of bathing my feet in a local lake rather than Armenia’s beer, wine and brandy appealed to me. No-one could call Sevan a pretty town and on the advice of another passenger on the bus, I skirted the town completely and headed out towards the Sevanavank monastery, founded in 874 A.D., built on the southern shore of a small island, which, after the lake was drained during the Stalinist era, transformed into a peninsula at the north western shore of the lake.

The lakeside was more appealing with a smattering of fashionable hotels clustered around rusty shipping container-like ‘rooms’ offering cheaper rates and massage to gawking tourists, many of them from neighbouring Iran, judging by the head-scarved women wearing what looked like voluminous dressing gowns.

Determined to watch the World Cup games, which my hotel was not showing, I ended up with a taxi driver, willing and smiling to my demands for ‘fussball’ and beer, who obligingly drove me around from betting shop to betting shop inm Sevan town before throwing up his hands in despair and taking me to a micro brewery on the edge of town where the staff were either unwilling or unable to turn the channel to the impending Australian Vs. Peru game. The taxi-driver – grinning maniacally – seemed happy to wait on the opposite side of a two lane motor highway while I gulped darkish beer and gnawed on tough lamb / goat bones before sullenly returning to my lakeside hotel and back to Yerevan the following morning.

Another day to stock up on Very Superior (VS); Very Superior Old Pale (VSOP); and Extra Old (XO). brandy and then the clunky train back to Tbilisi.

* ‘adding prayer to shivering prayer’ is a line from the poem September 1913 by William Butler Yeats, Ireland’s first Bobel Prize winner for Literature.

Trains and Boats and Planes

With the exception of balloons, submarines and helicopters, I have tried most major forms of transport – yes, even camels, elephants and horses – but I have to admit that trains are my favourite mode of travel – especially long distance ones, with a sleeper and a restaurant car, hurtling me through time and space.

There have been disappointments of course. One time, on a short trip from Dublin to Cork, I treated myself to a first class ticket, but warm cans of Guinness from a ‘bar-cart’ – not even a bar-car! – detracted from the overall experience.

I was looking forward to different train trips in the Caucasus but unfortunately there were no trains along the southern shore of The Black Sea in northern Turkey which I covered in hops and leaps in very comfortable, intercity coaches but I was really looking forward to the overnight train from Batumi, just over the border from Turkey, in Georgia to the capital, Tbilisi.

Because of prior difficulties regarding statehood, nationality, form of government and current strains of economics and global trade, the entire region seemed to be unhappy with its immediate neighbours. ‘Turkey has no friends,’ lamented one young professional who had taken her masters at a Dublin university and that story was echoed in one way or another in each of the countries I visited.

Tbilisi would be my hub and from there I could get an overnight train to Yerevan in Armenia and to Baku in Azerbaijan. The only problem was that since none of the countries permitted inter-travel, I would have to retrace my steps to Tbilisi each time before heading off again. While I could enter Armenia from Georgia I couldn’t continue on to Azerbaijan. I’d have to return to Tbilisi the same way and then take another train to Baku on the shore of the Caspian Sea.

Similarly, I could take a train from Tbilisi to Baku but I couldn’t go from Baku to Yerevan in Armenia. What that all meant was a lot of overnight train trips from Tbilisi throughout the Caucasus.

Impressed with the modern Stadler train which whisked me effortlessly from the brand new looking station in Batumi to Tbilisi, I expected, foolishly perhaps, something similar on a longer, overnight, cross border experience.

Despite starting in Georgia, the train was Armenian and didn’t look remotely like the sleek brute that had delivered me to Tbilisi a few days previous. This particular train looked like trains did in Hitchcock movies so, pre-warned there was neither bar nor restaurant car on the fifteen hour trip between the capital cities, I stocked up on red wine and brandy accordingly. Thank God I had because the only amenities provided turned out to be a box of sugary jellies, a bottle each of still and fizzy water along with a fresh pillowcase and sheets.

I handed over my first class ticket to the burly blonde guarding the steps outside my carriage who glared uncomprehendingly at me when I greeted her and asked her name. ‘Lana’ she growled before ushering me up the steps impatiently as if the train were just about to depart.

Strolling up and the down the narrow corridor outside my compartment – there was another twenty minutes before the train was due to leave – the only differences I could see between the carriages was mine had the top two bunks removed, leaving only the bottom two.

The window in the compartment was sealed shut and masked with voluminous drapes of bleached out nylon. Only every third window in the carriage corridor outside opened partially. Not a major issue if the air conditioning worked, but when I found Lana, brewing coffee in her private ‘office’, and made panting sounds, mopping rivulets of sweat running down my face and neck and pleaded for the air con to be turned on, the brutal blonde overseer of the first class compartment seemed not to notice the 37 degree heat and only reluctantly turned the a/c on low, only to turn it off every time the train crawled into another small, sun-baked station.

When I tried to open the half window in the corridor outside my compartment to get a breath of air, she bustled bossily down and shouted at me, along with emphatic hand gestures, to close the window.

“Well, turn the bloody a/c on again” I retorted peevishly, the sweat stinging my eyes and my shirt sticking like a wet rag to my streaming skin.

My initially chilled beer was almost tepid when, glaring at the sugary jellies and the bottles of water I opened it.

Usually, the regular clack-clack of the train would lull me to sleep but this time, seeming to compound the heat, the train groaned along, accompanied by what sounded like extended and sporadic heavy machine gun fire from the iron wheels. I had already finished the wine and was about to dose myself with the brandy when immigration marched down the train, collecting passports and then disappearing with them for a worrying length of time before returning them just as the train ground to a noisy and shuddering halt at the border with Armenia. Surprisingly – and pleasingly – smartly dressed Armenian officials came down the corridor with laptop computer scanners and handed back my passport within a minute of collecting it.

Dawn broke as I panted by a window I had furtively opened – no sign of the bossy Lana – looking at a high white cloud before eventually realising it was the snow-capped peak of Mount Ararat towering over the plains. Arrival time rolled around and the train still trundled noisily over flat, dusty plains with no sign of an imminent city. Questions to Lana about the expected arrival time were dismissed with a brusque hand gesture and a shrug and it was a good four hours late before the train finally shuddered to a halt in Yerevan itself.

I was here, that was the main thing and Armenia is famed for (among other things) its brandy – the only brandy Winston Churchill would drink, apparently – so what could go wrong? And there was the return trip to look forward to and to compare with the overnighter to Baku later on.

Chicken Liver Paté

Ever since I returned from Europe last August 2017, I seem to have had a thing about liver. I’ve cooked it several times, pan-fried with a piquant sauce, in red wine and so on but recently I decided to do a chicken liver paté for a change, to be served with crusty little toasted squares.

My first experience of paté was when my father, back in the early 1970’s, used to bring home a thick, yellowed plastic tube of liver paté after he had experienced it on one of his European hoildays. The tube was about as thick as my forearm and filled with a flavoursome paté but whether it was chicken, pork or paté made from something else I have no idea. I do have a memory of my father piling half-an-inch of butter onto his finger of toast before balancing another inch thick of pate on top of it and relishing the lot along with a half bottle of wine and then going for a “snooze” on a Saturday evening before friends arrived to play cards and drink whiskey and sodas!

The first step was to check the liquor cabinet but no luck there – no brandy or cognac and not even the remains of a Christmas bottle of port. So, first step – off to buy booze and pick up the chicken livers, as well, I suppose.

I bought a cheap bottle of French brandy – bottled in France, VSOP and so on but still cheap as chips compared to the heavy hitters like Martell, or Remy Martin or Hennessey, but never mind, I’m just going to chuck it in with the livers.

I ended up buying about 500g of organic, free range livers and a handful of shallots and off home to assemble everything – Brandy, butter, liver, shallots, garlic, a sharp knife and a few sage leaves from the garden.

First off, wash the livers in cold water and snip off – I used a scissors here – any sinewy bits or anything that looks less than appealing, although when dealing with a handful of chicken livers, there’s not a lot to be said there. Not like a calf or a pig liver, which is a bit more of a substantial handful.

Anyway, next, chop the shallots and garlic finely. I used three large shallots which, when peeled, became about 8 or 9 cloves as well as three large cloves of garlic. In the end, I threw them all, along with half of the sage leaves into a food processor and whizzed them for less than thirty seconds.

Tip a generous lump of butter into a heavy fry pan, add in a glug of olive oil and when the butter foams, toss in the chopped shallots and garlic and the sage. Stir it around for a while until it softens and smells good and then chuck the livers in on top. Shake the pan and give it a stir if you want and flip the livers over after two minutes or so. I added two full measures of the brandy then and let the liver simmer for a minute or two. I fished out a large one and cut it in two to check the interior pinkness.

When satisfied, that the livers were cooked but still had a tinge of pink inside, I turned the heat off and let things cool down a bit before tossing them all into the processor again and giving them a good whiz. My butter, which I hadn’t put back in the fridge, was nice and soft now so I put a chunk of that into the processor as well as another shot of brandy, reasoning that most of the earlier alcohol would have cooked off.

The penultimate step then was to scoop the mixture out of the blender and into a fine metal sieve. At first it seemed – and looked – impossible to force the liver mixture through the sieve but by dint of elbow grease and a large wooden spoon, I managed to mash the stuff through the sieve. The sieve became quite heavy and when I turned it over, all of the finely sieved paté was stuck to the underside of the sieve. I scraped it off with a palette knife and dumped into two ramekins I had ready. It looked gorgeous – a rich chocolaty colour and a smooth, silky finish.

I smoothed the ramekin dishes with the back of a spoon and then wiped around the dishes with a tissue to make it neat. A sage leaf on top for decoration and then, finally, more melted butter poured over the paté to seal it and prevent it from oxidising and turning an unpleasant colour. Bingo – a delicious party snack.