Colour Me Goodd, I'm Chlorochrous With Envy

I received an email from Angus Winchester’s mailing list today that has revolutionised my future tasting notes for this blog in a small but brilliant way.

Angus Winchester: vocabulary-expanding research hero

For those of you who haven’t heard of him, Angus is a bona fide cocktail legend (he has no less than three drinks named after him).  The guiding light of Trailer Happiness (London’s best rum bar), where he founded the Rum Club, Angus was one of the original International Playboy Bartenders and is now a globe-trotting drinks evangelist who, amongst many other things, works for Diageo as Global Ambassador for Tanqueray (he is working towards the title of Gin Genius) as well as spreading the cocktail word with his own bar consultancy, Alconomics.

In the course of his research, Angus has come up with what must be the best list of drink-related colours ever amassed.  Now, I’ve never been one to talk about a whisky’s colour much, unless it’s particularly pale, dark or unusual (eg Green Elgin, which I now know is olivaceous), but I do love the English language and vocabulary, and anything that improves it gets a big thumbs up from this blogger (although obviously that doesn’t mean I’ll tolerate any comments from smart-arsed pedants about my own dubious grammar or syntax!).

From this day forth, any tasting notes that I do on here will have a bit more colour, to wit a descriptor from the below.  In the face of such an outstanding piece of work it would be churlish not to.  In fact, I love this list so much that I’ve christened it Colour Me Goodd (with apologies to readers of a certain age who had managed to forget about ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’).

aeneous         shining bronze colour
albicant        whitish; becoming white
amaranthine     deep purple-red colour
atrous          jet black
aurulent        gold-coloured
badious         chestnut-coloured
castaneous      chestnut-coloured
castory         brown colour; brown dye derived from beaver pelts
chlorochrous    green-coloured
citreous        lemon-coloured; lemony
filemot         dead-leaf colour; dull brown
ibis            a pale apricot colour
icterine        yellowish or marked with yellow
icteritious     jaundiced; yellow
jacinthe        orange colour
jessamy         yellow like a jasmine
kermes  brilliant red colour; a red dye derived from insects
luteolous       yellowish
luteous         golden-yellow
lutescent       yellowish
madder  a reddish or red-orange colour
melanic         black; very dark
melichrous      having a honey-like colour
nigricant       of a blackish colour
nigrine         black
ochroleucous    yellowish white
olivaceous      olive-coloured
puccoon         dark red colour
pyrrhous        reddish; ruddy
rubiginous      rusty-coloured
rubious         ruby red; rusty
rufous          reddish or brownish-red
russet          reddish brown
sorrel          reddish-brown; light chestnut
spadiceous      chestnut-coloured
titian          red-gold or reddish-brown
umber           brownish red
vinaceous       wine-coloured
vinous          deep red; burgundy
violaceous      violet-coloured
vitellary       bright yellow
xanthic         yellow; yellowish
zinnober        chrome green

Come on, what’s not to love?  The above has been printed off and will reside just behind my monitor at work, where I can contemplate it while preparing for a tasting.  My particular favourites are lutescent, melichrous, ochroleucous and spadiceous.   Granted, I probably won’t get to use a few of them (in fact I hope  I never have to use amaranthine and I’d be pretty freaked out if you gave me a kermes whisky) but I hope you’ll join me in doffing caps to Angus Winchester for producing something that makes the world a better place.

Let me know your favourite in the poll I’ve set up in the side-bar…

Slainte,
Tim