#tokaji

The Ardnamurchan AD/Tokaji Cask Release 2026 is one of the most exciting releases from the relatively young Ardnamurchan Distillery, located on Scotland’s rugged west coast. For the first time, the distillery is using casks that previously held the famous Hungarian sweet wine Tokaji to finish a limited-edition special release.

Tokaji casks are known for imparting sweet, rich, fruity wine notes, such as raisins, honey, and apricots. At Ardnamurchan, however, this influence meets the distillery’s signature maritime, mineral, and waxy character, resulting in a single malt that is both intriguing and complex.

The neglected nectar of sweet Tokaji wines

Jonathan Harker, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1897

Christine Daaé, Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, 1909

Oh how interesting! Both Count Dracula and Erik find Tokaji a wine fit for serving their prisoners - I mean - esteemed guests. And chicken too! 

I’m not so sure this is just a coincidence. While Dracula was written too late for Erik to have read it, Leroux almost certainly read it and made this reference to it in his own novel published twelve years later. It would have been fun if Erik had been overtly trying to emulate Count Dracula to impress or frighten Christine, but it’s just as fun to think Leroux dresses Erik in references to gothic literature to impress and frighten us, the readers.   

The Tokay and lack of appetite plus the coffin bed make a strong case for Leroux stanning Stoker: 

The Count has his coffin-home and Erik has his open coffin under a canopy like the drama queen we love: 

Tokaji or Tokay is a sweet wine from the Tokaj region of Hungary and Slovakia.  Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) is an ancient city on the Baltic Sea. It used to be part of Prussia. Then Germany. It is currently part of Russia. I assume that by the “Königsberg cellars” he meant the cellar of the Königsberg Castle. It definitely had wine cellars and, even though it isn’t anywhere near the Tokaj, it probably had wine from all over the world. This detail seems a little random, but again, Teixeira’s translation fails us!

In the original French, the bizarre reason Erik gives for taking wine from the cellars of Königsberg is that “Falstaff sometimes frequented” them. I don’t know Verdi’s Falstaff well enough to know if this is true, or has any importance to the opera. This could all just be a big inside joke between Leroux and his opera and wine loving friends.

Imagine Erik creeping around this old castle just to steal some wine. Sadly, this castle is no more. It was bombed in 1944 and the ruins were later destroyed by the Soviets. 

Decoding Spy x Family references:

Hugaria = Hungary

Obda = Óbuda

Kalpatia = Kárpátia

Tokar = Tokaj(i)

Aside from the characters and story, one of the reasons I love SpyxFam so much is the setting of cold war Europe. My mom was born and raised behind the iron curtain of Czechoslovakia so it’s a little close to home, and she appreciates the scenery of landscape shots (they remind her of Prague). 

But one little thing I CANNOT get over is this scene from chapter 12 

Yuri is talking about his “trip” to “Hugaria” and when he pulls out this bottle of wine

I FREAKED OUT BIG TIME BECAUSE, IT’S REAL