Pairing Review: Nevernight – Guardian of the Farm, Nightwatch, and Glenfarclas 21 Year

I paired Jay Kristoff’s Nevernight with Guardian of the Farm: Nightwatch because the night time tie in tickled me. What better than a book about assassins and a cigar about guardians of the night to pair together? I added the Glenfarclas 21 Year to the mix on a whim while at the cigar lounge bar. (Don

Nevernight seems to be an book of polarizing discernment – you either hated it or you loved it for its stylistic prose. You cannot say the same for the Aganorsa leaf with which the Guardian of the Farm: Nightwatch is made; you look forward to a cigar with such a pedigree and if you dislike it, you are simply wrong my friend.

The Glenfarclas starts out with a sweet smell of vanilla and caramel while the cigar also starts off on a sweet note – not so the book, which starts off with a jarring juxtaposition of events followed by a flash back of unpleasant childhood memories. It appears that perhaps the scotch and cigar will pair well together but not well with the book.

The characters of the book are all distinct and memorable. There is a richness here that almost overcomes the poor similes and metaphors often used to describe them. The flavors of both the cigar and the scotch are complex and have depth, they make overlooking abused language a little easier.

Nevernight does succeed in building a world both at once familiar and fantastical that includes historical depth. It complements well Nightwatch’s familiar flavors of coffees, nuts and pepper which blended just right to provide an entirely new taste and delicious taste. It balances the fuller bodied complexity of the Glenfarclas 21 Year.

The more I read, the more the book, scotch, and cigar became a better pairing. Although, the amount that I enjoyed the cigar and the scotch may have flavored my view of the book more positively than it perhaps would be without them. In the end, I found myself ordering another drink and smoking a second cigar, continuing to read longer than I intended. My ultimate feelings of indifference towards the book are completely overshadowed by how well it went with my cigar and scotch. I will read book two with the same pairing so that the second book will be as easy to read as the first. I highly recommend that if you do read Nevernight that you do so with a Guardian of the Night: Nightwatch and the Glenfarclas 21 Year in hand.