It is possible to feel guilt about what you haven’t become. It’s a weird inversion of regret, because it’s based on passivity. Sulla Terra absolutely shouldn’t express regret for any shortcomings, it is fantastic, but comparison is the thief of joy.

There is a condition called highly superior autobiographical memory, HSAM. People with this condition will feel those pangs of sadness and shame about past actions, seemingly at random. The mind shuffles a deck of cards and at the grocery store will remind you how you were emotionally disrespectful to someone in 2008. This barleywine suffers the pangs of these unfair spectres.

Sulla Terra invariable has to live in a St Louis orbit with Anabasis, or worse, For Gabe, or Double Barrel Anabasis. The same space, and casks and opportunities can create a gilded life, or one that is just “really solid.” The cocoa krispies nose, chromexcel leather, wafty toasted kindling, and swallow long and redolent of squaw bread. It is super pleasant and then BAM, a memory of putting a cat in the bathtub when you were 6.
Part of the issue Sulla Terra struggles with is a style crowded with absolutely heavyweights at much lower price points, completely content with their existence. This isn’t even Sulla’s fault. The fact that Batch 4000 exists and is also good is not a sleight, but it feels inequitable by contrast. If you have ever gazed at the infinite scroll on your phone and been an unwilling participant in that game “How Do They Afford That” then you know Sulla’s plight. Being excellent but feeling inadequate, Luxury but not absolute luxury, flying to Dubai coach.

The molasses twists with the Sugar Daddies on the mid-palate and the closer has a woody swallow that imparts a dryness that is extremely well done. But others have made this inaccessible, inadequate by contrast. Sulla shouldn’t feel this way, but we all trudge forward seeking that saccharine fulfilment brewed by others. Sulla Terra is enough, more than enough, and the sooner we acknowledge that the less we can shell out to MFTs.

Psh this is just a regular M4, not even competition package; so embarrassing it’s not even rollcaged.