Descriptors: Punky and Funky

It's tea time ladies, grab yer mugs! Drink it fast or sip it slow. About glasses, how ta crook yer pinkie, nosing and tasting techniques and equipment. May your cup - and your women - be bottomless!
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Capn Jimbo
Rum Evangelisti and Compleat Idiot
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Descriptors: Punky and Funky

Post by Capn Jimbo »

Be honest...


If I describe a rum - or anything else for that matter - as "punky" or "funky", have I paid it, or them, a compliment? Survey sez? Maybe. It's a matter of context and the modifiers or adjectives that preceed these terms. For example...

"I found this rum delightfully funky..." - or - "I was put off by a lingering and blatant punkiness...". Capish? Of course you do. But as for the descriptors themselves - "punky" and "funky" - these two have either no inherent meaning, or if anything carry negative connotations. "Punky" is the aroma of dry rotted, fungal wood. "Funky" most commonly refers to juicy armpits and skivvies worn a day or two too many.

Use of these terms is really unclear, compared to most other common descriptors. Most of us understand "vanilla" or even "orange zest", but as for "punky" or "funky"? Not.

Yet despite the lack of clear meaning I've noticed these terms being thrown around by a number of posters, and even one faux reviewer (you can guess who). And just why do they do this?

It's cool.

And in truth it's a misguided way to say something is different or unexpected, but most importantly that the poster is confused. Something the poster doesn't really understand, and finds hard to describe. For a reviewer - who really should be speaking in understandable terms - it's a way to sound knowledgable when in truth you're really not sure of yourself or of the profile at hand.

A copout and coverup for lack of competence.

Worse yet, these are actually negative terms. Seriously, are you interested in any spirit that smells or tastes of fungal rot or ball sweat? Not that a touch of ripe pit can't be interesting, lol...
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