Why aren’t bartenders excited by Scotch?

‘I got a really lush whisky for Christmas,’ a friend told me last week. ‘I can’t remember the name but it’s got these little monkeys stuck on the bottle.’ I wonder what that could be. Perhaps it’s the eye-catching bottle design, the accessible price point or the brand’s laid-back ‘street’ personality, but I bet a pound my whisky-drinking friend wasn’t alone in receiving a bottle of Monkey Shoulder for Christmas. The blended malt has become so popular among new whisky drinkers, that it’s been named the trendiest Scotch whisky brand by trade magazine Drinks International for four years running.

Each year the magazine polls the global bar industry’s ‘inner circle of influencers’ – award-winning bartenders and bar owners frequenting various awards lists such as The World’s 50 Best Bars, Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards and various local Time Out awards – on their favourite spirits to work with, most popular classic cocktails and best-selling brands.

Three Monkeys: The blended malt’s eye-catching bottle has helped it gain recognition among consumers 

Monkey Shoulder, it turns out, is the most requested Scotch whisky at the world’s leading bars, trumping the likes of best-selling Scotch Johnnie Walker, and luxury malts such as Macallan. Kudos to Monkey Shoulder, but despite its popularity among guests and advent of quirky bar tools for the trade, bartenders overlooked it as a spirit they love to work with. In fact, not a single Scotch whisky featured among the 10 top ‘Bartenders’ Choice’ brands – the trade’s so-called desert island spirits.

It’s no surprise that in the midst of the current gin craze a premium gin like Tanqueray was named the most popular spirit among cocktail bartenders. The list reads like a who’s-who of the spirits world – rum, Tequila, mezcal and even Japanese whisky get a mention – but Scotch appears to be the unpopular kid no one wants in their team. The Macallan ranked in 11th place, a position largely attributed to its popularity among the strong Asian contingent surveyed for the report (Asia comprised 28% of respondents).

Scotch’s absence from the 10 most popular brands may be a symptom of the dearth of classic Scotch cocktails served in the world’s best bars – only three (Blood & Sand, Penicillin, Rob Roy) featured among the top 50 best-selling classics in the last year. Sadly no Bobby Burns in sight, to my dismay. Meanwhile the Bourbon-based Old Fashioned, Whiskey Sour and Manhattan all made the top 10 (that said, no American whiskey made the Bartenders’ Choice ranks either).

Have Scotch cocktails become ‘uncool’, or is their absence a result of a deficiency in brand-led education? Report editor Hamish Smith believes there to be a ‘lack of investment behind bars and bartenders that you don't see in other brown spirit categories’, which hasn’t helped change the belief in some countries that Scotch whisky shouldn’t be mixed.

Modern classic: The Penicillin was the best-selling Scotch cocktail at the world's best bars

As with all sectors, new trends begin with innovators and key influencers, and gradually trickle down to the mainstream. Much of a drink’s success starts with these bartenders, who pass on recommendations to their guests. The bar is a playground for consumers to experiment with tasting new drinks and flavours without the financial commitment of buying a full bottle, and in many ways the world’s high street bartenders look up to the world’s best. If they aren’t excited by Scotch, their peers won’t be, and they certainly won’t be recommending it to their guests. It’s up to Scotch brands to excite bartenders in the first place. That’s where education begins, and that’s where change will happen.

The more brands invest in assisting the creativity of the world’s best bartenders, the sooner we will see a resurgence in Scotch-led cocktails, and even an improvement in the quality of whisky serves in mainstream bars, an issue Scotchwhisky.com raised just last week.

Perennial events such as Old Fashioned Week are a welcome step forward in encouraging bartenders to use Scotch in traditionally American whiskey cocktails (an event Monkey Shoulder sponsors), but to really turn heads the industry needs to get behind a best seller that’s owned by Scotch. Could the Penicillin be Scotch whisky’s Old Fashioned? A short, shaken drink consisting of blended Scotch, lemon juice, honey-ginger syrup and smoky Islay whisky, the cocktail is a crowd-pleaser that appears to be gaining in the popularity stakes – Drinks International ranked it as the 15th best-selling cocktail, having risen four places this year alone.

If ever there was a cocktail a trendy Scotch whisky like Monkey Shoulder should get behind, the Penicillin is it. The brand has just launched a peated expression exclusively for bartenders after all. I know what I'll be ordering.