Blended whisky’s world of flavour

I don’t do puddings. As a rule, anyway. It’s not down to smug self-denial. Maybe unusually for a Scot, I just don’t have a particularly sweet tooth. Well… apart from Tunnock’s, which is different, isn’t it?

But there are always exceptions. Like now. The wine glasses have been moved off the table, which is now covered by two large sheets of silver foil. The next thing there’s the sound of singing and clapping, and two of the chefs appear and start flinging dessert onto the table. Imagine if Jackson Pollock was a chef and used food instead of paint, and you’ll get an idea of the end result.

It would be rude not to dig into the jams and berries, meringue, cake, cream, caramel, honey and fruits that have been smeared and splatted, drizzled and tossed everywhere.

It’s hard to eat, because we’re all laughing so much at the absurdity of it, but laughter is a major element of Machneyuda, with its pumping music, stripped-back furnishings and young, hip, friendly staff.

Its menu changes every day, depending on what is available in the neighbouring market and the chefs’ inclinations. By halfway through the dessert overload we’re beginning to flag and have to admit defeat. As we move on for a digestif, I wonder whether there’s a whisky cocktail that uses insulin as an ingredient.

None of this was what I was expecting from Jerusalem, but one day into a quick trip to Israel had seen most of my preconceptions being as wildly deconstructed as the dessert.

Sensory overload: The Mahane Yehuda market offers a bewildering array of flavours

Much of that process had come through food. Israelis love to eat. Every course was accompanied by a phalanx of side dishes – just in case, a little extra, a crunch, a sprinkle, something to add another layer.

The afternoon had been spent wandering around the ancient Mahane Yehuda market. Inside the shuk were young soldiers queuing for baklava, coffee stores and brew pubs; confused-looking pilgrims, the orthodox and the secular, backpackers and locals on their daily shop.

Here resides ‘The King of Tahini’ and Berschowitz’s spice store. ‘I’ll grind anything for you,’ he says with a half-smile. I look at his piles of home-made za’atar. ‘Try it! Try it!’ One herbal and heady, with hyssop and oregano and who knows what else, the other brighter and spicier.

I fill a bag with both, and more, and go back into the noise and the bustle of a market, the headiness of the spice shops mingling with whiffs of cheese and olive oil, coconuts and berries, honeyed pecans and balsamic infused with truffle. Senses deranged, in overload.

My friend Dudi drags me off to have a snack. I mean, we hadn’t eaten for, oh, about two hours. He buys a brace of pitas, soft and pillowy, filled with densely-flavoured meat. ‘It’s all the bits of the chicken that usually get thrown away,’ he says helpfully. ‘Think of it as Jerusalem haggis.’

Before dinner there’s still time to try freshly squeezed etrog and khat, and nibble on pieces of halva carved from vast sugared wheels.

To find a culture, look to the food; and, to find that, go to the markets. Overload your senses and tune in. It seems exotic, but it’s only in recent times that food shopping in the UK has become a sanitised, sterile experience, where aromas are sealed in by layers of plastic.

‘Jackson Pollock’: Machneyuda’s chaotic dessert is a feast for all the senses

I’m old enough to remember one of the last of Glasgow’s ‘Italian warehousemen’, Wilkies in Hyndland, where the smell of bacon and ham would mingle with oats, spices and fruits, bread, wines, teas and coffees; the same aromas which had been rising in stores the same as this all across Scotland for generations.

It’s no surprise, then, that these were the people who were the first whisky blenders. Yes, they understood that blending gave volume, consistency and a character which would appeal to a local palate, and also the need to define themselves against their rivals and neighbours.

It applied to tea or rum or coffee, or whisky. More importantly, they succeeded because they lived in this heady, sensory world. They understood flavour. That was the message I was giving to the bartenders competing in the Israeli heats of the Diageo World Class cocktail competition.

As a species we are predisposed to blending: perfumes, cigars, drinks, musical instruments, people and food. The food culture in Israel should feed into the way in which they approach drinks, just as the way in which south-east Asian cuisine, with its understanding of balance between sweet, sour, heat, and acidity, can influence their developing cocktail culture.

I’m there with World Class cocktailian Lauren Mote, who is also giving a session on her (amazing) Bittered Sling range. In it she talks of bitters as modifiers, about how their high levels of complexity come from a balance of individual ingredients working collectively rather than in isolation, and how their intensity changes a drink and gives it unity without dominating it.

It’s exactly the same with a blended Scotch – all the elements pulling together – rather than pushing away from each other, which is the world of single malt.

I know, I’m banging on about blends again. Well, there’s some things you just have to never stop saying. Like: try rum, or drink Riesling, or please give some Sherry a try – or find a market, and start to smell things again, allow your senses to be deranged.