Whisky’s future lies in the everyday

‘So what’s going to be new for whisky next year, Dave?’ Alice asked me the other day. Given I had a glass of Madeira in front of me (and the remnants of a rather toothsome Rhone) you might have thought I had already abnegated any rights to comment, but it was a valid enough question. As writers – which Alice also is – we are hardwired to be dissatisfied with the norm, junkies seeking the next thrill, clambering over each other to be the one to catch the next wave just before it forms.

‘I don’t know,’ I answered truthfully, ‘but maybe that isn’t a bad thing. Although there’s plenty going on in terms of flavour development, maybe it isn’t what’s next or new, but looking at what we have now and seeing how it will evolve.’

She gave me a rather old-fashioned look, clearly believing I was just prevaricating. I continued, ‘rather than looking for the new, perhaps it’s best to look at the occasion – where and when whisky’s being served, how it’s being drunk and by whom and then make whisky a part of people’s lives. That doesn’t need something new – we have Highballs, we have cocktails, we have the liquid. It’s the context that needs to be looked at.’ I had another gulp of Madeira.

Top spot: Whiskies vie for space on the floor-to-ceiling shelves at The Ben Nevis in Glasgow

Her question nagged away at me, and over the next few days I began to think back about where I’d been drinking over the year, not just the high-end bars which you probably think are the only places I haunt, but the pubs (or dives as our North American cousins quaintly call them) as well. Of being ankle-deep in discarded peanut shells in a pitch-black bar in Victoria, BC talking about music with Mike Nicolson, that impromptu singing session in Wanaka, the late-night craziness of Melbourne’s Hats & Tatts.

There was that late, late night when I was hunched over the bar clutching a Dewar’s and soda, rambling to the barkeep in New York’s Ear (which was once called the Bear before the B fell off the sign) as old-timey music played behind me, or hungover as hell the day after, sorting myself at McSorleys with fellow hacks, around a table full of beer mugs and cracker shards.

Or the summer spent filming in Scotland, which could also be considered a four-month pub crawl, that brought me back to Glasgow’s Old Toll, Laurieston, the Pot Still, Ben Nevis and Heraghty’s, as well as the afternoon calm of Edinburgh’s Kay’s. There were early morning drams in Bennet’s listening to the Furrow Collective singing temperance songs, or chatting about literature and music with Ian Rankin over drams and pints in The Abbotsford and the splendour of the Cafe Royal.

Way-back when: Edinburgh’s Cafe Royal offers grand interiors with a nod to its heritageAll places where time stopped and conversation flowed, usually at times of the day where people relax and open their minds and hearts. Whisky times. Or rather, times where whisky seems appropriate, where it can play a role. That’s the context.

The question is whether whisky is trying to play there. Is the whisky trade so obsessed with image and the top end that it’s missing the late-night spots, the quiet afternoon sessions, the places around the world where its drinkers, existing and potential, go to sing and laugh, cry and swear?

I think back to sitting on plastic chairs in African shebeens with a bottle in front of me, to whisky-fuelled Taiwanese karaoke bars, and Japanese izakaya with half pints of ice-cold Highballs, of lazy Susans spinning in China, to bottles and ice buckets in Tunisia, or drams in a hot tub in the Arctic. Whisky adapts itself to all of these. It’s a shape-shifter.

Widespread appeal: Victorian decor combined with over 150 whiskies makes Bennets in Edinburgh a cosy establishmentIt’s this malleability which is the key. Everywhere whisky has touched down it’s been absorbed in some way and adapted itself to fit, and yet it’s these occasions which are rarely mentioned. Rather than being something to learn from, they are ignored. Yet, they are the contexts which should be explored. It’s as if the industry has only chosen the choicest cut of meat and ignored the seething, reeking offal where true satisfaction resides.

It’s appropriate to talk about food because in all of these contexts whisky has become part of the food culture. What we eat tells a story about place and people, and so does drink. It too is an element in the poetry of our lives, yet you wonder if whisky has forgotten this, that in the desire to elevate its reputation its role, its function, its qualities, its evolution and its sheer democratic nature has been pushed to the side.  

It’s time to learn from the dives and shebeens, the pubs, bothies and bars where whisky is quite simply enjoyed without pretension.

Have a splendid Christmas dear reader.