From the Editors

Avoid cliché. That’s what my mentor Michael Jackson told me. Probably more than once. It’s hard to do. Aren’t clichés just shopworn truths whose meaning has been diminished by careless handling over the years?

It sprang to mind when we were stravaiging across the Highlands. Mountains? Tick. Heather coming into bloom? Tick. Hairy coos? Tick. All we needed was a red stag at bay looking into the middle distance, and our I-Spy Book of the Highlands would have been complete.

Maybe the folks on the Lochs & Glens coach would be lucky enough to grab that one. There you have it. The clichés. But the mountains and heather and coos are real. Why, then, are we so irritated by them?

It’s been buzzing about at the (very) back of my mind while I’m trying to relax on holiday, surrounded by birds – a hen harrier yesterday, which was a bit of treat – waves, wind, family, friends, music and books.

There’s a lot of poetry, and it was a poem which brought the whole cliché thing back into focus once again, namely Robin Robertson’s Camera Obscura, which includes fictive diary extracts from the (real) pioneering photographer David Octavius Hill, who worked in Edinburgh in the 1840s.

‘The price we pay for railways, better roads & speedier mail,’ one extract goes, ‘is seeing our most able Artists & Scientists leave for London – their places taken by Thomas Cook travellers decked in tartan looking for “The Picturesque”. It is the end of an old song.’

Robertson may have invented the diary, but the debate about how Scotland was being packaged and sold was real, even in those days. Here’s the dilemma: Scotland became popular thanks in part to the novels of Walter Scott, the poetry of Burns, the paintings of Landseer and the Royal approval of Victoria and Albert. 

It was cleared, so there was more romantic space to gaze at without the inconvenience of people working in the foreground. The sheep and deer helped to reduce the number of trees ruining the view, making things more acceptably ‘wild’.

Stag at bay: Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen helped create a Scottish romantic stereotype

Hill and his partner Robert Adamson created calotypes of not just Edinburgh’s great and good, but its overlooked: fishermen, oyster sellers, workers. They are early attempts to move away from easy stereotypes.

Not that they appeared to succeed. By the end of the 19th century, Scotland was ‘North Britain’ (they even named a distillery that to reinforce the point), its music reduced to music hall caperings, its literature and art overtly sentimental.

Or was it? At the start of the holiday, my daughter and I went along to the exhibition on Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the Glasgow style at Kelvingrove – which showed how radical he and his colleagues were in terms of art, architecture and design at the turn of the 20th century. Anything but clichéd.

Kelvingrove also has a new gallery dedicated to the Glasgow Boys, a loose collective of artists who worked together in the 1880s and whose work was anything but nostalgic or hackneyed.

They painted in the open air, used workers and children as their models, aimed for realism, or at the other extreme created fantastical, gilded and mythical worlds. For a brief period, they were the most radical artists in Britain.

They were pushing back, just as Hill and Adamson had done, and as the poet Hugh MacDiarmid would do from the 1920s onwards.

‘Scotland small? Our multiform, our infinite Scotland small?
Only as a patch of hillside might be a cliché corner
To a fool who cries “nothing but heather!”… 
How marvellously descriptive! And incomplete.’
Scotland Small (1943)

Edinburgh life: Fisher girls at Newhaven, captured by David Octavius Hill (c. 1843-7)

MacDiarmid’s argument is not to ignore the heather, but to look more closely (which takes us back to Nan Shepherd) and realise that there is richness and complexity beneath the cliché.

He and other writers of his generation – Aeneas MacDonald, Neil Gunn – also began to write about their love of whisky and use it as a symbol, or example, of identity, in their attempts to move away from the glib and sentimentalised idea of ‘Scotland’.

For them, single malt represented the ‘real’ Scotland. It was linked closely to the land and the people rather than – heaven help us – the world of blends, which was only concerned with business, export and balance of trade. 

Before anyone jumps on me, this is too partisan an outlook. You can see their point, though. Whisky had wrapped a plaid of late Victorian clichés around itself and sold the world Scotch-land.

On one hand you could say this is where it all went wrong but, were it not for these simple signifiers, would Scotch be where it is today? 

As I’ve said before, it’s strange that we still fulminate about whisky’s co-opting of tartan, coos and heather when the industry has long moved away from it. Why then does that perception linger?

Edinburgh ale: David Octavius Hill (right), with James Ballantine and Dr George Bell

Perhaps we haven’t been clever enough to create a richer alternative, which is why now, when there are huge opportunities to talk about whisky (and its role in Scottish culture), it is once again being reduced and simplified to lists and ‘10 things you need to know’ – the online equivalent of an out-of-focus photo taken from the window seat of a Lochs & Glens coach speeding through Glenshee.

‘People don’t have the time,’ we are told. Well, you know, we do. We like films, and binge on box sets. We read books, we sit and have conversations. Yes, we need to find new ways to talk and explain and communicate, but that can’t be done through simplification to the point of inanity because, by doing that, you simply create a whole new set of clichés.

The same battle fought by the writers and artists continues. Resist. Push back. Bring the real Scotland to life. Look into the heather, go to the fishing villages or mines, paint the clarty boots, the slums and the wild coast.

Yes there are coos amongst the heather. Yes, people make shortbread. Don’t ignore it, but don’t ignore the fact that there is more.

It was about halfway up Ben Rinnes when we began to wonder whether it was such a smart idea to carry a drone, cameras, and sound equipment up a 2,759-foot (840 metre) mountain. My assertions that it wasn’t far now and it would definitely be worth it when we saw the vista from the summit were, I suspect, beginning to grate with my companions. The idea that we suffer for our art (in this case the forthcoming documentary The Amber Light) was beginning to pall.

When the gradient eased a little I paused for a rest. In among the heather on the side of the track were strange bright orange nodules, golden mutant berries huddling low in the ground. I’ve been up the Ben many times, but had never spotted them before. I bent down and picked one. Potentially poisonous, but what the hell.

I tentatively tasted it and the flavour flooded by palate: honey-sweet, slightly milky, gentle hints of apricot. I’d tasted a sweeter version before in Norway, albeit in a jar. Cloudberries. The more I looked, the more there were, nestling in the roots and tangle. We tasted them, grinning, amazed.

Alpine fruit: The cloudberry grows in cool climates, and has a milky, honey-sweet flavour

I reached into my pocket, pulled out a book and read:

‘Each of the senses is a way in to what the mountain has to give. The palate can taste the wild berries, blaeberry, ‘wild free-born cranberry’ and, most subtle and sweet of all, the avern or cloudberry a name like a dream. The juicy gold globe melts against the tongue, but who can describe a flavour? The tongue cannot give it back. One must find the berries, golden-ripe, to know their taste.’

That was Nan Shepherd, writing in her remarkable account of the Cairngorms, The Living Mountain. It’s been a touchstone since I discovered a copy in a second-hand bookshop in Ballater. This book – written in 1944, but not published until 1977 – is about her engagement with the mountains. Rather than having an obsessive drive for the summit, she takes her time, stravaiging into their hidden depths, experiencing the place with all of her senses.

It’s a passage which I use on a semi-regular basis in talks – and also as a reminder to myself about how vital it is to stay engaged with the world. After all, if you cannot write and talk about a taste unless you have experienced it, the more you do taste, the more you tune in to the world and, by extension, the liquid.

I’d read the passage to Alan Winchester [master distiller of The Glenlivet, who was recently awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Spirits Challenge] the day before as we’d walked to the abandoned Scalan seminary, discussing how astonishing it was that here in the wilds of the Braes of Glenlivet in the 18th century, were people discussing theology in Latin while growing their food, cultivating the land, milling, brewing and, who knows, maybe even distilling, all the while wondering when this, the only place in Scotland where priests could be trained, would be raided. A place of contemplation and yet of rebellion; a locale for rebels and anti-establishment thinking, a home for dreamers.

Elevated perspective: Scaling Ben Rinnes gives Broom an opportunity to reflect on how experiences shape us

We’d been talking of the importance of place, and how smells can help root you in a landscape. ‘I don’t get why people think of Scotland as being dark and grim,’ Alan had said. ‘You go walking and the landscape is lit up with colours and scents. For me it’s the smell of home.’

Nan has her own take:

‘So with the scents. All the aromatic and heady fragrances – pine and birch, bog myrtle, the spicy juniper, heather and the honey-sweet orchis, and the clean smell of wild thyme – mean nothing at all in words. They are there, to be smelled.’

I first read this with a sense of dismay because it appears to open up a potential issue with writing tasting notes. Can they really mean nothing? After all, you can point to an object, get people to share a sound, compare a touch, but taste and smell are internalised and personal. Is it a pointless exercise trying to get people to understand what you are experiencing?

It’s another reason why I return to the passage regularly. What she means, I believe, is that to truly understand the world you have to experience it fully: immerse yourself in it totally: see it, touch it, hear its sounds, and taste and smell everything. Log the sensations away, use them as aids to navigation, allow them to bring you deeper into the world of experience.

And what of the whisky makers of the Braes? I’d asked Alan. Could they have been influenced by the smells around them: the heather honey, the herbs, the grass? ‘I think it’s inevitable,’ he’d answered.

The landscape is a living one. Engage with it, allow its sensations to fill you, let the cloudberries, fresh and wild, melt on the tongue, never to be forgotten.

Jon Hassell, creator of ‘Fourth World’ music (a mix of electronics, trumpet, minimalism, jazz and ethnic sounds), has released a new album called Listening To Pictures: (Pentimento Volume One).

Any new work by him is something to be welcomed – his music has the ability to create strange, sometimes eerie, sometimes calming dream states, summoning up impossible places; it is a soundtrack to dreams. 

Recently, as part of a beginners’ guide to his works, he talked about his approach to the new piece in an interview for the excellent music website The Quietus.

It started, rightly enough, with an explanation of that strange-looking Italian word, pentimento which, for those of us who are not art historians, is probably not a term we will have encountered in our daily lives.

It’s a term used in art, referring to any marks, brush strokes, or images of earlier workings which reappear in a picture and are then used as elements in the final composition.

‘I started seeing (or was that hearing?) the music we were working on in the studio in terms of that definition,’ says Hassell in the interview. ‘Seeing it in terms of a painting, with layers and touch-ups and start-overs, with new layers that get erased in places that let the underlying pattern come to the top and be seen (or heard).

‘Most of the world is listening to music in terms of forward flow – based on where the music is “going” and “what comes next”. 

‘But there's another angle: vertical listening is about listening to “what's happening now” – letting your inner ears scan up and down the sonic spectrum, asking what kind of “shapes” you’re seeing, then noticing how that picture morphs as the music moves through time.’

Vertical listening: Jon Hassell’s music challenges us to hear it in the moment

The mention of shapes piqued my interest because, for me, shape is the first clue in trying to tease out a whisky’s secrets. Is it round like a ball, or angular? Does it narrow to a point at the back of the tongue, or start in that way, expanding at the finish? Does it ripple, or it is angular? Does it touch the top of the mouth or skim along like some kind of stealth bomber? 

I then like to taste in tiny sips, taking some on to the tip of the tongue and seeing what flavours are there; then another, this time holding it in the middle of the tongue; then another for the back-palate and the finish; then a final, larger sip, flooding the mouth to get the full impression. 

It’s the best way (for me at least) to see how flavours arise and then disappear, and to pick up characters which otherwise may have remained hidden – a way of seeing the complete picture. Then, like Hassell’s music, you begin to see the layers within the whisky as it reveals its heart. 

Pentimento can sometimes only emerge after time as the paint begins to thin, revealing what lies beneath. This is exactly the same as what happens in a cask: the loss, the absorption, the integration and the angel’s share: the way in which time and air, spirit and oak move in strange accords, shifting in emphasis, flowing, covering, obscuring and revealing. Those angels work in mysterious ways. 

Rancio is a good example of this process: the precursors for those enigmatic flavours of tropical fruits and wax, slowly forming and concentrating over time, waiting for the lighter aromas to dissolve into air, finally unveiling themselves. Layers accrue over time, but some also disappear.

They are there to be noticed when we sip the whisky, just as they are there in the cask as the spirit matures. Hassell’s way of listening is also our way of tasting – not just horizontally: ‘what’s next?’ – but vertically as well.

Where does that place us? Right in the moment once again, observing what is happening at each point; observing the moment each flavour appears, allowing them to intrigue and thrill, helping you peel back the layers and see what is there: the original intent of the distiller, the influence of the cask, the caress of air, the taste of time.

Thanks Jon.

It might be the heat, it might be age, but some things just seem to make me somewhat tetchy at the moment. The latest was a press release [no names – I may be irritated, but I’m not going to go down the name and shame route] which claimed that a certain distillery was, ‘one of the most unique in Scotland’.

Let’s pause for a second and figure out what (if anything) this phrase means. Part of the tetchiness is ingrained. My first editor had a profound hatred of the world ‘unique’ and it was banned from our pages. ‘Everything is unique,’ he would point out in a rare moment of Zen-like clarity. ‘It is absurd to emphasise this point. Bad English!’ and out would come the red pencil. It’s a rule which has stuck with me.

Anyway, I think we can agree that the whole premise of single malt whisky is that each distillery makes a spirit which is (careful now, Dave, Ed) singular and representative of that place alone, i.e. (and sorry, Peter) it is unique to that place.

‘Unique’ regime: Individual approaches to processes such as fermentation are part of what sets distilleries apart

‘Most unique’ is a tautology. If something is already unique then it can’t be more unique than anything else because of the whole notion of it being unique in the first place. The logic twists even further when you consider the phrase, ‘one of the most unique’. This infers that there are some distilleries which are more unique than others – a cadre of the uber-unique. This is where it gets even more convoluted.

Saying this suggests that there are other distilleries – one would expect from the term ‘one of the most’ that this refers to the majority of them – which are somehow less unique. If this is true, then the notion that single malt is built on a foundation of individuality has come crashing down.

My initial exasperated response was that this was simply (another) example of bad English being used in a press release, but the more I looked at it the more I began to wonder whether the writer might have placed a coded message within what appears initially to be a jumble of words held together by tortuous logic.

It was a topic which seemed to repeat itself throughout the recent World Whisky Forum when speaker after speaker, no matter the size of their production, said in some way diversity is key, risk is vital, moving forward is what matters.

In other words, what keeps whisky alive, no matter where it is in the world, is a constant, rigorous, examination of what makes each distillery or blend different from its fellows.

Why this consensus? Why now? I’d suggest that there is a reaction against an industry which has for too long worshipped at the altar of efficiency. Getting more alcohol for your bucks is one thing, but is that a price worth paying if it strips away your individuality leaving us with a sleek, highly efficient industry with a homogenised product?

The shift can come in any number of ways: from efficiencies in mashing, from using the same barley variety, or the same yeast; it could come from cutting the ferment times to increase throughput, or using the same shape and size of still and then running them the same way, or through a heavy reliance on the blunt instrument of new wood (or small casks). If everyone in the world makes the same decisions then where is the individuality?

Is the convergence happening? In some places I think it is. Elsewhere, I think that distillers have seen why they have to ensure that their product is substantially different to the existing ones with a 200-year head start. In these cases they are heading out into new (or old, adapted) areas.

Whisky is fragile. Each distillery’s character is built upon a set of interrelated occurrences which are in fine balance. The subtle equilibrium which holds the whole edifice together can easily be shattered if one of those elements changes. Distilleries therefore succeed or fail because of their ability to keep this balance in place.

Whisky is a drink which is growing globally because of its diversity. That must always be its abiding principle. Everyone must be unique.

In my folly, I once hosted a tour around Ardbeg. Among others, the party contained my mother, then 80, who had never been round a distillery before, my brother-in-law who was interested in whisky, my sister-in-law who doesn’t drink, and my (then) young niece who was more interested in trying to put a Mars bar into the mash tun than listen to her stupid uncle.

It was nothing compared to what most tour guides have to cope with on a daily basis, but it was instructive as it showed me how hard it is to pitch a tour to suit all levels of interest.

It means being geeky enough to satisfy the whisky lover, but not so far out there that you put off the newbie; it means having a talent to field ‘stupid’ questions, and trying to enthuse people who, let’s face it, are often only there because their partner/ parent likes whisky, or who only came along to the distillery because it was raining. Aye, being a tour guide is not an easy gig.

People pleasers: Tour guides must have the ability to tailor their presentations to all manner of visitor

So, the news that distilleries have invested over £500m in creating ‘world-class tourism experiences’ is welcome evidence of how whisky firms are no longer seeing the visitor centre as a place to sell shortbread and drams, but as part of their whole brand strategy.

That’s all great, but with that shift in focus comes a greater responsibility on the part of the owner to also invest in the people who are on the front line. If the number of tour guides outstrips the number of operators, so the balance shifts.

As a distiller or brand owner you have to ensure that the front of house staff are aware of every part of the process. They need to know when to engage the big guns of geekery and when to keep it light; they must have the ability to read a group of strangers and know which ones are only there because of the weather and which are a whisky club.

There is more to the job than being taught a script, it means being trained to think on your feet and being able to tell the truth and not some marketing guff created by agencies who have never stepped in the distillery, or faced the challenging demands of a tour group.

It is all very well saying that these days the visitor experience should operate on an emotional level, but the stroppy whisky geeks who want to berate you over your company’s approach to NAS will not be assuaged by your New Age vibes about ‘being’ and ‘feeling’ – they want answers and they want facts, just as the members of the coach party want to know where the toilet is.

This is a difficult and complex job and if the visitor centre is being upgraded so should the training. It is all very well investing millions in the look, but the whole experience falls flat if, in the desire to equip the distillery with all manner of bells and whistles, the brand owner forgets to pay attention to the staff and the complex job they have to do.

Distillery managers and brand ambassadors have superstar status. So should the folk who take the tours, and investment in their training should be uppermost. You can’t have a superstar chef in the kitchen but untrained front of house staff running the restaurant.

It’s not just spending more money on better facilities, or amazing merch, or distillery bottlings, it is about investing in people and training to ensure that they know the history, the process (inside out) and where the flavour in the final whisky comes from. They are the real brand ambassadors.

There’s a dark, graffitied stair leading into the bowels of the building. Heavy German techno is playing. In the smoke- and incense-filled chamber there’s a ballerina on stage, dwarfed by an image of her – mid-leap, graceful, perfect, doing the sort of thing that 99.99% of us wouldn’t even attempt; but ballet dancers are super-human. 

Then the next slide comes up. It points out all the mistakes she was making in the move; wrist wrong, foot not turned out, hips not squared off, knee should be hyper-extended (which I always thought was something to be avoided, and which reduces footballers to squealing messes but, as I said, ballerinas are hardcore). 

Our image of the perfect was a mass of (self)-criticism. The ballerina, Shelby Williams, speaks of the striving for perfection, and the despair which overcame her when she analysed how imperfect she felt compared to her standards and, more personally, her classmates’ abilities.

‘I felt inferior,’ she says. ‘I saw in my reflection in the studio mirror how perfect they were and how imperfect I was… and I cried.’

It is not what you might expect when turning up to what is ostensibly a drinks event, but then again the annual P(our) symposium is all about widening our understanding of what the ‘drinks’ or ‘bar’ industry is about.

Established by Monica Berg, Alex Kratena, Simone Caporale and other industry luminaries, P(our) is devoted to widening the thinking of what bartending is and can be.

The symposium is one manifestation of this, an interdisciplinary platform where distiller and sake-maker, crop scientist, architect, gastrophysicist, writer, chef and ballerina can offer up their thoughts. 

Super-human: But Shelby Williams’ flaws made her despair (Photo: Shelby Williams)

This year’s theme was perfection and, interestingly, all of the speakers (full disclosure, I was one) chose to speak instead about the various manifestations of imperfection – and why we should embrace it.

We are surrounded by images of what is deemed to be ‘perfect’. There is an ideal which we should always strive for, be that in ballet or drinks. And yet, surely, perfection is impossible.

It suggests something which is fixed, yet the world is in a constant state of flux. Because things are impermanent, nothing can be said to be perfect.

A falling leaf, a piece of tarnished metal, a battered suitcase or raggedy pointe shoes have beauty because, in their imperfection, they speak of time and the process of change.

When Williams realised that she was being ‘almost smothered by my own ambition’, she created an alter-ego on Instagram showing the world everything she did wrong in a self-deprecating way.

She discovered that in accepting that perfection wasn’t possible, ‘you fall in love with the process and the striving, and not the result’. There’s echoes here in whisky-making.

Are they trying to make the perfect whisky? Or even the perfect example of a single distillery? If there was perfection, then what would be the point of releasing different age statement, or finishes, or blends?

That little touch of sulphur might add lift, that hint of silage might add a quirky extra layer of intrigue; and, while the filthiness of funk or over-intense esters might be considered flaws, elements which get in the way of purity, they are often what make a whisky exciting… and, weirdly, perfect for the moment – and it’s the moment which is important for us as drinkers.  

Self-criticism: Williams learned to accept the perfection is impossible (Photo: Shelby Williams)

The drink which you have in front of you is changing. Its vapours are rising and changing, some flying off, others emerging late. You may have added water or ice. The whisky changes from one sip to another. The light in the room, the comment of a fellow drinker, a smell from the kitchen, the level of the liquid in the glass (or bottle) all impact on the moment. 

All you can do is be focused and enjoy it because it is your drink. The distiller may have made it, but they would be wrong to say that their whisky is complete or perfect, because the whisky is only complete when you taste it. You are the final piece in its life.

The same applies to tasting notes. I hope that the ones I write are as honest and fair as I can make them, but ultimately they are my notes, the images in my mind are my images, my response is personal, just as yours is – and I am not perfect. 

It is arrogant to believe otherwise, and that you can possibly set yourself up as an arbiter of taste, a writer of scripture who should never be challenged. As Williams says in her conclusion: ‘You can’t latch onto other people’s ideas of perfection. I am an imperfect person in a world of perfection… and it doesn’t bother me.’ 

Imperfection makes you human.

When was the last time you paused and thought about what malt whisky is made of? I know that, like good children at primary school, we can all recite by rote: ‘Water, barley, yeast’ (with the teacher’s pet at the front of the class adding, correctly: ‘And oak, Miss’), but when was the last time you actually paused to think about what you just said? 

A cereal, a fungus and an omnipresent liquid; oh, and a tree. As a recipe, it’s startlingly simple. In fact, you might think it is an unprepossessing combination.

Seeing it laid out like that reminds me of the story of the person asking for directions to a town in Ireland. ‘Well, I wouldn’t start from here’ being the considered response. A wise one too, I hasten to add. 

It seems barely possible that ingredients as basic as these can combine to produce a palatable drink. What is even more miraculous is how they interact to produce a myriad of flavours which ensnare us with their complexities. There is mystery at the heart of it all. 

Yes, distillers have their part to play – this is not spontaneous (even if some might just test that theory out) – but what they do is nudge and cajole, control and guide, rather than force.

There’s no gussying up – no acidification or tannin addition, no chaptalisation or spinning cones. Despite the industrial-looking equipment, whisky-making is a natural process. 

The secret is unlocking potential, allowing the flavours to rise and develop. It is an art of concentration and selection, of interplay and balancing.

The end result is a spirit which can speak to the soul like no other, a distillation of place, time and people, and it all comes from such humble beginnings. 

Whisky, for all its boldness of flavour and attack is, at heart, modest. That in turn means that its makers have to have a respect for the ingredients. There is no place to hide when you are dealing with the original trio. 

Simplicity itself: All of us making a living from whisky are servants of the spirit 

The same term, ‘humble’, is also the word which which springs to mind whenever you encounter anyone engaged in whisky’s production: from malting to distilling, coppersmithing to coopering, and blending.

As a nation, we Scots tend to be self-effacing (we talk ourselves down rather than up), and whisky people take this to the Nth degree. They are modest, lacking in arrogance or ego when it comes to what they produce.

They go about it quietly, letting the spirit speak. ‘It is a team effort’ … ‘I just helped it along’ … ‘It’s the whisky that’s important’ … ‘It’s quite good’ (the last © David Stewart MBE). They serve the spirit.

It’s a lesson worth remembering when we pick up a glass. The moments of maximum enjoyment of whisky, for me at least, are also the simplest ones.

Not fancy dinners or gilded palaces of sin, no lights and lasers, but friends, glasses, a bottle and talk. Little has changed in that scenario since whisky’s earliest days. 

The same applies to selling, talking or writing about it as well. Those of us fortunate enough to make our livings in this way need to always be aware that we are at the service of the whisky.

We can make it fun, crack jokes, play with it (in fact, I’d say all are essential), but we all need to remember that all we are doing is simply passing information along. 

People come to our shop or bar or class, or read our writing, not because it is us, but because they want to learn about whisky. 

As soon as we think we are more important than the story, the moment when ego takes over, then that simple aim is lost. We are servants of the spirit as well. We are all learning as well, sitting quietly at the feet of the people who know more than we do, asking why and then passing it on in a way which entertains and informs, but focuses on the whisky itself.

We all have to remain humble.

We start our whisky life with a moment of sudden clarity, when the whisky speaks to us directly. We may have drunk whisky – maybe even this brand – before, perhaps regularly, but this time it is somehow different.

The dram need not be special in terms of rarity, or price, or being the ‘best’ that a range offers. Rather, the combination of the situation, the people and our mood triggers a wholly emotional response. This thing called whisky becomes something greater than just the liquid. The gateway swings open. Our heart has spoken. 

This came to mind during a six-day tour of China, taking in Guangzhou, Xiaman, Shantou, Shenzhen and (now) Beijing. Living out of the case (albeit in rather swish hotels), talking to bloggers, bartenders, retailers and punters about the juice.

All the folk were in some way associated with the Diageo Whisky Academy (DWA), an astonishingly bold initiative on the part of the distiller to try to teach as many people in China about whisky as possible.

In the few months since its launch, more than 4,000 folks have entered its three-tier certification scheme. Some will be content with the grounding given by Level 1. By the time that those who are really smitten reach Level 3, they are fully-fledged whisky warriors. It is a category-building programme – competitor brands are given equal status – the like of which I’ve not encountered before.

Engaging the brain: We are insatiable in our desire for whisky information, says Dave Broom

Anyway, I was on stage, about to start a flavour-led run-through of production, when I had second thoughts. The students had read the books and done the classes. They knew their wort from their washbacks, their cut points from their condensers, the differences between oak types – all the stuff that, these days, comes with being a whisky lover. 

This is how we all progress. We start with the heart but, once the door is open, our head takes over. That moment of revelation is quickly followed by a mass of questions: how is it made, what is that flavour and why is it there, what goes on at that part of a distillery, why does that distillery do this and its neighbour do that? Names, figures and statistics; books, websites and talks. We become insatiable in our desire for information. 

It is a natural response and it is a good one. The fact that whisky shows are growing in number, that courses like DWA are prospering, that a website like Scotchwhisky.com exists, is proof of how much interest there is. All of it is essential if whisky is to build and grow (and if all that juice which is about to flood onto the market is to be sold). 

And now for pleasure: When heart and head work together, whisky can be truly joyous

The downside of this is that we can forget what made us turn to whisky in the first place – that moment when our heart spoke. Shunryu Suzuki once wrote: ‘If your mind is empty, it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few.’

Too true. The intellectual clutter gets in the way of the honest response to the glass. We all need to get back to that beginner’s mind. So that’s what I spoke about.

In some schools of karate, when you achieve the top grading you are given the same white belt of the beginner. It says: you know this intuitively, you are not using your mind any more, but responding naturally and openly to what is in front of you.

It’s the same with whisky. We can make whisky as complicated as we want, but should never forget that it is a really simple proposition: a drink made from humble ingredients which hopefully speaks to your heart as well as your head. 

Later that night, at Shenzhen’s new go-to bar Whisky Life, I watched Hidetsugu Ueno (the legendary bartender from Tokyo’s Bar High Five) effortlessly creating great drinks (his new creation, Queen Mary, a mix of Singleton of Glen Ord 12 Year Old, Pimm’s and Suze, is a delight) for the same people who had been at the classes listening attentively.

The music was up, the lights low, the laughter loud, the whisky flowing. After the head-focused afternoon, it was time for the heart to take over again. When both work together, it is marvellous to behold.

It’s a funny sensation when an atmosphere becomes tangible and you feed off others’ energy: the mood is palpably tense, or anticipatory, or enthused and excited.

In some ways that’s been what those of us who lived through whisky’s Bad Old Days™ have experienced. Assembled in sheds and halls around the world, we clustered together nervously and, slowly, more and more excitedly. 

I’ve seen the Tokyo International Bar Show (or TIBS as it’s more commonly known) morph from being an add-on to Whisky Live into a stand-alone event. This year it took the next step into being one of the best of its kind.

At about 3pm on Sunday, you couldn’t move for people tasting, talking, laughing, listening. The buzz was unlike any other similar event. People were (shock) enjoying themselves. 

Old friends from when it was a whisky-only event were still there, but the balance between whisky and other spirits has been addressed. This is a showcase for all spirits, giving lessons on how to navigate, work with and celebrate an entire category. 

There was a hefty Scotch presence – exclusive bottlings from Glenfarclas and Bruichladdich, strong representation from many single malts – but there were as many gins (Japanese and imported), and some rum (Diplomatico’s new range of single still distillates a highlight). 

Japanese whisky, inevitably, had a strong showing. In one corner you had Chichibu unveiling a nine-year-old rum cask, or the ultra-limited bottling aged in casks with new Mizunara heads (one of the more exciting Japanese whisky experiments I’ve tasted since… well… since the same firm’s IPA casks).

Nothing to see: Japan’s whisky shortage has led to the withdrawal of Hibiki 17-year-old

You had Suntory with its Essence limited-edition range, again highlighting its experimental areas, while Gotemba had brought along a cask of its heavy grain. But that was it. A Japanese bar show with a relatively low representation of its own whiskies. No great surprise there. 

Walking the streets of Kyoto the day after the show, I pop into a bottle shop just to see what’s on offer. Force of habit, I suppose, because I know what the answer will be. The Scotch shelves are full, but the Japanese whisky section is decimated. The talk at the show was of Hibiki 17 being withdrawn because of lack of stock. This is the reality.  

If there is a dearth of better-known brands, however, there are unfamiliar names in the devastated fixture – whiskies purportedly from Japan, but containing not a drop of Japanese distilled whisky in them. Blends of Scotch and Canadian bottled here, and, because of the lax (or non-existent) legal framework around Japanese whisky, able to be sold and exported as something which they are not. 

It’s deeply concerning, at this time of rising global interest in Japanese whisky, that its image may become fatally corrupted because of these new arrivals. Legislation is badly needed. The good news is that a working party on regulations is meeting and hopefully we’ll see a set of rules in place by 2020. There will be more on this soon.

In the meantime, the show also demonstrated what was happening on the ground. As well as the single malts, Scotch blends are pushing hard at the still buoyant Highball category, seeing potential stock-related issues on the part of their Japanese competitors.

Matrix of flavour: TIBS attendees were there to explore a range of spirits – not just whisky

There were free samples of White Horse Highballs being handed out (and the 12-year-old to taste), while the Walker stand wasn’t a blinged-up journey into Blue, but loudly proclaimed about the ‘Johnnie Highball’. Blended Scotch knows what it has to do. 

Wandering around the stands (or, to be more precise, trying to fight through the happy boozers), you got the feeling of a modern, coherent industry realising that all spirits are now on the same plane, and that consumers are as happy drinking Ki No Bi gin as a single malt, or a rum cocktail as much as a whisky Highball.

That press of people in the Sunday afternoon was mostly comprised of bartenders and owners on their day off, there to enjoy themselves, but also learn and suss out what is next. 

We live in a whisky bubble; we think of it as being the most important spirit in the world. Because we love, we are protective and loyal, but the reality is that whisky is not alone, it doesn’t have a self-given right to consider itself superior. 

In the minds of those who are serving and drinking, it is just one other element within a matrix of flavour that we all play in. 

Yes, whisky is in a stronger position than it was in the Bad Old Days™ when the bartenders were specialists and the attendees were the geeks who helped save a category, but the world has moved on and we ignore that fact at our peril.

Today we browse our way through a wider world. And celebrate it.

What I’ve noticed over the years is the way in which the Spirit of Speyside festival has matured, undoubtedly slightly better than I have. Every iteration has seen a tweak or two and, in more recent times, there’s been a greater willingness to take chances and anticipate what people might want, rather than sticking to the same formula (or formulae).

It struck me that this year was the most radical yet, something which struck home at the opening dinner. This event is hosted by a different distiller each year – this time it was Benromach’s turn. Every year, each distillery manages to somehow put on a grand event in a space not intended for grand events, such as a warehouse. This year, the Benromach team decided to put up a massive marquee instead.

It’s always hard to put your finger on exactly why an event like this works. The food, the company, the speeches, the pace, all affect the mood of the space. This year I reckon it was all of those, plus the lighting. Bear with me.The event started in daylight, and finished at 11pm, but the lighting level stayed the same allowing everyone to see each other. So what? Well, I’ve noticed that in dimly-lit occasions, tables end up becoming islands of people talking to each other. Keep the lights up (but not blazing) and a collective experience is created.

Come together: The festival’s closing nights at Craigellachie Hotel's Dogfest reflected the collective experience of Benromach’s opening (Photo: Till Britze)

This feeling was replicated throughout the festival’s duration. The advantage of holding the festival over a bank holiday weekend is that it allows locals to attend events. This year their numbers seemed to be higher, giving more of a community feel and balancing the huge number of incomers from around the world. Perhaps that helped give events a different, lighter and more relaxed feel. Perhaps whisky has embraced the fact that there is more to a festival than just a tasting or a masterclass. These days they are just part of an ever more complex mix.

Once again Scotchwhisky.com teamed up with the Craigellachie Hotel, which meant that I hardly made it through its portals for the duration – twice across the road to the Highlander Inn, and once to the beach. Right enough, most of the festival seemed to come to the Craig at some point for the fun and games.

Whisky? Fun? Yes, it does seem to be happening, though there are some who still moan about there being too much of it and not enough ‘serious whisky talk’. You can’t win ‘em all. The fact is that this year the hotel hosted the second Battle of the Villages blind tasting which featured amazing drams and record levels of insults being flung by both teams, a film and whisky quiz, and a night of cocktails with Pulp Fiction on a giant screen. It was during the last of these that I got into one of those detailed (and serious) chats about whisky which always occurs at some stage during a festival. I enjoy geeking out, even if having Uma Thurman being given an adrenaline shot over my shoulder was not necessarily the usual setting for such a discourse.

‘I’m not sure about all of this mixing,’ my questioner said at one point, looking around the room. A minute later he was sipping happily on a $5 Shake. That’s how it happens. Whisky breaks free and reaches new drinkers, or converts older ones. We should all now be confident enough to discard the rules – our whisky dinner this year featured mock turtle soup which had to be eaten with a knife and fork and a trifle that had to be tackled with a steak knife. Norms are challenged, as they should be. Whisky needs to extend its remit and reach as many people in as many ways as possible to show it is for all occasions.

Sharing spirit: Georgie Bell, global malts ambassador for Dewar’s, shares several bottles of whisky with the crowds at Craigellachie Beach

At my trip to the beach this idea took a surprising turn. The bottle of Craigellachie 51-year-old (inevitably) lasted about five minutes. No surprise there. Everyone there realised that it would be the only chance to try a dram which none of us would ever be able to afford – it would probably retail for the same price as a Merc.

It turns out however that Dewar’s has decided not to bottle the 50 bottles worth that was left in the cask, but use the liquid (which is utterly delicious by the way) in tastings instead. It’s a bold move to share the rare, which should be applauded – and copied.

After that interlude it was back for Dogfest, then a blur of more tastings, and blending sessions. It worked. My personal thanks to the quite incredible team at the hotel, led by the amazing Lyndsey Gray, all of whom who were working 13+ hour shifts without complaint.

They all deserve huge credit for turning what was once a sad, staid, old hotel around and making its elegant rooms a perfectly natural fit for Tarantino films, cocktail bars, a music festival and disco without damaging its image as a home of whisky. That, my friends, is what 21st century Scotch is about.