From the Editors

In the Scotch whisky calendar, it must rank as one of the most eagerly awaited launches of the year. What will be released? From which regions and distilleries? How old? And – for many, most crucially of all – how much will they cost?

Given all of this, I was taken aback to find, on arriving at the unveiling of these much-anticipated limited editions, no velvet rope, no fanfare and no impatient throng through which it was necessary to elbow my way. In fact, nobody else seemed interested at all.

There stood the whiskies in front of me. All five of them. Yes, five. No, not nine.

Other writers were there too, but they seemed more interested in catching up with Charlie Pillitteri to talk about his (admittedly fabulous) Canadian icewine. Someone’s tasting the whiskies? How odd…

By now, you might have realised that I’m not talking about Brora, Port Ellen, Pittyvaich and Diageo’s 2015 Special Releases, but three blends called Glenalba and two single malts with the distinctly unglamorous name of Ben Bracken.

Five limited availability whiskies unveiled at discount retailer Lidl’s Christmas tasting. Ranging in age from 22 to 34 years, and in price from £29.99 to £49.99.

Don’t look at me like that. When Lidl released the 33-year-old ‘Maxwell’ single malt three years ago at a headline-grabbing price of £39.99, it sold out within three days – and secured the retailer a priceless tide of positive publicity.

Trade drivers: but do Lidl's cut-price whiskies have a bigger role to play?

The contrast in pricing between Lidl’s whiskies and the Special Releases is glaring: at £49.99, the 34-year-old Glenalba blend and the 28-year-old Ben Bracken Speyside malt are still some £30 shy of the cheapest Special Release, a Lagavulin 12-year-old.

But the point of the comparison isn’t to have a pop at Diageo’s Special Releases pricing strategy – on which I’m sure we all have our own views anyway.

Because, let’s be clear, the motivation behind the two launches is entirely different: Diageo showcasing the depth and excellence of its aged whisky stocks through the medium of established brands, Lidl using own-label products to lure shoppers away from Asda to buy their turkey, cake and crackers there instead.

Is that the overriding point of the Lidl whiskies? To encourage and perpetuate the ‘discount junkie’ mentality among consumers, which – at Christmas in particular – does so much to erode margins for the whisky industry?

Yes and no. Talk to Lidl head of beers, wines and spirits Ben Hulme and you’ll also get a sense of the pride he takes in sourcing these whiskies at such remarkable prices.

They’re not loss-leaders, he insists, and while the publicity surrounding them will no doubt draw the punters to the stores, he hopes it will also elevate Lidl’s reputation for quality, once people taste the whiskies.

They’re also, I’d argue, potentially great recruitment tools to persuade people to expand their whisky repertoire, and – ironically, given the Lidl pricing ethos – to get them to trade up.

Today’s Ben Bracken consumer may not be tomorrow’s Port Ellen or Brora collector, but that’s not to say they might not be tempted by a realistically priced unpeated Caol Ila or Lagavulin 12-year-old.

Because value exists at all levels – from the keenly-priced aisles of Lidl to the sometimes rarefied reaches of the Special Releases.

It sounds like just the sort of thing to get the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) lawyers firing up their laptops and composing a series of increasingly threatening ‘cease and desist’ missives.

An American whisky, produced in Virginia, but claiming to be a ‘Scottish-style’ single malt? Ok, the barley was malted in Scotland and the casks were re-coopered on Speyside, but half of it was only distilled once, for heaven’s sake.

As it happens, the SWA isn’t merely sanguine about the creation of the two bottlings made at the George Washington distillery in Mount Vernon – it’s directly complicit in it.

Joining forces with American spirits industry body DISCUS, the SWA flew three Scotch luminaries – Glenmorangie’s Bill Lumsden, Cardhu’s Andy Cant and Laphroaig’s John Campbell – over to help Mount Vernon’s Dave Pickerell to create the ground-breaking spirit.

No mod cons, though. The team had to use 18th century techniques at the restored plant. ‘We didn’t measure anything – it was all just done by taste,’ Campbell told Washington’s WTOP website. ‘And, eventually, I think we came to the conclusion that what we were making wasn’t half bad.’

Transatlantic tipple: Scottish malted barley was used to make the whiskies

The venture, set to benefit charities and educational ventures, is a nod to the influence of Scot James Anderson, an experienced whisky-maker who in 1797 persuaded a reluctant Washington to build a distillery at Mount Vernon as a sideline to his milling operation.

Two years later, the plant was churning out 11,000 gallons of whiskey, was the biggest in the young nation – and even the family physician was being paid in liquid form. Livestock, including Washington’s prize hogs, were fattened on the left-over cooked mash.

The ‘new’ George Washington whisky, however, bears little resemblance to the liquid the Founding Father would have known and tasted – Washington’s recipe was 60% rye, 35% corn and 5% malted barley.

Then again, it was also shipped in cask without having to undergo the inconvenient and time-consuming process of maturation, while the SWA-approved 2015 spirit was at least aged for over three years.

After all, you have to draw the line somewhere…

Fans of nominative determinism would have you believe that nomen est omen, to give the Latin term or – in Greek – όνομα ορίζοντας. The idea is that, sub-consciously, you gravitate to pursuits that fit your name.

Clearly, this theory has its limitations – as far as I know, the Chief Engineer of this parish has no burning desire to become a roadsweeper – but it also has its charms.

Are distilleries sometimes governed by this phenomenon? I think so. For me, the very sound of Mortlach’s name conjures up shadows of primeval threat and a sulphurous subterranean stench. Think of H G Wells’ morlocks in The Time Machine and you’ll get the idea.

As you will when you taste the whisky. The ‘beast of Dufftown’ is a famously powerful dram of enormous intensity and old-fashioned heaviness – like being trapped in a Bovril jar and striking a match to find your way out.

That very robustness makes Mortlach, when paired with the right cask, a malt of huge potential longevity, as evidenced by the release of Mortlach 75 Years Old by Gordon & MacPhail, the latest in the company’s Generations series and The Oldest Whisky in the World.

Humble beginnings: Cask 2475 was filled in 1939, 75 years before bottling

The liquid is remarkable – after an initial sawmill buzz on the nose, it shifts and changes with all manner of elusive perfumes – and I found myself identifying a feral edge to the manifold flavours as classic Mortlach.

But what is classic Mortlach? Perhaps more importantly, in the case of the G&M whisky, what was it? Read the accompanying book by Charlie Maclean and Alexander McCall Smith and a complex, semi-paradoxical blend of continuity and change emerges.

Mortlach’s official history begins in 1823, but illicit distillation predated this legitimacy; its kit was removed by John and James Grant little more than 20 years later, to fit out Glen Grant at Rothes. Was there an identifiable Mortlach character even then? Was it lost? Recovered or rediscovered?

Or did it come when the distillery sprang to fame in the later 19th century under John Gordon and then George Cowie? More likely it emerged from the revamp and expansion of the distillery under George’s son, Alexander.

This introduced the complex, Heath Robinson distillation regime that persists to this day: six stills, including the tiny ‘wee Witchie’, a spirit that’s distilled, er, 2.81 times, cold worm tubs. Sulphurous, meaty, classic Mortlach has remained unchanged for over a century. Except it hasn’t.

Go back to the 75-year-old. That whisper of smoke – does it owe its existence to the fact that, in 1939, Mortlach’s barley was malted on site and dried over a mix of peat and coke? A practice which stopped in 1968?

What about that luscious, concentrated apricot character (you can almost feel the juice trickling down your chin)? Does the historic use of brewers’ (rather than distillers’) yeast play any part here?

Or is it down to the fact that, until 1946, distillers were prohibited from fermenting and distilling at the same time, resulting in typically longer fermentation times and the consequent promotion of fruitier flavours?

We could go further: what impact did resting the copper have on pre-1946 Mortlach spirit (if the stills were only running, as seems likely, three days a week)? Not to mention the fact that the distillery was rebuilt in the 1960s, with the stills converted to mechanical stoking and then steam.

That these questions remain all but unanswerable only adds to their fascination. What we’re left with – that last drop of precious, 75-year-old liquid sitting at the bottom of the glass – is a whisky that performs an elusive and paradoxical role.

It simultaneously fits our mental template of classic Mortlach – and makes us question exactly what that character is, and how it developed.

The link with nominative determinism – even the connection to The Time Machine – seems apt.

Some people are just plain greedy. News from that understated and sombre get-together of bar folk in New Orleans, Tales of the Cocktail, that the chief engineer of this parish, Mr David Broom, has won not one but two of the coveted Spirited Awards.

It seems extraordinarily unfair of him to hog the limelight in this way – I mean, did he really need the hassle of transporting not one but two Riedel crystal trophies back to Blighty? And buying them their own Business Class seat seemed mightily excessive…

So: Best Cocktail & Spirits Writer and Best New Spirits Book (for Whisky: The Manual). Not bad. Not bad at all. Massive congratulations from all of us, Dave.

Now get back to work.

Manual labour: the Chief Engineer and his winning smile (photo: Becky Paskin)

Ever played press release bingo? As you can imagine, we get a lot of electronic missives here at scotchwhisky.com from companies eager to secure their moment in the limelight. And some are, er, more imaginative than others.

Certain phrases and words have a tendency to crop up with alarming frequency. A recent press release on The Macallan Residence at Two Temple Place in London provides the perfect example: I ticked off ‘luxury’, ‘prestigious’ and consumers being ‘taken on a journey’ of ‘carefully curated’ experiences (whatever they may be). All in the first few lines.

Photo credit: Jonathan Daniel Pryce

The event provided ‘strong consumer engagement’, various things were ‘bespoke’, the whisky was ‘award-winning’ (with the number of gongs handed out these days, aren’t they all?), and the whole shebang showed The Macallan’s ‘unwavering dedication to quality and craft’. A surprising omission for that mot du jour, ‘artisanal’, but otherwise a full house.

Yes, it’s easy to scoff – and Scotch has moved on hugely from the days of heather and weather, when you couldn’t swing a caber (don’t you mean ‘toss’? – Ed) without hitting a grizzled, tartan-clad Caledonian in front of a brooding mountain-and-loch scene.

But, by fully embracing the ‘luxury lifestyle’ zeitgeist, Scotch is simply swapping one dead language for another. When the same adjectives, nouns and verbs are being shared by distillers, fashion houses, watchmakers and jewellers, Scotch’s individuality is subsumed in a monochrome porridge of communication targeting ‘aspirational’ consumers.

Oh hang on, aspirational. Bingo!

Much cheering from the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) on Scotch whisky being according the status of a Geographical Indication (GI) in Botswana. But why?

GI status is reserved for products from a particular place with a particular character – Parma ham, Sherry and so on – and all WTO members must protect them from misuse. In other words, no fakes allowed.

Botswana imported less than £500,000-worth of Scotch in 2014 – a pimple on an elephant’s posterior in the global context of exports of nearly £4bn. But that figure was 163% up on 2013, and there’s a lot more Scotch which crosses the border from neighbouring South Africa.

Even so, the Botswana decision is worth talking about not for its intrinsic importance, but for its symbolic value as Scotch companies greedily eye the African continent’s emerging economies.

Photo: NASA

Unicef predicts the continent’s population will double over the next 35 years and, by 2030, KPMG reckons more than half of those people will be living in cities.

Oil is bringing wealth to Nigeria and Angola, international investment is piling in and, even back in 2012, consumer spending accounted for more than 60% of economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank.

The number of middle class Africans varies according to your definition of the term – could be 350m, could be 120m out of a total of about 1bn – but it’s rising fast, and large numbers of these people are beginning to have money to spend on more than the simple necessities of living and breathing.

For an equally large chunk of the populace, Scotch whisky is, to descend into marketing speak, a ‘highly aspirational’ product. In other words, buying a bottle of Johnnie Walker or Chivas Regal is one of the ultimate expressions of a person’s new-found and hard-won economic independence and freedom.

That’s the size of the prize for Scotch whisky companies in Africa. And that’s why the SWA is talking up Botswana.