From the Editors

I was concerned that you might consider last week’s account of my early days in whisky as evidence of how badly run the trade was in those days. The thoughts of long, boozy lunches scratch and itch like a new tweed suit against our 21st century sensibilities of how business transactions should be undertaken. In my experience, you discover the best (and worst) of people over lunch. We should do more of them, not less. I have four planned this month.

I began to realise over the years, that the conversations which took place away from the setting of the formal interview was what mattered. Yes, it was off the record, ‘Chatham House rules, old boy’, I was told once to my complete bafflement, but it didn’t mean that the comment couldn’t be discreetly mentioned without attribution, or the lead followed up. Names would be mentioned, connections made. The liquid web which held the whisky world together was slowly being revealed. Trust was being gained.

What was clear was that things were changing fast. Glasgow’s docks were empty, the sheds falling to bits, rustling with the ghosts of dockers, the scent of the millions of casks drifting away into the smoggy air. It wasn’t just whisky which had left. The shipyards were shuttered, the steel furnaces dampened, car plants closed. The city felt hollowed out. All of my friends had fled like me, a new generation of economic migrants. There was nothing for us here – or that was the feeling.

Bygone era: Glasgow’s Queen’s Dock was once busy with whisky casks waiting to be shipped

Yet over those lunches a rearguard action was being plotted. ‘Whisky is a long-term business’ I was told on a regular basis, though I’m not sure if anyone thought it would take as long as it did to turn things around.

It would be wrong to think of them as fossils or the remnants of the generation who screwed it up. They were whisky men*. Casks and stills, and the echo of dunnage warehouses, were in their blood. They knew Jerez as well as Govan. Many had worked their way up from shop floor to boardroom. They were exploring new routes out of the mess. Not all worked – some were dreadful dead-ends – but the intention was there.

Which is how I ended up on the banana.

There was this new thing called single malt, you see. Well, it wasn’t that new, but it seemed to be what everyone from retailers to producers were beginning to talk about. For all the brave words, blends were in a death spiral of discounting. No-one in my generation was drinking them. Single malt, on the other hand, was untainted.

Hence the banana.

It was sitting there in Loch Indaal behind a speedboat. We waded out and sat astride it. A strange crew. A few trade hacks, a couple of supermarket buyers, and the executive branch of Morrison Bowmore, including a young bloke called Kenny MacKay and a chap called Jim McEwan. 

Riding the wave: A wild banana boat ride (example pictured above) became a metaphor for whisky’s resilience

The speedboat headed off like the clappers in the general direction of Kintyre. We clung on, awaiting the inevitable swerve which, when it came, flipped us into the water. We got on again. The same thing happened. I remember thinking that there was probably a metaphor somewhere in this – fill it in yourself dear reader.

It was just a laugh and that was the most remarkable thing about the whole experience. This wasn’t the whisky world of declining sales and closed stills. This was whisky saying, you know, you can have fun. Whisky’s problems were far from over, but something had shifted. Retailers, distillers and writers were working together, trying to hold on to an inflatable banana and when they were pitched off, they got straight back on. Told you there was a metaphor.

It was also the start of another set of conversations, not just over lunches with the marketing teams, but with distillers and blenders. The whisky men who had been hidden away, the ones with secrets and answers and tall tales, the ones who would take me on a new journey. Lunches would be involved. 

*I use the term advisedly. This was still very much a male environment.

It would have been around 30 years ago this week when I was sent on my first trip to Scotland to write about whisky. Blended whisky to be specific. I’d started at Off Licence News in the November and had spent the intervening period learning how to use an electric typewriter, learn the style sheet, write news stories (‘read the press release, disbelieve it and phone up the PR to get the real story’) and attend wine tastings. Now it was time to break me into features.

‘You’re Scottish, eh?’ You could almost hear the gears shifting in my editor’s mind.

‘Dave, do you think you might like to write the blended feature for this year?’ It was more of an order than a topic for discussion, but he was a kindly man. I said yes.

‘Here’s the list of people in Glasgow to see – you can sort out what time suits each. Try and fit in Perth as well, OK? We’ll sort out the flight and the hotel.’

Flight? For years, any trip home had been by overnight bus, train or hitching. This would be luxury. Hotel? That would necessitate some fast thinking to get past my mother.

Big business: Broom recalls whisky meetings in grand offices like Teachers’ in Glasgow

So it was that I found myself at 10:45am on a dank January morning standing in West Nile Street to meet with Lang Bros. I was taken past a room where two men in white coats were heads down over a bench of glasses, and up to the offices. The details of the interview are long forgotten. What happened next remains vivid.

We’d chatted around my questions for about an hour before my victim looked at his watch and said something along the lines of, ‘what about a dram? I think we’ve earned it.’ We went through to another room, the drinks cabinet was opened, a decanter was extracted, and hefty drams splashed into cut glass tumblers. Lunch followed, washed down with rather excellent wines. A farewell dram, a handshake and I found myself out on the pavement blinking in the afternoon light in a somewhat dazed condition. Thank Christ I was in the hotel and not at my mother’s.

I now realised why the trip was so prolonged. Every interview started at 11:00am because, well, lunch would have to be taken and no-one would want to discuss business after that (if they were capable of it). It was taken in Teacher’s magnificent building in St Enoch Square, and then at Matthew Gloag’s appropriately monikered HQ, Bordeaux House.

I seem to recall (allow me some latitude dear reader, some of the memories are understandably hazy) that one firm – I think Whyte & Mackay – also threw in a dinner in one of Glasgow’s old-school Italian establishments, places I would come to appreciate over the years, where Business Was Done.

Merry meals: Restaurants like Rogano were once centres of whisky discussions

I also learned that lunchtime was the time for gossip and discussion, all of which was off the record and therefore contained all of the information which had been withheld during the interview. I discovered which other firms were in (apparent) trouble, their strategies would be dissected, scurrilous rumours spread, my insights (not that I had any) sought, then invitations would be issued to come and visit distilleries, and have lunch again next time I was up – or they were down.

It was, I soon realised, the ending of an era. Sales were crashing, prices were being slashed, and mergers were underway. I think back with hindsight to the men (and they were all men) with their tumblers and wine glasses, their avuncular airs and clubbable talk; of how after laughing and yarning over lunch they would have returned to their offices, locked the door, looked at the sales figures and started to weep. No wonder they needed a lunchtime dram.

Within the next two years our coverage had shifted from blends to single malt. The lunches continued for a good few years, but as the old guard retired, so mineral water replaced the drams, then phone calls took the place of the face-to-face interview, before e-mailed answers filleted of content by zealous PRs became the norm.

What I remember most, three decades on, is how they all welcomed this skinny kid in his badly-fitting suit, poured him drams, answered his naïve questions and over lunches brought him into the world of whisky.

A new year (and I trust it will be a happy one dear reader) means that it is time to rip the entrails from the twitching corpse of last year’s whisky world and divine what might occur. 

I should be happy because others better versed in this form of haruspicy are saying that 2019 is going to be a good year for whisky, with it (and that means all whiskies, not just Scotch) being tipped as the spirit to watch.

There’s certainly a buzz about it in the on-trade, while mentions in the press and on air seem to be more frequent and less negative. I doubt that we’ll see a gin-like boom, but there does seem to have been a shift in mindset.

Whisky cocktails: Save the Old Fashioned for the bar – the star at home will be the Highball

Scotch and Irish whisky serves seem to be shaking free of the proscriptive edict that ‘thou shalt not add water’, something which is, I’m sure we’ll agree, A Good Thing. I do wonder however whether responding to the question ‘how should you drink whisky?’ with ‘any way you want’ is too glib. Rather than the Crowleyan ‘do what you wilt’, perhaps the new(er) drinker could benefit from having more practical options.

The Highball would still seem to be the most sensible of these. It works in terms of flavour, and ticks a whole number of boxes: a simple whisky and soda is refreshing, and is low in alcohol and sugar.

It is also easy to make at home, which is important at a time when pubs and bars are seeing a decline in trade. Few folk make whisky cocktails at home, so even if you choose an Old Fashioned or Penicillin when you, occasionally, visit a bar, it’s unlikely that either will become the go-to beverage when you’re back on the sofa, baffies [slippers, Ed] on, watching Poirot. The Highball just might bridge both occasions.

It might also help with the issue of Generation Z’s drinking habits. Are the new generation of consumers drinking less but better, or just less? I’m ancient enough to recall how, in the ‘80s, fears that whisky was entering a catastrophic decline as Generation X turned towards vodka would be airily dismissed.

‘Their palates will mature,’ I was told on a regular basis, ‘and until they do, we should concentrate on our core drinkers.’ As we know, they stayed with the vodka and the core drinkers died.

The situation may be different now – that goodwill towards whisky does seem to exist – but finding ways to engage with a generation which isn’t drinking should be uppermost in whisky execs’ minds. Why aren’t they drinking? Is it health, serve, flavour… or earnings? Real wages are falling in the UK and the US, debt is rising, and people are going out less. It’s another trend which producers should take into account when considering whether to hike prices ever further.

Changing climes: Locality and environmental practices can give whisky a stronger market presence

The importance of the local will also become increasingly relevant. I don’t mean the pub, but the growing interest in provenance and sustainability. The latest gin craze has not only allowed whisky distillers to start exploring whisky’s long-forgotten botanical side (something which will continue this year), but made the concept of a local distillery a familiar one.

It’s helped to shift the belief that whisky could only be made in Scotland (and more precisely the Highlands and Islands), Ireland, Canada, Kentucky, Tennessee and Japan to one where it can come from anywhere.

The powerful pull of the local taps into this, which should benefit the large number of newer distilleries releasing their first mature (legal) product in 2019, though there is a caveat: any goodwill felt towards the newcomer will soon cool if the quality of the spirit is not up to scratch. Shelves and back bars are not made of elastic, money is tight and competition is growing. If the new distiller has to charge more, then the quality of the spirit on offer needs to justify the price tag. Being small, or new is no longer sufficient. The other side of whisky’s growing popularity is that people know what’s good – and what isn’t. 

The importance of the local will also see some distillers (though probably not enough) continuing with a deepening examination of place and what it gives in terms of understanding grains, food culture and history, and how all of these could then impact on flavour.

It is a major philosophical shift in thinking which asks the question whether 21st century whisky is an industrial product or an agricultural one. Maybe that should be agri-cultural.

We concentrate on the end product, the liquid in the bottle and its production process, when the focus should be at the start: what goes into the soil. In actuality, we should be thinking about the soil itself.

Dealing with climate change should be behind every major decision we all make. Whisky can play a small but significant role in this not just by reducing emissions and becoming more energy efficient, but also by creating new connections with agriculture, which itself needs a radical overhaul in order to stop soil degradation and boost biodiversity.

Any practices which can be pioneered within whisky (or beer) which can benefit the soil, boost small-scale profitable farming and help feed people, as well as give us all the bonus of an alcoholic treat, will be a true legacy. Maybe it will start in 2019.

‘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.

On the road again to another gig. Another grey and blue dawn. Mountain tops above the clouds. Below, a vast grey city.

Yesterday it was Xiamen, before that Beijing, Fuzhou and Quanzhou; now it’s on to Guangzhou, with a trip to Dongguan because you might as well when you’re in the neighbourhood. Six cities, six days talking whisky all the way. I can do it.

Thinking of last night and the visit to the late-night noodle joint, which is naturally where you head after a 10-course meal and a nightcap or three. It’s a considerably healthier option than a kebab.

Our way in was blocked by a dog which had pulled a pair of pants from the washing line and was playing with them. We laughed. Thought little more about it. There were noodles to eat and, anyway, we hadn’t finished talking about other things, such as how does Scotch break into China in a meaningful way? It was the time of night when the big questions tend to emerge.

China is facing the same issues as any market. Who are the potential drinkers, where do they drink, what do they drink, how do they drink it, and how then can whisky align with them? Sounds simple.

Dog days: Scotch must disrupt the Chinese market for a meaningful impactI’m thinking about the dog. In fact, I’m obsessing about it. I have a tendency to look for metaphors and allegories everywhere. It’s one of the pressures of writing a column, or maybe the belief that, if everything is connected, then you can draw a line between any two points. The combination of jet lag, early mornings and late nights has resulted in a somewhat deranged state, so forgive me gentle reader (I always assume there’s only one of you) as I tease this one out.

Is the dog whisky? If so, what do the pants represent? Maybe the shock of a dog eating pants is like Scotch disrupting the baijiu-dominated Chinese market.

I think back to the last meal. Food and spirits are inextricably linked in China, but not the ‘whisky dinner’ contrivances of the West. Spirits are seen as the natural accompaniment to an occasion which is about bonding, networking, hosting, socialising and in this case, teaching in a light way about Scotch.

The number of courses and the continual toasting means that your glass is regularly drained (fear not reader, the measures are small and the consumption responsible, just don’t tell my doctor). No sooner is it emptied than it’s refilled and the toasting continues.

I start to think of the girls doing this as whisky angels, following me no matter where I am, silently topping me up. As my friend Jasmine pointed out, ‘angels don’t take whisky here, they give’.

What do they think of the laughter and rising volume of the conversation? They pass no comment, just open another bottle. Be careful with the angels, they control your destiny.

Given the central role of the meal in terms of socialising and the focus within the event on spirits, can Scotch subtly begin to promote itself as the ideal accompaniment, and shift the thinking from a bottle, to a bottle of a specific brand?

The dog chews on the pants on the doorstep of the noodle bar.

Angels’ share: Always on standby, armed with a never-ending supply of whisky 

Maybe the dog is me and the pants are my confusion over this piece. Maybe it is Scotch, the pants are opportunity, and the noodle bar is China.

I put this to the angels. They stay silent.

Every conversation circles back to this question: how to move things forward? It floats above the cigar smoke, Negronis and the one last bottle of malt. The answer seems tantalisingly close, yet remains unresolved.

The dog worries away.

The strategy has been to build Scotch’s presence from the top down. Get a whisky seen as being rare, precious, collectable (and expensive) and its prestige will ripple down. The first element is working. There are Glenfarclas single casks galore, Macallan is betting heavily on the top end, Balvenie is building its rep, while Diageo is combining a prestige strategy with a countrywide, category-based education campaign [full disclosure: I help out on this campaign].

The dog’s still there, outside the noodle bar.

The angels say nothing. Top up my glass.

Maybe that’s one of the issues. Scotch is too busy gnawing away at the problem of how to get into the noodle bar, when the door is already open. Just walk in.

Perfect match: In China, spirits are seen as a natural accompaniment to a meal

The downside of the top-down strategy is that little has rippled down. Whisky is exclusive, thank you very much, but there is a gap between the top-end malts and entry-level expressions, which also manifests itself as a split between the well-off, usually older, drinker and the younger generation – the very people who need to start drinking Scotch.

The dog’s still there. The angels smile in an enigmatic way. 

It’s not an either-or option, just two different conversations. Scotch needs to build volume and that won’t come from selling 20-year-old single malt. The work starts not just in restaurants but in bars, be they in Shanghai, Beijing or places like Xiamen’s Bumper Bar, where owner JoJo rocks out fantastic cocktails while also having SMWS and Compass Box front and centre.

Next door to the same city’s Fiddich Bar (classic cocktails and/or single malt a speciality), hidden behind the shelving of a convenience store, is a speakeasy. It’s rammed with potential whisky drinkers, but Scotch is nowhere to be seen. How do you get through that door? I ask the angels. They pass no comment, just quietly top up my glass.

I look round.

The dog has wandered off.

Forget what you know. Take a map of the British Isles and Northern Europe, rotate it through 180 degrees and look again. Let your eyes rest naturally where they will. 

With a conventionally aligned atlas, the gravitational pull of the south-east corner of England is compelling. London, the proximity of continental Europe, the sheer weight of numbers in terms of population, not to mention influences political, legal and cultural.

Maybe the simple trick of flipping north and south will suggest an alternative narrative to you; maybe it won’t. But if geographical trickery won’t do it, a delve into the past surely will.

We have historian Neil Oliver to thank for the atlas-upturning trick, in his fascinating new book, The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places. What could have been yet another box-ticking listicle in print form instead offers an eclectic sweep through British and Irish history, from the first known touch of humanoid feet on UK soil to the fragile collision of nature and technology at Dungeness.

The map-flipping is reserved for the chapter on the Ness of Brodgar on Orkney; rotate a page in the atlas, reckons Oliver, and:

‘...Orkney – and Shetland – are revealed as the hub of the wheel. For people on the move around northern Britain, north-western Europe and Scandinavia, those archipelagos appear like roundabouts, way stations en route from somewhere to everywhere else.’

Prized finds: Archaeologists have been excavating the Ness of Brodgar for 15 years

Some 5,000 years ago, Brodgar was London. What was assumed (until as recently as 2003) to be a natural whaleback of land forming part of the isthmus between the lochs of Stenness and Harray is instead a disguised mound of rubble, a vast complex of prehistoric buildings – the result of centuries of human habitation: construction, demolition, reconstruction.

The experts are still scratching their heads about the Ness of Brodgar, but the architecture and the pottery unearthed on-site is older than similar examples found elsewhere. In other words, the innovations created here may well have rippled southwards, to Stonehenge, Avebury, throughout the British Isles and probably beyond. At this point in history, Orkney was anything but peripheral. Instead it was central, leading, pioneering.

Any contemporary world whisky map would have a similar northern bias. In terms of the numbers, the power and the influence, the global scale, Scotch is at the centre of things, the hub around which much else revolves. Producers elsewhere may choose to emulate or consciously react against its example but, either way, Scotch retains its role as reference point.

Huge influence: The advances made on Orkney may have reverberated beyond the UK

With scale can come an appearance of permanence. Distillery numbers well into three figures (and rising), exports worth upwards of £4bn a year; it becomes hard to imagine a world without Scotch, even one in which Scotch takes a supporting role and allows another country of origin to move into the spotlight.

But we wouldn’t have thought that in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign, during that first period of mass distillery closures; nor during the Irish whiskey boom that followed when, less than 150 years ago, the most prized and popular whisky on the planet hailed from Dublin, not Dufftown.

We wouldn’t have thought it as the 19th century ticked over into the 20th, and the effects of the Pattison Crash reverberated throughout the industry; nor during the 1920s devastation of Campbeltown and beyond; nor, as recently as 35 years ago, when the last round of cuts claimed Port Ellen, Brora and many more distilleries as casualties. All of these events had their own causes and effects, but all can also be seen as forming part of the natural popularity cycle of any consumer product.

Famous victims: Brora and Port Ellen were casualties of whisky’s natural popularity cycle

It’s not that Scotch is in any immediate trouble right now; these remain good days for the industry, but the good days are the best times to ask questions, to explore new directions, for the industry to interrogate itself about how to do things even better, and create a product that resonates even more powerfully with consumers young and old.

Irish whiskey is resurgent, American whiskey booming, Japanese whisky more popular (although also arguably more troubled) than ever before; meanwhile, the world beyond whisky’s boundaries of convention, from Norfolk to the Nordics, is finding its own way, building in confidence. Perhaps the needle of the compass is already beginning to twitch.

Neolithic farmers continued to develop the Ness of Brodgar for at least 1,000 years, constructing two huge walls to mark it out as special, and to shelter it from the outside world over which it exerted so much influence.

No doubt, over the course of a millennium, there were numerous ups and downs, times of prosperity and poverty; nonetheless, behind those towering walls, the people who lived there may have grown to take its pre-eminence for granted, to believe that its supremacy was vouchsafed for eternity by whatever gods they worshipped.

Clearly, they were wrong.

I’m sitting there looking at the duck’s flipper on the plate in front of me. The first question buzzing in my brain is why? Judging by the reaction of my fellow diners, I’m on my own when it comes to considering the appendage a somewhat unusual addition to a dinner. After a week in China I thought I was inured to such arrivals, but every meal brings a new surprise.

‘Don’t ever ask what it is,’ old China hands have told me, ‘just eat it.’ But this is clearly a flipper and the question is still why? (although the supplementary how? is rapidly pushing it out of the way). Judging by my companions’ actions you just pick it up and bite.

Someone appears at my side. He’s holding a glass. Time for a toast. I stand up, we clink glasses and drain the whisky. I’m secretly hoping that he strikes up a conversation and the flipper will be whisked away and the next course set down. No chance. It’s still there.

I pick it up and bite. To be honest, there’s not much flavour, bar soy. The texture however is exactly what you expect. Chicken feet are crunchy. Duck flippers are… well… flippery. It’s a cultural thing.

Unique nose: Our perception of an aroma is based on our own personal experiences

Each of us interprets the world in different ways because our experiences are so varied. Upbringing, culture, preferences and aversions all impact how we read and speak about our experiences. Because of this, no two people will describe an aroma in the same way.

The downside of this is that trying to understand what someone means when they describe an aroma is akin to cracking a code. If we all say different things for the same smell — I smell a clean hamster cage in this glass, you smell porridge — then how can we reach some type of consensus, or understanding? We are both correct, but how do we understand what the other is saying?

One way is by creating an agreed terminology. My hamster cages and your bowl of porridge both mean ‘malty’. It’s a step in the right direction, while also reinforcing the point that you must trust your own nose.

Having this shared nomenclature is important, especially as we’re told that nosing a whisky is the most important element within ‘tasting’. Given this, there’s little surprise, then, that Richard Paterson’s conk is insured for US$1 million, just like Kim Kardashian’s arse (I apologise for the image this has created in your mind).

Sacred snifter: Dalmore master blender Richard Paterson's nose is allegedly insured for more than US$1 million

‘The nose knows’ makes sense if you are assessing a huge number of whiskies, but it’s a line which, I think, downplays the importance of the palate.

The same issues over language still apply in the mouth, because there we are dealing not just with smell but with taste, and specifically the fusing of those two senses into the thing we call flavour. There is however another sense which we overlook, that of touch.

A whisky doesn’t give all its secrets up at the same time. It develops and changes on the nose and in the mouth. What appears at the start of the tongue is different in the middle, and changes again at the end. There’s a journey, a narrative, and texture’s role in this is hugely significant — if underappreciated.

I’ve found out over the years that while smell is cultural (and therefore hard to translate), our sense of textures are shared. We will use different words to describe aroma and flavour, but we’ll agree about the whisky’s texture and the shape it makes in the mouth. It can be thin and sharp, or it can fatten in the middle of the tongue. It can whizz along, or slowly coat the mouth. We concur when smoke emerges, or at what point tannins grip.

If you ignore texture, you lose a significant element of the whisky’s story. Within texture lies a way to discover a common language. By thinking and talking about feel and shape, we can discuss more easily how things evolve on the palate.

That flipper now makes more sense. Asian cuisines always take texture into consideration. Foods are eaten not just because of their flavour, but because of complementary and opposing textures: soft, rigid, pliant, gluey and slippery. They are there to give the senses something else to think about, and to add to the overall balance of a meal. It’s the same in whisky. Being aware of feel and the way things change in shape, are both things we can share. Allow them to flow.

Now… back to the flipper.

The damp inside the cellar is palpable, seeming to soak into your lungs with every breath. As the light flicks on, it illuminates a scene of apparent desolation: rows of ancient, mould-encrusted casks, many with their chestnut hoops broken and pointing to the blackened rafters like the crooked fingers of a long-dead corpse.

It looks abandoned, derelict; but this is one of the ‘Paradis’ cellars at Cognac Frapin’s home, Château Fontpinot, where some of the casks are a century old, and some of the eaux-de-vie have rested for decades.

We move on to another cellar, this time upstairs. ‘I like this one,’ says Patrice Piveteau, Frapin’s cellar master. Here the air is drier, the warmth – even in the weak November sunshine – a welcome contrast.

Piveteau’s affection for this chai is partly due to its maturation conditions – it houses many vintage Cognacs, their casks splashed with the red wax seals used by the Cognac authorities to guarantee their authenticity – and partly to its stunning roof, with its huge, beautifully irregular, hand-cut beams and trusses.

Frapin is as close as Cognac gets to single malt. In a region dominated by big names (Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin, Courvoisier), where the prevalent business model is that of the négociant (buying in grapes, wine and/or spirit to bottle under your own name), Frapin goes the other way. 

Upstairs cellar: Drier conditions will give these vintage Cognacs greater finesse 

Every grape harvested from the 240 hectares of the company’s vineyards in the heart of the pre-eminent Grande Champagne sub-region is used to make Frapin’s Cognacs; nothing is bought in, nothing is sold on.

In an age when, more than ever, we want to know where our food and drink comes from and how it’s made, tracing the journey from soil to plate and glass, Frapin’s is a compelling back-story. But, for Piveteau, it’s one that comes with a challenge.

‘We have one range for everywhere in the world,’ he explains. ‘Frapin is not big enough to make segmentation – there is no variability through using different wine growers or different sub-regions. We do have two types of terroir, but they are both in the heart of Grande Champagne.’

In this context, the Frapin philosophy is almost puritanically restrictive, meaning that the only path to differentiation and diversity for Piveteau lies through maturation and, in particular, the age and location of the cask.

There are ‘new’ casks (up to five years old), in which the spirit will spend between six months and a year, with lots of interaction and flavour from the wood; casks of five to 15 years old, where the influence is more subtle and slow; and casks of 15 to 100 years old or more, where it’s all evaporation, oxidation and concentration.

Downstairs cellar: This damp ‘Paradis’ will make for a supple, rounded character

Then there are the cellars. Four groups of them, spreading the fire risk, but also giving Piveteau options. Some humid, promoting the loss of more ethanol than water; some dry, where the opposite occurs.

The former gives a rounded, supple Cognac; the latter something with a stronger character, but more elegance and finesse. ‘It’s a way for me to produce something different,’ explains Piveteau.

And in the glass? Frapin’s Cigar Blend has a full year in a new cask, which adds a touch of tannin, and is aged in a humid cellar, which tames any austerity and gives a richly rounded texture.

Meanwhile, Château de Fontpinot XO (six months in new oak, aged in a dry cellar) has classic Frapin fruit-and-flowers purity, underpinned by a firm structure and a supreme elegance. Go back to your empty glass after five minutes and a perfumed tobacco leaf aroma lingers.

This is as precise as Cognac gets in terms of provenance: vineyards, winemaking, distillation, maturation and bottling all in one place. But, as Piveteau is at pains to point out, the liquid remains a blend. ‘And to have a good blend, you need knowledge and a lot of stock,’ he says.

Single cask: But even single-property Cognacs like Frapin’s Fontpinot are still blends

‘It’s like painting – to have a good green, you need lots and lots of good blue and yellow.’ On average, the Cognac region has seven years of stock; Frapin has 16, scattered among the diverse cellars of Segonzac, Fontpinot, Chez Piet.

It’s an instructive example that should remind all of us about the true nature of single malt Scotch whisky. We spend so much time dissecting the singularity of what makes Laphroaig Laphroaig, or Glenfarclas Glenfarclas, that we risk forgetting the old truism about all single malts being, at their heart, a blend.

Where Piveteau plays around with cask age and location, a master distiller on Islay or Speyside tweaks cask types, ‘finishes’ and spirit maturity, combining whiskies of all hues in order to create complexity and maintain continuity of character.

It is a space where science and art collide, and where location and process are moulded by human judgement and experience into something greater than the sum of their parts.

Maybe if we all thought and talked of single malts in this manner – in terms of the plurality rather than singularity of their character – we might grow to understand and love them in a different way.

And maybe, just maybe, it might elevate the all-too-often maligned world of blends – without which, let’s remember, most single malts would long ago have become extinct – and restore them to their rightful place in the collective whisky consciousness.

It’s the same every week. There’s work to be done. So, I pour them out, cover them, wait, and then get started. Don’t rush, take your time, don’t force it – trying to nail that elusive aroma that’s on the tip of your nose often ends up with you falling over from inhaling too many fumes. It’s never good to collapse during a tasting. Learned that the hard way. It’s a routine, but a pleasant one.

Yes there should ideally be silence and no intrusive aromas, sounds etc. providing you with a sensory blank slate for the tastes and flavours to emerge. Simple really. Why then is it so hard?

Why does it work some days and not others? Why do the aromas fly out and hit you when you go through the same ritual, at the same time of day. It seems like the same conditions – but of course the conditions have changed because you are not the same today as you were yesterday. So you do the best you can and work at it, steadily.

Zen approach: Focus, analyse, but simultaneously relax into ‘not tasting’ (Photo: Proof on Main)

Concentrate, focus, you bugger. Go through the flight, get the initial impressions, go back, and compare one whisky against the others. Then go back again and compare another against the rest, but in a different order. Repeat. Write it all down.

Then taste neat. Think about texture, taste again, now work out how the flavours emerge across the tongue, what’s the structure, is it balanced, what happens on the finish, what can you tell about wood, maturity or oxidation, what of the distillery character, the positives, and faults? There are so many permutations. What’s the story, what’s the whisky trying to tell you about itself? Concentrate. Focus. Write. Rest. Add water, repeat. Rest. Repeat.

It’s revealing, it is necessary, but it is unnatural. You find yourself thinking about the mechanics of tasting: form, structure, aromas, acidity, fruit, complexity, balance. Boxes to tick. It’s at times like this that I wonder whether all this talk of sensory evaluation and tasting techniques are just putting more barriers between the whisky and the drinker.

I have to be uncharacteristically methodical in this, but while I’m concentrating I also realise that I’m also stopping thinking about what I am experiencing and am thinking instead of what the next box on the ticklist of techniques has to be. I’m thinking about the ‘tasting’, and not the whisky.

Recently though, I’ve done the session, covered the glass, walked off, and returned later. There’ll be music on, as I sit down again and sip. I’m not thinking about ‘tasting’ anymore, but relaxing with a dram. And, you know what? New things emerge, hidden qualities appear. I’ve been so busy thinking about how to untie the knots and find the secrets that I’ve missed the heart. It’s not drinking, rather it’s ‘not tasting’ which, unsurprisingly perhaps, sounds somewhat Zen.

Hang on Dave, you say (and not unreasonably, as I said it to myself just a moment ago), isn’t that just drinking? Not really. Drinking is when the whisky is part, an important part, but nonetheless just a part, of a wider experience. During the drinking you may suddenly taste, but tasting isn’t the main purpose.

‘Not tasting’ happens when you’ve allowed the technique to slip into the background, leaving just you, and the whisky, and the moment. I suppose that the ultimate aim is to have the focus there, but simultaneously not worry about it and relax into ‘not tasting’. The analytical side is important, but never at the expense of the enjoyment. It’s there in front of you. Just be open and aware.

I serendipitously discovered my favourite painting in Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado last week. I’d been told the art museum was just full of ‘old paintings’ and wasn’t worth my time, but it was a beautiful building and, with a day to kill in the city following the opening of Johnnie Walker’s new whisky store on Calle Serrano, I didn’t see the harm. Culture is good for the soul, after all.

Two things surprised me that day. Firstly, the discovery of Diego Velázquez’s towering seminal work, Las Meninas, hanging in the Prado’s lofty labyrinthine halls. The second was how much the discovery reminded me of a scene in Bean: The Movie (no, I didn’t sneeze on the painting!).

Depicting the young Princess Margarita Theresa being tended to by her babysitters as Velázquez himself looks on, Las Meninas has been described as one of the most important paintings in the history of Western art, and even as embodying the ‘theology of painting’.

The babysitters: Velázquez’s royal portrait (left) has been adapted multiple times by others, including Picasso (right)

The 1656 work has been studied, critiqued and even mimicked and explored by a string of artists since, most notably by Pablo Picasso, who painted 58 recreations of Las Meninas and its characters in 1957 alone. They now reside in Barcelona’s Museu Picasso, if you’re interested.

But it wasn’t the painting’s importance in the sinews of art history that drew me in. Not Velázquez’s delicate brushstrokes, the princess’ doll-like stature, nor the fact this work is considered a ‘Master’. I just like it. It spoke to me. And that was enough to keep me enthralled until a soft, authoritative (English) voice broke me out of my trance.

Narrating the painting’s importance to a crowd of tourists all sporting earphones, the guide explained: ‘See how the composition of the characters and the way they interact with one another, and even ourselves as viewers, makes us question the relationship between illusion and reality. But the true meaning of Las Meninas has eluded scholars until this day.’

Naturally, the elusiveness of meaning invites curiosity, as the tireless reproductions of the work can attest. According to Velázquez expert Jonathan Brown, who studied Las Meninas meticulously, ‘few paintings in the history of art have generated so many and varied interpretations as this’.

But Brown also added during a lecture in 2014: ‘I feel in my bones that I may be suffering from the early stages of LMFS – Las Meninas Fatigue Syndrome.’ Scholars could study and study one of the greatest pieces of art the world has known and still be none the wiser as to its meaning. The devoted, magnified study of a single subject without any meaningful conclusion is endless, ineffective and ultimately exhausting. Something that was once loved so affectionately becomes tiresome to embrace.

Look closer?: Mr Bean’s appreciation of art [here with Whistler’s Mother] exists on a basic level, but it’s appreciation nonetheless

It was this sentiment that reminded me of an exchange in Bean: The Movie. The haphazard Mr Bean, an incompetent art gallery security guard who continuously falls asleep on the job, is mistaken for an eminent art professor on a visit to the fictional Grierson Art Gallery in Los Angeles, much to Bean’s obliviousness.

Curator: ‘Tell me, Dr, what exactly is your position at the gallery?’

Bean: ‘Well I sit in the corner, and look at the paintings.’

Curator: ‘Ugh, that is brilliant. If only more scholars would do that – you know, just sit and look. Not lecture and write and argue. Just sit and look at the paintings themselves.’

Sometimes, all that’s needed is a simple reminder of what’s important. The same sentiment is true of whisky. How often has a cult bottling been dissected, analysed, tasted, reviewed and scored, discussed, debated and argued over to the point that we have lost sight of what its purpose is in the first place? Like art, whisky is there to be enjoyed.

The whisky world is throbbing with the noise of so many critical voices and opinions. We’re so busy arguing whether whisky should be chill-filtered, if malts from the ’60s are unparalleled, or drilling down into the intricacies of flavour creation that we stop appreciating whisky for the sake of pure enjoyment. How many of us have felt early-onset WFS – Whisky Fatigue Syndrome – settle in?

Ultimately, whisky’s meaning lies in our enjoyment of what’s in our glass. It’s time we were all a little bit more Bean, and took a step back to just enjoy the beauty in front of us.