Single malt whisky
Wrong! Whisky is ultra-sexy and now aimed at under-35s who boast big disposable incomes. It's crossed over in a big way - and in hip and trendy clubs from Miami's South Beach to London or Shanghai, any barista worth his salt is shaking, stirring or tossing a wicked whisky-based cocktail for a beautiful young thing.
Cape Town's very own trendy chef Bruce Robertson has recently made newspaper headlines, touting his decadent chocolate desserts that are served with viscous, ice-cold Johnnie Walker Gold.
This cold serve is supposed to bring out the whisky's heathery honeyed flavours.
Yet this glitz and glamour is worlds apart from whisky's origins. Although it's widely accepted that it was the Irish who first distilled the product, even they admit that the hairy-legged lads in scratchy kilts, the Scots, marketed the product more effectively, particularly after American Prohibition was abolished.
"Whisky has become an industrial process," says Mark Reynier, MD of privately owned Islay distillery Bruichladdich, pointing out that the industry is dominated by three ginormous companies - Diageo, Pernod Ricard and Allied Domecq (itself now absorbed into Pernod Ricard and Fortune Brands) - whose only concern is ultimately the budget and the bottom line. "The background to the current market is that these companies wanted people to drink blended whisky because it was easier to market and to produce. Single malt is more expensive to produce and requires more focused effort so was therefore suppressed for years in a Stalinesque move. But the interest in single malts has exploded from 1% of the market to more than 12% in the past 15 years."
The South African market reflects this trend, having always being dominated by blended whiskies such as Bells, White Horse, Johnnie Walker, Dewar's, J&B,
Black and White, Grant's, Famous Grouse... For many years Bells and J&B accounted for two-thirds of all annual blended whisky sales. Indicative of current economic growth and more disposable income, the Rainbow Nation is now back in the world top 10 for whisky sales after a few years out in the wilderness. (South Africa is sought after as a good test bed for new products because the buying patterns here are a good reflection of how the product will perform elsewhere.)
The focus in the past decade or so has been on marketing single malts because of the fantastic growth in interest and, consequently, sales. Consumers know the basic whisky taste and are now demanding something more - a range of unique products which speak of special distillation, distinct distilleries and locations, and the influence of "terroir" by means of water and peat. Further distinction has even occurred between Highland, Lowland and Island malts.
Earlier this year I visited Scotland to pursue just a few of these sought-after products.
Islay
After consulting South Africa's whisky oracle - trained distiller Dave Hughes - I settle on a blitz visit to Islay, home of seven distilleries. The other Hebridean islands also boast distilleries, but none quite as many as Islay. On Skye there's Talisker while on Arran there's the Arran distillery (but with seven golf courses!). Similarly Jura boasts the Jura distillery while Tobermory distillery is found on the island of Mull.
The only access to Islay is by ferry from Kennacraig on the Scottish mainland to either Port Ellen or Port Askaig, or by flying there - in a small plane. Islay is the southernmost of the Hebridean isles and far less touristy than Mull or Skye. While it initially strikes visitors as a bleak place, there's a wildness and untamed quality which makes it appealing in the "get away from it all" sense. Yet it's a rich isle - in bird life (180 species), wildlife (deer hunting is a popular pastime) and particularly in marine life. The seafood is sought after - particularly the fat, rich scallops which thrive in the cold waters.
No-one can question Islay's richness in distilleries, with Ardbeg, Laphroaig and Lagavulin almost adjacent to one another in the south; Caol Illa and Bunnahabhain in the north; Bruichladdich in the west; and Bowmore in the centre.
What sets Lagavulin, Ardbeg and Laphroaig apart from other Islay malts is the prevalence of smoky peatiness in the spirit. This is attributed to both the malting the barley receives as well as the water. Many a pitched battle has been fought over water rights and Lagavulin has had exclusive use of water from the peaty Solan loch in the hills above Lagavulin Bay for years. This particular whisky is not for the faint-hearted with its distinctive kelpy, smoky, almost oily, medicinal flavour. It's a "love it or hate it" whisky - and the fact that the distillery runs 24/7 every week of the year speaks volumes for its popularity. But the process is never rushed - distillation in Lagavulin's unique pear-shaped stills takes five and nine hours respectively.
This 63% spirit then spends a minimum of 16 years in oak casks before having its alcoholic strength reduced to the legal minimum (40% for the UK and 43% for the rest of the world) and being bottled. In spite of being in full production Lagavulin can barely keep up with demand and supplies the world over are limited.
The Bruichladdich story
The most interesting malt on Islay must surely be Bruichladdich (pronounced
Brook- laddie) where whisky is made exactly as it was in the 1880s. It is distinctly
different to its smoky southern counterparts in its ethereal floral delicacy.
Its recent history reads like a novel - a real tale of bloody-mindedness and
derring-do, with a dash of international espionage thrown in too.
The edited version of the long story is that British wine merchant Mark Reynier
and his brother embarked on an island-hopping golf and cycling adventure. The
mission was to cycle and play their way around the Hebridean islands with just
four golf clubs strapped to the cross bars of their bicycles.
Reynier admits he was not a whisky man until a "Damascene moment"
tasting Bruichladdich in London. "It was the first time that I thought
a whisky offered the same nuances and complexities that a top Burgundy or Bordeaux
did."
So on this island-hopping, tour they visited Bruichladdich - or tried to.
"The gates were chained up but I saw someone in the courtyard and called
out, asking if we could look around."
Reynier was told in no uncertain terms to, as he delicately puts it, "Eff
off! And I was so incensed that when I returned to London I wrote a very polite
letter offering to buy the company."
He received an equally courteous "thanks, but no thanks" reply from
owners InverGordon. From 1989 this became an annual event. "I'd return
from my Christmas holidays and, around New Year, write the letter offering to
buy Bruichladdich. My letters become less and less polite - as did their replies..."
The nature of the Scotch whisky business is such that distilleries are gobbled
up by ever-bigger concerns in the interests of consolidation. So Bruichladdich
found itself in the Whyte and Mackay stable and then the Fortune Brands portfolio
before the distillery was finally deemed uneconomical and closed down in 1994.
Reynier kept up the correspondence though and, in 2000, after a decade of offers,
he received a "yes". It took him and partners Simon Coughlin and Gordon
Wright a year to raise the money but it meant that when the deal went through
Bruichladdich was sold, lock, stock and heaps of barrels - with the spirit cache
going all the way to 1964! "There was 1,2 million litres of spirit in stock,
so we basically got the buildings chucked in for free. Everyone - the bank included
- thought we were nuts."
It took six months to renovate and refurbish but the first distillation took
place in May 2001 by master distiller Jim McEwan, a man with 40 years' experience.
That same year Bruichladdich was voted Distillery of the Year and repeated the
feat in 2003 when it also produced the Single Malt of the Year.
Reynier and the Bruichladdich team have coupled tradition and innovation with
remarkable success. The distillery was built in 1881 and none of the methods
has changed. The distillery is still run with original Victorian machinery,
right down to the mill's leather drive belt. Next year a malting floor is being
reintroduced because Bruichladdich wants to control every step of the process
and keep it as natural and traditional as possible. They already do not rush
the distillation, no colouring is added, there's no chill filtration, they do
their own bottling, and bottle according to taste - which explains their range
of 10 different styles, with peating ranging from three parts per million (ppm)
to a weighty 40ppm!
"We set ourselves a few parameters. We wanted to only make whisky from
Scottish barley [whereas industry demand means much barley is sourced overseas
- from places like Sweden]. All ours is from the east coast of Scotland or Islay.
We actually encouraged a farmer to plant barley specifically for us, just two
miles from the distillery. It's farmed organically and on soils that hadn't
been planted for 20 years.
"People think I'm nuts when I talk about 'terroir' in reference to whisky,
but the proof is in the pudding," he says, putting four whiskies in front
of me.
Sample one is made from standard Scottish barley. Sample two is organic barley
farmed near Inverness while sample three is organic Islay-grown barley and sample
four is from ultra peated barley.
All are cask-strength Bruichladdich whiskies, all distinctly different in flavour,
palate weight and viscosity, and it's the first time I am able to equate a whisky
tasting to a wine tasting with markedly different flavours and complex little
nuances. Where other distilleries opt for continuity and standardisation of
"house style", Bruichladdich goes for vintage differences. It's a
real eye-opener.
"That's what the whisky is like now ...a year or two after distillation.
Imagine what they'll be like in 10 years time!"
So what about the espionage and "weapons of mass destruction"?
"I still chuckle about it," Reynier says.
Although very traditional in their approach to making whisky, Bruichladdich
is very modern in other respects - such as the differentiation of styles, marketing
'aperitif' and 'digestif' whiskies and in its 16 web cameras dotted throughout
the distillery, allowing web users to monitor the process.
"We first realised something was up when we received notification from
a web-user that one of our cameras wasn't working." It turned out to be
from the DTRA - or the Defence Threat Reduction Agency, out of Langley, Virginia,
in the United States... Apparently the Victorian machinery and processes had
been deemed "somewhat suspicious" and the nervy, post 9/11 Americans
had construed the operation as similar to the manufacturing process of weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) so was keeping a wary eye on them.
Of course, Bruichladdich didn't let that one slide and did a special WMD bottling
- a Whisky of Mass Distinction - which was duly reported in The Times, Telegraph,
Scotsman and BBC!
(Check out the website at www.bruichladdich.com for live webcam broadcasts,
to view their range or access more information.)
Off to the Speyside
The river Spey meanders through some of the most beautiful countryside in Scotland.
Gentle rolling hills, forests, green pastures full of frisky newborn lambs,
daffodils or the occasional strikingly beautiful russet-coloured pheasant...
This is hunting, fishing and walking country - and also home to more than half
of Scotland's distilleries.
The Glenlivet
Being based at Minmore House on the Crown Estate of Glenlivet, it makes sense
to visit the distillery next door. Originally established by George Smith in
1824, the Glenlivet is now part of the Pernod Ricard stable.
Smith was one of the great characters of the early legal days of distilling,
along with Lewis Cumming of Cardhu. These giants were ultimately responsible
for Glenlivet and Johnnie Walker (Cumming).
The distillery runs 24/7, producing around 1,5 to 2 million litres of spirit
annually. Its 10 warehouses are packed to the rafters with 65 000 barrels -
not only with Glenlivet either. There's Glen Grant, Strath Isla and Aberlour
too. Tales of distillery fires and explosions are all too common, so this sharing
of warehousing is a smart move, ensuring that total production of any one whisky
is not lost.
Glenlivet is the number one single malt in the United States and Canada, while
only Glenfiddich pips it at the post in other markets.
Glenfiddich
A true family operation, the Grant family built the distillery itself. Just
nine pairs of hands moved 750 000 stones in its construction - all of which
is faithfully recorded in a dramatic black and white video re-enactment, detailing
the family's involvement and the growth of the brand.
The first drops of the most popular single malt in the world flowed on Christmas
Day in 1887. Nowadays anyone visiting the visitor's centre in Dufftown will
be amazed at the slickness of the operation. Distillation goes on as hundreds
of visitors are efficiently walked through both the process and the distillery
- with a free dram or two to sample at the end.
The shop offers a mind-boggling array of merchandise - and is one of only two
outlets currently for the newly released Glenfiddich malt whisky liqueur, the
other being Aberdeen airport duty free. A concoction of malt whisky and heather
with "a special blend of herbs" it is an interesting drink that glides
smoothly across the palate.
Knockando
There is something surreal about walking around this distillery, where the heart
of the J&B is produced, with snow being driven down on a blustery wind -
while discussing Cape Town's fabulous summer weather and the J&B Met with
distillery manager Innes Shaw.
The Gaelic translation of cnoc-an-dhu means "little black hill". And
it's at the base of this hill, next to a rushing Spey, that the distillery was
established by John Tyler in the late 1800s. His prosperous boom went bust around
the turn of the 20th century, when Knockando became the property of the brothers
Walter and Alfred Gilbey. The Gilbeys had made their fortunes as wine merchants,
notably importing fine wines from the Cape Colony! It was in the 1960s that
United Wine Traders, formed by Justerini & Brooks, took over Gilbeys, resulting
in a company called International Distillers and Vintners. It's now one of 27
distilleries owned by Diageo.
This history explains the presence of Knockando at the centre of the ever-popular
J&B whisky.
Cardhu
A spring blizzard is in full spate when I visit Cardhu. The snow is being driven
sideways by powerful gusts, turning the flakes into icy little bullets, but
I just keep on walking - right up to a cosy fireplace for my meeting with distillery
manager Ian Williams.
Although initially established as a farm distillery by Lewis Cumming, Cardhu
was bought by John Walker & Sons in 1893. The Walkers recognised the unique
nature of the spirit distilled at Cardhu and not only expanded the operation
but also modernised the distillery frequently.
"The element that distinguishes Johnnie Walker for me, is the courageous
way we talk about our product," says Williams. "Drink it any way you
wish! If it means mixing the red label with Coca Cola as they do in Spain, fine.
If it means having a cold serve of gold - great! There's something in the range
for everyone - the red, black, blue, green and now gold - and I think it's blinkered
to say to people that it should only be drunk with water or ice."
So when next you think of whisky - think mini-skirted funky young thing sipping
on a Capirisky or a whisky and cola - and having a damn fine time too!
