Whisky galore
In recent years, the quality and diversity of whiskies being produced around the world, both in its traditional heartlands and far beyond, has been growing at pace. With the help of some local experts, the Journal explores the current state of this most evocative of drinks
Words: Viel Richardson
“What really fascinated me was the kind of people who were asking for whisky,” says Sukinder Singh, co-founder of The Whisky Exchange, recalling his days growing up in his parents’ shop. “They seemed a bit more interesting, more considered. There was less of the ‘I just want a drink’ that I would hear from some of the people who were buying other spirits. I would find myself wondering about what kind of lives they led once they left the shop.”
It is rather apt that the spirit that captured his imagination is also known as the ‘water of life’—‘uisge-beatha’—in the Gaelic speaking lands from which it emerged, a birth that is itself shrouded in mystery and myth. Nobody knows exactly when or where the first whiskies were made. The earliest references to its production come from Scotland. Some think the art of distilling came across from mainland Europe, others that it arrived with monks from Ireland, and there is nothing to suggest the Scots didn’t figure out the process all by themselves on some shrouded highland glen.
The earliest documentary evidence of whisky being produced dates from 1494 when an entry in the Scottish royal exchequer rolls of James IV stated: “To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt.” A ‘boll’ was an old Scottish measure, and while conversion into modern units can be difficult, historians generally agree that this quantity of malt would have made around 1,500 70cl bottles today. Whisky was clearly very popular at court.
The drink became so popular that the Scottish government imposed its first ‘whisky tax’ in 1664. While reliable taxation of alcohol producers has proved challenging in the subsequent three centuries, tax records remain the best source for estimating whisky production. In recent years, demand for scotch whisky—a name that can only be used to describe whisky made in Scotland—has been soaring, from every corner of the globe. According to HM Revenue and Customs, exports of scotch reached a record £4.7 billion in 2018, with the United States becoming the first country to import over £1 billion-worth.
“I can understand this growth in popularity. One of the wonderful things about whisky is that there are now thousands of different options out there,” Sukinder explains. “It means that the phrase ‘whisky is not for me’ is not quite as sustainable as it used to be. One can be very elegant, another more peaty and robust, some have heavy sherry notes from being matured in sherry casks. There is just so much variety, people almost always find something they like.”
Growth of world whisky
Scotch whisky has maintained its place at the top table, but the growth of ‘world whisky’—the industry term for spirits made outside of the drink’s traditional heartlands—is one of the stories of the moment. Every year, the Whisky Exchange organises a trade show that showcases the work of distillers from all over the world, and the list of exhibitors has been growing. “In the last show there was whisky from Israel, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Taiwan, India, as well as established countries like America and Japan,” Sukinder says. Of these, one in particular has had a notable impact, he explains: “There is no doubt that Japan has had a significant role to play in the way that world whisky has evolved.”
The story began with Masataka Taketsuru, a chemist and businessman, who became the first Japanese master whisky distiller. His family had been brewing sake in Hiroshima since 1733, so the drinks business was not new to him. After studying organic chemistry in Glasgow, he joined Longmorn distillery in Strathspey in 1919, then moved to the Bo’ness distillery and finally the Hazelburn distillery before returning to Japan. There, he became master distiller for Kotobukiya, later renamed Suntory, and produced Japan’s first ever Scottish style whisky. In 1934, he left to found his own distillery, Dai Nippon Kaju KK, in Hokkaido, which he identified as the area of Japan that was most like Scotland. He later renamed the company Nikka. Today, it is Japan’s second largest distillery.
“Japanese whisky opened people’s minds to the possibility of great whisky coming from new places,” says Sukinder. “I guarantee if India or Israel had launched whiskies before the Japanese, it would not have been received in the same way as it is today. World whisky has a great deal to thank the Japanese for.”
And it has started to thank them profusely. In 2003, a bottle of Yamazaki 12-year-old single malt, produced by Suntory, became the first Japanese whisky to win the gold medal at the International Spirits Challenge, the world’s most prestigious drinks competition. The year before, Hibiki, another Suntory label, had won the World’s Best Blended Whisky prize at the World Whiskies Awards for the fourth time. It took nearly 70 years of hard work, but Japanese whisky has very much arrived.
“The Japanese were very clever in the way they went about developing their whisky,” Sukinder continues. “While they were learning, they didn’t publicise or export anything they made. They also created whiskies aimed at the Japanese consumer. They developed a whisky to be drunk with food, the way the Japanese have traditionally drunk sake. Japanese food is very delicate—things like sushi, yakitori and tempura, all of which are light and flavoursome. In developing their whisky this way, they created a drink that was very fruity and elegant and which crucially had its own distinct character.”
Traditional end of the spectrum
So, how has the old country responded to this wave of newcomers, with their fresh ideas and perspectives? Scotland has been the undisputed epicentre of the whisky world for centuries, but that position is now being challenged. According to Steve Worrall from Cadenhead’s, Scotland’s oldest independent bottler, whose shop and tasting room can be found on Chiltern Street, the Scottish distilleries cannot afford to be sitting on their laurels. “I would definitely say that we are at the more traditional end of the whisky spectrum,” Steve explains. “For us, it’s not about being a ‘disruptor’ in the market or ‘getting ahead of the curve’. We try to stay true to the philosophies we have always had. But what that cannot mean is stagnation.”
Cadenhead’s continues to innovate, but according to Steve that means “looking at the things we do well and finding ways to do them even better”. Anyone who has been on a tour of a whisky distillery will know that the process is essentially a simple one, but like most simple processes it is extremely difficult to do well. There are a million small things that need to go right, and while improving these can have an impact on the final drink. “We need to get a better understanding of what we have done in the past, why it works, and see if we can make use of new knowledge, processes and materials to do it better.” The aim, Steve says, is to produce whiskies that are complex, balanced and have new nuances, but which still retain the old spirit of Cadenhead’s.
There is one area in particular in which innovative thinking can pay dividends: barrel management. When whisky first comes out of the still, it is a colourless liquid devoid of the complex array of flavours we know and love. It is then aged in barrels that have been used to store other drinks. As it matures, the whisky reacts with the wood, drawing out the flavours embedded within it. “Whisky makers have become so much better at understanding and managing their barrels in recent years and this is having a great effect on the whisky we are producing,” Steve explains. “The main thing is not allowing the barrels to become exhausted. You might do this by re-charring them—literally setting the inside alight to char the inner surface and then washing out the soot with water—or you might send the barrels away to have something like a rum stored in them again for a while.”
Drinks like cachaça, cognac, calvados and a wide variety of different rums are all stored in barrels, and Steve believes the industry should be looking at these as a resource, experimenting with them, seeing what they can bring to the new whiskies. Barrel management is a change that can be managed in a systematic way, making it easy to control, assess and then replicate the results—the only problem being that it takes upward of a decade for the results to be known. “We have one whisky that is being matured in mescal casks. We are going to bottle it in Mexico to keep its provenance,” Steve reveals. “For me, this is a really exciting area and is only going to get more so. For example, we currently have some whisky that is being aged for 10 years in casks that held some exquisite cachaça—we’ll be finding out the results in the next five years.”
While Steve and his colleagues do have a space in which they can innovate, they must do so within the stringent guidelines that govern the production of scotch. “There is an honesty and purity in scotch whisky,” says Sukinder. “There are very strict rules controlling the ingredients, process and storage. They are there to protect the integrity of the product and I believe they are doing a very good job.” That same stringent control is not always applied elsewhere in the whisky world. “With American whisky, the rules are a bit more open and people are allowed to add flavourings, like cinnamon or sugar,” he explains. “I must stress I’m not talking about bourbon, which is produced under very strict rules, but the rules around American whisky are generally less stringent, so it has developed into a very different beast to classic scotch. India is the same, with rules that are very open.”
Hard-won reputation
Among traditionalists, there is a belief that some of the more inventive drinks coming from other parts of the world should not even be called whisky. They maintain that part of the reason that scotch whisky was able to recover from the doldrums of the 1970s, when consumption and quality were both at a painful low, was that the positive changes that took place did so within a set of rules that producers understood and people could trust. It was this revival that created a marketplace in which newcomers could thrive, but straying too far into gimmicky ideas and artificial flavourings risks undermining the drink’s hard-won reputation.
The general outlook, though, is positive. “I would definitely consider myself in the traditionalist camp,” Sukinder tells me, “but new people coming into the field do bring a real energy. Every week I find something new and I think that is great.” He believes that the standard of 10-year-old to 12-year-old single malt whisky is at an all-time high. A decade ago it could be a bit inconsistent, or in some cases downright poor, a result, he says, of distilleries being caught out by the sudden surge in demand and using ingredients of lesser quality than those they would previously have sourced.
Another reason for the increase in quality has been the consumer. As their taste for whisky has grown, so too has their level of knowledge. Drinkers are demanding consistently high quality and the producers are having to respond. “You have to have a wide range of top quality whiskies in a good bar these days,” says Musa Ozgul, bar manager at 108 Bar on Marylebone Lane. “Of course, there has to be scotch and Irish whisky. But you need some Japanese and American, too, because people are now coming in and asking for them specifically.”
Drinks like American bourbon and rye are increasingly popular among British drinkers, as are world whiskies. The key has been that many of the new producers, like those Japanese pioneers, are not trying to copy the characteristics of the other producers but instead producing something that reflects their own culture and environment. “Countries like India, Australia and Sweden are producing fine whiskies that you cannot get anywhere else. We get an international clientele here and they are beginning to ask for whiskies they have come across on their travels,” Musa explains.
One unforeseen beneficiary of this innovation and diversification has been the whisky cocktail. For years, names like manhattan, old fashioned, mint julep, highball and whisky sour would have had bartenders reaching for the cheaper whiskies—but not anymore. “Of course, there are some premium whiskies that I would not recommend for cocktails, because their particular qualities would be lost when mixed,” says Musa. “But you can now really tailor the cocktail to the guest’s tastes because the variety you have to choose from is so much greater than it used to be.”
No longer is whisky a drink enjoyed purely by the older generations. “When I look at the average age of people buying our whisky, it is getting younger,” says Sukinder. “The lovely thing is that for them it is not getting blind drunk, it’s about appreciating the quality of what we produce. Seeing this responsible whisky drinking in younger people is a great sign for the future of the industry.”
Steve also sees a bright future. “You are selling a product that you have to mature for years, so you have to plan ahead. We know which whiskies are due to be released in 2023 or 2027, and we are already very excited about them,” he says with real pride. “The foundations of Cadenhead’s were laid with the skills and integrity of past generations. It is our job to build on those, to ensure that the next generation can take over something that allows them to continue creating wonderful whiskies.”