Will we eventually have to leave Scottish shores in search of whiskies with personality?
Perhaps by way of compensating for the wheezing, frigid wind, and rain that strikes with an assassin’s stealth and ferocity, whisky companies have always released some jolly nice specimens at this time of intractable, dismal decline. Whether it is Diageo’s array of Special Releases - and the salivatingly tempting (if soberingly-priced) Lagavulin 21yo in particular, or the fourth rendition of Compass Box’s iconic Flaming Heart expression (want passionately), some whisky gems always appear at this point in the year.
However, today I intend to discuss not just new whiskies, but New World whiskies. A very interesting article appeared in the Scotland Sunday Times last month entitled: ‘Aussies scotch claims to best whisky’ (News section, Sunday September 16th. In fact, the debate surfaced on connosr.com in March, and continues to rage here). I stashed the piece to one side because I knew I wanted to discuss the matter it raised once I had finally put essays to bed.
Put simply, some voices from the recent distilling operations – notably in Australia – have attacked the ‘dumbed down’ malts some parties within the Scotch whisky industry are allegedly producing. As the category swells to encompass the globe, the argument is that quality and ‘personality’ are sacrificed. To meet demand and make profits, Scotch isn’t being made as it used to be, and is suffering as a result.
Tim Puett, an Australian independent bottler, asks whether the Scotchs of yesteryear are being ‘driven out by rationalisation, basic resource availability, and financial return?’ These questions are valid when bottles of Ballantines or Dalwhinnie pop up on the back bars of establishments from Sao Paulo to Shanghai. How could they maintain a given standard when chasing new markets so aggressively?
I intend to produce a defence of Scotch one the one hand, but a rallying cry for all whiskies more generally. I don’t believe Puett has set the right tone for his inquiry, or acknowledged as fully as he might have done that the category of Australian whisky could not have taken the form it has, or enjoyed such an immediate and largely positive reception, were it not in part for the ground broken by the industry based in Scotland. He talks of the pimple on the elephant’s back in the connosr piece, but the implications for this are far greater than a naturalistic metaphor. Though based on radically different business models, Scotch drove consumer curiosity in single malts while still maintaining chief focus on its blended products to crack new markets. This was not achieved with sub-standard juice, as the present continuing boom in single malt whisky surely attests to decades of fine bottlings. These Scotch whiskies were what inspired drinkers to explore the unexpected outposts of single malt hailing from overseas. Scotch is – and in blended form always has been – a spirit with a global personality, by which I mean certain flavours have always travelled the world and will continue to do so.
Not enough good examples of these kicking around?
Of course, I have not been drinking Scotch whisky for that long (it will be my five-year anniversary on Thursday), and so I cannot compare the likes of Highland Park 12yo or Talisker 10yo through the ages. I would expect their precise characters to have changed, although I naturally dislike the notion that this may well be for the worse and that I shall never sample spirit from those golden Halcyon days. But this nostalgia may be more romantic than apparent, and what I have come to accept is that for the last fifty years at least, the Scotch I enjoy has been made – and made possible as a varied product I can feasibly purchase - in large part thanks to volume and scales of production. The best of what is now a far more consistent product has charmed and inspired me: I do not look at a £30 bottle of Balvenie and rend my garments in anguish that it would be a superior dram were there a million fewer examples of it. And let’s not forget, when discussing whether producing more whisky more speedily and at a reduced cost makes for a poorer whisky, there is an interesting comparison to be made with start-up distilleries. Their costs will be necessarily higher and the need to bring a product to market is just as - if not more – pressing. This is the 21st century: these distilleries are businesses, too, and cannot survive on a philosophy.
Puett’s remark about ‘basic resource availability’ is most curious, however. If there are shortages in grain and casks, surely this ought to affect all distillers equally? Indeed, shouldn’t it prove a greater hindrance to the new guys, who don’t have these networks of resource acquisition quite as finely-honed as the established powers? Quality oak is a global, finite commodity, and everyone wants some. Surely those with bigger budgets and longer-standing relationships (e.g. Scotch) will muscle in ahead of the queue? I don’t buy the claim that start-up distillers work best from a supposed dearth of materials.
My final quibble is with the implicit contrast between Scotch as a category of mass-production and shareholders, and the New World as the home of boutique enterprises. Amongst the behemoths in Scotland, there are independent companies passionate about making themselves distinct, and harnessing centuries of distilling know-how to best effect. The number of Australian distilleries numbers 18 (see here) and not all of these can boast a mature product available outside Australia, although distribution of this exciting category is improving all the time. I can list just as many small or independent Scottish distilleries concentrating on producing a unique, high quality spirit without the primary focus being volume, of which Bladnoch, Daftmill, Kilchoman, BenRiach and GlenDronach, Benromach and Springbank are the most prominent examples. As one commenter beneath the original connosr post correctly stated, this is a prime period for unusual and exciting products emerging from Scotland. The entire category ought not to be slighted as ‘average’ (a potential future suggested by Dominic Roskrow in the Sunday Times article) because of its multifaceted activities. To boast the most vibrant and diverse blended whisky category in the world, iconic frontline single malts and small-scale producers is a singular achievement in a style as closely legislated as Scotch.
I can understand the more recent distillers trying to create a fuss about themselves, to make points of distinction and appeal to customers who maybe want something new. Scotch, however, assumes a dual responsibility in trying to keep the commercial aspects of the spirit healthy (which benefits all distillers internationally) as well as the connoisseurs happy. The former is not something the Larks, Bakery Hills and Amruts of this world have to worry about. I am not denigrating the up-and-coming distillers. I will always seek out new whiskies (I have an independently-bottled Lark to review later in the week), and I firmly believe that there is room for more exciting single malts on the shelves. I like it, too, when people shout about what they believe they are doing well but my point is that attacking the old guard is not the way to go about it. As Puett concedes, Scotch has had 1000 years to work out what its magic formula is: considerably longer than this - worthy but still nascent - movement in Australia.