Jim Murray knows one peculiar breed of Scotsman currently enjoying the wet conditions that are leaving thousands of Britons' homes under feet of water- the distiller
Was it only two and a half years ago that Scottish distillers feared for their future as Britain dried up? Was it just 1998 when the usually sodden people of Islay looked to sun-bleached skies and wondered when, if ever, they would see rain again?
My, my, how global warming can so quickly make time...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 15 published on 16/4/2001
Jim Murray mourns the loss of Cecil Williams, a man dedicated to whiskey and a much loved friend to the end.
It’s strange how fate will play its quirky little tricks on life. And how often are they unbearably sad. The other day I was talking to my octogenarian neighbour in England who observed that it is always the kind and truly decent people who die first. Just a few hours later I was to be reminded, hea...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 14 published on 16/2/2001
Jim Murray fears for the Japanese whisky industry which he believes could implode before whisky lovers sample all that it has to offer.
It is the land of the Rising Sun, home to sumo wrestling, Geisha girls, tremors, trains boasting extraordinary speed and punctuality, raw fish and, contrary to popular myth, some of the very best whisky in the world. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Japan.
And yes, you did read me right. In case you d...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 13 published on 16/12/2000
Jim Murray laments the demise of more distilleries
There is a tradition which says that you can tell the difference between each Scottish distillery just by looking at the individual white-washed warehouses.
On them, written large, are their famous old names painted bold and proud in sooted jet. These distilleries can be found dotted throughout the...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 12 published on 16/11/2000
Jim Murray muses on the role of two loves in his life.
Is there a more apposite place to write about whisky than a distillery, or perhaps an adjoining warehouse? The answer is a resounding “No!”
However, the location I’m at this very moment comes a pretty close second. I’m sitting amid buildings spanning Victorian, Edwardian and more modern eras. They...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 11 published on 16/9/2000
Jim Murray recounts a nasty case of whisky writer's block.§
There are so many things we all take for granted. Walking, for instance; the miracle of vision, hearing your children laugh. And from recent events I can now add the extraordinary pleasure of two among the most sensual of perceptions: the simple powers of taste and smell.
Most doctors will tell y...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 10 published on 16/6/2000
Jim Murray ponders the relationship between increased automation in whisky making and brand parity.
It was only a matter of time before people started noticing. And worrying. So it was no surprise when Whisky Magazine’s editor Jane Slade dropped me a line, "Can you help out on this one, Jim?" Too right I could.
It was a letter from James L Pickett, “Dear Editors: It is my understanding that Dalw...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 7 published on 16/12/1999
Why Jim Murray is talking to the phoenix
I had seen snippets of film and countless photographs. But nothing had prepared me for this. I sat on my own staring at a television screen within the expanded Oscar Getz Whiskey Museum in Bardstown, Kentucky. And what I watched made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach: the death of a great distil...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 6 published on 16/10/1999
Even Jim Murray can be fooled into thinking a whisky is better than it is
There is a lot to be said about drinking whisky in situ. Whisky is a romantic subject; and what can be more engaging than drinking the water of life at the very place where it is conceived?
But it is a practice fraught with danger. How many times have you come home and opened the wine, spirit or l...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 5 published on 4/8/1999
Jim Murray, spurred by a reader's letter, considers alleged conflicts of interest
Many years have passed since I first discovered that embracing the whisky cause could be (believe it or not) a painful (both physically and emotionally) and thankless duty. People find it very hard to understand that there can be a sense of fulfilment more important than money in leading converts to...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 4 published on 13/6/1999
It is time for Irish whiskey to abolish the blamey and stand on its own three feet, says Jim Murray
It is nearing midnight. A glass of local whiskey sits by my laptop, the bottle half drained. Outside, the wind is howling; if I were daft enough to open the window, even supposing I could in the face of such ferocious winds, I’d be soaked by the salty spray of the Atlantic dashing itself against the...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 3 published on 13/5/1999
Jim Murray beomans a legal spat over a barrel, from which only the solicitors and whisky experts will gain
There are times these days when I don’t feel that I’m a whisky writer at all, but an umpire.
Every time, it seems, that I return from a jet-lagging jaunt to some obscure distillery, I am welcomed home by about 60 pages of faxed messages. You can bet that the gloomiest of them all will be from a law...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 2 published on 16/3/1999
Jim Murray describes the horror of being offered plastic tasting glasses too tiny and too primitive even for wine, never mind whisky
It has happened three times so far this year. As we enter the run-up to Christmas it will doubtless happen again. What we are talking about here is something so horrific, so utterly contemptible and breathtakingly philistine that I’m not sure bringing the topic up is a good idea for the more squeami...
By Jim Murray
from Issue 1 published on 12/1/1999
