Contents
p5
The week before Christmas we received official confirmation from the Scotch Whisky Association – the Scotch whisky trade’s governing body – that drinking whisky is good for you. Good news indeed. The ...
By Charles MacLean in the section
From the Editor
p7
Michael Jackson has a story of seduction, and a moral for all would-be seducers
The first year we shared bed and board, I greeted my girlfriend on Valentine’s morning with a glass of Champagne, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. We raised a toast with the Taittinger, she enjoyed t...
By Michael Jackson in the section
The Gospel According to Michael Jackson
p8
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 hom...
By Jim Murray in the section
The Gospel According to Jim Murray
p16
If you want to spend thousands on a bottle of whisky, head for an auction. Jonathon Goodall looks at what to collect, and how to finance some luxurious drinking.
Christie’s in Glasgow provides a valuable, indeed unique, service to whisky enthusiasts the world over. Twice a year, once in spring and once in autumn, it assembles a cornucopia of bottles, then thro...
By Jonathon Goodall in the section
Collecting Whisky
p22
The original John Walker supplied tea and biscuits, wine and whisky to the sober bughers of Kilmarnock; his descendant Sir Alec Walker built a bath big enough for Churchill. Charles Maclean looks at a family that took a giant leep.
The striding Regency dandy with a twinkle in his eye, so familiar from the Johnnie Walker label, was first sketched on the back of a menu card over lunch in London in 1908. The artist was Tom Browne, ...
By Charles MacLean in the section
Whisky Hero
p28
Sports commentator Jimmy Hill loves Glenlivet, Laphroaig and Scotland generally; so why don't the Scots like him more?
Jimmy Hill is a controversial figure in Scotland, especially to that country’s fanatical band of football supporters. Hill’s relationship with the tartan army has never been the same since he accused ...
By Tim Atkin in the section
Whisky Interview
p34
If you're going to age whisky in heavily scented olorose casks you need a powerfully flavoured spirit to start off with. Stephen Brook examines the elements that make up the Macallan, and how second-fill casks compare to first-fill
To create a drink that in under 20 years has achieved classic status is no mean feat, but that is the accomplishment of The Macallan. It was in the late 1960s that the Macallan managers, noting the su...
By Stephen Brook in the section
The inside track
p39
Michael Jackson visits Sherlock's Home in Minnesota: he loves the bar, hates the pun
After a drink or three in a restful bar, I can find myself in deep philosophical thought. You know the sort of thing: ‘What chance encounters brought me to this point in my life? Why am I here? For th...
By Michael Jackson in the section
Great whisky bars
p44
John D Lamond laments the rise of whisky collectors- unnatural creatures who should be forced to drink the stuff, and preferably share it with him.
There is one thing which I find very hard to accept and that is the collecting of full bottles of whisky. Collecting them solely, in other words, in order that they can sit on a shelf and be admired b...
By John Lamond in the section
Collecting Whisky
p50
Jim Murray goes in search of Whiskeytown and encounters more water than whiskey
One hundred and fifty years ago this year, America’s greatest gold rush began. The Forty-niners headed for California in their tens of thousands, doubling and doubling again the population of this rem...
By Jim Murray in the section
Whisky Travel
p52
Sixty per cent of the flavour of malt whisky comes from the wood in which it is aged, says Dave Broom-but what does American oak do that European oak doesn't? And what real effects does a fino cask have?
Virtually every malt distiller, these days, sends some whisky to finishing school. This takes the form of giving it a final polish in barrels made of a particular sort of wood. The influence of these ...
By Dave Broom in the section
Whisky Production
p58
Charles Maclean, glass in hand, continues his course in how to taste whisky
The way that you choose to drink whisky should of course be the way that you enjoy it most. Nevertheless, to appreciate your dram to the full, in all its glorious complexity, there is nothing better t...
By Charles MacLean in the section
Whisky Tasting
p74
The story so far at our fictional distillery: under the new ownership Andrew had to reapply for his own job. Ruth has informed Andrew of the discovery of several casks of pre-war whisky in an old cellar at the distillery. Earlier; a lorryload of Glenweevil was stolen. Now read on...
Andrew here. Or ‘Andy’, as our new English owners apparently prefer to call me. ‘Hi, Andy,’ said this slip of a girl, arriving from the airport with the rest of them. ‘Remember me? I’m Virginia. You’...
By Andrew Mcvie in the section
The Last Word
