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Perhaps it’s because of what we British call the ‘silly season’, but over the summer months I seem to get a larger than normal number of calls from national journalists wanting to write about whisky.
This has always intrigued me because you’d expect the winter months to stir up the urge to write about Scotch. But no.
Since Easter there have been a regular number of calls and they have been provoked by two quite distinct trends: the emergence of the whisky cocktail in fashionable society, and the number of whisky brands entering the market place with seemingly wacky names that are clearly aimed at a younger drinking market.
Whisky Magazine has been at the forefront of the cocktail coverage over the last two years and we’re not surprised that the trend is filtering down to style bars across the land: way back in 2003 the likes of Jonathan Downey and Henry Besant were talking to us about the challenges single malts present to the serious mixologist.
So it’s highly satisfying to read Australian Naren Young’s piece in this issue showing how the trend has stretched across the globe and how many bar managers are now looking as much towards London for ideas as they are to the likes of Dale DeGroff in New York.
Indeed so good are the new wave of cocktails that even some of the purists are admitting that they’re playing an important role in bringing new drinkers to the single malt sector.
The second trend is the marketing of whisky to the fashion sector through appealing marketing initiatives.
There have been a spate of these recently, such as Monkey Shoulder from William Grant, J&B -6°C from Diageo, Compass Box’s Peat Monster and Bruichladdich with Flirtation, Rocks, Infinity and 3D. And whatever you think of them, they’re getting people and journalists talking and generating magazine and newspaper coverage in the process. Gimmicky?
I would argue not. At least not yet.
In actual fact the weirdest name in the bunch, Monkey Shoulder, has all the heritage a whisky name could ever want, referring as it does to the nickname for a temporary industry suffered by maltmen before technology helped eradicate it.
Providing that the packaging doesn’t get tacky, and the product inside the bottle meets acceptable standards, we should applaud any initiative that attracts interest and helps draw people away from the vodka and gin sectors.
I have argued ever since I started here that it is over simplistic to say that single malt whisky doesn’t really appeal to younger drinkers because it is an acquired and older taste.
That might be part of it, but there are two other key factors in the mix: one, that younger drinkers see the sector as old and boring; and two, they don’t understand it and either wouldn’t know where to start or have dabbled in one area, not liked it, and dismissed the rest.
In this day and age, when our taste buds have been exposed to extremes in food from across the world, the young consumer will try anything. Many of them already know bourbon. Why shouldn’t Scotch appeal?
And indeed, it can and does, and the likes of Monkey Shoulder provide the proof.
The next step is of course is to open the new generation to the delights of single malt. That’s the job for every one of us who are there already.
We’ve all had to make that step at some time the past. Don’t we have a duty to help those less fortunate than ourselves enter through the gates of Elysium?
