Germany<\/a>, for example, now has more whisky distilleries than Scotland,\u201d he notes. Now that was a surprise. Mind you, it seems quantity does not necessarily translate into quality. \u201cMost of them are pretty small, and some of them are not very good,\u201d he chuckles.<\/p>\nIndeed, this Start-Up Nation of ours appears to be gaining ground in yet another field. I recall purchasing a bottle of Israeli whisky not long after the scene began here, around 10 years ago. It was pretty poor. But not that many years down the road, our distilleries can joust with the best of them.<\/p>\n
Simpson is not surprised it took some time before we got our whisky-making act together. \u201cIt takes a while to get the equipment right, to get the processes right. But that\u2019s what you have to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Producing quality alcohol, particularly whisky, is a tricky business. Thankfully, there\u2019s no AI fast-tracking route to a quality bottom line, at least to date. Perhaps there\u2019s something special in the air, the water, the streams, and soil there north of the English border.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve just had the experience of years and years of doing it,\u201d Simpson puts it simply. The proof of the pudding, or the beverage, is right there to be sampled. \u201cYou go to a distillery, and they say, \u2018This is how we do it.\u2019 Then you ask why, and they say \u2018Well, we\u2019ve done that since we opened in 1823\u2019 or whatever,\u201d Simpson laughs. And it works, he may have added.<\/p>\n
The craft of whisky making comes across as a delicate balancing act between art, intuition, and science. The latter, says Simpson, is playing an ever-growing part in the process, even as the folks in his native land, often scions of a long line of whisky makers, continue to feed off the rich local heritage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe science, now, is a lot better, compared with 50 years ago. There\u2019s a lot more scientific knowledge and research about things. And there\u2019s the experience of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The global ambassador invokes the aforementioned street-level triad. \u201cYou need all three [of art, intuition, and science]. Science is more and more important. A lot of distilleries now are completely computerized, so the distillery worker now just presses buttons.\u201d<\/p>\n
That, to my romantic technophobic-leaning mind, sounds anathema to the idea of whisky being the beloved end product of decades, if not centuries, of tried-and-tested knowledge passed down from father to son, as one generation entrusts secret recipes, accrued experiential wisdom, and evolving pertinent DNA to the next.<\/p>\n
Simpson, with his long timeline in the field, is well positioned to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the hi-tech school of thought and the traditionalist, more Mother Nature-aligned approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s okay,\u201d he generously suggests, referencing the streamlined, computer-controlled process take.<\/p>\n
But there is a price to pay for the hands-off production route. \u201cWhat it means is the quality of the whisky, shall we say, is in a narrower range. You never get the really awful casks, like you used to get 50 years ago. But it\u2019s really difficult to get the really stellar ones now, because it\u2019s in a narrower range.\u201d<\/p>\n
That, naturally, suits the profit-and-loss-sheet-conscious ethos. \u201cFor most of the big companies, that\u2019s all they want. They want standard, standard, standard. The big whisky companies are not single malt companies. They\u2019re blended companies. For them the malts are just raw ingredients.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that Simpson is an out-and-out single malt snob. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with blends. There\u2019s Chivas Regal. Some of the Chivas Regal blends are very, very good. And it\u2019s an art. The art of blending is producing something that\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simpson\u2019s own employer is in on the fusion game, too. \u201cWe\u2019ve got our own premium blend called Black Bull. That\u2019s great whisky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simpson also enlightened me about the company\u2019s modus operandi, as a bottler. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a distillery, and we never have. We source whisky, mature it, and when we think it\u2019s ready we bottle it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fact that Duncan Taylor isn\u2019t involved at the very outset of the process does not mean it can\u2019t guide the process toward a specific product objective. That is largely down to the hardware.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of control. We\u2019re perhaps the only independent bottler in Scotland with our own cooperage, to maintain and look after the quality of the casks.\u201d<\/p>\n
One cannot overstate the significance of that to the whisky quality and direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cask is king,\u201d Simpson declares, adding that most of Duncan Taylor\u2019s offerings are single cask whiskies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve got a poor-quality cask and good-quality spirit, you\u2019ll end up with bad whisky. You need a good cask and good spirit to have a good bottle. That\u2019s very, very important.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe control absolutely everything. We can take in new spirit, put it into our casks and set it down for aging; and when it\u2019s ready, it\u2019s ready. If it\u2019s not good, we won\u2019t bottle it. It\u2019s whisky without compromise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notwithstanding the enormous leaps in technological apparatus in recent years, that is very much down to professional human judgment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no scientific thing. How long does it take? Well, it takes as long as it\u2019s ready. That\u2019s it,\u201d Simpson chortles. \u201cYou can\u2019t just put it on a spreadsheet and say, right, it\u2019ll be ready in five years\u2019 time; in five years\u2019 time, it will be this. That\u2019s not how things work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Presumably, over time, Simpson has honed his senses in a way that technologically driven devices have yet to achieve, with the accent very much on \u201cyet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then again, one can wax lyrical as much as one wants about this or that attribute of their chosen tipple. But when push comes to shove, what any whisky consumer really wants is a flavorful drinking experience when he or she settles down in their favorite armchair at the end of a hard day at the office, or in the company of people close to them \u2013 with an alcohol appreciation common denominator.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are lots of things about a whisky, but the most important thing is the taste, what it\u2019s like in your mouth, in your palate. Any whisky drinker can find themselves in a position whereby they\u2019ve smelled the whisky in the glass, and they think this is going to be wonderful. But when he tastes it, he may find it\u2019s not quite as good as they expected. What a shame,\u201d Simpson laughs a little wryly.<\/p>\n
Apparently, it can work the other way, too. \u201cSometimes you can smell a whisky, and you think it\u2019s just about average, but when it\u2019s on your palate you think wow, what a delight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simpson is a professional with a no-nonsense take on his line of work and the fluid bottom line.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhisky is for drinking,\u201d he intones with full gravitas.<\/p>\n
Even though prices of spirits around the world have risen appreciably over the last decade or so, Simpson says you don\u2019t have to fork out loads of cash in order to wrap your palate around a decent whisky. \u201cWe\u2019ve got whiskies that cost a lot, but $60 will also get you a pretty decent whisky.\u201d<\/p>\n
And some are available here, including from the Octave range, which runs through to bottles that will set you back thousands of dollars. But, as Simpson puts it in somewhat more mundane terms, if you\u2019ve got the wherewithal to own a Ferrari, why not drive it rather than keeping it in the garage.<\/p>\n
Tomer Goren, head distiller at M&H (aka Milk and Honey), Israel\u2019s first whisky distillery, also organizes Whisky Live. As such, he has a hands-on overview of the way the local scene is panning out.<\/p>\n
The first glaring difference that sticks out between Simpson\u2019s home patch and ours is, of course, the weather. When I spoke to the Scot in the run-up to the annual event here, it was a scarcely believable 16 degrees Celsius in his neck of the woods in northeast Scotland. That has to influence the way Israeli distillers approach their craft.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a hot, humid climate in most of the country. That gives you an accelerated maturation process,\u201d Goren notes.<\/p>\n
Is that a boon? \u201cYou have to know how to work with that. It is not just an advantage. You have to know how to obviate over-aging.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says it is early days to talk about Israeli whisky as having a distinct character of its own. \u201cThe industry here has only been around 12 or 13 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is not just a matter of chronology. \u201cWe have eight distilleries in Israel, and each one makes a different style of whisky.\u201d<\/p>\n
True to the pioneering spirit, which appears to be endemic to this still-young country\u2019s makeup, local distillers have a knack for innovation, says Goren. \u201cWe always think outside the box. We know how to innovate, and we are good at learning. At the end of the day, we are proving ourselves. We have some excellent distilleries here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite Goren\u2019s caution that imbibing alcohol is fine and dandy, as long as it is done in a responsible manner, I wondered whether our continually trying circumstances here have any effect on Israeli drinking predilection.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely,\u201d comes the resounding confirmation. \u201cWe, for example, collaborated with people from Kibbutz Be\u2019eri. We struck up a warm friendship with them, after we hosted them just three months after that October 7. Their visit helped them to relax a bit, forget for a while, and open up.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sounds like one tasty way to get a breather from the trauma and intensity of life in this part of the world. Cheers.<\/p>\n
For more information about Whisky Live Israel: https:\/\/go-out.co\/event\/1776076451546<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keeping any cultural venture going for long in this state budget-strapped country is quite an achievement, so it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":599540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7437,85,12110,46,43,5776,116,246313],"class_list":["post-599539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-alcohol","tag-il","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-scotland","tag-tel-aviv","tag-whisky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}