If personal anecdotal experience counts for anything, you doctors certainly like your Scotch. I do too, and was recently treated to a tasting with Ian Cameron Low, Master Blender and Brand Ambassador of one of the world’s best and most successful de luxe blends, Johnnie Walker Black Label. So, as Fats Waller would have said, can you stand me to tell you about it? I have spent enough time with the assemblers of premium Scotch to confirm how the art, procedure and vocabulary of the blender transgresses all bibulous boundaries. Weaned as I am onto wine, it is fascinating to witness the same principles at work to create some of the world’s best spirit. The first thing to appreciate about premium Scotch is that there are two types of whisky – malt and grain, each distilled in different ways. Grain whisky, largely mass-produced in the south of Scotland, is made like armagnac in a continuous still process. Wheat and maize are generally the grains used, with some malted barley as well. Light in texture and aromatic in flavour, grain whisky can seem a trifle bland next to a malt, but it does serve ably as the base for the premium Scotch blends, most of which contain around 30% grain whisky. Few grain malts are sold here as brands, but I can recommend Cameron Brig for the interested soul. Malt whisky, made only from malted barley, is made a la cognac, in a single pot still. Each distillery makes its own distinctive malt whisky, and when these are bottled alone without blending, these become the single malts for which Scotland is justly famous. As Australia is divided into wine regions, so is Scotland into whisky regions. From the south of Scotland, where the climate is milder, the land is lower and considerably flatter, come the Lowland malts. These are gentler, lighter malts, with pleasant aromas and sweetness, with flavours of cinnamon and ginger and a clean, dry finish. Johnnie Walker Black Label contains a fair shot of Glenkinchie, the easternmost of the Lowland distilleries. Lowland malts only have a light peatiness. Peat flavours in Scotch are derived from both the malting process – which concludes when germination is terminated by kiln drying over a peat fire – and the peaty character of local spring waters, which acquire flavours as they percolate to the surface through a layer of peat. Try as they might, the Japanese have yet to effectively duplicate this process. Modern distillers can now specify precisely which phenols they want extracted from their peat from malting, exactly determining the resultant peaty flavour. Highland whisky hails from the rugged and mountainous north of Scotland and reaches its zenith in a triangular area enclosing the Spey River, marked by Elgin, Grantown and Keith. The Speyside produces exceptional water, hence its remarkable concentration of distilleries, which includes Johnnie Walker’s flagship malt component, Cardhu. Cardhu is a typical top Highland malt – lightly smoky and peaty, with an elegant and long, silky-smooth palate given more complexity with vanillin wood. The best Highland malts somehow combine intensity of character with a remarkable smoothness and softness. Cardhu was the keystone around which Alexander Walker, the youngest son and business heir of the original Johnnie Walker, created the brand’s once-famous Old Highland blend, which has ultimately evolved into the ever-popular Red Label. Islay is a large island off Scotland’s rugged west coast, where whisky is believed to have originated. According to Ian Low, the distillery of Lagavulin produces the most strongly-flavoured of Scotland’s malts. Once sampled, it’s hard to imagine otherwise. Like the other malts of the area, Lagavulin is exceptionally smoky and peaty, thanks to the origins of its water, and has an intense seaweed-like vegetative note. As Manzanilla is to sherry, Islay malt is salty and tangy, a quality believed to derive from the saltiness and moisture of the local nautical air. Talisker, from the Isle of Skye, is a malt regarded as half-way between a highland and an Islay in style. Also owned by Johnnie Walker, its whisky also has a strong sea influence, tasting pungent, fiery and peppery, with great viscosity and an oily mouthfeel. Certainly a Scotch with real texture and backbone. Since 1909 the age declared on a bottle of Scotch has had to relate to the youngest component of its blend. Johnnie Walker Black claims to be twelve years old, although some of its constituents are up to 17 years old. This practice contrasts with that of Cognac, where the age designated to a blend is based around the average age of its various components. At Johnnie Walker, they believe the present flavours of their Red and Black Label whiskies to be exactly the same as Alexander Walker and his Edwardian team of blenders created in 1909. On the surface, that sounds neither surprising nor difficult, but consider the blender’s real challenge – to create consistency from year to year, distillery to distillery, when variations as small as half a percent of a component can radically alter an entire blend. Ian Low’s onerous task is to keep the Black Label exactly the same. Johnnie Walker compare his role to an orchestral conductor, painstaking trying to recreate an original masterpiece. It isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. Since he is certain his masters would like the secret kept, Ian Low isn’t about to divulge the recipe of Johnnie Walker Black, which comprises over forty malts. His comments about the blend, however, do reveal something. Founded around Cardhu, and employing a high proportion of Islay malt which contributes to its strength of bouquet, Johnnie Walker Black is a heavier blend than its competitors – the other de luxe blends of Dimple Haig, Islay Mist and Chivas Regal. Its understated and smoky backbone, says Low, is derived from Talisker, which contributes length, viscosity and smoothness. Most of the malts, however, come from Speyside and other highland distilleries. Try the component parts one day – I’ve told you enough to select five of the most important. Then why not go to work and tell me what you think the blend really is? Send your reply to the magazine. I’ll happily send a decent bottle of red to the answer I think is closest. Or suggests the most effort.
