Let The Drink Talk

[Anonymous]

I USED TO ENJOY whisky. Since surrendering the pleasure of cigarettes I have closed each working day with a large glass. I thought nothing could spoil this moment. But recently my drink has been upset by friends clamouring to discuss my choice. Each has been bitten by the malt bug. The symptoms are antisocial.

Murmuring in hushed awe, they hold their tiny measures of single malt up to the light and adopt tones of grave pomposity. Advertising campaigns have achieved an impact that they should not have on adults. My friends seem to believe that malts are handcrafted by mystical brotherhoods of elves according to principles set out in ancient runes. They imagine a Gaelic-speaking maiden with silken skin has lovingly stirred every drop.

My pleasure in a shot of blended whisky is looked down upon. Blends are stigmatised as cheap and proletarian. My friends give me bottles of malt and serve the stuff, instead of brandy, as a modish digestif. They drone on about it like embarrassing wine bores.

My misery is well founded. Research by the Scotch Whisky Industry Review reveals that one in ten bottles of whisky sold in Britain is now a malt. Twenty years ago the figure was barely one in forty. A drink that has provided consistent pleasure since Gladstone’s Spirit Act encouraged high-quality mass production is being transformed into an expensive luxury.

This is wrong. Of course, there are delicious malts. A few are made in ravishing settings. But malt is not an improvement on blended whisky. It is one of its ingredients. A whisky blender combines malt and grain whiskies to create a whole greater then the sum of its parts. Adept practitioners marry as many as 50 separate whiskies. They compare their craft to conducting an orchestra. Sensible consumers express gratitude by drinking the results, not pontificating about it like those sad twits who imagine their cigar was rolled on the thigh of a Cuban virgin.

The industry has done well to persuade the gullible to worship malt. But much of it is the equivalent of beaujolais nouveau — an expensive waste prized by fools. Blends are where consistent excellence can be found.

So, my friends, when you have finished talking about malt, taste a blend. You may find yourself too busy enjoying it to talk nonsense.

from: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-1703618,00.html

[Johnny]

Whisky bores, we
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[talisker25]

[Richard P.]

As if a Times correspondent isn't going to be the biggest bore going :D