Savour the flavour

MONITOR: Whiskey is our wine, and full of history

ENTHUSIASM IS ADDICTIVE. As Gregor Cattanach, international brand ambassador for Diageo Scotch whiskies, dips his nose into a glass of Talisker, he is already smiling. I wait for the descriptors to follow, anticipating Scottish peat, lochs and heather (with the odd bit of rock pool thrown in), but instead am treated to an axis drawn on a table mat. At the top is smoke, at the bottom no smoke, to the east rich and to the west light. At first, it’s as simple as that really, he says. You pick up the subtleties later. Colum Egan, the master distiller at Bushmills (also Diageo) is somewhat different in his approach, but no less structured. He asks me to smell a glass of neat Bushmills, then adds some water and gets me to smell again. What at first is basic toffee and caramel, forthright and one-dimensional, becomes rich, multi-layered and complex. We are off.

Both gentlemen are sitting in the Shelbourne hotel, having judged the first round of World Class, a global bartending competition aimed at educating and inspiring bartenders to create and serve exciting cocktails. This can be a double-edged sword in my experience, as not all bartenders are creatives, but the aim is laudable. Bars, good bars that is, are where many of us try drinks out, so it is necessary to both educate and enthuse about different brands and their characteristics if you are in the business of selling spirits.

I am an occasional whiskey drinker but find buying it an altogether unsatisfactory experience. Where staff in an off-licence will wax lyrical about Sauvignon or Riesling, they are often clueless when it comes to whiskey. And yet in recent years there has been enormous growth. Bushmillls used to be Bushmills and Black Bush, yet you can now pick from Bushmills malt 10-, 16- and 21-year-old as well. How to choose?

Cattanach and Egan are keen to point out that different whiskies work for different occasions. This sounds like marketing speak, but they have a point. We delve into straight Bushmills, which as a morning tipple with Christmas cake would be entirely in keeping with the season. The 16-year-old, on the other hand, is decidedly richer, more contemplative, and would be more suited to the tail end of proceedings on the big day perhaps.

While in Ireland we have only a few distilleries where once there were hundreds; in Scotland there are hundreds where once there were thousands. We share a love of this spirit even if we choose to spell it differently. It is our wine, fabulously varied, full of history, place and people and that is before you even get to the distillation.

Cattanach’s beer mat axis is not quite as relevant for Ireland, as we don’t generally produce smoky whiskies (although some of the Cooley whiskies have a little). But the light and rich axis is very relevant and it is only with experimenting that you’ll find which end you prefer, or indeed which whiskey is right for which occasion.

All of which is fine and dandy, but where is the opportunity to taste and try? It is a sad reflection of our drinking habits that so many bars are dominated by blended whiskey brands which, while perfectly fine in their own right, do little to share the enormous variation and vitality of this rewarding spirit.

The choice is to pick your bar carefully and try and find a really creative bartender. Or buy from a shop such as the Celtic Whiskey Shop on Dawson Street, Dublin 2 (www.celticwhiskeyshop.com), where the level of knowledge is superb and the range unparalleled. Then it’s just a case of sitting back and enjoying one of the world’s greatest drinks in the comfort and ease of a season devoted to all things gustatory.