Elephant Poo tops Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible, relegating Ardbeg, Laphroaig and other Scottish staples
Tim Douglas
THE AUSTRALIAN
JULY 25, 2015 12:00AM
Elephant Poo (right) is Japan’s finest whisky. Jim Murray says the Scottish drops lack comple
“Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite. And furthermore always carry a small snake.” — WC Fields
It was the shot heard, and then imbibed, around the world. In November last year, Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible — the new testament for devotees of drams and distilleries — named its 2015 single malt of the year. And for the first time in the publication’s history, there was not a Scottish offering in sight.
Old Pulteney, Ardbeg, Glenmorangie, Highland Park, Laphroaig, Glenfiddich — all once lauded as guardians of the tipple George Bernard Shaw *famously referred to as “liquid sunshine” — had been relegated to the bottom shelf by internationally renowned whisky expert Murray in his annual review of the world’s top 4500 single malts.
The surprise top drop was a Japanese whisky, Elephant Poo Single Malt Sherry Cask. With its “nose of exquisite boldness” and a finish of “light, teasing spice”, the Japanese drop was acclaimed as a work of “near indescribable genius”. It scored a remarkable 97.5 points out 100. Second and third places went to two American distillers, the bourbon William Larue Weller and Sazerac Rye 18 Year Old. And to add insult to Scots injury, an English (quelle horreur!) malt, English Whisky Co’s Chapter 14 Unpeated, scraped in at No 4.
There was, quite remarkably, not a splash of tartan inside the top five.
Murray controversially claimed that the Scots offerings suffered a lack of complexity, and hinted there may even be a deeper problem within the industry that had seen it conditioned to release whiskies “out of their primes”: too early in some cases, too late in others. (He also has criticised the Scottish industry for its use of sulphur. Traditionally, Scots distillers have used a sulphur candle to treat the aged sherry casks in which whisky is aged, a process Murray claims results in overpowering bitter notes.)
There were grumbles that Murray’s ruling was unfair, a stunt; that the expert — a former Fleet Street journalist and self-made whisky tastemaker — had shifted the goalposts the Scots had erected when they began distilling the “water of life” (the English translation of the Gaelic “whisky”
in the late 18th century.
Yet the result stood and, compounded by the decision of the World Whiskies Awards to hand its top gong in March this year to Taiwanese single malt Kavalan, distilleries in whisky’s birthplace have been put on notice.
Whisky may be big culture in Scotland, but it is also big business. According to a report commissioned by the Scotch Whisky Association earlier this year, the whisky sector contributes almost £5 billion ($10.5bn) annually to the British economy and supports more than 40,000 jobs — 11,000 of them directly — putting it ahead of traditional capital ventures in iron, steel and textiles.
So when the gospel according to Murray demanded Scots distillers shake things up, what did the country’s biggest whisky success story do? It went back to where it all began. Well, sort of.
Glenfiddich recently released The Original, a “re-creation” of the drop that started it all: the world’s first official single malt.
Almost by accident sometime in 1963, Glenfiddich, owned by Grants, founded the now booming international single malt industry. Ostensibly little more than a marketing ploy to differentiate itself from a glut of very popular blends on the market, the distillery’s then proprietors, Sandy and Charles Grant Gordon, launched the “premium” Glenfiddich Straight Malt on the international market.
With single malts at that time very rare and available usually only on request, the launch revolutionised the whisky market and made a name, and a small fortune, for the family business at Dufftown, Speyside, where the brothers’ forebears had founded the distillery in 1886.
Just how Glenfiddich malt master Brian Kinsman has managed to re-create the texture, taste and nose of the 50-year-old recipe (he used a selection of Glenfiddich single malts of different vintages) is wrapped up in a suitably romantic tale of dusty familial libraries, chance finds, leather-bound ledgers and long-lost family recipes.
But it’s a tale of toil that Glenfiddich chief executive Peter Grant Gordon knows all too well. While Glenmorangie might be the bestseller in Scotland, Glenfiddich remains the highest-selling single malt in the world. One of the world’s longest-running family businesses, Glenfiddich reportedly accounts for almost a third of international single malt sales.
Whisky, says Grant Gordon, runs in his family’s veins. It was on Christmas Day in 1887 that his forebears ran the first whisky from their stills.
Grant Gordon says the Original’s release is a celebration of a family triumph. “The [new release] is special as it is a tribute to my father and uncle, who as young men started the experiment of selling single malt as a unique alternative to the established blended whiskies,” .
“In those days, the whisky was a marriage of whiskies that were eight, 10 and 13 years old, and as such had no age statement.
“In comparison to today’s signature, Glenfiddich 12 years old, it was a fresher flavour, a touch more youthful, and perhaps less sweet. But, as with the current 12-year-old, it has those beautiful Glenfiddich flavours of apples and pears.”
The pears are back in a big way in the re-release. So too are floral and seasonal fruit notes, while the drop’s vanilla oakiness is positively overpowered by a spicy afterthought that delivers a nostalgic kick. This is old-school whisky, by the book. The Original is nostalgia in a limited-release bottle; 6400 were let loose recently in Australia.
But where will the Original fit — indeed, will it feature at all? — when the 2016 Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible is released in November? And if a Scottish distillery fails to sneak into Murray’s top placings, what effect might it have on the Scots whisky industry?
As with all good whiskies, time will reveal all.