Featuring more than a hundred bottles,The Cannon Room at Sagamore Pendry Baltimore is a whiskey aficionado’s heaven

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Road Hole Bar at the Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa in Scotland

There’s no better way of exploring the world of whiskey than by visiting a whiskey bar and putting yourself in the hands of an expert

The whiskey world is a varied one, from Japanese restraint to rip-roaring Scottish smokiness. Image credit: Shutterstock

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Writer Mike Gerrard takes us on a tour around the world, identifying the flavors and varieties of whiskeys to be found from Scotland and Ireland to the United States and Japan

The World of Whiskey

BY Mike Gerrard

Food & Drink

My whiskey epiphany took place in the town of Bushmills on the Causeway Coast of Northern Ireland, just inland from the village of Portballintrae. I’d grown up in a beer-drinking culture in the north of England, and on the few occasions I’d been given a nip of whiskey, I’d winced and wondered how people could drink the stuff. All that changed when I was on a tour of Ireland that included a visit to the Old Bushmills Distillery. Our group did the tour and stood at the bar for a tasting. Out of politeness, and so as not to seem like a wimp, I took a sip. To my amazement, I rather liked it. I took another sip. I even drank the other two tasting samples that were in front of me. I had accidentally discovered that not all whiskeys are created equal. In Britain, it’s thought that whiskey was first distilled by monks in Ireland and taken by them across the sea to Scotland, where eventually it grew into the huge industry that it is today. At any one time, there is more tax revenue sitting in bonded whiskey warehouses in Scotland than there are gold reserves in the Bank of England. Irish whiskey is not only spelled differently from Scotch “whisky,” it’s made differently, too. It’s one of the delights of whiskey that no matter where you are in the world, you can enjoy a wee dram of what is recognizably the same spirit, but all will be subtly different. In Scotland, for instance, they like using peat to smoke their barley, which results in a smokier taste and aroma. In Ireland, they don’t use peat and the result is smoother. They also distill their whiskey three times, whereas the majority of Scottish whiskeys are only distilled twice. This also adds to the smoothness of Irish whiskey, which tends to be sweeter, while the Scottish version leans toward the spicier and smokier profile. These are generalizations, of course, but are broadly true. There’s no better way of exploring the world of whiskey than by visiting a whiskey bar and putting yourself in the hands of an expert. A broad collection allows you to create your own tasting flight for a comparison, if the bar itself doesn’t offer carefully curated tasting flights. One that does is the Road Hole Bar at the Old Course Hotel, Golf Resort & Spa in St Andrews, Scotland, whose drinks menu contains a range of so-called “Whisky Journeys.” You could, for example, sample three Lowland whiskeys, or three whiskeys from the island of Islay, with each flight arranged in order, to progress you through the different flavor profiles. The menu also allows you to discover how different an Old Fashioned cocktail can be when made with different whiskeys, from a smoky Laphroaig to a smoother Kentucky bourbon from Maker’s Mark.

It’s a common misconception that bourbon whiskey can only be made in Kentucky. There are many regulations governing how you can make bourbon, but they don’t stipulate where you can make it – it can be made anywhere in the United States, and distilleries everywhere are experimenting in exciting ways these days. One such is Brush Creek Distillery, part of The Brush Creek Luxury Ranch Collection all-inclusive resort in Wyoming, which is also a 30,000-acre working cattle ranch. Think Yellowstone without the gunfights (hopefully). Brush Creek Distillery produces its own award-winning bourbon from a blend of four bourbons made in Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee, which are then rested at high elevation under big blue skies. Climate, altitude, and the type of barrel used will all affect the eventual flavor, although with bourbon you can only use a brand-new barrel made from American oak. Once used, the ex-bourbon barrels are sold on to places including Scotland and Ireland, where they can be used to impart a little of that sweet bourbon taste to the whiskeys slowly maturing in them. Brush Creek Distillery is a fine example of both experimentation and cooperation between the various parts of the Brush Creek Ranch. The Farm at Brush Creek not only provides food for the table and supplies for the brewery, creamery, and bakery, it also produces many of the botanicals that go into the distillery’s own gin. These come from its 20,000-square-foot certified organic greenhouse, while even the juniper is foraged locally. Guests at the ranch can also take advantage of the all-inclusive nature of the resort to expand their knowledge of whiskeys and other spirits in The Spirit Vault. There are more than a hundred whiskeys from around the world, with some up to 50 years old, and include some of the almost-impossible-tofind Pappy Van Winkle. You can put together your own tasting flight or have one of the expert mixologists suggest and prepare one for you. You could hardly find a more different setting from the mountains of Wyoming than the streets of Baltimore, but here, too, you’ll find a whiskey lover’s dream. The Cannon Room at the waterfront Sagamore Pendry Baltimore also has more than a hundred bottles from around the world, and one to try is definitely the Sagamore Spirit Rye. This comes from the Sagamore Spirit Distillery, just a few miles away, around the harbor. It’s a hotel favorite and features prominently on its drinks menu, including in cocktail creations like the Boulevardier and the Pendry Old Fashioned.

Copper still machines like the above are used to produce spirits in distilleries like Old Bushmills Distillery in Northern Ireland. Image credit: Shutterstock

Whiskey Pairings

Many hotels, restaurants, and distilleries will offer you pairings of whiskeys with food, but the Condado Vanderbilt Hotel – which was Puerto Rico’s first luxury hotel when it was built in 1919 – offers something a little more unusual: pairing whiskeys with cigars in its AVO Lounge. There are several pairings available, each carefully chosen for the cigar and whiskey to complement each other, but a few stand out. One is definitely the matching of a Macanudo Vintage 1997 cigar and a glass of Woodford Reserve Bourbon. The cigar brings cedar, cream, and spice to the party, which the bourbon balances with notes of dried fruit, vanilla, and toffee. If you’re not a cigar smoker, the hotel’s VC Lounge is the place to relax, and savor the initial pleasure of simply reading the drinks menu. Here, you’ll find an Old Fashioned made with spiced rum, James Bond’s favorite cocktail The Vesper (shaken not stirred, I hope), flights of Caribbean rum, and vodkas broken down by grain type. Now, that’s attention to detail. But nestling among the more familiar names like Buffalo Trace and Bruichladdich are eight offerings from Japan. These include a Yamazaki 18 Year Old, which will set you back a cool $350 . . . for one glass. Why? Like everything else, it’s supply and demand. Supply because it was a limited-edition bottling, and demand because it’s said to be one of the best whiskeys ever made.

More than 50 quality whiskeys can be sampled at The Whisky Room in The Londoner Hotel

Asian Blends

Japanese whiskeys are different yet again, showing another facet of the world of whiskey. Like many aspects of Japanese culture, Japanese whiskeys go for subtlety, delicacy, and understatement. Not for them the in-your-face smokiness of a heavily peated whiskey from the Scottish island of Islay. The Japanese approach is, as with many things, meticulous attention to detail, starting with the basics of sourcing the finest ingredients. The Japanese also have the advantage of some of the purest water sources in the world, and many of their whiskeys are aged in their native Mizunara oak barrels. Unlike, say, barrels for bourbon, which are charred to inject punchy flavors of caramel and sweet vanilla into the spirit, Mizunara oak imparts delicate notes of sandalwood, spice, and citrus. This tends to give them an extra level of complexity compared to most other nations’ whiskeys. Traveling in Asia obviously gives you a better chance to experience more Japanese whiskeys, and The Fullerton Hotel Singapore is one place to bear in mind, as it carries a world collection of more than 500 different whiskeys, with many Japanese gems among them. One of the world’s rarest Japanese whiskeys can be found in The Whisky Room at The Londoner in London’s Leicester Square. This room is exclusively for hotel guests and has some Karuizawa 42-Year-Old whiskey among its 50-plus bottles from around the globe. This distillery only produced whiskey from 1955 until the building was mothballed in 2000, adding to the rarity value. The Whisky Room has a comparatively modest collection, but it has clearly gone for quality over quantity. Alongside the Japanese rarity are a Macallan from 1938, and bottles of the incredibly scarce Glenfiddich Time Re:Imagined series of three luxury single malts developed over periods of 30, 40, and 50 years. So, the whiskey world is a varied one, from Japanese restraint to rip-roaring Scottish smokiness, and I’m pleased to say that, thanks to a brief visit to Bushmills, I now enjoy them all.

By John Brunton

PRague

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