People sometimes ask what gift I want at Christmas. Truth is, I’d always rather open an interesting bottle than a neatly wrapped present.
But if I do ask for something, it’s usually a book. Cicero, Roman philosopher and thinker, said that a room without books is like a body without a soul, and he wasn’t wrong; though I’d argue a room without bottles has lost something vital too.
I’m an author, but also an unabashed reader, especially of biography. People are endlessly fascinating; their flaws, their triumphs, their contradictions. And it’s what drew me into writing my latest book, The Whisky World Tour. Visiting distilleries, much like reading good nonfiction, gives you a little more of the world, a deeper understanding of how things come to be.
A distillery trip is a pilgrimage in miniature and enriches life. There is always something to learn, a takeaway you will remember to make your journey in life just that little bit fuller. And this is also true for reading up about whisky, or any other drink you love. They are not just the product of a process, but a spirit rooted in the people who make it and the place it is made.
I write in the book:
“Visiting a whisky distillery, approached in the proper spirit, is one of the more edifying pursuits one can undertake. There is, of course, the promise of a dram or two at the end, which is always a powerful incentive. It also offers the chance to see where, why and by whom these whiskies are made. That is the real attraction.
In the pursuit of whisky education, you will read that whisky is made from water, grains or cereals, a little bit of yeast, and time maturing in wood. All this is true in the most basic of senses, in the same way that a human is made of carbon, or that we share 80% of our DNA with bananas or mice or some such. This is, of course, utterly correct, but at the same time, complete nonsense. As humans we are made up of so much more, and it is the ‘more’ – our spirit, soul, and personality – that makes us who we are.
Each whisky, be it a single malt Scotch, an American bourbon, an Irish pot still whiskey or any others from around the globe, is rooted in the people who make it and the place it is made. It is nature and nurture as one.”
The Whisky World Tour is my attempt to guide you to and through the very best whisky distillery visits. The places where you can really get under the skin of each site, understand what makes them tick and, most importantly, figure out why you should care. After an introduction about why, when and where to visit distilleries (and the questions to ask when there), the book unfolds like a global travelogue, a guide to the world of whisky distilleries broken down into sections on North America, Ireland, Scotland and the Rest of the World, finishing in Japan.
Each distillery featured – fifty-two in total, so one a week should you want to read and taste along at home – has an evocative description about the sense of place, the visitor experience and the whisky production. It is balanced with a history of the distillery and tasting notes of two bottles from the core range of releases to allow sipping along.
I was privileged to have Charles MacLean M.B.E., a friend, mentor and doyen of whisky writers, pen the foreword. He generously writes that The Whisky World Tour is “an essential addition to any whisky library”. And should this book be one of the parcels waiting for you on Christmas morning, I hope you’ll read it in the same spirit that guides my own festive rituals: a sense of place, a sense of curiosity, and a sense that every sip tells a story.
Between the Black Velvet opener and the parade of spirits that follow, let this book take you wandering, from distillery doorways warmed by kiln heat to faraway warehouses breathing slow, patient magic.
Christmas, after all, is a journey. And every good journey deserves a fine companion in the glass and on the page.
