March Outturn 2023 Article
“Orange is the new black” “Everything old is new again” “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”. Taken by themselves, these three idioms are self-respecting, independent, and understandable. Lump the three together, and it’s scary how easily they can be applied to the whisky industry right now. And, in many ways, the whisky industry is just an extension of (or perhaps a reflection of) trends in other aspects of the community.
I was reflecting this morning on the rapid rate of change we’re seeing in whisky circles. There’s a rich irony in that half of whisky’s marketing arm plays on the narrative of the “old, traditional, hand-crafted methods” that make the spirit, and yet the other half is busting a gut trying to innovate, re-mould, re-invigorate, and come up with new ways to promote the same old same old. In Scotch whisky circles, the marketing arms are steering the production arms (definitely a case of the tail wagging the dog) to come up with new cask finishes, or fermentation methods, or to use different yeasts, or to innovate some of “point of difference” that will allow them to spruik a new product and get a jump on the competition.
And so we see new whiskies land on our shelves that arrive with a song and dance. If you dig into these releases and explore them, two things usually unfold. Firstly, you learn that the resulting flavour wasn’t really all that far different from the “regular” make. Secondly, you observe that the product quietly disappears within a year or so. Word circulates on the street, “Yeah, that was nothing special — it was all just hype”. Orange was the new black until another shade of orange came along.
Hand in hand with this is my observation that many of these “new” things quickly become stale. The list is many and varied: Uber-heavily peated releases. Exotic cask finishes. Rare or unusual sherry cask maturations. Maturing whisky in French wine barriques. Whiskies made to be served vaguely frozen from the fridge. Malt whiskies that are “designed” to be served in mixers. Tasting events where whisky is matched with food/cheese/chocolate/beer/cigars.
Whiskies with Q-codes. Whiskies with exotic artwork on the label. Whiskies named and labelled after popular TV shows involving thrones. Brand loyalty clubs. Visitor centre experiences. I’m not suggesting any of these things are poor, inferior, undesirable, or boring. Indeed, some of them have of them been spectacular! My point is that they all, in turn, became stale and were superseded by the next new thing to come along. Only for the cycle to play out and repeat itself.
If you stay on this treadmill for a while, you can’t help but notice that many of these things make a comeback. Some re-surface in new clothing; some change their narrative; some pretend their previous incarnation didn’t exist. And some, sadly, are simply lost to time. We see this in so many other aspects of life. Remember when we could first customise our phone’s ring tone? Everyone set their phones to their favourite song or similar…but witness now how many people have returned to the regular “traditional” ring tone.
The old is new. We see the same things play out on television — witness the return of Australian Idol, or the endearing (??) endurance of Survivor in the wake of so many copycat shows. In whisky circles, we went through a period where Brand Ambassadors were practically discouraged from using Powerpoint or similar at tasting events. Only for us to learn that there are aspects of whisky that are bloody hard to describe to new audiences without the assistance of visuals. And so multi-media is back….just with extra bells and whistles. We didn’t know what we had until it was gone.
And yet, happily, underneath all of this, there is an enduring constant. A very simple constant: Good whisky. You see, good whisky doesn’t need bells and whistles. Good whisky doesn’t need a flashy label, or an exotic backstory. It doesn’t need an accompanying soundtrack. It doesn’t even need its name in lights. So many of The Society’s amazing whiskies fall into this camp — just great spirit in a green bottle. It just needs yourself, a glass, and the time to relax and appreciate it.
When all the noise is stripped away, I am refreshed and reinvigorated just to sit down with good, simple, single malt, and to appreciate all the work and effort — by people whose names you’ll likely never know — to grow the barley, malt the grain, brew the wash, distil the spirit, stick it in a cask and age it for a decade or more, bottle the product, and ship it to our shores. And to just sit and savour it. Good whisky is good whisky. Long may it reign.
This article features in the March 2023 Outturn — bottles will be available to purchase on Friday the 3rd of March at midday AEDT exclusively to members of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Not a member? Click here to learn more about the world’s most colourful whisky club.
