Free spirit

Author Michael Jackson was widely known as the Beer Hunter, but it was his passion for Scotch whisky that first hooked Andrew Jefford

I will miss Michael Jackson. As Roger Protz has pointed out in these pages, he was the Beer Hunter to most, and in particular to his extensive American fan-base. Michael's embrace of the efforts and achievements of the microbrewing revolution in the USA was a welcome shot in the arm from old Europe - that same old Europe whose kaleidoscope of beer styles had inspired the movement in the first place. If Americans drink better beer than they used to, it is partly because of his work. Perhaps that applies to all of us.

But when I think of Michael, it's whisky that first comes to mind, since it was via the pages of his World Guide to Whisky that I first read his words and learned the rudiments of Scotch whisky production.

I'd bought a signed copy from a bookshop in about 1988, I remember, in which Michael had written (in that ebullient and near-

illegible script common to most journalists) a single word: "Cheers!". The signature was wholly illegible. I leafed through the pages on Scotch malt, with their green maps and photographs of distilleries hidden in vales and folds of hills.

The buildings looked neat but severe, redeemed by the occasional pagoda-topped maltings (usually defunct), and the trails of sunlit steam piped downwind from their chimneys. Less than five years later, and greatly to my surprise, I found myself sharing a helicopter with Michael on a journey to the distillery on the Isle of Jura to pick a cask or two from a run of 30 thought worthy of being released as singletons. From then on, we met regularly, and I learned much from him.

What, though, did the Scotch whisky industry learn from him? There's little doubt that his book, and the others that followed it, helped create and sustain interest in malt whisky.

Statistically, malt is still greatly outsold by blends, but the knowledge and enthusiasm with which Michael and others described and popularised malt whisky distilleries helped to give Scotch its soul back - something that has greatly benefited both malts and blends.

Breaking down barriers

It's hard for us to imagine now, but during most of the 20th century, Scotch whisky was an almost-rootless product that did its best to conceal and blur its origins. A culture of secrecy prevailed. Rather like MI6 operatives, those working in the industry were told only as much as they needed to know, and everyone else was told as little as possible.

I recall speaking to a former worker at Laphroaig, one of Scotland's greatest malt distilleries, about how things were when he first went to work there in the late 1920s.

"He wouldn't have allowed you into this place," Iain Maclean said, speaking of the distillery's last family owner, Ian Hunter. "A notice at the end of the road read: 'Strictly private. No admittance except on business.'

"I'll always remember that notice. In the summer, when the distillery was silent, all the doors had to be locked," said Maclean.

Michael Jackson's 19th-century forbear Alfred Barnard may have been made welcome when he was researching his monumental work, The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom, but few outsiders had visited since.

Michael's easy, affable manner and evident seriousness of purpose helped to break down barriers, and the popularity of his work helped to underline the thirst for knowledge among the drinking public.

Nowadays, visitor centres and whisky routes abound, and it is not unusual to visit a distillery where the team involved in showing visitors round and selling them whisky outnumbers those who are actually involved in its production.

Michael continued to criticise the whisky industry, though, as well as support it. Something that particularly exercised him was the denial by some of the bigger players in Scotch whisky that the precise location in which a whisky was aged might have a direct bearing on its flavour.

Obviously, if a company owns dozens of malt whisky distilleries scattered all over Scotland, and if (as is always the case in such circumstances) blended whisky remains the principal product, centralised warehousing of whisky stocks is logistically and economically irresistible.

But is it fair to sell an 18-year-old single malt as a magnificent example of the highland or island style if it has spent just two weeks in the location displayed on the label, and 17 years and 50 weeks in a colossal, highly mechanised central Scotland warehouse?

Michael thought not, and was incensed when he was told that it "made no difference". Remember that whisky is never topped up in its cask, and that with every passing year a larger air space emerges in that cask.

It was perfectly obvious to him that the air in west-coast locations, such as Oban or Islay, was very different from the air in Cambus or Leven, and that this would have flavour implications. He was even adamant that there was such a thing as a salty note in malt whiskies that had spent their lives facing down the prevailing coastal westerlies, although this view met with controversy.

The Jacksonian approach

What Scotch producers should have learned from the life and work of Michael Jackson was that whisky is most loved and appreciated when those drinking it can taste its origins, feel the craft and care that has gone into making it, and learn to appreciate its nuances and differences.

Most Scotch, though, remains a commodity drink, asked for generically or by brand but less often by origin or style. Scotch whisky distillation, too, is an industrial process - the ideals of which are consistency and efficiency - rather than an art in pursuit of the sublime.

Scotch could see the benefits of the Jacksonian approach to malt whisky, but malt whisky accounts for less than 10% of whisky's annual global sales. Until some fundamental change in that balance occurs, the advertising agencies and marketing men, rather than scholar-poets in the Jackson mould, will remain in the ascendant.