A Sense of Place: A journey around Scotland’s whisky

Product Information

Four books written by Dave Broom “A different way of writing about whisky” Which of your books are you proudest of? What I’d understood – or what I’d been told by some Japanese distillers – was that it was only the low priced domestic brands which were the “admix” ones. The fact was that fairly major export brands were also doing it, but not declaring it.

Few can match [Broom’s] ability to blend together critical thinking, insight and industry knowledge while giving the resulting mix a romantic twist.’ Whisky Magazine Well, with that perspective of 30-odd years in this game, I can remember what the whisky world was like three decades ago, who was drinking it, how you were meant to drink it, what you were allowed to say… and then compare it to where it is now. Wow! What a change, what an extraordinary change in a very short period of time. A personal journey exploring Scotch whiskey through its terroir, including the land, weather, history, craft and culture that feeds and enhances the whisky itself. Women didn’t drink whisky so if you wanted to make a whisky which would appeal to women it had to be pink, or light, or whatever. There are so many great whiskies, there are so many great people and the nature of whisky is shifting, evolving.A Sense of Place blends pin-sharp writing with evocative photography in a book to savour and treasure.” - Ian Rankin

If “A Sense of Place” is a travel guide, it isn’t telling whisky lovers where to go and what to see in Scotland. The sense of the place is everything together: land, water, ocean, air; trees, ferns, and crops; distilleries; history; and above all, people. “A Sense of Place: A Journey Around Scotland’s Whisky” is a tour of Scotch’s soul. One might say, “Place” is what puts the “Life” in “the Water of Life.” Or, as Broom puts it, “ is a visceral link with land, community, the past and the present, an active engagement with all the conditions that brought whisky to life.” The people who are interested in Japanese whisky, the ones who know about this are immediately suspicious – I’m immediately suspicious – of any new Japanese brand that appears. My initial reaction is “Is this right or not?” And that is not the way it should be. I will investigate, and I will dig before I write about it. Dave Broom, is there anything that you wish I would have asked you? Dave Broom’s whisky odyssey is in many ways a story of Scotland and the questions we face….Like a good dram, it’s complex, and Dave makes an excellent guide… Christina Kernohan’s beautiful photographs of the places and people featured in the book add texture and vibrancy to the stories: a window into the distilleries and lives of the craftspeople.’ Best of Scotland Ask any of these new distillers what they are making and they immediately say “not Scotch, but something that comes from where we are from.” What’s fascinating is that new distilleries in Scotland are now working from a similar ethos – their distillers are asking, “What is Scotch whisky? What can Scotch whisky be?” That now includes different strains of barley and different yeasts etcetera. I find that hugely exciting.

In this beautifully crafted narrative, award-winning writer Dave Broom examines Scotch whisky from the point of view of its terroir - the land, weather, history, craft and culture that feed and enhance the whisky itself. Travelling around his native Scotland and visiting distilleries from Islay and Harris to Orkney and Speyside, Dave explores the whiskies made there and the elements in their distilling, and locality, which make them what they are. Along the way he tells the story of whisky's history and considers what whisky is now, and where it is going. Are the sections on Scottish Oak are about ageing that kind of wood? No. No one does that. Cask quality Scottish oak is rare and hard to work with. And Perfume? Well, most scotch (by FAR) is blended, meaning juice of multiple ages and cask treatments, from multiple distilleries, gets mixed together to create a consistent product. That’s why your Johnny Walker Red always tastes like itself, despite variations in harvests and aging. Master Blenders are the magicians who determine how much of which barrels to combine, and what to do with the result. Guess what a Master Blender’s absolutely must have. A good nose—like, a Perfumer. I accept that it’s always been treated – and always been sold – as a commodity. At the same time, the reason that people have become interested in whisky, and the reason there has been an explosion of distilleries all around the world is because of that love of the specialness in the liquid. We seem to have got into a negative space so I’d just like to say that I am still enthused, genuinely enthused, about what’s happening with whisky around the world.