As one approaches St James’s Street from Pall Mall, there is an enticing window full of whisky bottles. Part of Berry Bros & Rudd’s temple complex, it is devoted to Glenrothes, a Speyside Malt. The bottles do not look as if they were designed by a marketing man and their labels largely consist of tasting notes. I could not recall whether I had sampled Glenrothes (take that as you will) so it was clearly time to concentrate some attention on this rare malt.
Scotland has its pastoral symphonies as well as its bleaker grandeur. From Aberdeen airport, the autumnal road to Rothes eases its way across rich farmland into the Spey country. Apart from salmon, Speyside was always notorious for unlicensed distilling. Everyone was at it — today, it would no doubt be called the illicit-still community — until George IV and Walter Scott reconciled ingenuity and legality. King George visited Scotland, and felt obliged to favour local traditions. Where they did not exist, they were invented: hence tartan. Where they did exist, they were refined: whisky. Once distillers could acquire licences, the whisky no longer needed to be drunk in a hurry lest the excise men capture it. So it became possible to create one of the world’s finest drinks.
Whisky lore is a lifetime’s study, for there is a huge range of tastes, from the peat, iodine and seaweed of the great Islay malts to the subtleties of the silvery Spey. Two vital questions are continuously debated: whether to add water, and when to drink it. No-one would dream of putting water in a cognac or armagnac, so my instincts were always against adulterating the malts. Over the years, I have changed my mind. Though it would insult the grape, a little water enhances the barley. That said, the water should always be treated with suspicion, like a Victorian rogue trying to climb into a young heiress’s bedroom. There is much to be said for using a pipette. If you are adding water, always have the whisky bottle close at hand, in case you overdo it.
A glug of cooking whisky with a fair amount of water — the blends are less in need of chaperoning — is a splendid demarcation-line between business and relaxation; the alcoholic equivalent of climbing into a black tie. But malt whisky is too assertive to be an aperitif. Digestif: that is another matter. Brandy is designed to blast a way through to taste buds already beguiled by champagne, chardonnay, a serious red, port and a cigar. A glorious old Ardbeg could cope with all that, as could a Macallan or a Highland Park if they had spent three decades or so in cask. (Whisky matures in cask, but stops ageing when bottled.) But that is not the right role for a Glenrothes; even for the 1967 which I was fortunate enough to taste.
In 1981 François Mitterrand’s campaign slogan was ‘La Force Tranquille’. That is a perfect description of Glenrothes. Your dram starts with a superb nose. There are tastes of dried fruit, sometimes with a hint of astringency: at other moments, a suggestion of Christmas pudding. At the end, the final notes only slip away from the palate after several curtain calls, like the gentle end of twilight after a perfect summer day. I concluded that it would be a good accompaniment to an evening’s recapitulation, moving in and out of a book, some music, and the glass — all stimulating different thoughts; all ending in harmony. It would also be an ideal companion to a long ruminatory gossip with an old friend. I cannot remember what if anything Marlow drank to assist his story-telling, but he would have enjoyed Glenrothes. So would David Hume. It is a minor-key, slow-movement whisky, gradually revealing its graces.
Unusually for whisky, most Glenrothes is bottled in single vintages, which adds to the challenge of connoisseurship. If you have a chance to attend a tasting run by Ronnie Cox of Berry’s, do not miss it. If you enjoy whisky, you will not be disappointed by Glenrothes.
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