Heather Greene - Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life

VIKING STUDIO

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First published by Viking Studio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 2014

Copyright 2014 by Heather Greene

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Photographs Steve Giralt

Drawings by John Burgoyne

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CA TALOGING - IN - PUBLICAT ION DATA

Greene, Heather.

Whiskey distilled : a populist guide to the water of life / Heather Greene.

pages cm

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-698-16985-2

1. Whiskey. I. Title.

TP605.G76 2014

663'.52dc23

2014022310

Version_1

To Ms. Kathleen Mary Orr (aka mom)

Whos always up for travel, shenanigans, and drinking whiskey with me

Contents

Introduction: Whats a Spirits Sommelier?

T HIS IS A BOOK about whiskey, so I will begin it by describing my own first taste one summer between eighth and ninth grades. It happened on a Saturday afternoon behind Kenny Bashs house. Kenny was the neighborhood troublemaker. As I sat on the hard plastic board of his rusted-out, squeaky swing set, dragging my bare feet back and forth on a patch of dirt, he handed me a plastic liter container of bright orange soda and commanded, Take a sip. After a quick swig, I gagged, and his cruel bray of adolescent laughter followed. Take more, he said. Its Jack. This was dangerous territory and I knew it.

In a panic, I hurried back home, terrified that my parents would find out about the Jack. I shoved a fistful of grass into my mouthId heard that grass hides the smell of alcohol. When my parents didnt notice, I thanked my lucky stars and promised myself that Id never drink whiskey again.

Ive spent the past ten years breaking that promise.

Today I am the Director of Whiskey Education at The Flatiron Room Whiskey School in Manhattan and I teach whiskey classes there every week. Im also the restaurants sommelier, which is a word that comes from nineteenth-century French and essentially means butler. I didnt sit whiskey tests to become one (there arent any) nor do I mean to turn anyone off with a word that can sound pretentious. Truth is, what I do is very butlerlike: I roam the floor, serve guests, and pluck a few personal details out of them to help them find the whiskey they will love. What wine or cocktail do you normally drink? I might ask, or, What do you like to eat? Then Ill hunt down the perfect whiskeyout of the thousand or so The Flatiron Room stocksto suit their palate. On days Im not at The Flatiron Room, I write about whiskey for a couple of magazines. And when Im not doing that, Im often out on the town with a friend or my husband, checking out a new cocktail bar or restaurant that serves my favorite spirit. I guess you could say Ive essentially built a career on drinking Jack.

In a move my colleagues and a few friends found odd, in 2012 I left my sweet-ass job as a whiskey ambassador to join The Flatiron Room and write. As an ambassador to Glenfiddich, worlds number one selling single malt Scotch, I enjoyed dazzling perks like international travel and a corporate card that allowed me to buy a nice steak dinner for dozens at high-end strip joints and country clubs, if youre into that sort of thing. I can rattle off some of the best places in the United States to find hedonistic entertainment, and Ive played golf (badly) on famous courses like those at Turnberry in Scotland. I even climbed Kilimanjaro in Tanzania for charity during a blizzard wearing Glenfiddich-branded gear, and slept in it too, perched on the side of a cliff in a quivering tent. At each dinner, corporate function, golf tournament, charity gala, magazine interview, TV spot, fashion show, private yacht trip, private plane trip, car show, and even rodeo, my role was the same: to make my audience fall in love with whiskey. Oh, and to use Glenfiddich while doing it.

Someone asked every other night whether I really liked Glenfiddich or if there was some other whiskey I secretly drank in private. While I never admitted that I had secret lovers, Id be true in my answer: I chose to work as an ambassador for Glenfiddich because I liked it in the first place, not the other way around. Its also a brand that aficionados love for its collectibility and tasteI stood next to a bidder at the base of the Statue of Liberty during a Glenfiddich charity auction and watched in awe as he won the bottle for close to a hundred thousand dollars. It was a good gig.

But relationships evolve. I started to feel a nagging love for bourbon, rye, Japanese whiskies, Irish whiskeys, and a bevy of other exciting spirits, and soon I needed to spend more time with them, too. So Glenfiddich and I split. Whiskey monogamy just isnt my thing. By the end of this book, it wont be yours, either.

The most important thing Ive learned by hosting eventswhether theyre for a hundred corporate executives on behalf of a big whiskey company or for two guests at The Flatiron Roomis how to talk about it. And, while speaking to thousands (yes, thats right, thousands) of whiskey drinkers, my goal is to demystify whiskey and answer questions like: How do you taste whiskey? What are you supposed to smell? Do you swirl whiskey like wine? Can you put ice in a whiskey? Water? What does small batch mean? Why is Johnnie Walker Blue so expensive? What is moonshine? Why does this bottle say nonchill filtered? How do you store it? Can you make money by investing in it? Can women drink it?

Today, American whiskey sales alone top $1 billion, up from $376 million about a decade ago. Its popularity is growing faster than the good information available on the topic. And some of the advice out there is just plain off the mark. Ive read blogs written by brutish whiskey fans that say certain (critically acclaimed) brands arent even good enough to use as a toilet cleaner, and that to drink them means you have no taste. But taste is subjective. Ive heard brand ambassadors explain that whiskey wont make you drunk, but tequila will. Nonsense. I read nosing notes on Web sites and in books that go on for as many pages as Moby Dick. But the truth is, most experts can realistically identify five distinct aromas. I listened to a tourist guide for a famous American whiskey distillery explain to thirty of us that all Scotch tastes like smoke. Not true. My role here, then, is to sift through all the junky information out there, and give you a real primer of whiskeys, so that youll be able to identify bunk like a champ and become an expert yourself. Youll taste along the way and have fun, too.

And the Number One Question Is...?