Michael Jackson - Michael Jacksons Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch: the Worlds Best-selling Book on Malt Whisky

The eighth edition of this book, first published more than 30 years ago, coincides with what is arguably the most dynamic, diverse, and purely exciting time in the history of whisky. The Scotch whisky industry is booming, with many existing distilleries being expanded, and a plethora of fledgling and startup distilling ventures being developed, in a wide variety of locations.

There have, however, been boom times for Scotch whisky in the past, just as there has for Irish, bourbon, and rye. What makes the present situation so different is the increasing number of countries around the world that have little or no tradition of making whisky, but which are now developing whisky industries of their own on varying scales. In the past, consumers in these countries might have drunk whisky, but now they are making their own. And when it comes to single malts, this edition embraces the best and most interesting, just as it does with Scotch malts.

In the last decade new world whiskies have grown from a handful of entries in this book to a weighty section with more than 100 pages. Whats more, the new micro distilleries are making malt whisky that is very different to the malts produced in Scotland. Not only that, but theyre attracting new, younger, more multicultural, and more female drinkers to the world of whisky.

The aim throughout is not to be all-inclusive, as there are now simply too many expressions of malt whisky available, but to be selective and representative, and feature whiskies that readers should be able to locate and sample for themselves.

Were Michael Jackson with us today, it seems certain that he would have embraced the world of whisky with his customary thirst for knowledge and new experiences, boarding planes for Tasmania or Taiwan, just as he once did for Aberdeen and the distilling delights of nearby Speyside or Louisville, and the whiskey jewels of Kentucky.

The whisky industry is full of wonderful characters whose talents are matched only by their modesty. Michael, as unpretentious and unassuming as the characters he met and interviewed, was the perfect person to bring their talents to a wider audience. He built bridges within the industry, linking whisky makers and whisky devotees around the world. He gave us access to the worlds great distilleries, and the people who create great whisky within them.

At heart, Michael was a traditionalist. His values harked back to a time when the pace of life was slower and more considered. He fought with quiet determination to preserve the things he loved, and saw as threatened. He wrote for Slowfood magazine, eschewed marketing terms such as brand and product, and had little time for the insincerity and disposability of modern consumerism.

Nothing remains the same for very long, and as time passes a new generation is discovering Michaels work for the first time. So it seems appropriate to offer, for their benefit, some brief biographical information on the man whose name graces this book.

To begin with the cold, hard facts, Michael was born in Wetherby, Yorkshire, on March 27, 1942, and brought up in nearby Leeds, where his family moved after the First World War. His father was a Lithuanian Jew who had changed his name from Jakowitz when the family migrated to Yorkshire. Michael began his career in journalism on the Huddersfield Examiner , and as the beer writer Roger Protz noted in his Guardian obituary of Michael in September 2007, Jacksons writing style was deeply influenced by his early journalismshort sentences shorn of adornment.

Moving to London, Michael wrote his first book, The English Pub , published in 1976, followed a year later by The World Guide to Beer , which set a benchmark for the subject and became a much reprinted classic. Turning to whisky, the first edition of this best-selling book was published in 1989, and since then, various other titles followed.

On the subjects of both beer and whisky, Michael was one of the first commentators to really address issues of flavor and diversity, and paved the way for so much that has subsequently been written about alcohol. He was responsible for developing and refining regional classifications for malt whiskies, and wrote extensively and perceptively for the first time about the distilleries within those classifications. His reputation and influence were truly global. He died of a heart attack on August 30, 2007, having suffered from Parkinsons disease for the previous 10 years.

As in the seventh edition, we have attempted to remain faithful to Michaels traditional values, modesty, and positivity. He was respectful and careful about what he said and how he said it. He held the view that there were very few bad malt whiskies, and sought to find something positive about all of them, or to say nothing at all. He set about his tasting notes with almost scientific precision, describing the flavors he encountered while avoiding subjective indulgences.

In the Scottish section where Michael originally did most of his work we have also tried to be as true to Michaels precise and frugal writing style as possible, and to score whiskies in the same way that he did. This hasnt been easy because scoring is highly subjective, and each of us found malts in the old editions that we would have scored differently from Michael. When scoring other malts from the same distillery, were we to give them the score we felt they justified, or align them with Michaels other scores? We went with the latter approach.

Our approach to new world whiskies is somewhat different. There are literally thousands of new whiskies, and many are not very good. There is little point therefore in including them in the book. The ones that have been selected come highly recommended. The scores are notably higher than those for Scotland. This is not to say they are better than those of Scotland. Its purely that they are scored in a different way by a different writer and are scored in a way that will generate excitement for the reader and encourage them to seek them out.

In updating this book, we have been helped by countless people within the industry, and we would particularly like to thank those, who went to the trouble of expressing support for what we were doing. Hopefully, we have repaid their faith by producing a book that still represents Michael and all that he stood for, a book in which the seams dont show, and in which Michaels personality and values shine bright.