Dave Broom - Whisky: The Manual

If you try telling master blender Kirsteen Campbell that women cant enjoy whisky, youd better make sure you have your running shoes on.

You can picture the scene. There they sit in their armchairs, a group of men, tweed-suited, perhaps be-kilted and picking at their sporrans, a glass of golden spirit in a crystal tumbler at their side. Occasionally theyll mutter to each other about peat and glower at the noisy young folk behind them, drinking their fancy mixed drinks. Thats most folks image of whisky. Backs to the world, human wagons drawn into a leather-armchaired circle repelling the barbarians. Old-fashioned. Irrelevant. The same applies to bourbon, just with less tweed and kilts.

In 1970s Britain, America, and Japan, Scotch and bourbon both faltered, resulting in two generations for whom whisky has been an unknown entity. Because of low levels of investment, whisky was never made contemporary and relevant.

To see how false this old-fashioned image is, you need only look at what is happening in bars and restaurants elsewhere in the world theres precious little old-school about the way whisky is being consumed in So Paulo or Mexico City. Say its a grandfathers drink to the hipsters in Taipei, Shanghai or Moscow and youll be looked at as if you are crazy. Its not whisky that is old-fashioned, its our attitude toward it.

Lets go back to our (mythic) bar. A woman walks in and orders a whisky. The old chaps fall out of their armchairs in astonishment.

Woman! Know your place, one splutters.

Dont be harsh, says another. Now, my dear, he says, This is a strong drink. Maybe start with something nice and light, eh? He pats her on the head and winks at the barman. Get her a white wine instead. Ill pay.

The days when it was believed that whisky was too strong to be appreciated by pretty little things with fluff between their ears have gone. So, hopefully, have the embarrassing attempts to market whisky at women, which usually ended up with either pink whisky, or something sweet and light for the ladies. This, as well as being wildly patronizing, still infers that women cant quite cope with full-blooded whisky flavours, which is far from true.

Look around the world. In every new market as many women are drinking whisky as men. Try telling master blenders like Maureen Robinson and Caroline Martin (Diageo), Rachel Barrie (Morrison Bowmore), Stephanie MacLeod (Dewars) and Kirsteen Campbell (Cutty Sark) that whisky is a mans drink. Youd better have some good running shoes on.

Whisky has the widest range of styles and flavours of any wood-aged spirit. It is versatile. It is for everyone.

Heres a true story. Im in a taxi in Glasgow and strike up a conversation with the driver, who discovers that I write about whisky. He then regales me about his recent trip to a distillery. Ive never been much of a whisky drinker I hate that burn but you know what? At the end of the tour they said I was allowed to add a wee drop of water to the dram. It was beautiful!

So heres a 50-something-year-old Scottish guy who has been told for, say, 36 years (this is Glasgow) that its wrong to add water to whisky and, as a result, hated the drink. How many people have been told the same over the years, tried neat whisky and never repeated the exercise? Probably millions.

This is hardly a one-off. At a dinner with top chaps from the advertising industry I suggested that theyd like to add water to the whisky in front of them. There was a sense of mild consternation at this notion. Are you allowed to do that? asked one. Of course! I replied. They did, they smiled and had another and another. You know, said one to me later, after all these years of drinking whisky Ive never before been given permission to add water.

Permission? Here were highly respected, highly intelligent men who had been drinking whisky for years but had never enjoyed it because no one had told them that water is a friend, not the enemy.

Adding water not only releases aromas, but allows flavours to spread gently over the tongue and kills the burn. If the aim is to get more people to try whisky, then why are we still stuck in this mentality that pain is better than pleasure? Drink your whisky long with water or soda, throw ginger ale at it, try it with green tea or coconut water, make a cocktail. Use its flavours to make compelling drinks that make you smile.

Were back in our bar, which is fireflied with whisky glasses as poet Norman MacCaig memorably put it. The meal has been taken and it is time to relax with a glass. Its a throwback to another Victorian habit of gentlemen retiring for whisky and cigars and women doing whatever Victorian women did take laudanum, perhaps. Neither happens these days.

The combination of drink-driving regulations and restaurants aversion to offering digestifs has brought down the curtain on this ideal whisky-drinking ritual, which is a real shame, as the slow sipping of a post-prandial ardent spirit is good both for the digestion and for conversation. Because whisky, in recent years, was seen only as a post-dinner drink, when that occasion disappeared, so did another reason to drink the spirit.