this is the story of a whiskey and it
starts about three months ago where I
get a phone call from Johnny Walker and
they say hey we're working on this
little secret thing and can you come to
Edinburgh next week and be a part of it
and I was like yes
yes I can but wait what's the secret
thing and they're like well we have this
thing called blenders Bosch it's small
runs and stuff it's a little bit
experimental and working on one and
robot release it and it's called
Johnny Walker blenders batch espresso
roast now I confess at this moment I'm
slightly skeptical because espresso
roast isn't a term that you know in this
industry we've come to see as being
particularly appetizing so I'm a little
bit skeptical but I talked some more and
it's clear that this is an opportunity
for me to learn a lot so next week a
jump on a flight I go to Edinburgh and
the next morning I meet up with everyone
else there and it's quite a big crew
it's not just me there's a team of eight
or nine bartenders from around the world
there there's a chef there's the
blending team from Johnny Walker so it's
kind of a big group and the first thing
they do is that they take us to a small
distillery called Glen kimchi now this
is my first distillery visit and to be
honest it kind of blows my mind I hadn't
realized just how much whisky has in
common with coffee beer data preparation
of your raw materials through heat be it
grinding it and the importance of grind
profile and extraction obviously things
change once you start to ferment stuff
and distill it but I'm kind of
fascinated by the crossover between the
two industries it blew my mind to see
the kind of grinders they have to see
the row tap Sid's there to measure grind
distribution so we see how that
fermented liquid then gets distilled and
I guess the barrel aging and this to me
is incredibly exciting it's new and I
feel like I've got so much I can take
away from this plus the facility is kind
of amazing and then we jump on a bus and
we drive on a long way to a big facility
they have called
now it's a huge facility and right in
the middle of it there's a secret
distillery and this is where they do
experimental work and they've got some
super cool stuff some kind of crazy toys
to make delicious things they can do
tiny experiments where they push the
boundaries there we get to taste some
interesting stuff one of the experiments
the experiment that I'm interested in
has involved taking ballet now usually
you'd malt barley which is starting a
germination process because when a seed
germinates it converts it's kind of
complex sugars to simple sugars
those are great because we can turn
those simple sugars into alcohol
later but here they haven't wanted the
body they've rested the barley
kuan-yin long way up to quite a deep
dark color now this isn't totally new
this is something you might do for the
drinks like Guinness or Porter's or dark
beers and you can't use all of this
because there's not much simple sugar
left because it's all been roasted away
so it can only make up a percentage of
whatever you're brewing but here I've
got to taste something super interesting
which is the unaged freshly distilled
make of this deeply roasted barley then
that evening we go to dinner but before
we go to dinner we do a little tasting
and for me if this was a tasting around
blending which for me was fascinating
because blending isn't fashionable in
coffee anymore it's very necessary and
whiskey and has a long long tradition
and it's kind of interesting to see
someone else's approach to blending a
whiskey the next morning everyone goes
to our restaurant and quite earlier in
the day we sit down and we get to taste
these two whiskies now one of them is
actually a whiskey aged in a rum cask
and there's a chef there who specializes
in Caribbean food who prepares some
super delicious things to inspire the
bartenders
I do something a little different I'm
kind of there to talk about the
development of flavor through roasting
and so we do a pretty simple cupping
from green to roasted talking about that
development of flavor of sweetness of
acidity of bitterness and see how they
can maybe take that information and
apply it
what they're doing and also may be
triggered some ideas for the bartenders
but I'll be honest
these were incredibly talented
bartenders from around the world you
know and the best bit of my day was that
the afternoon was them let loose with
these spirits and a ton of ingredients
just to create some drinks and I got to
stand around and watch this happen and
then taste the drinks and I couldn't
really talk about this whole experience
you know I flew home that night unable
to bring a bottle back with me it's been
a secret little project up until now so
now it's available it's out I can talk
about it I can talk about this
experience that I had but kind of blew
my mind you can go and buy this whiskey
and drink it and you might ask how does
it taste well one more quick confession
I don't drink a ton of scotch whiskey I
like it I don't pity whiskies I just
can't get down with the smoke I tend to
drink a lot of whiskey of mixed drinks
and so I end up drinking a lot of
American whiskey this however I found
particularly delicious I was kind of
relieved at how much I liked this
whiskey it has this really interesting
kind of meiody nose and I know why
people would reach for coffee as a
descriptor for it and it's gonna count
this kind of creamy rich sweetness to it
it's a very approachable whisky it's
very delicious in the next couple of
months I look forward to kind of
creating some recipes with it having
some fun with it if you want to taste it
well I'm gonna give away a bottle you
want to know what it's like leave a
comment below be subscribed and I'll
pick one of you in a couple of weeks and
I'll ship your bottle of whisky and I
hope you enjoy it and if you get the
chance to taste this let me know what
you think leave a comment down below
this kind of blew my mind and I think
from the conversations I had was the
beginning of a little journey at Johnnie
Walker for that blending team to
experiment more with flavor development
through roast so I'm super interested to
see what happens
anyway have to meet out another whiskey