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A Beautiful Life
Life’s pretty good for Capetonians. Nestled against the imposing Table Mountain and flanked by the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, visitors very quickly declare that this is a city that has it all.
Beautiful warm summers, plentiful rains, an abundance of wine farms nearby, good-quality restaurants, a vibrant nightlife, sandy beaches and beautiful scenery, international sporting events, excellent shopping, affordable prices, and it has to be said, very beautiful people. It’s not a bad list is it?
The locals even put a positive spin on the wind that can whistle down the streets with ferocity sometimes, dubbing it the Cape Doctor because it blows away all the germs and keeps the city healthy. It’s no wonder that so many visitors end up staying or buying holiday homes in the city.
The V&A Waterfront, an ever-growing complex of shops, offices, restaurants and bars, is a magnet for tourists who enjoy the waterside location, the working harbour and the relaxed, cosmopolitan atmosphere. This is said to be the busiest tourist attraction in the country and it’s easy to see why. It is from here that you can get ferries to Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and other leaders of today’s South Africa were imprisoned as they fought to free the country from apartheid.
Heading away from the city, you will find wine farms till your vino heart’s content in the Stellenbosch, Constantia, Paarl, Robertson and Worcester areas.
Popular city beaches are Camp’s Bay and Clifton, while Bloubergstrand, Noordhoek and Boulder’s Beach (where you can sometimes swim with penguins) can be found further out.
Introduction
About the same number of people are dotted around on the terracing behind the goal, a bit of concrete that seems to hang on the hillside. Well, actually, it does hang on the hillside, as the whole stadium is cut into a massive drop from what is little more than a village, situated a few miles from the tourist town of Paphos. The stadium is rubbish, the football is rubbish and youngsters from the home side’s youth team are throwing things at the opposition’s big wigs who are sitting in front of me.
But I love every minute of it because I am a football lover. And if you love football, you know going to a game is about way more than football itself. It’s about laughing at the opposition striker when he misses an easy chance (come on, that’s the best bit), the beer before the game (hang on, maybe that’s the best bit) and providing the perfect excuse for getting home late (sorry, that’s the best bit). It’s about discovering there’s a second division team called Akritas Chloraka just up the road from where you are staying and astonishing the locals that you even care. And strolling up the road to watch them, then following their results on the internet for years to come.
Akritas Chloraka are not featured in this book. But football lovers across the world are always looking for any excuse for a beer, a plane trip and a chance to laugh at the opposition striker missing a sitter.
So welcome to this offer of 26 countries, 49 cities and 61 clubs not a million miles from where you are sitting right now.Featuring clubs from Barcelona and Real Madrid to IFK Gothenburg and Lyon; cities from London and Milan to Villarreal and Haifa; and countries from the east of Europe to the west, north and south. They’ve been chosen for their footballing ability and the city’s visitability. And also because more of us than ever want to go away, watch a match and enjoy ourselves in a place that isn’t where our season ticket tells us to go and who to watch.
Of course there are some clubs missing. Is it anyone’s fault Uefa has expanded more than the Roman Empire? But hopefully this is a list to tempt your taste buds and stretch your Easyjet account.
All Change
The whisky industry is constantly changing. Now it’s the new world’s turn to reshape it.
Caracas, Venezuela, 2am Friday night. Pneumatic breasts and curves the like women’s magazines have abandoned long ago. The women can’t believe their looks and the men can’t believe their luck. I am in San Ignacio, the city’s main entertainment and shopping complex to the east of downtown, a collection of 17 (I am told) bars and clubs, and numerous shops. Apart from the sound of South American-accented Spanish in the air the clubs are like many others around the world: suited, brooding hulks on the door, music pounding to vibration level, and excited partygoers all dressed up and hoping to get the nod for entry.
But here the queue is not dipping in to its pockets to pay a cover charge. No, the currency of entry here is whisky. And to name drop, the preferred currency, the US dollar of Caracas club country, is Johnnie Walker Black (closely followed by Buchanan’s and Old Parr). You want to come in? Then order a bottle of Johnnie on the door. It’ll be delivered to your table with glasses, ice and water for the group. How civilised. There were seven of us so the entry price was two bottles.
A few days later, in a trendy Tex Mex restaurant in Puerto la Cruz, a five-hour drive north east of Caracas, a group of young women huddled around a bottle of Buchanan’s chatting. The food is spicy fajitas and burritos, the wallpaper is a black and gold Striding Man pattern.
It is fresh approaches to whisky, from countries unencumbered with how things should and shouldn’t be done, that will reshape the industry in the coming years. Slowly, slowly, the old rules will no longer apply.
Famously, in 2003, Diageo announced that it was the quantities drunk by the Spanish (and demands from the Johnnie Black blend) that led to single malt Cardhu becoming a vatted malt. It was a move that sparked furious discussions about standardising rules among members of the Scotch Whisky Association in the classification of whisky across the industry. Spain is Scotland’s biggest export market worth around £300 million a year, but it nevertheless still came as a surprise that one country’s consumption of one whisky could spark such a stir in the industry and get one famous whisky to change its years of history in a one fell swoop.
There would have been similar stirrings earlier this year across Scottish distillers at the news that Japanese whisky had been named the best in the world ahead of its more esteemed rivals. The international competition is organised by Whisky Magazine and has 16 industry experts involved in a blind tasting of more than 200 whiskies. Yoichi 20 Year Old, distilled on the shores of the Sea of Japan, won the single malt award – the first outside of Scotland to do so – while Suntory Hibiki distilled near Sapporo (of beer fame) picked up the best blend award. Exactly what changes were made as a result of the news is unknown but it would be a surprise if Japan’s honour didn’t cause more than just some Scottish head scratching.
So what does this all mean? Quite simply, the way the industry works is being shaped by the new world of drinkers. Whether it’s the way Venezuelans drink it, the amount of a particular single malt the Spanish drink or the success of the Japanese distillers, the main players in the game – Scotland, Ireland and the US have to sit up and take notice. And adapt.
It’s an industry that understands adaptability or it wouldn’t have thrived for hundreds of years. It knows how to survive and it knows how to change to survive. So is it ready for the next big wave of influence: India and China?
Shailendra Singh, is MD of Percept Ltd, an influential Mumbai marketing agency, and a man who mixes with cricket stars and former Miss World’s. He drinks whisky. I asked him what it was that drove India to become the biggest whisky market in the world.
“With a dynamic changing social scenario there is a growing chunk of singles and young couples with disposable and double incomes, and nuclear and split families in the city,” Singh explained. “The idea of entertaining out and loosening up with a crowd over a drink has found great popularity with the young upwardly mobile brigade.”
Mandeep Grewal, brand ambassador for Johnnie Walker and responsible for growing the brand in the British Asian market agrees. “Punjab state has the highest per capita whisky consumption in the world. Unfortunately, the whisky is consumed in high volumes with no knowledge about the product at all. Whisky brands just play a role in exhibiting the social status of the consumers.”
The same drive by status is also one that can be expected in China, and expect its significance in the industry to grow. John Lamond, Master of Malt, points out in his Global Report elsewhere in this book that exports into that market grew by 1030% between 2001 and 2006. The base off which it grew might be small, but growth like that cannot be ignored, nor fail to influence the industry.
There is a significant difference between the two markets, notably a thriving local whisky industry in India, protected it must be said by the huge tariffs imposed on imported spirits by the Indian government, which run into hundreds of percent. So a lot of the drive to the top has been due to successful Indian brands such as McDowell’s No.1, Signature, Bagpiper and Seagrams Blender’s Pride.
Singh, however, says the rich and famous still stick to international brands like Chivas Regal, The Famous Grouse, Cutty Sark, and so on. (Although certain Indian premium whiskies like Royal Challenge & Antiquity are also popular among this crowd).
He also recognises an important factor that will influence both India and China significantly: the influence of immigrants from these countries.
“Jack Daniel’s is the most well-known American whiskey brand in the country today. The brand has capitalised on a youth appeal in relation to rock music to attract its target segment. This whisky has a number of Indians returning from the US as its brand ambassadors and evangelists, having experienced the product on home shores. Presently, bourbon sales are driven largely by Indians returning from the US.”
China, like India, has shown that its people can thrive across the world, yet continue to retain links with their home country. It’s an important factor in changing habits and in many ways importing beliefs on what carries status.
I’ve seen the effect easily enough myself. The influence of Canadians working in the Bermudan financial system means bars are full of cries of “[Canadian] Club and ginger.” Other visitors in turn import the drink back to wherever they come from. And so habits spread.
Then there is the influence of food (covered in Trend 3 in more detail). Curry is too broad a term for the cuisine of India and beyond but if whisky is seriously going to crack that market it simply has to become accepted as a drink that is good with its food.
In the UK, Kingfisher beer thrives thanks to the huge number of Indian restaurants. Cobra, it’s fair to say, was probably invented largely on the back of their existence. Trend 3 shows whisky can be a drink to pair with whisky and JW’s Grewal already sees the potential. “Whisky has a great potential in the UK restaurants, “ he says. “Success to me would be when restaurateurs would confidently recommend consumers different style of whiskies with variety of dishes. I believe that the future would be looking at specialist Asian cuisine rather that all the Indian food bundled into one word ‘curry’.”
Amrut Distilleries, an Indian company that uses barley grown in Punjab and Rajasthan, has already marketed its own single malt at Indian restaurants in Scotland, in a bid to follow the Kingfisher success. Who (and where) is next?
Matching it
After many years, have whisky and food pairings finally come of age?
Let’s just say I was sceptical. When food and whisky pairings first hit popular street, I probably wasn’t alone in thinking it was just a marketing gimmick. There was just a little bit of ‘wine can do it so why not us?’ This goes with this, this goes with that and we sell more whisky. And, why not? Then a few years ago in Cape Town, whisky writer Dave Broom introduced me to the whisky and oyster combination, one of the more famous of the pairings. The iodine sea taste of the oyster really does go well with whisky. And damn good fun it was as well, as we downed the mollusc and dram as shots, one after another.
Whisky and food pairings have been around for a number of years although it is, of course, impossible to pinpoint exactly when it became ‘popular’. Craig Paterson , chef and owner of Cape Town’s Beluga Restaurant, says in South Africa it’s been in the last five years as drinkers have sought to find out more about whisky. American whiskies, it must be said, seem to have embraced whiskey-food combinations a lot more wholeheartedly than others and Jim Beam’s Scott ? boldly says, “Jim Beam has been an ingredient in both food and drink recipes for centuries.”
But it is Wendy Neave, the restaurant and events manager at the Amber restaurant in the Scotch Whisky Heritage Centre in Edinburgh, who perceptively links the rise in pairings to the change in how people have approached their choice of ingredients that end up on their plate. “Whisky and food pairings seem to have come onto the scene within the past few years, perhaps at a time when there has been a renaissance is the appreciation of local seasonal cuisine,” she says. Sparked by environmental concerns about flying out-of-season produce around the world, and egged on by celebrity chefs promoting the idea, it is now de rigeur at dinner parties to present what’s fresh and available from where you live, not what’s being grown 24/7 in a greenhouse in New Zealand.
Which is the perfect boost for whisky and pairings. Whether your thing is fresh Scottish salmon with a 12 Year Old Speyside malt or hickory ribs with your bourbon, something feels inherently right about combinations that have obvious regional connections.
But there is still a long way to go before every Tom, Dick and Whisky Harry can reel off the names of their chosen dram and dish in the same way they do with “white wine with fish and red wine with meat.” Wine after all has got such a headstart in the game. As Neave says, “Wine has been the traditional accompaniment to food for a long time and changing attitudes is not easy. I would not say that matching whisky to food is widely accepted. Within the realms of enthusiasts and the industry it has now become the norm, but go into a restaurant on a Friday evening and everyone is still drinking wine with their meal. At Amber restaurant we have more success than most in encouraging people to try a whisky with their meal, but this tend to be with cheese or dessert following wine with the main course.”
But there are enough signs that this is no longer a novelty. Beluga is one of many restaurants that hold regular whisky dinners, mainly in association with the whisky companies granted. And in the UK, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s (SMWS) pairing evenings have become famous for innovation, with evenings that have matched game, curry and even chocolate at not only their venues in Edinburgh and London, but many other cities including Durham, Liverpool, Manchester, Derby, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Swansea and Belfast. With branches worldwide, you can also take your pick from sushi in Osaka, Christmas dinner in Melbourne, a grill party in Zurich and tapas in Stockholm.
And the Americans, oh the Americans, we can always rely on them to change things at pace. Their style could be described more as whisky-food integration than pairings. Of course it’s not uncommon to use Scotch in recipes but it’s the American distillers who have gone a step further. Visit the popular restaurant chain TGI Fridays and you’ll find a range of Jack meals in the section called Jack’s Grill (JD’s Chicken, JD’s Ribs and Shrimp and so on) as well as a JD’s barbeque sauce among others. And it all makes sense really, after all, who doesn’t think of barbeques and Jack when they think of the US?
And it’s the American industry’s enthusiasm that probably gives whisky pairings its greatest boost. Scott ? says “We [at Jim Beam] always encourage experimentation with food, just like with our bourbons. Fred Noe, seventh generation Beam family distiller, would say that if you make a face when you drink it, you should try cutting it with a bit of fresh water or a mixer. I haven’t seen many bourbon recipes for delicate [white] fish, but that’s not to say that it hasn’t been done or at least attempted. I can envision some spicy prawn or scallop recipes though… might have to try that tonight!”
It is attitudes like that which open up markets; and Jim Beam have backed their words. In 2004 Thanasi Foods announced the release of Jim Beam Soaked Sunflower Seeds, a snack product soaked in the whiskey and available in three flavours; Original, Barbeque, and Jalapeño. Later that year the company added Jim Beam Soaked Beef Jerky to the range. Jim Beam also has a licensing agreement with Vita Food Products to manufacture and sell Jim Beam barbeque sauces, marinades, mustards, steak sauces, hot sauce, wing sauce, pancake syrup and glazes. Vita also produces a range of Jim Beam hot smoked and fresh, marinated salmon. Another company, Top Shelf Gourmet, specialises in Jim Beam bourbon-infused fresh pork and poultry products, including Jim Beam Bourbon Barrel Ham, Pulled Pork, and Pulled Chicken. And Bradley Smoker produces a line of smoking briquettes made from actual Jim Beam Barrels, and Jim Beam branded smokers. Whisky now officially embracing foods anyone?
One man with a challenge on his hands when it comes to whisky and food is Mandeep Grewal. He is brand ambassador for Johnnie Walker with a role to nurture the portfolio within the British Asian market, which inevitably will include some tie ups with the nation’s favourite food, ‘curry’ (the all encompassing, if inaccurate, term for south Asian food). He has conducted a few whisky-food matching evenings and is looking to develop more on regular basis in the future. It’s not an obvious tie up, but then the spiciness of both is an obvious door opener. Originally from the Punjab region of India, Grewal also identifies the following flavours: “I work with creamy vanilla (mostly found in the Lowland Malts or Grains), fresh fruits (from the Speyside malts), rich fruits (from the Highlands) and the earthy smokiness (from the Islands or Islay Malts). You can have two views about matching food with whisky. One is to match the closest flavours in both (food and whisky) to complement each other and the other is to bring out the two extreme flavours.
Knowing the strengths in flavour of different whiskies when it comes to food can only help choices and the whole experience.. It’s the variations between the types of whiskies – Irish, Scotch and American – as well as the many differences within the sectors which can make pairings such an exciting part of drinking whisky.
For Paterson, in Scotch it is the dryness with fresh fruit aromas, vanilla, toffee, cinnamon; in Irish the lightness, so it’s the aromas of fresh cut grass, floral, honey and citrus; and for American it’s the toasted oak, vanilla and caramel flavors.
Scott ? says, “While Jim Beam shares similar characteristics with Scotch and Irish whisk(e)y – namely in sweetness and possibly wood – it contains noticeably less earth in both nose and mouth. Bourbon as an ingredient in food and cocktail recipes has a tendency to draw out or amplify flavors, especially in hearty meats and sauces.”
And if you are still struggling to pick up the tastes in whisky and food, Paterson offers the following advice: “To many people, when they have their first sip [and mouthful of food], I’d be honest and say their palate is not mature enough so they are really not sure what they just had and rather go for something that has a sweeter taste or a cocktail.
“I say have another sip, savour the whisky and then, once you discover the underlying flavors and you actually start to understand what and how pure whisky is your palate becomes mature and actually starts to develop. That’s when you will start to understand [what is happening between the whisky and the food].”
Sounds good to me. So what are we waiting for…
Football, royalty and chatty taxi drivers
Let’s get personal
Now whisky is being enjoyed by everyone, from the traditionalists to the cocktail drinkers, there is only one way to stand out from the crowd – seek out a personal whisky experience.
In the spirit of writing this piece I have just opened a bottle of Duncan Taylor 40 Year Old Cask Strength Single Malt, which was distilled at Bunnabhain. Its presentation box is classy, the tears on the glass of my first pour impressive and the release of oils when I added water the most swirlingly exciting I have ever seen. Cask strength, don’t you just love the bite. This is a fine whisky, right from the packaging to its taste.
But what makes this bottle so special is that it arrived as a gift from a friend on my 40th birthday. It’s mine, this hand-numbered 120th bottled out of 193. Not mine like I picked it up off a supermarket shelf. It was in the cask the same amount of time I have been alive. That second sip just tasted better. Excuse me while I savour its taste and the 40 years.
Of course, every sip of whisky is personal. That goes for whether you are Jack and Coke drinker who dreams of cool rock’n’roll days with the band on the road or you prefer emotive thoughts of rugged windswept coasts while enjoying a peaty Islay alone by the fire.
But what some whisky drinkers are looking for these days, amid a flurry of choices, special editions and different barrel finishes, are real, good-to-brag-about personal experiences with their whisky. My 40 Year Old birthday bottle gives me just that. When my cousin returns from work I shall pour him a glass and bore him with tales of my life. And we will laugh at a particular moment we remember way back when. Can a whisky really do this? Well, it just has.
The whisky industry, to its credit, has not sat back in its worn leather chair in the last few years. It has reinvented itself in a flurry of cocktails, shooters, mixers and let’s be honest, anything else which keeps sales up. It’s not even been afraid to drop a few bits of the kilt and bagpipe stuff if it helps to persuade a new audience that whisky is a good drink. Heaven knows, we certainly don’t need anymore of this imagery rammed down our throats to enjoy a good drink anyway.
But credit where credit is due, taking whisky’s image into the modern age is largely down to Jack Daniel’s Whiskey (although their marketing people still cleverly mix Harley imagery with wizened old Tennessee men doing things the traditional way to project the brand).
Jack (who needs a surname?) led the way in dropping the pretence and letting people enjoy their drink just the way they wanted. And so they attracted the younger crowd.
I went into a London bar recently and asked for a whisky. It was packed with youngsters.
‘We don’t serve whisky sir,’ I was told. ‘Just bourbon.’
And not just bourbon. Just Jack actually. About 40 bottles of it lined up and changing colour in time with the lights behind it. Red, blue, green, yellow, just Jack. I thought it churlish to point out that Jack himself would probably prefer to hear, ‘We only serve Tennessee Whiskey’, so had a couple and raised a glass to his modern-day marketing people, who are probably less bothered, especially in bar which serves just Jack..
But even though Jack Daniel’s has attracted mass-market adoration, it’s not against adding a little personal-experience gloss to its image. For a reasonable sum, a Jack lover can travel to Lynchburg, meet the head distiller and choose his own personal barrel, then head home and wait till it’s ready. And let’s be honest, talking to your friends about your barrel in Tennessee for a few years has got to worth as much as when you finally get to taste the first drop.
Of course, there are many places where you can buy your own barrel and enjoy the years of its maturation and then finally its liquid. And that is the point. Why order a glass from a bar, when you can pour your own from your own barrel? Which is a convenient point at which the maybe redefine ‘personal’ experience. Because, as we all know, it’s not entirely ‘personal’ is it. It’s as much about one-upmanship as anything else.
A friend once attended a 21st birthday of another friend’s son. Centre of attraction was a barrel of Scotch which had been bought by the father on the birth of his son and stored. Just think of the wait. A full 21 years and here it was. Was the son excited? Er, no, he was drinking alcopops with his friends far from the barrel he had metaphorically had to drag through his life. It was left to the dad and his friend to enjoy the whisky. It always had been.
Earlier this year on a whisky tour a grabbed a slice of my own personal whisky experience. Arriving early in the morning at Benromach, it was nice in these days of shiny Visitor Centres, it was nice to discover the guy who was rolling the barrels into the warehouse as we arrived, also doubled as the tour guide. And a fine guide he was too. But what really interested me was the personalised bottling.
At the end of the day I suppose all I walked out with was a bottle of Benromach. But to get it was a bit different to walking the supermarket aisles. Here, at the Forres distillery, the manager had to be called to remove the duty-paid lock. Then tests were carried out to measure the alcohol levels. A quick taste straight from the barrel. The first for three months I was told. Then I pour my whisky into my bottle, cork my own bottle and seal it. The manager hand writes all the details onto the label and finally asks me to enter my dteails into a leather-bound book. He was right, the last personalised bottle bought was three months earlier.
Just a bottle of whisky. Ok, if you insist.
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