I don’t quite know how the conversation veers around to it (and why), but one sultry afternoon in Delhi, at the celebrated Bukhara, I find Bill Lumsden, director of distilling and whisky creation at Glenmorangie, telling me about his fetish for women’s feet and shoes. “That’s probably because, as a baby, I would crawl under the table where my parents’ friends sat, looking at their shoes,” he says, marvelling also at the succulent raan , perfectly accompanied by our Lasanta, warm and spicy from sitting in sherry casks, Lumsden’s favourite kind of wood.
In the world of luxury single malts, Lumsden has somewhat of a reputation for being eccentric, a mad scientist of sorts. His work with casks, experimenting with different wood to age different single malts, achieving new flavours, is widely respected and he is one of the foremost experts on scotch whisky. But what adds to his international celebrity status is undoubtedly the edges to his personality. He clearly enjoys its effects.
Raan meets malt
As soon as we’ve sat down to the Bukhara meal, Lumsden has somewhat startled the good folk bringing us our drinks. He’ll have his Glenmorangie 10 year old with soda, he says, asking me whether I’d like the same. This is an effective throwing of all hard and fast rules about scotch and soda to the wind. “But I thought that’s the wrong way to drink a single malt,” I prod. Lumsden assures me there are no rules, in life or scotch. He adds that Dean Martin made it cool to mix scotch and soda and so should we, and that because this is a hot Delhi afternoon, the beverage is perfectly acceptable.
The scotch lightened with bubbles indeed works well with the kasturi kebab that comes to our table. Anything warmer or heavier may have been too much. But when I try the Lasanta next, I do abstain from the soda. While the air conditioning does not quite make this the Highlands, to appreciate the “warm spices mixed with chocolate covered raisins and caramel toffee” tasting notes, it’s a drink best had neat.
“What could be better, being here in the afternoon, eating all this and sharing anecdotes about whisky?” Lumsden pauses to say at one point, eating the grills and dal quite happily without cutlery, wiping his hands on his apron. In between stories of “God” — teetotaller and LVMH owner Bernard Arnault himself — trying out the Glenmorangie 10 year old , and of the Tain Highland Gathering (the games in Scotland) where Lumsden appears in his kilt as a chieftain, we do manage to talk trends and business.
Baked to perfection
Lumsden is in Delhi to launch The Bacalta, a new limited edition single malt — Glenmorangie’s eighth release in its award-winning annual Private Edition range. The name is Gaelic for “baked”, a reference to the Malmsey Madeira wine casks used to finish this whisky. The casks filled with the wine were left to “bake” in the sun on the island of Madeira, before making their journey to the Highlands to be filled with the base whisky to create the Bacalta.
The Bacalta is the latest from Lumsden’s “cabinet of curiosities” as he calls it, and he is quite a champion of non age statement (NAS) whiskies. For all those who tuned in late, NAS whiskies — scotch without an age specified on the bottle — have been trending in the world of luxury whisky for the last few years.
Age, just a number?
By law, a whisky producer is only supposed to age the spirit for three years, so technically some of these could be very young whiskies. There is, of course, immense pressure on companies to release their stocks early. To hold on to stocks for 20 years or more takes deep pockets and is a financial drain, to say the least, but because the demand for vintage whiskies has gone up steadily, barrels for aged stocks are running dry.
Distilleries, thus, need to innovate, and NAS whiskies are pitched as a free expression of their makers’ creativity.
Producers can blend single malts of different ages and present delicious spirits without being restricted by a specific age. Champions of NAS have pointed out that simply ageing for longer does not a better whisky make, and Lumsden adds to this argument.
“The minimum I would age a single malt is seven to eight years. That is a clear indication of what kind of spirits I use to create anything. No whisky maker is going to risk his reputation by bottling something that is not up to the mark, and in keeping with the brand’s expression. Consumers should trust that,” he points out. Age statements on bottles started out as Scotch’s way of distinguishing itself from products like Cognac. Now, that wheel has come a full circle.
In 2009, Lumsden introduced Glenmorangie’s first serious NAS whisky (though this was before NAS as a term became fashionable), calling it Ardbeg Uigeadail. It went on to become a champion, anointed “world whisky of the year” by Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible . Later bottles, however, have had to contend with a more diverse opinion on taste. The Glenmorangie Signet, similarly, was hailed as the pinnacle of the NAS phenomenon, even by the latter’s detractors.
Experts like Lumsden contend that age is irrelevant. “That’s a question I am no longer asked,” he says, before adding, “And I am not saying how old I am either!”
The limited edition Bacalta is available at select liquor stores across the country, priced at ₹14,116 in Mumbai and ₹9,030 in Delhi.
