World Whisky Day: It’s all about community
As we mark another World Whisky Day (17th May) OurWhisky Foundation founder, Becky Paskin, hopes that now more than ever we come together and celebrate our very human industry.
There was once a time when Scotch whisky blenders and distillers were forbidden to speak to one another. The fear from their antsy overlords was that they’d steal each others’ proprietary ideas – this was a time of big blends, and recipes were a secret one took to the grave.
I recall a tasting at the London Whisky Show a few years ago involving a handful of whisky makers from across Ireland, India, Japan and Scotland. After the session ended and guests had departed to the exhibitor floor below, these whisky makers gathered excitedly around a table, pouring each other samples of their own creations for one another to taste.
Like kids at a science fair, their questions were rapid, probing, curious and excited. The exchange lasted no more than 10 minutes but each person left inspired and enlightened, renewed with ideas that could improve their own craft of making whisky. This wasn’t about stealing one another’s recipes – in sharing their passion for flavour and science it was a hurried opportunity to learn from their peers outwith the bubbles their relative industries confined them to.
If you’re a lover of Japanese whisky, you’ll know its foundations lie in Scotch, when Masataka Taketsuru ventured to Scotland to learn the craft of whisky making. He then took his newfound knowledge back to Japan to build Yamazaki and later Yoichi, the country’s first industrial whisky distilleries.
“Without shared ideas, collaboration and community, the world whisky industry simply wouldn’t exist.”
Another of Scotland’s most celebrated modern whisky makers, Dhavall Gandhi was inspired by brewing at Heineken, Sherry cask maturation at The Macallan and wine-making in Bordeaux to develop The Lakes Distillery’s celebrated signature style; while Abbie and Chris Jaume at Yorkshire’s Cooper King were inspired to start making English whisky after discovering Tasmania’s own emerging distilling scene.
Without shared ideas, collaboration and community, the world whisky industry simply wouldn’t exist. Each regional industry, each distillery, would operate on its own, isolated and creatively suffering from a self-inflicted insistence on ‘doing it alone’.
As we welcome another World Whisky Day (17th May) and celebrate the diversity of our beloved spirit, we mustn’t forget that it’s also a celebration of community, of diverse people from all backgrounds who make whisky so varied, innovative and special.
Amidst financial challenges and a sea of political and social division, now more than ever we need to come together as a community to ensure the future survival of world whisky. As humans, we’re predisposed to fear the unknown, and just like the blending house overlords of the past, it can be easy to view those around us as competition, but this is not a time to shut out the world.
“Amidst financial challenges and a sea of political and social division, now more than ever we need to come together as a community to ensure the future survival of world whisky.”
Within the new OurWhisky Foundation Community platform we’ve seen the benefit of cross-category collaboration and the sharing of ideas, experiences and support. Our members have solved problems, introduced groundbreaking inclusion initiatives, found new job roles and even launched brands, all by working together.
None of these milestones could have been achieved without the support of others. So while global physical borders may be closing and division feels omnipresent, it’s vital we embody the spirit of World Whisky Day every day, by embracing the community around us.
Human connection isn’t forged alone, and neither is whisky - let’s not forget that we have each to thank for the other.
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