Whiskey and Philosophy: A Small Batch of Spirited Ideas Book

Sloppy, lazy, and way too focused on what is the "best whisk(e)y". Also, a decade later it's WAY out of date.

Whiskey and Philosophy is a collection of essays written by various authors, all with the supposed premise of connecting the enjoyment of whiskey with various philosophical ways of thinking. The book is about 90% whiskey, 10% philosophy and most of the time the philosophy seems to be thrown in as an after thought. I don't think any of the essayist were chosen for their knowledge of philosophy and so the connections are often slap dash and a waste of ink. Sometimes there's no philosophy at all, and sometimes (like in the eye-rollingly unnecessary article on whether or not drinking whiskey makes you "mean" [all based around the Clint Eastwood movie "Unforgiven", a fictious tale]) it's psychological and not philosophical at all.

The book mainly focuses on single malt scotch, namely the peaty Isaly whiskies, and a little bit of bourbon too. We get a section on Japanese whisky toward the end of the book but a lot of that is how it has been shaped by Scottish practices. Some of the essays are just awful. The worst for me was the one about women and whiskey. I was actually looking forward to that section. Would it be about Bessie Williamson, one of the few modern female distillery managers? Or maybe whiskey sommelier Heather Greene who wrote a wonderful book for whiskey newbies called Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life? No, no I'll bet it's about the Penderyn Distillery in Wales which has an all-female distilling team? WRONG! It's a terrible essay that basically says for women to compete in a men's world of business they need to have more manly-attributes and a glass of whiskey in the hand becomes a symbolic dick in your pants. Are kidding me? Get the f@%* outta here! The reader also gets an essay about how a person who enjoyed a bottle of The Glenlivet mixed with a great portion of cola lacks whisky "virtue" (virtue by Aristotle's definition, not in the Judeo-Christian sense). Get the hell out of here, you self-righteous a-hole and let people enjoy themselves. Just because you (and I) wouldn't do that to a single malt, doesn't mean your superior, it just means your an elitist. Another boring essay is a tale of whether or not one chooses to over imbibe so as to enjoy the whisky now, though it may lead to a painful hang over in the morning. That essay gets draped in some half-assed Buddhist "middle path" and how the "self" of the now, is not the same "self" that will awake with a splitting headache in the morning. Why not drink it all and go for a drive then? After all it won't be "you" that wakes up the next morning in the hospital, jail, or some place even worse the next morning. What a waste of ink, waste of paper, and waste of my time.

The book is lazy because it can't even take the time to be current for it's date of publishing. In the book, though in different essays, we read that there are both 5 regions of scotch (Highlands, Lowlands, Speyside, Islay, and Campbeltown) and in a later essay 6 regions (add The Islands). The same is true with the number of distilleries on Islay as different essays are both pre- and post-Kilchoman.

The book was published in 2009, right about the time I was just beginning to get into single malt scotches after being raised on my grandfather's Wild Turkey. The essays were obviously compiled before that as there are (deservedly) many mentions of reknowned whisky writer Michael Jackson. Jackson died in 2007 and I don't really recall him mentioned as "the late" in the book. Doesn't stop one essayist from writing a section on comparing the tasting notes/whisky scores of Jackson and Jim Murray (of the annual "Whisky Bible"). These tasting notes are now a decade plus years old and are no longer current other than perhaps to get a glimpse of a distilleries style but comparing with any bottles currently on shelves? You're wasting your time. If you want tasting notes, get online as I do tend to agree more with Ian Buxton (who does contribute an essay to this book, without all the time wasted talking about his favorite pens thank God) that by the time a book is published the tasting notes are already out of date. Luckily, there's not a lot of tasting notes in this book, and the fact that they're out of date by a decade is not the fault of the authors.

Is this book a total waste? Thankfully, no. Again, the section of Japanese whisky was enjoyable. Another by a bourbon distiller talking about how the "best whiskey" is whatever you find on shelves currently, as all the poor stuff goes away due to lack of interest/sales. The most enjoyable essay is one of a man who has a nearly religious experience when he, his wife, and young daughter go for a tour of the Speyside region, and after meeting a very wlecoming father and son in a hotel bar, is given direction to another great whisky bar, which inturn leads him up to where the rivers Spey and Fiddich meet. That's the best essay in the book, that's got the kind of stuff I want to read about - a person passionate about whisky, the generousity and hospitality of strangers, and a sense of awe about how grain, water, wood, and time create a flavorful and memorable whisky.