Last week Friday we made our way to Nairobi’s Dusit D2 at the invite of East Africa Breweries Limited sales director, Kimani Mwaura. During the rest of the evening we would engage in conversation with whisky enthusiasts as well as indulge in tasting some of Johnnie Walker’s premium brands under the guidance of Kariuki Mukii.
Over a 3 course meal we would be tasting different Johnnie Walker labels and have our guide, Above the Bar’s, Mukii explain to us the difference between the whiskies.
First step was to understand the different types of whiskies, the criteria for whisky tasting and how one goes about the same. There are two main types of whisky; Malt whisky made primarily from malted barley and Grain whisky made from any type of grains. From these you get Single malt whisky, Blended malt whisky and Blended whisky.
Types of whisky
Single malt whisky is whisky from a single distillery made from a mash that uses only one particular malted grain. Unless the whisky is described as single-cask, it contains whisky from many casks, and different years, so the blender can achieve a taste recognisable as typical of the distillery. In most cases, single malts bear the name of the distillery, with an age statement and perhaps some indication of some special treatments such as maturation in a port wine cask.
Blended malt whisky is a mixture of single malt whiskies from different distilleries. If a whisky is labelled “pure malt” or just “malt” it is almost certainly a blended malt whisky. This was formerly called a “vatted malt” whisky.
Blended whisky is made from a mixture of different types of whisky. A blend may contain whisky from many distilleries so that the blender can produce a flavour consistent with the brand. The brand name may, therefore, omit the name of a distillery. Most Scotch, Irish and Canadian whisky is sold as part of a blend, even when the spirits are the product of one distillery, as is common in Canada.
Criteria for whisky tasting
There are three main things we were made to understand one looks at when tasting whisky. These are the color of the whisky, the smell and of course the taste of the whisky.
How you pick your whisky should not depend on the price or type but on your palate. To start the process we rinsed our palates using a glass of water. For the starter we had, the Johnnie Walker Double Black. This was followed by the Platinum label for the main course and the Gold Reserve for desert. After the initial tasting one was allowed to add drops of water which we observed opened up the different flavors in the whisky.
In between these tastings, Mukii would explain the history behind the different labels and the rpocess that goes into making them one of a kind.
It was an enlightening process which was capped off with the Blue label as the whisky of choice for the final toast by the host.