Whisky cocktails – are we doing the flavour a favour?

Have you ever tried a whisky cocktail?  I’m referring to something a bit more exotic than a Rusty Nail or a Manhattan.  The former – simply equal parts of whisky and Drambuie together – and the latter, a concoction of rye whiskey, vermouth, and bitters, are both time-honoured classics, but it would be wrong to compare them with the more complex, complicated, and dare I say, fashionable whisky cocktails doing the rounds in today’s bars.

Whisk(e)y cocktails currently carry the buzz in the industry at present, and it’s been the case now for at least the last four to five years.  Cocktails are seen as the introduction or stepping stone into whisky drinking.  “Don’t like whisky?  Here, have a sip of this colourful Highland Fling!”  The marketing guys have been working furiously in recent years to shed the industry’s image of whisky being an older man’s drink, and so the bar and cocktail scene is where they’re targeting their message to attract a younger and more gender-balanced demographic to the category.

I concede there is a logic to it.  We are in the latter (ending?) phase of the cult of the celebrity chef, and not everyone is hanging off every word and activity that the Gordon Ramsays and Marco Pierre Whites of the world get up to.  In their place – at least in certain circles – we are seeing the rise of the celebrity cocktail expert.  Or, to use the preferred parlance:  The Mixologist.

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