Q&A: Dave Broom, Author of The World Atlas of Whisky

Dave Broom shrugs off the term “expert” when it comes to his work in the world of whisky (and whiskey, the preferred American and Irish spelling). But you’d be hard pressed to find anyone that’s had more experience with the spirit on a global scale. The Scottish author and spirits educator has long been a contributing editor to Whisky Magazine, scotchwhisky.com, and Whisky Advocate, and has raked in a heap of industry awards and recognitions. Among Broom’s many books are Whisky: The Manual, The Way of Whisky, and The World Atlas of Whisky, for which a fully revised third edition hit shelves in November. We sat down with Broom to talk about the exponential growth of the whisky industry, how to taste the spirit like a professional, and why you can never drink the same whisky twice.

Imbibe: It’s been a decade since the second edition of The World Atlas of Whisky. Why did you feel like now was time for an update?

Dave Broom: The update was actually planned pre-Covid, so it was delayed. But it was clearly time to address what’s happened in whisky. The manner in which the spirit has exploded around the world, and the number of new distilleries and new countries and new approaches, necessitated a new edition. There is just so much to report. The initial idea was to do an update, but it was fairly obvious within a day of really examining everything that was going on around the world that it couldn’t just be an update; it had to be completely rewritten. It’s essentially a new book.

You note in the introduction that “there is freedom to the thinking but also appreciation of place and of heritage.” How have you seen that in practice?

Take single malt, for example. When you speak to someone in a country outside Scotland, no matter where it is in the world, and you ask them what they’re making, the immediate response is, “We’re not making Scotch.” Which is the right thing to say. Everybody, whether they are in America or Australia or Norway or wherever, is saying, “We want to make something that is from this place.” The way in which they approach that is the most exciting thing about whisky. Because that then necessitates looking at what grows close by. Increasingly—and also excitingly and importantly—the need to use local supply for sustainability is becoming more central to the thinking around whisky making. That impacts flavor.

… [The] need to use local supply for sustainability is becoming more central to the thinking around whisky making. That impacts flavor.

Distillers are looking at what is growing; they’re looking at the climate; they’re looking at the way the climate impacts maturation and whether it will be slow, average, or fast. It impacts whether they draw from local food culture. For example, if someone wanted to smoke the whisky but there is no peat, what are they going to use? Well, they might use wood and perhaps think about how, traditionally, they smoked food over chestnut wood, so why not do the same with whisky?

You start to see that all around the world. And I’m only talking about single malt at the moment. You see the same thing happening with bourbon, or with rye. You see corn varieties like Bloody Butcher or Jimmy Red being used. And there is appreciation for the fact that if you’re making a bourbon in Texas or in Washington state, the conditions are going to be different than in Kentucky. All that deeper thinking means great diversity and enjoyment for the consumers. It’s win-win.

Speaking of diversity of place, we’re seeing whisky from countries that historically weren’t even on the radar for the spirit. What places or countries are you most excited about right now?

I’m hugely excited about what is happening with American single malt. I think that’s going to be a fascinating area of development. I think what’s happing in the Nordics is also exciting. Same in Australia and New Zealand, in that those two countries are approaching whisky making quite differently. I think France is producing increasingly fascinating whiskies in a variety of styles, but still somehow in a very French way. I’m keeping my eye on what’s happening in Mexico as well. A lot of the Mexican distillers are looking at what’s happened with mezcal—how mezcal has become popular using heritage varieties and creating different flavors—and are applying that same thinking to corn. It’s early days, but it’s exciting.

Given the huge spectrum of interpretation that we see in the whisky realm today, do you think it ever starts to dilute what the spirit is? Or is it the opposite, almost like an ecosystem where the diversity only makes it more resilient?

I would like to think the latter, which I believe is the case. The other element of that is how consumers have behaved. Maybe 10 years ago, at whisky shows, the very first English whisky distillery had started bottling. But nobody wanted to try it, with the thinking being, it’s not Scottish, so there must be something wrong. Whisky was made by a certain number of countries, and England wasn’t one of those countries. But today’s whisky consumer doesn’t think twice about picking up a whisky from Norway or Iceland or Australia or Argentina. And it’s because they are different and because the story is compelling.

Whisky lovers are promiscuous by nature—they want diversity.

Whisky lovers are promiscuous by nature—they want diversity. If you get bitten by that bug, you’re not just going to have one bottle on the shelf. You’re going to want variety, and the variety is now there. But there are two issues. The first is quality. That’s the most important thing for a new distiller; you have to be making good whisky. Second, you have to be making a whisky that is going to cut through. If you’re a new distiller in Scotland, your 3-year-old whisky is competing with distilleries who have been making it for 200 years. So you have to cut through with quality and a point of difference. Shelves are not infinitely expandable, and back bars are not infinitely expandable. I’m delighted there are so many whiskies on the market, but there’s probably too many.

You obviously taste a lot of whisky yourself, with 800 included in this book alone. What is your tasting process like?

I taste about half a dozen at a time, because you can’t just taste one whisky on its own. But any more than that and my palate will start to get confused, even though I’m just nosing, tasting, and spitting. The flight of whiskies will be similar in character, so that might mean where they are from, such as all American single malts, or from Scotland, I’ll taste smoky whiskies together to compare and contrast. I nose everything neat, and after that I’ll have worked out which is the heaviest and which is the lightest. I nose the heaviest and compare everything against the biggest whisky, which reveals a lot.

It’s only by comparison that you can find the secrets in the whisky. I’ll taste them neat, and then add some water. I walk away for a half hour or so, and then nose and taste again. So those half dozen take about three hours, which I do in the morning. I’ll only do one tasting a day.

Do you have a unicorn bottle of whisky that you hope to taste? Or maybe you’ve already tried it?

I’ve been in the incredibly privileged position to try some extraordinary whiskies in the past. I don’t think I can pin it down to one. It’s also about who you’re with and where you are. Some of my finest, most memorable whisky experiences have not been in bars or sitting at whisky shows, they’re simply with friends, or maybe on a beach, or up on a mountain. I think the experience and the situation creates the memory, rather than the analytical side of what makes an amazing whisky. It’s the emotional response to the whisky that excites me the most. You learn something with every glass.

Let’s say I’m tasting a sample of Glenfiddich 12, which is a whisky most people know. But actually, no, this is the first time you’ve ever tasted it, this whisky. And tomorrow, if we have it again, it’ll be the first time you’ve tasted that whisky. Because the situation is different, you are different. You never stop learning. So don’t call me an expert—I’m always learning.