The Legend Jim Murray On Whisky Without Snobbery

There are whisky experts. And then there's Jim Murray, a man who's palate has danced with over 20,000 drams and still demands an encore. For more than three decades, Murray has been the whisky world's most uncompromising critic. Now, as India's whisky ambitions rise faster than its consumption stats (which are already towering), Murray finds himself as something of an unlikely cheerleader for the subcontinent's single malts. In a freewheeling conversation during his multi-city India tour, presented by Nikhil Agarwal from All Things Nice, Murray opens up about his whisky philosophy, the distilleries he thinks are getting it right, and the legacy he hopes to leave, not of elitism, but of empowerment, one unwatered sip at a time. 

Edited excerpts:

1. What does whisky mean to you today that it didn’t 30 years ago?

Well, 30 years ago it was very much a voyage of discovery with new countries seeing if they were fit to make whisky. There was a lack of confidence and today it means a lot of work that I've put in to help build people around the world to gain the confidence to create an experiment with whisky that has paid off. You know, it feels like I've not completely wasted my time. So, 30 years ago it was kind of what can be done, today it's well look what has been done.

2. You’ve tasted over 20,000 whiskies. Does the thrill still hit with the first sip of a new one?

Absolutely! Because whisky is always changing. If we went to a distillery back in time, 20-30 years ago and taste an eight-year-old from a certain type of cask and you taste it now, there will be a slight difference. And the thrill for me is how a whisky may evolve. In some cases, how it stayed exactly the same. I generally get a thrill out of great whisky. I don't get much of a thrill when I feel that it's not been particularly well made, when it's been put or maybe well made, but put into a poor cask. That doesn't thrill me. That really ticks me off. But the thrill is when it's a great whisky made with love, skill and done the right way. And especially if it's a brand new distillery and people put their heart into it and it's worked. My God, that gives me a thrill.

3. What’s a tasting note you’ve written that surprised even you?

Yeah, quite a few actually. And that's probably because when I'm tasting, I'm almost in a trance. I'm in that zone. I throw myself into that whisky. I don't allow anything else to disturb me. And I'm focusing exactly on what that whisky is doing. And while I'm doing this, I'm writing. And I often don't know what the hell I've written until I look back at what I've done. You know, it sounds like a seance. And it kind of is. So there's been one or two things I've written. And I thought, wow, wow, did I really write that? I kind of pinched myself. I re-taste it. And yep, there is. And so there's been quite a few where when I read it back, I thought, wow, I didn't. Yeah, it is a surprise.

4. Has your process of evaluating whiskies changed over the decades or is there a ritual you never skip?

Well, that's an ambiguous question because by process, you could say, is it the way that I evaluate it? And so, yes, that's changed over 30 years because my knowledge has obviously become greater from experience because I just spend all my time learning. I'm like a sponge. But the actual process, and the rituals of tasting haven't changed. It took me about 15 years, and that was between 35, 45, maybe even nearly 50 years ago, that I experimented in the ways to look at whisky in the most complete way, and I settled upon that. That has not changed in 35 years. Rituals are the same. The processes have changed only from the point of view that my perception and knowledge is greater.

5. What excites you most about the Indian whisky scene right now?

Everything. If we could go into a time machine and go back the 30 years, 31 years to when I first came to India, and you taste the whiskies in India then, they weren't great. They were promising. Some were just not great at all. You hoped that things would improve. They have. There's far more confidence now. There's far more understanding. The work ethic at these distilleries to create great whisky is absolutely second to none to any other country in the world. The industry is populated by fantastic people who really, really want to make great single malt whisky. The jumping quality over the last 30 years has been seismic.

6. Which Indian distilleries have caught your eye and why?

Well, the first on the scene, of course, on an international scale, was Amrut. They were the guys who first brought out a quality that was acceptable worldwide. It was good. It was very, very good. Then it got better and better and better. All distilleries have their ups and downs. Not every distillery keeps a whisky at the absolute top of the thing. Even I beg, have the occasional blip and so on. But Amrut, at the moment, are exceptionally strong, and they have just a bewildering, amazing range of whiskies. Then there's Paul John, which is one of the biggest whiskies in the world. It's probably the only whisky that can challenge in sheer density, weight, and complexity, the better whiskies from Buffalo trades. They're the two that are the stars, but there's others coming, and there's others that are improving, and it's a watch this space.

7. India is one of the world’s largest whisky consumers. Do you think its whisky-making is finally catching up with its drinking reputation?

When I first came to India, all those years ago, the vast majority of whisky consumed and was spoken about was actually rum. It was made from sugar, so it wasn't actually whisky at all. Today, the market is way more concentrated and focused on the single malts and the blends. The reputation of Indian whisky is just going up and up and up. There's always room for improvement, but all I can do is take my hat off and say, “Well done!”. It's got to continue.

8. How do Indian single malts hold up in blind tastings against Scottish or Japanese legends?

Well, a few years ago in Mumbai, I actually did a tasting with about 200 of the great and good from that city. We had one Indian and one single malt Scotch, very famous one. I didn't tell them which was which. We did the tasting, A and B. Then I got people, put your hands up, who thinks, completely blind, put your hands up, who thinks that this one's Scotch? Basically, 95% thought one of them was Scotch and 5% thought it was Indian. They got it completely wrong. They got it absolutely 100% wrong. They were blown away by the fact that an Indian single malt whisky was, in their opinion, better than the Scotch single malt. I think that one tasting alone answers that question.

9. You’ve been famously outspoken. What’s one opinion on whisky that people still argue with you about?

Yeah, well, there are many. Probably the greatest one is the fact that when I give whisky tastings around the world, including India, I do not allow water anywhere near the room. The only reason anyone allowed to drink water is to stay alive. If they've fallen over and they need a drink, some fluid, then I will give them some. But otherwise, water is not allowed. So many people in the industry say, no, you have to have water to do this any other. I say, no, use the Murray method. Just use heat, use temperature, and that way you get extraordinary subtlety. One whisky changes so many times that you'll just be astonished by what happens in that glass. Water does not have the same effect. So this is where I'm at war with the vast majority of the industry.

10. Is age still a mark of quality or is it one of whisky’s most overrated metrics?

It can certainly be overrated. Just by shoving a big age on a bottle does not mean to say it's going to be good. However, it can be good. It can be mind-blowing. For a whisky that's been matured properly in the right barrel, and it usually has to be done slowly, the complexity levels are beyond measure. They're off the scale. However, what people don't realize is that you can have a relatively young whisky, say 6, 7, 8, and providing that's been maturing in a relatively warm climate and you've controlled it. Also, the blender has been layering the different whisky going into it. You don't have to have an amazingly old whisky to have an amazingly brilliant experience.

11. If you could ban one whisky trend, what would it be?

Okay, I think we got to fly over to America. There's been a move towards calling bourbons a bourbon when they're not bourbon. In fact, the bourbon could have been finished in some gastly wine cask, and it may taste absolutely awful, but it has the word bourbon on the label, which is totally misrepresenting what the whisky is. A bourbon should just be matured in a virgin oak cask. You've only got the oak working with the grains. The thing I would ban is having the word bourbon or rye or whatever in anything that's been matured in anything other than virgin oak.

12. What are three things a whisky drinker should stop doing immediately?

First of all, adding water. Secondly, adding ice. Thirdly, eating food with whisky. Because the moment you have food, you're getting sugars in your mouth, you are then losing the balance of the whisky. So stay away from food, stay away from water, stay away from ice.

13. How should someone in India explore whisky beyond the familiar blends, without breaking the bank?

Well, you should always buy what you can afford. It's as simple as that. What you have to do is be honest and don't just say, Oh, that whisky is great because people have told you it's great. Explore it for yourself. If you don't like the whisky, try something else. Don't just stick with the same whisky. If it's not doing it for you, give it a chance. That's where the Murray method comes in again. But also, and that sounds quite bizarre, spit out the first couple of mouthfuls so that you're actually tasting it without the alcohol effect kicking in, and you can actually see what the whisky is doing. Drink afterwards, but look at it from a completely sober point of view, so you can then decide what you think of that? That way, you'll actually make a lot of money because you won't just be a slave to the alcohol, you'll be becoming a slave to the flavours.

14. What does a ‘bad whisky day’ look like for Jim Murray?

I'm always extremely nervous when I've got a whole host of whisky matured in sherry casks. If they matured in sherry casks and it's a peaty whisky, that can be doubly dangerous because you may not always pick up on the nose that there may be a problem with the cherry. If I get sulph on a whisky that basically knocks me out from 30 to 45 minutes for the first time, so I can restore my palate. If I get a second one on the same day, that will knock me out for well over an hour. If I get it a third time and my palate gets hit by sulph for a third time, that's me finished for the end of the day, and that is not good. That is a bad whisky day.

15. If you could sit down with any historical figure for a whisky, who would it be? And what would you pour them?

It would probably have to be Alfred Barnard. Now, Alfred Barnard was a writer, a journalist who, in the mid-1880s, went round and visited every single whisky distillery in Scotland and wrote an absolutely huge book, and he went into extraordinary detail regarding how the whiskies were made at every single distillery. The book came in 1887. If you can imagine how hard it was to travel around Scotland in those days. This was an extraordinary undertaking. The one thing he never spoke about was what the whisky tasted like. He wrote about the process. Now, what I'd love to do is grab Alfred Barnard and drag him to India and let him see the distilleries as they are today. Let him taste the whisky with me and see if he sees comparisons from the early days of Scotland when it was an industry that was just getting on its legs and beating its chest. It would be Alfred Barnard, and it would be a whole whole plethora of Indian whiskies.

16. What would you like your whisky legacy to be? Not just to distillers, but to drinkers?

I would like them to remember me for being the person who gave them the confidence to take on whisky without airs and graces, to rip away the snobbery. To actually see the whisky for what it is away from the hype. For the industry, I hope they remember the fact, well, I hope that the Japanese remember the fact that they, Meagum and World Whisky of the Year made over $3 billion in profit. Those distilleries like our Begg are still standing today because I saved them from being bulldozed. Just little things that people seem to forget about. But for the people themselves, what is probably more important, I would say the fact that they can enjoy a whisky with confidence.