Anthony Gladman

The role of a master blender is one of the most critical in the spirits industry. More than a connoisseur of taste, a master blender is a custodian of a brand’s identity, safeguarding its character across decades and even centuries. As both scientists and artists, they oversee everything from the initial distillation to the final blend, a process that requires immense precision, experience, and an unwavering commitment to a brand’s legacy.

At 4,600 feet above sea level in the French Alps, James Abbott makes gin in a converted donkey shed. The building, constructed entirely from recycled materials, sits on Prarion Mountain in the shadow of Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest peak at 15,777 feet.

Solar panels power the lights, gas fires the two 100-litre copper pot stills, and when the frequent power cuts hit, Abbott simply carries on. It‘s a 35-minute steep hike from the
nearest road, accessible by quad bike in summer and snowmobile in winter. This unlikely location houses Europe’s highest distillery.

While English whisky distillers have been around for over a decade, many drinkers still aren’t sure how to categorise their products. The English product is often described as small, innovative, local – and full of flavour. But can we also call it ‘sustainable’?

Independent whisky bottler, One Cask at a Time, launched its debut collection on 4 September with six single malt whiskies, all bottled at cask strength. This follows the relaunch in July of spirits retailer Master of Malt’s in-house independent bottlings range as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations.
‘We have definitely seen a lot of new independent bottlers entering the market and I believe this can be a good thing,’ says Racheal Vaughan-Jones, chief marketing officer at Compass Box Wh...

Anthony Gladman reads the semiotics of whisky bling

Look, I get it. Whisky can be hard to like when you’re not used to it. Even people in the business have quietly confessed they can find it a bit much. It’s strong. It comes at you all at once. The flavours can be hard to discern. The cultural baggage around it can sometimes be… off-putting. It can leave new dram dabblers wondering: is whisky really for me?

Well here’s one that’s probably not: a £37,000 hyper-luxury 51-year-old whisky
from The Glenrothes that you can only “access” by smashing its bottle. I shit you
not.

It’s an early summer evening in Satan’s Whiskers, one of London’s – indeed the world’s – best cocktail bars. I’m four cocktails deep yet feel as fresh as ever. Each drink has surprised and delighted me but what none of them has done is get me drunk. None of them contain any booze.
Even a year ago, it would have been difficult to find so many non-alcoholic offerings in one bar. And the ones you did see would either be insipid takes on classic cocktails ‘only without the alcohol’ or overly swee...

What does fermenting for 120 hours or more do for your dram? Anthony Gladman finds out

As signs of the year’s turning go, it’s hard to beat a good conker. The first glimpse of that
deep burnished brown flesh gleaming up from the grass or pavement never fails to draw out a childhood thrill. They fall from the trees over three or four weeks then they’re
gone again. We see the signs too on our plates and in our glasses. As September ends, Oktoberfest swings around with its Festbiers. And after that, for some drinkers at least, thoughts begin to return to pints of cask ale in a cosy pub.

As drinkers question the impact of their favourite tipple, Anthony Gladman looks at the
innovative ways some distilleries are cleaning up their act.

Imagine finding out the scraps you’d been feeding to the pigs for years were actually full of fifty quid notes. Bucketful after bucketful of perfectly good money turned into
bacon and shit.

The whisky industry produces 2.6 billion litres of waste water per year in Scotland alone, plus about 530,000 tonnes of spent grain, which distillers call draff. Much of this ends up as animal feed, or is simply discarded. Isn’t that a waste of… well, waste?

Whisky legend the late Dr Jim Swan once described organic barley as an expensive waste of time. That was almost a decade ago and he was talking mainly about distillery economics. But did he have a point?
We know organic farming increases biodiversity and improves soil health. ‘If you’ve ever visited an organic farm and a non-organic farm, you can see the difference in those fields,’ says Liam Hirt, co-founder of the Circumstance Distillery in Bristol. ‘One is very much more alive.’

There’s a pecking order among barrels. Mizunara casks sit at the top, unassailable on their lofty peak. After those come the pipes and puncheons that once held fortified wines: Pineau, Port and Pedro Ximenéz. Then there are the massed ranks of lowly ex-Bourbon casks, a staple of the barrel-ageing starter pack.
I rank them like this based on their rarity and the effects they can have on the spirits they contain. A barrel’s former contents can give a spirit a boost. So too can the type of wood ...

It is June 2024. Six months ago we thought we’d lost the Burton Unions for ever. But now, in the Peak District, six silent and silky streams of yeast foam pour from gleaming swan neck pipes into a trough of krausen. A Union set is fermenting again.

Meet the distillers putting a gallic spin on gin

Whisky and other spirits aged in mizunara casks command high prices and are adored by collectors. But what exactly is mizunara oak and is it worth paying more? Anthony Gladman finds out.

Picture Sandy Hyslop, a jovial chap in comfortable middle age, bent over to thrust his nose into an empty wooden cask. He has travelled 32km just t...

The distinctive flavours of Japanese gin are driving its popularity around the world. Anthony Gladman heads to Kyoto to hear more about the botanicals that give the country's premium gins a sense of place and selects five of the best gins to try
11 April 2024
Uji, a city to the south of Kyoto, is the birthplace of Japan’s tea culture. At its height, during the Ashikaga shogunate, it had seven tea plantations. Of these, only the Okunoyama plantation remains. Growers have cultivated tea here fo...