26 | The Rant
I PRESUME Mr Murray
Jim Murray’s bible is seen as the definitive guide to whisky. But who died and made him the boss?
Comment by Andy Byers
W
hat gives Jim Murray the right to declare the ‘best whisky in the world’ each year? This is a question many people in the
whisky industry ask themselves each year, around the time when the latest ‘Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible’ is published. To answer this question, let’s start by fi rst looking at the title of the book. Surely this book should be called, ‘Whiskies that Jim Murray tasted this year and were deemed the best in his opinion’? By calling his self-published book ‘The Whisky Bible’, it only helps to infl ate Murray’s already gigantic ego and big (Panama hat-wearing) head. Taste is highly personal. We each have our
own tastes, likes and dislikes: there is no universal way of addressing what tastes good and what tastes bad (although the most reliable results come via a panel of experts so that individual tastes take second place to sustained excellence). So why should Murray be able to declare the
best tasting whisky in the world? What may be the best tasting whisky in the world to his tastebuds might not be the best tasting whisky in the world to your tastebuds. This is what gets my goat about this self-appointed whisky deity. Although Murray’s recommendations shift bottles – if not to the same degree as US wine pundit Robert Parker, whose recommendations completely skew that market – I am constantly surprised that whisky companies continue to send Murray samples, despite his (presumably deliberately) polarising results and commentary.
They must know that the only way he can continue to garner enough air time to sell copies of his annual cash-cow is to be ever more controversial. Each year this gets harder, which is why we get increasingly desperate soundbites such as ‘Scotch whisky producers should feel ashamed’, or that they need a ‘wake-up call’ because a Japanese whisky was awarded the top gong in his latest book. No-one cares that he is pissing off the whisky industry, but short-changing consumers by placing shock and awe before due diligence and objective appraisals – as I believe he does – is quite another matter. The thing to remember is that the bible is a commercial concern upon
which a lucrative career of tastings and consultancies depends. Yet nowhere is there any mention of the distilleries for whom he works as a highly-paid hired hand. A few years ago, Ardbeg regularly appeared very high in the list or won ‘whisky of the year’, despite it being widely known that Murray had worked as a consultant for the distillery. That’s not to say they don’t deserve acclaim, but I wonder whether his readers would continue to take his recommendations at face value if they were aware of this commercial relationship. One issue in particular demonstrates Murray’s lack of objectivity. He describes the presence of sulphur notes as the ‘biggest screw-up in the whisky industry in the past quarter of a century’, yet many people actually enjoy the subtle sulphury notes in certain whiskies. His argument that sulphur sticks – sometimes used to fumigate sherry casks before shipping them to Scotland – taint the whisky. Even the usually placid Scotch Whisky Association got fed up with his propaganda on this, its spokesperson pointing out that ‘sulphur sticks do not damage the whisky, this is really about Jim Murray’s personal taste’. Murray often attacks the Scotch whisky industry, arguing that they
I wonder if readers would continue to take his recommendations at face value if they were aware of this commercial relationship
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