LOVE, WHISKY & EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
Today feels like a good excuse to talk about one of the things we love.
Art.
Last month we mentioned how our approach to whiskymaking has many layers of inspiration to it, and art is one such influence. So here we go, pulling back the curtain to show you how much art goes into your whisky…
BUT WHAT DOES ART HAVE TO DO WITH WHISKY?
At its core, whisky isn’t only defined by where it comes from, but by all of the human interactions that occur during its development.
This is one of the reasons why we don’t call ourselves blenders or distillers – we’re Whiskymakers, a term we invented back around 2006. People who ask questions, challenge, experiment, and look at the totality of creating whisky in a bottle.
Our philosophy is to always add dimensions, complexity and delight to what we create: there’s a picture in our heads and whiskymaking is about trying to pull it out and make it real.
Art as both inspiration and application is something that takes us from an idea for a whisky, to its bottle, to its flavour, to your interpretation of it.
THE ART THAT GIVES US IDEAS
There’s no one genre of art that we like or dislike. Love modern art? Great. Hate it? Fair enough. Old Masters are your thing? Interesting. Not? No problem.
The art that excites us are the pieces with a story and a reason for being. We love work that is authentic: where you can see an alignment between the philosophy behind it and the expression of it, even better if that expression is provocative.
“I begin with an idea, then it becomes something else.” We think a lot about this Picasso quote.
Inspiration can come from any and all art, but it doesn’t arrive as a fully formed idea, it’s a process to unlock it. Take our This is Not a Luxury Whisky which was inspired by the painting ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’. Is the painting of the pipe actually a pipe as it’s an accurate representation? And, ergo, if we call a whisky ‘luxury’ does it make it so? Is luxury just a title?
Inspiration doesn’t give us all of the answers at the start, we may not even have all of them at the end, but it always pushes us to be interested and interesting.
THE ART ON THE BOTTLE
They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but ultimately you can’t help it. It’s why our labels have to be about more than just aesthetics. They have to signal that you’re going to get something different and open-minded, something that will lead you on a journey beyond flavour, tell you a story, and maybe drop a few Easter eggs along the way. The label needs to take you to a certain place, but where you go from there is up to you.
Back in the early 2000s, the original artwork on Compass Box bottles came from woodcut prints because it was a complete contrast to what everyone else was doing. Hedonism, the first whisky we released, was also the first bottled Scotch whisky to show a woman on its label.
Today, and every year, a new female artist delivers their own stamp to the artwork of Hedonism’s Limited Annual Release, bringing to life – in their individual way – the grace and strength that our original illustration represented.
When this year’s Hedonism launches in the coming days, we hope you’ll take a moment to look at the bottle and wonder what the woman on it is thinking. What is she saying to you?
THE ART OF FLAVOUR
Our whiskies are meant to be thought provoking – designed to inspire the interest, not indifference, that draws you to the glass for a first sip, and then a second. This is why the creative process is rarely linear. Going back to Picasso: ideas evolve, take unexpected turns, and sometimes lead to somewhere else entirely.
Orchard House is a perfect example of this…
We wanted to pay homage to Oak Cross but didn’t have the perfect casks required in our library. We’d been aging whisky from the Clynelish Distillery ourselves, but it didn’t have that strong, active wood character we previously used in Oak Cross.
What it did have was this wonderfully bold, spirit-forward distillery character, unlike anything we had created before, and so we ran with it. As whiskymakers, the initial restriction became an inspiration and an exciting avenue for exploring the flavours that would become Orchard House. In this case, constraints drove creativity.
A FINAL WORD ON WHAT’S INTERESTING
Last month we asked what was interesting you and were genuinely overwhelmed, and fascinated, by the responses which took us from the Circle of Fifths music theory, to the royal House of Plantagenet, to the life and work of Henri Bergson.
Keep them coming, either by replying to this email or on Instagram, as you never know what whisky they might lead us to.
This is interesting
And this is interesting
And that’s very interesting
As part of Big Peat’s Private Cask Series, this specialist release of no more than 420 bottles has been created exclusively for Douglas Laing & Co. We have finished this rare marriage of Islay Single Malt in specially selected White Port Casks. The resulting Big Peat Blended Malt delivers a defined Islay peat smoke combined with spiced fruit, toffee, and honey, fused with waves of almond and vanilla. Sip, savour and enjoy this unique taste of Islay.
