Fahrenheit 173 - Whisky

"The king o' drinks, as I conceive it, Talisker, Isla or Glenlivit"   (R.L. Stevenson)

Whiskey & Philosophy, edited by Fritz Allhof and Marcus P. Adams, contains twenty essays by dif­fer­ent authors and on various whisky-related subjects. "A must read for any­one interested in whisk(e)y" and "a thought-provoking and thirst-inducing read" according to Jim McEwan and Chris Morris. Personally, I found it quite uneven and a bit of a mixed bag. Not too surprising perhaps, because of the many authors and subjects.

The whisky-heavy essays are good (some of them very good) but most of the philosophy-heavy ones I found too abstract. I was curious about philosophy and I hoped this book could whet my appetite for learning more about it (but it didn't).

The introduction recommends the reader to have a dram or a cocktail while reading but I didn't take that advice - perhaps a mistake, since a few of the essays are the driest stuff I've read since I graduated from university.

That said, the best essays in the book are ex­cel­lent: Andrew Jefford's, Ian Buxton's and David Wishart's essays on whisky's history, provenance and authenticity as well as the essays by Ian Dove and Burnham/Skilleås on whisky tast­ing notes and Chris Bunting on Japanese whisky.

To sum up, I'd say that the sev­eral good essays in the book outweigh the few unin­ter­est­ing ones. I do agree that the book is thought-provoking and it makes sev­eral points that aren't widely known.

Whiskey & Philosophy - a small batch of spirited ideas
edited by Fritz Allhof and Marcus P. Adams
Wiley, ISBN 978-0-470-43121-4

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