How I followed my nose and ended up with a tasty career

Published on Wednesday 22 July 2009 09:52

IT COULD be said that Gordon Motion is a man who likes a drop of the hard stuff.

After all, he goes to work every day knowing that he's going to be surrounded by gallons of whisky, all requiring his special, undivided, expert attention.

Indeed, 11,000 varieties of the stuff slosh around in the bottles which line the shelves of his sampling room; some crystal clear newly filtered, some rich, toffee coloured brews which have soaked up the characteristics of their sherry or bourbon casks; others waiting to pass strict quality tests, some the last precious drops from old distilleries now long gone.

For a whisky lover, it's paradise. For the grandson of a Temperance Society stalwart, potentially hell on earth.

"Yes, my grandfather was in the Temperance Society," laughs Edinburgh-born Gordon, 40, the nation's newest master blender and one of only half a dozen of his kind in the land. "He'd be turning in his grave if he knew what I do."

What he does is stick his finely tuned nose into hundreds of whisky samples a day, hunting down the right aromas and analysing the clarity and colour to ensure that every single dram which carries The Famous Grouse, Highland Park and The Macallan label – among various others – is exactly as it should be, at the same time exploring fresh recipes for a new generation of products.

And, like a well matured malt, his is a role that can't be rushed.

He officially takes over from predecessor John Ramsay next week after a two-and-a-half-year "shoe-in" during which he's shadowed the Glasgow-based Edrington Group's outgoing master blender, learning and perfecting his art.

It's one of the most important and complex roles within the whisky industry – master blenders are sought after for their unique skill in the fine art of nosing whisky, their acute and finely-tuned sense of smell and, in his case, the ability to keep a secret.

For Gordon, the son of a tee-total teacher and raised in Currie, is one of the few people allowed to share in the secret of the unique blend of whiskies that combine to make The Famous Grouse – Scotland's best-selling whisky.

Not only that, but he's also the man who may help save the fortunes of the beleaguered industry.

Among the bottles and jars crammed into his sampling room at the plant near Drumchapel in Glasgow sits a frosted glass litre bottle of Scotch, distinct from its more traditional neighbours thanks to the cleverly designed grouse etched on its front and the Skye mountain scene shining through from the back, creating a quirky 3D effect.

The bottle is clearly from the Famous Grouse stable, but its contents are a new concept of blended grain whiskies – blends are typically created using varieties of malts – resulting in a sweeter, perhaps more female-friendly brew.

It's called Snow Grouse and, as the whisky industry jostles to attract a new generation of Scotch drinkers, it's about to propel the traditional "comfy slippers beside a roaring fire" image of whisky straight into the 21st century.

"You can shove this in the freezer," explains Gordon, "and drink it ice cold. One of the comments from consumers is that they don't drink whisky because they don't like the smell of it. But when you take the temperature to -18, you can't smell it. When you taste it, it still warms you up and you still have all the flavours in your mouth."

It's a quirky twist for a centuries-old product steeped in tradition and history – and with the industry that produces it in apparent meltdown, it might be a vital brew to guarantee its survival.

Recent news that Edrington Group rival Diageo is planning to end Johnnie Walker's links with Kilmarnock, concerns over a worldwide leap in the production of counterfeit Scotch whisky – last week the Scotch Whisky Association won a long-running battle against foreign producers preventing them labelling their product as Scotch – and fears that producers might outsource their bottling to other countries to save money has raised concerns over the future of an industry already considered to be in decline. Not that its newest master blender agrees.

"Look at the whisky industry and you'll see periods of huge production, massive cutbacks, then huge production and massive cutbacks again. It's largely because you are trying to guess how much you are going to sell in 12 years' time. Get it even one per cent wrong and that's a lot over 12 years."

He knows the industry inside out, so it's strange then that this was never his intended career.

Instead he left Currie High School for a computer science degree at Heriot-Watt only to have a moment of clarity during a Highlands holiday when he ventured into a number of distilleries and became hooked.

"I remember my older brother Alan telling me at 17 that if I was ever going to drink whisky, then it should be The Famous Grouse because it was the best. Never for a minute did I think I'd end up here," he grins.

He went on to study brewing and distilling but it was only later that he discovered he had the necessary sensory attributes required for the master blender role.

Today he runs the laboratory and sample rooms, oversees some 8,735 quality checks on everything from the whisky itself to the casks and glass used in the process of producing 30 million bottles of The Famous Grouse every year.

There's one challenge, however, that even a master blender like Gordon would struggle to pull off.

"The Japanese keep asking if we can make them a whisky that doesn't give them a hangover," he says with a shake of his head.

"Now that would be progress!"

Scottish favourite that creates a flap around the world

THE Famous Grouse has been Scotland's number one-selling whisky since 1980 and produces more than 30 million bottles every year.

&#149 It is sold in more than 100 countries worldwide.

&#149 The Famous Grouse brand is now extended over a variety of different products, including a Famous Grouse Malt.

&#149 In Scotland, on average, three drams of The Famous Grouse are drunk every second.

&#149 The Famous Grouse blend is a secret, however, it is known to be built around two malts – The Macallan and Highland Park.

&#149 Its red grouse label was drawn by Philippa Gloag, daughter of Matthew Gloag in 1869.

CAPITAL ONCE HOME TO A BEVY OF DISTILLERIES

THINK whisky and the image is one of rolling Highland hills and glens, babbling burns and smoky island peat.

Less likely to spring to mind is Edinburgh's once thriving distilling industry that produced hundreds of thousands of gallons of golden aromatic brew every year.

Now represented by a single distiller – North British Distillery's production plant is in the shadow of Tynecastle, while Glenkinchie distillery produces its "Edinburgh" malt further out in East Lothian – the Capital once boasted a string of sprawling distilleries that not only produced the "water of life" but housed stables for the horses that would deliver it and homes for the men who made it.

Whisky flowed from Abbeyhill, Canonmills, Haymarket and by the Water of Leith, at Newington and Lochrin among others, where barley, yeast and water combined to create the national drink, while Leith prospered on the back of whisky bonds, brokers, bottlers and, of course, blenders.

Among the better known was Bonnington Distillery in Leith, which began production in 1798 and was among the most famed after becoming the first in Scotland to install a Coffey Still for continuous grain whisky production. Today part of it forms United Distillers Bonnington Bond.

Most notorious, perhaps, was Canonmills distillery where in 1794 after a crop famine, starving city folk arrived to pillage its stock following claims that it harboured a store of grain and vegetables.

One of Scotland's largest distilleries of its time nestled beside Bellside Bridge. Sunbury distillery occupied a massive site over several acres that included byres for its horses, cattle and piggeries. It ceased operating in the 1880s.