'Pure' cheek of whisky brand

Various pharisaic arguments have been produced in justification, pointing out, for example, that Cardow was the original name of the distillery, and that Cardhu is just a ‘brand’ of the distillery. Many distilleries, however, have suppressed their Gaelic names - Auchroisk to The Singleton for example. The real story is about the abuse of power. When you are Diageo and you own 40% of the business, you do what you bloody well want, and you make sure no one can call you to order.

Of course, there is a long history of skulduggery in the Scotch whisky business, no doubt going back to the time of Friar John Cor, who is credited with distilling the first Scotch. For more than a century and a half, Scotch whisky has always been about brands and brand politics. Even though the industry has long since recognised the idea of single malts, they perceive them as brands of baked beans, and not like Bordeaux chteaux. Can you imagine the uproar if Chteau Lafite started adding other chteaux’s wine to cope with increased demand?

When there was just blended Scotch, whisky companies could do what they pleased. In the Sixties a fire-wrecked Talisker Scottish Malt Distillers responded by transferring production of the peaty whisky to the mothballed distillery of Brora on the Sutherland Coast. In order to provide a character-full element for various blends, malt was supplied to Talisker’s specifications. Some of this fake Talisker called Brora later found its way into bottlings of the single malt, and gave rise to a legend that the sea air of Sutherland had actually made a whisky with all the pungency you’d associate with Skye or Islay!

The vast bulk of the hundred or so malt whisky distilleries in Scotland were created for the boom in blended whisky at the turn of the last century. Taste was not the issue then. Efficient transport and a good water source were more important by far. Where exceptions exist - such as island malts from Islay, Jura, Mull, Skye or Orkney - there is generally an historical explanation for the survival and development of the distillery. The fact that taste was not the reason for situating the distilleries in their present positions accounts for the fact that not all distilleries make very nice malts. Some would say that Cardhu is an example of just this.

The blender’s view was the only one that counted in the Scotch whisky business until William Grant and Sons decided to launch its Glenfiddich single malt in the Sixties. Glenmorangie followed suit and a trickle turned into a stream. At home and abroad the public caught on to the idea of a set of stills that created an identifiable flavour, a geographical style in whisky; and the spirit would never be quite the same again.

Diageo had a successful single malt on the Spanish market, so successful in fact, that we are led to believe that the stills at the distillery on Speyside could not keep up with sales. So they took the decision to pour some other malts into the bottle - possibly some quite nice ones owned by companies other than Diageo. They excused themselves in advance by placing advertisements in the local papers, and then they dug in to face the storm. They had, after all, done nothing wrong, most distilleries had had recourse to the caption "pure malt" in the past, and in the trade at least it is an accepted indication of a blended malt whisky. Nobody apart from a few anoraks or fanatical collectors would have crossed the road for the Cardhu malt anyway. I’ve tasted both, and the blended malt is actually better than the old Cardhu.

So what’s wrong? It is Diageo’s distillery, the malt is not very good, and the victims were only Spaniards anyway. Do they merit our sympathy if - as has been cunningly suggested - they like to spice it up with Coca-Cola? If that is the case they clearly wouldn’t know the difference.

What is wrong is attitude. It is an American-style ‘brand’ mentality coming into conflict with a now accepted European norm; and as such it is a war between two irreconcilable sets of values. The Spaniard who buys Cardhu expects to find in the bottle the equivalent of a Cognac or an Armagnac, or at the very least a top quality Jerez brandy such as Carlos I or Lepanto.

We are not part of America - yet. Whether we like it or not, we are part of Europe and the Scotch whisky business cries out for European-style regulation. If needs be, the Scottish parliament should create some body to oversee the business which - unlike the Scotch Whisky Association - is not funded by the distillers themselves. Diageo have 40% of the equity at the SWA. The Cardhu case must be seen as a watershed. The public - even the Spanish public - need to be protected from these cynical shenanigans which would be unthinkable in continental Europe.

The first thing that must be done is that any whisky that contains a blend of spirits must state in letters no smaller than three quarters the size of the whisky name that it is a blend, rather than the more obtuse ‘pure’ or ‘vatted’. Continental-style appellations controlles are difficult to create for malt whiskies because it is often impossible to ensure a local source of barley, and for winter barley most distillers have to shop (God forbid!) in England. On the other hand there are lesser forms of protected status on offer. Single malts should avail themselves of these by ensuring that their spirits mature in the vicinity of the stills in warehouses preferably with earth floors; that the water for lowering the alcoholic strength of the whisky is from the local source; and that the whisky is bottled at the distillery itself. Springbank and the newly-independent Bruichladdich on Islay can now serve as models here and, as Jim McEwan of Bruichladdich points out, if the distilleries of Islay had bottled at source, there would have been no unemployment on the island and far fewer young people would have gone elsewhere.

It is time to make sure that in the future there is a greater transparency to the Scotch whisky business. The distillers move under the cover of darkness. Had the Spanish Cardhu aficionados been allowed to know a little more in the first place, Diageo would never have got away with it.

• Martin Isark is a drinks expert and Scotland on Sunday’s wine correspondent