Pakistani Whisky


mbclogoseal.gifThanks to Andrew for bringing this to my attention!

The Murree Brewery has been in operation in Pakistan since 1860. It was originally founded to supply beverages “To meet the beer requirements of British personnel (mainly army)”, according to their website. Of course beer and other alcoholic beverages are not something readily found in primarily Muslim countries.

Since that time the brewery has been quietly buying interests in breweries in surrounding countries such as Ceylon and India. They also established a distillery in the late 1800s. According to a recent news article, while the distillery has been making 8 and 12 year old whiskies for many years they are about to embark on a new venture and will soon be releasing their first 20-year old single malt scotch. According to the article, Head Brewer Yasin Sadiq believes Murree’s Millennium Reserve will rival the best scotch whiskies in the world.

Unfortunately, due to Pakistani law only foreigners and non-Muslims are allowed to buy liquor for home consumption and products cannot be sampled outside of Pakistan because Islamabad bans the export of alcohol.

Now this brings up a conundrum which affects many things. I love that fact that there are certain products - not just spirits but food, brands or styles of clothing, etc - that can only be found in certain places. That is part of the charm and adventure of traveling - discovering these new things and to have those discoveries be part of your travel experience and memories.

On the other hand, there are some places I am very likely never to visit during my lifetime and I often think it would be nice to experience them at least through their products and exports so that I can at least get a little taste of these far-off and often exotic locations. Or there are times when sampling something brings back fond memories of travel in that land.

I love the idea of “buying local” and practice that concept quite a lot. On the other hand, I would really miss things like bananas, kiwis, pineapples, French and Italian wines, etc, etc, etc if we suddenly stopped shipping things across borders.

So I’m a little torn here - Pakistan is not on the top of places to visit, although I’d love to get there someday. Which means that I won’t have a chance, at least for quite some time, to verify Mr Sadiq’s claim. On the other hand when I do manage to get myself to Pakistan, it will be fun sampling something that I know not many others have had the chance to try.

How do you feel about this little conundrum?



Information and Links

Join the fray by commenting, tracking what others have to say, or linking to it from your blog.

Information
January 3rd, 2007
7 Responses
Feeds and Links
Comment Feed
From This Author
Del.icio.us
Digg
Technorati
Categories
Drinks Around the World
Out & About
Uncategorized

Other Posts
Champagne and (Amazing!) Crostini
Mixology Monday - Winter Warmers

Write a Comment

Take a moment to comment and tell us what you think. Some basic HTML is allowed for formatting.

Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Curt McAdams
Posted on:
January 3, 2007 at 7:43 pm

I’ve had no wish to go to Pakistan, but this is a problem… it would be pretty cool to try Scotch whisky (not whiskey, by the way :) ) not made in Scotland!

I just got a bottle of my favorite whisky, which I hadn’t had in a while, Lagavulin; I’d forgotten how incredible it is! I doubt this would beat it, but it would still be fun to try.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Brenda Pederson
Posted on:
January 3, 2007 at 8:14 pm

Thanks for catching that Curt - I’ve made the correction!

And see - here you are smack dab in the middle of the US (I think, anyway…) sipping Scotch Scotch - wouldn’t be able to do that if everyone kept everything to themselves… ;-)

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Bryan Betts
Posted on:
January 4, 2007 at 9:26 am

There’s quite a few places making whisky or whiskey now - I’ve had Breton and Belgian whiskies in recent years. Both were very drinkable… (-:

How they choose which spelling to use, I don’t know - traditionally wasn’t it whisky for Scotch & Canadian, and whiskey for US & Irish? I guess it depends which tradition they prefer to follow.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Brenda Pederson
Posted on:
January 4, 2007 at 2:04 pm

Hi Bryan! Yes the spelling is often based on the place of origin and the style. Since this Pakistani version is a Scotch it should be spelled Whisky - the good news is with either spelling you still know what’s being talked about. ;-D
~ B

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
John Martin
Posted on:
January 9, 2007 at 7:25 pm

>> Since this Pakistani version
>> is a Scotch

I thought that no matter the process, to be called “Scotch” it needed to be made in Scotland.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
Brenda Pederson
Posted on:
January 9, 2007 at 10:09 pm

Hi John. You would think that wouldn’t you? And it sure would make sense. And actually after finding out about this Pakistani Scotch I started doing some research.

So far I’ve been able to find regulations about what is produced in Scotland (it must be made in the Scottish style and nothing other than Scotch can be produced in Scotland); the minimum alcohol content for whiskies produced in Scotland and a couple other regulations regarding what is produced in Scotland.

No where does there seem to be (at least not that I’ve found yet) anything that says only whisky produced in Scotland can be called Scotch.

There was a reference to “no one makes whisky like we do here in Scotland - although others have tried” (not an exact quote), although in its context it was more of a marketing statement.

My guess is that this (and other whiskies) made in the Scotch style - malted barley dried in a smoky environment, maybe using peat (See Robert’s recent Whiskey post) - is being called Scotch no matter where it’s produced.

I imagine the name is not protected yet but maybe it will be at some point.

And remember that this brewery/distillery were created under British rule to satisfy British requests so chances are that what they produced was considered the equivalent of Scotch.
~ B

Comment Number:
7
Written by:
John Martin
Posted on:
January 10, 2007 at 11:48 pm

The term “Scotch Whisky” (like “champagne”) really can’t be controlled except by each country in which it is sold.

For the UK, the Scotch Whisky Act 1988 (search for that in Google) defines “Scotch Whisky” as a product of Scotland, less than 94.8 per cent by volume and matured for at least three years in wooden casks of a capacity not exceeding 700 litres. I’m guessing the EU must honor the Act and that the USA would probably, too.

The act also prohibits whisky from being made in Scotland, except Scotch whisky.