Be remembered for good…
One fact that I have always believed in is that legends never die. This could be because they are invariably a step ahead of even truth… and truth, as we have seen often, kowtows and merges into a stronger truth. A legend, a friend said once, is like a sip of 100 Pipers rushing through the nervous system, activating synapses, and managing to generate a thrill that only another legend can match. Well, if this be so, let me just add that a thriller coursing through your consciousness is an experience that stays in the mind and this is why it is a step ahead of even truth. A truth gives way to another truth but a legend charges into the mind…
Talking of legends, there is one that has lingered on for centuries – the legend of a hundred pipers marching into battle ahead of the Scottish legendary hero Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army ‘beating terror into the hearts of the enemy’. This is the historical epic inspiration behind 100 Pipers, a brand of whisky and its association with this astounding platoon of pipers. It is this subliminal sound of music that the master blenders have attempted to give to give it through a rigorous series of tasting, testing, and then doing it repeatedly until the taste graduated from being light to mellow to the mix that makes a connoisseur experience not three or five or nine but a hundred pipers regaling taste buds, the body as well as the mind.
The process is all about a great scotch built around well-nigh twenty rare whiskies in supporting roles, if one may say so. There is this grapevine of master blenders Rich Islay whiskies, Smooth whiskies from Falkirk and Campbeltown, Mellow Keith whisky, and the fragile whisky of Speyside to build a library of 50 whiskies in 517 blends and the final blend with around 30 of these successfully making the hundred piper effect come alive! This is the sort of story that makes a whisky brand walk into the life of connoisseurs to regale and put life into evenings of absolute relaxation in great company.
Those who appreciate the subtle woody and fruity fragrance with a touch of peat oak fragrance in medium intensity creating an aromatic sweetness would also know features that make the heart grow fonder for the right blend. The aroma obviously needs to be replete with a full and fruity nose with delicate honey and vanilla notes. The body of this drink essentially needs to be heavy, sweet, complex and rounded. The taste cannot be any other than being full bodied, mellow and sweet, combined with well-balanced notes of fruitiness and soft smokiness with a floral and elegant, with subtle oak notes coupled with vanilla raising the bars for the final note!
Such an ethereal concoction necessarily has to be associated with more than one story of how it all might have begun. One of the conjectures already shared does go hand-in-hand with the other tales. Another such enigmatic tale talks about Seagram reaching Scotland after a major war with a distinctly American ideation about a whisky. Scotches have various origins and some are noted for the smoothness of their malts, some for the Highness of their grain whiskies, and some for the mellowness they derive from their casks but life takes the best turn only when the best of these converge into one heavenly scotch. Since the location of the whisky for creating the best blend isn’t a limitation, there were different ones from different areas brought in for a friendly interaction in a concoction. For instance, the chosen ones had the rich Islay whiskies from one famous scotch, the smooth Speyside whiskies of another coming together with whiskies from such far-flung districts of Falkirk, Keith and Campbeltown and the outcome or result is that Seagram’s 100 Pipers acquired a scotch you don’t have to acquire a taste for, so to say.
A third story that does the ever-lasting rounds is whiskies from wanted the Balmenmachs, the Strathislas, the Macallans and a handful of others being carefully auditioned for their ability to create the right intensity, aroma, body, and taste. This is not about a hurriedly mixed scotch but one of a search that went on more than 20 years and with more than 530 combinations where the best whiskies from the Highlands as well as the Lowlands were invited to participate… and the final outcome is what one gets in a bottle of 100 Pipers.
I guess it is only fair to write here that being nurtured for 12 long years in the finest oak casks forms this superior blend of hand-picked malt and grain whiskies imbued with the sweet vanilla aroma of the Braeval malt whisky, sourced from the remote Livet Valley in the Speyside region of Scotland. Sipping a pure legend isn’t something that has a mundane code of evolution!
Sipping a whisky is akin to reading lines of poetry for some… and any hiccup, harshness in tone, a wrong word masquerading as the right one, a faulty rhyme, and even the syllabic count going haywire can affect the experience. It is some such experience that a good whisky loves to emulate and 100 Pipers does it with the affirmation of a sedate confidence without arrogance touching it.
.
.
.
Sipping a whisky is akin to reading lines of poetry for some… and any hiccup, harshness in tone, a wrong word masquerading as the right one, a faulty rhyme, and even the syllabic count going haywire can affect the experience. It is some such experience that a good whisky loves to emulate and 100 Pipers does it with the affirmation of a sedate confidence without arrogance touching it.
100pipers
.
.
.
Arvind Passey
21 October 2016
