Iceland:

The land of ice and fire. Vikings and gods. Myths and sagas. Darkness and Light. Volcanoes and glaciers.

Now, reread that last bit like Christopher Lee as Saruman from Lord Of The Rings. Pretty Cool eh?

Ok, we now return to your previous reading voice.

Iceland is a pretty cool place, dad pun notwithstanding.  Apart from the originally stated reasons on why you would scoot over to Iceland, I’d like to offer one more, and it’s a short 15-minute from the 870 AD established capital of Reykjavik: it’s the Eimverk Distillery – makers of three spirits including Flóki Whisky. 

Oh, a whisky FYI: 

the Young Malt Reserve expression is smoked using sheep dung.

So, what brings me here?  Most likely, when the word “whisky” pops into our collective mindspace, “Iceland” doesn’t exactly elbow its way to the front.  Instead, it’s places like Scotland, where there are four times as whisky casks as people and 42 bottles are scotch are sold worldwide every second. 

Then there’s Canada, Ireland, the U.S. and Japan, who, in 2018 had a combined output of over 600 million litres of whisky (you might need to build an extra shelf or two in your bar to house that collection).

To say that whisky is still enjoying an amazing renaissance would be like getting front row seats for Litotes-Palooza featuring Understatement Of The Year.  Yes, more people are discovering and exploring whisky; however, more countries are producing the liquid sunshine as well. 

According to my countries’ scorecard, there are 195 countries.  Granted not all them are in the whisky creation business. Still though, the list is growing.

A distillery pilgrimage to Scotland undoubtedly is in your bucket list (or, perhaps put back in again).  Yet, imagine planning a world whisky tour.  You’d be travelling from Asia to Australia. From Belgium to Israel. From Switzerland to India. From Corsica to Norway. Heck, even Chile eventually (The Last Hope Distillery, started by two Aussies, is just waiting for its whisky to age).

So, without further ado, get into your window seat, ease the seat back and prepare for take-off to:

A Final Word…

Ok, picking – or rather – limiting the choice to just 5 whiskies from a place that occupies as much real estate as the world is a little unfair. Should I use these choices?  Why did I leave others out? 

There’s so much delicious whisky to discover and explore.Of course, another idea could be to explore five different ones a little later.

Done.

Booking my window seat for the next world whisky flight. 

Cheers.

– Renaud Timson