Sweet sipping

The world's most popular blended Scotch struts its stuff with three Johnny Walker Houses in China. Mike Peters seeks out the malty essence at the Beijing establishment.

The silver-stoppered bottle in front of us costs more than 5,000 yuan ($781), and we've just splashed a bit of the golden elixir on our palms and rubbed it into our skin.

It's the end of an elegant Sunday brunch with a more down-to-Earth price (358 yuan or $56). My host, Reto Kistler at Beijing's Johnny Walker House, has just brought out some of "the good stuff". It's the Scotch whisky distillery's Private Collection 2014 Edition - one of 8,888 bottles made. The string of eights is a portent of good things to come on two sides of the globe: The liquid is smoky and smooth as silk, though perhaps an expensive choice for hand lotion.

"The master blender might cringe if he saw us doing this," Kistler acknowledges with a boyish grin. But rubbing just a drop or two into your palms vigorously, then cupping your hands to your nose, unveils the essence of the malt.

"You can do the same with bourbon," he adds, to get a sense of the corn at the base of that spirit.

Soft jazz washes over us as Kistler, the director of operations here, explains how a smoky, peaty blend like the 2014 special edition we're drinking - or the brand's top-shelf Johnny Walker Blue - pairs well with salty foods, or a fatty morsel of fish or pork.

The Johnny Walker House is a cozy, burnished copper cocoon, a warm oasis on a weekend that's seen the capital's first snow of the winter. It's my second visit in a week to this temple to the whisky-blender's art. A novice to this noble Scottish spirit - the distillery proudly bears a royal warrant, I'd taken advantage of an introductory tasting session and come back to sample the brunch.

The earlier tasting, offered during the British Menu Week promotion at about a dozen capital restaurants, had been a chance to sample the brand's rainbow of staple blends - from Johnny Walker Gold to Red to Black to Blue, colors repeated in the richly stained wooden planks of the floors.

The gold-label pour, inspired by a blend made for the brand's centennial in 1920, has a patina of vanilla and caramel that the chef, Daniel Jia, matched with a delicate smoked salmon mousse in puff pastry. ("It's also great with desserts or anything on the sweet side," Kistler confides.) The mass-market Red sings with fresh fruits like apple and pear, while the smokier Black has an aura of richer fruits: dried fig, stewed apricot, winter oranges. More ethereal still are the Blue and the King George V, a premium blend with hints of all of the above.

The top blends, whether purchased for drinking or collecting, are not really about the age of the 40-to 43-proof spirit but the quality of the blend, Kistler says. "It's about taste, but also rarity and the pedigree of the whisky."

That can mean the inclusion of a reserve barrel, or a now-closed distillery from a famous producing region. Areas like Ilsay or the Clynelish highlands impart particular flavors treasured by connoisseurs. As a novice I can't put my finger on the special notes in each blend, but I enjoy the rich smoothness and appreciate the subtleties apparent when you taste them side by side.

Developing fans for whisky has been a key mission of the Johnny Walker Houses since the first one opened in Shanghai in 2012 and the second in Beijing's Qianmen area a year later. While the lavishly furnished interior entices with exclusivity, the dining room and bar have evolved into semi-private facilities where the public, not just members, can come to enjoy tastings and fine food. In a new promotion titled "Joy will take you further", an introductory Joy membership gets you a bottle of Blue, Sunday brunch for two and some mentored whisky-tasting. Full-fledged members, or "patrons" pay 50,000, 280,000 or 800,000 yuan on account for different levels of privileges that include member pricing, members-only special events with celebrities, and storage lockers. Top-level patrons can ask the Scotland distillery's current master blender, Jim Beveridge, to come to Beijing and craft a signature blend of whisky to their individual taste.

To get to the restaurant and bar areas, we pass through a gallery of special-edition bottles, including three elegant beauties in blue-and-white porcelain filled with cask-strength whisky, glass bottles embossed with gold dragons, snakes and rams to mark Chinese New Year, and other bottles specially made for visiting celebrities. Off to one side, there is a big tasting room, where members can sit with an expert to explore the fruity-to-smoky gamut of premium scotches.

Beyond the food and beverage, the retail store and the patron services, Kistler says, the house is about education and experience - the storytelling behind Scotch whisky, John Walker and Sons in particular.

The most widely distributed blended Scotch whisky in the world, its founder and first master blender set up shop as a grocer in Kilmarnock, Scotland, in 1820, and started blending whisky soon after. John's son Alexander introduced the iconic square bottle in 1860, which allowed more bottles to fit the same space and resulted in fewer broken bottles during shipping and handling. The other identifying characteristic of the brand's bottle, the label, sits at a pert angle of 24 degrees, so the text could be made larger and more visible.

Today, the brand sells more than 100 million bottles around the world annually under its corporate parent Diageo, whose brands also include Pernod Ricard, Guinness and Shui Jing Fang, the Chinese baijiu distillery. Like many multinational drinks firms, Diageo has seen its profits take a significant knock since the Chinese government's campaign against extravagance and gifting was launched in 2012.

This spring Sam Fischer, Diageo's Africa and Asia Pacific president, said despite the clampdown, the region has strong potential for mid-to long-term growth, with improvements expected in the first half of fiscal 2016.

"While I don't expect to see baijiu and Scotch rebound quickly," he said in a February conference call to media, "I do remain confident in China in the medium to long-term.

"GDP is expected to grow at 6 to 7 percent CAGR in the next five years, and the number of affluent consumers is expected to more than double by 2020."

That confidence and commitment to the region, Kistler says, is reflected in the company's establishment of the Johnny Walker House here - with siblings in Shanghai, Chengdu and Seoul. As we work our way through brunch - which started with a delicate trout mousse and ends with "Eton mess", a colorful pileup of meringue and fruit with a fun story behind the name - it's easy to savor confidence in good times ahead.

Contact the writer at michaelpeters@chinadaily.com.cn