Darren Hoise likes to drink on the job. And he gets paid for it.
Darren joined Chivas Brothers in 2003 as an international brand ambassador based in their Strathisla Distillery in Keith on Speyside, Scotland. I had a chance to clink glasses with a real Scot over a bottle of — what else? — Chivas Regal 18, a drink old enough to be allowed to watch R-rated movies, to find out if “Scotch on the rocks” is a moral sin, and to learn what Scotsmen really don underneath their kilts.
PHILIPPINE STAR: The Scots have contributed much to world culture: Scotch whiskey, Chief Engineer Scotty from Star Trek, Scrooge McDuck, and Groundskeeper Willie from The Simpsons. (You forgot Fat Bastard — Editor’s Note.) But aside from liquor and pop culture icons, what else have the Scots given to the world aside from overworked livers and a form of mutant English?
DARREN HOISE: (Laughs) Well, as you drive home, your car will have four pneumatic tires that were invented by a Scotsman. You will be traveling on a tar macadam road surface that was invented by a Scotsman. When you get home, you will probably switch on your television that was also invented by a Scotsman. Even the telephone was invented by a Scotsman.
And despite all those great inventions, you guys still don’t bother to wear underwear underneath your kilts.
(Laughs) That’s a national secret.
White men in skirts who are not wearing underwear can be a traumatic experience for Asian women — and for Asian men as well. So why exactly do Scotsmen wear kilts?
Originally, the kilt was a long stretch material you would wrap around your waist and up on to your shoulders. So you could use it when working on the fields or when marching to battle. In the olden days, it also made a perfectly good blanket. It’s one of the world’s first multi-functional outfits.
Fashionable, yet ready for battle. I see. So, Darren, are you wearing underwear right now?
I certainly couldn’t comment. (Laughs)
But chances are that you are always ready for battle.
Under The Influence
Darren, you probably have one of the best jobs in the world: you drink for a living. But you hide your occupation under the title “Chivas Regal International Brand Ambassador.” What is it exactly that you do aside from making sure that Scotland slowly takes over the world?
My job is two-fold. On the commercial side, I look after the visions and strategies for the brand in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Indonesia markets. On the brand ambassador side, I am involved in a lot of public relations events and whiskey tasting and education events.
They never offered whiskey tasting as an elective in college. It was all home schooling.
Alchemix
For beer-drinking heathens like me, just what is this lovely golden-colored drink that has made me unable to feel my tongue for the last 10 minutes?
Scotch whiskey is the biggest selling whiskey in the world. Technically, you can make whiskey anywhere in the world because it’s a distilled spirit. But if you look at recent figures, Scotch sells about 90 million cases a year followed by American whiskey at 29 million cases a year. So Scotch whiskey sells three times as much as the second placer. It is a huge, huge spirit.
Scotland must be a very haunted place, then.
Chivas Regal is a blended Scotch whiskey. A blended malt is a combination of two or more single malts. Single malt is a Scotch whiskey made from cereal (malted barley, wheat or corn) natural water and yeast, distilled twice, made and aged in Scotland.
It’s got cereal and barley and wheat? No wonder DOMs take Scotch for breakfast!
When we make Scotch, everything is controlled by Scottish law: from the production process to the aging process to the bottling process. You take those three ingredients and put them through a complex production process. Then you finish with a clear twice-distilled liquid, as required by law in Scotland.
This is when government intervention is a good thing.
The clear liquid is called a new spirit, which is about 60 to 70 percent alcohol. It’s a very strong but very complex and delicate spirit. But you can’t call it whiskey just yet because you need to age it for a minimum of three years in oak barrels. After three years, you can now legally bottle it and call it Scotch (whiskey).
Wow, I feel like intoxicated just by listening to you. Or maybe it’s just the accent.
For a bottle like Chivas Regal 18, more than 20 of Scotland’s rarest single malts are hand-selected by Colin Scott, our master blender. Every single drop of whiskey in the blend has been aged for 18 years.
I love whiskeys that are old enough to vote. It seems every step of the production process is regulated by law. Is Scotch whiskey a state secret? And if it is, does revealing the process strip you of your whiskey drinking privileges for life?
There are a lot of variables in the process: the type of ingredients that you use, how you distill, the shapes and sizes of pot stills (a still used in distillation), the length of the distillation process, the type of casks that are used. A lot happens in those casks for 18 years.
And whatever happens in the cask, stays in the cask.
In fact 75 percent of the flavor and aroma comes from the cask. There are things that happen between the wood and the air and the liquid.
So drinking whiskey is almost like drinking a liquid infused with wood? That brings new meaning to “Give me a stiff one.”
But we do have certain secrets, like how many whiskeys we use in our blends. And it is only our master blender, Colin Scott, who knows these secrets. He is the guardian of all the history and the knowledge we use to make each blend.
Colin is my liver’s best friend.
Colin can actually identify 85 flavors in every sip of Chivas Regal 18.
Chivas has got more flavors than most ice-cream companies.
I’m not quite at Colin’s level yet. (Laughs) But there are certain flavors you can pick out, such as a hint of spiciness, the flavors of dried fruit, and the lovely, lovely flavors of dark chocolate. It’s very much the Chivas style.
I’m curious, how does one become a master blender? Are these master blenders grown in oak barrels?
You do a lot of drinking. (Laughs) But Colin has been blending whiskeys for more than 35 years. His father and his grandfather were master blenders as well.
Those Scottish boys must have livers of steel.
But it’s impossible for master blenders to sit and drink all day.
I know some DOMs who would beg to disagree.
But doctors do recommend drinking one to two glasses of whiskey a night. It’s actually very good for your health, much like red wine.
Who is your doctor? I know several DOMs who require a prescription.
To Ice or Not To Ice
And what do you think of Scotch on the rocks?
I would say drinking whiskey is a personal choice. Some people drink it on the rocks, or with soda, or with mixers. If that’s how they enjoy it, that is totally up to them. Although, when you take Scotch whiskey with ice, it has the opposite effect or bringing out the flavor of the whiskey. The ice contracts the spirit and you get a little bit less flavor. But then, slowly, the ice starts to melt and the water will start to open up the whiskey and keep it nice and cool.
Can you also match whiskey with food or is whiskey a Scottish meal in itself?
You can definitely match whiskey with foods. If you look at wines, you traditionally have red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat (or fish). With whiskey, you can sit down for a meal, look at the flavors of your whiskey and then match them with foods. For example, Chivas Regal 18 has a lovely chocolate flavor so it goes great with chocolate; it goes great with steak too because it’s got enough flavor to stand up against the very powerful flavors of red meat.
And if you are a vegetarian like myself, you pray that Scotch goes well with artichoke hearts. Now for the most entertaining portion of drinking Chivas: How long do we wait until we are pleasantly consumed by Scotch whiskey? Do I wait until I lose all feeling in my lower extremities?
That depends on how quickly and how much you drink. When you are drinking whiskey, it is a pleasure: you are getting a quality product that has gone through a lot of care and attention for many, many years. So I would just say, sit down, have a few glasses, enjoy the flavor, enjoy the taste, enjoy the aroma, and you’ll have a very lovely nice warm glow to you.
So you wait until you become radioactive? Got it.
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