Part II: Q&A with Allison Patel

By Richard Thomas

In this second part of our interview with the multi-tasking Allison Patel, The Whiskey Reviewer covers her French single malt Brenne, and her own personal tastes in whiskey.

~Return to Part I of this interview~

RT: Speaking of Brenne, you’ve had it up and running in the States for several months. How’s it doing?

AP: It’s going so well! I’m so happy! Thank goodness it is going so well, and largely thanks to our blogger community. My God, what an amazing whiskey-loving family that we’ve got.

RT: Brenne is a French single malt, and while most of the malt whiskey-making activity in France is in Brittany, Brenne comes from Cognac, made by a third-generation Cognac-maker. That seems to set Brenne apart from not just what is made in France, but anywhere else as well. What do you think your distiller being a Cognac-maker brings to Brenne?

AP: That’s a great question. Everything. I have learned that distillers are always playing with things, and I have been lucky enough to meet my distiller, and discover that he had been working on this whisky. Well, I flew to Cognac the moment I heard about this. I was excited and apprehensive, but he’s made this whisky in the style of his cognac, every aspect of the way he looks at this whole whisky thing is from a Cognac perspective.

It’s a farm distillery, his grandparents started it in the 1920s, and so every grain and every grape they distill they grow organically. Not as a way of marketing, but really because that is how farming was done in the ’20 when this was set up. When pesticides were introduced in the ‘50s, they said thanks but no thanks. It was incredible to find someone that using only his own barley, and the toasting levels [on the barrels] is to their family’s proprietary levels that they established with their coopers. It was such a beautiful, hand-crafted, passion project on their side, I just thought the world, or at least however many people I could bring it to depending on how many bottles I could get out every year needed to try this!

A big part of the craft movement is getting to taste regional influences, and to me this whisky screams that it is a whisky from Cognac. I tell people all the time it tastes like a cognac and a single malt had a baby, even though there is no cognac spirit in it.

RT: That’s what Scott Peters wrote when he reviewed it. Although Scott is principally our “Rye Guy,” he loved that single malt meets cognac thing.

AP: That is so cool!

RT: Yeah, I think you really hit the ball there.

AP: I have to say that is truly the touching part about this whole thing. […] You know, I did some market testing, but to produce something that is so different is a little scary. And Brenne is not different for the sake of being different, it’s not a gimmick, I really believe in what I’m doing but I was of course very nervous and excited when I launched it.  Something that surprised me from the start was  that the really serious peat heads, or someone like Scott who is a rye-drinker, would tell me they don’t typically drink other styles of whisky, but after tasting it would not only respect and understand [Brenne], but like it and admire it! It’s really humbling

RT: What is it about Brenne, your import, that would appeal to the typical American bourbon-lover?

AP: Brenne is definitely a malt with the most fruitful and desert-like complexity… I hate to say sweet, because sweet can be so polarizing, but in a complex, desert way, it’s a sweeter whiskey compared to its Scotch brothers. It could be an interesting option for a bourbon drinker, because your getting that malt kick in the finish, but you’re also getting this interesting approach, and perhaps there are some nice parallels there between the two types of whiskey.

RT: As a blogger, importer, and maker, what kind of qualities do you favor in your sipping whiskey?

AP: I love something that takes me on a journey. Truthfully. I love something that evolves a little bit in the glass, while it opens up. I don’t go for something that is one-dimensional. I want multi-dimensionality, and I want smooth transitions from one note to the next, and that’s what I want.

RT: And how does that work out in terms of what your favorite tipples might be?

AP: In terms of mainstream and what’s generally available, I love what David Stewart is doing at Balvenie. I get very excited about certain expressions that he releases, and I think they have beautiful, truly great whiskeys.

Compass Box to me is another interesting one that I love exploring. Mackmyra, the Swedish, I like what they are doing and the avenues they are taking. And of course, they appeal to my entrepreneurial spirit,and my passion for craft, locally-focused whiskeys.

Balcones, naturally. We’ve become really good friends, and it’s nice to drink something made by a friend. That’s a really specially experience.

I also like to have things I can’t get here, and that I pick up  in my travels. I love the Japanese whiskeys, that you can’t get here in the United States.