Why did I love this book?
Not just another whisky-tasting book, A Sense of Place is an enlightening travelogue through Scotland’s picturesque whisky regions, exploring both old and new distilleries, their past and more importantly and uniquely, their present and future.
Investigating from the ground up, Dave Broom takes you on this journey with him as the third wheel behind him and the superb photographer, Christina Kernohan.
Reporting on the expedition as a welcoming diary, it is simultaneously warm and informative with wide-ranging topics covering the archaeology of the Orkney Islands, the role of peat through time and even touching on the politics of the 18th and 19th century that led to the ‘business’ of whisky, while seamlessly connecting them to the current effects of climate change and the sustainable whisky making movement of present-day distillers and their diversity.
I was left with Mr. Broom’s optimism for the future in general and of whisky in this regal locale. This is a book that would please the would-be world traveler as well as the whisky imbiber and one that I will surely revisit.
1 author picked A Sense of Place as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
'A Sense of Place blends pin-sharp writing with evocative photography in a book to savour and treasure.' - Ian Rankin
'Mr. Broom, who was born in Glasgow and has been writing about spirits for decades, is the perfect author for this beautiful, evocative book. He knows the whisky territory intimately and the people well, and he has the senses of wonder, empathy and history to tie them altogether, as well as the skill to conjure up the smell of the salt air, the sound of barley shimmering in the wind, the vibrations of hammers shaping copper into stills and the…