Tim D Philips On The Future Of Whisky In India And Its Emerging Cultural Cocktails
In a city where whisky culture is rapidly evolving, Tim D Philips, Johnnie Walker's global brand ambassador, sits down to discuss his journey from bartender to whisky evangelist, the parallels between cocktail-making and blending, and why India's approach to drinking culture is getting it right.
As part of Johnnie Walker’s ongoing series of Whisky Experiments, global brand ambassador Tim D Philips came to Mumbai and took over Slink & Bardot for a night of exploration into the world of whisky cocktails. The World Class Global Bartender of the Year 2012 and official Keeper Of The Quaich brought his experience and innovative mind to the table, leading an evening of cocktails and conversation.
But beyond the cocktail glass, The Bar India wanted to know where it all began and what he sees for the future of whisky in India. Here’s what he had to say.
Where did your interest in working with whisky begin?
I guess it probably began when I first started falling in love with bartending back in 2001. When you start bartending, and you're looking at all these spirits on the back bar, realistically, there's a lot to learn, right? They start off as mystery liquids - it almost goes back to how alcohol was first developed. They were trying to find that elusive fifth element, similarly there's always been this idea that distillation is almost this mysterious world of ideas and ingredients.
The liquid that was probably my first fascination early in my bartending career was Scotch. I enjoyed working with it because, by far, it challenged me with its breadth of flavours. Even to this day, when you look at a really iodine-heavy Islay whisky versus an incredibly dry, perfumed, aromatic Lowland whisky, each of them are Scotch, each made with the same ingredients. Still, it's the production method and maturation that separate them. You have vastly different-tasting spirits.
How did you learn more about the world of whisky?
One of the key things I used to do was read a book on Scotch and go into the bar I worked at on my day off. I'd sit there reading it with my noise-cancelling headphones in and drink the Scotch I was reading about. This makes all of your learning a lot more tangible. Reading about food makes you salivate, makes you want to taste the food, and that's exactly what happened to me with Scotch, I wanted to taste it. Almost as a by-product of that, I developed a knowledge of it.
Cocktails or over ice? And what is your go-to recipe?
After spending a long time making cocktails for a living, you stop remembering that cocktails are fun. When I'm at home, if I'm making cocktails, I keep it really simple. A neat whisky for me is probably too strong a lot of the time. I quite like a little bit of dilution. An example would be Johnnie Walker Gold Reserve, a whisky that's hugely popular here in India. It has this inherent waxiness and texture, this inherent fruit characteristic.
When I'm mixing at home, because I'm a little bit lazy, I'll freeze some pineapple juice or apple juice in a big block, put that in a glass, and serve some frozen Johnnie Walker Gold straight over that. For me, that's the perfect way to promote the inherent characters within the whisky whilst diluting it softly.
What is the most interesting part of working with whisky in cocktails?
As a cocktail bartender, you start to understand that Scotch can be incredibly versatile in cocktails when used the right way. Blending whisky is an art form - that mix of skill and art. That crafting of an orchestra of flavours was something very similar to what we do in bartending. Bartending is about taking impeccable ingredients, blending them together in the right proportion with the right technique and making them shine. That's what blending whisky is all about.
When you take an incredible blended whisky that has not just the instruments from single malts coming to the fore, but you also consider the texture and mouthfeel of the grain whisky, it can absolutely sing in a cocktail. We're starting to see almost a renaissance of Scotch drinks, considering it's never really been represented well in cocktails until the last 10 or 20 years.
Where do you think India stands on the global cocktail scene?
What India is doing brilliantly is ignoring global trends. When you ignore trends and concentrate on what is relevant to your customers, your market, your food culture, that's when you start to build a real cocktail culture. What I've found in the eight years since I've been in India is that the bars and restaurants here that do cocktails are concentrating on local flavours.
The focus on local flavours, working with the diversity of cuisines around India, separates you from the pack. It makes you your own drinks culture rather than mimicking what's happening in London or Sydney.
What ingredients have excited you on this trip to India?
Saffron has come to the fore. Local saffron here is a lot more fragrant, a lot more concentrated. The queen of spices, cardamom, can be used in savoury or sweeter cocktails, and the quality here is much better. Some of the fresh, fragrant ingredients like curry leaf or lime leaf, I've been having a lot of fun with in more tropical-style highball cocktails. Toasted coconuts work so well with Johnnie Walker Black Label. The opportunities are endless, realistically.
How have you seen the approach to whisky changing in India and beyond?
The way that people drink whisky has changed categorically for the better. Whisky is no longer steeped in male stereotypical cues, where you get scolded for mixing your Scotch. The way that Scotch is being consumed globally is a lot more diverse, and its consumers are a lot more diverse. That's not just in male and female representation, it's also the occasions that we drink Scotch. Something like a Johnnie Walker Blonde Label, for example, is not the type where you drink your scotch with a blanket over your lap and a cat sitting on you in front of a fire, and you should never mix it; it’s designed to be a part of an interesting cocktail.
For someone new to whisky, how would you recommend they start?
I certainly wouldn't offer them the most smoke-driven, cask-strength single malt in the world. The best way to drink whisky is the way you want to drink it. If I were introducing people to drinking whisky for the first time, I would always serve it with a mixer. Ginger ale seems to be the natural bedfellow for Johnnie Walker. For people averse to ginger, things like creating your own seltzers or even mineral waters that don't have sugar in them work brilliantly.
What’s something that you think more people should know about whisky?
We've never created the same recipe twice at Johnnie Walker Black Label since its inception in 1908. That particular flavour profile has remained unchanged, but the recipe has constantly shifted. The whiskies we can get our hands on, the states of flux that Scotch has gone through over the years, we've never been able to get the same Scotches to build that particular whisky.
There are no identical casks, so ultimately the challenge of our blenders is to create the same flavour liquid as the last batch with a completely different set of ingredients. Could you imagine making the same dish for someone that they had 50 years ago with a completely different set of ingredients today? It comes back to the skill that our blenders put in a bottle.
What are your predictions for the world of whisky in 2026?
The world of Scotch whisky is going to continue to blossom. It's not even a trend anymore; it's a movement where people are drinking less and drinking better. We're starting to see bartenders globally adopt that flavour in diverse cocktails, and that will continue to grow. How we drink Scotch and how we perceive Scotch whisky drinkers will continue to surprise you and become ubiquitous with drinking trends globally.
*Drink Responsibly. This communication is for audiences above the age of 25.
