Jim Murray (author of The Whisky Bible) has spent 14 months going through all the remnants of his past.
He was “cancelled” by the “woke brigade”, and almost all of his possessions were gone overnight. His reputation and the result of years of obsession, his staff, income stream financial security, future plans, and legacy.
This all happened because of a single post on social media that was made by someone he had not met and didn’t even know. He claimed that his message was vulgar and sexist.
“It was surreal. “Everything fell apart,” he said. “Everyone abandoned me.” It took me months to even work out what had happened, but now I see it’s bullying — horrible, unfiltered bullying — and I’m fighting back.’
Jim Murray (author of the multimillion-selling Whisky Bible) has been spending the last 14 months sorting through his personal wreckage after being “cancelled” by the woke brigade.
First, the 2022 Whisky Bible is now uncensored, unbowed, and complete with an angry introduction championing freedom speech and feministism.
Next, he has plans to contact all fellow cancel culture victims and set up an organisation called WOW — aka War On Woke.
He said, “Because they are victims.” This is not permitted. This is what you need to think. It’s important to consider this. This is the most important thing you can do.
Jim Murray (a former journalist) was undisputed whisky’s king for more than twenty years.
The annual bible he created features over 4,000 whiskies. He also helped set the standard in whisky production. Additionally, his “Liquid Golden Awards” have brought (and not made) millions to distilleries waiting eagerly for each year’s results.
Indeed, his dogged enthusiasm for everything ‘whisky’ has helped transform the industry into a £60 billion global business.
In Northamptonshire, Percy the 12-year-old Parrot has been his only companion for the last five months.
Becky Paskin (pictured), a former editor for scotchwhisky.com, and co-founder at OurWhisky, called Murray the Donald Trump’ of whisky and later stated that ‘this whisky’s #MeToo campaign’.
There, he tastes up to 25 samples a day, ‘translating them in a hypnotic trance’ with extraordinarily florid notes, in which he likens their taste, texture and feel to everything from ‘low-calorie Fruit Pastilles’ to ‘expensive silk undies’ — to the delight of both readers and distillers, male and female.
For the rest of the year, he travelled constantly — to distilleries, shows, tastings, recording TV and radio shows.
That was until September 2020 when, out of the blue, Becky Paskin — a former editor of scotchwhisky.com and co-founder of OurWhisky (launched in 2018 ‘to champion diversity and inclusion in the whisky industry’), took to Instagram.
According to her, 34 out of the 4,300+ tasting notes Jim included in his 2021 edition were about whisky being “sexy” and that in some other instances he ‘objectifies’ women by saying that whisky was like having sex. This meant that both Jim and his bible are sexists and disgraceful for the industry.
He was referred to as the “Donald Trump” of whisky, and she later stated that this is the #MeToo movement in whisky. She demanded that distillers stop publishing the book or else they would be accused of supporting his vulgar and sexist behavior.
She wrote that any brand who celebrates their inclusion in Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible should feel ashamed. She also referenced a few of Jim’s most salacious notes in the 2021 edition. He started with his review on a Canadian Club “heritage” brand.
“Have you ever had so much fun with such a hot 41-year-old Canadian?” Murray wrote. Murray wrote. Murray wrote: However, it was many years ago and the whisky wasn’t there. Did the experience we had be any better? Most likely not.
He also made a series of ‘disgusting comments’ about Penderyn (a Welsh distiller who produces single malts out of a small village near the Brecon Beacons), which is run by an all-woman team.
He writes about their whisky, “If this were a woman I would want to make love every night to her,” “And then in the morning. Evening, if you have the time. . . Energies. . .’
There’s more.
He writes about the Glenmorangie Artisan Cask, “If whisky could have sexed,”
Jim Murray described this tipple as “It pouts. It seduces. and wins your heart.” This whisky, he said (right), was a sexy 41 years-old.
“Everytime I come across Morangie Artisan it surprises me with a completely new perfume. It also changes its mood. The animal seems unable to decide its own mind. However, it does seem to know how seduce, wink and pout. . .? Oh, yes.
Glenfarclas Family Casks are his favorite. He says: ‘The malt is for the lady of your life. First to enjoy her to seduce/or be seduced and then to have fun with. Then to share it together.
It was a disaster.
Within hours of Becky’s post on Instagram, the distilleries — including Glenfiddich, the biggest malt whisky brand, and Beam Suntory, one of the world’s biggest premium spirits companies — started distancing themselves, and whisky shops sent back his bibles and cancelled future orders.
The first that Jim — who does not have a social media presence — knew about it, was a frantic call from his assistant.
He stated, “They’re accusing your of being sexist.” “It has gone viral. It is now a huge success. Your account has been cancelled.
Jim was shocked. Jim says, “I write so people can understand and appreciate whisky. I also want to entertain and make people smile.”
Becky did not respond to a Mail inquiry yesterday.
It was even more difficult to remember that he had been friends with so many distillery owners for decades.
They had been telling him for years how much they loved his cheerful reviews.
A female employee at a well-known distillery had just emailed him a week prior to express her admiration for his writing.
She was the first to refuse to give her whisky samples and cancel his contract.
‘As all those statements rolled in, one after another, I watched my whole world collapse around me, and nobody — not one senior exec — called. He says that everyone jumped from the ship. They looked like sheep. They were very scared of sheep.
Strangely, very few of these offending tasting notes are new. They’d been in previous bibles — Jim usually adds about 1,200 tasting notes each year — and no one had minded.
“There has never been one complaint.”
He compared a single malt Scotch to “a 40-year old woman who has maintained her body and appearance, and now satin is the only thing that stands between you and so many beauty and experience. . . And she is spicy, believe me.
He claims they were just his spontaneous thoughts translated to give life to his descriptions.
The reason that the occasional reference to sex crept in was not because he is a sexist monster, he says, but due to the very nature of his very strict approach to tasting — aka the ‘Murray Method’.
‘It’s about sensuality — the smell, taste and touch of the whisky in your mouth,’ he says. It can sometimes lead to sexuality.
Which means that, occasionally, a particularly sexy whisky will unlock a memory of a special time in his life and prompt a shout out to old lovers — such as the much-loved Canadian lady — who he says were always happy to feature.
It is hard to ask him about the Penderyn Single Cask reference: “This celebrates maltiness in much the same manner a sex addict enjoys a threesome.”
‘Hasn’t everybody?’ He roars back in reply before saying: “Look, I am an entertainer.” He is a critic who writes to entertain and inform. It is not what readers want to read.
He points out that motoring writers describe cars as ‘sexy’, sports commentators describe football as sexy — and don’t get him started on the innuendoes on The Great British Bake Off.
“None are cancelled!” He says. He said, “But, I’m white, middle-aged and middle class, so I can’t speak for him.”
It is 30 years since Jim gave up his job as a Fleet Street journalist — along with his wife who was upset at their sudden impecunity — to pursue a calling as Britain’s first whisky writer.
He had been obsessively smelling anything and everything — ‘food, wine, shoes’ — since he was a child, and was captivated by whisky at his first taste from the barrel at the Talisker Distillery when he was 17.
“It transformed everything.” I tried every single whisky that I could after that.
Obsessive, focussed, single-minded, gifted, and some even egotistical, he is obsessive. With his Whisky Bible, power was attained. It could change a company to win the Whisky of the Year award, or be mentioned in the Liquid Gold Awards.
He is nevertheless a firm feminist and egalitarian and has taken great steps to support and promote women in the male-dominated whisky industry.
He explains that he campaigned against whisky producers wearing scantily-clad women to draw punters to their trade stands at fairs.
He also says he ended the habit of only making entry-level whiskies available to women at tastings and has striven to ‘make the industry more welcoming’.
“I’m hugely pro women!” He points out that his first books used female blenders. [tasting]Men’s noses often have a better reputation than theirs.
However, that did not stop social media from exploding.
So as well as sexist ogre, he is — according to myriad anonymous accusers — a groper. He was drunk during tastings.
I was also a racist. If true, these are serious accusations.
He denies all, and none of them have been proven.
He insists that he is insanely sober during tastings. I’m sure that I’ve only drunk twice in my whole life. They can’t be stopped. There is no filter. They will say what they like. This is a lynch mob.
Und no one dare to come to his rescue.
Although some members of the distillery staff may have sent support messages, not everyone has broken contact. However, nobody came forward publicly to help him.
He is not even close to his friends.
He says, “They are trying to keep under the radar so that they don’t get wipe out by the wake brigade.”
Jim says it was his most challenging and profound life experience.
‘I couldn’t think, I couldn’t sleep, I lost energy, I put on weight and, financially, I’m pretty much wiped out — I’ll have to sell things,’ he says.
However, it also allowed for him to be more aware of the increasingly awake world around him.
“We have brainwashing taking place everywhere. There’s a massive anxiety — will they ever see sense? It took me a long time to work out what to do next — to fight back for freedom of speech.’
Which, for him, meant business as usual — five months locked up working on the 2022 bible, tasting every whisky he could and refusing to censor whatever racy tasting comment popped into his head.
“I’m an entertainer and a communicator. I invented whisky writing — and I’m good at it.’
His latest bible — sporting a picture of a very bullish Jim aloft a whisky barrel on the cover — was released last month.
This was an enormous gamble, but it appears it may pay off.
Because, despite all of the trolling and hoo-ha, his Whisky Bible sold faster than any other year and he now needs to order another print run.