When Israel’s M&H Elements Sherry Cask won World’s Best Single Malt at the World Whiskies Awards in March 2023, “sales went through the roof… People were knocking on our door saying I have to try this,” said Ron Gurevitch, who looks after the marketing and sales side of the business. They had to expand production significantly. It looked like Israeli whisky had arrived.
Yet 18 months later, many people did not want to know. Following the October 7 atrocities and the resulting war, “two whisky shows asked us not to come after confirming participation” he continued. “They did ask politely,” he added.
An auction site refused to sell one of their whiskies, claiming that they did not sell bottles from “conflict countries”. Then, earlier this month, the Guardian removed a mention of an M&H whisky from my drinks column because of complaints in the comments section. It was later reinstated after an outcry from, among others, Simon Sebag-Montefiore. Gurevitch was philosophical about it all: “I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s a hard time for Israeli brands to market products.”
Happily, the home market is strong, with people understandably keen to support local products. M&H released special “Spirit of Hope” editions, with profits going to the “Kibbutz movement in order to help the affected areas after October 7”.
Winning the World Whiskies Awards has been a big help in converting sceptical Israeli whisky drinkers. “We always joke that in order to make people believe you do something well, you have to get a worldwide recognition”, he said. All this from a distillery that only released its first single malt in 2019.
M&H (originally called “Milk & Honey”) was founded in 2013 by Gal Kalkshtein, a software entrepreneur who saw what was happening with the growth in craft beer and wine in the country, and thought that the time was right for an Israeli whisky. According to Gurevitch, 40 years ago there was one winery, now there are over 400; twenty years ago there was one brewery, but now there are 50. In the last ten to 15 years, a lively single malt whisky scene has sprung up. Israel’s single malt Facebook page is one of the world’s biggest.
It was perfect timing. Kalkshtein worked with the country’s only master distiller, Tomer Goren, and a consultant from Scotland called Dr Jim Swan who influenced the shape of the stills and advised them on maturation techniques. It’s difficult to overstate the influence of Swan, who died in 2017, on the globalisation of single malt whisky production. He worked with Amrut in India, Kavalan in Taiwan and, closer to home, the Cotswolds distillery.
“Swan called Israel the playground of the whisky world because in such a small territory, you can find different climate zones,” said Gurevitch. Whereas in Scotland, the cold, damp climate means that whisky matures slowly, in Israel the heat speeds up the reaction between the spirit and the wood, meaning you get a lot of flavour at a young age. M&H has five locations around the country – from the Dead Sea to the Upper Galilee – where the whisky matures differently, depending on the heat and humidity.
Some of the workers who make M&H whisky
The other ace Israel has up its sleeve are some unusual barrels. Scotch is largely aged in bourbon or sherry casks, but Israel has ones that formerly contained pomegranate wine, leading to a unique flavour profile. They are also experimenting with barrels that contained orange wines, coffee and even Tabasco. Spicy.
The success of M&H has led to the formation of other whisky distilleries in Israel such as Golani and Edre’i in the Golan Heights, Peiter in the Kibbutz Ein Zivan and Yerushalmi in the Jerusalem Hills. It’s not just in Israel that people are keen to buy Israeli whisky. The publicity surrounding the Guardian’s decision to remove the whisky from my column led to it temporarily selling out across retailers in Britain.
That particular whisky is a single pomegranate wine cask, aged in the heat of the Dead Sea region and bottled by a British company called The Heart Cut. It’s only four years old but the extreme climate – where temperatures in the summer can regularly exceed 50 degrees centigrade, while plummeting to minus ten at night in the winter – means some big flavours. Think maraschino cherries, dates and salted caramel. You’ve never tasted a whisky like this.
If you’re looking for something a little more conventional then I’d highly recommend M&H The Elements Sherry cask. After all, it is officially the best single malt in the world. It can be drunk many ways. As Gurevitch said: “You can mix it with anything you like, ice, Coca-Cola. Just don’t mix it with politics.”
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