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Consider this, it’s evening and your body has begun telling you it’s time to eat. Anthropologically, you know the reason is to replenish and fill your stomach for a good night’s sleep, so you welcome the feeling. However, when you sit down to the dinner table you are offered a choice of two plates. One hosts a couple of pieces of plain toast, a boiled potato and a piece of celery. The other features a meal of fresh cooked fish with kinshi tamago and pickled ginger finished with sanshō pepper and a truffle sauce. Both options, of course, reach the endgame of physical daily sustenance but only one has the power to satiate the complex, dramatic desire for deliciousness – otherwise known as umami.
The balance that umami creates, that perfect marriage between sweet and salty, has become something of a Holy Grail for gastronomes. It is a dish that pulls our taste receptors into a tennis match of contrasting flavours, one that releases a very real, very scientific, human experience. While the tastes of sweet, sour, salty and bitter are perhaps simpler to identify, umami is the almost inexplicably pleasurable sensation of savoury. Umami lies in the moreish nature of temperate, layered flavour. Think, for example, of the satisfaction that comes from a plate of Japanese sushi rolls. The lightly sugared japonica rice, the crispy cracking of salty seaweed, the textural contrast of fresh vegetables and marinated meats and the piquant pleasure of a drizzle of soy. Each papillae, each single taste bud, is engaged resulting in a feast for the senses.
This type of culinary success has been gaining notoriety over the past few years, as chefs and bon-vivants recognise its superior nature. So, when Johnnie Walker began a collaboration with world-renowned Michelin Star chef Kei Kobayashi it was inevitable the focus would turn to capturing the enigmatic essence of umami.
“When I met chef Kei Kobayashi in June 2022 in Paris we set about bringing together our expertise in whisky making and creative gastronomy to encapsulate what umami would mean in this limited release,” says Emma Walker, master blender for Johnnie Walker. “We handpicked whiskies like they were ingredients. From salty, smoky notes to savoury, meaty flavours, we went back and forth, sipping and nosing, leaving each other the space to make recommendations based on our own expertise.”
This wealth of knowledge resulted in a symbiotic partnership, both for building unique flavour within the whisky itself, as well as for the ground-breaking way it would pair with expressive cuisine. For Kobayoshi, this balance was intentional from the outset.
“My goal with the dishes I created was to perfectly complement both the sweet and savoury notes of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Elusive Umami and deliver layers of flavour that truly bring umami to life,” he tells GRAZIA. “Umami is one of the five basic taste qualities. The purest form of umami is glutamate, also known as glutamic acid. Glutamate has a unique affinity with the taste receptors on the tongue. It reacts with them and amplifies flavours it comes into contact with. Glutamate-rich foods, like ripe tomatoes, aged meats and cheese, mushrooms and soup stocks, have been used to enhance recipes’ savouriness for thousands of years.”
To create umami within a drink, however, would prove to be a new frontier. Not designed to simply be an aperitif or palate cleanser, Johnnie Walker Blue Label Elusive Umami was to capture the exquisite nature of savoury within itself. A Scotch experience that balanced the complex notes of subtle and rich, sweet and salty, it would be a beauty of contrast achieved through Walker and Kobayashi’s new cohesive partnership.
The pleasure of balance is core to our most enjoyable sensory experiences. Often subconsciously, the umami of life, so to speak, can be transformative. From the inspiring satisfaction that comes from seeing perfectly contrasting and complementing colours in a painting, to the juxtaposition of rough sand and smooth water on our feet. From the immersive happiness you feel when smelling sweet flowers beside the sweaty scent of cut grass, to the tingling sound of a catchy song that features a perfect antithetical bridge.
“Umami is inherently elusive. Difficult to decode,” says Walker. “It means different things to different people, so we wanted to acknowledge the personal aspect of such a complex flavour.”
Fortunately, Kobayashi is a master in the art of culinary balance so finding a way to pair the notes of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Elusive Umami with fresh produce and distinct flavours as well as designate tastes for epicurean experience was well within his expertise. As a child in Nagano, Japan, Kobayashi learned the secrets of his national cuisine from his father, a traditional haute kaiseki chef. In the years that followed he moved to France and began training with celebrated industry names like Gilles Goujon and Alain Ducasse. In 2012, only one year after opening his first restaurant in Paris, Kobayashi was awarded his first Michelin star. Then, by 2020, at only 42 years of age, he was the first Japanese chef to have been awarded three Michelin stars in France.
“Umami can be explored through many different dishes so it was up to me as a chef and creator to come up with something that would perfectly pair with the savoury tastes of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Elusive Umami.” explains Kobayashi. “For example, with the ‘oyster en gelee’ I created, we see the synergy between the briny notes of the oyster and the subtle maritime qualities of the whisky, then with the added buttery-nuttiness of the caviar. The use of acid in the shallot granita lifts the dish while the slight red berry and blood orange flavour cuts through the creaminess of the whisky grain.”
At more than 200 years old, the Johnnie Walker name is renowned for its rich, cultivated history one that has produced the world’s most desired and high-selling Scotch for centuries. But it is the company’s ability to create new paths and new flavours for new generations that ensures its ever-unfolding excitement.
“Johnnie Walker was born out of a desire to drive progress and to push the boundaries of what’s possible in whisky,” says Walker (who shares a surname but is of no relation to the original Johnnie Walker). “These days, we look to create blends that appeal to a wide audience and are versatile in terms of how they can be enjoyed. Creating a whisky that captures a uniquely elusive flavour, one that can be paired with food, is an innovation that we hope will awaken the senses of whisky lovers and those new to the whisky world.”
This incarnation of the Johnnie Walker persona is perhaps one of the most exciting yet. With only one in 25,000 casks succeeding in becoming the perfect blend of Blue Label Elusive Umami, its rarity and luxury is analogous to Koybayashi’s own haute Japanese-French fare. To bring the perfect balance of umami to the partnership, he created a trio of dishes that heightens depth of flavour and the emotions it signals. A combination of “Kristal” caviar with smoked salmon cream, hay-smoked lobster with shiitake mushrooms and a decadent chocolate tart finished with a spray of Blue Label Elusive Umami, these dishes are both creatively decadent and perfectly palatable, allowing for each flavour, texture and scent to be recognised and enjoyed.
“One of the key things I learnt from chef Koybayashi is that the term “umami” is a combination of two Japanese words that literally translate to mean “delicious taste,’’ says Walker. “This is the first time that Johnnie Walker has collaborated with a world-renowned chef and a cultural change maker, so it was important we found a core language. As two craftspeople from different worlds, we respected each other’s knowledge and bound it together to find the taste and emotion attached to the liquid.”
This language of flavour resonates within the Johnnie Walker Blue Label Elusive Umami whisky, unearthing its precision of balance. To be enjoyed neat or on the rocks, cold or at room temperature, with a meal, a dessert or on its own, the way you choose to taste it can be as personal as any sensory experience. And as Chef Koybayashi explains, “it should be a feast for the senses. Delightful by itself, but bursts to life when enjoyed with good food.”
A life in balance is definitely a recipe for success.
Always drink responsibly.
CREATIVE DIRECTION: AGATA WYCICHOWSKA
PHOTOGRAPHY: VLADIMIR MARTI
TOP BANNER IMAGE: ROASTED BABY CARROTS HAZELNUT AND JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE
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