How important is provenance?
The (not so) great debate about whether (or not) whiskey can have ‘terroir’ – a sense of place – can be replaced with the simple question: what degree of terroir does your whiskey have? Whiskey can have terroir, but not all whiskeys do.
Commoditization of food in the last half of the 20th century brought consistency. In making food products that could last on a shelf for months (or years), or having hamburgers that taste the same in Budapest as in Singapore, character took a back seat to yield and disease resistance. Terroir can be engineered away by demands of scale and consistency, but it can also be found.
The strong and long-lasting appeal of single malt Scotch testifies to
