The Story of Chisky and the birth of the Percy Special

My wife and I have become quite the anglophiles over the last few years (well, she’s actually English, so I guess that just makes me the anglophile), which means our household has become a veritable library of obscure books and movies about the UK. 

One of the more ridiculous reads was the “Sloane Ranger Handbook”, which was a tongue-in-cheek guide to dressing, eating, and socializing like a “Sloane”, which were described generally as the old money urban bourgeois living in London’s Kensington and Chelsea borough in the late '70s and early '80s.  The book introduces us to “Henry” and “Caroline”, two stereotypical Sloanes who are described at various ages from childhood through old age as they live their lives in the wealthy, preppy ways of old money England.

30-somethings Henry and Caroline out on the town

Between the Huskie jackets, Hunter boots, Levis 501 jeans, Gucci loafers, and high-cut suit pants (for bike riding from Chelsea to the financial district, of course) the book covers all array of stereotypes; but, if you can get past the thick sarcasm in much of the manual, there are some pretty interesting insights into the subculture of London as it existed in the final quarter of the 20^th century.  (Sadly, the Sloane subculture has largely been replaced as the children of oil barons and shipping magnates from the world ‘round have turned Sloane Square into an international new money hub.)

Drinking Like a Sloane Year Round

We liked the book so much that we bought the follow-up, the lesser-known but equally ridiculous “The Official Sloane Ranger Diary: The First Guide to the Sloane Year”, which delves into the activities that any self-respecting Sloane just has to take part in during the year. 

The highlight (for me, anyways) was early in the book, where a monthly calendar is displayed listing the activities for the month, the clothing to be worn, and, most importantly, the beverages to be consumed.  Several were obvious – Pimm's cups in the summer, German beers in the fall – but the wintertime drink of choice intrigued me.  For January and February, the only drink allowed for a classy Sloane is “chisky”.  

Chisky is not Chiskey

Chisky is described in the book as a drink with equal parts scotch and cherry brandy, and the book instructs that it should be drunk from a flask while out on a hunt (Sloanes, for all their urban sophistication, still clung to the traditional utopia of the English countryside, and hunting season was a can’t-miss excuse to escape London.)   While the '80s name “chisky” seems to have been lost to the annals of time, “Percy Special” is a much more commonly used alternative and may well have been the original.

Interestingly enough, the word “chiskey” has been growing in popularity substantially over the last few years.   The region fueling the uptick in search volume is South America and Argentina in particular.   Don’t be fooled though – “chiskey” is not an alternative spelling of the beloved drink! In Spanish, the pronunciation of the word “chiskey” is more like “cheez-kay” – which, as a matter of fact, is very much how you might spell the English word “cheesecake” if you were using Spanish phonetics.  

Spanglish Dessert Slang 1, Sloane-y Beverages 0

The History of the “Percy Special”

The late, great Duke of Northumberland:
A chisky visionary

The story of the “Percy Special” traces its way back to 10th Duke of Northumberland, a man by the name of Hugh Algernon Percy.  As is appropriate for any proper drink, name "Percy" line is deeply ingrained in England's long history of nobility. The family goes back to one William de Percy, who joined in the Norman conquest in the 11^th century and the family has been the noble keeper of Northumberland since at least the 1300s. 

Northumberland is the farthest you can go in England proper; and, as one of the border regions with Scotland, was a medieval “no man’s land” where the population was sparse and those who braved the weather (and Scottish raiding parties) relied heavily on hunting to keep up their skills with horse and musket. After several hours out in the winds and cold of the moorland, hunting groups would find themselves chilled to the bone and in need of something to keep both their spirits and their body temperature up.

Alnwick Castle is the spiritual home to chisky
 and serves as the filming location for
 Hogwart's Academy in the Harry Potter films

Looking at the Alnwick Castle today, you can almost imagine old Hugh Percy’s forebears trudging around the marches with their proto-chiskys made of various concoctions of fortified wine, scotch, and mead to keep out the cold.   Northumberland has long been known for having the top whisky consumption per capita in all England; however, it was not until the 10^th Duke ascended to the throne in 1940 that a mixture was found that gave us the drink that stills bears his name to this day. 

His recipe called for a hip flask that included Cherry Heering mixed at a 50/50 ratio with a scotch whisky.   The drink must have been a hit amongst the various earls, sirs, and other men of importance who hunted on the Duke’s lands – despite the relative isolation of Northumberland, chisky was a household name amongst the young London elite less than a generation after its invention. It may have taken ten dukes and nearly nine hundred years, but the Percy family brought us the drink that we know today. 

Making a Chisky

The chisky of legend has almost a perfect balance; the sweet cherry brandy masks the whisky, making the drink incredible smooth and seemingly innocuous.  One must beware though – the first (and second) will go down particularly easy, especially if you’ve worked up a thirst on horseback all morning! 

A 2002 article in the Spectator entitled “Drinking and Hunting” described it thusly:

It is a lovely, soothing, rounded drink, and the first one slips down like mother's milk, as does the second. So innocent and enticing is the drink that you may find yourself tempted by a third — prenez garde! It is three and three plus where you are standing into danger. The Percy Special carries a delayed action fuse which is liable to ignite after about half an hour. You are riding along without a care in the world and suddenly — whoomph! you are pissed. I know of no other regional drink associated particularly with hunting, unless it be Mazzawattee Tea in Cornwall.

Sadly, not all of us have the means or family connections to get us to the ancient hunting grounds of Northumberland to have a “Percy Special” mixed up for us by one of the Duke’s family.  But, that's not to say a chisky cannot be enjoyed in other ways fit for the modern world, like perhaps while "hunting" for golf balls after a bad tee shot or as a more dignified nightcap to shake off the winter cold. 

So, here are some chisky recipes to try at home (note that Grant’s Morella is the unicorn of cherry brandy; nearly impossible to find, but a longtime favourite of Sloanes and boasts a royal warrant from the Prince of Wales himself).

Sloane Traditional Chisky

2.5oz Lowland Single Malt Scotch

2.5oz Grant’s Morella Cherry Brandy

Serve at room temperature out of a hip flask, preferably after several hours of jostling in a saddlebag.  

Chisky Nightcap

2oz Blended Scotch

1oz Cherry Heering

Pour over ice in a rocks glass, Scotch first followed by the brandy.  

Sláinte!