Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Whisky from the cask in a bonded warehouse with Lady of the Glen - Gregor Hannah

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Whisky from the cask in a bonded warehouse with Lady of the Glen - Gregor Hannah · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  You'll be fine. I think you'll be fine.
• 0:02
  Right, Angus, you know what to do.
• 0:04
  Bung us in. That should be enough.
• 0:25
  Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 0:28
  So it was a lady from Whiskey magazine actually came to do a
• 0:31
  piece on it and she said, oh, this is actually the only.
• 0:34
  In Scotland we didn't know. No, I assumed that someone would
• 0:37
  burn it because it's. I mean, Rome was doing it.
• 0:39
  I mean, it seems pretty straightforward.
• 0:41
  Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day,
• 0:42
  it's 3 casks and a triangle connected by two copper pipes.
• 0:45
  And did you make this? Alex Mcandrew and Gavin Rick
• 0:48
  did. You really?
• 0:50
  So that but that pumps out that's is that, is that just a
• 0:53
  big sucker? Yeah, pretty much.
• 0:57
  Yeah, it's a technical term. OK, here we are.
• 1:04
  Second stage. We are here in a warehouse, Head
• 1:09
  of production, head of production, head of research.
• 1:14
  What a man. It's not a.
• 1:20
  Pint lads that. Is an unusual whiskey bunghole
• 1:25
  I've ever seen. One bring over here lads, we'll
• 1:28
  get it. Let's get this in here.
• 1:31
  Good luck with the camera off all these glasses.
• 1:33
  Where shall I put this? Yeah, I'll just stick it.
• 1:36
  Stick it in your bunghole. There we.
• 1:39
  Go. OK, we're in.
• 1:41
  We're in OK. Diggers measures.
• 1:45
  Diggers, Measures. Jesus, Angus.
• 1:47
  Oh, I'm very. Welcome along to the Whiskey
• 1:51
  Stories podcast. Welcome along to the Whiskey
• 1:52
  Stories podcast. The first time ever we are in a
• 1:55
  warehouse, a bonded warehouse, and I'm horny.
• 2:00
  We've got whiskey in your trousers.
• 2:01
  It's great. We are here at Lady of the Glen.
• 2:03
  I have to say, Gregor, thank you so much for having us.
• 2:05
  We'll have a lovely chat. I'm going to try this.
• 2:07
  Cheers, guys. Slange, this is brilliant.
• 2:11
  That's what it's all about, so we've put Angus to work already.
• 2:13
  It's not our usual home of diggers in Edinburgh, but we do
• 2:16
  have good drams. Ross, you've said something
• 2:18
  that's made me jealous for I think probably the first time we
• 2:23
  started doing the podcast, you said there's no better taste of
• 2:25
  whiskey than whiskey. It's come straight to the cast
• 2:27
  whilst you're in a warehouse tasting it.
• 2:28
  And that is the very first time that I've done that.
• 2:31
  So thank you very much and that you're absolutely spot on.
• 2:35
  That is delicious. That's delightful.
• 2:37
  You should probably tell us what we're drinking here.
• 2:38
  So that's a Blair Athol, which is in our first full bourbon
• 2:41
  barrel. So that was actually going to
• 2:43
  make it into a recent Outrun, but then we'd already had
• 2:46
  another Blair Athol. Oh yeah.
• 2:48
  So great spirit, so. Just slated for a future Outrun,
• 2:51
  then. Yeah, I'll definitely make it
• 2:53
  into a future one that's. A Blair Athol, 2012.
• 2:56
  It's like well aged stock. We know the spirit's good.
• 2:59
  That's a Belter of a first Fell bourbon.
• 3:00
  Yeah. So that cask actually came from
• 3:04
  from France actually. So it says on it where it came
• 3:07
  from. So it came from Giroux, which is
• 3:10
  a company that we usually source.
• 3:14
  Very good. But we are here.
• 3:16
  I should introduce you. We've got Gregor Hannah here.
• 3:19
  Hannah whiskey merchants, but better known as Lady of the Glen
• 3:23
  Independent bottler. I have to say, Angus, we haven't
• 3:26
  been able to do our usual indie bottler spotlight this month.
• 3:29
  No, but we are, you know, we're fast approaching the last
• 3:32
  Thursday of the month. And instead of being able to do
• 3:34
  one in front of a live audience, we got the opportunity.
• 3:37
  Gregor was very kind to welcome us along here to his, his, his,
• 3:41
  his bottling unit, his warehouse in Dalget, to be in Fife, like
• 3:46
  here we are God's. Country, our second podcast from
• 3:49
  Fife. It certainly is and it's, it's
• 3:51
  fantastic. Thank you so much for, for, for
• 3:53
  having us here, Gregor. It's been great.
• 3:55
  We've, we've, we've really enjoyed your hospitality so far.
• 3:58
  And like I say, there is no better way to record a podcast
• 4:01
  or drink whiskey than sitting here or standing here in a, in a
• 4:04
  bonded dunnage, bonded warehouse.
• 4:05
  But. I would always say you over egg
• 4:07
  the Fife thing, but actually see now that you see them in a
• 4:09
  warehouse and seeing them in a bottles that are based out here,
• 4:11
  it's a big deal in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, big deal.
• 4:14
  And you reckon the barley's pretty good too.
• 4:15
  Best. Barley in the world for for me
• 4:17
  well whiskey there I'll. Stick with you, I'll.
• 4:19
  Say that, but Gregor, tell us a little bit about Lady the Glen
• 4:23
  and. How it started?
• 4:24
  So I started the business about 2012.
• 4:27
  So I was working in sports stores in Sterling.
• 4:29
  I don't know if you're familiar with it.
• 4:30
  I'm very familiar with it, yeah. I was just pictures on the wall.
• 4:33
  What? Sports does in Sterling.
• 4:35
  You're going to have to explain this to me.
• 4:37
  It's like a sports bar. Yeah.
• 4:39
  So back then I learned about independent bottling about from
• 4:43
  a guy who used to work on oil rigs.
• 4:45
  So that was how I found out about the industry.
• 4:48
  My dad, he was a piper in the Black Watch.
• 4:50
  So he used to have like used to travel with a military Pipe
• 4:54
  Band, travelled to Japan, the US had like an amazing experience,
• 4:58
  came back, would do weddings and things like that and get a
• 5:01
  bottle of whiskey as a, as a gift or as, as form of pavement.
• 5:06
  And that has really sparked an interest.
• 5:08
  So from there I was interested in in whiskey.
• 5:11
  Not playing the pipes. I didn't fancy it, but then he
• 5:17
  said, oh, my parents got divorced, so that got a bit
• 5:20
  grim. And you need to get for piping.
• 5:23
  You need to go there every week to learn.
• 5:26
  I do play guitar and piano now. There you go.
• 5:28
  OK, so there is a piano I did see in your office when we came
• 5:31
  in. I mean, I have to say, Angus,
• 5:33
  it's something that I've always regretted actually is the
• 5:37
  bagpipes because you suddenly look at it and you say a lot of
• 5:39
  people that we have on this podcast, similar to what you're
• 5:42
  saying about your your dad there, Gregor.
• 5:43
  It's the fact that, like, whiskey can be used as a huge
• 5:46
  sort of ambassadorial type of thing.
• 5:48
  Whenever you go around the world and you say you're a Scotsman,
• 5:51
  Scots person, people say whiskey.
• 5:53
  And people say, I always feel like, I don't know, I cringe a
• 5:57
  little bit when when a Scotsman goes abroad or someone from
• 6:00
  Scotland goes abroad and they meet a tourist and say, oh, do
• 6:02
  you like whiskey, though? I can't stand the stuff.
• 6:05
  You know what I regret? And I think, yeah, you know, we,
• 6:09
  we, you know, I look at at rugby internationals and you see all
• 6:13
  the kids on the streets with playing their bagpipes and stuff
• 6:16
  like that. And I've always said when I've
• 6:17
  my daughter's only five months, so she's a bit too young for the
• 6:19
  bagpipes. But when she's old enough,
• 6:21
  she'll be she'll be learning and she'll be getting thrown out and
• 6:23
  on a rugby international weekends to make her pocket
• 6:25
  money. But I think that.
• 6:27
  Sounds like a fight for dad but. It's easier when you got to six
• 6:30
  fingers. I was.
• 6:32
  Gonna say there's an element where you have to actually be.
• 6:35
  There's a bit of talent required as well as practice 'cause I
• 6:38
  mean, you should have seen me play the recording gram I was.
• 6:40
  Absolutely. Used.
• 6:42
  A career playing the bagpipes did not beckon.
• 6:44
  But I've seen you over in a bunghole So.
• 6:45
  But what I would say it's like, I suppose if it wasn't going to
• 6:49
  be bagpipes, then whiskey is probably the next the next best
• 6:52
  way to get you around the world and it's a lot easier to do.
• 6:55
  Well, that's why I got involved in the industry and acquired my
• 6:58
  first two casks is because we're, what other industry in
• 7:02
  Scotland is, is they're compatible to Scotch.
• 7:05
  They can take you all over the world.
• 7:07
  I mean, our brand ambassador gets to travel quite a bit.
• 7:10
  Before Paul was employed, I used to be a bit of travelling, but
• 7:14
  it's an international spirit. It's the best, best version of
• 7:18
  itself compared to any other spirit in the world.
• 7:21
  The the portfolio, the range, the diversity of the products.
• 7:24
  That's why, that's why we love it.
• 7:26
  And you're talking about Lady de Glen Independent bottler.
• 7:30
  There's a lot of independent bottles we've had on the
• 7:31
  podcast. There's also a massive market
• 7:33
  for Scotch whiskey. You've got a small team just the
• 7:35
  four of you. Yep, has been the four of you
• 7:37
  for for a few years as well. But you've got this brand
• 7:40
  ambassador who's taken your spirit all over Europe, all over
• 7:42
  the world. What an amazing thing to have
• 7:45
  happened from a wee passion project started now.
• 7:48
  From two casts, What were your two casts?
• 7:50
  I heard, I heard, I heard not only you start with two casts,
• 7:52
  but you start with a car loan. Yeah.
• 7:54
  So that was how I originally started the business was I had
• 7:57
  like a quite a small junior role in the bank.
• 8:00
  I used to work at Fountain Bridge Libor Loans and I wanted
• 8:05
  to I wanted to start their business.
• 8:07
  So I got a loan from the bank and I was staying at Amber Kearn
• 8:10
  at the time. So I said in the application
• 8:12
  that I wanted a loan for a car. When was this you started?
• 8:17
  Well, I was thinking if you if if you if you had two cars.
• 8:20
  So you've tied 2 planks away. Does that look?
• 8:22
  Like a kind of Fred Flintstone type car.
• 8:24
  Oh yeah. So I.
• 8:25
  Mean I couldn't use the empties. Yeah.
• 8:26
  And so at this point, did you have connections in whiskey or
• 8:29
  you really were just tapping your toe and you go into a
• 8:31
  broker, you going direct? So I went to a broker, a really
• 8:35
  reliable one at the time, and I got a 24 year old Inver Gordon,
• 8:39
  which was greatly green. Yeah, 14 year old Ben Rennis,
• 8:41
  which was sherried. And then that helped me set up
• 8:44
  the the brand as. Well, as a car, by the way.
• 8:47
  I mean, the value of that goes up unlike a car.
• 8:50
  What's the very solid investor? Did you bottle those casks
• 8:53
  yourselves then or did you sell them?
• 8:55
  Sell on the casks. No, I I bottled them.
• 8:56
  I didn't physically bought them myself.
• 8:58
  No, I was a contract bottler to do it.
• 9:00
  But after that, then I got support from the Prince's Trust.
• 9:05
  I used to work for David Urquhart Travel and I used to,
• 9:08
  and that was in East Kilbride. The guy for the Princess Trust,
• 9:12
  Richard Gibson, I used to meet him every lunch and he would be
• 9:17
  setting out the business plan. He's like, you have to do this,
• 9:19
  he said the figures you need to do.
• 9:20
  So I had a really good relationship with Richard and
• 9:23
  over the years actually he he guided me through the Scottish
• 9:27
  hedge and things and my son's middle name is Richard because
• 9:31
  we wouldn't be able to amazing have the business.
• 9:33
  Really. So without that sort of
• 9:34
  mentorship and that help from the Princess.
• 9:36
  Trust. I mean, it was frustrating at
• 9:37
  the time because it was like, I don't really see the point in
• 9:39
  this, Richard. I just, these are the casks,
• 9:42
  this is his brand, It should sell.
• 9:45
  This is a price point. But you're really naive when you
• 9:48
  start a business, you don't really realise that like the
• 9:51
  duty and everything like that. The.
• 9:53
  Capital you need for a whiskey. And as well, we've talked about
• 9:56
  this with independent bottlers before as well as it's dead easy
• 9:59
  to think, right? I'm just going to buy a Casket
• 10:00
  whiskey and then I'm just going to put in a glass and you work
• 10:03
  out what your price is going to be and what it costs to do it.
• 10:06
  And then suddenly, but then one of the things is you're Lindors.
• 10:09
  Well, how many people are actually going to buy buy Yeah,
• 10:12
  buy buy your once you see that, you sell it.
• 10:15
  Yeah, OK, I've got that Inver Gordon there.
• 10:17
  That's a cracking drum. Yeah, there's a cracking bit of
• 10:19
  liquid, but how do people know about it?
• 10:21
  How do you get people to buy your buy that?
• 10:22
  How do you start? How where does that and what was
• 10:24
  the kind of things that this as Richard was telling you that you
• 10:27
  were going you. Know it's more like bottom line
• 10:30
  stuff like actually planning a strategy where, where are you
• 10:34
  going to sell it and who are you going to sell it to what?
• 10:36
  What does your ideal customer look like?
• 10:38
  Yeah. How many bottles are they
• 10:40
  buying? A year?
• 10:41
  But before that, before I actually bought the casks, I
• 10:45
  actually got samples of them. And it was Mark at Jolie Topper.
• 10:49
  So I went to him in Karen Heads. Oh, really?
• 10:51
  And I was like, what do you think of these?
• 10:54
  And it was Mark said, yeah, they're pretty good.
• 10:55
  So it was because in mind, I'm still quite new to Scotch at
• 10:59
  that point. I mean, I've worked in sports
• 11:00
  shows where we do the finest Canadian clubs and Famous and
• 11:05
  Jack Daniels. But you know, in terms of like
• 11:07
  single cask, independent bottle and it's totally different,
• 11:10
  right? And Mark was really generous of
• 11:12
  his time. Yeah, because.
• 11:12
  That's a big step, I mean, to go to to that kind of money and
• 11:16
  then to take loans and stuff like that.
• 11:18
  So yeah, it was a big gamble and.
• 11:19
  When you're talking about like what you're saying at sports
• 11:22
  stars and stuff, worth it to work in a bar, What, what were
• 11:25
  you into your whiskeys before that point?
• 11:27
  I wouldn't say I was, I was just, I was, I studied business
• 11:30
  at uni and I was working in a job that made me miserable.
• 11:33
  So I was, I was desperate. I mean, I'd looked at other sort
• 11:37
  of businesses like everything for like soap making and I was
• 11:40
  like, this is not going to work. And then to get the brand and
• 11:44
  everything for Lady of the Glen, I actually went to the National
• 11:47
  Library in Scotland and read mental reports.
• 11:51
  And that's why I was reading about how can you create a brand
• 11:54
  that fits in independent botland.
• 11:56
  Because what's different about Lady of the Glen is we don't
• 12:00
  have family history. It's not like G&M or a lot of
• 12:04
  other independent botlers at the time in 2012 where you've got
• 12:07
  families that have built up portfolios.
• 12:09
  So the branding is contemporary, it's Scottish, it's floral.
• 12:13
  We got when we had like the floral pouches.
• 12:17
  I don't know if you've seen like lilac pouches.
• 12:19
  I approached an amazing fabric design company in Glasgow run by
• 12:23
  two two young ladies at the time called Bespoke Atelier, and they
• 12:28
  designed this floral pattern and we used that and then over time
• 12:32
  we eventually just made that the actual that's.
• 12:34
  On the last ball. And how did the name come about
• 12:37
  it as well? Lady of the Glen.
• 12:38
  So that's named after my time in Sterling.
• 12:41
  So I really enjoyed my time in Sterling.
• 12:43
  It was, it was a huge leap to get into uni because I wasn't
• 12:46
  that good in in high school. So getting into uni was
• 12:49
  brilliant. I made incredible friends.
• 12:52
  The experience of moving home and going into halls as you
• 12:55
  probably, yeah. But amongst Sterling it Alumini
• 12:59
  I. Guess it's your face on a wall
• 13:02
  and and it's Sterling uni. No, it's.
• 13:05
  Got an educated? Podcast on an educated part of
• 13:08
  you. Give me the most on the wall,
• 13:10
  the wall of shame. I think give me the most of time
• 13:12
  at Sterling University. Like a guy beside you here.
• 13:14
  It's I made the most of my time at Sterling Uni.
• 13:17
  I don't have a, you know, Listen, you're open bug holes.
• 13:21
  It's a lady to Glenn. Yes, yes.
• 13:22
  It's named after the one of the ghosts at Stoling Castle, The
• 13:26
  green lady ghost, I would have called it, you know that.
• 13:29
  Yeah. So quite open about that.
• 13:31
  That was on all the Brandon that's in the story about the
• 13:35
  the business because, like, I wanted the business to succeed.
• 13:38
  And so it had to be something I care about.
• 13:41
  It was never going to be about creating like, I don't know if
• 13:45
  something that you could just happily sell have to have a name
• 13:48
  and something I keep. Something you're proud of?
• 13:49
  Yeah, it's interesting what you're talking about there with
• 13:52
  like the the marketing side of it, because it's something that
• 13:54
  a lot of people really like. I mentioned earlier on, it's
• 13:56
  like that's the bit that you can fall down on, isn't it?
• 13:58
  Because it's easy to say, right? I can spend money and buy gas
• 14:02
  and I have the capital that I can put it into glass and get
• 14:04
  out by scanning out two people. And then like you've also
• 14:07
  mentioned is like distilleries have their own story.
• 14:10
  They create their own story. And then as you've mentioned
• 14:12
  with some of the sort of, we've always talked about the
• 14:15
  difference between an indie bottler and an independent
• 14:18
  bottler. And you look at your card and
• 14:19
  heads, your Gordon Macphails and, and people like that and
• 14:22
  you say, well, they're established, they've like
• 14:24
  generations have gone back. Whereas when you're starting
• 14:27
  out. So trying to find something that
• 14:28
  catches people's eye, trying to find something that a brand that
• 14:32
  makes people set up and it has a bit of interest.
• 14:34
  And and also like you mentioned as well, I think we've seen a
• 14:37
  lot of that with with like collaborations as well through
• 14:40
  cross industries, particularly across like Scottish industries.
• 14:44
  You mentioned about there the artwork and the tapestry, like
• 14:47
  you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 14:48
  So yeah. All adds it all adds to that
• 14:50
  brand's authenticity. It's Hannah whiskey merchants,
• 14:53
  your name's on the bottle. So if it's, if it looks bad on
• 14:57
  you, if it's not authentic to you and what you believe in,
• 14:59
  isn't it well. What you said about the story is
• 15:02
  very true, because after I got support from the Prince's Trust,
• 15:05
  you get a mentor and he, he had an insight into the trade and he
• 15:08
  was, well, he wasn't in the trade, but he said you need to
• 15:11
  tell a story. And I was like, well, this, this
• 15:14
  is a Linkwood, you know. That's that's the story.
• 15:17
  Space, it's like, no, you need to you need to build it and it's
• 15:20
  like, and he was totally right because every cast actually does
• 15:24
  have a story. You just need to look into it.
• 15:26
  So the way that we do our stories on each release is we'll
• 15:29
  we'll put the distillate, what the distillate originally tastes
• 15:32
  like when it comes off the still and then we'll do our tasting
• 15:34
  notes. We'll also put in the blurb like
• 15:36
  what caskets been in a little bit about why it tastes the way
• 15:39
  it does, and that's our story. And your tasting notes are done
• 15:43
  by your four man team as well, which I love.
• 15:44
  So that's authentic to how you're feeling, how you're
• 15:48
  getting on with one another perhaps.
• 15:50
  Have you? Got any favorite tasting notes
• 15:52
  you've put in a bottle? Passion.
• 15:54
  Gavin, who's one of the warehouse guys, he put a rally.
• 15:58
  You thought something tasted? Around me, I love that it's like
• 16:01
  an. Aberdeen.
• 16:03
  It depends where in Aberdeenshire are.
• 16:06
  It's a big debate, basically a roll.
• 16:09
  Slash. I've got family from Stone
• 16:11
  Haven. It's definitely a buttery, but
• 16:13
  other parts other parts are. Well, would it be involved?
• 16:16
  Oh. Probably around me, I don't
• 16:17
  know. It's one of those things.
• 16:20
  And so just you're establishing this business, it's a it's well
• 16:23
  known business history of Gordon Macfill you mentioned for
• 16:25
  example, it's. When is it sorry?
• 16:27
  When did you buy your first car? So that was 2012 and.
• 16:30
  When did this? When did you bottle the first
• 16:32
  one? So it would have been about
• 16:33
  2012. I mean, they were they were
• 16:35
  ready to go. That was part that's one of the
• 16:38
  biggest issues from being an independent bottler is momentum.
• 16:41
  Like if you take too long to sell your casks, then you're not
• 16:44
  going to have or sell your bottle stock.
• 16:47
  You won't have the capital to release and or buy another cask.
• 16:51
  So when we got the bottling hole, that was part of the plan.
• 16:54
  So I'm, we set this up just before COVID and we do 4 outruns
• 16:59
  a year and each outruns got about 6 or 8 casks in it.
• 17:02
  And the plan is each time that needs to go and you know, it'll
• 17:06
  maybe linger for like 2 outruns or three outruns, but really
• 17:09
  everyone's going. And then we're buying this,
• 17:12
  we're using that capital and we're reinvesting it,
• 17:14
  replenishing the stock. So in here we've got about 150
• 17:19
  odd casks, but our portfolio is actually about 400.
• 17:22
  The majority of it is like in black range or whiskey brokers
• 17:26
  and. You're buying parcels of stock
• 17:29
  now, yeah? This is the thing, it's like we
• 17:31
  spoke to Greg Arkar at one of the the indie bottler spotlight
• 17:33
  we did before Christmas and he was explaining about how that
• 17:38
  that stepping stone, and I'd be interested to know when it came
• 17:40
  for you, was buying cash to get into bottle as quickly as you
• 17:44
  possibly can because you like, you can't run a business if
• 17:47
  you're if you're. It's hard to start.
• 17:49
  We've got a portfolio where we can, we can obviously go through
• 17:52
  it and say, right, this stuff is the right age.
• 17:55
  We haven't released this stuff within 10 months.
• 17:58
  Like we don't release the same spirit within 10 months.
• 18:00
  So we don't do 2 Linkwoods a year.
• 18:03
  And so it has to be different. It has to have like a, a
• 18:06
  criteria. We'll release like a, an aged
• 18:09
  cask. We release something that's got
• 18:10
  a finish on it, something that's got a good price point.
• 18:13
  And usually it's something that's like a bourbon barrel or
• 18:15
  refill Hogs Head, which is just desolate for a while.
• 18:18
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:19
  And that's that's what we try and do every single outrun well.
• 18:22
  When did it get to the sorry, when did it get to the stage
• 18:24
  where you made the decision we we're going to start taking the
• 18:27
  capital that they were were earning from our from from our
• 18:30
  ballings and start laying? Laying it down.
• 18:32
  So that probably happened after about five years.
• 18:36
  Yeah. Because it's a long time.
• 18:38
  Yeah. And you're laying and it depends
• 18:41
  how long you get in the trade because the longer you're in,
• 18:44
  the better your contacts are. If you start out in a
• 18:47
  superficial level, you're always dealing with the same brokers
• 18:49
  and that it's a premium that you're paying.
• 18:53
  But the the longer you go in the trade, the better the
• 18:56
  relationships you get, the more access you get, the cheaper the
• 18:58
  casket. But also there's there's a
• 19:01
  greater emphasis that you need to do stuff with the casks
• 19:03
  because the stuff's not ready. So there's a lot of stuff here
• 19:06
  that's been reacted, of course and if.
• 19:07
  You've got a belter of a CAS. You go right.
• 19:09
  Once that liquid's out there, I'm using that again.
• 19:12
  Yeah. What am I using it for in here?
• 19:14
  And kind of developing that portfolio?
• 19:15
  It's such an interesting business plan because with
• 19:18
  whiskey, you don't know what whiskey's going to do in the
• 19:21
  cask. No, I mean, sometimes you get
• 19:23
  really good casks which are like maybe first of all Sherry.
• 19:27
  I've got an example here. You wouldn't know that there was
• 19:30
  Sherry in it. I mean, you can tell the cask is
• 19:32
  like a really good like charred cask.
• 19:35
  But has it had a lot of Sherry in it?
• 19:38
  Yeah. So whether that's going to be a
• 19:40
  decent release, it's it's not. Great.
• 19:42
  And the audience have a preconceived notion of, first of
• 19:45
  all, Sherry. That's going to be Glendra.
• 19:47
  It's going to be tar. It's going to be rich and heavy.
• 19:49
  Some people even see distillery names.
• 19:51
  You've got some amazing distilleries in this room,
• 19:54
  right? I mean, Blair Raffle, I love the
• 19:55
  Spirit Blair Raffle, but I've seen Le Freud Cast, I've seen
• 19:57
  Tam Dos. I've seen distilleries that we
• 19:59
  don't necessarily associate with independent bottles because we
• 20:02
  don't, we know there's not a massive access to these casks,
• 20:05
  whether you're getting the right rights to name them, for
• 20:07
  example, what you're able to say when you bottle them.
• 20:09
  I think it varies. We always try and get
• 20:11
  permission, so I'll show you later the thin glassy release
• 20:15
  we're doing for the Fife Whiskey Festival, they were pretty clear
• 20:18
  that has to be thin glassy lead on the label.
• 20:20
  Same with like if we do inch Marin from Loch Lomond, again
• 20:25
  you need to put the emphasises on inch Marin.
• 20:28
  There's loads of these types. Some of them are teaspooned and
• 20:31
  then you're limited. Maybe the Glen, that single cask
• 20:35
  Scotch cash strength, uniquely numbered.
• 20:38
  That's why that brand will never do like Irish whiskey or English
• 20:42
  whiskey. We've we've been asked to do it
• 20:45
  by importers, but we say, well, no, that that brand which I
• 20:48
  started and which we work together on, that's always going
• 20:52
  to be Scottish. That's what you said because
• 20:53
  when we're talking about your other brands as well, and again,
• 20:56
  maybe it comes down to cast management, but what what
• 20:58
  motivated you to start blending whiskey and release a blend?
• 21:02
  Was it down to cast management? Because it's always interesting
• 21:04
  when you have independent bottlers.
• 21:08
  We've had independent, we have had independent bottlers have
• 21:11
  kind of started to blend Whiskey Woodrows in Edinburgh as one
• 21:14
  example. But it's it's always an
• 21:17
  interesting contrast where you've got an independent ball
• 21:19
  that's releasing kind of single cast cast strength.
• 21:22
  And. Then and then they release a
• 21:24
  blend, which is, you know, historically, it's always this
• 21:27
  like consistent product that you're trying to put out.
• 21:29
  You want to, you know, if you try, if you buy some Bridget's
• 21:33
  Kirk, you're, you know, historical.
• 21:35
  Well, if you're buying Johnnie Walker Red, you'd always want,
• 21:37
  you'd know, expect what the taste would be like.
• 21:40
  What what's the difference between, you know, a blend that
• 21:43
  yourselves releasing and what was the kind of motivation to
• 21:45
  start a blend? So my motivation for starting a
• 21:48
  blend was that when we when I did lots of re racking of stock,
• 21:52
  as I mentioned before you get a parcel, I put it into loads of
• 21:55
  casks that I'd get from Europe and the brakes were always
• 21:59
  smaller than the hogs heads. So the leftover spirit I just
• 22:04
  stuck in refill hogs heads. So I had about seven or eight of
• 22:08
  these casks and then a couple of years ago, well, a year ago we
• 22:12
  brought one in and it was, it was lacking.
• 22:17
  So we're like, well, we, we can't release it.
• 22:19
  It's. An honest it's an honest made to
• 22:21
  talk, but sometimes the cask OK, we can't release that as the
• 22:24
  Lady of the Glen. And there's seven of them and
• 22:26
  you're like, well it's not going to get better because knackered
• 22:29
  hogs heads. So we thought, well I've always
• 22:32
  fancied doing a Seleta. It's like a proper one.
• 22:35
  So we set up the Solara system. We'll need to get set.
• 22:38
  We'll get a shot. Yeah, we'll.
• 22:39
  Definitely get a shot. I should say I'm, I'm looking at
• 22:41
  it right now, so. That was all set up just with
• 22:43
  the idea like we can create something, there's a story there
• 22:47
  and we can get something that's going to get the spirit into
• 22:50
  market. Because if it's just sitting and
• 22:52
  it's just costing us rent and it's it's never going to get any
• 22:56
  better and maybe get a little bit better, but it's not going
• 22:59
  to get better in two years. The.
• 23:00
  Thing is, like you have to remember that you know, when
• 23:03
  people when you've got a cast sitting here, it's costing you
• 23:07
  money. Like you've, you've taken that
• 23:10
  point, like you were saying that you've got to that stage for for
• 23:13
  five years. You were literally bottling very
• 23:15
  quickly the cast that you were getting in because you need that
• 23:18
  money. So eventually that that it's
• 23:21
  just that you, you talked about the gamble that you took just to
• 23:24
  go into whiskey. There must have been so many
• 23:26
  other gambles. Like when you start deciding,
• 23:28
  you've mentioned already that you know you it was this place
• 23:30
  just before COVID. So again, you suddenly take that
• 23:34
  must have been a big step. Well.
• 23:35
  We didn't know COVID was going. To happen?
• 23:36
  No, Exactly. So that's what I mean.
• 23:38
  So suddenly you've made the big step.
• 23:40
  That gamble really, really paid off though, because we did
• 23:42
  really well during. That's what I was just going to
• 23:43
  say. We.
• 23:43
  Had full control over the bottling process yeah.
• 23:46
  So that meant when we were using contract bottlers and we'd heard
• 23:50
  about it with others, if they had one staff who had COVID,
• 23:53
  don't play shut down. Yeah, we were just bottling and
• 23:56
  just bashing stuff out. And do you?
• 23:59
  Have the camp beds set up in here.
• 24:01
  No, it was just, it was just like every area was separated.
• 24:04
  I mean, it's a four man team and.
• 24:07
  Yeah, because I mean, like I say, you must have what?
• 24:09
  What was it like when you suddenly made the decision?
• 24:11
  Right. We're ready now to have our own
• 24:14
  place. Bottling Hall, A hall where
• 24:16
  they're. Going to have stores, gas, yeah,
• 24:18
  it's quite an impressive thing to have a lot of big bottlers
• 24:21
  that we know don't have that facility.
• 24:23
  Yeah. I mean, we did it because we
• 24:26
  wanted to control the quality of the spirit more.
• 24:30
  That's not to say that we weren't controlling it with a
• 24:33
  contract bottling. It was just easier to do V
• 24:36
  rackings be more in control, being able to say right, we've
• 24:40
  got a butt of Glenn Grant. I don't release half of it and
• 24:43
  then we can react the rest rather than having to release a
• 24:46
  full but. Yeah, well, that's it.
• 24:47
  Now I'm very interested because warehousing is my my 40.
• 24:51
  Yeah, right. I love it.
• 24:52
  You're kink. Yeah, we don't kink shame on
• 24:54
  this podcast right here, So, but I'm looking around here.
• 24:59
  So first of all, no forklift, but you've got a nice little.
• 25:01
  That's a manual. That's a manual.
• 25:03
  Is that, is that an actual manual pump lift?
• 25:05
  Yeah, man. Well, that's a lot of work going
• 25:07
  into that. Now secondly as well, I'm
• 25:09
  seeing, so it's dunnage. So we've no racking in here at
• 25:11
  all. Now how how much is your
• 25:14
  warehouse management plan? Because I'm looking away and I'm
• 25:18
  seeing like a casket at the back there.
• 25:20
  You don't want to have to try and have to get that cask out
• 25:22
  because to get that cask out you're going to have to, I mean,
• 25:26
  how would you like, how does that even, how does that happen?
• 25:29
  It happens the hard way. Yeah, answer here, right.
• 25:33
  But but I mean, I'm looking, you've got, you'd have to move
• 25:36
  that cast there and then is that all?
• 25:39
  Is that all one big plank of wood that's just running across
• 25:41
  there? Yeah.
• 25:42
  So, so you have to get 123 minor camera.
• 25:45
  Sorry, 33. I'm getting really excited here.
• 25:47
  Three of these casts have to leave for.
• 25:49
  I mean that that's a lot of work, isn't it?
• 25:51
  There's a lot of. Work along with that roughly if
• 25:53
  you were to if I was to ask you going, I need to sample it at
• 25:55
  that back cast. But you can get samples out.
• 25:58
  But if you needed to get it out, how?
• 26:00
  Long it if I did it, yeah, I could do it pretty quick.
• 26:03
  Oh yeah, and how about your team?
• 26:06
  They might take longer. Yeah, I love.
• 26:08
  That well, it's, you know. The you're doing it.
• 26:11
  Better though, this is, this is a, as you said, got 150 casts in
• 26:14
  here, all fading shapes and sizes they've got.
• 26:17
  They've got big butts over. In the corner.
• 26:19
  You're meant to have meant to have a ban on butts in here.
• 26:22
  Yeah, but sometimes you need to make an exception.
• 26:25
  Well, I guess we're going to write that way.
• 26:29
  As well as sorry Graham, as well as some of the octaves, octaves
• 26:33
  over there. Octaves.
• 26:34
  That's another reason why you need a warehouse to manage
• 26:37
  octaves, because those things can just run.
• 26:38
  Riot. Oh well, yeah, Ross mentioned.
• 26:40
  Have you ever had that with a cask that for example, use an
• 26:43
  octave whether you're finishing maybe a bigger cask and
• 26:46
  experimenting with a couple of releases we had, again, Greg
• 26:49
  from Glenmore, I think you had an 18 year old, Dean said.
• 26:51
  He said it's very good how it is, but let me bottle half of it
• 26:54
  as as and maybe do something with the other half of it.
• 26:58
  That's the risk and the fun that you can have.
• 26:59
  It's your own business. I mean there was that there's an
• 27:01
  independent bottler that did that like a father and was it
• 27:04
  two brothers? And they would do like an octave
• 27:07
  finish and the original Hogs head and I did that as well
• 27:11
  years ago and you would do you would get a Hogs Head and you
• 27:15
  would put like 40 liters in an octave of PX and then everyone
• 27:19
  would buy the PX because people just know them would buy the
• 27:22
  horsehead. So your.
• 27:23
  Duncan Duncan Taylor have done it well.
• 27:25
  He's sticking the octave on their bottles so he's not out
• 27:28
  down of 80 bottles. We've talked about that at the
• 27:30
  very first Indie bottler spotlight we did with Woody and
• 27:32
  Megan and Woodrow's and we said to them about, you know, I asked
• 27:36
  about this and we've had it with quite a few different of our
• 27:38
  spotlights where with I think George and Rachel from Fragrant
• 27:42
  Drops, they did 6 drams, which is probably 4 drums too many for
• 27:46
  one of the one of the guests. By the way, please go to your
• 27:50
  whiskey tastings responsibly. But basically what they did was
• 27:53
  very interesting tasting is the first three that they did had
• 27:56
  nothing done to them. Literally straight to the cast
• 27:58
  filmaturation, filmaturation there.
• 28:00
  Then the other three they were they'd been finished and moved
• 28:02
  around into different casts. And I did ask Woody at this
• 28:06
  point as well was, is there a pressure on an indie bottler
• 28:09
  where you feel like the market wants to see finishes funky
• 28:13
  stuff instead of if you suddenly said, well, what was that, a
• 28:16
  bulb layer? Sorry.
• 28:19
  First of all, bourbon, right? But perhaps you've got a big
• 28:21
  customer in Germany who wants Sherry.
• 28:24
  But yeah, because you put that in first of all, bourbon that's
• 28:26
  that's cracking. Yeah.
• 28:28
  But there'll be a lot of whiskey consumers that we go, Nah, like
• 28:31
  I'd rather see it finished in a Madeira cask or I'd rather see
• 28:34
  it finished in a Saute Orange cask and stuff like that because
• 28:36
  that's what where the market is. Do you feel a bit of pressure on
• 28:39
  that? Well, we're an international, we
• 28:42
  mainly export. So really I would agree with you
• 28:44
  in the sense that sometimes you get some markets who are wanting
• 28:47
  everything sherried. However, Howard, Japanese
• 28:50
  importer, asked us just for stuff that was refill barrels
• 28:53
  and stuff. No, no finishing, whereas before
• 28:57
  they'd wanted stuff that's finished.
• 28:58
  So yeah, I, I can't really give you where are your biggest
• 29:03
  markets? Probably Europe.
• 29:05
  Yeah, think in the Netherlands, Germany.
• 29:07
  That's sort of Scandinavia. They've got there's a real
• 29:10
  appetite for specialist signal malt whiskey and actually what
• 29:14
  you're getting. We take it for granted.
• 29:16
  Independent single cask, Blair Athle.
• 29:19
  Lovely raffle. I'm used to the 12 year old
• 29:21
  flora and fauna. I don't know what's going to
• 29:23
  happen to that cask after we try it today.
• 29:25
  It's really cool. We're the only people trying
• 29:27
  that cask as it currently. Yeah.
• 29:28
  I mean, yeah, I mean, we've noticed that we're in some
• 29:33
  casks, even if it's a bourbon barrel, if you leave them like
• 29:36
  nine months, maybe they'll lose some of that Shebert, which is a
• 29:39
  desirable trait. So a lot happens in in
• 29:43
  warehousing. And have you started your
• 29:44
  relationships, of course you will have done with bodegas and
• 29:47
  RF. Yeah, so I tend to work with the
• 29:49
  same ones. So there's Josepher which will
• 29:53
  be see the see those Tony Port ones.
• 29:57
  Yes, those quite distinct. I think they they use quite a
• 30:00
  lot of American oak, but they'll they can provide us Sherry as
• 30:05
  well. They have this Sherry.
• 30:06
  How do? You see an international market
• 30:09
  open up like you're sort of like, let's go back, you've got
• 30:11
  your two casks, you've bottled them and you've started to get
• 30:13
  it out. How do you then start finding an
• 30:16
  international market? Yeah, so that that's really,
• 30:19
  that was a huge challenge and it requires confidence and I didn't
• 30:22
  really have that. I did AI got approached by an
• 30:27
  importer in Germany, Andy McNeil at Celtic events and he said
• 30:32
  he'd seen my stuff and he fancied importing it and if I
• 30:36
  could send samples. So I sent him samples and then I
• 30:39
  got back to him a week later and he's like, I'm not really
• 30:42
  fancying it. He then phoned, phoned me the
• 30:46
  next day and he's like, I've left overnight and all that.
• 30:48
  Sulphur's drifted off the glass and I want to take it.
• 30:52
  And I was like, OK, right, how how do we do that?
• 30:55
  Because it's all duty. Paid, Yeah.
• 30:57
  And he was like, OK, so you're going to have to go through the
• 31:00
  duty drawback process, which essentially means that you send
• 31:03
  all the stock duty paid to Germany, you remove all the duty
• 31:06
  stamps, then you have to go through HMRC to and you need to
• 31:11
  show the evidence that it's going into Germany.
• 31:13
  Yeah. And then you get your duty back
• 31:15
  eventually. Interesting.
• 31:16
  Eventually, so yeah. They they've sort of rained in
• 31:18
  on that you. That that's like.
• 31:21
  That's where you want. To be when you want to export.
• 31:23
  That's when you get your letter back from HMRC.
• 31:25
  Where nice big checking. It get refund.
• 31:28
  And where where was that in your sort of process then?
• 31:31
  So after your two casks. That was honestly, that was
• 31:33
  about two or maybe two years because I had two.
• 31:36
  Years into it, I mean, I had. A approach that still exists.
• 31:39
  It had existed until recently. Oh, right, OK, But that took, I
• 31:45
  thought, being quite arrogant as I was.
• 31:47
  I've bought a single cask, Mark said.
• 31:50
  It's good. Why isn't everyone just buying
• 31:53
  it from a website that I've set up?
• 31:55
  And then you would phone up a couple shops and they'd be like,
• 31:58
  OK, well we'll maybe take a mixed case and it there's not
• 32:01
  that many whiskey shops in Scotland.
• 32:04
  And then in England, I used to deal with Milroy's used to sell
• 32:09
  there, a guy called Lee Tomlinson, He was really good.
• 32:12
  But yeah, that was touch and go for a while.
• 32:15
  Because you're selling, sorry Graham, are you selling, you
• 32:18
  know, a proportion of each out turn you're saying, OK, I've got
• 32:20
  200 bottles or less like good, I'll give 100 bottles to my
• 32:23
  European retailers. Or are you already starting to
• 32:27
  do lady to Glen exclusive for the Netherlands single cask
• 32:31
  etcetera, because that would start coming to your business as
• 32:34
  well? Well, when you're first starting
• 32:36
  to export to Germany, is he taking X amount of an outturn
• 32:40
  you've just bottled? He's just taking what I've what
• 32:42
  I've bottled on the sampling. So that's why if he ever.
• 32:45
  Like he'll take the. Back, No, no, He would maybe
• 32:47
  take like what, 40 bottles, maybe less, maybe 12 or
• 32:50
  something. It just varies.
• 32:52
  I mean, you're always. Set to start, isn't it?
• 32:54
  And yeah, you'd maybe be stuck with the rest and you need to
• 32:57
  find a home for them. And yeah, it took a long time.
• 33:01
  I was working solely with Germany for a long time, go to
• 33:03
  festivals. And yeah, it was really touch
• 33:08
  and go because by that point you'd pretty much exhausted all
• 33:11
  the all the capital that you needed.
• 33:14
  But I was still managing to get access to things like Little
• 33:16
  Mill and Cappardonic. So for future releases, that's
• 33:20
  fundamentally where the business has changed.
• 33:23
  Like it used to be, I want to release rare casks and I want to
• 33:27
  release like casks that are collectible.
• 33:30
  That was a big emphasis. Now we're more flavour based and
• 33:34
  it's all about, well, we want to release distinct flavour, we
• 33:37
  want balanced whiskeys. And it's just because it's
• 33:42
  harder now to get hold of these casks than it was 10 years ago.
• 33:46
  It's expensive, so. So if you want to go down that,
• 33:50
  that route is just going to go up, prices are just going to go.
• 33:53
  Up you don't know how how good it is to taste as well, because
• 33:56
  essentially you're buying that really blind.
• 33:58
  That was the other thing that you mentioned before about
• 34:00
  building a portfolio. You can't build a portfolio on
• 34:03
  like Little Mills and Cappodonix.
• 34:05
  Someone's probably doing it now, but there's so much risk of one
• 34:08
  of those casks pops. I mean, that's why My Portfolio
• 34:13
  or our portfolio is all like if one of them leaks.
• 34:18
  Yeah, at least had. Cast Pop.
• 34:19
  Yeah, we've had Cast Pop everyone.
• 34:21
  Yeah, it happens. Give us.
• 34:23
  A call miss. I I can tell you I.
• 34:27
  Can. Tell you, even from my time at
• 34:29
  the Balmoral, more often than not you're getting brands coming
• 34:32
  in for the first time. They're saying, oh, do you know,
• 34:34
  we've got a 50 year old that would be perfect for this place.
• 34:37
  And we go, right, it was bottled two years ago.
• 34:41
  And you go, all right, And then they give you a sample and you
• 34:43
  go, you thought the label was going to sell this.
• 34:46
  It's difficult. And I think that collectors
• 34:47
  market well, the collectors are starting to drink as well, but
• 34:50
  the collectors market is still there.
• 34:51
  But I think brilliant thing about independent bottling.
• 34:54
  We spoke of it so much as single cask whiskey, great value.
• 34:58
  The blends that you're doing can you do and your blends have been
• 35:01
  aged as well, but you've done some really brilliant, yummy
• 35:05
  whiskey I. Can't take credit for a lot of
• 35:06
  the blends. I mean, I speak to Paul.
• 35:09
  Paul says we could take credit when we bought all stuff that's
• 35:12
  doing the. Blending yourself, as it were.
• 35:14
  We do some of it because. A prediction in a future
• 35:17
  episode, someone from Angus Dundee, Master Blend, will say,
• 35:20
  you know for him when we have to do sing.
• 35:24
  Someone from a I'm. Making a wild.
• 35:27
  Prediction that he will say really, you know, when when the
• 35:31
  single cast stuff is just, you know, for him it's great because
• 35:35
  he doesn't have to do any blending in a way, but when he
• 35:37
  has to blend things, it's, you know, something a lot more
• 35:40
  difficult. You know, now you don't have to
• 35:41
  listen to that. I know.
• 35:47
  Rather than blending, you know, single malt whiskey when it's,
• 35:50
  you know, an action, you know, So far, yeah, No.
• 35:53
  When I'm interested in, sorry, no, it's something we've never
• 35:56
  really spoken about on the podcast is the export market and
• 35:59
  how that works. But I'm fascinated.
• 36:01
  So from your point of view, you have, do you have to sell to an
• 36:06
  importer and then the importer does the selling on the ground
• 36:10
  for you or do you have to hybrid it where because what have you?
• 36:15
  Let's let's I'll try and frame this question.
• 36:18
  So in my mind, you've talked about going to whiskey festivals
• 36:21
  in Germany, right? So somebody's coming along.
• 36:25
  I'm not going to do a German accent right for our German.
• 36:27
  Good. Thank you good Sag to our German
• 36:29
  listeners. That's far enough, but.
• 36:32
  But you're you're at this German festival and someone's come
• 36:34
  along, lady. Obviously, Glenn.
• 36:35
  Yeah. I think you weren't going.
• 36:38
  To do it. Sorry, what's up?
• 36:39
  But and someone talks to you about your oh, this lovely
• 36:43
  whiskey and then they say, all right, I want to buy, I want to
• 36:46
  buy some bottles of that. Now.
• 36:48
  Do you then go, sure, you could buy them off me right now?
• 36:51
  Or do you say you could buy them on our website?
• 36:53
  Or do you say no, you have to buy them or these retailers
• 36:57
  because these are the retailers that our importer deals with
• 36:59
  solely? Yeah, what you've just said.
• 37:02
  So the second one. We'd we'd say that you need to
• 37:05
  buy direct from the importer. Right.
• 37:07
  And then from that point of view, then you're just going out
• 37:10
  there to try and really boost your own brands and then then
• 37:14
  signposting people to the importance.
• 37:15
  We're saying how good European festivals are compared to
• 37:18
  festivals in the. Yeah, they're much better.
• 37:19
  That's much more responsible drinking, you guys.
• 37:21
  Understand. Do you buy?
• 37:22
  You buy a ticket to a festival in Germany for €20.
• 37:26
  You then pay for every gram in the festival.
• 37:28
  And you're getting a huge range. They've been doing independent
• 37:30
  bottle and and there's loads of them over there, yeah.
• 37:32
  Yeah. And you and you know that the
• 37:33
  person that's come up to you, they're asking the question of
• 37:35
  the whiskey. They're buying the whiskey and
• 37:37
  they're listening to your answer.
• 37:38
  Yeah. Scottish festivals having having
• 37:41
  run festivals work with festivals.
• 37:43
  They're brilliant. Of course.
• 37:44
  Yeah, I love going to Scottish whiskey festivals.
• 37:46
  I'll see you at Whiskey Fringe this year.
• 37:48
  Amazing. They've got better, but the last
• 37:51
  10 minutes, what should all this whiskey have?
• 37:52
  One of them that's. Useless.
• 37:55
  For a business like you, it's not not worthwhile.
• 37:57
  You go to Europe, add an amazing experience.
• 38:00
  As I mentioned in Sofia, I had no expectations of what this
• 38:04
  festival was going to be. There's 3000 people over the
• 38:06
  weekend, they're all paying for their dance.
• 38:09
  And the audience were receptive and they cared and they all left
• 38:12
  for bottles. Yeah.
• 38:13
  And so you'll have a, yeah. Yeah, they buy it.
• 38:14
  Yeah. Yeah, it makes people.
• 38:16
  We talked about this before. We talked about what was the
• 38:18
  Swedish 10, the final. The one on the boat.
• 38:21
  The one. On the boat, Yeah.
• 38:22
  That one's very famous, yeah. But it makes.
• 38:25
  Up. We've been invited to go on it.
• 38:26
  That's something that Paul will likely do.
• 38:28
  Yeah, he's been on it before. Never.
• 38:29
  Need anyone to do it for you? Yeah, Arsenal do.
• 38:32
  You think you can handle it? Oh, I love it.
• 38:36
  Because The thing is about it, and we've talked about this
• 38:38
  before about how people approach whiskey festivals and it, it
• 38:41
  kind of the, the great one for that is Whiskey Fringe in
• 38:44
  Edinburgh. And when you speak to people who
• 38:46
  do it every single year, particularly like maybe the
• 38:49
  three days, the way people approach it is they say right,
• 38:52
  day one is about I want to try all the new stuff.
• 38:54
  I want to see what, because there's people in the industry
• 38:56
  that are maybe interested what's, what are the new things,
• 38:58
  what's happening in the new the day two, maybe I'm going to just
• 39:01
  target and I can't remember who it was.
• 39:03
  I think it was Dougie Liddell talked about Mark Thompson and
• 39:05
  him at 1W fringe where Mark Thompson and, and, and Dougie,
• 39:09
  Dougie kind of tagged along with Mark and Mark said for today,
• 39:12
  I'm going back to court releases.
• 39:14
  I just want to see what everyone's doing as a court
• 39:17
  release because, and we talked about this before, as I think
• 39:22
  right before we've started recording was, you know, it's
• 39:24
  very easy when you're in whiskey to forget about what the what
• 39:28
  the core brand, what the core releases are doing.
• 39:30
  Yeah. So sometimes it's really, really
• 39:32
  nice. And that sounds like.
• 39:33
  And I think we don't get to do that when you've got an hour and
• 39:36
  a half, two hours, Yeah, where you're in a hall and you've got
• 39:38
  so many people to go. Through I want to try something
• 39:40
  you haven't tried before you buy a lot.
• 39:42
  Of Alex books for us and Alex used to work in a whiskey shop
• 39:44
  yeah his knowledge of like core releases is incredible because I
• 39:49
  don't have that I've got not much interest in core releases
• 39:53
  apart from like maybe distillers editions the.
• 39:55
  Exciting thing for you is a single cask.
• 39:57
  Yeah, I mean, I always. Try and loves that yeah I used
• 39:59
  to work with Alex Alex incredible knowledge spent more
• 40:03
  time whiskey and I've legally been able to drink and as though
• 40:08
  every festival is representing you and he's saying well you
• 40:11
  know what Ben Renner says I can tell you about that if you want
• 40:13
  but let me tell you about this single cask which is what they
• 40:15
  did event is all about. Yeah, and it goes back to like,
• 40:18
  I think it was Mark Thompson talked about that when he moved
• 40:20
  from Glenfiddich over to Duncan Taylor and he was sort of saying
• 40:22
  about how, you know, he spent so much of his career talking about
• 40:26
  Glenfiddich. But then as an independent
• 40:28
  bottler, you get that beauty of being able.
• 40:30
  You mentioned it earlier on the stories.
• 40:31
  You know, you're not tied to 1 brand, not that Glenfiddich is a
• 40:34
  brand that you would be. You know, it's hard to be tied
• 40:37
  to as such. There's loads of conversations
• 40:38
  and stories you can have. But the fact is in this cat, in
• 40:41
  this place alone, 150 casts, I mean, I don't know how many
• 40:44
  different distilleries you'll have whiskey from.
• 40:47
  And each casket not only has its own liquid in it, but its own
• 40:49
  story associated with it. So when you are at these whiskey
• 40:51
  tastings, you could tell so many different elements of those
• 40:55
  stories. But when it comes to the
• 40:56
  international market, one last question on the important stuff.
• 41:00
  Are you then tied? Do you, do you sign like if you,
• 41:02
  because I'd imagine there'd be more than one importer that
• 41:04
  imports into Germany and other parts of Europe.
• 41:06
  When you sign on the dotted line with these guys, is that a case
• 41:09
  of we are now solely with you and we can't go to any other
• 41:12
  importer in that area or can you do multiple importers?
• 41:15
  No, we would. We would just work with the one
• 41:17
  for each country. It does.
• 41:18
  There are problems that arise when you find out that certain
• 41:21
  importers have maybe sold into other countries.
• 41:25
  And that's that's not great. But the reason that we use
• 41:29
  importers is this is nothing. It's not a criticism on selling
• 41:33
  in the UK, but if you're selling to a shop, they'll maybe get one
• 41:37
  case. If you sell to an export,
• 41:40
  they'll take multiple cases. So you need to decide, you need
• 41:43
  to pick your battles and if you can sell more by export then
• 41:48
  you'll get more capital. It's a great thing about
• 41:50
  Scotland we meet lots of whiskey, but it's neat to hear
• 41:52
  well. Yeah, it's the.
• 41:53
  One you've bought it, I also. Think about it.
• 41:55
  So the importers will have like whether the the sales phrase
• 41:57
  would be boots on the ground. The importers will have
• 41:59
  salespeople the whole of Germany.
• 42:02
  If you want to sell, like when you wanted to sell your bottle,
• 42:04
  your first two casts have you bottled.
• 42:06
  You would have had to literally knocking on the doors.
• 42:09
  Yeah. So we do that already in the UK,
• 42:10
  Yeah. And that's the first time.
• 42:12
  Exactly. Absolutely.
• 42:13
  Because that's the one thing as well about independent bottlers.
• 42:15
  And it's like what you're talking about with the marketing
• 42:17
  side as well. It's like you are the person
• 42:19
  that has to do when you start out.
• 42:20
  You have to do everything. You know you have to source the
• 42:22
  cash because you're the buyer, right?
• 42:24
  So you're sourcing and buying, then you're the sampler and then
• 42:27
  you're the guy that has to then make the call.
• 42:29
  Or you could use other people, which is, which is great, like
• 42:31
  you did with Mark Davidson, Jolly Topart and then you've got
• 42:34
  to then bottle or you've got to arrange the bottling at first,
• 42:37
  then you've got to arrange all the like.
• 42:39
  Markets is going into house market, well, the retailers,
• 42:41
  yeah. Then you've got.
• 42:42
  Then you've got to try and work out right where am I going to
• 42:44
  store? Where am I going to store my?
• 42:45
  Stock, chasing up invoices, all that stuff that doesn't make any
• 42:48
  money. Back I have this next loan
• 42:49
  because I. Will say, I have to say right,
• 42:52
  you've mentioned my Windows Abbey, one of the IT was such a
• 42:57
  kind of half strange when I did it, but we were up at we were up
• 43:01
  at space side and I went into the Aberlour whiskey shop.
• 43:04
  Yeah. And just spirit space side
• 43:06
  you'll you'll maybe be able to sort of appreciate this,
• 43:09
  especially now. But I I had a castle in there's
• 43:12
  having got for my 30th birthdays now bottled.
• 43:14
  I've got a boot full of it. I could actually, absolutely
• 43:17
  that's. About Lindores and and a cast.
• 43:18
  Oh, it doesn't matter how good the whiskey is.
• 43:20
  I've got a boot and A and a half a garage floor and it.
• 43:23
  Was delicious. We felt there as independent.
• 43:25
  We felt red lines. It was lovely.
• 43:26
  But, but basically, I remember we were in the Aberlar risky
• 43:29
  shop and there was two Americans and there was one of these like
• 43:31
  cast setups and it was Lindo's Abbey that were in there doing a
• 43:33
  sort of, it was student spirit space.
• 43:34
  And 1st was two Americans and the guy was like, hello there.
• 43:38
  And he was, these two Americans are sort of drinking that
• 43:40
  they're tasting whatever his samples were.
• 43:42
  And he was like, you heard of Windows Abbey?
• 43:43
  I was like, heard of Windows Abbey.
• 43:45
  I've got one. It's asking this stuff, these
• 43:48
  Americans. Like Oh my God, but.
• 43:50
  I mean, when you first bought your two casks, you must have
• 43:53
  been walking about the place like got my CAS.
• 43:56
  Now you've got your own warehouse and you've got a
• 43:57
  bottle in line. I bet you're happy when when?
• 43:59
  Mark Davidson said they're good. Yeah, 'cause I bet you could've
• 44:03
  keep it. I can't enter a totally
• 44:04
  different frame of mind. Yeah, it was, it was touch and
• 44:06
  go for a while, I mean, but we're sitting on it for a long
• 44:09
  time as well and it wasn't moving.
• 44:10
  And then I had AI, had a, I'm divorced, so my original
• 44:15
  girlfriend at the time. And then you're just thinking, I
• 44:18
  studied business at uni and I've made a total arse of this.
• 44:21
  Like it's like. Well, it's just sitting there
• 44:23
  and not going anywhere. And just lots of value sitting
• 44:26
  there, yeah. And you're it's.
• 44:27
  A hard one. You're thinking to yourself,
• 44:29
  like who else can iPhone? Yeah, who else is going to buy
• 44:32
  it? I've tried everyone.
• 44:33
  What was the moment? What was the moment when like?
• 44:36
  Because there must have been a moment where you got well, I
• 44:38
  could roll again now. Or maybe when you bought a big
• 44:40
  parcel of cash for the first time and you were like.
• 44:42
  But there must have Was there a moment when you suddenly said,
• 44:44
  right, it's working now? Did the phone just start
• 44:46
  ringing? So I was working with David
• 44:48
  Ruckert Travel in East Kilbride. I don't know if you've heard of.
• 44:52
  It. I've heard of it.
• 44:52
  Yeah, Yeah. So I was doing like a a job
• 44:55
  there. David Urquhart, really great
• 44:57
  guy. Have you mentioned David
• 44:58
  Urquhart? Travel one more time.
• 44:59
  We're going to have to get the sponsors episode.
• 45:02
  It's a gum bust, this. Episode is not bronchia.
• 45:06
  Maybe don't go and travel. David used to come and speak to
• 45:09
  me when I was sitting at the desk and he'd say, how's
• 45:11
  business going? I was like, well, you know, not
• 45:13
  really sold that much recently. He's like, well, you just need
• 45:15
  to keep trying. This is what you should do.
• 45:18
  Really inspiring guy. Gave me a lot of time, a lot of
• 45:21
  free rein because it was obviously meant to be working
• 45:23
  for David Urquhart Travel. And he was asking, he was asking
• 45:28
  you about how your whiskey business is coming to you before
• 45:31
  no best David, but he. Was saying, well, you just need
• 45:34
  to keep going, you know, and he'd be telling me stories about
• 45:36
  when he started up, how his market changed and his business
• 45:40
  partners and the things that would go wrong.
• 45:42
  And that really inspired me. And at that time, you're just
• 45:46
  like, you're hanging in, you're maybe selling a couple cases
• 45:49
  here and there and then boom, I go Germany, got in touch for
• 45:54
  import. And, and that, that was that
• 45:57
  took so much time because of the, the, the way the duty
• 46:01
  worked to get that money back and then to begin again.
• 46:04
  And then you're buying casks. And one of the folk that I
• 46:08
  bought casks from, it was actually really challenging
• 46:11
  because part of the requirement to buy the mature stock is you
• 46:14
  have to buy a young stock. So I bought this parcel and I
• 46:17
  made absolutely no money because all the money was in the young
• 46:21
  stock. And so then you're like stuck
• 46:23
  and you're like, and again you're looking at my girlfriend.
• 46:26
  I'm like the business is making money but we're not actually
• 46:29
  showing for it. So it took a long time to get
• 46:32
  that big. At that point all I wanted was
• 46:36
  £1000 a month and I was like, if I get that then I can pay my
• 46:39
  wage. And that's how as soon as that
• 46:42
  happened and I was getting maybe 3 grand over over four months or
• 46:46
  three months and I was like, okay, I'm doing it full time and
• 46:49
  I left. Did it full time, got a wee
• 46:51
  office in Portland Street and in Leith and just worked for there.
• 46:56
  Love that. Now you're on the Whiskey
• 46:57
  Stories podcast. There you go.
• 46:58
  Look at that. You've.
• 47:01
  Upgraded to five. Tell me this figure from the
• 47:04
  whole journey so far, what has been the cash that you've got?
• 47:08
  And I can't believe you've got that or the cash that you've
• 47:10
  bottled that was spectacular. Any of these moments with
• 47:13
  particular whiskey? So I've got a Glenn Scotia OK
• 47:17
  over there. Yeah, I've never bottled I've.
• 47:19
  Never bottled a Glenn Scotia. Yeah.
• 47:21
  So whenever we get something we've never bottled before, you
• 47:24
  obviously like that's exciting. Yeah.
• 47:26
  So this Glenn Scotia, it's great.
• 47:29
  When I've bottled Cappordonix Little Mills, I take a lot of
• 47:33
  pride and so do the guys. When we get something, it's like
• 47:37
  a Glenn Lossy. When we put them in Hidalgo
• 47:39
  casks and the finishes were just incredible.
• 47:42
  Did really good Kalila and Ameroni wine.
• 47:44
  I had a Glen Elgin that you've done last. 2nd for Tony.
• 47:46
  Porter was ridiculously good. So have you got a plan for that?
• 47:50
  Glenn Scotia Casque this. Is good you got a plan for that
• 47:53
  you know what I. Mean, have you got a plan?
• 47:56
  Is. I mean, you know, you say you're
• 47:57
  excited about this casque. You presume that you've tasted
• 47:59
  it. Yeah, where, where, where is it
• 48:02
  along the journey before it gets bottled is really what I'm
• 48:05
  asking. Well, I'm thinking it, it's good
• 48:07
  now, but it's just the the concern I've got is the age
• 48:11
  because it's it's age is like 7:00 or 8:00.
• 48:14
  So they they've bottled 4 single casts this year.
• 48:16
  So all actually all it's six years old.
• 48:19
  Yeah, I've been belters, I've tried, but there is the worry
• 48:22
  that it's not the official bottle and.
• 48:25
  Well, this is quite interesting because you obviously have no
• 48:27
  concerns over the taste of what's in the cask and you think
• 48:30
  it's great. But equally you've got concern
• 48:33
  from a business point of view of releasing a whiskey at 7 years
• 48:37
  old because you think people will say clean scores A7 year
• 48:40
  old. I'm not glad.
• 48:41
  Is this a danger that the whiskey industry is in, where
• 48:45
  you have to treat like it goes back to the sort of finishing?
• 48:48
  I think it would look rushed. Yeah, yeah, the foot would be
• 48:50
  like, he's just got that and he's just trying to get it out.
• 48:53
  Because I I I also like You can also you can.
• 48:55
  Do it with Kalila. Sorry to interrupt you again,
• 48:57
  beat this. Up.
• 48:58
  Yeah, yeah. 8 year old Kalila's in that, yeah.
• 49:00
  People don't like your eye 4-5 year.
• 49:02
  Old, like a six year old Linkwood phone would be like.
• 49:06
  What's that all about? Yeah.
• 49:07
  But yeah, because I wonder like that could they if you're too in
• 49:10
  the industry and too in with there be loads of people that be
• 49:14
  like, yeah, Glenn Scotia 7 is great and you could listen to a
• 49:17
  lot of people that go a bit if it takes good stick it into
• 49:20
  glass right now. Well.
• 49:21
  We've done that with Dalmonic, Yeah, released 6 year old
• 49:23
  Dalmonic a year or so ago and we've done like random ones like
• 49:27
  that. But then if we'd left that any
• 49:29
  longer because it was in a first film task, it just would have
• 49:32
  been like tasting wood. And have you done that with?
• 49:35
  You must have done that with octaves before.
• 49:37
  Yeah, I mean if. You make them stay months too
• 49:38
  much and you go, yeah. Yeah, that's, but I mean that's
• 49:41
  part of the advantage of being able to blend.
• 49:43
  Yeah, well, that that helps as well.
• 49:45
  And this is also, I mean, you've, you've got other brand,
• 49:47
  you know, we haven't really spoken about your Dalgety brand
• 49:49
  as well. So what, what was the motivation
• 49:52
  behind setting that up? And why does why did you decide
• 49:54
  to kind of? What is Dalgety?
• 49:56
  What is Dalgety? How does it differ from Lady of
• 49:59
  the Glen? You know what what?
• 50:01
  Just explain about the brand. So Dalgetti is named after where
• 50:04
  we are. Dalgetti Bay.
• 50:05
  Yeah, there we go. So you know what?
• 50:13
  Genuinely, you're. Genuinely, I've got to see you.
• 50:16
  I've been the last two times I've been in Fife.
• 50:18
  I went to see Rave Rovers football, football.
• 50:22
  Well, Dalgetti means Bay of Thorns, so the actual labelling
• 50:25
  and stuff on the tube is thorns. So whereas Lady of the Glens got
• 50:30
  floral pattern. So the, the key difference is
• 50:32
  Dalgati is a single malt. So it's a marriage of sister
• 50:36
  casks. We felt that we have after
• 50:40
  COVID, we were finding that the issue that we were having is we
• 50:44
  would have 8 casks and in order to scale up, we were just like,
• 50:49
  well, to scale up, we need to add 10 casks.
• 50:51
  When you do 12 casks and you're like, we'd be compromising
• 50:55
  quality by doing that, surely the a better way of scaling up
• 50:59
  is to a single malt brand, which is from 1 distillery and then
• 51:03
  you're just adding casks, sister casks.
• 51:06
  So you're getting bigger volume, you're reducing the strength and
• 51:09
  you're creating a product which is probably lower cost as well.
• 51:11
  And. Is it true the labels are glow
• 51:13
  in the dark? Yeah, they do, yeah.
• 51:14
  Why would that be so? That's to do with the planes.
• 51:19
  Right there, well played. The planes that got dumped in
• 51:21
  Dalgati Bay had uranium in the dials.
• 51:24
  That's right. Yeah.
• 51:24
  And there's a radioactive issue in Delgate Bay which has been
• 51:28
  ongoing, so we thought we'd make the labels go on that.
• 51:31
  And you asked me, that's why I'm talking about.
• 51:34
  That in the dark. I don't know if the beach goes
• 51:35
  in the dark, but I wouldn't go walk in there.
• 51:37
  Yeah, there's plenty of stuff like there's a lot you've.
• 51:40
  Been swimming there. Because you're not like you're
• 51:42
  actually biased against it because of that, Yeah.
• 51:45
  I mean, they've got a Yacht Club there, yeah.
• 51:47
  So not radioactive casks, but certainly.
• 51:50
  Well, I'm interested in that. What we're going to do is I'm
• 51:52
  going to go. I want to hear about your
• 51:53
  Silela. That's going to get.
• 51:55
  So, Gregor, this is a Silela cask system.
• 51:59
  Yes, now I'm. I'm Scotland's only I have.
• 52:02
  Never seen. That it's a Scotland's only
• 52:04
  Silela casks independently bought a little Silela cast
• 52:07
  system or not? Only really because.
• 52:09
  I mean. No, this one's actually
• 52:11
  connected, though I like the. So the Glenfiddich, famously the
• 52:15
  the 15 year old is called the Solera.
• 52:17
  But that's different. Salera VAT.
• 52:18
  Salera VAT, right, right. And they never the idea of it
• 52:22
  being a salera VAT. Now let me get this right.
• 52:24
  It never empties and it's never been empty since 1998 or
• 52:27
  something so. In 1998 was the first bottle of
• 52:29
  the Glenfetic solera. He's a no, but obviously we
• 52:31
  don't know if that one was 15 years old.
• 52:33
  But if it was 15 years old that mean to be whiskey from 1983
• 52:36
  which means your Glenfetic 15 today would still have some
• 52:38
  issue 19. 83 and lovely. So, so this is a Solara system.
• 52:41
  So I think just, you know, what we have in front of us,
• 52:43
  obviously viewers can see it, but if you could just explain to
• 52:46
  the audio listeners what what is a Solara system?
• 52:50
  It's something that I know from Sherry it's, but maybe you can
• 52:54
  explain it to us. So it was a lady from Whiskey
• 52:57
  magazine actually came to do a piece on it and she said, oh,
• 53:00
  this is actually the only celebrity in Scotland.
• 53:02
  We didn't know. No, I assumed that someone would
• 53:05
  burn it because it's. Rome was doing it.
• 53:07
  I mean, it seems pretty straightforward, Yeah.
• 53:09
  I mean, at the end of the day it's 3 casks and a triangle
• 53:11
  connected by two copper pipes. And did you make?
• 53:14
  This. Alex Mcandrew and Gavin.
• 53:16
  Ricky. Teddy.
• 53:17
  Really. Right.
• 53:18
  So in terms of now the idea of a Salera caste system, so in over
• 53:22
  in Hereth and stuff like that with oh very.
• 53:24
  Well said. Yeah.
• 53:26
  My Spanish accent's actually just like the German.
• 53:28
  I'm not gonna do that. I won't be an Indian accent
• 53:33
  because I'll end up divorced. But basically the idea is that
• 53:37
  it just never stops, does it? So you'll constantly upfill this
• 53:39
  one. Now does it?
• 53:40
  Does this. You fell.
• 53:41
  From fell from the top, empty from the bottom, and whatever
• 53:45
  happens in between is up to magic.
• 53:47
  Well, the way it the way it works is the first batch is
• 53:50
  probably the least celerial system, aye.
• 53:54
  Because what happens is we get the blend cask which is behind
• 53:57
  you, we pump that up and then we tip it in here and then it fills
• 54:03
  down to the bottom. That was the first time.
• 54:05
  And then what we do is we take about 150 litres or so with a
• 54:10
  flat drum and we open this tap up, we take that away and then
• 54:14
  this spirit comes in here and then we top it up again so it
• 54:18
  never clears out. Yeah, it never empties.
• 54:20
  It's always just top topping up with the the blend.
• 54:23
  You're very careful about what you actually put into it because
• 54:25
  I mean, you know, if you, you know, obviously you've bottled
• 54:29
  coleela before. If you put a load of peated bolt
• 54:30
  in there, it's going to, you know, linger for a while.
• 54:33
  Linger for a while, is it? Well, I'm not that.
• 54:34
  Cautious about what you put in. Yeah.
• 54:36
  You can, kind of. We mentioned that as you go
• 54:42
  right it's this is the remnants from the re racking.
• 54:47
  So this has actually got some repeated Ben Nevis new spirit,
• 54:54
  but it would have been it would have been matured in as part of
• 54:56
  that blame. So it would have been over five
• 54:58
  years old. That's why this is non age
• 55:00
  statement. So to be clear, it doesn't age
• 55:02
  in the sledder system. Right.
• 55:04
  So once it comes out of the original cast, it's non aged
• 55:07
  and. Because the original casks have
• 55:10
  got non age statement. Sorry, because the original
• 55:13
  casts have got petted Ben Nevis. It's always going to be five
• 55:17
  years old. So there was Peter Ben Nevis in
• 55:19
  these three casts beforehand, right?
• 55:21
  And in terms of yeah, so are these ex Sherry or are they?
• 55:24
  Yeah. So the top ones Feno, Yep, the
• 55:26
  bottom 2 are all are awesome. So that's the beauty of our
• 55:30
  Solara system is, and that's why every independent baller should
• 55:33
  have one. You can pick whatever
• 55:35
  combination you want. You can have sauteer.
• 55:37
  I love that. And you have Sonic Pors.
• 55:38
  You'd have one. So basically what you've got a
• 55:40
  house. Blend, Yeah.
• 55:41
  Because you've gone to the next level.
• 55:42
  Because you you could talk about thinking.
• 55:43
  About emptying the bottle of our bottles for a house blend.
• 55:45
  Well, you can ask a house blend. Well that you could do you could
• 55:48
  you could do an Infinity bottle yeah, or you could try what I
• 55:50
  did and do an Infinity cast where one litre cast ends up
• 55:52
  smelling like tastes like soap detergent.
• 55:55
  But this is three different casks and so.
• 55:58
  So first of all, it comes in as every time it goes into this
• 56:01
  cask here. This big no.
• 56:02
  So as I mentioned before, I had 7 casks of blend right which
• 56:06
  were all made-up of varying components, the majority of
• 56:09
  which for from Diagio distilleries apart from Ben
• 56:14
  Nevis. Yeah, and you and you sell
• 56:16
  these, you sell bottles of this stuff.
• 56:18
  Saint Bridget's Kirk. Yeah, so we so.
• 56:19
  This is Saint Bridget's Kirk. Yeah, so we bought all this
• 56:21
  every six months. And this is the Solero version
• 56:24
  of Saint Bridget's Kirk, which has got a Tony Brown label.
• 56:26
  So we do two other versions. We do a like a a malt blended
• 56:32
  malt, which is a blue label and we do a blend which is a red
• 56:35
  label and the blends tend to be older, 35 years old and the malt
• 56:41
  ones we tend to make them ourselves.
• 56:43
  And can I say the 35 year old I think was the best blend I had
• 56:47
  all of last year really. Yeah.
• 56:49
  Seriously good like. That you're you're, you're happy
• 56:52
  to let us try some of this, but you're also not happy to let
• 56:54
  Angus anywhere near no, no. I was a hefty pour the 1st.
• 56:57
  Hang on, hang on, hang on. Let's get a let's.
• 57:01
  Get a wee video. Do not trust myself anywhere
• 57:03
  near that. Yeah.
• 57:04
  Yeah. Ready.
• 57:07
  Steady Solera. Straight from the solera.
• 57:11
  So the Solera system is actually we reduce the strength.
• 57:14
  So this is quite rare for you guys to try.
• 57:16
  So do you put water in there is what I mean?
• 57:19
  No, you're doing. Sorry, I'm being.
• 57:21
  Stupid, do you do you know the the rough strength of this?
• 57:24
  No. Brilliant.
• 57:26
  Cheers. Cheers.
• 57:27
  Thank you for the hospitality from Scotland's from Scotland's
• 57:32
  only salera system. There you go, there's a Whiskey
• 57:34
  Stories podcast exclusive. So this has got, this will be
• 57:39
  the 4th version of this that we've bought.
• 57:41
  So it's got better each time. And this is the best version
• 57:43
  because this has been through the Feno the longest.
• 57:46
  The two are also the longest. And this is so this is you can
• 57:49
  really, there's a bit of smokiness in there.
• 57:50
  Well, like I mentioned before. Oh yeah, you imagine this would
• 57:53
  have been clear in that blend. Like there's no colour.
• 57:56
  This is all this colour and this richness is all coming from.
• 58:00
  These casts here. Yeah.
• 58:01
  And that's that's just 12 months as.
• 58:03
  Well, and a bit a bit like, you know, does does this solera have
• 58:06
  a kind of lifespan, you know? Will you still be able?
• 58:09
  To use it in 15 years time or is it good?
• 58:13
  Question. I think it at some point we'll
• 58:15
  need to replace the casks. Yeah, this.
• 58:17
  Is but now you've got two people in your four man team who have
• 58:20
  built a Solara system before, so you've got the you have the best
• 58:23
  team in Scotland for it. Yeah, well, I contacted SpaceX
• 58:29
  Cooperage to get casks and I told them what I wanted to do
• 58:32
  and I thought that they'd send it and it'd be like ready made.
• 58:36
  But what they sent was 3 casks and this these two bits of wood.
• 58:41
  And said good luck. To just stack them and then.
• 58:44
  So I spoke so Alex like takes should take loads of credit.
• 58:48
  He brought in like the drill bits.
• 58:50
  So Alex builds bikes in his spare time as well.
• 58:52
  Very hands on, like a really. Great.
• 58:54
  Put the tap in and stuff, yeah. Wow.
• 58:56
  Yeah, quite, quite remarkable. And and do you think this is
• 58:59
  something that could be scalable for you guys as well because you
• 59:02
  you've been you've. This is the most scalable
• 59:03
  product that you could probably have in the Scotch whisky
• 59:05
  industry because you could just. I mean, it's a triangle and.
• 59:08
  Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
• 59:09
  Because I mean literally if you were to, if you had a bigger
• 59:11
  space and you wanted to use 3 bucks and you had.
• 59:13
  Enough. As long as it was selling, yeah.
• 59:14
  Yeah, that would be a cool thing.
• 59:16
  Listen, we're seeing a lot of our fantastic Listers home bars
• 59:20
  recently. If you want someone for your
• 59:22
  home bar that you can get, you've got your friends around
• 59:24
  family or do you want to tell them something different?
• 59:26
  I think we've found it. Well, a big shout out to Bob
• 59:28
  Cutting as well. We're here talking about that
• 59:29
  and the whiskey story is Facebook group.
• 59:31
  Get involved in the Facebook group if you're not already on
• 59:34
  there. There's some fantastic content,
• 59:35
  but Bob Cutting has took the challenge from Scott Moore.
• 59:39
  Our We're gonna make Bob our English.
• 59:42
  Well, we've got a few English listeners.
• 59:45
  Bob's Bob's the first one. To be honest, I think Bob should
• 59:48
  be. He was there for a long time.
• 59:49
  Yorkshire brand ambassador Yorkshire.
• 59:51
  Now we have a Tennessee diplomat and a Yorkshire diplomat.
• 59:55
  I would say that he could have got the full brand ambassador
• 59:58
  job if he hadn't done it in an English rugby trained top so it.
• 1:00:02
  Felt quite personal but he did do it before the game.
• 1:00:05
  Yeah, absolutely. But I have to say fantastic.
• 1:00:08
  Some great whisky stories as well associated with bar.
• 1:00:10
  Great editing. A really good job.
• 1:00:12
  Lovely shed and the Glen, the shed, the whiskey shed.
• 1:00:15
  I mean this this has probably taken a little bit of shine off
• 1:00:18
  Bob Cutting's whiskey shed because as a shed goes, we're
• 1:00:21
  150 cast in it. But I just love the idea that he
• 1:00:24
  said. You know, we just decided to
• 1:00:26
  build a place where we can all. Started with started with 25
• 1:00:28
  bottles in COVID and now him and his friends go around every
• 1:00:31
  other week and every week and they've got a full bath in the.
• 1:00:34
  West and he's always putting up and when he's a big rugby fan as
• 1:00:36
  we've mentioned, so he does this like rugby versus at the Six
• 1:00:39
  Nations. Alright.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah, an Italian whiskey or a well, frisky, Yeah.
• 1:00:42
  Well, people did an Italian one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:45
  But. Yeah, but I think it was, it's
• 1:00:46
  Glen Murray. Was it?
• 1:00:47
  Did they say his grandfather? Was it his grandfather?
• 1:00:49
  'S grandfather. 'S an exercise, the last
• 1:00:51
  exercise. Well, fantastic.
• 1:00:53
  So well done it Bob. Thank you very much for that and
• 1:00:55
  please keep them coming. If you have got a whiskey
• 1:00:57
  collection or a whiskey shed or or anything just you want sure
• 1:00:59
  you can. See if you've got 6 bottles but
• 1:01:01
  you've got a story for where each other come from.
• 1:01:03
  I want to know. I I am nosy enough.
• 1:01:05
  I want to know. Yeah, Gregor, I mean, are are
• 1:01:07
  you a collector of bottles at home or too much of A busman's
• 1:01:09
  holiday? Yeah.
• 1:01:10
  No, I do collect bottles. I used to collect more.
• 1:01:14
  I've got two boys now. So some of some of them have
• 1:01:17
  been auctioned off or. I've not, I've not actually used
• 1:01:20
  the auctions to be fair. We've obviously got just whiskey
• 1:01:23
  right next to us, but tended to be that I would try and get like
• 1:01:27
  blends. I always think you get good
• 1:01:28
  value of blends at auctions. Not old blends.
• 1:01:30
  So don't do that because there's too many of us trying to bet on
• 1:01:33
  the same, oh, 19. 70s Valentine's.
• 1:01:35
  Johnny Walker's 90s Black. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:38
  That's fascinating. I mean when you look at when you
• 1:01:42
  when you look at doing your blends and you look at like your
• 1:01:44
  Dalgety brand and stuff like that as well.
• 1:01:46
  How important is that consistency that you want to try
• 1:01:49
  and get? Because once you start going up
• 1:01:50
  in scale really, I mean, this is what's beautiful about this, is
• 1:01:53
  that there'll be anyone now. Did you say it's a sort of tawny
• 1:01:57
  colour labels? Yes, a tawny coloured label.
• 1:02:00
  So anyone knows now that if they see that brand with the with
• 1:02:03
  that label, it's come from one of these three casts.
• 1:02:05
  And the beauty of it is, is as you've said this, we're trying
• 1:02:08
  at the moment the best. But you it's six months time,
• 1:02:11
  you could be, you know, we'll be back.
• 1:02:12
  And overall, yeah, you just don't know.
• 1:02:15
  But that's what's nice is inconsistent.
• 1:02:16
  But when you look at your Dalgati products or your other
• 1:02:19
  products that you use for your blends and things like that, how
• 1:02:22
  important is it that you try and keep that consistency?
• 1:02:25
  Are you quite happy being a little bit more inconsistent
• 1:02:27
  with that? We can't be a consistent, so we
• 1:02:30
  don't aim to be a consistent. We just, we want it to be good
• 1:02:34
  quality, yeah, but we don't want the flavours to always.
• 1:02:36
  But did you say as well that do you age any air blends?
• 1:02:39
  Or we acquire age blends and we'll we'll bottle them when we
• 1:02:43
  feel they're ready. Because that's how if you're
• 1:02:45
  making your own blend as opposed to challenge.
• 1:02:47
  We make our own like the the blended malt.
• 1:02:49
  Yeah, we make that ourselves. And do you chase an age
• 1:02:51
  statement or do you just rather chase?
• 1:02:52
  Quality or just depends what what components you've got.
• 1:02:55
  Yeah, because that would be the difficult thing is that that's
• 1:02:57
  The thing is it's, it's nice to say.
• 1:02:58
  It's nice to hear that it's all flavour lead.
• 1:03:00
  Well, yeah, we, but it's easy to say we want a 10 year old blend,
• 1:03:03
  right. But The thing is try you might
• 1:03:05
  even get a really good batch of casks where you can get 10 years
• 1:03:08
  old, Yeah. And get that out at that point.
• 1:03:10
  But let's just say 2 years down the line you start to say, well,
• 1:03:12
  we can't get the same quality of liquid at that age anymore.
• 1:03:16
  And also the the forward thinking that you would have to
• 1:03:19
  do to be able to do that. Do your European partners like
• 1:03:21
  these products as well? Do they like the brilliant
• 1:03:23
  products and something a bit different or is it mostly single
• 1:03:25
  cash business? I think they're they're always
• 1:03:27
  looking for difference. That's probably the same reason
• 1:03:29
  why they don't reorder historic things.
• 1:03:31
  If there's happens to be leftover releases from previous
• 1:03:35
  outruns, they're always wanting something that's different from
• 1:03:39
  before. It's the same that many people
• 1:03:41
  when they get whiskey, they want to brag about a story.
• 1:03:44
  They want to say, well, this is different because it's got that
• 1:03:46
  to it. And I suppose as well, when you
• 1:03:48
  go to like you go to the sort of European market and stuff.
• 1:03:52
  I remember Ben Callow talking about show to Ben, actually this
• 1:03:55
  podcast. Just moved to brave new spirit.
• 1:03:57
  Yeah, exactly. Well, he, he, he told us a story
• 1:03:59
  about, I think we might have been Germany or we might have
• 1:04:01
  been over in Scandinavia or something with that.
• 1:04:04
  The interesting thing about being that they are.
• 1:04:07
  Everything. A single car.
• 1:04:08
  A single car and basically they were doing a tasting and or they
• 1:04:12
  were at a festival or whatever, I can't remember what it was a
• 1:04:14
  taste at a festival. And the guy basically said, I
• 1:04:16
  absolutely love this. How much of you like I, I want
• 1:04:19
  to buy as much as I possibly can now.
• 1:04:21
  We'll literally have two boxes left in the country because
• 1:04:24
  we've sold and you just went out take it.
• 1:04:26
  And they were like, well, that's the that's it.
• 1:04:28
  It's gone and once it's gone, it's gone.
• 1:04:29
  So I suppose I mean, you're talking about bottlings.
• 1:04:32
  How many bottles would you normally have in a, in a run?
• 1:04:35
  You know what would you be looking at 300 most or would it
• 1:04:37
  be it? Varies from I suppose the casks.
• 1:04:40
  I mean, I would like us to be able to do it, but like we've
• 1:04:42
  bottled in our last outrun for Q1, we brought Kalila in here
• 1:04:47
  and we were thinking it wasn't even going to make the outrun
• 1:04:50
  because it was just a refill hoggy and there was only 140 odd
• 1:04:54
  bottles in it because it leaked. But because of that leaking, it
• 1:04:58
  means that there's been a lot of air in the cast and the stuff
• 1:05:00
  just tastes great. So we balled it.
• 1:05:02
  But then yes, 140 balls. So that's easy to shift.
• 1:05:05
  But certainly if you've got, if you've got an importer saying
• 1:05:07
  right, how much have you got that?
• 1:05:08
  Now there's always the element of I don't know how well this
• 1:05:10
  could sell. You're some people, you could be
• 1:05:12
  the half the glass half empty, the glass half full.
• 1:05:15
  Someone might say, yeah, well, you know, I don't know if I'll
• 1:05:17
  be able to sell or you say, well, yeah.
• 1:05:19
  But listen, if you do and you don't take enough, then you're
• 1:05:22
  going to have people disappointed because once these
• 1:05:24
  140 bottles have gone, yeah, they're gone.
• 1:05:26
  And that's the gamble if. You look by just on the camera
• 1:05:28
  for sorry for audio listeners, there is the octaves you can
• 1:05:31
  just see behind you, Graham. I mean, and I'm somebody that
• 1:05:35
  you mentioned George's Poonie, for example, fragrance Poonie.
• 1:05:38
  I see PX octave from an accelerator I've not had before.
• 1:05:40
  I'm going to go for that. I don't care what age it is
• 1:05:42
  because the octave accelerates that match just like you're
• 1:05:45
  Speaking of the clear. I have loads air in the cask.
• 1:05:47
  You never know what you're going to get, but you know it's going
• 1:05:49
  to be tasty. It's great to see such a variety
• 1:05:51
  of casks in a space. And that must make it easier for
• 1:05:53
  you as well, because I mean, how many bottles could you get out
• 1:05:55
  of an octave? Depends who filled it. 50 or
• 1:06:01
  something like that. Yeah, but that's a quick like
• 1:06:04
  and also like, I suppose from being able to, as you'd already
• 1:06:07
  mentioned, you know, you could take a a hog's head and you
• 1:06:09
  could split it. Well, we stopped offering
• 1:06:12
  octaves out to customers because importers were getting
• 1:06:16
  frustrated because if you're offering an octave out to 10
• 1:06:19
  importers, they all want like 40 bottles and you're like, well,
• 1:06:23
  there's only 50. And then the guy who wakes up in
• 1:06:26
  the morning gets price lessons like, Oh yeah, I'll get that
• 1:06:29
  octave that's already sold. So we now just offer them as
• 1:06:33
  exclusives. Apart from we did the sewing
• 1:06:36
  series, which was like a Halloween themed series of casks
• 1:06:40
  that we did. So they were all octave releases
• 1:06:45
  and we'd we'd worked on that. The artwork was by Mr. Shand
• 1:06:49
  Shandy man. Oh wow.
• 1:06:50
  So he did them and each, each, each release had like a story,
• 1:06:55
  some sort of fable to do with where the distillery is.
• 1:06:57
  But it's it's. Appropriate that one of your
• 1:06:59
  brands named after a ghost, you'd do a brand that's
• 1:07:02
  Halloween I. Thought Stevens artwork was just
• 1:07:05
  that incredible. And he does the Blind Summit
• 1:07:07
  labels as well as Hazard. Oh, right.
• 1:07:10
  We went to, well, we were at the Fife Whiskey Festival instead,
• 1:07:13
  Steven had a room with just his artwork and he had artwork of
• 1:07:16
  the Tama Shanter. And I was like, that's
• 1:07:19
  brilliant, Steven. I'd love to see that on a
• 1:07:21
  bottle. And I bought the the, the
• 1:07:24
  picture itself. And we got in touch with Steven
• 1:07:27
  said, all right, this is what we want to do.
• 1:07:29
  And we set, we just basically worked together, decided what
• 1:07:33
  octaves we're going to release and they're all different.
• 1:07:35
  He did the artwork, came up with the stories, and yeah, we we did
• 1:07:40
  that forum last year. I think that's fun.
• 1:07:42
  Getting to art. And well, you see the.
• 1:07:44
  Specialising whiskey labels. It's cool because that's
• 1:07:46
  forever. Yeah, it's really interesting.
• 1:07:48
  Well, it's getting remarkably cooler in here, so I think we
• 1:07:50
  wanna go and see what the we've had.
• 1:07:52
  I think it's opening a bun. We've had them pour things out
• 1:07:54
  of the out of the cast. And we visited Scotland's only
• 1:07:57
  salera. There we go, by the way.
• 1:07:58
  What do you think of the Whiskey Lads?
• 1:08:00
  Whiskey's. Absolutely.
• 1:08:00
  Isn't it? Isn't it?
• 1:08:02
  And this is you said we obviously we don't know.
• 1:08:04
  That's not a calculated strength, but drinks well or
• 1:08:07
  whatever it's at. I mean, that's, that's
• 1:08:09
  independent bottlers adding value at the end of the day
• 1:08:11
  because that that is just when that's coming out of that cast,
• 1:08:15
  that's that's clear. So all that colour, flavour.
• 1:08:19
  Something genuinely unique. Thanks for sharing.
• 1:08:21
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:08:24
  OK, so here we are in the bottling hall, We've been in the
• 1:08:28
  the Dunwich warehouse. We've we've sampled a couple of
• 1:08:31
  fantastic drams at the casks, but we're here now.
• 1:08:33
  This is probably where a lot of your work actually happens,
• 1:08:37
  Gregor. Actually, it's not, no, I mean
• 1:08:40
  they're working. A lot somebody else's job
• 1:08:42
  happens here. There's a lot of other folk,
• 1:08:44
  well, they're Gavin and Alex, they, they're working here and
• 1:08:47
  follow help out as well. And Sarah McMahon, my
• 1:08:50
  sister-in-law, used to come in and help as well.
• 1:08:53
  But this is the original unit that we first acquired and the
• 1:08:56
  annex is something that happened after a couple of years when
• 1:08:59
  those units were built. So really we had about 3200
• 1:09:03
  casks and this is we would bring in like maybe 20 casks here and
• 1:09:08
  we would just monitor them then bottle them.
• 1:09:10
  But as you can tell, like this place is pretty small and yeah,
• 1:09:15
  but this is where it started. And The thing is, space is
• 1:09:17
  something I'm going back to my warehousing chat here, but space
• 1:09:20
  is something that a lot of people take.
• 1:09:21
  You don't realise just how much space you need because as well
• 1:09:24
  as it's one thing everyone thinks like, oh, we need to
• 1:09:25
  stop. We need storage space for our
• 1:09:27
  cast. But you've also like Terminated.
• 1:09:30
  Dry goods. Dry goods.
• 1:09:31
  That's it. Down my There you go.
• 1:09:32
  Because you need you need where are you going to keep all your
• 1:09:34
  boxes? Where are you going to keep all
• 1:09:35
  your empty bottles? Where are you going to keep your
• 1:09:36
  corks, your labels, all that kind of stuff.
• 1:09:38
  And then, of course, where are you going to keep your bottles
• 1:09:40
  once they've got liquid in them as well.
• 1:09:42
  Yeah. So you know, this is this is
• 1:09:44
  probably like you say, it's, it's a busy old place, but
• 1:09:46
  behind you, you have it. So it's a hand bottling machine,
• 1:09:49
  is it? Yeah.
• 1:09:49
  So this thing could survive a nuclear blast.
• 1:09:51
  So I mean, it's pretty common about independent bottling
• 1:09:55
  industry. It's just like a forehand
• 1:09:57
  bottler. And what would it take?
• 1:09:58
  Not roughly so. So like we're going to go
• 1:10:00
  through the technical, but hopefully camera, I hope.
• 1:10:02
  We don't get too technical. Like some of this I'm not so I
• 1:10:06
  so you would empty the casks into a drum like this I think.
• 1:10:10
  I'm going to bring. The camera in a little bit, 2
• 1:10:12
  seconds. Bring the camera in a little bit
• 1:10:14
  closer so we can see this because this is quite, quite
• 1:10:17
  interesting. So you've got this.
• 1:10:20
  Hang on. That's you.
• 1:10:21
  Hi. I'm just I had it.
• 1:10:22
  I need to see, I need to see what I'm actually recording
• 1:10:25
  here. So you've got this kind of drum
• 1:10:27
  here. Well, that you'll empty the cask
• 1:10:30
  into that. Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  So we'll cask here. Yeah, we'll pump it through this
• 1:10:36
  and then. So this so you don't actually
• 1:10:38
  need to like pick the cask up effectively and pour it in, no.
• 1:10:43
  This is actually meant to move, but what ends up happening is
• 1:10:46
  you just sort of just sort of stays there.
• 1:10:48
  There's no SO. That, but that pumps out that.
• 1:10:50
  So does that. Is that just a big sucker?
• 1:10:52
  Yeah, pretty much right. But what it does?
• 1:10:55
  Yeah, it's a technical term. There's a big sucker, it'll suck
• 1:11:00
  the whiskey out and and where does that then go?
• 1:11:02
  So it'll go through this filter so that stops like the big
• 1:11:05
  chunks of char and then it'll go through this and it'll go
• 1:11:08
  through another filtration stage and then it'll come out these,
• 1:11:13
  which are all these all set to fill levels.
• 1:11:17
  So because of the differences in viscosity that you've got with
• 1:11:21
  whiskey, we'll actually measure it and and this and set the
• 1:11:25
  level and then we'll pour that into a Lady of the Glen bottle
• 1:11:29
  and then we'll get all of these to fill to the same level.
• 1:11:32
  Now, you were going to let us have a shot at this, but you saw
• 1:11:35
  Angus with the with the cask and you thought I'm not letting him
• 1:11:38
  anywhere. Yeah, don't think we're.
• 1:11:40
  Insured just like anyone. Just.
• 1:11:43
  I mean, that's probably safe and the.
• 1:11:44
  Whiskey Studies podcast isn't insured for him either so but
• 1:11:48
  yeah so. But what we do have is one of
• 1:11:50
  something that you just recently bottled and something that's.
• 1:11:53
  So this is getting coming out the Thursday.
• 1:11:56
  There's a wee event going on. You're here soon, yes?
• 1:11:58
  Well, we are in fight and you know what, Angus?
• 1:12:00
  We are celebrating a year since we worked.
• 1:12:04
  Yes, our first ever. We've done it, We completed it.
• 1:12:06
  We did 5W festival last year. We were buying women.
• 1:12:09
  Yeah, with us. I was.
• 1:12:12
  We roped into it. It was.
• 1:12:14
  It was fantastic, a great day. Great day was.
• 1:12:16
  Really enjoyed it was it was great.
• 1:12:19
  Chatting to people, talking to people about a distillery I had
• 1:12:22
  to learn about on the way. To the 5W wise.
• 1:12:24
  Ago but he's. Went from going to your first
• 1:12:26
  festival five months prior to that to being behind the
• 1:12:29
  standard first ever. Yeah, first, my first ever was,
• 1:12:31
  I think we're using yours as well.
• 1:12:33
  First ever, it was Edinburgh Whiskey.
• 1:12:34
  It was my first, Yeah. So I was 2023, Edinburgh Whiskey
• 1:12:37
  Festival 23 before we decided to do a podcast.
• 1:12:39
  We were talking a lot. About we were we were
• 1:12:41
  researching we. Were doing a lot of research and
• 1:12:43
  then from that point on that we started the podcast in November
• 1:12:47
  and then by March last year we were we were behind exhibiting
• 1:12:52
  stand yeah at the at the festival.
• 1:12:55
  It was great. It was really, really, really
• 1:12:56
  good fun. And actually, you know what?
• 1:12:57
  I'm we're, I'm missing the Fife Whiskey Festival this year.
• 1:13:01
  I'm gutted to be missing it because I'll be working, but.
• 1:13:04
  But it's safe to say Lady, Lady, the Glen will be there.
• 1:13:06
  Will you be there, Gregor? I won't, actually.
• 1:13:08
  I'm hosting a tasting here. Yes, it's Charlie Topher.
• 1:13:12
  So we're doing our chatting. Yeah, so Mark Davidson, Jolly
• 1:13:14
  Topher. Guest of the pods for.
• 1:13:16
  The pod, but you're you're hosting a tasting right here in
• 1:13:20
  the warehouse. So if you're watching this pod
• 1:13:21
  and you think, ah, fantastic, what I've heard about fantastic,
• 1:13:25
  what I've seen, I want to come here.
• 1:13:27
  As we speak, you can as we can. I think it's less to come here.
• 1:13:30
  And but not not are you paying really?
• 1:13:32
  You're donating because it's a charity tasting, is that right?
• 1:13:34
  Yeah, so it's for the charity Love Oliver, which is a Kirkcati
• 1:13:37
  based charity that helps kids with diagnosed with cancer.
• 1:13:41
  Yeah, it's a great 'cause I mean, we actually had a lot of
• 1:13:43
  people who have done, you know, you hear a lot about charity
• 1:13:46
  whiskey tastings. Yeah, we've done there's,
• 1:13:50
  there's been a few different, different people that have just
• 1:13:52
  associated, you know, whiskey tasting could cause and stuff
• 1:13:55
  that. So how, how does a whiskey
• 1:13:57
  tasting go here? What what are you looking at
• 1:13:59
  doing here? What would the sort of process
• 1:14:00
  be for somebody coming along? Well, just to be clear, we will
• 1:14:03
  be at the Fife Whiskey Festival. Will be Paulo be at the stand?
• 1:14:05
  Yeah, but if we're for the Jolly Topher taste and Mark's going to
• 1:14:09
  come in and he's actually just going to pick casks and.
• 1:14:14
  He's going, so he is he coming before or?
• 1:14:16
  He's coming before for a couple hours.
• 1:14:18
  And then he might be steamed by the time.
• 1:14:21
  I'm hoping he'll be, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:14:24
  Yeah, but he'll be picking them and then we'll be presenting.
• 1:14:28
  Them so it'll be stuff from your warehouse, fresh fresh.
• 1:14:32
  Where can people get? Tickets if they are.
• 1:14:34
  Still available when this comes out, yeah.
• 1:14:36
  So you can get them on the website, but we're also allowing
• 1:14:38
  folk we'll draw the samples and we can post them to you.
• 1:14:42
  Oh. Brilliant.
• 1:14:43
  Cool on the Monday. Oh cool, so.
• 1:14:45
  Lady, they'll end up got that on your website.
• 1:14:47
  Yeah, you just say if in the where you're buying a ticket
• 1:14:50
  that can I get these posted? Yeah.
• 1:14:52
  So I've got. One or two folk that are doing.
• 1:14:53
  That's great because I mean, and the thing about Jolly Topher
• 1:14:55
  Mark Davidson's taste is they're always blind.
• 1:14:58
  There's always a different story as well class or anything with
• 1:15:01
  him and so the fact that this will be blind the.
• 1:15:05
  Fact that he was also involved in your story so early on, yeah,
• 1:15:08
  you know, that's a real, real. He's really, I'll be a blind
• 1:15:11
  tasting effect because you because even at this very moment
• 1:15:13
  as we're recording us on the Wednesday.
• 1:15:15
  Yeah, Mark won't know what he's picking.
• 1:15:17
  Yeah, he'll probably. Well, I've seen.
• 1:15:18
  Us, he'll have like an idea like he's, he's already told me that
• 1:15:21
  he wants certain things and we've got that in the warehouse,
• 1:15:25
  so we should be nice. And of course, the Fife Whiskey
• 1:15:28
  Festival. You will.
• 1:15:28
  Paul will be there. Your brand ambassador will be
• 1:15:30
  there. But also doing warehouse tastes
• 1:15:32
  and two sessions on the Sunday. As brilliant.
• 1:15:36
  So what we have for this year is an inch Darnie that you're
• 1:15:39
  releasing Finn Glasser, 1 of 161 bottles six years old, 59.7%.
• 1:15:47
  This looks like a belter. So this this this would be I
• 1:15:50
  have never tried any liquid from inch Darnie before Ross.
• 1:15:53
  I don't know. We're taking, we're taking your.
• 1:15:55
  Virginity, Angus. 5 distillery. What region does it have on it?
• 1:15:58
  That's a good question. Where does it say Region Fife?
• 1:16:03
  Oh my goodness. Are you fighting the fly?
• 1:16:05
  Must be a typo on that. I mean.
• 1:16:09
  Also how good does the bottle look lads, isn't it great?
• 1:16:11
  Do you know what I? Mean, are you going to have the
• 1:16:13
  southwest down your neck for doing that or so it's?
• 1:16:15
  A typing error a. Typing error that's someone made
• 1:16:19
  a mistake. That's terrible, terrible
• 1:16:21
  mistakes. But the thing about that is
• 1:16:22
  what's the artwork on there? Is that just?
• 1:16:24
  That's the Fife We're Safe festival.
• 1:16:26
  No go. So we we do all the labels here,
• 1:16:29
  but we can only do them in black.
• 1:16:30
  So it's very much like the Ford Motor Company of.
• 1:16:33
  You can have it in any colour but black.
• 1:16:34
  And we've got the notes from your team, so we have log ash,
• 1:16:38
  powdered sugar, and lemon sponge whenever I see powdered sugar on
• 1:16:42
  a whiskey. So that sounds like a bit mean.
• 1:16:44
  You're a bit Graham, really, I think.
• 1:16:45
  I think for you this is a very special moment because you're
• 1:16:47
  about to try a whiskey. From your region it.
• 1:16:50
  Is labeled 5. Well, I think.
• 1:16:52
  It's A and it will be my first single malt from them.
• 1:16:55
  It will definitely be my first single malt from.
• 1:16:57
  It's special for us as well. Well for myself because that's
• 1:17:00
  the I bought that as new spirit from the distillery.
• 1:17:02
  Did you? So that's been matured and cast
• 1:17:04
  that. For.
• 1:17:07
  That we picked. That's fantastic.
• 1:17:09
  I'm just trying to go back. I'm trying to find the the
• 1:17:12
  episode where we went up to Edmouth.
• 1:17:14
  There we go. 29th of January 2024.
• 1:17:18
  We did that. We did an episode up at Eden
• 1:17:20
  Milk. Technically it was our first
• 1:17:21
  ever distillery trip, although the distillery was just a hole
• 1:17:25
  in the ground with some fencing around and it was in the evening
• 1:17:27
  so we couldn't see it. But at that, on that night,
• 1:17:31
  we've said we're going to. I'm sure plenty of other people
• 1:17:34
  have done it, and I know that the Fife Whiskey Festival will
• 1:17:36
  play the big part of that, but we sort of said we're going to
• 1:17:38
  plant the flag and say if A5 should have a lot of regions.
• 1:17:41
  Status. Big.
• 1:17:42
  Enough. You've got a lot of celeries.
• 1:17:43
  That's for. Sure, the Kingdom, I guess.
• 1:17:45
  But the 5W festival glasses. Thanks for sharing it with us.
• 1:17:50
  Thank you very much. Absolute.
• 1:17:51
  Pleasure. And it's probably that point of
• 1:17:54
  the podcast. Alright, well.
• 1:17:56
  Well, have a wee taste, have a wee sniff at stuff at score it,
• 1:17:59
  see what you think. That's lovely.
• 1:18:03
  That's, that's got 5 right through it.
• 1:18:06
  I mean, I think if you can ever taste, I mean there's probably 2
• 1:18:09
  days. Boldran, isn't it?
• 1:18:10
  There's two reasons that you can really taste Isla and Fife.
• 1:18:13
  I would say soon as I had my lips, I knew that was that was.
• 1:18:16
  You're still pretending to like peated whiskey, so this would be
• 1:18:19
  right up your street. Lovely.
• 1:18:20
  In fact, that must be a very nice.
• 1:18:22
  That's been really farmyardy. Definitely fine and there's.
• 1:18:26
  Not many. There can't be many, if any,
• 1:18:28
  peated. Lowland Whiskey's.
• 1:18:30
  Well, Fife could actually look in the.
• 1:18:33
  I don't know if it's blended malt or if it's just they put it
• 1:18:37
  in Isle of Isles, but they're bladnik to the peted.
• 1:18:39
  Bladnik have done peted. How about Fife from Fife there?
• 1:18:42
  From Fife? Probably not.
• 1:18:43
  Mine, this will be the this will be the last.
• 1:18:46
  And is there any other distilleries?
• 1:18:47
  Well, Eden. King King's Barns have played
• 1:18:49
  around with some interesting stuff.
• 1:18:50
  Still to start producing new spirit from their new
• 1:18:53
  distillery. Although Eden though, we've had
• 1:18:55
  whiskey. Actually worked in Eden Mill
• 1:18:57
  distillery for before I did my masters at uni.
• 1:18:59
  I worked in 3 distilleries for a day just to see how
• 1:19:02
  distillation. Works.
• 1:19:03
  What were the few distilleries? So Tilly Barden.
• 1:19:05
  Yeah. Eden Mill and Glasgow
• 1:19:07
  Distillery. There you go.
• 1:19:09
  Can't believe you've left it to this part of the blood test.
• 1:19:12
  It sounds like we've got a second episode.
• 1:19:14
  Was that? Just what was that before you
• 1:19:17
  started your university? That was when I I so I did my
• 1:19:19
  masters at head at what right I did.
• 1:19:21
  Brewing. What was that something so?
• 1:19:22
  That would have been, what, four or five years ago, right?
• 1:19:26
  So I've also worked at Eden Mill Distillery.
• 1:19:28
  Yeah. Was that where Paul Miller and
• 1:19:31
  Scott Ferguson? Couldn't I tell you, but I did
• 1:19:32
  all their forklift training for a week and at one point and I'll
• 1:19:36
  tell you and. He wondered why he was so into
• 1:19:37
  warehouses. Gregor.
• 1:19:38
  This is a true story. I was actually doing that and it
• 1:19:41
  was, I don't think, in fact, I tell you what, they hadn't.
• 1:19:45
  They didn't have whiskey yet. They were still put it spirit
• 1:19:48
  into casks at that time and turned up for a week, and it was
• 1:19:52
  at that time as well very small distillery in the old place
• 1:19:55
  where it was. And stuff that they had.
• 1:19:58
  And they were still hand bottling bottles of beer and
• 1:20:00
  still a lot of beer and stuff like that.
• 1:20:01
  And the thing was when I was doing the taste that was a it
• 1:20:04
  was glorious summer. It was in the summertime.
• 1:20:05
  So you're up in Saint Andrews, lovely part of the world, and
• 1:20:08
  you're at a brewery distillery. They're making gin, whiskey and
• 1:20:12
  and beer at the same time. And there's a very loose
• 1:20:15
  everyone was coming and going and stuff like that.
• 1:20:17
  So I was easy going, right. So I was like, at a time I knew
• 1:20:20
  I had to get people ought through the training course,
• 1:20:22
  but. If they had to go away and do
• 1:20:23
  something, then we'd have to go and do it.
• 1:20:25
  And at one point I probably wasn't assured.
• 1:20:27
  So I'll deny this. I'll deny this if it ever comes
• 1:20:31
  to light. But at one point they didn't
• 1:20:33
  have the person who was actually qualified to drive the forklift
• 1:20:36
  to move the yeast on the pallet to where it needed to go to get
• 1:20:39
  emptied in. And they were like, well, we've
• 1:20:41
  got nobody else. And I said, well, I could do it
• 1:20:43
  because I'm qualified forklift instructor and driver.
• 1:20:45
  So that's what I did. So I can't officially say I have
• 1:20:48
  worked and the distillation process at the distillery and
• 1:20:52
  that was? That's really reaching.
• 1:20:53
  Yeah oh reaching high 6 beers. Yeah, yeah, you have.
• 1:20:59
  You have moved presumably powdered yeast for for Eden
• 1:21:02
  Mill. On on a but it went into where
• 1:21:05
  it needed to go, like into the the air I went.
• 1:21:09
  Come on. Come on, Malting was going to
• 1:21:13
  the mash. No, no, the fermentation tank.
• 1:21:18
  Might have went into fermentation.
• 1:21:19
  That's. What it was, it was the ferment.
• 1:21:21
  I remember it now. I had to go up into the
• 1:21:23
  fermentation tank to get there. They didn't have anyone to take
• 1:21:25
  it in there. So there you go.
• 1:21:26
  But this is absolutely delightful.
• 1:21:28
  Now will this be one of the 1st single malts from Inch?
• 1:21:33
  Darn. A distillery that's out for
• 1:21:35
  that, people can get home. Yeah, there's been a few.
• 1:21:36
  James CD have. Done.
• 1:21:37
  Yeah, there's been a couple of thin glasses.
• 1:21:40
  Bottled really really solid. Really nice, very light and
• 1:21:43
  easy. It's big and it's bold and it's
• 1:21:44
  exactly what a big belt of a festival should have from a
• 1:21:47
  great but then. But like I say, this will be the
• 1:21:49
  last five distillery that's built where you're getting new,
• 1:21:52
  new whiskey out of it now, isn't it?
• 1:21:55
  As I say, Eden Mills, well, they.
• 1:21:57
  Produce. Yeah.
• 1:21:57
  The new place hasn't, but then Lindo or.
• 1:21:59
  A pleasure one 161 bottles for the festival only.
• 1:22:02
  We know that's gonna be a massive success at the festival
• 1:22:04
  as well. Super hope it is, yeah.
• 1:22:06
  And you've got somebody there at that.
• 1:22:08
  And we'll have Justine Hazelhurst coming on.
• 1:22:10
  Alex. Will be nice and good luck to
• 1:22:11
  everybody. It's a great, great fest.
• 1:22:13
  Enjoy yourselves, it's a tough Fife whiskey festival
• 1:22:15
  responsibly. Absolutely.
• 1:22:17
  Fife was it. The Fife Whiskey Festival was
• 1:22:19
  designed for small people, remember?
• 1:22:21
  That's what Justine's right. Yeah, she's a designer Whiskey.
• 1:22:25
  Granny gone. So this is fantastic and people
• 1:22:29
  can still can people buy this online if it's not already sold
• 1:22:33
  out at the. You need to see Justine it.
• 1:22:35
  Yeah. That's who's selling it.
• 1:22:36
  We can speak to Justine next. Week well worth it absolutely
• 1:22:40
  well worth it Now she only. Wanted 3 bottles and I said you
• 1:22:42
  need to speak to Justine. I love that I've not even.
• 1:22:45
  Got it. Yeah.
• 1:22:45
  But it's that time of the podcast where we do ask our
• 1:22:47
  guests for what 3 drams, any 3 whiskies that have any sort of
• 1:22:51
  special meaning or anything towards that story associated
• 1:22:54
  with them. So Gregor, what are your, what,
• 1:22:56
  3 Drams? So my dad is obviously a huge
• 1:23:00
  inspiration for me being in search so and I'll always
• 1:23:04
  pronounce this wrong, but his favorite was his Glenn Moranji
• 1:23:08
  or Glenn Moranji. Yeah, as I got in trouble once
• 1:23:11
  he's he got a 10 year old Glenn Moranji, which was a rugby.
• 1:23:17
  Grand Slam. DRAM, slam, DRAM.
• 1:23:19
  Ally Baxter mentioned that's been mentioned on the Yeah,
• 1:23:21
  Ally. Baxter's got one.
• 1:23:22
  It's a Grand Slam DRAM. Yeah, so he was saying he he
• 1:23:26
  poured it. From Was this from a piping gig?
• 1:23:27
  He. Must have got it as a piping
• 1:23:29
  gig. And he said to him, and do you
• 1:23:31
  think that's what do you think it is?
• 1:23:32
  That's like, I don't know, space out Thailand.
• 1:23:35
  He's like, oh, it's 10 year old and it's that.
• 1:23:39
  And it's like how you kept this so long and just opened it.
• 1:23:42
  It's like, well I top it up with 10 year old.
• 1:23:49
  It was the same. It was the same.
• 1:23:51
  Context And actually so so and what I'd like, I like.
• 1:23:53
  Bob, I like that. How have you not opened your?
• 1:23:56
  Well, I did, but it's the same like.
• 1:23:58
  Well, it's the ball. It's the ball.
• 1:23:59
  It's the ball. It's special.
• 1:24:00
  Yeah. I want to shout to Bob Cutting
• 1:24:02
  here after wearing it. And it's very appropriate for
• 1:24:04
  anyone for the context of that bottle then.
• 1:24:06
  So in 1990, it was the last time Scotland won the Grand Slam of
• 1:24:09
  the Five Nations. And it was a real big sort of
• 1:24:12
  moment in Scottish sport, I should, I should say, because at
• 1:24:14
  the time England were the England were the white and the
• 1:24:17
  white, literally white and white rugby team.
• 1:24:20
  They would, they beat every single team by a country mile.
• 1:24:24
  And Scotland managed to just trudge their way through the the
• 1:24:27
  Five Nations back then before Italy part of it.
• 1:24:29
  And it all came to a final game between Scotland and England at
• 1:24:34
  Murrayfield. And there are so many we iconic
• 1:24:36
  things. So I think that 1990 was the
• 1:24:38
  first time Flower of Scotland had ever been used as the as the
• 1:24:41
  national anthem in Scotland. So that I sent them homewards to
• 1:24:45
  think again. I know all these kind of
• 1:24:46
  references. They have great David Souls.
• 1:24:50
  Slow walk on the part. Time it was a slow walk.
• 1:24:53
  The March on they called it. It was basically the goosebumps.
• 1:24:57
  But but basically you had the the the rugby players just used
• 1:25:00
  to run out to the crowd and the England teams or the Scotland
• 1:25:03
  and England team are kind of lined up and the England team
• 1:25:05
  ran out and David saw the captain of Scotland just walked
• 1:25:08
  them out. And I think you've got what's
• 1:25:10
  Bill McLaren, the iconic rugby voice of rugby.
• 1:25:13
  You know, he's saying about this is, you know, marching his men
• 1:25:16
  out to battle. And I believe like even that
• 1:25:19
  there's a great doctor elementary about it.
• 1:25:20
  And they talk about the the first the the the ball was
• 1:25:24
  kicked, Scotland kicked off an English player caught it and
• 1:25:27
  they went into a mole and they said like the fists, but it just
• 1:25:30
  went flying at that point. But but Scotland weren't like,
• 1:25:32
  and there was also politically as well, without going too deep
• 1:25:35
  in it, but like the poll tax was going on between Thatcher and
• 1:25:38
  all this kind of stuff Scotland. So there was a real so that
• 1:25:41
  bottle has a nerve. No, no, but that that boss,
• 1:25:44
  massive, massive, you know, but what I love is.
• 1:25:46
  A bit. I meant a lot to your dad that.
• 1:25:48
  Would have done would have done iconic bottle whiskey the Grand
• 1:25:51
  Slam DRAM. Yeah, last time Scott ever won a
• 1:25:53
  Grand Slam in in in rugby 1990. But what's really if What is
• 1:25:57
  your dad just topped up with 10 year old glad world?
• 1:25:59
  Japan. I love it.
• 1:26:00
  Love it, last time at the point of recording.
• 1:26:02
  Last time, well, we're not gonna win the Grand Slam, but you
• 1:26:04
  never know. A lift Doctor Who's real and we
• 1:26:09
  can go back in. Time.
• 1:26:10
  Well, that's it. Yeah.
• 1:26:11
  But so, so that's your, I mean, I mean, you're right in the
• 1:26:15
  sense that your dad's right as well.
• 1:26:16
  And I think that was something that we had mentioned on the
• 1:26:18
  podcast. A great first that.
• 1:26:19
  Bottles up very expensive bottle of whiskey to pick up from a
• 1:26:22
  classic. Point he would have got it as a
• 1:26:24
  gift and I so. But the point of that is it's
• 1:26:27
  still a 10 year old with. One great, great, great first
• 1:26:29
  story. Great, but I love the fact that
• 1:26:30
  you just. Yeah, it's.
• 1:26:32
  Just quite nonchalant about it. Yeah, that's what it's like.
• 1:26:35
  Brilliant. And the second drum then please.
• 1:26:38
  So it'll be, it's not going to have an age or anything, but
• 1:26:41
  Dalwini. I really love Dalwini and that
• 1:26:44
  was the first whiskey single malt I ever had and I remember
• 1:26:47
  getting it. I used to spend New Year's in
• 1:26:50
  the Fennick Hotel, and that's just between Stewart.
• 1:26:55
  And look, what do they call themselves?
• 1:26:57
  The gentle spirit or the gentle drama?
• 1:26:59
  I can't remember. I've driven.
• 1:27:01
  Past that, a bunch of times I've never gone in, but because it
• 1:27:04
  always feels like if I go in and we're stuck there for an hour, I
• 1:27:07
  just want to go on the motorway home.
• 1:27:09
  But don't win it. I would love to bottle it.
• 1:27:11
  I've spoken in many folk in Diageo and they've said no way.
• 1:27:15
  Like we just don't don't release it.
• 1:27:17
  I know North Star they managed to get a cask of it, but I'd
• 1:27:21
  love to buy all our Darwini cask that's.
• 1:27:23
  Just your first, just a drama that you.
• 1:27:25
  Just I. Got it.
• 1:27:26
  I got it. New Year's.
• 1:27:27
  It was my first single malt. It was the first time I really
• 1:27:30
  thought, yeah, I can understand why.
• 1:27:32
  It's why whiskey's special and why it's so part of so key in a
• 1:27:37
  gantry. And it.
• 1:27:39
  Yeah, that was. My, and as Angus alluded to
• 1:27:43
  earlier on, I reckon that might pop up in another future
• 1:27:48
  episode. I'm looking in.
• 1:27:50
  My a master blender maybe? Before, before I came, before I
• 1:27:53
  came on the episode, I'd look at a crystal ball and I reckon, I
• 1:27:57
  reckon that'll be mentioned in a future episode.
• 1:27:59
  Yeah. Well, yeah, I think.
• 1:28:00
  We look at the second time it's ever been mentioned.
• 1:28:03
  Well, no, the first time. This this is the first time.
• 1:28:05
  This is the first time, but the next one will be the second
• 1:28:07
  time. Yeah, believe it or not, you've.
• 1:28:08
  Been licking a crystal ball. There's a nightmare getting out
• 1:28:12
  of the bath. I guess I just crystal balls,
• 1:28:16
  but anyway, only your third. Drum so it has to be the 24 year
• 1:28:20
  old Emma Gordon tasted notes so. This is your.
• 1:28:24
  This is your own brand allowance.
• 1:28:26
  No, that was the first one I've ever released.
• 1:28:28
  Yeah, yeah. That's what.
• 1:28:29
  I mean, yeah, I've got 1 bottle of it.
• 1:28:31
  It's never been opened, so that really special.
• 1:28:34
  The branding at the time is totally different from what it
• 1:28:37
  is now. It's all like, it's got like
• 1:28:39
  Scottish tartan and stuff on it. You can barely read where what
• 1:28:42
  the selling it's from, but it's really special.
• 1:28:46
  I was really surprised to get it because it was 24 years old and
• 1:28:50
  being naive about Scotch, I was like why?
• 1:28:53
  Why is it so cheap? Yeah, so I mean stick learning
• 1:28:57
  curve, but my spirit was great. Really lucky to get it.
• 1:29:01
  It was probably, in my view, tasted better than the Ben
• 1:29:04
  Renners, yeah. And definitely a better decision
• 1:29:07
  than buying a car. Yeah.
• 1:29:09
  I mean, I, it's, I mean to, to, to, to be able to like get your
• 1:29:14
  first cast, get it into a bottle and then have people, other
• 1:29:17
  people buying and, and drinking it as well.
• 1:29:18
  And do you get, I mean, have you ever come across a bottle of it
• 1:29:23
  floating around someplace? Have you ever seen it out in the
• 1:29:25
  wild as such? No, sometimes I go and I'll look
• 1:29:28
  on like Reddit and see what people, what people have said
• 1:29:33
  about reviews in the past, or I'll look at like old releases
• 1:29:36
  and see if there's any feedback. But those ones, because they
• 1:29:40
  were the first, don't really see anything.
• 1:29:42
  So there was them. Little Mills and Cappardonics
• 1:29:45
  again, hardly ever don't see them.
• 1:29:48
  I mean, I'd love to think so. Shout out to we've mentioned
• 1:29:51
  already Scott Moore, our American brand ambassador, but
• 1:29:54
  he calls them like dusty hunting over in the States where he'll
• 1:29:57
  cross state lines to find. Yeah, but in the back of the
• 1:30:02
  show. The reason we talked earlier on
• 1:30:04
  about these videos that we did was Ross actually spotted on the
• 1:30:06
  back bar of his. He was doing his, what, 3 drams?
• 1:30:09
  He took a photo and Ross spotted like a independently bottled N
• 1:30:12
  British from a bottler that's no longer in existence anymore.
• 1:30:15
  And Ross, can I? How the hell do you get that in
• 1:30:17
  Memphis? Yeah.
• 1:30:18
  And I just love the idea that maybe one day Scott Moore's
• 1:30:20
  going to come across an old like that look, that's Lady of the
• 1:30:24
  Glen, but it doesn't look like Lady of the Glen that.
• 1:30:25
  Yeah. And it'll be one of those early,
• 1:30:27
  early bottlings. 'Cause it's like a the brandon's
• 1:30:29
  totally different. It's maybe folk have just not
• 1:30:31
  really. Yeah.
• 1:30:32
  Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for for
• 1:30:34
  having us. It's been brilliant isn't it
• 1:30:36
  lads? Oh, it's really.
• 1:30:37
  I guess we'll. Put you to work.
• 1:30:38
  Cortana I've I've managed to get a bung.
• 1:30:40
  Open at the second attempt, we've.
• 1:30:42
  Tried whiskey straight from the cask?
• 1:30:44
  We'll try. The first time.
• 1:30:44
  Yeah, exclusive. First people to taste this
• 1:30:47
  before the whiskey. First ever sort of bottling at
• 1:30:50
  the house. Absolutely brilliant. 1st what a
• 1:30:52
  treat. It's been and if people want to
• 1:30:54
  keep in contact with you, Greg and Lady Glenn, how do they do
• 1:30:57
  that? So we're on social media, the
• 1:30:59
  usual channels, Instagram, Facebook.
• 1:31:01
  You can also e-mail me if you need to get in.
• 1:31:04
  Touch. I wouldn't.
• 1:31:04
  That's brave. Yeah.
• 1:31:08
  And so for people in the UK as well, a lot of UK listers buying
• 1:31:11
  bottles, best to buy bottles directly from your website or.
• 1:31:14
  No, we'd encourage folk to use retailers.
• 1:31:16
  Retailers and what retailers are you in?
• 1:31:18
  Bottles for? Lady length for.
• 1:31:19
  A few There's a list of stockists on our website.
• 1:31:21
  Nice. Thank you.
• 1:31:22
  Fantastic. Thank you so much for having us
• 1:31:23
  for. Coming.
• 1:31:24
  Here. Really.
• 1:31:25
  Appreciate your time. Yeah.
• 1:31:27
  Well, thanks again for everyone who listens to the Whiskey
• 1:31:28
  Stories podcast. Thanks everyone.
• 1:31:30
  Rick gets involved in the Whiskey Stories Facebook group.
• 1:31:32
  We've mentioned it a few times. It's real.
• 1:31:33
  Really worth it. If you've got a collection that
• 1:31:35
  you want to show off, show us your video.
• 1:31:36
  But you can't put a video up unless you drop in at least
• 1:31:39
  three whiskey stories, tropes, or.
• 1:31:42
  Reference DRAM roll call. Got a DRAM roll call as well?
• 1:31:44
  Please get yourself on the draft weekend DRAM roll call.
• 1:31:47
  Brilliant, really fun. See what people from all over
• 1:31:48
  the world are having a drama on a Friday night.
• 1:31:50
  That's what it's all. About great and and maybe this
• 1:31:52
  Friday I'll remember have a DRAM as well.
• 1:31:54
  And over again as well. There are still as pointed
• 1:31:57
  recording as this is going out. There are still tickets
• 1:31:59
  available for the charity Warehouse tasting with a Jolly
• 1:32:01
  Topper. Here you can get yourself, you
• 1:32:04
  can either buy a ticket and come along or you can get the DRAM
• 1:32:06
  sent out to you. There's also going to be, you
• 1:32:07
  said there was Sunday, Sunday. Sunday sessions for the Fife
• 1:32:10
  Whiskey Festival. Sunday session Fife Whiskey
• 1:32:12
  festival as well. If you're at a loose end, you're
• 1:32:14
  not. We've walked it from the train
• 1:32:16
  station, I. Didn't advise that.
• 1:32:18
  I take away, take away, but it's been.
• 1:32:20
  Put on by the Fife Whiskey Festival.
• 1:32:22
  What is it so the bus there don't forget to pass the pod.
• 1:32:25
  Don't forget we are on YouTube. This will be a good one for the
• 1:32:28
  YouTube. Have a little watch if you're if
• 1:32:30
  you want to see what it actually looks like in a damage
• 1:32:32
  warehouse, what it looks like watching yes, open a bun for the
• 1:32:34
  very, very first time. It's been fantastic.
• 1:32:36
  Thank you so much for having us, Greg.
• 1:32:38
  Guys, we've done it again. Here we go.
• 1:32:39
  We've got a train to catch very shortly, but we're going to
• 1:32:41
  enjoy this. Cheers, cheers.
• 1:32:42
  Cheers, cheers.