Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / A Guide to Scotch Whisky with Scotch Cam and Moa Swedish Whisky Girl

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A Guide to Scotch Whisky with Scotch Cam and Moa Swedish Whisky Girl · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:03
  So quick drum. Steps up above and we're going
• 0:10
  to hear the occasional toilet flush.
• 0:12
  I think that's the game. But if we do run dry whiskey
• 0:19
  right, we're already at Rock'n'roll.
• 0:20
  Yes, yes. Okie, dokie, Angus.
• 0:24
  Oh, I've clap us in. You know what to do.
• 0:25
  Do I need to clap us in now? Yeah, well, it's just a
• 0:28
  tradition. I'd just like to say, I guess
• 0:30
  put my mic down. You know what to do without the
• 0:32
  solid mic. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
• 0:38
  podcast. Last year when I was writing the
• 0:41
  book with Cameron, I was working full time.
• 0:44
  I was doing Swedish Whiskey Girl, which is probably another
• 0:46
  like 2020, five hours a week. I was planning a wedding, Yeah.
• 0:51
  And writing the book. So wow, it was an interesting
• 0:53
  time. This is genuinely my favorite
• 0:56
  whiskey that I've ever tried, really, and I say that very,
• 1:01
  very confidently. I don't know if you can say that
• 1:04
  confidently. Welcome along to the Whiskey
• 1:07
  Stories podcast for myself, Graeme Cogar.
• 1:09
  We are back in the athletic arms, but Angus, we are not
• 1:12
  sandwiched between the gents toilets and the bar.
• 1:15
  We're not in the snug. No, we're, we're going down in
• 1:18
  the world. We are.
• 1:20
  We're in the vaults underneath the diggers.
• 1:22
  We are. We're in the we're.
• 1:24
  Underneath the lobbies. Well, the lobbies actually.
• 1:26
  If you're watching this on their YouTube channel, the toilets are
• 1:28
  just there. The the dugout where we're
• 1:30
  usually sitting is just there. And the bar is someplace up
• 1:33
  there by we're up. We're underground.
• 1:35
  Yeah, we're in where the, the, the, the excess stock is Get.
• 1:39
  Yeah, Kev's trusted us enough to let us into this whiskey store,
• 1:42
  Ross. Clearly doesn't know you very
• 1:44
  well at all. I've actually been down here
• 1:46
  once before with one of our guests today and I can't
• 1:50
  remember why. I think we'd probably had a good
• 1:52
  drink in the pub and for whatever reason, Kev said
• 1:55
  Mundane at the Cellar and we said we ended up coming back up
• 1:57
  to the bar with a few bottles. I'm looking at the the gin and
• 2:02
  the vodka this evening. That's but right behind us.
• 2:04
  We've got an amazing selection of modern bottlings, old school
• 2:07
  bottling. Yeah.
• 2:08
  And considering Kev, we know, didn't drink whiskey until
• 2:11
  COVID, yeah, it's pretty amazing some of the stuff that he's got
• 2:14
  and stuff that he's held on to. Absolutely.
• 2:16
  I mean, it was, it was actually Saturday.
• 2:18
  I thought I'd pop in for a quick pint.
• 2:20
  I noticed actually you're on the the roll call in Edinburgh.
• 2:24
  Yeah, so I decided I'll have a quick pint and we're getting
• 2:26
  chatting to Kev and he was like, we were talking about the, you
• 2:30
  know, we we when we book the rooms and stuff like that.
• 2:32
  And he was asking about, oh, why don't you come down to the
• 2:34
  whiskey store? And again, I just thought I've
• 2:36
  never heard of it. And it was a busy enough barn
• 2:38
  get. Oh, no, come on, I'll show you.
• 2:39
  And the next thing I know we're down here.
• 2:40
  But I guess you pointed out in one of the 1st.
• 2:42
  In fact, I think it was the second episode we had with Kev
• 2:45
  was the rumour used to be that this was the best place to get a
• 2:48
  pint of 80 shilling. Yes, and they used to think that
• 2:52
  there was tunnels from the diggers to the brewery, which is
• 2:56
  about 100 yards along the road. Can we think we could find the
• 3:00
  tunnel? I don't know.
• 3:01
  I think there's a few suspicious hatches in the room next as it
• 3:04
  might lead somewhere, a few little, few little paving slabs
• 3:07
  that could be lifted. I don't know.
• 3:09
  But we are joined by a couple of guests and one of our guests who
• 3:11
  has now had to invest in a whiskey store, his bump cap for
• 3:14
  getting himself down underground.
• 3:16
  We've got Big Cam back joining us and we've also got more
• 3:19
  Reynolds AK, Swedish whiskey girl joining us today.
• 3:21
  How are we getting on, guys? You're right.
• 3:23
  Yeah, very good. Thanks for having us.
• 3:25
  Very welcome, Cam, how are you? Yeah, very well.
• 3:27
  Thank you. Thanks for having us back in the
• 3:30
  most salubrious of locations. Could you spell that?
• 3:34
  He he actually can. Starts with an SI, Know that.
• 3:39
  Well, yeah, we are now that's what.
• 3:40
  We roll out the red carpet, right?
• 3:42
  Well. Yeah, I mean, you've, you guys,
• 3:43
  the reason we've got you here is because I'm looking at it right
• 3:45
  now in front of me, the Balmoral guy to Scotch, whisky, Scotch.
• 3:50
  You guys have written a book that's quite an impressive
• 3:52
  thing. Now you'll have been at some
• 3:54
  fancy places to promote this book more.
• 3:57
  You'll have been at some really nice places.
• 3:59
  You'll have been in the Balmoral Scotch bar doing little bits and
• 4:01
  bobs. Have you ever been in a in a
• 4:03
  whiskey vault underneath a pub? I would probably say this is the
• 4:06
  most unique place we've been to promote the book, but we've only
• 4:10
  been to three places so far, so you never know.
• 4:12
  Right. Yeah, well, we've got drums in
• 4:13
  front of us guys, I guess. What are you?
• 4:15
  What are you drinking? I've, well, I've got a bit of a
• 4:18
  favorite of the pod over the last six months.
• 4:20
  Glengoing white oak. Oh, lovely.
• 4:23
  And then I've got something fairly new, new release I think
• 4:27
  from Woody's, Woodrow's of Edinburgh.
• 4:29
  It's a 30 year old Highland blend.
• 4:31
  So it's in, you know, better down more, apparently better
• 4:36
  client ish. So there you go, Ross.
• 4:39
  You're supporting what looks like it could be almost a mug of
• 4:42
  whiskey there. I was going to suggest a little
• 4:46
  boy to it. Says we hands make it like,
• 4:49
  better. Yes, great.
• 4:51
  Oh, that's it. I remember you coming to the
• 4:53
  podcast. First time camp.
• 4:54
  I was called the Roast of Ross Bar.
• 4:56
  Very good. And well, I'll open myself up to
• 4:59
  some criticism here by saying obviously I am known as the
• 5:02
  athlete of the podcast. Yes, and.
• 5:04
  I athletes foot. Something like that.
• 5:08
  And I'm playing football tonight after the podcast, so I said I'd
• 5:10
  only have one DRAM. Yeah, because I didn't want to
• 5:13
  be, you know, I gave you boys a lot of stick in the early, early
• 5:16
  days of coming to Whiskey Stories podcast and having a
• 5:19
  water. Yeah.
• 5:20
  Also, drink responsibly. And play football responsibly.
• 5:23
  Well thank you and I thought to myself I've recently got and
• 5:26
  this is a bit specific and won't go too far into it, but I
• 5:28
  actually got a latsio top by our ex guest Dario.
• 5:31
  Dario, yeah. And Dario or Celie from Rome.
• 5:33
  For the Dario and. I thought that a famous player
• 5:35
  of theirs Paul Gasco and he was famous for liking a drink.
• 5:38
  So if I have 1W famously maybe maybe I'll I'll play a bit like
• 5:43
  him to have the top one and I'm so I've had I'll can't finish
• 5:47
  the bottle. What was it?
• 5:48
  It's an it's an avatar, a Buna Alba.
• 5:51
  And what's Abd in that? At 60.2 I.
• 5:53
  Think yeah, so I mean, I I mean a single of that probably would
• 5:57
  have been punching a body, but you.
• 5:58
  Got a double and and, he said. And the rest of the ball.
• 6:01
  So actually I probably from my one DRAM before football, I've
• 6:04
  probably got the five and I'll let you know on the Facebook
• 6:07
  group how I perform. Look for that Cameron you and up
• 6:10
  the stairs ventured up and around out the street, onto the
• 6:14
  on the pavement, into the pub to pick up the drums for yourself
• 6:17
  and more. What are you guys drumming this
• 6:18
  evening? So I've went for an old
• 6:22
  favorite. I've went for the Glenfrog
• 6:24
  Project 20. It's been a while since I've had
• 6:27
  it. A lovely whiskey from their
• 6:29
  experimental series. Use a lot of bourbon, couple of
• 6:33
  Sherry casks and then a port cask as well.
• 6:36
  So there's a little bit of juiciness in there.
• 6:38
  And then MOA has an 11 year old Glenn Rothes from Gordon and
• 6:41
  Macphail, part of their discovery range.
• 6:44
  So 43% all matured in Sherry? And what's nice if she didn't go
• 6:49
  in family brand because Cody, you're your husband, your
• 6:53
  current husband, as there's a thing on the on the podcast.
• 6:56
  Don't worry, we don't. We don't know something you
• 6:58
  don't know but but but it must have been about a year ago.
• 7:02
  His episode came out the 14th of December, so it must have
• 7:05
  recorded about about. Last time, Last year, a year
• 7:07
  ago. Yeah, yeah, 'cause I mean, he's
• 7:09
  brand ambassador for Angus Dundee.
• 7:11
  Angus Dundee Distillers who have the what?
• 7:14
  What distilleries are you know them?
• 7:15
  They're I believe in you. Glencadam tomentile, correct?
• 7:19
  And there's one other that's not.
• 7:20
  No, just glencadam tomtile. There you go.
• 7:22
  No fancy going on brand for the family brand.
• 7:24
  No, I know. Well, I mean, I'm quite keen on
• 7:27
  any brand, so I'm not too bad, but I feel like Cameron's a good
• 7:31
  one tonight. And I mean, it's our wedding
• 7:33
  anniversary and Cody's away to Canada, so maybe I just
• 7:35
  shouldn't. Is it your wedding anniversary
• 7:37
  today? Yeah.
• 7:38
  Oh well. Many happy congratulations.
• 7:40
  Many happy congratulations. I don't know what you.
• 7:45
  Say, I mean, I know you. Keep spending your anniversary
• 7:47
  for lads. Really appreciate that and the
• 7:50
  seller. What did you do your
• 7:52
  anniversary? These four guys underneath the
• 7:55
  apartment. I've never forget my first
• 7:58
  wedding anniversary. Is it the paper?
• 8:01
  What is it? Paper anniversary.
• 8:03
  Which is. Very Oh, of course, very
• 8:07
  absolutely. Well, I'm on what I like.
• 8:10
  Well, I just, I should ask Graham actually, before you
• 8:14
  continue. I saw you nipping round the
• 8:16
  corner. Yes, the athletic cars, which
• 8:18
  isn't something you do very often.
• 8:19
  You had a look round at the other yeah side of the whiskey
• 8:23
  bridge. So you've got a couple of drums
• 8:24
  in front of you. You select something from I do
• 8:26
  have a Blind Summit Biscuit Factory blends.
• 8:29
  That 11 year old Dang, it was 11/12/12 year old.
• 8:31
  Sorry, 12 year old biscuit biscuit factory blend from Blind
• 8:35
  Summit. And also thought as I'm
• 8:36
  continuing my facade that I love pitted whiskey.
• 8:39
  I've gone for the Maktala rum cask as well.
• 8:42
  Which. The facial release.
• 8:44
  I don't know if it's the facial one, but we I remember it was it
• 8:48
  was time that brought it on. Tom Cuthbert brought it on and
• 8:52
  it was an absolute cracker. But look fantastic.
• 8:54
  We are in the cellar. Oh, and of course Ross is
• 8:57
  reminding me. He's waving an empty plastic
• 8:59
  sample bottle with us. I'm usually excited when they're
• 9:02
  they're full Ross, but. Kev's actually printed a label
• 9:06
  right now because of what I've said.
• 9:07
  I said we've just found out something new about our favorite
• 9:10
  pub. Now if you come to the Diggers
• 9:12
  and you have a fantastic whiskey or do you know I need to share
• 9:15
  that with somebody or I need to take a bit of that home, Kev has
• 9:18
  now given you the option if you buy 50 CL by, which is just more
• 9:22
  than a large measure here, it's 35ML and an extra charge of 50
• 9:26
  pence. You'll get a miniature and a
• 9:28
  label. You read Digger stamp.
• 9:30
  You can take your DRAM home. I think that's amazing mental.
• 9:34
  I've seen this last week and on the Scotch whisky, Scotch Malt
• 9:37
  Whisky Facebook group, 20,000 people and it's somebody saying
• 9:40
  my local pub's doing this now and we're going.
• 9:42
  That's my pub, I think. It's incredible.
• 9:45
  Yeah, you have been. Kev has listened back to our
• 9:49
  anniversary episode and he's heard about all the amazing
• 9:53
  drams that we've been fortunate enough to try, people bringing
• 9:55
  them on. And then he's messaged me saying
• 9:58
  I'm going. To yeah, a lot of samples here.
• 9:59
  Well, he said I'm going to have to introduce a drum tax because
• 10:02
  yeah, he's are getting far too many whiskeys brought in and I'm
• 10:05
  not getting to try. I mean, it's my my who's here in
• 10:07
  so. But one of the things he's doing
• 10:09
  is he's letting us now at the costly sum of an extra few quid
• 10:14
  you're able to do a take away. Is this something you think you
• 10:16
  can introduce at Scotch at the Balmoral camp?
• 10:20
  Maybe it doesn't fit our brand message.
• 10:21
  I think you need that. So if someone comes in and says
• 10:24
  you know what, 850? Is it 800?
• 10:26
  What's it for the Macallan 40? And 950 lbs.
• 10:30
  And 50P to take it away. Are we plastic ball with a
• 10:36
  printed label? But we've got more here.
• 10:39
  More. You are known as a Swedish
• 10:41
  whiskey girl on on on Instagram. You're you're quite the
• 10:44
  influencer on that. How did it all start for you?
• 10:47
  What was it like getting into whiskey?
• 10:49
  And now you're married into the married into the industry as
• 10:52
  well with Cody, but I mean you. Can say Cody's married into it?
• 10:54
  Really. Well, yeah, I mean, exactly.
• 10:57
  Well, what was it like? What?
• 10:58
  First of all, you're from Sweden.
• 11:00
  I am, yeah. And when you were in Sweden,
• 11:01
  were you a whiskey drinker? No, not at all.
• 11:03
  My dad's a big whiskey drinker. He loves that.
• 11:05
  But I wasn't at all. I was kind of that.
• 11:07
  Oh, it all tastes the same it Barnes, that kind of thing.
• 11:10
  And I lived in Scotland. I moved over to study
• 11:12
  professional dance, you know, professional dance into
• 11:15
  whiskey's a very natural path. So in my last year, I went on
• 11:20
  this Tinder date and I met this lovely, lovely guy called Cody
• 11:24
  and he started work in the whiskey industry the day after
• 11:27
  we met. So I was like, oh, he's quite
• 11:29
  cute. And he knew that I'd been doing
• 11:33
  some wine courses. He's like, oh, you can teach me
• 11:35
  how to taste stuff and I can make home samples so we can
• 11:38
  learn about it together. So that's what we did.
• 11:40
  And eventually tried a whiskey that was like, do you know what?
• 11:42
  I quite like this. And I don't want to say it was
• 11:45
  downhill from there, but maybe uphill.
• 11:48
  And then eventually, because there were so many whiskeys,
• 11:50
  just started taking a photo of things, writing a bit about it
• 11:53
  and find out that other people wanted to follow along as well.
• 11:56
  Brilliant. Can you?
• 11:56
  Remember what the whiskey was that?
• 11:58
  Had. That moment where he said, oh, I
• 12:00
  actually quite like this. Do you remember what it was that
• 12:02
  you had SO? It was ARD Big 10.
• 12:04
  Wow, because it tasted like smoked meats and like walking in
• 12:08
  the woods like with my dad and stuff when I was younger.
• 12:12
  So I was like, oh, I can actually relate to this.
• 12:14
  Like I know this taste of something that I like, so it
• 12:17
  just converted me. Fantastic.
• 12:19
  And how long ago was that then? So that.
• 12:20
  Must have been in 2017. And then, yeah, I started up the
• 12:25
  social media stuff and I was like, oh, what should I call
• 12:27
  myself? The biggest struggle you have.
• 12:29
  And I'm like, oh, do you know what?
• 12:31
  I'm Swedish. I like whiskey and I'm a girl.
• 12:32
  I'll just put this for now. That's great.
• 12:34
  And now I can't leave it. And you know.
• 12:35
  You you look, I mean, I was I was having a look.
• 12:37
  You're sitting at just you're over 21 1/2 thousand followers
• 12:41
  on Instagram. Yeah, it's quite.
• 12:42
  Incredible. And that.
• 12:43
  That really is quite a massive journey of, you know, from just
• 12:46
  starting out. I mean, Cody has a lot to, to be
• 12:49
  grateful for, but I mean, literally to make that decision.
• 12:53
  And there's, there's so many people, ourselves included, I
• 12:56
  suppose, is you, you start something and you're putting out
• 12:58
  content and you're, you people enjoy it and you build up a
• 13:01
  little community. But well, I see a lot of it's,
• 13:03
  we've got a lovely little community.
• 13:05
  Your community is massive and where's that taking you then
• 13:07
  from? From that starting point to the
• 13:10
  seller in the athletic class, Where where's that taking you
• 13:13
  even now? It's gone downhill, literally.
• 13:16
  Yeah. It's, it's been a bit mental
• 13:18
  because I'd never thought about turning into a business and then
• 13:21
  started getting approached by brands saying, do you want to do
• 13:23
  a collaboration? And I was like, what even is the
• 13:25
  collaboration? Do I charge money for this?
• 13:27
  Do I not? And then kind of started just
• 13:31
  trying out things from there and was it?
• 13:34
  Was there a particular point where you thought, right, this
• 13:36
  is actually could be the day job as it were, because.
• 13:40
  You did do it part time for a long time, Did, yeah.
• 13:42
  So. Only when self-employed The 1st
• 13:44
  of September, Yes. What was it?
• 13:45
  Really. So I did sales and marketing in
• 13:47
  ski travel. Oh, right.
• 13:49
  OK. So we'll probably come on to
• 13:51
  that. But last year when I was writing
• 13:53
  the book with Cameron, I was working full time.
• 13:57
  I was doing Swedish Whiskey Girl, which is probably another
• 13:59
  like 20-25 hours a week. I was planning a wedding and
• 14:04
  writing the book. So wow, it was an interesting
• 14:05
  time. But Cameron has something
• 14:07
  similar, which I'm sure I'll tell you about as well.
• 14:09
  But yeah, it's just been mental, like times when people have
• 14:13
  stopped you on the street being like, are you sweet?
• 14:15
  Just whisky girl? And you're just like, yes, what
• 14:17
  do you want? That was nearly me last week.
• 14:21
  OK 'cause we, we literally passed each other.
• 14:24
  You were just coming out of the Glen Eagles townhouse and I was
• 14:27
  just going in and obviously I thought you just walked past me.
• 14:31
  I was coming in from the other direction from the Moultrie's
• 14:33
  walk side and you were just coming out and going that way.
• 14:35
  And I half me thought, am I going to chase this girl down
• 14:37
  the street? It's Graham from the Whisky
• 14:40
  Students podcast. I decided against them.
• 14:42
  It's probably better because he would have thought this.
• 14:44
  Who's this weird guy? I don't.
• 14:46
  Mind at all it's just weird because like when it happens you
• 14:48
  just don't know if someone's like oh you dropped this or like
• 14:50
  oh you haven't paid for this or like you haven't whatever it is
• 14:54
  like oh your scarf is stuck in your dress or whatever and I'm
• 14:57
  just like a bit yeah, it's weird when someone goes and it's
• 15:00
  risky, girl. Because you've been so
• 15:01
  successful and built up such a following, it now does mean if
• 15:04
  you ever go to a distillery or a whiskey show, that's what you're
• 15:07
  getting all the time, right? Yeah.
• 15:09
  It's, it's really fun because like I said before, it's just
• 15:12
  such a lovely community and you know, as soon as you meet
• 15:14
  people, they're like whiskey that you have something in
• 15:15
  common. So people are just really sweet.
• 15:18
  And like I was on Brick Laddie 2 weeks ago and there was a fire
• 15:21
  alarm so everyone ran outside in the rain and suddenly I have a
• 15:24
  little tap on my shoulder going. I follow you and then we take a
• 15:27
  little selfie in the rain and it's just I would have never met
• 15:30
  him because he was from Australia.
• 15:32
  It's just really nice. So wasn't.
• 15:33
  Someone from the just other way, sorry.
• 15:35
  You get this umbrella and you can stand over.
• 15:36
  You can stand over here. No, unfortunately not.
• 15:40
  But yeah. So it's you just never know
• 15:41
  where you're going to meet people.
• 15:43
  And Clary's still standing, I take it?
• 15:45
  Yes. Yes, I think they said it was
• 15:46
  like a little a spider or something that's run over the
• 15:49
  like sensor thing because it happened about three times that
• 15:53
  day. It wasn't.
• 15:53
  An extra toasted chocolate malt that was dead, I know.
• 15:56
  Because the fire alarm went when we were in the still room and I
• 15:59
  saw that the red light start blinking and I was like seems
• 16:03
  bad but the still men were kill so I thought you know, I'll
• 16:06
  trust them. That's great.
• 16:07
  And now you talk about meeting big names and and big folk in
• 16:11
  the in the industry. This big guy sat right beside
• 16:13
  you. Cameron, how did you 2 first
• 16:15
  sort of get in touch? How did it all come around for
• 16:18
  this book that we're we're about to discuss?
• 16:21
  Yes. So the book was proposed to the
• 16:24
  Balmoral by our publishers company called Octopus Books.
• 16:31
  And we thought it would be good to to sort of do a sort of a Co
• 16:38
  write on it almost. And I'm I'm the first person to
• 16:41
  admit that I'm I do not come from a writing background.
• 16:45
  Yeah, OK. So we we got some suggestions
• 16:50
  through about who to approach, and one of them was the editor
• 16:55
  of the Whiskey magazine, a guy called Christopher Coats.
• 16:58
  Yep. Who?
• 16:59
  Suggested that more would be a really good fit for that and
• 17:02
  brilliant. As soon as I heard that that was
• 17:04
  a possibility, I was very, very, very excited about it.
• 17:07
  And did you? Guys know each other beforehand.
• 17:08
  Had you met? Yeah, we've.
• 17:10
  Like known, I would say we've known of each other and
• 17:13
  certainly being at the same events and stuff and said hi,
• 17:17
  had a DRAM, things like that. But I wouldn't say we're, you
• 17:21
  know, we weren't, you know, super close beforehand.
• 17:24
  And I possibly know your husband a little bit better running a
• 17:29
  bar and Cody being a brand ambassador.
• 17:32
  So and when? It comes to collaborating and
• 17:34
  putting a book together. Then like more.
• 17:37
  I was just saying that at the same time of having to organise
• 17:40
  a wedding, which was a year ago today and you forget, you see a
• 17:45
  book coming out and you just think, oh, that's brilliant.
• 17:47
  But you don't really fully appreciate just how much work
• 17:51
  goes into it. So how long really have has it
• 17:54
  been from start to finish? Has it been for you guys to be
• 17:56
  working on that? Probably about 18 months, yeah,
• 18:01
  I would say sort of start to fit like absolute first meeting that
• 18:07
  we had in the Balmoral to, to getting a hard coffee in our
• 18:10
  hands kind of thing. So yeah, the, the writing
• 18:14
  process was maybe four or five months, I would say.
• 18:19
  And you were? Pretty busy at the time, yeah?
• 18:21
  You've. Talked to everyone that don't
• 18:23
  know. I mean, yeah some more.
• 18:25
  I was doing 2 jobs. I'm planning your wedding to
• 18:29
  your current husband and Cam. You were having a baby and
• 18:34
  buying a house. Yeah.
• 18:35
  So I'm and. And managing Scotch at the
• 18:39
  tomorrow I met. My current partner as well had a
• 18:43
  baby. I didn't have the baby,
• 18:45
  obviously, but it's just. A stuff as a new father myself,
• 18:49
  I can say, you know it's a lot of work.
• 18:50
  Damn, it's. Not.
• 18:56
  And yeah, we were buying a house as well.
• 18:58
  So quite a quite a turbulent time in the UN Wilson household
• 19:03
  as well. And and.
• 19:04
  The books kind of split up. I've been very lucky.
• 19:06
  I was one of your lunch events at the ball.
• 19:08
  Moral. And you know, I don't take
• 19:10
  credit for everything, but I was also at the very early meetings
• 19:12
  for this book when I was at Scotch Model.
• 19:15
  Did you use Ross? Did you get a credit in the
• 19:17
  book? No, I didn't.
• 19:18
  Actually, but Cameron gives me a good fee, so it's actually OK.
• 19:21
  But yeah, for the meetings at Cameron was maybe slightly late
• 19:24
  for I would definitely be there too early.
• 19:26
  And they said more Reynolds actually wouldn't have said Mona
• 19:31
  Reynolds. So we'll just sit with your
• 19:32
  previous name, Carlson or something, Nielsen.
• 19:36
  Well, I'll tell you what Nielsen, 'cause you.
• 19:38
  Taught me a rule about and this is something that we can just go
• 19:41
  off on and a rule about, we can actually all work out our
• 19:44
  Swedish names. Oh.
• 19:45
  Yeah, go and. Remind me because this is
• 19:47
  actually I think for Scottish names this is good because I
• 19:49
  actually sound very Scottish though.
• 19:52
  Yeah, so in Sweden, there's a lot of, like, my dad isn't
• 19:54
  called Nils, but we were Nilsson because like my granddad's dad
• 19:58
  was Nils. OK, so for you, your dad would
• 20:01
  be Robert, so you'd be Robertson.
• 20:03
  Robertson. So it works well, yeah, because
• 20:06
  like. I think we've done that.
• 20:07
  I think we did this years ago. I guess we was like, pick your
• 20:09
  Viking name. Yeah.
• 20:11
  It's. Like you can pick, yeah, it's
• 20:14
  basically because if I'm right in saying that this is where in
• 20:17
  smaller countries in that sort of area, like Iceland
• 20:23
  traditionally, because they also have problems with when you go
• 20:25
  in, like when you meet people and it's such a small population
• 20:28
  in Iceland. And if you can't suddenly say in
• 20:30
  Scotland you can say, well, we've had it where the
• 20:33
  Thompsons, we've had Alex Thompson, an event and they say,
• 20:38
  oh, I'm Finn Thompson, I'm Alex Thompson.
• 20:41
  And then guess what, They find a family connection someplace. 2
• 20:44
  Thompson. 'S from Perisha.
• 20:45
  Yeah, it's just. A lot harder than might be the
• 20:47
  latest. There's a little Aberdonian as
• 20:51
  well. Yeah, but so it's over there,
• 20:53
  but. And so, sorry, what I was
• 20:54
  meaning to say is, and so the book is, is kind of split up
• 20:57
  between you. So you've got Cameron.
• 20:59
  You've done these whiskey profiles, 100W profiles, Yeah.
• 21:03
  Pack the 100 Whiskey is that I was most excited about in the
• 21:06
  bar at the time of writing and tried to.
• 21:11
  It's a weird one, right? Because Scotch carries a lot of
• 21:14
  independent bottlings, but it's The easiest way to date a book
• 21:20
  is by putting in 50 independent bottles.
• 21:23
  Yeah. You.
• 21:24
  Might have. Like for some of the bottles we
• 21:28
  we got lasted 2 weeks, 3 weeks, you know, and then it's gone.
• 21:32
  So. And most of them are core
• 21:34
  releases. There's maybe four or five
• 21:36
  different indie bottlings at the end and that that really were
• 21:42
  complete standouts. Yeah, couldn't not be included
• 21:45
  kind of thing. What's an?
• 21:46
  Example of one of them. Douglas Ling's Canvas 40 Year
• 21:50
  Olds, Yeah. Good one, solid.
• 21:53
  So I'm going. To get you to do one thing
• 21:56
  right, close your eyes, like to a page, and read the first
• 21:59
  couple of sentences for us. We'll try and work out, see who
• 22:01
  can happen about in front first. Who wrote that section?
• 22:06
  So. Well, I'll read the comments
• 22:09
  about a whiskey and let's see if we can.
• 22:12
  Let's see if you can get it. So it says seeing an old
• 22:14
  Highland whiskey presented like this is a real trait.
• 22:17
  The Floral smoke elegant element is a help I could read.
• 22:22
  The floral smoke element is a nod to a style of whiskey that
• 22:24
  very few distilleries produce. Now is full and elegant with
• 22:27
  sweet tropical fruit flavors derived from a single refill.
• 22:31
  Hogs held cask, that is. Who actually?
• 22:34
  Oh, it's a whiskey profile. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 22:37
  Someone so. So all of the whiskey profiles,
• 22:40
  yeah, are done by camp. Ah, that's.
• 22:42
  I did the bottles, so you did. The bottles so that that that
• 22:45
  more. Did the actual distillery
• 22:47
  profile so. That's on a bottling profile.
• 22:49
  So just for listeners, that wasn't game obviously missed
• 22:52
  that. So that wasn't.
• 22:53
  ChatGPT No. Game obviously missed that.
• 22:58
  All of the bottling, all the specific bottling profiles,
• 23:01
  Cameron's done notes for and history and more.
• 23:04
  Your part of the book you've done, was it kind of
• 23:06
  misconceptions in whiskey and a bit of history as well and.
• 23:10
  Yes, exactly. So everything that's like text
• 23:12
  in the book, more lengthy is what I've written.
• 23:16
  So like all the starting to the whiskey, like the distillery
• 23:19
  information is things that I've written, which is actually some
• 23:22
  of the most difficult things to write because you have to try
• 23:24
  and write something that no one else has written with
• 23:27
  information that is exactly the same.
• 23:29
  So did you do? You have to put a ticket, it'll
• 23:32
  be a year spin on that distillery.
• 23:34
  What do you think and what and actually I'm, I'm assuming as
• 23:37
  well you have visited the distillery to get that essence
• 23:40
  of it not. Really it's mostly just sitting
• 23:42
  at home doing the research, sometimes contacting
• 23:45
  distilleries to confirm facts. But also because I basically had
• 23:50
  between October and New Year's to write it and I was writing
• 23:54
  all the kind of the chapters on the myth busting sections, how
• 23:57
  to taste whiskey. And then all the distillery
• 23:59
  profiles. We were quite short on time.
• 24:04
  So a lot of it was trying to keep the distillery profiles
• 24:07
  quite similar, like similar information.
• 24:09
  But then, you know, distilleries, some of them were
• 24:11
  like started burned down, started burned down new owners
• 24:15
  and now it's great. So give us a.
• 24:18
  Myth from the myth busting section.
• 24:20
  Can you remember any myths that I mean, there's quite a few
• 24:22
  myths that are fairly obvious, yes, but then give us an obvious
• 24:26
  one and then give us a non obvious one that you might well,
• 24:29
  I think. To you guys, it probably is a
• 24:31
  lot of obvious ones, but I think there's so many misconceptions
• 24:34
  with whiskey. So like, is darker whiskey
• 24:36
  better? What do you think?
• 24:39
  A year ago, Graham would have said yes.
• 24:40
  Well, as. A former Sherry tart.
• 24:43
  Yeah, OK. But yeah, it's true and there's
• 24:47
  actually some markets now like the Far East market is known for
• 24:51
  having an attraction to darker presented whiskeys and I still
• 24:56
  I. Like putting whiskey.
• 24:57
  Well, this is a, it's one of the, the, I mean, we talk about
• 24:59
  the kind of core ingredients what has, you know, can go in
• 25:02
  Scotch rescue. One of them is that I can't
• 25:04
  remember what it is like E150 or something there caramel and
• 25:08
  that's colouring and that is one of the permitted and I and
• 25:11
  obviously a lot of whiskey that that does go into particularly
• 25:13
  and our. Audience will probably all know
• 25:15
  about artificial colouring, but it's a very good point.
• 25:18
  There's probably 90% of the whiskey drinking audience that
• 25:21
  aren't aware of their whiskey has artificial colouring on it
• 25:23
  potentially. Exactly.
• 25:24
  And I think a big thing in the whiskey community, like a lot of
• 25:28
  people that know whiskey through and through, like they know what
• 25:31
  E150 is, they know what chill filtration is, they know
• 25:35
  different like strengths, cast strings, batch strength, they're
• 25:38
  like water down and all of that. But there's such a big
• 25:43
  percentage of people that buy the whiskey and keep the whiskey
• 25:45
  industry going that don't know that.
• 25:48
  And I also think they are super entitled to drink whatever they
• 25:50
  want because they might have drink like had the same bottle
• 25:53
  at home for 10 years and that's just what they want to drink.
• 25:56
  So you should be able to do that.
• 25:57
  But it's always nice, I think with this book because it's
• 25:59
  quite approachable by people that maybe know nothing about
• 26:02
  whiskey, just to tell them about things that quite a friendly and
• 26:05
  informative matter it. Sounds like recently two people
• 26:08
  who have your biggest passions are are Scotch whiskey.
• 26:11
  Both of you are world whiskey maybe for you more and but this
• 26:16
  is also a book that is available for people that are maybe still
• 26:18
  just dipping their toe into whiskey as well.
• 26:20
  It's. Yeah.
• 26:21
  So it's, it says the Balmoral's Guide to Scottish Whiskey or
• 26:27
  Scottish whiskey, which is our ethos in the bar is completely
• 26:32
  echoed in that book. So it looks really flash.
• 26:36
  It looks really, it's a beautifully presented book so
• 26:39
  much as the bar is a beautifully presented bar.
• 26:42
  But once you get past that front cover, it's super approachable,
• 26:47
  super digestible, and it can just be used as like a little
• 26:51
  reference guide, even. Yeah, it goes.
• 26:53
  Back to the podcast you were on, Graham, talking about people
• 26:55
  even thinking about that bar Scotch, Yeah.
• 26:57
  And people's kind of nervousness about walking through that lobby
• 27:01
  into that bar and this historic hotel, but then sitting down and
• 27:05
  basically, again, you're going to be treated the same as
• 27:07
  everybody else. You're going to given the same
• 27:09
  opportunity as anybody else to learn from it.
• 27:11
  So if you've never bought a whiskey book before because you
• 27:13
  think, well, I drink a whiskey, but this is probably a great
• 27:16
  whiskey book to get yourself and then go, OK, oh, it's not, I'm
• 27:21
  not going to not understand what I'm reading.
• 27:23
  You're able to get the the basics of history as well as
• 27:25
  personalized opinions, which is also nice for a book to have as
• 27:29
  well. I'm sorry.
• 27:29
  I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm not a big reader.
• 27:32
  I won't send novels or books anything like that, but what I
• 27:36
  do have is, and it's more and more books like like this one,
• 27:41
  whiskey books in particular over the last year or so.
• 27:44
  I'm, I'm right in saying probably this isn't a sort of
• 27:47
  page Turner. It's not something that
• 27:49
  someone's going to sit and just sit and take on their holidays
• 27:52
  and read a good book like you would do with maybe a novel or
• 27:54
  something or an autobiography. But as reference points, these
• 27:57
  are great and you can, and sometimes you do find yourself.
• 28:01
  I've got quite a few of these types of books in the house with
• 28:04
  different opinions and different flavours in the history of the
• 28:07
  distilleries. And I'll maybe just pick it up
• 28:10
  and flick through, stop, and then you'll read and then you
• 28:13
  maybe see, oh, the next distillery is that one and you
• 28:15
  just read on and stuff like that.
• 28:17
  What did we do? Earlier this year, Graham asked
• 28:18
  mentioned to you about Scotch whisky yearbook.
• 28:21
  And now that was Cameron gifted me that when I was 19.
• 28:24
  I was like, OK, if you want to cut your teeth in whiskey, the
• 28:27
  more the more time you give to this book, the more you'll get
• 28:29
  out of it. And this year when we're doing
• 28:31
  our snippet stuff at school, it's yeah. 62nd Whiskey reviews
• 28:36
  You've got so much out of just using that book just beforehand.
• 28:38
  I'll give you a lot of criticism actually for studying
• 28:40
  beforehand. What Ross?
• 28:44
  Used to do in literally every taste and he did I know nothing
• 28:48
  about. It's true, somebody would come
• 28:52
  in and they'd have a world class tasting to do until you go
• 28:55
  right. This is the selection I want to
• 28:56
  go with and you will always have a weak point in your line up.
• 29:00
  If you're pouring drams for yourself at home, you might
• 29:02
  enjoy them all, but maybe not know why you're enjoying them
• 29:04
  all. And so you can go to a book like
• 29:06
  this and go to a bit like Scotch.
• 29:07
  Well, if you're doing the taste and go to the Scottish yearbook
• 29:10
  and go, OK, let me refresh myself and I'll start with that.
• 29:13
  So then it's fresh in the mind, and it did help, and it's handy.
• 29:16
  You know, books, books like this is and you Cam you, you're
• 29:19
  saying that the whiskey, it's not every single whiskey, it's
• 29:21
  not every single distillery, no. So what's great is that it's
• 29:24
  condensed into so it's not overwhelming in terms of the
• 29:27
  information. I suppose what that also allows
• 29:30
  you to do is for most point of view as well, you're not, you
• 29:33
  look at the the yearbook, because we've talked about and
• 29:36
  everything has to be condensed in the one page and that because
• 29:39
  you've got to try and cover every single distillery and put
• 29:41
  as much. So you're limited to how much
• 29:43
  information you could put on there.
• 29:45
  Whereas for yourselves, what was that like then curating the
• 29:49
  whiskey? Was that one of the first stages
• 29:50
  where you had to decide I'm going to these are the whiskeys
• 29:53
  I'm going to do or did that? Was that part of the journey?
• 29:56
  You added whiskeys and you took them off.
• 29:58
  Yeah, that that question got asked that both of our other
• 30:02
  sort of launch events, if you will.
• 30:04
  And I hadn't ever thought about it before.
• 30:07
  I picked 100 whiskeys and then didn't change a thing really.
• 30:11
  Yeah. So I picked them like
• 30:12
  consciously knowing that as I've mentioned, most of them would be
• 30:18
  sort of continually released if you know, and pick them with a
• 30:23
  little bit of consideration as to some super high end kind of
• 30:28
  for most people quite unachievable if you will.
• 30:32
  Yeah, but that reflects again back to the bar.
• 30:35
  Yeah, of course we carry some ridiculously expensive whiskies,
• 30:40
  you know, but also a lot of that mid range and some entry level
• 30:46
  whiskies in there as well just to kind of, you know, break up
• 30:49
  that how? Many.
• 30:50
  How many Glen FedEx did you get to squeeze in there?
• 30:54
  I always, I always had England tonight, tonight 'cause I
• 30:56
  thought Gavin's on the pod actually that I'm glad.
• 30:58
  That most stand between us 'cause I feel safe.
• 31:02
  Firstly, I know where you live. How?
• 31:05
  Many of your 100 profiles, how many Glen footage did you
• 31:07
  squeeze in there? Secondly.
• 31:09
  There is no distillery that is more than three expressions
• 31:14
  that. Must have hurt.
• 31:15
  And so. Yes.
• 31:19
  There are a few that have three, yes.
• 31:22
  Was it hard? Getting it down to three, of
• 31:24
  course it. Was and here's.
• 31:25
  The thing you're you're an author, but it's your book.
• 31:27
  I get it, I do. Have 3 glimphex that I like more
• 31:31
  than other. Ones you went for the 12, the 18
• 31:35
  and the 21 or 23 I'd guess. Two of them are correct, the 12.
• 31:41
  And the 21, eh? Correct.
• 31:42
  Yeah, and. Then you went for something
• 31:44
  really fancy, something that only you've tried.
• 31:47
  No, no. Could it be the?
• 31:49
  Drama you're having tonight, I know it's.
• 31:50
  Not, no, it's not actually. I'll take two out of three,
• 31:54
  yeah. Glenfirc 30 is in there as well
• 31:56
  of. Course I have something fancy.
• 31:58
  More did you have any input on on the whiskeys that were going
• 32:02
  in or did you leave this so late to camp?
• 32:06
  No, so I didn't have an input and which is quite nice because
• 32:09
  I felt like I had enough to do but the chapters I was writing,
• 32:13
  but it was nice from the start to have that kind of split.
• 32:15
  I knew exactly what I needed to do.
• 32:17
  And then Cameron had his job as well, so it was like we could
• 32:21
  just work away without having to bother each other too much
• 32:24
  because I feel like we're both so busy that that just made it
• 32:26
  so much easier. Well, there's not a.
• 32:28
  Moment then maybe when he's picked a distillery that's been
• 32:30
  written about so, so many times and you're thinking, can I not
• 32:33
  kid I not just ask the utility profile.
• 32:35
  Maybe. Just pick a.
• 32:36
  More unique distance because I need to get this finished so I
• 32:40
  can get it sent away. I actually.
• 32:41
  Didn't feel so much about writing it, but it was really
• 32:44
  tricky to source photos for some of them, like some mothball
• 32:50
  distilleries for example, like canvas.
• 32:52
  Not the easiest, but yeah, it's just some teams like reaching
• 32:57
  out to PR or brand teams. They were really good.
• 32:58
  They just got back to me with everything straight away and
• 33:01
  some people just didn't get back to it all.
• 33:02
  So it was that was a bit of a challenge, but that obviously
• 33:05
  didn't really have much to do with the selection of whiskeys,
• 33:07
  just the way we could approach them.
• 33:09
  But I think it all worked out then, because I think we still
• 33:11
  have 100 whiskies in there, yeah.
• 33:14
  Was there anything you learned about a distillery that you
• 33:16
  perhaps weren't expecting or surprised you?
• 33:18
  Is there anything, you know, maybe a fact about a particular
• 33:21
  distillery that kind of, you know, amazed you?
• 33:23
  I'm. Sure there was, but I cannot.
• 33:26
  You have to. Get you have to get like
• 33:31
  approval before you put something into print.
• 33:35
  What we know is that there's so many myths, legends, stories of
• 33:39
  within the whiskey industry that are great stories and stories
• 33:44
  that we love to hear and love to talk about.
• 33:46
  But at the same time, when you're part of a bigger brand,
• 33:48
  distilleries have to be very careful about what they, what
• 33:51
  they push out. You know, there's, there's loads
• 33:53
  of great stories about illicit distilling and we they're
• 33:58
  romanticized. Now you go back to the Glenn
• 34:00
  Livett story with what is it James Smith?
• 34:03
  What is this? James Smith?
• 34:06
  George Smith. Sorry.
• 34:06
  Yeah. Who had to buy the two, two
• 34:08
  guns, the two pistols and what have you?
• 34:10
  And you think to yourself, that's romanticized.
• 34:12
  They've brought out releases about that and things.
• 34:14
  But at the same time, if you live in a world where, for your
• 34:18
  own safety, you feel like you've got that two flintlock.
• 34:20
  Pistols, yeah. And you've got the, you look at
• 34:23
  the, and there'll be loads and loads of stories from
• 34:25
  distilleries that we've heard that are kind of, I, we all know
• 34:29
  that's a bit true, nod, nod, wink, wink.
• 34:31
  But they would be very protective about how that's put
• 34:34
  in print, if it's allowed to be put in print or how it portrays
• 34:37
  their distillery. So was that something that you
• 34:38
  had to sort of look at as well? I was looking a bit at like how
• 34:42
  I wrote things, but the distilleries didn't approve any
• 34:44
  texts at all. OK, so but we obviously had
• 34:48
  proofreaders and everything along the way, but I made sure
• 34:51
  to all the facts that I was writing, I kind of double,
• 34:54
  triple checked as much as I possibly could.
• 34:57
  And then if there was things that are maybe a little bit less
• 35:01
  facts and there's a little bit more stories, you can always get
• 35:04
  around with it saying like it is believed that or the distillery
• 35:10
  explains this like this. And I think that's just slightly
• 35:15
  the charm of the like, because they're factories and I don't
• 35:19
  know how much you can romanticize factory, but you
• 35:21
  kind of have to because it kind of belongs to the whiskey world.
• 35:23
  Because I don't know if people would be like, Oh, look, I'll
• 35:26
  live it. They're factor that makes
• 35:27
  whiskey. It's not as romantic.
• 35:29
  Yes, Oh, look at the story of George Smith and he was in the
• 35:32
  hills and hiding from these guys.
• 35:34
  They had a pistols and it kind of have just marketed itself
• 35:38
  like that. And obviously you can take a lot
• 35:40
  of things with a pinch of salt, but some things I feel like for
• 35:43
  myself I just over the flow the Scots are.
• 35:46
  Good at coming up with stories. You have to take a pinch of salt
• 35:48
  as well. Well, that's.
• 35:49
  I think what's a great one? I mean, I think this.
• 35:52
  There's a few of Jura. Prophecy was the one that.
• 35:55
  Used to wind me up. There was the old Jura prophecy.
• 35:59
  I like you White Mackay. I've kind of dug into White
• 36:01
  Mackay a few times this podcast, probably unfairly.
• 36:03
  I'm a big fan of Fetter, Kent and Jura the Prophet.
• 36:07
  The prophecy that he repeated one of.
• 36:09
  Four of their brands and one of four of their brands I.
• 36:13
  Think I'm going to. Slaughter one of them I'd also.
• 36:16
  I'd also like to say that Tamerville and are bringing out
• 36:18
  some exceptionally valued whiskeys.
• 36:22
  Judah, what's the dura? What's other?
• 36:24
  Prophecy. So the dura prophecy was this
• 36:25
  old heavily peated dura that had an eye on the bottle, and it was
• 36:29
  a prophecy of electoral. Electoral eye like an.
• 36:32
  Electoral a human eye. Human eye was on was on this
• 36:36
  bottle and it was the prophecy of the last Campbell of Judah
• 36:41
  who had one eye. That is my understanding of the
• 36:44
  story. And it was to honour the
• 36:48
  Campbells of Judah. And this guy had one eye, and so
• 36:50
  he stuck his other eye on a bottle.
• 36:51
  The man. The man who's married to an.
• 36:55
  Find it. As a man who's married to
• 36:57
  American, I mean the old, I can't remember she's.
• 36:58
  Love it, I can't remember. The full joke entirely.
• 37:01
  So I don't want to butcher it too much, but there's a story of
• 37:03
  the Scotsman having a chat with the American and they're arguing
• 37:06
  over who's got the best country in the world and the Americans
• 37:09
  saying, you know, only in America could you turn like
• 37:12
  10,000 acres of swampland, put 100 million tons of concrete and
• 37:16
  steel on it, and turn it into Disney World and bring hundreds
• 37:21
  of millions of people to America every single year.
• 37:24
  And the Scotsman, that's very good.
• 37:26
  One of our boys just stood at the side of a walk and went, is
• 37:29
  that Nessie? Yeah, there's tongue and cheek
• 37:33
  stories of Scotch whiskey as well, I feel like.
• 37:35
  All these stories just come from someone telling them in the pub
• 37:37
  and people went, hi, that's right, let's go with that and.
• 37:40
  So my next question of this book is, of course it's called Scotch
• 37:42
  because of Scotch at the Balmoral.
• 37:44
  Now, I would say that Scotch is something that we all share a
• 37:50
  common interest in, but actually more, I'm totally intimidated by
• 37:55
  your knowledge of world whiskey. How was it doing a bit on Scotch
• 38:00
  whiskey? You've been in Scotland for a
• 38:01
  long time now, but actually your knowledge of, of course, Swedish
• 38:06
  whiskey, you'll probably be the leading authority on that.
• 38:09
  But general world whiskey is massive as well.
• 38:11
  So is this quite different just working with Scotch I?
• 38:13
  Would say most of the work I do is with Scotch, so it felt quite
• 38:16
  nice to narrow it down to Scotch because there's so much here.
• 38:20
  Anyways. Scotch whiskey.
• 38:21
  At all. And not just Scotch the bar.
• 38:22
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's a really
• 38:27
  interesting topic that there's so many whiskeys worldwide now
• 38:31
  and I would say no means I know a lot about it, but I am really
• 38:33
  curious. So I feel like I've just found
• 38:35
  myself really interested in particularly Nordic whiskeys
• 38:37
  because I'm a little bit biased, but I think it's something nice
• 38:41
  and narrowing it down to Scottish whiskeys because they
• 38:45
  all have like a red thread of being from Scotland.
• 38:47
  And obviously in Scotland, whiskey's so entwined with kind
• 38:50
  of the culture and the history. So it made sense, I think.
• 38:54
  I think we would have had to maybe double it if we were going
• 38:57
  to do wild whiskeys as well. And I think that would have made
• 38:59
  Cameron's job even harder as well.
• 39:01
  So yeah, which part? Of Sweden, are you from?
• 39:04
  I'm from a. Place called darling.
• 39:05
  OK. Do you know Sweden?
• 39:06
  Well, I've actually. I, I, I don't, but I, I visit a
• 39:09
  place to Sweden. I visited a place called
• 39:11
  Falconburg. Oh yeah.
• 39:13
  Is. That anywhere near.
• 39:14
  Not really, but like, I'm about 3 1/2 hours northwest of
• 39:18
  Stockholm, but I went to school in Stockholm my last three
• 39:21
  years, so my parents are kind of close to there now.
• 39:23
  Yeah. Because I mean.
• 39:24
  One thing I picked up on very quickly when I arrived in Sweden
• 39:28
  as a young man, they're not big drinkers.
• 39:31
  Well, they weren't. They were.
• 39:32
  You. They were Falkenberg.
• 39:35
  Well, I mean, we arrived and apparently the story goes that a
• 39:43
  well renowned journalist for was it the National Geographic or
• 39:47
  something like that was travelling through Sweden doing
• 39:50
  some sort of peace and stopped in Falkenburg very briefly.
• 39:54
  And he stopped for a coffee. And Sweden is very famous for
• 39:57
  its for its coffee. And this guy wrote and it was
• 40:00
  like this tiny, because Faulkner, a tiny little town.
• 40:02
  He wrote that this is the best coffee he has ever tried and had
• 40:06
  something to do with, he would argue, anyone that's the best
• 40:09
  coffee in the world. So I've arrived there as a 19
• 40:12
  year old man, boy, teenager, whatever you want to call me.
• 40:16
  And I'm with this other guy. We're there for work and
• 40:19
  everyone's banging on about the, the, the coffee, the coffee, the
• 40:23
  coffee like coffee drinking at that point.
• 40:26
  And of course, one thing is the Swedes, when they drink coffee,
• 40:28
  it's, it's black coffee. There's no and I think you're
• 40:31
  almost if you put a bit of milk in your coffee, you're kind of
• 40:34
  looked down upon by some of the guys if you bought.
• 40:37
  Didn't ask for a latte or something, no no.
• 40:39
  No, just basically everyone since we've been looked after a
• 40:42
  guy, Magnus has picked us up in a Volvo and it's was this a.
• 40:49
  Fever dream because it's time to sound like a Rojo.
• 40:51
  Pass IKEA. This is true.
• 40:53
  I have on the radio, no genuinely a Magnuson, the Volvo.
• 40:57
  You could have written it, but, but basically he said that I
• 41:00
  will drop you off the hotel, you'll be looked after and what
• 41:02
  have you, and then I'll come and meet you.
• 41:04
  So that was about 12:00 in the afternoon.
• 41:06
  He was going to come and meet us.
• 41:07
  He said get yourself settled and I'll meet you at five, 6:00-ish.
• 41:11
  I had a rucksack with me, with the other guy was we put it down
• 41:14
  and we went right, let's go into the town and see what we're
• 41:16
  looking about. And Magnus has told us all the
• 41:18
  way through. If you love your coffees, you
• 41:19
  have to go to this coffee shop. So we're.
• 41:22
  Standing in the queue, myself and a guy called Gary who was
• 41:26
  maybe 2526 and we're standing there and he said well better
• 41:30
  get a coffee anyway. Mind you, they've got this local
• 41:33
  lager on tap. So we said hang the coffees
• 41:38
  we'll get, we'll get a cut. And I have to say it was
• 41:40
  probably I'm not a big lager drinker, but it was an absolute
• 41:42
  crack of the Falkenberg brewery, which I think had just been
• 41:44
  bought by Carlsberg. And Magnus ended up picking us
• 41:48
  up thinking we would enjoy that. I'll I'll walk through the town
• 41:52
  and enjoying some nice coffee and taking it this we're
• 41:54
  steaming. So it sounds Sweden.
• 41:58
  It's not that the Swedes baby aren't big drinkers.
• 42:00
  Maybe they the Tuesday. Afternoon, definitely.
• 42:05
  They were just being. Normal.
• 42:08
  Making your own papers just a little bit different and maybe
• 42:12
  stood out I was. Actually going to ask you what
• 42:14
  day it was, because if you have like, a glass of wine on a
• 42:17
  Tuesday with your pasta for dinner because you fancy it,
• 42:19
  people are like, Oh my God, do you have a problem?
• 42:22
  But if you have like 12 pints, 16 shots, 2 bowls of wine and
• 42:26
  some cocktails on a Friday or Saturday, yeah come on, why are
• 42:29
  you not drinking more? Tuesday to Friday and it was, it
• 42:33
  was a Svenskin real company we were working in.
• 42:36
  And I have to say that I couldn't believe the culture
• 42:38
  over there at the time. You know, it was, it was like
• 42:42
  9:00 and they stopped. Where is this?
• 42:44
  Your break time Said no, no, this is just fruit time.
• 42:46
  So everyone got free fruit. Yeah, I got a.
• 42:49
  Free fruit for 10 minutes, no more than what time it would
• 42:51
  take you to go to the toilet, wash your hands, eat an apple,
• 42:54
  and then get back to work. And then again, it was like
• 42:56
  10:30. The hooter goes again.
• 42:57
  It's like fruit time again. No, no, this is break time.
• 43:00
  And then an open sandwiches were laid out for everybody at 10:30.
• 43:03
  Then about 12:30 lunchtime, you're ready.
• 43:06
  For a lager. And by 1:00 we were getting one,
• 43:11
  We'd finished our job, we were at the pub.
• 43:13
  But I have to say a lovely, lovely country.
• 43:15
  But from a, from a whiskey perspective, then we, we've not,
• 43:18
  I don't know particularly much about Swedish whiskey.
• 43:20
  I think, Ross, you were talking about a massive.
• 43:22
  Appetite for Scottish whiskey, but.
• 43:24
  But also, but you'd mentioned that a big Swedish whiskey
• 43:26
  brand, our distillery had gone under.
• 43:29
  Oh. So Mac Meadow entered
• 43:31
  administration very recently, and they were kind of.
• 43:34
  I would. Argue the most established
• 43:35
  distillery them in them in box. Exactly.
• 43:38
  I think because my Camino has been around since 1999 and
• 43:40
  that's kind of the new birth of Swedish whiskey.
• 43:43
  So they were really the oldest and the biggest and I think one
• 43:46
  of the biggest in Europe as well.
• 43:47
  Yeah. Certainly won accolades as well
• 43:49
  and I also. Think because you've done peated
• 43:51
  whiskey and they weren't Scottish and everybody was like,
• 43:53
  Oh my goodness, what is this? But though they've been saved by
• 43:56
  Mr. Hero I know that is that Hero saves back me the headline
• 44:00
  and in terms. Of like we have, we've talked to
• 44:02
  Brandon Masters about this and we've mentioned it in terms of
• 44:05
  like Ross had already said about the Asian market over in the
• 44:09
  East. They like that sort of, they see
• 44:10
  the darker whiskey seems to be the sort of premium they look at
• 44:13
  that. Is there a distinct flavour
• 44:15
  profile that Swedish people would go to?
• 44:18
  You've already mentioned it, I'm going to say.
• 44:19
  Yes, even she says no. No, I do agree and I think it's
• 44:23
  the same. I think it has to do with why
• 44:25
  you think people like coffee in Sweden.
• 44:27
  Coffee, black, strong. I don't know if has anything to
• 44:30
  do with Sweden being cold, but like they want Smokey, they want
• 44:33
  Sherry, they want big cast strength.
• 44:35
  Like the stronger the better. And I think that just summarizes
• 44:40
  Sweden and what they like. It's similar to Germany I'd say
• 44:43
  as well. And countries like that, they
• 44:45
  just want the bigger the better the flavours.
• 44:47
  And obviously that's a general like generalization.
• 44:50
  Highly awarded art Beg official single cast for you know where
• 44:54
  they sell these all these every company is selling single cast
• 44:57
  to certain markets, but the ones that do very well, you get
• 45:00
  Highland parks and Art begs and Swedish markets.
• 45:03
  When all these awards because they know that the audience
• 45:07
  demands a quality and also you have the name of your shop.
• 45:12
  You can only buy whiskey from one kind of shop, right?
• 45:14
  Sustainable. Loggets.
• 45:16
  Oh yeah. I'm not very good at spending.
• 45:17
  Loggets. Yeah.
• 45:19
  So, so it's government controlled, right?
• 45:21
  Yes. So the government has monopoly
• 45:23
  on alcohol sales, so you can only buy in that shop.
• 45:25
  So basically. The government like card beg.
• 45:28
  You're going to have our beg in your shops.
• 45:29
  I've got I've. Got talk about shops.
• 45:31
  I've I mean I've got my Swedish chemist.
• 45:34
  Ohh yeah, this joke. Actually on that trip I forgot
• 45:36
  my deodorant so I went in a local chemist.
• 45:38
  I said can I get some deodorant and the woman said aerosol or
• 45:41
  ball. I said no, it's for my armpits.
• 45:45
  So anyway. But.
• 45:50
  So my government controlled retail and basically nature is a
• 45:55
  whiskey that you can get in. So then people are going to get
• 45:57
  a taste for that, but from a. Marketing point of view, you
• 46:00
  talk like the connections between the sort of Nordic and,
• 46:04
  and the Celtic connections and you look at the the, the sort of
• 46:08
  the Vikings coming over. I mean, effectively, I mean, my
• 46:13
  mother's maiden name was Anderson.
• 46:14
  So I've got a bear about me and you got this big guy beside this
• 46:18
  as well. You got a bit of Viking about
• 46:20
  you too Cam as well. Aberdeen that's exactly but when
• 46:23
  you London ports but. When you look at our beg and you
• 46:26
  look at Highland Park, you know they market themselves in that
• 46:30
  kind of fashion. Yeah, particular Highland Park
• 46:33
  do certainly did. But.
• 46:34
  Even like when you look at the the the the I'm looking at one
• 46:36
  of the bottles behind some of the hard beg bottles behind you.
• 46:39
  Yeah, they do, without saying it, that even with the brand,
• 46:42
  the writing, that intimidating, dark.
• 46:44
  Branding, yeah. And it's.
• 46:46
  Very sort of Viking and of course the Highland Park, they
• 46:48
  really play on that. Yeah, they think that has a big
• 46:51
  impact on the marketing in Sweden.
• 46:53
  Do people hold onto that a little bit stronger?
• 46:55
  Well, I would say in a shop like Sassembra Log, it's where
• 46:58
  everything is very much. There's no marketing in in that
• 47:01
  shop. It's basically just shelves,
• 47:03
  like they can't market anything. It definitely helps if you stand
• 47:07
  out on the shelf and because I would say it is becoming better,
• 47:10
  but there is a lot of like almost like a.
• 47:15
  Kind. Of old fashioned, almost
• 47:16
  conservative community in Sweden, I wouldn't say
• 47:20
  everywhere I've met very many people they're not like that,
• 47:22
  but it's a lot of like still a lot of men.
• 47:25
  The bite whiskey, like you'll go to a whiskey shop and they'll be
• 47:26
  almost all men and they're lovely, but I think they have
• 47:30
  quite a masculine branding, so I definitely think that could
• 47:32
  help. And how does?
• 47:33
  That play a Swedish whiskey girl when you go back home to Sweden,
• 47:36
  like do you have a big Swedish following and is there a
• 47:39
  different is there a in terms of your following as well?
• 47:42
  What's the balance? Do you know if it's male,
• 47:44
  female, mixed or do you get, have you got a larger female
• 47:47
  audience because females see you and think, well, it's less
• 47:50
  intimidating because you're one of the content that you're
• 47:52
  putting out? Yes.
• 47:53
  So I think my biggest markets that I can see social media wise
• 47:56
  is the US, the UK and Sweden. And if Sweden's on that list,
• 47:59
  that means there's quite a lot of people from there because
• 48:01
  there's also India on that list. So it's really lovely to see.
• 48:06
  And there's a lot of people that come up to me to like add shows
• 48:09
  to talk about it because Sweden has the most amount of whiskey
• 48:12
  clubs per capita, which is really cool in the world.
• 48:15
  So they are really big whiskey fans.
• 48:17
  But I would say there's also like this thing, like when I
• 48:22
  went to Sweden, I met a lot of people on the Viking line.
• 48:25
  I don't know if you've heard about the whiskey show on the
• 48:27
  cruise ship. We've heard.
• 48:28
  All about that you're angling for a ticket.
• 48:31
  This should go this was mentioned who who was it that
• 48:34
  mentioned it was Annandale Bob Callow from Callow.
• 48:39
  So he mentioned about this cruise ship and it leaves
• 48:42
  Stockholm and it sails out into the Baltic Sea for a few nights
• 48:46
  ago to Finland. Is it?
• 48:47
  Well, it doesn't go towards. Finland it goes.
• 48:49
  Into international waters it goes.
• 48:50
  Into international. So it goes in the direction of
• 48:53
  Finland, Yeah. Stays in the sea, turns back and
• 48:57
  then ends back, then the next. Batch comes along and then the.
• 49:00
  Next batch comes along and off it goes.
• 49:01
  I think Ben said there was a boy that was on there for four days.
• 49:04
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're working it, you're no
• 49:06
  no. A guy, a guy for four days
• 49:09
  worth, he's at a whiskey. Festival on the sea for four
• 49:12
  days exactly, and I think a lot. Of people save up money and then
• 49:15
  buy everything at these shows. So like I stood next to a wee
• 49:18
  lady in the, she was probably like definitely 65 plus next to
• 49:22
  me in the left and I was all the traditional shopping.
• 49:24
  She had these big, big like shopping bags.
• 49:28
  And she's like, yes, I only spent about a grand and 1/2 this
• 49:32
  year and I was like wonderful. Just like I save up every year
• 49:35
  so I can buy everything. I'm like perfect.
• 49:37
  That's right. Yeah, it was just, it's good
• 49:40
  fun, but I've also never been so harassed as I was there, which I
• 49:45
  was really disappointed by because I feel like Sweden
• 49:47
  should be more forwards and and less problematic we have.
• 49:53
  Had some amazing women in the industry and a lot of
• 49:56
  hospitality, you know, people who own bars and such on the
• 50:00
  podcast already. But there there is still a
• 50:02
  problem in the whiskey drinking audience, which is that you've
• 50:06
  got, you're surrounded by 4 white men and we will all be 4
• 50:08
  old white men eventually with beards, with beards as well.
• 50:12
  Yeah, we're not incredibly diverse as well, but we've got a
• 50:15
  clean. Shaved guy on the podcast, but I
• 50:16
  would say we'd probably have more more bearded guests than
• 50:19
  unbearded guests that. Obviously can't be easy being.
• 50:24
  Actually. Having such a big profile will
• 50:26
  bring some negatives as well I guess from for that.
• 50:29
  Yes, but I think for me, I don't notice that much anymore.
• 50:32
  It makes me really angry when I see it happen to other people.
• 50:35
  But and it's like I've gotten used to it.
• 50:38
  Like I have comments every week but I don't accept them and I
• 50:41
  don't give them any time and space or day and they just want
• 50:44
  attention. So I'm not going to give it to
• 50:46
  them. But what I'm trying to do is do
• 50:47
  something kind of positive, be really friendly and open to
• 50:50
  everyone because I would hate for it to happen to someone who
• 50:54
  maybe hasn't been in the industry as long or doesn't feel
• 50:56
  as confident in it and and and. Won't be used to it and it'll
• 50:58
  really set them off track or maybe not make them pursue it.
• 51:01
  Exactly. And I think it's getting so much
• 51:03
  better, but it is still an issue and you see it a lot.
• 51:05
  So I think everyone can just help make it better.
• 51:08
  But the community is so lovely. It's such a small percentage,
• 51:11
  but we just wish you could make it change overnight and, and so.
• 51:14
  Something on Swedish whiskey just to finish, because I think
• 51:16
  this would be interesting because we all know Mac Mira and
• 51:19
  High Coast say, we all know if you're really sad like, but
• 51:24
  Falkenburg. Brewery though, maybe?
• 51:26
  Maybe a couple of Swedish distilleries or just
• 51:30
  Scandinavian distilleries that aren't spoken about that you
• 51:33
  think people should know about. So the first.
• 51:34
  One that comes to mind is a Swedish one called agitator.
• 51:37
  Or agitator I guess. Oh yeah.
• 51:40
  Yeah, there you go. I went and got it from the
• 51:42
  Swedish pronunciation because they play around with oak types
• 51:45
  and everything, right? Yeah, they do.
• 51:46
  A lot of fun things they've just done.
• 51:48
  A chestnut aged. Round, I suppose this.
• 51:51
  Is the benefit as well of not being a Scotch whiskey the
• 51:53
  celery you can play around with? Yeah, exactly.
• 51:55
  Like there's Birch, Birch SAP wine casts, lingleberry wine
• 51:59
  casts, but I think I, I get off to agitators want to look out
• 52:02
  for they vacuum distill and they do a lot of funky stuff.
• 52:07
  There's vacuum. Distill Yeah.
• 52:09
  For our audience, what the hell does that mean?
• 52:11
  So for us. Yeah, for our audience,
• 52:15
  obviously don't know. I don't.
• 52:19
  Vacuum at home. Do you distill?
• 52:22
  So generally when you distill it's you have a lot of oxygen in
• 52:26
  the cask or in the still, sorry. So it's like there's basically
• 52:30
  oxygen playing around around the still, but when you distill or
• 52:35
  vacuum distill, you basically distill in a vacuum.
• 52:37
  So you get rid of all the oxygen, which means you can
• 52:39
  distill it at lower temperatures so you don't risk burning any of
• 52:43
  your grain. So you distill it at much lower,
• 52:45
  but it's really efficient. If you want to talk to more, I
• 52:48
  can put you in contact with Oscar, who runs the distillery
• 52:50
  because you can probably expect it better.
• 52:52
  But yeah, it's an interesting thing that they do.
• 52:54
  They've also made some rye whiskey, which is apparently
• 52:56
  really tricky to work with. So yeah, it's interesting to
• 52:59
  hear about what they do. Keep an.
• 53:01
  Eye out for that. Gervin vacuum to still rough.
• 53:06
  There you go, there you go, there you go.
• 53:10
  Come tell me right I've got but the audio.
• 53:14
  Listeners, Cameron just ran around the room with his top
• 53:16
  off. I would knee slide, it wasn't
• 53:21
  solid concrete and quite uneven floating in here.
• 53:24
  Come tell me, was it a typewriter you used?
• 53:26
  Because I've got I've got a picture of you up and it's some
• 53:29
  sort of isolated area with a a pile of papers, a typewriter, a
• 53:33
  Scotch and just like a burning cigarette constantly on the go.
• 53:36
  And you work into deadlines, there's.
• 53:39
  Maybe couldn't have been further away from that image.
• 53:43
  I have never smoked. I tried the whiskeys and did
• 53:48
  very sort of quick tasting notes on the whiskeys and then padded
• 53:52
  them out a little bit. But I did most of the work on on
• 53:54
  my iPad actually. Really.
• 53:56
  And with towards the latter with three to four months.
• 54:02
  So crawling about my feet, which was an interesting conundrum.
• 54:09
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And certainly hinder you as
• 54:13
  well. Yes.
• 54:14
  I mean, my first experience of of a a baby, yeah.
• 54:18
  And your first experience of being an author?
• 54:20
  Yes, but you just want to never take your eyes off and kill
• 54:25
  yourself. Yeah.
• 54:26
  It's like, ah, what? What?
• 54:27
  What are they doing now? Yeah.
• 54:28
  Oh. Absolutely.
• 54:30
  I know, but but like the writing process is, is fascinating.
• 54:34
  It's something I've always been quite interested in and looking
• 54:36
  at it and trying to understand the different processes that
• 54:39
  people have. You're over.
• 54:41
  You've got to work to deadlines. Yeah.
• 54:42
  And you've got to get sensing. Very.
• 54:44
  Good, No. Well.
• 54:44
  That's what I was wondering is, you know, like Cameron.
• 54:47
  Cameron's writing tasting notes and stuff as well, so it's
• 54:49
  obviously a different writing process and.
• 54:51
  Sometimes, yeah, like you'd sit down to to write some days and
• 54:54
  you'd just not be in the mood at all.
• 54:56
  Yeah. And you'd go through.
• 54:58
  I'm not sure it was same for you.
• 54:59
  You'd go through the ritual, maybe make yourself a, a nice
• 55:02
  strong cafeteria of coffee, you know, And I sat in my dining
• 55:07
  room a lot. It's got it's nice and bright
• 55:09
  and open. I've got a sturdy table in
• 55:11
  there. Open up the iPad.
• 55:15
  Load up the the document that you're working on and just like
• 55:19
  I can't be arsed with this today, yeah, you know, and just
• 55:21
  close it and go, you know, Orange went to go for a walk or
• 55:26
  whatever. You know, presumably you had to
• 55:28
  try every whiskey you've written in this book again.
• 55:33
  Maybe not again, maybe. Not again, but yeah, but I.
• 55:35
  Mean you ever. Was there ever a day where
• 55:37
  you're like, oh got 15 to do the 15th?
• 55:41
  1:00 maybe. Maybe a slightly better question
• 55:46
  that wouldn't incriminate you to your employers and I.
• 55:50
  Mean they commissioned the bit, Yeah, so was there.
• 55:52
  Was there was there any drams that you revisited to do a
• 55:56
  whiskey bottling profile that you were surprised by?
• 55:59
  Yeah, there was quite a few, to be honest.
• 56:01
  Yeah, there's not that you. Thought, OK, I need to include
• 56:04
  ex distillery, yeah, even though you've not revisited in a while.
• 56:07
  And you went, Oh, my goodness, yeah.
• 56:09
  I am. We spoke earlier about Brick
• 56:12
  Ladie and I'll be the first to put my hands up and say it's
• 56:15
  absolutely not my favorite distillery.
• 56:18
  I don't really like any of it, to be honest.
• 56:22
  But not even port. Charlotte, I thought you were OK
• 56:24
  for Port Charlotte now. No.
• 56:25
  OK. But there's a there's a black
• 56:27
  art in there. Yeah.
• 56:28
  And I, I tried that. I was like, that is genuinely
• 56:32
  excellent. And you're.
• 56:32
  Not normally a Sherry fan either.
• 56:34
  No. Until.
• 56:34
  Until McAllen, yeah. Well, money talks right now.
• 56:43
  McAllen has a really special place in my heart.
• 56:47
  Love you. McKellen, it was my.
• 56:49
  It was my grandfathers favorite, Yeah.
• 56:51
  And yeah, he used to have a grouse on his shelf at the week
• 56:54
  for the week, and then he treat himself to be malt at the
• 56:57
  weekend. And it's one of the first
• 56:59
  whiskey bottles I remember seeing.
• 57:01
  Yeah, when I was much younger and saw those big broad
• 57:03
  shoulders and thought, I want to be that bottle.
• 57:06
  So I grew to six feet four truly broad shoulders as well.
• 57:10
  You know all our Swedish. Listeners going this guy had a
• 57:13
  problem. Midweek, midweek bottle on the
• 57:15
  weekend, but just the writing process.
• 57:22
  Did you have to? I'm trying to remember the name.
• 57:25
  There was an author, right? Someone just flushed the toilet
• 57:28
  by me. There was a it's.
• 57:31
  Just a wine dispenser filling up that glass there was.
• 57:35
  A There was an author who was a raving alcoholic but was only an
• 57:41
  alcoholic during their writing process yeah OK And was dry
• 57:46
  whenever they weren't writing and the.
• 57:49
  Guy who wrote Factotum and forget his name.
• 57:54
  Charles Bukowski was he? He was a mad alcoholic but it
• 57:58
  might have just been winning rally.
• 57:59
  Burns well. But no.
• 58:00
  But there's a story I heard a story that this guy when he was
• 58:03
  writing would, he would rent A cottage in the middle of
• 58:06
  nowhere. And I'm, I like to think it was
• 58:08
  the north of Scotland, right in the Highlands, middle nowhere in
• 58:10
  a tiny little town. And there was like a two mile
• 58:13
  distance between the cottage and the local town.
• 58:15
  And the town basically had a shop which had a post office.
• 58:18
  And next door to the shop there was a pub.
• 58:19
  And what this guy would do was he would drive to the pub, right
• 58:24
  and get, be there for the opening and be literally carried
• 58:28
  out and then have to get a ride home or whatever it was.
• 58:31
  But before he left the pub, whilst he was there, he would
• 58:34
  write himself a letter, right, and then post it in the
• 58:38
  letterbox outside the pub. And then a day later the poster
• 58:41
  would come to deliver the letter and say can I get a ride back in
• 58:44
  there? Can I get a ride back into town?
• 58:46
  I get back to the post office. But I find it fascinating.
• 58:49
  Do you keep notes of whiskeys that you, are you a note keeper?
• 58:54
  Do you like? So if you're trying whiskeys and
• 58:57
  you think I want to log that or anything like that, is that
• 58:59
  something that you do? Sometimes from when I'm out and
• 59:03
  I'm on my own, Yeah. Well, it's not often that I I
• 59:08
  have the the luxury of time to be out and, you know, sit in a
• 59:12
  pub or sit in a bar and just have a few glasses of whiskey
• 59:15
  and kind of forget about the world.
• 59:17
  But if I am doing that, I do sometimes.
• 59:23
  We know on my phone, Right. And you?
• 59:25
  Always do it socially Cam, like when you've been out drinking
• 59:27
  drams, normally you're with one of your pals or colleagues or
• 59:31
  something from the industry. So because it's one of those
• 59:33
  things, and I think everybody that's listening home will
• 59:35
  agree, drinking whiskey by yourself is absolutely no fun.
• 59:40
  But you drink whiskey and you can, oh, sometimes you can enjoy
• 59:43
  it. I don't.
• 59:44
  Know I disagree. I think you can have.
• 59:46
  I'm going. To disagree, Well, well.
• 59:47
  Let me finish my point, Angus. I think you can.
• 59:52
  Go that I think you. Can I think you can enjoy
• 59:54
  whiskey by yourself? I think you can think that
• 59:57
  there's a really good whiskey and you can't wait to pour it
• 59:59
  for yourself, by yourself. But I think to actually have
• 1:00:02
  fun, alright. You go out and you drink whiskey
• 1:00:04
  with friends and you can swap drams and you can pay that.
• 1:00:07
  Yeah, yeah. That's my I get that 100%
• 1:00:08
  that's. Why I it's?
• 1:00:10
  That it's that sort of old cliche that whiskey is an
• 1:00:13
  incredible or alcohol in general, I guess, but it's a
• 1:00:16
  great social lubricant. Yeah.
• 1:00:17
  You know, it's just it allows that conversation to to back up
• 1:00:21
  whether that's about the things that you're drinking or whether
• 1:00:24
  that's about something else. Yeah.
• 1:00:26
  And you're completely right. Like when I'm out and more,
• 1:00:30
  you're probably the same, to be honest.
• 1:00:32
  It's mostly with friends and you almost switch off to what you're
• 1:00:37
  drinking a lot of the. Time you're just you're.
• 1:00:39
  More focused on the. Conversation.
• 1:00:42
  Having a good time whereas writing the book it was almost
• 1:00:45
  the opposite. It was going into hyper focus on
• 1:00:48
  the arms, which was really rewarding and something's quite.
• 1:00:52
  Refreshing for Revis and new drafts because I'm.
• 1:00:55
  Like I'm super proud of how it's turned out and things they need
• 1:00:58
  words to describe. It Yeah.
• 1:01:00
  Words to describe it, and it's also.
• 1:01:03
  You. Can't do a lot of drums in the
• 1:01:05
  same setting before you're just like just taste like whiskey.
• 1:01:07
  Well palette fatigue. They're also just mentally
• 1:01:11
  flushed as well. And you're like, right, Because
• 1:01:14
  that's great because I've. I've had a DRAM the last two
• 1:01:17
  Fridays, rare for me, and I've done it because of this look at
• 1:01:20
  this great Facebook, when everybody puts a DRAM record and
• 1:01:22
  it's the last two phrase of, you know, I pour myself a whiskey.
• 1:01:25
  And I've revisited bottles that I haven't maybe had for months
• 1:01:28
  because again, I don't pour. I don't drink whiskey at home.
• 1:01:31
  And so I pour a couple of drams and I have really enjoyed them.
• 1:01:35
  But my wife doesn't drink whiskey.
• 1:01:36
  And so if I'm sitting there having a whiskey by myself, and
• 1:01:40
  that's maybe my issue, I need to talk about it, that's.
• 1:01:43
  Your issue. Ross's texts pick up drastic, I
• 1:01:47
  will say. Cameron and I Cameron and I had
• 1:01:49
  a great conversation on Friday night because we were both like,
• 1:01:52
  I don't know where my wife was. My current, my current life was,
• 1:01:58
  was not about and your current life was away with the kids.
• 1:02:03
  And so well, actually it's it was as if we're having a drama
• 1:02:06
  together because we're sitting there texting each other and
• 1:02:08
  what you could have next and blah, blah.
• 1:02:10
  And I'm saying, Oh, you, you bastard.
• 1:02:12
  How've you got that? All the rest of it?
• 1:02:14
  And he's picking up bottles that in the drum roll calls, a bottle
• 1:02:17
  that I got for your 30th for you, the old Glenn Grant and
• 1:02:21
  going, Oh, that's amazing. But at the same time, I wish I
• 1:02:23
  was there to have it with you. Yeah, of course.
• 1:02:25
  I think that that's the beauty of the weekend drum roll call is
• 1:02:28
  it allows people to do that to create that, that community,
• 1:02:30
  because we do get people. Oh, how is that and things.
• 1:02:32
  But one of the things I'll say is that, and it's also two weeks
• 1:02:35
  in row. I've had a drum on a well, not
• 1:02:37
  on a Saturday night and forgotten to post on that.
• 1:02:40
  I can't say I'll have a drum because I can post it on the
• 1:02:42
  group and then I've Sunday morning I've gone.
• 1:02:45
  I've never posted that on the group.
• 1:02:46
  That's my apologies. I if I, I'm very fortunate.
• 1:02:51
  I'm 850 meters from door to door from this fine establishment, so
• 1:02:56
  a lot of the time I'm able to sneak out.
• 1:02:59
  Also, there's a bus stop right inside my flat that gets me to
• 1:03:02
  the bus stop right inside this pub.
• 1:03:04
  So you. Won't even walk the 150 meters
• 1:03:06
  quite often. I won't.
• 1:03:08
  I mean a take away bottle for you would be pointless.
• 1:03:11
  I often walk here and maybe probably just get the bus back.
• 1:03:13
  It's called a. Road drive at that stage, isn't
• 1:03:15
  it exactly. I'm not in the back of the bus,
• 1:03:18
  I'm going to be swinging on. A Tuesday.
• 1:03:22
  But the the what's really interesting now that you mention
• 1:03:25
  it is if I'm on my own, I go for nothing new or sometimes but but
• 1:03:31
  I I go old, old stud, these old faithfuls getting.
• 1:03:34
  Melting Duff out, yeah. Just even things like if I'm in
• 1:03:36
  the house, I actually find it quite a lot of pressure about
• 1:03:39
  it's weekend wrap, drum roll call because I don't have
• 1:03:41
  anything extravagant in the house because I don't need to
• 1:03:44
  because I've got 850 bottles. Yeah, 850 meters away from so.
• 1:03:48
  But but what I will notice is that if I go on my own in here
• 1:03:51
  for as a as a new father, sometimes I do my wife is
• 1:03:56
  absolutely fantastic where she'll realize that sometimes
• 1:04:00
  I'm a pain in the backside in the house.
• 1:04:01
  So it's like right? You can only.
• 1:04:03
  Sometimes I don't know what I'm doing wrong, you can you.
• 1:04:07
  Can nip to the pub if you want for an hour and a half or
• 1:04:09
  whatever. And if I'm getting a drama I'll
• 1:04:12
  I'll usually be getting a drama of something that I just know.
• 1:04:16
  But when I'm with you guys, when we're doing this podcast or if
• 1:04:19
  I'm in company, Angus, if you and I are together, then it's
• 1:04:22
  just like it'll be a case of right, what are we, what are we
• 1:04:25
  going to? There's all the.
• 1:04:26
  Sounds coming into the. Take me to the ghost stream.
• 1:04:28
  But but we'll, yeah, I'll pick, we'll pick something, we'll have
• 1:04:32
  a look or something we'll say right, you've got the I think
• 1:04:34
  that's right. I think when we're together
• 1:04:35
  sometimes, Graham, we try and challenge each other a wee bit
• 1:04:37
  as well and a wee bit. It's fun, isn't it?
• 1:04:40
  But I mean, as a as a you, as a whiskey couple more, You're
• 1:04:42
  quite. Lucky.
• 1:04:43
  I mean, first and foremost, your husband's been inviting me into
• 1:04:47
  your house for long before you were married.
• 1:04:49
  Yeah, I do. But you've got a lot of whiskey
• 1:04:51
  that Are you sick? Of going cadam and Tom and tow.
• 1:04:55
  I actually, I'm not because I don't drink that much.
• 1:04:57
  I feel like I actually drink it less now that he works for them.
• 1:05:00
  Yeah, but it's also because I don't want people that follow me
• 1:05:03
  to think that I only promote them because he works for them.
• 1:05:06
  Yeah, even though I actually really like flying Cadams.
• 1:05:09
  And I mean, you have been mentioned in the Walk 3 drams
• 1:05:11
  before because I don't know if you listen to your husband's
• 1:05:14
  episode, but you cannot put Glencarom 15 and as one of your
• 1:05:17
  what, 3 drams tonight because he already gave that story.
• 1:05:21
  But we can. Hear it from the other.
• 1:05:23
  We can hear it from the other point of.
• 1:05:25
  View yeah, no, because he. Told a New Year's story, didn't
• 1:05:27
  he? He I have another story.
• 1:05:29
  Oh, good, good. But how much wish have you got
• 1:05:31
  in your flat I? Don't know, but it's I would
• 1:05:34
  guess it's like 200 to 300 bottles.
• 1:05:36
  But our problem is that we don't drink in the house a lot because
• 1:05:40
  whiskey's almost work now and if we drink in the house we have
• 1:05:42
  have a glass of wine it sounds. Like and you've got some of
• 1:05:44
  them. In with you, that's how he.
• 1:05:46
  Needs you to come over sounds. Like a next recording episode
• 1:05:48
  will happen in the Reynolds house, Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  Well, the other thing is as well is when as a, as a, as an
• 1:05:56
  influencer, as somebody who does this professionally, am I right
• 1:06:00
  in saying I can't remember what the Advertising Standards agency
• 1:06:04
  now state that if you've been paid or gifted for a promotion,
• 1:06:08
  do you have to put in this is a gifted promotion or this hashtag
• 1:06:12
  gad #gifted or something like that?
• 1:06:13
  I've. Always done that, yeah.
• 1:06:15
  So I will always mark it. If it's an ad, then it's a paid
• 1:06:18
  collaboration. But if I put like PR sample then
• 1:06:21
  it's something that they've sent to me in the hopes that it will
• 1:06:23
  get featured. But I never guarantee it if it's
• 1:06:26
  not a paid collaboration. What's?
• 1:06:27
  Have you had some good ones? Yeah.
• 1:06:29
  I mean. Tripped recently.
• 1:06:32
  Yes, we were in Portugal with the Dalmore for the launch of
• 1:06:35
  the cast curation series, the second edition, the port one
• 1:06:38
  that we were in Portal and that was just unreal.
• 1:06:41
  That's amazing to the point where I was like, what am I
• 1:06:43
  doing that's once in a? Lifetime for a lot of people,
• 1:06:45
  yes. It was unreal.
• 1:06:46
  And that 43 year old, I believe it is the oldest one in the
• 1:06:51
  trio, was just great whiskey. And it's almost makes me sad
• 1:06:55
  when old whiskey is that good because some old whiskey isn't
• 1:06:57
  that good. Like I've tried 50 year olds and
• 1:06:59
  I'm like, do you know what? I wouldn't have that again.
• 1:07:02
  But that was a really, really lovely whiskey.
• 1:07:06
  Now is that do you get quite a lot of different people
• 1:07:08
  contacting you and, and do you have to be careful as well?
• 1:07:12
  Because I suppose there's two ways of looking at it.
• 1:07:15
  Number one is you could take everything that comes to you and
• 1:07:17
  put everything out, But then would you be cautious of your
• 1:07:21
  branding in terms of just becoming a, a constant advert
• 1:07:24
  for other brands and things like that?
• 1:07:26
  Yes. Definitely.
• 1:07:26
  And I think it takes away the value from the people that
• 1:07:28
  actually pay for the collaborations as well.
• 1:07:30
  So I, I say no, quite a lot of people this time of year is
• 1:07:34
  really tricky because sometimes these things just appear at your
• 1:07:36
  door. But like I said, I don't post
• 1:07:38
  about everything that arrives. It's especially now that I'm
• 1:07:41
  self-employed, I'd need to really be careful with what I
• 1:07:45
  want to do with my brand and make sure that I can pay the
• 1:07:47
  bills. So I have to just say, if you
• 1:07:50
  want me to cover this, you're going to have to do a paid
• 1:07:52
  collaboration. If not, then I'm sure I'll try
• 1:07:55
  it eventually. But then they have no control of
• 1:07:57
  what I'm writing at all. So yeah.
• 1:08:01
  We've we've said no to every single paid collaboration offer
• 1:08:04
  that we've had in the West Stories podcast.
• 1:08:07
  Honestly, I'm also. Yes to them all.
• 1:08:10
  I'm obviously, I'm actually fed up of having to say no to all
• 1:08:13
  these paid collaborations that have been flowing through our
• 1:08:17
  our PO Box address. It's really, really tricky.
• 1:08:20
  We are we are still looking for sponsorship M&SM and.
• 1:08:24
  S Christmas I'd love to advertise forever we've got.
• 1:08:26
  I think they're M&S. They're M&S.
• 1:08:27
  Kilomanus Lock lock Reynard. Is that there?
• 1:08:30
  Is there is the Kiloman? Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:32
  So, Cam, you've had some brilliant trips as part of the
• 1:08:37
  gig that you've got there at the at Scotch Bar about bar models
• 1:08:40
  or any recent ones that stand out for you.
• 1:08:42
  I was surprised I didn't actually get to see you at the
• 1:08:44
  launch event in Las Vegas for the Glenfiddich Formula One as
• 1:08:49
  Aston Martin. Yeah, Formula One launch.
• 1:08:52
  I saw that in the hills and the valleys of outside of Las Vegas,
• 1:08:56
  Monaco. You'd have been there.
• 1:08:57
  Well, there was 2. There's two.
• 1:08:59
  There's two. Reasons why I wasn't there.
• 1:09:01
  And firstly, Las Vegas terrifies me.
• 1:09:06
  Yeah, OK. Secondly, I had to turn it down
• 1:09:08
  because I had to look after the cat, right?
• 1:09:10
  Yeah, to Gloria. Yeah.
• 1:09:14
  To. Gloria, Yeah.
• 1:09:15
  You have had some great trips, absolutely.
• 1:09:18
  You have not been on loads recently.
• 1:09:20
  You're about to. Go on one you know, a work trip.
• 1:09:23
  I'm away on a work trip on Monday.
• 1:09:25
  Yeah, I'm going to Cannes on Monday.
• 1:09:28
  What? Far, just not far from Monaco.
• 1:09:30
  It's not far from Monaco. There's a luxury travel show
• 1:09:36
  across there, so as part of Rocco, 40s brand, if you will.
• 1:09:43
  Yeah. And Ross did that a few years
• 1:09:46
  ago, Rocco. 40s yeah. In LA we.
• 1:09:49
  We sort of take over an apartment and host after drinks,
• 1:09:53
  really. And then one of the Scotch
• 1:09:56
  employees, because we're, we're, we're a point of difference, you
• 1:09:59
  know, we're tilted up and it's hard work by taking a.
• 1:10:04
  Few bottles out of you? I've got a few.
• 1:10:05
  Yeah, I've got a few on the. And what are you taking?
• 1:10:08
  Oh, this episode will come afterwards, So yeah, no, I.
• 1:10:10
  Have I've bought them and sent them so I've got a taken above
• 1:10:16
  any 12 year old sweet toast of American oak.
• 1:10:19
  Nice. Just.
• 1:10:20
  Because it's stories. Relation.
• 1:10:21
  Yeah. Juicy.
• 1:10:22
  And above any, it's got a great story.
• 1:10:25
  We're doing a glamorgy tale of ice cream.
• 1:10:29
  Oh. That's that's a great DRAM, by
• 1:10:31
  the way, just to. Show that like whiskey doesn't
• 1:10:34
  need to be that like doesn't have.
• 1:10:35
  To have an age statement doesn't have to.
• 1:10:36
  Yeah, but also. Like old, you know, sitting in a
• 1:10:40
  leather clad room where you know you're 2 German short haired
• 1:10:45
  pointers sorry marked on. You're really happy through that
• 1:10:56
  and. You're and you're humidor full
• 1:11:00
  of really fancy cigars, but yeah, just to show that yeah,
• 1:11:05
  that's a picture of me and Mark. Yeah, my.
• 1:11:06
  Dad and granddad, Yeah, we follow.
• 1:11:08
  That for the for the Instagram. But yeah, just to show that it
• 1:11:11
  doesn't need to be that really sort of old school image of
• 1:11:14
  Scotch. It can be that, like, fun,
• 1:11:16
  fresh, like brand, you know, great on it.
• 1:11:20
  Yeah. And we're doing Bulmore 14, one
• 1:11:24
  of the new GTRS which is finished in Bordeaux.
• 1:11:27
  Cast cool. Cool looking bottle A.
• 1:11:29
  Little sort of tie back to France and then we have
• 1:11:37
  something in Cherry which I have forgotten bro.
• 1:11:40
  Bracla No. Oh.
• 1:11:42
  Although I did consider taking the Royal Broccoli team because
• 1:11:45
  it's a great price at the airport just now as well.
• 1:11:48
  Yeah, there's a. Question then for you, when
• 1:11:49
  you're putting together these tastings and things, I've been
• 1:11:52
  sort of looking at it and I always kind of wonder and I go
• 1:11:56
  through different things to say, if I was going to do a tasting,
• 1:11:59
  what would we put together? And we do our indie bottler
• 1:12:01
  spotlights, which are. Great lessons.
• 1:12:05
  Oh, they're. Great fun, did you?
• 1:12:06
  Enjoy the Finn Thompson one. Yeah, I did, Yeah.
• 1:12:09
  Yeah, 'cause we 'cause we, I think, can't.
• 1:12:10
  We bought Finn Thompson into the bar when it was me.
• 1:12:14
  You and Dario. Yeah.
• 1:12:15
  Before we'd met Finn. Yeah.
• 1:12:16
  And this guy comes in and goes great.
• 1:12:17
  You've got so many Finn Thompson.
• 1:12:19
  So he said I would really like it, actually.
• 1:12:20
  Yeah. And he was.
• 1:12:21
  My name is Finn Thompson. Hi.
• 1:12:23
  What are you? Doing Finn Thompson, don't you
• 1:12:25
  like? Hi, he's got, he's got the part
• 1:12:29
  as well. Some boy.
• 1:12:30
  He is, he is. He has some boy.
• 1:12:31
  Shouldn't be in the West game. We we do it.
• 1:12:33
  We very. Generous.
• 1:12:36
  But sure it, Alex showed. Alex about a great podcast he
• 1:12:41
  was. I look at it, I'm sure there is
• 1:12:44
  a boy called Glenn Murray somewhere.
• 1:12:48
  I'm looking at it and I'm saying we're still trying to work out.
• 1:12:51
  I don't think we're going to do an indie bottler spotlight in
• 1:12:53
  December, but what I do think we are going to do is do a sort of
• 1:12:57
  live tasting event where we'll have probably highlights of the
• 1:13:00
  year brought in and stuff like that.
• 1:13:02
  So when I'm looking and I think to myself, if I was to do
• 1:13:05
  tasting, what would I do? And I've been doing a few of
• 1:13:08
  these tastes, I've got a few tastings and I work at the price
• 1:13:10
  points and wherever and what have you, but always wondering
• 1:13:13
  about do people and I don't know whether it's just a fight for in
• 1:13:16
  me and I've speaking to an Aberdonian as well.
• 1:13:18
  Do you feel a pressure where you think I can stick that drum in
• 1:13:22
  that line up just because it's good and not have to worry that
• 1:13:26
  someone would go? I can't believe we've paid all
• 1:13:28
  this money and you're only pulling out a £5050 bottle.
• 1:13:32
  No, I think, I think the value does isn't just in the drums
• 1:13:38
  that you're you're putting in the glass, it's in the.
• 1:13:39
  Presentation, right? It's in the.
• 1:13:41
  Presentation, it's in. It's entertainment at the end of
• 1:13:44
  the day. There's very, very little free
• 1:13:47
  entertainment in the world now that you you can have someday
• 1:13:50
  entertain you in whatever capacity that is.
• 1:13:53
  Yeah, podcast. That Yeah, of course you saw
• 1:13:55
  this podcast and. It's a really good question when
• 1:13:58
  you look at different markets. It's something I've been doing
• 1:14:00
  this year. I'll be doing a lot of next
• 1:14:01
  year, which is going to Scottish whiskey festivals and then
• 1:14:04
  international whiskey festivals. And the reality is that we are
• 1:14:07
  spoiled arses here in Scotland, yeah.
• 1:14:09
  We don't have a boat, very. Rarely to people in the whiskey
• 1:14:12
  entry in Scotland buy tickets to go to tastings.
• 1:14:15
  First and foremost. Very rarely to people in
• 1:14:17
  Scotland buy tickets and expect to necessarily X value because
• 1:14:21
  you're almost always given a far increased value.
• 1:14:25
  All the tastings that certainly I would imagine more I can and
• 1:14:28
  myself have been to in the industry.
• 1:14:31
  You you can't believe some of the stuff that they're pouring
• 1:14:33
  for what would be a standard tasting or industry tasting.
• 1:14:36
  And so it's hard you're putting on a tasting from from your
• 1:14:39
  point of view, I guess. But you've done your first
• 1:14:42
  tasting this year when you're working with a brand.
• 1:14:44
  Yeah, yeah. And do it independently.
• 1:14:45
  And keep in mind if we do something at Christmas, it would
• 1:14:47
  get the Rolls Royce of whiskey tasting helping you out.
• 1:14:49
  And that's me. And it's it's good to be and
• 1:14:54
  can't actually slag me here because he taught me and and so
• 1:14:59
  I like there's. Being some extreme creative
• 1:15:02
  license adopted by that part in this taste.
• 1:15:06
  It's just that. It does interest me when when
• 1:15:09
  you start to look at the value, Yeah, a lot of because you
• 1:15:13
  can't. Make profit in my opinion and a
• 1:15:15
  world class whiskey tasting. Of course, if you're an amazing
• 1:15:19
  host and you have a very receptive audience, then of
• 1:15:21
  course you can make profits if you're looking at making
• 1:15:23
  profits. But I would say that 95% plus of
• 1:15:27
  whiskey tastings on trade brand represented, brand hosted, 95%
• 1:15:33
  of them are not looking at making a problem from that
• 1:15:34
  evening. It's about can we convince
• 1:15:37
  somebody of that product? Can we make somebody a buyer?
• 1:15:40
  Can we make somebody a fan of the distillery?
• 1:15:41
  Yes, and you can or or of a bottle, but on that.
• 1:15:44
  Front, though, with what Cam and what you used to do at the at
• 1:15:48
  Scotch is when people walk in and they expect because you can
• 1:15:53
  pay for tastings or you can even just try.
• 1:15:56
  I don't know. Could you do an off the cuff if
• 1:15:58
  I, if, if you had a group of four or five people came in and
• 1:16:00
  say, look, we don't know what to get, but go and do us a favour
• 1:16:03
  and and give us a be. Flight give us a.
• 1:16:05
  Flight or something in Yeah yeah, it's just why I always
• 1:16:09
  pictured is do you then have to go back and go right.
• 1:16:13
  I'd love to just give them that bottle because and it's only £40
• 1:16:16
  and it's really accessible whiskey, but I just think it is
• 1:16:19
  fantastic liquid and they would get a really enjoyable drama to
• 1:16:22
  that. However if they were to find out
• 1:16:24
  that this only cost £40 would they feel well hang on a minute.
• 1:16:28
  I've been a bit done here. I think you.
• 1:16:29
  Would feel a bit done historically but maybe not now,
• 1:16:32
  right? Well.
• 1:16:33
  I. Completely get your point.
• 1:16:34
  And I think people there will always be people that attend
• 1:16:37
  these taste things that are like I've bought a ticket, I want
• 1:16:41
  more than the value of my ticket worth of consumption.
• 1:16:45
  Yeah. And.
• 1:16:46
  It's like me when I used to go to Jimmy Chung's when it was
• 1:16:50
  still open by the Chinese buffet.
• 1:16:53
  You know, that'd be a buffet. I wouldn't have breakfast that
• 1:16:56
  day. We we used to do the Pizza Hut
• 1:16:58
  challenge, Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:01
  But you back to actually whiskey, which is why we're all
• 1:17:05
  here. I think there is also real value
• 1:17:13
  in that conversation in that in that sort of experience as well.
• 1:17:17
  You know, like the tasting that you had with Ross, that was how
• 1:17:20
  long ago was that Well. That was just that, right?
• 1:17:23
  2022 maybe? Two years later, you're still
• 1:17:28
  speaking about yeah, as as a good experience, as a positive
• 1:17:30
  experience and. That's actually true because we
• 1:17:32
  were part of a business. Your dramas would have been the
• 1:17:35
  value of your taste. It was it.
• 1:17:37
  Was it was a state? I don't know what type of taste
• 1:17:39
  it was. Journey around.
• 1:17:40
  Scotland. So yeah.
• 1:17:41
  So I remember there was like there was a Glenn Kinchy, Glenn
• 1:17:44
  Drona. I can't remember the other ones
• 1:17:48
  that were on there, but I would say probably Glen.
• 1:17:51
  Allocate there wasn't. There wasn't many unaccessible
• 1:17:53
  whiskers that were on that. Yeah.
• 1:17:54
  And that, that was fine. But, and again, you're getting
• 1:17:56
  the entity because I, I think, I think Glenn Kinche was the story
• 1:17:59
  exclusive, though I'm not sure. I can't remember whether it was
• 1:18:01
  I. Don't know.
• 1:18:02
  No, no, we've been to sales edition or the sales.
• 1:18:04
  Edition, but obviously the. Value of getting me talking
• 1:18:06
  about Glenn Kenton well. This is one of the things like
• 1:18:08
  talking. To the defendant.
• 1:18:10
  That's what I was going to ask. When you're when you're writing
• 1:18:12
  about Glenn Kinchy, do you have to mention about Ross Barley and
• 1:18:15
  the Keat the Foundation store when I came?
• 1:18:17
  Back to Cam after being at Glenn Kinchy.
• 1:18:19
  Every single one of my takings had a Glenn Kinshy other than
• 1:18:21
  that until at one point he said stop giving people think it
• 1:18:25
  because he did that for. Us I was a Glenn Kinshy that.
• 1:18:28
  Was an hour's tasting I could easily talk to Glenn Kinshy for.
• 1:18:30
  I just, I just find that we've had a lot of feedback, a really,
• 1:18:33
  really positive feedback. I can't remember when this is
• 1:18:35
  going out. So I'm pretty sure this will
• 1:18:37
  probably go out. Yeah, because hang on a second,
• 1:18:39
  we're as we're recording the 5th or.
• 1:18:41
  The 12th of December, yeah, as we're.
• 1:18:42
  Recording, it's the 25th and that's Monday.
• 1:18:44
  On Thursday we have our 4th in the bottler spotlight with Greg
• 1:18:47
  Urquhart. So this one, the Glenmore
• 1:18:49
  Spirits, this will be going out after that, which means that we
• 1:18:53
  can actually announce that we have our own special edition
• 1:18:55
  bottling that is available to purchase.
• 1:18:58
  A20. Five year old blend which is
• 1:19:00
  available now, which if it's still there, 60 balls 25.
• 1:19:05
  Year old blended Scotch whiskey exclusively for Whiskey Stories
• 1:19:08
  podcast. That's exactly.
• 1:19:09
  It and yeah and and there's also I mean we'll explain it when we
• 1:19:13
  do that I mean, if you've listened to that episode you'll
• 1:19:16
  have heard it already, but you know there's a reason for that
• 1:19:19
  and that's the first whiskey we all tried was a 25 well, the
• 1:19:23
  first whiskey was on the podcast episode 1 three grams of.
• 1:19:27
  Grams. 25 nine pound that was and you kept saying you've got a
• 1:19:30
  25 year old whiskey, you're not going to get better value than
• 1:19:33
  that 35 miles. It's just we, with the feedback
• 1:19:35
  that we get and something different because we've, we've
• 1:19:39
  done something that is slightly different to, to the format of a
• 1:19:43
  whiskey tasting where it's AQ and a format rather than having
• 1:19:45
  somebody standing and just telling.
• 1:19:48
  And, and I'd imagine that for guys like yourselves who've done
• 1:19:50
  a lot of whiskey tastings, you'll have a, you'll have a set
• 1:19:53
  script as such, you'll know, as we've said, the more confident
• 1:19:57
  you become with a type of DRAM, the more likely you'll have that
• 1:19:59
  in your, in your tastings and you'll know what, what you can
• 1:20:03
  say about it. You'll have a little set for, I
• 1:20:04
  think you'll. Yeah, you almost, you almost do
• 1:20:08
  at the start. And then as you're hosting
• 1:20:10
  tastings for me certainly and I'm sure for Ross and more as
• 1:20:16
  well, it becomes just a conversation.
• 1:20:18
  Yes, yeah, just you go into go into the history of the brand a
• 1:20:22
  little bit, maybe a little bit about the distillery, but it
• 1:20:25
  does absolutely become a conversation.
• 1:20:27
  The more question. Somebody asks.
• 1:20:28
  The better, the better. They're the best.
• 1:20:29
  Tasting, they're the ones that are engaging.
• 1:20:31
  They're the ones that you come away from.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah, I enjoyed that as well as the the guest is it.
• 1:20:36
  Something you'll sorry all that you finish.
• 1:20:38
  Sorry. I'm done.
• 1:20:41
  Is there something is there? Something.
• 1:20:42
  Is there something you'll do on behalf like as a Swedish,
• 1:20:44
  Russian girl? Can people, will you go and host
• 1:20:46
  tastings for people? Is that something you're looking
• 1:20:48
  at doing? Will you do your own events and
• 1:20:49
  stuff as well this year? Yeah.
• 1:20:51
  I think so. I think before COVID, I just set
• 1:20:53
  up doing independent tastings around Edinburgh for people that
• 1:20:56
  just want to have like an introduction to whiskey or they
• 1:20:58
  want a specific theme or like anyone can inquire and we can
• 1:21:01
  sort it out. But yes, I'm hoping to do a bit
• 1:21:05
  more. I just haven't had the time
• 1:21:06
  really. Yes, but in the future, well,
• 1:21:08
  2020. 5 is going to be your first full year self-employed,
• 1:21:10
  which is really exciting and I imagine slightly terrifying.
• 1:21:13
  Yes, but I'll. See, hopefully I'll make it to
• 1:21:15
  the end. I think it's it's amazing what
• 1:21:18
  you to be able to do with the book and everything as well.
• 1:21:20
  And I'm glad to have my coffee back home.
• 1:21:23
  If anybody was want to get the book, where do they get it?
• 1:21:26
  So there's like in toppings here in Edinburgh, but Amazon kind of
• 1:21:29
  internationally as well. Waterstones like I haven't.
• 1:21:32
  Seen on your story Cam. It's already made it stateside.
• 1:21:35
  It's already some of the customers from Scotch, right?
• 1:21:38
  Yeah. We've got one that's farther
• 1:21:40
  away from here than the United States.
• 1:21:43
  However, there is at least one copy in Sydney, Australia.
• 1:21:47
  There we go. Bought by Lisa McRae Who?
• 1:21:53
  Lisa. Shout out we say yeah, she's
• 1:21:55
  married to Gemma called James. We James he used to be called
• 1:22:00
  still is we James, but he's over there now.
• 1:22:02
  He used to be the William Grant and Sons Rep for that's.
• 1:22:05
  Really cool and. He.
• 1:22:07
  Moved over, yeah. And we go to Australia and.
• 1:22:09
  Then Australian Wife and the people that do have it in the
• 1:22:12
  states that I've seen on your stories, are they customers?
• 1:22:14
  Are they just people, that one? Of them is one of them was a guy
• 1:22:18
  called Tommy who used to work for the Glenrothes and Edrington
• 1:22:22
  across in the States. I met him in the bar and he
• 1:22:25
  bought a coffee. I mean how?
• 1:22:26
  Cool is that for both of you you've launched your first book
• 1:22:30
  you know maybe first of many, but certainly it's your first
• 1:22:35
  book and you're immediately seeing that people globally or
• 1:22:39
  have you something that you've made must be so satisfying I.
• 1:22:43
  Mean I'm I'm assuming Cam and maybe more.
• 1:22:48
  Had you had any published stuff before?
• 1:22:49
  Were you a published author beforehand?
• 1:22:51
  No, not me. And so there Cam as well.
• 1:22:54
  Not rent any books under a separate name.
• 1:23:01
  You know, that's it. You are you are published
• 1:23:03
  authors. Yeah.
• 1:23:04
  Which must feel really really cool.
• 1:23:05
  They always say about seeing your name in print and and
• 1:23:08
  things like that So being that being in there that it's there
• 1:23:12
  forever now it's written down. Yeah, I've definitely.
• 1:23:14
  Had a cry about it because I basically grew up in a library.
• 1:23:17
  Like, I was such a little like, book nerd.
• 1:23:19
  Like, I could carry. Like, I think instead of going
• 1:23:21
  to the gym, I just went to the library and carried as many
• 1:23:23
  books as I can because my mum always said you can bring books
• 1:23:25
  home, but you have to be able to carry them in and out.
• 1:23:27
  And when you just think about yourself being like, yes, look
• 1:23:32
  at these boys. But yeah, I think just thinking
• 1:23:36
  that there might be someone, like an 11 year old that was
• 1:23:38
  just like me who could go into a library.
• 1:23:40
  I really hope they don't read a book about whiskey.
• 1:23:41
  But like, you know, it's just there.
• 1:23:43
  It exists. Yeah.
• 1:23:46
  I'm reading about it first. Yeah, knowledge.
• 1:23:47
  Is power right? It is.
• 1:23:49
  Fantastic. And I hope if there, if anyone
• 1:23:51
  who is listening to this, get yourselves a copy of it, you've
• 1:23:54
  heard about it. We've heard, We've heard this is
• 1:23:56
  your third appearance on the Whiskey Stories podcast, I
• 1:23:59
  believe. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:00
  I didn't see We've heard from camp.
• 1:24:01
  On my wedding ever plenty of. Time so you know you that now
• 1:24:04
  the guy's got a book more as well.
• 1:24:05
  If you follow more, you'll you've heard what more is all
• 1:24:08
  about on the podcast. If you don't.
• 1:24:09
  Follow more you need to follow absolutely.
• 1:24:13
  So we are at that stage of the evening.
• 1:24:15
  I've got 1. Last question before we get to
• 1:24:16
  the stories, Cameron, do you listen to the podcasts I do?
• 1:24:20
  Yeah, every week. So you've.
• 1:24:21
  Had Chuck Fraser, myself, Eduardo Tam, all people that
• 1:24:28
  have worked on there. Yeah, He's got the best episode.
• 1:24:30
  He's got the worst episode. Oh.
• 1:24:32
  That is brutal start. With the worst.
• 1:24:36
  Could you be mentioned in quite a few of the podcast now
• 1:24:38
  there's? No such thing as a bad episode.
• 1:24:43
  Some episodes are better than others, yeah.
• 1:24:46
  And what you're saying is what you're saying is Fazer soon as
• 1:24:48
  the episode? That's a terrible episode.
• 1:24:52
  Episode could have been improved on, could have been aged a bit
• 1:24:55
  longer I. Actually, see, when I heard that
• 1:24:58
  he was coming on the podcast, because working in the Balmodel,
• 1:25:02
  you need to, you need to always be conscious that you're
• 1:25:06
  representing the bar at all times.
• 1:25:09
  And Fraser didn't tell me that he was coming on and I heard
• 1:25:14
  that he had been on and I was like.
• 1:25:18
  Shit. Angus, you and I were at school
• 1:25:22
  together. Yes, I think it was Teacher.
• 1:25:26
  Was it Mr. Chalmers? Cheesy Chalmers?
• 1:25:27
  Cheesy Chalmers? Yes.
• 1:25:29
  Drove Vanessa and Sunny Pre wrote for the whole the whole
• 1:25:33
  class. No, no, we weren't exactly a
• 1:25:36
  well behaved class and but you know, as a collective.
• 1:25:38
  So he pre wrote detention slips for every single every single
• 1:25:43
  person in the class. He said all I have to do is
• 1:25:46
  sign, sign signing data. That's it.
• 1:25:50
  You're in detention. Cheesy Chalmers.
• 1:25:52
  Cheesy. Obviously he's still going on,
• 1:25:56
  but did you? Did you?
• 1:25:58
  Did you have to when you heard phrasers come sworn into that
• 1:26:02
  bar and I was in this? Town, the warehouse.
• 1:26:04
  I was on the. West British podcast, have you
• 1:26:06
  got the pre written pre war pre? You got the written warning pre
• 1:26:09
  written for it, no? I'm I'm all for my colleagues
• 1:26:14
  being their own personalities. It wasn't necessarily me that I
• 1:26:18
  was worried about. Yeah.
• 1:26:19
  That's true. That's true.
• 1:26:20
  Yeah, I'm honest. We've got a very, very strict
• 1:26:22
  sort of code of conduct, if you will, from APR and marketing
• 1:26:26
  point of view. And by actually thought he
• 1:26:28
  represented the bar brilliantly. I thought he was really, really
• 1:26:31
  eloquent and you can see how. Enthusiastic he is for the
• 1:26:33
  roles, his stories. Were super, super engaging, but
• 1:26:36
  it's. Something that has been really
• 1:26:38
  consistent throughout those podcasts as everybody enjoyed
• 1:26:41
  working there. Yeah.
• 1:26:42
  And so what's the best? What's the best one?
• 1:26:44
  You must enjoy Chuck because you and Chuck butted heads when he's
• 1:26:46
  worked together. But now we're best about best of
• 1:26:49
  pals. And Chuck was.
• 1:26:50
  An idiot when he worked like Chuck was going through a
• 1:26:55
  really, really difficult part of his life where he just hated
• 1:26:58
  waking up in the morning. I think you.
• 1:27:00
  Could argue that well, we're all idiots who work to you at some
• 1:27:02
  point. Yeah, that's maybe fair.
• 1:27:06
  No like listen, I loved working with Chuck.
• 1:27:10
  I thought his episode was really great.
• 1:27:11
  I think his travels were amazing as well.
• 1:27:15
  I thought Tams episode was it was great because he just
• 1:27:17
  battered you for an hour. It does.
• 1:27:19
  It literally he was he was he was waiting Actually the fact
• 1:27:23
  that like the wedding episodes letting you know we know what
• 1:27:25
  Mark Thompson embellished, but it's but actually the the roast
• 1:27:30
  of Roth bar was the Tamka for episodes, but how short I am and
• 1:27:34
  how he would make me pick up the top tallest bottles.
• 1:27:38
  I think you need to get Scott soon us on.
• 1:27:40
  Yeah, and he's etching to come on as well.
• 1:27:44
  'Cause he was listening to the podcast when you're travelling
• 1:27:46
  through California and everything need the.
• 1:27:48
  Curtis as well, he's, yeah, he's not been on either.
• 1:27:50
  And then we've completed the the Scotch Bar and hopefully then we
• 1:27:53
  can get some sponsorship as well and pushed the book.
• 1:27:59
  And it does bring us to that point so more.
• 1:28:01
  As your what, 3 drams we briefed you earlier on, we Ross has
• 1:28:05
  already tried to guess what one of your what 3 dramas and I
• 1:28:08
  guess. It correctly that sounds right.
• 1:28:10
  Basically 333 whiskeys. Any 3 whiskeys you like that
• 1:28:14
  I've got some sort of meaning or story associated with them?
• 1:28:17
  So more Swedish whiskey girl. What's your first of your what,
• 1:28:20
  3 drams? Well, I was gonna do ARD Big 10,
• 1:28:24
  but since we've already spoken about it, I'll do link out of
• 1:28:26
  15. Just to wine Ross up, I mean it.
• 1:28:30
  Is my wedding anniversary after all, and it is a whiskey I
• 1:28:32
  really liked for a long time, so I used to work at the Scottish
• 1:28:34
  Whiskey Experience. Another one from the Scotch
• 1:28:37
  whiskey experience. Illuminati there exactly.
• 1:28:39
  Fantastic. Academy, yes.
• 1:28:42
  Oh, he was my manager, so he taught me everything he knew.
• 1:28:45
  But we had worked a really long shift and it was in August
• 1:28:49
  during the Fringe. I had told a lot of people we're
• 1:28:51
  sold out and they basically told me that I was an idiot for
• 1:28:55
  selling out. So it was a lovely day of
• 1:28:57
  dealing with people. And it was one of those days,
• 1:29:00
  like towards the end of the month that I think our manager
• 1:29:02
  could just tell that no one had life behind their eyes anymore.
• 1:29:06
  So at the end of the shift, we were working the late shift.
• 1:29:09
  She took us all up to the room on the top floor, Castle Hill.
• 1:29:13
  I was so tired. I just laid down on the floor
• 1:29:16
  and they they have these lovely kind of barrel stave lights in
• 1:29:21
  the ceiling. So I just remember looking up at
• 1:29:23
  those and being like, I'm so tired.
• 1:29:24
  I can't wait for August to be over.
• 1:29:26
  As you poured us all a little DRAM just to say we see how hard
• 1:29:29
  you're working. You're doing great.
• 1:29:31
  Try this whiskey. And I was like, this is lovely.
• 1:29:34
  I was just out of my cherry cask loving era and back into bourbon
• 1:29:39
  like Adam 15 was just like this is so lovely.
• 1:29:42
  It's one of the best like experiment cast whiskeys I've
• 1:29:45
  had, which is about a month before they had like a gap in
• 1:29:51
  the stock, like a stock gap. So you can get a hold of it for
• 1:29:54
  two years. So like love this whiskey.
• 1:29:56
  Where do I get a hold of it? Can't.
• 1:29:57
  Great. So you married the boy that
• 1:29:58
  could get you? Sally is.
• 1:30:01
  That an agenda. From timeline point of view, was
• 1:30:04
  that before or after that you'd met Cody then?
• 1:30:07
  So I met him before that. So he started working at
• 1:30:09
  Scottish Risk Experience and when I was about to move, moved
• 1:30:12
  back home to Sweden. When I graduated about maybe
• 1:30:15
  eight months later, we knew they didn't have any Nordic speaking
• 1:30:19
  tour guides. So I was like, I'll just go for
• 1:30:20
  a a job here, which looking back on it was insane.
• 1:30:24
  I got went for a job where my partner worked.
• 1:30:27
  Yeah, yeah, by all worked out. We got ended up on like the same
• 1:30:31
  shift and stuff so. It's my stock.
• 1:30:33
  Question to anyone that's worked at the Scotch Malt Whisky
• 1:30:36
  Experience, but do you miss the barrel ride or are you glad it's
• 1:30:39
  gone? I don't personally, but it was
• 1:30:45
  nice when he was quiet and you could just sneak in and sit
• 1:30:47
  there and you knew you had two minutes to yourself and no one
• 1:30:50
  could get you. Actually, I'm German.
• 1:30:52
  You'll be at your Sherry Cash, Yeah.
• 1:30:56
  He's amazing. I'm actually, I've actually
• 1:30:59
  done. I've gone all the way around
• 1:31:00
  your back and you. Know what?
• 1:31:03
  You've been pretending to like peated whiskey for a few months
• 1:31:05
  now. I am almost convinced.
• 1:31:07
  Honestly, it's over the weekend the house poured myself I think
• 1:31:13
  2 drums over the weekend in the house Art beg I know and Port
• 1:31:17
  Charlotte heavily Pete heavy Pete so I'm I'm I'm just so.
• 1:31:21
  Shy. Just what you do with them.
• 1:31:23
  Clean the bath? No, just.
• 1:31:27
  Just just for the record, because we're all we're all by,
• 1:31:30
  I'm in my sort of medium peated Cherry era.
• 1:31:34
  Well, it's got a seasonal I think, but you've.
• 1:31:36
  Always been fairly open, man. That's what I.
• 1:31:38
  Gave you, I know. But that's what that was Cody's
• 1:31:39
  episode. He actually, he Cody talked us
• 1:31:43
  through the, the journey, the whiskey fat, the whiskey
• 1:31:46
  drinkers journey. And that episode, it was
• 1:31:48
  fascinating. And at the time we, we listened
• 1:31:51
  to, I think that was maybe episode 5 or 6.
• 1:31:52
  I can't remember what episode number it was.
• 1:31:55
  And we are listening to Cody talking and explaining this sort
• 1:31:57
  of you start here, you get and and it's funny how you find
• 1:32:00
  yourself going around that. Yeah, but we cycle that you that
• 1:32:03
  you go around people do. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:05
  But it's one of these things sometimes you just you just you
• 1:32:07
  just try a whiskey and suddenly are like, wow, I need to just
• 1:32:10
  try lots of things like this cynical home and episode.
• 1:32:13
  Yeah, that we recorded. I was, it really opened my eyes,
• 1:32:17
  go home and was absolutely fantastic.
• 1:32:18
  Genuinely. Yeah.
• 1:32:20
  I really, really enjoyed it. It was, it was great.
• 1:32:22
  Right. Yeah.
• 1:32:22
  Get yourself there when it's Graham.
• 1:32:24
  I've just got my mind DRAM #2 then please.
• 1:32:27
  More so. DRAM #2 is discontinued, but
• 1:32:31
  it's Glenmore Andy Cellar 13. And it's not necessarily because
• 1:32:34
  the whiskey is great, it's lovely, but it's for me, the
• 1:32:38
  whiskey itself is not really anything that I'm like, wow,
• 1:32:40
  it's one of the best drums I've had.
• 1:32:42
  But it's because the story related to it.
• 1:32:44
  So when I was growing up, my mum worked for like a small animal
• 1:32:50
  clinic and her boss like owned the estate that they were, had
• 1:32:55
  the clinic on. And her husband is like the
• 1:32:57
  nicest man I've ever met, Super lovely.
• 1:32:59
  Always took a side to like, see the calves and like, yeah, just
• 1:33:02
  a genuinely lovely man. But he hated whiskey.
• 1:33:07
  But he was one of those guys that if you were supposed to,
• 1:33:09
  like, draw the kind of typical whiskey drinker, he would
• 1:33:15
  probably be up there. But people have German.
• 1:33:18
  Pointers as well. No, he had Labradors.
• 1:33:21
  I. Can't even wait for Mark to hear
• 1:33:24
  that. He love it, but he I hated
• 1:33:31
  whiskey, but because he was like one of those people that people
• 1:33:33
  just assumed like whiskey got a lot of whiskey from his friends.
• 1:33:36
  So you should just give it to my dad because my dad loves
• 1:33:38
  whiskey. So unfortunately, Peter, this
• 1:33:41
  lovely loving man passed away in cancer.
• 1:33:44
  But one of the bottles he'd given my dad was a seller 13,
• 1:33:46
  but it was running out and because it was discontinued,
• 1:33:49
  couldn't find it. But I found on auction and then
• 1:33:52
  I brought home a bottle from my dad so he can enjoy the bottle
• 1:33:55
  and we can save the little, little drama at the end for the
• 1:33:58
  angels, for Peter. Yeah.
• 1:33:59
  Which I just think is really lovely way to, like keep his
• 1:34:04
  memory alive because 400% just have a drama about what every
• 1:34:06
  time I'm home, just say like, cheers to Peter.
• 1:34:09
  No would have hated this whiskey, but we will remember.
• 1:34:12
  You never, you never really die until the last time somebody
• 1:34:16
  thinks about you or speaks about you.
• 1:34:18
  And you've got this bottle of whiskey that every time you
• 1:34:20
  think of it, even if you wasn't a big whiskey lover, you'll
• 1:34:23
  think back on him and the person that he was and that that's
• 1:34:25
  really, that's a great story and.
• 1:34:27
  Also Graham Graham just reads the cupboards of his dead
• 1:34:29
  relatives. I've got loads of I don't
• 1:34:35
  remember. That I've got.
• 1:34:38
  Some crackers actually, I think. Actually I think that might be
• 1:34:44
  the first Glen Mondre we've had as I walk. 3 drums which?
• 1:34:47
  Is a surprise, I guess is a. Surprise, I think that is
• 1:34:49
  because. Because it's been mentioned
• 1:34:51
  plenty. Yeah.
• 1:34:52
  From the wee old boy in the pub that you're from.
• 1:34:55
  I I. Always have my morning.
• 1:34:56
  That would be all three of us. What 3 drafts?
• 1:34:59
  He said he was like the authority on W I I.
• 1:35:01
  Come out come I and I so that one Marina shells it would just
• 1:35:05
  be stockpile Glenn Monti tennis. He thinks because it's been
• 1:35:08
  discontinued he's going to make himself a millionaire by buying
• 1:35:11
  every ball at Tesco. But that's a that's a lovely
• 1:35:14
  story. So I.
• 1:35:15
  Tried the 12 year old to the original.
• 1:35:16
  The new Glamontree 12 original. It's my dad.
• 1:35:19
  'S favorite distillery, so that's quite as well Glamonti
• 1:35:21
  like a. Yeah, yeah, Rob.
• 1:35:23
  My dad always loved it. Yeah.
• 1:35:25
  Right DRAM #3 so DRAM. #3 is a Swedish whiskey, if that's OK of
• 1:35:29
  course. As long as I can spell it, I'll.
• 1:35:32
  Spell it out. So it's called moment and then
• 1:35:35
  Eva, which is EVFAI believe, but it's named after a jewellery
• 1:35:41
  designer, Eva Athling, who's Swedish and in my community do
• 1:35:45
  like they have like the lower kind of core range ones that are
• 1:35:49
  a little bit more affordable than they do, or they used to do
• 1:35:53
  slightly higher greenish ones. So this was one of them.
• 1:35:56
  And the first time I tried it was it was being poured at
• 1:35:59
  Scottish Whisky experience because we had something called
• 1:36:01
  a blenders night when blenders came in and all the staff just
• 1:36:04
  got so basically try whatever they brought.
• 1:36:06
  So I got to meet Angela Doratio, who were they their master
• 1:36:10
  blender at the time. And she poured me this.
• 1:36:12
  And at the end of the night, she's like you, the Swedish girl
• 1:36:15
  here, take what's ever left in the bottle.
• 1:36:16
  And I was like, oh, that's really sweet.
• 1:36:18
  And then managed to source another bottle later as well.
• 1:36:21
  But it's matured in like a combination of casks, but some
• 1:36:24
  of them been saturated with Birch SAP wine casks or been
• 1:36:28
  used in that maturation lineup. And it's just a lovely whiskey.
• 1:36:32
  It's really nice. It's really fruity.
• 1:36:34
  And the bottle I had at home, I hadn't opened it, but I decided
• 1:36:38
  to feature at our wedding 4 whiskeys and that was one of
• 1:36:43
  them. I think it was only Swedish one.
• 1:36:45
  And at the end of the ceremony, we had, we're drinking from a
• 1:36:48
  quake and Cody's dad came up and poured Glink Adam 17.
• 1:36:51
  And it was to no one's surprise and my dad poured the Machimera
• 1:36:57
  Eva. And then we basically made a
• 1:36:59
  little blend of those and had that at the end of the ceremony.
• 1:37:02
  Did you? Know I wanted your current
• 1:37:03
  husband to think of the whiskey he likes.
• 1:37:05
  It. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:37:06
  I was just about when you were talking about this and you're
• 1:37:08
  going around. I think as soon as she finished,
• 1:37:10
  I'm going to I'm going to pull her up here to go.
• 1:37:12
  I always honestly thought you were going to pick the whiskey
• 1:37:15
  that you had on your wedding, on your wedding anniversary, and
• 1:37:17
  then you pull down the bag. You know that story.
• 1:37:19
  Fantastic. Yeah, almost.
• 1:37:21
  Like a first story. Brilliant.
• 1:37:22
  Well, Cam, I don't know whether we're going to do a three DRAM
• 1:37:24
  or whether we can really put you on the spot.
• 1:37:26
  And I have 100 whiskeys in that book.
• 1:37:29
  If you're going to pick what one DRAM because.
• 1:37:31
  Some fucking Glenn. Finish here.
• 1:37:32
  Do you know the answer? Shall we do three or one?
• 1:37:35
  I've. Prepared 3 right go.
• 1:37:36
  Three go 3 drams camps right because we.
• 1:37:38
  Well, we give Chuck one bonus tram, but we're giving camp 3
• 1:37:41
  because it's bigger than all. Well, he's our.
• 1:37:42
  Boss right? So this is what I just want to
• 1:37:46
  read a book. Fair.
• 1:37:51
  This is what 3? Drams from the book.
• 1:37:52
  Yes, right. Yeah.
• 1:37:53
  So I've already done my what, 3 drams sort of life lifetime if
• 1:37:58
  you want. So these are what, 3 drams from
• 1:38:02
  Scotch? The Balmoral's Guide to Scottish
• 1:38:05
  Whiskey. Fantastic.
• 1:38:06
  All right, OK. So we're going straight in with
• 1:38:09
  an absolute cracker, which sits very proudly on the shelves of
• 1:38:13
  Scotch. But I have a 40 year old.
• 1:38:16
  Oh. What a tram.
• 1:38:20
  And this is not just a flex because it's a really high age
• 1:38:23
  statement whiskey. This is genuinely my favorite
• 1:38:27
  whiskey that I've ever tried really.
• 1:38:29
  And I say that very, very confidently.
• 1:38:33
  I don't know if you can say that confidently.
• 1:38:35
  Well, I. AM.
• 1:38:37
  I've had that whiskey with you few.
• 1:38:40
  Times. Yeah.
• 1:38:41
  A few times, yeah, I do have a. Live fact maker, Yeah.
• 1:38:45
  Well, I'm in. Welcome to the.
• 1:38:47
  Whiskey stories podcast, I guess the whiskey pad who is that's
• 1:38:50
  not Henry's who just say. It's very rare that somebody be
• 1:38:54
  a factor in somebody's opinion. Yeah, but I know Cameron's
• 1:38:56
  opinion. Thanks for correcting my opinion
• 1:38:59
  I think. I think you'd really love it.
• 1:39:02
  I know. I think it's the my favorite
• 1:39:04
  whiskey I've ever tried. Yeah, which is why I've And
• 1:39:06
  what's the? Story, which is why I've.
• 1:39:07
  Said that so we were we were kind of humming and horn about
• 1:39:13
  getting it in because it was high statement Isla but not Isla
• 1:39:19
  as most people know it because it's from a distillery that that
• 1:39:22
  predominantly is famous for unpeted whiskey.
• 1:39:25
  And so it's very fortunate to have a little try before you buy
• 1:39:29
  in the bar. And before we did commit to and
• 1:39:33
  little sort of 2020 milliliters got poured into a glass and I
• 1:39:39
  tasted it and it I don't say this lightly, but it was a
• 1:39:44
  whiskey that made me like set up and take note of what I was
• 1:39:49
  drinking at the. Time.
• 1:39:51
  Just like it was. I love that for you.
• 1:39:56
  I guess I was going. To say stand up, but I didn't
• 1:39:59
  actually stand up. Yeah.
• 1:40:03
  Thanks, Angus. Sorry.
• 1:40:07
  You're. Only one here's just say.
• 1:40:13
  Here's just say for that tram, I thought the story you were gonna
• 1:40:16
  tell is the story I I'm you've already.
• 1:40:18
  Picked your watery draft for you now.
• 1:40:20
  So that you mentioned, do you the story that is a?
• 1:40:23
  Question involved Ross drinking it on a train.
• 1:40:26
  But as we were in Newcastle to celebrate, our friends exactly
• 1:40:30
  tell us that story. So yeah, that was the first time
• 1:40:32
  I tried it and it was delicious. And the thing about being having
• 1:40:36
  is it's usually exceptionally well aged in or it's it's it
• 1:40:40
  works exceptionally well in Sherry casks.
• 1:40:43
  That one is 100% bourbon, right? But it's like knackered wood.
• 1:40:47
  It's like distilled. At the very start of the 1980s,
• 1:40:50
  whiskey was on its knees. People weren't investing in
• 1:40:53
  wood. So it was put into whatever it
• 1:40:55
  was put into. It was never meant to hit 40
• 1:40:58
  years old. But it's that it's a product of
• 1:41:01
  its environment instead of just the cast that it's matured in.
• 1:41:05
  It's beautiful. And Ross's egotestical take on
• 1:41:09
  this story. And it needs a shout out because
• 1:41:11
  we've dragged this so much yes. Please.
• 1:41:15
  We were going down to. It was a very late proposition,
• 1:41:18
  wasn't it? I was like, what are you doing
• 1:41:20
  on Saturday? And he was like 9.
• 1:41:23
  I was like, right, cool, we're going to Newcastle then.
• 1:41:26
  No, I. Think you were.
• 1:41:26
  I was working with you. You said you're off on Saturday,
• 1:41:30
  You were doing the rota and you had said we're off on Saturday,
• 1:41:34
  but you're not free. Yeah, OK.
• 1:41:39
  It was one of our Scottish club members, Jason, You'll have Oh
• 1:41:43
  I. Know Jason I Yeah, yeah, Jason.
• 1:41:44
  Brand, I'm not. Fumberland is he?
• 1:41:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:41:47
  Was it his 50th birthday or was it I think?
• 1:41:50
  It was his 50th birthday, it was 50th birthday and England were
• 1:41:52
  playing Scotland really in the in.
• 1:41:55
  The Six. Nations.
• 1:41:55
  Yeah, yeah. So I said to us, right, we're
• 1:41:58
  going down and we jumped on the train.
• 1:42:02
  I was like, oh, you fancy a drum?
• 1:42:06
  I'm proceeded and I'm like. Oh, do you know what?
• 1:42:08
  I'm with you and the best tasting maybe of my life on this
• 1:42:14
  train from Edinburgh to Newcastle.
• 1:42:17
  Just that miniature. It started with a rose.
• 1:42:20
  A Rosebank miniature. Yeah, 8 year old Rosebank green
• 1:42:24
  glass, a single cast Glenfiddich I think above any. 10 year old
• 1:42:30
  fenders reserve. Yes, that was a daft mill, daft
• 1:42:34
  Mill, which at the time was like everybody was going crazy with
• 1:42:38
  daft at the time. There's a couple of years ago
• 1:42:40
  and then he push has been having fun and I go, that's obviously
• 1:42:43
  not what's in the bottle because that's outrageous.
• 1:42:47
  And it was, I'd had it once before and it is a really
• 1:42:53
  special DRAM and worth every what would.
• 1:42:55
  That set you back in the ball model.
• 1:42:57
  It's 2. 100 lbs of glass now so yeah, it's a super expensive
• 1:43:01
  DRAM, but it's. It's one of those drams that's
• 1:43:04
  more than just the liquid and the glass.
• 1:43:05
  Yeah. It's an absolute experience.
• 1:43:08
  I've always believed that one sip of whiskey can transfer you,
• 1:43:12
  transport you anywhere. Yeah.
• 1:43:14
  Across Scotland. And that takes me right to the
• 1:43:17
  pier at Bunihavan, looking over to.
• 1:43:22
  Perhaps. Yeah, Jura.
• 1:43:22
  Yeah. And takes me to.
• 1:43:24
  Berwick upon Tweed on a train. Somewhere between North Berwick
• 1:43:28
  and Berwick. Just a.
• 1:43:30
  Great, a great. That's a great DRAM.
• 1:43:32
  Sorry for hijacking it. No, but yeah, I thought that.
• 1:43:35
  I thought that been having 40s an outrageous DRAM to mention,
• 1:43:38
  but to mention that you drank on a train together, I think
• 1:43:41
  really. Ross, What do you want is next
• 1:43:43
  DRAM to be Ross? What's my second?
• 1:43:46
  Please choose. Something you didn't drink with
• 1:43:48
  Ross? Yeah, yeah, Choose.
• 1:43:49
  Something you didn't drink with me?
• 1:43:51
  Second up, Talisker 18. Yeah, Talisker 18.
• 1:43:57
  Talisker was my first love in whiskey, still is has a massive
• 1:44:05
  part of my my whiskey drinking sort of life, if you will.
• 1:44:10
  But specifically Talisker 18 was one of the first whiskeys that
• 1:44:13
  I, I spent any money on a DRAM of like any significant money
• 1:44:19
  student up in Aberdeen. And there's a very famous
• 1:44:22
  whiskey bar up there called The Grill that serves absolutely no
• 1:44:25
  grilled food whatsoever. They'll be lucky if you get a
• 1:44:28
  bag of Scampi fries in there, but they've got an unbelievable
• 1:44:35
  gantry of whiskey. And they had when I was a
• 1:44:38
  student, some whiskeys that were would now cost you hundreds of
• 1:44:42
  pounds of glass for under A10 or a glass, you know.
• 1:44:47
  So we were out one night and I was just getting into my whiskey
• 1:44:50
  drinking phase. Thought I was really unique and
• 1:44:54
  interesting because I drank whiskey instead of lager, you
• 1:44:56
  know, and went into the grill one night and it's like a lot of
• 1:45:00
  Talisker 10. No, no, wait, have you got the
• 1:45:03
  18? He said, I it's half expensive,
• 1:45:08
  right. OK, how much is that?
• 1:45:09
  He's like 7 LB ten. I was like, OK, I'll push the
• 1:45:14
  ball. I'll have one of them and they
• 1:45:16
  step up. At the time, and I was so early
• 1:45:20
  on, so I knew 9, still No 9 and the grand scheme of things.
• 1:45:25
  But taken telescope 10 up 1018, that evolution they had was just
• 1:45:34
  like, it blew my mind. Whiskey changed that much.
• 1:45:37
  And now, yeah, sort of eight years or whatever.
• 1:45:41
  So whiskey that I hadn't really known an awful lot about until
• 1:45:45
  the podcast and actually I think this mention of it, it's semi
• 1:45:50
  Tasker 18 kind of get slaughtered for the wrong
• 1:45:52
  reasons on this podcast. I because it hiking price bring
• 1:45:55
  it up because I mean whenever we're talking about pricing of
• 1:45:58
  whiskey, it's. Easy.
• 1:46:00
  It's. Easy.
• 1:46:01
  It's kind of set example of whiskey.
• 1:46:03
  That went. From around sort of £78.60.
• 1:46:06
  Pounds. I think it was 60.
• 1:46:08
  Yeah, you know, about four or five years ago at least you
• 1:46:10
  could get it for 60 LB Now I think what bones are 200 lbs,
• 1:46:13
  isn't it? Yeah, you.
• 1:46:14
  Didn't get much. Change to be honest, yeah yeah
• 1:46:17
  which is it's it's a sign of the industry as well it.
• 1:46:22
  Wouldn't be a price of that if people weren't paying it.
• 1:46:24
  So, yeah, yeah. Aber Lehrer got a lot of
• 1:46:28
  criticism for it with the Ribuna as well because it went from 100
• 1:46:34
  lbs or whatever a few. People still buy it, yeah.
• 1:46:37
  Well, exactly. The the missed trick for me is
• 1:46:42
  increase that price gradually, Yeah, instead of just Chuck it
• 1:46:45
  up like that and be like, yeah, go from that to 2 1/2 times that
• 1:46:52
  and expect people to pay for the same.
• 1:46:54
  Yeah, I think. We had somebody on the podcast
• 1:46:56
  who said that they visited the distillery at the point that the
• 1:47:00
  change had happened and they had the old bottles on the like the,
• 1:47:04
  the, the old bottling, the old labeling the old.
• 1:47:08
  And they hadn't even at the new price, they hadn't even had the
• 1:47:11
  the decency to say we'll just put all the new branded stuff up
• 1:47:16
  and call it that. That was So basically what they
• 1:47:18
  were saying is yesterday you could buy it for this price
• 1:47:21
  today and you can't even hide by Angus always Angus said I can't
• 1:47:27
  remember who it was that maybe I mentioned it to you.
• 1:47:28
  We were talking about the Glen allocate.
• 1:47:30
  Well, no, it was a Glen allocate rebrand, yes, and you were sort
• 1:47:33
  of saying there's a wee sort of nod, nod wink wink.
• 1:47:36
  When a distillery does a rebrand relabelling, usually they'll use
• 1:47:40
  a new batch or something like that because they want maybe to
• 1:47:43
  hit a mark with people. The first batch that will come
• 1:47:45
  out in the new branding is maybe, you know, some people,
• 1:47:49
  some cynics would say that they maybe put quite decent casks
• 1:47:52
  into that those brands so that people, you know, try the new
• 1:47:55
  brat bottling and go, oh, you know, that was bloody brilliant.
• 1:47:58
  Yeah. OK, fantastic.
• 1:48:00
  Great drum. And your third and final one.
• 1:48:02
  3rd and final drum is a Glenn Ferry thank you for.
• 1:48:10
  Listening to this podcast? Glenfinic 12 year olds oh.
• 1:48:15
  OK bro did you not do? That your first time around, no.
• 1:48:18
  Did I 1955 and my first time around?
• 1:48:21
  Yeah. Glenfinic 12 was my Eureka
• 1:48:24
  whiskey. Yeah.
• 1:48:25
  So that was the first whiskey I sat down with.
• 1:48:26
  Ross has heard this story probably 200 times, so I'm sorry
• 1:48:31
  to bore you with that again. No, no.
• 1:48:32
  It's fine. See if we could not.
• 1:48:33
  Interrupt you this time. You've got listeners who might
• 1:48:36
  not have heard it true. True, True.
• 1:48:38
  True. It was the first whiskey I sat
• 1:48:41
  down with, just as I was like, right, let's do this, Had a
• 1:48:46
  taste of it, wrote tasting notes, and it matched up with
• 1:48:50
  Brian Kinsman's tasting notes. Wow, surely.
• 1:48:53
  I have heard this a lot which was like.
• 1:48:56
  And it was early on, so I was maybe 19 at the time.
• 1:48:59
  Did you have? Boost the confidence, yeah.
• 1:49:01
  Yeah. It's like, yeah, OK, I like my,
• 1:49:03
  my, my palate isn't as bad as I thought it was.
• 1:49:06
  Or I can see through that really raw alcohol, which is what we
• 1:49:10
  taste a lot of the time when we're tasting whiskeys.
• 1:49:12
  Yeah, the first time, you know. And so a little reference back
• 1:49:16
  to the book, that first tasting note that I wrote for that I
• 1:49:20
  haven't deviated too much of for the book.
• 1:49:24
  So it's 1 of apples. And pears, Yeah, So what you.
• 1:49:26
  Can say this book's you know you've been writing it for what,
• 1:49:29
  20 years almost? Very unkind of you, that's.
• 1:49:36
  Probably, honestly great that you know, the drams that we've
• 1:49:40
  heard, the stories that we've heard.
• 1:49:42
  Thanks for coming. On Thanks.
• 1:49:43
  Guys, for coming into the new Whiskey Stories Studio HQ, Yeah,
• 1:49:47
  the Vaults, the seller we've been in here, the whiskey store,
• 1:49:50
  but more. How could people find you?
• 1:49:52
  Swedish whiskey girl anywhere? Yeah, pretty much.
• 1:49:55
  Swedish whiskey girl anywhere are you tick talking?
• 1:49:57
  Yes, and you're. Instagram Ming Yes.
• 1:49:59
  Much better than I'm taking talking, but we'll see.
• 1:50:01
  Maybe in the future I'll be better.
• 1:50:02
  Brilliant. Fantastic.
• 1:50:03
  And Cam, what about yourself? In person at Scotch at the
• 1:50:07
  Balmoral or on Instagram at the Scotch Camp and if.
• 1:50:11
  Anyone's in Cannes? When are they?
• 1:50:12
  When are they? When's that?
• 1:50:14
  I'm away 2nd to the 5th of this will be out December so if
• 1:50:18
  anyone. 'S floating around Cannes and in
• 1:50:21
  the. Past.
• 1:50:21
  Well, I don't. Know I don't want to know about
• 1:50:24
  it I've got quite a lot of whiskey studies podcast backed
• 1:50:26
  up but listen guys thank you very much for coming along How
• 1:50:28
  could people just reminder you can get the book on all good
• 1:50:32
  retailers yeah toppings in Edinburgh you said yeah.
• 1:50:35
  Toppings. It's in Waterstones, Amazon.
• 1:50:38
  Amazon. Sure, Anywhere the world sees.
• 1:50:40
  Yeah, yeah, for all. Of our if you are if you are a
• 1:50:42
  listener who is listening to this podcast Amy from.
• 1:50:44
  Boston. I'm expecting to see a bottle,
• 1:50:46
  yeah. Get, get, get the We want to see
• 1:50:48
  a picture sent out retrospectively.
• 1:50:50
  You'll get a 25% discount in the next book if you said before say
• 1:50:55
  that you've you've you've bought the book and you're 25% off
• 1:50:58
  their next book. But listen, thank you very much
• 1:51:00
  for coming along. It's been great to lovely to
• 1:51:02
  meet more. Thanks for coming back on Cam
• 1:51:04
  Thanks for. Having us again.
• 1:51:05
  Thanks for putting. Us in this place, it's
• 1:51:06
  fantastic. It's always good to have
• 1:51:07
  somebody there you be listen to whiskey stories podcast.
• 1:51:10
  A big thank you to Kevin Diggers for putting us up in here.
• 1:51:13
  This is great. We don't have too many toilet
• 1:51:15
  flushing, no. Although as she starts going
• 1:51:17
  mess and I think he's going to be happy to have us, I'm more
• 1:51:19
  than. Happy we'll be.
• 1:51:20
  You'll see videos of Angus coming through the Hatch, which
• 1:51:22
  is our sort of entrance into that.
• 1:51:24
  But yeah, please, if you want to see what this place look like,
• 1:51:27
  check out the YouTube channel. The YouTube channel is starting
• 1:51:29
  to grow. We're up to 71 subscribers,
• 1:51:33
  which it sounds pathetic, but I think 2 weeks ago we had 55 S
• 1:51:37
  People are starting to notice that.
• 1:51:38
  Yeah. But also, as we've mentioned,
• 1:51:40
  the Whiskey Stories Facebook group, it's a place to be a
• 1:51:43
  lovely little community. We do our weekend drum roll
• 1:51:47
  call. We get pictures of get 30-40.
• 1:51:50
  People dripping their fans, that's fantastic.
• 1:51:52
  All source. Of this, loads of loads of
• 1:51:53
  stuff, I see I'm starting to collate a sort of Bank of
• 1:51:56
  people's home bars, whiskey bars that they've set up, They're all
• 1:51:59
  violent. Ours.
• 1:52:00
  There's a few. We've got this place, but
• 1:52:02
  there's a few belters in there. We've also got the wanky tasting
• 1:52:05
  notes. We've not done a mystery
• 1:52:07
  distillery for a while, so we'll get on to that as well.
• 1:52:10
  Whiskey stories pod on Instagram, give us five stars,
• 1:52:13
  give us past the pod, five stars, you name it, whatever,
• 1:52:15
  and we're going to get some snippet, snippet score at 62nd
• 1:52:18
  whiskey reviews done as well. Thanks for listening.
• 1:52:20
  Thanks for coming in, Sandra. Cheers, cheers.