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Kilchoman Ken - When's a new distillery not a new distillery? · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:10
  Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 0:15
  I think it was very natural. I couldn't pinpoint really.
• 0:18
  The day I tried my first whiskey wasn't, you know, it wasn't
• 0:21
  anything really like that. It was slowly but surely.
• 0:25
  And I came to the world of whiskey and it really interested
• 0:27
  me that with one single ingredient you can make so many
• 0:31
  different, such an eclectic collection of of flavors.
• 0:34
  And I think is what drawn me to to whiskey really and Scottish
• 0:39
  whiskey particle. Welcome along to the Whiskey
• 0:41
  Stories podcast with myself, Graham Kogelar, and well, for
• 0:44
  the people watching on our YouTube channel, you'll notice
• 0:47
  that we are not in our usual surroundings.
• 0:49
  We are not in the backroom and diggers.
• 0:50
  We are certainly not sandwiched between the gents toilets and
• 0:53
  the bar, Ross. No, we are in the salubrious
• 0:56
  surroundings of the Glass House in Edinburgh.
• 0:59
  We're welcome back. We haven't been here.
• 1:01
  The last time we were here was a glorious summer's evening and we
• 1:03
  watched Angus with his tongue out his mouth painting a
• 1:06
  picture. And here we are.
• 1:07
  We've been invited back. Ross, how are you?
• 1:09
  I'm good, I'm good. It is strange not to be in in a
• 1:11
  in a pub with, you know, the the upholstery.
• 1:16
  Well, the upholstery is not red and nor is it leather, but I.
• 1:21
  Love that our good friend Nacho. Nacho Sands has had us back.
• 1:24
  Runs runs a gig here at the Glass House and it's such a
• 1:26
  great venue to come in and celebrate whiskey because that
• 1:29
  is still one of these unknown gems or whiskey.
• 1:31
  And actually they're whiskey offering, cigar offering.
• 1:34
  And what they have here is actually very unique.
• 1:36
  And we found that out last time. And so it's just good to be
• 1:39
  back. And we are recording in front of
• 1:40
  a an open flame this evening. Absolutely.
• 1:44
  Yeah. You're feeling the heat.
• 1:45
  How are you I? Am feeling it, and I tell you
• 1:47
  what, as the day of recording, I think it's about -2 outside.
• 1:51
  So to be sitting next to the flames, pretty nice.
• 1:53
  But yeah, big contrast to where we were all this time about six
• 1:57
  months ago when we were here. And I think July or August and
• 1:59
  we're outside of a. Scotch and sketch Scotch and
• 2:02
  sketch. Have you still got your?
• 2:04
  Sketch I do it's. Still on the the the fridge.
• 2:07
  It's on one of my shelves. Yeah, I do have it kind of on
• 2:10
  display. We were.
• 2:11
  I'm supposed to actually get that frame, that hang it and
• 2:13
  diggers to see if anyone would notice.
• 2:14
  But Angus has actually brought his M&S Club card here.
• 2:18
  I do because the reason that we are here recording and the
• 2:22
  reason we're in the in the glass house here is we are joined by
• 2:27
  Ken Long and Langenfeld. Langenfeld, Langenfeld.
• 2:30
  Monsieur, Monsieur, here from Tribia we are there conjure to
• 2:37
  our French. Lessons.
• 2:38
  Private education. Private French.
• 2:39
  Lessons. Yeah.
• 2:41
  I'm a cunning linguist, as they often say, but but we are joined
• 2:44
  by Ken from Kalhoman and the reason we are here is because as
• 2:48
  we are recording this in November, you're getting ready
• 2:52
  to for Kalhoman to be showcased here in the Glass House as Malt
• 2:55
  of the Month. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 2:57
  We'll have a little master class as well a mid month highlighting
• 3:02
  some of our whiskeys from this year's and also some cheese from
• 3:05
  local suppliers. Superb.
• 3:07
  Yeah. So I think the event is on the
• 3:08
  10th of December. It's going to be a cheese and
• 3:11
  cheese and whiskey pairing from Mellish Cheese Shop in
• 3:14
  Edinburgh. Well, it's.
• 3:15
  Magic. Yeah, it does.
• 3:16
  I mean, Scotch and sketch, whiskey and cheese, there's
• 3:19
  loads. I mean, there's just loads about
• 3:20
  Kill Home and Angus has been a distillery that you've talked
• 3:25
  about quite a lot on the podcast.
• 3:27
  Absolutely. I mentioned the M&S saying
• 3:29
  because it's always go home and M&S special office.
• 3:33
  I've already mentioned that before the podcast of the Lock
• 3:38
  Lock Renard. Yeah.
• 3:39
  We have drums in front of us. We do have drums in front of us.
• 3:42
  So maybe, well, I should explain.
• 3:45
  I have all. Well, let's let's have Kev.
• 3:48
  What? Ken, good start.
• 3:53
  Maybe we can talk about what we do in front of us.
• 3:55
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 3:56
  Do you want me to to tell you what you're drinking?
• 3:59
  Yeah, Yeah. Please do not.
• 4:00
  The mark and special law. Green Art.
• 4:03
  Which I do like, yeah, I do like very much.
• 4:05
  But this is our 100% Isla from this year's release.
• 4:09
  So 2024 we have. That is really the reason why we
• 4:14
  opened the distillery in the 1st place to revive that idea of
• 4:19
  farm distilling. So for this one, we will produce
• 4:22
  everything from growing the barley all the way to bottling
• 4:25
  will be done on site and every ingredient.
• 4:28
  We don't blow our own glass yet, but most of it, everything that
• 4:33
  goes into the whiskey is is from is sourced locally.
• 4:36
  And and that's that, that's something I mean that that
• 4:39
  really is Kilhoman's. Ethos.
• 4:42
  Ethos and defining feature is the fact that you are based on a
• 4:45
  farm. If you go with Tyler, the fields
• 4:48
  around are producing barley, but not only that, you do your own
• 4:52
  malting on the farm as well. You do.
• 4:55
  So everything from, you know, the seeds going into the ground
• 5:00
  to the whiskey coming out of the warehouse is produced within
• 5:03
  that, you know, at least in this bottle is produced within that
• 5:06
  area. That's it.
• 5:07
  Yeah. Everything is made by ourselves.
• 5:09
  So from planting the barley, this particular bottling is made
• 5:13
  with publican barley to single variety from two different
• 5:18
  contrasting harvest in 2013 and 14, right.
• 5:23
  So we can really retrace everything every step of the way
• 5:26
  you have the harvest and then it's pitted with log Gorn pit.
• 5:30
  So we harvest just on the banks of the log Gorn, which is also
• 5:34
  the name of another of our bottling, certain floor melted.
• 5:38
  We can't ride with our own peat and everything until bottling is
• 5:42
  is made. And where does the peat come
• 5:44
  from then? Does that also?
• 5:45
  Is that and I? Is that Eiler as well or?
• 5:48
  Yeah, log warm literally just in front of the distillery.
• 5:50
  So if you ever have a chance to visit and you have the
• 5:53
  distillery just looking onto a sort of big lock and that on the
• 5:58
  right side of of that loft is where is where we harvest all
• 6:02
  the all the peat. So I feel quite bad because I
• 6:05
  have actually been to the distillery, although I'm not the
• 6:07
  Super fan Angus has. Yeah, well, I, I tried to go to
• 6:10
  the salary. Unfortunately, this is my I've
• 6:12
  spoken on the podcast before. I went to Ireland 2021 very.
• 6:16
  Nice. When I planned I visited quite a
• 6:18
  few distilleries, unfortunately kill home and had a bit of an
• 6:20
  outbreak of the COVID at the time so it was shot.
• 6:23
  I did plan to go but I didn't quite make it, but I drove past
• 6:26
  the distillery and I went for a walk on the kind of Mackier Bay
• 6:30
  beach and I got lost on the way back.
• 6:32
  I kind of said to Laura, current wife, let's kind of go back via
• 6:36
  the sand dunes and we got a bit lost, but we ended up at the car
• 6:40
  eventually. It's a great place to be.
• 6:42
  It's lovely. And so I filmed standing on the
• 6:45
  barley and the floor malting last time I was there.
• 6:49
  And so there's two names on Killholman bottles, which is
• 6:52
  Robin Bignell was the production manager who have filmed their
• 6:56
  previously a fascinating character.
• 6:58
  And I always feel bad because we turn up our camera crew and say,
• 7:01
  you know, right, tell us about your whiskey.
• 7:03
  And I think he's really good at producing the whiskey, but we've
• 7:06
  at stage fright. But he was absolutely magic.
• 7:09
  And then obviously Anthony Wells, the founder and owner of
• 7:12
  the distilleries is a family owned distillery.
• 7:15
  His sons are involved in the business as well.
• 7:16
  And we went to the kind of master class as well.
• 7:18
  But it's a distillery that has kicked my arse for for the years
• 7:23
  because my, that's what you want to hear.
• 7:25
  Absolutely, in the good way. Absolutely.
• 7:28
  And it did take that kind of education.
• 7:31
  And of course, when you're at the distillery, when you're
• 7:34
  drinking liquid there, there is something that is ingrained in
• 7:37
  your head when you're there that makes you love it.
• 7:40
  But I also happened to be there for Phage when they released
• 7:44
  their first 100% AILA unpetered single cask, which of course,
• 7:48
  I've got. So I turned up.
• 7:50
  It was as if they knew I was coming.
• 7:52
  And so we appreciate that. Thanks very much, Robin.
• 7:55
  Well, I mean, we haven't just found a guy called Ken from
• 7:58
  France that just likes go home and they're coming and chat.
• 8:01
  Ken, tell us what is it you do for Go Home and what is it?
• 8:06
  What's your job? And you know, we know you're
• 8:08
  here for the to promote malt of the month and stuff like that in
• 8:11
  December, but how? Tell us what you do and then how
• 8:13
  you got into that. Absolutely, absolutely.
• 8:15
  So I'm the sales manager for Kelholman in the UK, mostly
• 8:20
  targeted in in Scotland because George is down in Bristol and
• 8:24
  takes care of sort of all the southern places.
• 8:29
  I've been working with Kilman since February now, so a wee
• 8:33
  while but just just getting. Still quite new.
• 8:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just getting the grasp of of it
• 8:38
  all because it's the first time I go into the distillery side of
• 8:41
  things. But Kilman is a whiskey that
• 8:43
  I've worked with for over 10 years across the world.
• 8:48
  I used to have bottles of Kilman behind the bar.
• 8:50
  I I worked in hospitality behind the bar in in a bar called
• 8:54
  Orleans in New Zealand. Oh really?
• 8:57
  So yeah, literally it's. Already there, you know, I was
• 8:59
  already sampling some, some very good things there and it's been
• 9:03
  with me since yeah, New Zealand, Australia and worked a little
• 9:06
  bit in Edinburgh as well, working with Kilhoman and other
• 9:09
  whiskeys. And then, yeah, when I saw the
• 9:12
  opportunity coming up. It helps speak French because I
• 9:15
  take care of the French market as well.
• 9:17
  But yeah, overall that's that's kind of it's a pretty natural
• 9:21
  move. It's something we hear about a
• 9:23
  lot. We've met so many people for who
• 9:25
  are all over the industry now who start in the on trade or
• 9:27
  they start traveling. They find bar work, end up
• 9:30
  managing bars, running bars, doing cocktail making classes,
• 9:33
  learning about the spirits and then finding, do you know what?
• 9:36
  This is me. This is what I really like.
• 9:37
  Yeah. Is go home in the style of
• 9:39
  whiskey that you were instantly drawn to have.
• 9:41
  You are generally a whiskey lover, whiskey drinker.
• 9:44
  I've always been a whiskey drinker, I'm not gonna lie.
• 9:47
  Always in Australia, always since a very young.
• 9:50
  Age. Absolutely.
• 9:51
  No, no, no, no. But I remember trying first
• 9:53
  whiskey. You know, I'm French, so French
• 9:55
  people tend to start early. It's OK, Yeah.
• 9:59
  How old are we talking here? No.
• 10:01
  Probably I tasted wine and beers when I was, you know, in. 1818
• 10:05
  in a restaurant with a meal and a member and an adult.
• 10:08
  Yes. Yes, yeah, 18 Angus.
• 10:09
  Absolutely responsibly. Breads are fine.
• 10:12
  You can. What is it?
• 10:12
  You can have a drink with your meal when you're like 14 or
• 10:15
  something. Yeah, even.
• 10:15
  As your parents say. Yeah, exactly so.
• 10:17
  When I was 18, obviously. Stuck around the giraffe.
• 10:21
  Bottle of sand, Dick. In your family?
• 10:22
  I got tea, bowl of frogs legs and I lining up my whiskey.
• 10:26
  It's brilliant. That's the life.
• 10:29
  That's the life. No, man, at the very beginning,
• 10:31
  I didn't really like pitted whiskey at all.
• 10:34
  I didn't understand why people would like that.
• 10:36
  But I also didn't like Campari. I didn't like bitter, you know,
• 10:39
  and palate change. Absolutely yours.
• 10:42
  And then now I struggle not to drink pitted whiskey because I
• 10:46
  find I'm missing something sometimes.
• 10:49
  That's I totally agree. It's something I've said many
• 10:51
  times on on the podcast. I don't drink black coffee yet.
• 10:54
  You know, when I'm 30, maybe I'll drink black coffee and
• 10:56
  maybe I'll drink very heavily beated whiskey.
• 10:58
  You just have to have that. Yeah, it's.
• 11:00
  Quite funny because it's something we mentioned on a we
• 11:02
  talked about on a recent pod, is that some people, a bit like
• 11:06
  Graham and maybe yourself, Ross is you.
• 11:08
  You come into whiskey and you taste beated whiskey and you go
• 11:10
  yuck. I never see myself liking.
• 11:13
  That why would somebody like that?
• 11:16
  I think I came from the other point of view, whereas I like
• 11:19
  beeted whiskey and then it's it's through down through the
• 11:22
  years as you start noticing the delicacies and the different
• 11:25
  flavours and non beeted type of whiskey.
• 11:27
  But it's like it's, it's kind of you're arriving at the same
• 11:31
  junction, but you're starting from different spectrum.
• 11:33
  And I can remember talking about arriving at.
• 11:34
  I mean, as the listeners will know, you know, Ross always
• 11:40
  winds me up now saying I pretend to like beated whiskey that you
• 11:43
  do because I had the moment, the shining light moment.
• 11:46
  And you know, everyone knows that story now.
• 11:48
  But basically this is the first. So whiskey French tried an hard
• 11:53
  beg, couple hard begs, got talked through it, fell in love
• 11:56
  with it. And I've sort of decided to, I
• 11:58
  had to know whether I was it, was it just that beg that I like
• 12:01
  or is it? So the next thing I tried was a
• 12:04
  Lefroy, then a Lagaville in 16 and Port Charlotte.
• 12:08
  And I'm sort of going through loads and loads and loads of
• 12:10
  different sort of, but I haven't had to go home.
• 12:12
  And until tonight I except for, and I don't know if you remember
• 12:17
  this, I guess, but we went and ironically, actually with the
• 12:20
  timing, we went to Scotland versus Australia, Murrayfield on
• 12:23
  a Sunday, right? It was actually before I moved
• 12:25
  into Edinburgh. When were your dad?
• 12:27
  Yeah, I do remember. We decided after the game, I
• 12:31
  think your dad headed home early doors.
• 12:33
  Yeah, And we said we'll go out for a couple of drinks
• 12:35
  afterwards. Where shall we go?
• 12:36
  I hear that Pub Diggers is meant to be really, really good.
• 12:39
  That's right and. The two of us went and sat down
• 12:42
  and that was at the point where Angus and I kind of realized we
• 12:45
  had this mutual connection and for whiskey and we were chatting
• 12:48
  away and I said pick me one Angus and he's come back with, I
• 12:53
  don't know, it was like it. Would have been snake.
• 12:54
  I go home and go snake. And I can remember, and I
• 12:57
  actually remember standing, sitting down at the table and a
• 13:00
  guy you brought bought the whiskies and you'd walked from
• 13:03
  the bar to the table right at the side of the bar at the bar.
• 13:07
  And somebody turned around and went, oh, I could smell that for
• 13:10
  here. They literally are picking up
• 13:12
  the aromas. And I tried it.
• 13:14
  I didn't particularly know it right.
• 13:16
  I got through it. But at the same time, that is
• 13:18
  the last time I would have drank Cohoman.
• 13:21
  Yeah, here we are tonight, and I have to say this first.
• 13:23
  RAM is going down an app. So this first ram maybe isn't
• 13:25
  what you would expect though. So if you for this is the first
• 13:29
  time I've revisited 100% Isle in a while, but the nose of 100%
• 13:32
  Isle here is not the nose of what you would think a typical
• 13:35
  cohoman is. No, no, no.
• 13:36
  It's actually very welcoming. It's very different in the
• 13:40
  Ranch. Essentially you have one new
• 13:42
  make for 100% Isle and one new make that will do all the rest.
• 13:46
  So they're very distinct whiskeys.
• 13:48
  And there's quite as a massive significant and some production
• 13:51
  changes there as well. The production is very similar
• 13:54
  except the fact that this is floor molted and kiln dried, but
• 13:58
  everything else is done the same, so the fermentation time.
• 14:01
  Will be the. Same but the main difference is
• 14:04
  the pitting and the floor molting and the pitting level is
• 14:07
  at 20 PPM for the 100% and 50. Four.
• 14:10
  That's fenos per. Yeah, plus per million.
• 14:12
  Yeah, Fenos per million. So the nose, because the nose
• 14:16
  here is actually very coastal and fresh and approachable and
• 14:20
  the palette is more of your authentic rich peat smoke
• 14:26
  bellowing smoke kill home and style that I would expect.
• 14:29
  But the nose is almost a little bit of a tease because because
• 14:32
  it makes you go. I'll have a bigger mouthful of
• 14:34
  this first gram. Yeah, you go.
• 14:35
  Wow, so much flavour on the palate.
• 14:38
  Do you have a favorite in the core range?
• 14:40
  I won't be too much special The core range.
• 14:41
  Core Ranges. So it'll be.
• 14:42
  That, yeah, absolutely. Sonic and bad strength.
• 14:44
  Yeah, I have to say that I really love bad strength.
• 14:47
  Yeah. So this is a new release.
• 14:48
  Yes. So it came out this year about
• 14:50
  March new release, part of the core range.
• 14:54
  So we add Maccabee and Sonic for quite a while now and we've
• 14:57
  added this one which is a combination of Bourbon, STR and
• 15:00
  all Rosso. So it's quite representative.
• 15:02
  Yeah, and a higher IBV 57 as well.
• 15:05
  I think it's it's a very great representation of Kilhoman.
• 15:08
  Distillery. And so if people don't know
• 15:10
  Kilhoman distillery, it's their first time talking about
• 15:11
  Kilhoman distillery. You have Maccabee and Sinek and
• 15:16
  these distillery's been going for 18 years now, right?
• 15:19
  19 now, yeah. So I think it was about 2005
• 15:22
  which was the first new distillery on Isla since 19 O.
• 15:26
  Eight Hey there, any search right there?
• 15:27
  That's why we brought. About it.
• 15:28
  So nearly 100. 1000 you get his name right, but tell you.
• 15:31
  So nearly 100 years of no need of salaries.
• 15:35
  Yeah, yeah, 24. Yeah, well, no, but you consider
• 15:37
  2005. Bruce Ladie reopened.
• 15:41
  Of course. Yeah, they didn't create a new
• 15:43
  distillery. They had historical.
• 15:44
  Yeah, but but it's really interesting because your core
• 15:47
  range mocks have always looked the same in presentation.
• 15:50
  You've never felt the need to put an age statement on them,
• 15:53
  but you have always increased the age of the liquid.
• 15:55
  And this is something that people wouldn't know unless
• 15:57
  you're in the industry. And I remember the first time I
• 16:00
  maybe had what was a newer batch of San Egg and going, that's
• 16:04
  different. That's different than last time.
• 16:06
  And then putting 2 bottles I had of San Egg next to each other,
• 16:09
  pouring both of them and going, wow, you can see this is like
• 16:12
  you're not charging more. You weren't, you know, trying to
• 16:15
  up the age statement, try and make a big Palava about it.
• 16:18
  It was this is a distillery DNA, this is our characteristic.
• 16:21
  I want to say it was 8020 Sherry to bourbon and Sanic.
• 16:25
  And is it reversed and what's the kind of breakdown?
• 16:28
  So Mackie is 90% Bourbon, 10% Olaroso, and 7030 for the Sanic.
• 16:34
  And so. She has.
• 16:36
  A big, thick, intense shedded core range and a light fresh
• 16:41
  bourbon core range. And now that's new Green Label
• 16:44
  batch strengths come in and I will say, look, you lads
• 16:46
  probably haven't had the chance to try it.
• 16:47
  I don't think I've tried. It and I've of course tried it
• 16:49
  for research purposes. Same sympathy.
• 16:53
  And it is. It's a belter of a drum and
• 16:55
  uniquely very different to the other two.
• 16:58
  Angus what was that? A Drew youth Because I mean, I
• 16:59
  must admit that night, that day afternoon after the rugby, you
• 17:05
  were saying, oh, try this Kilhoman.
• 17:06
  I've never heard of it. And to be perfectly honest, and
• 17:08
  I was kind of saying saying to Ken before we started, I mean,
• 17:12
  that's where the greatest respect in the world is because
• 17:14
  I've I've purposely not looked up Kilhoman today.
• 17:17
  I would I didn't want exactly because I didn't want it.
• 17:19
  I didn't want it because I've asked questions.
• 17:22
  And also I guess sometimes there's his homework on the
• 17:24
  podcast. But what was it for you, Angus,
• 17:27
  of all the island distilleries? What way do you pick Kilhoman?
• 17:29
  You seem to be a bit of a fanboy for.
• 17:31
  This is what I mean. I was talking a little bit about
• 17:33
  it before and Senegalmo almost could have been one of my Walk 3
• 17:36
  drums. When I originally did the Walk 3
• 17:38
  drums, I struggled to think at the exact moment where somebody
• 17:43
  puts an egg under my nose. But I do remember when we're
• 17:49
  talking about that time that we went to the rugby Graham, I knew
• 17:51
  I like beated whiskey. That was something I knew about
• 17:54
  before I tried snake. I think it was the fact that it
• 17:57
  was a beated whiskey and Sherry because you were a big fan of
• 18:00
  the Sherry whiskey's and I think you I think you were obviously
• 18:04
  kind of at that point, you were very much if it's not Sherry,
• 18:06
  it's no, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's no good.
• 18:08
  So I think that would that choosing a snake for you that
• 18:11
  night was a way of me trying to say, well, this is a Sherry
• 18:13
  whiskey. Maybe you'll like this.
• 18:15
  But I, I, I, I, I think Seneg was probably the whiskey that
• 18:22
  made that changed my perception on age statement whiskey's
• 18:25
  because I think before I think I must have just been recommended
• 18:28
  that somewhere or I just seen it on a menu and just by potluck.
• 18:31
  I've chosen it and kept coming back to it.
• 18:34
  So I think I tried it at some point.
• 18:36
  I have a feeling I might have tried it even in What's the
• 18:39
  Wildcat Nick, which is in Edinburgh.
• 18:41
  It's next to the Kings Theatre. I think I may have tried it in
• 18:44
  there and it just blew me away. I think it was the peatedness
• 18:47
  and the Sherry. I think it's a gap in the market
• 18:49
  and nobody might people might disagree with us here, but for
• 18:53
  that medium to heavily styled Pete at 46% at not an
• 18:57
  extortionate price point. Yeah.
• 18:59
  You had Beau more 15, which was shed but was lightly peated.
• 19:03
  Yeah. There wasn't really a punchier,
• 19:06
  more rounded, heavier pitted version of that that wasn't I
• 19:11
  think our beg your Gadal is 57 percent or something like that.
• 19:14
  Yeah. So I don't think there was
• 19:15
  actually a core range. Heavily shed, heavily peated.
• 19:19
  Whiskey and something like, I know our beg is Sherry, but it's
• 19:23
  not that heavily Sherry and I I yeah, it definitely.
• 19:26
  I mean, I like you said, it's very approachable price point as
• 19:29
  well. I had a bottle in the house at
• 19:30
  one point. RIP.
• 19:32
  Yeah, but no, no. And it was something as well
• 19:36
  that the the the current wife, then girlfriend was a big fan of
• 19:40
  as well. Like she she really loved Seneg.
• 19:42
  I loved Seneg. So it was one of those.
• 19:44
  We should actually lay our we should invite our partners along
• 19:47
  to watch watch an episode. I don't know a big.
• 19:49
  Great, great idea. Graham roaring success.
• 19:55
  But let's go back in time a little bit because you've
• 19:57
  mentioned we're talking a lot about Go Home and then and then
• 19:59
  stuff and we've got these Rams in front of us here.
• 20:01
  But you mentioned earlier you were in New Zealand and you are
• 20:03
  coming across Go Home. And so what's the story that got
• 20:06
  you into whiskey there? It's a long story.
• 20:10
  I don't know. We're here all night.
• 20:12
  We've got, we've got 1/2. 345. Yeah, naturals check us into our
• 20:15
  rooms. I think it was very natural.
• 20:19
  I couldn't pinpoint really. The day I tried my first whiskey
• 20:22
  wasn't, you know, it wasn't anything really like that.
• 20:26
  It was slowly but surely. Working in the Bower trade
• 20:28
  really helps you trying different things.
• 20:30
  As a younger self, I liked rum a lot.
• 20:34
  Because it was. Really approachable, quite
• 20:36
  sweet, easy to drink. And then, you know, I started
• 20:39
  wanting a bit more complexity and I came to the world of
• 20:42
  whiskey and I really interested me that with one single
• 20:46
  ingredient you can make so many different things.
• 20:49
  Such an eclectic collection of flavors and I think is what
• 20:53
  drawn me to to whiskey really, and Scottish whiskey
• 20:57
  particularly. And when it came to working in
• 21:00
  bar trade, then was it just a case of just being a bartender
• 21:03
  or did you work in specific types of bars?
• 21:05
  Was it cocktail bars? Was it high end bars?
• 21:08
  Was it was it eventually whiskey related bars or was it just in
• 21:11
  general working behind bars? No working managing bars around
• 21:15
  really. I've done a bit of everything.
• 21:17
  Some tiki bars, some Orleans in New Zealand was a sort of
• 21:21
  American style bar. So a lot of bourbon, a little
• 21:24
  bit of Scotch and and then, yeah, I've worked in many, many
• 21:29
  bars, restaurant bars as well. Cocktail bars is what the focus
• 21:32
  was in the overall. But yeah.
• 21:34
  Did you move to Edinburgh for this job?
• 21:36
  Are we already here? I know I was already here.
• 21:38
  So the second thing that took me into the the world of whiskey is
• 21:42
  my wife. Women.
• 21:43
  Yes, Women in women in whiskey. Well, that's it.
• 21:46
  My wife that I met in New Zealand in Orleans Bar and she's
• 21:50
  from Edinburgh. So.
• 21:52
  Yeah, yeah, the opportunity to come in and become Scottish.
• 21:56
  Because we're three Scotsman and none of our current wives are
• 22:00
  Scottish. But there you go.
• 22:01
  But your current life is Scottish.
• 22:03
  Yes, yes, from Edinburgh. Yeah, there you go.
• 22:05
  And it's so what's the whiskey's?
• 22:08
  We were trying to Anthony Crowther and Chuck Care was back
• 22:16
  and we were actually recording an episode last night with those
• 22:18
  guys and we were talking about the whiskey scene in Australia.
• 22:21
  What's the whiskey scene like in New Zealand then?
• 22:23
  I always imagine these things as you have the international
• 22:28
  whiskey, so you have Australian whiskey.
• 22:29
  There is New Zealand whiskey. In fact, one of my favorite, one
• 22:33
  of the one of the really surprising whiskey's that I
• 22:35
  tried not that long ago was a woven.
• 22:39
  I think it might was a hemisphere there's and I'm
• 22:42
  pretty sure there is a New Zealand.
• 22:44
  Yeah, and Ross might be able to help me out in this.
• 22:47
  There's a distillery that it's been.
• 22:49
  Thompson Distillery. It's not Thompson.
• 22:52
  It's a distillery. It's under S Island of New
• 22:54
  Zealand, and it's been a Corona. Cardrona.
• 22:57
  Cardrona. Sorry, Not Corona.
• 22:59
  That's in Mexico. I know, I know.
• 23:00
  Cardrona is whiskey. I've sampled at a couple of
• 23:03
  festivals. Yeah.
• 23:04
  You do actually see a lot of Cardrona here in the UK.
• 23:07
  Certainly that's a good impression.
• 23:09
  Yeah, it's a very good, very interesting whiskey.
• 23:11
  It didn't have. It didn't exist when I was
• 23:13
  there. It would have been about eight
• 23:15
  years ago now. OK, The whiskey scene in New
• 23:17
  Zealand was in existence. Really.
• 23:19
  There was no, no real New Zealand whiskey and there was
• 23:23
  Star Wars was already present. Obviously Australia being not
• 23:26
  too far, it was, it was kind of out there, but mostly was
• 23:30
  imported, imported whiskey. And the The funny thing is that
• 23:34
  frankly, I've seen some absolutely enormous wrench in
• 23:39
  Australia and New Zealand of whiskey on the shelf that, you
• 23:42
  know, some, some Scottish bar could be jealous.
• 23:45
  Of so Scotch whiskey or just whiskey?
• 23:47
  Scottish whiskey. Yeah, it's just because they
• 23:49
  have allocations, but because there's less whiskey bars.
• 23:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:53
  Well, you can see. Yeah.
• 23:54
  Yeah, exactly What was it, Auckland yourself you're based
• 23:57
  in OR? Yeah, I was in Auckland.
• 23:58
  Yeah, I travelled a bit and then based in Auckland.
• 24:00
  So I mean, it's, it fascinated me.
• 24:02
  I mean, I think it was the lads from Blind Summit that we had
• 24:04
  on. That's right.
• 24:05
  One of their business plans was to open a distiller in New
• 24:09
  Zealand. They were very close to doing
• 24:10
  that apparently. And, and it is when you, when
• 24:14
  you do look at the scene and of course you look at people who
• 24:16
  travel around the world and, and what have you, but closer to
• 24:19
  home, you've got to remember that France is one of the
• 24:21
  biggest importers of Scotch whiskey in the world.
• 24:23
  As well, it's a huge. So when we we've talked about
• 24:25
  the Italian market and we've talked about Glenn Grant being
• 24:28
  the sort of prominent brand that people always see, I think Dario
• 24:34
  played up to the IT played up to it by bringing in some Glen
• 24:37
  Grant for. Us so guys, the Glen Grant are
• 24:39
  owned by Campari now, but they were the prominent malt in the
• 24:42
  70s and 80s. A single malt was dominating the
• 24:44
  space in that. Part So what what?
• 24:46
  Is there a particular brand or is there a type of whiskey style
• 24:49
  whiskey that really does well in France?
• 24:51
  Oh yeah, I mean, blended whiskey is, blended malts are and.
• 24:55
  Some blends that we don't even sell, yeah.
• 24:57
  No, and the French market is not scared of blends.
• 25:00
  Sometimes there's a stigma in the UK that blends are not real
• 25:03
  whiskeys or things like that, which doesn't exist in France.
• 25:06
  A lot of things, all sorts of things.
• 25:10
  Compass Box is very present for example, much more than in the
• 25:13
  UK. But what off memory for when I
• 25:17
  left really Glenn Fiddick was the the leader of the single
• 25:20
  malt market and and little things, little things here and
• 25:24
  there that was starting to pop up.
• 25:25
  Yeah, France have had some strange trends with Scotch
• 25:27
  whiskey, but they are the biggest buyers of Scotch whiskey
• 25:29
  per population in the world and have been for a long time.
• 25:33
  For example, no can Do Yeah was the prominent malt whiskey in
• 25:38
  France for a long time. But it's just, it's genius
• 25:43
  marketing. If you've got an appetite for
• 25:45
  whiskey and you said, you know what, we have a production of
• 25:48
  let's say 1,000,000, a million a half, we're only going to sell
• 25:50
  it in France and you're doing it for an affordable price.
• 25:52
  It would work. Then they had a problem with
• 25:54
  their production. Then Aberlower, which is
• 25:56
  probably the dominant malt now, as far as I'm aware, in mainland
• 25:59
  France. It's just crazy.
• 26:02
  Yeah, he drinks like five times more aberlower in France than do
• 26:05
  here in Scotland. Really.
• 26:06
  Yes. It's amazing.
• 26:08
  And by then you historically, I guess if you look back, 'cause
• 26:10
  you're the head of research here and you're also the man who
• 26:12
  knows his way around the history book.
• 26:14
  But basically, you know, there is a history to why France is so
• 26:19
  prominent. It's.
• 26:19
  Got all the lions. People may not know about the
• 26:21
  all the. Lions, I get that's going way
• 26:23
  back. That's going back before
• 26:24
  whiskey. I mean, I mean, one of the
• 26:27
  reasons why whiskey became popular, not only in France, but
• 26:31
  in, you know, across the world was in the 1860s, you had the,
• 26:35
  the disease that affected the, the vines in France.
• 26:39
  Exactly. And Brandy was very much a
• 26:42
  prominent drink, But that, that was just, you know, the, the,
• 26:45
  the ability for that to be produced was just decimated by
• 26:48
  this. And, and filling the void came
• 26:51
  Scotch whiskey. And not only in France, but the
• 26:54
  UKUSA, the decline of Brandy was filled by the growing, you know,
• 27:00
  the ability for Scotch whisky to fill the void.
• 27:03
  Yeah. That that that played a huge
• 27:05
  part in Scotch whisky at the end of the second-half of the 19th
• 27:08
  century, becoming really, really popular as a drink.
• 27:10
  And so people don't know though, and they do want to know why.
• 27:13
  Why are Scotland and France so friendly?
• 27:14
  I guess. Well, I mean that that goes back
• 27:17
  if you really want to go back in history books.
• 27:19
  And obviously, yeah, Scotland and France not too far back, you
• 27:24
  know, the, the, you know, the, the war, you know, if you go
• 27:28
  back, obviously England and England and France, you know,
• 27:31
  the, the English by the West, the English monarchs, you know,
• 27:35
  and, and, and the Middle Ages had this claim to the French
• 27:38
  crown and they had many lands were in France.
• 27:41
  And obviously it was, you know, the friend, the friend, the
• 27:47
  enemy of my enemy is my friend. So France and Scotland have
• 27:49
  this, this, you know, defensive alliance.
• 27:52
  Bonnie Prince Charlie not go to France for some time?
• 27:54
  He was in France for some time. He.
• 27:57
  Went back and got some soldiers to his up bring them back.
• 27:59
  He was also in Italy, but this is much later.
• 28:01
  Right. Well, there we go.
• 28:03
  That's great. Anyway, so I mean I take it
• 28:08
  from. And that's why we've allowed Ken
• 28:11
  to stay in Edinburgh. Welcome along here.
• 28:14
  It's great. But from a, from a cultural
• 28:15
  perspective then I suppose like you look at the cultures in New
• 28:18
  Zealand, you look at the cultures that you look also the
• 28:20
  temperatures, the styles and things like that.
• 28:22
  I'd imagine not just for creating your own whiskey in
• 28:25
  terms of having similar climates where I'm pretty sure they'll be
• 28:29
  able to grow similar styles of barley and what have you.
• 28:31
  So for their production, but also just in terms of like the
• 28:35
  culture of people, I'm sure, was whiskey a very popular thing?
• 28:38
  Was it a big, was it a big popularity thing in New Zealand
• 28:41
  or no, No. No, no.
• 28:43
  New Zealand market generally drinks vodka, lime and soda,
• 28:48
  right. Like never before.
• 28:50
  Vodka, lime and soda. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:52
  It's, it's about all, all that's been consumed.
• 28:55
  Yeah. After I'm assuming that now that
• 28:57
  the the whiskey market is growing in New Zealand, so will
• 29:01
  pallets and and customers will will be more inclined to order
• 29:05
  some, but pretty much, yeah. That's also the case in a market
• 29:08
  where you produce very good wine.
• 29:09
  You end up getting into whiskey as well.
• 29:11
  France is another great example of that.
• 29:12
  If you take wine very seriously, if you don't take wine very
• 29:15
  seriously, you end up taking whiskey equally as seriously.
• 29:18
  Yeah, any crafted, any crafted liquids, you will see the
• 29:21
  booming beers in France, you had the Heineken and and that's
• 29:25
  about it really. And now we have hundreds of
• 29:28
  like, just like in the in the UK, Yeah, is.
• 29:30
  There any French distilleries we should be looking out for as
• 29:32
  well? There are plenty of French
• 29:34
  distilleries. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there is,
• 29:36
  there's tons, but their, their production is very, very little.
• 29:40
  So I'm, I'm pretty sure if we have to look at exactly how many
• 29:43
  distilleries are production in France, it's possible that we'll
• 29:45
  find that there's more in France than in Scotland.
• 29:48
  But their production is much, much.
• 29:50
  Much, much small. Yeah.
• 29:51
  Under these distilleries, have you been going for a long time
• 29:54
  or are they most things? Are.
• 29:55
  They things that popped up in the last 20 years.
• 29:57
  Most, most of them have popped up very recently.
• 30:00
  There are some historical one like Edu in Brittany, but I mean
• 30:05
  everything else is new every time I go to to see the French
• 30:08
  markets and something new as a peer so.
• 30:11
  No, it's interesting looking at the growing like whiskey bars
• 30:15
  abroad and stuff like that. And you know, we've got the the
• 30:20
  guys over in Cask and the Cayman Islands, Charlie Hume.
• 30:23
  Yeah. So I keep up them I'm keeping up
• 30:25
  to date on their stuff on the social media and their
• 30:28
  Instagram. I think the bars up and running
• 30:29
  now. Yes, it is.
• 30:30
  And it's just mentally you think and it's like what you were
• 30:33
  saying is that sometimes the further you go away, the more
• 30:36
  whiskey you'll probably get more accessible.
• 30:38
  We become more accessible because slap bang, a bar that
• 30:42
  has a very big collection of Scotch whiskey there.
• 30:44
  But I mean, getting whiskey into these places, how does how does
• 30:47
  it travel so far? You know, how do you get the
• 30:49
  sell into these markets, export and into these places And you
• 30:54
  know, they were talking about the challenges that they're
• 30:55
  going to have that what happens when when do you start needing
• 30:58
  to order? They wrote.
• 31:00
  Everything came over in a shipping container.
• 31:01
  Yeah, but like for them, how many bottles do they do they
• 31:04
  wait until they're halfway through 1 bottle, they go better
• 31:06
  phone home and order another batch of this because by the
• 31:08
  time it gets shipped and gets out to us, there's a good chance
• 31:11
  that's going to be done. Was that similar in New Zealand
• 31:13
  as well? I mean, I'm not exactly sure how
• 31:16
  they work out the import and export, but essentially for us
• 31:20
  now, we send stock of a release way before we'd send it to
• 31:25
  Europe. So it arrives at the same time
• 31:27
  and it's shipped in big quantities.
• 31:28
  So you can't order just cases, you have to order pallets
• 31:32
  minimum. So that'd be done through a
• 31:34
  distributor then. So yeah, this is the bet.
• 31:36
  I always find that I find really interesting is when you look at
• 31:39
  the distillery websites and stuff like that and you see it
• 31:42
  and say, right here's our distributors.
• 31:44
  So I'm assuming a distributor then would be like one big
• 31:48
  company? Roll my whiskeys.
• 31:49
  Yeah. So, so basically they'd be able,
• 31:51
  they have warehousing space. So what they could do is they
• 31:53
  could buy mats. So they only become a Co home
• 31:55
  and and say we want 3 pallets of this type of release, go home
• 32:00
  and will then ship it to them. And then the distributor is the
• 32:02
  guy that then goes to all the bars, restaurants, clubs around
• 32:06
  and says and sells it by the box I'm assuming.
• 32:08
  That's exactly that's exactly right.
• 32:10
  So importers act as us, whoever the country is.
• 32:14
  And in New Zealand, Australia, France as well, we have one
• 32:18
  importer which is Lamizundi whiskey.
• 32:20
  So single so. Established.
• 32:22
  Yeah. Which means the House of
• 32:23
  whiskey, doesn't it? Yeah, exactly right, Yeah.
• 32:26
  Interesting not only this story guy very.
• 32:30
  Good, Very good. But no, it's it's very important
• 32:33
  for us to work with importers that we we follow as well and we
• 32:36
  have the same kind of mindset because that's what is going to
• 32:41
  dictate the market. And they also have massive.
• 32:42
  I guess what the shot on the map mean that?
• 32:47
  One's over my head. It is cat on the map for people
• 32:50
  listen back home. They have they have massive
• 32:53
  swinging power as well. I mean, like Lebezo de Whisky
• 32:57
  will also do their own single cast of Killhorn.
• 32:58
  Yeah, and Sandwice and the Netherlands and Japanese single
• 33:04
  casks and Roma Wishes will do their own single cask.
• 33:06
  And you know, that means they're buying so much allocation.
• 33:09
  They've got that many venues or bars or individuals who are
• 33:12
  buying their product that they're able to create unique
• 33:14
  products from it. So which is where people get
• 33:15
  really excited, but. Can they dictate that right?
• 33:17
  Good, because because again, I'm just and I'm looking at like
• 33:20
  what we've talked about before with the indie bowlers.
• 33:23
  And when you look at and you say, you know, the more hands
• 33:26
  that passes through, the more the expense comes or the so like
• 33:31
  who sets an RRP? Like who sets a detailed price
• 33:34
  for a distillery then and for for a product they they come
• 33:36
  home and say this is going to be a mid market.
• 33:38
  Should have been good questions for Dougie Littles podcast.
• 33:40
  Yeah, I mean, but but well we know well in Ken sells sells
• 33:44
  away, you know, sales and stuff. Direct stuff too.
• 33:47
  So that's it's difficult, but because I could buy a cask and
• 33:49
  you could tell me your recommended retail prices, 80
• 33:52
  lbs a bottle. I once I own the product,
• 33:54
  there's nothing stock, frankly. We, we, we're not a big
• 33:57
  structure, you know, we're not owned by by massive corporate
• 34:00
  companies. So the idea for us is that our
• 34:04
  pieces is not really interesting in the UK market, for example,
• 34:07
  we don't communicate them if you want to know what we think.
• 34:11
  Will tell you people charge what they want.
• 34:12
  But essentially, yeah, it's all. But you've also got to be
• 34:14
  market, you've got to be market savvy.
• 34:16
  So you can't certainly say I can't go into, let's just use
• 34:19
  for example, you can't say I can't go into the whiskey shop
• 34:21
  and have this exact same bottle that go home in 100% Iowa saying
• 34:26
  that what's their sort of retailer?
• 34:27
  This one there's sort of 55 lbs Sixty quid now.
• 34:30
  They're 100% now. It's a bit more than that,
• 34:31
  right? It's about around 80. 80 lbs
• 34:33
  right? OK so but I can't walk into the
• 34:35
  whiskey shop and see this is for £80 and then go to Jeffrey St.
• 34:38
  Whiskey tobacco, see you for 120.
• 34:40
  Well, you could. You wouldn't.
• 34:41
  Sell any? No, but this is a thing so so
• 34:43
  obviously. Who sets their recommended
• 34:45
  retail price out? The biggest boys, the biggest
• 34:47
  players in the market usually will do that because they'll
• 34:49
  have much more buying power and therefore they'll have volume.
• 34:54
  As opposed to there's. Master of Malt in the whiskey
• 34:57
  get the release 1st and they price it at 10 lbs.
• 35:00
  There's no point in you pricing it at 15 lbs.
• 35:02
  No before. Visiting their their website
• 35:04
  more anyway, yeah, yeah. And so you might as well price
• 35:06
  it around about the same. But it's one of those things
• 35:07
  that really, people do whatever. But then so where the dictation
• 35:11
  then comes in, I suppose is the big like the bigger the importer
• 35:15
  or the bigger the company, they can then come to you and say,
• 35:19
  well, we want to put, let's just say standard margin, which would
• 35:23
  be 20% on of the. So if you say for easy counting,
• 35:27
  right, if you say this bottle RRP is £50, right?
• 35:31
  Then you say we want to make, we need to make 20% on that.
• 35:36
  So then you say you saw 20% of 50 lbs is what?
• 35:38
  There's a tenner, right? So then what you're saying is
• 35:41
  you're buying it at £40. So if I was to say you right
• 35:45
  that that ball is going to read it, I'm going to read it at £50,
• 35:48
  right? I want to make you're.
• 35:49
  Going to take that into account and.
• 35:50
  Then Oh yeah, but let's simplify it.
• 35:52
  But to make it simple, right? I want to buy this for this.
• 35:55
  This is going to sell for £50, right?
• 35:57
  I want to make a 10 hour per bottle.
• 36:00
  So so you need to sell it to me for 40.
• 36:02
  Now you guys might go no chance we sell this for £45.
• 36:06
  But if I'm the guy that if I'm the big player, no, I can say
• 36:10
  you, I can dictate the market. Everybody's dictating
• 36:12
  distilleries at the moment. Oh, no.
• 36:14
  No, really. Oh.
• 36:15
  No way, so they so the distillery will dictate what
• 36:17
  they sell at. It's like this is the product
• 36:20
  and so that everybody wants the new product.
• 36:22
  So I don't, I think for distilleries, sorry, no, it can
• 36:25
  be a great answer, I'm sure. But I thought it says that for
• 36:28
  distillery, I come home and bring out a new product.
• 36:31
  They don't give it to the highest bidder, They give it to
• 36:34
  everybody. And so if one person doesn't
• 36:35
  want to pay the the the price that kill them and think it's
• 36:37
  worth, they're just not going to get the.
• 36:39
  Product so if Kahoman come out and.
• 36:40
  They're not going to lose any sleep.
• 36:41
  Over it. So if Kahoman come out and say
• 36:42
  this bottle's 45, you've got to buy this off us at £45 per
• 36:46
  bottle, then it's up to you guys to make your your markup on top
• 36:50
  of that everybody then for everybody.
• 36:51
  I mean, I don't know is there a, is there a, is there an industry
• 36:55
  kind of standard where people try and make at least 2025% per
• 37:00
  bottle on the retail? More on the on trade, but on the
• 37:04
  on trade, people make bigger margins.
• 37:06
  So when you say on trade, but the retail is pretty
• 37:09
  straightforward and I guess there's different.
• 37:11
  We had money come from the whiskey shop and the whiskey
• 37:15
  shop don't have really an on trade account.
• 37:16
  So they won't sell into bars. They sell to individuals,
• 37:19
  whereas you have Royal Mail whiskeys who then need to take
• 37:21
  into account that, you know, natural the glass house is going
• 37:24
  to get her if an ex VAT, she's going to have 20% less than
• 37:27
  their costs. So it's different for every
• 37:30
  retail. I don't think it's, I don't
• 37:31
  think there's any black and white answers other than the
• 37:33
  distilleries of the Boss and that nobody really is big enough
• 37:37
  to change the prices. Yeah.
• 37:38
  Isn't it's not, it's not a case that the the Scotch rescue
• 37:41
  distilleries are the the British dairy farmers with the
• 37:44
  supermarkets. Telling them no, but at the same
• 37:46
  time like, you know, it would be interesting to know if you're
• 37:49
  like what's what's going to lead me on to the next question going
• 37:52
  to ask about when does a distillery become a new this
• 37:55
  stop being a new distillery and become an established
• 37:57
  distillery. But basically it'd be
• 38:00
  interesting to know that you've mentioned the whiskey shop.
• 38:03
  Now if I am a new distillery or a bottler right and I have the
• 38:07
  chance to get my product into 20 / 20 shops around the UK and
• 38:12
  being one of the more major retailers within the country,
• 38:15
  then I would be much more inclined to try and get my
• 38:18
  bottle onto their shelf at a cheaper to encourage them to
• 38:21
  take stock to sell it because I know that they're going to take
• 38:23
  volume my. Argument would be if your
• 38:25
  product's good, they're going to come to you, you're not going to
• 38:27
  them. I don't know.
• 38:28
  I mean, we had, we had Hector McLean from Jeffrey St. saying
• 38:32
  he gets sent the amount of samples that he gets sent.
• 38:34
  Every single there's a different story.
• 38:36
  And about but even I suppose like.
• 38:38
  Yeah. OK.
• 38:39
  So like, I know I know what? You mean?
• 38:40
  Yeah, of course you're you're. Fighting for faith such a hard
• 38:43
  that's and that's an interesting part of the market, but.
• 38:45
  What I'd be interested? Is fighting for the same stuff
• 38:47
  and they're bottling the same liquid.
• 38:48
  But I'd be interested to know as well though, like Kilhoman are
• 38:51
  in this and the next question is right.
• 38:54
  So first question then, is Kilhoman still a new distillery?
• 38:59
  In the grand scheme of thing, we'll always be a new
• 39:01
  distillery. If you compare to to others like
• 39:04
  Bomor, you know on Isla that were implanted one of the first
• 39:06
  to open, we are new relatively new now because other
• 39:10
  distilleries on Isla particularly open and some of
• 39:15
  released the first whiskeys as well are Naho 3 Moors in
• 39:20
  construction. I think it's it's more who is
• 39:23
  next that's going to define if you knew or not.
• 39:25
  It's new age of whiskey starts at your your daft mill and your
• 39:29
  kill home and maybe you're can envy in the 90s et cetera.
• 39:32
  Uh huh. Aaron 9495 Well, but new
• 39:37
  distillery honestly a new distillery now doesn't have any
• 39:40
  statement whiskey's what I would have said and then kill home and
• 39:42
  didn't lose any statement whiskey until.
• 39:45
  I. Think before we looking at the
• 39:47
  glasses, I wonder. I wonder, I wonder.
• 39:51
  If we might try something else. And you can talk us through the
• 39:53
  drama and you've. Got some Teasley as well, some
• 39:56
  fromage. So, So what would be what?
• 39:59
  Should we try Ken? Yeah.
• 40:00
  What do we have? Fino Sanega?
• 40:02
  I would say probably the fino then, yeah, it would be a quite
• 40:05
  as well, yeah. That's right, yeah.
• 40:09
  Oh, is that the PX? Sorry.
• 40:10
  Oh, he's a PX? Yeah.
• 40:11
  So maybe not the PX first, right?
• 40:13
  OK, I'll go for the sanic. Sanic.
• 40:15
  So which one is this? This one.
• 40:17
  Here. Yeah, that's right.
• 40:18
  This is Angus. 'S yeah, you.
• 40:20
  Support these because he's. That's right.
• 40:25
  But no, it is an interesting debate and I think we've we've
• 40:28
  had a lot of amazing bottlers on the podcast who are are fighting
• 40:31
  for shelf space. But if you're a new distillery,
• 40:34
  everybody wants to releases and maybe it's because of the buyers
• 40:37
  are buying their whiskey rather than the on trade seizure saying
• 40:39
  is from a retail perspective, yeah, a lot of people are buying
• 40:43
  all these new distilleries because they want the first
• 40:46
  release and they want them first single cask etcetera and maybe
• 40:48
  they're not drinking it as well. So in that case, retailers
• 40:51
  probably could take but. Then, but then there's a reason
• 40:53
  that like there must be a reason that you go in and I'll use a
• 40:56
  whiskey shop as an example again, is there's a reason that
• 40:59
  you go into the whiskey shop and they don't have every single new
• 41:03
  distillery on the shelves. Yeah.
• 41:04
  So why is that if, if, if the whiskey shop, if everybody's
• 41:08
  wanting the new release of the new distillery, Yeah.
• 41:10
  So why why aren't the whiskey shop?
• 41:12
  Just why? Why don't Why don't every single
• 41:15
  retailer have every single new release of new distillery?
• 41:17
  Yeah, So the Whiskey shop done a great deal of Arden Hall, as we
• 41:20
  know because of their relationship with Hunter Lang.
• 41:23
  And so they got the first Arden Hall release for the first two
• 41:25
  weeks. They've also done stuff with
• 41:28
  locally 1st, 2:00, two weeks, then you get distillery.
• 41:30
  The Falkirk distillery. Yeah, they're inaugural release
• 41:33
  or the Bonington Distillery and they'll say Bonington.
• 41:36
  I think so. So simply directly I'm through
• 41:38
  Royal Mail, Falkirk Distillery, so directly through their
• 41:41
  website. Yeah.
• 41:41
  More margin for them. Yeah, yeah.
• 41:43
  It depends the size of the the whiskey release perhaps as well.
• 41:46
  Yeah. Arden Hose first inaugural
• 41:48
  release was 80,000 bottles. Yeah, it's massive.
• 41:50
  Nobody not meant. We're not meant to know that,
• 41:52
  but we do know that and that means they can't sell that
• 41:55
  direct. They go into, OK, we're Hunter
• 41:57
  Land, we have already got 16 international markets.
• 42:01
  It's a different story for them. That's a good question.
• 42:04
  But I think it's just although there's all these new
• 42:06
  distilleries opening at once and we look at Fife as a great
• 42:08
  example. You look at Kings Barns and
• 42:10
  Linders Abbey and Eden Mill. See the production and the
• 42:13
  bottling from Daff Mill and Linders Abbey and Kings Barns.
• 42:17
  Much bigger than Eden Mill, for example.
• 42:19
  Or entertainment. Well, the Eden Mill I'm
• 42:21
  producing at the moment, but. I mean, so they have to approach
• 42:25
  things differently I guess. But I mean, so I guess if we're
• 42:29
  looking at, we're talking about new distilleries versus
• 42:31
  established distilleries versus old school distilleries, right?
• 42:34
  Yeah. I'm interested in do we know who
• 42:38
  was the distiller that opened before Kilhomen?
• 42:41
  Well, I Kilholman opened 2005, so there were.
• 42:45
  Ben Romack was 1999. Am I right in?
• 42:47
  1998, but originally originally opened in 1890.
• 42:51
  Yeah, Yeah, that's exactly. No, I mean.
• 42:53
  There was quite a few reopenings in the early 2000s.
• 42:55
  Yeah, there were. So I mean.
• 42:58
  Aaron's certainly 95. 97 Aaron Aaron 9.
• 43:00
  Because that was when it. Was Daftville daft?
• 43:03
  Was 2005 I. Think when you look at me.
• 43:05
  So I mean that was, I think, I think you're right.
• 43:07
  I think the mid, the mid knots 2005 was really when we started
• 43:12
  to see new distilleries coming in.
• 43:16
  So what was the next one after Kilholm and then?
• 43:20
  I'm trying to think what would be in a roundabout.
• 43:22
  That was the reopening of. What we know right now is like
• 43:25
  Cameron Ewan is roaring. It is.
• 43:30
  There was a lot of new distilleries in the last 20
• 43:32
  years. Distilleries, you know, the
• 43:33
  industry has grown by 20% in the last 20 years and but there's a
• 43:37
  lot of reopening when glasses started production Tam do
• 43:40
  restarted production when they were sold from Edmonton to E
• 43:42
  McLeod about 2008, 2009 Rosebank obviously reopen.
• 43:46
  As well. Yeah, but I mean, but that's,
• 43:49
  that's what's that's what I want to know.
• 43:50
  And that's where you look at the the, the at the time periods of
• 43:55
  call home and opening. And Kilhoman have had this head
• 43:59
  start on new distilleries. There will be plenty of people
• 44:02
  who are whiskey drinkers who won't know who like who ate
• 44:06
  Kilhoman do. You know what I would categorise
• 44:08
  it as? See, they've been open for 19
• 44:10
  years now. Yeah.
• 44:11
  Every 18 year old in Scotland, yeah, for their life, Kilhoman's
• 44:15
  been open, yeah. And I would say it's a pretty
• 44:17
  good way to say you're not, you're the new age, but maybe
• 44:19
  not a new distillery anymore. And also because of the quality
• 44:21
  they've produced and because of the range of whiskey they've
• 44:23
  produced. The word established is what you
• 44:26
  asked earlier. When do you become established?
• 44:27
  You probably become established when you really got your
• 44:29
  identity. And I would say you're being new
• 44:32
  to the company. But you won't kill home and for
• 44:34
  a long time. But what's not interesting
• 44:35
  though? Sorry, two things.
• 44:37
  But what's very interesting is like what?
• 44:41
  For me, and this is just me saying it becoming established
• 44:45
  would be when you can from a distillery, a new distillery
• 44:48
  point of view. I always imagine becoming
• 44:49
  established is when you can stick a number on your bottle to
• 44:52
  say we are 10121518 why have go home and not done it then I.
• 44:58
  Mean, yeah, I mean, I don't. I don't think that's how I would
• 45:02
  calculate me neither. Being established, I would say
• 45:05
  when you can go to a bar and safely order a whiskey that you
• 45:09
  want and you get it in front of you, that's when you
• 45:12
  established. Yeah.
• 45:13
  When you don't have to check the menu to see if Kilholman is on
• 45:16
  it, that's when you know. Yeah.
• 45:17
  And I, I think Kilholman, I mean, I think what we can say is
• 45:22
  that you could probably say now that Kilholman in terms of
• 45:25
  recognition in the market etcetera are an established
• 45:28
  distillery. Yes, But the way they've
• 45:29
  approached their whiskey is not how an established distiller
• 45:33
  approach of whiskey. You can't buy a 12 year old, a
• 45:35
  15 year old, an 18 year old, 21 year old go home and the way
• 45:38
  they're presenting their whiskey are this is our, this is 30%
• 45:44
  Sherry, 70% bourbon. This is our yeah, 70% Sherry,
• 45:47
  30% bourbon, which is very They're not.
• 45:50
  Information more than we would get from a lot.
• 45:52
  And, and you're right, you know, you go, you know, they're,
• 45:54
  they're, they're, they're declaring it on the, the the
• 45:56
  labels and so. Forth Are they a Is it 'cause
• 45:58
  they're a whiskey drinkers? Whiskey angle.
• 46:00
  I think so. 46% natural colour telling us cask breakdowns.
• 46:05
  People maybe weren't asking that question. 20 years.
• 46:07
  Ago and, and, and The thing is as well, I think what also you,
• 46:10
  you, you have the difficulty is if you are an established
• 46:13
  distillery, it's hard to break from that and say, well, we're
• 46:16
  going to do things like Cohoman. You would never, you would never
• 46:19
  say, let's say, well, you'd never imagine you'd see
• 46:22
  Glenfiddich saying, you know what we're going to get rid of
• 46:24
  our 12 or 15 and 18. We're going to have two non age
• 46:27
  releases. One's going to be 70% Sherry,
• 46:29
  30% bourbon. One's going to be 70% bourbon
• 46:32
  therapy. It just wouldn't happen because,
• 46:34
  I mean, people were, you know, no one would buy it.
• 46:35
  For me, I would absolutely say if you've got a recognisable DNA
• 46:38
  and character, then you've established a brand of DNA and
• 46:41
  absolutely. But what I would say is it's at
• 46:44
  the time, it's a very bold move. Because.
• 46:48
  Oh yeah, to, to, to go and to make a decision.
• 46:50
  And, and it's a fascinating thing in the sense that I a lot
• 46:56
  of whiskey drinkers and what we often forget and sort of include
• 47:00
  myself in this now is the fact that, you know, we, we know an
• 47:03
  awful lot more about whiskey than the average person.
• 47:05
  And, and of course we never say that.
• 47:07
  We all we know we're not. But you know, you're doing what
• 47:10
  you're saying. I know it sounds terrible.
• 47:11
  I mean, obviously wankers in it, but my point is that like, but
• 47:16
  well, Mark Thompson said, I'm sure it was Mark Thompson that
• 47:20
  said that you never once you starting thinking you know
• 47:23
  everything about whiskey, you know nothing, you know.
• 47:25
  But Mark Thompson also said when he used to do his brand
• 47:28
  ambassador work and he was training staff members and he
• 47:31
  was trying to say, remember 90% of the people that walk through
• 47:35
  the door of your bar know a lot less about whiskey than you do
• 47:39
  just by knowing a certain little bit more right?
• 47:42
  Then the other 5 or 10% of people, the guys that try and
• 47:46
  act like they know what they're talking about, we've had people
• 47:50
  talk to us and try and say that if it's not ten years old, it
• 47:54
  can't be called Scotch whiskey. It's not five years old, it
• 47:56
  can't be called Scotch for the. So that's from a general market
• 47:59
  point of view. There are people that will sit
• 48:01
  there and think, oh, unless it's got an age statement on, it's
• 48:04
  not right. Goes back to the debate about
• 48:05
  age statement versus non. Statement and the question I
• 48:08
  would maybe ask Ken and I appreciate you probably won't
• 48:11
  know the answer and maybe if he does know the answer he wouldn't
• 48:13
  tell us anyway. Is is is was there ever a time
• 48:16
  at Kilholm? And I mean, I mean, I wonder if
• 48:18
  back in the 2005, there was ever a plan that when we get to 16
• 48:22
  year old, let's say we're going to release a core range 16 year
• 48:26
  old or if we're going to release a core range 12 year old that
• 48:28
  will always be on sale. And maybe maybe events of taken
• 48:32
  away that this business decision or or even now, is there still a
• 48:37
  point where you're going to release a core age range
• 48:41
  bottling? Yeah.
• 48:42
  Listen, it's very possible that in the future we will do some
• 48:46
  some age statement. We have done the 16 year old
• 48:49
  course last year. We've done some single cask as
• 48:52
  well with age statement of course.
• 48:54
  But the core of what we do, which is Maki Basanic and now
• 48:57
  bad strength will always be, you know, it's dissolved the
• 49:01
  distillery and and have for the foreseeable future will not
• 49:04
  change. I mean.
• 49:05
  What is the DNA of Killholman from your perspective?
• 49:07
  I think first of all is is being, you know, it's actually
• 49:11
  human that makes the whiskey the the the soul is is the 100% Isla
• 49:15
  the. Authenticity of yes.
• 49:17
  We, we do, they do everything. You know, I've worked a week in
• 49:19
  the distillery and you and in production and you really feel
• 49:22
  that you're making something. You're not just pressing button
• 49:25
  and it's all automatic. You, you're shoveling some
• 49:27
  barley, then you're going to beat it.
• 49:29
  You we went to harvest the, the Pete with Derek, which is the
• 49:33
  bottling hole manager. I mean, you know, we're all
• 49:36
  hands on as well. We're schools in a team and.
• 49:39
  Did you get? Did you get?
• 49:40
  Did you get to cut the Pete? Yes, I went to cut the Pete.
• 49:43
  I was very good at it, apparently.
• 49:46
  Yeah, just humouring me. That's it.
• 49:47
  But what you talk about the team then, So what are we looking at
• 49:50
  because the distiller is coming up for 20 years old.
• 49:53
  Yeah, so, and we talk about established distilleries and
• 49:57
  what have you. Again, it's, it's how you can
• 49:59
  you're, you're talking about the the staff members that you can
• 50:02
  have. Because then it comes down to
• 50:03
  not just the production side. We always kind of you always
• 50:07
  laugh and you see the size of the industry, whiskey industry.
• 50:09
  And actually to make whiskey, it doesn't take an awful lot of
• 50:11
  people to actually make the whiskey, but it takes a lot of
• 50:14
  people to market. It takes a lot of people to come
• 50:17
  up with the ideas for bottle design, box design.
• 50:19
  Then it's people like yourself who've got to be the boots on
• 50:21
  the ground, go out there and get this on bars and get people
• 50:24
  talking about it. So what size of team are we
• 50:27
  looking at just now in Colhoman? I'd say, oh, oh, the most of the
• 50:31
  team is actually other distillery.
• 50:33
  So we're a bit the opposite of what of what you're describing.
• 50:35
  We have much less much many people in marketing and sales
• 50:41
  than we have other distilleries. Really.
• 50:42
  Yeah, we are the second employer on Nyla.
• 50:45
  Wow distillery. Yeah.
• 50:46
  So because we have a farm. Yeah, because you do everything
• 50:49
  and yeah. Well, this was actually
• 50:51
  something I saw that there are cattle on this farm that you're
• 50:55
  growing. You know, you think this farm,
• 50:58
  you know, with the dessert attached, everything would be
• 51:00
  barley, but you've actually got cattle that are fed on the
• 51:02
  draft. That's correct.
• 51:03
  Have you tried? Have you tried the beef?
• 51:05
  I have not tried the beef. No, no, no, no, I have not.
• 51:07
  Because I suspect this, absolutely.
• 51:09
  I suspect it's superb. It would be quite, quite
• 51:12
  fantastic. I thank you.
• 51:13
  I would have. A beef I should quote the quote
• 51:16
  the podcast. I was caring, but as soon as I
• 51:20
  was looking today and I saw that you had cattle on the farm and
• 51:23
  it was all the cattle's fed on the draft and I just thought, I
• 51:26
  bet, I bet it's really good beef, you know, in Iowa as well,
• 51:30
  you know? They're vegans.
• 51:33
  Have you tried the beef? But, but I suppose, I mean, you
• 51:36
  make a valid point there. And I suppose when you look at
• 51:38
  the, there's a lot of talk about sustainability and whiskey and
• 51:41
  things like that. And if you actually look at what
• 51:43
  Colhoman are doing now, especially for Iowa, because I
• 51:47
  can imagine that there's a lot of transportation required in
• 51:50
  Iowa. There'll be a lot of vehicles
• 51:52
  moving on to ferries that are travelling and this, that and
• 51:55
  next thing, especially if they're having to bring in their
• 51:57
  own barley or they're having to, you know, get the get the liquid
• 52:01
  across the mainland, the. Big problem with Iowa just now
• 52:04
  is obviously Port Ellen Maltings.
• 52:06
  You know, the Port Ellen Maltings have got new
• 52:07
  distilleries. The productions are going up and
• 52:10
  they're currently sellers. Port Ellen's reopened report,
• 52:13
  Ellen Maltings have said for the last five years at least, they
• 52:16
  don't have the space for every distiller in island.
• 52:18
  And they were already doing the barley for all but one
• 52:22
  distillery on the island. There you go.
• 52:24
  So as as it's going to be a problem because production and
• 52:28
  even building and all the rest of it, you know, talk.
• 52:31
  Real roads as well, yeah, yeah, you.
• 52:32
  Don't like take? Lorries.
• 52:34
  And maybe maybe when we're talking about new distilleries
• 52:36
  and established distilleries, it's more, you know, we can take
• 52:39
  an almost more granular look at itself and say we have these
• 52:43
  established distilleries, we have maybe yourself and Arden Ho
• 52:46
  and then obviously these new distilleries reopening or
• 52:49
  Ellen's and, and it's just, it's just going to, you know, when
• 52:53
  you only had seven or 88 distilleries before.
• 52:59
  Go home and. Now suddenly you're adding five
• 53:01
  or six. It's it's huge, I mean.
• 53:05
  When you think about it, and I probably won't make any pals in
• 53:07
  some of these new distillery, but the question does it come to
• 53:11
  a point where they have to say, all right, Isla can't have any
• 53:14
  more distilleries on? The run out of water sources and
• 53:18
  the amazing thing is people both in distillery and saying we
• 53:20
  found a new water source on the island.
• 53:22
  People have been distilling on the island for 200 years.
• 53:25
  Pretty amazing If you find a new water source discovered
• 53:27
  previously. So they will they will there
• 53:30
  will be a fiscal. This is not going to work, but
• 53:33
  at the same time, descending on the size of the company owns a
• 53:36
  distillery. I've said it before, if
• 53:38
  telescope goes dry for a year, telescope, you know, Sky's still
• 53:43
  going to be bringing tankers of water on to do production on the
• 53:46
  island. They'll maybe be a little bit
• 53:48
  romance about it. Yeah, I don't think I think Isla
• 53:53
  is doing well. Like I was happy with how it is
• 53:56
  just now. I've been excited about the new
• 53:57
  distilleries. Arnold has been a great
• 53:59
  addition, even just as like a cafe for the Islanders, etcetera
• 54:02
  as well. It's a small distillery, Sir
• 54:05
  Kendra's massive in comparison, looks very big.
• 54:08
  Anyway, I've heard the Islanders from from when I spoke to them
• 54:13
  don't seem annoyed yet. No, But at the same time,
• 54:15
  everybody's doing better for it at the moment.
• 54:17
  Well, it's whether there's a whiskey crash, which everybody's
• 54:20
  been anticipating for ages and waiting for a rum boom and a
• 54:24
  whiskey crash and nothing really happened.
• 54:27
  I guess we had Mac Mira announced an administration
• 54:30
  recently, which is a new but no kind of established distillery
• 54:34
  that had some problems have actually been saved by an old
• 54:37
  board member, Mr. Hero. I think they've been saved by
• 54:39
  really genuinely. That's his name.
• 54:42
  But that. But that was a headline that
• 54:43
  everybody, I had at least 10 people send me at the same like,
• 54:47
  have you seen this Mac Mira? You think people think of
• 54:50
  Swedish whiskey, the thought of Mac Mira, Yeah, yeah.
• 54:52
  Mac Mira on box or high coasts. I think it's known now, so you
• 54:57
  never know, we might start seeing that, but I don't think
• 54:58
  an Isle of whiskey because I think with Isle of whiskey
• 55:01
  you've still got such an appetite for it.
• 55:02
  Why realistically? Then you look at production how
• 55:04
  I mean how much whiskey is still home and producing every year.
• 55:07
  We're this year we're planning about 500,000 litre not.
• 55:12
  A big distillery I. Know and what kind of sizes are
• 55:14
  batches then when you release like if you're putting what,
• 55:17
  what are you looking at size wise it?
• 55:19
  Varies depending on bottling between say 14,000 bottles to
• 55:23
  25, right? I mean no in that kind of
• 55:26
  category. Yeah, so I.
• 55:27
  Think you've got to prepare for the future.
• 55:29
  You had an amazing conversation with Anthony Wells and
• 55:31
  distillery founder and owner. And he said that one thing that
• 55:35
  is great in this, something that you've touched on, Angus, is
• 55:36
  this distillery has been so good, been so tasty at a young
• 55:40
  age. And of course, to get this
• 55:42
  pressure to add an age statement, maybe a 10 year old,
• 55:45
  whatever, which they didn't do, you're going to get a pressure
• 55:47
  to, you know, well, you've been open for 30 years now.
• 55:50
  Where's a 30 year old, correct? You know, etcetera, etcetera.
• 55:52
  And he said they will do it. Yeah, and it might be amazing.
• 55:56
  Yeah, I'm asking. It'll be fun.
• 55:58
  It'll be fun for you to talk about it and sell it because
• 56:00
  because you've already got the audience that are interested in
• 56:02
  it. But everybody knows Come home
• 56:03
  and has been well. It was so Maccabee was so tasty
• 56:06
  at five years old. Yeah, even 3 when it.
• 56:08
  Started. Yeah.
• 56:10
  And so, yeah, what will it be like when you've been open for
• 56:12
  25 years and you're still still improving, Maccabee?
• 56:14
  You're still improving. You know, that's exciting.
• 56:16
  That's very exciting and it's a huge advantage you've got
• 56:19
  because there are there are whiskeys from new distilleries
• 56:22
  we've maybe tried. And Ross, you maybe might agree
• 56:24
  with us that you think, well that's OK, but what will that be
• 56:28
  like in 10 years? Yeah, 100%.
• 56:30
  Whereas when you're trying to kill home and you're thinking,
• 56:32
  well that's great now. Kill home and Arden Hoe as well.
• 56:34
  Iowa whiskey and petered whiskey and and people.
• 56:38
  Maybe it's as if everybody just realized that suddenly because
• 56:40
  I've had this, I've said this at least 100 times in the last five
• 56:44
  years. Peter was she doesn't need to be
• 56:46
  old. You look at our beg wee Beastie
• 56:48
  the five year old, You look at any of these.
• 56:50
  I wonder if that's the attraction.
• 56:52
  I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm sure, I mean there's two attractions 1
• 56:55
  you can open the distillery on our on our beg on Isla and have
• 56:59
  great whiskey potentially within, you know, yeah, a short
• 57:03
  amount of time frame, but also I think, you know, aisle whiskey
• 57:07
  itself as a brand. Yeah, and in the same way space
• 57:10
  side whiskey is. Absolutely.
• 57:11
  So I bet in space side we've got what 30 decelerate 52, yeah, 52
• 57:16
  even more than that. Whereas whereas an Isle 14,
• 57:19
  whereas an Isle you in production now you've got what,
• 57:22
  less than 10. So it's like, you know.
• 57:24
  I mean, I think the the the two things I sort of want to really
• 57:28
  talk about here is I want to dive into the non age statement
• 57:31
  stuff because I think that's a big, big part.
• 57:32
  What I will say as well is the fact that going back to talk
• 57:35
  about how, how Colhoman was a sort of early new distillery
• 57:40
  there, there will be people who have opened distilleries since
• 57:44
  then who use a Cohoman blueprint, I suppose because
• 57:49
  you're the first ones that kind of right.
• 57:51
  Well, they've done it for 10 years like that.
• 57:54
  They've done it for 20 years like that.
• 57:55
  Yeah, you maybe see something like Locklee is a bit of a, you
• 57:58
  know, that that that that's maybe taking something out of
• 58:01
  the Cohoman songbook. I think if you were starting a
• 58:04
  distillery today and you were looking at success stories, you
• 58:06
  look at Cohoman and probably harden the whole as and again,
• 58:10
  they've dipped into the whiskey drinkers market as well and, and
• 58:14
  bartenders market and people that generally take whiskey
• 58:16
  quite seriously. But also if you're not producing
• 58:19
  10 million litres a year, it's good to get into that market
• 58:22
  because they're going to be the people that are going to buy
• 58:24
  your product for the rest of their life.
• 58:25
  Yeah. That's it.
• 58:26
  It's not going to be just a one off when it comes out the first
• 58:29
  time. It's a.
• 58:30
  It's a recurring thing for. Sure.
• 58:32
  And anyway, so on onto the the sort of non age statement side
• 58:35
  'cause we've. Had What do we think of the
• 58:36
  Sunny called Angus? Yours is evaporated.
• 58:38
  I love sunny. Ohh, it's disappeared.
• 58:41
  Already his own measures. I I love Sunny, I think.
• 58:45
  He'll be pleased with the new release then.
• 58:46
  Yeah, I would. I I was kind of, I would no
• 58:50
  disappointment, but I was gonna have 1/2 open.
• 58:52
  You might have it, you might have had it with you.
• 58:54
  But no, he's not a beef. Local home would be.
• 58:57
  No, go home and be. I was hoping to have a steak in
• 58:59
  front of it and I know, but. Listen, if it turned up raw with
• 59:03
  a fried egg on top, you could have just put it.
• 59:05
  In the but no, no, I love some eggs and eggs fantastic and I
• 59:08
  haven't wished. It makes you happy I.
• 59:10
  Actually haven't drunk it in a good few months probably.
• 59:12
  I don't think I've had it for a wee while.
• 59:14
  What it's? Really funny I spoke to Ken on
• 59:15
  the phone, right? Yes, so splendid.
• 59:17
  When we were arranging this through and that choice put me
• 59:20
  in touch with Ken and I phoned them up and he says to me over
• 59:25
  the phone, shall I bring, shall I bring whiskey?
• 59:28
  And I go, listen, we never ask our guests to bring whiskey.
• 59:33
  No, cheekily, what I used to do was I used to make a joke if
• 59:36
  they hadn't brought whiskey, say, oh, and you've brought some
• 59:37
  along with you, right? But I always said, please don't
• 59:40
  feel under any pressure to bring some whiskey.
• 59:42
  But other people have brought some.
• 59:44
  But it's entirely to you now, Kane sitting there and Angus is
• 59:47
  actually saying. I'm really disappointed that you
• 59:49
  didn't. That would be remember.
• 59:51
  I'm gonna be honest. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
• 59:53
  We need to, we need to shake our heads, Graham say.
• 59:55
  We're all experts in whiskey now, and no.
• 59:57
  No, not at all. Far from it.
• 59:58
  But but, but talk to me then, because we we've had a couple of
• 1:00:01
  discussions not on the podcast. In fact, I think one of them.
• 1:00:04
  Where you at the McAllen tasting?
• 1:00:06
  Spoken to you off the podcast. I know we don't.
• 1:00:09
  We actually don't speed to each other at all until this.
• 1:00:12
  Is that's us finished? We just walk.
• 1:00:14
  In we just finished our drinks, but but basically we I think it
• 1:00:18
  was a McAllen tasting at the start of this year, Angus at the
• 1:00:23
  at the Balmoral that's. Right.
• 1:00:24
  Yeah, you're. Abandoned that point, but don't
• 1:00:27
  worry, basically he did what he did in the whiskey shop and
• 1:00:29
  started chucking his glasses around.
• 1:00:31
  But well, yeah, McAllen gave us a non age statement, arranged
• 1:00:36
  non age statement Whiskey's that we had that night four or five,
• 1:00:38
  I think 4 I think it was yeah. And it it raised a lot of
• 1:00:42
  questions about and one of the big things is which I which
• 1:00:46
  Cohoman have kind of not done, but Roswell correct me in a
• 1:00:49
  minute for that. But my my question to what are
• 1:00:52
  you? Going to say yeah.
• 1:00:53
  My question to the guys at McAllen was how can you on one
• 1:00:57
  hand sell a premium product that age means quality, age means
• 1:01:03
  class, age means price point, But then on the other hand, try
• 1:01:07
  and sell us. Oh, but you don't need to worry
• 1:01:09
  about the age because see this non age statement stuff.
• 1:01:11
  It's just as good right now. They they've they've done the
• 1:01:15
  two things and a lot of distilleries are doing a lot of
• 1:01:19
  legacy distilleries, shall we call them, are doing that where
• 1:01:21
  they're going right, We're going to and what my understanding of
• 1:01:26
  it is, Ross, you might be able to correct me if I'm wrong here,
• 1:01:29
  but you look at stock management, cast management, the
• 1:01:33
  beauty of a non age statement whiskey is that there could be
• 1:01:38
  in this whiskey that we're drinking right now in the there
• 1:01:42
  could be a 19 year old cask of whiskey and there could be a
• 1:01:45
  three-year old cask of whiskey. There may not be.
• 1:01:48
  There could be, there could be and there could be.
• 1:01:50
  You're under no obligation. To put that in and, and I think
• 1:01:52
  like that rule that says, you know that only the youngest
• 1:01:55
  whiskey can be on the bottle as an edge statement, it's kind of
• 1:01:59
  limiting. So it limits your your price
• 1:02:01
  point as well because well, you don't want to sell a, a 10 year
• 1:02:04
  old whiskey that is majority made of 18 year old.
• 1:02:08
  So you're not going to do that. And that's where each statement
• 1:02:10
  becomes handy because you know the that what you're having is
• 1:02:13
  about the age it says, even though they'll tell you this 16.
• 1:02:16
  Year old didn't. And so McAllen is obviously a
• 1:02:18
  very different point of view for Kilhoman.
• 1:02:20
  As you mentioned, the power of the brand and the cost and
• 1:02:24
  demand for the older high quality cast liquid has just
• 1:02:29
  blown them away. And their old liquid is worth so
• 1:02:33
  much that they need to preserve all the road stock for that
• 1:02:37
  market as the luxury brand in Scotch whiskey, Yeah.
• 1:02:44
  And Thompson's granddad has the minutes from the 1983 meeting
• 1:02:49
  where the guys from the McAllen came down to speak to the
• 1:02:51
  Thompson family, his granddad to say, would you be our
• 1:02:54
  distributor for McAllen because we're going exclusive.
• 1:02:57
  Distributor. We're going to venture into the
• 1:02:59
  single malt market and we think we will become the Rolls Royce
• 1:03:03
  of the single malt market 1983 times.
• 1:03:05
  That they went with Bentley in the end because that's what you
• 1:03:07
  do. That's right.
• 1:03:10
  State tour at McAllen get driven around this the distillery in a
• 1:03:12
  Bentley which we. Are still waiting on that.
• 1:03:14
  If anyone from McAllen Distilleries listen the Whiskey
• 1:03:16
  Stories podcast, we'd be more than happy to jump on the train.
• 1:03:19
  Was it first class up to? And humped up to Elgin, normally
• 1:03:22
  in a private transfer to Eastern Elkies Estate.
• 1:03:24
  We would love to do a podcast in the back of a Bentley.
• 1:03:27
  What I will say, lads, is yes, I'm going to be honest.
• 1:03:31
  I'm not sure what I was going to say there.
• 1:03:33
  I'm going to take a worse. Something else you want to do in
• 1:03:35
  the back? Of a Bentley you're talking
• 1:03:36
  about how? You're preserving stock, right?
• 1:03:39
  So and all so I think it's worth saying that I am a staunch
• 1:03:43
  defender of Macallan, not because I'm somebody that can
• 1:03:45
  afford to drink Macallan, because I'm not, but because
• 1:03:48
  they got everybody the easy to shout at because everybody
• 1:03:52
  wishes they were in that space. The Dalmore and Macallan have
• 1:03:57
  turned themselves from blending whiskeys to the pinnacle of
• 1:04:00
  luxury single malt and it's free branding exposure.
• 1:04:04
  It's through being a James Bond, it's through collaborations and
• 1:04:07
  stuff like Bentley. We're all wish you drinkers in
• 1:04:10
  the church, the four of us. We're not going to buy a non age
• 1:04:13
  statement, duty free exclusive Macallan that costs over £100
• 1:04:16
  because everything what I've just said there turns all of us
• 1:04:19
  off. However, there's a generation of
• 1:04:22
  people whose fathers and whose grandfathers, grandmothers,
• 1:04:26
  great grandmothers have drank Macallan and do you know what?
• 1:04:30
  That's a Macallan they've not had before.
• 1:04:31
  I'll get them one of them. It is and a high rise New York
• 1:04:35
  office. It's going to be a decanter.
• 1:04:37
  It's going to be full of Macallan.
• 1:04:38
  Yeah. And also I will say that
• 1:04:40
  Macallan once gave me a £50 voucher to IG Mellish
• 1:04:43
  cheesemongers and I'm going to come back here to the glasses
• 1:04:46
  and start December. And I would say that the great
• 1:04:49
  collaboration of whiskey there. You go so, so then for the
• 1:04:53
  people who do listen, and this is what I'm saying is that there
• 1:04:55
  are start. Me off for tonight.
• 1:04:56
  There are still a lot of people that will will say like if it
• 1:04:59
  doesn't have an age on it can't be good.
• 1:05:01
  So like what we what we know you?
• 1:05:04
  You would have said that well. Two years ago I would have been
• 1:05:07
  put off and I'm still the reason I'm not skeptical with Cohoman
• 1:05:10
  is because barring the what you've said is that they've done
• 1:05:13
  one age statement. Yeah, right.
• 1:05:15
  But why I'm skeptical is when, because I kind of understand it
• 1:05:19
  where if I see a distillery going or we're going to start
• 1:05:22
  pushing our non age statement, my instant thing is detecting
• 1:05:26
  stock. Well, I'm good and.
• 1:05:28
  I get, I get that because you're a warehouse fanatic, but I'm
• 1:05:30
  going to counter that. Argument and and maybe.
• 1:05:32
  Your love for Glencadam? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 1:05:34
  And you'd maybe. You know, that's that's a good
• 1:05:36
  example of they've I actually can't believe for affordable
• 1:05:39
  whiskey, they brought all these ranges of cask finished
• 1:05:41
  whiskey's an incredibly reasonable price.
• 1:05:43
  And Killholman as the if you like Isla whiskey, you want to
• 1:05:47
  try something you've not had before, or you want to try
• 1:05:49
  something that's going to be extremely high quality and it's
• 1:05:51
  never greedy. Killholman's a fantastic
• 1:05:53
  example. And if you've always been like
• 1:05:56
  Angus and you've always had a saanich, it turns out that from
• 1:06:01
  always buying that same bottle at the same price point relative
• 1:06:03
  to market, the whiskey's got older.
• 1:06:06
  Yeah, the whiskey's arguably got better throughout that process,
• 1:06:10
  and you've not been taken advantage of.
• 1:06:11
  It's just the authenticity. And I think that's.
• 1:06:14
  Because I. I think I.
• 1:06:15
  Think what? Graham's a guy.
• 1:06:17
  Yeah. And, and a good, maybe a good
• 1:06:18
  example of what Graham's trying to get at where, you know, you
• 1:06:21
  maybe see it the other way is if you think of the Distillers
• 1:06:24
  edition, the Diageo Distillers editions always had a vintage on
• 1:06:29
  them. And then and then as of this
• 1:06:31
  year, the vintage goes and then I bet it's it's still the same
• 1:06:35
  stuff, but we just don't have a vintage.
• 1:06:37
  I bet. Is it though?
• 1:06:38
  Well, well, well. That's a very good point, I
• 1:06:41
  guess as a very and that is clearly stock management.
• 1:06:43
  I had AI had a good chuckle to myself for the same price today.
• 1:06:46
  In fact we were as we're recording it.
• 1:06:47
  So speaking to to somebody who they're not a big whiskey
• 1:06:51
  drinker, they like their whiskeys and and they were
• 1:06:53
  chatting to me about it and he said, I keep meaning to buy a
• 1:06:57
  bottle of Macao and every year because we The thing is,
• 1:07:00
  remember the guy was a couple years ago, this was right.
• 1:07:02
  So there was a guy who had for his son, I think every birthday,
• 1:07:08
  18 years for 18 years, every year he'd bought for 18 years,
• 1:07:12
  18 Macallan, Macallan or something like that.
• 1:07:14
  And he 18 years old. He was the only person that had
• 1:07:17
  18. In a row from.
• 1:07:19
  This 1990 whatever to this year date, now what I'd be interested
• 1:07:23
  to know because a lot of people talk and there's a lot of people
• 1:07:27
  I speak to and they say, oh, I'm thinking about I don't like
• 1:07:31
  flipping bottles, right? But I also really, really don't
• 1:07:34
  like when I get into a conversation with people about
• 1:07:37
  expensive whiskies and stuff like that and they'll say like,
• 1:07:40
  oh, I'm going to buy that bottle and I know fine well that bottle
• 1:07:42
  is not going to do anything except for sitting a shelf and
• 1:07:44
  someone's going to say I'm going to sell that in 5-10 years time.
• 1:07:47
  What I tend, my understanding of it is it's like anything,
• 1:07:51
  whatever you've got is only worth what someone else is
• 1:07:53
  willing to pay for it. So the thing about it is that if
• 1:07:57
  you buy one special edition bottle of something on my call
• 1:08:00
  and say right, or a Dalmore or something, you say I'm going to
• 1:08:03
  buy that, going to spend 500 to 1000 lbs on it because in 20
• 1:08:06
  years time or 10 years time, I'm going to cash out with my
• 1:08:09
  pension. Thing is, you've got to find
• 1:08:10
  someone that's willing to pay whatever you think that that
• 1:08:12
  ball's going to be worth. Now that might be somebody who's
• 1:08:14
  missing that one bottle from their own collection.
• 1:08:16
  Now that's that diamond situation or needle in haystacks
• 1:08:19
  excuse. However, if I was to say this
• 1:08:22
  person I was speaking to today, I said, you know, what you
• 1:08:24
  should do is you buy a bottle of snake from Kilhoman every single
• 1:08:29
  year because what you'd be able to then do is if someone has,
• 1:08:32
  how long has the snake release been coming out now?
• 1:08:35
  Nice. I couldn't tell you exactly.
• 1:08:38
  Yeah, it was. Probably 14 years, 15.
• 1:08:40
  Years. But if you were there anyway to
• 1:08:42
  say right, I've got the very first bottle of Snake and I've
• 1:08:46
  also got the most recent bottle of Snake.
• 1:08:48
  And then for a drinkers collection, that's really cool.
• 1:08:50
  And as Ross would have said, I bet you a penny a pound you
• 1:08:54
  could open each individual bottle and try each a DRAM from
• 1:08:57
  each one of them, side by side and go that there's a
• 1:09:01
  difference. Travels, absolutely, but that's
• 1:09:03
  that's the the core of what we do.
• 1:09:04
  If something is good though, we're not going to try to mask
• 1:09:07
  it and make it exactly the same as last year's we've had in
• 1:09:10
  2015. I think we had some really
• 1:09:13
  active cherry cask, some Hawks head from our supplier Jose
• 1:09:17
  Miguel Martin. And we were really impressed
• 1:09:20
  with the colour that he gave the, the, the concentration of
• 1:09:23
  flavour. And we just asked because we
• 1:09:25
  have a relationship with one single producer and we, we just
• 1:09:29
  said, like those cars, what was different?
• 1:09:31
  And, you know, they didn't really know.
• 1:09:33
  They were just like a bit more active.
• 1:09:34
  It was, it was like, well, that's it.
• 1:09:35
  You can see the colour difference in the snake.
• 1:09:37
  And we could taste it. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:09:39
  And then, well, the the the whiskey itself was the same, but
• 1:09:43
  it was more more depth to it. And do you try and hide you
• 1:09:46
  would you try and like this is the next thing is do call home
• 1:09:49
  and want to balance that out to make sure it's got to be similar
• 1:09:52
  like? It's consistent, but.
• 1:09:54
  There's got to be a consistency, but then I'd go home and happy
• 1:09:57
  to have the inconsistencies in that.
• 1:09:59
  Product, absolutely, yeah. I mean, if something is good,
• 1:10:02
  we're never going to try to hide it, you know, we're not going to
• 1:10:05
  be like, Oh well it's it should be too, it should be too colored
• 1:10:08
  and too flavorful. We're going to try to hide that
• 1:10:11
  a little bit. You know, we, we, we battle with
• 1:10:14
  consistency because obviously using only first and 2nd field
• 1:10:18
  cast, it can be quite difficult to balance out a whiskey.
• 1:10:22
  But when we find something that really works, instead of just,
• 1:10:26
  you know, saying, well, we'll put that in the drawer for
• 1:10:29
  later, we just release it. We say, hey, there you go guys.
• 1:10:33
  And from a wood management point of view, Angus, and that's what
• 1:10:36
  makes me really excited in a sense that like, like you don't
• 1:10:41
  have to worry about the age of the cask.
• 1:10:43
  So what you can say is you can say that's three years and two
• 1:10:47
  days and that cask is working so well for that liquid.
• 1:10:51
  We could just Chuck it in. And because it's being tasted
• 1:10:54
  blind, there's no, oh, we've got to keep it in the, in the wood
• 1:10:58
  for X amount of years or anything like that.
• 1:11:00
  It's kind of like the, when we talk about tasting whiskey
• 1:11:03
  blind, there's Scotch malt whiskey society bottles,
• 1:11:05
  unmarked, unlabeled, just with the flavour on them.
• 1:11:07
  You don't know the number you don't instantly get triggered
• 1:11:10
  with because then you go back to the story that Fraser soon is
• 1:11:13
  told about a 50 year old cask. You're thinking this 50 year old
• 1:11:17
  cask is going to be absolutely banging a time to 50.
• 1:11:20
  And it was absolutely disgusting because it's been overcooked.
• 1:11:23
  So it's like the fact that you don't have that.
• 1:11:25
  What am I trying to say here? Like not perception, but you can
• 1:11:29
  be. It's easy to get drawn to the
• 1:11:31
  age of what how long it's been sitting in that wood.
• 1:11:34
  Absolutely very easy to do that. Whereas if the if the if the
• 1:11:37
  guys who are selecting the casks, we could literally say,
• 1:11:40
  yeah, look, you know what? We've managed to select an
• 1:11:42
  inventory that would hit this said egg for argument's sake,
• 1:11:47
  and only two of the casks are over 10 years old.
• 1:11:52
  Fine, if it if it's all about the flavour, it doesn't matter.
• 1:11:55
  We don't need to put an age on it.
• 1:11:56
  It just doesn't matter. No, exactly.
• 1:11:58
  And you have more freedom because if it works better if at
• 1:12:01
  a younger age, you don't have to put it older, you know.
• 1:12:03
  So I think age statement for me is is from a place where we'd
• 1:12:08
  use only bourbon cask. Say you only use bourbon barrel
• 1:12:12
  from now on and that's all you make is a whiskey made in
• 1:12:15
  bourbon. Well, I mean, then age statement
• 1:12:17
  becomes relevant because in a bourbon cask, the maturation
• 1:12:21
  between a caster and others is fairly similar.
• 1:12:23
  You know, the variances are not as big, but then the variances
• 1:12:26
  between an 8 to 20 year old will be very different.
• 1:12:30
  But now we use so many different type of cars and variety of of
• 1:12:34
  liquids that it it's completely relevant.
• 1:12:37
  You have the sun egg at it's about 5 years you know, and look
• 1:12:42
  at the colour, the richness in on the palettes.
• 1:12:44
  Quality of the word here. It's really bold and you would
• 1:12:47
  never in the millionaires being able to say this is a 5.
• 1:12:50
  Year old. Totally, totally.
• 1:12:51
  And having a complex liquid then like we talked about our bag and
• 1:12:54
  I think it really annoyed you when we did the sniff my, I
• 1:12:57
  think it was my first ever sniff at sniff at score at 60 seconds
• 1:13:00
  review. Pretending to like Iowa. 10 and
• 1:13:03
  I think you are really annoyed when you said about oh.
• 1:13:06
  You I. Think it was 98% bourbon, 2% or.
• 1:13:09
  90 for a factor with the distillery, and you said you use
• 1:13:12
  98%, blah, blah, blah. And I think I said somebody's
• 1:13:15
  been doing research. Yeah, it's meant to be natural.
• 1:13:17
  You use the profanity as well, actually, But what's really
• 1:13:21
  interesting is that like a lot of people will tell you that
• 1:13:24
  managing peated whiskey and bourbon is easier than managing
• 1:13:28
  peated whiskey and Sherry or anything else.
• 1:13:30
  And, and, and so I take it, I suppose by like you look at the
• 1:13:35
  other island distilleries that were on the island long before
• 1:13:38
  Kilhoman started Kilhoman and all the other distilleries that
• 1:13:42
  are being built. And we heard Paul Main talk
• 1:13:44
  about art and the whole they're saying about how even putting
• 1:13:47
  bends at certain areas of the pipes and stuff like that is all
• 1:13:50
  by design. Because now, for the very first
• 1:13:52
  time in the whiskey industry, new distilleries can actually
• 1:13:56
  manufacture the flavour of the spirit.
• 1:13:59
  Whereas hundreds of years ago when the spirit design was being
• 1:14:03
  made, a lot of it's accidental. We hear stories about there was
• 1:14:06
  a dent in the in the original stealth.
• 1:14:10
  So we have to get it done exactly.
• 1:14:12
  And this is also the benefit of being a new distillery rather
• 1:14:16
  than a reopened distillery like we're talking about.
• 1:14:18
  Whereas you know, some of the reopened distilleries, I mean
• 1:14:20
  thinking about Rosebank for example, they, they, they feel
• 1:14:24
  like they have to recreate or at least pay homage to the original
• 1:14:28
  spirit. Whereas a brand new distillery
• 1:14:30
  is a complete blank slave. Start from scratch and and
• 1:14:33
  before the thought of what the new make is going to taste like
• 1:14:37
  wasn't the the really important thing it was how long are you
• 1:14:40
  going to age it? And now the discussion is into
• 1:14:43
  what type of barley are you going to use?
• 1:14:45
  What type of peat are you? Going to taste.
• 1:14:46
  And I think as well, one thing that's you know, well, Holman's
• 1:14:52
  very kind of notable for is the special releases and different
• 1:14:56
  types of maturations. You know, one that we tried,
• 1:14:59
  Ross. I know you've had it at the at
• 1:15:02
  the athletic arms as the sort turns cast.
• 1:15:05
  I love the sort turn cast. We've seen port pipe, we've seen
• 1:15:09
  all sorts of. I've tried a tequila single
• 1:15:11
  cask, which was really. Interesting.
• 1:15:16
  So I mean, there's experimentation or at least
• 1:15:18
  there's different things. You know, it's, it's almost like
• 1:15:23
  crisp flavours. You know you, I don't mean that
• 1:15:26
  disparagingly, but it's like, it's almost like.
• 1:15:28
  There's a creative freedom of also being a new distillery.
• 1:15:31
  Yeah. Do you know what?
• 1:15:32
  The laws. There's also there's so much
• 1:15:34
  whiskey and cash right now where the cash might not be legally
• 1:15:36
  approved yet. Sure.
• 1:15:38
  There's so many people trying out casks that.
• 1:15:40
  But nowadays? Tequila casks was only made
• 1:15:42
  legal, you know, the last five years and people are releasing
• 1:15:47
  15 year old tequila Kasichki. Yeah, you know.
• 1:15:49
  Well, what fascinates me is the fact that I.
• 1:15:51
  Finish whether. It's every every, every every
• 1:15:54
  new distillery that's opening has a doctor or some a
• 1:15:57
  specialist consultant and and how to craft a cleric spirit
• 1:16:03
  that that a. Distillery manager, Production
• 1:16:06
  manager, Their job to produce the new make.
• 1:16:08
  Yeah, but like when the distillery's been built, when
• 1:16:10
  the distillery's been started, there's there's certain experts
• 1:16:13
  who are like The Who was it that we had on the podcast where we
• 1:16:16
  said he was the Cristiano Ronaldo of new distilleries,
• 1:16:19
  James One. Yeah.
• 1:16:20
  And and, and like being around and, and stuff like that.
• 1:16:23
  Like, but what you've also got to remember is like, what's
• 1:16:25
  really interesting and funny is that all the new distilleries in
• 1:16:28
  Iowa. So how many new distilleries
• 1:16:30
  we're getting open like by the time they're all?
• 1:16:32
  Done 10. There's 10.
• 1:16:33
  There's 10 distilleries now, including art and a whole, and I
• 1:16:36
  think there's two more, three more getting built.
• 1:16:38
  Yeah, three more in. So before Kilhoman then most
• 1:16:40
  supported, how many had there, how many, how many distillers
• 1:16:43
  had there been an Iowa before Kilhoman?
• 1:16:44
  77 And now you've got Kilhoman. Well, we've got 9 opening with a
• 1:16:49
  release. Nine and another two to come
• 1:16:51
  about. Three, the other 3.
• 1:16:53
  No 3. So, yeah, effectively So what?
• 1:16:54
  What's fascinating is the the new distilleries will have all
• 1:16:59
  used doctors and specialists and and people who are specialists
• 1:17:02
  in distilling and how to craft the flavour and this and
• 1:17:04
  anything. Whereas the original ones were
• 1:17:06
  just farmers. Yeah, just farmers that learned,
• 1:17:10
  people that learned. And also as an accident or a
• 1:17:12
  happy accident. Our spirit tastes like this, but
• 1:17:15
  more guys. No one designed, but more to go.
• 1:17:18
  By the way, I tell you what, your spirit will work perfectly
• 1:17:21
  with us. No one designed that.
• 1:17:22
  I'd beg to say bourbon was with you with this liquid Bourbon
• 1:17:26
  accidental. Everything also that that was in
• 1:17:28
  the industry was not by choice really.
• 1:17:32
  The use of peat wasn't because they they love the flavour they
• 1:17:35
  gave, it's because that's all they had to dry the.
• 1:17:37
  Grain. No one in aisle was going on
• 1:17:39
  about PPM. No, I can't.
• 1:17:40
  No, it was just. It was just.
• 1:17:42
  Copper being used for a pot steel as well, It's because it's
• 1:17:46
  malleable, it's easy to mould. And then now we, we found out
• 1:17:50
  that finally precipitates, you know, certain elements and
• 1:17:53
  things like that. But that's came way after.
• 1:17:55
  Yeah, it just works. Fascinating.
• 1:17:57
  It's the magic of Scottish. And one, one last question
• 1:17:59
  before we move on then selling Kilhoman then is what your job
• 1:18:02
  is? Yes.
• 1:18:03
  So you're, you mentioned about coming across the Kilhoman brand
• 1:18:06
  when you were working in bars and stuff like that.
• 1:18:07
  And we've kind of talked a little bit, maybe put you under
• 1:18:10
  the put on the spot a little bit to justify the, the the
• 1:18:14
  pressures of having to sell something that has maybe been a
• 1:18:16
  bit different from what bucking the trend, not putting ages on
• 1:18:19
  it and stuff like that. What was it about Kilhoman that
• 1:18:22
  you loved and found easy to sell to people?
• 1:18:25
  From even just being in the bar in New Zealand to now doing your
• 1:18:28
  job. Frankly, I'm flavour LED, a
• 1:18:31
  bartender, you know, he's not using syrups from the shops is
• 1:18:36
  going to make his own flavours. So I think having a whiskey that
• 1:18:40
  is not trying to be anything, it's not right.
• 1:18:43
  So it's all about taste and that's why and the family is is
• 1:18:47
  really into going to see people, the people that drink are always
• 1:18:50
  ski getting new drinkers to try it.
• 1:18:53
  Just you know, you don't like Pete, but try this 100% Isla.
• 1:18:56
  It's a really good step into this this pitted world.
• 1:18:59
  And I think it's all about flavour and that's why is the
• 1:19:03
  point of differentiation. But it's not just marketing.
• 1:19:06
  It's because we believe that flavour is everything in
• 1:19:09
  whiskey. Like people that buy bottles
• 1:19:12
  because they look nice, you know, probably not going to
• 1:19:15
  drink it. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna buy
• 1:19:16
  the bottle once. Yeah, that's it.
• 1:19:17
  Absolutely. No, I mean, we're on the PX now,
• 1:19:20
  aren't we? Are we're?
• 1:19:20
  At the security, yeah, that was the PX edition.
• 1:19:23
  So you can see the the number of bottles that we we say. 3000,
• 1:19:26
  yeah. 23,000 that was. Last year.
• 1:19:28
  Love it. Well, it's LED us on to this
• 1:19:30
  time of the evening. I've got one more question.
• 1:19:33
  Sorry. I've got one more question.
• 1:19:34
  So you said as part of you've been with the company since
• 1:19:36
  February and you had to or got to go and work at the distillery
• 1:19:41
  for a week? Yep.
• 1:19:42
  How was that? That was absolutely lovely.
• 1:19:45
  Have you ever worked in production before?
• 1:19:46
  You don't never know. And So what were the challenges?
• 1:19:49
  And that is the way if you're going to go and speak about the
• 1:19:52
  brand for the, you know, everything goes amazingly.
• 1:19:56
  They give you all the pay rises you could possibly want.
• 1:19:58
  You're going to work for care Homer for the rest of your life.
• 1:20:00
  It's going to be perfect. But getting to going.
• 1:20:02
  Adopted as well as perhaps. But getting to go to the
• 1:20:05
  distillery and getting to see what you're talking about,
• 1:20:09
  absolutely. Do you think that was a because
• 1:20:10
  I've never heard of somebody giving you that investment, that
• 1:20:13
  time and a new job in whiskey. Most sales people go right, OK,
• 1:20:16
  these are the markets you're going to go for.
• 1:20:17
  These are the margins. You wanted to know?
• 1:20:19
  That says a lot about the company.
• 1:20:20
  Oh, it, it genuinely it's, it was part of the, the job.
• 1:20:25
  Like the the the three brothers, they told me, you know, on the
• 1:20:27
  first days you need to book a, a weekend Lila as soon as possible
• 1:20:31
  because you can't talk about something you've not seen.
• 1:20:33
  Yeah. I think if you've not been to a
• 1:20:34
  distillery of whiskey that you're making, you know, you
• 1:20:38
  could as well sell hair dryers. Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 1:20:41
  You could read it off a piece of paper.
• 1:20:42
  It's going to sell a hair dryer and be dry.
• 1:20:43
  No, no use for it. Log into the YouTube channel if
• 1:20:47
  you I know what I'm talking. About, you know, doing the
• 1:20:50
  maltings, doing the pee to harvesting it.
• 1:20:53
  You know, I've made whiskey and now I know that you know, in in
• 1:20:57
  about 5 years I'll be able to taste it.
• 1:20:59
  Here's a question for you then, right?
• 1:21:01
  If it wasn't working in sales and you had to do one of the
• 1:21:03
  jobs in the distillery, I love that, what would it be?
• 1:21:06
  Frankly, I've before trying out the distillery I would have said
• 1:21:10
  distilling, but finally it's a lot of numbers and just waiting
• 1:21:15
  for something to happen and I love the malting so.
• 1:21:19
  You're going to give yourself the monkey shoulder.
• 1:21:20
  But that's the thing. It's very satisfying.
• 1:21:23
  I loved cutting the pit as well because it's we see it, it's
• 1:21:25
  happened, it's good, it's done. Yeah.
• 1:21:27
  And it's so satisfying after doing it every day for the rest
• 1:21:31
  of my life. Maybe not, but if I had to say
• 1:21:33
  yeah. That's what the start of the
• 1:21:35
  process, so the molding really satisfying.
• 1:21:37
  The moldings where you did even like you're talking about floor
• 1:21:39
  moldings and stuff where you turn in the floors as well.
• 1:21:41
  Yeah, turning the floors, yeah. Well, that, that so molting is a
• 1:21:45
  family tradition of my, my family, my grandfather at the
• 1:21:48
  moldings and he was a bit of a boy back in the day, right?
• 1:21:51
  You sound very fast. So his his grandfather owned a
• 1:21:54
  malting just like. And he was, he actually
• 1:21:56
  inherited it when he was 21 years old because his father, my
• 1:21:59
  great grandfather, actually dropped dead very suddenly.
• 1:22:02
  And at 21 years old, he inherited a maltings.
• 1:22:05
  But he was he was a boy back in the day, apparently like that
• 1:22:09
  party, like to drink fast cars, Rimaldo malting.
• 1:22:15
  But he liked he liked this time of days and nights out and stuff
• 1:22:17
  like that. And his grandfather, my answer,
• 1:22:19
  his father, my great, great grandfather said, if you can you
• 1:22:23
  what is it? If You Can Dance till 1:00 in
• 1:22:25
  the morning, you can turn floors at 4:00 in the morning.
• 1:22:28
  And that was that was his. That was this our rule.
• 1:22:31
  If you want to be out till 1:00 in the morning, just mind and
• 1:22:34
  make sure that four you're in and turning the floor.
• 1:22:36
  That's sweating. No, that was exactly it.
• 1:22:38
  That was exactly it. But that leads us on now, right?
• 1:22:42
  So their last time they're what, 3 drams?
• 1:22:45
  OK. So I kind of briefed you
• 1:22:47
  beforehand. We do always say when we've got
• 1:22:49
  somebody who's representing a brand, you're more than welcome
• 1:22:52
  to go on brand if you want. We will slaughter you a little
• 1:22:55
  bit. He's got a brand.
• 1:22:56
  We'll give you one on brand if you like.
• 1:22:57
  You can't sit here and go. Well, the three Co homans that
• 1:23:00
  you've had this evening, they're my budget jams.
• 1:23:03
  So Ken, tell me, what would be your first draft of the what 3
• 1:23:07
  draft? You know, when you you told me
• 1:23:09
  that question, I find that it's so difficult because I'm all
• 1:23:14
  about exploration. That's all that interests me.
• 1:23:17
  I'm born in the in the world of wine, and there are some things
• 1:23:20
  that you drink again and again, but I think it's more the moment
• 1:23:24
  that you've had the sort of decisive moment more than the
• 1:23:27
  liquid itself. Because I like trying new
• 1:23:29
  things. Yeah, so.
• 1:23:30
  That's coming from a Frenchman married to a Scottish woman.
• 1:23:32
  That's all about. Exploration.
• 1:23:34
  Exactly right, exactly right but I think at home I don't have a
• 1:23:39
  collection, you know, I don't have a big bag bar.
• 1:23:41
  I have one bottle that is open and when it's finished I'll get
• 1:23:44
  a new one like that. That's always like this because.
• 1:23:46
  Scottish of. It.
• 1:23:47
  Yeah, yeah, but because. Origins from Fife?
• 1:23:49
  Have you got origins? Origins from Fife.
• 1:23:53
  It's possible. Yeah, it's possible, but so I'd
• 1:23:59
  say it's more than about times that I'd say the first whiskey
• 1:24:04
  that I really ever tried was a Glenfiddich 12, but it wasn't a
• 1:24:08
  decisive because I hated it. I was too young to appreciate
• 1:24:12
  alcohol in the 1st place. But really the one that marked
• 1:24:15
  the sport was Balvini 14 Caribbean, Caribbean Cask
• 1:24:20
  because it was easy. You know what?
• 1:24:22
  I was drinking rum and this guy at the bar said, well, try that
• 1:24:26
  if you like rum, this is agent rum, so try it out and see what
• 1:24:31
  happens. And, you know, I was like, oh,
• 1:24:32
  OK. OK.
• 1:24:34
  It's a new world. And then the second decisive
• 1:24:36
  moment. So is this is that your work?
• 1:24:39
  First of all three. Drafts.
• 1:24:40
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like what you've done there is
• 1:24:41
  you've actually chucked in two because you're going to go and.
• 1:24:45
  Finish 1212 was the first, but that's definitely not the first
• 1:24:48
  drum that he's big now. No.
• 1:24:53
  It's. Balvini, 14 I was he still
• 1:24:55
  enjoy. It's not always scared drink
• 1:24:58
  anymore, but it always has a place in my mind because it was
• 1:25:01
  the first one. And, and so who, who, who was it
• 1:25:03
  that introduced you to that then?
• 1:25:06
  I couldn't. I can't remember.
• 1:25:08
  No, no, no. It was in a bar in a Belis
• 1:25:12
  l'ammer, which is an island off the coast of France on the West
• 1:25:15
  Coast, and it was a rumba. This is the.
• 1:25:18
  Story you want? Yeah.
• 1:25:19
  And, and it was a Balvani. There was a few things.
• 1:25:22
  There was Kappa, remember there was Ben Havan, there was sorry,
• 1:25:26
  no Ben Havan. There was Aberlaw or Abuna.
• 1:25:29
  And there was Balvani 14. And I tried that and you know,
• 1:25:34
  and then I started my exploration, right.
• 1:25:36
  So I never really come back an. Island of the West Coast of.
• 1:25:40
  Which is called beautiful. Island translating.
• 1:25:42
  Wow, wow, that's that must be the 3rd or 4th that's popped up
• 1:25:46
  and just from my own records, you and Kenan Mirth Kenan month
• 1:25:50
  from the Eden mill episode. Yes, yes, and also Stuart deck
• 1:25:55
  from Torvig came out with that one.
• 1:25:58
  I'm sure there's another one. I think the what's that might
• 1:26:01
  have popped up in that? Certainly had a mention or two
• 1:26:04
  on this. And actually a drum,
• 1:26:06
  interestingly, that I bought for my brother-in-law coming through
• 1:26:09
  to me for the very first time because I thought, well,
• 1:26:12
  father-in-law likes a whiskey on the shelf.
• 1:26:16
  He doesn't really pour them too much, but the brother-in-law
• 1:26:21
  doesn't like a draft, doesn't like whiskey, but he loves his
• 1:26:23
  loves his rum. OK, same situation.
• 1:26:26
  I thought, well, this could be a nice reentry and to be perfectly
• 1:26:28
  honest, he took it and he enjoyed it and we we shared the
• 1:26:31
  drama to that. So it.
• 1:26:32
  Was nice 14 on beautiful island. That's a great, beautiful
• 1:26:35
  island. That's it.
• 1:26:36
  Yeah, that's it. Like that story OK and the same.
• 1:26:38
  Story What turned me into the peat level?
• 1:26:41
  Because I started trying more peated whiskey in Australia this
• 1:26:46
  time, OK, and didn't like it. I really didn't understand.
• 1:26:50
  And then, you know, I'm a bartender.
• 1:26:52
  I want to understand why people like something.
• 1:26:53
  So I try it, try it, try it, try it.
• 1:26:56
  And the first time I enjoyed beated whiskey was in a bar that
• 1:27:00
  just opened in Australia, which was called the Boilermaker.
• 1:27:05
  Really. Good bar in Melbourne, really
• 1:27:09
  huge whiskey selection, and I had some oysters with some La
• 1:27:14
  Fractin, and that was absolutely beauty.
• 1:27:17
  Yeah, it just went smooth. Very delicious.
• 1:27:20
  And after that, I have to say that I don't drink unpeated
• 1:27:23
  whiskey so much. Any really.
• 1:27:25
  Yeah, that was it. That was the oysters as well,
• 1:27:27
  was it? I love oysters, yeah.
• 1:27:28
  You don't. The first time I ever had
• 1:27:30
  oysters, I had oysters with Bulmore.
• 1:27:32
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:27:33
  Do you think? Works, do you think?
• 1:27:34
  Because Iowa being an island and there is some, I mean, I think
• 1:27:38
  Vicky Wicky Elliott, who's been on plenty of times, if I
• 1:27:41
  remember it was Ogadal she talked about and she said being
• 1:27:47
  on the beach, having a seafood BBQ.
• 1:27:50
  Yeah, with the hard beg who get that, Who get that, Who get
• 1:27:54
  that, Yeah. And she said it just.
• 1:27:56
  It hit the spot has. Anything else done Lefrog 10
• 1:27:59
  before? We've had so many that spoke
• 1:28:01
  about Lefrog 10 for it being the whiskey that made them hate
• 1:28:04
  whiskey. We've had we've.
• 1:28:06
  Done. The last episode that was out
• 1:28:08
  was Monique was a Lefroy PX. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:11
  Was was that, but I think you're right.
• 1:28:12
  I think that was probably the first.
• 1:28:14
  Jodie Bucking, certainly when he was 18, he was given a Lefroy.
• 1:28:17
  He was Monkey Shoulder brand ambassador for so long, and
• 1:28:19
  you'd think he loved whiskey and bartending for so long.
• 1:28:22
  And he said, no, I was given a Lefroy 18 when I was 18 or 19
• 1:28:26
  and didn't drink for four years because of it.
• 1:28:28
  Yeah, like that's just crazy. I just come back home and lock
• 1:28:31
  on. Was Bencar.
• 1:28:32
  Sorry we're going. I can't get lost.
• 1:28:34
  I can't. Where did you try the the Lefroy
• 1:28:35
  in Oyster? Sorry.
• 1:28:36
  Melbourne Melbourne in. Melbourne Boilermaker And again
• 1:28:39
  I say something that we haven't. I mean, I mean, I mean.
• 1:28:43
  It's there's of the Auto V group.
• 1:28:45
  Yeah, she's a big operator. And there's a whiskey bar.
• 1:28:49
  Whiskey Auto V is more whiskey Lead.
• 1:28:51
  Yeah. Boilermaker was more beer and
• 1:28:53
  whiskey. OK, if there's a city that's had
• 1:28:55
  any more more mentions than any other in the world, even not
• 1:29:00
  even just in general as Melbourne.
• 1:29:01
  So if anybody, if anybody in Melbourne is less than anybody
• 1:29:05
  in the kind of tourism industry in Melbourne, they want to fly
• 1:29:07
  us out and have us do an episode.
• 1:29:08
  That's Melbourne. Melbourne.
• 1:29:09
  We'd be quite big natural if the Glass House got anything in
• 1:29:12
  Melbourne. There must be a Maria Bonvoy in
• 1:29:13
  Melbourne, OH. We've got, we've got a couple of
• 1:29:15
  Aussies in tonight actually. We're going to speak to them
• 1:29:17
  later. But I mean, I think most, I
• 1:29:19
  think right there has to have been a moment where.
• 1:29:24
  Where they realize there's nothing to do in Australia.
• 1:29:26
  No, no whiskey. There has to have been a moment
• 1:29:28
  where at least 2-3 or four podcast guests of the Whiskey
• 1:29:33
  Stories podcast in the past have had a significant whiskey moment
• 1:29:36
  in Melbourne, but they've all passed each other.
• 1:29:38
  We're enjoying that. Ohh, one day.
• 1:29:40
  We'll be odd one day. It's it's like turn of the
• 1:29:43
  century Vienna where you have every single and style and
• 1:29:45
  living next to each other. And Lenin?
• 1:29:48
  Well, I think. The Simon Smith, all these
• 1:29:54
  infamous names. But I mean, I've been to
• 1:29:57
  Melbourne. I have been to Melbourne more
• 1:30:00
  than having been to Melbourne. My, my, I didn't mention it, but
• 1:30:03
  my, my granny was evacuated to Melbourne during the war and
• 1:30:06
  lived in Melbourne for a few years ago.
• 1:30:08
  I mean in the 1940s. Yeah, I've been to Melbourne.
• 1:30:11
  Well, for the for that story, tune into Angus History Stories
• 1:30:14
  podcast. There's another story, and then
• 1:30:16
  the. Third story will be the.
• 1:30:18
  Final drama. Two opposite grounds.
• 1:30:20
  Will be kill Holman for sure yeah because he's the reason I
• 1:30:25
  work for them is because I really love the the liquid that
• 1:30:28
  the spirit and frankly the one that really turns all the time
• 1:30:33
  is the they have made a few single cask of the 100% Isla
• 1:30:38
  exclusively matured in bourbon barrel first fill yeah and about
• 1:30:44
  12 year old. This is my sweet spot generally
• 1:30:47
  because you have a bit of maturity.
• 1:30:49
  Bourbon takes a little bit longer to give Coleman a bit
• 1:30:52
  more a bit more of the wood character.
• 1:30:54
  But you still have every element of the whiskey itself.
• 1:30:58
  So you have a little bit of Pete still 20 PPM just light.
• 1:31:02
  You've got that that really sort of barley element very serially
• 1:31:08
  and on the other side of that you have a bit of the the
• 1:31:11
  indulgence of bourbon. So a bit of funny a bit of a bit
• 1:31:14
  of caramel as well. It's it's, it's a beauty and a
• 1:31:18
  cast strength, obviously because I like a bit of concentration.
• 1:31:20
  And there's something absolutely beautiful about having, I mean
• 1:31:24
  for, for me, I, I, I quite like provenance and things like that.
• 1:31:27
  So it's ABS and you know, we know there's only 6 distilleries
• 1:31:31
  in Scotland that have in house maltings.
• 1:31:33
  So there can't be too many whiskeys you can buy where you
• 1:31:38
  know that the barley has come from a kind of certain radius.
• 1:31:42
  When the distillery, the malting's been done within the
• 1:31:44
  distillery, the bottling, the maturation has all been done on
• 1:31:48
  site. There's something so almost
• 1:31:50
  unique about. It's.
• 1:31:53
  A. Lovely, I will add to the
• 1:31:54
  flavour. I will make a huge it's.
• 1:31:55
  Also like something that I'm very, it's the idea of Tiwa, you
• 1:32:00
  know, it's a French word that explains it's difficult to
• 1:32:03
  translate, but it's essentially a time.
• 1:32:04
  It's not not as difficult to translate as lamiz or whiskey,
• 1:32:07
  no. No, no, that's it.
• 1:32:08
  So. What was that word?
• 1:32:09
  Terwa, terwa, terwa. So it's an expression of of a
• 1:32:12
  territory. And so you have a lot of that in
• 1:32:15
  wine where the grapes have grown and, you know, not so much in
• 1:32:18
  whiskey, but I think perhaps where the barley has grown is
• 1:32:23
  not as relevant in terms of flavour, but in terms of you
• 1:32:27
  feel like when you drink 100% Isla, you are on Isla.
• 1:32:30
  Yeah. If you've been there, you
• 1:32:31
  remember Maccabe, you remember the fields of barley, especially
• 1:32:34
  just before harvest, You, you go in around like, like in
• 1:32:38
  Gladiator. Yeah.
• 1:32:40
  Yeah. So it it it gives you a sort of
• 1:32:43
  flashback to a place and a time and then.
• 1:32:46
  For you to have just a round off and the glass house having kill
• 1:32:50
  home and his master them all Seti.
• 1:32:51
  You live in SETI, Your wife's from an amazing venue.
• 1:32:55
  Why do you think it's going to work so well with the Glass
• 1:32:57
  House? And also is it Sani?
• 1:33:00
  You said it's going to be more on the man.
• 1:33:01
  No, the whole is. The woman as well.
• 1:33:03
  Women. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:33:05
  People are spoiled for their choices.
• 1:33:06
  Great. That's it.
• 1:33:07
  That's it. And you'll be on the whiskey is
• 1:33:08
  it the whiskey trolley behind you?
• 1:33:10
  They're not chosen that they will get a couple of phones that
• 1:33:11
  so, so just for so at the moment as we're recording it's
• 1:33:15
  November, it's just finishing off the Dalmore and as the as
• 1:33:18
  the malt of the month here and you'll be coming in and it'll be
• 1:33:21
  malt of the month for the full month of December.
• 1:33:23
  People can enjoy a full range of Kilhoman whiskey that you've got
• 1:33:26
  here. That's what you want at.
• 1:33:26
  Christmas and you've also you're doing your cheese and whiskey
• 1:33:29
  tasting, which I'm pretty sure we're really looking forward to
• 1:33:32
  maybe popping along for that as well.
• 1:33:33
  I guess he'll probably just bring his pens and crayons and
• 1:33:37
  draw a picture as well. What are you?
• 1:33:38
  Going to say. If you want, he'll draw a
• 1:33:41
  picture. You gotta say I was gonna bring
• 1:33:42
  my own oat cakes or something. But yeah, I bring your own oat
• 1:33:45
  cakes. But no, I mean it's so it's
• 1:33:47
  great that you're part. Of elaboration.
• 1:33:48
  And of course, natural as well. From your point of view, you'll
• 1:33:51
  be doing, you'll be doing, this is 2025.
• 1:33:54
  There'll be more of the month, every single month.
• 1:33:56
  You've got a couple of really exciting things with independent
• 1:33:58
  bottlers as well. Lots and lots of things.
• 1:34:00
  I mean, it's been a fantastic night sitting here.
• 1:34:02
  We've got a lovely fire that's been going.
• 1:34:04
  Angus has nearly melted away and it's been, it's been great.
• 1:34:07
  So Ken, how can people find you? How can people keep up to date
• 1:34:09
  with what you're doing and and keep up to speed with with
• 1:34:12
  everything that you're it was? Pretty good on social media so
• 1:34:15
  give a follow to kill home and distillery.
• 1:34:18
  My handle is killhole dot man so quite easy to find.
• 1:34:22
  That's. Pretty good, easy.
• 1:34:23
  Going nice and yeah, we'll, we'll be at the Glass House.
• 1:34:27
  I'll be in and out to to check things and brilliant have a few
• 1:34:30
  drums as well. Why not?
• 1:34:31
  Excellent. Well, thank you very much.
• 1:34:32
  Well, thank you to everybody for that.
• 1:34:33
  First of all, thank you to you for coming along here.
• 1:34:35
  It's been great to see you and the drums have been absolutely
• 1:34:37
  fantastic, really enjoyed them. Thanks to the Glass House for
• 1:34:40
  hosting us tonight. It's been great here.
• 1:34:42
  Thank you. Lovely change.
• 1:34:43
  Well, what we will be doing is telling Kev if you're listening
• 1:34:47
  natural put on how we spread for us for our for our dinner.
• 1:34:49
  So I wish I'd done. I wish I'd done, honestly.
• 1:34:52
  You know, we're expecting to turn up at the back at the
• 1:34:54
  Athletic Arms in the next couple of weeks.
• 1:34:56
  We'll have a full spread at nachos, toasties, pies,
• 1:34:59
  everything like that. I.
• 1:35:00
  Shut. I shut my laptop at 5 and
• 1:35:02
  started cooking immediately and I came in natural.
• 1:35:04
  I was gutted. Don't forget, if y'all listen to
• 1:35:06
  this because this will be going out very soon, we will.
• 1:35:09
  We'll be doing our indie bottler spotlight #4 Angus. 28th of
• 1:35:13
  November. 28th of November at the Athletic Arms.
• 1:35:15
  Diggers already look at my It's going to be sold.
• 1:35:17
  Out might be available two or three.
• 1:35:19
  Tickets left already. It's going to be really exciting
• 1:35:21
  with that. Yeah.
• 1:35:22
  Glenwor Spirits coming down. Greg Urquhart.
• 1:35:24
  His end of the show, his. Tastings are brilliant.
• 1:35:26
  We've been a few years tasting fantastic.
• 1:35:27
  Every single tasting that I have been to that Greg Urquhart does,
• 1:35:31
  there is a twist. And I can tell you right now,
• 1:35:33
  without being a spoiler alert, there will be a twist in this
• 1:35:36
  tasting. If you get one of the remaining
• 1:35:38
  tickets, you will be the first to try something new.
• 1:35:41
  Get yourself down there. Thank you very much for
• 1:35:43
  listening to everybody. Thanks continued support from
• 1:35:46
  everybody on the Facebook group. The social media has been
• 1:35:48
  fantastic. You'll get us on the whiskey
• 1:35:49
  stories pod on Instagram join the whiskey stories Facebook
• 1:35:52
  group. There were.
• 1:35:53
  A couple of dressing debates this week about Whiskey's
• 1:35:55
  people. Don't like there was a great
• 1:35:56
  post and I've not got my phone in front of me.
• 1:35:58
  I'm so sorry. I can't remember it, but it was
• 1:36:00
  after you mentioned that you dropped the bombshell in the
• 1:36:03
  Monique and Tom episode that you love the Sherry, right?
• 1:36:07
  And somebody put a picture of Isa sitting where we Sherry and
• 1:36:11
  I. Think it's very cool.
• 1:36:14
  It was one of our listeners from, from the United States,
• 1:36:16
  and I love it because he's obviously engraced himself.
• 1:36:19
  Yeah. And into Scottish culture.
• 1:36:20
  And you know, I'll be honest with you.
• 1:36:22
  See what I was telling you about the fact that I was a 19 year
• 1:36:24
  old drinking 30 year old Petra, him and Sherry.
• 1:36:27
  And I know it would have been in a stem glass.
• 1:36:29
  What you have to remember for a fact that's a very different
• 1:36:32
  Sherry to the sweet Sherry that eyes would have been.
• 1:36:34
  Ordered Granny. Reality is when you think of
• 1:36:37
  somebody having a Sherry, Yeah. So exactly, absolutely.
• 1:36:39
  It's. Not it's.
• 1:36:42
  Not it's. Not Harveys Bristol Cream,
• 1:36:44
  you're. Haven't joined the rebuttal
• 1:36:45
  which was either from Laird or from Craig Darling which was two
• 1:36:48
  sparrows putting each other cause I've given you so much
• 1:36:52
  abuse being a scary tart for the last year.
• 1:36:54
  It turns out to be both. It was.
• 1:36:55
  Great, I mean get involved with the conversation.
• 1:36:57
  I'm also pleased we are trying to grow the Whiskey Stories
• 1:37:01
  YouTube channel. What I've I've actually done a
• 1:37:04
  bit of research. Do you know most people who
• 1:37:06
  watch our videos? There aren't many at the moment,
• 1:37:09
  but most people watch it watch on the telly right now.
• 1:37:12
  That to me is fantastic. How do you find that?
• 1:37:15
  Yeah, the you can check it on YouTube, you can see what how
• 1:37:18
  people, what platform people are watching on a.
• 1:37:21
  Big. Screen, right, We're on the
• 1:37:24
  telly. I'm yes, right.
• 1:37:25
  But basically, I mean, imagine, sit yourself down, pour
• 1:37:29
  yourselves a couple of drams and just sit back, relax and watch
• 1:37:32
  the Whiskey Stories podcast on our YouTube channel.
• 1:37:35
  Obviously we have thousands of listeners on Spotify and on
• 1:37:38
  Apple. Fast approaching 10 but. 10,000
• 1:37:41
  but on YouTube we need to get watching us actually you know
• 1:37:45
  I've not had a shave in a while so I've.
• 1:37:47
  Got it's great, right? Well, it's been absolutely
• 1:37:50
  honest for us neither. None of us have had a shave in a
• 1:37:52
  while. Thank you for listening.
• 1:37:53
  Give us five star. Yeah.
• 1:37:54
  Appreciate honestly, it's great and keep keep keep growing the
• 1:37:57
  pod keep the community going with bro a really, really nice
• 1:37:59
  community, but look Ken mercy Boku for coming along and.
• 1:38:04
  You can be having cast yourself, yeah.
• 1:38:05
  I think you're the first Frenchman we've actually had on
• 1:38:07
  the podcast. Listen.
• 1:38:08
  Guys. Thank you very much.
• 1:38:09
  Cheers, LAN Javar, thank you very much, Natural for having
• 1:38:11
  us. Cheers.