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Whisky Cocktails and The Last Word with Chuck Kerr and Ant Crowther · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  Yes, right. Let's go.
• 0:04
  Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 0:08
  The the the pint glass as the. Yes.
• 0:11
  Are you? If I don't have a spoon, have a
• 0:15
  spoon like that. So you're making the syrup in
• 0:20
  the pint glass? Syrup in the pint glass but are.
• 0:24
  You drinking it from the pint glass?
• 0:25
  No, I'm pouring it into. What you just described was a
• 0:31
  pint of whiskey with a bit of sugar, so that makes a lot more
• 0:34
  sense. No, no, I poured it into it.
• 0:36
  Welcome along to the Whiskey Storage podcast for myself,
• 0:38
  Craig. There we are, crammed, packed
• 0:41
  into the tiny little room and athletic art stickers are
• 0:44
  perfectly located between the gents toilets and the bar.
• 0:48
  There's 123456 of us and here this evening it's a busy.
• 0:54
  Busy as a fight for an answer that all in one hand.
• 0:59
  It's a busy show. But I tell you what, it's
• 1:01
  actually not too bad being packed in here on a cold night
• 1:04
  in November, I guess. How are you?
• 1:06
  I'm. I'm.
• 1:07
  I'm well, Graham, thank you very much.
• 1:09
  You're back early. I am.
• 1:13
  Yeah. We only managed 4 nights in
• 1:16
  Japan. Yeah, unfortunately other in law
• 1:21
  was taken out. So we we actually had to fly
• 1:24
  back because she was, she was actually very ill.
• 1:27
  So it was a bit of an expensive long weekend.
• 1:29
  But you're planning to go back. But we're planning to go.
• 1:32
  We're planning to go. But she's fine.
• 1:34
  She's fine. She's she's she's on the mend.
• 1:37
  Ruth's on the mend. So we're planning to go back.
• 1:41
  We're booked in in February. I didn't actually manage to get
• 1:44
  any whiskey or distillery stuff in Japan under my belt.
• 1:47
  You know, I was kind of, you know, we're only on the third
• 1:50
  day. We thought we've got another,
• 1:51
  you know, 2 two weeks of this. But I'll last know.
• 1:55
  But we're going back and I'm planning to go back to plenty of
• 1:58
  distilleries. I've lost the truth.
• 2:00
  Truth of the matter is he heard that Chuck Kerr was standing in
• 2:03
  as a guest host for us. Because I can't match that
• 2:10
  absolutely position was under threat.
• 2:14
  What did you make of the? I mean, did actually do any
• 2:17
  podcasts about Angus? She said.
• 2:19
  I listened to. I really enjoyed that.
• 2:22
  I know we've done OK. That was great.
• 2:23
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 2:24
  So all right. Well, we are.
• 2:26
  And as I say is we've got a we've got a guest watcher this
• 2:30
  evening as well. Fraser Sumus is sitting at the
• 2:33
  moment quietly is I've got drums.
• 2:37
  So technically this counts as another live studio audience
• 2:39
  event. But it's six of us in here, but
• 2:48
  five people have been on the podcast before, which is
• 2:50
  obviously great and it's nice to have a catch up.
• 2:54
  We've all got loads of drams in front of us as well.
• 2:56
  We do, and what have you got? I've actually got a good mix
• 2:59
  today. So I've got a N British by
• 3:02
  fragrant drops 30 year olds. I've got an old and FedEx cash
• 3:05
  strength and old kind of. I think it's preset three 2007
• 3:09
  bottling perhaps And and finally I've got a Kilhoman Lochgorn
• 3:15
  because of an upcoming podcast. Yeah, we are an upcoming podcast
• 3:18
  which will all feature. We'll be speaking a lot about
• 3:22
  Kilhoman that day. Yes, well, I just realized that
• 3:27
  tonight we're trying a different recording set up with the
• 3:30
  cameras and my phone is over there and I've taken pictures of
• 3:33
  the drums. I've gotten what you've got.
• 3:37
  What I do know is it gave me a nice tingly feeling when I spied
• 3:44
  it on the shelf. In their Fleck arms is the tree
• 3:47
  Cara Bomore, 27 year old. All together.
• 3:51
  Instead indeed, the priceless sum of 25 lbs for 35 mils.
• 3:56
  Great price for. That price, it's got a fight
• 3:58
  with the price. Consider the last drama I heard
• 4:00
  of. It was free.
• 4:02
  All of us very kind. And one thing, I guess if you
• 4:04
  remember, not much of the Edinburgh Whiskey Festival is
• 4:09
  clear in my memory. No, a few conversations of
• 4:12
  Fraser soon as which again are quite hazy.
• 4:14
  Yeah, I was right at the end as well.
• 4:16
  But what I can't remember is that Ola came over.
• 4:19
  She gave us a sample before this had been bought.
• 4:21
  Actually, she said whether this makes it into glass before the
• 4:24
  new year is dependent because she had holidays and stuff like
• 4:27
  that. So I was kind of sitting there
• 4:29
  thinking I don't know when this is going, when the 27 Bullmorer
• 4:32
  is going to be readily available.
• 4:34
  And there it was on the shelf. So I did that and then I just as
• 4:37
  a Thompson Bros, I don't know what one it is.
• 4:40
  I saw it. I've had I took a picture of it
• 4:43
  so that I could read it. But what I do know is that the
• 4:46
  benefit of being able to come in here with the collection that
• 4:49
  they have and with the Thompson brothers that you just know.
• 4:52
  Yeah, yeah, You know, you just know it's the Thompson brothers.
• 4:57
  It's going to be, it's going to be good, good liquid well.
• 4:59
  Yeah. Again, inspired a little bit
• 5:01
  from something that we tasted at the Edinburgh Whiskey Festival.
• 5:06
  You spoke about it last week. You both had it.
• 5:08
  It's the hard American cherry castle.
• 5:11
  So we we sampled something quite similar from a single cask at
• 5:15
  the at the Edinburgh Whiskey Festival.
• 5:17
  So I've gone straight for that. You, you were singing its
• 5:20
  praises last week. So that's an easy choice to try
• 5:23
  that. I'm desperate to try it.
• 5:24
  I might even end up on my Christmas card.
• 5:26
  My Christmas list. I've got also as well fragrant
• 5:29
  drops. It's an inch Gower that was
• 5:31
  finished and a sort owns gask. So.
• 5:35
  I've gone for that as well. Do you like an inch Gower?
• 5:37
  I do like an inch Gower. I like an inch Gower.
• 5:39
  I like a sort owns gask so. Yeah, yeah, no.
• 5:44
  I like fragrant drops obviously as well.
• 5:45
  Absolutely. Well, we also have with us,
• 5:47
  we've mentioned Chuck Kerr is back with more farming stories.
• 5:52
  Farming and olive oil stories. For people that listen to the
• 5:55
  podcast or haven't listened to the podcast, it's well worth a
• 5:58
  lesson if you've got a spare two hours or so, it's.
• 6:01
  Not very whiskier. And well, we've done the travels
• 6:03
  of childcare, but we actually missed half of your travels.
• 6:07
  So we're back to the Australia segment of your travels.
• 6:09
  Absolutely. And joining us for the very
• 6:11
  first time is Anthony Crowther. Crowther.
• 6:14
  Crowther. Crowther.
• 6:15
  Yeah. Crowther.
• 6:16
  Yeah. The venue manager of The Last
• 6:18
  Word saluted Edinburgh. Anthony, how are you?
• 6:21
  I'm very well mate, happy to be here pal, you've got.
• 6:24
  Drums in front of you. You've got a theater, or you've
• 6:25
  got the remaining of a drum. I do.
• 6:27
  Do you know what I didn't realise?
• 6:29
  It's been quite this sandwiched in.
• 6:30
  I would have probably parked myself with a few more to be
• 6:35
  honest. But that's OK, I'm sure there'll
• 6:36
  be more drums to come. I've got.
• 6:38
  Are we, Aaron, which has been matured only in Fino Sherry
• 6:44
  barrels, just sort of exclusive. It was the old labeling, so
• 6:49
  probably 2019-2020, we're assuming.
• 6:54
  Didn't have an age statement on cast strength.
• 6:56
  Pretty tasty. A little bit funky, but Fino
• 6:58
  Sherry maturations can be that way.
• 7:00
  Yeah, it's tasty, Ross. Loves Adam.
• 7:02
  I do. Yeah.
• 7:02
  You're the big garden fan. I.
• 7:04
  Do I do? And I've had a lot of really
• 7:07
  good whiskey and bars that you've run as well, and that's
• 7:11
  kind of interesting. So people don't know about the
• 7:13
  last word. Probably a good place to start.
• 7:15
  Tell us about the last word. But then let's start about how
• 7:17
  you got into whiskey, because you don't sound like you're from
• 7:19
  Edinburgh. So so maybe let's start.
• 7:22
  There someone say he does sound like he's from Edinburgh
• 7:25
  English. Accent.
• 7:26
  But. Yeah, the bar is.
• 7:29
  That is an astute observation. I I don't think I sound quite
• 7:34
  southern enough. Enough actually to no.
• 7:37
  No, I was trying to be self there.
• 7:41
  So, so you know Fraser and myself and actually worked with
• 7:45
  Chuck and Chuck you didn't mention on the last podcast
• 7:48
  between leaving Scotch, yeah, a disaster with COVID and then
• 7:52
  travelling, you ended up and then the last.
• 7:54
  Word my step back to. Austin, I think there's a lot.
• 7:57
  About Trump story that we didn't come on which is why we have
• 7:59
  event for a Part 2. But Anthony, tell us.
• 8:01
  Yeah, I. Can't cut the truck care in one
• 8:03
  episode just isn't a thing. Tell us, tell us about the Last
• 8:07
  Word Saloon there. Yeah, of course The Last Word
• 8:09
  Saloon is a it's, it's part of the Mothership Groups set of
• 8:13
  three bars independently owned by Mike Aikman and Jay Scott of
• 8:21
  Bramble John pretty, pretty well renowned bar.
• 8:24
  They obviously opened Bramble and then the Last Word came.
• 8:28
  I think it was about 5-6 years later after that Bramble's
• 8:33
  turned at the. Yeah, so Bramble, So these fleet
• 8:37
  bars, are they all located in Edinburgh?
• 8:38
  Oh, very close to each other. Yeah.
• 8:39
  You have the two on Queen St. and then you've got it was in
• 8:43
  Stockbridge who I suppose the black sheep of a lot.
• 8:46
  Even though we're only 5 minutes down the road.
• 8:49
  We are quite different to the to the other two to be fair.
• 8:52
  I mean still cocktail LED, but competitively 2.
• 8:56
  We do have the elements of a proper pub as well as a pretty
• 9:00
  hefty selection of whiskey as well.
• 9:03
  How? Many.
• 9:04
  Balls are talking. Ebbs and flows, but let's say
• 9:09
  about 150 something like that there, yeah.
• 9:11
  So one of the most one of the biggest collections open bottles
• 9:14
  in Edinburgh, it's. Pretty good, yeah.
• 9:16
  Yeah, it's pretty good. I unfortunately know too many
• 9:19
  whiskey geeks, so then I unfortunately know just human
• 9:22
  beings with that level of whiskey collection.
• 9:24
  So I forget that it is quite a significant collection of
• 9:27
  bottles. And you're, as venue manager,
• 9:34
  you're in charge of the whiskey selection there.
• 9:36
  It's only Yeah, I know you. Do a lot of whiskey content for
• 9:38
  the bar as well. You get new drams and you know
• 9:41
  doing some videos and stuff for them as.
• 9:42
  Well, we do, yeah. Yeah.
• 9:43
  So I, well, it was at one point a weekly thing.
• 9:47
  Now it's sort of a more a biweekly thing.
• 9:49
  But yeah, you should do a review of a whiskey every every couple
• 9:51
  of weeks. And I'll say that.
• 9:53
  Does it do it in 66? No, yeah.
• 9:59
  Don't. Have to worry about any coffee.
• 10:01
  I've been given it. I've been given a 2 minute time
• 10:04
  limit by my photographer who can't bear to listen to me I
• 10:10
  think is the main issue. Talking about the bar that I've
• 10:15
  always gone to often has a fantastic break even on.
• 10:19
  Yes. Not.
• 10:21
  Many places to say that is to spend a break even because it
• 10:25
  wasn't actually that long. I didn't even know what a break
• 10:27
  even bottle or tasting was. So break even basically being in
• 10:31
  the cost of the DRAM would basically be whatever the cost
• 10:34
  of the bottle even. On the cost of the.
• 10:35
  Bottle. Yeah, exactly that.
• 10:37
  Exactly that. So.
• 10:38
  What's what's your current break even then?
• 10:40
  We've just finished one, so I can say I can give you my the
• 10:44
  one that we just finished and the one that will be going on.
• 10:46
  So the one we just finished is actually one of the Blind Summit
• 10:49
  bottlings and that was Jamie Dawson's bottling of, well,
• 10:53
  Secret Space side. What was it 40424240?
• 10:58
  2 year old secret space side. And yeah, I probably shouldn't
• 11:03
  say, but I can say I don't. Work.
• 11:11
  Wow, There you go. Yeah, you just have to say a
• 11:16
  second type of case. This tiny little room, Nobody
• 11:18
  here. It's got big red doors.
• 11:19
  Hey, it's fine. Yeah, big.
• 11:21
  Red doors, watch your next one. Next one going on will be by the
• 11:26
  Morrison Sellers Company named the car More Bottlins.
• 11:28
  It's a Ben Rick and I believe it's 2526 years old.
• 11:33
  That's really cool. Yeah.
• 11:34
  And one of my one of my favorite spirits of all time, I think.
• 11:37
  It's I think. So I mean, so I mean for
• 11:39
  example, how much are you pricing that at for as being
• 11:41
  break even? You have really as well, I can
• 11:46
  tell you that they can tell you that the 42 year old space side
• 11:49
  was on at 1170, something like that.
• 11:52
  Yeah, for a 42 year old space mystery space.
• 11:55
  Again, it's cost price. For Full disclosure, it's cost
• 11:58
  price -1 DRAM. Yeah.
• 12:01
  And we do that so that the very small team behind the bar can.
• 12:05
  But there's still four of us. We have 1/4 of a DRAM in 20. 5
• 12:08
  or 25 miles away. It's 25.
• 12:11
  I wish we could go to 35I. Think.
• 12:16
  I think the main issue we have is actually Scottish licensing
• 12:20
  more than we do. So they won't let you go.
• 12:23
  You have to pick one. It's either 35 or 25.
• 12:26
  And being that we're a cocktail LED bar and we're going thing
• 12:29
  then so all of a sudden all your pores have to be 35.
• 12:34
  So I can't understand in my in my ideals, it's 35 miles for a
• 12:38
  drum. That is a drum for me because
• 12:40
  otherwise I'm getting A50 and then I can't try enough stuff or
• 12:43
  I'm getting a 25, which is a bit short.
• 12:45
  But yeah, I think for shots, but then you can't sell shots and
• 12:49
  it's all and stuff like that and 25,000,000.
• 12:51
  From from being a busy bar and a quite small bar as well, I've
• 12:54
  been How many people can you fit in the world?
• 12:57
  Oh, what have you really cram it?
• 13:03
  This is something that I've learned that, you know, Scottish
• 13:05
  licensing yours. You either have to be 25 or 35.
• 13:07
  There's no in between. So I mean, if we fancy asking
• 13:10
  for a few baby Guinness is at the bar here at the Athletic
• 13:14
  arms afterwards, we're going to get 35 mil baby again, we're
• 13:17
  going to get kind of infant infant, but it's one of.
• 13:29
  These places I'll find myself going and trying whatever, what
• 13:32
  time we're going to break even and then just indulge.
• 13:34
  And quite an erratic selection in the sense it's really, really
• 13:38
  good whiskey. But you're not just going to the
• 13:41
  same retailer, the same supplier.
• 13:43
  You're not getting everything for all my whiskeys.
• 13:45
  What I love about you is I've walked in before and been like,
• 13:48
  what do you mean you've got that Chichibu that's not existed for
• 13:51
  six months or whatever. And that's what makes it really
• 13:54
  exciting as a whiskey fan to come and get served by you.
• 13:57
  I'd have to say I wasn't livid when I saw that was on because I
• 13:59
  I was away. And I was well.
• 14:00
  Don't leave the country then. Chuck was livid, but at the same
• 14:07
  time he actually was in Chichibu.
• 14:08
  You can't be that bad, can you? Trust me, no ones more livid
• 14:13
  than. If we rewind a little bit
• 14:16
  though, before you were at the last word, how did you end up
• 14:18
  come up to Edinburgh? How did you get this interest in
• 14:20
  whiskey? I mean, I've always loved a good
• 14:24
  drum. I mean, my first ever drum, I
• 14:27
  was probably 1516. It's the last person standing in
• 14:31
  a house party. 18 you were 18. No, I was. 18I was 18.
• 14:35
  Minus yeah. You just remember it felt like
• 14:37
  you were 15 or 16 years old. Exactly, it felt like I was
• 14:40
  1516. So strange.
• 14:41
  Responsibly. Well, he's under a.
• 14:42
  String so I've always loved whiskey for a long time.
• 14:48
  I visit for my mate's dad who was half Scottish, so he gave me
• 14:54
  gave me a few drams and I thought he thought they were
• 14:56
  fantastic. Apart from the Freud 10, which
• 15:00
  put me off. I love whiskeys for a very long
• 15:02
  time. But people of 18 shouldn't drink
• 15:05
  that le Freud for a little bit. No, that's true.
• 15:07
  Minus. Yeah, so but then obviously a
• 15:12
  lot of spirits. I mean, I was a huge rum fan for
• 15:14
  a long, long time. Like rums were, were probably my
• 15:16
  leading spirit while I was in Manchester for a bit.
• 15:19
  I went over to Australia as well to bartend and there was a lot,
• 15:25
  do you know that that whiskeys was something that I would
• 15:27
  always drink. But I don't think my connection
• 15:33
  to whiskey ever developed quite as quickly as when I moved here,
• 15:37
  you know, And I'd always loved here.
• 15:38
  But it was one of those things when I moved out here, it just,
• 15:44
  I just completely fell in love with.
• 15:46
  I think the culture. That's the difference.
• 15:48
  You can like a spirit, but you don't realise the culture behind
• 15:51
  it. Yeah, 100%.
• 15:52
  And also if you've tried, if you ever tried to get good drums in
• 15:54
  Manchester. You do by many people in bars
• 15:58
  here that will just want to natter off a bit.
• 16:00
  DRAM for 3-4 hours like me and Chuck.
• 16:02
  Well, what's really interesting is that like from a demographic
• 16:07
  perspective is the people who are actually really wanting to
• 16:11
  sit, I find anyway, and it's probably now we're at what,
• 16:16
  nearly pushing episode 60? And you're saying to yourself,
• 16:20
  of all the people that we've had on this podcast and for all the
• 16:23
  people that interact with us, there's a wide range of of ages,
• 16:26
  But actually a lot of people are probably under the 40 year old
• 16:31
  bracket. The real people that I mean,
• 16:33
  there's obviously there's exceptions to that rule, of
• 16:36
  course, But you know, you look back, we had Paul Mann on the
• 16:39
  podcast and he was like, I was a whiskey geek at a time when and
• 16:43
  you just had to read about it. And he was going to, he was at
• 16:48
  the time going to whiskey festivals when whiskey festivals
• 16:51
  were like what they were now. And you meet people that were
• 16:53
  saying, I can remember being at one of the first ever or the
• 16:55
  first ever whiskey fringe. I can remember going to Iowa
• 16:58
  when Fazio was or Fazio, whatever it was not what it was
• 17:02
  today. And it's, it's we actually think
• 17:06
  it was after the Woody and Megan the Woodrow's podcast episode.
• 17:10
  And we sat back and had a few drams afterwards and there was
• 17:15
  like a table of old boys. And they were talking about
• 17:17
  whiskey, like, oh, I like this whiskey, but all that stuff like
• 17:20
  that. And if you were to do straw
• 17:22
  poll, you walk in what diggers looks kind of like an old man
• 17:26
  pub. And you say pick the folk that
• 17:29
  really know about their whiskeys, excluding Angus and
• 17:32
  myself, of course. Everyone would look at these 4
• 17:34
  old boys that were sitting there with their four drams in front
• 17:36
  of them. No one would have picked the
• 17:39
  Asian guy and the young women. And.
• 17:42
  Angus and myself particularly because we're under 40, so it
• 17:45
  really is quite, quite a thing where.
• 17:47
  I think people that are getting into hospitality as well as
• 17:51
  you're saying you've travelled and working in bars, you do end
• 17:54
  up getting that itch because we've spoken previous podcasts.
• 17:57
  If you meet somebody like minded or somebody gives you a bit of
• 17:59
  their time. I think that people, young
• 18:01
  people now who are interested in spirits are just like sponges
• 18:04
  phrases and this is a great example.
• 18:06
  Ross Bar I made spectacular example.
• 18:10
  If somebody gives you the time and you show a genuine interest
• 18:14
  like Chuck did, he gave me. If you really want to learn
• 18:18
  about it, then you can learn so much about.
• 18:20
  It but do we live in a time where like do we live in an easy
• 18:24
  opportunity now? Well, but do we live in an era
• 18:26
  where like young and is easier because accessing the
• 18:30
  information is much much, much accessible.
• 18:32
  You know, and even things like distilleries and whiskey brands
• 18:35
  are realizing the importance of trying to capture that where you
• 18:38
  know you look back. Remember, I've said it before.
• 18:40
  My dad used to say like you've seen what been the one
• 18:42
  distillery been in the wall and go through the 80s and 90s there
• 18:46
  was there was very few distillery tours available.
• 18:49
  This whiskey wasn't which we're here and now destination product
• 18:53
  where now people could say we had Stewart deck from Torrevig
• 18:56
  basically saying stylus guy is absolutely laughing because
• 19:00
  you've got two distilleries on it now.
• 19:01
  So they're the base that say come a sky and you've got Dallas
• 19:04
  car Tora vague. I guess what you can nip across
• 19:06
  and go to Rassie while you're there as well.
• 19:08
  I think I could take a holiday now for wasn't.
• 19:10
  Able to start the careers in which you shoot that as a brand
• 19:13
  ambassador for Tora. Vague and exciting or Mossburn.
• 19:15
  Still is exciting brand but he got into whiskey.
• 19:19
  He was a tour guide for Tomatin and then created a Tick tick
• 19:22
  tock account during COVID. And it was also a portable DJ
• 19:25
  and also had a post office. Who was?
• 19:31
  Watching who was watching him talk about whiskey on TikTok?
• 19:33
  Yeah. Could it be a younger audience?
• 19:35
  I think you're right, Graham. I think, I think, I think it's
• 19:37
  basically it's more accessible now to kind of become a whiskey
• 19:41
  geek. And I think, you know, we've had
• 19:42
  people on before that have spoken about, for example,
• 19:45
  Tasker 18 was a, that was a specialist product that was
• 19:48
  something a geek would get in maybe the mid, early 90s to mid
• 19:52
  90s. That wasn't the luxury product
• 19:54
  it is today. That was something a bit geeky
• 19:56
  because if you'd only get a Talisker 18 if you're interested
• 19:59
  in whiskey, as it were, you know, and I remember my dad had
• 20:03
  a, someone gave him, or he ended up with a Scotch milk whiskey
• 20:06
  society membership in the mid 90s.
• 20:08
  And it was a case of you got the brochure and you kind of ticked
• 20:10
  the box of the thing you want and you sent it off and it was
• 20:13
  all you know, and sent by mail and it would come back and it
• 20:17
  was all. It's not like it is today with
• 20:19
  the Internet and all that sort of thing where you can, the
• 20:21
  whiskey auctions, all that sort of thing where so much whiskey
• 20:25
  is so available at your fingertips.
• 20:27
  And maybe bringing it back to hospitality and how it kind of
• 20:30
  bleeds into that. I think especially working with
• 20:32
  that, he came from a cocktail background.
• 20:34
  And I think when you work in that field, a big part of that
• 20:38
  is explaining why things taste the way they taste.
• 20:41
  Yeah. And yeah.
• 20:42
  And working with Anne, it was like, because I was like, this
• 20:45
  tastes like all the sweets I had when I was a child.
• 20:47
  And I was like, yeah, but this really has this wine element to
• 20:51
  it and giving flavour compounds and that.
• 20:53
  Yeah. And I think being able to have
• 20:54
  those conversations, I've done a horrific job of explaining how
• 20:57
  Anne would describe. Westfield Java.
• 20:58
  What are you saying that Anne plays a reason that you come up
• 21:01
  with your wanky tasting good? No, no, no, no, no, no.
• 21:05
  They were always there if. Anything I've like degraded out
• 21:09
  I'm. Fascinated to.
• 21:12
  See, like this is the way my head works.
• 21:16
  I'm sitting here with a little notebook and things like that.
• 21:18
  And you get we have this recall where or so and so said this on
• 21:23
  their what 3 drams and you're instantly able to say that was
• 21:25
  so so. And we were talking actually,
• 21:27
  and we talked in the last episode with Monique about
• 21:30
  because it was Tom and Monique were saying when they worked for
• 21:33
  the whiskey shop. And you often get like a man
• 21:36
  coming in and saying or a woman coming in.
• 21:38
  And then maybe whiskey drinks would say give me a whiskey for
• 21:41
  a woman. All right.
• 21:42
  And then Monique would go, well, my favorite whiskey is like
• 21:46
  really heavily peated whiskey, which a lot of women you would
• 21:49
  think, or what a lot of people would say.
• 21:51
  And then we've had other people on the podcast emails.
• 21:53
  I mean, give me, you know, if someone says, you know, give me
• 21:55
  a whiskey for a woman here as well, saying give me a whiskey
• 21:57
  for someone with blue eyes, you know?
• 21:59
  Yeah, No, but but but what I'm. I bet those preconceived notions
• 22:03
  are still there for most of the whiskey drinking.
• 22:06
  But what was really interesting though, is the fact that we've
• 22:08
  had females on the podcast and I'm almost certain, and I need
• 22:11
  to go back, I'm almost certain more females have had Pita
• 22:15
  Twiskey in their what, 3 drums than males.
• 22:18
  We've also had people who have come in whiskey from an
• 22:22
  engineering background. And now we're also just seeing
• 22:25
  so many people coming in from cocktail hospitality and the
• 22:29
  Australia factor. I don't know how many guests now
• 22:33
  that we have had on this podcast that has been in Australia, been
• 22:38
  in hospitality. And whiskey seems to be the
• 22:41
  thing that, and it's fascinating because when you start drawing
• 22:44
  all these wee little lines, there's got to be, we should
• 22:46
  probably create the whiskey stories matrix.
• 22:49
  Well, whereas what 3 dramas versus what you did?
• 22:51
  Have you an engineer? Have you been to Australia?
• 22:55
  I was clearly doing something wrong when I went to Australia
• 22:57
  because I don't think I tried to W1.
• 23:00
  So what what did you do? What did you study or anything
• 23:04
  like that, Anthony? Or was it just a case of you
• 23:06
  were just moving around a lot and you were working in
• 23:09
  hospitality and bars and that's what led you into that?
• 23:13
  Please say you're studying engineering.
• 23:15
  So it's. Not studying, it can take most
• 23:17
  of those boxes mate. But I studied music like a an
• 23:20
  idiot. No, I love music, but it was one
• 23:23
  of those ones where, yeah, I've been in hospitality since I was
• 23:28
  15, but I studied music as part of my degree.
• 23:34
  That's just a little side bit. I.
• 23:39
  Think The thing is you get into, I got into why things taste the
• 23:46
  way they do, what makes them great.
• 23:47
  You got into mixing. I got into love spirits.
• 23:49
  Like I said, I got into rum. Don't know why I got into
• 23:52
  whiskey. Just sort of just fell into it.
• 23:54
  The Australia side of things, I've seemed like a fun place to
• 23:58
  be. Where did you go in Australia?
• 24:00
  I lived in Melbourne. So, and Chuck, what about
• 24:03
  yourself? We're we're going to talk a lot
• 24:05
  about your Australian judges, but where did it start for you
• 24:07
  in Australia? I was in Melbourne for the vast
• 24:10
  majority of it, partly because I working with Anne.
• 24:12
  I think if I go back to my original trip 2023 COVID, I was
• 24:18
  going to do 3 weeks in Australia and then I told aunt that and he
• 24:20
  laughed at me and said that you need like way more.
• 24:23
  Yeah, yeah, he barely scratched the surface.
• 24:25
  Yeah. So that then moved to six months
• 24:27
  of a trip, which is mainly about some around Melbourne.
• 24:30
  I kind of ran out of money after Japan, got a little bit excited
• 24:34
  and then spent a couple weeks in Brisbane and.
• 24:37
  Brisbane's class. I.
• 24:39
  Didn't love? This.
• 24:39
  No I don't like Brisbane. I actually got denied entry into
• 24:42
  a bar for wearing a kilt. Oh wow, in Brisbane.
• 24:46
  And did you claim racial racial discrimination?
• 24:49
  You just said you're wearing a skirt mate.
• 24:52
  That was a conversation sort of response.
• 24:55
  That's the less class thing about Brisbane or Queensland in
• 24:58
  general, yeah. Yeah, but talk about before we.
• 25:00
  Move on, because you guys won't know this.
• 25:02
  You. The Last Word isn't the only
• 25:03
  serious whiskey bar that you've worked in.
• 25:06
  No, I knew you from the Black Cat.
• 25:09
  Yeah, that's actually where I first met you.
• 25:11
  Correct. And was so was that your first
• 25:13
  step into whiskey in Edinburgh? In Edinburgh, yeah, for sure.
• 25:17
  And so. The Black Cat is on Rose St.,
• 25:20
  Rose Street, yeah, and has 300 whiskeys probably in the
• 25:25
  background. I must be up there with one of
• 25:26
  the most open balls. And it's a fantastic question.
• 25:33
  Not what I would call a cocktail bar though.
• 25:35
  So that's again, you've probably had your.
• 25:37
  Experience. In bartending, you come to a
• 25:39
  boozer with a spectacular whiskey selection.
• 25:42
  Where is that where your education started in whiskey?
• 25:45
  Is that where you got a little bit more nerdy and a little bit
• 25:47
  more because you'll do your tasting notes and you have your
• 25:50
  preferences? And I think we can have a
• 25:52
  conversation about whiskey because you have your own
• 25:54
  opinions on the whole range of world whiskeys because of what
• 25:58
  you're able to do, what you've built at the last word.
• 26:01
  But do those foundations come from the Black Cat?
• 26:03
  Yeah, I suppose I owe some of it to that.
• 26:05
  Yeah. I mean, that was definitely.
• 26:08
  I'd never been in a venue where I was at least surrounded by
• 26:12
  that much whiskey, you know? Like 20 seats, normally one of
• 26:17
  the only big tables got up. Oh yeah, putting.
• 26:20
  The fiddle on it and it's. Tiny little, yeah, tiny little
• 26:22
  venue taken up by folk musicians, so you can just
• 26:27
  squeeze around the sides if you want to see it.
• 26:28
  But yeah, it's a little venue. Like well worth.
• 26:31
  It absolutely fantastic, like a haven on Rose Street, I would
• 26:34
  say. Yeah, not to get too into it,
• 26:36
  but but we all know it can be a street to be avoided at times
• 26:39
  and can be. And yeah, it is a little haven
• 26:41
  on Rose Street. The the selection's fantastic.
• 26:43
  So yeah, I had never been surrounded by that much whiskey.
• 26:47
  I've been to bars where that was a thing.
• 26:50
  In fact, actually Australia, again, like had some absolutely
• 26:53
  fantastic little whiskey havens. And I think that was a big part,
• 26:56
  way more than Manchester. Manchester's got a few great
• 26:59
  ones, but I probably wasn't as knowledgeable about those ones
• 27:06
  now. And actually, I go back now and
• 27:08
  because, and because I'm more in the whiskey scene, I, I through
• 27:13
  people, I end up knowing people know where to go.
• 27:15
  Whereas back in the day you wouldn't.
• 27:16
  Have they're usually little basements that they'll have a
• 27:18
  sign out front and you can actually go in and try some
• 27:21
  great whiskeys. But yeah, Australia has got some
• 27:23
  fantastic whiskey bars. In particular, Melbourne has
• 27:26
  some fantastic whiskey bars. That was.
• 27:27
  Where I was going to ask is like, is there a, is there a
• 27:31
  regionalized situation in, in, in Australia for whiskey?
• 27:34
  They do you look at, because there's a lot of people that
• 27:37
  have said all Melbourne is where we were and they all have this
• 27:40
  whiskey connection. Yeah.
• 27:41
  Is there different areas of Australia that have stronger
• 27:44
  whiskey roots, stronger whiskey connections, maybe because of
• 27:47
  the locality of distilleries around that or or is it just
• 27:51
  widespread right across? Countries, the Tasmania is a big
• 27:55
  one, Yeah. I mean like historically
• 27:56
  speaking I have. I've actually been tried to
• 27:59
  diligent the last time I read notes but.
• 28:02
  It's got notes, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:04
  But I mean, if you look at the history of Australian
• 28:07
  distillation, it dates back to 1820.
• 28:09
  It's like the first distillery understood and legal.
• 28:13
  Is this a legal distillery or? Illegal, legal.
• 28:16
  The legalization came in 1822, which is before it came in
• 28:20
  Scotland. As well.
• 28:21
  And I mean, from an Australian point of view, that's early,
• 28:24
  yeah. I think from anyone's point of
• 28:26
  view really, that's pretty early.
• 28:27
  And that was so actually I'm going to double check.
• 28:29
  First distillery was surreal in in Tasmania.
• 28:33
  And then from 1820 to 1839 there was 16 distilleries.
• 28:38
  And then your man from the Arctic.
• 28:40
  Yeah, no. From the Arctic.
• 28:42
  Yeah, exactly. You, you, you mentioned.
• 28:44
  What's that? No, no.
• 28:45
  Well, no, no, no. So the the the governor of
• 28:49
  Tasmania was a guy called John Franklin, who I think, yeah,
• 28:53
  Chuck's about to talk about it, but he famously LED after he was
• 28:56
  governor of Tasmania. He was an Arctic explorer in the
• 28:58
  kind of 1800s. He led an expedition to the
• 29:01
  Northwest Passage. He famously perished along with
• 29:05
  all his crew and for there was a big, I mean, he wasn't, his crew
• 29:08
  wasn't discovered for like 5 years.
• 29:10
  You know, they, they kind of, I was up in Orkney actually in the
• 29:13
  summer and there's a plaque which is where they last took on
• 29:16
  water before they come across the Atlantic to the north of
• 29:19
  Canada. And that was the last time they
• 29:21
  were seen for five years until their bodies were discovered
• 29:24
  five years later. Because they just went to
• 29:26
  Northwest Passage to find, you know, the passage across and
• 29:29
  John Franklin led the expedition.
• 29:31
  So and they just were stuck in the ice and they all died.
• 29:33
  So to make you feel slightly better about his death, he was
• 29:37
  the one who enacted prohibition on Tasmania.
• 29:40
  Well, there you go. Nothing coming.
• 29:44
  It was illegal to have a distillery on Tasmania from 1839
• 29:47
  to 1992. Wow.
• 29:50
  Yeah. So.
• 29:52
  And that was all John Franklin's fault.
• 29:54
  Yeah, well, actually it was John Franklin's wife.
• 29:58
  I can't remember. In life.
• 30:05
  I think the quote is I would rather see the barley go to
• 30:07
  swine than to make the men into swine or something a lot.
• 30:10
  Something along those lines. Was that his wife said that or?
• 30:12
  Wife said that, yeah. That's really interesting
• 30:14
  because actually Shan Bucking was on and she talked about
• 30:17
  prohibition and WIC when it when it came in.
• 30:21
  Yeah. So really interesting story.
• 30:24
  Again, we talk about the pulp, nay, distillery and stuff like
• 30:26
  that. And it went through so many
• 30:27
  different phases, but at one point the pulp, the distillery
• 30:31
  had to survive being a distillery in an area that was
• 30:35
  that's his notes. Gone was was prohibition.
• 30:38
  And again, it was and it was an American like counsellor that
• 30:43
  had come in and at the time was waxing lyrical about like
• 30:47
  prohibition is the way to go. Alcohol is the devil, what have
• 30:49
  you. But what he did was he he went
• 30:53
  towards the waves of the fisherman and what would happen
• 30:57
  was that the fishermen would go out to sea for days at a time,
• 31:01
  maybe weeks. They'd come back and where the
• 31:04
  fishermen would collect their payment was always in the local
• 31:07
  pub. And what would then happen is 9
• 31:10
  fishermen out of 10 would end up going home on the Friday night
• 31:14
  with no money left because they've been at sea all week.
• 31:17
  They've come back there and usually there'd be some sort of
• 31:19
  connection between the pub and the owner of the boats where
• 31:22
  they say, right, there's your money paid in cash.
• 31:25
  And everyone say, well, we'll have a couple of drinks now that
• 31:27
  we're back. And basically what they did was,
• 31:30
  and it was a very, it was part of, it was one of the lowest
• 31:32
  turnouts on a vote in WIC. And they waited till all the
• 31:35
  fishermen were out in the sea. And they, they basically ran
• 31:38
  this very quick vote where all the women in WIC decided
• 31:42
  actually, you're right, because that turns my husband into the
• 31:44
  devil and he spends all his money.
• 31:46
  And I can't remember how long prohibition in WIC actually
• 31:48
  lasted, but that was round about the time.
• 31:51
  But Shan pointed out was the probably distillery was being
• 31:54
  used as a modern org because it wasn't it had no other use and a
• 31:58
  part of it was a very, very cold distilleries perfect places for
• 32:01
  the body. But I mean that but.
• 32:03
  Tasmania. That is a of.
• 32:07
  Time, yeah. So in 1992, it was lifted then,
• 32:10
  yeah. And then, and then from that,
• 32:13
  and I mean we know that there's distilleries on Tasmania.
• 32:15
  Yeah, Lark is obviously probably the most famous.
• 32:17
  Australia. In Australia it was the
• 32:19
  Tasmania, it was the owner of Larks who spoke to the council
• 32:23
  at the time and helped lift the ban.
• 32:25
  Yeah. But then it was distilling
• 32:26
  stuff. So Tasmania obviously been a
• 32:28
  separate entity to Australia then.
• 32:30
  So then there would have been still obviously, well in those
• 32:32
  days and laws there was a separate, yeah.
• 32:34
  But this collation, so, so they've had, they would have had
• 32:38
  sort of made it illegal in Tasmania until 1992.
• 32:41
  Yeah. But what about Australia?
• 32:42
  Mainland Australia then so. State laws not as far as more.
• 32:46
  So it was legalized, but there was a there.
• 32:48
  So there's a couple of reasons why we never really heard of
• 32:51
  Australian whiskey really until the last kind of 20 years
• 32:54
  really, and even then maybe more for us in the last 10.
• 32:57
  And and one of the big components was the distilling
• 33:01
  act of 19 O one in mainland Australia.
• 33:03
  And that made it so the stills had to be a certain size and
• 33:07
  through a distillation run, you had to produce at least 3000
• 33:10
  litres of pure alcohol. So.
• 33:13
  So that made it so that really you had to be humongous.
• 33:17
  Business you. Can you can do it for more?
• 33:19
  You're either Bundaberg or you know, Yeah, yeah.
• 33:22
  Exactly. So like the the last, the last
• 33:24
  functioning distillery was Koroi.
• 33:27
  It's CORIO. I'm not 100% of the
• 33:30
  pronunciation, apologies, but it was established.
• 33:33
  I've got two dates here. So it it was established in
• 33:36
  1934. Apparently the first Spirit runs
• 33:39
  were in 1929 and it ran until 1979 to 1980 and.
• 33:44
  Where was that about? Certainly that's.
• 33:45
  So I was going to that was in the Melbourne area, but outside.
• 33:50
  So in terms of, and my geography is not that great, but in terms
• 33:52
  of like, so from Tasmania on to mainland Australia then.
• 33:55
  And you've said about Tasmania being the sort of real hotbed
• 33:58
  for distilling, I think it's nowadays.
• 34:01
  But where are they recognized, Sir?
• 34:02
  Is, is there a sort of whiskey scene in every sort of state, or
• 34:05
  is there one place in Australia other than Tasmania where, you
• 34:08
  know, like, oh, there's a real big whiskey scene there?
• 34:11
  I think you you'd probably agree Melbourne's probably the most
• 34:13
  for sure well known. Right.
• 34:16
  I think even talking about a scene as well, if you talk like
• 34:19
  not just production but consumers as well, you and.
• 34:23
  It's a production. I mean there'll be, I'm assuming
• 34:25
  there'll be production throughout the whole of
• 34:26
  Australia. There'll be distilleries all the
• 34:28
  way up, right the way through the the West and the earth and
• 34:31
  all that. I can't.
• 34:32
  So The thing is, the temperature is so insane across Australia.
• 34:36
  Melbourne's really, really S So it's technically milder than a
• 34:39
  lot of other. Yeah, but I mean, Tasmania is
• 34:43
  also further South, so it's even more mild.
• 34:45
  Yeah. But there is over 300
• 34:47
  distilleries in Australia currently.
• 34:49
  And is there like ranging from is there a cut off point where
• 34:52
  you won't find many distilleries past this northern level?
• 34:55
  But I know from my limited experience, I traveled from, I
• 34:58
  traveled from Sydney at the Cairns and basically after the,
• 35:01
  I can't remember what point it was, I got to where they kind of
• 35:03
  said like temperature doesn't really the more you get more
• 35:06
  fluids, yeah, and more sort of. I think more that rather than
• 35:10
  distillery stopping, it's just what they make changes.
• 35:13
  Right. So I think in the South you're
• 35:15
  getting more whiskey production, but then the North you get more
• 35:16
  rum. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:18
  And even the climate lends itself well.
• 35:20
  Yeah, exactly. And growing sugar cake.
• 35:23
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, massive factors and.
• 35:25
  Presumably Bundaberg is the largest spirits brand in
• 35:28
  Australia. Can only assume that I've been
• 35:30
  to the celery. It's quite.
• 35:32
  Because it's something that I've seen through my work now, people
• 35:35
  with collections of Bundaberg that's like 1960s, seventies,
• 35:39
  bottlings, etcetera. So good about being the rum or
• 35:42
  the name. I only knew it.
• 35:43
  I only knew it as a ginger. That's why I really know it as
• 35:47
  yeah. Actually massive rum.
• 35:49
  That reason it doesn't travel. Although from what I do here,
• 35:52
  they do sell a fair amount to other rum distilleries to.
• 35:55
  Yeah. Right.
• 35:56
  Little bit less rolls around. Yeah, yeah.
• 35:59
  Rum So what point then? We've heard you've been
• 36:03
  Manchester. You've.
• 36:05
  Come up to Edinburgh working 2 serious rescue bars now your
• 36:07
  venue manager. This by the when did so was at
• 36:09
  Manchester, Australia, Edinburgh.
• 36:12
  Sorry, in what sense? Like.
• 36:15
  Manchester. It was Australia before you came
• 36:19
  to Edinburgh. Yes, Right.
• 36:20
  So, yeah. So you're in Australia, you're
• 36:23
  learning and. Mentality let's so about whiskey
• 36:26
  by the times of it and. Kind of just.
• 36:30
  Yeah, I don't have a good time, presumably.
• 36:32
  For sure. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:33
  Did you have a good time? I did have a good time, yeah,
• 36:36
  Fantastic time. So what point then did you meet
• 36:39
  this chap? Chuck Care.
• 36:40
  Didn't mean Chuck and so taking taking on the the role of the
• 36:45
  last word did I? Yeah, you came in as manager?
• 36:47
  Yeah, I think I've been there for like 6 months was.
• 36:50
  Did you? Really.
• 36:51
  Something like that I. Was assumed that you were hired
• 36:54
  by Anne to be. Honest.
• 36:55
  No. I was hired by Jay.
• 36:56
  Because. Because.
• 36:57
  I'd have never hired Joe. Because my my understanding as
• 37:03
  your honourable name of friends is that you were anti
• 37:08
  hospitality at this point. You'd been you basically fucked
• 37:11
  yourself over. You'd handed your notice in a
• 37:13
  week before COVID. You'd be.
• 37:15
  Picking up stones in the farm. Please listen to episode 1
• 37:18
  podcast. And then COVID finishes, you're
• 37:22
  back in the city. Yeah, I was.
• 37:24
  Do you know a few people that have listened to the first
• 37:25
  episode? How did you get out of
• 37:27
  Haddington? How did you manage to get back
• 37:29
  into the city? I don't know, like I'm going to
• 37:31
  make it very brief because I'm sure people.
• 37:33
  Wait, wait, hang on. Did your olive oil business ever
• 37:35
  take off? Sadly no.
• 37:38
  No, I never, I never told that post one that I was lying.
• 37:43
  But I at the end of the day that the farm actually sold.
• 37:46
  So we are, we were tenant farmers since 1896 and the land
• 37:52
  owners decided to sell. And it became incredibly
• 37:55
  apparent to my, to my parents and the rest of the family that
• 37:58
  I was not going to take over the farm.
• 37:59
  Yeah, unless something horrific happened more so than a global
• 38:03
  catastrophe. So the farm sold and then I
• 38:07
  think I finished up on the farm end of 2021.
• 38:10
  I was broken is probably the best way to and then I think I
• 38:15
  got back into Edinburgh, was there for like 2 months and I
• 38:18
  was like I really need to work and our mutual friends.
• 38:22
  Tom Pinson, who also works works at Bramble.
• 38:25
  Bramble Yeah, great photographer as well.
• 38:27
  Yeah, does cool stuff that he mainly works with powerful,
• 38:30
  doesn't he? For Yeah, well.
• 38:34
  Like you went to your school as well, didn't?
• 38:35
  He he did also, Yeah, right. But TomTom.
• 38:38
  Yeah, I was going to say the name Rings.
• 38:39
  About great guy, yeah. And he's also done a lot of the
• 38:42
  events. He's been organizing events with
• 38:44
  Mothership for Glenmore and G&R Bag.
• 38:46
  Right. Wow, you know that.
• 38:47
  Kind of Stuff also has a pretty fantastic whiskey collection.
• 38:49
  Yeah, of Glenmore and G&R. Bag pretty much, yeah.
• 38:53
  Unfortunately, he's got a few others.
• 38:55
  So you got you. So you got a job.
• 38:58
  So you. So yeah, forget this, right?
• 38:59
  You've gone from the. Scotch.
• 39:03
  No, what was before Scotch it was.
• 39:05
  You know the Cali Scotch farming?
• 39:09
  Tom called me and said do you want a job?
• 39:10
  And I said please and then and I worked in the last.
• 39:13
  One, and that was where you worked in the last.
• 39:15
  One, I remember you were there three days a week or something.
• 39:17
  Yeah. So I took a very like limited
• 39:19
  role because, as I say. He thought he was anti
• 39:21
  hospitality still. Yeah, it was fairly a fairly
• 39:24
  anti anti. Humans at that point.
• 39:26
  To be fair, Jay asked me if I wanted to be manager in the
• 39:29
  interview and I laughed and said no.
• 39:31
  It was like, so do you think you could be manager?
• 39:38
  I was like, no, no. I was thinking like three days a
• 39:41
  week and I started at 3 days and then that turned into four.
• 39:46
  And then I was very much like, if you need me to come in, I'll
• 39:48
  come in because your CV. Would look the man.
• 39:50
  Didn't want me to come in so. You thought not.
• 39:54
  Bad right guy, right? Right.
• 39:57
  And and it's dictating his terms to you.
• 40:00
  But did you know Chuck before then, 'cause you knew me in Cam,
• 40:03
  but me? I knew you in Cam, Yeah.
• 40:05
  Far more social than Chuck. I thought he was going to.
• 40:09
  Say you would come into your bar and speak.
• 40:11
  Yeah, for sure, I'm. Just a regular normal guy.
• 40:13
  You would buy whiskey and talk to yourself about it back in the
• 40:16
  flat. Not met Chuck Chuck.
• 40:18
  Chuck doesn't go to Rose Street very often.
• 40:20
  No, no, no. That's.
• 40:22
  Fair too many. There's a lot of people like,
• 40:24
  famously doesn't like people. I get scared.
• 40:29
  And crap, immediately was whiskey something the two of you
• 40:32
  were able to kind of form a relationship over?
• 40:34
  I think so, yeah. Yeah.
• 40:36
  Yeah, you, you said, yeah, you said on your last podcast
• 40:40
  episode was like you got into whiskey out of spite because of
• 40:44
  the manager that you had. Yeah.
• 40:47
  And basically they said like that, but he was very
• 40:50
  predominantly into cocktails, which was the reason that you
• 40:53
  said, well, you're in the cocktails, I'm going to go into
• 40:55
  whiskey. And that means that you and I
• 40:57
  will never be able to. It won't be a but.
• 41:00
  So when you've gone back to the last word then.
• 41:04
  Yeah. Are you more open to cocktails
• 41:06
  or were you there going I want to be in whiskey or were you
• 41:09
  sort of opened? You mentioned that on about how
• 41:12
  the fact that Anthony kind of really opened you up to why
• 41:15
  things taste the way they taste. And stuff like that.
• 41:17
  Yeah, I mean, certainly I think I'm working at Scotch.
• 41:21
  I was really annoyed about making cocktails purely because
• 41:24
  of what we had in the bar. And then I worked in the Last
• 41:27
  Word. And I do remember like my first
• 41:29
  weekend, I was working, doing the bar, shaking cocktails, and
• 41:33
  I had a hotel shaker style, and I pulled all the muscles in my
• 41:38
  arm right the next morning I couldn't like, get off out of
• 41:40
  bed. What's a hotel?
• 41:42
  So what's a hotel shaker? I was gonna say, I've never
• 41:44
  heard of an injury by cocktail shaking.
• 41:46
  Well, I mean, you've never made like.
• 41:47
  Yeah, I. Never.
• 41:48
  I was. I became you when you left
• 41:49
  Scott. I refused to do anything to.
• 41:51
  Talk about whiskey, right? So I did get very jaded about it
• 41:54
  when I was working at the Cali when it came to cocktails.
• 41:56
  I wanted to get back into it, to be honest with you and rethink
• 41:59
  about it. But I the opportunity at the
• 42:02
  last word was with like the caveat that we have this
• 42:06
  selection and you can talk about it with customers.
• 42:09
  I would say the last word is probably about 80, 8020
• 42:13
  cocktails, whiskeys. For sure.
• 42:15
  That's funny. Yeah, that's.
• 42:17
  More. Because all.
• 42:18
  Those folks ones, I mean, you're saying being cocktails players?
• 42:21
  All their own recipes I. Mean, you've mentioned before
• 42:24
  you're kind of into mixing drinks and that's maybe you're
• 42:27
  more open than Chuck is to cocktails.
• 42:29
  I mean whiskey cocktails. Is that something you're a big
• 42:31
  fan of or? Absolutely.
• 42:33
  Yeah, yeah. And.
• 42:34
  The last word What kind of whiskey cocktails do you have in
• 42:36
  your menu? We usually have at least.
• 42:39
  I mean, if you count in international American whiskey,
• 42:41
  we should have at least three of four on the menu.
• 42:43
  It's a reasonably small menu as well.
• 42:44
  So that takes up about 25 you. Have an optic old fashioned.
• 42:48
  It's great. You get, yeah.
• 42:49
  That's I mean for old fashioned serve, we do have we do have an
• 42:52
  optics. It's not even on the menu.
• 42:53
  It's just the fact that it's it's.
• 42:54
  Not an optical fashion, but it's all.
• 42:57
  You change your cocktail menu as well because you do.
• 43:00
  Fairly, fairly often, yeah. Every few months, something like
• 43:02
  that. Minor changes.
• 43:03
  Yeah. I mean, for me, whiskey and
• 43:05
  cocktails were for starters, whiskey as in Scottish whiskey.
• 43:11
  Single malt whiskey works best in cocktails I find anyway,
• 43:14
  rather than blends, which blends are predominantly used than
• 43:16
  everyone's cocktails. And I think this idea that you
• 43:20
  can't mix a single malt is ridiculous.
• 43:22
  Especially when we heard that as well.
• 43:24
  Look. At the production.
• 43:25
  People say, oh, it's a blend, I'll put that in a cocktail, but
• 43:28
  actually you're coming from the point of view that single malts.
• 43:32
  Aiming for a certain flavour and then you'll use that.
• 43:34
  Why you know, Is it because single malt have distinctive
• 43:38
  characters to a cocktail, whereas a blend is something
• 43:41
  that should be more rounded? And Oh yeah, if you're a chef
• 43:44
  and you were trying to make a desk, you wouldn't usually go
• 43:46
  for something that is like, you go for a distinctive character
• 43:50
  when you want a distinctive character.
• 43:51
  So it's an interesting thing because we've talked a lot, a
• 43:54
  lot about is the fact that there's so many different
• 43:58
  perceptions within whiskey where people, there'll be people
• 44:00
  saying rubbish, you can't ruin a single malt by putting it in a
• 44:05
  cocktail. However, you know, like you've
• 44:08
  just said nothing about it makes it makes so much sense.
• 44:12
  See, when you break it down like that and you say, well, actually
• 44:14
  hang on a minute because yeah, I blamed that.
• 44:16
  Gregor Cut said that famously on like episode 4 or five when
• 44:20
  Glenmore Spirits. He said when you're making a
• 44:23
  blend, all you're doing is making flavour, right?
• 44:26
  So you're saying take a bit of that, take a bit, let's take it
• 44:28
  like that, right? Whereas a single malt might have
• 44:31
  something and you'll go like, well, that's I know like Angus
• 44:35
  has just said, it's, it's just saying it like that suddenly
• 44:39
  makes it so much easier that like it makes sense.
• 44:43
  It makes sense. Why would you take the rounded
• 44:44
  product that's already finished when you can have something that
• 44:47
  say I can get that exact type, a bit of smoke in there, a tiny
• 44:50
  little bit of tannins, a bit of Sherry sweetness and that is
• 44:54
  going to perfectly go with this type of as well.
• 44:57
  Grim, you were talking about it last week, the Johnny Walker
• 45:01
  experience in Edinburgh you mentioned on the pod last week
• 45:04
  and that has some ridiculous cocktails and it's all single
• 45:09
  malt. You know it's you're Lefrog.
• 45:10
  And, you know, you're, you're what you expect, Johnny.
• 45:13
  I do. Yeah.
• 45:14
  Khalilah. Yeah.
• 45:15
  Khalilah Lefrog. Yeah, I said like a villain.
• 45:18
  I've said Lefrog. I meant like a villain.
• 45:20
  I'm getting a mixed up. He's been away in his holidays.
• 45:22
  Give me a break. But yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly.
• 45:28
  And stuff like that. But I mean, you know, just doing
• 45:30
  some really cool things with them.
• 45:32
  I think it was Mike Brown who came on here.
• 45:34
  And again, through, through mixing and through.
• 45:37
  He's pretty fine. O'clock he came in and it was
• 45:40
  something simple like smoky whiskey goes so well with
• 45:42
  pineapple. Well, I was going to say it
• 45:46
  before you mentioning, is that not what Finn Thompson recipe
• 45:50
  for Irish whistle? That was Irish whiskey that he
• 45:53
  said pineapple juice, pineapple juice.
• 45:55
  But there's certain flavours. I think whiskey goes well with
• 45:58
  pineapple. Yeah.
• 45:59
  Yeah, a lot of whiskey goes well with pineapple.
• 46:00
  But then there's tropical. Flavours in whiskey.
• 46:02
  Sometimes, well, that's it, but there's so many people that
• 46:04
  would never associate like. So in terms of is there a go, is
• 46:07
  there a go to age? Like would you say younger
• 46:10
  whiskey works well with with this type of cocktail?
• 46:12
  Or would you say you need that thing because what are you
• 46:15
  actually trying to get from the whiskey into the cocktail?
• 46:17
  I think the main thing is that pretty much any age will work in
• 46:21
  a drink, trust me. But yes, the older the whiskey
• 46:25
  is, and the more complex the whiskey is for sure, the the
• 46:28
  harder it is to mix. You're working with a more
• 46:30
  complex flavour or, or what is more accurately, a more complex
• 46:35
  mix of flavours. We don't just describe a whiskey
• 46:38
  as one tasting note. We describe them as many and
• 46:41
  especially when they're complex with as layers and layers and
• 46:43
  layers. So yeah, of course it's going to
• 46:46
  be harder to mix a older whiskey for sure.
• 46:51
  This. Is probably a good time to bring
• 46:53
  our guests and you come over to get Angus's mic here a wee bit.
• 46:55
  And. Welcome.
• 47:00
  Just because what was what was discussed and Chuck and I is
• 47:06
  experiencing Scotch and you're experiencing Scotch, I would
• 47:09
  describe you as disgracefully more open minded than I was
• 47:13
  certainly because you're are trying to do more with whiskey
• 47:16
  cocktails in a five star environment.
• 47:18
  So do you have any big opinions on using because you're always
• 47:20
  using single malt for your? Cocktails, all right?
• 47:22
  Yeah. And it tastes good.
• 47:23
  It tastes good. Doesn't matter what was in it,
• 47:25
  right? But then does that does that add
• 47:27
  pressure to making a cocktail when you know, like like for
• 47:31
  example, right, this what this Chris Brown would stand alone on
• 47:34
  its own, right? 27 year old boomer and refill
• 47:38
  hogs head right? Yeah, So how smashable would
• 47:41
  that be as a highball? But that's what I mean.
• 47:44
  But this is where there. Might be some people, for
• 47:47
  example, that really want to like whiskey, right?
• 47:49
  So people come into the Balmoral Hotel, they're paying however
• 47:52
  much for their room and they go, do you know, well, my family,
• 47:54
  they drank Balveni and blah, blah blah.
• 47:57
  I want to like whiskey, but I've just no, not really got it.
• 48:00
  And you can go, well, let me make you a Balveni old fashioned
• 48:02
  or a whiskey sour, blah blah. So they still will get the
• 48:05
  appreciation and they can still get the knowledge and the
• 48:07
  education of this is the distillery, this is the
• 48:09
  information, this is the history.
• 48:11
  And they can have a drink toilet to their taste buds.
• 48:13
  Do you have a favorite? Cocktail freezer Favorite
• 48:16
  whiskey cocktail. Or one that you've come up with?
• 48:18
  No. Not really old fashions.
• 48:21
  Yeah. And in particular, you like
• 48:24
  making an old fashioned with? Yeah.
• 48:29
  Yeah, we ended up drinking a lot of what is the cocktail that's
• 48:32
  made of apricot that's normally got gin.
• 48:34
  Oh yeah, we there's a comfortable Charlie Chaplin we
• 48:38
  don't like. We basically, yeah, that's like,
• 48:41
  yeah, Peach juice and stuff, yeah.
• 48:43
  Yeah. So before I had my Japanese
• 48:47
  slipper face, we were drinking. Charlie Chaplin.
• 48:50
  We were drinking a lot of Charlie Chaplins and, you know,
• 48:52
  Mass whiskey, Charlie Chaplin. See if you had a wee mustache
• 48:55
  right now. But then all of a sudden we if
• 48:59
  we enjoy it, why won't we make it?
• 49:00
  And so phase are the didn't tell us whoever ordered this apricot
• 49:04
  liqueur and said we're going to make whiskey Charlie Chaplin's
• 49:06
  as a special cocktail. And the American clientele,
• 49:09
  Northman clientele loved it because not everybody wants
• 49:11
  that. Neat.
• 49:12
  Signal, but they. Still want the experience ties
• 49:15
  into your question. They still want to be to know
• 49:18
  they can still go home and say that they've tried Bulmore for.
• 49:20
  The first time. But it was our cocktails, it was
• 49:22
  more manageable for them. But from my point of view, what
• 49:24
  I'm saying is if a drum, if a drum can stand in its own right.
• 49:31
  How many people drink meat whiskey?
• 49:32
  Well, that's it. But if you could say.
• 49:35
  Fat for you. Yeah, I mean.
• 49:37
  But This is why I'm interested in knowing like when I'm I'm
• 49:43
  still I'm first of all, hands up not I'm not a cocktail drinker,
• 49:46
  don't don't particularly enjoy cocktails that that might be a
• 49:49
  lager tops it. I'm not a lager exactly these
• 49:52
  slice of lemon and it'll be umbrella and I'll.
• 49:54
  Be happy, but I think in the way that a year ago you wouldn't
• 49:56
  have drank non Scotch whiskey or non single.
• 49:59
  This is what? You could be opened up to.
• 50:01
  Of course. And there'll be people who are
• 50:03
  listening and watching this. You will be saying you wouldn't
• 50:06
  find me. Oh, absolutely.
• 50:08
  That entire cocktail, when I know I can have that on its own
• 50:12
  and it would be absolutely fine. So for me then you'd say, and
• 50:16
  for these people, they might say, well, what about for
• 50:19
  example, we've got Star Wars here, we've talked, we've never
• 50:23
  tried it Actually the ginger beer cast like that.
• 50:29
  For me, I would say somebody making a cocktail like that,
• 50:32
  that would be pretty an interesting whiskey to you.
• 50:35
  Or would that make it too complex for you to could?
• 50:37
  Could I cut in on that? I think one of my main things in
• 50:41
  regards so I also have I might like making cocktails.
• 50:45
  It might be a big part of the scene, but like I so you talked
• 50:49
  about a 27 year old single Casper or is that?
• 50:53
  Yeah, I wouldn't dream of putting that in a cocktail
• 50:55
  personally. And and it's not because that I
• 50:59
  don't think it would work in a cocktail.
• 51:00
  Of course it would. And it's not because it's more
• 51:03
  because that's a really unique product.
• 51:05
  There's probably what, 200 bottles, something like that
• 51:08
  around there. Yeah.
• 51:11
  It's specifically designed the technique.
• 51:13
  Exactly. So that's what you got,
• 51:15
  something like a Starwood, even even this small, small batch,
• 51:19
  I'm assuming there's a fair few 1000 bottles, if not a bit more
• 51:23
  around of that stuff. Sure.
• 51:24
  I'm not that in a cocktail because I'm not taking that
• 51:26
  experience away from anyone. I'm just adding a different
• 51:28
  experience that other people. So that's that's what I was sort
• 51:31
  of looking at is the fact that like there will be some whiskeys
• 51:33
  that are made for standard like this is made as a standalone
• 51:37
  whiskey. Yes, have a little bit of water
• 51:38
  and if maybe you want to put ice in it and what have you.
• 51:41
  But at the same time, from a person who makes cocktails, you
• 51:44
  know, and you guys have always said it.
• 51:46
  If someone came in and said I want that McAllen 40 but I want
• 51:50
  it in a Japanese. Slipper.
• 51:53
  Or whatever. You can't sit and go.
• 51:55
  Sorry, no. No, because whiskey is to be
• 51:58
  dried the way someone wants to drive and.
• 51:59
  Also, people will be as offended by some people having whiskey
• 52:02
  with ice as they would some people having whiskey with a
• 52:05
  vermouth. Do you know, do you remember?
• 52:08
  Do you remember to be fair if. Someone asked me for a McCann
• 52:11
  for a as an old fashioned. I would say just to be aware
• 52:15
  like this one is going to cost and also it's probably not the
• 52:21
  best way to enjoy it. Yeah, I would advise this and
• 52:23
  better there's someone to go for it.
• 52:24
  You do, you could do. That you can absolutely
• 52:26
  recommend. You can, you can mention your
• 52:28
  recommendations in a polite manner, but at the end of the
• 52:31
  day, we're working that we work in hospitality, Yeah.
• 52:33
  And if someone wants a drink in a certain way and it's a
• 52:37
  feasible, reasonable, forget you how you feel about whiskey, it's
• 52:41
  a reasonable order at end of the day.
• 52:43
  Yeah, and I'm sure you're making the what?
• 52:47
  Would be an unreasonable order. Which, you know, I'd, I'd, I'd
• 52:51
  rather make that than Joe. I'll have a McAllen 40 in Red
• 52:54
  Bull. You know it would.
• 52:55
  That. You could always go further
• 52:57
  guys, but like. And Red Bill?
• 53:03
  Not whiskey related but sometimes you get martini specs
• 53:05
  for people that you're just like.
• 53:07
  This is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard.
• 53:09
  It's just like. Still make it.
• 53:10
  Yeah, of course you are like this, you taste of you.
• 53:14
  Are you are obliged? I think not obliged.
• 53:17
  I think if you're passionate about anything really, let's
• 53:22
  talk about whiskey now, obviously, but passionate about
• 53:24
  whiskey for sure. I think you should give your
• 53:26
  recommendations. I don't think you're just a
• 53:28
  mindless servant to be doing that.
• 53:29
  But yeah, that's that is exactly how I want it.
• 53:33
  And you're like, well, that's you paid for it, mate, and who
• 53:36
  am I to stop you? You're like and.
• 53:38
  I've had this happen. Somebody comes definitely into
• 53:41
  like a glompetic 21, old fashioned.
• 53:43
  They know what they want. Yeah, exactly.
• 53:44
  Yeah, great. Is it a 40 good up?
• 53:46
  Yes, it is. And you know what, It's probably
• 53:48
  delicious and I am just not in the moment in the market for
• 53:52
  that drink personally. Yeah, but I wouldn't blink an
• 53:55
  eye at that. But what happens in?
• 53:56
  Specific is that I would go whatever you.
• 53:58
  Want. But what happens then?
• 53:59
  And this is from like and it'd be interested to know if there's
• 54:02
  a sort of mixologist's code where the code of the.
• 54:07
  Mixologist. Like 21 in an old fashion.
• 54:10
  Yeah, sounds great. But what if someone is to ask
• 54:12
  you for a specific cocktail and say, but I would like this type
• 54:18
  of whiskey in it and you know that's going to be shy.
• 54:23
  Yeah. Right.
• 54:24
  And you've got. You just tell them it's going to
• 54:26
  be shy and you. But yeah, it's.
• 54:28
  Quite. It's quite simple like and
• 54:30
  that's what's do you know what? That's what's great about
• 54:32
  certain elements. Do you know I've never worked
• 54:34
  in, let's say, silver spoon environment?
• 54:38
  If I think something's going to be shy, I will quite literally
• 54:40
  tell them it's going to be shy. Are you sure?
• 54:44
  Yeah, I can tell. Well, I can tell a story from
• 54:47
  Scotch in which I did this. Please do.
• 54:49
  We had a guy come in and he said he would like an Rd. bag sour.
• 54:53
  And I was like, that's a that's a lot of smoke PE whiskey.
• 54:57
  I don't think I'd recommend that.
• 54:58
  And he was like, oh, I was like, I can maybe split, split it, you
• 55:01
  know, do half of it, say another yeah, monkey shoulder.
• 55:06
  And then our big 10. And it, it took a little bit of
• 55:09
  convincing, but he was like, yeah, OK, I'll do that.
• 55:11
  Made the drink for him. And then he said, yeah, it's OK,
• 55:15
  but I'd rather have an our big sour.
• 55:17
  And then he showed me his business card and don't develop.
• 55:20
  No, it wasn't, but it was like head of our big.
• 55:23
  Because I'll tell you I've made, I've made an our big.
• 55:25
  I'll tell you I I made and our big sour and Scotch and it was
• 55:30
  ordered by Doctor Bill Lumsden, who is the man who puts all our
• 55:33
  big Glamorgy in the bottles. Yeah, well, I've just started
• 55:36
  Doctor Bill Lumsden. Listen, couldn't get back to me
• 55:38
  on LinkedIn. You messaged me back.
• 55:42
  I said I love the athletic arms diggers and I'd be happy to come
• 55:46
  on your podcast. But that was about six months
• 55:48
  ago and you haven't responded to the further 4 messages I've
• 55:52
  sent. You said.
• 55:52
  Hi Doctor Bill NHS I can. Tell you probably haven't let
• 55:57
  him. I can tell you that Doctor
• 55:59
  Williamson and Mr. McDonald's Old Scapa distillery manager,
• 56:03
  I've come into Scotch and several times when I was there
• 56:05
  and ordered Ardbeg Urgadal sours.
• 56:09
  And do you know what I am with the opinion of Great.
• 56:14
  But have you ever tried it? I don't like Arbec, it's not to
• 56:18
  my taste. But that's the other thing is
• 56:21
  like the fact that like someone might come in and say that's a
• 56:25
  obviously you're storage Chuck. This.
• 56:27
  Is the guy who knows to you it sounds like that's probably not
• 56:31
  going to work, but for them, they've got it sounds like it
• 56:33
  shouldn't work. But I've had it and I can tell
• 56:35
  you right now it absolutely does.
• 56:37
  You know it's the. Same as drinking whiskey, it's
• 56:39
  such an individual thing. Well, it's like when we had
• 56:40
  Tector McLean on the podcast and I guess and he was saying about
• 56:45
  how he he gave his recommendation of pairing cigars
• 56:49
  with whiskey. Yeah.
• 56:50
  And he was talking about how it sounds counterintuitive.
• 56:54
  And I hope there will be plenty of people that have learned
• 56:56
  this. But they said a smoky whiskey
• 56:58
  with a cigar does not work. No, No.
• 57:00
  Yeah. Because he said you're just
• 57:01
  cancelling out. Now, don't get me wrong, there
• 57:04
  will probably be a smoky whiskey out there that does probably
• 57:08
  appear quite nicely. But he was explaining, and there
• 57:10
  will be people out there that love.
• 57:12
  Yeah, smoky whiskey with a cigar.
• 57:14
  And that's fine. I think that's more the point,
• 57:15
  though, isn't it? Yeah, it's it's what?
• 57:17
  However you like to drink your whiskey, you should absolutely
• 57:20
  drink your whiskey that way. Why should anyone tell you
• 57:23
  different? Yeah, there's a difference
• 57:24
  between someone saying this is how I would do it and being
• 57:27
  like, you can't have that. But then if I was being on the
• 57:29
  flip side of that, and again, from a cocktail point of view, I
• 57:33
  remember being early, early 20s. Ponce time my teenage is it.
• 57:39
  And I can't remember that and I won't name it because I can't
• 57:43
  really remember. I know what it was.
• 57:45
  But living in Kirkcaldy, a girl and I went out in Edinburgh and
• 57:49
  I thought I found that really fancy cocktail bar.
• 57:53
  Now to give you tiny. Lily isn't that fancy.
• 57:55
  No. Well, to give you 20 one year
• 58:02
  old, yeah, yeah, sort of cocktails are jugs of cocktails
• 58:06
  that you're getting for two, like 5 LB and whatever that's
• 58:09
  what you want. You're wearing a blazer in the
• 58:10
  set. You're.
• 58:12
  Talking about so I'm taking this, this, this last, and we
• 58:15
  looked, first of all, looked at the cocktails like where is Sex
• 58:18
  in the Beach, Cosmopolitan, porn star martinis and that.
• 58:22
  So we kind of went and there was one, I don't know what it was,
• 58:25
  but it was a cocktail that I thought I should like and I
• 58:29
  absolutely hated it and it scunnered me with the cost as
• 58:34
  well. Trying to show off.
• 58:35
  We'll go Edinburgh, take the cocktail.
• 58:36
  But like you said, Ross, Oh, everyone thinks title lies now
• 58:40
  this is our it was a real cocktail joint cost us a fortune
• 58:44
  and we both absolutely hated it at a time because we were like,
• 58:48
  this isn't the kind of cocktails that we were expecting through a
• 58:51
  limited. But then that, that annoys me
• 58:54
  when you say, well, actually, you know, what, if I like a
• 58:57
  strawberry diet, can I made like that, then give me a strawberry
• 59:00
  diet. So from your point of view, then
• 59:03
  where does it, where does the craft change where you've got to
• 59:07
  make it, where this is how we make our cocktails here versus
• 59:11
  trying to make the cocktail for the person?
• 59:12
  And also to balance that question with you have to put a
• 59:15
  menu, you as a venue manager, you put a menu together.
• 59:17
  Yeah. So do you try and balance out as
• 59:20
  2-3 better style cocktails, some tall cocktails, some stirred
• 59:24
  down? How do you balance that?
• 59:26
  Yeah, it's a little bit of a one for me, one for you Sure.
• 59:29
  You know, like it's it's and some people don't, you know, and
• 59:34
  that's and that's thing. I mean, our most popular drink
• 59:36
  that flies out is probably the most popular drink, which in the
• 59:40
  world, which is stupidly as a spicy Margarita.
• 59:43
  Yeah, it's not. I understand why people like it,
• 59:45
  but it's just it just is what it is.
• 59:47
  Yeah. Yeah, use something.
• 59:49
  Your team will put a cocktail and you go.
• 59:51
  That's. Excellent.
• 59:51
  I said, right, OK, if people are going to ask for this, you can
• 59:55
  either be a salty, salty git and go, well, I think that's silly,
• 59:59
  so I'm not going to do that, or you can.
• 1:00:02
  Go Should we just see what we can do and make the best
• 1:00:05
  version? Of that So what is that talking
• 1:00:07
  to me We're fast moving I really.
• 1:00:10
  Don't want to go into spicy? Margaritas, Margaret, because
• 1:00:13
  I've got a funny story about Margaret with the greatest
• 1:00:15
  respect, in the words of some of our American listeners and your
• 1:00:18
  current life for us, Margarita is different flavours of
• 1:00:23
  Margarita. I must say that right?
• 1:00:26
  In this case is a little bit of that, yeah, but.
• 1:00:28
  So basically I was at a restaurant in Saint Andrews and
• 1:00:31
  I remember a large table of Americans turned up and there
• 1:00:34
  was like 5 different margaritas on their menu, right?
• 1:00:39
  And they were like, they were like, yeah, can we get like 8
• 1:00:42
  margaritas please? And she was like.
• 1:00:44
  Yeah, What flavour of Margarita would you like?
• 1:00:46
  And they had like I'm brew Margarita and stuff like that.
• 1:00:49
  That's not a Margarita. Menu, yeah, fantastic.
• 1:00:51
  But she went through the venue and I can't remember and they
• 1:00:56
  were like, none of them could. And then the woman was like, can
• 1:00:59
  we just get a Margarita flavour of Margarita, please?
• 1:01:02
  But it just sounded like can you get a Margarita?
• 1:01:04
  Margarita. Oh, was that the story?
• 1:01:06
  No. So recently people normally
• 1:01:07
  don't flavour margaritas, let's say just tequila and lime and.
• 1:01:11
  Yeah, well, that was why, because they were like, can we
• 1:01:14
  just have a normal? Margaritas.
• 1:01:16
  Margarita, Margarita, please. And it just sounded silly to
• 1:01:19
  have that. I wasn't like, I didn't know,
• 1:01:22
  like, is that a thing? Yeah, for sure.
• 1:01:25
  That's the thing. I've never heard of Andrew
• 1:01:26
  Margaritas until right now there.
• 1:01:28
  Were kind of cocktails that I was enjoying and I was
• 1:01:32
  expecting. This cocktail, it depends on
• 1:01:34
  where and when you are from on what your kind of conception of
• 1:01:39
  cocktails are. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:01:42
  And it's not just when, it's where as well.
• 1:01:44
  You can go to Bourbon Street right now, New Orleans and go
• 1:01:47
  get a plastic cup full of ice and grenadine and a plastic
• 1:01:52
  shark and, and, and that's still a thing now.
• 1:01:55
  That's, that's and that's what they consider a cocktail.
• 1:01:58
  But you can, you can also. Yeah, you you can also go into.
• 1:02:02
  Whatever you want to make. Bars they're.
• 1:02:04
  Going to pandas where they're freezing and taking out the the
• 1:02:08
  frozen water at cocktails. No, not just cocktails.
• 1:02:12
  They will freeze down spirits to a point where they actually
• 1:02:14
  freeze. Yeah, take out out the alcohol
• 1:02:18
  content as as take out the the water, leave the alcohol and
• 1:02:22
  then replace the water in alcohol as something different.
• 1:02:27
  It's cool. Like it's bizarre.
• 1:02:29
  That's my point. Everyone's conception of
• 1:02:31
  cocktails is very different. And you have to, if you're
• 1:02:33
  designing a menu, you have to, you have to adhere to that.
• 1:02:35
  And you have to make sure that your cocktail menu is both
• 1:02:39
  adventurous yet accessible. It's very difficult.
• 1:02:42
  It is what it is. And so to put you under better
• 1:02:44
  pressure before we move to the child's care story of please do.
• 1:02:46
  Yeah. And for for for listeners at
• 1:02:50
  home. Kardar under.
• 1:02:51
  Who maybe have a little back bar in their house or you know, some
• 1:02:55
  pals get together or whatever. And whose bar are we talking
• 1:02:58
  about? You know, there's a couple is
• 1:03:00
  this boy Internet who's part of the Facebook group whose bar
• 1:03:03
  looks fantastic. What's it come out?
• 1:03:05
  I don't have a phone. Darling as well what I say his
• 1:03:07
  name is. Is a great doubt.
• 1:03:10
  Will he get his name? He'll.
• 1:03:11
  Get his name up for sure. Shout out.
• 1:03:13
  Shout out to. This point.
• 1:03:14
  He has a fantastic barn, does not live far enough away for us
• 1:03:17
  not to go and raise a whiskey. Barn, Let's see, that's all I'm
• 1:03:21
  telling you. Actually as much closer than I
• 1:03:25
  thought. So somebody at home who maybe
• 1:03:27
  has it could be a bourbon, it could be a Scotch, could be
• 1:03:30
  whatever. What's a cocktail that people
• 1:03:32
  can make at home? A whiskey based cocktail that
• 1:03:34
  you think is pretty pretty good and pretty indicative of
• 1:03:37
  somebody a whiskey drinker. If you're a whiskey drinker and
• 1:03:40
  the day you want something that accentuates, it's built around
• 1:03:42
  the whiskey and it's not the the whiskey.
• 1:03:45
  You're not. Kind of Sue Cocktail.
• 1:03:46
  Yeah, exactly. And there is an era of cocktails
• 1:03:48
  where you just hide in the spirit.
• 1:03:50
  But yeah, if you're trying to accentuate, you talked about an
• 1:03:53
  old fashioned, there is nothing like all you're doing is adding
• 1:03:56
  sugar really, and a bit of bitters.
• 1:03:58
  Yeah, because the counteract that sugar, but that is going to
• 1:04:01
  accentuate whatever you're doing.
• 1:04:02
  And yeah, we can laugh about how it's a pretty silly to order a
• 1:04:05
  brand fitting 4 year old, but generally speaking, if you've
• 1:04:09
  got some bitters and you've got some sugar and you've got some
• 1:04:12
  whiskey, it accentuates those flavours that you might want in
• 1:04:15
  that. Of course then you can play with
• 1:04:17
  usually four or five wine plays well with with whiskey.
• 1:04:20
  Just make sure you get the right pair in there.
• 1:04:22
  Yeah, and vermouth and. So people that are less than
• 1:04:25
  how, how would you make an old fashioned at home?
• 1:04:28
  I can tell you, I can tell you. I make an old.
• 1:04:30
  Fashioned at home, I. Love it.
• 1:04:33
  So what I would do? Teaspoon.
• 1:04:36
  No about second. This is clippable just.
• 1:04:41
  A little bit of that camera there, I get like a kind of pint
• 1:04:44
  glass teaspoon or whatever in the bottom of it.
• 1:04:46
  Well, whatever's not an ingredient you need to start.
• 1:04:48
  About a teaspoon of sugar, sugar, water just to make it a
• 1:04:52
  syrup. Nice, nice.
• 1:04:53
  Orange bitters, about 6 drops of then sex.
• 1:04:59
  I both so well, I quite quite like the orange.
• 1:05:02
  Ignore him. That's.
• 1:05:04
  What I do? But the and then he's.
• 1:05:06
  Whatever. And then as much whiskey as you
• 1:05:10
  fancy, really. But like.
• 1:05:11
  That should basically. Maybe like 100 Miller whiskey
• 1:05:14
  and then just mix it all together, a bit of ice.
• 1:05:17
  But what are you putting out? And then and then if.
• 1:05:19
  You really want to be fancy, but orange peel.
• 1:05:21
  In the in the glass. Well, I think the orange peel is
• 1:05:23
  a very good. Point to say the the pint glass
• 1:05:26
  as the. Reception are you putting?
• 1:05:27
  Ice into the lighting. Worrying.
• 1:05:29
  But I don't have a spoon, have a spoon like that.
• 1:05:31
  I don't have a shaker, just to. Clarify so you're making the
• 1:05:36
  syrup in the pint glass. Syrup in the pint glass.
• 1:05:38
  I think the I think the better is and then adding the whiskey.
• 1:05:41
  But are you then drinking it from the pipe glass?
• 1:05:43
  No, I'm pouring it into. It I'm pouring.
• 1:05:45
  It from my pipe glass and into your.
• 1:05:48
  Best No no. No, no.
• 1:05:49
  What's? That can you run a bath what's
• 1:05:54
  in the bath and as a pipe because.
• 1:05:55
  What you just described was a pint of whiskey with a bit of
• 1:05:58
  sugar, but that makes a lot more sense.
• 1:05:59
  No, no, I pour it. Into it.
• 1:06:01
  This isn't a pint with ice. And I bet that's probably pretty
• 1:06:05
  tasty. And I would, yeah.
• 1:06:06
  And I usually use like, like you recommended on on the Facebook
• 1:06:10
  group if you've got the Tesco club card, Buffalo Trace, Wild
• 1:06:15
  Turkey, something like that. Actually probably just a very
• 1:06:19
  good final point, a very good final point from can you just
• 1:06:23
  mention Buffalo Trace accidentally?
• 1:06:24
  Fantastic segue there. Mr. Shepherd used to just done
• 1:06:28
  something to Buffalo Trace. We have, although it doesn't
• 1:06:31
  feel like we just did something and that's, that's the nature of
• 1:06:35
  yeah, yeah, really cool. Honestly.
• 1:06:36
  Like one of the, one of the highlights of my career was we,
• 1:06:41
  we, we went to Kentucky, we went to Frankfurt, we went to the
• 1:06:45
  Buffalo Trace distillery and we got to be part of the barrel
• 1:06:50
  select program at Buffalo Trace. So for anyone who's not familiar
• 1:06:53
  with the barrel select programs, but they do, it's pretty common
• 1:06:56
  actually in, in the States. And I, I got to have been to
• 1:06:59
  visit some whiskey bars that have been part of those programs
• 1:07:01
  there as well. You don't see it as much here.
• 1:07:05
  It's the idea that you go out there, you select a single
• 1:07:09
  barrel of whiskey from the distillery, but they do the
• 1:07:12
  bottling. Yeah.
• 1:07:13
  So that you're not an independent bottler, you're not
• 1:07:15
  someone who's buying that barrel.
• 1:07:17
  It's just a barrel. So you can go.
• 1:07:18
  So it you're buying it, but they are doing all the bottling.
• 1:07:22
  And yes, yeah, exactly that, yeah.
• 1:07:25
  So the last word in Edinburgh, you have your own.
• 1:07:28
  Buffalo Trace. Yeah, exclusive Buffalo Trace
• 1:07:31
  for that. You're involved at 45% as well,
• 1:07:33
  a little bit higher than the 40. 5%.
• 1:07:36
  Yeah. So you managed to get yourself,
• 1:07:37
  that's not a standard Buffalo exclusive for your 3 venues in
• 1:07:40
  town. That's class and you.
• 1:07:42
  Went over. Yeah, very cool.
• 1:07:43
  We did. Yeah.
• 1:07:44
  That was, I mean, that was the funnest part of it, right?
• 1:07:46
  Yeah. That's a nice bone.
• 1:07:48
  That's. Really good.
• 1:07:49
  I guess I've totally had forgotten that was a thing.
• 1:07:52
  So last night Ross, talk about your because we can maybe put
• 1:07:55
  away whiskey stories whiskey pod whiskey cocktail menu together,
• 1:08:01
  right? Talk us through your whiskey
• 1:08:03
  cocktail. Well, I am not a big whiskey
• 1:08:08
  cocktail maker, but I'm a reasonably sizable whiskey
• 1:08:11
  cocktail consumer. I like.
• 1:08:17
  Reasonably sizable. I I I like a Rob Roy.
• 1:08:20
  OK, so so Manhattan but the Scotch whiskey, but I've never
• 1:08:23
  really done your driver with your sweet removing it's very
• 1:08:26
  easy to do is yeah. Orange Bowl driver with Sweet.
• 1:08:29
  Roof I I like a Rob Roy as well, or a Manhattan I.
• 1:08:32
  But I, I I. Don't know how to make it so
• 1:08:34
  Laura has to make it, but we don't have any vermouth in the
• 1:08:36
  house at the moment so I haven't had it in a while.
• 1:08:37
  So I used to make it and for a guest, the memorial, I would
• 1:08:40
  say, can I make it the way that I like it?
• 1:08:42
  Because obviously it's Rob Roy. Such a Scotch and also I am
• 1:08:45
  hyper sensitive to better spirits and liqueurs so I'll
• 1:08:49
  never order anything with Campari or any really kind of
• 1:08:52
  better vermouths, although vermouth generally could be a
• 1:08:55
  touch better anyway. But I would use and Fraser.
• 1:08:57
  You'll know the brand. It's an Italian brand beginning
• 1:09:00
  of C. It's called the cocky cocky.
• 1:09:03
  So I so I would let's say do like 65ML of Confederate 15,
• 1:09:09
  30ML of coffee and then start. The best coffee was what?
• 1:09:13
  Sorry. It's a sweet vermouth, Italian
• 1:09:15
  vermouth. I start over ice very busy, but
• 1:09:18
  orange bitters and orange twist and that was I could three of
• 1:09:23
  them and I'd be skipping home. Right.
• 1:09:25
  And why did you pick one for like 15 for that then?
• 1:09:27
  Oh, at the time we use them for like 15, so I drank the most of
• 1:09:30
  them are certainly like quality assured most of them with
• 1:09:33
  lymphatic 15. But actually, I'll just take
• 1:09:35
  anything on peated, right. And but yeah, that was very
• 1:09:40
  lucky. That's what we're making.
• 1:09:41
  But Rob Roy's my my kind of go to.
• 1:09:44
  But realistically, as Fraser said, as Ant said, if I go to a
• 1:09:48
  new bar, I can normally judge whether I'm going to light the
• 1:09:51
  bar or not if I ordering the old fashioned, Right.
• 1:09:54
  OK. And when we go out, Fraser order
• 1:09:56
  a bourbon old fashioned and I'll order a Scotch old fashioned.
• 1:09:58
  Actually, I order, sorry, I order a bourbon old fashioned.
• 1:10:01
  Yours the Scotch Old fashioned, because if you I have a sweet
• 1:10:03
  tooth, I like bourbon. I'll order bourbon fashioned.
• 1:10:06
  You got. Not that that that's similar,
• 1:10:09
  but that little difference having a rye or Scotch.
• 1:10:12
  So, well, Angus has been the recipient of my hot todies.
• 1:10:18
  Oh, you're a hot dog. Famous, famous hot dog.
• 1:10:22
  We'll create a a Whiskey Stories cocktail menu.
• 1:10:25
  I don't that's a good idea at all.
• 1:10:26
  And I was, I was an old fashioned, an old fashioned.
• 1:10:30
  Your pint glass old fashioned. Pint of Old Fashioned Robbie
• 1:10:35
  Roy. Robbie Roy.
• 1:10:36
  Fearful of the specs of Angus's it's.
• 1:10:40
  A hot toddy, so my toddy, right? So it's this time of year and I
• 1:10:45
  guess we have enjoyed it. I'll get some very soon.
• 1:10:49
  So it's quite a complex situation.
• 1:10:50
  It requires two single malt whiskies, right?
• 1:10:53
  And what I'll do is I'll get, and again, similar to what we've
• 1:10:55
  discussed, so I'll get the Crabbies ginger beer first of
• 1:10:58
  all, right? So put the Crabbies ginger beer
• 1:11:00
  in ginger balls, right? Honey glazed ginger balls,
• 1:11:05
  right? You're looking at Chuck when
• 1:11:07
  you're saying that. Funny ginger balls, right?
• 1:11:13
  So you pour pour about easily two or three of the crabbies
• 1:11:16
  ginger beer in a pack, right 2. Or three what?
• 1:11:20
  Balls of Crabbies ginger beer. Bottles of the Crabbies ginger
• 1:11:25
  beer. This is a batch of hot toddy.
• 1:11:28
  This goes in a flask, a big flask or basically it's Lego.
• 1:11:32
  My Christmas Day is that's why I wake up on Boxing Day with a
• 1:11:36
  serious hangover. I just tan this stuff right.
• 1:11:38
  So start the day, I like get some cloves and what do you
• 1:11:44
  have? Cinnamon sticks, cup of
• 1:11:46
  cinnamon, cinnamon, ginger balls in there.
• 1:11:48
  And then with the honey, get the honey, stick the honey in there
• 1:11:52
  as well. Right now this is the key bet is
• 1:11:54
  I get whiskey that gives it a taste of whiskey, but takes so a
• 1:11:58
  telescope. 10 They're important here because what you're getting
• 1:12:02
  is that braininess and it takes us or put all probably 12 it
• 1:12:06
  takes the sort of edge of the sweetness that you're having.
• 1:12:09
  Then Bundaberg, another bottle of two of Bundaberg in there.
• 1:12:14
  Ginger beer. Ginger beer, probably, yeah.
• 1:12:17
  Then you get it was Ben Romik 10 last Christmas.
• 1:12:22
  A massive measure of that goes into the.
• 1:12:25
  That's what you're calling as a massive measure.
• 1:12:28
  Then .1 massive measure and. Mozilla, your smile is at its
• 1:12:32
  peak. Because that either goes into
• 1:12:33
  what their heart is, the mugs will be laid out and it's a
• 1:12:36
  healthy DRAM of then romac 10 in each of the mugs, or if it's a
• 1:12:43
  hip not hip flask, thermal flask a good.
• 1:12:48
  Whiskey. Just just raw whiskey in the
• 1:12:50
  bottom of your glass. Yeah, then a ladle obviously
• 1:12:54
  strain it so you've got the hot liquid there which have.
• 1:12:58
  You cooked off the telescope. 10 So the telescope. 10 alcohol is
• 1:13:01
  gone, but what you're but you've.
• 1:13:03
  Got you've got a large bedroom like at the bottom you've cut.
• 1:13:05
  But you're getting the flavour out of it and it's a nice cherry
• 1:13:09
  or something cherried in there and a big either in ear mug, a
• 1:13:13
  ladle and ladle and ladle. And so you're talking about 35
• 1:13:15
  what we'll see for 35 mils, right?
• 1:13:18
  And of Ben Roic 10 at the bottom of each mug.
• 1:13:21
  And then a Lego of what? Please, please, please drink
• 1:13:24
  responsibly for lesson at home. You know.
• 1:13:31
  Maybe make this on a small batch the first time you try.
• 1:13:34
  Lemon. Sorry, lemon juice as well.
• 1:13:35
  We sweet lemon. This sounds like you've made
• 1:13:38
  like a 5 gallon. Industrial kitchen with some
• 1:13:44
  ginger. You'll get.
• 1:13:46
  You'll. Get.
• 1:13:48
  It's very nice. I want to be there for this.
• 1:13:51
  So basically, that's what we're going to do.
• 1:13:52
  Well, what? We do with these stories
• 1:13:56
  Christmas parties. There is discussion which.
• 1:13:58
  There's discussions for right now.
• 1:13:59
  Maybe we'll need you to bring a batch of your.
• 1:14:01
  In fact, there you go. Bring along a bag of sugar.
• 1:14:06
  I'm gonna bring a pint glass. Bag of sugar, a bite.
• 1:14:09
  Well, I get a pint glass, you know.
• 1:14:10
  Yeah, there we go. Right.
• 1:14:11
  Anyway, Chuck, talk to us about Australia.
• 1:14:13
  So how you? Service segment.
• 1:14:17
  House, we've brought, we've brought you back.
• 1:14:19
  You travelled the world, you spent a lot of time in Asia.
• 1:14:22
  We we already spoke about your fantastic time at Beacon Hill,
• 1:14:24
  but maybe it would be good to go into that again.
• 1:14:26
  OK, talk about when you first arrived.
• 1:14:29
  And. Also, let's pour your first DRAM
• 1:14:31
  because you brought us some fantastic samples.
• 1:14:33
  As well, I've run out of all of my.
• 1:14:34
  Yeah, yeah, I've not had anything for quite a while now.
• 1:14:37
  So let you introduce the first DRAM and then take us through
• 1:14:39
  your story. OK, well, I mean, I suppose so.
• 1:14:42
  I spent most of my time in Australia in Melbourne.
• 1:14:44
  I think we'll go for the lecture.
• 1:14:46
  Of the two of these, and based in Melbourne, probably the
• 1:14:50
  biggest distillery and probably most widely known would be Star
• 1:14:53
  Wars. So I brought along 2 Star Wars
• 1:14:56
  here and we have. Can you hold this for a second?
• 1:15:00
  Yeah, we have Bourbon cast #2. I know not like it's on video or
• 1:15:06
  anything so it's fine. And again.
• 1:15:09
  So currently Charles is struggling to open up this
• 1:15:12
  bottle whiskey. Just.
• 1:15:13
  Nervous. So we got Bourbon cast #2 So
• 1:15:17
  this is the second. This is Starward, fully matured
• 1:15:20
  in Bourbon Cast. Starward opened up in 2008.
• 1:15:25
  The vast majority of the liquid is matured in red wine casks.
• 1:15:28
  OK, right. Shiraz casks probably.
• 1:15:30
  Just a mixture. I have it in my notes but I'm
• 1:15:32
  not going to look at it because I'm a professional.
• 1:15:34
  So Shiraz and probably more long as well.
• 1:15:38
  I should have read my notes. An interesting thing about the
• 1:15:42
  the Star Wars popped up on my radar long before I really
• 1:15:45
  started enjoying whiskey was they do a 360° virtual tour of
• 1:15:48
  distiller on their website and it's it's a really start.
• 1:15:52
  Cool. You can walk through this
• 1:15:54
  gallery and what they've got is different areas where different
• 1:15:58
  360 videos happen. So one of the things is you,
• 1:16:01
  you, you virtual tour into the into the sort of warehouse that
• 1:16:06
  they have. And what will be is there's a
• 1:16:09
  guy standing there drawing samples at a cast and tasting
• 1:16:12
  it. And whilst he's tasting it, he's
• 1:16:13
  talking. But what you can do is when
• 1:16:15
  you're screaming, you can kind of swipe through.
• 1:16:17
  So you're kind of looking around the distillery or the warehouse
• 1:16:22
  at the. Same time.
• 1:16:24
  That's cool, that popped up on my I.
• 1:16:26
  Think they're one of the first people to do it, which is why I
• 1:16:30
  meant because I've also brought up a marketing event and
• 1:16:34
  somebody had brought up that also just before we try this
• 1:16:37
  first whiskey and you tell us more about the distillery for
• 1:16:39
  people that have never had Australian whiskey before, why
• 1:16:42
  is it going to be different to whiskey that we're producing
• 1:16:44
  here in Scotland? Climate's a really big factor in
• 1:16:47
  it. I mean, it is made to Scottish
• 1:16:51
  standards. It's 100%.
• 1:16:52
  It's still 100% barley. Barley.
• 1:16:55
  I believe minimum maturation's two years rather than three.
• 1:16:59
  I'm not. I've been really generous in
• 1:17:01
  these pores. Almost as generous as me.
• 1:17:05
  Yeah, but the big one will be climate.
• 1:17:09
  I mean with Melbourne, it's I suppose if we talk about Angel
• 1:17:13
  share and rate of evaporation, you're probably losing about 8
• 1:17:16
  to 10%. So this is 52% by the weekend.
• 1:17:20
  And also what I find really interesting is alcohol content
• 1:17:23
  actually increases. Yeah.
• 1:17:25
  So with the humidity levels, you're actually getting a higher
• 1:17:29
  ABV. So interestingly enough, not all
• 1:17:31
  distilleries will do this. Star word do.
• 1:17:34
  And actually, when you had George from friggin drops, he
• 1:17:38
  would have been, I think when he was working there, they made a
• 1:17:41
  different spirit at the time and their filling strength was 63%.
• 1:17:46
  And I think he talked about it on the podcast, how he would
• 1:17:49
  fill casks one day and then, you know, an hour later, the
• 1:17:52
  temperature change would be quite dramatic and the surface
• 1:17:55
  level of the liquid would change and increase in volume.
• 1:17:58
  So Starboard now fills casks at 55% ABV.
• 1:18:02
  It's a very low filling trend, yeah.
• 1:18:04
  So I mean, is that a case of they're they're they're kind of
• 1:18:07
  watering down and you make spirit before it even hits the
• 1:18:10
  cast? I mean, I suppose everybody will
• 1:18:12
  be doing that in the UK should bring to bring it down to 63,
• 1:18:14
  but it is significantly lower and what we're accustomed to.
• 1:18:18
  But I mean, you're temperature in Melbourne can fluctuate, you
• 1:18:22
  know, 20° in an hour. So it's pretty happy, yeah.
• 1:18:25
  And what that really does to task is you're getting much more
• 1:18:28
  aggressive wood interaction, which I'm fairly certain I would
• 1:18:30
  have mentioned last time. Yeah, really showcases in
• 1:18:34
  colour. And you do hear it's like a much
• 1:18:37
  shorter, it's a much shorter maturation.
• 1:18:41
  They always talk about how their whiskey is, is like a 12 year
• 1:18:44
  old even though it's four. I think that's a really bad
• 1:18:48
  description of what they do and really sells them short because
• 1:18:52
  they're working in a very volatile environment and they
• 1:18:55
  really have to be on top of it and really find these casts at
• 1:18:58
  the right time, give a lot more care maybe, and it's probably
• 1:19:02
  helpful that they're. A smaller scale, so it's very
• 1:19:04
  different from where, you know, the opposite example would be
• 1:19:06
  somewhere in Scotland where you have these underground
• 1:19:09
  maturation areas where very consistent temperature.
• 1:19:12
  Yeah, you know where I. Think that's certainly the case.
• 1:19:15
  I mean, yeah, I mean we don't have the big fluctuation in
• 1:19:19
  temperature, but we do have this was consistency as well.
• 1:19:23
  And it when it gets milder, it's not as aggressive.
• 1:19:25
  So we're lucky to have time, but also we're shot in the foot by
• 1:19:29
  having to wait time as well. That's was to get a little bit
• 1:19:33
  more information about this. So did you visit the distillery?
• 1:19:36
  Yeah. And so you were you staying
• 1:19:37
  close to this distillery? I walked to Starwood probably
• 1:19:41
  about six or seven times and then like Zigzag home, I went
• 1:19:48
  quite regularly. They, I don't know if their 360
• 1:19:51
  tour was at their new distillery, but they moved
• 1:19:53
  locations. They're now in what used to be a
• 1:19:56
  tram factory. It's really, really cool space.
• 1:20:01
  But yeah, so I did go there a couple of times, but they've got
• 1:20:04
  really cool. Trams, trams and Rams, Yeah.
• 1:20:06
  Yeah, I didn't actually. I don't think I ever got the
• 1:20:09
  tram there. I think I was trying to justify
• 1:20:11
  exercise by drinking booze sidewalk there and back.
• 1:20:15
  So I live most of my life, unfortunately.
• 1:20:18
  But this particular release, so bourbon cast #2 I did, I was
• 1:20:23
  lucky enough to go to a tasting where I tasted the first
• 1:20:25
  release, which was their older spirit.
• 1:20:27
  And in comparison to this one, it's really cool to see the
• 1:20:30
  differences in this. It's it is a small batch.
• 1:20:34
  It's 40 casks, all fully matured and bourbon and released as
• 1:20:38
  such. Thank you for sharing very much.
• 1:20:41
  And. So did you buy this after you
• 1:20:44
  tasted this one? Like actually I need to buy a
• 1:20:45
  bottle of this back. I tasted this.
• 1:20:49
  I think IA guy was very kind enough.
• 1:20:51
  I went to Star Wars and the guy said where are you from?
• 1:20:55
  You're not from Australia. And I said you're completely
• 1:20:57
  correct, I'm from Edinburgh. And he was like, oh, I lived in
• 1:21:00
  Edinburgh for two years. Of course, of course you did.
• 1:21:04
  To that guy. Thought I'm really bad with
• 1:21:06
  names, I can't remember his name.
• 1:21:07
  And he talked to him for about 20 minutes, half an hour, had a
• 1:21:10
  couple of the single cast stuff they did and he said oh, this is
• 1:21:12
  coming out in two weeks, have a taste of this.
• 1:21:14
  It's great. And I had it then and then.
• 1:21:17
  If you were going to give us some Charles Kerr wanky tasting
• 1:21:20
  notes for this whiskey, what would you give us?
• 1:21:22
  Because what do you think? What do you like to think of it?
• 1:21:26
  I think it's. Yeah.
• 1:21:33
  Heading towards your sort of pineapple area of the citrus
• 1:21:36
  spectrum. For me, it's not the pineapple.
• 1:21:39
  For. Me, it's more custardy.
• 1:21:40
  I like, I like to kind of. I get a custardy cream.
• 1:21:43
  Really. Pineapple cubes and custards, I
• 1:21:45
  think probably that kind of area.
• 1:21:46
  I think very fresh. There's loads of citrusy.
• 1:21:49
  Isn't it the batch #1 It was very pineapple ups and down
• 1:21:53
  cake. It was a lot more bready.
• 1:21:54
  This is a lot fresher and I think works far better.
• 1:21:57
  Less brioche on this. Yeah, I think.
• 1:22:04
  So first and foremost, for people that maybe haven't
• 1:22:06
  listened to the first episode, they absolutely should do the
• 1:22:08
  childcare episodes. Chuck care, why did you go to
• 1:22:13
  Australia? And was whiskey a big part of
• 1:22:15
  the reason you went to Australia?
• 1:22:18
  I don't think it was. I don't think I thought of it as
• 1:22:20
  much of A component as it turned out to be.
• 1:22:23
  I don't know really anything about Australian whiskey.
• 1:22:27
  One of the main reasons I went was because of everyone in
• 1:22:30
  hospitality and in particular and quite a few other people I
• 1:22:33
  spoke to, were for very much you need to go to Australia, you
• 1:22:37
  need to spend a decent chunk of time there.
• 1:22:39
  Yeah. How long did you spend over
• 1:22:41
  there? I.
• 1:22:41
  Was there for six months in the end, mainly around Melbourne.
• 1:22:44
  I was, I did time, I took my visit horrifically so I arrived
• 1:22:49
  in May, which is the height of winter and then was looking for
• 1:22:52
  work and everyone was very much, this is probably the worst year
• 1:22:56
  for hospitality we've had in. The worst?
• 1:22:58
  So what? Are you talking in May 2020?
• 1:23:02
  It was 20, it was this year, so 202424.
• 1:23:04
  So it was very much people were just like.
• 1:23:06
  This is city well known for its rooftop bars.
• 1:23:08
  Yeah, so nailed in the winter. Really nailed the brief on that
• 1:23:14
  one, but I mean. And were you staying with her
• 1:23:15
  friend Fergus Angus Watson? I stayed at.
• 1:23:18
  Fergs, who was assistant Samelia at #1 and is head Samelia at Vue
• 1:23:24
  de Mon in Melbourne now and. Was also the Samelia in Kilbury,
• 1:23:27
  got their first star in Glasgow as well.
• 1:23:30
  One of the most talented Samelia's I've ever known, but
• 1:23:33
  was a pal for you when you worked him at the ball model.
• 1:23:35
  Yeah, really nice guy. He was nice enough.
• 1:23:37
  He I stayed in his flat for a month when he went home to go to
• 1:23:41
  a couple of the weddings. What result?
• 1:23:43
  Yeah, it was strange. It was living on a on the 42nd
• 1:23:47
  floor in a massive building in CBD.
• 1:23:49
  I was stressed, but it was. It's all glass all the way
• 1:23:54
  around the apartment. So you're basically you can't
• 1:23:57
  leave the centre of the apartment because you can't.
• 1:24:00
  Take around 5 minutes to get out of the building and I was just
• 1:24:03
  like oh I really have to like justify leaving because there's
• 1:24:06
  so much but no it was. It was really, really nice of
• 1:24:10
  him to have me there. He also left me a bottle of
• 1:24:12
  wine, which was lovely and I. Bet it was a decent wine.
• 1:24:14
  Nice Australian Chardonnay, which was delightful, but no, he
• 1:24:19
  was really nice to me. I didn't see him as much as I
• 1:24:21
  would have liked to, but he also My last day in Australia we went
• 1:24:26
  for dinner and he brought 2 ridiculous bottles of wine.
• 1:24:30
  It was, I think it was a 2005 Chardonnay from just outside
• 1:24:35
  Melbourne and in 1991 red wine that he decanted about five
• 1:24:40
  hours earlier. And I did say to him, like, why
• 1:24:43
  are you giving this? I know nothing about any of
• 1:24:46
  this. And he's like, I figured we
• 1:24:48
  could talk about it, It'd be cool.
• 1:24:49
  And I was like, sound, it was, I did not deserve it.
• 1:24:53
  You. Could give a taste signal for it
• 1:24:54
  and it. Did did you spend your whole
• 1:24:56
  time in in Melbourne though? Was that was that?
• 1:24:59
  Yeah, I did two weeks in Brisbane, so I had family up
• 1:25:02
  there. This was another component of my
• 1:25:04
  visit is I my grandparents on my dad's side were sheep farmers in
• 1:25:10
  in Australia for. The column Youngs in Australia?
• 1:25:13
  No, probably. Not they don't.
• 1:25:15
  Really talk about, I think we in the previous podcast we spoke
• 1:25:17
  about your travelling, which was your grandmother made you go to
• 1:25:20
  Taiwan. Taiwan make sure he's OK.
• 1:25:26
  Same same grandmother lived in Australia.
• 1:25:27
  Oh, really? OK, OK, that's awesome.
• 1:25:31
  So when it came to see, did you work while you were out there?
• 1:25:35
  Did you go in and utilize the skill sets that you had in
• 1:25:40
  either whiskey or delivering cows or tea storing fields?
• 1:25:44
  Or anything like that. Not enough stone work out there
• 1:25:47
  for me, but I did. I worked at distillery, I worked
• 1:25:52
  at Bakery Hill as I mentioned before, and I did bottle filling
• 1:25:55
  at Gospel so as well. Really, whatever they would let
• 1:25:59
  me do by was so they were. There's not a massive amount of
• 1:26:03
  whiskey bars in Melbourne, but the ones that are there are
• 1:26:05
  phenomenal. Yeah, anyone?
• 1:26:07
  In particular. I mean the one probably most
• 1:26:10
  renowned would be whiskey and ailment.
• 1:26:12
  Cracking, cracking balls. Yeah, great spot.
• 1:26:15
  Also an SMWS venue. Oh yeah, as well.
• 1:26:19
  Embassy. Embassy, I do apologize, but
• 1:26:23
  that was a phenomenal spot. Great staff and Elysian for me.
• 1:26:29
  Yao and Kelvin who are the guys who run it and were nothing but
• 1:26:34
  like so kind to me when I arrived and a really, really
• 1:26:37
  cool selection. And now it came to the last
• 1:26:41
  word, actually. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:26:43
  I've done a takeover Uno mass and I'm pretty sure I I went to
• 1:26:47
  Yahoo's takeover menu and they were when they were there.
• 1:26:50
  The forever links of Melbourne and Edinburgh.
• 1:26:52
  I mean, there's, I mean, even the links of Melbourne and, and
• 1:26:56
  the Whiskey stories podcast now is the amount of people that
• 1:26:58
  we've had coming through the whiskey that we've heard from
• 1:27:00
  Australia and stuff. And again, I guess for you and
• 1:27:03
  I, yeah, Australian whiskey was not something that we've ever
• 1:27:06
  been on our radar. No, a year ago.
• 1:27:08
  And yet, you know they're talking about.
• 1:27:11
  I'm the same, yeah. Actually.
• 1:27:12
  And I mean, I went to Australia in 2008 and I just whiskey just
• 1:27:18
  didn't appear at all. I wasn't particularly interested
• 1:27:20
  in whiskey then, but it just. You guys have both been to.
• 1:27:22
  Australia, yeah, I've never been to a bottle of Charlie Walker
• 1:27:26
  Red Label in my rucksack. Up the, up the.
• 1:27:28
  Just offend. Just offend everybody in it.
• 1:27:31
  Well, actually I met an American guy and Andy Murray lost there.
• 1:27:35
  Andy Murray. I worked at a hostel because I I
• 1:27:38
  went over there without a visa to work.
• 1:27:40
  So I worked for accommodation. So I worked in a hostel in Byron
• 1:27:44
  Bay and I was out there Nomads Byron Bay.
• 1:27:48
  I was there working there for I worked.
• 1:27:49
  I ran out of money basically the second stop I got.
• 1:27:54
  So basically I realized that my budget is not going to stretch
• 1:27:56
  me all the way to Cairns for the next two months.
• 1:27:59
  I planned it. So I'm going to spend a goody
• 1:28:01
  while here trying to claw back a little bit of saving money.
• 1:28:04
  So I worked for accommodation for three weeks in Byron Bay.
• 1:28:07
  And I remember Andy Murray lost in one of the Wimbledon finals
• 1:28:10
  that you lost in and of course stayed up late for it.
• 1:28:13
  And I put my kilt on, did the whole typical Scottish sort of
• 1:28:18
  guy there watched it. And I had a bottle of trying to
• 1:28:20
  walk a red label that alcohol is very expensive or was very
• 1:28:23
  expensive in 22 down to 12 when I was over there.
• 1:28:26
  So I, I kind of kept hold of that bottle to take me up.
• 1:28:31
  And I mean, this American guy, he's like you, are you drinking
• 1:28:36
  sketch? Yeah.
• 1:28:39
  And then he just thought he was, he was steaming.
• 1:28:42
  Right. Because you're talking about to
• 1:28:43
  watch that Andy Murray Game Match at Wimbledon at, what,
• 1:28:46
  2:00 in the afternoon? Yeah, I'm talking about one 2:00
• 1:28:49
  in the morning over there. Yeah.
• 1:28:51
  So he's like you, you're drinking sketch.
• 1:28:53
  Yeah. And he sort of like pointed to
• 1:28:56
  himself and he's like, I'm a McDonald.
• 1:29:02
  Oh. No, my folks practically
• 1:29:04
  invented this stuff and I was like, Oh dear.
• 1:29:10
  My current life. Being a hospitable gentleman.
• 1:29:14
  Yeah, you feel like right? Well, you do a drum name.
• 1:29:18
  And. We had the well, we had mugs
• 1:29:21
  that we were drinking these drums out of.
• 1:29:22
  So I poured them up as Mark Thompson would describe a
• 1:29:26
  healthy drum, because, yeah, poured myself a drum.
• 1:29:30
  Cheers. And he just went that and he, he
• 1:29:32
  just put the mug to his lips and he just started drinking this
• 1:29:35
  thing just down in this, this tramp.
• 1:29:38
  And literally within 30 seconds of it going down the way it
• 1:29:41
  came. He.
• 1:29:44
  Got the. Inventors family himself.
• 1:29:47
  Goodnight, Mr. McDonald. I hope your folks are proud of
• 1:29:50
  you. And that was, that was him.
• 1:29:52
  I dropped that. He dropped that again. 2530
• 1:29:57
  miles. I was getting that obviously.
• 1:29:59
  But again, you feed that. I think there's something as
• 1:30:02
  Scots when you travel the world, there's a people have this
• 1:30:06
  mindset of other friendly and generous and you fed into it,
• 1:30:09
  even if you did give them Johnny Walker Red Label.
• 1:30:11
  That was so generous. Actually, I was gonna say Johnny
• 1:30:13
  Walker Red Label has appeared on this.
• 1:30:15
  That label's not that much more expensive.
• 1:30:17
  Johnny Walker Red Label appeared.
• 1:30:19
  Can you tell me when Johnny Walker Red Label appeared in the
• 1:30:21
  story? Or somebody had a walk. 3 drams
• 1:30:23
  What? Johnny Walker.
• 1:30:24
  Read, I don't think it was a walk 3 drams, but it appeared
• 1:30:26
  and it was a whiskey story on this podcast and you're going to
• 1:30:29
  kick yourself by slaughtering it when I tell you the story and
• 1:30:32
  the who's involved that. Means just somebody that I like
• 1:30:34
  and I like all of our guests and I'll go for.
• 1:30:40
  Give me a clue, Angus. You get any?
• 1:30:42
  Idea An extremely distinguished gentleman in the whiskey
• 1:30:44
  industry. Ohh.
• 1:30:46
  Charles McLean. Correct.
• 1:30:47
  But I mean, Charles McLean walked into what was the bar
• 1:30:50
  that used to be underneath, right.
• 1:30:52
  But I, I, I, I had, I had Johnny Walker read there wasn't enough,
• 1:30:57
  he said. Don't worry, took a bit of black
• 1:30:58
  bottle in it. That was, that was, that was a
• 1:31:01
  story. I haven't haven't worked with
• 1:31:03
  Charlie McLain. He will always.
• 1:31:04
  Work with Charlie McLean. He will always say that malt
• 1:31:08
  whiskey is his job. In the plane of whiskey is what
• 1:31:10
  he enjoys. That is fairly consistent.
• 1:31:12
  I have a Johnny Walker red. Label Story.
• 1:31:15
  So when I was one of the drams that we mail between each other
• 1:31:20
  during Kovid was the Johnny Walker Red experiment #1
• 1:31:24
  finished off in Rycast. Not Johnny Walker Red.
• 1:31:26
  It has Johnny Walker on the label and it is a red label, but
• 1:31:31
  most of the green is Dumbarton, which is.
• 1:31:33
  Closed. Closed green.
• 1:31:34
  I'm going. To do a bit of a flex here, so.
• 1:31:45
  So I was just bullshit. I was in Phuket.
• 1:31:49
  I was in Phuket. In February, I did.
• 1:31:52
  I was there for a month and I went into a supermarket and they
• 1:31:56
  had Johnny Walker read experiment number one for I
• 1:32:01
  think 2000 bar which turned out in in conversion to 11 pounds.
• 1:32:06
  Wow. So I bought a bottle and I had
• 1:32:09
  that in my bag wrapped in like 3 T-shirts.
• 1:32:13
  Went from Phuket to Hong Kong to Japan to China, really back to
• 1:32:17
  Scotland. That is cool here.
• 1:32:20
  I'll take it back that's. That's a very good story, but
• 1:32:23
  but in terms of so you're thinking about combat, that was
• 1:32:25
  the bar, Yeah. Closed single grain distillery,
• 1:32:27
  yeah, which was owned by Haram Walker.
• 1:32:30
  Which? What's that?
• 1:32:33
  Diagio. No, Haram Walker.
• 1:32:36
  All right. Originally built the Dumbarton
• 1:32:39
  distillery. Now, the interesting thing about
• 1:32:40
  Dumbarton distillery is they didn't use Aphenius coffee
• 1:32:44
  stills. Coffee stills?
• 1:32:46
  Yeah, right. Cam's going to be sitting there
• 1:32:48
  when he's got the stills name wrong.
• 1:32:49
  It coffee or coffee? What do you used to call them?
• 1:32:52
  Still pots. I think that's what he was upset
• 1:32:54
  about. It coffee stills, Yeah.
• 1:32:56
  So they didn't use coffee stills when they built pots.
• 1:32:58
  They know they use another. A loman still.
• 1:33:01
  Well, they use a type of still that was only very commonly used
• 1:33:04
  over the states that could only process maize.
• 1:33:08
  It could only process maize. Yeah, it could only process
• 1:33:11
  maize, which is and at the time through the 1970s, eighties,
• 1:33:16
  that's why, because Dumbarton was the single grain that was
• 1:33:20
  predominantly used in the balance because Hiram Walker
• 1:33:23
  owned Ballantines and they hadn't didn't have a single
• 1:33:26
  grain distillery. So they built that or they used
• 1:33:28
  them. Barton.
• 1:33:28
  They bought them Barton, what have you.
• 1:33:30
  But what was really interesting is that because it's shut in the
• 1:33:33
  1990s, didn't it shut early 90s? I'm pretty sure.
• 1:33:36
  Yeah, yeah. Nineties, 2000.
• 1:33:38
  I'm. Basically, So I'm pretty, I'm
• 1:33:40
  almost certain that the grain that they could only use in
• 1:33:44
  their stills was maize, which is, which is, but that's what
• 1:33:49
  they said. But that's what's very
• 1:33:50
  interesting about the fact that it's using a Johnny Walker.
• 1:33:55
  Especially for to say Red Label fancy.
• 1:33:57
  I had a Red label story and it started with old Dumbarton
• 1:33:59
  grain. That's the only reason that I
• 1:34:01
  was a bit of an arse about it, because you brought me.
• 1:34:09
  Up and we're on the subject of stories.
• 1:34:12
  We are fast approaching the sort of ending of this podcast.
• 1:34:16
  Just a few more questions to Charles Kerr then, because it
• 1:34:20
  went off to our show for six months.
• 1:34:23
  You've, you've worked at a distillery, which is an
• 1:34:25
  invaluable experience for you to have had, which is awesome.
• 1:34:28
  You, you've often visited Starwood.
• 1:34:32
  Was there any other highlights in whiskey and your trip to
• 1:34:35
  Australia? And same for you as well.
• 1:34:36
  And was there any, I suppose you said you weren't that focused on
• 1:34:40
  it at the time, but was there any highlights for you when you
• 1:34:43
  were over that we've not heard about?
• 1:34:47
  You asking me your and OK so this is.
• 1:34:53
  This is very cool by this is a. Handful filled by me.
• 1:34:58
  It's got your name on it, Yeah. From the label.
• 1:35:00
  I said they'd snap it as well. That's small.
• 1:35:01
  Yeah, it was. The guy was very surprised I
• 1:35:04
  wasn't recording videos of it all happening.
• 1:35:06
  He was like, you don't want to take pictures.
• 1:35:08
  And I was like, no, I just want the.
• 1:35:11
  Podcast, it'll be fine. But this is a 7 year old star
• 1:35:14
  word fully matured in Chardonnay casks.
• 1:35:16
  Yes, with the colour of that. That is white wine maturation.
• 1:35:20
  We, we, we have a YouTube channel which we're trying to
• 1:35:23
  grow. So if you are.
• 1:35:24
  Plays all the odds, yeah. Have a look at that white wine.
• 1:35:29
  See through it. Somebody put a tea bag in it,
• 1:35:32
  so. I will say with this, I think it
• 1:35:35
  does better with a drop of two water.
• 1:35:38
  I tasted this when I arrived into Melbourne.
• 1:35:41
  I tasted in May and then I tasted again in October and the
• 1:35:46
  guy said that the the ABV on the label is actually wrong now
• 1:35:49
  because it's gone up a percent. So it's about. 5070. 7.8 and had
• 1:35:54
  changed quite significantly in that time.
• 1:35:56
  And we should say that is an extremely generous gift to bring
• 1:36:00
  over for us to try. We will be the.
• 1:36:02
  Only people that have tried this in Scotland, realistically the
• 1:36:06
  market over there and actually demand for Starwood as well.
• 1:36:09
  So thank you so much for sharing.
• 1:36:10
  With my pleasure, it's it's always good.
• 1:36:12
  And so it's French, French oak Barrick.
• 1:36:15
  Yeah, but it's also, it's made. And I'm, I do apologize, my wine
• 1:36:19
  knowledge is grim, but it is made in the Chardonnay region
• 1:36:25
  outside Melbourne, something valley I really should know.
• 1:36:28
  Yeah. Something.
• 1:36:30
  Yeah, that's. Fine, somebody listen to the
• 1:36:32
  podcast that lives there is going to like know exactly.
• 1:36:34
  If I send this to FARC, he'll be absolutely raging at me.
• 1:36:41
  Yeah. So I will say in Australia, I
• 1:36:43
  mean, Starwood was really, really cool to see.
• 1:36:45
  It was really nice to see some of their single cast stuff
• 1:36:48
  gospel. I mean that.
• 1:36:49
  I mean, you were talking about engineers earlier.
• 1:36:51
  That is a distillery, 100% rye production distillery based in
• 1:36:55
  Melbourne, designed by engineers.
• 1:36:58
  Think they opened in 2013 and they do a really fantastic
• 1:37:02
  product over there. I got to taste direct from casks
• 1:37:06
  at Bakery Hill. I got to taste a couple of full
• 1:37:10
  rye X rye cast maturations from them.
• 1:37:13
  And just to taste, they do a release by annually which is
• 1:37:19
  finished off in stout casks, which is fantastic.
• 1:37:23
  And to do the full vertical of that was class.
• 1:37:26
  And in my very first week, I was invited, thanks to Yao at least
• 1:37:31
  you and I met the Rep for Sutherland's Cove and I tasted,
• 1:37:36
  went to the tasting there and tasted the oldest Southern Cove
• 1:37:39
  they've ever bottled. There's a 24 year old
• 1:37:41
  Sutherland's Cove. That's really cool.
• 1:37:45
  Which was decent but and we tasted 5 cast samples.
• 1:37:48
  There was a 16, a 17 year old A21A22 and A24 and the 16 for me
• 1:37:54
  was just magic. So good refill bourbon, you
• 1:37:59
  know, a tart for that. And they are very proud of their
• 1:38:03
  sulfur characteristic and really kind of champion that, which is
• 1:38:06
  really nice to see. And also Heartwood really have
• 1:38:10
  to give a shout out to them. Just do weird stuff, cool, weird
• 1:38:14
  stuff. These are all.
• 1:38:15
  Distilleries that you've got chance to visit and just start
• 1:38:17
  I. Didn't get to visit all these
• 1:38:18
  ones. I mean Hartwood and Sutherland's
• 1:38:20
  cover based in Tasmania, which I didn't get over to.
• 1:38:23
  I mean, there's 24 distilleries in Tasmania.
• 1:38:25
  Have you ever been to Tasmania? There's not much else, right?
• 1:38:28
  OK. I mean, how big is Tasmania?
• 1:38:29
  Is it the Isla of Australia? Is that what we're saying?
• 1:38:31
  How? Big is potentially there's a
• 1:38:33
  police. How big is Tasmania?
• 1:38:34
  Bigger than Isla? Devils.
• 1:38:36
  Size of whales, I'd say. I don't know.
• 1:38:39
  It's bigger than Isla, but in the, in you're talking in
• 1:38:43
  Australia terms, it's time, you know, I visited TAS and by the
• 1:38:48
  time you I got out there, I'd spent a year and a half on the
• 1:38:51
  mainland. So yeah, it, it seemed
• 1:38:56
  absolutely tiny. But yeah, it's it's.
• 1:38:58
  I'm not sure what size it would be in person, but it's a.
• 1:39:01
  Small size of Sri Lanka, pretty big, but pretty big for us so.
• 1:39:05
  Yeah. But.
• 1:39:06
  Embarrassing to Australia? Yeah.
• 1:39:08
  Exactly. Anytime.
• 1:39:10
  And and I've got to say lads, great stories talking about, you
• 1:39:13
  know, for yourself and going to Australia and coming to
• 1:39:17
  Edinburgh now being such a big figure in bartending and whiskey
• 1:39:20
  here, Chuck, amazing to have you back on.
• 1:39:23
  Here's the question. Do we give Chuck a bonus what
• 1:39:26
  few dabs he? Gets one after Anthony.
• 1:39:28
  But does that mean, does that mean Fraser gets a bonus?
• 1:39:30
  What free drives too? No.
• 1:39:32
  No, we see. I have I have one contesting.
• 1:39:37
  Notes for this please please. For a single cask Chardonnay.
• 1:39:42
  Yeah, I think it's seven or might even be 8 at this point.
• 1:39:45
  I would say that this is like apricot concentrated apricot jam
• 1:39:51
  with elements of marmalade jam in there you can kind of all
• 1:39:54
  that. Do you think what's interesting
• 1:39:55
  about this is? Apricot jam.
• 1:39:57
  Apricot marmalade jam. I think what's great, we talked
• 1:40:00
  about the color here, yeah, but. I think this is one of these
• 1:40:05
  drams where I'd love to drink it before I saw that colour.
• 1:40:08
  I'd love to somehow just blind taste, literally blindfold taste
• 1:40:12
  it, yeah. I get that.
• 1:40:13
  Because I think if you did, there's no there's no way you'd
• 1:40:17
  even assume it was that colour. You wouldn't.
• 1:40:19
  That's not. Yeah, it's.
• 1:40:20
  Not as heavy and dense and in your face and chewy there's a
• 1:40:23
  nice texture of actually there's a pleasant light sweetness that
• 1:40:26
  apricot that the yellow fruits that Chuck mentioned, which you
• 1:40:29
  would never assume having seen the liquid.
• 1:40:31
  There's one other thing to mention about Star Wars.
• 1:40:34
  They do vast maturities, mature and red X red wine casks.
• 1:40:39
  They do fresh and toasted wrestling red wine casks.
• 1:40:43
  Oh yeah, lucky enough to go to tasting for it and the
• 1:40:45
  difference is massive. Fresh you're just getting those
• 1:40:48
  jammy characteristics and then toasted, you're really getting
• 1:40:51
  the vanilla activated. So you get that kind of toasted
• 1:40:54
  brioche to go down that route. But vanilla, it's being
• 1:40:58
  activated and it's really cool to see kind of fresh fruit and
• 1:41:02
  toasted variants being seen in it.
• 1:41:04
  But yeah, I really love their stuff.
• 1:41:07
  They're not a break today, I don't think.
• 1:41:08
  I think I had a real chip on my shoulder before being over there
• 1:41:11
  for. All right, well, we are fast
• 1:41:13
  approaching that time where we do ask our guests now, as we've
• 1:41:16
  said, Anthony, he can have, he gets his first what, 3 drams and
• 1:41:19
  we'll get, we're happy to give Chuck a bonus, a bonus drama
• 1:41:23
  Chuck in. So Anthony, what 3 drums, Any
• 1:41:27
  drama has a storied meaning or anything behind it for you.
• 1:41:30
  DRAM number one please. DRAM number one is the first
• 1:41:36
  drama I've ever had which I talked about and I will say it
• 1:41:38
  was a Glenfiddich 12. And I think the first time you
• 1:41:42
  ever have is, you know, that's all you're always going to
• 1:41:45
  remember that. Yeah, sure.
• 1:41:46
  Like I. Mean.
• 1:41:47
  It's funny you mention that because I could not, I would not
• 1:41:49
  be able to remember the first drama I ever had, which is
• 1:41:53
  interesting. I don't know if you can.
• 1:41:55
  Really agree on a pint glass. Yeah.
• 1:41:57
  Well, no, no, no. I mean, I mean my first, my
• 1:41:59
  first. Is something about my sugars?
• 1:42:02
  My first drama would have probably been something like
• 1:42:05
  Glenfiddich 12, but I'm, I'm, I can remember very early on
• 1:42:08
  having Talisker 10 when I was quite, you know, my kind of
• 1:42:12
  university, they sort of thing. But I can't specifically
• 1:42:15
  remember the first drama whiskey I ever would have had.
• 1:42:17
  I can't remember the first full drama.
• 1:42:19
  No, I can remember probably having tastes of whiskies and
• 1:42:22
  stuff like that. Yeah.
• 1:42:23
  What I would say is that I'm, if I was to count the first proper
• 1:42:27
  drama, I can remember sitting down and tasting and we'd
• 1:42:29
  probably have the same, the same.
• 1:42:31
  It was the tasting that I went to when I was a day over 18 and,
• 1:42:40
  and, and it was going for like a taste and I was completely over
• 1:42:42
  there. Anyway, it's you're about to be
• 1:42:43
  drafts. Carry on, please.
• 1:42:46
  So yeah, I mean that that would have been 4:00 in the morning
• 1:42:50
  with a friend's dad who was who was introducing me to whiskey
• 1:42:56
  because every, every fucker had come to sleep and.
• 1:43:01
  Then somebody else choice. Exactly that.
• 1:43:04
  I was somebody I can, I was up and I was in his house and he
• 1:43:07
  was like come back from a neighbour's and he'd been
• 1:43:09
  drinking whiskey with a neighbour and he wanted to
• 1:43:11
  introduce me. And I think it was a fair
• 1:43:12
  introduction that he gave me in Glenfidd 12.
• 1:43:14
  I'm quite happy he didn't give me anything.
• 1:43:17
  Well he did. Then we went through a fair few
• 1:43:20
  drums until I passed out, I think.
• 1:43:22
  But yeah, as far as I'm away, there was nothing dodgy going on
• 1:43:31
  there, right? That was a great.
• 1:43:32
  That's a good thing. Drum #2 please ruined that voice
• 1:43:36
  first ever. You really have honestly.
• 1:43:41
  Hey, Grammy, if you're listening, don't listen to it.
• 1:43:42
  It's. Just a 2 yet for them I think.
• 1:43:46
  That's really. Good DRAM #2 I'm going to.
• 1:43:54
  That's a really tough one. I'm going to go with a 19 95
• 1:44:04
  Spring Bank. It was given to me by AI won't
• 1:44:11
  name him. It was given to me as an apology
• 1:44:16
  and I it was just a sample of it.
• 1:44:18
  It's one of the most fantastic drums I've had in a while and it
• 1:44:22
  was the first time that I'd ever had anything that old.
• 1:44:24
  I think it was nine 9525 year old Spring bank and just just as
• 1:44:32
  a phenomenal taste in drum. Really, really amazing.
• 1:44:35
  Just everything that like I think massively different to any
• 1:44:41
  spring monks that I've had now. It was like so when people say
• 1:44:50
  stupid tasting notes like. Pirate ships and whatnot.
• 1:44:56
  Well, honestly. Honestly, it was like it almost
• 1:45:00
  and people always talk about these coastal drams and and most
• 1:45:03
  of the time I don't get it. But with this I really did like
• 1:45:06
  I felt I felt like I could get like people scrubbing decks on a
• 1:45:10
  ship next to me while I tried this.
• 1:45:12
  It was a bit a beautiful, beautiful, tannic, but not too
• 1:45:16
  tannic, lovely. And I'd not at this point I'd
• 1:45:19
  not had too much stuff that old. And so that I remember being a
• 1:45:23
  bit of an eye opening drum. The last drum I'm going to go
• 1:45:29
  with and it's not the actual bottling, but it's going to be
• 1:45:32
  and and this is this is just for me personally, this is going to
• 1:45:35
  be the Buffalo Trace, but at cast strength.
• 1:45:40
  So, so the sample from from from the distillery, I mean.
• 1:45:44
  So what percentage? Was it could be a cast sample
• 1:45:46
  for one of these and I've also there's nothing more special
• 1:45:49
  special yeah and if I hadn't have selected this one, it'd
• 1:45:52
  probably be a different you you. Tried this, John, presumably in
• 1:45:56
  Tennessee at the distillery. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:45:59
  Yeah, literally drawn from the cask.
• 1:46:01
  Yes, exactly that, yeah. And what what sort of percentage
• 1:46:04
  are you talking sort of 5860? 60.
• 1:46:10
  Of. Course, gotta be gonna.
• 1:46:11
  Go 6364, something like that. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:46:15
  And it's phenomenal, absolutely. Phenomenal for your project, for
• 1:46:19
  your bar that. Means.
• 1:46:21
  I think that was the special thing about it.
• 1:46:23
  I mean, I, I, I, I have to pass this one over to Mike in the
• 1:46:27
  sense that I went out there as in my eyes, a guest, we said we
• 1:46:31
  were going to pick out a whiskey, but Mike owns the bars.
• 1:46:34
  I just assumed he was going to pick the DRAM.
• 1:46:35
  And it wasn't really till on the day that Mike turned to me and
• 1:46:38
  went to your whiskey mate, you pick it.
• 1:46:39
  And I was, you know, that's massive.
• 1:46:42
  That was really a massive point. And I think about some of my
• 1:46:45
  favorite drams, you know that. And there's nothing quite like a
• 1:46:50
  cask sample. Like there's nothing like taking
• 1:46:54
  that from the village, you know what I mean?
• 1:46:55
  Like that is that is special. I can think of a few drums that
• 1:46:59
  I've had and they don't have to add at least one of them that
• 1:47:03
  doesn't take it. I'm not going to say that this
• 1:47:04
  was the best drum that I've ever had in a warehouse.
• 1:47:07
  I've had some fantastic ones. But it's special because it was
• 1:47:10
  you pick it, you get to pick from these samples and you get
• 1:47:13
  to go, go. People can try this drum at your
• 1:47:16
  venue. Can they buy bottles at the
• 1:47:17
  venue too? Buy bottles at the venue?
• 1:47:19
  Yeah sure, No doubt it's a aids. 8 years old, 45% ABV.
• 1:47:27
  And that was a cast that yeah, that was the boy you tried,
• 1:47:28
  Jerry. Coke.
• 1:47:29
  Yeah, yeah, I remember. I remember a Castro even then.
• 1:47:31
  I was like, this is like soft, so big cherries.
• 1:47:34
  Yeah, I. Have to say it's great at 45%.
• 1:47:38
  It is fantastic, yeah. And that was slightly worrying,
• 1:47:41
  but we got to try that as well. But yeah, that that that for me
• 1:47:45
  is obviously going to. Get that?
• 1:47:46
  That's a full kind of full circle moment, yeah.
• 1:47:49
  Getting into the industry, then picking your own cask Buffalo
• 1:47:52
  Trace in Kentucky, that's really cool.
• 1:47:54
  Right. Chuck your bonus tram.
• 1:47:58
  I don't know where to go, Scottish or international and.
• 1:48:02
  Go international for the sake of this episode.
• 1:48:04
  You've talked so much about Australian whiskey.
• 1:48:06
  Okay, I was going to mention a Japanese one, but I will stick
• 1:48:10
  it to. Australia, you mentioned the.
• 1:48:11
  Japanese one. Please.
• 1:48:14
  Do so. I had a 5 year old Shizuka in
• 1:48:17
  Zootropics whiskey bar in Tokyo. Was bottled for that bar, was
• 1:48:21
  fully matured in a bourbon quarter cask and it was just
• 1:48:24
  beautiful. Shizuka.
• 1:48:26
  Shizuka Yeah, made by the company's called Gaia Flow.
• 1:48:30
  I actually have, if you have me back on, I have it on the
• 1:48:33
  bottle. I'm not trying to get myself
• 1:48:35
  back in here. Bribery, I know.
• 1:48:36
  That's that's how I've got so she's OK.
• 1:48:45
  I mean, I might be bitching pronunciation, so I do
• 1:48:47
  apologize, but it was just everything I love about bourbon
• 1:48:51
  cast maturation, super fresh, tons of lime, lollipops, all
• 1:48:55
  those kind of vibes, which is great.
• 1:48:57
  And it was the epitome of me, but a Japanese man behind the
• 1:49:01
  bar. He was miserable, really upset
• 1:49:03
  to see me. And I spoke to him for about
• 1:49:07
  half an hour and he realized I wasn't American.
• 1:49:09
  And he was quite pleased I was actually there.
• 1:49:11
  And so that was a really, really lovely experience.
• 1:49:14
  And he was so passionate about talking about cast.
• 1:49:17
  He had the opportunity to select and buy.
• 1:49:20
  He had another Mars as well, which I think was a little bit
• 1:49:24
  older, which is also great. But that she's OK was really
• 1:49:28
  felt really, really special, and it was a nice, nice me drop in
• 1:49:34
  Japan. One more thing, we're saying
• 1:49:35
  we're not going to get on the drum, but I do want to just hear
• 1:49:37
  because I've not seen him. Have you tried anything really
• 1:49:41
  special in the last couple of months since we've last since
• 1:49:44
  you've been on the podcast? Because I know you have, but I
• 1:49:47
  just want highlight one drum for us.
• 1:49:50
  But daft or like appropriate, either daft.
• 1:49:55
  A 1989 Scapa fully matured and bourbon from cordon Macphail was
• 1:50:01
  absolutely ridiculous. Best Scapa you've had?
• 1:50:04
  Yeah. Without a doubt, without a
• 1:50:05
  doubt. Otherwise I absolutely loved
• 1:50:12
  clen. Alecky done a 12 year old saw
• 1:50:15
  turns cast finish that I just adored. 48%, yeah.
• 1:50:20
  Yeah, Chernobyl, right? Yeah, there you go.
• 1:50:23
  Well, move this round. You've been listening to this
• 1:50:28
  podcast. It's been fantastic.
• 1:50:30
  How? Do you contact you lads?
• 1:50:32
  Yeah. How do we get in touch with
• 1:50:34
  yourself then, Anthony? How can people find out more
• 1:50:36
  about you? How can people find out what
• 1:50:37
  you're doing? Yeah.
• 1:50:39
  So usually social media is a good one.
• 1:50:43
  So if you want to contact me and understore Crowder, you'll see
• 1:50:46
  that I have very little content on there.
• 1:50:48
  More through the The Last Word. So it's at the last The Last
• 1:50:53
  word under score bar and you will see an annoying amount of
• 1:50:58
  pictures and videos of my face. But yeah, you can contact me on
• 1:51:01
  either one of those. Hey Legends.
• 1:51:02
  Hey. Legends and.
• 1:51:04
  Even do that. I can't believe you've loved
• 1:51:06
  them, man. I nearly started advertisement
• 1:51:10
  that's trademark, don't use that.
• 1:51:14
  Well, there we go. We've got a I guess you have
• 1:51:18
  another Indie Butler spotlight to look forward to back here.
• 1:51:22
  We do Thursday the 28th of November.
• 1:51:24
  We're doing a rare fine Glenmore Spirits with Gregor.
• 1:51:27
  I've got a friend of the show, a friend of the pod, absolutely a
• 1:51:30
  friend of the pod. We've got Aberfeldy, 13 year
• 1:51:33
  old, Altmore, 14 year old, Deanston 18 year old, absolutely
• 1:51:36
  cracking trap. We've also got medium pitted,
• 1:51:39
  Isla, 11 year old and a mystery DRAM for people to enjoy.
• 1:51:44
  We've only got about 5 or five six faces left.
• 1:51:47
  So don't forget you can find that on the Whiskey stories
• 1:51:50
  podcast Facebook group, which is absolutely popping off.
• 1:51:53
  It's probably Facebook group. You know your weekend DRAM roll.
• 1:51:56
  Call you love to see it and actually Dougie put it up to
• 1:51:59
  date you know I tried to be as impartial as I can and Dougie
• 1:52:02
  was today let's start a feed of whiskey's you've not enjoyed I I
• 1:52:07
  was nervous but I still commented first for whiskey I'll
• 1:52:10
  enjoy but. What was that whiskey?
• 1:52:12
  It was an avigeric and so the fact that even I heard of the
• 1:52:15
  distillery says a lot about the quality the is this.
• 1:52:18
  No, I have. Is this the one in the Western
• 1:52:19
  Isles? Because I basically put in the
• 1:52:21
  thing I said, if you've not heard of it, don't look it up, I
• 1:52:24
  mean. We've got, we've got 100 and
• 1:52:28
  10110 members in that little group and and growing and
• 1:52:31
  growing, but every single week where you do the weekend DRAM
• 1:52:34
  roll call rightly through the whole weekend.
• 1:52:36
  I'll be honestly it's. Just everybody just posted a
• 1:52:37
  picture. I'm trying this drama, having
• 1:52:39
  this DRAM. This is what I've got in the
• 1:52:40
  house. Loads of different mixes.
• 1:52:42
  Last Friday was the last two Fridays I've poured myself a
• 1:52:45
  whiskey, and I wasn't going to. Yeah, but I've got, I need to
• 1:52:47
  pull almost a whiskey for the weekend DRAM roll call.
• 1:52:50
  And you know what? I've really enjoyed it.
• 1:52:52
  I've revisited bottles and had some stories of some of the
• 1:52:55
  bottles that I've had and that's what it's all about.
• 1:52:57
  Absolutely. Yeah, right.
• 1:52:58
  Don't forget as well if you your dad does this.
• 1:53:02
  Right, Bob? Bob, Bob, big shout out to Bob.
• 1:53:04
  He sits down, pulls himself a drum and he watches us on the
• 1:53:07
  telly. We are growing our YouTube
• 1:53:11
  channel, so get on the YouTube channel.
• 1:53:13
  You can. You can watch us, believe it or
• 1:53:14
  not, talking rubbish about whiskey, but you can see our
• 1:53:17
  fantastic guest, the whiskey that they've brought in.
• 1:53:19
  You can see us talking all about this in this tiny little room in
• 1:53:22
  the athletic arms, and you can even see Fraser soon as his
• 1:53:25
  goatee. This.
• 1:53:28
  A belter. It's an absolute belter.
• 1:53:30
  But look, thank you very much for listening.
• 1:53:32
  Thanks for listening, guys. Thank you very much for coming
• 1:53:34
  on. I appreciate it.
• 1:53:35
  Lovely to see you again. Until part.
• 1:53:37
  Three exactly until Part 3 and unless you're away travelling
• 1:53:39
  some other place or delivering a cow's baby, who knows?
• 1:53:43
  But Anthony, thank you so much. Thank you very much for coming
• 1:53:45
  on Angus, great to see you next week we'll be yeah, we'll be
• 1:53:49
  we'll be talking a lot about different whiskeys.
• 1:53:50
  We've got to go home and really exciting project that we're
• 1:53:52
  going with the Glass House as well as I say are in the bottler
• 1:53:57
  spotlight #4 and Angus. Four times people have said
• 1:54:00
  we'll, we'll come on and give you whiskey and four times
• 1:54:03
  people have said, you know, I'll buy tickets and come along to
• 1:54:05
  that. There are some some tickets
• 1:54:06
  available. Get yourself down.
• 1:54:07
  It's going to be absolutely fantastic.
• 1:54:08
  Thank you very much for last thing.
• 1:54:10
  Cheers are coming on. All the very best sponge bar.
• 1:54:13
  Cheers, cheers.