Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Whisky Journeys, Global Drams & Magazine Life – with Christopher Coates

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Whisky Journeys, Global Drams & Magazine Life – with Christopher Coates · Whisky Stories Podcast

0:03
All I'm saying is if you all you have to do in this one, Hazel
0:06
yeah, is hold the mic and you'll bend.
0:09
You hold the mic and that'll be. You you'll give us a little rap
0:12
if you want, if you want to. I guess we'll never go on
0:15
holiday again if he thinks there's an opportunity for a
0:17
mess. A podcast episode where?
0:20
Yeah. So there we go.
0:20
Right. Who are you?
0:21
Did it last time, Chuck. So, Hazel, I'm going to get you
0:24
Pat. Could you pass your microphone
0:26
to Chuck? And can you clap us in?
0:27
Oh, my God. Yeah.
0:29
Oh God. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
0:35
podcast. Yeah, but it doesn't hurt to
0:37
have whiskey in your pockets. I mean, I always tried to have
0:40
whiskey in my pockets, you know, at the very least to cover up my
0:44
bad chat. But, you know, it's.
0:46
But it's true though, you know, I think you see, you travel
0:49
around the world. You can tell people that you're
0:52
work with, work with whiskey and suddenly people's faces light up
0:56
even if they don't drink the. Stuff.
0:58
People turn to you and they go either I love whiskey and they
1:01
want to pick your brains for five hours, or they go, oh, I
1:05
don't drink whiskey, but I'd like to.
1:08
Welcome all the Whiskey Stories podcast, myself Graeme Cogar and
1:10
we are back in the athletic arms.
1:12
And as you can tell from our YouTube video, if you're
1:14
watching this, we are back underneath the gents toilets and
1:17
the bar, but in a very, very, very warm diggers vaults.
1:22
Guys, how we getting on all right it's.
1:24
Toasty, it's warm, it's cosy. Cosy vibes.
1:26
I work. We're cosy.
1:28
Cosy then, with lots of whiskey. Exactly.
1:30
That's the way there's. Worse places you can be lots in.
1:32
Yeah, and for the second week running, not someone's first
1:35
toilet. Angus and Ross aren't here this
1:39
evening, but we are replace. We are replacing Angus.
1:42
Not permanently, but maybe with our first ever guest Co host,
1:48
Hazy Drams. Hazel, welcome back to the
1:50
Whiskey Stories podcast. I'm on.
1:51
What a promotion? Yeah, what a promotion.
1:54
I'm like Angus or Ross from Team You.
1:55
I love it. There we go this.
1:57
Afternoon tonight. Chuck, you're back.
1:59
And are you Angus or Ross tonight?
2:01
I don't know man, I'll be quiet and just do what I'm told.
2:04
You just do it. You want to be angry.
2:06
You're you're Chuck now. Well, he's.
2:07
Do you want to be Angus or Ross? Which one would you?
2:09
Abby? Ross.
2:10
You want to be Ross tonight? Yeah, Angus isn't going to take
2:12
to that very well. .5% maybe of Ross's knowledge, but I'll go
2:16
Ross. Hi, go.
2:17
That's it. Just answer your own questions,
2:19
you'll be fine. Yeah.
2:21
That's how you do. I laugh really hard about anyone
2:23
jokes. Yeah, yeah.
2:23
There you go. But we are obviously every week
2:25
we like to be joined by somebody who at least knows what they're
2:27
talking about. We have our guest this evening
2:28
is Christopher Coates. Christopher, how are you?
2:31
I'm very well. I'm a bit warm, but I'm well.
2:34
It's warm. It's warm down here.
2:35
But thank you very much for coming along and joining us in
2:37
the In the Digger sweatshop. It's great to have you here.
2:41
How? How are you?
2:42
I'm, I'm, I'm great. I'm, I've rolled down the road
2:46
from Leaf and now I'm ready to drink some drams and, you know,
2:49
hopefully have a good chat. Chat whiskey.
2:51
That's it. Hey, Chuck, that's what it's all
2:52
about, isn't it? Absolutely.
2:53
Where, where about Saint Leath are?
2:55
You made so I am just off Ferry Rd.
2:59
OK, so we're so far away from here.
3:00
Yeah, Yeah. OK.
3:01
OK. Well, you we can, we can give us
3:03
give each other a little. In fact, I'm I'm sort of
3:06
splitting distance from from Woven's blending studio.
3:10
OK. So yeah, no, it's good.
3:14
It's, it's a good place to be or, or if you really wanted to
3:17
be very nerdy, we're very close to the Patterson's former bonded
3:22
warehouse. Brilliant.
3:23
But I've let's let's talk about Woven instead.
3:25
I was going to see, I'm just there.
3:29
I'm interested because like Justine Hazlehurst does our our
3:33
tours and I'm just wondering like, is it going to be like one
3:36
of these things now where when you go to Hollywood and you get
3:38
the, you get the little leaflet which is the map of where
3:41
everyone are you on Justine's map where she could be taken?
3:44
Do you get tour groups outside your house?
3:46
Be like, there's Christopher, there's a woman in the studio.
3:51
But if you look over there, I see.
3:52
Me in a hoodie and my joggies going to get some milk.
3:58
You are for people that say you are the editor at large for the
4:01
Whiskey Magazine. Exactly, which pretty much means
4:03
I it's, it's what it sounds like I'm still at large.
4:06
I haven't been fired yet. I've been with the business
4:09
since 2013 and somehow I'm still employed, you know, against my
4:14
best efforts. So that's so, so editing.
4:17
So I mean, obviously in the world of multimedia now, I
4:20
suppose a magazine isn't just a magazine that we know in what
4:24
used to be a case of a, a, a paper or no, for a magazine
4:28
coming through your letterbox every month or something like
4:30
that. It's everything.
4:30
Isn't it, it's everything. I mean, I, I often say that I
4:33
started the business, you know, started in the business as sort
4:36
of like the, the waif that sweeps under the printing
4:39
presses, you know, you know, just listening to conversations
4:42
about whiskey and, and eventually sort of ended up
4:45
writing about it in time, edited some of the other magazines that
4:50
the publisher used to used to produce and then eventually was
4:54
appointed as editor of Whiskey magazine.
4:56
Did that for a few years is now in in my sort of at large role,
5:01
I am mostly focused on as you're talking about new media, so
5:04
mostly on video, yeah and digital content.
5:07
Well. I've seen a lot of your videos
5:08
like you seem to. It must be really, really tough.
5:10
You've got one of those really tough jobs where you get sent
5:12
out places to try lots and lots of whiskey and talk to people.
5:14
I mean, I just see it aged me. Yeah, I see.
5:18
As you can tell, yeah. Yeah, it was, it was, you know,
5:20
I was like, hang on, I've got to was about ask this guy what's
5:23
come on, because every time I've seen your face on my Instagram
5:26
or on something, I'm like. There he is again in.
5:29
The warehouse having a great time, so let's try this brand
5:32
new release. It's about to be put out then no
5:34
one else has tried yet. And that's but it must be.
5:36
It's a great. It's a great.
5:37
Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, the you know, I'm just
5:41
constantly amazed that I've somehow managed to end up in the
5:45
kind of job that I that I'm in, you know, I know where to lie.
5:48
I started by Googling jobs W1 day really, just because I
5:52
decided that it could might be not quite fun to do something to
5:56
do with whiskey and and here I am, sort of wow.
5:59
And the Whiskey Stories podcast, Yeah.
6:01
Years later, I'll just. Show you where it could take.
6:03
Yeah, literally. You're good.
6:07
Good going down. Yeah, you're all coming.
6:12
Down by that, we're all in it together.
6:13
We're all. I literally got under.
6:14
It being in the basement, I'm, I'm gonna be completely honest,
6:19
I mean, I like coming and drinking here with my pals.
6:21
So actually when I realised that it was gonna be recorded in the
6:24
basement here, it was kind of like the, you know, getting the
6:26
real behind the scenes. Look, yeah, we've really, we've
6:29
really looked after, Yeah. By we, we need to go down the
6:31
steps behind the bar instead of crawling through the undignified
6:34
entry. But you have to remember, like
6:35
one of my favorite parts of the distillery is like underneath
6:38
the Seals where all the pipe work is.
6:39
So actually this is I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
6:42
So thank you very much. What's new with you, Hazel?
6:45
What's happening in the world of Woven?
6:46
Still selling. I can't believe it's the middle
6:49
of the year yeah I've got people now mentioning Christmas and
6:51
stuff I'm like, what are you talking about Still February.
6:53
Why are we bringing that up? But you know, it's good couple
6:57
of new things on the horizon that I can hopefully shed some
7:00
more light on in the next couple of months Brilliant I mean
7:02
that's a really annoying thing to teach to be like on There are
7:04
things coming but can't tell you yet We'll.
7:05
Just have to wait till Ross is on shift.
7:07
Yeah, in the next couple of months to get you back.
7:08
And then get me back on like August at 10%.
7:11
So you still, I mean, you, you mentioned the Christopher
7:13
mentioned that the the the woven area where they do all that
7:19
blending and everything like that.
7:21
Do you still do your open thing that most Fridays or every day?
7:24
When, when is it? You talked about the last time I
7:25
want to come down to. That so I think they used to do
7:27
it kind of on a monthly or like every six weeks.
7:30
They host what's called an open studio and it's just to bring
7:33
anyone along remove like all the snobbery and stuff that
7:36
sometimes is with like calf whiskey making and stuff and
7:40
it's super laid back. There's is.
7:41
That the one, The pizza. There's pizza, There's pizza.
7:43
Yeah, you. Can get to chat.
7:44
Is that one with the pizza? No, I just remember.
7:51
I just. They ordered in really good
7:53
pizza if I. Remember correctly, the last
7:56
time you were here, we were in this very room.
7:58
We all ended up very it was you brought in them.
8:01
We were very caffeinated. Yeah, because you brought in the
8:04
woven whiskey. It's a good combination.
8:06
Of woven and very awake. Yes, the spirit, the coffee
8:09
spirit, yeah. And we really enjoyed that.
8:12
We had a great night down here. But one thing that the stick out
8:15
is this, this thing that you did with Woven at the studio, with
8:18
the an open studio with pizza as well.
8:20
I just, I love that. And it's something on the list
8:22
of things we have to try and do and come down to it.
8:25
When's the next one or when can I come to 1?
8:27
So we've actually got one in Glasgow next week.
8:29
We're starting to take them on the road.
8:30
So share the love across Scotland.
8:32
We've got one one in Glasgow through at the gate.
8:34
So we're doing like a trade session 3 until 5:00 and then
8:37
we've got our open studio, then 6 till late.
8:39
So we've got one of the boys, Liam from the absent ears DJ
8:42
ING. We've got discounted drinks in
8:45
the bar. We've teamed up with the guy
8:46
from Rapscallion for highballs and stuff.
8:48
So yeah, just show you the love a little bit.
8:50
And it's just bringing more awareness to that as well.
8:53
So what's good about them is anyone can come along.
8:55
So whether it's like whiskey experts like yourselves or
8:58
anyone that's not, it's the thing everyone's ego here or
9:01
just anyone that's not tried whiskey before or maybe they've
9:05
seen us when we've done, we've done like quite a few, what we
9:07
call it lifestyle partnerships with the likes of Rains.
9:11
We did some with Blank Street Barber, not Blank St.
9:14
That's the Coffee, Blank Barber and Stockbridge so even.
9:17
Barbara is in. Barber.
9:20
Get your hair cut. Yeah, right.
9:22
So because I'm not, I was trying.
9:26
What else I've been waiting on I?
9:27
Thought. You said Barbara.
9:32
Barbara. Woman X Barbara.
9:38
Hottest collab of the year? Brilliant no, but like wait a
9:45
second. So how do you how does how do
9:49
you collaborate because I love I love collaborations right.
9:53
We're always looking for one Whiskey stories podcast is open
9:55
for business, but but I think it's really, really important
9:59
that one thing we I've seen a lot of through doing the podcast
10:03
is how different you can try and be with doing different things,
10:07
right? There's a lot of traditional
10:09
things that you can do and they're fantastic as well.
10:11
And I think there's there's a space for absolute everything.
10:13
But what I do see a lot more of and stuff that we've even tried
10:16
as well is to try and like, what else can you do with with
10:19
regards to collaborations, talking about your your coffee
10:23
one with the blenders down in London.
10:24
Is that brilliant? But at the same time, I'm just
10:27
trying to work out right, what does it look like?
10:29
Is it basically just people getting haircuts with their
10:31
having a drama that? So I think that they offered
10:33
drinks anyway to clients that would come in sort like after
10:36
work. And then they, I don't know if
10:39
they reached out to Ozard, one of the girls, kind of seek them
10:41
out just cause they're a really cool brand that's just very laid
10:46
back. Yeah, very.
10:47
Not too laid back if you're cutting my hair though.
10:49
Yeah. I mean was like.
10:52
Oh, that's kind of giving you a buzz cover.
10:53
It's OK. What do you?
10:54
Feel about it. All right?
10:55
Lopsided fade. Yeah.
10:56
But I mean, what so you just said is this just a case of
10:59
woven is available for people in this barbers in Stockbridge that
11:02
you said? In Stockbridge, yeah.
11:03
And like another one that we've done is the Kesting the clothes
11:06
store in Stockbridge. So we've done little bits with
11:08
them, like when Stockbridge had their Christmas market on the
11:11
It's like clothing. Kesting all right.
11:15
It's trying to think where it's quite close to the
11:17
cheesemongers. In Stockbridge.
11:19
Oh yeah, very nice, yes. Although I I collab with the
11:22
with the jeweler would be a good would be a good one antlers
11:24
another. That would be a good one.
11:26
Be like oh what? What can I get to do some
11:27
sampling in here truly? Good.
11:29
Guys, there's well, I'll tell you what, there's a, there's
11:31
something for the listeners, right?
11:32
What is the most random and weird collaboration that you
11:35
could come up with for a WW and so and so for a collaboration
11:39
there, I'd quite like that. I'd quite like to see what we
11:41
could do. Whiskey.
11:43
There we go. Anyway, Christopher, really.
11:47
I said this last week. I mean, it really does show you
11:49
the value. Angus Ashton stops any of these
11:54
really difficult and awkward silences after I've said some
11:57
really stupid idea. But like, so.
11:59
So what was the moment or how did you get into whiskey now?
12:03
Because you've said as you sat there and you've Googled like
12:05
jobs and whiskey. Yeah, yeah.
12:06
So what? What talk take us back.
12:08
Where are we? How are?
12:09
You so so I grew up in the countryside between Perth and
12:13
Kreef and we were a famous grouse household, right?
12:17
So my my parents drank famous grouse and coke.
12:20
So from a, you know, from a young age, I like that was what
12:24
you know, having a whiskey and coke in the in the room.
12:27
I wasn't drinking it. I mean, I tried, but you know, I
12:30
was used to that. I've also got like a really
12:32
strong memory of being taken to Glen Turret when I was really
12:35
when I was really young. So I was probably, I don't know,
12:37
seven years old or something. And I'm.
12:38
So that would have been the famous gross experience in the
12:40
gross experience. So I've got, I've got, you know,
12:42
I've got a vivid memory of being told about tales of the males
12:45
and, and walking around the distillery and.
12:47
But they have the piano on the floor.
12:49
Oh, the light piano. No, no, I think this would have
12:51
been, I think this probably would have been probably,
12:52
probably would have been before that.
12:53
But I do remember like, you know, being given a box to stand
12:57
on so I could look into the wash bags and being told, oh, don't
12:59
let your glasses, you know, fall off into, you know, and that.
13:02
And that really, and that really stuck with me.
13:04
And, you know, I think there's, there's maybe some sort of
13:07
element of fate that kind of pushed me in the direction
13:10
because when I was when I was very small, the family cat was
13:14
called Whiskey. All right.
13:16
OK, So like there was there was the family cat was called
13:18
Whiskey. And then like, you know, whiskey
13:20
was drunk in the house. That's not that interesting.
13:21
But then I've got this like vivid, like core memory sort of
13:25
of going to Glen Turret as a as a, as a weak kid.
13:28
And I don't know. So I think it just always kind
13:30
of sparked as being as being interesting.
13:33
And then when I came to Edinburgh to go to uni, I
13:37
started drinking neat spirits mainly like tequila and, and old
13:40
Sailor Jerry rum before it changed.
13:43
And, and I remember I had this German flatmate and he was sort
13:47
of horrified that I didn't drink single malt whiskey.
13:51
And he was like Christopher from Scotland.
13:56
You don't drink single malt. What's wrong with you?
14:00
Wow, you. Know he was.
14:02
He was offended, you know, he was.
14:03
He was. He was.
14:04
Creepy as well he is. He was lovely.
14:06
He was, he was shocked. He was shocked and appalled.
14:08
Like he, you know, he'd, he'd expected that he was, you know,
14:12
for him he was like, oh, I'm sharing a flat with this guy
14:14
that spent his whole life living in Scotland.
14:16
He's going to be the gateway into, into single malt for me.
14:20
And instead he did it for me. I mean, he, I've got a vivid
14:23
memory. He came into into my room one
14:25
day, sat down at my desk and went, this is Lagavulin just
14:29
still as edition. Let's drink this.
14:31
Wow. And and I, you know, obviously,
14:34
like blew my tiny little mind, you know, you know, it was like,
14:37
like, you know, that scene in Requiem for a dream, you know,
14:40
the, the eyes go the the bloody heart rate increases, you know,
14:45
or maybe Homer with the MC rib if you're more of a Simpsons
14:48
reference kind of guy. And yeah.
14:51
And it completely, completely changed, changed my life.
14:54
And he took me along to a Napier Uni Whiskey Society pasting and
14:59
I was hooked. And I and I came home the next
15:02
day with a bottle of Taliska Distillers addition.
15:04
And I went, oh, look, I've got, I've got this.
15:06
And he went not like a villain, though.
15:08
It was like you tried. That's the thing though, like
15:13
when people who aren't from Scotland come over and they're
15:16
so appalled that we don't all appreciate single malt and then
15:20
because they just, I think we're so spoilt that we're brought up
15:22
around it almost so that we're so.
15:25
No, we've had so many people on the podcast talking about the
15:29
almost the opposite away in the sense of they went travelling
15:33
and they were suddenly, and as a, as a Scott abroad, you almost
15:37
felt like you should be an ambassador for Scotch whiskey.
15:40
Or, and I always think it must be such a, I don't know if
15:44
you're, imagine if you're in Japan or Australia or New
15:47
Zealand or Malaysia or someplace like that and you love whiskey
15:51
and suddenly you hear a Scottish accent at the bar and you think,
15:55
Oh my God. And you go, I have now got a
15:57
chance to speak to a Scotsman about whiskey.
16:01
And they go, oh, I love whiskey. And then the guy goes, I can't
16:04
stand this stuff. Yeah, when I was 18, I had a
16:06
really bad experience when I was at uni.
16:08
And like, I don't, I don't trust disgusting.
16:11
And that because that's what we are.
16:13
We effectively are we, you know, without, I mean, I suppose you
16:17
hammer up a little bit. I'm looking for a quake from the
16:19
keepers. But we're all ambassadors for
16:22
Scotch whisky. But I, I think so.
16:24
We've had so many people that it wasn't until they went up, they
16:27
left Scotland. Yeah.
16:29
And then realised that there is this big thing that you can
16:32
become. Do you think anyone that lives
16:33
in Bordeaux doesn't like red wine?
16:35
Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah, actually, you know.
16:39
Yeah, I mean, you know. Massively into red California.
16:44
No one talks to me, but it is, it's something that I think and
16:49
I was the same. It was like went to Australia
16:52
when I was 2021 and I bought, when I arrived, I bought a
16:57
Johnnie Walker red Label litre and I kept it in my bag.
17:01
Red Label, one litre of that and I kept in my bag.
17:04
And I kind of it was a sort of when you're doing when you're
17:08
going into different sort of hostels and stuff like that and
17:12
you bring it out and you just say like, Ah, this is have a
17:15
Scooby. What I was talking about.
17:16
Johnny Walker read it was fine at the time.
17:19
It was it was all I could afford as well when Australia's waited
17:22
until I got to Australia to buy it rather than bringing it over.
17:25
But at the same time it was just a sort of thing to but I really
17:28
clung on to that more than I probably would have done if it
17:32
was anything else. It was just less about like in
17:34
the whiskey and more about the sort of heritage behind it and
17:37
being a Scott abroad and sort of using that as a sort of door
17:40
opener as such. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't hurt to
17:42
have whiskey in your pockets. I mean, I always tried to have
17:44
whiskey in my pocket, you know, at the very least to cover up my
17:48
bad chat. But you know, it's, but it's,
17:51
it's true, though, you know, I think you see you, you, you
17:53
travel around the world. You, you tell people that
17:55
you're, you work with, work with whiskey.
17:58
And suddenly people's faces light up.
18:00
Even if they don't drink the stuff, people turn to you and
18:03
they go, either I love whiskey and they want to pick your
18:06
brains for five hours, or they go, oh, I don't drink whiskey,
18:11
but I'd like to. Yeah.
18:12
But imagine if you, you know, if you say if you're an accountant
18:15
and no, no, no, no, no dissing to accountants at all at all.
18:19
But you know, like, you know, if you go to somebody or I'm an
18:21
accountant, they probably go, oh, OK.
18:23
Yeah. And then, oh, I work, I work in
18:25
banking or I work in, you know, people go, alright, nobody goes,
18:29
oh, I'm not an accountant, but I'd really like to.
18:31
You know, like you're 1 of. It, you know, yeah, a lot of I
18:36
mean, I do love a spreadsheet, but.
18:38
But, you know, it's this, you know, it's it's this incredibly
18:41
powerful brand. It's this thing, it's this
18:43
incredible product. I mean, obviously I am going to
18:45
say that I've dedicated my life to it.
18:48
It's it. And it's something that
18:49
shouldn't be, you know, we should never forget and we
18:51
should never squander it. You know, we're so lucky that
18:54
wherever you go in the world, people want to talk to you.
18:56
If you say you're from Scotland and you're into whiskey and.
18:58
It's global. I mean, that's like you say,
19:00
like you know, it's, it's, it's not one brand either.
19:03
Yeah, it's it's a one thing is recognised everywhere.
19:07
And what's really, really nice is it's like it's honed in to
19:11
what like, all right, so you could say I like golf and people
19:16
will say, oh, golf, yeah, you got sad.
19:17
But there's there's American golfers, there's Chinese
19:19
golfers, there's there's Australian golfers, there's
19:21
British golfers, there's English golfers and stuff like that.
19:24
I actually used to get really, really annoyed that there was no
19:26
decent Scottish golfers because they used to be like home a golf
19:29
and all that. We can't even get, you know,
19:30
it's all Americans or, or something like that.
19:32
But actually, you know, whiskey itself and there's global
19:36
whiskey. And again, one of the things
19:38
I've learned a lot from doing this podcast was if you'd asked
19:41
me two or three years ago, I wouldn't touch foreign whiskey
19:43
because the only whiskey you can get is the whiskey that's made
19:46
in Scotland. That would be my mindset.
19:48
And that's one of the great things about doing this podcast
19:50
is we've grown so much. Angus and myself in particular,
19:54
I've just like, we would sit there, follow the traditional
19:59
sort of stuff that people follow.
20:00
Blends aren't any good, grain whiskey is cheap shite because
20:03
it's just used to bulk out blends, and foreign whiskey is
20:06
naked because it's not made in Scotland and you suddenly you
20:09
break that down. Yeah, it's kind of one of these
20:10
ones where, well, when I go into whiskey initially, I was like,
20:13
OK, cool. I like, I like this and I like
20:15
this. Like I really like Glenn Farkas.
20:17
I must like Sherry casks. That's what I'll focus on.
20:19
And then you learn like, oh, actually, wait, Bourbon cast,
20:23
really good refill. Bourbon is really good and then
20:25
that opens up. Thomas's choice and then refill
20:29
Hoggy. And then that, that opens up and
20:31
then like peated whiskey for me was quite a tough one to get
20:34
into. I think I had an RBEG 10 was my
20:37
first peated whiskey ever and I for years referred it to as the
20:41
the first time I'd ever been physically assaulted by a
20:43
liquid. So that took me a while to get
20:47
into it. And then I was like, OK, cool,
20:48
I've got my idea. A Scotch and Bushmills is bad
20:52
because it's Irish. So I must have eaten all Irish
20:54
whiskey is bad. And then I went to Northern
20:55
Ireland, did a scuba course and then.
21:00
Yeah. And then I went to Bushmills,
21:02
had some really good Bushmills. Yeah, completely open my eyes.
21:04
I was like, OK, well, what's wrong about that?
21:06
And then just continually being wrong.
21:10
Blends I thought were bad because I was into single malts.
21:12
And then I had tons of really, really good blends.
21:15
We've been obviously phenomenal. Like I think SMWS, when they did
21:19
their first, the exotic cargo was like one of their blinds.
21:23
I bought that, I think it was like £40 and I was like fuck.
21:26
Yes, good. And then that can put the open
21:29
door on that. And then I travelled the world
21:31
just trying to figure out what was going on.
21:33
Well, I mean, it's like you speak to well, I don't speak to
21:37
scientists, but you hear about scientists and they say like,
21:40
it's better to be wrong than to be right, because then it
21:43
disproves and it keep you keep looking and keep looking.
21:47
And that's that. Like it's, it's true.
21:48
You get, I know a few whiskey drinkers now that I've mentioned
21:52
them on the podcast a few times and everyone locally, everyone
21:57
referred him. It's like he's a whiskey guy and
21:58
he knows his stuff about whiskey, but he was only the
22:00
whiskey guy. He knows his stuff because he
22:02
would sit in the same pub and all he drank was Glenmore J 10.
22:06
But the reason he was known as whiskey, I was like, because he
22:08
drank a lot of it, right. And so everyone just like he
22:11
must, he must really like he must really knows whiskeys and
22:14
he would maintain and that's fine because everyone's entitled
22:16
it. But there is there's no better
22:17
whiskey in the world than Glen Warranty 10.
22:19
That's absolutely fine. So much so that when they
22:20
announced that that they're discontinuing Glen Warranty 10,
22:25
he has bought stock quotes of this stuff and he's convinced
22:30
that this is going to be like I'm on when I'm here.
22:32
I've got a little bit of insight.
22:33
He kind of pulled me aside like as like, I'll tell you, we think
22:37
you need to be on for this. By the way, get yourself a
22:39
couple of bottles of Glen monetary then because they're
22:41
actually they're stopping it and I've got a garage full of this.
22:44
It's. Going to be tough.
22:45
Free Royal Ward with Freud, 10. But he's got all that but it but
22:50
but then The thing is like he doesn't want to ever be proved
22:53
wrong. So what he'll do is he'll say
22:56
and he'll say no, I am sorry. But anyone that tells you that
23:01
they enjoy a peated whiskey from Isla is lying to you because it
23:05
is. No one can physically handle
23:08
that. I'm sorry.
23:09
I will tell you right now you are they're lying.
23:11
It's rubbish. Peated whiskey is no good.
23:13
And The thing is, he says it with enough enough authority.
23:16
He drinks enough whiskey and he's he's an older person.
23:19
Sounds exhausting to me, that person.
23:22
Yeah, yeah. But it's true.
23:22
But it's true and but like and and that's it.
23:26
Imagine being that sure of yourself.
23:27
I mean, I know like I know. Like, like never, like, you
23:30
know, I, I was always taught from a very young age that you
23:33
should never hold on to any belief to, you know, so tightly
23:36
that you can't see it anymore. You know, it's, I would, I can't
23:40
imagine going through your whole life.
23:41
But that's yeah, only drinking one, only drinking 1 brand.
23:44
And of course it's a nightmare for people that work in sales
23:46
and marketing because they loved people that only drank their
23:49
products and drank it every day and drank a, you know, drank a
23:52
litre bottle of it every week or something.
23:54
And that was, and that was fine. And now it's not like that.
23:57
No, I've got and the whiskey industry wants people to like.
23:59
That's what I find I've found most fascinating is and we spoke
24:04
to yourself. In fact, you were episode #3 you
24:07
were the third episode of the podcast and I was kind of
24:12
jabbing you a little bit for a bit of fun saying like I but
24:15
because you were, you kept going on about how like all the other
24:17
PDMS, all the other people that work in business development
24:20
with our other brands, we're also friendly and we all get on.
24:22
And I said I but if you've just seen them coming in a pub that
24:25
you've just want that you're letting the tires down a wee
24:27
bit. What's so?
24:28
So it's not for? You there double it.
24:31
Yeah. But at the same time, I think
24:33
that what I like about the whiskey industry, I'm sure if
24:36
you dig a little bit deeper, I'm sure if you look at the way
24:38
things are going right now, business has to thrive and
24:41
people will start to look at that.
24:42
Elbows might start to push out a little bit more.
24:45
But ultimately what I'm trying to find is most people in the
24:48
industry are saying, if you're drinking whiskey, that's the
24:50
most important thing, you know, And because if you're drinking
24:53
whiskey, you're drinking a product that we are part of.
24:56
And we will be along the way. And as long as we can make sure
24:59
we're somewhere along the way. Where you are on that journey,
25:02
it's where you make it. But at the same time, you're on
25:05
the way. And if they stumble upon you and
25:07
they go woven out, where is woven on the journey path?
25:10
You're, you're, you're what would, what would call
25:13
themselves independent bottlers? Or would they call themselves a
25:15
blender? Blender, right.
25:18
But they're small and they're new.
25:19
So again, if you're suddenly saying, so to get too woven,
25:23
someone needs to go. I'm a OK with blends and I'm a
25:28
OK with going into somebody new, which for a lot of people is 2
25:32
barriers that have. But once someone gets the woven
25:37
and they go like that and then the next barrier is like your
25:40
hemisphere. It's it's not Scotch.
25:42
It's it's got world whiskey in it.
25:44
And suddenly you're saying there's three big, but you get
25:47
there and someone goes actually bang on.
25:49
I'm all I'm all for that. It's kind of like me and
25:51
yourself, because we were talking about just before we
25:53
started recording, that the most important thing is we need
25:55
people to still be enthusiastic about whiskey because let's be
25:58
real, World's kind of shit right now.
26:00
Yeah. Penny pinching everything like
26:03
all bills, everything's going up like it's it's a bit rubbish but
26:07
if we can still go into a room and get people excited about
26:10
well, it's like our own brands that we're selling or about
26:12
something that we've tried and we want to show that to friends
26:14
that's that's half the battle and like that's you know, it's
26:17
great being down here with yourself tonight even though I'm
26:19
driving but but like it's it's exciting and you're getting like
26:25
momentum behind you know like you've got like tomato and stuff
26:28
there you've got your your drums and your mysterious bachelor
26:31
that we'll be trying later but. That's fun.
26:34
And I think like one thing I really like about this, and I
26:37
was speaking to somebody who works in branding for in a
26:39
different industry and they were kind of not understanding that
26:43
On our podcast, we kind of say to someone, if you work for a
26:46
brand, we give you 1 bonus what, 3 DRAM where you can go on
26:50
brand, right? But we're not forcing people.
26:52
But it's just what this person couldn't get their head around
26:56
is wait a minute, they'll come on to your podcast representing
27:00
a brand and then when they have the what, 3 drams, they will
27:03
happily say 3 whiskeys that are probably from three different
27:07
brands, which sounds from a marketer's point of view, you'd
27:10
be going, what the hell are you doing?
27:11
Yeah. But but again, like I've, I've
27:13
had many conversations with people in senior marketing
27:16
positions at businesses and I think there are more of them
27:18
that get this than I think there's, there's a very
27:21
generally a very cynical view of people that work in sales and
27:24
marketing. And actually, I think that
27:25
there's, there are more people that love whiskey in those jobs
27:28
than than you'd think that the, the, the confidence and the
27:34
appearance of confidence that comes from your paid ambassador
27:38
being able to go on something and say, actually, I do this job
27:41
because I love whiskey. It's not just because it's a
27:44
good salary and I get to travel around the world or, you know,
27:46
drink all, you know, you drink in nice bars, bars, or we can
27:49
talk to people. No, it's because I love this.
27:51
I'm, I'm passionate about this. You want them to be picking up
27:56
the whole category. And ultimately, I mean, if you
27:59
know, if anybody's listening, it's in these kinds of roles.
28:02
Scotch has lost overall market share of the overall global
28:05
whiskey market in the last few years because of the rapid
28:08
growth of mostly American whiskey, but also Irish whiskey.
28:11
That proportion is, is moving. So you want everybody that works
28:16
in your business to 1. Be feeling valued and, and
28:19
upbeat, which they're not going to if you, you know, freeze pay
28:23
and start firing people. And also you want them to be
28:27
free to be category ambassadors, you want them to be digging up
28:31
Scotch at every opportunity. You want them to be showing
28:33
their genuine passion. And you don't want them to be
28:36
scripted People who everybody can tell are scripted.
28:39
Yeah, you know, that's that's not good for anybodies business.
28:43
And you know, hopefully we'll see that that approach born out
28:46
and I think there are big companies that that that do kind
28:49
of get it. I mean, we were we were very I
28:51
was very lucky last year I made a film about blended Scotch in
28:56
partnership with Andre and they were great.
28:58
I mean they just said actually we just want you to do something
29:00
on blended Scotch. It doesn't it's not an Andre
29:02
brand thing. It's we want to help you do
29:06
something about blended Scotch. So we featured woven in it.
29:09
We featured Thompson brothers in it.
29:10
We featured compass box in it. You know, we we talked about
29:13
blended as a category, we talked about Johnnie Walker in it.
29:16
That's fascinating that like to share that space.
29:19
Like, and that was, and that was, and that was a part, that
29:21
was a piece of part, you know, that was a piece of partners
29:23
content because for them they were like, well, no, it's, it's
29:26
about us. We think the right thing to do
29:28
is to give someone who's really interested in blends and wants
29:31
to research it the means to go away and tell the story.
29:35
That's interesting in a way that it hasn't been told before.
29:37
So I felt very pretty like very lucky to be, you know, given,
29:40
given that opportunity. So there are people even at the
29:42
big companies that kind of get this and the.
29:45
Thing is, you, you like the authentic authenticity gets
29:49
chucked about all the time now. It's the key word.
29:50
That's the key authenticity is, but it is like you.
29:54
We had Stephen Woodcock on the podcast from Glenn Turner, who
29:58
was, you know, he's up at Glenn Murray, and he talked about the
30:01
fact that he goes to these whiskey festivals and people say
30:04
like, why is Glen Turn? Why is Glen Murray so cheap?
30:08
And he just said, look, we all use the same three ingredients,
30:11
right? It's all made exactly the same
30:13
way. OK, Obviously there's distillery
30:16
character, which is all he was all about.
30:17
So he said, like, actually, it's nothing to do with like, why are
30:20
we so cheap? Why is everyone else so
30:21
expensive? That was his point of view.
30:23
But the bottom line is like that element of everyone does it the
30:26
same way, right? So there's no secret.
30:29
There's no secret sauce, and there's no hiding about it.
30:32
I remember hearing about like how Silicon Valley grew and
30:35
built up what Steve Jobs and all these people came out talking
30:38
about because at the time, it was over on the East Coast of
30:40
America. And it's like all these tech
30:42
companies, they were building like massive fences around that.
30:46
And their security was so intense and no one could see.
30:49
And it wasn't until there's like a famous pub quiz pizza joint or
30:54
something in Silicon Valley, which basically all it was was
30:58
you had engineers from 5 or 6 different companies all coming
31:02
on a Thursday night. They all do a pub quiz that
31:04
would all sit and have a drama or a beer or what have you and
31:07
talk about the problems they're having.
31:09
And then one guy would say, oh, if you're having that problem,
31:11
you should try and do it like this.
31:12
But they worked for two separate companies.
31:14
But it was just a space where ideas started to get shared.
31:17
And suddenly everything started to explode.
31:19
And look what happened on the back of it all these sort of
31:21
huge big tech companies were formed on the back of these
31:25
these areas and suddenly a few of them got together and have
31:27
you an apple, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
31:29
But it just does show you that if everyone shares at the same
31:32
time and look, whiskey's going through, is it a tough time?
31:35
Is it not a tough time? Who knows?
31:36
Is it just the times that aren't as good as what they were
31:39
beforehand? Who knows.
31:40
But at the same time, what we are seeing is it is difficult
31:42
for for some, for, for some I. Think in part of it's just how
31:46
much suspendable income you've got.
31:49
Well, the world's, like you said, the world.
31:51
I mean, people are holding back people.
31:52
Yeah. And what we have seen is even
31:55
through the length of time of doing this podcast or the length
31:57
of time of me getting like really whiskey, seeing the price
32:01
changing of drams. I think we talked about it as
32:03
the Talisker 18 being the sort of point of the the index point,
32:09
what the Talisker 18 is priced at now versus how long ago it
32:13
was priced at, what it was. It shows you what the price hike
32:15
in whiskey's actually been like. My.
32:17
Benchmark is Glenn Farkle is 21 and 25.
32:20
That's the one I look at and nearly cry.
32:23
But yeah, we did it the last time we were down here.
32:25
Chuck Wood we did. The player distillery is right
32:27
with the. Oh yeah. 10/10 of the most
32:30
affordable 18 year olds that are on whiskey exchange and listen
32:33
there were some very reasonably priced 18 year old perspective
32:36
yeah, so far yeah and yet you know so.
32:38
It's paper and 18. Yeah, yeah, it's paper saying.
32:41
It's a banger. It's an absolute banger.
32:44
So right, so Christopher Lynn right from Googling and sort of
32:47
from spending a youth make sure your glasses don't fall into
32:51
there. The wash backs exactly
32:54
introduced to escalate the Germans.
32:56
No exactly exactly. So when was What was it you
32:59
studied that university then? I studied international
33:02
relations, so foreign, foreign foreign policy, politics.
33:05
That's why your German accent was so good.
33:09
With a, with like a, with like a focus on like terrorism, really
33:12
like that. Yeah.
33:13
Yeah. So pretty much, I mean, if there
33:15
was ever anything that was going to make you drink and.
33:18
Yeah, I came out of four years of studying, you know, I'd gone
33:20
into university like a lot of, you know, idiot kids and kind of
33:24
thought I'm going to change the world.
33:25
I'm going to make the world a better place.
33:27
You know, I'm going to try and go and work for some big
33:30
international organization. I was quite a utopian thinker
33:34
and, you know, four years of undergrad degree, learning about
33:37
what the world is actually like, you know, put that idea to, to,
33:41
to rest. And I came and I came out of it
33:43
and said, now you get, you get one shot at life.
33:45
You've got to do something that's going to bring you joy
33:47
every day. And what brings me joy is, you
33:49
know, ferriting around on Google Docs on Google books, trying to
33:54
find references in old journals to sort of to, you know,
33:57
searching for distillery names on Google Books or, you know,
34:00
hunting on a books, trying to find whiskey books.
34:03
I've never heard of get them for £2.50.
34:05
Like I love trawling through this kind of stuff and, you
34:09
know, skimming through them and checking in the indexes and just
34:11
every time I'm thinking about a distillery going and looking at
34:14
these things and thinking, you know, it's all, it's all pretty.
34:17
These are quite well tilled fields, right?
34:20
You know, there are I, you know, I'm, I'm standing on the
34:22
shoulders of giants who have put 40 years of work into whisky
34:26
journalism. And so I, you know, I think if
34:28
there's, there's probably, I try and tell myself that there's
34:30
probably not a lot that Charlie McLean and Dave Bruin haven't
34:33
already found or, or Arthur Motley haven't.
34:36
Found you, just really tried and quite something.
34:39
But I'm. But I'm determined one day, one
34:41
day, one day, I'm gonna find something and I'm going to say
34:44
it to them and they, you know, and they're going to go really
34:48
one day. That's that's my, that's my
34:49
career. So was it, was it straight?
34:51
And I mean, first of all, date they're saying what, what time,
34:53
where, where, what? What?
34:54
So I started working for Whiskey Magazine in 2013 and.
34:58
You're at uni? Is this straight out uni?
35:00
Straight out straight out uni. So I, so I all through uni, I, I
35:04
worked for a, a jeweler, I worked for a watch retailer.
35:07
I sold watches. I'd kind of, I thought, oh, I
35:09
like watches as well, you know, is that an industry I could go
35:12
into? But I don't speak French.
35:13
If you wanted to go in like brand side in Switzerland, you
35:16
know, it was just, I just knew, you know, I just knew.
35:19
I've tried, I've tried, I've tried, I've tried, I've tried.
35:26
So, but I kind of knew that. I kind of, I knew that that was
35:29
something that I was interested in.
35:30
But I did. I didn't, yeah.
35:32
I didn't get the vibe from it that that was the career I
35:34
wanted to pursue. Whiskey was something I was
35:36
interested in. I had friends that worked with
35:38
the Scotch Monk Whiskey Society. I Googled jobs, whiskey.
35:41
I got a job at the Scotch Whiskey Experience.
35:43
Wait a minute, You're another one.
35:45
Yeah, another one. You're the.
35:46
Sweeple. I didn't.
35:53
Take a note. Of this yeah, yeah, right.
35:54
So yeah, because basically, I mean, I've questioned it.
35:57
There's this the the whiskey. It's the incubator.
36:00
It's. The development system, yeah.
36:01
Yeah, it's, I mean, the Scott, it's funny because, you know, I
36:05
think it's, I think attitudes are changing now.
36:07
But certainly when I first came into the industry, a lot of
36:09
people were quite cynical about the Scotch whisky experience.
36:12
I mean, we used to call it like malt Disney and people were
36:14
really like really crappy about it.
36:16
And I was like, this is something that the industry has
36:19
come together to fund in the middle of our capital that's
36:23
championing our product and teaching more people every today
36:26
about whiskey then probably any other institution on the planet.
36:31
You know, what is there not to love about that?
36:33
If people if 5th tourist comes in, walks to the castle, sees
36:36
that place, goes in and comes out of it knowing what Scotch
36:39
whiskey is. I think when you call something
36:42
a cash right, it should be. More.
36:45
I like the barrel. I like the barrel, right?
36:47
You're the only one. I missed the I missed the Sadly,
36:50
what I'm really sore about, though, is that I missed the era
36:53
of the wax figures. I think that's that's what
36:56
that's what I'm sad about. I.
36:57
Did a school trip and they had. Them we did Angela Denean.
37:00
So we we went down to the Scotch Whisky experience and Ross
37:05
Angus. Myself, we had Susan Morrison
37:09
Lincoln, our second name goes for me and Angela Deneen, 31,
37:15
master of the quake 2 keepers of the quake Yeah, like Susan
37:19
Morrison been there the first Saturday at open yeah yeah.
37:23
And worked our way up to the chief executive.
37:25
Yeah amazing, incredible. And one of the things we talked
37:28
about was like the and Angela Deneen been there since like
37:30
2001. I would say like the the careers
37:34
that you've crafted on the back of it.
37:36
How many people and. And one of the things that they
37:38
said so much about was like we, it is not a step.
37:41
You were probably not a one off, but you were probably different
37:45
in the sense that you liked your whiskeys when you went there.
37:48
Where it's like they say like we don't have a problem with you
37:51
not liking whiskey when you want to try and work for the Scotch
37:54
whiskey experience because we would want you to learn.
37:57
And I think when someone finds that epiphany moment, goes on a
38:00
journey, they become even more passionate about it.
38:02
But. Also, what other job could you
38:05
go into and within the first couple of months of work in
38:07
there have effectively tasted every core range product?
38:11
Yeah, yeah, like you have the ability to taste every core
38:14
range product. I don't know if you still do.
38:16
So sorry if you, I don't know if things have changed.
38:18
But certainly, certainly when I was there, there was some over
38:21
the course of the time that I was there and I was really there
38:22
like 3 1/2 months. Like in that time I was like
38:25
able to taste everything core range.
38:27
They did that Meet the Blenders event where all the blenders
38:30
come in and suddenly like I walked into this event.
38:33
I'll never forget it till my dying day.
38:34
I walked into this event and there was this guy and I was
38:37
stood there and his back to me in a suit looking really sharp.
38:40
And I was like, shit, that's Richard Patterson, right?
38:43
So and I was kind of like looking around.
38:45
I wasn't sure who I was going to come up to.
38:46
And he came up to and he went, he went.
38:48
Christopher, your glass is empty.
38:50
That's no way to be here. Have some Jura.
38:52
Jura 21. There you go.
38:53
We'll start talking to you about it.
38:55
You know, you start tasting with me with.
38:57
It the glass under the carpet hello to me to.
39:03
Get my nose right in it though. I've got a wet nose with Jura 21
39:07
and you know, and I just think, you know, what other institution
39:12
could young people come into? Well, people of any age coming
39:15
who want to come into the industry, go into where they get
39:18
it, this training course of meet who's who, learn who's who,
39:22
either through the Meet the Blenders events or through all
39:24
the industry trade events. You know, there's just people
39:26
going in and out of that place all day.
39:29
They do the tastings in the shops, you're meeting
39:30
ambassadors. You've got all the key, you
39:33
know, almost all the key distillers, you know,
39:35
represented there. It's fantastic.
39:37
And obviously, if you didn't start Korea there, you started
39:39
at SMWS, which is, you know. Yeah, or the whiskey shop as
39:43
well. We've had a few like but, but
39:45
yeah, we've had. Odd bins was the the generation
39:48
before me. A lot of people started, a lot
39:49
of people started in odd bins. I'd say that loads of times that
39:53
like I would stay away from the Scotch whiskey experience
39:56
because it was a tourist trap and it'd beer.
39:59
Sounds like oh is it really gimmicky?
40:01
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
40:04
But the bar and the pricing of the drums behind.
40:08
The no tourists like price gouging there was great.
40:11
We could afford to go and drink. Exactly.
40:13
Yeah, that's what I mean. It's like you automatically
40:16
think tourists. It's I'll be doing this track
40:21
with that. But no, it's fantastic.
40:22
And what it does for, as you say, what it's done for the
40:24
industry and and what the the people that I mean, I don't know
40:27
how I'm going to have to go back and check.
40:29
And I've said it on the podcast. We joked about and there needs
40:32
to be a reunion. Yeah.
40:34
You know, there needs to. There needs to be like, get
40:35
everyone, if you could try and fit, you know, could you fit
40:38
everyone in the experience whose career in whiskey has been
40:41
launched there? I don't know.
40:43
And. What people have done, you know,
40:44
how far people have gone in the community and, and how many of
40:47
those people maybe walked in being like, I just needed a job.
40:50
I just needed, I needed a bit of work and I just fell in love
40:53
with it. It is fascinating and it's a
40:55
great place. The the barrel ride everywhere.
40:57
You're the only person that's worked, that's worked.
41:00
That speed I've got, it's been on that says the barrel ride was
41:02
OK. Now I loved, I loved it.
41:04
I think it was. It was who.
41:05
But you were only there for so you said you were only there for
41:07
3 1/2. Months.
41:07
Then I worked in the shop. I think if I'd been a tour guide
41:10
I'd had to stand around it all day.
41:12
Maybe, maybe you would have gone mad.
41:13
Now I was in the shop though so. So Frog, where did you move on
41:17
from there? Straight to Whiskey magazine,
41:19
Straight into. Yeah, yeah.
41:20
So like kept Googling jobs whiskey while I was there.
41:24
Saw this, you know, this opportunity to go work for a
41:27
drinks media company and yeah, 2021 years old, got given a
41:33
laptop and the keys to a company car and told on, on you go.
41:36
Like away, away you go. Travel around, travel around the
41:39
country and learn about whiskey. Yeah.
41:42
Yeah, it's nuts. It's absolutely.
41:45
It's nut. No, I did.
41:46
I did. I did.
41:47
Sorry, Damien, I did. I did click the car in like
41:51
within the first month or so. In fact, I'm pretty sure if you
41:54
go to the Highlander Inn and you look at the, the, the stone
41:57
pillars that drive that you, when you drive down to the, down
42:01
to the car park, I'm pretty sure you can see some of the paint
42:03
still there from, from the company car from, from, from
42:08
when I scraped it. And it was funny because it was
42:10
the old owner. Duncan had just painted them.
42:13
Like. I think they were probably still
42:14
wet and I came along and scraped the side of the car.
42:18
So yeah, there you go. One experience like what was
42:20
your job interview like to go to work at for like to go to a
42:23
whiskey bag, the whiskey magazine like that.
42:25
I, I don't know. I mean, it was just, it was, it
42:28
was, I think it was just more of an act.
42:29
I mean, the business was tiny at that point.
42:31
I think there was probably only ten of us that you know.
42:34
It was a business, so. It's not.
42:35
So the company's a publisher called Paragraph.
42:38
So they also run the, so 1/2 of the business runs the drink the
42:43
world drinks Awards. So that's World beer Awards,
42:46
World Whiskey's awards. So to my, to my knowledge, we're
42:49
the, that's the largest whiskey tasting competition.
42:52
So it's roughly between 17 and 1800 different whiskeys entered
42:57
every year from all over the world judging, 3 rounds of
43:02
judging in both the US, the UK and now in France as well and
43:07
also in Japan. It's a massive competition.
43:10
So there's that whole side of the business, which is sort of
43:13
awards and then there's quite this sort of like a firewall.
43:16
And there's the other side of the business, which is the side
43:18
of the business I work in, which is the the sort of media side to
43:21
it. So we, when I joined, I actually
43:25
started out editing a magazine called Scotland Magazine that
43:28
was all about Scottish history and travel.
43:30
So it was all about going like, you know, anything to do with
43:33
Scottish history, cultural travel.
43:36
But at the same time, I was, I was allowed to like write about
43:38
whiskey and sort of cut my teeth doing interviews and stuff like
43:42
that. And that's, yeah, I'm just, you
43:43
know, I've just sort of fallen upwards.
43:46
You know, they say incompetent people for a lot of us.
43:49
So that's, that's what I've done.
43:50
And then and then around, I guess it would have been like
43:53
2020 who what would it have been 2022?
44:00
I kind of got it in my head that what I was seeing on YouTube for
44:07
in the whiskey space kind of wasn't what I what wanted.
44:11
I wanted more stuff that was like in depth, long form, not
44:15
about tasting whiskey in opinions, but more about the
44:18
people who make it and the history of these places and the
44:21
families that have been involved in like getting the industry to
44:25
where it was. And sort of, you know, one day I
44:29
said, you know, it'd be really great to do something, you know,
44:32
about Dennis Malcolm at Glen Grant.
44:34
And somehow we, they said, yeah, let's do it.
44:37
And there was me, you know, no experience with, with film
44:41
making films at all. Got a very, very talented film
44:45
crew from Manchester called Cool Box.
44:47
And, and we went up to Glen Grant and spent two days
44:50
interviewing everybody in the Rothfuss community about Dennis,
44:53
spending time walking around the distillery with him, learning
44:56
about his life. I mean, God, that man's got
44:57
energy like I mean he was born there, but he was born at that
45:01
site. What you know was a connected to
45:04
the distillery for almost in his entire career.
45:07
Incredible stories, so. So, yeah, right, Hazel, someone
45:12
comes to you tomorrow and says there's the keys to the car,
45:16
you've got five days go away and then come back with something to
45:21
write about or talk about. And whiskey, where are you
45:24
going? Oh, that's.
45:25
A really good question, actually.
45:27
It's kind of quite itself. It's really bad.
45:30
As an Islander, I've not been to like any other islands really.
45:32
So I would love to go up to Orkney and see Highland Park in
45:35
that. Yeah.
45:36
And just spend the day just. Give us up there.
45:37
Really good scoop up there, Chucky.
45:39
Yeah, I'll give you underwater and I'll go to the.
45:43
So you're heading up. You're heading up to I'm.
45:44
Heading up north north. North, north, north, as north as
45:47
you could probably get. Chuck, what about yourself?
45:50
I probably want to do a deep dive into Little Mill.
45:53
So it'd be all pictures of the parking lot just outside
45:56
Glasgow. Nice.
45:59
Yeah. Just trying to find the history
46:00
of that and probably focusing on kind of like Irish influence on
46:04
Scottish whiskey in the in the South of Scotland.
46:06
Brilliant and that kind of stuff.
46:08
And why in particular is it pig swell that you can taste in
46:12
Little Mill? In my personal opinion, pig.
46:14
Swell. Yeah, can.
46:15
I taste in a lot of pig swell. Yeah, I wouldn't.
46:19
Go there because how much freedom were you given then to
46:26
go away and in your time starting out, cutting your teeth
46:30
and then going away and just finding stories or finding
46:33
something to write about? Yeah, I mean, the attitude was
46:37
like, as long as you're being productive and speaking to
46:41
people and telling people about the business and also learning
46:45
as much as possible. Yeah, it was sort of like I
46:47
often talk about it. It was almost like when you read
46:49
about old fashioned apprenticeships where you were
46:51
just told to go and talk to everyone in the industry.
46:54
And I was very lucky that many people were incredibly patient
46:58
with me and were like, Oh yeah, sure.
47:00
Here's my mobile number. You ever have a question about
47:02
our big business? Just call me up.
47:04
And you know, people like Jason Craig from Edgington who ran,
47:08
who ran Highland Park, but for several years and before that we
47:12
ran Cutty. Like he, you know, sometimes I'd
47:15
call him to ask one question about something to do with, I
47:18
don't know, whatever aspect of the business, you know, be on
47:21
the phone for an hour and a half.
47:23
Just people were so generous with their time.
47:25
And I'm very nosy so. I helped for journalism.
47:30
I'm very nosy and probably not socially conscious enough not to
47:34
ask questions that I shouldn't ask.
47:35
And people and people didn't laugh me out of the room, which
47:40
they probably should have done. Do you?
47:43
I mean, you must. You'll classify yourself as a
47:45
journalist then. Yeah, I mean, it's obviously
47:47
it's a, it's a hard. It's, you know, I'm not, I'm not
47:49
a journalist insofar as like, you know, I don't, I think
47:52
there's a kind of an, a view of like newspaper journalists, like
47:56
they, they're a, they're a, they're a breed apart.
47:58
And, you know, I'm, I'm an independent publishing
48:01
journalist and, and now, you know, increasingly spending most
48:06
of my time focused on like making videos.
48:08
You know, I, I get nervous about saying the word film because I
48:11
make it sound like getting no or something, you know, filmmaker.
48:15
No, but I'm not like, you know, it's but we, my goal with
48:19
everything that we do is that we bring the same level of
48:21
journalistic, like fact checking and integrity to it.
48:24
So we don't just say stuff because we think it sounds
48:28
right. Like I, I like I, I agonize.
48:31
I'm sat until 4:00 in the morning being like, Oh my God,
48:33
this person said that this thing happened in this, you know, this
48:36
clan took over this area in this year, but actually it was the
48:39
year after. Oh my God, I've got to cut it.
48:41
How am I going to, you know, that that's the, that like,
48:43
that's the kind of obsessive, you know, workflow that people
48:47
don't see behind the scenes. And obviously with when,
48:49
particularly when you delve into the history of, of distilleries,
48:52
sometimes the, the primary records, well, they might exist,
48:56
but people haven't found them yet.
48:58
So it involves going to an archive or speaking to people
49:01
who have experiences of, of certain archives that can help
49:04
point you in the right direction to at least give you the, the,
49:08
the, the outline of the right piece of information.
49:11
Because I'm just always, you know, very conscious that, you
49:13
know, there's always somebody out there who knows more about
49:15
the subject than you do. So if you're going to have the
49:18
gall to put something on YouTube, you've got to make
49:20
sure, you know, and then you've got to make sure it's right.
49:23
So yes, I mean, that's kind of what I spend my most time doing
49:26
these. I mean, I I picture like
49:27
journal, you know that you've mentioned the this the the
49:30
separation between yourselves like a publishing journalist and
49:33
A and a newspaper journalist that chase the story we've got
49:36
like there's a hot. Ticket in my hat.
49:40
Yeah, I've I've got back to this car that you've been given.
49:42
It's just got loads of paper and I've gotta get up to I've gotta
49:46
get back up to space side. I mean, we've, we've, we've
49:50
been, we're, we're very lucky. We're not.
49:52
We're not given pressure like that.
49:55
So the the the editorial brief to Whiskey magazine's editors is
50:00
published stories that you find interesting.
50:03
Yeah. It's not what is going to get us
50:05
clicks. We actually aren't measured on
50:07
click metrics for our stories. We we're told to publish stories
50:10
that we think whiskey people will find interesting.
50:13
Or that are worthwhile. You won't be headlining.
50:15
You won't believe what this distillery is about to release.
50:18
Probably a mug. I probably I probably should do.
50:20
I mean, you know, I probably should do, but no, like, you
50:22
know, it's, you know, we're very, we're very lucky in that
50:24
regard that, you know, if it's a story worth telling and it's
50:27
something worth researching and you think other whiskey fans are
50:30
going to be interested, then then do it.
50:33
And we try not to do like sensationalist stuff either, you
50:36
know, yes, you know, because, which again, you know, maybe,
50:40
maybe that's naive, but that's not, that's not what we do.
50:42
No, I mean, like I say, have you, is there ever anything that
50:47
you're on? Because it must be really,
50:48
really difficult. You've already mentioned it, you
50:50
know, like Charles McLean and there's so many other writers
50:52
out there and whiskey is something that's been going
50:54
around for hundreds of years. So far, for hundreds of years,
50:57
people have been documenting and talking about it and documenting
50:59
and talking about it. And these things get passed
51:01
down. So how hard is it to find an
51:04
angle or find the story or find something where you're saying
51:07
now there's a story that isn't often talked an awful lot about?
51:11
Or is it about maybe if a brand's coming out with
51:14
something like a different release That's maybe we've got a
51:16
bit of heritage to it that you can follow up on?
51:18
Let me answer this in a different way, right?
51:20
So the the story we're told by the owner of the magazine is
51:24
that when he started Whiskey magazine and went to people in
51:27
the industry and said, I've started this magazine about
51:29
whiskey. People went what are you going
51:32
to write about? Who's going to read it?
51:35
It was 1998. Who's going to like really?
51:38
Are people going to, are people going to read this?
51:40
Like, what are you going to write about?
51:42
And the thing that I've learned throughout my career is that
51:46
there are so many stories that are still untold.
51:50
I could spend every moment of my life until the day I drop down
51:54
there, hopefully in a very long time, researching a particular
51:58
distillery or a particular topic.
52:00
And it's like, well, pick, pick your topic.
52:02
Do you want to talk about social history?
52:03
Do you want to talk about engineering?
52:05
Do you want to talk about organic chemistry?
52:07
Do you want to talk about forestry?
52:09
Do you want to talk about farming?
52:11
Do you want to talk about feminine?
52:12
You know, there's, there's, even with what is out there in, in
52:16
reality, there's actually very few people who do this, you
52:20
know, so, so even even if you say, well, there's 20
52:23
significant whiskey journalists over the last 30 years and
52:26
they've dedicated their life to it, you know, that's tiny
52:29
compared to the amount of stories that are still out
52:31
there. And I've, I've written about it
52:32
before that I feel like we're at this point, we're actually a lot
52:35
of the pre, the sort of the older generation that's still
52:38
with us aren't going to be with us that much longer.
52:41
So we've actually got this duty of, you know, whether, you know,
52:44
doing stuff like this. Yeah.
52:45
But you've got, you've got to invite people on who have got
52:48
these incredible oral histories that they can tell and get it
52:51
recorded. Now it doesn't matter who
52:52
records it. And it's not about, you know,
52:55
it's, it's not about money. It's about get it recorded, get
52:58
it online somewhere, get it shared.
53:00
So that because the amount of time is that I've hinged an
53:04
article or, or, or a piece of research on, I find some Blogger
53:09
in 1999 happened to write about something.
53:12
And that's the source that then that's the little thread that
53:15
you can then pull on and you know what to look for.
53:17
So we just need as many people interviewing people writing
53:20
about whiskey as possible. And The thing is as well, like,
53:24
it's not like, you know, Angus and I had an example and
53:29
there'll be so many other people.
53:30
We're all probably examples. As well as that whiskey will
53:33
always have new following. Yeah.
53:35
So it will get to whatever the age that people tend to find.
53:40
Like Ross is an exception to the real where like the guy's 26
53:44
years old, but he's like a 50 year old man.
53:46
I. Think that's so generous?
53:47
He's 95. Yeah, he's a he's just a 95 year
53:50
old wee man. Where?
53:51
I used to work in in Stockbridge.
53:52
He came in one night and I was like, Russell, you're up to and
53:55
it's like, I'll go to the opera. Yeah, Yeah.
53:59
But I started work by, I mean for somebody to start working in
54:02
whiskey when they're 18 and it's that maybe is an except a slight
54:07
exception. There's probably not many
54:08
people. But as people get older and you
54:11
go to whiskey festivals and there'll be, and that there'll
54:15
be groups of guys mainly and some women as well where they
54:18
go. And there'll be one person in
54:21
that group that maybe goes, well, these four guys all really
54:25
love whiskey and they just always talk about it and they've
54:27
told me to come along to this thing because that's that.
54:30
But that person might get converted into being A and then
54:33
then it's it doesn't matter. Then if they read a story that a
54:37
lot of some, there'll be plenty of people who maybe, and again,
54:41
it's, that's not that many people, but they'll be, oh, I've
54:44
heard that story hundreds of times.
54:45
So and so, so and so wrote about that 20.
54:47
It was writing about that 20 years ago.
54:49
What doesn't matter because the person that that person found
54:51
your article, your story on it first.
54:54
And that's what? And then guess what?
54:55
And it's like anyone, if you become obsessive about that
54:58
particular story and you say, oh, so was written an article
55:02
about it from 15 years ago, then you could read that article as
55:05
well. And there will be change,
55:07
there'll be differences. Quite.
55:09
Cool written work recently with like the bicentenaries of
55:12
distilleries like Feser. Karen turned 200 years old and
55:15
then did a bit a writer friend of a friend.
55:20
He wrote I think maybe the introductory book for the Ferret
55:22
Kern book, Tom Bruce Garden. And he was like really
55:26
interesting to like delve into a distillery that.
55:28
Also a friend of a friend, Tom Bruce Garden.
55:30
Like, I mean, he's like one of the, the great, the great
55:32
writers I know. Yeah.
55:34
He plays a good means for my mom.
55:44
Your. Mom, Barbara.
55:59
He wrote on the book for the most incinery.
56:02
He's also writing on the Jura one as well, and he has been
56:05
going like the Jura. The history of the Jura
56:08
distillery is amazing, and it's incredibly fascinating,
56:11
obviously because of all the smuggling and stuff like that.
56:15
But yeah, interesting guy and some other interesting books
56:18
have come out around those things.
56:19
It's been quite cool to put that microscope on one location.
56:22
They've been like, well, 200 years there.
56:26
Well, also, did you see the James Edie books?
56:28
I mean read it those, I mean those journals that they
56:32
republished from for for me, like they were like hens teeth
56:37
trying to find them on eBay and they cost a Fort because people
56:40
know that they're they're worth something to somebody.
56:42
So you know, quite often on eBay, if they ever make it to
56:45
eBay, they're easy 5060 quid ago.
56:48
There's hundreds of them. You don't know whether the one
56:52
that's being sold has anything that relates to Scotch whiskey
56:55
that is worthwhile in it. So if you want to buy them, it's
56:58
you know, you've got to have the pockets.
57:01
Not very many of them are digitized.
57:03
So getting Holden, you have to like beg, borrow and steal them
57:05
off people. You know, if you want to go and
57:07
check some reference about what was the what was the price of
57:10
Talisker in whatever, you know, year or something.
57:14
So that service that they did, and I mean all credit to Royal
57:16
Mar whiskeys, like they funded, they agreed to buy those books,
57:20
which helped fund the project and allowed it to happen.
57:22
Like those kinds of projects inspire me because that's people
57:25
producing something not for I mean, that was not for
57:28
commercial gain. That was because that was the
57:30
right thing to do. That was taking.
57:32
So what was bodies of? Projects.
57:33
Sorry then sorry. So have you seen the James EU?
57:35
We've heard a. Reference a few times.
57:37
So effectively they took old wine and spirit journals and
57:43
distillery profiles that had been published and Repub
57:48
digitized and republished them, which was, I mean, that
57:52
contribution to the body of sort of information for whiskey
57:56
nerves for the future. Like, writers in 100 years will
57:59
be able to get, you know, access to historical information
58:02
because of that. Because I think interestingly
58:04
talked talks to them when we did the.
58:06
Yeah, but instantly did it was the new Make Spirit project that
58:10
they did so. It's one of the partners.
58:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I've, I've, it's been
58:13
referenced a couple of times, yeah.
58:14
But I, I I until you've made. Yeah, they're like, they're not,
58:17
they're not cheap, but they're they're, they're a very fair
58:19
price for how much time and money would have been put into
58:22
publishing them. They're well worth getting
58:24
getting hold of if you can was. Like a. 120 lbs Yeah,
58:28
thereabouts when? It came out roll.
58:29
My whiskeys were still on them and maybe they still have got
58:31
some. I'm not.
58:32
I'm not entirely sure, but. But I mean, like, yeah, I
58:36
suppose that one of the other things we've talked about and
58:38
you see it with maybe woven and things as well, Hazel, is the
58:41
fact that we we we now live in a generation of information, right
58:45
Where and what you're seeing now is distilleries and whiskey
58:49
brands are giving as much information as possible.
58:52
We were at that tasting there with the Glen allocate tasting a
58:56
couple of weeks ago, Chuck, and they were talking about like and
59:00
and again with Edge Derny as well.
59:01
They were talking about we're not just telling people it's
59:04
American Oak anymore, we're telling them it's from.
59:06
Where it's come from, because that for that matters.
59:08
It changes the flavour, yeah, but.
59:10
But it's information now that just people want to have and
59:13
want to hold. So does that make it easier then
59:15
for you when you're writing these, these pieces, because
59:18
it's more information you're giving out to people, because
59:21
it's more information that's successful?
59:22
To you, so there's AI mean having spoken to people in the
59:25
industry who have to make the decisions about what information
59:27
gets released. Obviously I'm a very pro
59:31
transparency. Like I think you should tell, I
59:33
think you should respect your customer and not I think there
59:36
was an attitude, certainly when I first came into the industry,
59:38
I remember hearing people say things like, oh, that'll confuse
59:42
the the consumer. That'll that'll oh, that's too
59:44
much info. They don't want that.
59:46
And it's like, OK, yeah, if you're just walking into Tesco
59:49
and you're buying a bottle of grouse, I don't need to know
59:52
what the Mashman had, you know, at McAllen on a Wednesday or
59:56
whatever, you know, for his lunch.
59:59
But I think having the information there, so if
1:00:02
somebody wants to seek it out and is interested, that's only
1:00:05
going to make them respect your company and your distillery more
1:00:08
if that information is there for them.
1:00:10
And I think there was a little bit of trial and error where I
1:00:13
think. Obviously, if you try to push
1:00:15
too much on people too soon, then obviously that's going to
1:00:18
make them feel stupid or overwhelmed, and you don't want
1:00:22
that. But having it there so that if
1:00:23
they read the back label and go, oh, God, I'd like to know more
1:00:26
about that. And there's a QR code there.
1:00:27
I mean, it's the only good thing that came out of COVID is
1:00:29
everyone knows how to use a QR code.
1:00:31
Yeah. You know, I tried putting them
1:00:32
on a few magazines before COVID and nobody used them.
1:00:36
Nobody knew what it was. Well, you.
1:00:38
Know because we more and more people want to know why.
1:00:42
And so you say, well, why does? But a little information is a
1:00:48
dangerous thing as well. So that's the other thing is
1:00:50
that if you're going to give information, you have to really
1:00:54
give the full story. You have to make sure it's well
1:00:57
researched and you have to make sure it's properly fact checked.
1:01:00
It can't be. It almost in some ways needs to
1:01:02
be like brand agnostic. You almost need to take your
1:01:05
marketing off for a minute and go, actually this is the
1:01:07
information we're going to share because it's the right thing to
1:01:10
do. It's not going to to be spun.
1:01:13
It's, you know, it's well, that's because that's that is
1:01:15
going to give people rope to hang you with if you, if you
1:01:18
start trying to, you know, oh, you know, there's some
1:01:20
distilleries where, you know, they're not allowed to refer to
1:01:23
the previous companies that owned their distilleries in like
1:01:27
media. And it's like, well, OK, well,
1:01:29
who owned it until you bought it 20 years ago?
1:01:31
Like, well, that's not like that's stupid.
1:01:33
Like that's, that's part of your story.
1:01:35
Like, yeah, you're owned by these people during this period
1:01:37
and these things happened there. Like, that's not a reflection on
1:01:40
you. In fact, if anything, it's a
1:01:41
good reflection on you because they're the ones that sold it.
1:01:43
You know, you're the ones that are now looking after that
1:01:46
distillery. You know what?
1:01:47
That's a that's a positive thing.
1:01:49
But yeah, but the. Misinformation in whiskey is
1:01:51
really, really big as well. Like we've had.
1:01:54
Was it Cam talking about the guy that spoke to him?
1:01:58
Cam, this is not only whiskey owl drinks Pam Neville.
1:02:01
And because it's the only one that doesn't put artificial
1:02:04
colour in it. And like the guy said it with
1:02:07
such conviction and it's like, no, no, that's a matter of fact.
1:02:10
It's like that's, that's what I believe.
1:02:12
That's what I've been saying for the last 20.
1:02:13
Years. Yeah, but that's the problem.
1:02:14
And there you go. How many people have you told?
1:02:16
How many people that you've told?
1:02:17
Well, look at look at Sherry cast.
1:02:19
Oh, at the end of every tasting and remember, go home and drink
1:02:22
some Sherry because we need those casts, you know, complete
1:02:25
guff. Like actually has no, has no
1:02:28
relation to Sherry casts supply chain whatsoever.
1:02:31
But people it's, you know, people hear these, these, you
1:02:34
know, somebody, somebody who work in the business 45 years
1:02:38
ago will have said this at a dinner.
1:02:40
Someone went, oh, that was quite a fun thing to say.
1:02:42
It then gets like amplified and taken along the chain and until
1:02:46
somebody goes, we actually know we need to take our whole team
1:02:49
to hereth and learn about supply chain, which costs money and is
1:02:52
a nice to do and not a need to do.
1:02:55
But I think now businesses are realizing actually it is a need
1:02:57
to do. You need your people to have
1:02:59
been there to see. Now all the cooperages operate.
1:03:02
They need to have tasted the seasoning Sherry so they know
1:03:05
what it is that their casts are being seasoned with, so that
1:03:08
they can speak in an informed way about it, rather than, you
1:03:12
know, perpetuating nonsense. Well, I mean, we've, we've,
1:03:17
we've, we've finished our drams and then normally at this part
1:03:20
of the podcast, I'd come and say, what are we all drinking?
1:03:22
But now it's a case of what are we all drunk?
1:03:24
But I would like to say as well, we've got the what truck?
1:03:28
What did you have? What?
1:03:28
Well, you've got a cruise camp Lagos, but what else?
1:03:31
Sorry, I've been directed the Brandon at the camera.
1:03:34
That's what I asked. I'm in the middle of like doing
1:03:36
research. It's a mate of mine's wedding in
1:03:38
like, oh, that's right, September, November.
1:03:40
So I'm doing I'm trying to taste like whiskey's like kind of 4045
1:03:45
lbs. So I had I've been I was trying
1:03:47
to find the Glencadam reserve us, but they've only got the PX
1:03:50
one, but which is not PX really isn't my bike.
1:03:54
So I went for a Glenfiddich experiment.
1:03:56
The experiment number six, I think the the brand, the Brandy
1:04:00
cask finish one which haven't had it in a while like it.
1:04:05
Well, a drum that you'd get for under.
1:04:07
The Forty £3040. Under £40 would be the Timat and
1:04:11
Virgin Oak. Yeah, we'd have for.
1:04:14
That Well, yeah, absolutely Virgin Cat if you subscribe to
1:04:17
the newsletter. But I'm going to put a drama
1:04:22
this because as I've said before, it's got to be.
1:04:26
Do you want to try something, Christopher?
1:04:27
Sure. Yeah, I've not tried it, so here
1:04:29
we go. Here.
1:04:29
We go. To say while Graham's pouring
1:04:32
the drabs, what's been your like most memorable trip that you've
1:04:34
taken in regards to when you've been doing your research and
1:04:37
stuff and whether that's for it being absolutely mental or so
1:04:41
one of the best trips ever. So my first trip to Harris was
1:04:46
sticks. Sticks in my mind.
1:04:49
Sticks, sticks in my mind. But the, the, the, the obviously
1:04:53
it was, it was not long after the distillery had opened.
1:04:56
It was, it was amazing visiting. But I've do got like, what does
1:04:59
really stick in my mind is driving to Lewis and effectively
1:05:03
driving up. And suddenly I felt like I'd
1:05:06
left the, the islands and gone to the moon.
1:05:09
Yeah. And so that really stuck.
1:05:10
You know, it's often things like that that will stick in my mind.
1:05:12
It was that because often I was on my own.
1:05:14
Yeah. I was generally on my own
1:05:15
driving around the countryside. And you know, a lot of the time
1:05:19
this was the first time I was seeing these parts of the
1:05:21
country. So that those kind of views
1:05:24
really stick in my mind a lot as I'm going to talk about in a
1:05:28
bit. I'm going to talk about heref in
1:05:29
a minute. So I mean, I think everybody who
1:05:33
is in the industry or interested in whiskey should go either
1:05:37
force their employer to send them and pay for it ideally, or
1:05:41
if you're an enthusiast, one of your holidays should be to go to
1:05:45
Ireth and you should visit the bodegas and learn a bit about
1:05:50
and learn a bit about Sherry. And if you're sort of industry
1:05:53
adjacent and can get one of the seasoning bodegas to talk to
1:05:56
you. I mean, it's one of the things
1:05:57
that I honestly think some of the bodegas down there, they
1:06:00
could have more tourism if they did tours that related to their
1:06:03
seasoning operations. You know, I've said it to a few
1:06:06
of them. I was like, you know, I'm pretty
1:06:07
sure there's a business here. Like you could, you could, you
1:06:10
could get people visiting on tourism.
1:06:13
It's quite a tough one for them to, you know, there's such
1:06:16
history in Hareth with when it comes to share production to be
1:06:19
like, by the way. But it's a, there's an
1:06:20
important, it's an important part of the business.
1:06:22
I mean, it's employing, it's employing Coopers because I
1:06:25
mean, you know, the Sherry industry is not building a lot
1:06:27
of casks like and they never and they never were like the you
1:06:30
know, it's other than exploitation, you know, casks
1:06:34
which obviously is put paid to a long time ago, you know,
1:06:38
certainly before I was. 40 years ago in 1986 or something, was it
1:06:43
not that they stopped allowing Sherry?
1:06:44
To be exported then which, which again, I think you know, that
1:06:47
was anyway, we're, we're, we're digressing and we're going to
1:06:49
talk about Sherry in a bit. That was a very crap answer to
1:06:52
your very kind question. I mean the answer.
1:06:54
Was Paris. I'm delighted.
1:06:55
So yeah. Paris, Paris always sticks in my
1:06:57
mind. I mean the obviously, like the
1:07:00
first time going to ILA, I'm never going to forget.
1:07:03
I mean, I've, I've, I've, I've stayed in Tarbot, I drove down,
1:07:07
stayed in Tarbot, got there at like 11:45 or something.
1:07:10
Had to let myself into AB and B or whatever.
1:07:13
Got up the next day, got the first ferry.
1:07:15
So I was exhausted. I was knackered.
1:07:16
I'd got there late, got the first ferry and I've got this
1:07:20
memory of getting out my car going, you know, going onto the
1:07:23
top, top deck of the, of the ferry and I had to have a lie
1:07:26
down. I was like so tired.
1:07:28
I was like, I've got to drive around this island.
1:07:30
I've got to meet people. I've got to do stuff on this
1:07:31
island. I need to have a nap.
1:07:33
So I had a had a little cheeky nap on the top, on the top of
1:07:36
the ferry and got woken up by people whooping and, you know,
1:07:41
shouting. And I was like, Oh my God, that
1:07:43
ferry is sinking. What's going on?
1:07:45
What's happening? And that's because they've just
1:07:48
seen the Froig really. These guys, these guys on
1:07:51
holiday, these three guys were like, Oh my God, they were
1:07:54
losing their mind really. Because, you know, because you
1:07:57
have that moment where you're on the ferry and suddenly these
1:08:00
white buildings come in, you know, this beautiful, you know,
1:08:03
she's called the Queen of the Hebrides for a reason.
1:08:05
You see this and the green, you know, the green Isle, you see
1:08:07
this beautiful green, green island appear with these white
1:08:09
buildings. And suddenly you go, Oh my God,
1:08:12
I'm here. And you know, you start, your
1:08:14
fingers start tingling, you know, you know, And they call it
1:08:17
a pilgrimage for a reason. I mean, you know, I'm never
1:08:19
going to forget that until, you know, if I ever do forget that,
1:08:23
it won't be. Life won't be worth living
1:08:25
anymore. We've talked a lot about Isla
1:08:27
over the last two or three episodes of the podcast with
1:08:30
Phase Phase, Phase Isle recently.
1:08:32
And I just, I, I think it's got to be something that we do.
1:08:37
I've never been. Never been, Tyler.
1:08:39
Never been Tyler tracks never been.
1:08:41
So there you go and it's it's it's something that has to has
1:08:46
to has to be done. I.
1:08:46
Think and on and genuinely, if you, if you're going to go, I
1:08:49
mean, obviously you're going to do the distilleries, but I
1:08:53
recommend if you go in, like if you go in early May before the
1:08:58
weather's good, get yourself a cottage.
1:09:01
And you know, I've, I've stayed in Burmor, like in one of the
1:09:04
like one of the terraced terraced houses and you get a
1:09:08
wee bit of garden out of the back looking out over the Loch.
1:09:10
You have a BBQ, you know, even if it's cold, you know, and, and
1:09:14
actually what I'd recommend is as well is like spend as much
1:09:17
time walking in the countryside and take a pair of binoculars.
1:09:21
And because you're going to see like wildlife there that you'd
1:09:24
just, you know, it's just everywhere you're tripping over
1:09:26
rare birds, you know, everywhere you go, it's stunning.
1:09:31
You know to do as much of that as you do of the whiskey because
1:09:34
the nature side of it is, you know, it's enough to go on
1:09:37
holiday there. But it boils down to like, how
1:09:41
influenced people can be and who that source of influence is is
1:09:44
I've grown up with. Well, first of all, so my dad
1:09:47
used to work for Ballentine's and at the time that he worked
1:09:51
for Valentine's, Valentine's owned our beg.
1:09:54
And you know that they used to do tastings of where they would
1:09:57
bring the single malts together. They would do like, and this is
1:10:00
before single, you know, this is in the sort of early 80s and
1:10:03
stuff like that. And they used to say, and the
1:10:06
joke that they used was our beg is sheep's piss that they put in
1:10:12
to add smokiness to the to the ballot, just the level he said
1:10:15
to make it taste for the American market, to make it
1:10:18
taste like that. Because at that time, and that's
1:10:21
what my dad will always laugh about, is he sees our beg now as
1:10:24
what they are. And he goes, I can tell you
1:10:26
right now, you know, when Harry and Walker owned our beg in the
1:10:30
70s and 80s and he said that's what tastings the people would
1:10:34
say. And that was when it was because
1:10:37
a single malts were something that people didn't drink an
1:10:40
awful lot of because it was all about the blend.
1:10:42
But this was the point that they would make was at the end of the
1:10:45
end of the tasting, they would get to try this horrible smoky
1:10:50
medicinal stuff. Now, I don't know, back then
1:10:53
maybe it wasn't as refined as you know, maybe it wasn't as
1:10:57
home then that you are Big 10's and and all that kind of stuff.
1:11:01
If it's if it's being made for single malt production, it might
1:11:04
be getting made with a little bit more tender love and care
1:11:07
than it was with it. If it's just bulk stuff that's
1:11:11
going into a blend and only a certain amount of it's going
1:11:13
into a blend, that's just to cap a little bit of flavour into it.
1:11:16
So maybe it wasn't as maybe it was a bit more rough around the
1:11:19
edges, I don't know. But that's what we thought you
1:11:20
say. So they actually used to say it
1:11:21
was the joke was the guy that used to do the taste as he was a
1:11:24
Rep. Would you say it's just they
1:11:26
would do? So what they would do is they
1:11:29
would do because they were part of the mall things.
1:11:31
They would do special farmers like young farmers and farmer
1:11:37
taste things, rugby clubs, local rugby clubs, all that in the
1:11:40
local communities. They would do these Ballantine's
1:11:42
taste things where they would have Melton, Duff, Glenberg, a
1:11:45
few other bits and bobs and and finished with an odd beg.
1:11:49
And he said it was the glass that no, but it was like, don't
1:11:52
drink it. It would.
1:11:53
I'll make you go blind. That's this that next thing.
1:11:55
But once we stick it in the Valentine's blend, it changed
1:11:58
it. But this is the thing.
1:11:59
It's like, I grew up with this. First of all, my dad not being a
1:12:02
whiskey drinker, but that was his.
1:12:04
And then this guy I'm telling you about, who isn't that?
1:12:06
Part of the story really be like poor Ellen, like really like
1:12:09
back in the day, I think was there a poor Ellen 12?
1:12:12
I mean, obviously close in 1993, I think there was a a release
1:12:16
and it was like supposed to be just fucking God awful, like
1:12:20
like undrinkable and then, you know, you wait.
1:12:22
The distillery, a lot of the distilleries that got closed
1:12:25
were closed for for a reason, you know?
1:12:28
I mean, I think Rosebank obviously been like one of the
1:12:31
most controversial ones because it was did have a following, but
1:12:34
like I think poor Ellen was supposed to be just well, shoots
1:12:38
pace. Yeah, like.
1:12:40
And then after 20 years or something in Cass, Pete really
1:12:43
mailed out and there's some incredible flavor profiles
1:12:45
there. Yeah, I think it's, it's
1:12:49
interesting to because obviously what we're now and what a lot of
1:12:52
distillers are now discovering is actually you need to put some
1:12:55
of that muck back in because it, because some of some of that the
1:12:59
right kind of muck, you know, is what makes for interesting
1:13:02
whiskey. But you know, it's, it's, it's a
1:13:06
hard one for them because the reality is even if you take
1:13:08
spirits enthusiasts and you take a hundred of them and you put
1:13:11
them in a room and you give them a blind tasting and half the
1:13:14
people in the room won't like the peated spirit.
1:13:17
Of course, shoot them. And even if they say they're
1:13:19
being objective, they'll mark peated spirit as lower because
1:13:22
they don't, because they don't like it.
1:13:24
And you know, we, I chase like what I call like the funky smell
1:13:28
of the mash tongue. Like I chase that in whiskey.
1:13:31
Like I want to be able to like not for the whiskey that I, you
1:13:34
know, I'm not talking about scoring and stuff, but for
1:13:36
actually like drinking for fun and like, I like to be able to
1:13:40
smell the production process in my DRAM.
1:13:43
You know, I like, like a bit of, I like a bit of that funk.
1:13:47
But the reality is that if that's not what's selling, you
1:13:51
know, so you can see how they've, how distillers have
1:13:53
been pulled, you know, between, OK, well, we want to economize,
1:13:58
we want to be efficient. We want to, we want to create a
1:14:00
project product that is appealing to as many people as
1:14:03
possible. But of course, the problem with
1:14:04
trying to be appealing as to as many people as possible is you
1:14:07
lose personality. Like the things that actually
1:14:10
it's better if you if you just know who you are and say this is
1:14:13
what we're about and we may we never are going to be bigger
1:14:15
than this. Or swing backs, kind of, you
1:14:18
know, I. Mean, you know, they're,
1:14:20
they're, they're, they're, they're the most, you know, the
1:14:22
most stubborn distillery in Scotland.
1:14:23
It's amazing. You know, they're just not
1:14:25
changed. I know.
1:14:26
I think it. Yeah, it's it.
1:14:28
Look like they are now it'll. Be fascinating to go back and
1:14:30
try that like to try those hard begs because they wouldn't have
1:14:33
been out for at least they wouldn't have been whiskey that
1:14:35
was on the shelves of people to buy.
1:14:37
And then eventually when someone has made a decision like we need
1:14:40
to start selling this, then of course they would have probably
1:14:42
had to start refining it a little bit more and maybe
1:14:45
they're still. Some of that came from the
1:14:46
blenders as well, obviously, like Campbelltown got cleaned up
1:14:49
largely because the blenders were like, we're not buying this
1:14:51
anymore. It's wrecking the blends.
1:14:56
But you know, to to your point about about Spring Bank, like
1:14:59
they've stuck for their guns. They do what they do.
1:15:02
And I don't think you could spend £50 million and build your
1:15:05
brand to have a reputation like that.
1:15:07
Yeah, I think like you couldn't. There is no marketing budget in
1:15:10
the world that could create that aura of mystique and reverence.
1:15:14
The Spring Bank must be so like to hold on to that to say that
1:15:19
we're just. This is the way we do it.
1:15:20
Yeah, yeah, I've got like so much respect for it.
1:15:22
And does it mean that every time I have a spring bank it blows my
1:15:26
mind? No, it doesn't.
1:15:27
Sometimes I have a spring bank and I'm like, God, somebody had
1:15:30
a bad day that way. And sometimes and then other
1:15:32
times I have a spring bank and I'm like having like a religious
1:15:34
experience. So it's like, you know, and that
1:15:37
and also that's that, you know, that's part of the that's part
1:15:40
of the fun as well. Now, I get it.
1:15:41
If you're a conglomerate and you need, you want to grow from
1:15:45
50,000 cases to 250,000 cases or whatever, like that's obviously
1:15:49
not the way to to run run your business.
1:15:51
But if you want to have a brand that people are going to respect
1:15:53
and that's still going to be around in 200 years time, you
1:15:56
just got to do you. Yeah, you got to do you.
1:15:59
And don't pay, you know, don't look at market research and
1:16:02
don't follow trends. Just do you.
1:16:04
And people are either going to vibe with you what you're doing
1:16:07
and you're going to survive or you're not.
1:16:09
Yeah, you know, so. You see a business development
1:16:11
point of view from a sales thing, you know, like I've
1:16:13
mentioned, you know woven a fairly new brand that's out
1:16:17
there and they're doing different blends.
1:16:19
But how do you attract yourselves to a bigger market?
1:16:22
How do you get able to try the whiskey to then and and are you
1:16:27
looking for that consistency or are you looking to are you
1:16:30
looking for a market of people? Like it was funny tonight.
1:16:33
I was up at the bar and I said, you know, I was I was in here
1:16:35
yesterday. I popped in to pick actually to
1:16:38
do some stuff for the to Martin and I said I'll have a I'll have
1:16:42
a quick two drafts And I really enjoyed it and it was one of the
1:16:46
charms I had. It was like the what was it,
1:16:51
Chuck? I mean, I wasn't there so.
1:16:54
Here are the guys I'm thinking about that you work with.
1:16:58
Blind Summit. Blind Summit, Summit.
1:16:59
It was a blind part of the by summon talkers, was it?
1:17:01
No, it was. I had the Dal Dal.
1:17:04
Dal. Dal Yun W wax waxy but I also
1:17:08
had 2000. 15 to 22. This is why we're going to get
1:17:11
on waxy, Waxy. It was good.
1:17:14
Now you're talking Mom I. Also had the.
1:17:16
I don't know what it is. It's a secret.
1:17:20
It's a secret. Which secret?
1:17:22
We won't tell anyone what the secret is because I don't know.
1:17:24
But it was it was, it was lovely.
1:17:27
So what I've got, I've got it here.
1:17:29
Secret Isla, age 8 years old, distilled 30th of the 1st 2017
1:17:33
Virgin Virgin finish one. Oh, that bottle, one of 168.
1:17:38
That's why. In quite a few casks.
1:17:42
Yes, I believe I had. But anyway, I came in tonight
1:17:45
and I said to the same person who served me yesterday, I said,
1:17:49
you know what I'll have? I'll have that anyway.
1:17:52
Oh, you had that yesterday. I said, I can't have, you know,
1:17:55
I can't have a whiskey more than once.
1:17:58
And sometimes you feel guilty for having the same whiskey
1:18:00
twice when you come in here because you've got so many to
1:18:02
pick from. But from your point of view,
1:18:06
then Christopher Lane, like, you know that.
1:18:08
Does that make it difficult for you?
1:18:09
You mentioned like if I'm drinking whiskey to enjoy it or
1:18:12
I'm drinking whiskey to. OK, So when we review whiskey,
1:18:17
whether it's for Whiskey Magazine or the World Whiskey's
1:18:20
Awards, we are first of all doing everything humanly
1:18:27
possible to not try and guess what it is that we're tasting.
1:18:30
So you are purely approaching it based on you're not trying to
1:18:34
go, is this normal for this distillery's style?
1:18:36
You're not thinking about that context and you're not also
1:18:39
thinking about the price. We don't look at the price.
1:18:41
We just assess it based on is this complex, is it free from
1:18:47
fault? Is it balanced?
1:18:50
Does it have like character, Does it have like a personality
1:18:54
or is it, or is it a bit insipid?
1:18:56
And, and then like, does it, does it have like any immature
1:19:00
like qualities that don't quite inch into a fault?
1:19:03
So we like take it like maturity into consideration as well.
1:19:06
So that's like, so I've spent most of my career from an
1:19:09
assessment point of view, doing that, which actually means that
1:19:11
I'm, you know, you get some people who their whole hobby is
1:19:15
centred around guessing the distillery and stuff like that.
1:19:17
And actually I've, you know, I've spent most of my career
1:19:20
doing everything I can to not do that.
1:19:21
But that's obviously that's assessment of whiskey.
1:19:23
And I think that's what, you know, you were talking earlier
1:19:26
about being asked, oh, what's the right way to drink whiskey?
1:19:30
And people go, oh, you know, these days we will say, oh,
1:19:32
there's no right, there's no right way to drink whiskey.
1:19:33
And which is obviously true. But I think what people are
1:19:36
expecting is you to tell them about assessing whiskey.
1:19:39
They're going to expect like this, the examining of a
1:19:42
whiskey. And that's actually what they're
1:19:43
asking you. They're asking you what is the
1:19:45
process to take notes on a whiskey and assess a whiskey,
1:19:49
which is very different from drinking a whiskey.
1:19:53
Yeah, I'm just. I think when we look at like our
1:19:55
60 seconds snippet snippet scored at 60 seconds whiskey
1:19:58
review is like it's we try and do it as like the most honest
1:20:01
and it's like it's instant. So you're not going I'm getting
1:20:05
this, I'm getting that and that's it.
1:20:06
But we try and do it. But Hazel, what was going to ask
1:20:09
there sorry was when you when you look at what you're selling
1:20:12
with woven and you're trying to work out how do you want to try
1:20:17
and always appeal to a market where.
1:20:19
Every release or like it's going to be this similar so that
1:20:25
people know I see that unique bottle.
1:20:28
I know the kind of flavour profile I'm going to get from
1:20:30
that bottle, so I know I like that.
1:20:32
Or are you trying to make, are you trying to appeal to a market
1:20:35
where they go? I've not seen that bottle
1:20:37
before, but I want to try it because it's different and it's
1:20:39
new and I might not like it, but I might like it.
1:20:42
But I want to try it anyway. Probably more so that one
1:20:44
because obviously we're in like a really unique looking bottle.
1:20:47
The amount of times I don't know if I would say this when I was
1:20:48
on before, but it matter of I'm at whiskey show and people are
1:20:50
like also shampoo in here and I'm like, what does that?
1:20:53
What's that say that state of my hair today?
1:20:55
Cool. But like so many people are
1:20:57
intrigued by the bottle they pick up and then they learn that
1:21:00
it's whiskey and they, you know, scan the QR code stuff in the
1:21:02
back and you'll see the break and they're like, oh, okay, do
1:21:04
you know what? I want to give this a shot and
1:21:05
see what I think of it. You know, obviously everyone
1:21:09
that started off in a new Browns, like we want to appeal
1:21:11
to everyone and we want to sell as much as possible.
1:21:14
But kind of touching on what we were talking about earlier about
1:21:16
bringing in different communities, like the coffee
1:21:17
community, teaming up with like the shops like Kesson and stuff.
1:21:21
It's people that maybe normally wouldn't think that they would
1:21:24
enjoy whiskeys and bringing them into it and being like, by the
1:21:27
way, you can try this like cool experimental stuff that we're
1:21:30
doing. And then they scan the back and
1:21:31
say, okay, cool. They're working with like what
1:21:34
woman or tops is in New Zealand. Then they can go maybe here and
1:21:36
they'll find like the almost like the deconstructed woven
1:21:39
bottles on the back of Kevs bar here as well.
1:21:41
Yeah, so. And do you, do you have core
1:21:43
like will you have a core range? Yeah, so, so yeah.
1:21:46
We've got our three cores and now the coffee is actually part
1:21:49
of the core as well because it's a great complaint to have.
1:21:51
We made it as a limited edition and then it just blew up.
1:21:54
So we're going to start continuously making that be part
1:21:56
of. Our It's Your Cafe patron.
1:22:00
That's what's always quite, that's where like, if.
1:22:02
Well, because again, I think Cody Reynolds talked about like
1:22:06
the journey that people go on when their whiskey fans a cycle.
1:22:10
Yeah. And it's like we're I'm in a
1:22:13
stage where we've been exposed to so many independent bottlers
1:22:16
and it's great, but the inconsistencies is sometimes the
1:22:19
great thing about it or the differences that you're getting.
1:22:22
So you're suddenly going, wow, I've tried an inch Gower and I
1:22:24
saw turns cask and it was amazing.
1:22:26
But there's also an inch Gower in there.
1:22:28
So you know, when we did the pintail tasting in the bottle
1:22:31
spotlight, Chuck that again, trying some of the casks that
1:22:35
sweet wine finishes that they have, it's completely different.
1:22:38
You're never going to taste that again.
1:22:39
But the thing about it is just like I was like with the Blind
1:22:42
Summit is that's one bottle of 160.
1:22:45
Once it's gone, it's gone. Yeah.
1:22:46
So then you don't have a you can't go to Blind Summit and say
1:22:49
I really want that as a core range once it's.
1:22:51
But then then you have to then go.
1:22:53
I just have to. And that's what we've talked
1:22:55
about the Thompson brothers is like, trust is a big thing.
1:22:57
Yeah, right. I trust them because when they
1:22:59
brought out that release, they're altmore.
1:23:01
I loved it. So I'm going to love the.
1:23:03
Next, but that's what independent bottling is meant to
1:23:06
be about as the first thing. You know, one of the one of the
1:23:08
first people I met upon like joining Whiskey magazine was
1:23:12
Cara Lane, and I remember her saying to me like you're only as
1:23:16
you're only as good as the last whiskey that you released,
1:23:19
right. That's what independent, you
1:23:21
know, independent bottling is is about.
1:23:23
And you know, there's a lot of pressure that that comes with
1:23:25
that, you know, and I think that that that's you know, there are
1:23:28
trusted names that you know, and I think there's some new names
1:23:31
that are becoming trusted that are that are coming in.
1:23:33
I think there's also, there's also a lot of people who are
1:23:35
just like, I think whiskey is going to make me a quick buck.
1:23:37
I'm going to start, start a buckler, which is actually a
1:23:40
very good way to lose a hell of a lot of money, I think.
1:23:42
And. You're fighting for shelf space.
1:23:44
I mean, no, Yeah. But then I suppose with it being
1:23:46
a plane, if you can have core, we have seen a lot of
1:23:49
independent bottlers start to bring out blinds now as well.
1:23:52
Well, small batch particularly, I think is that's where I'm most
1:23:55
interested in what an independent can bring to the
1:23:58
table. Because the reality, like the
1:24:01
reality is that I think that the reason single casks were less
1:24:05
common in the past was because the whole point was you only
1:24:07
bottled something as a single cask.
1:24:09
It was because if it was like phenomenal and it was like, Oh
1:24:12
my God, we can't possibly lend this with something.
1:24:14
Now everyone's kind of the, you know, the general public thick
1:24:19
or a portion of the general public have now cottoned on to
1:24:21
this idea of like, oh, it's a single cask, it's limited.
1:24:23
It's never going to come again. So people are being sold on this
1:24:26
idea that it's like, Oh my God, it's like a one off.
1:24:29
That's why I'm going to buy it. But actually as somebody, you
1:24:31
know, somebody who tastes a lot of whiskey, it's like, should
1:24:34
that have actually been bottled as a single cask?
1:24:36
Should that actually would that have performed better in a small
1:24:39
batch of like 4 casks or 10 casks batched together?
1:24:43
And actually it would have overall maybe been a better
1:24:46
whiskey at the same price. What was kind of open the door
1:24:49
where they started kind of curating blends for flavour
1:24:52
profiles. And obviously, yeah, Wovens
1:24:54
expanded that even more and really kind of even smaller
1:24:58
blending processes. I mean, the core range for
1:25:01
Wovens been really cool. I was at the yeah.
1:25:04
We were like. I was at the taste and you were
1:25:06
there. I don't remember all of it, but
1:25:09
I was in. But before that I think I've had
1:25:12
a couple of knockings with woven.
1:25:14
I bought the 1st. I think I just got an Instagram
1:25:17
post. When it first came out during
1:25:19
lockdown, I was like, I have money and I will buy 1-2 and
1:25:23
three and then I bought them and I potentially could have been
1:25:27
one of the first persons to see this studio by accident.
1:25:32
Were you on a? Were you on the Were you on the
1:25:33
Hollywood tour? Do we do?
1:25:34
We need a little blue plaque on the.
1:25:36
Waterfall as seen by Chuck. Chuck was here.
1:25:39
Not. Look back at the security
1:25:41
finish. No, because I, I said I'd
1:25:43
collect it and this was like just after the big first
1:25:47
lockdown had finished yeah. And I was like finally
1:25:49
potentially going to get away from the farm and I went back to
1:25:52
my flat. So I went back to my flat and I,
1:25:57
I said I'll go pick up the bottles.
1:25:58
And I arrived, it was just a security guard.
1:25:59
And he was like, no, you're not I.
1:26:01
Was like what are you doing? You're not coming in.
1:26:03
I was like, I was told I could collect it and they're like, no,
1:26:05
like there's no one here. Just pee hanging at the window
1:26:06
and dropping the bottles. And you're like, sorry mate.
1:26:09
That's why I left and then I and I tried again and they got the
1:26:12
same guy was like. Just run.
1:26:14
I'm going, I'm going, I'm going. And you can't really walk the
1:26:16
way they turn around and. Sidestep really.
1:26:20
Like call me by the call? No, it was a different day.
1:26:23
Right. Yeah, yeah.
1:26:24
Different security guy. No, same same outcome, same
1:26:28
security guy. I like me.
1:26:29
I've told you once, you're not getting it.
1:26:30
You're not coming. Back and then I think I emailed
1:26:32
and I was like, I'm really upset.
1:26:34
I wanted to collect my whiskey and it's not it's not there and
1:26:36
the guy won't let me in. And then I got an e-mail
1:26:39
probably from Pete being like, oh, really sorry about that.
1:26:41
I'll speak to them. Came back again.
1:26:43
The guy was just like he said. I don't.
1:26:48
Know I don't know where it is. Someone said there's something
1:26:50
and he just like took me upstairs, just like unlock the
1:26:52
door and said is it here? Like.
1:26:58
Walking around I was like, I shouldn't be here.
1:27:03
Yeah, the. Broken Woven Studio before I
1:27:07
was. And I saw all these
1:27:08
international whiskers and put them in a flash and I left the
1:27:10
thing. Stole stole the Super blend on
1:27:13
it. Super.
1:27:14
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
1:27:18
So let's went into that. But then I also did the cocktail
1:27:20
comp when they first released Super Blend.
1:27:22
It was a team event. We won.
1:27:24
Did you? Yeah.
1:27:25
First cocktail come with a woman.
1:27:27
Well, I I was there. I didn't really do much getting
1:27:30
them on. Yeah.
1:27:31
This is a team effort, guys. On the subject, a cocktail
1:27:35
competition is a high is a high ball.
1:27:37
Can we? Is it?
1:27:38
Is it? Sorry.
1:27:39
Can I just interrupt before we move on?
1:27:41
Can I go to the loo? Yes.
1:27:44
Can we put a put a captain? Yeah, that's great.
1:27:47
Been living with my mum's. Your friend, of course, yeah.
1:27:52
I don't know why I. Didn't do something.
1:28:00
A mutual friend. That was my mom.
1:28:05
I'm sorry. You couldn't.
1:28:11
You couldn't. Red in the eye.
1:28:19
By the way. I get piped.
1:28:20
With it, yeah, absolutely fucking crumbled at the first
1:28:23
time I got it. Was my Mama.
1:28:25
OK, Hazel, do you want to clap us back in again?
1:28:27
Twice one. Episode I know you get 4 flaps
1:28:29
yet? OK, shall we?
1:28:31
Right, so I'll introduce this first.
1:28:34
I'll see you've brought some drams in with you, right
1:28:39
Christopher, we've just got for a quick refreshment and love it
1:28:43
for a break, but you have brought some drams in with you
1:28:46
as well this evening. I.
1:28:47
Have I've brought in some whiskey that I think is
1:28:52
interesting that I hope you haven't tried?
1:28:54
Yet, well, absolutely delighted. And the fact is that, you know,
1:28:58
Angus and I talk about this week where recently we had Mike Brown
1:29:01
on and he he came bearing gifts. We never ask.
1:29:07
We never ask a guest to bring anything.
1:29:11
It'd be a bit sham if I tell you.
1:29:15
That's great. But then what Angus and I all
1:29:17
sometimes do when a guest comes in and they've got a bag and if
1:29:19
you hear like, a little bit of clinking, we'll look at each
1:29:21
other like, Oh yeah, oh, yeah, we're on.
1:29:24
And what's great is like, like I said, if Angus knows that he's
1:29:28
missing out on some lovely drams and free whiskey, you'll never
1:29:30
go on holiday again. So if you listen to this, I
1:29:32
guess you're missing out. So what we, what?
1:29:35
We've got then what? We so I am the first two I
1:29:38
wanted to bring were some This is why when you said there's
1:29:42
only 15 minutes left, I was like, well, we've got to get
1:29:44
down to some some whiskey, some serious whiskey drinking.
1:29:47
So the first whiskey that I brought is from a Tasmanian
1:29:49
distillery on the North Coast of Tasmania called Hellas Rd.
1:29:53
They were founded in the 90s by a court like dairy farming
1:29:57
Co-op. So they had a lot of like big
1:30:01
vats and like warehousing space and stuff like that and through
1:30:05
a sort of strange course of events decided to start making
1:30:08
whiskey because they had so much, they had so much sort of
1:30:12
stainless steel like vats and stuff in place already.
1:30:16
They decided to go quite big. So I'm, as I said earlier, so
1:30:20
they're stills and I've written this down because I couldn't, I
1:30:24
had to check because I wanted to make sure it wasn't a typo.
1:30:30
They're stills. Oh, I now can't find the thing
1:30:33
that I dare. This isn't the guy who starts
1:30:36
smoking his barley with sheepshed.
1:30:38
Is it in in Tasmania? No, no, no.
1:30:41
So that I have that is another really interesting story.
1:30:44
That's the guy. That's the guy I haven't, but
1:30:45
that's the guy who does his molting.
1:30:47
He has a drum molting in a washing machine.
1:30:49
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that is like, spay,
1:30:53
burn, eat your heart out. You know, you might have
1:30:55
original old drum moltings. They've got this.
1:30:57
Is like 3 times. Right, yeah, we're sure I come
1:31:01
on SWA you've got you've got to widen things off alone so.
1:31:05
They're rich. I know exactly we've got we've
1:31:07
got more of that and sometimes a drum ball.
1:31:09
May that continue. Yeah.
1:31:10
So, yeah. So these guys have a 30,000
1:31:12
litre spirit still and a 60,000 litre wash still.
1:31:16
So like they went like so they like they went big.
1:31:18
I mean, it's not like old, old Middleton Distillery big, but
1:31:22
it's still, it's still like pretty.
1:31:23
It's still a pretty. Good, no.
1:31:27
So, so we started distilling with in the 90s and what I would
1:31:32
say is that there I taste a lot of whiskey because of the nature
1:31:36
of my job. And it's not very often that I
1:31:39
taste something and go, this is like tasting whiskey for the
1:31:43
first time. It's so different, it's so
1:31:45
unusual. It's just so it's like, it's
1:31:48
like it's evolved separately from the rest of the world of
1:31:52
whiskey, which I think it genuinely it did.
1:31:53
I mean, the, the guy that was the distiller there from the
1:31:55
beginning, you know, I think they talk about him sort of, you
1:31:59
know, I've seen things written about him saying that, you know,
1:32:01
his whiskey knowledge was like how to mix whiskey with Coke
1:32:04
when he started producing. And they they've built up from
1:32:07
there. And now genuinely, I think
1:32:09
they're producing some really interesting, being really
1:32:12
fantastic whiskey, which does have distribution in the UK.
1:32:16
They also have, and I'm going to, as I said, I'm a man of
1:32:19
approximate knowledge. I believe they said to me that
1:32:22
they have something like 60% of all Australian whiskey over 21
1:32:28
years old is their inventory. So not only do they have great
1:32:34
young whiskey, younger whiskeys, but they also like if you want
1:32:37
to go and drink a 23 year old peated Tasmanian single malt,
1:32:42
like you can go to these guys and they have that.
1:32:44
And they are genuinely the they're not cheap in the UK.
1:32:48
So some of those bottles are like 335450 for the older age
1:32:52
stock. But honestly, I think if you
1:32:54
compared the level of complexity that you're getting from quality
1:32:58
you're getting from these older bottlings to what you would get
1:33:01
from some other brands if you spent £450, you're getting a
1:33:05
hell of a lot. And quite often those releases
1:33:07
are a cast strength as well, batch strength.
1:33:09
So really, really interesting. So let's say this is Hellas
1:33:12
Hellas Rd. Hellas Road.
1:33:15
And this whiskey is called the Iberian.
1:33:19
It is. It has been matured in both a
1:33:25
Sherry cask and a pork cask. And it tastes just, it's like
1:33:29
I've there's only one other, there's only one other whiskey
1:33:33
that I've had that I would say sort of comes, you know, close.
1:33:38
It's really, it's really unusual.
1:33:39
So it's like, it tastes almost like, you know, it's been
1:33:41
matured in a Sherry cask in a, in a, in a pork cask, but it
1:33:44
tastes almost like it's been in like a marmalade.
1:33:46
Oh, yeah. Like a marmalade cask or
1:33:49
something. Christmas.
1:33:50
It's like, it's almost like a whole, it's got like, you know,
1:33:52
like leaf cooking. They're like spiced Christmas
1:33:55
biscuits. It kind of smells like that
1:33:57
smells like marmalade. It's it's almost like they've
1:34:01
invented a different spirit category.
1:34:03
And I and I love it. I actually, as you can see from
1:34:05
this bottle, it's like it's, it's very it's it's nearly empty
1:34:10
because I always think it's because of the nature of what I
1:34:13
do, I get to taste stuff. That is sometimes when you first
1:34:16
have it, you're like, Oh my God, this almost doesn't taste like
1:34:19
whiskey. And if you've only ever really
1:34:20
drunk Scotch or you've only ever really drunk bourbon, you might
1:34:23
taste something and go, oh, that's not right.
1:34:25
I don't, I don't, I don't like this or this is too different or
1:34:27
whatever. But this is the kind of, this is
1:34:30
a good difference. And it's also, I think it's
1:34:32
accessible in its flavors as well.
1:34:34
So some people making stuff that's different are chasing
1:34:37
that barn Yardy, pig swill farm Yardy, which, you know,
1:34:40
personally, I do also like a little bit of that and like some
1:34:43
like oil paints and stuff like that, you know, in certain
1:34:46
whiskeys. And I do like that, but
1:34:47
obviously that is very hard to get more than a tiny group of
1:34:52
whiskey nerds on board with. But this I think has stuff
1:34:55
that's really appealing as well. So it's completely different
1:34:58
from anything else that's out there.
1:34:59
But it's also super citrusy, it's sweet, it's cereally, it's
1:35:04
multi, it almost has. Sometimes I smell it and I think
1:35:06
it smells like a bag of marshmallow.
1:35:08
Those as well like. Yeah, it's just so.
1:35:10
It's like it's, it's almost like they've yeah, as I said, it's
1:35:13
almost like they've created like a different single malt category
1:35:16
it. Really reminds me of like the
1:35:19
gelatin in a Jaffa cake. Like, yeah, yeah, kind of.
1:35:22
Like orange. Like it's really.
1:35:24
Nice. Do you like it?
1:35:26
Yeah. I hope you like it.
1:35:27
Yeah. I just think it's, it's just
1:35:28
like for me, it's it's I talk about in whiskey, I talk about
1:35:32
having a tasting Kahman for the first time moment, right,
1:35:36
because I remember the first time I had Mackie Bay, I tasted
1:35:39
it and went, Oh, shit, this is some this is some bloody good.
1:35:43
This is this is like thing like my whole brain lit up.
1:35:46
And that doesn't happen all that often when something really has
1:35:50
this like almost visceral response for you.
1:35:52
But I remember when I tasted this, I I had that kind of like,
1:35:55
I like, I'll never forget it. And so that's I think well worth
1:35:59
seeking out. Really interesting, really,
1:36:01
really interesting. So they're really, really
1:36:03
interesting whiskey. And if you've got, you know,
1:36:06
either £100 in your pocket or you've got more £400 in your
1:36:10
pocket and you want something old.
1:36:11
I think if if you if you're all about flavor and old age flavor,
1:36:17
that's a distillery to look at. Brilliant.
1:36:19
So that's that's DRAM number one now is.
1:36:22
This part of your watch 3 drams. Well, I guess so.
1:36:26
Right, right. Wait.
1:36:26
Right. So hang on.
1:36:27
Right. All right.
1:36:29
OK, so I mean, is this one of your watch 3 drafts?
1:36:31
Yeah, right, right. So it's.
1:36:33
A cheesiest way to do it You. Think right?
1:36:34
Well, listen, we always if someone's.
1:36:36
Yeah. Watch 3 drums, right?
1:36:37
OK, I'll need to take a look at. That's right.
1:36:39
So we are on your watch 3, right?
1:36:40
Yeah. Remind about our welcome back.
1:36:47
No, Christopher, it's time of the evening when we go at your
1:36:50
watch 3 drums. Any three drums have any sort of
1:36:52
meaning to you or any story associated with them.
1:36:54
It'd be great. What have you brought anyway?
1:36:56
No, but that is right. OK, so I would say.
1:37:01
So, so, I mean, I don't know if you know Alex Thompson, who, who
1:37:07
works at the managers, the visitor center at Glen Turret,
1:37:10
the visual taste of Glen Turret. So I went up to him.
1:37:13
When I tasted this for the first time, it was a World Whiskey's
1:37:15
Awards judging session. Afterwards, after the judging
1:37:18
was done, we put out like a bar of like entries.
1:37:22
And I tasted this, had that moment of like, Oh my God, my
1:37:25
brain's just been switched on. It's like I've tasted whiskey
1:37:27
for the first time again. I I call it like the jaded
1:37:31
ratatouille critic moment, you know, like suddenly I was
1:37:34
clutching at my my mother's skirts in the kitchen, parents
1:37:38
of the living room and whiskey. Exactly, exactly.
1:37:41
And I went up to him and I said, you've got to taste this.
1:37:43
This is like, I need somebody else to tell me that this is
1:37:46
also like this wild and this good.
1:37:49
And I think he, I think his, his his partner then spent about a
1:37:54
year and a half trying to track down a bottle for him.
1:37:57
And she did finally manage to get a bottle for him.
1:37:59
So yeah, it's not just me. I think this is really, really
1:38:02
interesting and deserves hype. I think the main struggle that
1:38:05
they're going to have in the UK is that because of taxation and
1:38:09
and Custer and customs and import and stuff, I think they I
1:38:11
think it is expensive for this market, but I think this is a
1:38:15
distillery that for me, I say it's worth.
1:38:16
It's worth I mean, if that's worth definitely, definitely.
1:38:20
It's a nice. That's a it's a kind of drama.
1:38:22
I think I'm. Actually going to have some.
1:38:23
If you can, if you can, you could probably have that.
1:38:27
Like you say, it's very Christmassy type thing, but then
1:38:29
on the other side of it, there's a refreshingness about it where
1:38:32
it's almost like you could say on a summer's day you could have
1:38:35
that or. Again, yeah, it's not short in
1:38:38
flavour. No, you can do.
1:38:40
What I love is I like whiskeys where you can give it to someone
1:38:44
and somebody might go, I love it or somebody might go, I hate it.
1:38:47
And like for me, that means the whiskey has personality like,
1:38:50
like for like for me, if you're a producer and like 30% of
1:38:54
people aren't picking it up and going, oh, that's not for me,
1:38:56
then that means if they're not doing that, that means your
1:38:59
spirit doesn't have any personality.
1:39:00
Like that's what character is like.
1:39:03
Not every If everybody just liked the same stuff, the world
1:39:05
would be a very. I'm not saying.
1:39:07
Boring place. Being able to go back to it and
1:39:08
try it again and go, oh, I'm getting something like you try
1:39:11
it the first because there is a lot going on in there.
1:39:13
Yeah, so you suddenly go. So for a lot of people, myself
1:39:16
including, maybe go, that's why there's a lot going on.
1:39:19
But then you go back to it another time ago.
1:39:20
Actually, now that first me bits mellowed out the second bits I'm
1:39:24
starting to get more lovely. Correct me if you're wrong,
1:39:26
these must have been one of the first few distilleries to open
1:39:28
up after the loss loosens. Because it's like Larks was
1:39:32
first. Yeah, and then Sullivan's Cove
1:39:34
would have been. Yeah.
1:39:35
So I think it's yeah, they were, they were in the early in the
1:39:38
early in the early clutch. But no, I just think I just, I
1:39:42
just, I love to big them up whenever I can because I just
1:39:45
think that nobody seems to have heard of them here and everybody
1:39:48
should because it's nuts and I pour it blind for people.
1:39:52
Quite. Quite a bit.
1:39:53
So that's first whiskey and it's got a good story.
1:39:56
The second whiskey is, you know, we were talking about blends, we
1:39:59
were talking about woven. I've got massive respect for
1:40:02
woven because that I think is another great example of doing
1:40:06
something because it's interesting and the right thing
1:40:08
to do, Not because an insight report from somewhere said that
1:40:12
this was going to be the way to, you know, make your shareholders
1:40:15
millions of pounds. You know it's being, you know
1:40:17
it's being, it's being done because it's the right thing to
1:40:20
do and it's interesting and it's pushing boundaries in the
1:40:22
category and. I like blended whiskey, so I
1:40:25
have brought a blended whiskey and I've actually brought you a
1:40:29
single blended whiskey. So a blended whiskey where all
1:40:32
components are made of a single distillery, which is the Fuji
1:40:35
Kitemba distillery in Japan, Which I if you if you are a
1:40:41
Scotch person and you are not a Japanese whiskey person and you
1:40:44
want to sort of understand kind of what Fuji Kitemba's deal is
1:40:50
in one sentence, it is the Loch Lomond of Japan, Right.
1:40:55
That's how I describe it to people now, obviously.
1:40:57
And now obviously I know that that's like you could, you know,
1:41:00
somebody's going to be like, yeah, well, lots of distilleries
1:41:02
in Japan make different spirit styles and they're all like Loch
1:41:05
Lomond. You know, it's like, well, no,
1:41:06
because some of them are doing, you know, floor molting and
1:41:08
direct firing. And so.
1:41:10
So no, I think if you're if you're purely talking about
1:41:12
something that is actually similar in its business model,
1:41:16
this this distillery is owned by Kirin the Brewers.
1:41:21
It's mostly makes whiskey for domestic the domestic Japanese
1:41:25
market. And this is part of a range of
1:41:28
whiskeys that's really there like first foray into like
1:41:31
enthusiast whiskey and it is made and the master, the master
1:41:38
blender there. Joe Tanaka is a friend of mine
1:41:41
and he's been one of many people who've been very incredibly
1:41:43
generous with his time and expertise over the years as I
1:41:47
ask awkward questions about, well, how does this work?
1:41:50
And he, this distillery they make, among other things, they
1:41:57
make two single malt profiles, 1, which is like a, what they
1:42:02
call their like estuary malt, which they've been making for
1:42:04
about 50 years. And then they make another style
1:42:07
of malt, which I actually haven't had all the details on
1:42:09
yet because they, I don't think they've published, publicized it
1:42:13
sort of publicly yet. So they make these two unpeated
1:42:16
malt styles. And then they make 3 styles of
1:42:19
grain whiskey, which they call the three Umami brothers, which
1:42:23
I love, which I love, Let's call jokes I call them.
1:42:26
Umami brothers my. Indie band My indie band Umami
1:42:31
Brothers. So they make, so they what they
1:42:33
do is what that means is they make a, what they call like a
1:42:36
heavy, a medium and a light style of grain whiskey.
1:42:39
And the way to sort of understand it easily is that
1:42:42
they have one grain whiskey, which is effectively a bourbon
1:42:45
production process. They have one that is they call
1:42:48
a Canadian style of grain whiskey.
1:42:51
And then they have another one which is a much something we
1:42:54
would all recognize, which is like a Scotch whiskey production
1:42:57
style. And they call those 3 Amami
1:42:59
brothers. All of those components are used
1:43:02
to create this whiskey, which is I think in the Uki think it's
1:43:06
like 65 lbs or something. And I need you to taste it.
1:43:09
So rinse those glasses because it's very different from the
1:43:12
Helios Rd. So so have a have a taste.
1:43:16
All right. Thank you so much for.
1:43:17
This. I feel like this is going to be
1:43:19
sore at my eyes. It's unbelievable already.
1:43:22
You have trucks, a big Japanese whiskey in.
1:43:24
I'm just a big grain. Guy.
1:43:25
Well, you're also. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:43:27
So this whiskey, I would say, so you know how you get people.
1:43:30
So you know how you get people who are only bourbon drinkers,
1:43:34
Right, Right. And you try and give them a malt
1:43:36
and they go, oh, it's just, it's just just two different.
1:43:38
It's just, you know, I've got Scotch isn't for me.
1:43:41
I think there is a lot to love in this if you're a bourbon
1:43:44
drinker, OK. I think if you're a Scotch
1:43:46
whiskey drinker, it's going to seem like the distant relation
1:43:50
of something that you've, you know, take, you know, like the
1:43:53
good old days of blends is going to.
1:43:54
It's going to have that sort of like reminiscent sort of feeling
1:43:58
for you. And if you're a blends drinker,
1:44:00
I mean, this is just a it's just a solid blend.
1:44:03
So nice. Well, looking forward to.
1:44:05
That So if after, after the last couple of weeks, I don't know.
1:44:08
I don't know when the episode would have come out.
1:44:10
But we were talking about bourbons and according to
1:44:13
Tesco's and Eagle Rare was like 13 LB off in Tesco's on the club
1:44:18
card, so I didn't pick up a bottle of that.
1:44:20
Excellent. OK, I'm driving.
1:44:23
So don't try. You smell that?
1:44:27
Sensical This is what I really like about this whiskey is that
1:44:34
it is both. If you want to treat this as
1:44:38
drinking whiskey, right as in like roofing juice, as I heard
1:44:42
some people goes like if you like, if you want to, if you
1:44:44
want to make highballs with this and and drink highballs all
1:44:46
night, this makes an amazing highball.
1:44:50
If you want this is just like something to have with your with
1:44:52
a beer and you're just like drinking another evening like
1:44:56
this is that day. This whiskey is like dangerously
1:45:00
drinkable, but then the longer you sit with it in the glass,
1:45:05
it's got like, it's actually like, it's actually, it's like a
1:45:07
little bit. It's actually, I don't know if
1:45:09
it's like a little bit closed at first, but then the longer you
1:45:12
give it in the glass, it's got all the it's sorry, I'm not
1:45:16
talking. The longer you keep it.
1:45:18
I'm very loud, so it should be OK.
1:45:20
The longer you keep it in the glass, all this like delicate
1:45:23
like Peach and blossom comes out.
1:45:27
There's there's like like sort of like, yeah, like cut white
1:45:31
flowers. There's so there's, there's
1:45:35
cereal in there. Like I just find the longer you
1:45:37
sit with it, there's like for a whiskey of this price and it and
1:45:41
by the way, in Japan, this is it's half the price.
1:45:44
Isn't it? Yeah, Well, this is the most
1:45:45
time in the price. This is like £35 in Japan.
1:45:48
Wow, 38. Quid.
1:45:49
So it's just, it's just a solid like it's a, like you've just
1:45:54
said, it's a sort of three-part DRAM really.
1:45:55
You could stick it in something. You can have it as if you want
1:45:58
to sit and have it as a drinker, or it's you could still enjoy
1:46:01
the complexity. It's delicate, but it's got like
1:46:04
mouthfeel. It's it's maybe, maybe I did
1:46:07
this in the wrong order to be honest, because this has got
1:46:09
this is so bursting. This, this is a, this is what
1:46:11
I'd call like a, it's like a quietly confident whiskey.
1:46:14
It's complex, but it's, you know, you just want it.
1:46:17
You just want to drink and have something that's easy to drink.
1:46:19
Then that this, you know, this Fuji single blend is your man.
1:46:22
But if you want something that you're going to sit and analyze,
1:46:24
like there's something to analyze in this as well.
1:46:27
And it's not expensive. That's lovely, because that's
1:46:29
really, really nice. You know, we're all on a budget.
1:46:32
Yes, economy of. Course exactly.
1:46:34
See in the highball, have we had the highball competition on the
1:46:38
is that. It has come to an end.
1:46:42
So Sean Buchan at Unomass, they've won the volume prize, so
1:46:46
I'm going to Japan. What was the game?
1:46:53
The more I drank, the more I drank for them.
1:46:57
I was on. I'm going to Japan.
1:46:58
I'm on to Japan. So we've got a.
1:47:01
Sunshine on leaf. Sunshine on leaf.
1:47:04
Delicious and they. Ben, Ben, congratulations.
1:47:08
And that's about 750 serves that he sold across three months.
1:47:11
It was wild, absolutely insane. Yeah, that 700.
1:47:15
Was Ross Barr. So thank you.
1:47:17
A large percentage of that 700 was me at that way because I
1:47:22
was, I don't know what it was. It was.
1:47:24
Like juice? It was alcohol.
1:47:27
Bloody brilliant, let me tell you.
1:47:29
I've mentioned that a few times on the podcast.
1:47:31
It's been It was sun because, and again, my rubbish part was
1:47:36
we'd had that much of it. Greg Urquhart and I were trying
1:47:40
to work out the correct plural for it as it sun shines on
1:47:43
Leafs. No sun shines on leaf that we'd
1:47:46
had. I'd had X amount of I won't say
1:47:48
the number, and that X amount of sun shines on leaf or I'd had X
1:47:53
amount of sunshine on Leafs. Tell you what, it's difficult to
1:47:56
say after a few jams because it's so.
1:47:58
I thought said at one point, I thought when you were at Uno
1:48:02
Mass, if you just kept pushing the button, you got another one.
1:48:05
But it turns out that you just had to push the button.
1:48:07
We. Can do that for next year when
1:48:08
we bring it back, push a button and then it's just a highball.
1:48:10
It was delightful, well done and I think it was because Red Jane
1:48:14
on last week. Yeah.
1:48:16
She was never they would have been close second, I suppose,
1:48:18
with. They were close second for
1:48:20
volume, but we did 2 prizes, so there's one for volume and one
1:48:23
for experience. So for the experience prize,
1:48:25
we're taking two of the guys from the video rooms.
1:48:27
Oh, fantastic. Just because of how much they
1:48:29
got behind the brand and behind the incentive as well.
1:48:32
And I think that's what was great was just seeing these, It
1:48:34
was what 8 or 9 bars I think that got involved, but seeing
1:48:37
how involved they got with. It did you see my attempt as
1:48:39
well? I did, yeah.
1:48:41
Yeah, we're we're actually on like.
1:48:44
It was a hemisphere and Oh yeah. You did like Hemisphere.
1:48:48
It was like an elder. It was the only thing that they
1:48:52
had back. Basically it was a Scotch and
1:48:54
summer's day. And I've walked, I've marched
1:48:58
carrying all the kit. I've marched carrying all the
1:49:02
kit from my house, which is 875 meters door to door from
1:49:07
Diggers. Got there sweating, and I've
1:49:09
gone. I need something refreshing.
1:49:11
And I went. I'm gonna have a go at a woven
1:49:13
highball. What?
1:49:15
And I went to the guys at Diggers.
1:49:16
God bless the Diggers. It's not a cocktail bar, right?
1:49:18
And I went. The fact that you said elder
1:49:20
flowering your centres and the diggers I was.
1:49:22
Like, whoa, I said, woven hemisphere, Geez, a bit of ice
1:49:26
and I and he said, what do you want in it?
1:49:27
I went right. Let's have a look.
1:49:30
Right. What's that?
1:49:31
That's Elderflower Fever Tree tonic.
1:49:33
I'll stick a bit of that in there.
1:49:34
What garnish have you got? We've got lemons or limes.
1:49:37
I'll take one of each. Very exhausting.
1:49:41
Well, no, it didn't. It passed the Ross Bar test,
1:49:43
which which is something, but I don't think experience or volume
1:49:47
would go anywhere near that. But anyway, we're digressing
1:49:49
because the man beside me has just pulled out a box from a bag
1:49:53
he's got in there either. Is this your third and final?
1:49:54
What, 3 drams? It is.
1:49:56
You're some boy. And before I before I do that,
1:50:00
I'm going to finish talking about the Fuji because there's
1:50:02
one thing that I forgot to say, which is why I'm a big Fuji
1:50:06
Katemba fan. So one of the main reasons that
1:50:09
I'm a Fuji Katemba fan as well is that they are selling 100%
1:50:13
distilled into Japan. They're selling 100% distilled
1:50:17
in Japan, Japanese whiskey, authentic Japanese whiskey.
1:50:20
They are fully behind the current move to get a
1:50:23
geographical indication registered and make it legally
1:50:27
binding in Japan to try and put an end to all this like fake
1:50:30
Japanese whiskey. Well, fake Japanese whiskey
1:50:33
stuff that's, that's been that's been causing issues and is, you
1:50:36
know, going to at risk sort of confusing and undermining the,
1:50:40
the reputation of the industry. This is 100% distilled out of
1:50:44
Fuji Kitenba. It's well under £100.
1:50:47
It's delicious. I think people should have this
1:50:50
should be on the hike train, but it's not because nobody's heard
1:50:53
of it. So honestly, try this.
1:50:56
They do also do a world blend. So, you know, if you're familiar
1:50:59
with Chichibu and a Chito Akuto, obviously he's, you know,
1:51:04
pushing. He's been pushing the sort of
1:51:05
Japanese world blend in a transparent way for a long time.
1:51:09
They also do a world blend and are completely transparent about
1:51:12
it. It is also very nice.
1:51:13
They also do a a single grain whiskey.
1:51:17
I would just suggest to anybody who's interested in trying some
1:51:21
Japanese whiskey that isn't going to break the bank.
1:51:23
That is delicious and is authentic and you don't have to
1:51:26
worry about this is a distillery too.
1:51:28
Look, that's really cool to know because I've seen it before and
1:51:30
I've not had it because the price has been so affordable
1:51:33
like that. That immediately felt, oh, this
1:51:35
will be like Canadian and and Ben Nevis matured in an
1:51:39
abandoned train station in Japan.
1:51:41
Somewhere. No, this is this is 100% and
1:51:43
this thing, you know, if this is like, I don't know if it will be
1:51:46
the first distillery to get the little sticker that the Japan
1:51:49
Spirits and Liqueurs Makers Association has launched that
1:51:51
like is the like seal of approval of this is real
1:51:54
Japanese like like whiskey. I don't know if they're going to
1:51:56
be the first to put it on their bottle, but if they were, I
1:51:58
wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, OK.
1:51:59
Well, that's. Awesome.
1:52:00
Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
1:52:02
Praise your third and final DRAM then.
1:52:04
So my third and final DRAM, we'll be talking about
1:52:07
misinformation in the world of in the world of whiskey and
1:52:10
particularly how poorly understood Sherry casks are by
1:52:16
people, by people who drink whiskey, by people who sell
1:52:19
whiskey, by people in the industry, even people that make
1:52:22
whiskey. You know, even if they get, you
1:52:24
know, a delivery every two weeks from a bodega, they might not
1:52:28
know about where those classes came from or what went into
1:52:31
them. And I can safely say that if it
1:52:35
wasn't for the team, Ian McLeod, the Steelers, and specifically
1:52:39
Ian Weir and Gordon Dundas at Tamdou, I would have been one of
1:52:43
the potentially been one of those people repeating nonsense
1:52:46
about Sherry casts. They gave me the opportunity.
1:52:50
They did back in 2018. They did a trip to Haref.
1:52:54
Not it wasn't a press trip. This was them going to learn
1:52:57
about their supply chain and like and meet their meet their
1:53:01
people, you know, meet their suppliers and make a sort of and
1:53:04
they were, they were making a film, like a brand film at the
1:53:05
same time. And they said to me one day,
1:53:07
well, do you want to come along? I said, oh God, that sounds
1:53:09
amazing. I'd love to go to Haref.
1:53:11
And they said, well, come with us then, like we've we've got
1:53:14
the itinerary there, like come with us.
1:53:15
And I was like, my God, I know how I'm going to wangle this one
1:53:18
with the with the boss. So we went to heref we we well
1:53:22
actually no, we, we started in Galithia in the northwest of
1:53:26
Spain. We went and what and visited the
1:53:28
actual forests that European oak for their casts comes to.
1:53:32
We spoke to the lumberjacks, felling that I speak a bit of
1:53:35
Spanish. So I spoke in very broken
1:53:37
Spanish to the lumberjacks. You got you got the widow.
1:53:40
No, no, no. I was like, well, so because
1:53:42
what I wanted to ask them is that I wanted to ask them about
1:53:44
like the sustainability side of it.
1:53:46
It's like, how do you, how do you pick a car?
1:53:48
Like how do you pick a pick a tree?
1:53:49
What, which why this tree and not that tree?
1:53:52
Because the thing that I think is so important to know about
1:53:55
the supply chain of European oak, and it's not just in Spain,
1:53:59
but in France as well, is that they don't do, you know, if you
1:54:02
talk about forestry to Scottish people, quite rightly, they get,
1:54:06
they go, oh God, that's that horrible blight on our landscape
1:54:09
that makes land owners loads of money by planting invasive
1:54:12
species and then coming in and cutting down.
1:54:15
You know, they got a load of, you know, tax credits from the
1:54:18
government. They planted a load of invasive
1:54:20
species and now it gets cut down and sold for, for, for whatever.
1:54:23
I think people in Scotland often think about that when they think
1:54:26
about felling trees. I think naturally even people,
1:54:28
you know, in Scotland are beyond, they hear about cutting
1:54:30
down 100 year old tree or straight away you go, Oh my God,
1:54:33
that's a terrible thing to do. So I wanted to go and see this
1:54:36
for myself and be like, is this responsibly sourced?
1:54:39
Because I kept seeing in distilleries certain Sherry
1:54:43
casts would have this stamp on them that related to a
1:54:47
sustainability, a European sustainability program.
1:54:49
So I was like, well, what is that?
1:54:50
Where does that come from? Why does some Sherry casts have
1:54:53
it? Why does some not have it?
1:54:54
So I wanted to learn, so I went with Ian, the cloud distillers
1:54:58
to Galithia. I, I saw how they pick which
1:55:01
trees to fell and it's all about opening up space in the forest
1:55:05
to allow sunlight in, to allow more trees to grow up.
1:55:08
So you don't go in with a big machine and like cut down a
1:55:12
whole section of forest. You walk into a forest with the
1:55:15
sort of chief forester and he goes, this one's good for
1:55:18
cooperage and mature and ready. And also by cutting this down,
1:55:22
it's going to open up this bit of forest.
1:55:24
Wow, this one is also going in. So you go in and they pick
1:55:28
specific trees in specific bits of land.
1:55:32
The other thing that's really interesting that people never
1:55:34
talk about with relation to European oak, specifically
1:55:36
Spanish oak supply chain is that there's this ownership model of
1:55:41
forests in Spain called Minifundius, which is
1:55:44
effectively where lots of families own tiny bits of
1:55:49
forest. So if you're a sawmill and
1:55:52
you're trying to supply like get your supply of oak, you have to
1:55:55
deal with like tons of families and be like, and obviously they
1:55:59
don't want you to go in and chop all of the trees down because
1:56:01
that's an investment in that family's future.
1:56:04
That's like their, that's like their pension, right?
1:56:06
So they want you to go in and responsibly fell and get good
1:56:10
quality oak that's right for the things that's going to be used
1:56:12
for. They want to get a fair price
1:56:13
for it, but they also want you to protect the wood because
1:56:17
that's going to keep paying dividends for their family for
1:56:20
generations. That's crazy.
1:56:22
So that was the first thing I learned that nobody talks about.
1:56:24
And it's different to other oak supply chain in other parts of
1:56:27
the world, which I think is a lot more go in and chop lots of
1:56:31
stuff down, not everywhere, but it's obviously the situation is
1:56:35
different in different parts of the world dependent on
1:56:37
regulations. European oak felling is also
1:56:40
heavily regulated in both Spain and France.
1:56:43
So we did that, learned about European oak supply, then went
1:56:48
down to Herath, visited several wine makers and seasoning
1:56:52
bodegas and they, and you know, I kept hearing from people
1:56:56
saying, oh, seasoned cherry casks aren't real cherry casks.
1:57:00
They just put trash in them, right?
1:57:03
So I was like, OK, I want to taste this.
1:57:04
I want to go into a seasoning bodega and I want to pick a cask
1:57:08
at random and ask them to let me taste it.
1:57:10
And I said, can I do that? And they went absolutely.
1:57:13
So we went to a seasoning bodega.
1:57:15
I picked a cask at random. It was actually a cask that was
1:57:18
being seasoned for Cavalan, not for Ian MacLeod, for Stillers.
1:57:21
It was, it had Cavalan branded on the end of the cask.
1:57:24
And I said, I want, I want to try this Sherry.
1:57:27
What's what's in it? And yeah.
1:57:29
Could you taste the tannin from the cask?
1:57:32
Because it was a new oak cask. Yes, obviously you could taste
1:57:35
the tannin. It wasn't Sherry.
1:57:37
You wouldn't, you're not going to take that Sherry and bottle
1:57:39
it for drinking. But the but you can tell from
1:57:42
tasting it that the Sherry that was in it was still recognizably
1:57:47
olaroso that you could serve on a table.
1:57:49
And I think this seems to I think there's AI have a hunch
1:57:53
that there is a miscommunication between you know, as I said
1:57:56
earlier about a little bit of information is a dangerous
1:57:58
thing. So people and you know how
1:58:02
people talk down about the stuff that's in their backyard as
1:58:05
well, right? Yeah.
1:58:06
So when a Spanish person in that supply chain says, Oh yeah, this
1:58:11
maybe this isn't, this isn't a. Good, Sherry.
1:58:13
Yeah, this isn't. Yeah, obviously it's not their
1:58:15
like prized Sherry that's in their most expensive solera that
1:58:18
they put out their their best product from.
1:58:21
But is that Sherry that's in that cask to anybody who is not
1:58:24
a Sir Sherry expert, a drinkable, palatable, legally
1:58:29
compliant Sherry of that style? Yes it is because there's laws
1:58:32
in place to make it make it that way.
1:58:34
Like it has to be an olarosso. A minimum required.
1:58:37
To legally qualify as an Olarosso, to be allowed to be
1:58:41
allowed to say this is an Olarosso season Sherry cast, it
1:58:44
has to be legally Sherry in order to do that.
1:58:46
So when they're saying like, Oh yeah, this isn't the good stuff
1:58:50
that's going in there, it's true, but it's also not true.
1:58:53
I think a lot of people who have an axe to grind have picked up
1:58:58
on that bit of information and gone Oh yeah, it's shy that's
1:59:01
going everything that's going in these Sherry very CAS is bad and
1:59:03
it's just not true. Like I drink Sherry for fun.
1:59:06
I enjoy Sherry. I've been drinking it for, you
1:59:08
know, almost as long as I've been drinking whiskey.
1:59:10
I went to Spain, picked casks at random, tasted stuff and it
1:59:14
tasted like perfectly fine Sherry.
1:59:16
No, that was only what that was only two or three seasoning
1:59:19
bodegas. There are many companies, maybe
1:59:20
there are people putting stuff that isn't as good as that.
1:59:23
You know, I was tasting casks being seasoned for Cavalon and
1:59:25
in McLeod. So maybe, you know, a very, very
1:59:29
high quality, smaller volume, very good stuff.
1:59:32
So are there other producers who are saying, yeah, just put in
1:59:34
whatever's legally in compliant? I don't know.
1:59:36
When did the when did the TAMDU release that video?
1:59:39
What year would that? Have been it would have been 20
1:59:43
late 2018 or early 2019. So yeah, So what?
1:59:47
Was it you brought there? So anyway, that was a long way
1:59:49
of saying that I'm a I'm 1A big fan of TAMDU, I'm 2A big fan of
1:59:55
Sherry Cask and I. Came into the industry late, too
2:00:03
late to really taste the Macallan that everybody talks
2:00:06
about, right? Oh yes, these amazing fruity
2:00:10
complex sherryd Macallan's that people used to pay £30 for and,
2:00:14
you know, whatever, you know, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, OK,
2:00:17
I'm, I was too late into the industry for that.
2:00:19
You know, I, I when I came into the industry, it was the Sienna
2:00:21
Ruby Ambar kind of thing. And I've got a huge amount of
2:00:26
respect for a lot of the work that was done on McAllen and
2:00:28
for, you know, for that, for that brand.
2:00:30
But for me now when people say, oh, I want to taste like, what
2:00:33
is the top quality? Complex, delicious, fruity, and
2:00:41
still reasonably priced even at a premium price whiskey, I think
2:00:46
Tam do is worth it. I think Tam do 12 is one of my
2:00:49
like top core range. Like you know, I put it there
2:00:53
with like Makia Bay as like if you know, if you've never drunk
2:00:55
whiskey before, I'm like taste Makia Bay and taste Tandu 12 and
2:00:59
then come back to me right. So, but I do not have Tandu 12
2:01:04
here. I have Tandu 21 years old, which
2:01:07
I'm not sure is even on sale yet.
2:01:09
So Oh really? It's just been launched like.
2:01:11
Last week. So I'm.
2:01:13
Just come by so anyway so I come back what episode to do I'm. 10
2:01:18
to 20. I'm 10 to 21 years old.
2:01:20
I have a distinct you know you want I did a story with the
2:01:22
DRAM. I have a memory of visiting Tam
2:01:27
do I don't know how long ago this would have been, 2015,
2:01:37
maybe 2016. It was when Sandy McIntyre, the
2:01:44
the current manager had just joined because we would be, and
2:01:49
I know this because we've been given the tour by Old Sandy, the
2:01:53
previous manager with Sandy McIntyre, the current manager.
2:01:58
So I remember being at this distillery then talking about
2:02:00
their ambitions like they had just launched TAMDU 10 I think,
2:02:03
or it might have just come out. I remember being like, Oh my
2:02:07
God, this distillery is not the most beautiful distillery in the
2:02:11
world, but my God is this whiskey tasty.
2:02:14
It and the location it's in is absolutely stunning.
2:02:17
The people that work here are amazing.
2:02:21
And that they would, they just kept talking about this
2:02:23
commitment to quality and this commitment to Sherry casks and,
2:02:27
and flavor 1st. And it's so it's flavor 1st and
2:02:30
quality first and paying the premium for the like for the
2:02:35
best casks first. And then the reputation comes
2:02:39
after that. If you're not, I mean, rather
2:02:41
than you get other brands that are like, we're luxury and they
2:02:44
just insist upon it. They're like, they tell they
2:02:46
they tell people that they're luxury.
2:02:48
Like I don't think they don't tell people that they're luxury.
2:02:50
They just are because you pick up this bottle and you're like,
2:02:53
this is beautiful. This is like absolutely
2:02:56
beautiful, right? No, it's not.
2:02:59
No, it's a beautiful thing. So this is what I love about
2:03:02
this, right? I mean, I know, I know we
2:03:03
shouldn't talk about packaging. People don't give a damn about
2:03:06
packaging, but I like I I love it.
2:03:08
This is made of cardboard. It looks like it's a piece of
2:03:12
carved like Moorish like architecture.
2:03:15
Right. Show me yourself there, right?
2:03:17
There you go This is this is fully sustainable packaging.
2:03:22
This is like cardboard, but it looks beautiful, so it feels
2:03:24
premium. It looks beautiful.
2:03:25
I love, I just love the way they present it.
2:03:27
But the most important thing guys, is oh man, this is tasty
2:03:33
and it's not cheap. It's 3, it's not cheap.
2:03:37
It's £300 I think for a 21 year old, which is even among twenty
2:03:42
year. Old and that's not even opened.
2:03:43
No, it's not opened like this is This is this is.
2:03:45
This is. How this is how this is how
2:03:49
honoured I was for a little old me to be invited a lot.
2:03:52
On to it. Come on, we.
2:03:53
Brought you into it I. Mean.
2:03:56
The Snug. Yeah, so thank.
2:04:03
You so much. We're going to open this bottle
2:04:04
of 21 year old Tam Do and you know they're on so.
2:04:08
Glad I didn't bring. My car, I think there's a,
2:04:10
there's a lot of people putting their prices up over the last
2:04:12
few years and I think often, you know, there's, there's whiskeys
2:04:19
that we taste and they're good quality.
2:04:20
But you know, for the price, I find myself saying, asking
2:04:25
whether I would pay that for it. And Tam do I think is, is it for
2:04:32
me? Like it's worth, It's worth the
2:04:33
premium. It's delicious.
2:04:35
Thank you so much for, for, first of all, coming in and
2:04:38
giving us some fantastic whiskey stories.
2:04:40
Thank you so much for for sharing these drams with us as
2:04:43
well. You're you're more than welcome
2:04:44
to come back for a second. It's it's absolutely fantastic.
2:04:48
I don't do second takes. Look, thank you, thank you for
2:04:52
thank you for coming on. How can people find you?
2:04:54
How can people find out anymore about what you're getting up to?
2:04:57
Where can people find you? So if you go on, if you go on
2:05:00
YouTube and search for Whiskey magazine, you'll find the
2:05:02
YouTube channel and find some of the films I've been making,
2:05:05
obviously Whiskey magazine. You can find it at
2:05:06
whiskeymag.com. I am on Instagram as Quercus
2:05:11
Alba, which I thought was a cool nerdy handle to have, which
2:05:16
actually is a terrible from like SEO and search point of view.
2:05:19
You're like, what's Quercus? OK, so yeah, but Quercus Alba,
2:05:23
if you just search Christopher Coach, you'll find me on
2:05:24
Instagram. I'm on I'm on TikTok as well but
2:05:27
I don't post very often there with Tik.
2:05:29
Tokers too. Actually, But yeah, so.
2:05:31
So anyway, thank you so much for having me.
2:05:33
It's been an absolute pleasure. I'm so glad I got to share some
2:05:35
drams that hopefully hopefully you enjoyed.
2:05:37
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on.
2:05:39
Don't forget, please like and subscribe to podcast Give us
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five stars. Have a chat.
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Find Christopher online, Find Hazel online.
2:05:46
Hazy drams, Hazy drams, Hazy drams.
2:05:48
Hazy. Drams don't look for truck.
2:05:51
Nothing. Nothing worth writing all about.
2:05:55
You don't post good. You don't post any.
2:05:59
But like, thank you so much. Don't forget.
2:06:02
See Care of drinks. See care of drinks Yeah well,
2:06:04
but but get on the get on the newsletter, get on the get in
2:06:08
the Facebook group. It's I mean, I think last
2:06:10
weekend there was like 65 as we're recording 65 people, 65
2:06:16
posts in the weekend DRAM roll. I love the last week.
2:06:19
It's just brilliant. And you know what there's
2:06:21
there's so many opportunities to just go through there and see
2:06:23
what other people are drinking and also like big
2:06:26
congratulations to Craig Darling as well on the birth of his
2:06:31
second child. Fantastic.
2:06:33
So glad every weekend for six weeks he's been posted the
2:06:37
weekend drama roll call be like I'm having nothing to drink this
2:06:39
weekend because the wife is the current wife is getting ready to
2:06:43
to burst. She has thankfully all looking
2:06:46
great. Congratulations to to you and
2:06:48
your wife and your your your children.
2:06:49
They're lovely. Lovely to see that and well,
2:06:52
listen. Thank you so much for coming in.
2:06:53
All the very best slang, Javar. Slang Javar.
2:06:55
Cheers. Thank you.
2:06:56
There we go. Jobs.
2:06:59
Jobs are good. Jobs are good then No, it's
2:07:01
that. Cracker, right?
2:07:02
That's great.