Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Knock Three Times for a Dram - The Lost Close with Simon Smith

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Knock Three Times for a Dram - The Lost Close with Simon Smith · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  Oh, right, I guess it's. The only thing that gets great
• 0:05
  more order. Right.
• 0:09
  We've got lights, we've got cameras.
• 0:11
  I guess I'm in a throne. Happy days.
• 0:15
  Clap us in. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
• 0:21
  podcast. By the time you got through even
• 0:25
  just a group of 15 people, it was just like, so tasty Notes
• 0:28
  are to an extent, bollocks because everyone's so
• 0:32
  individual. And that's something that's
• 0:33
  nothing revolution I'm saying there.
• 0:35
  But it would be. So I would teach language around
• 0:38
  whiskey that was more descriptive and experiential, so
• 0:41
  it would give someone a real idea of what they can experience
• 0:44
  when they're drinking a whiskey, rather than telling them exactly
• 0:47
  what they should be tasting. Welcome along to the Whiskey
• 0:50
  Stories podcast myself Cream Cooker.
• 0:51
  We are underground. We are tunnelling our way
• 0:55
  through Adam Rangas as we are joining Simon Smith here in the
• 0:59
  Lost close of Edinburgh. We've found the lost close.
• 1:03
  We are. It's pretty spooky down here.
• 1:04
  We've had to muck around with a little bit of lighting.
• 1:06
  If you're watching on our YouTube channel, please do.
• 1:09
  It does feel a little bit like. Feels like somewhere the a lot
• 1:14
  of ghost tours in Edinburgh, yeah.
• 1:15
  It feels like the kind of place that they would love to come in
• 1:17
  and. Jump out.
• 1:19
  What was that shaky camera movie?
• 1:21
  Blair Witch, Bro? Blair feels about like The Blair
• 1:23
  Witch Project tonight. Yeah.
• 1:24
  And I am sitting in a throat and my leaves beside me.
• 1:28
  Yeah, young Ross Bar. At least I'm not the Jester.
• 1:31
  Well, it's going to be. The Jester.
• 1:32
  How do we get on, lads? You're right, you're right.
• 1:34
  I'm glad to be back in here, to be honest.
• 1:36
  This is somewhere that I think you started this last year,
• 1:40
  Simon. Almost the edge of the day.
• 1:42
  Yeah, Just about, yeah. And I basically made it my
• 1:46
  effort to support a good friend as much as I could and he
• 1:49
  supported me and giving me fantastic drams.
• 1:51
  Yeah, well. I wasn't here and all the rest.
• 1:54
  It's one of those things that was difficult, but it's such an
• 1:57
  amazing venue. Good.
• 1:57
  Tell us, just before we go into the DRAM for drinking, the
• 2:00
  actual history of the building that we're sitting in just now.
• 2:03
  So the history is kind of many fold and as you can imagine a
• 2:06
  little bit lost quite literally. But we know that part of this
• 2:10
  was a prison, which was the hostel upstairs is an old
• 2:14
  prison. And so there's a lot of the old
• 2:16
  fittings from said. There's a space at the back,
• 2:19
  which is if you if you walk right the way through and you
• 2:21
  can see the roof is all singed, it's all blacked out and there's
• 2:25
  little cast iron ducts in the walls, which was basically that
• 2:29
  was a furnace that would heat the prison.
• 2:31
  So the ducks would take their their heating up.
• 2:33
  This, they think, was a holding cell.
• 2:35
  Right. So we are sitting in the holding
• 2:37
  cell. See the meal?
• 2:38
  There's there's the court above us on Parliament Square as well.
• 2:40
  Yeah. So this would have been a
• 2:42
  holding cell as far as you know, but it goes back further than
• 2:45
  that. This was one of the closest that
• 2:46
  ran from the mile down to probably Cowgate.
• 2:49
  So obviously you're off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.
• 2:52
  You know, you've got basically the top of a of a spine almost
• 2:55
  and down to the left and the right you've got and closest
• 2:58
  running down to kind of Market Street on one side and the
• 3:01
  Cowgate on the other. This was one of them that I
• 3:04
  think was kind of lost in the fire of Edinburgh somehow filled
• 3:07
  in refound, filled in refound. So basically it was filled in
• 3:10
  again after it was a prison essentially.
• 3:12
  So you'll see, you probably can't see on camera.
• 3:13
  There's kind of a bunch of just rocks behind me you can see.
• 3:16
  There's. Another chamber yet to be
• 3:19
  excavated. Someone, someone escaped.
• 3:22
  There used to be a poster there that's.
• 3:26
  Quite interesting sitting there in hundreds of years ago.
• 3:29
  Potentially somebody was sitting in here waiting to waiting.
• 3:32
  To yeah, I mean, just looking at the kind of, it's kind of almost
• 3:34
  like a vaulted rift, This, this looks like a very old belt, you
• 3:37
  know? Go and come tell us what the
• 3:38
  architect looks. Like a very old room.
• 3:40
  I suspect these kind of halls and passages were in.
• 3:43
  I've been here for a very long time.
• 3:45
  Yeah, well, I mean, Speaking of very long time Simon, you have
• 3:50
  you're a second guest on the podcast, although albeit during
• 3:53
  our escapades at Whiskey, Fringe and other sort of bits and bobs,
• 3:57
  we've bumped into each other. You've counted a few things, but
• 4:00
  you're returning. But you were on last on the
• 4:02
  podcast on the 16th of January 2024, episode number 13, episode
• 4:06
  number 13. Now can you tell why, what year,
• 4:10
  what 3 drams were? Can you remember them?
• 4:12
  Well, I think. Extraordinary luck for good
• 4:15
  podcasting. I believe it was the 1980s
• 4:17
  Valentine's. Yep.
• 4:19
  Is that what you're thinking? About in front of me at the
• 4:20
  minute. Fantastic.
• 4:24
  I think in a bout of narcissism, I picked the George's single
• 4:28
  cast Glen Scotia. Glen Scotia 10 year old, single
• 4:30
  cast yes. And then I think the third was
• 4:34
  an ardent Merkin. I believe it was a single cast.
• 4:39
  Paul Anwar, finish your cask. Absolutely.
• 4:43
  There you go. Your memory is in good shape at
• 4:44
  that somehow and it's fantastic. I think the last time we were
• 4:51
  on, we were building up to Burns Night because you are a busy man
• 4:53
  and Burns Night, we'll all come to that.
• 4:56
  But I guess another big interesting point is tonight is
• 5:00
  the night, which I believe, I think it was on your original
• 5:04
  podcast that we talked about the Star Wars Australian whiskey.
• 5:08
  It was it was probably one of the first episodes where we
• 5:11
  really dived into not just the world of Scotch whiskey, but the
• 5:15
  the world of whiskeys. And you have probably had a
• 5:18
  different. Attitude now, Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:20
  I remember talking about the starboard distillery, a
• 5:22
  distillery. If there is, please, if there is
• 5:25
  anybody from the Starboard distillery or even lives near
• 5:28
  the starboard distillery that listens to the podcast is
• 5:30
  they're definitely one of the most mentioned distilleries that
• 5:33
  we've had on this podcast. We've had a few people with big,
• 5:36
  big connections. That's absolutely.
• 5:38
  George. George Yeah.
• 5:41
  But yeah, we talked about a star word that is finished.
• 5:47
  Is it? Is it fully matured or finished?
• 5:50
  It's just as ginger beer cast on it, which implies a format.
• 5:53
  Because it won't be long. No, it's like 2 years minimum.
• 5:56
  Australia. Yeah.
• 5:57
  So it'll be so two years, yeah. A ginger beer matured cast.
• 6:01
  And I, I have had a sip of this. I had an initial set which was
• 6:05
  quite small and I didn't really get the ginger beer, and I had
• 6:08
  another set just when we were starting there and I really on
• 6:11
  the finish got that ginger beer real.
• 6:14
  We're talking Bundaberg ginger. Beer.
• 6:16
  Yeah, the famous kind of Australian.
• 6:18
  Ginger beer that way, Bundaberg, Budram, where you've got a lot
• 6:22
  of kind of ginger coming out that way.
• 6:24
  So. But what wasn't Bundy would be
• 6:26
  something. Along and they've done several
• 6:28
  batches of it now as well. Haven't.
• 6:30
  You well, I remember when it first came out, it was, I was in
• 6:33
  working Archie Rose Distillery and being 2 very new kind of
• 6:39
  urban distilleries in Sydney and Melbourne, we had a close
• 6:41
  connection. So I tried to it was under their
• 6:43
  old labels. They still might use it as new
• 6:45
  world projects, which is their kind of R&D experimental small
• 6:48
  batch label. But now it's under an official
• 6:51
  bottling label. So it has become part of the but
• 6:53
  the kind of core range. I think it is still batched, but
• 6:55
  it's a bit more available. But it's a really interesting
• 6:58
  drum because it does have, it is gingery, but it's got warmth
• 7:03
  from that as well. And obviously heat is something
• 7:05
  a lot of people associate with bad alcohol.
• 7:08
  Yeah, or bad experience with alcohol.
• 7:10
  So we have burns. It's a good.
• 7:12
  Thing so it's a little bit kind of like is it nice and warming
• 7:15
  or is it? Burning, yeah, yeah, no, I, I, I
• 7:18
  think that one in a way definitely for me, I think I
• 7:22
  guess a nice and warming. I I feel so as well, but I love
• 7:24
  ginger. Yeah, I do too as well.
• 7:26
  Like almost. It's almost like a.
• 7:30
  Would it go with a ginger ale or would it be a beer?
• 7:33
  Ginger beer. Oh.
• 7:34
  Yeah, or be great. Not Toddy.
• 7:36
  Hot. Well aye, that might be
• 7:37
  something my. Thing is, more so than the
• 7:40
  quality of the whiskey, which is obviously is from an established
• 7:43
  artillery that is doing well. It's a conversation point
• 7:46
  whiskey. Yeah, it's a whiskey.
• 7:48
  It's a whiskey that you hear about and you go, oh, I'd like
• 7:50
  to try that. And I remember you saying that
• 7:52
  and then go, where can we get it?
• 7:53
  And all the places we were going to, I was going to bars and
• 7:55
  asking for you. Yeah, Yeah.
• 7:56
  And they were saying, oh, we're sold out.
• 7:58
  And I was like, I'm sure Simon Smith will have this.
• 8:02
  And it's one of these things that come into the lost course.
• 8:04
  You get to try some really unusual fun stuff.
• 8:07
  Your selection you do is your selection.
• 8:09
  I've picked one of my favorite drinks to have and Simon's
• 8:12
  company. And I've not told you gentlemen
• 8:14
  about this. This is called a disco baby.
• 8:20
  Why does that not surprise me? I can't believe that I get a
• 8:23
  reputation for being a Shirley Time, it's called.
• 8:25
  It's called Disco baby. It's in a.
• 8:27
  It's in a small pink can. Yes it is.
• 8:29
  It's a vodka soda with watermelon and lemon thyme
• 8:32
  flavouring. 4.8% by the white box cocktails.
• 8:35
  Is is that an Edinburgh based company?
• 8:37
  Edinburgh based, so I do some amazing canned cocktails, yeah.
• 8:40
  And so I just thought I'd slap that in, you know, not tell you
• 8:42
  boys. I'm on the disco baby.
• 8:44
  On the disco baby. And then I think it's funny, you
• 8:46
  guys are trying something you've wanted to try.
• 8:47
  Simon's having one of his Walk 3 jams and 80s Valentine's.
• 8:50
  And I have also got an old blend because when I come here and
• 8:54
  when I started to come here, that's where I came in as a
• 8:58
  blank piece of paper and said, OK, Simon, I really don't know
• 9:00
  anything about this. You had a selection of whiskeys
• 9:03
  all at 4 lbs a gram. Yeah, so the the house whiskey,
• 9:06
  one of the fries is a selection of about 10 vintage strams at. 4
• 9:09
  right? Wow.
• 9:10
  So I'm on a White Horse from the 80s at the moment.
• 9:13
  Fantastic. And am I going to am I going to
• 9:15
  say the White Horse joke? I mean it.
• 9:16
  Would only be about the 5th time you mentioned.
• 9:19
  But they tell you a White Horse walked into the bar, the barman
• 9:22
  said. I've got whiskey in the
• 9:23
  afternoon, right? What Brian I?
• 9:27
  Mean. I have heard that before, right?
• 9:28
  Simon, I've told that too many times.
• 9:32
  Simon, you, yeah, you talk about your 1980s Ballentine's.
• 9:35
  And I think it was probably the first time on the podcast that
• 9:38
  unprompted, somebody else had mentioned Ballentine's, which
• 9:40
  really got me going because that's a, it's a, it's a brand
• 9:44
  of whiskey. It's a blender I hold very close
• 9:46
  to my own heart. But what you also talked about
• 9:48
  was sourcing these blends. And you cost me a small fortune
• 9:53
  in the sense that you've opened me up to the world on auctions
• 9:57
  of being able to. And I don't want to say it too
• 9:59
  many times because too many people might listen to this and
• 10:01
  start bidding against us. But there are some.
• 10:04
  And one of our indie bottler Spotlight, which as we're
• 10:07
  recording was last week. But as this goes out a couple of
• 10:09
  weeks ago, one of the whiskeys that we had purchased on the
• 10:13
  auction was used. It was it was.
• 10:16
  We had a whiskey ginger that was used with part of the 1.75
• 10:20
  litres of gold Smuggler that I'd accidentally purchased the.
• 10:26
  Novelty. Bottle.
• 10:27
  Yeah, the fire extinguisher bottle size.
• 10:29
  I didn't. Realise you'd bottle 75.
• 10:31
  Litres it was only because the irony of it was I bought it
• 10:35
  alongside like a 1970s dimple pinch bottle, 50 CL tiny.
• 10:39
  Yeah, tiny like so with the size of box around.
• 10:42
  What the hell they said to this one?
• 10:43
  But it has been an incredible eye opener for me to log into
• 10:48
  the, to the, the auctions. And that's now the first place
• 10:51
  to start to look. Because the value that you can
• 10:53
  get out of that. And I think number one, that the
• 10:57
  flavour is something that you're getting good value in because
• 11:01
  we're 100% you're tasting a completely different time of
• 11:04
  whiskey with different reasons. We'll come to what you, what you
• 11:06
  know, why you think that might be the case, but #2 is, you
• 11:11
  know, from a, I don't know. People often talk about old
• 11:14
  bottles and stuff like you're tasting whiskey history, aren't
• 11:17
  you? When you think about a 12 year
• 11:18
  old, what's as a 12 year old 1980s Valentine's.
• 11:22
  So when was that being distilled?
• 11:23
  Exactly. You know you're looking at stuff
• 11:25
  from the 70s, you're looking at a time when older vaults weren't
• 11:29
  as valued or as prized for their own bottling.
• 11:31
  So you know, if you've got a minimum age statement, you're
• 11:33
  obviously likely going to be creeping are fairway above that
• 11:37
  these bottlings and you have a high percentage of malt again
• 11:40
  because the demand wasn't there on the single malt market.
• 11:42
  But as you say they are, they're a time capsule.
• 11:45
  They are really fascinating look into and if you get one that's
• 11:48
  in really good condition with a good fill level being well
• 11:51
  sealed, you are tasting something almost as close as you
• 11:55
  can possibly get anyway to what happened if someone walked into
• 11:58
  a shop in 1982 and bought 1. You know, it's a really
• 12:00
  fascinating thing and that there is the very fortunate thing in
• 12:05
  which he compared to for even, you know, wine can, you know,
• 12:08
  it's a much riskier kettlefish with that kind of thing.
• 12:11
  So there's unfortunately whiskey that we can dive back into stuff
• 12:14
  from a long time ago and it's still drinkable and interesting.
• 12:18
  And the various nerdy reasons can often be, you know,
• 12:22
  absolutely delicious. The old bottle effect and
• 12:25
  various things like that that people talk about.
• 12:27
  You know, it's it can go wrong. I've had examples where it has
• 12:30
  gone wrong. But when it's when it's when it
• 12:33
  goes well, yeah, it's a really enjoyable experience.
• 12:36
  I'm just kind of, I'm going to say facetiously pointed out that
• 12:40
  I just read the cupboards of my dead relatives whiskey.
• 12:46
  But to be honest, it is funny because I've had people come to
• 12:50
  me and say, oh, my mum and dad have got this really old bottle
• 12:54
  in the house. It must be worth a fortune or
• 12:57
  I've I've been handed down this bottle.
• 12:59
  It was a friend, a friend of Stu Kirkang.
• 13:01
  Guess actually he, he said, oh, look like my dad has a bottle of
• 13:06
  Ballantine's from his dad gave to him sort of thing.
• 13:10
  When or when they were clearing the house out.
• 13:11
  They found it And I was like, oh, brilliant.
• 13:13
  And he was like, it must be worth a fortune.
• 13:15
  You just say. About. 10 or me.
• 13:17
  But it was it was literally just that bog standard.
• 13:19
  Like McCallum, one times gold, leg gold, whatever.
• 13:23
  It was from the 90s, it was a bottle that somebody picked up
• 13:26
  in the 1980s. It was a litre bottle as well.
• 13:28
  So it was probably through travel retail.
• 13:30
  And you know, he's going, that must be worth a couple of
• 13:33
  quiddie. And I was like, probably not.
• 13:35
  You'll stick that on the auction and I'll be sitting in the sort
• 13:38
  of 20 mid 20s to £30 until someone bids those.
• 13:41
  Bottles average about £22.00 for them roughly, and they are kind
• 13:44
  of often litre bottles or 1.13, you know, some bizarre old
• 13:49
  sizings and stuff. But you know, you get to point
• 13:51
  back on as well. You've got, you know, that, that
• 13:53
  that'll be 43%, you'll be more alcohol in them.
• 13:55
  So they, you know, they do kind of kick around a bit more.
• 13:59
  But yeah, they, they are when you compare to what's on the
• 14:01
  shelf for £25 and then you're talking 35 after Hammer, really.
• 14:05
  Yeah, what's everything comes through.
• 14:06
  But still what's on the shelf for £35 these days.
• 14:09
  If you can get something like that, then to me is just an
• 14:11
  everyday drinker. Yeah, yeah.
• 14:13
  Well, that's The thing is it's. Really understandable mistake
• 14:16
  for people to make. I remember working in the
• 14:18
  whiskey shop, 18 year old and a woman coming in saying you're
• 14:22
  starting an auction site, blah blah.
• 14:23
  I've got a 50 year old famous grouse.
• 14:25
  And I said I don't think that I didn't know they done a 50 year
• 14:27
  old. Yeah, because they might have
• 14:28
  done a blender. And she said, no, no, I've had
• 14:30
  this bottle for 50 years and you still want to break it.
• 14:34
  How do you say to somebody you've got a bottle of Famous
• 14:36
  Grouse? Yeah.
• 14:37
  Well, that's exactly, Yeah, probably, I mean.
• 14:38
  If anything from the before there's a 70s and then I'm sure
• 14:41
  you get about 50s and 60s. You might make a couple £100 if
• 14:44
  it's in good nick. Yeah, but your return on
• 14:46
  investment over 70 years isn't? Great.
• 14:48
  No, I mean, I'd say I was, I was looking at it, you know, with I
• 14:53
  was looking at some old bottlings and there's, I think
• 14:55
  we talked about it. Ally Baxter might have one.
• 14:58
  It's the Grand Slam DRAM which is the Glen Morton G I believe
• 15:02
  it's a special edition like monetary 10 that was brought out
• 15:06
  to celebrate in 1990 when Scotland won the Grand Slam in
• 15:09
  this five Nations back then. And I was looking at it and I
• 15:12
  was looking at the prices. So they're sitting around about
• 15:14
  two, £300 at the moment. Of course, that's just of what
• 15:18
  other people have potentially paid in the past.
• 15:20
  It's not you can go online and maybe buy, maybe you could, I
• 15:22
  don't know. But I mean, I was thinking
• 15:25
  about, I wonder like would that be worth buying?
• 15:28
  Would it be worth buying and opening for a tasting or
• 15:30
  something like that? And at the end of the day,
• 15:32
  you're still going. It's just, is it not just Glenn
• 15:34
  Morgan 10, I think. It is 10, yeah.
• 15:37
  So really. Yeah, the label has on a font.
• 15:41
  Somebody who went on I could be there and put grand slat.
• 15:44
  It's not really fancy, it's just been label.
• 15:47
  So you could probably create it and make.
• 15:48
  It I mean, I shouldn't do that, no, but but the point is if
• 15:52
  you're suddenly thinking, I mean, the value of that bottle
• 15:55
  isn't in the whiskey, it's in the it's in the bottle.
• 15:58
  That's where you are to justify. But I guess it's if you're a
• 16:00
  rugby fan etcetera. That's what I thought.
• 16:02
  It's all that. It's that moment.
• 16:04
  The people that have maybe were at the games and, you know, we
• 16:07
  experienced it and then they get a bottle and it's not maybe a
• 16:10
  whiskey you would rush to drink. It is a whiskey that you'd
• 16:12
  happily have on your shelf. And your family members or
• 16:15
  friends come over and they go, what's that?
• 16:16
  And you. Well, let me tell you that
• 16:18
  Scotland could shut the egg of. It if you've been in one of the
• 16:21
  games with the power. Yeah, 100%.
• 16:24
  Great, you know, but it is one of those things that's that's a
• 16:27
  kind of a marking a moment whiskey, you know, you're not
• 16:29
  seeing it for the quality of the sakes.
• 16:31
  I mean, it's quite more 10, Yeah, like it's quite more 10,
• 16:33
  probably delicious. But yeah, it is just that.
• 16:36
  And so some of the old blends and stuff that you've
• 16:38
  highlighted and had in here, you're this is actually a very
• 16:42
  industry heavy bar when you're opening it, right?
• 16:45
  It's either people who know more about whiskey than I do a
• 16:48
  complete noise like. Yourself.
• 16:50
  Or tourists having their first jam ever.
• 16:52
  OK, good. Actually, it's one of the So
• 16:54
  how? Do people, first of all, I'm
• 16:56
  going to say how do people find you in two senses #1 how do
• 17:00
  people find out about the lost close and, and what, what
• 17:02
  they're what they're doing? Because there'll be people who
• 17:04
  listen to this or maybe people are planning a visit to
• 17:06
  Edinburgh and stuff like that. So how can they find you through
• 17:08
  social media and stuff like that?
• 17:10
  So, so the the the lost close is the building itself, the pop up
• 17:14
  bar. I run it in.
• 17:16
  It is called the desert island. So if you're on Instagram at the
• 17:20
  under score desert, under score Isle Isle.
• 17:23
  So follow me on that. You'll see that basically that
• 17:25
  acts as a menu. So all the drams are uploaded
• 17:27
  there and we'll do as I get more in and also we'll have all
• 17:30
  opening times on any other announcements about events,
• 17:33
  etcetera. So follow me on that.
• 17:35
  Otherwise, this space actually belongs to the hostel upstairs.
• 17:39
  They very kindly advertise in their reception, which sends
• 17:42
  some people down. They also, they are, there are,
• 17:44
  there are tours that come through here so I can pick off a
• 17:46
  few whiskey nerds from those. Apart from that, in normal
• 17:49
  training times for anyone in Edinburgh doesn't know exactly
• 17:53
  where we are because we have just said we're underground.
• 17:56
  So if you, if you're coming down the Royal Mile, you have some
• 17:58
  child's cathedral on your right. Behind that is what is
• 18:02
  essentially a car park, but it's actually called Parliament
• 18:04
  Square. And at the back left of that,
• 18:06
  you've got what's called Barry's close, and that is a an l-shaped
• 18:11
  stairwell that will take you from Parliament Square down onto
• 18:14
  Fish Market close, which on which you would then turn right
• 18:17
  to the Cow Gate. Halfway down that stair, on your
• 18:19
  left, there's a door. And it looks like you're coming
• 18:21
  into one of those bars that Shrek was going to.
• 18:23
  There's no window. It's a very old school door.
• 18:25
  And it will say knock three times.
• 18:27
  Right, it says knock three times for whiskey.
• 18:28
  So it's a bizarrely frequented close because it's an equally
• 18:32
  it's an easy cut down to the cow gate.
• 18:34
  So I do just get people who just see a sign and.
• 18:36
  Knock, three things. Well, Angus and I were trying to
• 18:40
  find the place and you mentioned the hostel up the stairs.
• 18:43
  Didn't realize it was a hostel, but we saw, like, lost clothes.
• 18:46
  I thought, like, we'll go through that door.
• 18:48
  That's the best place to start. And a big smell of food hit me
• 18:51
  and I went, oh, brilliant to do food here.
• 18:53
  I'm started not realizing that was just a hostel.
• 18:56
  And that was just the sort of people who are in the hostel
• 18:58
  making their dinner for tonight. Yeah.
• 19:00
  Smell absolutely fantastic. Staying in the hostel.
• 19:03
  Yeah, I remember when I was backpacking myself through
• 19:06
  Australia, the sort of the best part of it when you're in a
• 19:11
  hostel with our shared community kitchen type thing, is all the
• 19:15
  different people from all their different nationalities cooking.
• 19:18
  I befriended a lot of Italian and a lot of French guys because
• 19:21
  there would be but one of the things that, for example,
• 19:24
  Americans just could not understand the concept of beans
• 19:27
  on toast, right? And because you're you're,
• 19:30
  you're bad. That's an easier sell and store.
• 19:32
  These are minced and. Tie, but it's been.
• 19:34
  I don't. Really understand the concept.
• 19:35
  Beans. You're not beans I, but beans.
• 19:38
  Beans on beans on toast for breakfast.
• 19:41
  Fantastic. But but these guys, they, these,
• 19:44
  they're Americans and they just could.
• 19:45
  They could not. Beans and toast are the reason I
• 19:47
  have the physique that I have managed to that I have.
• 19:49
  Managed to. I love beans and fried cheese
• 19:52
  and my wife the American. Wife.
• 19:54
  Can't. Wife hates it.
• 19:56
  Hates me so lately. Hates doesn't get it.
• 19:59
  Doesn't get beans. A woman of taste and
• 20:00
  distinction, I would say. Well.
• 20:01
  Exactly, Angus. Exactly.
• 20:03
  Tony Ante beans, yeah. Simon, she did marry me.
• 20:09
  Simon, tell remind us, which part of Australia is it you're
• 20:12
  originally from? Southeast Queensland, just near
• 20:14
  the Gold Coast. So what area like so?
• 20:17
  As a small town called Tambury Mountain.
• 20:19
  Which Tambury Mountain? Tambourine Mountain.
• 20:22
  Yes, Tambourine Mountain. Is in the as in Wow.
• 20:24
  Yeah, so happy. Is there a lot?
• 20:26
  Quite a happy dippy place is it? Yeah, but probably I think, I
• 20:28
  think it now has become a bit more of a community town for
• 20:30
  Brisbane and. So.
• 20:32
  Yeah, like hippies, lots of musicians, lots of artists.
• 20:35
  So that's a great. Community.
• 20:36
  So in terms of you're talking about Brisbane then, so you're
• 20:39
  north or South of Bris? South so if you was so you've
• 20:41
  got Brisbane and then the next city down is the Gold Coast
• 20:43
  which borders the NSW border. And if you were standing on the
• 20:46
  beach at Surfers Paradise with your back to the waves about an
• 20:51
  hour in front of you as the hill I'm from, you could see the
• 20:52
  you'd be able. To see on because I, I, I spent
• 20:55
  quite a lot of time in Byron Bay that was so that's not too far.
• 20:58
  You're about 45 minutes further on from.
• 21:00
  Me, which is also quite a hippie dippie place as well.
• 21:02
  Yeah. I think it's not anymore.
• 21:03
  Yeah, yeah, a lot of money's moved in and stuff, yeah.
• 21:05
  Any whiskey stories in hostels? Well, I told you the one about
• 21:09
  the Johnny Walker Red Label, where we're you're.
• 21:10
  Carrying that around. Mr. McDonald, who's claimed his
• 21:13
  folks practically invented the the Scotch.
• 21:16
  And then he proceeded to down the whiskey that I'd got him and
• 21:20
  then vomit it straight back again.
• 21:22
  But I mean. It's not something I've ever
• 21:25
  done but I imagine again, if you're a young person that's
• 21:27
  travelling, that's a great way to meet people and share that.
• 21:30
  I say it comes back. I mean it's another example and
• 21:33
  you're you're OK because you're part of the you're Australian.
• 21:37
  But we've talked recently over the podcast.
• 21:40
  I think it goes that we talked about it with and Crawler and
• 21:44
  the Charles Kerr big show to Chuck what like the the
• 21:49
  Australia whiskey mafia that we have had coming onto this
• 21:52
  podcast. It seems that there are so many
• 21:55
  connections with Australia and whiskey, so many people, so many
• 21:59
  guests that we've had where they've travelled out to
• 22:01
  Australia, they've worked in the whiskey industry out there.
• 22:04
  And we are convinced that there, there must have been in the last
• 22:07
  10 years, a point where the majority of people have been on
• 22:10
  the podcast, were probably all in Australia at the same time,
• 22:13
  just didn't realise that one day in the future they're all going
• 22:16
  to be on the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 22:17
  But from your own point of view growing up, then when did
• 22:21
  whiskey sort of cross your path? Kind of, I mean rarely to an
• 22:27
  extent, I guess. I remember like my dad giving me
• 22:29
  a drama maybe when I was about 16 when I was staying with him
• 22:31
  in Hong Kong. But then essentially the first
• 22:34
  job I ever had was working in a pub.
• 22:36
  And when I say an Irish pub, it was a pub owned by an Irishman.
• 22:40
  We've had some trad music and which is good fun.
• 22:42
  It wasn't for the clovers and to be sure to be sure or anything
• 22:44
  like that. But because of that, I kind of
• 22:48
  fell into a drank Guinness, drank Jameson's.
• 22:51
  So yeah, my first, the first whiskey I enjoyed and I drank
• 22:54
  kind of regularly was Jameson's on Ice.
• 22:56
  And that was kind of it. And then obviously it's it's
• 22:58
  triple to the young Irish, triple still really like really
• 23:00
  sweet, really easy thing to get into.
• 23:03
  And then from there just, and then not long after that, worked
• 23:07
  at that job for a couple of years and moved to the UK and
• 23:09
  within three months was in was in Scotland and.
• 23:13
  And that's where the story in very starts.
• 23:15
  And then started in. Very.
• 23:16
  And so people are new to the podcast.
• 23:19
  Go back and listen to the silence with Yeah, episode 1.
• 23:21
  You know, in this story of this mental Australian guy coming
• 23:23
  back after getting sent away and, and, and becoming this big
• 23:27
  whiskey character here in Edinburgh.
• 23:29
  Done the origin story. I mean, for people who are
• 23:32
  listening for the first time, haven't heard your previous
• 23:34
  episode, whiskey and cynicism is kind of what you are known for.
• 23:37
  That's my business. That's your business.
• 23:39
  That's what that's the kind of the bread and butter day in, day
• 23:41
  out. Yeah.
• 23:42
  How? How much more cynical have you
• 23:43
  become in the last year? I mean I.
• 23:46
  Try, I try to keep it taking over, but you know, it is one of
• 23:49
  those things you just find yourself the longer the tooth
• 23:52
  you get, the more you kind of, I think see through things and you
• 23:55
  kind of the industry and whether it be kind of the drinks
• 23:59
  industry at large or whiskey or whatever, you kind of start to
• 24:02
  be kind of, you see through the smoke and mirrors more.
• 24:05
  Yeah. Just as with anything in life,
• 24:06
  you know, and it's not because the industry is particularly for
• 24:09
  bullshit. It's just because that's just
• 24:11
  what happens. So you, so you, so you see right
• 24:12
  through these fancy sort of anniversary documentaries again.
• 24:20
  It does. It's a very good point.
• 24:22
  But. Before you go into that, that is
• 24:25
  a very good point. What I do, I love talking to
• 24:30
  Simon about whiskey because I like the way he speaks about
• 24:32
  whiskey and I like the way that you speak about whiskey and the
• 24:34
  way you approach whiskey is different to a lot of other
• 24:36
  people and the way that you'll kind of give anything a chance
• 24:38
  no matter what somebody tells you.
• 24:39
  See somebody try this. I hate this, you know, Why do
• 24:43
  you hate it? And why would you tell me to
• 24:44
  drink it if I was good, etcetera, etcetera.
• 24:46
  I think that's the thing for me is because, I mean, we talked
• 24:48
  about it again on the page, a lot of what I've done and, and
• 24:51
  do his training, especially in the on trade and trying to get
• 24:54
  people and venues to believe in Scotch, whether they like to
• 24:57
  drink it or not. And to then sell it.
• 24:59
  And then but also to talk about it in a way that's relevant to
• 25:02
  the customer and to the modern customer as well.
• 25:04
  We see the demographic of Scotch whiskey change, drinkers change
• 25:07
  hugely 10 years and obviously for the better.
• 25:11
  But it means that we, you know, the way we communicate about
• 25:13
  whiskey has to evolve. And there are there are too many
• 25:17
  anachronistic approaches to whiskey in in the on trade
• 25:20
  especially. But I've never ever said or said
• 25:23
  actually the person who knows most about whiskey.
• 25:25
  There's masters cells and blenders for that.
• 25:27
  But my goal is to always be to communicate about it well and in
• 25:31
  a really genuine way so people can understand not only what is
• 25:36
  in the glass, but why it's there.
• 25:38
  Why the culturally wide significant as well as the, you
• 25:41
  know, the value of it both kind of to to Scotland and to the
• 25:45
  wider world and to the person drinking it.
• 25:48
  And also the value in it monetarily, as you were talking
• 25:50
  about, you know, this, but you know, they don't always match
• 25:52
  up. You know, there's two, there's a
• 25:53
  lot of different values you can place on a given bottle.
• 25:56
  And then that's the thing that I think people needs that I hope
• 26:00
  to impart to people is that you want to believe in this product
• 26:02
  because it's, you know, it symbolizes a nation, but it's
• 26:05
  also bigger than that globally. It's a whole community
• 26:07
  community, you know, you think about any of yourselves, you how
• 26:10
  many friends have you got through the whiskey industry?
• 26:12
  How many people do you know that you could call on for a favour
• 26:15
  or to help or whatever? So it's, it's, it's a huge kind
• 26:18
  of fandom and that comes with its own bullshit that of course
• 26:21
  all fandoms do, but it's also a great community that that I
• 26:24
  think I'd say to people, you know, it's beyond, don't get
• 26:27
  caught up thinking Macallan 18 or download 18.
• 26:31
  That's what I need to kind of aspire to, which is these
• 26:32
  expensive bottles because that's, you know, the
• 26:35
  aspirational whiskey in the industry.
• 26:36
  They're great drams, and if you want to aspire to them,
• 26:38
  absolutely fine. But there's so much more to it
• 26:40
  than that. The people around it as well.
• 26:42
  And the love of hospitality is also a lot of education.
• 26:46
  And so it's the people come here.
• 26:48
  And if you've not been pleased as much as we go to the best
• 26:51
  with recording the best whiskey bar in the world every single
• 26:54
  week, we'll get some amazing people in the Facebook group
• 26:56
  from big fanatics come out for come out for a conversation,
• 26:59
  come out to drive some good dramas, but come out for a
• 27:01
  conversation with Simon because you'll just get an interesting
• 27:04
  perspective of products you've probably not had before.
• 27:07
  And at World Whiskey, you say started of Irish whiskey.
• 27:09
  You lads are having the Australian whiskey.
• 27:11
  You've got a really odd world whiskey on the table.
• 27:14
  I think you should introduce to us and we'll speak about some of
• 27:17
  the kind of collections of bottles we've got on the table
• 27:19
  as well. What the hell is it that I'm
• 27:21
  looking at here? So this, so this kind of goes
• 27:25
  back a little bit to what I was just saying.
• 27:27
  So I've got a a regular in the bar a little bit like I called
• 27:29
  Victor. He comes in most nights I'm
• 27:32
  open. He's been supported from kind of
• 27:34
  day one. I didn't really know him, but he
• 27:36
  was friends with friends and obviously found out about the
• 27:38
  place through that loves his old plans.
• 27:40
  Bit like yourself. Yeah, pretty much just hits that
• 27:42
  and then then tries everything new.
• 27:44
  But he was back home in Lithuania and he messaged me
• 27:46
  from the airport on the, on the business Instagram and said this
• 27:49
  is in the airport. I think you'll, I think it's
• 27:51
  just the only place nerdy enough to actually stock it is your
• 27:54
  bar. And I, I think it was €30 and I
• 27:58
  was like, perfect, Yep, that's very kind of you.
• 28:00
  So he brought it in. I knocked £30 off his next tab.
• 28:02
  And, you know, and that's just that nice little community
• 28:04
  lovely that builds in places. Like I've never had Lithuanian
• 28:08
  whiskey. So it says grain whiskey on it.
• 28:10
  It is, however, 100% malted barley.
• 28:13
  So that to me implies that either their classifications are
• 28:17
  different or definitely still that's so.
• 28:20
  So it is under some multi barley and it's finished in what I
• 28:23
  believe is a refill blueberry wine cask because I have had
• 28:28
  I've had a sample of the first batch, which was a first rule
• 28:30
  blueberry wine cask. I think I've, I think I've
• 28:33
  they've reused their cask blueberry.
• 28:35
  Light. So.
• 28:36
  They're also drinking they've. Got but it says it's a craft
• 28:40
  distilly if they're just. Reusing the cars, that really is
• 28:43
  craft. We're also drinking disco Baby
• 28:46
  after melon and lemon thyme vodka soda, and he's about to
• 28:49
  He's calling me a Sherry tart and he's a dreaded right wine.
• 28:53
  Blueberry wine. He's just.
• 28:55
  He's just getting. 5A day I think, with as many fruit as he
• 28:58
  can. I'm sorry to put people at White
• 29:00
  Box here and Disco Baby, but all I'm thinking of is when you
• 29:06
  offered me a taste of this which I won't have.
• 29:10
  And then give it. Another year, a pound.
• 29:12
  It's the. It's the the the office US when
• 29:16
  the. When he's got the the medium
• 29:19
  office, no. No, it's, it's, it's when they
• 29:22
  all, all the warehouse staff win the lottery.
• 29:24
  Yeah, and they all invest in a, a gay energy drink.
• 29:31
  And the guy asked what's the flavour?
• 29:33
  It's the flavour. It's just coconut and penis.
• 29:39
  I actually that must have been after me for Scotland because I
• 29:42
  stopped watching. It I never what episode is I
• 29:44
  never? Watched it, I remember the
• 29:45
  episode that I never read. The locker, I don't remember.
• 29:47
  That, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what it's called
• 29:49
  so. What's the discovery called
• 29:51
  here? Sorry for the silence.
• 29:54
  Let me try and work at this can. I say it is that a good?
• 29:57
  Time. Yes.
• 29:58
  Gran Gran Dennis. Viscous.
• 30:02
  No, I think that's just with winning for grain whiskey.
• 30:05
  I think it's. Oh dear, some biscuits.
• 30:11
  Oh yeah. Santaro Seeno I'm guessing is
• 30:13
  the the. NECTAR yeah.
• 30:15
  So you put yourself a healthy drama, that stuff, not knowing
• 30:18
  that you're now. I'll be honest with you.
• 30:20
  If you gave me that blind I would swear it was right.
• 30:24
  OK, how we how we know see that, but just interest this it's a
• 30:27
  first I've never had never had. To musky that like, yeah.
• 30:30
  Yeah, it's called that real kind.
• 30:32
  Of like dirty I really. Have a taste, Angus.
• 30:34
  I'm nervous. You taste it first.
• 30:35
  Yeah, you research it. I was like a rye whiskey.
• 30:41
  But I mean, now you mentioned it's got that kind of almost
• 30:43
  like barnyards. It's a bit dusty.
• 30:45
  Or you kind of, but. Almost the smell of goat.
• 30:48
  That is cool. You know that's the thing like
• 30:50
  I, I kind of, I guess when I kind of set this place up or the
• 30:54
  pop up within this place, the the idea for me was where would
• 30:57
  I love to drink or where, especially if I was in another
• 30:59
  city, if I start stumbled across the place, what would be my idea
• 31:02
  of heaven? Yeah, and it's a bar with drams
• 31:05
  like that for £4.00 that I would even if it was completely awful,
• 31:08
  which is not. But you know, you take a punt on
• 31:10
  something you've never had before.
• 31:11
  Quids. Can I taste blueberry?
• 31:14
  Yeah. There's a bit of blueberry in
• 31:15
  there. The Salisbury.
• 31:16
  'S. I don't know if I get blueberry
• 31:18
  kind of that kind of hay and. Blueberry, lovely.
• 31:22
  So it's nice. I mean, when you go back to
• 31:24
  Sony, I guess when you go well. I was going to say, you know, to
• 31:27
  kind of spin it on your head, you know, you're talking a lot
• 31:28
  about kind of whiskey geeks coming in and all the sort of
• 31:31
  stuff that you have behind the back.
• 31:32
  Barbara, what, what, what's the situation or how do you, how do
• 31:36
  you speak to somebody that comes in and says, like you said, you
• 31:39
  get people that are going to come in and say, oh, I'd like to
• 31:41
  have a whiskey, please. And I've never really had a
• 31:43
  whiskey. I'm here in Scotland.
• 31:45
  How, how does that usually go? I mean, what, what, where do you
• 31:48
  start with recommending somebody something when they're kind of,
• 31:53
  they maybe don't even really know themselves what they want
• 31:55
  to take, I mean. It's, it's a really interesting
• 31:57
  conversation because you have to kind of just asking a few things
• 32:00
  about the person. One of the first things I will
• 32:02
  do is discount anything car strength normally for.
• 32:05
  Someone. Yeah, Yeah.
• 32:06
  Which takes out of a lot of my back bar to me.
• 32:09
  But really it kind of I talk to people And the The thing is that
• 32:12
  the first thing I asked was like, do you drink?
• 32:14
  Have you ever drunk whiskey? You know, if I said no, do you
• 32:16
  drink meat spirits? That's the biggest thing for me.
• 32:18
  If you you know, if you're a tequila drinker or a cognac
• 32:20
  drinker. And especially like Americans
• 32:22
  these days, more and more people come and say I drink tequila.
• 32:24
  Yeah. And you know, someone like, do
• 32:26
  you mean by at pace or do you drink tequila?
• 32:28
  And all of them now are drinking to heal because obviously it's
• 32:32
  huge in in North America. So it's like, OK, so your body
• 32:35
  is or your palate is used to 40 percent, 45% alcohol.
• 32:38
  So that's sort of that's a start.
• 32:39
  So it's not going to it's not going to absolutely kind of it's
• 32:41
  not going to feel like paint strip it to you because of the
• 32:43
  other day. 40% alcohol is not what we're designed to be
• 32:46
  drinking. So if you got to pass that,
• 32:47
  they'll say, OK, what are we going to go for?
• 32:49
  And a lot of the time it's, you know, anything light fruity.
• 32:55
  But that's the thing that's kind of with the back bar I've got
• 32:58
  and it's changing nature, but also it's quite obscure nature.
• 33:01
  One of the the drams I sell people at entry levels actually
• 33:06
  in 1990s bottled 43% Percladi bottled under the label Lock and
• 33:13
  Dahl. But it's not Lock and Dahl as we
• 33:14
  know it as a beat of spirit for associated distillers.
• 33:18
  OK. So it's a really obscure
• 33:20
  bottling, but it happens to just taste like Peaches and
• 33:22
  nectarines. It's just really bright and
• 33:24
  dances on the pallet. It's it's really easy, entry
• 33:26
  level and. Then when they say that's great,
• 33:27
  where can I buy a bottle? Yeah, yeah, that's to be a lot
• 33:31
  of preface of look, but you know, I've, I've had people say
• 33:34
  like I love that, can I buy that?
• 33:35
  Or, you know, even you know, I had someone the other day say
• 33:38
  they had a blind summit, obviously.
• 33:40
  Friends in the pods. Friends in the.
• 33:42
  Pod they had one and so that's lovely, but we've only got hand
• 33:45
  luggage. Can I buy they do miniatures and
• 33:49
  I explained, you know, a lovely couple of lads based here in
• 33:51
  Edinburgh, but new business. They've they're barely
• 33:54
  releasing, you know, whiskey, let alone things like
• 33:56
  miniatures. I think they've got one hat as
• 33:57
  far as you know, for for merch. So I said, you know,
• 34:00
  unfortunately, but I went and found a sample bottle and, you
• 34:03
  know, poured them and poured them a DRAM and just saw them at
• 34:05
  a DRAM price and you know, you just try and help them enjoy it.
• 34:08
  They've enjoyed it. You know, you want to make sure
• 34:09
  so but it's that kind of thing. And but they again, they were
• 34:12
  people who didn't drink whiskey to wouldn't seem right where I
• 34:15
  am actually. So they like tequila they gave
• 34:17
  them. I think it was the blind, some
• 34:19
  of Ben Nevis and maybe a Glen Murray wine cast.
• 34:22
  But you know that Ben Nevis is 54.2%.
• 34:24
  Yes, it's hefty going. You know, but I always just give
• 34:26
  them more to prepare and say look, if it's too hefty, add
• 34:30
  water and just keep going until. You have to if.
• 34:33
  That becomes 1 to one before you start enjoying it.
• 34:35
  Fine, yeah, yeah. So once you get to a point where
• 34:37
  you start enjoying it, then we're happy.
• 34:39
  And that's that's the thing. It's like, and that's why I
• 34:41
  think people enjoy about coming here especially is because, OK,
• 34:45
  yeah, it's peak Edinburgh, amazing venue, It's hidden, it's
• 34:48
  all that kind of stuff. But it's also like there's no, I
• 34:51
  mean, you'll never feel intimidated if you don't drink
• 34:53
  whiskey or even if you do and you're still finding a way or
• 34:56
  whatever. It's like, look, drink whatever
• 34:59
  you like you. Know the educational side of
• 35:01
  things. I mean, we've touched upon it on
• 35:03
  your last podcast episode. We've also touched on it with
• 35:07
  Mark Thompson who was on and you know, that is a big part of the
• 35:10
  industry that not many people really understand or appreciate
• 35:13
  is the fact that with the exception yourself, Simon, if
• 35:16
  you know when you're talking about brand ambassadors,
• 35:18
  everyone looks at brand ambassadors and thinks they're
• 35:20
  doing like big. Then a lot of the job is going
• 35:23
  out and doing fancy tastings, being at dinners, you know, or
• 35:27
  being representing a brand big festivals and shows and stuff
• 35:31
  like that. But the other bread and butter
• 35:33
  of it is actually during the day going into bars that are stocked
• 35:37
  to the product and actually delivering training courses and
• 35:40
  things like that. And the education side of it is
• 35:42
  so important. Something that we've talked a
• 35:43
  lot, Angus, on the podcast about our education through it.
• 35:47
  Ross, we've we've kind of mocked you a lot about when you started
• 35:50
  out as this 18 year old doorman at the whiskey shop.
• 35:54
  But you know, you, you talked, we've talked about it.
• 35:57
  The fact that you would sit at the end of the bar and Scotch
• 35:59
  after a shift, you probably hear guys talking about explaining a
• 36:04
  process or something or a nice little quirk, and then knowing
• 36:07
  exactly that you could take that to your work the next day, pass
• 36:11
  on somebody else, and guess what?
• 36:13
  That person. But it's something really
• 36:15
  interesting about whiskey and it's dangerous because if it's
• 36:19
  not done correctly people, because what you'll get is
• 36:23
  you'll get somebody. My granddad was very big on that
• 36:26
  is he would go to a distillery, he'd buy a bottle, he'd sit down
• 36:29
  and then he would maybe share. And my granddad was, he enjoyed
• 36:33
  his whiskeys, but he wasn't a whiskey drinker.
• 36:35
  If you know, he didn't have a back bar collection of masters
• 36:37
  amounts of whiskey. But what he would do is he'd
• 36:39
  say, oh, if I've gone up north or if I'm going over to the
• 36:41
  West, I'll try and go at distillery, pick up a bottle,
• 36:44
  usually just a core range bottle.
• 36:47
  But what it would be, as amongst his friends, it would wouldn't
• 36:50
  be a whiskey that they would probably have ever drank before,
• 36:54
  but what he would enjoy doing is pouring on a drum and probably
• 36:56
  reciting a little bit of information about the distillate
• 37:00
  they picked up. But as we've heard, Cam talked
• 37:04
  about Tam Navulin and the guy that he said to him about the
• 37:06
  only reason he drinks Tam Navulin, it's the only whiskey
• 37:08
  in Scotland that doesn't have artificial colouring.
• 37:11
  Well, the nonsense, a lot of nonsense, but what's happened
• 37:15
  is. Somebody's told.
• 37:16
  Somebody's told, somebody's told, some Chinese Christmas
• 37:18
  and. The guy actually said tell the
• 37:19
  bottom. Yeah.
• 37:23
  So from your own point of view then when it comes to creating
• 37:26
  training courses and putting information to people and things
• 37:29
  like that, how do you go about doing that?
• 37:31
  And what is it about you, the information that you provide
• 37:33
  that makes you? Why should people seek your
• 37:37
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 37:38
  Yeah, I think counter intuitive is this mic sound is keeping
• 37:42
  things very general in a lot of ways.
• 37:45
  You know, it's like that'll keep it simple stupid.
• 37:47
  You know, it's that kind of you want to talk about tastings.
• 37:51
  One of the things I used to do would just be to say to
• 37:53
  everyone, you know, put pen and powder.
• 37:54
  I was going to phone on them his give them three drams and say
• 37:58
  pick up number one first thing, smell it.
• 38:01
  First thing that comes to mind, write it down, taste it, do the
• 38:03
  same. And you know, it might be, you
• 38:05
  know, a 12 year old classic space site and you'd go OK, go
• 38:10
  around the room and then invariably someone might say
• 38:13
  apples or pears or just all of a sudden you expect, but then
• 38:15
  someone would say Peacock feathers and someone, you know
• 38:17
  what I mean? Like there would be by the time
• 38:19
  you got through even just a group of 15 people, it was just
• 38:23
  like, so tasty notes are to an extent bollocks because
• 38:26
  everyone's so individual and that's something.
• 38:28
  And that's nothing revolutionary I'm saying there.
• 38:30
  But it would be. So I would teach language around
• 38:34
  whiskey that was more descriptive and experiential.
• 38:37
  So it would give someone a real idea of what they can experience
• 38:40
  when they're drinking a whiskey rather than telling them exactly
• 38:42
  what they should be tasting. And if you use words like, and
• 38:46
  it came from working in a wine shop and listening to the way
• 38:48
  lads talk about wine because they don't tend to talk about
• 38:51
  anything really specific. But you like see a well
• 38:55
  structured, muscular, elegant, you know, these kind of well
• 38:59
  poised, these kind of things. These are words that, you know,
• 39:02
  everyone can understand what that means.
• 39:04
  And it can mean something different to everyone as well.
• 39:06
  But it's much easier to to kind of if you if I if I pause you,
• 39:10
  This is what you wanted to write.
• 39:11
  Yeah, Yeah, I guess so. Help yourself some of that.
• 39:14
  But it's a little Freudian. PX cast, one of the PTS most
• 39:16
  intense series in the world with the richest Sherry cast
• 39:20
  finished. That's going to be what I would
• 39:22
  say a muscular or rich or, you know, full bodies, all these
• 39:25
  kind of things. And there was a, there was a
• 39:27
  time where I, I kind of, again, these are the things that get
• 39:30
  passed on to you. But my assumption was that the
• 39:32
  world of wine was complete wank and really kind of like
• 39:36
  impenetrable and elitist and spoke in ways that you can
• 39:41
  understand. But then having worked on it for
• 39:42
  a while during COVID, you kind of hear them and you go,
• 39:45
  actually you're using words that anyone can understand. an A
• 39:48
  nozmic person, someone who has no sense of smell, could still
• 39:51
  get what I'm saying. And I think that's really
• 39:53
  important. And that's where the bad side of
• 39:56
  fandom, the people who want to just know more than other people
• 39:59
  like to say. And the classic one, this is the
• 40:01
  one you'll hear more than anything, is someone drinks a
• 40:04
  whiskey and says, oh, that's a bit smoky.
• 40:07
  Yeah. And someone loves saying,
• 40:08
  actually, you'll find that's unpeated.
• 40:11
  And The thing is that creosols which are which is part of the
• 40:14
  the chemical combat Impeat. Is also created by the charring
• 40:18
  of cast. Yeah.
• 40:19
  So it can be essentially in everything, especially if it's a
• 40:21
  relatively new cast. And some people are much more
• 40:23
  sensitive to that than others. Yeah.
• 40:25
  A friend of mine, Luke Skipper, who, you know, if you open, if I
• 40:29
  open an old, old bottle of a hard beg on a Zoom call with
• 40:31
  him, he'd smell it. You know what I mean?
• 40:33
  Like he. Cannot.
• 40:35
  Stand Smoke. He will not, he will not have
• 40:38
  and and he's got me more times than not.
• 40:40
  That's Peters. I don't think it is.
• 40:42
  Yeah, and I'm not I'm not that he's tasty.
• 40:44
  I might. I think there's just a bit of
• 40:46
  there's a bit of cask in that. And then I've looked it up and
• 40:48
  it's like a blend with, you know, there's got 1% caliber in
• 40:51
  it. He's got super high percent.
• 40:53
  Can't stand it. Yeah, and that's so.
• 40:55
  And The thing is as well, what I don't understand in that that
• 40:59
  conversation of no, there's no, there's no fruit that's not
• 41:01
  peachy, that it's nectarini or whatever, whatever that kind of
• 41:05
  superior argument. It's like, how on earth can you
• 41:08
  think you can tell someone what they're smelling?
• 41:10
  Well, they just it's. So well, that you now that was a
• 41:13
  clip that I put up about you actually on on Reddit, believe
• 41:19
  it or not, I was trying to sort of promote the podcast.
• 41:21
  Reddit's a cruel, cruel place to be.
• 41:24
  It was a it was a really good clip.
• 41:26
  And I think, you know, for people who watch this podcast on
• 41:29
  YouTube and and hear you speak. And what's something that we've
• 41:32
  talked an awful lot about is that that when people are
• 41:35
  passionate and you can see exactly how passionate you are
• 41:37
  about talking about the whiskey industry and stuff like that.
• 41:39
  But one of the the clip was how you were saying there's no such
• 41:42
  thing as a bad whiskey. And you were talking about the
• 41:45
  subjectivity of, of tasting whiskey.
• 41:48
  And how can you tell? Who can you tell me that's a bad
• 41:51
  whiskey if I like it? And just this morning, I was
• 41:54
  listening to a podcast with Ricky Gervais on it, and he was
• 41:57
  talking about comedy. And he said the exact same
• 41:59
  thing. He said if if an audience
• 42:01
  doesn't laugh at your joke, it's not funny.
• 42:05
  They're not wrong. They're not laughing at they
• 42:07
  they don't. And but then the guy beside them
• 42:09
  is laughing at it and going it's funny.
• 42:11
  Again, he's not wrong or she's not wrong.
• 42:14
  So basically he was talking about that.
• 42:15
  You can't in his career, in his industry, subjectivity is
• 42:20
  subjectivity, people, of course. And that's where he was talking
• 42:23
  about his style of comedy with, again, I mentioned at the
• 42:26
  Office, but he was, you know, so many people when the Office
• 42:28
  first came out and extras came out and there were so many
• 42:31
  people saying I don't find. I can't stand it.
• 42:33
  There you go. Yeah, I saw that style humour.
• 42:36
  I can't do the cringe stuff, but I mean, comedy is a huge thing
• 42:39
  of mine and I especially stand up and I love stand up and I
• 42:41
  love a lot of different brands of it because I find the
• 42:43
  construction of it and when it's well, when it's well delivered,
• 42:47
  whether it's my humour as such or not, I find they are
• 42:49
  obviously. In fact, this room hosted a big
• 42:52
  group of some comedians for their In the Fringe party this
• 42:55
  year, which was me trying to be really cool and 77 drowns but
• 42:59
  actually completely fambling. But but you know, but it is the
• 43:04
  same thing. It's like, you know, it's like
• 43:06
  anything, any arts and music or whatever.
• 43:07
  And that's that's the joy of that's the joy of whiskey.
• 43:12
  I think I said this is something the other day is that it is a
• 43:14
  meeting of science and art. There is a little bit of of
• 43:17
  magic and there are whiskeys that taste better than others
• 43:20
  and you don't really know why. You know there's the old Glenn
• 43:23
  Grant too, which became capodonic, which you know across
• 43:28
  the road built same distance area can never get the juice to
• 43:30
  stay the same. Yeah, they were fascinated that
• 43:32
  way. There's all there's always that
• 43:34
  little bit of dust around whiskey that certain you taste
• 43:37
  certain things you go that's a 12 year old space side bourbon
• 43:40
  that's really that's on spec that's relatively round the
• 43:43
  mill. But you just there's certain
• 43:44
  cars or certain drams you go there's something magical about
• 43:48
  that. And other times you have a 35
• 43:50
  year old like rare Sherry this sat now that should be
• 43:53
  phenomenal and you go. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:56
  I love I love the debate and everyone with any of my kind of
• 43:59
  sad whiskey friends who can Chuck you.
• 44:01
  They speak about the floral fauna whiskeys because it's a
• 44:05
  selection collection of distilleries to many people are
• 44:07
  completely unremarkable. And I can go through and I can
• 44:12
  go through all the floral faunas and say probably try and list
• 44:15
  them from my favorite to least favorite, the 8 bourbons, the
• 44:18
  three cherries and try and list and I will come out of a reason
• 44:21
  for each of them. And even though, yeah, to most
• 44:25
  people it's a 10 to 14 year old bourbon whiskey, most of which
• 44:28
  from space side is that much difference when you spend time
• 44:32
  with what you give whiskey a chance.
• 44:33
  When you think about it, maybe more than you should.
• 44:36
  Did you find some stuff that you find really interesting?
• 44:39
  I am now manic more till I die. Manic more is my favorite for a
• 44:43
  bourbon. I know lots of people that are
• 44:45
  Glenn Lawsey daft. I like you know the smell of
• 44:48
  grass. But inch scale were 14 Great.
• 44:51
  Great listing. Well, you just.
• 44:52
  Poured as a drama right now, what have you, What have you so
• 44:55
  this. Is that's.
• 44:57
  Another project you've been working this.
• 44:58
  Is another project. So this is, I guess, almost an
• 45:01
  amalgamation of two of my drams from the last.
• 45:04
  So it's a George Butlin and it's not an American.
• 45:09
  So we went up, myself, Ivan Raba, the bar manager, and Ben
• 45:14
  Marshall, assistant bar manager, who I used to work with at
• 45:16
  Archie Rose in Sydney. So it's a nice little full
• 45:18
  circle moment for. US Eva rubber XMSMWX moved over
• 45:22
  to. Expo bar so we went to Arden
• 45:25
  American with the the intention to pick a single cast bottling
• 45:30
  for the George. So we went round the distillery,
• 45:35
  maybe selected, did a bunch of cars like about 6 into 100 mil
• 45:38
  bottles sample wise to take back to the accommodation and but I
• 45:44
  count to room temperature tasting glasses, try them all
• 45:46
  blind on which we wanted. And to be honest, this was going
• 45:52
  to get busted regardless of what anyone else said because if
• 45:54
  anyone disagreed with me, I was going to pull rank anyway
• 45:56
  because I just thought it was. So that was so phenomenal.
• 45:59
  There's no way we were passing this class.
• 46:01
  Fortunately though, in a blind tasting was a unanimous vote for
• 46:03
  this anyway, so there's no need for an argument.
• 46:05
  So it's a six year old fresh European Aloroso, but it's on
• 46:12
  golden promise barley and it was the first ever Arden American
• 46:15
  golden promise to be released apart from they did one in like
• 46:18
  a an octave in store in the distillery store.
• 46:22
  So it was the first ever proper release of golden promise from
• 46:24
  them. Fortunately, because we just got
• 46:26
  it out before which he exchange managed to get theirs on the
• 46:29
  market. So we just managed to claim that
• 46:32
  it was the first first collaboration they did with an
• 46:34
  on trade premise first, first Sherry, but they were released.
• 46:37
  So the problem then was we picked a cast that was a Sherry
• 46:41
  but. Yeah, hundreds of both, so.
• 46:43
  As you go back to the the owner of the George and convince him
• 46:46
  that that was going to be okay, which fortunately believes in,
• 46:48
  he believes in the process. So it wasn't that much
• 46:50
  convincing. So and we've got a bit of a
• 46:52
  kicking around. The thing gave birth to 712
• 46:55
  bottles. 700. 'Cause that, that is tough.
• 46:59
  That's a tough ask for anybody, never mind a singular venue.
• 47:02
  Well, are they all gone? Not quite.
• 47:05
  They're mostly gone. It it was funny, I suppose.
• 47:07
  So there are a few. Bottles available there are so
• 47:09
  they they are. They are only available via the
• 47:11
  George Hotel so. You have to literally drive past
• 47:14
  the hotel. Yeah, if you can, if you drive
• 47:16
  past the hotel, Yeah, and. It's online or.
• 47:18
  Not online. We we did, we did.
• 47:20
  Royal Mile Whiskey did very kindly take a good chunk of the
• 47:23
  cast, but they but they've sold. Through if this is really good,
• 47:26
  I've got a three or a four hour drive on my hands.
• 47:30
  Two and a half 22 1/2 hours there.
• 47:32
  Well, I mean, I just. Say I've just I've I have had up
• 47:34
  my glass for 5 minutes and I've still not tasted it but I
• 47:37
  absolutely love. The those you know and this is
• 47:39
  one of those things so so one of the couple quick stories where I
• 47:44
  I spoke to Connell McKenzie of yeah, on the market actually
• 47:48
  here when he came and visited me 50. 7.8.
• 47:51
  Percent. I hope he doesn't.
• 47:52
  It won't let me tell this story, but basically he'd because it
• 47:54
  was the first golden promise and they never released a buck
• 47:57
  privately either. So he went to Alex Bruce and
• 48:00
  said, what do you think? And there was a bit of a
• 48:02
  conversation. And because he did say to me,
• 48:04
  look, I think you can have that cast.
• 48:05
  But obviously it's it's the first, it's the first.
• 48:07
  I didn't talk to Alex. It was obviously fair enough.
• 48:10
  And he said to me and I, I'm going to try and not paraphrase
• 48:13
  it too much, but Alex said, well, who's it for?
• 48:15
  And comes it was the Georgia Tell and as you say, so there's
• 48:17
  one pub confident enough to buy a full bottle of whiskey.
• 48:21
  I can sell it to them really. That's absolutely, you know,
• 48:23
  fair pay for them. So that was very kind.
• 48:25
  As we were going around, Greg Mackay, wonderful sales manager
• 48:29
  for an American, was dipping casks.
• 48:31
  And at one point after dipping this very casks, looked around
• 48:35
  and said, who's got the lynch? And I went, you're 2 casks high
• 48:41
  up there, mate. None of us it's on.
• 48:43
  You've got it somewhere. And of course, it transpired
• 48:46
  that he had dropped the lynch into the into the cask.
• 48:49
  So the Lynch is for anyone just to explain everyone who's not
• 48:52
  aware of a dipping stick to to pull samples from a cask of
• 48:56
  whiskey. They normally have quite a bulky
• 48:58
  handle. So you can't drop them in.
• 48:59
  So you can't drop them in through the What's the bunghole
• 49:02
  on top of a cask? However, this being a Sherry
• 49:04
  butt and a much bigger cask, the hot the bunghole is bigger and
• 49:07
  therefore Graham let it go, expecting to stop.
• 49:09
  And it didn't. So the cask was then, So we then
• 49:12
  picked, I say in a blinded, we picked the the drowned the lynch
• 49:15
  cask. And when it was disgorged a few
• 49:18
  months later, Jenny Carlson very kindly with a coat hanger,
• 49:24
  fished it back out of the cask. And all who are president that I
• 49:27
  signed it and it's now mounted above the bar The George.
• 49:29
  Brilliant. That is a very cool.
• 49:32
  So that's. A very cool story.
• 49:33
  Who? Did we have on the podcast, I
• 49:36
  know exactly they say they tasted a blind cask and they
• 49:39
  said there's something wrong with that.
• 49:41
  Even have been George Keeble. It may have been and it was
• 49:44
  basically it was a steel rod or something had there was AI.
• 49:49
  Remember this story really clearly.
• 49:50
  You're right. There was a steel rod because
• 49:54
  they tasted the whiskey. They said it tastes metallic and
• 50:00
  they kind of sure enough, there was like I said, there's
• 50:02
  there's. Something, something in that
• 50:03
  casket. And everybody, they didn't know
• 50:05
  how not like that. They didn't know how long the
• 50:07
  steel could have been in there for a while.
• 50:09
  But I mean that, that that there is that, Yeah.
• 50:11
  And first of all, a. Story A.
• 50:13
  Fantastic story but also a cracking drama.
• 50:15
  I mean, do you know an age of the casket?
• 50:17
  6 years I. Remember trying this when it was
• 50:20
  first released earlier this year.
• 50:23
  I'm retrying it now. It's absolutely stunning.
• 50:27
  Yeah. And the nose and palate are
• 50:28
  quite separate for me. Yeah, the nose was was initially
• 50:31
  quite chocolatey and rich and full bodied.
• 50:33
  The palate is like fruity and spicy and.
• 50:36
  I got loads of sandalwood, like really spy that kind of sweet
• 50:39
  spice. That's lovely.
• 50:40
  And I mean, aren't the American as a distillery?
• 50:42
  It's something that, you know, we've not spoken about too much
• 50:46
  in the podcast, but whenever we have, it's been high praise.
• 50:50
  Just. Everybody's just raving about.
• 50:54
  I'll be honest, I remember doing doing your episode and you're
• 50:58
  writing down that market and me being like I was a bit.
• 51:02
  I wasn't disappointed isn't the word to say because I want to
• 51:04
  keep everybody. I was absolutely fuzzing.
• 51:07
  No, I don't know what it was. I just felt like I was like,
• 51:10
  that's at the time of record in episode 16 here.
• 51:13
  I'm sort of going to myself. I thought, I thought I was
• 51:16
  expecting like a, a bigger whatever, you know out of that.
• 51:20
  Bigger name. And then Arden American, a
• 51:22
  distillery I've known very, very little about until maybe in the
• 51:26
  last two months I think I've on record said about the Ardermark.
• 51:31
  And Sherry, you had that Ardermark and immediately bought
• 51:33
  a bottle. And I also said that.
• 51:35
  In the chat with us that you'd fallen in love with a draft.
• 51:38
  Yeah, that's how they fill a bathtub I've.
• 51:39
  Filled a bath I've. Filled a bath tub.
• 51:41
  The most? Yeah.
• 51:42
  So I don't know if you've got any more that 700 odd box
• 51:46
  they've filled a bathtub. But but but no, but I mean, when
• 51:51
  you when you go through a process like that and I suppose
• 51:53
  two things there a huge leap of faith from the George to say
• 51:58
  we'll commit to that. I mean for people, listen, I am,
• 52:02
  you know, there'll be a few bottles left of our first
• 52:05
  release, the 25 year old blend as this is going out on the 19th
• 52:09
  of December. So I think most people probably
• 52:12
  have bought it now. So there'll be none left or if
• 52:14
  there are a few, just get in touch.
• 52:16
  But Kev very similarly came to us and said, let's let's you
• 52:21
  know, let's do something here. And we worked through through
• 52:24
  Kev to sell it through through diggers and that and that's how
• 52:27
  people can get still if there if there are the.
• 52:29
  Limits, you know, we produced 69 bottles.
• 52:31
  Yeah. So.
• 52:32
  And that was still it's a lot of overhead for 25 year old Lena
• 52:35
  whiskey, all of that. And so it was a massive kind of
• 52:39
  leaping faith and confidence from from Kev to support us but
• 52:43
  also to do your own thing. It's exciting to get involved in
• 52:45
  a project like that, but nobody can predict buying a 700 plus
• 52:51
  ball. And the thing was as well,
• 52:53
  because there's always that delay between you picking the
• 52:55
  cask and getting signed off and then it actually arriving.
• 52:58
  So I, I just started kind of, you know, getting your own head.
• 53:01
  You think it was at the romance of the day was, you know, was it
• 53:03
  the whole thing? And you know, was it the fact
• 53:05
  we'd had 6 drams in the warehouse?
• 53:07
  Yeah, that salesman does the von track everything.
• 53:09
  Go, David. Oh well, you're going to buy it
• 53:12
  every. Pass he's got.
• 53:14
  Covered full of them. I don't like he's saying it.
• 53:17
  We'll give it to you. If you saw a look on his face,
• 53:19
  you'd know it. Or he gets an Oscar, but and
• 53:24
  you're kind of worrying about going as good as I remember
• 53:26
  because I remember it being, you know, really quite phenomenal.
• 53:28
  And then it arrived, by just a twist of fate, it arrived into
• 53:34
  Royal Mile. They got their stock before we
• 53:36
  got ours and I was, I was in Edinburgh so.
• 53:41
  You've run to Rome. I was.
• 53:42
  Well, I was I was in here. I was opening at six at a
• 53:46
  private booking in the bar for six Icelandic political
• 53:48
  journalists. I remember that.
• 53:50
  That's just what all happens. Shout out to thorder if he's
• 53:53
  listening. But so I I I after.
• 53:56
  Do you need bottles ahead of time for so we tasting notes or
• 54:00
  any sort of social media that would be great.
• 54:02
  So Martin very kindly ran a couple of bottles down from the
• 54:05
  shop to me. I, I sparked 1 and I said to
• 54:08
  these guys, you're going to be the first people in the world to
• 54:10
  try this essentially. And I pulled them all the DRAM
• 54:12
  and and kind of celebrated because it was, it was the first
• 54:15
  really time I've really gone like start to finish with a
• 54:18
  project like this. And you try it and it tastes as
• 54:20
  good as you remember. You go, thank you for that.
• 54:24
  And Arthur Mott Williams very kindly said that it to him was
• 54:27
  reminiscent of old Macallan, which is wow, there's there's,
• 54:30
  you know, fewer high praises than that in the industry.
• 54:33
  So, and it has hit really well. We're really well received.
• 54:36
  You know, you can tell when people go out their way to say
• 54:39
  that was a builder. You know, it's so we're really
• 54:42
  happy with it. And anyone who bought the the
• 54:46
  Glenn Scotia will remember we had some very tongue in cheek
• 54:49
  tasting notes on the back of it and unfortunately without an
• 54:53
  American's labels we couldn't fit them on.
• 54:54
  But should you scan the QR code on the back of the bottle?
• 54:57
  If anyone has a bottle of this and hasn't done so, you'll find
• 54:59
  out. Trademark take the piss.
• 55:02
  We'll have to do this, I guess. Why don't you do that now,
• 55:06
  Graham? My phone, you've got your phone.
• 55:07
  My phone got my phone. You, you scan, I'll read them
• 55:10
  out. When it comes to, you know,
• 55:13
  doing these kind of bottlings and stuff like that, when, when
• 55:16
  you're approaching distilleries, it must be great when you have a
• 55:18
  receptive distillery that's happy to put in so much time and
• 55:21
  effort with you guys on that front.
• 55:23
  Because I'd imagine that the bigger the commercial, I mean,
• 55:26
  not that not necessarily every single one, but it must be very,
• 55:29
  very difficult to approach distilleries who are #1 willing
• 55:33
  to be so forthcoming with stock, first of all.
• 55:36
  But secondly, also the time to say, come up to the warehouse,
• 55:39
  spend some time and pick your cask and, and, and be part of
• 55:43
  that. Because ultimately it's, it's
• 55:46
  going on to a bar of a, of a very well established, a whiskey
• 55:50
  bar Now, you know, with the back bar that you've helped curate
• 55:54
  and craft at the same time, you know the amount of people that
• 55:57
  must go through there and they'll have never heard of
• 56:00
  Arden Merkin. Yes.
• 56:01
  Then trying it in the hotel and then being able to take bottles
• 56:04
  home with them to to show people.
• 56:06
  And, you know, I remember when, when the first box got up there
• 56:08
  and then there was a picture went on kind of one of the group
• 56:10
  chats that had been sparked and put on the public bar, and
• 56:13
  there's a picture of an empty about 28 minutes.
• 56:15
  Yeah. You know, stuff.
• 56:16
  That's great. You know, that's what were the
• 56:19
  actually we may actually do. We've got a couple of snippets,
• 56:21
  snippets score. It's to do we get through
• 56:23
  tonight, but what would you be? What's up price for a drama that
• 56:26
  then drama that? Run you between 7:00 and 8:00
• 56:30
  quid depending on the bar. And the bottle if so, for people
• 56:32
  who are? 8490.
• 56:33
  Five good value if you're a cycle cash from it.
• 56:36
  Yeah, right. I guess what they're tasting, I
• 56:37
  know. There's a couple of words I'm
• 56:39
  going to struggle with here, but.
• 56:42
  These are wanky tasting notes. So the tasty notes says the
• 56:45
  arrival of this whiskey heralds a bevy of delights.
• 56:48
  Suggestive biscuits incense from far accurate.
• 56:53
  So, so we intend to just use place names around the
• 56:56
  distillery don't have does have incense.
• 56:59
  I think we have like Campbelltown almonds or
• 57:01
  nectarines for the. I was going to say the art of
• 57:05
  our conference is not. Yeah.
• 57:11
  And raisins, Yeah, is just across the water from and in the
• 57:14
  Pala. It says that this builds into a
• 57:17
  crescendo, including minerally minerality akin to pink granite
• 57:20
  in the Egyptian style, and a touch of salinity.
• 57:23
  It is inescapably dry, oily and thick, much unlike the residents
• 57:27
  of its home dancers. With all the joy of being on a
• 57:31
  golden promise, you'll see verified.
• 57:33
  Yeah, sorry. There there Charles Kerry the
• 57:36
  pink granite in the Egyptian style was because that is the
• 57:40
  the an American potential lighthouse as the only
• 57:43
  lighthouse in the country that is in pink granite of the
• 57:45
  Egyptian style. Oh, there you go.
• 57:47
  It's all it's all coming. It's fun other projects because
• 57:51
  I you've been busy. Well, I mentioned earlier tongue
• 57:54
  in cheek about. So this is about working with
• 57:57
  the sort of anniversary it's. 2024 which means half the
• 58:02
  industry are having their two 200 year anniversary.
• 58:05
  Yeah, it's a big year for a lot of folk.
• 58:07
  Yeah. And so you're working on some
• 58:08
  some big brands this year? So yeah, that was very kindly
• 58:12
  invited to take part in Vatican's 200 year documentary.
• 58:15
  So again, like many have their anniversary and it was a it was
• 58:20
  a bit of a love letter to, to whiskey that the their kind of
• 58:23
  brand leads guy called Tom Watt, who I've known for a very long
• 58:26
  time. When I was doing a podcast in
• 58:27
  lockdown, he helped me edit some of my early videos and stuff
• 58:30
  because he was working in digital production.
• 58:33
  Lovely guy, but they basically decided to create something
• 58:35
  that's about it's about whiskey and culture and stuff.
• 58:39
  And yes, it features for the Cam, but genuinely it's not
• 58:41
  heavily branded and I think it it does it does speak to the
• 58:46
  category more than the brand. I feel I used about, you know,
• 58:49
  brand that master trainings before.
• 58:50
  The best people do it, the better people do category
• 58:52
  trainings and fit their brand into it.
• 58:54
  Yep. Rather the other.
• 58:55
  Way around, and I feel this is that.
• 58:56
  So basically it's a wonderful chef called Julie Lynn who owns
• 59:01
  Gaga Restaurant in Partick in Glasgow, which I sat down in
• 59:07
  recently for a meal and realized looking around that it was a
• 59:09
  place I used to gig in 10 years before when it was when it was
• 59:12
  in Velvet Elvis. So it took me about 15 minutes
• 59:14
  three times. But a wonderful restaurant if
• 59:16
  you're in Glasgow. But she's done a lot of work
• 59:18
  with telly and she interviewed Judi Dench up and in Ferrari
• 59:21
  Castle actually this year and kind of successful work for the
• 59:25
  BBC. So she was presenting it and she
• 59:27
  went spoke to production leads at Fedecan and the Distillery,
• 59:32
  some whiskey writers. And one of the segments was
• 59:34
  myself down at the bar in Nauticus doing some stuff about
• 59:37
  flavour essentially and flavour and WW cocktails, drinking
• 59:41
  whiskey and how important flavour is above really anything
• 59:45
  else. It was really lovely to be a
• 59:46
  part of. It was kind of a nice fun day
• 59:48
  filming and, and, and it's a lovely piece of production.
• 59:52
  And it is one of those things that, yes, it's for the 20% of
• 59:56
  us, but I think it will be relevant.
• 59:57
  Yeah. In perpetuity, you know?
• 59:58
  So that's on the Whiskey magazine, YouTube.
• 1:00:02
  Yeah. You just watch.
• 1:00:03
  It's about 25 minutes long. Yeah.
• 1:00:05
  It's great. I mean it's.
• 1:00:05
  A great doc. It's a great one thing.
• 1:00:07
  To be part of to say that, you know, when you actually break it
• 1:00:09
  down and you say that the way we're maybe going to talk about
• 1:00:13
  a little bit of the whiskey industry in the next few bit.
• 1:00:16
  But we've we've talked a lot of, you know, when we did an indie
• 1:00:21
  bottler spotlight speaking to Gregor Kurt, and we're talking
• 1:00:24
  about 10 year old Glenmore Spirits as an indie bottler
• 1:00:27
  becoming 10 years old. And that's a huge milestone for
• 1:00:31
  a lot of businesses. But at the same time, when you
• 1:00:33
  look at the industry, the backdrop of the industry, that's
• 1:00:35
  a drop in the ocean far, far. And then we talked about
• 1:00:38
  Kilhoman when we had Ken, Ken, when Ken was doing that, when
• 1:00:42
  we're at the glass House and we're talking about the when
• 1:00:45
  does a just a new distillery become an established
• 1:00:48
  distillery? And you're suddenly saying,
• 1:00:50
  like, brilliant, you know, next year Kilhomen will be 20 years
• 1:00:54
  old. And then you're saying, yeah,
• 1:00:57
  and then there's fair Karen, as well, as low, as low as have a
• 1:00:59
  space. I'd celebrate their 200th
• 1:01:02
  anniversary. And you're looking at a funeral.
• 1:01:03
  What you'd still you've had some tough times.
• 1:01:06
  Oh, I and but when you see and 100 years time, they'll maybe
• 1:01:11
  look back and say here's how we celebrated our 200th anniversary
• 1:01:15
  and you're part of that that. Was part of that all the fault?
• 1:01:20
  They could have asked, You know, I mean, it was very nice because
• 1:01:22
  there's, you know, plenty of people who would have done the
• 1:01:25
  job far. I love it, I did, but I
• 1:01:26
  actually. Do.
• 1:01:30
  Petacura is my favorite. I I honestly walked past it on
• 1:01:34
  the shelf 510. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:37
  And what they've done with the liquids, the new branding is
• 1:01:39
  nice and all that, but what they've done with the liquid,
• 1:01:41
  they turn it around. It's now so interesting.
• 1:01:43
  I mean the. I was incredible harsh on I was
• 1:01:46
  me too. I was harsh on the podcast
• 1:01:47
  because Jodi Buchan had mentioned fetter care and fast
• 1:01:50
  because one of his what free drams, and I think it was the
• 1:01:52
  first time that somebody I shouldn't have done it.
• 1:01:55
  I said I said that's a shit. What a free DRAM, everybody.
• 1:01:59
  Do this story. It was a great story.
• 1:02:01
  His wife get Daniel. There's a Shannon Jodi.
• 1:02:05
  But. I was just like, that's
• 1:02:07
  terrible. But also I thought I was lucky
• 1:02:10
  because I wasn't. I'm not old enough to have
• 1:02:12
  experienced vesicas dark days and it.
• 1:02:15
  Wasn't even dark days. It was just very nondescript.
• 1:02:17
  I remember the first label I ever saw was just called it was
• 1:02:20
  just called 1824 non age statement.
• 1:02:23
  It had a stag on it but it was drawn by a child and crayons.
• 1:02:27
  I know it's just like it just looked.
• 1:02:28
  Yeah. Apathetic more than anything.
• 1:02:31
  I mean, it probably. Actually, it might have actually
• 1:02:33
  been. Decent liquid.
• 1:02:34
  Yeah, one. Of those things, you kind.
• 1:02:35
  Of was there a kind of inspiring, yeah.
• 1:02:37
  Was there like a particular rebrand at any point where
• 1:02:39
  where? Because they've now gone for a
• 1:02:41
  kind of definitely more premium look.
• 1:02:43
  They're nice, tall bottles, well edged.
• 1:02:44
  Yeah, but maybe. Production.
• 1:02:48
  Methods, Yeah, all that stuff, but yeah.
• 1:02:49
  Because actually, as it happens, Graham and I had an encounter
• 1:02:52
  with Feta Ken probably very early in our kind of whiskey
• 1:02:55
  journeys. We, if you remember Graham, we
• 1:02:59
  ended up, yeah, now you know what I'm talking about.
• 1:03:02
  We ended up in the border of Montrose Football Club and
• 1:03:05
  they're playing Ray Throwers and your brother done a bit of work
• 1:03:09
  for a company and it ended up saying you can have hospitality.
• 1:03:13
  But then they came back to any game you want and obviously
• 1:03:15
  being Ray Throwers. Was that all we have throw was
• 1:03:18
  away hospitality against Montrose?
• 1:03:20
  And they said yeah, no problem. And they said the hospitality
• 1:03:23
  lounge is sold out. Would you take the boardroom?
• 1:03:25
  Yeah, that's right. Was that effective candle?
• 1:03:28
  Sorry. We walked in and they had a kind
• 1:03:31
  of table with a bottle of feta. Ken, I can't tell you what it
• 1:03:34
  was beyond being fetter care. Yeah, and they kind of just said
• 1:03:37
  lads bash in and we did a few. Because, I mean, where's Fetter
• 1:03:40
  Care? And they're still in.
• 1:03:42
  The East Coast just a Just a. Very close.
• 1:03:44
  Yeah, but also it's not far from Arbroath, like it's, I mean.
• 1:03:47
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, very well like.
• 1:03:51
  Adam and Fetter care kind of a alone and our Biki and they're
• 1:03:56
  just a wee bit below your your your glengaries and your
• 1:03:59
  Glendronics. So they.
• 1:04:00
  Just they just released, you know, a fantastic anniversary
• 1:04:02
  selection. Within a few years, every part
• 1:04:05
  of their production will be coming from them. 50 miles to
• 1:04:07
  the salary. And So what?
• 1:04:09
  At the end of that documentary, Greg Glass shares a DRAM of
• 1:04:12
  Scottish estate, grown Scottish, old, matured Fettiker.
• 1:04:15
  And when I was last at the distillery, I think I had sample
• 1:04:20
  from that exact same parcel. There's two or three casks.
• 1:04:23
  Yeah. And I had it two years old.
• 1:04:25
  Well, actually it was. Because it's three years old
• 1:04:27
  when he gave us and it was exceptional.
• 1:04:30
  Yeah. And I always speak with Greg
• 1:04:31
  Glass being somebody who who would love to have on the
• 1:04:34
  podcast because of the way he talks about whiskey and what he
• 1:04:38
  and his passion for oak and Scottish oak is, is well made.
• 1:04:42
  We have to. Following, We have to listen
• 1:04:44
  back because actually ironically, 151617 days before
• 1:04:50
  you're recording, yes, Angus and I went to Distillers Fair.
• 1:04:54
  I was our first sort of venture out of Diggers really for a
• 1:04:58
  podcast recording. And there was a Feta can stand
• 1:05:02
  that was there. And I believe they did have a
• 1:05:03
  Scottish oak they were on. There was an Aberfelde.
• 1:05:07
  There were there. Maybe there was an Aberfelde
• 1:05:08
  Scottish oak as a nine year old. But I think there was a feta can
• 1:05:12
  one as well for the minute well. Yeah, 18 is finished in
• 1:05:16
  Scottish. Yeah, that might, that might
• 1:05:18
  have been a sample. That we tried, yeah.
• 1:05:20
  Well, I mean, on, on the subject of 200 years of the industry and
• 1:05:25
  you've mentioned Ross sort of no, no, I've been staying
• 1:05:31
  underground here for the whole time.
• 1:05:33
  But you've mentioned about sort of the ups and downs within the
• 1:05:36
  industry. And I think that's probably a
• 1:05:38
  great point to move on to, aside from hearing about Simon and
• 1:05:42
  what he's done and and drinking his lovely whiskies.
• 1:05:44
  But it's really up and down time in the industry.
• 1:05:46
  It's an interesting time at the moment and I feel like people
• 1:05:49
  for the last five years have been said.
• 1:05:50
  So when's this all going to start going downhill at the same
• 1:05:53
  time? I don't know if it is going
• 1:05:54
  downhill, but we're certainly seeing some kind of bigger,
• 1:05:57
  scarier headlines at the moment. Obviously my Camira was the one
• 1:05:59
  who mentioned in previous podcast with more who have been
• 1:06:03
  rescued by an old chair, you know, Mr. Hero, yeah, Mr. Hero
• 1:06:09
  saved by superhero and was that was the headline and but at the
• 1:06:12
  same time. To.
• 1:06:14
  Get to get to get to get themselves into that position.
• 1:06:17
  Yeah, it's skinny and it's almost unprecedented in the way
• 1:06:21
  that everybody else is quite naive to it.
• 1:06:23
  Mac Mira would have been the distillery that I naively would
• 1:06:25
  have assumed we're doing best in Sweden, because I know of it
• 1:06:28
  best because always been exported.
• 1:06:30
  And then we see the Waterford distillery in Ireland apparently
• 1:06:33
  has stopped production and staff loss of jobs.
• 1:06:37
  And that's again a distillery. Very distinctive bottling, very
• 1:06:40
  distinctive marketing. Certainly I remember when it was
• 1:06:43
  released, I think even Cam Scotch was a big fan of what
• 1:06:47
  they were doing and really interested in.
• 1:06:49
  And and it's that it's taken a sour turn.
• 1:06:53
  But at the same time this week we hear that Penal Ricard
• 1:06:56
  sheriffs have applied for planning permission to build
• 1:06:59
  another still there on Isla and. That's interesting because I
• 1:07:02
  don't think they're interesting. I don't think they've ever had
• 1:07:04
  an Isla distillery Pernor Ricard.
• 1:07:06
  Have they ever or you know that I mean, and it's kind of even
• 1:07:09
  its previous iteration. I would say it's quite a penalty
• 1:07:11
  to the owners of Ballantine's, Ballantine's own.
• 1:07:14
  But hiring Walker and at one point I'm sure hiring Walker own
• 1:07:17
  that beg. Yeah, yeah, 100% right now.
• 1:07:19
  As good as? That's pretty good by there.
• 1:07:21
  You go the. Assistant head of research
• 1:07:25
  Assistant to the head of. Research.
• 1:07:28
  But I, I mean you look at the industry now and you do wonder
• 1:07:33
  and it goes back to what we were literally talking about a couple
• 1:07:35
  of minutes ago. And something we've talked about
• 1:07:37
  a good bit on the last few podcasts about is new
• 1:07:40
  distilleries versus established distilleries, etcetera,
• 1:07:42
  etcetera, etcetera. And you see Perrin or icard that
• 1:07:46
  they've got Shiva sand Ballentines, right?
• 1:07:48
  That's that's two of the biggest brands in the world effectively.
• 1:07:54
  And then you've got Diageo, Johnny Walker and what have you.
• 1:07:57
  You do wonder that do the big dogs keep getting bigger?
• 1:08:01
  But it creates a gap between everybody else.
• 1:08:04
  I think what we're going to find is, and this is kind of maybe a
• 1:08:07
  little bit of blue sky thinking about I think what we're
• 1:08:12
  finding. And Dave Broome wrote a great
• 1:08:14
  article about this recently. So I hope I'm not just kind of
• 1:08:17
  riding his coattails. But wondering what the whiskey
• 1:08:19
  industry does to itself periodically is when there's a
• 1:08:22
  boom time, which we've seen recently, is that the whiskey
• 1:08:26
  industry is natural reaction from some or certainly some
• 1:08:30
  spaces within it is to then try and premiumize itself.
• 1:08:33
  Yeah. OK.
• 1:08:34
  So if you look at certain bottlings that were we were kind
• 1:08:37
  of fairly aspirational for folk or still are as like a landmark
• 1:08:41
  bottling, especially people who. Because what we've got to
• 1:08:44
  remember is a lot of people in the whiskey world or on their
• 1:08:45
  whiskey journeys that aren't us, that aren't doing this, that are
• 1:08:49
  like doing it themselves or in errant cities and towns without
• 1:08:52
  a whiskey culture, like we're so lucky to have it.
• 1:08:54
  Edinburgh. So they, they, they, they pick
• 1:08:56
  up a bottle of blend that they like, Yeah.
• 1:08:58
  And then they spend £30 on a bottle of malt and glass.
• 1:09:01
  Delicious. And then eventually they think
• 1:09:03
  for my birthday or whatever I might buy that 120 LB eighteen
• 1:09:07
  year old. That 120 LB eighteen year old is
• 1:09:09
  now 253. 100, yeah. You know what?
• 1:09:12
  So that kind of especially now feels out of touch.
• 1:09:13
  So what? What those people that for those
• 1:09:16
  people, my analogy is like if you're playing a video game, no
• 1:09:18
  matter how much you like it, if the if the boss that you can't
• 1:09:21
  beat actually gets harder and harder, you put the video game
• 1:09:24
  aside because you can't be fucked.
• 1:09:25
  And that's what we're seeing in the whiskey issues that with
• 1:09:27
  those demographics we've tried so hard to broaden into in the
• 1:09:31
  last 1015 years and now. And the less kind of people who
• 1:09:35
  are still on the fringes of the whiskey community but still
• 1:09:37
  trying to do it, even if their own way, are finding that what
• 1:09:40
  they thought they were aspiring to is now out of touch.
• 1:09:44
  You lose the interest, you lose the journey.
• 1:09:46
  And because they're not around. But you can't go to diggers.
• 1:09:51
  They can't go a bottle of Pintail 6 year old inch car
• 1:09:53
  Baniel cars, which is delicious for £70.
• 1:09:55
  They can't pick up this rating 495 that you know, they don't
• 1:09:59
  know that they haven't got access to these kind of amazing
• 1:10:01
  drams that are really valuable. They still exist in the
• 1:10:03
  industry. There's there's a, there's the
• 1:10:05
  majority of industry aren't aware of them.
• 1:10:06
  This, this we, we work in the 5%.
• 1:10:09
  Yeah, we are these. Kind of things, you know, so
• 1:10:11
  that's the problem. And then that's obviously
• 1:10:13
  someone's gone. Well, there's not people buying
• 1:10:14
  whiskey and they'll want to spend more money on it and
• 1:10:16
  that's kind of the problem. But what you'll what I think
• 1:10:18
  you'll find is independent bottlers, you know, Pintail
• 1:10:22
  doing really interesting stuff, really affordable, fragrant
• 1:10:24
  drops, blinds, some of these kind of guys on the mark.
• 1:10:27
  And locally these kind of salaries, they're doing
• 1:10:30
  interesting things at reasonable prices, but also in touch with
• 1:10:32
  the market, you know, really kind of modern that they are
• 1:10:35
  going to, they'll still keep hitting it because they'll just
• 1:10:37
  grow and grow and grow into those spaces.
• 1:10:40
  And if we have a whiskey lock again, I think it'll be full of
• 1:10:44
  a lot of really old shit that's become of a price we'll
• 1:10:47
  hopefully then filter back down into.
• 1:10:49
  So do you think? There's a chance that with all
• 1:10:52
  these new exciting facilities working as an example, perhaps
• 1:10:56
  some older distilleries that have outpriced themselves will
• 1:11:01
  start to go, my goodness, we can't do this anymore.
• 1:11:03
  Well, I mean, there's whiskey. I just want to ask, sorry.
• 1:11:08
  I mean, like I remember the fuel prices in the UK and people no,
• 1:11:14
  but people always said that when, and this is what I'm
• 1:11:16
  interested to know with whiskey, with the whiskey industry is
• 1:11:19
  when everyone says once fuel prices go up, they never come
• 1:11:22
  back down until. Just before the election.
• 1:11:24
  Yeah, but but, well, they'll never drop massively.
• 1:11:27
  You know you'll never seen it going right back back down.
• 1:11:29
  Yeah, so we've got here you just.
• 1:11:30
  Become so used to it. So I remember, you know, I'm
• 1:11:33
  only I'm 35, so there'll be people who are listening to this
• 1:11:36
  podcast who definitely are a lot older than us and stuff like
• 1:11:39
  that. But I can remember at the time
• 1:11:40
  when, when the fuel broke the night 9 pen smart, the ## a
• 1:11:45
  litre in Scotland, which everyone went mental about, and
• 1:11:48
  even as I was 18 at the time, being like this is ridiculous.
• 1:11:51
  A pound a litre now. And you look at it now and you
• 1:11:53
  go, you just become normalized to just come used to it.
• 1:11:55
  But what we're looking at with whiskey is will there be a time
• 1:11:58
  when we've talked a lot about Talisker 18?
• 1:12:01
  OK? We've talked about how one in
• 1:12:03
  literally a day or a week, Diageo can say that's gone from
• 1:12:07
  a 6070 LB bottle now to 100 and whatever # bottle it is now,
• 1:12:11
  right? Will there be a time when Diageo
• 1:12:13
  as you can suddenly say the Oscar 18 is now available for
• 1:12:16
  £95, which is probably dropping down?
• 1:12:19
  I guess excited because they think it's a good deal.
• 1:12:21
  Yeah, it's not. I don't think, I think what I
• 1:12:24
  mean because what you have seen them on the secondary market is
• 1:12:26
  a huge plumber secondary. Yes, for sure, that's already
• 1:12:29
  happened. So that would be people.
• 1:12:31
  What I pay for something down 22 years ago was like 1/2 for.
• 1:12:34
  A secondary being auctions. Auctions, yeah.
• 1:12:37
  But what I think what you'll find with Diageo is like they
• 1:12:40
  won't because the the the Scotch was history as two kind of
• 1:12:44
  elements are different to something like fuel.
• 1:12:46
  Is that not it's not necessity, not for a start, but there's
• 1:12:51
  also we. Need it for a podcast?
• 1:12:55
  There's also no independent bottlers, there's no independent
• 1:12:58
  fuel stations who soak up the excess or whatever.
• 1:13:00
  And you know, and no one's no one's going to the indie bottler
• 1:13:03
  of, of fuel for something interesting and different.
• 1:13:05
  You know, it doesn't. So what I think you'll find is
• 1:13:06
  once with those brands that you know, a talus creating is a
• 1:13:09
  great example. I don't know what it's retailing
• 1:13:11
  for now. 175. South, it's doubled in five
• 1:13:13
  years. For argument's sake, Jazzer's
• 1:13:16
  gone, right? That's Talus creating.
• 1:13:17
  That's the brand. That's its price.
• 1:13:19
  It's premium whiskey. That's what we need to sell it
• 1:13:21
  at. Yeah, they'll go, OK, that's
• 1:13:23
  what we need to sell it out. How do we get people to it?
• 1:13:26
  But also, if there's excess, it won't get to 18 years old.
• 1:13:29
  Yeah. That liquid will start getting
• 1:13:31
  sequestered into the 10s or special editions, or it'll be
• 1:13:34
  sold, yeah, sold into blending. It'll be sold into independent
• 1:13:38
  bottles. Because at the minute Diageo,
• 1:13:40
  from what I what I what I've heard around the traps is that
• 1:13:43
  Diageo have all the taps on for Indies apart from Peter's
• 1:13:47
  because Talisker and laggy Poland and something such.
• 1:13:49
  Yeah, they can't sell any Pete and stuff.
• 1:13:51
  And Kalilu is now becoming that way that because those because
• 1:13:54
  those brands are all single. So what you're saying now is
• 1:13:56
  that you are actually quite comfortable, because this is
• 1:13:58
  another question that always comes up through our indie
• 1:14:00
  bottler spotlight, is indie bottlers, for people who, like
• 1:14:03
  myself a couple of years ago, don't fully understand an indie
• 1:14:06
  bottler situation and say, and then my question is how you get
• 1:14:10
  in stock of this? And of course, part of the
• 1:14:12
  reason is that Diageo could probably keep themselves without
• 1:14:15
  having a whiskey lock by siphoning off a lot of their
• 1:14:18
  whiskey to keep for themselves, but also saying, well, we've got
• 1:14:22
  this and we can get rid of it and there'll be people who are
• 1:14:25
  happy to buy a decent market rate.
• 1:14:26
  Amy Bottles have played that wrong industry for 100 Odd.
• 1:14:28
  Years and it was, it was 670 odd years.
• 1:14:30
  It was highlighted at Greg Station where we had an Altmore
• 1:14:33
  and he said it was one of maybe 2 odd Moors he's ever had and I
• 1:14:35
  was this is amazing that I can't remember the last time I hadn't
• 1:14:38
  believe. Finally bought a lot more than
• 1:14:40
  he had an age Dean stint again, not so if you see that easily.
• 1:14:43
  Then he had his undisclosed Isla, which again, I don't know,
• 1:14:46
  but I actually do think it's from a Diazio distillery, right
• 1:14:49
  and. That's your own opinion.
• 1:14:51
  I did not pass. That on and so it's one of those
• 1:14:55
  things that because they have done secret Islas, I believe
• 1:14:59
  from desert styles previously and so and so it's difficult
• 1:15:02
  because when you go to most independent bottlers, you're
• 1:15:04
  going to see a little inkwood, you're going to see a lot of
• 1:15:07
  maniques yeah it. Makes me always think, you would
• 1:15:11
  almost think that a company the size of Diazio would be the
• 1:15:14
  least accessible to get whiskey from.
• 1:15:17
  If you just think, yeah, I know. But but in my mind, I'll look at
• 1:15:20
  that. And I think like Diazio are, you
• 1:15:23
  know, you're knocking on the door of the biggest dog in the
• 1:15:25
  industry. And Pete.
• 1:15:28
  Pete from Pete from woman. He he What was the second name?
• 1:15:35
  Pete. Allison.
• 1:15:36
  Pete Allison. That's it, Peter Allison, Pete
• 1:15:38
  said about how he talks about the gatekeepers in the industry,
• 1:15:41
  and often from a sales background myself, and you think
• 1:15:44
  about the gatekeepers, you always see these people as like
• 1:15:46
  the hard guys to get through. And he said the gatekeepers in
• 1:15:49
  the Scotch whiskey industry are some of the nicest people you'll
• 1:15:51
  meet. They're very pernickety about
• 1:15:53
  how you know and relationships. That's what all we keep hearing.
• 1:15:58
  So the fact is that you can go to like any indie bottler, if
• 1:16:01
  they can build up a relationship with someone the size of Diageo,
• 1:16:05
  the casks that they can get access to are huge.
• 1:16:07
  And as you're saying Simon, if if all the distilleries similar
• 1:16:11
  to Diageo are quite happy to say rather than us keeping it and it
• 1:16:15
  just sitting and not doing anything, we can get that offer
• 1:16:18
  and that probably just keeps. And there's a demand for it if
• 1:16:22
  you're a bottler who's in Eastern Europe ourselves at
• 1:16:25
  Sofia's Whiskey Festival this year, which totally blew my
• 1:16:28
  mind. Yeah, you're a bottler that's
• 1:16:30
  controlling the market and Serbia and Bulgaria.
• 1:16:35
  And you can get a single cask of even if it is a liquid or Ben
• 1:16:38
  winners, whatever, that's a name they've not heard of.
• 1:16:41
  It's exclusive to your market and people are.
• 1:16:43
  Going to go. Crazy for it.
• 1:16:45
  There's so much global demand. Scotland is such a tiny.
• 1:16:48
  Tiny we become so I mean I think if I look at it's actually quite
• 1:16:51
  embarrassing when I do the weekend DRAM roll call and it's
• 1:16:54
  it's a very interesting point about the state levels of
• 1:16:57
  whiskey drinker and things like that is so I moved to Edinburgh
• 1:17:00
  three years ago, which about four years ago yeah, 2020.
• 1:17:05
  I'd like that DRAM before then. So a lot of the whiskey I was
• 1:17:09
  buying was, what do you probably say, supermarket stuff.
• 1:17:14
  Then I got to the COVID and I did what most people did and I
• 1:17:18
  started being a bit, you know, exploring a little bit, but at
• 1:17:21
  the same time, not even scratching the surface.
• 1:17:23
  What I was doing was I was, I was buying distillery bottles
• 1:17:27
  from fairly established distilleries that I just had
• 1:17:29
  never seen in the supermarket shelves.
• 1:17:31
  And it's funny, very early breaking this.
• 1:17:34
  I'm the villain, like you, maybe I know about Tam, the villain,
• 1:17:37
  but they have a really good value.
• 1:17:38
  Why is this thing something like I've never heard of in 2020?
• 1:17:42
  In 2020-2021, I'd never heard of Glenn Dronach.
• 1:17:45
  Right. So I'm suddenly hearing about
• 1:17:47
  Glyndronic. Well, that's it.
• 1:17:48
  I'm hearing about. I'm reading about Glyndronic.
• 1:17:50
  Yeah, distillery. I'm reading about this thing.
• 1:17:54
  What's going on? Sherry Can.
• 1:17:55
  I'm going, Right. So I buy Glyndronic 12 and I'm
• 1:17:58
  going, this is unique for me because it's not something I can
• 1:18:01
  go to Morrison's or Tesco and buy off the shelf.
• 1:18:03
  And then on the back of that, I'm think I'm hearing about
• 1:18:05
  Billy Walker and I'm going, well, let's try some Billy.
• 1:18:08
  Walker. Right, let's get because Ben
• 1:18:10
  reek then some buying Ben reeks and stuff like that.
• 1:18:13
  And again, I'm not breaking the 100 LB button now when I look at
• 1:18:17
  what and but also I've become tight as anything because I live
• 1:18:21
  850 yards away. Diggers, that's over 800 bottles
• 1:18:25
  I don't need to buy. But it always puts me under a
• 1:18:27
  lot of pressure because when I'm about to start weekend DRAM roll
• 1:18:29
  call and I'm sitting there looking in the cupboard going,
• 1:18:33
  that's not really like that impressive a bottle to start a
• 1:18:35
  weekend. Because I've felt the need to do
• 1:18:38
  different bottles. Yeah.
• 1:18:39
  So as I've said many things, but I don't, I've pretty much never
• 1:18:43
  drink at home. Yeah, I've enjoyed having two or
• 1:18:46
  three grams on a Friday night going to bottles I maybe opened
• 1:18:50
  two years ago. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to bottles
• 1:18:52
  I've not seen in a long time other than moving house and
• 1:18:55
  trying to explain why I've got so many bottles to the wife.
• 1:18:59
  That's all the reason I spoke about this.
• 1:19:01
  But and then I try it again and go, this is brilliant.
• 1:19:03
  I want to talk about it. And then everybody has their
• 1:19:05
  input. Another whiskey topic, I think
• 1:19:09
  we kind of briefly mentioned on one of the podcasts, but I'd
• 1:19:12
  like to get your opinion because you'll have thought about it was
• 1:19:14
  the purchase of Famous Grouse from Edrington to Wine Grant and
• 1:19:18
  Sons. Oh, it's like, because I know
• 1:19:20
  you'll have thought about it as much as I've thought about it,
• 1:19:22
  and I've got all my conspiracy theories and why I think.
• 1:19:25
  It's good and bad. Yeah, Yeah, I've got it.
• 1:19:26
  Yeah. So before we, before we move on,
• 1:19:28
  before we, before we go into this topic, yes, sure.
• 1:19:30
  We are looking for sponsorship. We've haven't talked.
• 1:19:35
  We've haven't talked a lot about your grandsons.
• 1:19:38
  I would also say the famous grouse has appeared plenty of
• 1:19:40
  times in the world. Three drums, I guess, but I
• 1:19:43
  would say we've even. Occasionally done the.
• 1:19:47
  I would actually see you guys do it every single time as
• 1:19:52
  mentioned, but. What I would say, what I would
• 1:19:57
  say is that if anyone from the William Grants and Sons are
• 1:20:01
  listening. T-shirt, few T-shirts.
• 1:20:03
  That's Tim. Walker big up.
• 1:20:04
  Tim Walker. Congratulations to Tim Walker,
• 1:20:06
  because I believe he's just had a boy.
• 1:20:08
  Yeah, yeah, There you go. Luxury brands he worked in.
• 1:20:11
  Well, not his son, but Tim does. Come on, sample.
• 1:20:16
  Come on, samples, Tim, you know big show out here.
• 1:20:18
  Congratulations. Head down and diggers.
• 1:20:21
  Luxury luxury BDM luxury brands. There you go where where the
• 1:20:25
  burn seed was. That's so we'd.
• 1:20:27
  Love to see him but yes, massive news in the West industry that
• 1:20:30
  happened months ago, maybe a couple months ago now and people
• 1:20:34
  might not know that famous grouse.
• 1:20:36
  You could argue Scotland's favorite blind to what it is
• 1:20:39
  here in iconic and has left the hands of Edmonton to go to.
• 1:20:44
  What's the biggest selling in Scotland?
• 1:20:46
  Yeah, as last I knew, I. Think even in the UK.
• 1:20:49
  And you look at the portfolio we had Danny Dyer on when he was
• 1:20:52
  global brand ambassador. I think not only were Famous
• 1:20:55
  Grouse the biggest in the UK, but most of their sales were in
• 1:20:58
  this very month of December as well.
• 1:20:59
  Oh yeah, that would make sense. Which makes sense, but I.
• 1:21:02
  Always heard his interest in that.
• 1:21:04
  Yeah, Grants. And we had Danny on, He spoke
• 1:21:06
  about how massive it is, four and a half million cases, mostly
• 1:21:11
  South America, Far East. Yeah, Scotland's market was
• 1:21:14
  always bells and grouse, as far as I was aware that was.
• 1:21:18
  Always in teachers was all dancing.
• 1:21:20
  Even white makai was was. Why we kind of lost so long ago,
• 1:21:24
  yeah. But what a massive move in the
• 1:21:27
  transfer market of whiskeys. Can we get, can we get the two
• 1:21:30
  aspects here right? Let's go down the two routes
• 1:21:32
  here, OK, Bearing in mind we are looking for sponsorship, right?
• 1:21:34
  Yeah, let's go down the cynicism route.
• 1:21:37
  Yeah, right. OK.
• 1:21:38
  But also let's go down the other the other route as well.
• 1:21:40
  Yeah. I mean, I'll, I'll preface
• 1:21:42
  everything that I'm about to say that it is pure conjecture.
• 1:21:45
  Yes, me to me, me kind of, I guess playing out scenarios
• 1:21:50
  rather than having any real knowledge of.
• 1:21:51
  This I wouldn't want you to say what I'm thinking, so that's why
• 1:21:54
  I want because. Even just some rugby tickets.
• 1:21:56
  I guess we would just love some rugby tickets.
• 1:21:57
  Don't worry, no. No, William Grant, he says.
• 1:21:59
  Have the gross we've. Just that's why I'm asking the
• 1:22:01
  question. So what do you think?
• 1:22:04
  Really one interesting thing. So for a long time, for example,
• 1:22:08
  I assume I assume they've acquired all of the.
• 1:22:11
  Naked Grouse and famous Grouse. So Naked Grouse is probably a
• 1:22:14
  good place to start. So naked grouse was for a long
• 1:22:17
  time. It may still be the best selling
• 1:22:18
  whiskey on Amazon or it certainly was a couple of years
• 1:22:21
  ago because then the main reason being you don't know about
• 1:22:24
  whiskey. Be a dad drinks whiskey.
• 1:22:26
  What can I buy for Christmas? I don't want to get in grouse
• 1:22:28
  all there's a posh. Grass, it says Malt.
• 1:22:31
  Exactly so naked grouse was. Yeah, it's now called Naked
• 1:22:34
  More, but it was naked Grouse and it and it, Yeah.
• 1:22:36
  You're the biggest selling on Amazon.
• 1:22:39
  You're selling a lot, right? So and it was and and it was is
• 1:22:41
  delicious as Sherid. Yeah, Edgington stock, it's
• 1:22:43
  great. And a really good one in Graton
• 1:22:45
  Sons and the brand that they have invested the most into the
• 1:22:48
  last 10 years. It's monkey short.
• 1:22:49
  It's monkey short. And that's the they're the only
• 1:22:52
  two real competitors in the butted malt scene.
• 1:22:54
  Absolutely butted malt scene. Really.
• 1:22:56
  I don't understand how it's really not become more of a
• 1:22:58
  category and I don't understand how so many people fucked it up
• 1:23:00
  as badly as they have. But it's also become untenable
• 1:23:04
  for some people. Barry brothers and Rod had a
• 1:23:06
  great but the malt range for a while they down turned into a
• 1:23:08
  single malt range because much of A much as price wise.
• 1:23:11
  So the buttermalt range is never or category is never really
• 1:23:13
  kicked off apart from monkey shoulder and Grass, yeah.
• 1:23:16
  So now effectively grants control both that category.
• 1:23:22
  So William Gratchell always said, how can we sell more
• 1:23:24
  Monkey Shoulder? Well, there's only one brand
• 1:23:26
  that's taking you go into a supermarket, there's two blended
• 1:23:29
  malts on the shelf. It's those two.
• 1:23:32
  My opinion would be, and it'll be interesting to see what
• 1:23:34
  happens because we don't know how much stock will inherit, how
• 1:23:36
  much stock they'll buy, whether Edmonton will continue to sell
• 1:23:39
  it, you know what they have. My opinion would be that we'll
• 1:23:44
  get some people get rid of naked.
• 1:23:45
  No, those diagio the basically what diagio where they bought
• 1:23:47
  all the old blends. They killed it all in favour of
• 1:23:49
  Johnny Walker like you white horses and you're all that.
• 1:23:52
  I would, I would assume that would be part of the plan or if
• 1:23:54
  it's or if it's two strong a brand that you're like, OK, well
• 1:23:57
  we can apply our own sales and at least it's all us.
• 1:23:58
  Because it is only one, only one brand that succeeds from yeah,
• 1:24:04
  just off the grouse and it's monkey shoulder which to put all
• 1:24:06
  this money and time and. If the two brands continue to
• 1:24:09
  coexist long term, they will probably essentially become the
• 1:24:12
  same liquid. Yeah, because why wouldn't?
• 1:24:14
  Yeah. I mean, when you talk about it's
• 1:24:16
  funny that the blended malt market hasn't really worked.
• 1:24:19
  And yeah, you do wonder if it is from a marketing perspective and
• 1:24:23
  for the way that and with William Grants and Sons, well, I
• 1:24:27
  think they've they've they've purposely in their lifetime of
• 1:24:32
  single malts. You know, even then when they
• 1:24:34
  had Grants at the same time bringing out, bringing out,
• 1:24:38
  going fill it pure malt and then saying you'll never stand for a
• 1:24:41
  blend again, whilst at the same time phoning a blend.
• 1:24:44
  That was probably the biggest producer, the biggest sell point
• 1:24:47
  around the world. But you just wonder, like the
• 1:24:49
  whiskey market, people in the market, the B word, there's a
• 1:24:54
  bad, sometimes it's wrongly looked upon, blended.
• 1:24:57
  Malt category was called. Anything else?
• 1:24:59
  Yeah. Multi malt, yeah.
• 1:25:01
  Yeah, I. Think it's exactly could.
• 1:25:03
  You call it pure malt. No, because what we can now
• 1:25:06
  after Brexit? So so.
• 1:25:07
  Pure wasn't EU regulation because pure couldn't be used
• 1:25:12
  because implied like health essentially.
• 1:25:15
  Yeah, because quite a lot of quite a lot.
• 1:25:17
  I didn't know that. Quite a lot of Japanese blended
• 1:25:19
  malts I'm thinking of like there's one that's the nika, but
• 1:25:23
  it's it's labeled as pure mole. There's very, very historically
• 1:25:28
  it was common. Here as well, yeah, and I should
• 1:25:30
  call it pure pot still, yeah, because it wasn't because.
• 1:25:32
  A monkey shoulder was called monkey shoulder.
• 1:25:34
  Pure mole would would do better. This is what I was going to say.
• 1:25:37
  I don't know if you can rebrand it now, but I mean like a
• 1:25:40
  political the irony of Brexit was, of course, we just adopted
• 1:25:42
  all the same laws immediately as we had from Europe anyway.
• 1:25:45
  Yeah. So I assume the laws are still
• 1:25:46
  the same, yeah, but could now effectively be changed.
• 1:25:49
  Well, I was just going. To say you're absolutely right
• 1:25:52
  people, I think they are not the uneducated, but the the, the,
• 1:25:56
  the, the the average buyer, the message seat sees blend, things
• 1:26:00
  blend. Yeah.
• 1:26:01
  I mean, we had it. We.
• 1:26:02
  Doesn't, doesn't we? We had.
• 1:26:03
  Somebody trying our 25 year old? Yeah, but it.
• 1:26:06
  Doesn't say the differential between blended whiskey and
• 1:26:09
  blended malt whiskey. You know it's.
• 1:26:11
  To a point that's positive because blend whiskey is so much
• 1:26:13
  more popular globally than single malt whiskey.
• 1:26:16
  Because it is what the repeat customer who buys a bottle of
• 1:26:18
  whiskey every weekend? They buy blended whiskey.
• 1:26:21
  But yeah, but The thing is that the difference is then how if
• 1:26:25
  someone who says how do you define if people are buying
• 1:26:29
  whiskey for what they like the taste of, right.
• 1:26:31
  And there will be a cost implication for a blend, a
• 1:26:35
  standard blend to a blended malt, Yeah.
• 1:26:38
  How do you then justify to the person if they're seeing it as
• 1:26:41
  the same? Yeah.
• 1:26:41
  It's basically like saying in some cases you could argue,
• 1:26:46
  could you tell somebody the difference between sirloin and
• 1:26:51
  AT bone steak and say, tell, there'll be plenty of people out
• 1:26:55
  there that can sit there and go, I'll tell you exactly what the
• 1:26:57
  difference is. SSSS.
• 1:26:59
  But just an average consumer, can you say, pay an extra fibre
• 1:27:03
  for AT bone steak than you would for a sirloin steak or vice
• 1:27:06
  versa? Because I wouldn't know the
• 1:27:07
  difference. And my issue is I don't think
• 1:27:09
  it's against the word blended because actually blended is far
• 1:27:13
  more successful than the word single.
• 1:27:15
  Yeah, and it is. But there must be a reason why.
• 1:27:17
  But but blended malt sets on this island where it doesn't
• 1:27:23
  belong to either popular group. Yeah.
• 1:27:26
  But I think what you're, what you're forgetting there is that
• 1:27:27
  the the blended is the most successful because of it being
• 1:27:31
  value, value and also volume. Yeah.
• 1:27:34
  Consistency. And to but also being able to
• 1:27:36
  see this to be drunk at volume and mixed and all the rest of it
• 1:27:38
  because those conceptions are still there.
• 1:27:40
  Also blended said to be lighter, easy drinking.
• 1:27:42
  So that's why they hit in the hot climates like South America.
• 1:27:46
  So that's a little bit different.
• 1:27:47
  So like I think what blended malt is perceived as as being a
• 1:27:54
  premium blend, whereas what it should work, whereas what it
• 1:27:57
  should be really perceived as as being a bargain malt.
• 1:28:00
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:28:01
  I mean, I think, yeah, we've, we've started 2 campaigns that
• 1:28:04
  really haven't taken it. Well, one campaign that hasn't
• 1:28:07
  really taken off the ground freeze.
• 1:28:08
  Oh, but I freeze a nipple. That was usually.
• 1:28:11
  The first one actually, I did see an Oscar.
• 1:28:14
  I wish I could go back and and try and find it.
• 1:28:16
  And because it has made a bit of news recently about 5 become a
• 1:28:20
  recognised whiskey. Yeah, very good thing.
• 1:28:22
  Yeah. Yeah, that was it.
• 1:28:23
  Yeah. Was it that make?
• 1:28:25
  Make my own. Bramble Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:27
  And there was a there was a big article recently about that.
• 1:28:29
  There was a big thing about flags.
• 1:28:30
  Hazlehurst Yeah, Justin Hazlehurst was big.
• 1:28:32
  And I saw that float around social media the other day.
• 1:28:34
  There were fantastic. But then what I'm going to say
• 1:28:37
  is, so the two things of the flags that we are planting in
• 1:28:39
  the ground for 20/20. 5 right, You're going to create a 5
• 1:28:42
  blended. Malt no change blended malt to
• 1:28:45
  multi malt right so people know yeah the people need to know
• 1:28:52
  because there are as I say that the two things like the blend
• 1:28:55
  word we love we love blend right We've been very big first
• 1:28:59
  whiskey that we tried on this podcast 25 year old yeah but
• 1:29:02
  that's we love we love single grain We we also do.
• 1:29:05
  Probably. Pushing for the last round that
• 1:29:08
  we've not poured, which is. Well, we have.
• 1:29:09
  We got into this yet? We've got Pintail yet.
• 1:29:12
  Sorry. Go.
• 1:29:12
  I think the interesting matter, I mean, the thing about people
• 1:29:14
  say to me, I only drink single malts, not blends.
• 1:29:17
  Yeah, It'd be like saying I only eat ingredients, not meals.
• 1:29:20
  Yeah, exactly. And that's what I think the
• 1:29:24
  blended mold category has not managed to get across is that if
• 1:29:27
  the thing that you don't like about blended whiskey is it's
• 1:29:29
  got grated, which is the thing, you know you don't like about is
• 1:29:32
  it, then this doesn't have any. Yeah, this is just single malt.
• 1:29:34
  It might be two a teaspoon Burnside Which?
• 1:29:39
  All of us. Always receives a single malt.
• 1:29:41
  Yeah. From his purpose.
• 1:29:42
  It's technically a blended malt, Yeah.
• 1:29:44
  I mean, we we bonehead or whatever.
• 1:29:45
  Else we tried. Greg Urquhart talked about it.
• 1:29:47
  Whiskey Row is a blended malt, right I?
• 1:29:50
  Think I would change it to Malti.
• 1:29:51
  Malt's good. I think I would change the only
• 1:29:53
  malt. Only malt only Malt only.
• 1:29:56
  Malt monkey shoulder only malt, all malt and then you know.
• 1:30:00
  And just they just totally. Understand, because I think even
• 1:30:02
  from my own point of view is that you know you've got.
• 1:30:04
  I'll just call it malt whiskey. Blend this well.
• 1:30:06
  Yeah, I. Mean Monkey Shoulder malt
• 1:30:08
  whiskey. It is malt whiskey.
• 1:30:09
  It is malt whiskey. Yeah.
• 1:30:10
  You're not telling. You're not.
• 1:30:11
  You're not telling lies there. Yeah, right.
• 1:30:14
  Someone from this SWA, right? Get on to the podcast, come in
• 1:30:18
  here and tell us exactly why we can't call it multi mold, only
• 1:30:23
  mold. Or mold whiskey.
• 1:30:24
  Just mold whiskey, promise. We'll see what will happen with
• 1:30:27
  the brand, how it develops on their new ownership.
• 1:30:30
  Actually, once it was a decent whiskey story was at the Oron
• 1:30:33
  Moore in Glasgow, great venue and I was there and for an award
• 1:30:38
  ceremony with Edrington and. I was at that, yeah.
• 1:30:41
  Yeah, so I collected the award for Naked Vault despite never
• 1:30:46
  having worked for the company. I remember you collected.
• 1:30:53
  Did I see you that night? Yes.
• 1:30:55
  OK, I did see that, yeah. But I've seen two of me to be.
• 1:31:00
  Yeah. So you had to go up on stage and
• 1:31:02
  go. I was just the Edmonton.
• 1:31:04
  Team who? Who you didn't work for.
• 1:31:06
  Edmonton, we just done this, this McAllen deal at the ball
• 1:31:09
  model and it was a it was a good time.
• 1:31:11
  The people, Edmonton loved us, we loved people at Edmonton.
• 1:31:14
  And so it was Angus Hamilton, it was Lindsay, it was Teddy's now
• 1:31:18
  being, and I think Teddy was the one who didn't like the wine at
• 1:31:22
  the table. And he said, I don't like that
• 1:31:23
  this red wine's terrible. Let's finish it quickly.
• 1:31:28
  That's always a stunning. And so I was there getting.
• 1:31:32
  A strength response it. Would be incredibly rude
• 1:31:34
  different. Award ceremonies.
• 1:31:36
  Otherwise, he is. I'm good and quite, you know.
• 1:31:39
  What? Well, basically this photo of
• 1:31:40
  their work, it's me and Teddy who was at their prestige
• 1:31:43
  ambassador and we're both got an arm round the guy giving us the
• 1:31:48
  award and so great whiskey naked.
• 1:31:51
  But it will be sad to see if it goes because I've got that.
• 1:31:53
  That's a good whiskey. I don't understand you ended up.
• 1:31:57
  They won the award. Yeah.
• 1:31:58
  So that we get that. I'm like, oh great.
• 1:32:00
  And come on, Ross, of course. How old are you this time?
• 1:32:08
  That's. Just a couple of years ago, I
• 1:32:12
  think I was. I think I was 20.
• 1:32:15
  Three, I was independent by that point.
• 1:32:18
  I was working for myself. Two years ago.
• 1:32:20
  Well could only be 3 Max in Feb so.
• 1:32:22
  Yeah, I was 20. I was 22 or 6.
• 1:32:24
  Time a year must be two years ago.
• 1:32:26
  Yeah, I was. It was seasoned.
• 1:32:30
  Seasoned on the last. But wait, wait, wait.
• 1:32:32
  Just one more thing on the kind of this transfer of grouse, and
• 1:32:37
  this is. Well, that's what I was like.
• 1:32:39
  Oh, sorry, Are you? No, no.
• 1:32:40
  Yeah, well, it's just. Green situation.
• 1:32:41
  Well, not the greatest you you well, you well, what I was going
• 1:32:44
  to say we'll come to the green situation was Peter Allison
• 1:32:46
  second mentioned on the podcast for him today was was on here.
• 1:32:49
  He used to work for Edrington. Yes, and one of the things that
• 1:32:52
  he as a blinder, as somebody who started his own, you know, blind
• 1:32:56
  that he's created woven fantastic and things like that.
• 1:32:59
  And he, he, he spoke very passionately about how famous
• 1:33:03
  grouse has been bashed and bashed and bashed for what it is
• 1:33:06
  and the cost, etcetera. But what he did say was let's
• 1:33:09
  not forget the Edrington who owns Macallan, the cask
• 1:33:13
  selections that they have to choose from that can go in and
• 1:33:17
  to make. And what you've got to remember
• 1:33:19
  is that, OK, the grouse might be at the lower, lower, lowest end
• 1:33:24
  of the of the market on the retail front.
• 1:33:26
  They're not going to just, it's not an afterthought.
• 1:33:30
  It's not, no, it's not like people aren't going to be going.
• 1:33:33
  The people at Edrington are going aren't going.
• 1:33:36
  Just stick any old rubbish and that stuff.
• 1:33:38
  Like I said that last I was in the pod, no one works in the
• 1:33:40
  morning and sets out to make shit whiskey.
• 1:33:42
  Yeah, exactly the best which they can. 14 LB a bottle?
• 1:33:44
  Yeah, 15 or 16 or 400. And you've got to think about
• 1:33:48
  when we've had independent bottlers on and we've had other
• 1:33:50
  people and even smaller distilleries, we talk about the
• 1:33:52
  biggest challenge that people are having right now is sourcing
• 1:33:55
  wood right from from from a cross in Spain or from over in
• 1:33:58
  the States. So getting good wood to put
• 1:34:01
  liquid in is a real, real challenge.
• 1:34:03
  And then of course, when you are getting secondary casts,
• 1:34:06
  independent bottlers, they aren't getting first pack of
• 1:34:08
  what's available. And a lot of time they're even
• 1:34:10
  get samples. Edrington have such a wide
• 1:34:15
  variety of McAllen. Just went and bought Bodega in
• 1:34:17
  Spain. Correct.
• 1:34:17
  So we've got. Guaranteed we have control of
• 1:34:19
  our supply. Yeah, and which?
• 1:34:21
  Is how you make good whiskey. Exactly.
• 1:34:22
  But they will have had before buying that a fantastic trade
• 1:34:27
  for decades, decades and generations of and and so
• 1:34:32
  they're casts whether that's going into the McAllen or
• 1:34:36
  whether it's going into whether it's going at the famous Grouse.
• 1:34:39
  Yeah, it's, it's not going to be, it's going to be of the
• 1:34:42
  highest quality you could probably find in the country.
• 1:34:45
  Might be a second or third floor by the time it gets down the
• 1:34:47
  grass. Yeah, like you know, so we're
• 1:34:50
  going to go into the North British, is that what is that
• 1:34:53
  so? So so my so you're pushing me
• 1:34:54
  out. Yes, I am.
• 1:34:55
  I am my my opening statement will be that this this purchase
• 1:34:59
  of Famous Grouse is the death certificate of the North British
• 1:35:05
  Crane Distillery. Yeah, so it's a really, as I
• 1:35:08
  say, pure conjecture. This is me putting things
• 1:35:10
  together in my head that probably don't exist.
• 1:35:12
  Me too. Anyone who actually understands
• 1:35:13
  how the whiskey industry works will probably throw their
• 1:35:15
  monocles. Two guys to drink.
• 1:35:17
  Whiskey as I say this, but what I can.
• 1:35:19
  Stay this back up and Reddit. The last thing I was on Reddit
• 1:35:23
  was you and you got slaughtered. Whiskey is subjective.
• 1:35:26
  There's no such thing as a bad whiskey.
• 1:35:28
  I'll stick this back up. I'll.
• 1:35:29
  Do it magic. Alright, cool.
• 1:35:30
  Yeah, bring it on then Reddit. And no, I think because the
• 1:35:34
  interesting thing about it, if you look at the things that add
• 1:35:36
  up is that government has just been expanded by roughly the
• 1:35:39
  capacity of North British. So it's going from 90 something
• 1:35:43
  litres to 187 or something. N British from memory is about
• 1:35:46
  97,000,000 litres a year I think.
• 1:35:48
  It was producing. Less actually, but it's
• 1:35:51
  basically so like government can now as far as I know, and again
• 1:35:55
  this is what you hear in the pub, but is that government
• 1:35:58
  could basically take away, take N British contracts like that.
• 1:36:01
  And also their biggest contract is going to be famous.
• 1:36:03
  Grouse Well, certainly a big one because Edrington has a huge
• 1:36:05
  stake in North British and and the rest of it is basically
• 1:36:09
  diage worth. I think grants have a small
• 1:36:11
  stake in it and also the one on the street is that that N
• 1:36:13
  British is also fairly rundown. It's not a great Nick, but the
• 1:36:17
  really interesting thing about this is that government was
• 1:36:19
  first set up by grants whenever it was because they didn't want
• 1:36:24
  there there at the time grain whiskey supply coming directly
• 1:36:28
  from or being controlled by what was Allied Distillers, I
• 1:36:31
  believe, which is now Diageo. So if if what I am supposing
• 1:36:37
  could happen in that in that N British closes that no and the
• 1:36:40
  government can end up fulfilling those contracts, which would be
• 1:36:45
  because Diageo and such a huge stake in a quite a lot going to
• 1:36:48
  Diageo. Basically what's happened is the
• 1:36:50
  grants company or family or have you look at have played 4D chess
• 1:36:55
  for about 160 or G to now had to now control the supply of grain
• 1:37:00
  whiskey into Diage. You're having built government
• 1:37:02
  to not let Diage or what was. Other than Cambridge Other.
• 1:37:06
  Than Cambridge, but Cambridge, as we know, is not making that
• 1:37:09
  much with. 105 million litres a year and Tankery Jen's made
• 1:37:12
  there. I mean, if I'm right, I'm right
• 1:37:13
  saying government uses vacuum stills.
• 1:37:19
  That rings the bell. Now you say that.
• 1:37:20
  Yeah, I know. They're fucking big.
• 1:37:22
  Watch I remember. But I was there.
• 1:37:24
  But I was there. It was.
• 1:37:25
  It was, Cam pointed out to. You oh, it's a Cam.
• 1:37:29
  Sounds alright, sounds alright. But so basically my thought was
• 1:37:33
  exactly as having said famous grouse.
• 1:37:36
  Most of their. Most of the most of their grain
• 1:37:40
  whiskey, presumably almost all the green whiskey was coming
• 1:37:43
  from North British. Yeah.
• 1:37:45
  Now the owners of the Girvan Green distillery have bought the
• 1:37:48
  brand. They're obviously going to use
• 1:37:49
  their own. Grain, of course.
• 1:37:50
  Because it makes sense to use their own grain.
• 1:37:52
  Therefore Northwest choose the largest contract.
• 1:37:55
  We hear that it's a rarely fairly run their distillery
• 1:37:58
  anyway. Yeah, which would be sad
• 1:38:00
  because. I love I just.
• 1:38:03
  Love the smell. Well from a historical point of
• 1:38:08
  view, am I right in saying that William Grants and sons Bill
• 1:38:12
  Gervin on the basis and was it this 50s was they were told 18.
• 1:38:17
  65 or something and they got it up in.
• 1:38:19
  Two years, yeah. But it was because, was it not,
• 1:38:21
  they were going to put a television advert out.
• 1:38:23
  And they were told if you put a television advert out, we will
• 1:38:26
  cease to provide you with. That's right.
• 1:38:29
  There was. Yeah.
• 1:38:29
  Remember that being. So the first whiskey.
• 1:38:33
  Advert was was whiskey and it was Jewish.
• 1:38:36
  Yeah, so I think, I think it was one of those stories where I
• 1:38:40
  remember Danny Dyer mentioned it on the podcast where he's
• 1:38:45
  literally out of the meeting one of the members of the Grants
• 1:38:48
  family at a time, and he's on the phone to his brother saying
• 1:38:51
  how much grain stock, grain whiskey stock have we got?
• 1:38:55
  And he was like about two years worth.
• 1:38:57
  I said, well, we've got two years to build a bloody
• 1:38:59
  distillery to to get that so then we can have control over
• 1:39:02
  our own destiny because we can't be dictated to buy.
• 1:39:05
  Yeah, that we allied or just TCL or and.
• 1:39:08
  A great site. Now you get yeah, I I want, do
• 1:39:10
  you know what I want from 1 grandsons now?
• 1:39:12
  And it's amazing they've done this with a famous person.
• 1:39:14
  It is genuinely exciting and changes the landscape of blended
• 1:39:19
  whiskey in the Scottish market. But what's happening?
• 1:39:22
  We also be. I want them to do something else
• 1:39:23
  to be Brian. Who's not even about but.
• 1:39:26
  But Brian Councilman, that was just like baby.
• 1:39:29
  Before we go into Elsa Bay, which is amazing distillery, but
• 1:39:32
  the if you take the thing to the logical conclusion that we just
• 1:39:35
  have which is that you kill naked grouse for monkey
• 1:39:37
  shoulders superiority. Do you kill famous grouse for
• 1:39:41
  grants as? Well, no, because it's a.
• 1:39:43
  Different market. It's a different market, but
• 1:39:44
  it's an interesting. Thing it's a really.
• 1:39:46
  Interesting. Conversation because you go, OK,
• 1:39:48
  can we make grants what famous grouse is?
• 1:39:51
  Yes. And I see that argument.
• 1:39:54
  However, I think this and maybe we'll change in 50 years.
• 1:39:58
  I think famous Grouse is part of Scottish DNA and I don't think.
• 1:40:05
  You could kill but. It's really interesting to use
• 1:40:07
  the word DNA because if you're being, does the human element
• 1:40:10
  come in and something with your family's name, when it becomes
• 1:40:13
  more important, you want that to supersede.
• 1:40:15
  So yeah, goodbye famous. Maybe again, I'm just.
• 1:40:19
  That's true because at the end of the day, if you absolutely
• 1:40:21
  just killed the brand completely, but people that are
• 1:40:25
  buying famous creditors aren't going to stop buying whiskey but
• 1:40:28
  you. Look what the Azure did but.
• 1:40:29
  My issue there would be that you've already got does OK in
• 1:40:35
  the UK. It does amazingly everywhere
• 1:40:37
  else. My I think I think they would be
• 1:40:41
  confident enough to go or Grant could have that space in the UK,
• 1:40:46
  but I think white Mackay and they would pounce on that
• 1:40:48
  opportunity. I think yeah, White, Mackay and
• 1:40:51
  Bells rampant. What do you do with stuff like
• 1:40:54
  White Horse and a lot of those buttons They so White Horse
• 1:40:56
  still gets explored to Spain. Yeah, because when they when
• 1:40:59
  Judge bought, when they when Judge bought these brands, they
• 1:41:02
  went, OK, the more we can find from these into Johnny Walker
• 1:41:05
  essentially the better. But we'll still send Whitehall
• 1:41:08
  to Spain because it's so dominant in that market.
• 1:41:10
  We may as well just keep sending it there.
• 1:41:12
  And it's probably just Johnny, I don't know, but whatever.
• 1:41:14
  So, but if Grouse is so strong in the home market and Grant has
• 1:41:20
  so the export markets, do you kill grass in the export
• 1:41:22
  markets? And make grass the biggest grass
• 1:41:24
  whiskey in the world. Yeah, Scottish trying, trying
• 1:41:27
  to. Compete with Johnny Walker.
• 1:41:28
  I, I I don't know. What would what would you do?
• 1:41:31
  Yeah, you've just purchased Famous Grouse and Naked Grouse.
• 1:41:34
  We think you're getting rid of Naked Grouse.
• 1:41:37
  I think there's a place for both and I think there's a place for
• 1:41:40
  both in the same way that, you know, you have companies that
• 1:41:43
  own, I can't remember, you think of the chocolate market.
• 1:41:46
  You own Mars Bar and you own Twix and they quite happily
• 1:41:49
  sitting next to each other. Maybe I'm.
• 1:41:50
  Cool, this one I. I I, I don't think you have to
• 1:41:56
  kill one and kill. The other but.
• 1:41:57
  I I, I think, I think, I think a company like grants, I don't
• 1:42:01
  know, maybe maybe you take the spirit that's in one in a
• 1:42:05
  slightly different direction, but keep it a single malt, But
• 1:42:07
  maybe, you know, do something different that's.
• 1:42:10
  The production to 1 bottle in one label.
• 1:42:12
  One run and they are and also what I'll say and I want to be
• 1:42:17
  nice to everybody Diageo and when grandson's.
• 1:42:19
  But if you are you know some of these companies and CD as you'll
• 1:42:22
  see that move from Edinville and the wait wait.
• 1:42:26
  You know when Grant and sons got a lot of power.
• 1:42:33
  The ball is in their hand. They can do what they want, and
• 1:42:37
  that's why it's fun to have these kind of conspiracy
• 1:42:41
  theories and because immediately every goes out, well, that's
• 1:42:44
  naked girls done because we know they're pushing.
• 1:42:48
  Well, in one move to buy a brand and have that we are.
• 1:42:52
  Going to have to fast quickly move on because we are running
• 1:42:55
  out of time here and in case we end up getting locked away in
• 1:42:57
  these 200 year old prison cells. Definitely haunted.
• 1:43:00
  Absolutely haunted. I'm looking at this bottle here.
• 1:43:03
  Pintail single. So this is another project that
• 1:43:06
  you've been working? On So this is a bottler I do bit
• 1:43:08
  of work with helping them with some trade marketing and some of
• 1:43:11
  that stuff. So it's a guy called Keith Punch
• 1:43:14
  who's actually exaggerated and what he seems to be managing to
• 1:43:18
  do. Yeah, in Full disclosure, they
• 1:43:20
  are a client, but I'm not on Commission.
• 1:43:21
  I don't, you know, it's not sales roaring.
• 1:43:23
  So they it just seems to be sourcing some of the most
• 1:43:28
  amazing casks. Yes, the whiskey seller right
• 1:43:30
  the. Whiskey seller is so the whiskey
• 1:43:31
  seller is a brand which is a square bottle kind of wooden
• 1:43:34
  panelling, almost like a cask stage.
• 1:43:36
  And that small tradition is kind of bourbon, cast cherry cask,
• 1:43:40
  pretty kind of like whiskey as whiskey.
• 1:43:42
  Is and does very well in Europe. Yes, it's very well in Europe,
• 1:43:45
  Italy is a huge market. So pintails.
• 1:43:47
  So this brand, I don't know if, if you can see on camera, but
• 1:43:51
  look it up Pintail basically this was this was Globe's Sherry
• 1:43:55
  brands. So well back in the day when
• 1:43:57
  Sherry used to come over in cask, you had a lot of Sherry.
• 1:44:00
  So Globe's bottled this as pintail for that Sherry.
• 1:44:03
  So the brand is Keith bought the old brand and and gave it new
• 1:44:09
  life. If you look at the old label to
• 1:44:10
  the new, it's been touched up. Yeah.
• 1:44:14
  So this kind of retro look is very much not contrived.
• 1:44:16
  It is as it was. But what all of it is in wine
• 1:44:20
  casts for the most part. A couple of other interesting
• 1:44:23
  numbers. But what Keith seems to be doing
• 1:44:25
  is I've had to look up at least five of the casts he's produced
• 1:44:28
  going. I've never heard of that.
• 1:44:30
  Glenn Mossy And what was that? Picolite, which is a Italian
• 1:44:35
  dessert wine from North Italy. I remember what it was.
• 1:44:37
  He's on Lupiat. There's a Spanish fortified wine
• 1:44:39
  he's done which I could remember Fin Britain, which is Calvados
• 1:44:42
  but not from Calvados. They were done a blueberry.
• 1:44:44
  First ever independently bottled Lithuanian whiskey's on its way.
• 1:44:50
  No, but what he's just doing really interesting, and this is
• 1:44:52
  kind of what we were talking about before, is if you have
• 1:44:54
  access to these whiskeys, you can try this.
• 1:44:56
  Really interesting. This is inch gour and a Baniel
• 1:44:58
  cask which is delicious. Inch cow, bit salty was
• 1:45:02
  sweetness. Great, perfect.
• 1:45:03
  Banyos probably. Probably Most people haven't
• 1:45:05
  heard of Bang. Yeah.
• 1:45:07
  So Baniel is basically the South of France.
• 1:45:11
  So if you're in somewhere like Coolio or somewhere down that in
• 1:45:15
  the South of France near the Spanish border, so very much
• 1:45:19
  kind of towards like Perpignan, that kind of way in the Catalan
• 1:45:23
  area of France, Daniel is your local fortified 1.
• 1:45:26
  So, but basically, but what Keith is managed to do is
• 1:45:30
  because he will buy one cask of something that's interesting,
• 1:45:34
  whereas most people will go, that's not worth my bother.
• 1:45:37
  So he's he's he's buying one off cast of interesting whiskey and
• 1:45:41
  he's finishing stuff that I've never heard of.
• 1:45:42
  So he's. Buying it as a standard cask and
• 1:45:44
  finishing it in some. So he's so he's got a bunch of
• 1:45:46
  kicking about, gets a Baniel cask finishes himself, but I'd
• 1:45:50
  say a Baniel. There was a Bruno Harbin this
• 1:45:51
  year and that's not unique unique, but there's at least 4
• 1:45:55
  cask he's got other men or 4 bottle he's got the minute that
• 1:45:57
  he is 99% certain he's the only person to have ever.
• 1:46:01
  And. He's visiting himself and he's
• 1:46:04
  just got a great kind of power. This goes into this and ends up
• 1:46:08
  great. It's just always interesting and
• 1:46:11
  it's affordable and I don't really get how it's affordable
• 1:46:13
  because you're buying one of cars.
• 1:46:16
  So all of the releases are kind of between like 60 and maybe all
• 1:46:21
  the stuff maybe hits the three figures, but not much of it.
• 1:46:25
  Well, I think I've had a cognac. It was bought on the Pintail
• 1:46:28
  labeling as. Really said it was a 28 year old
• 1:46:30
  cognac. Yeah, so I remember going to a
• 1:46:32
  tasting in the Bow Bar, Yes. And I wasn't familiar with the
• 1:46:36
  brand at the time. Whiskey seller, they're kind of
• 1:46:40
  mainstay independent. Bottling looked fantastic,
• 1:46:43
  liquid was great. Every outer had an old grain,
• 1:46:45
  which again, always. Always.
• 1:46:47
  I think at the at the time I was really just piqued my interest,
• 1:46:51
  but I didn't know much about it. Totally underrated bottle and
• 1:46:55
  totally underrated brand. Yeah, yeah, actually some
• 1:46:57
  fantastic liquid. You poured me a Gervin, which
• 1:47:00
  was a Calvados, finished Gervin 17.
• 1:47:02
  No, that was the Finn Baton. Which was the Finn Baton, OK,
• 1:47:05
  yeah, which was exceptional. And I'm going to say it sounds
• 1:47:09
  like ridiculous, but 17 year old grain, fairly young grain for
• 1:47:12
  what I've been drinking the last like 17 year old whiskey is
• 1:47:15
  fantastic and dressing cashier is fantastic.
• 1:47:17
  But this was exceptional because it wasn't what I expected from
• 1:47:20
  the distillery. So a great brand that people
• 1:47:22
  should be seeing more of. I'll.
• 1:47:25
  Be honest with you. Every time I try it, I go.
• 1:47:27
  That's unbelievable. And the Baniel's Cask.
• 1:47:29
  What do you like? I love it.
• 1:47:30
  Probably the first time you've had this cat.
• 1:47:32
  I've had theory. French cows are a wee bit of
• 1:47:33
  favorite of mine, but you don't get very many bottles.
• 1:47:35
  Coastal spacing, so they say. And back, back to get yeah, I
• 1:47:39
  mean that like you say, the saltiness and the saltiness,
• 1:47:42
  great combination caramel type stuff.
• 1:47:44
  There you go. So yeah, just it's one of those
• 1:47:46
  things, you know, when you work, it's better.
• 1:47:47
  You know, you work with a brand like that.
• 1:47:50
  It looks good, it's intriguing and the liquid is good.
• 1:47:54
  It's really, kind of really easy and it's doing really well the
• 1:47:57
  on trade because if you have a customer coming to a bar, what's
• 1:48:01
  new, what's interesting, what's weird, what haven't I seen
• 1:48:02
  before? What can I get in the States?
• 1:48:04
  All these questions that pretty much a silly question had a good
• 1:48:07
  value. So really enjoy working with
• 1:48:09
  those guys, but it's worrying our time.
• 1:48:12
  What else is on you? You've got a.
• 1:48:12
  You've got a. Checklist there where there are
• 1:48:14
  stage where we are going to ask you for your second versions of
• 1:48:17
  your what 3? Burns Night, yeah.
• 1:48:19
  Burns Night We'll talk about the Burns Night.
• 1:48:21
  We'll do the We'll do the what, 3 drams first, Then we'll do the
• 1:48:23
  Burns. What 3 drams?
• 1:48:24
  OK, I do want to join this again so I haven't prepared but I'll.
• 1:48:28
  Finish on my complete recycling family, Shanta, yeah.
• 1:48:32
  We'll leave and we'll just. Leave you.
• 1:48:34
  So the the what 3 drams the Arden market obviously has to go
• 1:48:37
  on there because it was quite an amazing a journey and a lovely
• 1:48:42
  story and I genuinely think the liquid is very.
• 1:48:46
  Very thanks for sharing. It's great to be.
• 1:48:47
  Involved as well from, you know, seeing the cask and drawing it
• 1:48:51
  out and. Also, it's a bar that means a
• 1:48:53
  lot to you. Simon A. 100%, you know, and
• 1:48:55
  then no matter how long you've worked, the Whistling St. being,
• 1:48:57
  you know, being able to do all that process is, is special.
• 1:49:01
  Yeah, you know, it's really nice.
• 1:49:02
  Street. I mean, if we ever get lucky
• 1:49:03
  enough to do something like that, I'm sure.
• 1:49:06
  Right, to be, to be tasting whiskey in a warehouse, it's the
• 1:49:08
  sort of treat that we've heard so many people talk about.
• 1:49:11
  But at the same time, I mean, you're to be able to be in a
• 1:49:14
  position where you're at a stage where you're you're trying it
• 1:49:18
  and then picking it and saying, yes, that's the one to go
• 1:49:21
  through that process must be so exciting in the sense that when
• 1:49:24
  you walk into that, that warehouse, you're knowing that
• 1:49:28
  we'll be leaving, knowing that there's a project about to
• 1:49:30
  start. It's like, it's almost like
• 1:49:33
  breaking ground on a construction project.
• 1:49:36
  Yeah, a big moment spade goes in, you're breaking the ground.
• 1:49:39
  You know that in the next something's going to happen.
• 1:49:41
  To go into walking through the doors of a warehouse, knowing
• 1:49:44
  we're going to try a few casts here and we're going to walk out
• 1:49:46
  with one that is going to be ours must be a hugely exciting.
• 1:49:49
  Project. It's a big deal in it.
• 1:49:51
  It really is. Yeah.
• 1:49:53
  It's the dream, right? I.
• 1:49:54
  Mean and it's it's legacy content as well.
• 1:49:58
  Absolutely, it's a fantastic so that you believe in.
• 1:50:00
  It's a bar that gave you an opportunity in Scotland and
• 1:50:03
  you've ended up having this massive career and like then it
• 1:50:06
  all comes back round. You're able to do this with them
• 1:50:09
  and also it's a it's a cracking back and drive if you're in the
• 1:50:13
  West Coast. If you're going to remember it,
• 1:50:15
  I know I'm doing Campbelltown next summer.
• 1:50:17
  I'm going to message Evan and make sure there's a bottle aside
• 1:50:19
  for me because I need a bottle of this.
• 1:50:21
  Right drum #2, Simon. So I was fortunate to be up at
• 1:50:25
  the Donut Whiskey Festival recently with a lovely Thompson
• 1:50:27
  Brothers Lads and they had recently released a Ben Nevis
• 1:50:34
  1996 and I can't have a speck on it.
• 1:50:38
  It's a bottle with the great mass Attack, Attack, attack at
• 1:50:41
  Suru drawn a label. Yeah.
• 1:50:44
  So I can't leave the spec on more than that.
• 1:50:46
  But it was those 9596 Ben Nevises are phenomenal.
• 1:50:51
  I've had a few over the over the time Thompson was released.
• 1:50:55
  A few. We did one with the Amber light
• 1:50:57
  film a few years ago. It was great.
• 1:50:58
  And they've been, they've been really, really good.
• 1:51:00
  But obviously this one's a couple years older than some of
• 1:51:03
  the others and they are getting rare and they are getting more
• 1:51:04
  expensive. But I tried that at the at the
• 1:51:08
  Whiskey festival and was blown away by really quite amazing.
• 1:51:12
  And then I'm struggling for 1/3. What have I had in the last year
• 1:51:16
  that would give me a moment? Give me a moment. 25 year old
• 1:51:23
  Sherid Aaron. The single cast they released
• 1:51:26
  because you want a bit of a Sherry bad boy.
• 1:51:27
  What a fucking drab. Yeah, yeah, really.
• 1:51:30
  Pardon my friend. Sorry, Mum.
• 1:51:31
  Yeah. That's right.
• 1:51:32
  No, I think I've been kinder on a bleak machine than I was last
• 1:51:34
  time this episode. No, I mean.
• 1:51:37
  It's an Australian tree. It's not your fault man.
• 1:51:38
  Get the Australian on, get the bleed machine out.
• 1:51:40
  Quick this assignment, it's always a pleasure to sit and
• 1:51:43
  chat to you. You know, I was, I was flicking
• 1:51:46
  through the the book like that. I've got here where we've, we've
• 1:51:50
  kept a note, I've managed to keep a note of everything.
• 1:51:52
  It's. Great to have an archive.
• 1:51:53
  That was done and I've got the whiskey friend recording it says
• 1:51:58
  intro walk in hard beg cut that to fit Alex Thompson, Mark
• 1:52:03
  Thompson, Conroe key fragrant drops, Stuart Dick Fraser and
• 1:52:06
  Dario Woody Dougie little Jodie and Shan and I've arrowed it
• 1:52:13
  that says starting to look and sound pissed because and then
• 1:52:19
  you were right after it. And if I remember correctly,
• 1:52:21
  going through the arc like the that was a so we recorded that
• 1:52:25
  on the Sunday and it was the following Wednesday.
• 1:52:28
  I was sort of sat down and I thought, right, I'm going to
• 1:52:30
  have to relay there's hours of content that we've.
• 1:52:33
  Got Must have been, yeah. And I'm thinking I did.
• 1:52:35
  I do remember sitting, stepping sweater.
• 1:52:37
  I'll upload the clip and it was like 17 minutes.
• 1:52:41
  So it was like, what were we saying?
• 1:52:43
  No recollection. Remember.
• 1:52:45
  Is there going. Simon.
• 1:52:46
  How? Thanks.
• 1:52:47
  Yeah. How?
• 1:52:48
  I think the only thing I asked you in my memory was how do you
• 1:52:52
  how do you attack a day like this?
• 1:52:53
  Yes, right. And you went through it, but
• 1:52:55
  that was it. But it was.
• 1:52:56
  It's been great. You've been an absolute
• 1:52:58
  fantastic guest. Now one of the last things going
• 1:53:00
  to finish on is that you are doing Burns Night.
• 1:53:03
  It's because it was, it was the Burns Night edition.
• 1:53:06
  Well, it wasn't the Burns Night edition.
• 1:53:07
  It was 16th. We recorded that.
• 1:53:09
  We recorded on Burns. It was released on Burns.
• 1:53:11
  Yeah, this is going out slightly earlier, but Burns Night is a
• 1:53:14
  big night for yourself. You'd be hosting it I'm sure
• 1:53:16
  events and things like that as well.
• 1:53:17
  Yeah. And talk about this is coming
• 1:53:18
  out in the 19th when this bar is open as well for people.
• 1:53:21
  Yeah, so I was surprised you this bar.
• 1:53:23
  This comes on the 19th and I'm still open every Friday and
• 1:53:26
  Monday all through December, so you'll have two full weekends.
• 1:53:30
  So tomorrow on the weekend after in December to come visit me,
• 1:53:33
  Barrys close off Parliament Square, not three times, get
• 1:53:35
  some drams, but some lukes for Burns Night.
• 1:53:39
  So this is the third general we've been doing it and it's
• 1:53:41
  really fast becoming one of my favorite nights of the calendar.
• 1:53:44
  It's so much fun. We do yo Barnes was a carouser,
• 1:53:48
  a drinker, a shy guest, you know, he was a great swordsman
• 1:53:50
  as we know. He kind of, he liked fun.
• 1:53:53
  So while while this is a Barnes that we do do some, there is
• 1:53:55
  some pros, there's some music, there's great fives, courses, 5
• 1:54:00
  drams. It's not every single element of
• 1:54:03
  a Barnes that you would always have.
• 1:54:05
  It's not rigmarole like that, but it's a night we've we
• 1:54:08
  started that's a night that we think he would have enjoyed.
• 1:54:10
  Good people and a great venue is from the church at Saint Luke's
• 1:54:13
  in Glasgow on the East End. If you don't know it, it's a
• 1:54:15
  beautiful old church, three kind of long tables.
• 1:54:18
  The chef pulls out all the stops his langoustine beast because
• 1:54:21
  the best I've ever tried 5 good drums from the kind of stories
• 1:54:25
  that I've been talking about today, though the stories I work
• 1:54:28
  with normally so that are the American or feature Pintail or
• 1:54:30
  feature and and some others. I would have liked as all the
• 1:54:33
  duties being paid on the whiskey.
• 1:54:35
  As well. Exactly.
• 1:54:35
  Yes, Yeah. So it's all yeah, Yeah, the
• 1:54:37
  excise man is happy and so and it's just a say.
• 1:54:41
  It's about whiskey, it's about Scotland, it's about Barnes.
• 1:54:43
  And as I've had the need to read more about him the last three
• 1:54:47
  years, it's been such a pleasure to kind of get to know what a
• 1:54:50
  character he was. And well then there's honestly,
• 1:54:53
  there's there's so many people who do amazing Burns nights
• 1:54:55
  where it's the full shebang and you get piped in.
• 1:54:57
  It's the Toast, the lads and the last season TMS and all this
• 1:54:59
  stuff and that's amazing. People do it.
• 1:55:00
  Well, we do it slightly differently.
• 1:55:02
  We're on the 22nd this year, which is a Wednesday in Glasgow.
• 1:55:06
  It's probably Wednesday everywhere, but it's we are in
• 1:55:10
  Glasgow on the Wednesday 22nd, so it's not on Burns night.
• 1:55:12
  So if you've got your full on rigmarole, all signal dancing,
• 1:55:15
  Burns night on the on the 25th, fancy there's a bit more low
• 1:55:18
  key. Come to us, it'll be on tickets
• 1:55:21
  go on are on sale. saintlukes.com/what's on it's
• 1:55:24
  Luke's glasgow.com/what's on or Google it or any of those kind
• 1:55:28
  of things. But it's a great night.
• 1:55:31
  It turned into an impromptu Caney last year.
• 1:55:33
  It's just fun, brilliant. And I say food's amazing.
• 1:55:35
  Jams are amazing. Come with whiskey, come with the
• 1:55:38
  bones, come for the food, come for the music, come for all
• 1:55:40
  four. It's.
• 1:55:41
  Been fast. Well, I, I same Thank you very
• 1:55:43
  much. Thanks for hosting us.
• 1:55:44
  How can people find out more about you?
• 1:55:46
  How can people keep in touch? So as I said at the top at the
• 1:55:50
  under score desert under score aisle, if you want to know about
• 1:55:52
  this venue in particular, what drams are available and one one
• 1:55:55
  more when I'm open at whiskey and cynicism on all social media
• 1:55:59
  for anything business related. So that's me.
• 1:56:02
  If you, if you need any trainings, any, you know, brand
• 1:56:05
  development, anything like that, you can find me there.
• 1:56:08
  And apart from that, wisconsinism.com.
• 1:56:11
  Find my e-mail and all that there and anything you need,
• 1:56:14
  drop your line. And probably also find you on
• 1:56:15
  sort of like the back pages of blended whiskey auctions.
• 1:56:20
  Yeah, exactly. I'm putting on them as well.
• 1:56:22
  So if the bins keep going up, you know, it's Simon's.
• 1:56:24
  You're getting that bin on the 19. 70s Valentine's.
• 1:56:26
  That's probably me too, so. Simon, that's been absolutely
• 1:56:28
  fantastic. Thank you so much.
• 1:56:30
  I can't stress enough. Go back, listen to episode 13.
• 1:56:32
  That's Simon's first episode that that way it originally had
• 1:56:35
  on him. Thank you so much for hosting
• 1:56:36
  us. Thank you very much for the
• 1:56:38
  jams. Absolutely fantastic.
• 1:56:39
  Don't forget. Yeah, you can keep up to date
• 1:56:41
  with everything that we're doing.
• 1:56:42
  Find us on the YouTube channel. The YouTube channel is growing.
• 1:56:45
  I think we're up to about 75 subscribers for fun text a month
• 1:56:49
  ago we're on 55, so we're doing not too bad.
• 1:56:52
  We're growing the whiskey. If you want to see what this
• 1:56:55
  place is actually like, see what Angus the whiskey fan looks like
• 1:56:58
  in real life. The header research for one
• 1:57:02
  episode only go to log in it I. Listen, I use Spotify.
• 1:57:05
  But as I said, we have. I have looked into the analytics
• 1:57:11
  on our YouTube channel. Believe it or not, the most
• 1:57:14
  watches that we have on our YouTube channel are from people
• 1:57:17
  watching on their TV. Right?
• 1:57:19
  So there you go. Set yourself down on a Friday
• 1:57:22
  night after work, pour yourself a reasonably sized DRAM, get
• 1:57:26
  onto the YouTube channel on your telly, and what to do is get
• 1:57:30
  onto the Facebook group Whiskey Stories Facebook.
• 1:57:32
  Group The best The best Facebook group in West Weekend.
• 1:57:35
  DRAM Rokoff. What about Glenn Burgie?
• 1:57:37
  It's the best. I've been in that the.
• 1:57:41
  Other day I was. Very good.
• 1:57:44
  Honestly, I can't stress enough. We've got such a great little
• 1:57:46
  community that's been grown with this.
• 1:57:48
  Thank you so much for everybody's listening.
• 1:57:49
  You'll get us on Instagram, Whiskey stories, pod.
• 1:57:52
  Yeah, just keep. Chance that our bottling is
• 1:57:54
  still available? The ball is very unlikely Get in
• 1:57:56
  touch. You'll either be able to find it
• 1:57:58
  through the the link in the bio. You'll also be able to find it
• 1:58:01
  over the bar at diggers if it's still available.
• 1:58:03
  Get in touch. There's there because we might
• 1:58:05
  have kept a few bottles there's. Only 69 bottles, 60 there.
• 1:58:09
  Were 69 bottles. Yeah, nine were sold.
• 1:58:12
  Five were bought for the outdoor only 69.
• 1:58:14
  In the world. In the world available, you are
• 1:58:16
  lucky enough to be listening to us and you have the opportunity.
• 1:58:19
  To get and wish you make it more bearable.
• 1:58:21
  Yeah, absolutely. 25 year old blended whiskey for £85.
• 1:58:26
  Absolute bargain. I mean, that's what, 8495, but
• 1:58:29
  you're out of the market. So yeah.
• 1:58:31
  For a 6 year old though, exactly. 19, yeah, 25 years.
• 1:58:35
  It's it's the same age as me. It's a 1999 vintage, very
• 1:58:38
  special year. You have to change the work.
• 1:58:41
  So let us know what you think about.
• 1:58:43
  Also say that I'm taking this throne back to athletic.
• 1:58:48
  Islands because. I mean in 90.
• 1:58:49
  Nine, everyone was terrified about their Millennium bug.
• 1:58:51
  They should have been worried about Ross Barr.
• 1:58:54
  Thanks for listening. Give us five stars.
• 1:58:57
  Thanks guys. Cheers Sajibar.