Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Dougal Gordon: The William Grant & Great, Great, Great, Grandson's Story

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Dougal Gordon: The William Grant & Great, Great, Great, Grandson's Story · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:02
  Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 0:04
  I always have to talk about it. The liquid was brilliant.
• 0:07
  You know, that's the thing, it has to be both and you don't
• 0:11
  become the biggest singer bowl in the world without having
• 0:13
  both. So there's if there's any from
• 0:16
  Linda or Bladnik who has only 1950s casks lying around that
• 0:21
  don't taste like what they should do, it was.
• 0:24
  Me. It was me then.
• 0:27
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 0:29
  So in my family, all the men who worked in the in the just theory
• 0:32
  and all the women got proper jobs.
• 0:33
  So they're all doctors and lawyers, They're the clever
• 0:35
  ones. And all the men just worked in
• 0:37
  this theory. Welcome on to the Whiskey
• 0:39
  Stories podcast, myself, Graeme Colgard.
• 0:40
  We are back in the athletic arms, back in the Diggers and
• 0:43
  sandwiched nicely between the James toilets and the bar.
• 0:47
  There's no Angus. There's no rust.
• 0:48
  It's just me and you, Chuck. Hello.
• 0:50
  How are you? And I'm very well.
• 0:51
  How are you? I'm OK.
• 0:53
  You're OK. Yeah, you're OK.
• 0:54
  Now. It's.
• 0:55
  Been a hard day for. A moment.
• 0:56
  It's been a hard day, but as ever, we do need somebody that
• 0:58
  knows what they're talking about when it comes to whiskey.
• 0:59
  So we do have our guest this evening, Dugo Gordon.
• 1:02
  Dugo, how are you? I'm doing very well, thank you.
• 1:04
  How are you? Very good.
• 1:06
  Thank you very much. We've had a couple of drums we
• 1:08
  have waiting on truck to arrive. Yeah, he took longer than we
• 1:10
  needed, but it's OK. We're forgiving him.
• 1:12
  Yeah. It's going to be a good evening,
• 1:13
  so thanks for having me. No, thank you very much for
• 1:15
  coming along. Welcome along to whiskey stories
• 1:17
  podcast. It's it's it's very nice to have
• 1:20
  met you tonight. It's very nice to see you.
• 1:21
  So for people listening back home who are listening anyway,
• 1:24
  not back home, but people are listening going who's this guy
• 1:27
  right do go? Who are you?
• 1:28
  Tell us who you are. It's a very good question.
• 1:31
  I'm very lucky that I'm the Glenfiddich brand ambassador
• 1:33
  here in Scotland. I'm also the founder of the
• 1:38
  company's great, great, great grandson.
• 1:41
  Wow. So.
• 1:42
  You're in the fam. I'm in the fam.
• 1:44
  Wow, I'm in the fam. I'm very lucky to be so.
• 1:48
  I forget sometimes which Grant, grant, grant it is, but great,
• 1:50
  great, great. It is.
• 1:50
  But it's it's an honour to be here.
• 1:53
  So thank you so much for having me.
• 1:54
  I know it's taken us a while to get the date in the diary but
• 1:57
  appreciate you having me on and. You've, I mean, I think, I think
• 2:00
  it was maybe episode 3 or 4 when we, we did say for the very
• 2:03
  first time that sponsorship opportunities are available.
• 2:06
  And then I actually looked straight down the camera and
• 2:08
  said even just a Glenferrick T-shirt.
• 2:10
  So you brought Glenferrick T-shirts in with you tonight?
• 2:12
  You know what if if you become a heavy at the Braemar games, you
• 2:15
  get one. But anyone else?
• 2:17
  Is waiting on that. I'm working on that.
• 2:19
  You definitely are, yeah. But no, well, thank you so much
• 2:22
  for coming along. As I say, we've we've chatted a
• 2:24
  few times and, you know, big, big fans of Glenferrick on the
• 2:28
  pod. Chuck.
• 2:29
  Yeah, yeah. Keen Glenfiddich drinker.
• 2:32
  Yeah, I mean, I I hated Glen FedEx purely because Cam loved
• 2:37
  it so much at work. But I do love.
• 2:39
  Well, yeah, Cam who? Big Scotch Cam.
• 2:44
  It means some of the Glen FedEx that he's got and his cupboard.
• 2:47
  Yeah, phenomenal collection. Yeah, exactly.
• 2:49
  And also I was actually just chatting before we start
• 2:52
  recording. I've got the book here, the
• 2:53
  Whiskey Stories Journal, which one day, if I get my spelling
• 2:57
  right, we'll we'll, we'll, we'll.
• 2:59
  Print this They recreated in 100 years as a tomb.
• 3:02
  Yeah, but do you think it'll be like Alfred Barnard?
• 3:04
  I know. I think it will be.
• 3:05
  No, but you gotta have a dream, mate.
• 3:07
  Yeah, you gotta. Have a dream Big Finn Thompson's
• 3:10
  Finn Thompson's great great great grandson to be like.
• 3:12
  This is actually an original of Graeme Colegar's Whiskey Stories
• 3:15
  podcast. Recreated to really show
• 3:17
  dyslexia. Exactly.
• 3:21
  Still wasn't still wasn't cured so it's OK there's.
• 3:24
  Some really, don't worry. I've got it, so it's OK.
• 3:26
  I'm allowed. I'm allowed to say, oh, here we
• 3:28
  go. Una haben, yeah, no.
• 3:30
  Bengiri Yeah. You're not going to get that
• 3:31
  one. Yeah.
• 3:34
  But it's all spelled phonetically, my phonetically as
• 3:37
  well. But no, but I would say it's a,
• 3:40
  it's a source of frustration that maybe Glenfedic hasn't
• 3:44
  appeared too much in the Walk 3 jams category.
• 3:47
  But what I can say is because like, say you're Glenfedic brand
• 3:50
  ambassador, but you're, you're you're a member of the William
• 3:52
  Grant's son's family is a Balveni Caribbean cast features
• 3:58
  so much as people's walk 3 drams, one of them because they
• 4:02
  just see it as, I don't know, is it a gateway whiskey for people?
• 4:05
  Is it a whiskey? That's I would say it's a
• 4:08
  whiskey that's common enough for so many people to reach so many
• 4:11
  people, but still slightly obscure enough.
• 4:15
  So when you're drinking it, you think you're drinking or you you
• 4:17
  feel like you're drinking something a little bit more rare
• 4:20
  and exclusive. It's it's almost said in the
• 4:22
  same terms as like your, your dad's friends.
• 4:25
  Like have you heard of the McCallum?
• 4:26
  It's like, have you heard the Bavini?
• 4:28
  Yeah. Yeah, you're gonna get that.
• 4:29
  I think there's two things to that in a way that sometimes Gun
• 4:32
  Feder can be a victim of his own success in a way, and Bavini
• 4:37
  also both fantastic liquids, but has a sort of made made more
• 4:41
  connoisseur brand about it. And so when people come to like
• 4:48
  knowing the bigger brands, they may may shy away from it.
• 4:52
  And then that's we have Bob any in that side with who have, you
• 4:54
  know, creating, you know, cast finishing and from, you know, in
• 4:58
  the 80s with David Stewart and I.
• 5:01
  When I talk to people about if you have to go visit one
• 5:04
  distillery because you know you've been to so many and you
• 5:06
  think once you see one you can see them all, that's.
• 5:09
  My, that's my. That's my, that is.
• 5:11
  I mean, I love going to see different deciries and I will go
• 5:13
  and visit and I haven't visited as many as I would like, but I'm
• 5:16
  I'm going to keep pushing. I'm on 16 or something which is
• 5:19
  rookie numbers I think. Well, they are more than me.
• 5:21
  I mean like you say, this is where on the pod we've often
• 5:25
  discussed like I have had that opinion previously that how can
• 5:31
  how can you make the same thing from the same 3?
• 5:35
  Ingredients, three different ingredients.
• 5:36
  That's it. That's why I think how Scotch is
• 5:38
  amazing in that when I talk to people, obviously there's great
• 5:42
  spirits around the world, but Scotch is so controlled in a way
• 5:45
  that you've only got three ingredients and we all taste
• 5:47
  different. And that's what almost is the
• 5:49
  most magical thing about it personally for me and how we do
• 5:53
  it. And again, talking about above
• 5:54
  any, if you're going to go see a distillery, you can go to
• 5:57
  Barbary because you can see from grain to bottle basically on
• 6:00
  site. Now, not everything is obviously
• 6:02
  grown on site, Not we don't do all the entire mold things
• 6:04
  there. But if you want to see real
• 6:06
  craft and see how they made whiskey back in the day, you
• 6:10
  know, it was modern in the 1940s, you know what I mean?
• 6:13
  Yeah, yeah. And now it's, and now it's the
• 6:15
  sort of like way of doing things.
• 6:18
  And I think from a from a family point of view, having both is
• 6:23
  great because we talk about Glenfiddich later on.
• 6:25
  But, you know, absolute, you know, big place, beautiful.
• 6:31
  And then you've got this other side of it.
• 6:32
  Where is it? Belvedi might be, it might not
• 6:34
  be as efficient to actually run it like that.
• 6:37
  But because we have both and we wanted to keep those
• 6:39
  craftspeople and those crafts people alive.
• 6:41
  Yeah, it's been a very important from, you know, my grandpa and
• 6:44
  his brother, they've always wanted to recur that.
• 6:47
  And before we still hold on to that.
• 6:48
  So that's really important to us.
• 6:50
  And of course, you know, was it not Christmas morning that they
• 6:54
  were all taken out to build that?
• 6:56
  I take it Christmases around at your house a bit better?
• 6:59
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 7:00
  And big stones to try and build. So the distillery nice and
• 7:03
  quick. Well, I always make the joke
• 7:04
  that William Grant had nine children because he wanted some
• 7:08
  free cheap labor to build, to build this decidiary.
• 7:11
  It's a similar. Story, but like Gervin as well,
• 7:13
  it's not made in like 2. Years.
• 7:15
  It was less as a year. Right, we're gonna we're gonna,
• 7:17
  I mean, I have to actually say just on another subject on on on
• 7:21
  the fact that I was thinking about this on the way in and
• 7:26
  teaspoon drams have been something that we've talked an
• 7:28
  awful lot about recently as well because we had on episode 100
• 7:33
  couple of weeks ago, Ross produced a ward head.
• 7:36
  Yes, now ward head. He asked, what is ward head?
• 7:39
  I was able to go that is teaspoon Glenfiddich with
• 7:41
  Balveni now. Correct.
• 7:44
  Teaspoon balveni with Glenfiddich is.
• 7:48
  Burnside. Burnside.
• 7:49
  Yes. And if it's from, if it's from
• 7:51
  caneheads, because they own the trademark.
• 7:53
  Oh. All right, here we got a new.
• 7:55
  Information, yeah. No, but wait a minute, we had a
• 7:57
  whiskey sponge. Well, Delphi have done it about
• 7:59
  27 year old. Well, go and ask.
• 8:02
  Get someone from Ken heads on, they'll say so when I went.
• 8:04
  Well, we have tried to get something from Ken, so we will
• 8:07
  continue to say this until someone comes on and tells us.
• 8:11
  But. So, yeah, so they they're, they
• 8:14
  own the trademark for that style.
• 8:15
  Yeah, Yeah. Cool.
• 8:17
  Nice. So I suppose it's all yeah
• 8:19
  again, but sometimes these things become such in folklore
• 8:22
  that people people use it. Yeah.
• 8:25
  And in a way for an independent ball, I can kind of understand
• 8:28
  how that how unintentionally or not becomes about it.
• 8:31
  So the. Other thing is the 1 and I have
• 8:34
  to say it was I was unsure about buying it at the time.
• 8:38
  I'm so glad I did buy it and as of Saturday we're recording this
• 8:42
  on Tuesday. It's nearly finished.
• 8:44
  When we were up in Dornack and we were visiting the Thompson
• 8:47
  brothers. Oh yeah.
• 8:48
  I was sort of pushed to buy a bottle.
• 8:53
  I'll describe the bottle first. It's got a lovely as the
• 8:57
  Thompson brothers do. Their labeling is fantastic.
• 9:00
  It's got curling stones on it. Now.
• 9:01
  You'll know straight away to go what I'm talking about here, but
• 9:04
  it was a. Dalrymple Yeah, yeah.
• 9:06
  And I was like, what else? Dalrymple never heard of it.
• 9:08
  And then I was explaining it's teaspooned Ailsa Bay, which is
• 9:12
  another distillery owned by the William Grant's son.
• 9:14
  So it's a cracker, an absolute cracker.
• 9:16
  I mean, full body cherry. Love it, love it.
• 9:19
  Is is Ailsa Bay normally peated? Yes.
• 9:22
  So this is unpeated. Yeah, it's both.
• 9:25
  It's it's, it's absolutely like we have brought out as a brand.
• 9:29
  It's probably in sort of a bit of a subdued point in terms of
• 9:33
  branding, but in terms of whiskey production, it is it's a
• 9:36
  very big place and it's one of these amazing sort of unique
• 9:41
  distilleries out there because it takes one person to run it.
• 9:45
  OK, Really, this guy's on shift. So there's five guys on shift,
• 9:49
  one person in the entirety of the Lacillary to do because it
• 9:52
  was built in 2007 that only took that did take two years.
• 9:56
  Maybe that's what we took 2007. And so, you know, it's still
• 10:00
  relatively young, but I think it's like the fifth biggest
• 10:02
  distillery in Scotland. Malt.
• 10:04
  Yeah, not so. And that means we can we can use
• 10:08
  that to sell to other people. So the malt might go to other
• 10:11
  people. So if you want to do that.
• 10:12
  So that's I. And it came out as a brand and
• 10:15
  it was all about really being sciency and really geeky.
• 10:17
  Now, that's great. I think maybe the problem was
• 10:20
  that is that, you know, we're the whiskey geeks here.
• 10:24
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:24
  But in terms of global style, you know, what would there's
• 10:27
  still a lot of educated to be done.
• 10:28
  And I think it didn't quite. Yeah.
• 10:33
  Resonate with maybe the wider audience, but really interesting
• 10:36
  liquid and yeah, so, so fantastic and great.
• 10:39
  Liquid. Yeah, I remember when it first
• 10:40
  came out and it was, you know, as you say, really going down
• 10:43
  the whiskey geekiness and it was the first sweet pea that's.
• 10:47
  Right. I think like 12 sweet parts per
• 10:49
  million we used to call it. Yeah, yeah.
• 10:51
  Fun. Thing and like the original
• 10:52
  bottles had a small amount of granite from yeah from the
• 10:57
  granite deposit where all the curling yeah.
• 10:59
  Because that's where all the curling, yeah, that's the key.
• 11:01
  That's the. It was a crate.
• 11:02
  It was a crate. Yeah, we actually, we're really
• 11:05
  lucky at Scotch when we had the bars 3rd birthday, James Mccree
• 11:09
  I think was still the Rep for in in the UK.
• 11:13
  It's now in in Australia doing I think he's the Hendrix Rep over
• 11:17
  there. But he gave us like 2 cast
• 11:19
  samples which we did a whiskey tasting for old, present and
• 11:25
  new. Oh yeah.
• 11:26
  And that was our example of our new.
• 11:27
  Yeah, yeah, along with something else.
• 11:29
  But great liquid. Really love it.
• 11:33
  It's funny because as we're recording this, we're a few
• 11:36
  weeks before that we going out, but I was writing the the
• 11:40
  newsletter and I wrote this paragraph about 100 times and it
• 11:45
  was basically episode 105 Things I've Learned from doing a
• 11:49
  whiskey podcast. The first thing was always back
• 11:53
  up because I've deleted 2 episodes by mistake, but it goes
• 11:58
  through. But the last #5 and I couldn't
• 12:00
  get the right title and heading for it and I stuck with it.
• 12:03
  But basically, I was basically the heading was lesson #5 is we
• 12:08
  are the minority, right? And see, when you say that, you
• 12:11
  sound like, Oh my God, what's he going to Boston right now?
• 12:15
  You know? But we are.
• 12:17
  And I think what's happened is I found myself surrounded by too
• 12:21
  many people like yourselves now since doing the podcast where
• 12:24
  I've learnt a hell of a lot of information in the last two
• 12:26
  years and I've put myself, I'm now in circles of whiskey
• 12:30
  drinkers. We're talking about teaspoons.
• 12:33
  It's so easy and I've used the Dalrymple that I've used that
• 12:38
  for giving to people as a drink and stuff like that.
• 12:41
  I said try this. You'll absolutely love it.
• 12:43
  It's fantastic. And then I say, and I'll say off
• 12:45
  the cuff, it's a teaspoon. Elsa, Elsa BI Don't know what
• 12:50
  it's teaspoon with I'm. Not sure either, it's a good
• 12:53
  question. I'll find out here, find out,
• 12:54
  but but basically I'll say asked, I'll use it as a
• 12:58
  throwaway. Common.
• 12:59
  It's a teaspoon. It's which makes it technically
• 13:02
  blinded malt and people go first of all, I've had some people go
• 13:07
  blinded malt. What does that mean?
• 13:09
  And I'm saying, all right, shit, now almost I've taken it for
• 13:13
  granted. The people who, and these are
• 13:15
  people that like a drum, you know, these are people that go,
• 13:17
  I enjoy a drum. But it's people that haven't
• 13:19
  bothered like to go as mental as we have into let's just instead
• 13:24
  of just drinking a drama and enjoying it, we have to have
• 13:26
  this. What's that mean?
• 13:27
  What's that do? What's this?
• 13:28
  So basically what I was trying to say in that that paragraph,
• 13:31
  if you subscribe to the newsletter, that's basically
• 13:33
  what we are. I found myself being you because
• 13:36
  it's easy and from a marketing point of view, and I'm
• 13:38
  interested to speak to you from that point is, yeah, you've
• 13:41
  already mentioned that you could try and appeal to that tiny
• 13:44
  little niche. So I'm going to sell an awful
• 13:46
  lot of bottles, whereas like you say, a Glenfetic 12 for example,
• 13:50
  you'll see everywhere in the world.
• 13:52
  So it's interesting that, but we do have drams in front of us.
• 13:57
  I've got 2 truck, what you've got 2 as well.
• 13:59
  What are you drumming? I've got the from the new batch
• 14:03
  of mystery malts. I got a four year old Rassi.
• 14:05
  Nice. I think it's OK.
• 14:07
  It's OK. Yeah, I mean, you know,
• 14:10
  everyone's a winner when they get that bottle, but I'm I'm the
• 14:12
  ones I've tasted so far. Probably not my favorites.
• 14:16
  Cool to taste. Yeah.
• 14:17
  Yeah, just a quick even for a rasi.
• 14:18
  Quite unusual, I thought. Yeah, and I'm assuming I'm
• 14:20
  petered Rasi. I do like that stuff.
• 14:23
  I think it's like for a young distillery, they've been
• 14:25
  creating a lot and I've always got a bit of sweet spot for them
• 14:27
  because during COVID we did a a tasting with them, you know, the
• 14:31
  online thing that everyone was doing, but they were so young,
• 14:33
  they didn't have any whiskey yet.
• 14:35
  So it's like different like cast samples or new make spirit.
• 14:38
  And it was really good, but it was like I just wanted to try.
• 14:41
  And then when it came out, it was actually, I was quite, I was
• 14:43
  surprised because I think when you talk about new young
• 14:46
  whiskey, yeah, it can always be a bit.
• 14:48
  I mean, I've had some really. Pokey, yeah.
• 14:50
  Whereas I think they what they're doing is quite
• 14:52
  interesting. But no, I've had some really
• 14:53
  good ones from them. I think just for me, this is,
• 14:57
  yeah, it's an unusual. I had it on Sunday.
• 14:59
  I would say I'd probably agree with you on that one.
• 15:01
  But on the subject of the mystery, most another huge
• 15:04
  success, or at least from the Thompson brothers.
• 15:06
  Yeah, crazy. And and the fact is, and I
• 15:09
  watched the video of the two of them opening a flagon.
• 15:11
  I watched that video too. Yeah, they have this perfect
• 15:14
  dynamic where Simon was chatting away and whilst he's chatting
• 15:19
  with two people chatting down to camera who thought of that idea
• 15:23
  but trying to get whiskey down the camera but but at the same
• 15:26
  time. Phil's just like digging away.
• 15:29
  Phil's digging away and what was great is it worked so perfectly
• 15:33
  was I was watching him be like, is he going to get that?
• 15:35
  Is he going to get that stopper right?
• 15:37
  At the same time, Simon was explaining everything that he
• 15:40
  was explaining. But one of the things that I
• 15:42
  really think has been hugely successful for the Mystery Malt
• 15:45
  has been their use of younger whiskey and new, new
• 15:49
  distilleries. And I think from a marketing
• 15:50
  point of view, it's very difficult for your Glenn
• 15:53
  Webbis's Rassies and some of the other ones that they they're
• 15:56
  working with. I mean, the Glenn Webbis one
• 15:57
  from the last release is absolutely cracking.
• 16:01
  Absolutely loved it. Torn of egg as well.
• 16:03
  They did the Torn of egg 7. Torn of egg was class.
• 16:05
  Yeah, really, really good. But these are distilleries that
• 16:07
  unless like there'll be so many people, the mass whiskey market
• 16:10
  would probably go. I don't really want to drink a
• 16:12
  new whiskey because I don't know if I can trust it being that
• 16:14
  good. If you buy the mystery malt
• 16:16
  tough, you've got it. And by the way, if you enjoy it,
• 16:19
  then then great. You know, that's that's the most
• 16:20
  important thing. But right do go.
• 16:24
  Come on. Sorry.
• 16:24
  What are you so sorry, Chuck? You've got the first.
• 16:26
  That's your first. Yeah.
• 16:27
  You've got what's like I've got. I've gone on brand.
• 16:30
  Breathe, man. Sorry.
• 16:31
  Yeah, I'm really. I've just got so much going for
• 16:34
  like a chat. We need to get through it.
• 16:35
  He's just too excited. I'm.
• 16:36
  Just too excited. I am.
• 16:37
  I've got a Johnny Walker Ruby. I've just finished the Johnny
• 16:40
  Walker Ruby. I thought we'd give it a go.
• 16:41
  Yeah, we thought, you know, we got to try.
• 16:43
  Smell new stuff smells good, I thought.
• 16:44
  The nose was good. Very soft.
• 16:46
  Yeah, very soft. But you know what?
• 16:47
  Easy kind. Of what are you expecting?
• 16:48
  I think exactly so I. Think if you were to put it on
• 16:51
  your cornflakes. You think you make a really good
• 16:54
  you. Wouldn't be jumping in the
• 16:55
  imagine that. Imagine that be like really good
• 16:56
  in like a boulevardy riff or like an old fashioned kind of or
• 17:00
  even like a Manhattan kind of thing.
• 17:01
  It smells fantastic. But I've gone on brand.
• 17:03
  I have now over the bar a bottle of Glenfedic that you don't
• 17:06
  often see and haven't just tasted it.
• 17:09
  Glenfedic that you don't often taste.
• 17:11
  I've got the Glenfedic Vintage Cask and it's a PT.
• 17:15
  Yeah. Interesting, isn't it?
• 17:16
  Yeah. Yeah, going for them, I don't
• 17:18
  think, I don't think. Oh, I've never tried any any.
• 17:21
  So fire and cane, fire and cane. But so we do a week every year,
• 17:24
  like above any. So they have a week of pee,
• 17:26
  which is a skew which they have, which is always great.
• 17:30
  And I think if I'm trying to get people into drinking peaty
• 17:33
  whiskey, yeah, I'll always go well, instead of going straight
• 17:36
  to Isla because obviously you get a lot of the iodine
• 17:38
  medicinally style of it, which people just hate.
• 17:41
  Either try a Nails Bay or you go for maybe a week of Pete
• 17:46
  Glymphatic or you go for like some of the Highland Highland
• 17:49
  Malt, which has got PT version. Yeah, because it's just a
• 17:52
  different type. Of mainland Pete just.
• 17:53
  Doesn't exactly, it's not exactly and it's just a nice
• 17:56
  transition. And again, if you don't like
• 17:58
  that, then you're probably not going to enjoy the Highland
• 17:59
  ones. And that's and that's eats the
• 18:01
  eats the right. I mean, I love a line of
• 18:02
  whiskey, so I'm always came for a bit of a bit of hospital, as I
• 18:07
  call it. But you've you've not brought
• 18:09
  Glenfiddich T-shirts in with you, but we can forgive you
• 18:12
  because you've brought in an array of bottles which.
• 18:15
  Very unique, yeah. When Angus is missing this,
• 18:17
  unfortunately, but Angus and I always have a wee look at each
• 18:19
  other when a guest comes with a bag and that bag clinks.
• 18:22
  We're always a bit like, Oh yeah, so we're on here, but
• 18:25
  you've poured us a drum. What are we?
• 18:26
  What are we drinking right? Now, so yeah, I was in Canaan
• 18:28
  heads few months ago actually, and I thought, you know, this
• 18:32
  would be a good thing to buy for like a tasting or something.
• 18:35
  And it was AI think it's a 27 year old ward head.
• 18:39
  So we're talking about the teaspoon here or reef.
• 18:44
  Let's see. It says it's a refill.
• 18:45
  Bourbon's Hogs head. That's delicious.
• 18:48
  But it's it's it's lovely, isn't it?
• 18:50
  I mean, it's quintessentially glymphatic.
• 18:52
  So you get all those sort of pears IGA.
• 18:54
  It's quite it's very floral. I think it's like this baked
• 19:02
  apple, but not baked out sort of fresh apple right off the tree.
• 19:05
  It's that green apple Y side of it again, floral sort of apple
• 19:08
  blossom as well. And then it's reasonable ABV.
• 19:12
  So it's 5151.8. So it's a nice, nice texture to
• 19:16
  it as well. So it's.
• 19:17
  Lovely. Thank you very.
• 19:18
  Much. Yeah, well, thank you.
• 19:19
  But I was listening to your the 100th episode.
• 19:22
  I was telling you and like, how do I talk about Ward?
• 19:25
  I was like, bring it on the Blade show already something
• 19:28
  different and been unique, and I was like, well, they're gonna
• 19:32
  have to deal with it. They're gonna have to.
• 19:34
  If we don't have any more or less 2720, you know, 27 year old
• 19:38
  single casket, yeah, teaspoon all be it.
• 19:40
  But at the same time, I mean, because the thing about the
• 19:42
  teaspoon is you never know how much a teaspoon actually is.
• 19:45
  Is it a full teaspoon? Is it half a casket?
• 19:46
  Is it said to be teaspooned? I think, I think it's that's
• 19:49
  that utopia is a teaspoon. I can't see why you'd otherwise.
• 19:53
  You're becoming a blender, right?
• 19:54
  Of course. Exactly.
• 19:55
  I'm just did point out 15 milliliters is a teaspoon.
• 20:00
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd do that.
• 20:02
  My baking's not that good. I wouldn't.
• 20:03
  Know all the Angus off the top of his head?
• 20:05
  We're like, well, of course, you know, it's 15 milliliters.
• 20:07
  Just imagine that one guy with a bunghole just like.
• 20:10
  Jesus, but there we go. Lovely.
• 20:13
  And a crack and drop there. Thank you very much.
• 20:15
  Delicious. Yeah, there's a lot of full
• 20:16
  circles being finished off here. Glenn Ferrick was one of
• 20:20
  Angus's, what, 3 drams and on episode #1 truck.
• 20:25
  We rekindled our friendship at Glenfiddich tasting.
• 20:30
  Yeah. And it wasn't really a it took a
• 20:33
  little bit longer than that evening because I don't think we
• 20:35
  actually chatted that night. No, no we didn't.
• 20:38
  But you, you, you. Scoffed the the words that came
• 20:41
  out of my mouth. But I don't think we actually.
• 20:42
  Talked. Angus and I sat there at
• 20:43
  Glenfiddich Taste brought by Mark Thompson when I was just
• 20:45
  Glenfiddich brand ambassador, and he said anyone got any tasty
• 20:49
  notes? We didn't know who.
• 20:50
  This guy sitting, I could only see your back.
• 20:52
  He had a baseball cap on, as you usually do.
• 20:54
  Yeah. And you gave.
• 20:55
  I thought the tasting note was cola cubes and church pews.
• 21:00
  Yeah. To which Angus and I were like,
• 21:04
  who's this wank? The first time I've heard that,
• 21:09
  but yeah. And then and then it transpired
• 21:11
  it was Chuck. Chuck Kelly.
• 21:12
  We were like, we'd been at school.
• 21:13
  We were at school together. And then it wasn't long after
• 21:17
  that you disappeared off on your travels.
• 21:19
  Yeah. And but we used that story which
• 21:22
  started the feature of the wanky taste I.
• 21:24
  Think I on the podcast, I generally think I so I when I
• 21:27
  listened to the podcast for the first time was when Big Cam was
• 21:30
  on, Scottish Cam was on and I was driving.
• 21:34
  I was in Japan at the time. I was driving car from Tokyo to
• 21:38
  Kagashima and I think I listened to his episode and then I was
• 21:41
  like, oh, listen to a few more of these.
• 21:42
  Ross is on the first one. And I think the genuine words
• 21:45
  that came out your mouth was like, so I heard the worst
• 21:48
  decent I've ever heard from this absolute arsenal and then just
• 21:52
  like ran me through much and then said that.
• 21:54
  And I think I messaged you guys and was like, that's not what I
• 21:56
  said and you've hurt my feelings.
• 22:00
  I know. Here.
• 22:00
  Yeah, here. I am.
• 22:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was so there's that
• 22:04
  there's I mentioned earlier on one of my it was my first ever
• 22:08
  whiskey tasting as a as a. Fresh adult.
• 22:11
  A young, fresh shaver again. Glenn Finnick.
• 22:15
  I'm still about that man, yeah. Glenn Finnick tasting and again,
• 22:20
  there's something about the brand that is so easy to fall in
• 22:23
  love with. In fact, when you were talking
• 22:25
  about the I thought you were I thought you'd be better brand
• 22:29
  trained than yard ago because when you talked about the three,
• 22:31
  we were talking about the three components of make whiskey.
• 22:34
  I thought you were going to go in and of course the the
• 22:36
  triangular bottle. Yeah, I bet you were going to
• 22:39
  bust into that. But it must be I mean, first of
• 22:41
  all, to be to grow up with that as family heritage.
• 22:45
  Wow. Could you I'm putting you on the
• 22:49
  spot here. Could you talk us through the
• 22:52
  family history? Sure, Let's let's hear that.
• 22:55
  Part 2 coming up. Give us a quick yeah, no, no,
• 22:59
  no. Yeah, so, OK, so it's 1887, and
• 23:03
  this is when William Grant and his nine children decided to
• 23:08
  build his history. And sorry to interrupt already,
• 23:11
  do you have any inclination why? Yes, right.
• 23:15
  Good. So, but we'll, we'll talk about
• 23:17
  William Grant initially. So he'd been working at Mortlock
• 23:21
  Distillery before then for about 26 years.
• 23:24
  So he, it was about 46 at the time when he got a telegram from
• 23:31
  Kadu from I can't remember her name, but a lady who I think
• 23:37
  who, who, who helped run place. And she said that these things
• 23:41
  are for sale, the stills and the some of the kit.
• 23:42
  And he's like, OK, that sounds like a good opportunity, right?
• 23:46
  Because they'd be saving up. So it wasn't just him.
• 23:48
  We were talking about William Grant a lot.
• 23:49
  But actually there's a lot of him and his family all going in
• 23:53
  together and trying to do it and build themselves.
• 23:57
  And he walked the 12 miles down to Kadu that day, went and
• 24:01
  bought it and then walked the 12 miles back.
• 24:03
  OK. So it's pretty much there's a
• 24:05
  lot of commitment there. OK, so you knew 1.
• 24:07
  So you got all this second hand stuff and it got carted up
• 24:10
  because there's no trains. So it all got carted up and then
• 24:13
  they started building. And so it took them all about a
• 24:16
  year to do it. And the story is they only had a
• 24:19
  stone Mason as their sort of expertise on the side to, to
• 24:24
  help them do it. And then on Christmas Day, as we
• 24:28
  talked about earlier, Christmas Day is always, it's always no
• 24:30
  Santa Claus in our house. It's always William Grant.
• 24:35
  They've decided to have this, have the spirit run from the
• 24:40
  stills. And I always, when I'm doing a
• 24:42
  tasting, I always tell the jokes basically.
• 24:45
  That's because William Grant's quite a shrewd man and that he
• 24:48
  knows that nothing ever gets fucking done the first week of
• 24:50
  January. So you wanted to have it already
• 24:53
  start up and running. So that was sort of the
• 24:55
  deadline. And because people think it's
• 24:57
  very poetic, but it was something, something other.
• 25:01
  And so that was that was the start of it.
• 25:03
  And then for the first few years, so it's 1887.
• 25:06
  So the first, you know, 10 years, they, they made spirits
• 25:08
  and just sold this blenders. Yeah.
• 25:10
  So they didn't do any blending themselves.
• 25:12
  So they've got a, a shift to Aberdeen, down to Edinburgh.
• 25:15
  And then the Patterson crash happened in 1898, I think it
• 25:19
  was. And they managed to, they
• 25:23
  weren't over, not the right word, but they, they weren't
• 25:27
  invested in that side of it that much.
• 25:28
  So they didn't, they weren't hit by it as as much as other people
• 25:32
  were. And it was at that point that
• 25:34
  William Grant says, I'm going to blend it myself.
• 25:37
  And so he was our first Mass splendor.
• 25:39
  Wow. He then went on to then we made
• 25:42
  grants. OK so the series called
• 25:44
  Glenfiddich because it's Gaelic for value of the deer.
• 25:47
  Yep, 12 pointed stag. You, you tell me that I didn't
• 25:52
  know that either. And so from that point, blending
• 25:58
  himself and again, it's all grants.
• 26:00
  That was the that was the product they sold at the time.
• 26:03
  And they would buy in the grain whiskey and they would blend
• 26:06
  themselves. And then there's a few points in
• 26:09
  history which I'll talk, we'll skip, we'll skip through
• 26:11
  quickly. But we talked about times during
• 26:14
  Prohibition and for a lot of distilleries that First World
• 26:19
  War prohibition, obviously that time is, you know, particularly
• 26:22
  in Britain, pretty awful for everyone, not alone the the
• 26:27
  sitteries themselves. So during those periods there's
• 26:32
  rationing, but there's always this ethos of obviously trying
• 26:35
  to make as much spirit as possible because it's sort of
• 26:37
  this long term look. And so it was Wing Grant dies
• 26:41
  sadly early to in 1920s. And so it was his sons who sort
• 26:45
  of carried on that mantra through prohibition.
• 26:47
  And then when he came out of prohibition in early 1930s,
• 26:51
  there was only something like less than 10 working mysteries
• 26:54
  in Scotland. That's right.
• 26:55
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 26:55
  Because they'd all shut down. And so two of them were
• 26:58
  Glenfiddich and Bovania. So they heard all the stock that
• 27:01
  could sell to a lot of the major markets that was sent.
• 27:04
  So that was that was a big moment in terms of US surviving
• 27:08
  because you talk about 1930s and 1940s, we managed to carry on
• 27:17
  and then second war happens. I go see dreadful time for
• 27:20
  everyone. And it was interesting.
• 27:23
  They, I was listening to a video of my grandfather and his
• 27:29
  brother and they were talking about, yeah, the second war was
• 27:32
  obviously awful. They were a bit too young to
• 27:34
  fight. They were a bit young, but they
• 27:37
  talked about the after the war in the 50s.
• 27:39
  It was almost worse in Britain. Because it's not going to.
• 27:42
  Affect, it's not going to affect all this money from the US we
• 27:46
  were given, we had to pay it back.
• 27:48
  And so all the rationing was carried on.
• 27:51
  And it was really at this point that the business changed really
• 27:56
  forever in a way that they decided to create something
• 28:01
  different. And this was selling Glenfidic
• 28:04
  as it's by itself outside of Scotland.
• 28:07
  Yeah, because, you know, probably for like since, you
• 28:09
  know, 19th days we did and we were quite proud of that.
• 28:11
  We had there was a a pure mold. Yeah.
• 28:15
  And you go into local pub in in the north Scotland and if you
• 28:20
  ask for a brand, they knew that you worked for the distillery
• 28:22
  because people would just ask for whatever's there.
• 28:24
  And it blends in single moulds so well.
• 28:26
  So people, people would just say, can I get a whiskey?
• 28:28
  And they would just get given a whiskey.
• 28:29
  But if you actually came in and said.
• 28:31
  I wanted a Glendoronic or a Glymphatic or they knew you.
• 28:33
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Industry.
• 28:35
  Yeah. And so it was all done from in
• 28:40
  house suite. And I was funny.
• 28:42
  My grandpa always talked about this.
• 28:44
  We're always really proud that we bottled on site because you
• 28:46
  weren't allowed to bottle on site for a lot of time.
• 28:48
  We were actually grandfathered in.
• 28:49
  So this is excise point, right? OK.
• 28:52
  You weren't allowed to mash and distill on the same day, is that
• 28:56
  right? Yeah, the excise men would open
• 28:57
  up the doors for you. Because they always used to say
• 29:00
  that the two people that would have the keys would be the
• 29:02
  excise men and the distillery manager.
• 29:04
  Yeah. So, All right, Right.
• 29:05
  OK. So because this is the this is
• 29:07
  the fascinating bet, as you've mentioned there, the better that
• 29:10
  again, I'm still the history part of it getting my head round
• 29:14
  is you're right. So many distilleries, they were
• 29:17
  just spirit producing factories right up until, you know,
• 29:21
  probably Glenn Philip being one of them to start bottling on
• 29:24
  site. Yeah.
• 29:24
  To make that, to start that trend.
• 29:26
  Yeah. So, you know, beforehand it used
• 29:28
  to be we've we've had, you know, the guys from Gordon McPhail on
• 29:32
  talking about, you know, they would send casks up to
• 29:35
  distilleries to get the new make spirit filled and you'd have
• 29:37
  grocers and other people doing that.
• 29:40
  So what we're Glenn. So Glenn Philnick were were the
• 29:42
  first to bottle on site then or. What were the first but one of
• 29:45
  them? But again, it got it got
• 29:48
  grandfather. So sorry, Grandfather rings
• 29:50
  when? Yeah, grandfather, right site.
• 29:52
  Yeah. So yeah, when you've already
• 29:54
  been doing something and then the things change, but so they
• 29:57
  don't have to let the government say you guys can do it, but no
• 29:59
  one else can because you've already been doing it.
• 30:01
  Because they didn't trust any of the consideries to tell them how
• 30:06
  much spirit they make because of all the duty they would have to
• 30:08
  pay you've. Been above board so we can
• 30:10
  continue. Later in theory or or yeah or
• 30:12
  yeah and now you're not but you can still carry on.
• 30:14
  Yeah, so, but interesting that but we haven't had to we, we
• 30:17
  were able to sell in cases of five.
• 30:21
  So if you're a pub like pub, like a Diggers pub like a
• 30:23
  Diggers, you have to buy 5 cases of glymphatic 12 or glymphatic
• 30:26
  at a time, right? Yeah, right.
• 30:27
  Now some people say that's, well, that's not very good.
• 30:29
  But then if, if it was good quality stuff, then people would
• 30:33
  buy it and they would also have to shift it because they bought
• 30:35
  5 cases of it, which is pretty unheard of because then we just
• 30:37
  always sort of bottled at a time almost.
• 30:39
  So it was, that was, it's quite a lucrative for us.
• 30:43
  And again, in the 50s rationing all the distilleries were
• 30:48
  quoted. So you can only make so much,
• 30:51
  right. And So what we did was we went
• 30:53
  to some of our local, other distilleries.
• 30:56
  I'd say Local 1 was Glendronic, 1 was Bladnik.
• 30:58
  OK, Yeah. Yeah, incredibly local, but
• 31:03
  Glendronic, their, my grandfather and his brother,
• 31:08
  their cousins worked at or and owned Glendronic.
• 31:11
  So it's been a kind of, so some of my family have heritage of
• 31:14
  Glendronic as well. Now they've sold it since then.
• 31:18
  But what we did is we, we would buy their quota from them and we
• 31:21
  would take half the quota. So we'd have stock for our stuff
• 31:24
  and we would make stuff for Glendronic.
• 31:27
  And so we would make spirit for Glendronic and we would give it
• 31:29
  a cost price. So they didn't.
• 31:30
  So because they couldn't, because it wasn't a, a cost
• 31:32
  effect for them to do themselves because it was so small, right.
• 31:35
  So the operating costs. So there's there.
• 31:38
  If there's anything from Glendronic or Bladnik who has
• 31:41
  any 1950s casks lying around that don't taste like what they
• 31:46
  should do, that's so it. It was.
• 31:48
  Made. It was made, then it was.
• 31:49
  Made at Glenn, yeah. Exactly, that's what's mental.
• 31:53
  That's fair, yeah. Yeah.
• 31:54
  And obviously this is before any of the SDWA coming in and doing
• 31:58
  all the what is Scotch and what's all the rules.
• 32:02
  This is before the time you can put anything on the bottle,
• 32:04
  really. And so this is, yeah, it's quite
• 32:07
  unique. So yeah, anyone out there just
• 32:09
  can find. So this is the point then?
• 32:12
  So so now Gwen Fennec are producing pure malt, which is
• 32:16
  what we know as single malt. I think, sorry, lots of people
• 32:19
  are. So yeah, lots of people are
• 32:20
  doing it and it's all N Scotland.
• 32:22
  Again, there's no differentiating between.
• 32:24
  If you're in the pub, you ask for whiskey.
• 32:26
  It could have been a blend, it could have been a single malt.
• 32:27
  Unless you knew what. You were asking unless you were
• 32:29
  asking for and so, but again, it was this point where they
• 32:32
  thought it OK, we wanted a product that we think are liquid
• 32:36
  is good enough and it's a bit more premium because blends at
• 32:39
  the time, you know, this is now late 50s, it's a bloodbath.
• 32:44
  I mean, it still is. Go to the supermarket now the
• 32:45
  pricing point and everything is really, it's really difficult.
• 32:48
  And all the big guys, you know, this is back in the day when
• 32:50
  people get round the table and they'll tell everyone what
• 32:52
  they're going to price their whiskey at next year.
• 32:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't do that.
• 32:56
  Now you get you're you're thrown in jail.
• 32:59
  So it was effectively like a bit of a it.
• 33:01
  Was a. Bit of a farm, yeah.
• 33:03
  So, but it's not a cartel in the way that they, the big guys told
• 33:06
  the little guys when we were the little guy.
• 33:09
  And so they were like, oh shit, we're making, we're making
• 33:11
  bloody money. So they wanted to have a premium
• 33:14
  product that they could sell. And So what they did is they,
• 33:18
  they went to sell the Glenfidic Straight Malt down in England.
• 33:22
  But what they had is they had Glenfidic Pure malt in North
• 33:24
  Scotland, which was cheaper, right, Because they didn't want
• 33:28
  to offend their local customers. Local, Scott, local.
• 33:31
  Not really, Yeah. And so, but what someone scoops
• 33:35
  this business, individuals would go up to North Scotland, buy all
• 33:39
  the Glenfiddig and then go sell it for the same price down
• 33:42
  South. Well.
• 33:43
  Entrepreneurs will be. Honest, that's it exactly.
• 33:45
  So that's. Straight malt and pure malt.
• 33:48
  Yeah, so straight malt sold in England.
• 33:50
  I believe that's the case Pure, yeah.
• 33:51
  Yeah. No, it's no.
• 33:52
  Grant was Grant St. Malt.
• 33:53
  Or was it both? Yeah, OK.
• 33:55
  Right. Again, this is before the time
• 33:57
  where everything came into came into like, yeah, because the
• 34:00
  lingo stuff is all quite confusing.
• 34:02
  Yeah, I. Think I bought a bottle of one
• 34:05
  thing that I have that big Cam was raging about is I bought a
• 34:09
  bottle of grants straight malt but it was pre Gervin being
• 34:13
  built so it doesn't have Gervin on the label and I've still got
• 34:18
  the bottle. Actually, I haven't.
• 34:21
  Opened it. It's funny, I was, I was at the
• 34:23
  Whiskey show on the weekend and I tried a 1930s grants for the
• 34:28
  first time, which was really unique.
• 34:30
  Like, yeah, And, you know, it's just like history and a ball.
• 34:34
  Yeah, trying those sort of things.
• 34:35
  Like, you know, it was very. I sort of grassy and I enjoyed
• 34:42
  it. I I can imagine it was quite,
• 34:43
  you know, good, good quality whiskey at the time.
• 34:46
  I think probably, yeah. Things have things have changed
• 34:49
  since then. Yeah, drastically.
• 34:50
  But as you can imagine, I. Mean technique, techniques and
• 34:53
  palettes and everything. Exactly.
• 34:54
  So when, when when is this OK? So when's the infamous or the
• 34:58
  famous? Well, first of all, going back,
• 35:02
  I take it. You know, I've read a lot of it.
• 35:04
  The DCL guys, just others Company Limited.
• 35:07
  Yeah, and they were have been quoted as being cartels, a
• 35:11
  cartel of in the whiskey industry of basically kind of
• 35:14
  making the decisions for the greater of the industry.
• 35:17
  But at the same time, it's because DCL owns so much of the
• 35:20
  industry. The shepherds of the whiskey
• 35:22
  industry. Yeah, Shepherds there.
• 35:24
  There you go. Yeah, but when was the time when
• 35:28
  the the company made the decision to put the advert out,
• 35:33
  the famous adverts for single malt.
• 35:35
  You'll never stand for a blind again, as the famous at New York
• 35:38
  Post put that. They put that advert in and
• 35:42
  there was loads of others where basically what William Grant and
• 35:46
  Sons were doing were effectively saying that the blind is the
• 35:50
  sort of whiskey drinkers drink, but the single or the pure malt
• 35:55
  is the connoisseur's drink, which is mental because you own
• 35:58
  Grants and you own Glenfiddich. So to be able to actually say
• 36:02
  you're cutting, I said, almost cutting your nose off to spite
• 36:05
  your face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 36:07
  I suppose at the time it was maybe out of necessity that they
• 36:10
  wanted to build the brand. And again, you know, before,
• 36:14
  before they launched it down South, they, they were getting
• 36:16
  inquiries for it because they know like we do today, we bring
• 36:20
  trade people in who are potential buyers and they come
• 36:22
  to the city. We have a nice time.
• 36:25
  And same again then. And people were like, oh, this
• 36:27
  Sigma is quite, this is quite nice.
• 36:29
  So can we have it? Can we have a watch?
• 36:31
  I was like, I suppose. And so it was almost like drips
• 36:34
  and drabs and people got the word out and then thought,
• 36:37
  actually, OK, let's, let's let's go for it and actually do it
• 36:41
  properly. And, you know, at the time, they
• 36:43
  probably didn't realize it, but they were building a brand.
• 36:46
  You know, Grants took the triangle bottle 1st and then
• 36:50
  they put it on to Glenfiddich. I mean, they tried to put it on
• 36:52
  Barbeni as well. Yeah.
• 36:53
  Really. Yeah.
• 36:53
  It's the triangle of Barbeni. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
• 36:56
  Really cool. It's got it's got leather.
• 36:58
  Yeah, leather. Black Label it's.
• 37:00
  A black leather. It's a black leather label.
• 37:02
  It's Yeah, great label. Yeah, very.
• 37:04
  Interesting. So so.
• 37:04
  Good. So they've tried and then
• 37:05
  Glenfiddich, it's sort of stuck. And this was the sort of point
• 37:08
  Hanshleg was the designer. He he he did like the London
• 37:12
  Underground sign. Yeah.
• 37:13
  And the Puffin book sign. Wow.
• 37:15
  So they're quite iconic. Iconic.
• 37:17
  I mean the most iconic is Glenfiddich.
• 37:18
  Obviously, obviously. Yeah, cuz you're right, the
• 37:21
  cynic. So the marketing conversation is
• 37:26
  it's the three sides, it's the three pillars of Scotch whiskey,
• 37:29
  what is barley, etc. But there's also the element of
• 37:32
  it fits very well, boxes very well.
• 37:35
  I. Generally thought it was always
• 37:36
  to reduce breakage like well. I think, I think there's some
• 37:39
  adverts of like, you know, on a boat or a lorry, there's always
• 37:43
  anecdotes of the, the, the lolly lorry driver who, you know,
• 37:47
  doesn't fall off his passenger seat when he when he's, when
• 37:50
  he's driving around the countryside of the spaceside.
• 37:52
  So, yeah. So you know, so there's all
• 37:55
  sorts of things that do. And again, it doesn't clink when
• 37:58
  you have it under your bed. So where are those averages?
• 38:02
  Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah, No, that would definitely
• 38:05
  not get part of the marking. Marking guys of.
• 38:07
  Today it's. Responsible.
• 38:09
  Yeah, Always. Always.
• 38:10
  Yeah, always. I think we could probably stick
• 38:12
  now. Glenn Fennick won't won't try
• 38:15
  and do us if we if we stick that as a whiskey story's bottling,
• 38:19
  all right? Yeah, it will clink.
• 38:21
  It will clink, Yeah. It's a clinker.
• 38:24
  Yeah, we're talking about responsive drinking and I think
• 38:26
  don't drink and drive, OK. Yeah.
• 38:28
  So this is a good segue onto onto this one.
• 38:32
  You know, we're talking about marketing and side of things.
• 38:35
  You know, this is our new partnership with Aston Martin
• 38:38
  and obviously very exciting for us.
• 38:42
  I think I knew a day before it came out.
• 38:44
  So I'm not really that much then.
• 38:45
  No. OK.
• 38:46
  So just FYI. So were you not at the Big
• 38:48
  Fancy? Was it Hollywood?
• 38:49
  Was it where they did the big Fancy Lunch?
• 38:52
  Were you not invited along? To that.
• 38:53
  I'm too expensive, mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:56
  Only first cast. No, no, Jake.
• 38:57
  No, I was not definitely not invited, but that's OK.
• 39:00
  And I think you know, sometimes that for me personally, your
• 39:06
  family member, but again, it's not try not to take the piss.
• 39:09
  You know, it's like I got enough opportunities anyway.
• 39:11
  And so I try not to ask to go do things if if I but I've always I
• 39:18
  always say yes if you asked I. Mean, I suppose it's.
• 39:20
  Just like this podcast. I mean, it did take a while.
• 39:22
  Of course, probably your fees are but, but I would say because
• 39:30
  you probably have two choices to make and this is on a personal
• 39:32
  front. Thank you very much.
• 39:33
  This is on a personal front from you rather than a sort of
• 39:36
  question about the brand or anything like that.
• 39:38
  You probably have two decisions to make where if you are born
• 39:42
  into a family like William, grandsons, the Grant family, you
• 39:48
  could easily sit back and go ask me, I'm just going to I'm going
• 39:52
  to die now. I'm going to drink, but whiskey
• 39:56
  that people will live a lifetime and never get to drink.
• 39:58
  I'm going to go and see places. I'm going to do this and that
• 40:00
  next thing. But you've made a conscious
• 40:02
  effort. You've made a decision to get
• 40:03
  into the family business and as a family members who have made
• 40:06
  conscious efforts not to be in the family business.
• 40:09
  I think there's a not not, I think it's each their own.
• 40:13
  If you want to, there's always, there's always opportunities
• 40:16
  because. There's a lot of pressure, I
• 40:17
  mean, because this is the problem you have is with family
• 40:20
  businesses. As a guy who's worked in a
• 40:21
  family business, it's not always easy, you know, Like there's
• 40:24
  yeah, families are. Yeah are tough.
• 40:27
  I don't. Everyone's got different
• 40:28
  problems as well, yeah. Mine was my father, but I don't
• 40:31
  know about you but. No.
• 40:35
  Trying to Mr. Yeah. No he doesn't know how podcast.
• 40:38
  Now, No, Dad, you're all right. Thank you Dad, but I.
• 40:41
  Mean he's. A great man, great man.
• 40:43
  We spoke to Stephen Rank and Gordon Macphail, another huge
• 40:47
  whiskey family and you know, he talked about that.
• 40:50
  He said there's, there's cousins and there's brothers and sisters
• 40:52
  and what have you who, who didn't go into the family
• 40:54
  business. And there's plenty of them that
• 40:55
  did. But also they were very
• 40:57
  conscious of the fact. I think, you know, the, the,
• 41:00
  the, the Rankin family and everything were sure to make you
• 41:04
  know, if you want to get in the family business, you have to go
• 41:06
  and learn, come in. It's not a birthright.
• 41:08
  It's not something that you have just because you're born into
• 41:11
  this, you're given. And to be perfectly honest, what
• 41:14
  is it this? You know, how many family
• 41:16
  businesses survive after? Was it the second or the third
• 41:19
  generation? If you look at a family business
• 41:21
  that survived four or five generations, it means that they
• 41:24
  take it very, very seriously because it would have been very
• 41:27
  easy. I think.
• 41:28
  What is it that one of the sayings is?
• 41:30
  It's like one generation earns the money, the other generation
• 41:32
  spends the money and yeah, go through on it.
• 41:36
  So how many generations are we? So well, well in terms of
• 41:39
  working the business 6th. So I'm I'm 6th generation so.
• 41:43
  Yeah. So your great, great, great,
• 41:45
  great grandfather was pretty. You set up a good foundation,
• 41:48
  but it's probably everybody else.
• 41:50
  And it came after. Yeah.
• 41:51
  That has ensured that you can't just walk in here because you
• 41:53
  could, because it could have gone.
• 41:55
  I mean, you speak about what happened in the 50s that was an
• 41:58
  innovation like well after the starting of the business and the
• 42:02
  fact to do those brandings to make, to even get people in to
• 42:05
  make iconic designs and bottles or completely change how they
• 42:09
  thought the business would operate.
• 42:11
  Well, that's what, you know, at the time they were thinking, we
• 42:13
  have to, you know, we have USP because people don't understand
• 42:15
  what the difference between Sigma malt and blended whiskey
• 42:17
  is. There's all one thing.
• 42:18
  And so that was, yeah, they probably didn't quite say it as
• 42:22
  brand building, but that's what exactly what they're doing.
• 42:24
  And you know, and again, I always have to talk about it.
• 42:28
  The liquid was brilliant. You know, that's the thing.
• 42:30
  It has to be, it has to be both. And you don't become the biggest
• 42:33
  Sigma malt in the world without having both, so.
• 42:36
  Yeah. So when did you personally make
• 42:38
  the decision that this was the direction?
• 42:41
  That you want to go into Well, so I've always been interested
• 42:44
  in it. You know, I remember like first
• 42:46
  trying whiskey maybe at Christmas Day, probably as a
• 42:49
  fortunate say to what age it was, but it was youngish.
• 42:53
  But you know, it was a wee DRAM, wee DRAM.
• 42:54
  And it was one of those like wee Thistle glass ones that you
• 42:57
  probably your wife say they're absolutely horrid.
• 42:59
  But I remember the I remember drinking it.
• 43:02
  I think that's, that's really horrid.
• 43:09
  But I would but yeah, but yeah, exactly.
• 43:13
  But I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll get, I'll, I'll enjoy it.
• 43:15
  I'll make, I'll put on a straight face and I'll be good.
• 43:18
  But, and then after that, you know, I'm quite keen on my
• 43:21
  biochemistry. So obviously that is making a
• 43:25
  whiskey. I'm not sure if I'm keen on
• 43:27
  biochemistry because of whiskey or the other way around.
• 43:29
  But I then went and did biochemistry at Leeds, which I
• 43:33
  thoroughly enjoyed more the least part that might be the
• 43:36
  biochemistry. And I thought, you know, it was
• 43:39
  that probably that point after uni, because during the summers
• 43:43
  I would go work at Govan in the lab.
• 43:45
  So I'd go go in, go work and like, you know, check on the
• 43:49
  fermentations, take out the the efficiencies of it.
• 43:53
  You know, we talk about grist. Oh Christ.
• 43:56
  Oh, I'm an expert and you know. Back, back on the grist.
• 44:00
  Yeah. But it was like, you know, you
• 44:02
  could, you could change. If you change 1% efficiency at
• 44:05
  that point, it's like it could be 100,000 lbs saving.
• 44:09
  Yeah. You know, for when it's the
• 44:10
  scale of that, it's. So there's a lot of things.
• 44:12
  And did you have a wee grass box that you would sugar?
• 44:14
  Yeah. Angus is a big fan in the sugar
• 44:16
  box. Yeah, he was good at.
• 44:17
  That we're at Rosebank where? You.
• 44:19
  We're at Rosebank, Angus. We made them.
• 44:20
  We made. Yeah, I saw.
• 44:22
  I saw There's some way you could have on his forehead.
• 44:24
  Yeah, he really wasn't. He put on a brave face when we
• 44:27
  were doing it. But I.
• 44:29
  I can't, so this is not what I signed up for.
• 44:30
  I signed up to sit down and do the clap.
• 44:33
  No, I use. I use this slowly but surely
• 44:37
  managing to tick off loads of little jobs.
• 44:39
  That was his responsibility. That's his job.
• 44:41
  That's. His building it up.
• 44:44
  It's never surfaced. I don't know if I've still got
• 44:46
  the footage of it, but it was early days with these
• 44:48
  microphones and their lapel clipped.
• 44:50
  I think I've told just before, but Edmar Whiskey Festival was
• 44:54
  on Saturday there as we're recording this.
• 44:56
  And it was the second when we were when we were at Edmar
• 45:00
  Whiskey Festivals last year, I, Angus, got to go up building a
• 45:04
  cask. There was a cooperage section
• 45:06
  there. Really.
• 45:07
  Yeah, it was really cool. So it's such a shame because
• 45:10
  they had the leather 8 putting on and everything like that.
• 45:12
  But the problem was I clipped one of these mics onto Angus and
• 45:15
  they were going straight into the camera, which meant that I
• 45:17
  can't remix it or edit it or anything like that.
• 45:20
  But I was walking around with two of these speaking to people
• 45:22
  and sort of interviewing people. Yeah.
• 45:23
  So I'm trying to wait at somebody to be like, and I'm
• 45:25
  watching this video back and I'm trying to wait.
• 45:27
  Somebody said, what do you think?
• 45:29
  You know, how you enjoying today, Etcetera.
• 45:31
  And all you can hear the back. It's just like Jesus.
• 45:42
  Christ. Now you need to bang that, you
• 45:44
  need to hammer that doubt so we we can never.
• 45:47
  Release it just sound chords is poor.
• 45:51
  That's a shame. That's a shame, but.
• 45:53
  Right background track. So I did.
• 45:54
  So I did that for a while and I think I came, came to the end of
• 45:56
  my degree and I thought, you know what, I enjoyed myself, but
• 46:00
  it probably isn't going to be a long term thing for me to work
• 46:02
  in the lab in that environment. I think I like the idea.
• 46:05
  I like knowing about it, like learning about it, but as a day
• 46:07
  to say it wasn't for me. And so at that point, as one
• 46:10
  does, I just moved to Mumbai. Nice.
• 46:13
  Yeah. You've been out to India?
• 46:14
  Yeah. I know it.
• 46:15
  I lived there for a year which was fantastic.
• 46:16
  Loved a crazy place, I mean. Gateway of India, Hey, what a
• 46:19
  place. Yeah, I'm like it makes it makes
• 46:22
  London look like Kakodi. Yeah.
• 46:23
  It's like, well, we'll take it. I mean in terms of population
• 46:28
  density, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:32
  The. Shard in Kakodi is a really good
• 46:34
  place to go and enjoy. So, but well, talk about India,
• 46:38
  about drinks, yeah, some of the whiskey out there, I would say
• 46:42
  sorry, sorry, let's move back. There's some excellent whiskey
• 46:46
  in India now, Amra. And if you always try the
• 46:49
  whiskey, yeah, yeah, really good.
• 46:50
  I mean, but some of the local ones that sponsor some of the
• 46:53
  IPL teams are just. Royal Challenger is a challenge.
• 46:55
  We've we've tried them, Chuck, we had royal Stag.
• 46:57
  I don't. Think I was in there for.
• 46:59
  We're doing here for that. Royal Stag.
• 47:00
  I've still got, I've still got the bottle.
• 47:02
  Yeah, we've, we've, we've, we've because I, I go to India
• 47:05
  regularly. I've been.
• 47:06
  I was in Mumbai earlier a few months ago, and I brought some
• 47:09
  wee small smaller bottles back where there's some.
• 47:12
  Yeah, there's some crackers out there, some great whiskey.
• 47:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, some. Really.
• 47:15
  Really good whiskey, but there's also some not so great.
• 47:17
  And I think, you know, I don't want to, you know, I'm not here
• 47:19
  to bash brands, but particularly as the tariffs have gone down,
• 47:23
  so. Yeah, exactly.
• 47:24
  So it's. Quite good.
• 47:24
  It's quite because India is in Alberta commas the biggest
• 47:27
  whiskey market in the world yeah, of course, which is crazy.
• 47:30
  Obviously they can't sell most of outside of India but as
• 47:33
  whiskey, but in terms of their like enthusiasm for it.
• 47:37
  Amazing and when you look at the brands like you say, I mean I go
• 47:41
  twice a year, thin day and you look on the back back bar.
• 47:43
  In fact, I'll always I've said this to Ross earlier today.
• 47:48
  In fact, you know, like going for the 15 is one of my
• 47:51
  favorite, favorite whiskey's. I said two things.
• 47:53
  Number one, I think it's a great gifting whiskey Yeah, it's a
• 47:56
  really good whiskey to give somebody.
• 47:57
  It's got a great story about the Selena caste system, but it's
• 48:00
  just a very, very good stand up solid drum.
• 48:02
  Yeah, really, really, really good.
• 48:04
  And I always end up spending way over the odds.
• 48:08
  I don't even know what I'd probably spend about £25 for a
• 48:10
  DRAM of Glenn Glenn ferry 15 whilst I'm over there just
• 48:14
  because of tax. Yeah, when you're out and about
• 48:16
  and if I see you going Ferry 15 on the bar.
• 48:17
  But that iconic green triangular bottle travels all around the
• 48:21
  world. It's everywhere.
• 48:22
  Yeah, it's amazing. And that's the thing about it.
• 48:24
  It's like, as you say, at the back bar, you try and find Glenn
• 48:28
  Fig. There it is, yeah.
• 48:29
  And easy people. And you're sitting there and it
• 48:31
  isn't until you look at a country like India, Yeah, where
• 48:34
  you see right, it's the big guys that are in there.
• 48:36
  Yeah. So you've got your general
• 48:39
  Valentine's Shivas. You've.
• 48:40
  Got yours or something? Yeah, Glenn, limits are up,
• 48:43
  there are. Big 10.
• 48:45
  Yeah. No, not even you wouldn't Glenn
• 48:47
  Mondry, you'd see in India. In India, yeah.
• 48:50
  In India, I've never been SO. But like I say, but then and
• 48:54
  there is an element of, and I almost hold it.
• 48:58
  It's weird. And this is where brand loyalty
• 49:00
  is such a big thing. And when you look at people who
• 49:02
  really do get into a brand to go in for it, I almost feel such an
• 49:06
  affinity because I'm like family owned.
• 49:09
  You know what I mean? You're not a PC, APLC.
• 49:13
  Sorry. You're not one of the big guys.
• 49:14
  You're not owned by a massive, huge, big organization.
• 49:17
  Yeah, even though you are a big, huge, massive organization, but
• 49:20
  you're just family. You're family owns.
• 49:22
  You're almost about like can yourself.
• 49:23
  And that's what I tried to tell people.
• 49:28
  You get people just like I had the whiskey show.
• 49:31
  I was working there. It was 2 weekends ago.
• 49:33
  And are you guys the Azure? I was like, actually, no, we're
• 49:36
  an independent owner she and I'm not there spouting the family
• 49:40
  personal side of it. I'm just there like this is the
• 49:43
  new Asimar 16 or whatever it might be.
• 49:44
  So yeah, this is that's what you do.
• 49:47
  What is this? Great.
• 49:49
  Yeah, so you. Drink.
• 49:53
  I was going to say the bad joke. You must know the bad joke about
• 49:56
  it. What's the fastest town in
• 49:57
  Scotland? Yeah.
• 49:58
  Oh, Mirren. Mirren, Yeah.
• 50:00
  Sorry, sorry. I was I.
• 50:03
  I'm also sorry to everyone who lives in there and they, they
• 50:04
  hate it. They, I, I know from personal
• 50:07
  experience, they hate it. Exactly.
• 50:09
  Yeah, Probably, yeah. Because I nearly went to the and
• 50:12
  it's got a whiskey connection with Cameron Bridges.
• 50:13
  So what's the best thing about Fife?
• 50:15
  Is he leaving? Very.
• 50:19
  Good. Right.
• 50:20
  So tell. Us sorry so yeah, so sponsoring
• 50:23
  Aston Martin this is our limited edition 16 year old it's all
• 50:28
  American oak OK so there's first fill refill and then there's
• 50:31
  American oak wine casks so it's awesome yeah.
• 50:35
  So it's fine. I think it's, I think it's one
• 50:37
  of those things needs to open up 43% easy peasy.
• 50:41
  But what I'm really proud about it.
• 50:44
  I think the last few years at Glenfiddich we've been, we've
• 50:47
  had some exception. We're going to try one not to,
• 50:50
  to spoil anymore, but I'm going to try one of them from the last
• 50:52
  few years. But they, you know, the price
• 50:54
  point's been quite high. And so maybe not accessible for
• 50:56
  just the general consumer. This is 16 year old £75, you
• 51:02
  know, so current market. I think it's the, the brand guys
• 51:05
  have really nailed this one in terms of liquid.
• 51:09
  And I think the packaging's great.
• 51:10
  Obviously we know we talked about Glenn fairly packaging,
• 51:13
  it's always quite fun. So yeah.
• 51:15
  And you know what? Like sponsor, like associating
• 51:17
  yourself with brands and things like that.
• 51:19
  You look at Aston Martin and you see the market that that opens
• 51:22
  up the Formula One and stuff like that as.
• 51:24
  Well, that's, that's the big thing.
• 51:25
  It's like, you know, Formula One.
• 51:27
  It's the one sport that my wife and my mother know more than me
• 51:29
  about. Really.
• 51:30
  Easy peasy. Oh, yeah.
• 51:31
  Oh, maybe tennis. But, you know, easy peasy, man.
• 51:33
  Crazy. Yeah, well, you look at look at
• 51:35
  the Netflix documentary, that's that's what's done and it's it's
• 51:37
  accelerated. And that's what my mom and my
• 51:39
  wife, you know, they used. To the word accelerated, Sorry.
• 51:43
  Drive to survive, but honestly, it's fantastic.
• 51:45
  But I would say that, you know, Formula One is a global, a
• 51:49
  global brand. Aston Martin, of course not.
• 51:51
  But podcasting, yeah, yeah. Is a big one.
• 51:55
  And, you know, we've got listeners over the world as
• 51:57
  well. That's it.
• 51:57
  So I think, yeah. I think, I think, I think maybe
• 52:00
  you know a. Couple of, yeah.
• 52:01
  You see, You know, I'm really surprised.
• 52:12
  Of the of the cast maturation on that because I I would not have
• 52:15
  thought that to be wine cash. Match well, Winecast been a big
• 52:17
  part of the Glenn FedEx story over the last, what, 10 years or
• 52:21
  so? I mean, yeah, the wine cast
• 52:23
  stuff. Yeah, has been quite a few
• 52:25
  different, but not like yeah, I, I.
• 52:27
  Saw, I saw, I saw someone being critical of it maybe a couple of
• 52:31
  years ago, a year ago and it was and I can't remember.
• 52:34
  I think it was pointing in the direction of a Glenn FedEx
• 52:37
  release, our ground crew, whatever.
• 52:40
  And their argument was, is Scotch losing its identity of
• 52:44
  Scotch trying to keep up with everybody else?
• 52:46
  You know, Scotch is built on bourbon, Sherry and just that
• 52:51
  kind of cast maturation. And this is what Scotch is and
• 52:53
  let everybody else chase us. But on the flip side of that,
• 52:57
  when you're Glenfiddich and you have the access to the, the,
• 53:00
  the, the, the wood that you guys have.
• 53:02
  Yeah. I mean, there must be some
• 53:04
  fantastic cast finishes and what have you that you your cast,
• 53:07
  that you cast maturation programmes and what have you.
• 53:09
  But is is is wine an Ave. that wine casks an Ave. that Glenfidd
• 53:15
  have made a big choice to go down?
• 53:17
  I think there's a few things in that one in bourbon, they're
• 53:23
  currently the sales are quite flat.
• 53:25
  OK, so you've got the bourbon industry, flat Scotch even maybe
• 53:29
  at the moment it's a bit, it's a bit ropey, whatever it might be.
• 53:32
  But generally it's been growing quite significantly.
• 53:36
  So then you've got all these casks that people want to buy
• 53:39
  from the bourbon industry because they have to, it's over
• 53:41
  2 years, right? The demand goes up and the
• 53:45
  supply goes down. Yeah.
• 53:46
  So the price goes up for those casks.
• 53:48
  So it's also, I think, I think it's not just for us.
• 53:52
  I actually don't know if this is a reason for us, but from an
• 53:56
  industry point of view, more people will be buying European
• 53:59
  casks and there'll be a lot of wine cast as well.
• 54:02
  There's a lot of wine cast that just get thrown away as well,
• 54:06
  yeah. And that's so potentially so.
• 54:08
  And so that's probably a reason I think again, this was done 16
• 54:11
  years ago. So there's got to be some.
• 54:13
  I better be careful. I bet you think I would know my
• 54:15
  products, wouldn't you? But you know, but I don't know
• 54:19
  if it's AI, don't know if it's been finished in the wine cast.
• 54:20
  I'm pretty sure it's it's both. So yes, definitely, I think
• 54:27
  there'll be using that. Again, we don't do a lot of
• 54:32
  solely straight European, that's classic lymphatic about 80% of
• 54:36
  our casks inside our bourbon, right.
• 54:38
  And so there's less and every year, so the guys in the casks
• 54:43
  buy, they have a 10% budget just to go buy whatever they want as
• 54:47
  like experimental stuff. Yes, right.
• 54:50
  That's not 10% of all the cast because obviously they'll be the
• 54:53
  most expensive stuff, of course. And I was chatting to again some
• 54:56
  guy who knows what happened. I just sent on, but a Japanese
• 55:02
  company, one of them had a family company, which is similar
• 55:06
  age to us, who did soju and hopefully might be getting some
• 55:08
  soju cast. Wow.
• 55:10
  But then I just I just hand over the e-mail, who knows what
• 55:12
  happens. So we're going to fire on and
• 55:14
  see what happens. That's my that's.
• 55:16
  My but then on the on the I. Do have to say it's an
• 55:18
  interesting one because Glenfiddich is so like worldwide
• 55:23
  available that you do kind of forget about it.
• 55:25
  But then you also forget that it's a company that's kind of
• 55:27
  pushed the envelope for a really, really, really.
• 55:29
  Long time. Yeah, yeah.
• 55:30
  I mean you've got the 12 is absolutely fantastic, but they
• 55:34
  did 21 year old in rum cast way before then.
• 55:38
  The Experimental Series IPA for me is one of the best
• 55:41
  experimental bottles. I didn't like it at the time I
• 55:43
  tried it and I need to go back and I think.
• 55:45
  I did the exact same because I had the project 20 and I was
• 55:49
  like this is for me. This is the one and I think
• 55:52
  batch 2 came out and all I could think about was IPA like I just
• 55:56
  thought it was great and #5 as well.
• 55:58
  Sorry to keep. On talking over no no.
• 56:00
  But the orchard experiment. The Orchard 1 is.
• 56:02
  The minor, minor people. I've been like, I don't drink
• 56:05
  whiskey, what should I get? I was like, it's summer.
• 56:07
  It was summer at the time. It's not now.
• 56:09
  But I was like, just get that. Get some sort.
• 56:11
  Of apples. Just forget that you have work
• 56:13
  tomorrow and just enjoy yourselves.
• 56:15
  No, it's another one where you look back and you go, going back
• 56:20
  to our earlier point, we are the minority.
• 56:23
  And I think that it's easy. I, I, I don't drink enough
• 56:26
  Glynophytic because I know it's there.
• 56:28
  Do you know what I mean? Like, I know it's there and I
• 56:31
  know that what you come in at public diggers and you look
• 56:34
  around and you go, why would I go for a Glenfytic when I can go
• 56:37
  for one of these and things like that?
• 56:39
  And it must be a real pain because it's easy for us who are
• 56:43
  maybe like I say, in that minority of whiskey geeks and
• 56:45
  whiskey people and all that. Where I remember being at a
• 56:50
  Glenfytic tasting and it was poorly attended because I think
• 56:55
  a lot of people were a bit like, it's just it was for a for a
• 56:58
  room of people that enjoyed their whiskey and they missed
• 57:02
  out because it was a crack at night.
• 57:04
  But I think people basically said, I can get one for the
• 57:07
  supermarket. And it comes as we talked about
• 57:10
  this last week with Sam Barber on the episode, Glenn Murray.
• 57:13
  And you say does it? It's such a hard thing to do,
• 57:16
  but at the same time, from a marketing I'm I'm coming at it
• 57:20
  from my perspective, but from a market perspective, Glenfiddic
• 57:22
  sales all over the world. Yeah.
• 57:24
  Why are you worried about what people like me are saying?
• 57:26
  I don't care because I know that there's people are in there will
• 57:30
  see a green triangular bottle with Glenfiddic 12 in it and go.
• 57:33
  That's, that's my. Drama.
• 57:34
  But that's the thing I was going to say is like also,
• 57:37
  particularly in that situation that sometimes, you know, you're
• 57:39
  in India and someone's going and buying it.
• 57:42
  Glenfiddic 12, That might be the the pinnacle if they're risky
• 57:45
  for for, for, for that, for the at that at that point in their
• 57:48
  lifetime. And you know, when I do
• 57:49
  tastings, you always got to stay humble and keep to your roots in
• 57:54
  a way that should I bring the 12 because everyone's maybe
• 57:58
  arrogantly, I don't know, but or they've tried it or they're not
• 58:02
  going to be interested in it and all this sort of stuff.
• 58:04
  So I suppose, you know, doing the experimental range was
• 58:07
  really like brilliant, I think in that affordable, unique,
• 58:12
  different and saying, OK, oh, some people may think very
• 58:17
  boring. I obviously don't think that.
• 58:19
  And I think you've got to get people to come back and try.
• 58:23
  And this one, there'll be F1 fans who are like, go back,
• 58:28
  brilliant, fantastic. And then there might be some of
• 58:30
  the geeky guys like, OK, maybe a bit pessimistic about the
• 58:34
  collaboration, the marketing side and then go try it and
• 58:36
  hopefully you know what that was that.
• 58:40
  Yeah, I, I I can. Appreciate that for yeah.
• 58:42
  I would say there's a world where if I didn't, and I love
• 58:45
  the Glenfiddich brand and I'm not just saying that, but
• 58:49
  there's a world where it would be very easy for me to slip into
• 58:51
  cynicism here and be like, why? Why?
• 58:53
  Like look at them, They're just associated 2 brands that are
• 58:56
  associating themselves together. And it's mass marketing.
• 58:58
  And and as I kind of joked earlier, that was it Las Vegas
• 59:01
  or was it holy? It was Las Vegas, not Hollywood.
• 59:04
  I might go there. Yeah, Las Vegas, Yeah.
• 59:05
  Las Vegas for the launch and I remember seeing the videos and
• 59:08
  what have you and there was critics and you mentioned
• 59:09
  earlier on some critics would sit there and say why can you
• 59:13
  associate an alcohol brand with a car brand when there's you're
• 59:16
  encouraging drink driving? Yeah, yeah.
• 59:17
  They're not get get a life. Yeah.
• 59:19
  It's it's it'd be very easy to bypass this whiskey I'll have
• 59:23
  been guilty of by. I will have been guilty of
• 59:25
  bypassing this whiskey. You brought it in.
• 59:27
  We've tried it. Yeah.
• 59:28
  What is matching? It is only two weeks old.
• 59:30
  Well, two, two weeks of being out.
• 59:32
  So you're right. So you may.
• 59:33
  Well, that well, but like I say, would I go for if I saw, I would
• 59:37
  say. You're.
• 59:37
  Gimmicky and what have you. But actually, and again, it goes
• 59:40
  back to I've done bottling projects with other brands and
• 59:44
  stuff like that where we knew at the time of doing the bottling
• 59:48
  you could stick anything in that bottle.
• 59:51
  Yeah, and it's going to sell. It doesn't like that.
• 59:53
  Yeah, I mean that's. Right.
• 59:54
  And I think that there's a then. But if you have a brand and you
• 59:56
  want to stand up to that brand, what you've done is you've stuck
• 59:59
  some very cool whiskey in. There, yeah.
• 1:00:02
  And and interesting enough in the way that people are like,
• 1:00:04
  you know what, I would have thought that would be some
• 1:00:06
  European oak in there or a thought because there is there
• 1:00:08
  is like a slight tannins in there.
• 1:00:10
  It's not overly, I wouldn't say it's a winsky at all, but there
• 1:00:12
  is like slight tans in there. But I get a lot of like caramel
• 1:00:15
  toffee baked like like you know, there's Halloween toffee apple
• 1:00:19
  sort of thing. That's what I kind of get in
• 1:00:20
  that and you know, we talked with other formal one teams and
• 1:00:24
  we wanted some of which actually had British heritage.
• 1:00:27
  You know, Asamada has that they launched Le Mans and it's just
• 1:00:30
  in terms of racing career and so it's quite nice.
• 1:00:32
  So you know it's and when you Sadly, I didn't get to go to
• 1:00:36
  service in this year. Wasn't invite but next.
• 1:00:40
  Year. Neither were we so there.
• 1:00:41
  You go, that's OK. But we, we, I was told like the
• 1:00:47
  event that they put on, like a lot of other brands were doing
• 1:00:50
  things and the Glenn Phillip 1 was just absolutely heaving.
• 1:00:53
  Yeah, because they were doing that, yeah, which is great.
• 1:00:55
  And that's what you want. And yeah, so but.
• 1:00:58
  Yeah, going back from a sponsorship point of view, you
• 1:01:00
  mentioned earlier on when I talked about the T-shirts, we
• 1:01:02
  were chatting before Braemar. Braemar Well, this is great.
• 1:01:05
  Yeah, this is Yeah. And the actually and the tattoo
• 1:01:07
  and. The tattoo as well, of course.
• 1:01:08
  So but for like, I love the fact that right you're putting your
• 1:01:13
  associate, your brand with Aston Martin and this Formula One,
• 1:01:16
  it's global, what have you. But actually, you know, seeing a
• 1:01:19
  big guy that weighs about 24 stone, yeah, walking out in a
• 1:01:23
  kilt in an arena. Chucking a big stick.
• 1:01:26
  Chucking a big, a big old log like weird with Glenn Fiddick.
• 1:01:29
  Yeah. And there's something nice that
• 1:01:31
  that's heritage as well, isn't it?
• 1:01:33
  You could say, right. That's Glenn Fiddick's sponsor.
• 1:01:35
  The the the heavies at the Braemar.
• 1:01:38
  Is there any? Is it just no, No.
• 1:01:39
  No, they do. They do the circuit, yeah.
• 1:01:41
  So the whole yeah, yeah. And I would say from that, that
• 1:01:45
  putting my sports commercial hat on here in one sense is that
• 1:01:48
  that's supporting a historical sport.
• 1:01:51
  Yeah, an amateur as well. Yeah, 100% amateur.
• 1:01:54
  They still make a good, they still make a good bet of money
• 1:01:56
  if you do all right with that. By the way, if you toss the
• 1:01:58
  cable well enough and then the hammer, I don't know the welly
• 1:02:02
  over the, I don't think you get much for the welly over the
• 1:02:06
  thing anymore. But you see these guys, I mean
• 1:02:08
  that's huge, but they do the circuit and you can see.
• 1:02:11
  So you can you certainly say prize money for the heavy events
• 1:02:15
  at the Highland Games. Yeah, you know you can win a
• 1:02:17
  good, you can win about five, £600 if you win each category.
• 1:02:21
  If you put yourself in for two or three categories and you do
• 1:02:23
  that three or four of the big Highland games, you clean up no
• 1:02:26
  bad. It's it was it and they.
• 1:02:28
  Train, and rightly so. Oh yeah, they train not to be
• 1:02:30
  able. It's not just big fat blokes
• 1:02:31
  turning up chucking stones, they train a hell of a lot.
• 1:02:34
  So to be to put yourself on the, to beat yourself on that, that's
• 1:02:38
  that's. A good thing.
• 1:02:39
  Yeah. So it's the longest, longest
• 1:02:41
  standing sponsorship that we've ever done.
• 1:02:43
  Really. The heaviest.
• 1:02:44
  Yeah. It's like over 40 years.
• 1:02:45
  Yeah. Brilliant.
• 1:02:46
  Crazy. And we're lucky.
• 1:02:47
  I think Grandpa, he was very much loved his Scottish
• 1:02:52
  heritage, did everything that he could for the communities that
• 1:02:56
  he worked in. And one of them he just loved
• 1:02:59
  the pipes. And so he helped, you know, set
• 1:03:01
  up the the piping centre in Glasgow.
• 1:03:04
  And so that's what was brilliant about us sponsoring the tattoo
• 1:03:06
  this year is actually bring it full circle and that, you know,
• 1:03:10
  I don't know if you've been to the tattoo or not, but I
• 1:03:12
  recommend, I'll invite you next year if you'd like to go.
• 1:03:14
  Please do. Yeah.
• 1:03:15
  But in terms of like that side of it, the the pipes, the
• 1:03:19
  fiddles, all that, he was such a huge fan of it.
• 1:03:23
  And that's what he would, you know, that he would give to
• 1:03:27
  charity and that sort of his sort of thing.
• 1:03:28
  And so he's a hugely influential mean.
• 1:03:30
  You're talking about why I came into the business.
• 1:03:33
  It's almost we talk about the sort of handing over the, you
• 1:03:36
  know, the Olympic flame in such the next generation.
• 1:03:39
  You know, he didn't he'd originally didn't want to be in
• 1:03:42
  the business. He was his father, on his
• 1:03:44
  deathbed, asked him to really, you know, he's 25 because it
• 1:03:46
  goes back. To what I was saying, there's
• 1:03:47
  there's some people that will look at and go.
• 1:03:49
  It's not 5 as well, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:51
  So it's a lot to put on someone. Yeah.
• 1:03:53
  His father he. Just didn't do it, sorry.
• 1:03:55
  How did your grandfather feel about podcasts?
• 1:03:58
  Whiskey Podcasts. I reckon he would have not come
• 1:04:02
  on sadly really, but. You would have been in for
• 1:04:04
  sponsoring I think. There is a few, there's a few,
• 1:04:07
  there's a few, there's a few videos of him, but again, it's
• 1:04:10
  normally talking about piping. Yeah, there's most of the stuff
• 1:04:14
  that's the. Media side of things, that's if.
• 1:04:15
  Only the people were here. I know the fiddlers that but
• 1:04:18
  anyway so. He would love that.
• 1:04:19
  He would love that. So, so his father your great.
• 1:04:22
  Grandfather, Yeah. On his deathbed, he's speaking
• 1:04:25
  to his son. Yeah, 25 years old.
• 1:04:27
  Yeah, he's trying to. Convince him to say.
• 1:04:29
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he was a, he was a
• 1:04:31
  mathematician. He was, Yeah, he went to
• 1:04:34
  Cambridge. Very, very academic guy and but
• 1:04:38
  his father said so he had to. And so I always well, well, one
• 1:04:44
  of my drams is about that story later on.
• 1:04:47
  So we'll go to, it's a bit heavy, heavy for now.
• 1:04:49
  We're going to have the heavy stuff later on.
• 1:04:51
  But yeah, so I've talked about the sponsor.
• 1:04:53
  We do. I just love, I love all three.
• 1:04:56
  And it's interesting talking to individuals around the company,
• 1:05:00
  talking to guys down in London, Aston was great and they talked
• 1:05:04
  to their guys in the bottling hole and Glasgow was like can I
• 1:05:07
  come to the tattoo? So it's all different things I.
• 1:05:10
  Suppose a Scottish brand ambassador, you're looking at
• 1:05:12
  that and you're saying you're looking at the Aston Martin.
• 1:05:15
  Think that's a global? Yeah, exactly.
• 1:05:17
  Opportunity, whereas actually, yeah.
• 1:05:19
  From local market. Yeah, local market.
• 1:05:22
  Yeah, because you do, you do. Again, you feel the element of
• 1:05:24
  pride where you go. Nice to see, you know, there'll
• 1:05:27
  be, there'll be plenty of people who have benefited out of
• 1:05:30
  playing the bagpipes through the the family heritage of the
• 1:05:33
  bagpipe centre that your, your grandfather helps set up and
• 1:05:36
  even playing at the tattoo and stuff like that.
• 1:05:38
  You just think that's that again.
• 1:05:40
  One yourself, one yourself. That's it, that's it.
• 1:05:41
  And you know, that's again, I get the reason why I wanted it
• 1:05:44
  was one because I'm interested in it and I want, but I just
• 1:05:48
  want to see the legacy of all the people put the hard effort
• 1:05:51
  in decades ago to keep keep going.
• 1:05:53
  Because I think Mark Thompson talked about that one, the first
• 1:05:55
  one of the first podcast that we did with him and he he mentioned
• 1:05:58
  it where he basically said, you know, Glenn Ferrick at the time
• 1:06:01
  in Scotland was actually really far behind where it should have
• 1:06:04
  been and travels very, very well.
• 1:06:06
  But at the same time people has gone, Yeah.
• 1:06:08
  And the work that's got on. So from your point of view,
• 1:06:11
  being an ambassador within the Scotland area, yeah.
• 1:06:15
  Is it hard because you're competing when you're in the,
• 1:06:17
  like we mentioned India, there's like 7 brands on on the shelf.
• 1:06:21
  That shelf in Scotland, you're coming in a public digger.
• 1:06:24
  So there's 850, yeah. But yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:27
  And I think, you know, from, again, let's not go over it too
• 1:06:30
  much, but victim of it's like, Boo Hoo, OK, You know.
• 1:06:33
  But I think for me personally, as in if I'm doing a tasting or
• 1:06:38
  saying, you know, it's all about the crowd.
• 1:06:41
  And sometimes it's relevant for me to tell who I am.
• 1:06:44
  Sometimes it's not. And if I'm doing a pub in the
• 1:06:49
  grass market, who's got all the students in for the summer, it's
• 1:06:51
  probably not really. And also, who cares?
• 1:06:56
  It really shouldn't matter at all.
• 1:06:57
  Yeah, of course. You know, I think sometimes
• 1:07:00
  exactly. It's the product.
• 1:07:01
  It doesn't shouldn't matter who's the guy behind it.
• 1:07:04
  So. And then sometimes I do.
• 1:07:07
  And at that point, sometimes I have, you know, we talk about
• 1:07:13
  Mark, excellent delivery. He he is an orator.
• 1:07:16
  Yeah, we got one of. The best, a lot of my other
• 1:07:18
  colleagues, you know, Sean Fennelly, Alex Walker, Luke and
• 1:07:23
  Callum, absolutely just amazing gang and they're all excellent.
• 1:07:28
  I can bring authenticity already and I don't have to say a word
• 1:07:32
  right on the way. So my delivery doesn't have to
• 1:07:34
  be as good in a way. So I don't have.
• 1:07:38
  So for me, but for me in in that sense, it's a little bit easier.
• 1:07:43
  But again, talk about that, you know, Glenfiddich, when I talk
• 1:07:47
  about the history and that what we're talking about today,
• 1:07:49
  people are like, oh, I didn't know that or I didn't realize
• 1:07:51
  that there's so much of it and we're long lasting.
• 1:07:54
  You know, we're now, you know, as a family business, you know,
• 1:07:57
  it's, it's our story. It's no, I mean, there's
• 1:08:00
  sometimes a bit of marketing, but I, I, I try to lead away
• 1:08:04
  from it and it sometimes if I'm doing that, doing it.
• 1:08:06
  Which which adds to that element, like you say, it goes
• 1:08:08
  back to the authenticity of the story, isn't it?
• 1:08:10
  Now tell us one of the stories that we've talked about on this
• 1:08:13
  podcast before, but I want to hear it from yourself that the
• 1:08:16
  story we mentioned, Gervin. Yeah, right.
• 1:08:18
  Yeah, yeah. A great, great story in whiskey
• 1:08:20
  folklore about the story about how Gervin distillery, which is
• 1:08:24
  your grain distillery, how that became to being what it is and
• 1:08:27
  how it was built and what have you.
• 1:08:28
  So great story. So this is 1963.
• 1:08:33
  Well, it got built 1963, so it's probably just 1960s same time as
• 1:08:37
  Glenn FedEx sort of coming out as a single malt now every
• 1:08:43
  September cuz they didn't have their own grains theory.
• 1:08:47
  Grandpa and his brother Charles, Mr. Charles we were going to,
• 1:08:52
  they had to go to North British basically and say how much they
• 1:08:57
  wanted to buy. So North British being the
• 1:08:59
  greatest, yes. Exactly.
• 1:09:00
  Yeah, yeah. So that.
• 1:09:01
  'D be the annual. Would that be annual?
• 1:09:02
  Yeah, what? But they couldn't.
• 1:09:03
  It's like, but if you you couldn't then say I wanted less
• 1:09:07
  or I wanted more. Once you commit, you've
• 1:09:08
  committed. Yeah.
• 1:09:09
  And so that was. And that's before producing
• 1:09:11
  grants. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:09:13
  And so you that was incredibly difficult for them because they
• 1:09:16
  weren't that independent. And I think it came to a point
• 1:09:19
  of them saying we cannot supply you with any grain or enough
• 1:09:27
  grain and Miss Charles saying we wanted more grain and that that.
• 1:09:34
  So it came to a head. There's another story, which I'm
• 1:09:36
  not entirely true of, which you might need to add out.
• 1:09:38
  But the other story is again, like the pricing, all the big
• 1:09:44
  guys, I'm going to say guy, the men, it was all bloody men by
• 1:09:47
  then. So in my family, all the men who
• 1:09:49
  worked in the in the distillery and all the women got proper
• 1:09:52
  jobs. So they're all doctors and
• 1:09:54
  lawyers. They're the clever ones.
• 1:09:55
  And all the men just worked in this theory.
• 1:09:58
  So anyway, they decided around the table, like where I'm at
• 1:10:05
  now, we're not going to do any TV advertising.
• 1:10:07
  This is a store I've had. We're not going to do it, OK
• 1:10:10
  guys? And everyone's like, well, some
• 1:10:12
  of us might want to do some TV advertising.
• 1:10:15
  And no, if you do any TV advertising, then we all have to
• 1:10:18
  do it. It's going to cost us money.
• 1:10:19
  So this. Is it was this the the cartel
• 1:10:22
  that we went? On with yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:24
  Yeah, and they would say this and everyone.
• 1:10:27
  And I think because, you know, at the time, this is grandpa and
• 1:10:30
  his brother. They're 3235, right?
• 1:10:32
  Something like that, right. So it's a bit younger than.
• 1:10:34
  Us. Were they the younger guys in
• 1:10:36
  the room then? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:10:37
  And they're like, they're guys like.
• 1:10:39
  The TV is the future, man. Exactly, exactly.
• 1:10:42
  They wouldn't. They wouldn't Come on the
• 1:10:43
  podcast, the TV, that was the TV.
• 1:10:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Sorry guys.
• 1:10:48
  Going to be colours. That's it.
• 1:10:49
  So, so, yeah. And so they, they, OK.
• 1:10:51
  And so they went and did it and I think they wanted to yeah,
• 1:10:56
  call their bluff on it. And they then said no, we're not
• 1:10:59
  going to sell you any grain. So that's another story.
• 1:11:01
  I'm not sure how true that is, but, well, I like, I like, I
• 1:11:04
  think I like it. That's.
• 1:11:05
  The story I'd heard, the story I'd heard was.
• 1:11:07
  That bad ass. The family members at Glenn
• 1:11:10
  FedEx will say we're going to do ATV ad and they were told
• 1:11:13
  explicitly if you do ATV advert you will not be supplied with
• 1:11:18
  any grain for begin you and they went.
• 1:11:20
  Someone, someone you might wish to ask is I think Mr. Morrison
• 1:11:25
  of expert, more so Tim Morrison, who does Clyde Distillery
• 1:11:28
  because he was around that time. He's a bit younger than my
• 1:11:30
  grandparents and he would he would have might know.
• 1:11:32
  So see what he says the so that point.
• 1:11:36
  But again, Mr. Charles, my great uncle, Oh, my grand.
• 1:11:39
  Yeah, yeah, my grand uncle. It's tough.
• 1:11:41
  It's very difficult. Oh my mate, I, I'm, I call my
• 1:11:44
  cousins now. It's like you got to call them,
• 1:11:45
  Mr. I said. Uncle.
• 1:11:45
  Yeah. Yeah, Mr. Yeah, no, he's my
• 1:11:48
  grand uncle. So then he was quite, actually
• 1:11:52
  quite happy because then it kind of gave them the initiative that
• 1:11:55
  they had to go and either buy it from other people, which would
• 1:11:58
  be more expensive, or build their own distillery.
• 1:12:01
  So they looked at a few different places and then they
• 1:12:03
  finally found this place near Govan and it was a dreak day,
• 1:12:08
  absolute dreak day. And Mr. Charles was like, why
• 1:12:11
  are we looking here? And he later on said it was the
• 1:12:13
  best place we've ever built an instillery.
• 1:12:17
  And it was on an old munitions factory.
• 1:12:19
  OK, old munitions factory built pre war.
• 1:12:22
  And do you know who built it? No, the Germans.
• 1:12:25
  Really. Yeah, the Germans built it pre
• 1:12:28
  war Munitions factory in Govan. Crazy in Yeah.
• 1:12:31
  In 1938, yeah. 1938 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:35
  Yeah, so, so, so, so. And they knew, well, if they
• 1:12:39
  built it, the foundations would be, would be good.
• 1:12:41
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:12:41
  So, yeah. So it's not going.
• 1:12:44
  So it wasn't going to go into the ground, you know, it was not
• 1:12:46
  going to subside and sort of thing.
• 1:12:47
  So they built it there because they wanted to.
• 1:12:51
  It was cheaper back then to buy corn from America than it was to
• 1:12:55
  buy wheat from their field next door.
• 1:12:56
  So it would be, it would be bolted over in in cargo ships to
• 1:13:00
  the local. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:01
  And so that was and is. That right.
• 1:13:03
  So that was the Camel town port still active at that port.
• 1:13:06
  It might have just been govern. I think it might have been
• 1:13:08
  government's got its own port. I mean you wouldn't know about
• 1:13:11
  now, but I think it might have been there could be wrong.
• 1:13:14
  But the the other thing is, again, they they'd wanted, they
• 1:13:20
  needed the grain, right? Yeah, needed the grain.
• 1:13:23
  Well, they. Needed time.
• 1:13:24
  They've got time yeah. So basically I'm assuming that N
• 1:13:27
  British have not effectively said to them you're not getting
• 1:13:30
  any more rain of us. So basically whatever grain
• 1:13:34
  whiskey that you that the family had leftover was what was left
• 1:13:38
  in the store. Maybe they've been able to sweep
• 1:13:40
  up a little bit from other, yeah.
• 1:13:42
  Yeah, and that's yeah. And I think you know but the.
• 1:13:43
  Cost of that wouldn't have been. I'm also assuming if you're
• 1:13:47
  building a distillery, even if it was a kick in the ass, that
• 1:13:50
  you kind of wanted that family. At that point you want to keep
• 1:13:53
  budget as low as possible. I mean you can buy corn for
• 1:13:56
  cheaper than field next. Door and you know this is so
• 1:13:59
  again late 1950s early 60s it was the economy wasn't great at
• 1:14:03
  the time so a lot of you know particularly built you know
• 1:14:07
  people built engineering firms wanted work and so it was it was
• 1:14:12
  it was a reasonable price to build a Sidery and Mr. Charles,
• 1:14:15
  Grandpa's brother, he would to make sure that everyone was
• 1:14:19
  working quickly because he didn't want to pay for any
• 1:14:22
  overtime wherever it was. So no one's lounging around
• 1:14:24
  having a cup of tea. And the way he did it was he
• 1:14:28
  went and cycled around a bicycle was very silent.
• 1:14:31
  And so then, so after the first time Gay shouts that from not
• 1:14:34
  knowing that someone was looking time to get fuck on with it,
• 1:14:39
  right. And so at the end of it in,
• 1:14:43
  yeah, 1960 when they opened it, I think it was one of the last
• 1:14:46
  last days that my grand uncle was trying to find his bicycle
• 1:14:51
  and it had been welded to the top of a warehouse.
• 1:14:57
  And I'm not sure it was before or after, but Mr. Charles was
• 1:15:00
  very, I think, took it with goods, good seed and gave all
• 1:15:03
  the workers a bottle of grants to take home with them after
• 1:15:06
  their big game shift. And now, you know, Gervin being
• 1:15:09
  probably put to even more use on the back of the acquisition of.
• 1:15:15
  Famous grouse? Yes.
• 1:15:16
  Yes. Yeah, because that's that's
• 1:15:18
  where you look at we you look at the industry at the moment and
• 1:15:23
  you look at the way things are shifting and stuff.
• 1:15:25
  And for Edrington to, to move to, to, to let the famous
• 1:15:30
  grouse, I mean, I mean that brand, it's really like, what a
• 1:15:34
  brand. It's it's almost like the two
• 1:15:36
  same two sides of the same coin. Like complete difference would
• 1:15:39
  would be monkey shoulder as a really good showcase of like
• 1:15:41
  bourbon maturation blended malts.
• 1:15:43
  And I I would think of personally as like the naked
• 1:15:45
  grouse as a really good showcase.
• 1:15:47
  Thank you of a blended malt using Sherry cast maturation.
• 1:15:50
  Yeah, I mean it'd. Be really interesting to see
• 1:15:52
  what happened. The famous, I mean it's I take
• 1:15:54
  it now, is that all famous grouse is now 100% officially
• 1:15:57
  William Grant Sons. 100% so. Now every bottle sale that is
• 1:16:01
  happening. Well, yeah, so we bought stock
• 1:16:04
  and also also I think there's a lag period of who's making it.
• 1:16:08
  But yes, that's the. Yeah, that's the.
• 1:16:10
  Fascinating. I mean that's AI mean when you
• 1:16:13
  look at that in the whiskey industry is so whiskey breaking
• 1:16:17
  news as such, you look at that brand moving.
• 1:16:20
  Particularly in the UK. So you got to think like Grouse
• 1:16:24
  globally isn't as big as you probably think because it's so
• 1:16:26
  big. UK.
• 1:16:27
  It's big. I mean, yeah, I mean, I suppose
• 1:16:30
  it's funny. You'll be sitting there going,
• 1:16:32
  well, we're going for that Like we involve any.
• 1:16:35
  We're a monkey shoulder as well, I should say as well.
• 1:16:38
  Yeah. There's only going back to the
• 1:16:40
  Indian market. Here's there's Woody time,
• 1:16:42
  ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much, Woody.
• 1:16:47
  Appreciate that. A medicine bottle with Woodrows
• 1:16:49
  of Edinburgh on it. Thank you very much, Woody.
• 1:16:54
  Appreciate that. That's the that's the second
• 1:16:55
  thing you've done this on the podcast.
• 1:17:04
  Wow, would it it? Looks nice.
• 1:17:07
  Dropping in, it's a, it's a special is a special thing.
• 1:17:10
  Well, you're nice, Ben. Nervous.
• 1:17:11
  OK. Well, we'll talk about that.
• 1:17:12
  Yeah. We'll try that later, Chuck.
• 1:17:15
  Cool. Well, we'll have a wee drive
• 1:17:16
  with that. But what I was going to say is
• 1:17:17
  like, yeah, Glenn Fennick, monkey shoulder.
• 1:17:20
  I was saying there. Monkey shoulder.
• 1:17:23
  I think there's like in in Indian market, if I were to look
• 1:17:26
  at that as a global sort of bar, the blended malt side, I think
• 1:17:29
  it's copper dog and and Monkey shoulder.
• 1:17:31
  So I have two, two biggest ones. When you look at that, that that
• 1:17:34
  go in there, then you've got the the grant side of things and now
• 1:17:39
  you've got OK, famous Grouse massive in the UK.
• 1:17:43
  Yeah, Global one, number one, UK, yeah.
• 1:17:45
  It doesn't travel very well I suppose, I think.
• 1:17:48
  It's big in France, big in Sweden.
• 1:17:50
  Yeah, really. So, yeah.
• 1:17:51
  So it's this is an opportunity for us, I suppose to, yeah,
• 1:17:56
  expand that brand because as you said, what a brand, what a brand
• 1:18:00
  it is. It's made and, you know, for the
• 1:18:02
  for the the Scottish rugby fan or, you know, just for the local
• 1:18:05
  guy in Glasgow. It's just like this is and.
• 1:18:08
  Some very good adverts over the years as.
• 1:18:09
  Well, yeah, exactly. It's kind of like the iron brew
• 1:18:11
  of whiskey. That's what I.
• 1:18:12
  Feel I would say, I would say, you know what I mean?
• 1:18:13
  There isn't a single person. I don't care who you are, what,
• 1:18:17
  what, what world would you mean there?
• 1:18:19
  There will be, there will be somebody somewhere probably.
• 1:18:22
  But the world that you grew up in where if your grandparents or
• 1:18:26
  some sort of relative didn't have grouse in the in the
• 1:18:29
  cupboard and it wasn't used as a as a whiskey that you get.
• 1:18:32
  And honestly, it's, it's a it's such a heritage brand of
• 1:18:36
  Scotland. I think you say the adverts do
• 1:18:40
  do do do do do do do do. But but you think that that you
• 1:18:45
  just sang it right. That's how how how many other
• 1:18:49
  whiskey theme tunes could you sing exactly?
• 1:18:51
  None Exactly. None.
• 1:18:52
  And you know, I, we talked about this on one of the very, very
• 1:18:56
  early episodes about that. I'm sure it was that and I went
• 1:19:02
  back and I looked. When was the last time that
• 1:19:04
  advert was actually played on British television?
• 1:19:06
  Probably their 90s I imagine. So when you actually think about
• 1:19:09
  it from a, from a historical point of view, the fact that
• 1:19:12
  people of a certain age, I mean, there'll be people in their 20s
• 1:19:15
  who maybe listen to this that are going what?
• 1:19:17
  The hell are they talking about? What are they talking about?
• 1:19:18
  Yeah, but at the same time, there's people, we're in our 30s
• 1:19:21
  and we could, we could sit there and go.
• 1:19:22
  Then there'll be people older than us, maybe leave it younger
• 1:19:25
  than us that will be able to go. Oh, that's the song from the
• 1:19:27
  famous grouse. But when was the last time that
• 1:19:29
  advert was probably? Probably.
• 1:19:30
  I think it's, you know what, I think it's probably it's
• 1:19:31
  Christmas time and that's where that's when you get it.
• 1:19:33
  That's where, yeah, that's when you see it.
• 1:19:35
  But yeah, what? Sorry, you just what are we
• 1:19:37
  drinking? So this is this is very for me.
• 1:19:42
  This was bottled on my 30th birthday.
• 1:19:45
  Oh wow, because it's my cask. Oh wow.
• 1:19:49
  And you 2 are the first people. Not even Brian Kinsma and Master
• 1:19:52
  Splendor has tried this. And.
• 1:19:54
  No. Right.
• 1:19:55
  So I thought I would just. I asked for some samples because
• 1:19:58
  I thought it would be good just to chat through this is young.
• 1:20:01
  OK. So this is.
• 1:20:02
  Sorry. Yeah.
• 1:20:03
  Like, I'm only 36. Thank you.
• 1:20:06
  So. So you could probably guess how
• 1:20:07
  old it is. Yeah.
• 1:20:08
  So six years. Six years old.
• 1:20:11
  She's like completely putting a couple drops in.
• 1:20:14
  That yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Well, it's 63%.
• 1:20:16
  So it's a refill bourbon and I thought, you know, we're going
• 1:20:20
  to try and all the all the we've had a 27 year old Hogs Head and
• 1:20:24
  now this is good for a six year old just to to save.
• 1:20:27
  Barbie. Yeah, well, thank.
• 1:20:29
  You very much too, guys. Yeah, thank you.
• 1:20:30
  Well, and also I just want to hear what you think because you
• 1:20:32
  guys know the first one to try. Yeah, yeah, but no, I and I
• 1:20:37
  didn't you know, I kind of didn't want to come on here and
• 1:20:41
  flat that I've got a cask, whatever it is.
• 1:20:42
  But I think it just as more purely just as a bit of fun to
• 1:20:48
  have a try or something. And as young you're not going to
• 1:20:50
  get a six year old lymphatic. No, no.
• 1:20:52
  So just to see what the, you know, lovely color profile and
• 1:20:55
  the and the I mean you. Could have sat here and talked
• 1:20:57
  about it and not brought a sample on.
• 1:20:59
  So you brought a sample and so it's absolutely fantastic.
• 1:21:01
  Well, I wanted to try it as well.
• 1:21:02
  It's more, more selfish for me, you know?
• 1:21:05
  Yeah. I've got to say the minor flavor
• 1:21:08
  on that for the colour, yeah. Looks, I mean colors, nothing.
• 1:21:11
  Really looks like new make yeah really like I mean I've.
• 1:21:14
  Even the maltiness that you're getting from the new make, it's
• 1:21:16
  not harsh or I mean I've I've filled.
• 1:21:19
  Casks and then had to discourage them that had more color than
• 1:21:23
  that and the amount of flavor isn't that is.
• 1:21:25
  Absolutely refilled So you know again, that's probably adding to
• 1:21:28
  it but again, I like the refill side of it One because it could
• 1:21:32
  last longer. The case we were talking about
• 1:21:33
  this earlier yeah yeah, it could last on the cast depending on
• 1:21:35
  what I wanted to do with it but I mean also I think yeah, having
• 1:21:40
  more spirit forward flavour profile I mean like you get if
• 1:21:44
  you were to guess yeah you still get those apples and pears which
• 1:21:49
  yeah it. Really sings beautiful.
• 1:21:50
  It really sings that kind. Of wow, yeah, it's really, it's
• 1:21:53
  good. That's awesome that that's super
• 1:21:56
  cool. Yeah, I really appreciate.
• 1:21:57
  That so so the Garvin site then that was so that's now been
• 1:22:02
  running since the 1960s nineteen. 60s, yeah.
• 1:22:05
  And it's just churning out. It's interesting you talking
• 1:22:09
  about that. I'd never known what you'd said
• 1:22:12
  about the fact that corn maze and that was cheaper to buy and
• 1:22:15
  then what it was then. Yeah, back then.
• 1:22:17
  Because I've heard people talking about that when you're
• 1:22:19
  when you're trying old grain. Yes, I love old.
• 1:22:22
  Grain and old grain is just fantastic to try and but when
• 1:22:26
  you're trying it you get a different and the when you get
• 1:22:29
  pointed out that that is because the grain that you're using
• 1:22:33
  there was made using corn maze. Exactly.
• 1:22:36
  I also have to say the the bottles you guys released of
• 1:22:40
  Gervin like obviously the number of.
• 1:22:41
  Peyton still. Yeah.
• 1:22:42
  Yeah. The number 4 apps and that 25
• 1:22:44
  year old you guys did for years was.
• 1:22:47
  Class amazing. So good, So good Who?
• 1:22:49
  Who, who, who's? We've had an indie bottler,
• 1:22:52
  Gervin, on here. You can find them there's.
• 1:22:55
  You can find them there's. We may be CAD heads have done
• 1:22:57
  some great ones I I think. Was it woody or was it fragrant
• 1:23:01
  drops? It might be fragrant.
• 1:23:02
  Drops, Fragrant drops have done a few of them.
• 1:23:03
  Yeah, I think Woody's done a few.
• 1:23:05
  I mean the Oh my God, I'm blanking on the name Stravae
• 1:23:14
  Tricara. Tricara guys have done a few of
• 1:23:17
  them as well, and SMWS have done some crackers as well.
• 1:23:22
  But Gervin does some great, great stuff.
• 1:23:24
  I had some I had AI mentioned on the podcast before, about a nine
• 1:23:28
  year old Gervin. I think about 64 percent, 65
• 1:23:31
  that was in red wine casks. Oh wow, that is So I was
• 1:23:35
  probably going to think of either it was going to go into
• 1:23:37
  like Grant's wine cask or something like I would think or,
• 1:23:41
  or maybe it was just for someone else and they didn't for a
• 1:23:44
  reason. I don't know why.
• 1:23:46
  But I mean. Interesting.
• 1:23:46
  The flavour was really, really cool, but experiment.
• 1:23:48
  Yeah, it was. So like alcohol?
• 1:23:52
  But like. I've never I don't think I've
• 1:23:54
  ever had anything quite like it because I could feel my
• 1:23:56
  cheekbones like 1 sip but really, really good drop And I
• 1:24:02
  think actually the last cask release from shop exclusive for
• 1:24:07
  Edinburgh was a 15 year old girl.
• 1:24:09
  And again, I think there was an ex long roll red casks that they
• 1:24:12
  did a we double maturation of and that was stunning too.
• 1:24:17
  But if I can, and I don't know how much information you want to
• 1:24:20
  talk about, but I'd really love to talk about Can Envy.
• 1:24:23
  Yeah, it's all possible, yeah. Which is like the shed behind
• 1:24:26
  valve any offensively exactly you did a couple of releases
• 1:24:30
  back in the day and all kind of 35 CL bottles and then there was
• 1:24:34
  a release for a period of time. I don't know if it was an Amazon
• 1:24:37
  exclusive that was like the. I'm not sure about that.
• 1:24:40
  It could be, it could well be, but I'm not sure if I.
• 1:24:41
  Had a gradable packaging. Really.
• 1:24:43
  Really. Cool.
• 1:24:44
  Again, I think I'm not sure what the direction is of that.
• 1:24:50
  It's it's used obviously heavily in Monkey Shoulder.
• 1:24:52
  Yeah, as a space like, you know, Monkey Shoulder used to be
• 1:24:55
  Glymphatic and Barbeni and can be.
• 1:24:56
  And now I know we're open about talking about actually it's we
• 1:25:01
  use other space like molds as well because, because the
• 1:25:03
  success of Barbeni and Glymphatic now I suppose it's
• 1:25:07
  how you again talk about branding, how you have, how many
• 1:25:11
  molds do you do we need in the category?
• 1:25:13
  You know, we talked about elsewhere earlier talking about
• 1:25:15
  Canimvi. How does that fit into your
• 1:25:18
  portfolio and what do you do with it?
• 1:25:20
  And what, what's the story behind Canimvi because also you
• 1:25:23
  go there. It's great.
• 1:25:24
  Yeah. And it was opened by my great,
• 1:25:26
  great aunt. And that would have been.
• 1:25:30
  Couldn't be a doctor or a lawyer.
• 1:25:32
  No, no, no. She was a lawyer.
• 1:25:33
  Yeah. No, no.
• 1:25:37
  Yes, she was a lawyer, Yeah. Just a real hobby.
• 1:25:38
  No, no, no. But yeah.
• 1:25:40
  But I think back in the day she wasn't allowed to and graduate
• 1:25:44
  because she was female. Men.
• 1:25:45
  Really. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.
• 1:25:47
  Yeah, you're. Probably studying.
• 1:25:48
  So much smarter than mine. It's studying law, but yeah.
• 1:25:51
  Wasn't that and so and she used to play hockey with he's a guy
• 1:25:54
  from Chariot Safari, Scottish boat.
• 1:25:57
  Little. Yes, very little.
• 1:25:59
  Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
• 1:26:01
  I. Used to be so proud that I was
• 1:26:02
  able to get that. Get that right?
• 1:26:04
  So quite amazing and a very amazing woman.
• 1:26:07
  And I'm and you know, we talked about House of Hazelwood.
• 1:26:10
  I think you've heard of that. Yeah, it's one of our sort of
• 1:26:12
  brands. And her house was house was
• 1:26:15
  House of Hazelwood, OK. She lived at Hazelwood House and
• 1:26:19
  she she died there the age of 110.
• 1:26:22
  Wow. Jesus Christ.
• 1:26:23
  Yeah, 110. She was the oldest woman in
• 1:26:25
  Scotland. Wow.
• 1:26:27
  Which is impressive. And I remember, you know, her
• 1:26:29
  100, still 105 even still very much with it and just
• 1:26:35
  incredible. Can envy, then?
• 1:26:36
  Yeah, she opened can envy. Yeah, incredible woman.
• 1:26:38
  I remember as a kid, you know, it's one of those memories of
• 1:26:42
  fire on I don't think that my legs could touch the ground.
• 1:26:46
  Having a chat with this lady who was this.
• 1:26:48
  And I was almost an awe, like she was this incredible woman
• 1:26:51
  talking about stuff. And like, you know, she's she's
• 1:26:54
  well, she was born in 1901. So she lived through two awards
• 1:26:57
  and all this stuff. And she always said, yeah, war,
• 1:27:00
  never war never solved anything. So which, you know, right now we
• 1:27:03
  could probably. She needs to be back here, you
• 1:27:05
  know. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:27:05
  Where she. Yeah.
• 1:27:06
  So an incredible lady. And again, but it's sort of.
• 1:27:11
  And a big part of the family history.
• 1:27:12
  Yeah, definitely. Again, it's very easy, like you
• 1:27:14
  said. You said a lot about the tongue
• 1:27:16
  and cheek. I'm sure you know, the men, the
• 1:27:19
  men, the women got real jobs and doctors and lawyers might be,
• 1:27:22
  but you know, there's there's a lot to be said for for every
• 1:27:26
  male that was working in the in the family business, there'd be
• 1:27:28
  somebody behind that e-mail there.
• 1:27:30
  And for that to be part of Now we are sort of fast approaching
• 1:27:35
  the the time where we do ask for your ward three drums.
• 1:27:38
  I just want to quickly go over a couple of other things Ross has
• 1:27:42
  asked me to ask you. Why is Glenfiddich 12 so
• 1:27:45
  popular? Why is Glenfiddich 12 so
• 1:27:48
  popular? I think, well, we always talk
• 1:27:51
  about approachability. I think if you've got something
• 1:27:53
  sweet, yeah, sweet, light, fresh, you know, it's got those
• 1:28:01
  vanillas, it's got the caramel. But then it's, you know, you can
• 1:28:05
  get the pears in there, the apples.
• 1:28:07
  It's just so approachable for anybody.
• 1:28:10
  So anyone you know how it's like trying to get some people into
• 1:28:13
  whiskey, It can be tough. And I, you know, and I think
• 1:28:18
  sometimes we'd go down rabbit hole of Glen fillet being that
• 1:28:20
  sort of starter drum, which I think it's a bit unfair in a
• 1:28:22
  way. But you know, I, I, I'm very
• 1:28:25
  lucky to do a lot of tastings and we and I bring the grand
• 1:28:27
  crew, the 23 year old we have out basically most of them
• 1:28:30
  because you don't know who's going to be there.
• 1:28:33
  Someone might have been there for the first time having a
• 1:28:35
  whiskey tasting like yourself when you're younger or or more
• 1:28:38
  of a connoisseur in about commas and you open a bottle of that
• 1:28:42
  and it's just absolutely fantastic for everyone.
• 1:28:45
  And I think Lymphatic 12 is like this sort of understudy in a way
• 1:28:49
  of it's just being so approachable.
• 1:28:51
  You know, we talked about building brands.
• 1:28:53
  You can build a good brand that has been done in the past.
• 1:28:56
  I think the the whiskey that we try at 12 year old is just, it's
• 1:29:02
  just special in that sense. It is quite, you know, it's
• 1:29:05
  what, 85% bourbon ish, 15% ish European oak married together
• 1:29:13
  after 12 years. And it's, it's been that like
• 1:29:16
  that since 2000. Yeah.
• 1:29:18
  You know. And the job Ryan Kinsman must
• 1:29:20
  have to do, we talked to, we've talked to a few like blenders,
• 1:29:24
  master blenders. We've also had Jake Adkook as
• 1:29:26
  well as assistant blender at William, sorry, Ian McLeod of
• 1:29:29
  Steelers. And you forget the job that a
• 1:29:32
  master blender has to do to create that consistency.
• 1:29:35
  But then when you put it on the scale, can you tell me?
• 1:29:40
  Well, I can tell you, I can tell you how we do it.
• 1:29:42
  Anyway, just to be sure, we'll be quick at this literary every
• 1:29:46
  day there's 10 people. It could be a guide, it could be
• 1:29:50
  a Cooper, it could be someone in the accounting department,
• 1:29:53
  whoever it might be, they all get trained up to be a noser of
• 1:29:58
  the spirit, right? And so the every day at least 10
• 1:30:02
  people, there's about 30 people on site who are trained to do
• 1:30:07
  everyday at least 10 people have to go in and they go in and they
• 1:30:10
  have to nose and they say, all right, this is X, this is Y in
• 1:30:14
  terms of is it, is it of quality that we're watching?
• 1:30:17
  Is it of the spirit character we're looking for?
• 1:30:20
  They'll go do that. And then releases of maybe of
• 1:30:23
  other things like a 12 year old would come in as well.
• 1:30:26
  So age spirit and new mix spirit, anything that gets
• 1:30:30
  flagged, we'll get definitely get said to Brian.
• 1:30:32
  And Brian does send things back that you've said they've missed
• 1:30:36
  something, but that's quite rare and it's all done blind, so you
• 1:30:39
  don't know. And they and they spike it
• 1:30:41
  sometimes. Oh, really?
• 1:30:42
  So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:30:44
  So everyone's on their toes, so. When the accountant's really,
• 1:30:47
  really busy, that I've got too much to do.
• 1:30:49
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 1:30:50
  Yeah, that's fine. And so then why?
• 1:30:52
  And so if you if you if you strike out a few times, you're
• 1:30:55
  asked nicely to leave. You don't get sacked from the
• 1:30:57
  company, but you do that you have the taste of taste of
• 1:30:59
  paddle. Yeah.
• 1:31:00
  Wow. So like the whole business is
• 1:31:02
  involved. Everybody, that's all so the
• 1:31:04
  guides are right very close and we have fantastic guides on site
• 1:31:07
  and a lot of them are obviously huge whiskey enthusiasts yeah,
• 1:31:10
  quite a lot of them are doing that so yeah, so that I mean
• 1:31:12
  it'd. Be such a privilege to be on
• 1:31:14
  that kind of tasty, yeah. At that level as well and
• 1:31:18
  another part of the story that it's run all the way through the
• 1:31:22
  business. Yeah.
• 1:31:23
  Do you know what I mean? It's not like, oh, there's only
• 1:31:25
  so many people that are in the production side of it.
• 1:31:27
  Just another question for yourself.
• 1:31:29
  You've mentioned you're the 6th generation.
• 1:31:32
  You says 7th generation already up and running.
• 1:31:35
  Well, yes. Well, I've got a three-year old,
• 1:31:37
  so she's, she'll have to wait a few years, but we'll see what
• 1:31:39
  just comes of that. And like I said, do you feel
• 1:31:42
  like we we looking at your life and through your ancestors and
• 1:31:46
  stuff like that, your your daughter, you're saying, if she
• 1:31:50
  comes back to you and says, what's this family stuff?
• 1:31:53
  Will that be a moment where you're going?
• 1:31:54
  Right, Sit down. We're going to sit and chat
• 1:31:56
  about it. Yeah, it's, yeah.
• 1:31:57
  It's an interesting one, I suppose.
• 1:31:58
  Yeah, there's all sorts to talk about in that regard.
• 1:32:02
  I remember if Dad doing and I probably was sort of early
• 1:32:05
  teenagery side of it and stuff. And I'm not sure there's when's
• 1:32:11
  the right point. I suppose every parent has to do
• 1:32:13
  that themselves about talking about the family business, be
• 1:32:16
  it, you know, William Grant's house or any other family
• 1:32:18
  business talking about that side of it.
• 1:32:21
  It's a very good question. I have absolutely no idea how
• 1:32:24
  I'm going to deal with it. So thank you, Greg.
• 1:32:30
  Oh, shit. I didn't get my parenting skills
• 1:32:31
  going to get judged on that. I'm.
• 1:32:34
  About to go deep. I'm about to go deeper.
• 1:32:35
  This one, What we're drinking right now, What's?
• 1:32:38
  So this is we're talking about, this is another limited edition,
• 1:32:43
  but this is our 31 year old Grand Chateau.
• 1:32:45
  So the 23 year old in American Oak, some European oak and then
• 1:32:49
  nine years in a border cask. Awesome.
• 1:32:52
  So yeah. So again, I get a lot of like
• 1:32:54
  that's. Amazing.
• 1:32:58
  I think we talk about Winsky sometimes and overly wine, but
• 1:33:00
  you either have it in for a very short period of time or you have
• 1:33:03
  it in a long period of time that it mellows out.
• 1:33:05
  And I think this is a really good.
• 1:33:06
  Yeah, there's a, there's an element of it's like virgin oak.
• 1:33:11
  Yeah. Yeah, there's a virgin, Yeah,
• 1:33:12
  certainly a virgin oak element where you either put it in,
• 1:33:16
  blast it and get it out. Or you go forget.
• 1:33:20
  About it and then come back to it and let the let the cast do
• 1:33:23
  its thing. Yeah, this is this is a
• 1:33:26
  beautiful ground. I think one of the best things
• 1:33:27
  we do. And it's just yeah, there's.
• 1:33:30
  Tannins on that I get, yeah. The tannins great, but I think
• 1:33:33
  again, the tannins are a tastic and they linger there and
• 1:33:37
  they're beautiful, but they're not they're not they're not
• 1:33:39
  punching you with full oak, but it's a there's a nice balance
• 1:33:42
  there. They've done a fantastic job,
• 1:33:44
  right. So the great job of this one.
• 1:33:45
  Right what? 3 drums?
• 1:33:46
  Yeah. So I'll go with my, I think we
• 1:33:50
  were talking about earlier about my bit more luxurious one.
• 1:33:53
  I was going to go with the best drama I've ever had from us.
• 1:33:57
  So I'm going to go with the Glenfiddich 1 and brand and
• 1:34:00
  brand. But you know, it's one of those
• 1:34:02
  things like I've tried it twice, I might not be able to try it
• 1:34:05
  again. Yeah, it was our 49 year old
• 1:34:08
  archive and it was just, it's like the 12 year old but on
• 1:34:15
  steroids or something. It's it's like, you know, this
• 1:34:17
  beautifully elegant, fully bourbon cask must be refilled
• 1:34:23
  for that age. 491973 absolutely unbelievable that light apples
• 1:34:30
  and pears a bit, but then they're beautifully subtle.
• 1:34:32
  Oak and vanillas throughout as well in a way that the texture
• 1:34:35
  on it as well, you know, it's probably a lowish ABV but just
• 1:34:40
  lingers there and it's just one of those opportunities.
• 1:34:42
  I did actually did the tasting with Mark Thompson once and then
• 1:34:46
  I did a run recently at the Tattoo with Brian Kinsman and we
• 1:34:49
  did it as a first round of the evening and like, yeah, first
• 1:34:52
  round of the evening, Yeah, we can think about the rest of it
• 1:34:54
  was very good too. But first round of the evening
• 1:34:56
  and just because it deserved, I know, I think we talked about
• 1:35:01
  it. Sometimes the first can be.
• 1:35:03
  A bit jarring. A bit jarring, yeah, but when it
• 1:35:05
  is of that quality, Oh. You can stick that in.
• 1:35:07
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think people had a culture
• 1:35:09
  before as well. It's fine.
• 1:35:13
  That was just exceptional and. How does a tasting go if you put
• 1:35:18
  something like that there? You go next.
• 1:35:20
  Well, you're just like. Oh well, I'll take you through
• 1:35:22
  it. So it was very lucky that again,
• 1:35:26
  as the brand ambassador up here, I got to do this tasting at the
• 1:35:29
  Tattoo just out round corner and these guys, they had all bought
• 1:35:32
  a 40 year old whiskey. All right, Glimpinic, right.
• 1:35:35
  OK, so you know that so we're going to put on a big of a show.
• 1:35:40
  So start off with a 49 year old as one does, as well as and.
• 1:35:44
  That whiskey #2 here's the well. Exactly.
• 1:35:47
  Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:35:48
  So I think that the youngest one we did was a 26 year old, fully
• 1:35:53
  matured. Excellent.
• 1:35:54
  No, it's just a pad of Katado cask.
• 1:35:56
  So not even released. Holy, really.
• 1:35:59
  Yeah. And actually, imagine fully
• 1:36:02
  mature a lot of European oak, you know.
• 1:36:05
  Yeah, it was, it was actually, it was beautiful.
• 1:36:07
  It was lovely, but not quintessential Glenn Fig.
• 1:36:10
  And then I think we rented Chateau 31 year Old, which we're
• 1:36:15
  trying right now. So at least you've been a part
• 1:36:17
  of it, a little bit part of it. And then we did 40 and then we
• 1:36:22
  did the 50. So it's just like, you know, so
• 1:36:24
  it was like all dead. That was that was the best thing
• 1:36:26
  I've ever done. It was the best whiskey thing.
• 1:36:28
  And I went over. I had the tattoo as well.
• 1:36:30
  Yeah, it was, yeah. Just we had a private area for
• 1:36:33
  for the night that's. Fantastic.
• 1:36:34
  I do have to say, having gone to a few Glenfiddich tastings, I've
• 1:36:38
  been lucky enough to go to some of the more high end stuff I
• 1:36:42
  think William Grants are great at doing.
• 1:36:46
  This is a great whiskey, but it's not us and it's not a route
• 1:36:50
  that we would want to go down to.
• 1:36:52
  But you can clearly see how this works.
• 1:36:54
  And the cast maturations maybe kind of really pushed in the
• 1:36:57
  direction. Yeah, but This is why we
• 1:37:00
  wouldn't bustle it because this, it doesn't like stick to our
• 1:37:03
  core values and you've got a risk.
• 1:37:05
  I really respect a distillery. They can go.
• 1:37:08
  This is banging. It's not.
• 1:37:10
  Us. It's not us, yeah.
• 1:37:12
  And that's. A It's a pretty bold thing to be
• 1:37:14
  able to. Do I'm going to, I'm going to
• 1:37:15
  say something else as well. We've talked, I've said it on
• 1:37:17
  the podcast a couple of times and I've said it and it kind of
• 1:37:21
  comes out in the wrong sentiment in the sense that in Scotland,
• 1:37:25
  so I've said it, people listen to this.
• 1:37:27
  I've heard this before, Graham, but I remember hearing someone
• 1:37:31
  talking about golf in Scotland and they said golf in Scotland
• 1:37:33
  is a classless sport in the sense that, yeah, we have, we
• 1:37:37
  have community courses and local courses and what have you.
• 1:37:41
  There's obviously some fantastic golf courses that you can join
• 1:37:44
  and pay membership fees, but there's also council courses
• 1:37:46
  that so that anybody in Scotland can actually walk up and play
• 1:37:50
  around the golf. And I'd say whiskey's probably
• 1:37:52
  the same in Scotland. You can travel the world, you've
• 1:37:53
  travelled the world, you've been around, you've been to India and
• 1:37:55
  stuff like that. You've seen and I think that
• 1:37:57
  Scotch in particular, single malt Scotch and a lot of
• 1:38:00
  countries even just South of the border will say, oh, if you
• 1:38:04
  drink single malt Scotch, you have to be of a certain, you
• 1:38:09
  know, you have to be on this level.
• 1:38:10
  Yeah, you have to be in this class classic area or what have
• 1:38:14
  you in Scotland, you don't. And what this is, what's
• 1:38:17
  fantastic is like you've just talked about the fact that you
• 1:38:20
  can say, right. You know, we, we did a tasting
• 1:38:23
  for people who had bought the 40 year old and in that tasting at
• 1:38:26
  the 40, the 50, we've had a 40, a 49 year old and, and what have
• 1:38:31
  you. But at the same time, as a
• 1:38:33
  brand, you've also got a hoostram.
• 1:38:35
  Yeah, yeah. You know I.
• 1:38:37
  Mean it's the same for every, you know, every established
• 1:38:39
  brand you know. No.
• 1:38:40
  Well, well, it isn't. It isn't because I'm going to
• 1:38:42
  say I'm you. You're not saying this.
• 1:38:45
  I'm a Cowan, for example, will only associate itself with
• 1:38:48
  prestige, right? Glenfiddich associates himself
• 1:38:51
  and Balveni associates himself with prestige, but also
• 1:38:54
  associates himself with the whiskey drinker, right.
• 1:38:57
  And you've got grants the, the, the, the, the, the blend blend,
• 1:39:02
  the product you've but then you've also got the Glen and
• 1:39:04
  you've also got loads of other ones.
• 1:39:05
  But the big ones we're talking about the Glenferic.
• 1:39:07
  There are plenty of people. A Glenferic 12 would be quite
• 1:39:11
  comfortable on an optics behind the bar.
• 1:39:13
  Yeah. Yeah, right.
• 1:39:14
  And you'll see it behind every single bar in Scotland pretty
• 1:39:16
  much. And it's accessible, it's easy
• 1:39:18
  to go. And what are you normally paying
• 1:39:19
  for? A Glenferic 12, roughly.
• 1:39:20
  What do you reckon? 4 LB.
• 1:39:22
  Well, you're in here. Yeah, Yeah. 35 miles, 4 LB yeah,
• 1:39:25
  actually isn't it isn't bad at all for a for a single malt when
• 1:39:28
  you look at it, But at the same time accelerate the profile all
• 1:39:32
  the way up to 49 to to to all that even the fact that like the
• 1:39:37
  16 the 16 you brought. I think this that's what was
• 1:39:40
  going on about. I think I'm really proud of the
• 1:39:42
  guys to bring something like this out this year as we
• 1:39:44
  actually as our new, yeah, we got MPD new product design at a,
• 1:39:50
  you know, 75 crib 16 year old, yeah.
• 1:39:53
  And I take it as an Aston Martin releases a premium version.
• 1:39:57
  Is that or is that is? That Yeah, yes, there's a 65
• 1:39:59
  year old, yeah. Correct.
• 1:40:00
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I knew that would happen.
• 1:40:03
  I should do. Yeah.
• 1:40:04
  But the point is, it's not like it's not exclude like, oh, we're
• 1:40:09
  only bringing out and if you're if you like your F1, if you're
• 1:40:12
  in your Aston Martins, we're only targeting the people that
• 1:40:15
  could probably afford to buy an Aston Martin exactly and drink.
• 1:40:18
  Whereas actually, you know, if you're an F1 fan and you like
• 1:40:22
  Aston Martin and you like whiskey, then we've got a 70 odd
• 1:40:24
  # bottle that is accessible to the most mid market branch and
• 1:40:30
  it's and it's cracking. It's cracking out just.
• 1:40:32
  Purely I'm curious, it's 65, the oldest age statement
• 1:40:35
  Glenfiddich's ever done. Or is.
• 1:40:37
  I don't ping him on the spot here.
• 1:40:38
  I think it might be, I don't. Think I might be.
• 1:40:40
  I mean, it might be, yeah, but I can't think of no I.
• 1:40:42
  Think it must. I haven't even thought that.
• 1:40:44
  I think it might potentially, yes, Yeah.
• 1:40:47
  We're gonna have to crack on this.
• 1:40:48
  This will be a two-part app Drum drum number and we're in for the
• 1:40:53
  long. Haul Yeah, I'm glad I've lasted.
• 1:40:56
  I'm glad I've lasted this long. As long as the Part 2, so I go.
• 1:40:59
  Home. My flat's been flooded.
• 1:41:00
  Right, right drum #2. Drum #2 lag of 116 because I
• 1:41:09
  remember I was, we have this thing called Next generation, as
• 1:41:12
  you can imagine. So it's when we get together as
• 1:41:15
  cousins. We used to a lot more, I think
• 1:41:17
  when we were a bit younger. So I was 18.
• 1:41:19
  So I was promoted to the You ran the drinking gang.
• 1:41:22
  You're a drinking gang. Yeah.
• 1:41:24
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:41:24
  Because I'm sort of middle of the road of 6th generation.
• 1:41:27
  So and we all went to Isla. We all went to Isla and we went
• 1:41:31
  around, we went to Bricklady Burmore, I beg Kahoman when it
• 1:41:36
  was very young, so it was basically just opened and like
• 1:41:39
  Verne and I remember doing all. I don't remember much about the
• 1:41:44
  individuals that are beg the Freud and like Vernon decidies
• 1:41:48
  because they're all quite same. But for me as an 18 year old,
• 1:41:51
  this is half my lifetime ago, so my memory is foggy about that.
• 1:41:55
  But what I do remember is standing in the tasting room
• 1:41:59
  after going round the scenery and having my first like 16
• 1:42:02
  thinking, I love this. And it's quite unusual, I think
• 1:42:06
  for maybe for an 18 year old. Yeah, probably, you know, PD
• 1:42:09
  whiskey itinerary, We feel like you get into it after a while.
• 1:42:12
  Maybe it's in my blood. I don't know.
• 1:42:13
  But you know that. And that was that moment of I
• 1:42:17
  just loved it. So yeah.
• 1:42:19
  And then my, my third one is very emotional.
• 1:42:24
  And for me in that it was during COVID and grandda had taken a
• 1:42:33
  fall and he, he was, he was in part of care.
• 1:42:39
  So he wasn't going to, he wasn't going to be around forever.
• 1:42:41
  And I, I made a decision to invite my cousin to drive with
• 1:42:47
  me down to Dumfries. So he was, he lives to live in
• 1:42:50
  Crocketford with my aunt and uncle who took care of him for
• 1:42:53
  the last 20 years. So I thank them very much for
• 1:42:54
  that. All right.
• 1:42:55
  And he's he's, he's we're just there and he's he's not
• 1:43:00
  conscious, but we're just chatting away to him, Tracy,
• 1:43:03
  thanking him for the entirety of his life and what he did and his
• 1:43:07
  sacrifice for, as we talked earlier about coming into the
• 1:43:09
  business and stuff. And, you know, all the things he
• 1:43:12
  did, you know, from creating Glenn Fig to run the family
• 1:43:16
  business to all the piping stuff to, you know, he helped actually
• 1:43:19
  make the rules on Scotch and as it is to this day.
• 1:43:23
  So he was, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:43:25
  And she's and that was a that was a heavy moment, but it was a
• 1:43:30
  moment which I shared with my cousin.
• 1:43:31
  And he's a big whiskey fan and he's, he's very capable.
• 1:43:35
  He's he's a doctor, so he's got a proper job.
• 1:43:37
  He but he's a biochemist. And, and then he, he sent me a
• 1:43:44
  whiskey after it to say thank you.
• 1:43:46
  And it was, it was a two more 20 year old from an independent
• 1:43:50
  bottle. I think it was called.
• 1:43:51
  I need to. I'll find out whether it was for
• 1:43:53
  you, but. And had a peregrine Falcon on
• 1:43:57
  it. And my grandfather was when he
• 1:44:00
  retired. That's what we did.
• 1:44:02
  Bird watcher, big bird watcher. So that was it was it was just
• 1:44:06
  this thing of, you know, me and my cousin sharing that moment of
• 1:44:10
  seeing my grandpa lying there and thanking him to, you know,
• 1:44:14
  that was the DRAM which we sort of toasted that memory to.
• 1:44:20
  Yeah. And so it was, you know, as you
• 1:44:21
  imagine. Yeah.
• 1:44:22
  An emotional time for me. I just wanted to say thank you
• 1:44:25
  to my cousin for that because it was it meant a lot to me and I
• 1:44:28
  think I think it meant a lot to him.
• 1:44:29
  So that's my third one. Probably can't get it anymore,
• 1:44:31
  but you can find like a villain anywhere.
• 1:44:33
  See what? You find fantastic.
• 1:44:35
  Thank you so much. And you know what, like talk
• 1:44:37
  about your grandfather, I suppose, like if you're, if
• 1:44:40
  you're in a 6th, if you're the 6th generation of a family, the
• 1:44:45
  the oldest generation is the person that you can probably get
• 1:44:48
  everything from. So your grandfather must have
• 1:44:51
  meant must have meant the world TA for for that and, and to
• 1:44:53
  pass. And, well, I've been probably a
• 1:44:55
  big part of passing on everything through the.
• 1:44:57
  So so the hardest person to ask questions.
• 1:45:01
  Me like of him. No, like my grandparents.
• 1:45:04
  I mean, I don't know if what it's like with your family.
• 1:45:05
  My grandfather just passed away a couple weeks ago and it's
• 1:45:09
  actually whiskey related as well.
• 1:45:10
  I had a really lovely day with him.
• 1:45:13
  He I had AI had an event in when I was working at Scotch at
• 1:45:18
  Glenmorengy and my he. Told.
• 1:45:20
  My, yeah, I told this at the podcast, but my grandfather had
• 1:45:23
  had a heart attack and they actually had to resuscitate him
• 1:45:27
  in the, in the ambulance way there.
• 1:45:30
  And I'd been invited up to Glenmorengy.
• 1:45:31
  It was a 2 day trip and I said I'll do the first one.
• 1:45:34
  The second one I really got to see my grandfather in the
• 1:45:36
  hospital and then and the first day it was me and Scott Soonest
• 1:45:41
  who now works as head of PR for Hibs.
• 1:45:45
  So it's. A freezer brother?
• 1:45:46
  Really. Really tough kick.
• 1:45:47
  Really thought on his face, but but we went we went up and to
• 1:45:54
  say that we got drunk would be an understatement.
• 1:45:56
  We drank. I think we drank Glen Orangey
• 1:45:58
  house dry to the point that we couldn't find any more booze at
• 1:46:01
  all. And I woke up the next morning
• 1:46:04
  more hangover. I've been in my entire life and
• 1:46:07
  had a private chef and he was like, I can make you anything.
• 1:46:09
  And I was like, I love porridge and don't talk to me.
• 1:46:14
  And and got a taxi to the hospital to go visit him.
• 1:46:17
  And I walked in and I said to him, I was like, I really hope
• 1:46:20
  you're not looking for any sympathy because I'm fairly
• 1:46:23
  something. I feel rougher than you do.
• 1:46:24
  And he laughed and then cursed me out because he had broken
• 1:46:28
  ribs. From with.
• 1:46:29
  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, because you made him laugh at her.
• 1:46:33
  Yeah. And.
• 1:46:34
  Then I asked for, I was a DREF and he also cursed me out.
• 1:46:36
  But then I just had a really lovely day where I got to talk
• 1:46:37
  to him and ask him all the questions.
• 1:46:39
  I didn't really, I never really had a one-on-one with a, they're
• 1:46:42
  the kind of people that there's always a crowd around or this.
• 1:46:46
  So to get those opportunities and to ask him about, you know,
• 1:46:49
  what his time was like, he like met my grandmother in Singapore
• 1:46:53
  and they had their first kid in Singapore and then came back to
• 1:46:56
  the UK. Right.
• 1:46:57
  So finally, my grandfather was always very my name is Frugal
• 1:47:01
  Dougal, right, right. But my grandfather's probably
• 1:47:03
  even more than that. And that he he was, he's, he was
• 1:47:09
  always very proud that it cost him 5 lbs to court my
• 1:47:11
  grandmother, which is good, which is great, but.
• 1:47:15
  Listen, Dougal, you've not been so frugal with the drams.
• 1:47:18
  Tonight, thank you so much. Amazing.
• 1:47:19
  And what what an episode. Thank you so much for coming.
• 1:47:22
  And it's been fantastic. I'm so pleased we managed to get
• 1:47:24
  this episode done. Thank you for thanks for the
• 1:47:26
  drams. Thank you to everyone for
• 1:47:28
  listening. Thanks to everyone who passes
• 1:47:29
  the pod, shares the pod. This is a cracker.
• 1:47:31
  Pass it on, share it, tell everyone about it.
• 1:47:34
  Big shout out to everybody in the Whiskey Stories Facebook
• 1:47:36
  group. Keep the pod going, keep the
• 1:47:38
  weekend DRAM roll call going. All the very best.
• 1:47:40
  Thank you so much. Cheers guys.
• 1:47:42
  Sanjivar. Cheers.
• 1:47:43
  Brilliant. Cheers.
• 1:47:44
  Thanks Woody as well.