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How Eddie McDougall The Flying Winemaker Took Wine Around the World · Whisky Unfinished

0:00
SPEAKER_04: This is Hong Kong dining.
0:01
SPEAKER_03: Fried food, fried table, more importantly, a cracking glass of wine.
0:05
SPEAKER_03: Today we've got Eddie McDougal.
0:06
SPEAKER_03: I'm Eddie McDougal, the flying winemaker.
0:09
SPEAKER_04: A CEO, entrepreneur, commentator, TV personality, and charge.
0:13
SPEAKER_05: Like on the covering in the New York Times, to be honest, who's exploding.
0:16
SPEAKER_05: A little bit different, a little bit unique whiskeys today.
0:18
SPEAKER_05: Timeless and tasty.
0:19
SPEAKER_05: Secret Island.
0:20
SPEAKER_05: 20-year-old.
0:21
SPEAKER_05: What is the flying winemaker?
0:22
SPEAKER_05: And then take us back to the start.
0:24
SPEAKER_04: We produced a television series for Discovery Channel on Netflix, which had uh 350 million viewers around the world.
0:30
SPEAKER_05: 28-year-old Dalwini, your experience starting a wine brand.
0:34
SPEAKER_04: Knew nothing about wine.
0:35
SPEAKER_04: I bought the cheapest stuff and I drank everything that was sweet, high alcohol, high off time.
0:40
SPEAKER_05: 40-year-old Alexa.
0:41
SPEAKER_05: Take us to a moment where we thought, man, this job is glamorous.
0:45
SPEAKER_05: Why am I doing this?
0:46
SPEAKER_04: If I can do what I can do, it's not.
0:51
SPEAKER_05: So we're on to lag of woolen 27-year-old.
0:54
SPEAKER_05: 100 points.
1:07
SPEAKER_05: Hey guys, we're catching here, the whiskey chief.
1:09
SPEAKER_05: Firstly, thank you so much for watching this.
1:11
SPEAKER_05: I really appreciate it.
1:12
SPEAKER_05: If you could like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
1:18
SPEAKER_05: Thanks.
1:19
SPEAKER_05: Welcome to Whiskey Unfinished, where the whiskey's never finished, and neither's the conversation.
1:24
SPEAKER_05: Thanks so much for joining me today, Eddie.
1:25
SPEAKER_05: Great to have you here.
1:26
SPEAKER_05: So today we've got uh Eddie McDougal, and we're starting with one of his wines here.
1:31
SPEAKER_05: So cheers.
1:32
SPEAKER_05: We'll have him over there.
1:36
SPEAKER_05: Eddie is the founder uh and owner and still running uh both the Flying Winemaker and more recently his new wine brand, EJ McDougal, uh, which is uh named after his family, obviously.
1:47
SPEAKER_05: McDougall, as some people listening, watching might understand you've got some Scottish roots, right?
1:52
SPEAKER_05: So we'll we'll dive a bit into that.
1:54
SPEAKER_05: And today, uh really the theme for what I want to dive into is you know your experience with the flying winemaker, with starting a wine brand and producing your own wine, and just understanding a lot of what was some of your motivations, how you got into it, what some of the learnings were, and just a bit of a chat about that.
2:12
SPEAKER_05: And then on the whiskey side, given you are a you know a whiskey guy as well as a wine guy, right?
2:18
SPEAKER_05: You've got the Scottish blood, but also you love your whiskeys.
2:21
SPEAKER_05: You own a couple of casts of whiskey, right, in in Scotland.
2:24
SPEAKER_05: You've been to Scotland many times, I think, uh pretty recently.
2:27
SPEAKER_05: So I've tried to pick some a little bit different, a little bit unique whiskeys today.
2:31
SPEAKER_05: So we're gonna be starting with a bottle that's from a very good friend of mine, Hill, who produces an independent bottling brand here in Hong Kong called Timeless and Tasty.
2:39
SPEAKER_05: So she's got a beautiful secret Highland PX Sherry cask for us.
2:44
SPEAKER_05: And then we're going into the cat the Diageo Casks of Distinction cast samples phase.
2:51
SPEAKER_05: These samples were drawn a little while ago, so we have to keep that into account.
2:56
SPEAKER_05: These are actually back from when I ran the Platinum Whiskey Fund.
2:59
SPEAKER_05: We actually owned these casks in the fund.
3:01
SPEAKER_05: So these are samples that were drawn from, well, these were full bottle samples drawn from the casks when he had when we had them.
3:07
SPEAKER_05: So the cask of distinction program, I'll talk about a little bit more later, but we have a Delwinny 28-year-old, a Talisker 40-year-old, and a Lagavulin 27-year-old.
3:16
SPEAKER_05: So I'm guessing most likely you've not had these particular whiskeys.
3:20
SPEAKER_05: You probably had these brands, but not these particular whiskeys, because these were only done as single casks offered by Diaggio.
3:27
SPEAKER_05: Their cast of distinction is their top-of-the-top program where they pick the single cask they think best represents that particular distillery and that brand.
3:36
SPEAKER_05: We don't have much of it left, only these kind of uh cast sample bottles.
3:40
SPEAKER_05: So wanted to share something special with you, my friend.
3:42
SPEAKER_05: So that's gonna be the whiskey theme for today.
3:44
SPEAKER_05: But I think starting with this, we've got a 2024 Chardonnay, right?
3:48
SPEAKER_05: Was this the first vintage?
3:49
SPEAKER_05: Is that correct?
3:50
SPEAKER_04: That was so this is 2024 EJ McDougal Chardonnay from Margarita, so Western Australia.
3:56
SPEAKER_04: It is the first ever release of it.
3:58
SPEAKER_04: We produced 2,388 bottles to be exact.
4:01
SPEAKER_05: It's all sold out, right?
4:03
SPEAKER_05: All going out.
4:04
SPEAKER_04: It's it's sold on allocation.
4:06
SPEAKER_04: It's really a nod to Australian fine wine.
4:08
SPEAKER_04: And I think going out and producing the range of EJ McDougal wines was about re-establishing Australia as a fine wine-producing country.
4:18
SPEAKER_04: And that that's the mission, is to kind of fix the problem that Australia dug itself into um being perceived as sunshine in the bottle, cheap and cheerful, great value for money.
4:29
SPEAKER_04: But in fact, is it really that good value for money when you're comparing it Spain, comparing it in South American wines, South African wines?
4:36
SPEAKER_04: It's kind of not really in the mix.
4:39
SPEAKER_04: And Australia built its reputation on fine mines going back, you know, you know, 50, 60, sometimes even 70 years uh ago.
4:46
SPEAKER_04: So this is uh a real push to showcase the world that you know Australia has not been lost and forgotten.
4:53
SPEAKER_04: Um and I think it's kind of a a mission and a responsibility that I want to give back to the industry, but also take on the challenge that you know we can re-establish the country as a force to be reckoned with in the fine line world.
5:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think that's good.
5:09
SPEAKER_05: And I was uh, as you know, used to run platinum wines what feels like a lifetime ago.
5:13
SPEAKER_05: It was like 15 years ago.
5:15
SPEAKER_05: And actually, platinum wines started here in Hong Kong, and it was 2006 before I joined as an Aussie wine brokerage service.
5:23
SPEAKER_05: So most of the wines we were selling were Penfolds Grange, Torbrick Run Riggs, uh Astralis, Clarendon Hills Astralis.
5:30
SPEAKER_05: So it was like a lot of the I think there were most not many whites, but mostly kind of the big, bold, slap you in the face kind of Aussie wine.
5:38
SPEAKER_04: Old school packerized, you know, 96 plus points.
5:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and some people love that stuff young, but for me, I mean, I gotta let that age like 20 years just to be able to enjoy for me, for my palate, right?
5:49
SPEAKER_05: Because I think as I've gotten older, I'm I'm more kind of more Bordeaux and that kind of style of wine, and just used to that kind of style.
5:57
SPEAKER_05: What kind of style of wine are you trying to create?
5:59
SPEAKER_05: You said luxury, or you're trying to find you're trying to bring back fine wine to Australia.
6:04
SPEAKER_05: Can you define that for me a bit better?
6:06
SPEAKER_05: What does that mean?
6:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I often use a word to describe our collection as weightlessly intense.
6:10
SPEAKER_04: Weightlessly intense is the perfect strike of intensity and then this um push and pull effect.
6:16
SPEAKER_04: It's not too much push in terms of flavor, in terms of jamminess, alcohol.
6:20
SPEAKER_04: It's got a restraintness that pulls it back.
6:21
SPEAKER_04: So it's this weightless intense characteristic, which is attention that draws balance.
6:27
SPEAKER_05: Weightless intensity.
6:28
SPEAKER_05: Weightless intensity reminds me of the beginning of the movie Gravity.
6:31
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we're talking about.
6:33
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I don't know about gravity, but it's it's about creating weightless intensity, and you know, you could be intensity and aromas, um, but it's just got this ethereal sort of um after-effect to it, whether it's perfumes or whether it's secondary or aromatics, and then at the same time, in terms of flavor profile or tannin structure or um uh weight on the palate, again, it could be perceived as full body, but it's just got this elegance to it and this refinement to it that just gives you length of flavor, but also like um in fine wine, it it's it's called fine because it's fine, you know.
7:07
SPEAKER_04: When you get refined things, it's really elegant, it's soft, but it's powerful.
7:11
SPEAKER_04: I get it.
7:11
SPEAKER_05: It's better than finish.
7:12
SPEAKER_05: I definitely get what you were saying, even in the Chardonnay, which maybe some of your description I I think more of maybe applying more to the reds, but I get it in the whites as well.
7:20
SPEAKER_05: At least in this Chardonnay, I'm getting that elegance and that um balance in the in the kind of the first taste.
7:28
SPEAKER_05: But then for me, I'm very sensitive to finish.
7:30
SPEAKER_05: That's where I'm getting the fine wine side, the the very you know, the very well, well, well structured finish.
7:37
SPEAKER_04: With with whites, it's always about freshness as well.
7:40
SPEAKER_04: And freshness is a a real test when it comes to aging.
7:44
SPEAKER_04: So everything we do is all about how well will these wines age in time, and that's the only way that you can really define how good is this wine.
7:52
SPEAKER_05: So, how long would this last, you think?
7:54
SPEAKER_05: Like, what would your hope be?
7:56
SPEAKER_04: Now, 2024, like the critics have said 15 to 25 years.
7:59
SPEAKER_05: That's amazing.
8:00
SPEAKER_05: So that'll be fun to try.
8:01
SPEAKER_04: And especially under the screw cap, you know, we embrace technology for our whites, especially under screw cap.
8:06
SPEAKER_04: With our reds, we'll always use cork because I think there's a benefit to the cork.
8:09
SPEAKER_04: But with whites, under screw cap, selled well, produced with a a level of science but also integrity in the vineyard, really creates wines that have depth and ability age.
8:21
SPEAKER_05: No, it's amazing.
8:22
SPEAKER_05: And you you were telling me just before the podcast started, you're heading to actually you're flying out to the window.
8:26
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm flying out to Perth to go to Market River to go make the next vintage of this wine.
8:30
SPEAKER_04: Oh, not the next vintage, the 2026 vintage of this wine.
8:33
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
8:33
SPEAKER_04: So we're also releasing um the 2025 vintage in August um this year.
8:39
SPEAKER_05: So tell me briefly about that process because I I don't know much.
8:42
SPEAKER_05: What you're flying flying to Perth, what are you going to do there?
8:45
SPEAKER_05: What are you looking for?
8:46
SPEAKER_05: How do you how are you gonna define what's gonna be a good part of this 2026 vintage?
8:51
SPEAKER_05: What does that mean?
8:52
SPEAKER_04: Look, I think um there's a number of factors.
8:54
SPEAKER_04: A lot of it comes down to the experience I've had over the last 23 years of making wine, and the experience is also backed by very good relationships.
9:03
SPEAKER_04: And my business model as a what we call a negotiant élevé, whereas we don't own our vineyards, we work with the growers and we have very, very strong relationships with our growers, and also my winemaker Lillian Carter has very strong relationships with the growers and also our production partners where we can oversee and manage our specifications, but we never actually tell them what to do, especially the growers.
9:28
SPEAKER_04: The growers work their 365 days a year, right?
9:30
SPEAKER_04: They know far better than we do what's happening on their land.
9:33
SPEAKER_05: But there are they trying to match a certain output, I guess.
9:36
SPEAKER_05: They they know the profile that you want.
9:40
SPEAKER_05: Like, is it more sweetness, less acidity?
9:42
SPEAKER_05: Is it that kind of thing?
9:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so there is a little bit of science behind it, yeah, but there's also a little bit of um historical referencing at the same time as the world's changing and understanding of what's happening, you know, from a global warming perspective, a climate change perspective.
9:56
SPEAKER_04: It's about embracing change as well, and adopting to change.
10:03
SPEAKER_04: Like we share, but we never tell them what to do.
10:06
SPEAKER_04: We never do give advice, and that this, I guess, is a very EO thing, right?
10:10
SPEAKER_04: We never give advice.
10:11
SPEAKER_04: Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs, yeah.
10:13
SPEAKER_04: So we we we share our experiences from what we've seen in other vineyards around the world, from other world-class winemakers around the world, and say, look, this is what they're doing, this is what the results they've had, we really like what they're doing.
10:25
SPEAKER_04: We've done this, this, and this, you know, take it or leave it, right?
10:28
SPEAKER_04: You know, not telling you what to do, but it's an idea.
10:32
SPEAKER_04: If you if you like it, go use it.
10:33
SPEAKER_04: And and by all means, have a good crack at it.
10:36
SPEAKER_04: And if you make a mistake, then you know we'll have a different conversation later.
10:39
SPEAKER_04: Right.
10:40
SPEAKER_05: So, what will you be doing on this trip?
10:41
SPEAKER_05: Like specifically, what will you be able to meet with the growers?
10:45
SPEAKER_04: I'll go to the vineyard, meet the growers, go to the the the winery, see the grapes, yeah, see the grapes, see the grapes, taste the grapes, see the grapes.
10:51
SPEAKER_05: So they've picked already harvest.
10:53
SPEAKER_04: So they'll they'll be coming off soon.
10:54
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
10:55
SPEAKER_04: So basically help make the final decision as to when we're picking, and then finalise based on the composition of the grapes and also understanding the yield that we're gonna get, um, determine what the processing is gonna look like.
11:08
SPEAKER_05: So you mentioned 2,000 something roughly bottles for 2024.
11:11
SPEAKER_05: Will 2026 be more, less?
11:13
SPEAKER_05: Or is there a lot of it?
11:15
SPEAKER_04: It'll probably be a little bit more, okay.
11:17
SPEAKER_04: Probably closer to three and a half thousand bottles.
11:20
SPEAKER_04: Okay, so still pretty boutique from uh yeah, we we the capacity of the vineyard is what it is.
11:24
SPEAKER_04: Right.
11:25
SPEAKER_04: Um we we can do maximum sort of ten to twelve barrels, and some of the barrels are larger format barrels, so some are 225 litres, others are sort of five hundred or six hundred litre barrels.
11:34
SPEAKER_04: Um so we've got a blend of maturation um processes that we put in place to work to our style.
11:41
SPEAKER_04: And we reverse engineer our wines a bit because we know what the style that we want to produce is, right?
11:47
SPEAKER_04: So the the imperfections of the vintage give it that personality, but our style and our and our thought processes and our vision for the wines gives it the the pure identity of that that's an EJ McDougall wine.
12:01
SPEAKER_04: Right.
12:01
SPEAKER_04: And then we can you know let the vintage you know shape itself around it.
12:05
SPEAKER_05: Let's go back to the start, I guess, in terms of learning a bit more about how you got into this whole world because you weren't always in the in the wine industry.
12:13
SPEAKER_05: You've done many, many different things, but you've often talked about this story where it was that one unexpected glass of wine that that changed your life, right?
12:21
SPEAKER_05: Do you remember that moment?
12:22
SPEAKER_05: And from that, like when was the moment, I guess, where you said this isn't just a great glass, this is gonna be a life, you know, change for me.
12:30
SPEAKER_05: And what had to change in your life or what had to break in your life for you to like follow that path?
12:34
SPEAKER_05: Take us back to where this all started for for wine.
12:38
SPEAKER_04: I've been in the wine industry 23 going 24 years now.
12:43
SPEAKER_04: And so I was in my final year of an undergrad degree, business degree in Brisbane.
12:50
SPEAKER_04: And like most students, you work part-time in a restaurant or you deliver pizzas or you do something on as a side hustle as you're studying just a you sell weed, whatever it takes, whatever, whatever you do, whatever you do, and uh you you kind of you know fall into different different areas, right?
13:08
SPEAKER_04: And so I fell into hospitality, and I think I fell into hospitality because I just loved the nightlife.
13:14
SPEAKER_04: Uh, maybe because I grew up in Hong Kong, I saw the great Lang Kwai Fong once upon a time.
13:19
SPEAKER_04: I saw the energy of you know, people dining out and going out, having drinks, and I just wanted to be around it, and obviously I couldn't afford to do it on my own to the to the level of what other people were doing it.
13:30
SPEAKER_04: So I thought get a job in a place where you know that that level of people are going to.
13:34
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
13:34
SPEAKER_04: So I worked in a place called Isis Browsery, final semester of uni, and it was uh Tuesday night, no bookings.
13:41
SPEAKER_04: So the only wait staff was uh one wait staff, the owner, myself as the bar bartender, and then there was a couple of guys in the kitchen.
13:49
SPEAKER_04: A table walks in, early, early walk in, like 6 15.
13:53
SPEAKER_04: This, you know, everyone needs early in Australia, and it was like, whoa shit, that's um, you know, it's a politician, like a group of politicians, and everyone's like, Oh, who's that?
14:04
SPEAKER_04: What are they doing here?
14:05
SPEAKER_04: No booking, everyone's like freaking out, and then you walked in, they're like, Yep, we'll take uh a table of six, of course.
14:11
SPEAKER_04: Take your pick, grab a table, cool, menus go out, the whole process happens.
14:15
SPEAKER_04: I'm saying goodbye, pretending to polish the glasses, even though there's no dirty glasses to polish.
14:19
SPEAKER_05: Just to hang around, see what happens, just to see what's happening.
14:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so the the waiter takes the order, goes in the kitchen, and then the the the wine order comes in.
14:28
SPEAKER_04: I didn't know anything about wine, so I just like okay, just match the name and got the bottle and got that sent got sent out, and then it just unfolded to be the worst restaurant experience ever for this table of six.
14:40
SPEAKER_04: It was like the only table in the whole restaurant.
14:43
SPEAKER_05: That's some special magic when you can mess up the customer service for literally the only table.
14:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so entrees coming out, wrong person, wrong course, wrong wine glass.
14:52
SPEAKER_04: Um, this person wanted red, that person got the white.
14:55
SPEAKER_04: Like you you you can imagine like everything that went wrong went wrong.
15:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and to the point the main course was just an absolute disaster, and I was like, shit, it's COVID on.
15:07
SPEAKER_04: And lo and behold, the the chef was stoned.
15:09
SPEAKER_04: So the food that was rolling out, the dockets were getting mixed up, and end of the main course.
15:13
SPEAKER_04: I mean, they got the food, everything eventually fixed itself from the food perspective.
15:17
SPEAKER_04: The guy goes, um, waiter goes, oh, dessert?
15:20
SPEAKER_04: Like, no, we're dying.
15:21
SPEAKER_04: Just get the bill, we're out of here.
15:23
SPEAKER_04: And they left um half a bowl of wine.
15:26
SPEAKER_04: So they checked out, and it was it was still early, it was like 8:39 o'clock, and the owner was like, Look, let's start cashing out.
15:33
SPEAKER_04: There's not gonna be any walk-ins at this time.
15:35
SPEAKER_04: And there's a great restaurant, so this was like a restaurant that's normally packed, so it's really rare for it to be empty.
15:40
SPEAKER_05: So I think the owner was like happy to just bounce as soon as possible to take his losses on that particular evening, given the reviews.
15:48
SPEAKER_04: So he was cashing up.
15:49
SPEAKER_04: I I normally have a drink at the bar um with whoever's left um after cleaning up and doing the rubbish and all that sort of stuff.
15:56
SPEAKER_04: And because I drive, I normally have like this light beer called Cascade Light from Tasmania, and I was like, Oh, just have with Cascade Light.
16:02
SPEAKER_04: And the owner's like, Well, that's all you're getting because there's no tip to no tips to count because the guy didn't leave a tip so bad, right?
16:08
SPEAKER_04: And so the the chef comes out, he says, I'm out of here.
16:10
SPEAKER_04: The sous chef comes out, who was the one that was a bit, you know, glazed.
16:14
SPEAKER_04: Right glazed, shall I say, sat next to me, and he's like, Oh, yeah, I have a drink.
16:18
SPEAKER_04: And the owner goes, uh, you know, what do you think I'd have vodka cranbury or something like that?
16:21
SPEAKER_04: Anyway, but he goes, Look, there's no tips, just finish that bottle of wine that those guys left, right?
16:26
SPEAKER_04: And get out of here because I want to get out of here as quickly as possible, too.
16:29
SPEAKER_04: And so he poured the wine and three glasses, him, the owner, myself, and the other guy.
16:35
SPEAKER_04: I knew nothing about wine.
16:37
SPEAKER_04: I I I bought wine that came out of a bag in a box.
16:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
16:40
SPEAKER_04: Right?
16:41
SPEAKER_05: And I had wine in a box back in university.
16:43
SPEAKER_04: The cheapest stuff, and I drank everything that was sweet, high alcohol, high octane, yeah, rum and cokes were the way to go.
16:50
SPEAKER_04: Um, because that's what my mates drank, and you know, the cheapest, nastiest beer possible.
16:54
SPEAKER_04: Anyway, so I Pete Less wine, didn't think any of it.
16:57
SPEAKER_04: I just took it and just drank it.
16:59
SPEAKER_04: I didn't swell, I didn't know any of that.
17:01
SPEAKER_04: I didn't know what to do with it.
17:02
SPEAKER_04: Just drank it.
17:03
SPEAKER_04: And I just tasted and I turned to the guy next to me and I said, Shit, have you tasted that?
17:07
SPEAKER_04: That's pretty fucking good.
17:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:10
SPEAKER_05: What is that?
17:11
SPEAKER_05: The best thing you ever had at that point.
17:12
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, what is that?
17:13
SPEAKER_04: And the guy next to me was like, Oh, it's wine.
17:15
SPEAKER_04: The guy left it on the table, you know, get over it.
17:18
SPEAKER_04: You know, and the owner was like, Come on, it's off the wine list, you should know this, blah, blah, blah.
17:22
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, well, not really, I didn't study the wine list.
17:24
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
17:25
SPEAKER_04: Anyway, it was uh it was a wine from Alsace, it was a Pinot Blanc, it wasn't the most expensive wine, it was a white wine that was so delicious that I was just like ding, you know, in my head, I was like, wow, I need to learn more about what the hell is going on here.
17:39
SPEAKER_04: And I thought, by the time I got home, I was like still thinking about it.
17:43
SPEAKER_04: And I thought, you know, one of those things that you just sleep on it and then you kind of forget about it.
17:46
SPEAKER_04: But no, the next morning I woke up and I was like, Still thinking about it?
17:49
SPEAKER_04: Still thinking about it.
17:50
SPEAKER_04: I was like, that is that's weird.
17:52
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, got onto my dial up internet, logged in.
17:58
SPEAKER_04: Like wine looking.
18:00
SPEAKER_04: Three minutes later, looked up the website, which didn't really exist for that for that winery, and it was like really slow, obviously, back then.
18:06
SPEAKER_04: And I was like looking out more wine stuff, looking about the variety, and it's like, oh, wine courses.
18:11
SPEAKER_04: I was like, oh, learning about wine, and there's all the obviously the the um introduction to wine stuff, and I was like, yeah, it's kind of like a bit technical.
18:20
SPEAKER_04: Oh, it wasn't even technical, it was just like yeah, like an interest kind of hobby course.
18:25
SPEAKER_04: And then I came across this like university degree, wine science and viticulture.
18:30
SPEAKER_04: I was like, shit, that's a thing.
18:32
SPEAKER_04: I didn't even know what viticulture was, like the word, yeah, right.
18:35
SPEAKER_04: And there's like onology, it's like onology is the science of winemaking.
18:38
SPEAKER_04: I was like, whoa, this is blowing my mind.
18:40
SPEAKER_05: I don't think I learned that until I got into the wine industry.
18:41
SPEAKER_04: And then you know, so I was like looking it up and I was like, wow, this is the real thing.
18:45
SPEAKER_04: And I was at that point in my life with like about to graduate from this business degree, all my friends had internships with KPMG, Price Waterhouse, they were going to post grad law, postgrad something else, right?
18:57
SPEAKER_04: Or getting a pathway.
18:59
SPEAKER_04: Um and others who didn't go into university, you know, he ended up, I'm a plumber, I'm an electrician.
19:05
SPEAKER_05: You know, they they had like I am uh very structured when you knew what they were, yeah.
19:09
SPEAKER_04: And I was just like, oh my god, I have no idea what I am.
19:12
SPEAKER_04: And I was so like scared and lost.
19:15
SPEAKER_04: And then and then this was like the ultimate switch that was like go go into this.
19:20
SPEAKER_04: I called my parents, I'm like, I'm gonna get into wine.
19:22
SPEAKER_04: My parents are like, uh no, you're not you're moving back to Hong Kong, you're gonna get a job at one of our friends' places and you know, go work in a place in IFC or whatever it is and get a get a corporate gig.
19:35
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, uh no, I'm not gonna I'm staying in Australia, staying in Australia, um, having a great time.
19:40
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna enroll in this wine science and viticulture degree.
19:42
SPEAKER_04: Anyway, my dad was a bit more um open-minded, and so he he progressed and let me let me go ahead and do it.
19:49
SPEAKER_04: And so I moved to Melbourne, enrolled in viticulture and wine science, got myself a part-time job at a winery called Shadowfax, doing everything that was that no one wanted to do, like scrubbing the floors and you know, serving people at the set tasting room or working at four in the morning in the vineyard, spraying chemicals on the vines and every dirty job.
20:06
SPEAKER_04: Every dirty job dirty job that no one wanted to wake up to be done.
20:09
SPEAKER_04: And I came out you really learnt everything from I learned everything, and I and I thought if if I can do like the the shitty work, I can do this forever.
20:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
20:19
SPEAKER_04: Because it's only gonna get better.
20:20
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's true.
20:22
SPEAKER_04: And so I I I just dug the heels in and just went on and finished the wine science degree.
20:26
SPEAKER_04: And um amazing.
20:27
SPEAKER_05: And the right, and here we are 23 years later.
20:30
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and now you have your own wine, your own label, yeah, your own, you know, you're you're flying around the flying off to Australia to pick grapes for the for the next video.
20:38
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
20:39
SPEAKER_05: So it's amazing.
20:40
SPEAKER_05: I want to hear if anything like that happened when you uh had your first whiskey.
20:51
SPEAKER_05: Let's try the first whiskey we're having once.
20:53
SPEAKER_05: The first whiskey, but yeah, a whiskey that's a difference.
20:55
SPEAKER_05: A whiskey that made a difference, yeah.
20:57
SPEAKER_05: So the first whiskey here that we're trying, I'm gonna introduce it a little bit.
21:00
SPEAKER_05: So this is the Timeless and Tasty, that's the independent bottling brand.
21:03
SPEAKER_05: Secret Highland, which means that whatever the cask was, they didn't get the rights to say what it is.
21:09
SPEAKER_05: It was sold on on that basis.
21:11
SPEAKER_05: We believe and know it's obviously Highland, probably Space Live.
21:14
SPEAKER_05: 20-year-old PX Sherry cast, and it was bottled in 2021.
21:19
SPEAKER_05: 53.1% ABB.
21:21
SPEAKER_05: So it's a serious gospel.
21:23
SPEAKER_05: We do have, yeah, we do have some water should you should you want some.
21:26
SPEAKER_05: But so the way that we're gonna do this on the show is I think you should you should partake.
21:33
SPEAKER_05: So we're gonna rate each whiskey.
21:34
SPEAKER_05: We're gonna rate each whiskey on a scale of zero to ten.
21:39
SPEAKER_05: Zero is utter shite, ten is Scottish freedom, right?
21:43
SPEAKER_05: So that's our scale.
21:44
SPEAKER_05: You can give 0.1 decimals in between, right?
21:47
SPEAKER_05: So think about that.
21:48
SPEAKER_05: Think about what you might might give this.
21:50
SPEAKER_05: We'll we'll rate each one, and at the end we'll have you rank just personally which ones uh which and we'll each give it a rating and and see what we think.
21:57
SPEAKER_05: For this one, I don't know what you're getting.
21:59
SPEAKER_05: I I actually love the Nose on this.
22:00
SPEAKER_05: I think for me, this is my kind of style of of whiskey because I love PX Sherry.
22:04
SPEAKER_05: I like the deepness like you can see from the color, yep, and from just that first nose.
22:11
SPEAKER_05: I love that first, that first taste.
22:14
SPEAKER_05: I think it's got the lusciousness, the dark chocolate, the sherry, all that kind of stuff.
22:19
SPEAKER_05: And then for me, I'm very sensitive on the on the back palette, on the finish.
22:22
SPEAKER_05: It's kind of like the wine.
22:23
SPEAKER_05: So for me, this one that's where it falls short a little bit.
22:26
SPEAKER_05: It doesn't, it doesn't have that nice linger.
22:29
SPEAKER_05: It kind of goes and then for me, kind of cuts off a little bit.
22:32
SPEAKER_05: Might also be the higher ABV.
22:34
SPEAKER_05: I actually am going to try it with a couple of drops of water.
22:37
SPEAKER_05: I was going to say the key is that see if that actually just helps ease it off a little bit.
22:43
SPEAKER_05: But I think this is a solid whiskey.
22:44
SPEAKER_05: I would I would give this um, let's say, I'm gonna give this on uh on a zero to ten, I'm gonna give this a solid 7.8.
22:50
SPEAKER_05: I think this is a nice whiskey.
22:52
SPEAKER_05: I enjoy this whiskey.
22:53
SPEAKER_05: I would happily buy another bottle of this whiskey.
22:58
SPEAKER_05: I think it is a little bit better with a couple of drops of water.
23:01
SPEAKER_05: Be good with food as well.
23:03
SPEAKER_05: Like I I usually never say that.
23:04
SPEAKER_05: I actually don't like food and whiskey kind of pairings, but I think this you could actually use a little chocolate or meat, something like that.
23:10
SPEAKER_05: It would actually go nice little chasu here in Hong Kong.
23:13
SPEAKER_05: That's it's got that meatiness to it.
23:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's what I was saying.
23:15
SPEAKER_04: I love the um there's a umaminess to it.
23:18
SPEAKER_04: It's like a soy characteristic that I get on this finish, and it's and it's actually quite complex as a whiskey.
23:25
SPEAKER_04: You know, you talk about that shortness, and it's definitely the the vapor, right?
23:28
SPEAKER_04: So it evaporates on the back palate.
23:30
SPEAKER_04: Adding that water sort of extrapolates and elongates the textural component or the viscosity.
23:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
23:37
SPEAKER_04: And talking about food, like I just think I just want a bowl of like salted almonds.
23:43
SPEAKER_05: Salted almonds would be good.
23:44
SPEAKER_05: Anything salty, chips, anything like that.
23:46
SPEAKER_04: Like heaps of sea salt.
23:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
23:48
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'll be thirsty as hell, and I'll probably drink a whole bottle of this thing.
23:51
SPEAKER_04: I think that's yeah.
23:52
SPEAKER_05: We should open a bar where we just serve this whiskey and a lot of uh salted foods.
23:57
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
23:57
SPEAKER_05: Scoring wise, what are you giving this sort of utter shite to Scottish Freedom?
24:03
SPEAKER_04: Look, I think it's right up there.
24:04
SPEAKER_04: I think uh it's obviously got plenty plenty of depth and flavor to it.
24:10
SPEAKER_04: Look, I'm probably on the 7.5, 7.5 scale as well.
24:16
SPEAKER_04: So pretty close.
24:17
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, any guesses what you think this might be?
24:19
SPEAKER_05: I really don't know.
24:19
SPEAKER_05: In terms of a space side, it could be could be a Ben Rinus, could be, isn't it?
24:24
SPEAKER_05: It's probably not obviously McAllister or anything.
24:26
SPEAKER_03: As a PX sherry, yeah, I don't know, right?
24:28
SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
24:29
SPEAKER_05: It's probably close to in terms of geography to the Dalwini that we're gonna try next.
24:34
SPEAKER_05: It's probably somewhere in that range in that geography because there's a dozen distilleries in and around that area.
24:40
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
24:41
SPEAKER_05: So let's talk about whiskey.
24:42
SPEAKER_05: Tell us a little bit about your Scottish heritage, if you don't mind.
24:45
SPEAKER_05: And was there a special whiskey that got you into whiskey?
24:48
SPEAKER_05: I assume since you're you know part Scottish, that you tried your first whiskey when you were four, officially at a tasting, or maybe even early.
24:55
SPEAKER_04: A weed ran.
24:56
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
24:57
SPEAKER_04: My parents, well, my dad is the McDougal, obviously, and it's my grandfather's heritage that came from Oban.
25:04
SPEAKER_04: So obviously a famous brand.
25:06
SPEAKER_04: Oban.
25:07
SPEAKER_04: Uh fantastic.
25:08
SPEAKER_04: There's a there's a McDougal ruins there, which we've visited.
25:11
SPEAKER_04: Um, there's like annual sort of McDougal clan gatherings.
25:16
SPEAKER_05: So you know how far back it goes?
25:18
SPEAKER_05: Is this hundreds of years?
25:19
SPEAKER_04: Oh, we're talking about uh it it's it's a long way back because it's it's one of the clans that Robert the Bruce slaughtered.
25:26
SPEAKER_05: Oh, right.
25:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and uh there was a big exodus of McDougal's to America, and they actually started um changing the spelling of the name from MCMC to M A C to differentiate the McDougal.
25:41
SPEAKER_04: And so a lot of um books and things like that, you know, there's references to you know what Robert the Bruce did to the clan.
25:48
SPEAKER_04: But when it comes to Scottish sort of roots, it's it's sort of two generations like ahead.
25:56
SPEAKER_04: Sorry, dad, my grandfather, and then his father is is the where the Scottish came through and and they came through to Australia.
26:03
SPEAKER_04: And they were dairy farmers and um moved into dairy farms as Australia.
26:06
SPEAKER_05: Not prisoners like everyone else who went to the city.
26:08
SPEAKER_04: No, that they had a skill.
26:09
SPEAKER_05: They had a skill.
26:12
SPEAKER_04: Well, they could have been they could have been from that side, they were sort of real country, country folk.
26:18
SPEAKER_04: Um, but interestingly enough, my my wife is part Scottish as well.
26:21
SPEAKER_04: Oh, okay.
26:22
SPEAKER_04: Um, which she is much more in touch with her Scottish roots than I am.
26:26
SPEAKER_04: Um they all went to school in Scotland, she went to school in St Andrews.
26:30
SPEAKER_04: We got married in St.
26:31
SPEAKER_04: Andrews.
26:32
SPEAKER_04: Beautiful place to get married, and so we we we have got a very, very sort of um deep love for for Scotland, and we we spend a lot of summers there.
26:41
SPEAKER_04: Uh, we're considering putting our kids to boarding school in Scotland.
26:44
SPEAKER_04: The Scottish way of life's pretty app, you know, pretty appetizing.
26:48
SPEAKER_04: When you've got like hustle and bustle of of Asia, yeah, and you've got Scotland as a contract.
26:54
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I mean there's some there's some good good parallels there in terms of the type of lifestyle that they would enjoy and you would enjoy and all that.
27:02
SPEAKER_04: So that there's there's there's lots of different ways I've reconnected and connected with Scotland.
27:08
SPEAKER_04: One of the ways that I've done on my own is through whiskey cask investment.
27:13
SPEAKER_04: And this was purely the thought that you know I thought, you know, buy a couple of casks, give it to the kids, bottle it 21st, here's your cask.
27:20
SPEAKER_05: You bought some from the years they were born, right?
27:22
SPEAKER_05: You've got two boys, you bought some.
27:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so actually my brother-in-law beat me to the to the to the gun um and bought some for them before I did.
27:30
SPEAKER_04: That's a nice gift, which is pretty amazing, epic gifts.
27:33
SPEAKER_04: Uh, they got so one they both have Aaron casks each.
27:36
SPEAKER_05: Which is fantastic whiskey.
27:37
SPEAKER_05: We've got a bottle of Aaron casks.
27:38
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so they've got a couple of Aaron casks each, which are epic, and I'm like, I'm so jealous.
27:42
SPEAKER_04: So I started looking into a bit more exploring whiskey investments a bit more.
27:46
SPEAKER_05: You better check those casks along the way, just from a quality assurance point of view.
27:52
SPEAKER_05: It's all it's all to help your boys out, just to make sure.
27:54
SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
27:54
SPEAKER_05: And I'll help you along the way if you need some extra help too.
27:57
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
27:58
SPEAKER_04: I sort of started diving a little bit deeper in terms of obviously there's some good tourism that comes with Scotch whiskey, and of course, the the investment piece, and obviously it's gone through ups and downs, um, the the the investment asset category itself.
28:11
SPEAKER_04: But I I'm not buying Scotch whiskey to fli flick, right?
28:15
SPEAKER_04: Flick, yeah.
28:16
SPEAKER_05: You're you're looking at the long term, yeah.
28:17
SPEAKER_04: And I come from the uh an industry where it respects and understands that, and the worst case is we pickle ourselves in it at the end of it.
28:24
SPEAKER_05: We're gonna drink a hell of a lot of whiskey, and and we live forever, yeah.
28:27
SPEAKER_04: Right?
28:28
SPEAKER_04: But you know, I I I love the artisan effect of it.
28:31
SPEAKER_04: Um, I I love the fact that there's a a house style for all the whiskeys.
28:36
SPEAKER_04: Very much like champagne has a house style, it's less about vintage variations and you know where the grain comes from.
28:42
SPEAKER_05: It's actually the opposite, right?
28:44
SPEAKER_05: They're not trying to have any variation.
28:45
SPEAKER_05: In fact, when you go talk to the distillery managers, their job is to put the exact same, try to put out the exact same spirit day after day after day.
28:53
SPEAKER_05: Now, you do get some variation with the wood, right, which they can't control as much, but then they do vatting at the end to try to then put in your kind of blend blend together the same same level of flavor, right?
29:04
SPEAKER_05: So it on a mass production level, the goal is to try to make that consistent champagne style or house style flavor.
29:10
SPEAKER_05: So take so take us back to what was there a whiskey that really you remember that was uh meaningful for you?
29:17
SPEAKER_04: So the first whiskey that was meaningful for me was um school leaves in Australia we call it schoolies.
29:21
SPEAKER_04: Okay, my dad's like, um, here's a bottle, go take it and drink it with your friends, and it was a bowl of dimple.
29:28
SPEAKER_04: Okay, and I was like, Okay, so that was a that was um, you know, I was like, wow, this is like a heavy bottle in a weird shape.
29:36
SPEAKER_04: And it was like my dad was like, Oh, this is really expensive stuff.
29:40
SPEAKER_04: And you were too young to know.
29:41
SPEAKER_04: I was too young to know.
29:42
SPEAKER_04: So we we took it on the school leavers and we drank it, we enjoyed it, we loved it.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: That put a stop to my whiskey love for a bit of time until I Because you threw up the next day or the night of.
29:53
SPEAKER_04: Until I discovered things like whiskey sour, whiskey highballs.
29:57
SPEAKER_04: And I was like, Oh, this is pretty cool.
29:59
SPEAKER_04: And I thought, oh, Santauri whiskey highball.
30:01
SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, in a can, even better.
30:03
SPEAKER_04: How good.
30:04
SPEAKER_04: And so I started derving that.
30:05
SPEAKER_05: And then I thought I love that in in Japan they pour whiskey highballs on tap.
30:09
SPEAKER_05: Oh, so it's like the best thing.
30:12
SPEAKER_05: In a pint, they have whole bars where all they serve is whiskey highballs, yeah, in a pint glass.
30:18
SPEAKER_05: It's so good, right over the tap, nice and for they don't have to make it, everything's perfectly, and the temperature's great.
30:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's what I should have got.
30:25
SPEAKER_05: We have a beer tap here, but I should have got a highball, a highball tap.
30:30
SPEAKER_05: That's gonna be the next thing we're gonna add to this also.
30:32
SPEAKER_04: So good.
30:32
SPEAKER_04: And it reminds me actually when we go skiing, like when we stop for lunch, you can either have like a miso soup or you have a whiskey ball.
30:38
SPEAKER_06: Those two options that are even in the same category.
30:41
SPEAKER_04: I love both, one after the other.
30:44
SPEAKER_04: Um, but sorry, continue.
30:45
SPEAKER_04: So when I when I got to really appreciating single malt whiskey, um was probably seven or eight years ago.
30:56
SPEAKER_05: And um it it started with really peaty stuff, talking like artberg, which is actually quite rare because most people I would say start with maybe even something Japanese, relatively light, or usually a sherry, but you went straight on on the deep end in terms of the the peaty.
31:13
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I think that was because of my journey in wine and having made wine and having like a real connection with barrels.
31:19
SPEAKER_04: Right.
31:20
SPEAKER_04: And I I can s I washed barrels, I've smelt barrels, I I know how casts and barrels smell when they're brand new, when they're old, and when they're dirty, when they're not clean.
31:29
SPEAKER_04: And I just thought, wow, these peaties like just obviously it's peat and it's not exclusively barrels, but that's smoky, charred.
31:36
SPEAKER_04: You liked that.
31:37
SPEAKER_04: I liked it when I was younger, and obviously as you go into it, I was like, whoa, that that I'd bag's like way too intense for me.
31:43
SPEAKER_04: So you start dialing it back, dialing it back, dialing it back, and you go dial it all the way back, and I was like, Klein Kleinleash.
31:48
SPEAKER_04: Ah and I was like 14-year-old Klein Leash, and I was like, boom, that is like smashability.
31:53
SPEAKER_05: Brad Bradley, our CMO here, who's put these together.
31:56
SPEAKER_05: We we spoiled tips that he just joined our company not long ago.
31:59
SPEAKER_05: Right.
31:59
SPEAKER_05: But one of the first whiskeys he ever really tried, he'd had whiskey before, he had this cast sample of like 32-year-old Kleinleash.
32:07
SPEAKER_05: That was his first like real good whiskey that he ever tried.
32:10
SPEAKER_05: And I was like, So it's all downhill from here.
32:17
SPEAKER_04: Johnny Walker black whiskey and soda is pretty reliable.
32:20
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like I'm really happy to have one of those.
32:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but Klein Leash.
32:26
SPEAKER_05: Who love having Johnny Walker.
32:28
SPEAKER_04: So Klein Leash unlocks that whoa, there's something kind of complex and really epic in it.
32:34
SPEAKER_05: Kleinleash has that very distinct waxiness that you're just not gonna get in any other distillery.
32:40
SPEAKER_05: So that's a great example of something that is so unique and is that brand house, you know, style and flavor.
32:47
SPEAKER_05: And you can't you can't match that waxiness with any other distillery.
32:50
SPEAKER_04: I I I completely agree with you.
32:52
SPEAKER_04: And then when I really, really fell in love with whiskey, like to the point I was like, I'm buying casks now.
32:59
SPEAKER_05: Okay, what was that one?
33:00
SPEAKER_04: Ben Nevis.
33:02
SPEAKER_04: And it was a McDonald sort of an IB non-disclosed age statement, no, no age statement disclosed.
33:08
SPEAKER_04: But it just blew my mind.
33:10
SPEAKER_04: And it was the first time Do you think this could be a Ben Nevis?
33:14
SPEAKER_05: Which one?
33:15
SPEAKER_05: The first one we're having?
33:16
SPEAKER_05: Do you think so?
33:17
SPEAKER_05: Since you know Ben Nevis well.
33:18
SPEAKER_05: It could be.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: It could be.
33:20
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
33:21
SPEAKER_05: Um with the PX sherry cast.
33:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
33:24
SPEAKER_05: But that was the other one that came to mind, actually, now that you say that.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: That really blew my mind.
33:32
unknown: Yeah.
33:33
SPEAKER_05: It's amazing having those moments, right?
33:35
SPEAKER_05: Those moments where whether it's a glass of wine or or a whiskey or sometimes even a certain type of food that you maybe never had before, right?
33:43
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I had had Japanese food a lot of times.
33:45
SPEAKER_05: Then I had Japanese food in Japan, and that was kind of one of those moments where it was like, oh shit, there's food, and then there is Japanese food in Japan, which to me is still the holy grail in terms of the quality of what you can really, really get there.
33:59
SPEAKER_05: And then it just sets you off on this journey of always wanting to not come back to that experience, but to explore that category more, right?
34:06
SPEAKER_05: I think that's one of the lucky things we have in both wine and whiskey is once you're into it, there's a there's a world to discover, and you can just continue to go on and on and on.
34:15
SPEAKER_03: Would that be more is is Glenn Livitt in Space Art?
34:18
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: It could be.
34:22
SPEAKER_03: It could be more of a Glenn Livitt style.
34:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I've not had Glenn Livitt in a PX cherry, so it's hard to know, like, because it's mostly Glenn Livitt's bourbon cast.
34:29
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
34:29
SPEAKER_04: But it's got that sweetness that Glenn Livitt often sort of brings up as well.
34:33
SPEAKER_05: All right, we're gonna go into whiskey too, and then uh I'll we'll we'll switch topics up a little bit.
34:38
SPEAKER_04: How good is this though?
34:39
SPEAKER_05: What?
34:39
SPEAKER_04: How good is doing this?
34:40
SPEAKER_05: Just having this this particular moment and having whiskey.
34:43
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's pretty good.
34:44
SPEAKER_05: So there's not we don't have shit jobs, is that what you're saying?
34:48
SPEAKER_05: Shite, sorry, we don't have shite jobs.
34:50
SPEAKER_05: This is pretty funny.
34:51
SPEAKER_05: I apologize in advance to all Catholic Pacific stuff for my for my snoring for your behavior.
34:58
SPEAKER_05: I think more important you're gonna get on this flight, look at the whiskey list and go, oh fuck this.
35:04
SPEAKER_05: They don't they don't quite serve what we're having here.
35:13
SPEAKER_05: So we're having uh casks of distinction.
35:15
SPEAKER_05: This is a special program Diageo has had going on for 10-15 years.
35:19
SPEAKER_05: We bought this cask years ago into the fund, the platinum whiskey fund that I used to run.
35:23
SPEAKER_05: 28-year-old Dalwini distilled 1991 ABV.
35:28
SPEAKER_05: So we've had this sample out for a while, so it's gonna be lighter than it is in cask, but um I think this is yeah, I think well, the idea with this next three is they're meant to be the best, I shouldn't say the best expression.
35:44
SPEAKER_05: They're meant to be what that what that distillery is all about.
35:47
SPEAKER_05: Like what you're saying, the you know, the brand home, the the the feature.
35:51
SPEAKER_05: That's what this is supposed to be.
35:53
SPEAKER_05: This is a single cask that based on I think uh I can't remember the the guy's name right now.
35:58
SPEAKER_05: That uh there's a doctor or something at Diageo who is in charge of the Cast of Distinction program, and his job is to pick the single cask.
36:06
SPEAKER_05: Every year they pick X number of casks that best represents that distillery, and they only sell what I think one or maybe two casks from each single distillery, and then you can age it on a little bit more.
36:17
SPEAKER_05: So this is meant to be Dalwini's essence in a glass, and so Dalwini, spaceide, sherry.
36:25
SPEAKER_05: Obviously, we can see from the color, it's like beautiful, beautiful sherry, and I love it.
36:31
SPEAKER_05: This is again, we're still in in we're gonna go on to Taliscar and Lagavulin later, so we're gonna get a little bit more peatier, but this is that classic single malt sherry style for me.
36:41
SPEAKER_05: This is this could almost be McAllen.
36:43
SPEAKER_05: Like if you've served that to me blind and and you told me guess what this is, I would probably guess a 25, 30-year-old McAllen.
36:51
SPEAKER_05: It's in that caliber for me.
36:53
SPEAKER_05: It's just got that well-rounded, beautiful sherry notes that are all about the sweetness, all about the the caramelization, the chocolate, uh, all of that's just sitting really, really nicely for me.
37:07
SPEAKER_05: It's still at cast strength.
37:09
SPEAKER_05: So again, I think there's a little bit of harshness on the finish, but I think it's beautiful.
37:13
SPEAKER_05: I would give this um a solid 8.3.
37:17
SPEAKER_05: A lot of depth to this one.
37:20
SPEAKER_05: There's some complexity, it's still like rounding out, yeah.
37:23
SPEAKER_04: And obviously, all your descriptors really hold true to it, and I see sort of a lot of those layers coming through, and you know, this has probably less of like a real cask sort of like a charriness of the cask, probably the sweetness from the cask.
37:37
SPEAKER_05: Yes, yeah, sticking on a lot of the sweetness from the cast.
37:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I and I find it really, really nice.
37:41
SPEAKER_04: And I and obviously that that sort of 28 years of of cask maturation, it's obviously condensed itself into trading something that's more viscous and a bit more um bit more thicker on the on the on the on the on the palate.
37:54
SPEAKER_05: And I think for this cask, this is about where it should be, in the sense that like if you aged this much longer, I'm not sure you'd get it necessarily a better result in the sense that I think that oakiness is starting to creep up.
38:06
SPEAKER_05: Like, and if you maybe took it another few years, maybe it might it might or might not become overoaked.
38:11
SPEAKER_05: I don't know how active this particular wood was at this point, right?
38:14
SPEAKER_05: But if you leave it too long, I've definitely had like older cat older whiskies where people, oh, I try this 40-year-old, even 50-year-old or 60-year-old, but it's just over-oaked.
38:22
SPEAKER_05: Like they've just they've left it in to try to hit that number, but not really focused on the flavor, you know, if if you get what I mean.
38:30
SPEAKER_05: And so this one, I think at this point, you know, that kind of we took this time cap capsule shot, I think is just drinking really nice and it's got that layers of of complexity.
38:40
SPEAKER_04: I know the flavors flavors are there.
38:42
SPEAKER_04: I think what's really most appealing about this is the quality of the actual spirit.
38:48
SPEAKER_04: Um, you can actually feel that that quality of the spirit and the way that it's sort of um that that vapor sort of sensation just sort of moves through through your palate.
38:58
SPEAKER_05: And obviously that it it activates all your sensory glands as well because yeah, that when it evaporates, it and and Darwini I think mostly um gets put into the uh Diagio blends.
39:10
SPEAKER_05: So I think very little of it actually ends up as a single malt.
39:13
SPEAKER_05: So it's not easy to find Darwini as its own single malt.
39:17
SPEAKER_05: Uh what would you give this out of uh shite to full freedom level?
39:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm probably still in the in in the sevens, something.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: I I'm pretty probably slightly higher sevens.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: Um seven, seven, eight.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, seven eight, yeah.
39:35
SPEAKER_05: Going up a couple of yeah, a couple of decimal points as well.
39:38
SPEAKER_05: Great.
39:38
SPEAKER_05: Well, let's enjoy that.
39:39
SPEAKER_05: And let me ask you, so you built the the flying winemaker, and maybe you could talk a little bit about what is the flying winemaker, because that that'd be helpful for for guests to understand.
39:49
SPEAKER_05: But you started using words, I think, like craft and natural, kind of like way before they were really buzzwords in in the industry as well.
39:56
SPEAKER_05: Like you were starting to develop this.
39:58
SPEAKER_05: Where did I guess where did that come from?
40:01
SPEAKER_05: And when you were starting this whole idea around the flying winemaker, you know, did people tell you, hey, this is crazy, it's kind of not gonna work, or and if they did, what was you know, how did you get through that as a as an early entrepreneur?
40:14
SPEAKER_05: What is the flying winemaker?
40:15
SPEAKER_05: Because it's still around today, and and and then take us back to the start and and kind of your philosophy.
40:21
SPEAKER_04: So flying winemaker is a a wine brand.
40:24
SPEAKER_04: It started in uh 2010.
40:26
SPEAKER_05: Congrats on 16 years, that's pretty amazing.
40:29
SPEAKER_04: It was uh conceived on a dragon boat with lots of wine.
40:33
SPEAKER_04: With no, no wine actually.
40:35
SPEAKER_04: In in with my right-hand paddling partner um being a very successful investment banker at Citibank um and now a massive uh fund um owner in in Singapore.
40:48
SPEAKER_05: Oh, you were dragon boat racing, it was dragon boat racing.
40:50
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it was my paddle paddling paddling partner.
40:53
SPEAKER_05: Right, okay, yeah.
40:54
SPEAKER_05: No drink drinking afterwards, after the racing, but not during.
40:57
SPEAKER_04: At that point in time, I I was employed in Hong Kong um by an urban winery called the Eighth Estate.
41:03
SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
41:04
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I did, yeah, yeah.
41:04
SPEAKER_04: So the Eighth Estate employed me as their winemaker.
41:07
SPEAKER_05: I've definitely tried some of the Eighth Estate wines.
41:09
SPEAKER_04: And I they were they were pretty much like flying me around to different places to go buy grapes to bring back to Hong Kong to make the wines in Hong Kong.
41:17
SPEAKER_04: And at the same time, I still had my own little small production in Australia, didn't have a brand for it, it was just kind of rolling as it was.
41:23
SPEAKER_04: And as I was doing all this flying around, um I kind of thought you know, that there was this cool concept of the flying winemaker, you know, going to multiple regions, making wines from multiple countries, and at the same time demystifying.
41:41
SPEAKER_04: I hate that word demystifying now because it's so like cliche now.
41:44
SPEAKER_04: You know, back then it was like the you know, the cool thing that it was a new word back then.
41:48
SPEAKER_05: Back then it was a new word.
41:49
SPEAKER_05: It was like it's like saying synergy now.
41:52
SPEAKER_05: I hate that word too.
41:53
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, exactly.
41:54
SPEAKER_04: Or collab.
41:57
SPEAKER_04: And it was um we took the I took the the view that you know wine in particular in Asia was very highbrow, um, very unaccessible, and was not going to grow with the younger generation.
42:12
SPEAKER_05: This is 2010, people were really into Lafitte and starting.
42:19
SPEAKER_05: Starting it starting to get into burgundy a little.
42:21
SPEAKER_05: That's when I was in the wine industry.
42:22
SPEAKER_05: So kind of it was all about kind of high-end French wine.
42:25
SPEAKER_05: They'd started, maybe just started buying some vineyards in Bordeaux, the mainland Chinese, were starting to buy it.
42:30
SPEAKER_05: So it was very much like wine is all about fine dining and showing off the best, you know, bottle, a lot of gifting back then, especially in um a mainland China before they cracked down, was was all about gifting Lafitte, right?
42:44
SPEAKER_05: Bosh bottles of Chateau.
42:47
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, la la fish.
42:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, all that stuff.
42:49
SPEAKER_05: I remember my when I started in the wine industry, 2009 Entremer, so which was the 2008 vintage, was the first time that I got involved in the industry.
42:57
SPEAKER_05: And um, that was the first year ever that Chateau Mouton, because every year Chateau Mouton has a different artist to create the label.
43:05
SPEAKER_05: That was the first year they put a they had chosen a Chinese artist, right?
43:08
SPEAKER_05: And back in 2008 to sh to choose a Chinese artist, it was like choosing a Martian, right, to like create this thing.
43:15
SPEAKER_05: Like, how could you ever have a Chinese artist on a French relief?
43:18
SPEAKER_05: Like, right?
43:18
SPEAKER_04: 2009.
43:19
SPEAKER_05: In 2008, very auspicious.
43:21
SPEAKER_05: Eight is very lucky, very auspicious.
43:23
SPEAKER_05: And I remember I think it was Lafitte that put the like a the symbol for uh the characters, I should say, for eight in in uh in Chinese on their bottle.
43:32
SPEAKER_05: Like there was all there was there was just pandering, like just focused, very focused mainland Chinese pandering directly from the Bordeaux.
43:42
SPEAKER_05: Please buy our stuff because we love China now, all of a sudden, because you have money and want to buy our product.
43:47
SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
43:48
SPEAKER_05: It's a few hundred years, don't give a shit about you.
43:50
SPEAKER_05: But now now that you have money and you're spending it, please put please put your uh artistry and please put your symbolism on all of our wines.
43:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, no, that that's
44:00
SPEAKER_05: That's the era we're in, just to set just to set some background.
44:02
SPEAKER_04: Hundred percent, hundred percent.
44:03
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I I I was incredibly frustrated because um I grew up in in Australia where everyone drank wine.
44:10
SPEAKER_04: Tuesday night, you'd be having a glass of wine with your TV dinners, pizza night, glass of wine, you know, uh barbecue, glass of wine.
44:18
SPEAKER_04: It was just accessible.
44:19
SPEAKER_04: It was just part of daily life.
44:22
SPEAKER_05: Monday lunchtime.
44:23
SPEAKER_05: That's a lot.
44:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:25
SPEAKER_05: Kind of, yeah.
44:26
SPEAKER_04: That I think, you know, depending on what wine you're drinking.
44:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
44:28
SPEAKER_04: But then I I at the same time, I I was really um in awe of Jamie Oliver.
44:34
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
44:34
SPEAKER_04: And I and I thought, what did Jamie Oliver did for the world of food, particularly for the young generation, to be able to create dishes and provide inspiration for home cooks who would never have stepped foot in the kitchen before to go out there and cook and do something and you know, rolling on a scooter with his added ass, you know, zip-up jackets, uh, walk into the markets and and sort of be be himself.
45:01
SPEAKER_04: I was so inspired by that.
45:03
SPEAKER_04: I was so inspired by that.
45:04
SPEAKER_04: And I thought, wow, there's no one in the world of wine that actually does it like the Jamie Oliver way.
45:08
SPEAKER_05: Right.
45:09
SPEAKER_05: We had the Robert Parker's.
45:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and everyone had a pull-up their bum, right?
45:13
SPEAKER_04: Right.
45:13
SPEAKER_04: So I thought, let's go with the Jamie Oliver mentality and and and do it for the world of wine.
45:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
45:19
SPEAKER_04: And so we we started doing like obviously uh more marketing for um our brand through events, through not only obviously producing our wines and and branding it that way, but even to the point where we produced a television series for Discovery Channel and Netflix, which aired to 350 million viewers around the world.
45:40
SPEAKER_04: We wanted to create not only a brand but a an ethos that wine is accessible.
45:47
SPEAKER_04: Wine can be extremely high quality at a great price, and wine can be a great experience whether it's on holiday or whether even if you're walking into a wine shop or a supermarket, it's a great experience.
46:00
SPEAKER_04: It should be a great experience.
46:02
SPEAKER_04: You're buying a luxury item.
46:03
SPEAKER_04: Wine is still luxury, even if even if it's a five dollar US dollar bottle of wine or a 95 Hong Kong dollar bottle of wine, you're still choosing to spend your money on a bottle of wine that you could be spending on uh on your food or your toilet paper or something else.
46:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's still discretionary.
46:20
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so you're still discreting it.
46:22
SPEAKER_05: And I think it's a great, it's also, don't you agree that like, you know, wine, it's somewhat like whiskey, but maybe even more wine, it's a lovely thing to have with food in a group, right?
46:32
SPEAKER_05: Like a lot of times, you know, whether it's a barbecue or a dinner or whatever, people bring a bottle of wine, right?
46:37
SPEAKER_05: You don't often bring a bottle of gin to like I mean you could, but but but generally speaking, people bring a bottle of wine, a champagne, maybe a bottle of whiskey for after dinner kind of thing, right?
46:48
SPEAKER_05: I I do, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:49
SPEAKER_05: Uh it's a very social communal thing, right?
46:51
SPEAKER_05: Which I think is a lovely part of life, right?
46:53
SPEAKER_05: And it creates these special moments and these special memories.
46:56
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that that's where it kind of all stemmed from that that level of frustration and coming up to the point where like, okay, we need to fix this in Asia.
47:05
SPEAKER_04: And so we opened a wine bar in Like Wai Fong as well.
47:08
SPEAKER_04: Like we did a we did a lot of different things, raised money from different shareholders and sort of people who were customers, believed in the brand and the and the ethos and the business.
47:17
SPEAKER_04: All came in and sort of built it up and gave me a great platform and gave me a lot of confidence.
47:23
SPEAKER_04: Um, hasn't been easy, like the wine industry obviously um has had its ups and downs, and with things like tariffs with China and Australia, and then there's like decline in alcohol consumption, people going all fitness, you know, fitness junkies who just say no to alcohol full stop.
47:40
SPEAKER_04: Right.
47:40
SPEAKER_04: We've had our fair share of challenges um all the way through, but you know, we we we still have a core belief that you know we deliver great wine at incredible value, um, and we're classically inspired.
47:53
SPEAKER_04: Um, and and you use the word craft and natural, like all wines are natural, all wines are made from grapes.
47:59
SPEAKER_04: Right, right, it's still yeast and grapes, and that that's all it is.
48:03
SPEAKER_04: Like if someone tells you, oh, this is particularly natural, it's like what's so natural about it?
48:07
SPEAKER_04: It's either off or not off, then.
48:09
SPEAKER_05: It's like it's it's no extra additives, right?
48:12
SPEAKER_05: Now, to me, what natural means is like they're not adding, I don't know, whatever they might be adding, whether it's extra sugar or different things.
48:19
SPEAKER_04: Sugar is still natural.
48:20
SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes.
48:20
SPEAKER_05: Oh, I see what you're saying.
48:22
SPEAKER_05: Okay, but in the sense that like from what they've picked, that's that's kind of it, that they're not adding other things to it.
48:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the optics is that not the definition of the optics of a lot of people who say natural is that yeah, there's nothing added.
48:34
SPEAKER_04: Right.
48:35
SPEAKER_04: Right?
48:35
SPEAKER_04: Um, added in terms of chemical, artificial chemicals, but who who in this world is adding unconsumable artificial chemicals to to our wines?
48:45
SPEAKER_04: I mean, there might be it's very rare.
48:47
SPEAKER_04: Right.
48:47
SPEAKER_04: Very rare.
48:48
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
48:48
SPEAKER_04: Most products now that go into wine are either protein-based from either animal products, which are natural, you know, egg whites, which is used to clarify and fine and make wines more soft and elegant for reds, or the skim milk, which is another just a protein-based, or or gelatin, or or strangely enough, uh green tea and sometimes even fish guts, like the protein and fish limits.
49:11
SPEAKER_04: It's called eisenglass.
49:13
SPEAKER_04: Everything's natural.
49:15
SPEAKER_05: So I'm still trying to find out what's not a synthetic chemical, is what you're saying.
49:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I'm not trying to if if your wine is in distress and you've got a serious problem, you might add something like bleach.
49:27
SPEAKER_04: When you've added too much sulfur dioxide into the wine to preserve it.
49:30
SPEAKER_04: Interesting.
49:31
SPEAKER_04: Into your grape juice to preserve it.
49:32
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
49:33
SPEAKER_04: Because you have so much sulfur dioxide you you can't add your yeast to start fermentation, so you have to add bleach to oxidize it.
49:38
SPEAKER_04: Bleach is a is a hyperoxidating effect.
49:41
SPEAKER_05: You should sell that to Donald Trump because bleach is what cured COVID.
49:44
SPEAKER_05: So I didn't he recommend that.
49:48
SPEAKER_05: Totally.
49:48
SPEAKER_05: So uh if you if you get COVID-19, just have some of that wine.
49:52
SPEAKER_04: Totally, totally, totally.
49:54
SPEAKER_04: You know, we've always championed ourselves as classically inspired.
49:57
SPEAKER_05: And um Yeah, let's talk more about now your well, let's do the next whiskey and let's talk about um the EJ McDougal brand as well and and kind of what you're doing there.
50:06
SPEAKER_05: Hey guys, Rakesh here, the whiskey chief.
50:08
SPEAKER_05: If you made it this far in the episode, firstly, thank you so much.
50:11
SPEAKER_05: As you know, it takes a lot to put on these kinds of episodes.
50:14
SPEAKER_05: So if you can like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
50:20
SPEAKER_05: Thanks.
50:22
SPEAKER_05: So this one's a special one for me because this was one of those whiskies for me that was a magical moment.
50:29
SPEAKER_05: It's uh it's much lighter now.
50:31
SPEAKER_05: Um, but this one was a magical moment for me.
50:33
SPEAKER_05: This is a 40-year-old Talisker until 1980.
50:36
SPEAKER_05: We took the sample in 2020, 40 some 44% ABV, I think it is.
50:41
SPEAKER_05: For me, this was a bit life-changing because I was not into peat at all.
50:46
SPEAKER_05: So when I got into whiskey, I was a big sherry guy.
50:49
SPEAKER_05: Always loved Sherry, loved McAllen, loved like the Darwini style, like everything sherry great, really didn't like Petey whiskey.
50:58
SPEAKER_05: And then the Talisker, I think for me, not this 40-year-old, but Talisker as a brand, is what got me into PD whiskey, actually.
51:05
SPEAKER_05: It started showing me that Pete on a on a certain level, while you know, it doesn't have to be overpowering, that it can be complex and add flavor without being all of the whiskey, if that makes sense.
51:19
SPEAKER_04: Yep, I I can totally appreciate that.
51:22
SPEAKER_05: I tried several PD whiskies and it was honestly like drinking an ashtray.
51:26
SPEAKER_04: Like you might as well just like that's now what the luggage uh sorry, not luggable, um the adbeg reminds me of it.
51:33
SPEAKER_05: Ubidale, uh Ubidale has one like that.
51:35
SPEAKER_05: I think there's the Octimore.
51:37
SPEAKER_05: I think I think that's the highest PPM one.
51:40
SPEAKER_05: We were joking around in one of like our production meetings.
51:43
SPEAKER_05: We were thinking about, you know, the show Hot One, spot famous uh YouTube channel where they do spicy wings and they make famous people eat these spicy wings, and then when you get to the eighth wing, it's like it's called the bomb, and it's like the worst one.
51:56
SPEAKER_05: I was thinking we could do a whiskey show where we have the same whiskies, but somewhere along the way we put in a mystery one, which is the Octimore, which has like crazy amounts of peat, and people just go nuts.
52:06
SPEAKER_05: That'll be a whole nother show one day.
52:07
SPEAKER_05: But for me, um, this 40-year-old Talisker is a representation of what delicate peat can be, because when you get into high levels of age, the peat comes down significantly, right?
52:21
SPEAKER_05: I get much more peat on the nose than I do on the palate for this one.
52:25
SPEAKER_05: I I can I can I can smell the peat, but I don't really taste it's there more in the after effect, but it's not really a prevalent part of the taste.
52:33
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this is almost fruitier on the taste.
52:36
SPEAKER_04: Right.
52:36
SPEAKER_04: I get this sort of lemon rind.
52:37
SPEAKER_05: I definitely get the rind, yeah.
52:39
SPEAKER_04: That that I find it really like complex and like thought-provoking.
52:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I think that that's one of the things like you talk about, like what whiskies make you sort of think.
52:48
SPEAKER_04: The client leash was like, oh, that's like different.
52:50
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this is different.
52:51
SPEAKER_04: It's uh it's asking me a question.
52:53
SPEAKER_04: That that's kind of in that zone.
52:55
SPEAKER_05: And that for me is what and Talisco was the whiskey that did that for me.
52:59
SPEAKER_05: And actually, Oban was the other one.
53:00
SPEAKER_05: Oben 14 is a part that's yeah, in my house, there's always an Oban 14 because it's like my go-to classic, just great whiskey.
53:09
SPEAKER_04: This is you know, when we talk about the my wines being weightlessly intense, this is weightlessly intense.
53:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I would agree with that.
53:15
SPEAKER_05: Okay, yeah, I like that.
53:16
SPEAKER_05: I think this is a beautiful description of that whiskey, weightlessly intense.
53:20
SPEAKER_05: It's very light, but also got lots of.
53:23
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it's just like and it's that long finish.
53:26
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that long finish, but it's like, you know, if you have like a spring and you compress it, and you imagine that spring is flavor, and slowly you're releasing the spring, and the spring's expanding and the flavour's expanding in a really gentle, it's not like a bang kind of thing.
53:40
SPEAKER_04: It's like it's a it's it's a slow release of the slow release of the spring, right?
53:44
SPEAKER_04: And it and it sort of eventually just unlocks all the flavour, and you don't get the the harsh burn on the back palate.
53:50
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, in fact, that that brulee sort of um lemon rind thing just keeps almost just well that that's exactly and it's still there, and I think and I think that for me is something that I love.
54:05
SPEAKER_05: Can you have a whiskey and still taste it in your mouth 30 seconds later or 45 seconds later or a minute later?
54:11
SPEAKER_05: Or can you wake up the next morning and and think about the whiskey and kind of retrieve the flavor?
54:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
54:16
SPEAKER_05: Uh hopefully it's not still in your mouth the next day because then you've had one really bad night.
54:20
SPEAKER_05: But but hopefully you've still had pressure deal.
54:23
SPEAKER_05: And you can, you know, when you recall, or sometimes you've had like the best meal ever.
54:27
SPEAKER_05: I don't know if you had this experience where you have like unbelievable, usually for me, it's like super high end uh French cuisine or Japanese something or whatever.
54:35
SPEAKER_05: And the next morning, if I really try, I can almost kind of put myself back in that moment, you know, just to like I had one of those.
54:43
SPEAKER_04: I had one of those recently at an amazing restaurant in Sydney called St.
54:47
SPEAKER_04: Peter.
54:47
SPEAKER_04: Wow, it what kind of food is it?
54:49
SPEAKER_04: All seafood all seafood.
54:51
SPEAKER_04: It's uh a guy that's like an expert in fish butchery.
54:55
SPEAKER_04: Oh, yeah, and like the deconstruction of the fish, and every single element is not wasted.
55:02
SPEAKER_04: The bone, the fin, whatever.
55:04
SPEAKER_04: It's he's made everything out of it, every part of different types of fish, and and it's service that was just blowing my mind.
55:11
SPEAKER_04: Like they had Oxford graduates as wait waitresses and waiters there.
55:15
SPEAKER_05: I was like, Why would why would they want to do that?
55:18
SPEAKER_05: I mean, just as a work experience.
55:20
SPEAKER_04: I mean, they're working there as you know, working holidays or whatever in Australia, but they're obviously very articulate, very smart people, and they were just like memorize this menu, and you could ask them anything about the that particular fish where it was farmed, how how heavy that you know the catch was, you know, was a line caught, was it this, this, this, you know, the the the denseness of the of the flesh, you know, how do they um basically decompose the bones and grind it up to make the broth?
55:46
SPEAKER_04: Wow, what's the name of the restaurant?
55:47
SPEAKER_04: St.
55:47
SPEAKER_04: St.
55:48
SPEAKER_04: Peter.
55:48
SPEAKER_05: St.
55:48
SPEAKER_05: Peter.
55:49
SPEAKER_05: Well, shout out to St.
55:49
SPEAKER_05: Peter's.
55:50
SPEAKER_05: I do accept gift cards.
55:51
SPEAKER_05: Should they uh should should they want to sponsor?
55:55
SPEAKER_05: That was a big promotion right now.
55:58
SPEAKER_04: A restaurant that I I like you said had this like work up the next morning.
56:04
SPEAKER_04: That was amazing.
56:05
SPEAKER_05: I mean, this taliscare has that for me.
56:07
SPEAKER_05: I I am biased, so I'm gonna put that out there.
56:09
SPEAKER_05: I'm biased towards this taliscare because I've had it several times.
56:12
SPEAKER_05: One of my favorite casks.
56:14
SPEAKER_05: I would give this a solid 8.6.
56:16
SPEAKER_04: Like you're in a nine, man.
56:17
SPEAKER_05: You're in a nine.
56:19
SPEAKER_05: Okay, even better.
56:20
SPEAKER_05: There we go.
56:20
SPEAKER_05: I think it's gorgeous.
56:23
SPEAKER_05: I think it's gorgeous and delicate.
56:26
SPEAKER_02: I haven't done it.
56:26
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
56:27
SPEAKER_05: Much like our friendship.
56:28
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
56:28
SPEAKER_05: There we go.
56:30
SPEAKER_05: Uh I get more poetic the more whiskey we have.
56:33
SPEAKER_05: That's generally how it seeks.
56:35
SPEAKER_05: So um the EJ McDougal brand, the label, all about single vineyard, as you've talked about, and and the areas in in Australia you've gone to.
56:43
SPEAKER_05: Am I correct in saying you've also tied in releasing on personal dates to you?
56:47
SPEAKER_05: Like these are important.
56:48
SPEAKER_05: There's a bit of a bit of a tie-in to your milestones, your life, and the brand.
56:53
SPEAKER_05: Is that correct?
56:55
SPEAKER_04: Oh, you've done your homework.
56:56
SPEAKER_05: Tell us about this.
56:57
SPEAKER_04: You've done your homework.
56:58
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
56:58
SPEAKER_04: You got a good producer in the background.
57:00
SPEAKER_05: No, no, I do my I wished.
57:02
SPEAKER_05: I did my own research.
57:05
SPEAKER_05: You're fine.
57:07
SPEAKER_05: They do an amazing job with everything pre-production and post-production.
57:11
SPEAKER_05: The one job I have is to show, and they even I even have somebody who helps, and now I give him a whole list of whiskeys.
57:18
SPEAKER_05: He even picks the whiskeys.
57:19
SPEAKER_05: So my job is to show up, do the interview, and do the do the conversation and prepare this part myself.
57:27
SPEAKER_05: I think that's the least I can do if we host a podcast, is to at least show up prepared.
57:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
57:32
SPEAKER_05: So EJ McDougal's um Plus, I know you as a friend, so I should I should know this about you and your brand.
57:40
SPEAKER_04: EJ McDougal is something that I I've been pondering for a very long time and never knew when was the right time to go ahead and do it.
57:53
SPEAKER_04: Um because I knew that I wanted to produce wines of a caliber that would be world-class.
57:59
SPEAKER_05: And fine wine and bring fine wine back to Australia, as you said.
58:02
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that there's that obviously that big mission of getting fine wine back put on the map for Australia.
58:07
SPEAKER_04: At the same time, I I recognize to do something like this would be very ambitious and would be sticking my neck out a bit.
58:16
SPEAKER_04: So it took a bit of courage and a bit of encouragement from people nearest and dearest to me, but also encouragement from from peers in the industry who are very respectable people who I have a high regard for and and listen to.
58:37
SPEAKER_04: And you know, when they when they said that, you know, this is a great thing that I'm doing, and it's obviously got my name on it, but it's not about all about me, it's got a higher purpose that they they bought in.
58:51
SPEAKER_04: And it it took 23 years to get to this point because it became down to the relationships.
58:57
SPEAKER_04: You just can't go and walk in off the street and go buy grapes from the best grower in Margarita.
59:03
SPEAKER_05: Much like you can't go off the street in Scotland and bu and get access to the best casks, right?
59:06
SPEAKER_05: I mean, this is all relationship.
59:08
SPEAKER_05: This is these are old industries that a lot of times it's shaking hands, it's not written contracts that's exactly who likes you and who wants to deal with you and who trusts you trust with their grapes or with their casks or with their whatever it might be.
59:24
SPEAKER_04: So yeah, you've nailed it on the head.
59:26
SPEAKER_04: So it took 23 years to uh earn the trust um and respect, but also have a chance to actually sit down and and share what the vision really is about.
59:37
SPEAKER_04: Um obviously it it's a family business.
59:40
SPEAKER_04: Um there's no intention to become a corporate conglomerate in my lifetime anyway.
59:46
SPEAKER_04: It's something that um if I have to leave this world one day that I can be proud to say that you know um either my children take it on or someone else takes it on.
59:58
SPEAKER_04: Um it's a testament to the industry that I grew up loving and that gave me a pathway that when I was incredibly lost, it opened up every door that I needed opened up.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_05: Remaining.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_04: So the the fact that we release our wines on very significant dates to me personally is um A makes it easier for me to remember.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_04: B B the celebration.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, so you just open those wines on those days.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_05: Bingo.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_04: B if we can't sell them, we open those wines.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_05: Your anniversary, we're talking about your kids.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_05: Are you doing your kids?
1:00:34
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so let's go to the Chardonnay.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_04: So the Chardonnay is always released in August, August 10th, which is our wedding anniversary.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_04: My wife loves Chardonnay, she's like the full Chardonnay club.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_05: Shout out to her, and she's Shout out to her for putting up with you for all these years.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the least she should get is a Chardonnay every year on the anniversary.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_04: Well, well, there's a bit of discussion about it because once upon a time, prior to getting married, I produced the wine and named it after.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_04: And since we got married, I discontinued the wine.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_04: Oh no.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_04: And it's just like that was a limited edition.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_04: Why are we gonna go?
1:01:07
SPEAKER_04: So that was served at our wedding, and we've kept it in in the house.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_05: Your wedding is your your your relationship with your wife is not limited today.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_05: This is long term, exactly.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_05: But this wine is an ode to your relationship.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, absolutely.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_04: And um, we've got um uh Grenache, which is um from very old vines planted in McLarenvelt.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_04: Um, the vines were planted in 1939, which actually happens to be the birth year of my father, um, who's passed away.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_04: But the Grenache was released on the 19th of June, which is my wife Freddie's birthday.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_04: Um, and it's a really beautiful, elegant, perfumed, really seductive wine.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_04: And uh it's just like just so delicious and so huggable that just like just like she is, um, even though, like, you know, at the same time it could be like quite aggressive.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_04: So it's got all her elements, but aggressive in a good way, aggressive, like in like powerful, you know, big voice.
1:02:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I had the fortune of meeting your wife uh a few times, and she's she's a very successful woman and yeah, she's she's yeah, and it's very sophisticated in that regard.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_04: And then the Shiraz is released on the 25th of April, which Shiraz is a very significant grape in Australia.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_04: It was one of the first grapes, if not the first grape varietal that was brought over by Busby, who was a settler in Australia, but brought the grape cuttings in the 1800s, and it was first brought over to the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, but then it's spread across the country, and it was really the the grape that put Australia on the map.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_04: You know, you think about grape.
1:02:41
SPEAKER_05: Even today, I would say.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_05: I mean you go to anywhere in the world.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_05: Shiraz, I think Australia.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_05: I know there are other countries that now make the varietal, right?
1:02:49
SPEAKER_05: But Shiraz is, I think, claimed by Australia.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_05: Exactly right as your yeah, as your grape varietal.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so you you go anywhere in the world and you'll look at open the wine if you go to Australia, it's like boom, Shiraz.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, right.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_04: So there's no no hiding from that fact.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_04: And so we released Shiraz on the 25th of April because it's a day called Anzac Day.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_03: Big day.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_04: Anzac Day is a a memorial day where we celebrate the veterans who went to war.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_04: And I really wanted something that was about celebrating the Australian spirit and the Aussie spirit, and obviously Anzac is Australia and New Zealand, but Anzac Day in Australia is you know, you wake up at crack of dawn, 5 a.m.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_04: to go to the dawn service, and you you know, you listen to the last post and you read some readings and and you remember the guys who went down in in war, um sacrificed in war uh for the country.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_04: And the ones that are around the celebrating, you know, that they're the true Aussie spirit, you know, that they're the Aussie battler, they're the guys who went out, came back, and you know, and and uh and showing that you know there's more to life as well.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_04: So we released that on Anzac Day, which coincidentally Anzac Day is my birthday.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_05: Oh, I didn't okay.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so that's coming up next month.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so 25th of April, it happens to be my birthday.
1:04:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and it wasn't because it's my birthday, but uh the Anzac Day piece is really important.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_04: So we're releasing our 2024 Shiraz next month, um, which is uh 25th of April, and that that's the significance of that.
1:04:17
SPEAKER_04: We do have one other wine that's being made, and I'm flying to Tasmania next week.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_04: It's a Riesling from Tasmania.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_04: Oh exciting, um, which I'm super pumped about.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_04: And Tasmania is like like the the holy grail kind of at the moment in Australia in terms of where you make wine for really high-end stuff, and even for whiskeys, like Tasmania Tasmanian whiskeys are epic.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_05: There's I think something crazy.
1:04:38
SPEAKER_05: I don't know how many distilleries there are.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_04: There's a lot, like it's 300 distilleries or something like that.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_05: More distilleries in Tasmania than there are in all of Scotland.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_05: They uh buy a long shot, yeah.
1:04:49
SPEAKER_05: Right in Tasmania, not Australia, just in Tasmania, there's more distilleries in all of Scotland.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_05: And the land size, and most of it all just gets drunk in Australia, like very little Tasmanian whiskey actually gets exported, which is kind of crazy.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_05: It it is it is crazy, and it's um but maybe it's not that crazy because you Australians love to drink.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_05: I mean, there's there's no lack of drinking in Australia, so we thank you for that because we work in the alcohol industry, so the Tasmanian Australia.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_04: Everyone thinks the Tasmanian devil spins around, right?
1:05:17
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's because of the mena with it.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_05: Well, you've got a flight to cash, so we're not gonna keep you all night.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_05: We're gonna move on to the last whiskey and the last question.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_05: So we're on to Lag of In 27-year-old, distilled 1999.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_04: Can I just say?
1:05:38
SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_03: Hundred points.
1:05:40
SPEAKER_03: This one already.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_03: Hundred points.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_05: You're giving this out.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_05: It's Scottish Freedom, 10 points.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_05: 100 points.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_05: 10 points.
1:05:45
SPEAKER_05: Stay Scottish Freedom.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_03: Scottish Freedom.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_03: There we go.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
1:05:50
SPEAKER_05: See, that's all we wanted.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_05: That's all we did.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_04: Please subscribe to Scottish Freedom.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_05: Also, if you made it this Far in the podcast.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_05: Thank you.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_05: And uh, if you don't mind subscribing and liking the YouTube channel or whatever channel you're on, Spotify, etc., we'd really appreciate it.
1:06:08
SPEAKER_05: So subscribe.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_04: So if you haven't subscribed, you're missing out.
1:06:11
SPEAKER_04: Subscribe.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_05: There we go.
1:06:13
SPEAKER_05: Um, yeah, this is gorgeous.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_05: I mean, the this is nailing this whole new breed of peat meat sherry, which actually hasn't been done a lot.
1:06:23
SPEAKER_05: Relatively sm very, very small fraction of all the whiskeys released in the world have nailed this.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_05: Let's take a PV whiskey, let's age it in bourbon, let's move it to sherry at the right time, let's finish it in the right way, and let's really get this perfect balance.
1:06:40
SPEAKER_05: It's uh I've had it a few times, this whiskey and a few others, and I think it's gorgeous.
1:06:46
SPEAKER_04: I'm so happy you've pulled out Lager Vulan because Lagervoulin was where I'm at now.
1:06:51
SPEAKER_04: Like we went to the Klein of Leish, the Ben Nevis, but like if I have opportunities to buy Lager Vulan, 16 or Lagervoulin 16 should be part of everyone's class like there's still a selection.
1:07:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think that they have an eight.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_04: Yes, that's right.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_04: Um, whatever.
1:07:07
SPEAKER_04: I I just like yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_05: So but this is for a lag ofin when you're given you know lagavulin well, this is not typical lagavulin.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_05: Definitely not.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_05: For people who are listening who can't see the color and all of that.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_05: I mean, this is not a typical lagavulin, right?
1:07:22
SPEAKER_05: You've got all of these sherry notes mixed in with the essence of lagavulin.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_05: I would agree this is an amazing whiskey.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_05: Just the way that it wraps every like I'm I'm giving that a a solid 9.3.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_02: Come in on, get up with it.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_05: I think that's the highest score I've given so far.
1:07:44
SPEAKER_05: So I'm reserving the the perfect Scottish freedom for something.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_05: I'm not sure what.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_05: But this is this is incredible.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_05: This is up.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_05: So let me ask you our our last question, and thank you so much for again for taking the time here, especially before your flight, which I think you will sleep very well on.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_05: But but you let me know.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_05: So you've worn a lot of hats, right?
1:08:05
SPEAKER_05: Winemaker, CEO, investor, TV presenter.
1:08:09
SPEAKER_05: You've you've been a judge on several panels to do with wine.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_05: Can you take us into a moment over the last 23 years where let's talk about entrepreneurship?
1:08:19
SPEAKER_05: You and I are part of uh EO, entrepreneurs organization.
1:08:23
SPEAKER_05: I think we've known each other for a while, but we obviously are much closer now through through that experience.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_05: Take us through a moment where in the last 23 years you thought, man, this job is glamorous.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_05: And take me through a moment where you thought, fuck, why am I doing this?
1:08:38
SPEAKER_05: Like let's delve into the entrepreneurship side of it.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_05: For those who are thinking about starting a business or maybe getting into wine, or for those out there who run a wine business, I'm sure maybe they can relate to one of those two moments.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_05: Is there any that stands out for you?
1:08:52
SPEAKER_05: I'm sure there's lots to choose from.
1:08:54
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, the Because the entrepreneurship journey is basically all of those things, right?
1:08:58
SPEAKER_05: Between the glamorous good days and the fuck, why am I doing this?
1:09:02
SPEAKER_05: Uh, other end of the spectrum.
1:09:04
SPEAKER_05: But what what stands out to you?
1:09:06
SPEAKER_04: I've learned to be very grateful in the entire journey of just going out on my own.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_04: And I I think gratitude is something that's underrepresented and not communicated well enough.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_04: You know, you might have a negative situation, but actually if you can take flip it and own it and be grateful for, you know, potentially the learning that was, you know, negative situation that happened, but the learning of it and be grateful for that learning, that can be quite powerful because it the next time you're not gonna do that.
1:09:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_04: So that there's been tons of situations like that.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_04: But I think when we when we talk about you know the the glamour of it, like I work in an industry, it's it's it's alcohol, it's nice dinners, it's you know, traveling around the world, it's vineyards, and and it creates uh a nice lifestyle to probably someone who's on their own doing it, and you know, if someone's just if you're just there just to sponge, it's a great lifestyle, but and you know you know, you're not actually building any wealth, you're not building any um financial freedom.
1:10:18
SPEAKER_04: And especially when you start adding your own responsibilities home-wise, you know, kids' school fees, uh petrol, or you know, if you if you have still if you're still driving an electric uh sorry, a um gas car or a petrol car, all those responsibilities add up to you know a need for some level of financial security and income.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_04: And I've had some pretty scary moments where it's like just not gonna make it.
1:10:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, just not gonna make it.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna need to listen to my mum and my grandfather, grandmother, and go back and do that corporate gig and start.
1:10:54
SPEAKER_05: Hope you can get that corporate gig.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_05: Hope you can get that corporate gig and uh guarantee now that we've been out of that.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_04: Sure, and start from the bottom and and then you kind of hustle, and then you know you take on responsibilities, you get married, you have kids, and then like how do you deal with that that uh just screw it up, can't do it.
1:11:14
SPEAKER_04: Um not so easy, right?
1:11:15
SPEAKER_04: But then you realise the people that really care about you and know you, they just go get your head out of the sand, you know, keep going, you know, keep keep doing what you're doing because what you're doing is a great thing, and you know, good things will happen to good people eventually.
1:11:31
SPEAKER_04: Um and what I've learned about the wine industry, nothing happens overnight.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_04: And same with many other industries, and whiskey is not made in one year.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_04: Whiskies are made, the great whiskies are made in 12, 15, 18, you know all about patience, all about patience, right?
1:11:46
SPEAKER_04: And the re the reward for patience.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so I I'm very patient.
1:11:52
SPEAKER_04: I've learned to be more considered, more collected, um, and not react in in an irrational way um over time and realize that you know that there's at the same time there's no pain, there's no gain.
1:12:11
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_04: So I'm I'm kind of at the point where I'm like, I'm embracing some of this pain.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_05: It sounds like you're also embracing the the challenge and the journey, yeah, maybe more maybe not maybe more than, but maybe as much as the end result.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_05: Would that be fair?
1:12:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_05: It's hard to do that as an entrepreneur with you.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_05: It's hard to love the struggle of the everyday.
1:12:34
SPEAKER_05: I think being grateful, like you said, is one component of that.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_05: And then being aware of where we are, where we've been, that perspective hopefully adds to wanting to keep going and being focused on where you're trying to go.
1:12:51
SPEAKER_05: But it's not easy to kind of kind of wake up and have that motivation when sometimes everything's being thrown at you.
1:12:57
SPEAKER_05: And I think in today's world, there's a lot of things thrown at you that you have no control over.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_05: The war starts, the tariffs, whatever it might be, right?
1:13:05
SPEAKER_05: There's certain things we we make decisions on as entrepreneurs, and then there's a reaction or a consequence.
1:13:10
SPEAKER_05: Like, okay, maybe we made that decision wrongly, we priced something wrong, we picked a bad supplier, whatever.
1:13:15
SPEAKER_05: We we have a team member that didn't work out.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_05: But there are certain macro things that happen that we have no control over, but we have to get up in the morning, react, and find a way.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_05: Adapt, right?
1:13:26
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right, react and adapt.
1:13:28
SPEAKER_05: Adapt, yeah, right, and and kind of make it through.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
1:13:32
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I I think I think entrepreneurship's all about adapting.
1:13:36
SPEAKER_05: We're in March right now, and uh when I'm recording this, and the Iran War just started a couple weeks ago.
1:13:41
SPEAKER_05: We were all geared up to launch our our fund.
1:13:43
SPEAKER_05: Uh we're gonna do a new whiskey fund, and we've had to delay everything just because investors, people aren't aren't kind of ready for that right now.
1:13:51
SPEAKER_05: And I had two trips planned to Dubai in the next month that it obviously been canceled, a big conference in Dubai that's been canceled, but none of those things, and that's why I was gonna none of those things are things I can control.
1:14:03
SPEAKER_05: So, okay, let's adapt, let's regroup, let's refocus.
1:14:07
SPEAKER_05: I think that's the heart of entrepreneurship because if you don't adapt, I think you die.
1:14:11
SPEAKER_05: I I think uh there's been examples of that throughout history.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_05: I mean, think of Blockbuster versus Netflix, think of Barnes and Noble versus Amazon, right?
1:14:20
SPEAKER_05: Like, don't adapt and you're you're not gonna make it, even no matter how big you are, no matter how good your balance sheet is, no matter how much cash you have in the bank.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, if you're not gonna adapt to what's happening, you're not gonna make it long term, right?
1:14:32
SPEAKER_05: So I I think that's what it's all about.
1:14:34
SPEAKER_05: I want to make sure you get your flight.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_05: So I wanted to thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_05: Cheers, um I learned a lot, even though I I think I know you fairly well, but even today I learned a lot about your philosophy, your your love for wine as an industry, where it started, your story, how you've now woven in not only the education side, I think, with Flying Winemaker and what you're trying to build to the world and and bring that um bring that access to wine, I think, through Flying Winemaker is is is personally very motivating.
1:15:11
SPEAKER_05: But now watching what you're doing with with your EJ McDougal brand and and how you've tied that into the milestones and special moments of of people in your life.
1:15:20
SPEAKER_05: I mean, you've matured, my friend.
1:15:22
SPEAKER_05: Like a fine wine or or a great whiskey, you are continuing to get better with age, and I'm loving that I get to witness uh that that journey with the with I hope a front front row seat.
1:15:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh absolutely, absolutely.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_05: We thank you for your time.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_05: I think you ended up rating these whiskeys basically um Lagavul in one, Taliscar 2, Delvene uh three, and the Secret Highland 4.
1:15:46
SPEAKER_05: So we kind of I think we nailed it tonight.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_05: This usually doesn't happen, but we actually had a progression where we got better and better.
1:15:52
SPEAKER_05: Um, and you were asking at the beginning why this progression.
1:15:55
SPEAKER_05: That was kind of the hope.
1:15:56
SPEAKER_05: Also, we did go a little more peatier.
1:15:58
SPEAKER_05: That was the other hope.
1:15:59
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, thank you so much.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_05: We tried some amazing whiskeys, I think, tonight.
1:16:06
SPEAKER_05: Some really unique, unique flavor profiles.
1:16:09
SPEAKER_05: And as always, the whiskey's never done, and neither's the conversation.
1:16:12
SPEAKER_05: So thank you so much, Daddy McDougal, for joining us tonight.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_05: And uh cheers.
1:16:16
SPEAKER_05: Cheers.
1:16:17
SPEAKER_05: Hey guys, for cash here, the whiskey chief.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_05: Firstly, thanks so much for for watching this episode.
1:16:22
SPEAKER_05: It really means a lot to us.
1:16:23
SPEAKER_05: If you can like and subscribe below, it just really helps us to keep bringing you the best whiskeys in the world.
1:16:28
SPEAKER_05: It's a large, and I'll talk to you soon.