Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Acting like a barman with Curtis Moran - Guest Co-Hosts Fraser Souness and Chuck Kerr

Transcript

Acting like a barman with Curtis Moran - Guest Co-Hosts Fraser Souness and Chuck Kerr · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello ladies and gentlemen, this is mambo #5 Boom boom #1 when I
• 0:05
  was born. I'll have you know, is the
• 0:06
  lighting OK? Do you need to turn the lights
• 0:08
  The? Lighting's fine.
• 0:08
  We've got drams. We've got drams.
• 0:11
  We've got everything here. Yeah.
• 0:14
  Fraser, you know what to do. Clap us in hold.
• 0:19
  On. Usually there's two.
• 0:25
  Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 0:29
  I mean, one of the really cool things about whiskey is we're at
• 0:31
  what, 64 years now of commercialized single malt
• 0:34
  whiskey? Yeah, we're, we're still in the
• 0:36
  like the early. Yeah, when you base it on yeah,
• 0:38
  when you look at how long whiskey's been going.
• 0:40
  We're we're so young into that side of it that now it is cool
• 0:43
  seeing these to still these pop up that are saying, well, let's
• 0:45
  see how far we can push this. Let's see what different barley
• 0:48
  strains do. Let's see what different yeasts
• 0:50
  do. Well, it's.
• 0:52
  Almost like going back to basics.
• 0:53
  Yeah, exactly. Welcome along the Whiskey
• 0:55
  Stories Podcast with myself and Greg Kogar.
• 0:58
  We are back in the athletic cars, back in Diggers, back in
• 1:00
  the lovely big snug, not sandwich between the toilets and
• 1:04
  the bar this evening. And it's going to be a quieter
• 1:07
  affair because I am flying solo this evening as the host of the
• 1:12
  Whiskey Stories podcast. But I have roped in two very
• 1:15
  capable and very competent Co hosts I've got well so one and
• 1:21
  only Fraser. Soon as Fraser, how are you?
• 1:23
  Very good Graham, ecstatic to be back in my old local.
• 1:26
  It's great. It's great to have you here
• 1:28
  sitting beside me. Normally I'd be staring at Ross
• 1:30
  right now. Nice.
• 1:30
  And cosy, it must be better for you.
• 1:31
  It's. Going to be nice, but we're all
• 1:33
  going to get a lot more to say tonight.
• 1:37
  It's a shame for the guy, he's on his deathbed.
• 1:39
  Yeah. RIP Ross.
• 1:42
  Our RP or our IP? Recommended Retail.
• 1:47
  Price but he's he's not here because he is he's unwell.
• 1:50
  So Ross, if you listen to this, get well soon, but not too soon
• 1:53
  because we're quite enjoying and not having you on the podcast
• 1:56
  this. Evening.
• 1:57
  And of course, if people who are watching this video, Angus has
• 2:00
  not lost a lot of weight. It's actually he's Angus is
• 2:04
  still over and Japan stuff in his face with raw fish and rice
• 2:07
  and washing it down with a bottle of Haddington House and
• 2:11
  to take his place. Who is there about to substitute
• 2:13
  himself into Japan? Tomorrow?
• 2:15
  We've got Charles Chuck. How are you, Charles?
• 2:18
  I'm good man, thanks for having me.
• 2:20
  That's great to great to have you here.
• 2:21
  Great to see you love. I mean, honestly, I still just
• 2:25
  look at you sometimes and laugh at some of the stories.
• 2:28
  Forget that lot, yeah? From from your debut episode
• 2:33
  when the the the story of just the farm and everything that
• 2:37
  went with it. The olive oil salesman spiel.
• 2:41
  Yeah, the rocks farming. What was it delivering a calf?
• 2:48
  Oh God, yeah. No, I didn't even remember.
• 2:49
  I must have had a couple of drums before I had told that
• 2:51
  story. You were living on another.
• 2:54
  He'd been on a couple of episodes.
• 2:56
  A few episodes now. Yeah, I think so.
• 2:58
  I think New Year's as well. New.
• 2:59
  Year's I was, yeah, which again, I had quite a few.
• 3:02
  Drums. We all did.
• 3:03
  We all did. Shout out to Ali Baxter.
• 3:04
  Oh yeah. Great.
• 3:06
  You see us. How are we getting on you all
• 3:07
  right? I am.
• 3:08
  Are you alright? I am.
• 3:10
  I'm really, really excited for this.
• 3:11
  It is nice to be back in Diggers and yes, it's been great.
• 3:14
  We've got drams in front of us, what have you?
• 3:16
  What have you got, Fraser? Hold on, mobile device will be
• 3:20
  needed for this because I don't want to mess it up.
• 3:22
  The first one is a 34 year old Gervin from Whiskey Cellar.
• 3:28
  Well done. I had that in last week, that
• 3:31
  is. Hi, listen, you had it and Ross
• 3:33
  also said it was quite tasty. Always good to start my brain.
• 3:35
  Always a a good way to absolutely get the palette going
• 3:38
  in the middle. I'm warming up because I'm going
• 3:41
  to holy rood 2 days time. I've not tried their recent
• 3:44
  release. It's the whatever they've called
• 3:46
  it, the holy Rood something. Yeah, the Rirax experimental
• 3:50
  edition. Fantastic.
• 3:51
  And then the last one is a tree Cara, Tri Cara tree, tree tree.
• 3:57
  Tree Cara. Yeah.
• 3:58
  Tree free Tree Cara 16 year old Altmore.
• 4:03
  Fantastic, brilliant. What about yourself, Chuck?
• 4:06
  What are you drumming? I've also got a grain I got
• 4:10
  slightly younger. I got a 14 year old N British
• 4:12
  from signatory. Oh I bought that 46% and then I
• 4:18
  got a 14 year olds long row from sorry longmourn from Woody's.
• 4:26
  I bought the 1st 5 bourbon. I did have it.
• 4:28
  I popped in here on Sunday just for a just a.
• 4:34
  Half and 1/2. I'd bumped into Ross and his
• 4:36
  father, who? Had oh, that's whiskey and dad
• 4:38
  or not, that was Saturday that. Was that was Saturday and they
• 4:40
  had been on it, I would say. So what became like about four
• 4:47
  drams quite quickly. They got that for Ross's dad and
• 4:51
  then was incredibly upset that I didn't have it myself.
• 4:53
  So brilliant. A rectified night.
• 4:55
  Now I'm very pumped for. It I didn't see on the Whiskey
• 4:58
  Stories Facebook group Rosten put up like his own thread about
• 5:03
  all the drums that him and his dad were having on this
• 5:06
  Saturday. So I was aware of that and I'm
• 5:09
  also aware of that based on him and his dad sitting in diggers
• 5:11
  drinking drums all day. Kev's managed to buy himself a
• 5:15
  new car. What they've spent.
• 5:18
  But yeah, it was it was great. I have decided to go where now
• 5:25
  on my left we're going to talk about our start.
• 5:27
  On my right, we've got I I went for the inch Gower 14 fragrant
• 5:32
  drops, which was tried on our most recent indie bottler
• 5:36
  Spotlight, which was given and Charles, one of the reason I
• 5:39
  took this is because you have been outdone on this episode for
• 5:43
  a wanky tasting note. I didn't see the Instagram.
• 5:45
  Yeah, like standing on Bomb Harbour with a cripple steel, a
• 5:53
  cripple foil thing of sticky toffee pudding as the sea air
• 5:58
  hits you in the face. I mean that makes perfect.
• 6:00
  Sense do that all the time, man. Yeah, I'm always in bombs.
• 6:02
  Someone's done that. But what I'll also mention is if
• 6:07
  nobody has watched the Indie Bopper Spotlight episode on our
• 6:11
  YouTube channel, please do. And a big shout out to the guy
• 6:14
  who fell asleep half an hour. He was in shock for the full
• 6:22
  recording and and roughly about 30 minutes before the end, you
• 6:26
  start to see his head just slightly going and then he just
• 6:29
  falls asleep. If you're listening to the
• 6:31
  episode, I have listened to the episode and I think right
• 6:33
  towards the end I said some of us literally need to get to our
• 6:36
  beds. That is because at that point,
• 6:38
  he was snoring during a rowdy Friday night and there's like,
• 6:43
  arms. He was, he was.
• 6:45
  He was I. Think you also you can tell
• 6:47
  which guy it was because in the middle of the podcast he's the
• 6:50
  one that was mental about Edinburgh.
• 6:51
  Yes, because Edinburgh is the best city on earth.
• 6:54
  When coming along, he came in, he'd been at the bar, I don't
• 6:57
  know how long he'd been at the bar but just decided, oh, you
• 6:58
  did a taste in, can I join in? He said absolutely fine.
• 7:01
  Sat down. His tasted note for Glenn Grant,
• 7:04
  21, was powerful. You did powerful.
• 7:08
  Fair play. Well done for coming along and I
• 7:11
  hope you've got a good night's sleep.
• 7:12
  But we are joined. But I guess now it's a very,
• 7:14
  it's a Scotch Balmoral heavy crowd we've got in the night
• 7:19
  because we've actually got the replacement of Ross Barr who
• 7:22
  took his job. All our hands smart.
• 7:24
  That's that. Well, welcome along, Curtis
• 7:26
  Moran, how are you? Fantastic.
• 7:28
  Thanks for having me finally. Great to have you here and you
• 7:30
  complete the set. Now that's it, you've completed
• 7:32
  Scotch. We've completed Scotch after
• 7:35
  we've recorded this episode. I've been told that because we
• 7:38
  have covered Scotch so much that I am entitled to one Free
• 7:42
  McAllen 40. I've had that on.
• 7:46
  And what? I will say about Curtis is you
• 7:51
  are one of my favorite bartenders at Scotch because
• 7:56
  unlike your guy to my left here, you don't skyward roll your eyes
• 8:00
  when I walk in with a great smile.
• 8:02
  You're a. Good guy.
• 8:03
  He just doesn't like when somebody questions them, so
• 8:05
  yeah. Well, it's great to have you
• 8:06
  here. What have you got in front of
• 8:07
  you? I've went for probably could be
• 8:11
  a either really good decision or terrible. 3 cash strength
• 8:13
  whiskeys. Wow.
• 8:15
  Are you going to try and indulate Fraser's first step?
• 8:17
  We're, we're, we're. Going to try and one up here,
• 8:19
  you know it. Was alright, the issue was the
• 8:21
  morning after I couldn't mind what I said No, I had.
• 8:23
  A few and I I. Remember the shift?
• 8:27
  I remember the shift. I hope I'm alright.
• 8:29
  Might get fired. No.
• 8:32
  So went with, to start off, Bunahab and Fazio 2024.
• 8:36
  Done in a Ruby podcast. If I'm right in remembering,
• 8:39
  it's 60.4%. Wow, there you go.
• 8:44
  Then I've went with your own. Yeah, wonderful.
• 8:47
  Wind doors. Finally get to try it.
• 8:49
  Yeah. And which I'm excited for, I'm
• 8:50
  looking forward to. I haven't tasted it yet.
• 8:52
  So yeah, if you hear me throwing up in the corner, we know why.
• 8:56
  What is it? What do you say?
• 8:57
  If it's not good, we'll just call it ARC.
• 9:01
  It's somebody out there appreciates it and that's all
• 9:03
  that matters. Also having a having a close
• 9:06
  friend and also Co host of the podcast who works for an app
• 9:10
  where you can rate whiskeys that go on it.
• 9:13
  I think you'll find that on the baby app that Linders Abbey is
• 9:17
  the highest rated to Linders Abbey bottling.
• 9:20
  There you go. There's there's, there's no bias
• 9:21
  at all in any of babies work. I mean, he didn't, he didn't fix
• 9:26
  anything, but he just told me to send it to as many people as you
• 9:28
  can and get them to give it 10 star.
• 9:30
  Well, I got Betty and this is, this will be one of the last
• 9:32
  times you mention them until they give us some points.
• 9:34
  But basically, instead of five stars, they have 10 stars.
• 9:38
  Yeah. Which is quite interesting when
• 9:39
  you're trying to go along the scale.
• 9:40
  By the way, Sorry Carry. Your third track, I know.
• 9:42
  And then finally I went with to go with Tricara.
• 9:47
  Is that what you said? Yeah, Tricara, 27 year old
• 9:49
  Bulmore Lovely, which is in refill Sherry, so.
• 9:55
  It looks like a. Different 1 I think.
• 9:59
  No, it's bourbon, Yeah. Yeah, OK, Bourbon.
• 10:03
  There we go, even better. Lovely we got, we got to Ola
• 10:07
  Wapatowska Wapatowski from Tree Cara.
• 10:11
  It was a brilliant actually interlude to the day because it
• 10:15
  was when we were at Edinburgh WSKI Festival.
• 10:17
  She, she came over and said like I've got a little sample what
• 10:20
  used to try and we tried it whilst we were recording.
• 10:22
  And as I DRAM when you're halfway through a whiskey
• 10:25
  festival, right? It was just absolutely
• 10:28
  fantastic. It's lovely.
• 10:29
  One more barbin is. People, I don't know how, what's
• 10:32
  the percent? What's the ABV in that one?
• 10:34
  I do have a photo so I. Think it's 52%.
• 10:36
  I just a light 1 compared to your.
• 10:38
  Compared to 60, The Lindor's Abbey is 60.6% as well.
• 10:42
  I'm looking forward to saying that little more.
• 10:44
  I've noticed either, yet is. Your lenders that available at
• 10:46
  the bar? Yes.
• 10:47
  All right, OK. 53 point 1% and then the OR not got it wrong.
• 10:52
  Boonahaben is only 58.7, so you know we're fine.
• 10:55
  Well, we've both gone for the Boonahaben we have.
• 10:57
  That was my second draft here. Now the reason I've gone for
• 11:00
  Boonahaben is recently actually, and I'm one thing enlightened.
• 11:04
  I've stayed clear of Boonahaben and as many of you will know it
• 11:07
  sounds counterintuitive because am I right In Saint Boonahaben
• 11:10
  is one of the non only non peated whiskeys on Isla.
• 11:13
  And it's like. Mainly non peated.
• 11:15
  As well. That's like.
• 11:17
  You. Know what it is and I think I've
• 11:21
  had a couple of Buna Habens there.
• 11:22
  What is the most standard release that you'll get in the
• 11:24
  supermarket? Well, well, yeah.
• 11:26
  Buna haben 12 and was it once Non age statement?
• 11:29
  Strewn. Rather strew the darn and the
• 11:32
  toy as well, which is. What we know, but there was once
• 11:34
  I was actually Topper tasting, wine tasting, and he put two
• 11:38
  side by side and it was both Buna Habens turned out Buna
• 11:41
  haben 12, but it was Buna haben the previous.
• 11:44
  The now and. Then yeah, OK.
• 11:47
  So it was a side by side. I'll be perfectly honest with
• 11:49
  you at the time, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry to have anyone who's
• 11:50
  listening from Boone. I haven't.
• 11:52
  I just didn't get it at all. Cam's crying.
• 11:55
  Well, I know, I know, but what I'm desperately, and this is
• 11:57
  what's great is like when you've got a bar like the Athletic Arms
• 12:00
  with one of the biggest collections of open bottles,
• 12:03
  whiskey in Edinburgh, 800 and odd bottles open.
• 12:06
  I saw it behind the bar, someone that obviously think it was
• 12:09
  about having 14 that they'd ordered.
• 12:11
  And I just saw the bottle of top perfect opportunity because it
• 12:13
  just seems that for a long for very decently and a lot of
• 12:16
  episodes people have talked a lot about being a habit.
• 12:18
  So I just thought I'm going to give this another go.
• 12:20
  So I'm looking forward to that, I think.
• 12:21
  It's a brilliant. Distillery.
• 12:23
  It's my favorite. Yeah, I mean, well, it's a good
• 12:27
  job, Ross Barnes not here to deny you that.
• 12:30
  Cameron famously was told what his favorite whiskey isn't and
• 12:33
  what his favorite whiskey should be by Ross.
• 12:37
  You know, it's great, but no, it's it's it's fantastic.
• 12:39
  But Curtis is we have mentioned you work at Scotch and you
• 12:43
  basically what happened was when when Ross left, he took his
• 12:47
  ladder, the step ladder with him.
• 12:49
  Yeah. So they had to get.
• 12:51
  Some, I don't need it, no. Yeah.
• 12:53
  Ross left and actually got sent a message off Ross saying, you
• 12:56
  know, there's going to be a positioning opening up.
• 12:58
  Yeah, yeah. Actually, I think it was more of
• 13:01
  a threat to be honest, because I remember it said if your
• 13:05
  application, like your application better be in or if
• 13:07
  it's not in, you're in trouble. Oh, really?
• 13:10
  So I was like, great, yeah, I'd said the last time a job, like
• 13:14
  the last time a position went up was when Fraser went in.
• 13:18
  I remember saying if something comes up, happy to join, I'd
• 13:21
  love to love to come in. Been my dream job for a long
• 13:23
  time. Great.
• 13:24
  So, so this was it. Curtis was meant to apply when I
• 13:28
  got the job. And I didn't.
• 13:30
  But it didn't, and then Ross and Cam just went for as you can
• 13:34
  have it. There you go ahead.
• 13:35
  So I. Was sorted so this time Ross was
• 13:37
  like Curtis, I'm leaving get your application and we we knew
• 13:40
  Curtis because he would come in the bar and I was.
• 13:43
  Funnily like. Wait, hang a.
• 13:45
  Second mini Ross did. Did did Ross take your position,
• 13:48
  Chuck? No.
• 13:49
  No, no, I didn't say Jeff. He's safe in the.
• 13:51
  Back, of course. Scott he took.
• 13:52
  Care Ross took my brothers, yeah.
• 13:54
  Right, but who did? Who took yours?
• 13:58
  I. Don't know time there's.
• 14:00
  How many? People have we had on this.
• 14:02
  No, it was. It could have been Dario.
• 14:03
  Dario took money. Dario.
• 14:05
  OK. A little better.
• 14:07
  Two very different personalities.
• 14:08
  There you go. I think.
• 14:09
  I think they. Were trying to correct the bolt.
• 14:11
  Yeah, pretty pretty Moody in here.
• 14:15
  We should probably get something nice and and foreign.
• 14:19
  The Italian. Stallion.
• 14:20
  All right, great. They're both fantastic.
• 14:22
  Now your thing is you are, you're not the first actor that
• 14:26
  we've had on the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 14:28
  Danny Dyer. Was acted.
• 14:31
  Danny Dyer was one of the few that when I was after I got my
• 14:35
  first, well, my first and only acting gig, I spent a bit of
• 14:39
  time chatting with him. He gave me some pointers, some
• 14:41
  advice. Fantastic actor.
• 14:43
  Actually, I'll give him some real props on that.
• 14:45
  Really, really good actor. You were an actor, What you said
• 14:49
  your first and only acting job. Yes, I didn't go off and study
• 14:52
  acting, but it was always what I thought I wanted to do.
• 14:55
  And there was an open casting call for the second season of
• 15:00
  BBCTV show Clique, and I'm not surprised nobody's heard about.
• 15:07
  It an entire room just live station are.
• 15:10
  You on IMDV? I I will say that was that was
• 15:13
  one of my one of my goals was I wanted to be on IMDVI do have a
• 15:17
  unphotographed thing on IMDb for it.
• 15:19
  We could probably, you could, we could probably get you a credit
• 15:22
  for the whiskey sores. Well, that.
• 15:23
  Gives me two credits. I've done with what I wanted in
• 15:26
  my life. But yeah, his.
• 15:28
  Dreams come true. Quite funny.
• 15:29
  Went off in a audition for that. Got offered a basically bona
• 15:34
  fide extra job on it, playing one of the bartenders in the
• 15:39
  opening episode. Real.
• 15:41
  Stretch from your. Yeah, it.
• 15:43
  Was funny, but this was before, yeah, I'd taken the gig.
• 15:47
  I'd never worked behind a bar, so first time ever behind a bar
• 15:52
  pretending to be a bartender and devil's advocate.
• 15:56
  So we'd done the filming there. It was great.
• 15:58
  Done an overnight shoot, had a great experience with it, got my
• 16:02
  got my professional credit. And then open auditions became
• 16:08
  quite quiet. And then up to COVID, COVID
• 16:10
  kicked in and I never went back. There you go.
• 16:14
  Well, like that. I mean, what's it Glenn
• 16:18
  Modernjay had, what's his name? Harrison Ford.
• 16:21
  Yeah. And we've got we've had Curtis
• 16:23
  Moran on the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 16:25
  There you go. There you go.
• 16:26
  It's that's fantastic. So you basically what you're
• 16:29
  saying is working behind the bar is effectively active.
• 16:32
  Yeah, to be fair, yeah, that's what it is.
• 16:34
  You've been in Scots, you've seen that we acted well.
• 16:35
  Like what? A double what you're in there,
• 16:40
  it's great, can be. Yeah, he's quite positive.
• 16:42
  I just get the job done, get in there, get the job done, keep
• 16:46
  the balance. And this is really what you're
• 16:52
  going to stay. So, right.
• 16:57
  So how do you make the step then, from acting into whiskey?
• 17:02
  I was on a night out when I was 20, maybe 21, and went around a
• 17:12
  bunch of bars and happened upon Uskove.
• 17:15
  So bar that used to be underneath what is now the West
• 17:18
  End Brasserie and that used to be Ryan's Bryan's Bar.
• 17:22
  Big great rugby pub to be honest, when it existed.
• 17:25
  I went in there for a couple of drams and I was fairly naive in
• 17:32
  whiskey at that point. Didn't know much, like too much.
• 17:34
  I'd fallen in love with it thanks to at the time, my my
• 17:37
  girlfriend's older brother. So went down there basically to
• 17:39
  have a couple of drams and learn a little bit.
• 17:42
  Guy behind the bar, Daniel B spent the night like chatting
• 17:47
  away. Got on really, really well and
• 17:49
  we ended up going out for drinks once the bar shut.
• 17:54
  Got home the next day, got a message off on being like great
• 17:57
  to meet you, blah blah blah. You know, you should come back
• 18:01
  in. Went back in for another one and
• 18:03
  they just said what are you doing on Monday and I was like
• 18:06
  I'm I'm free. Why?
• 18:07
  Went good shop here. Wear a shirt.
• 18:09
  You've got a job interview. Wow.
• 18:12
  I was working at the time as a window cleaner so I was doing
• 18:14
  mornings. We did Windows.
• 18:16
  At the. Time if you start.
• 18:18
  Stopping actor if you're cleaning.
• 18:19
  Windows if you start singing the song I swear of how cleaning
• 18:22
  windows. Are superb.
• 18:24
  So went in with the interview and basically sat down with with
• 18:27
  Michael, who at the time was the bar manager, and he basically
• 18:31
  just went, I'm just want to make sure you're not a complete
• 18:34
  weirdo. Yeah, you can string a sentence
• 18:37
  together, which I struggled with and and then you're peeping in
• 18:40
  the window. We need, we need, we need rid.
• 18:45
  Of you, you're, you're gonna work here, you know?
• 18:47
  You're gonna work in there. It was a basement bar, but like
• 18:48
  I. Thank God I know you're very
• 18:53
  good at cleaning your glass. That's probably why they hired
• 18:56
  me, to be fair. And yeah, that was that was how
• 18:59
  I started out. So I started working there as
• 19:01
  like part time. So we're still working 5-6 days
• 19:05
  a week to window cleaner in the mornings.
• 19:07
  We kind of finished my shift, sleep for two hours and then go
• 19:11
  in and do 8 hours in the in the bar now.
• 19:13
  Were you a were you a proper window cleaner up ladders or
• 19:17
  were you one of the guys at the bottom with that telescopic pole
• 19:19
  like? We're not going to go in to
• 19:20
  reach and wash because I've got really, really angry views on
• 19:23
  that. No, I went up the ladder and
• 19:25
  I've got I ended up with a fractured rib to to prove it,
• 19:27
  Yeah. Yeah, so I mean like, I mean the
• 19:29
  windy store windy. Storage.
• 19:32
  Podcast storage podcast. Because this is fascinating
• 19:34
  because like a window cleaner against that.
• 19:37
  Did you have a wee bike with a bucket on the handles and a
• 19:39
  ladder at the side? No.
• 19:40
  I thank thankfully I worked with worked with guys with a car.
• 19:44
  If I was ever out working on my own, a lot of the time that I
• 19:46
  was out we would cover my local area.
• 19:49
  OK, so you know, you just walk a bit with a ladder over your
• 19:51
  shoulder carrying a whistling. Away I basically.
• 19:54
  That's another Wednesday clear here.
• 19:56
  Fantastic. You know, actually, I just
• 19:57
  remembered Ross Barr was an actor once.
• 20:00
  Yeah, he played extras on Tiger. He played the dead bodies, but
• 20:06
  they had to pay them off because they kept running out of chalk.
• 20:15
  Ross, even if you're not here, you get absolutely.
• 20:18
  Slight right so now wait a minute now did this could be not
• 20:21
  play a bit of a role for you Chuck as.
• 20:23
  Well, very much so, yeah. I knew when I got first got in
• 20:27
  it was Chris and Michael. Yeah.
• 20:29
  OK, yes #1 and #2. Yes.
• 20:31
  I never worked with Chris, worked with Michael, actually
• 20:34
  given big props. I owe a lot to Michael.
• 20:36
  He, he, he'd done a lot with giving me kind of education in
• 20:40
  terms of whiskey and things like that.
• 20:41
  Great guy then, so you know, cheers, Michael, If you listen.
• 20:45
  Oh. The because because you were
• 20:47
  working. Where was it you were working?
• 20:49
  Cali, Cali, yeah, across the street.
• 20:51
  And then I was like, this is shit.
• 20:53
  Cali Hotel. Beautiful.
• 20:56
  Hotel still looking for the sponsorship?
• 20:58
  Yeah. I got to get it from them.
• 21:01
  Yeah. So we it was me and like to the
• 21:03
  guys who weren't there, we would after we were done with our
• 21:06
  chefs, we'd go across the street and I'd drink drums together and
• 21:10
  just hound Michael and Chris would be like, what is it?
• 21:13
  What is this stuff? Why does it look that way?
• 21:15
  Why does it smell that way? Yeah, stop telling me.
• 21:17
  Everything I say sounds really wanky.
• 21:20
  So they were, they were really, really good.
• 21:21
  And. Daniel, Daniel here.
• 21:25
  Daniel was great as well. Daniel.
• 21:26
  Was great laugh I. Wonder who it was?
• 21:28
  Because there's today's also a Hector McLean told a story about
• 21:34
  his cousin Charlie McLean. Charles McLean.
• 21:38
  The Charles McLean. You know his.
• 21:40
  Uncle. Well, no, I think they're
• 21:41
  cousins technically because we did question this.
• 21:44
  His age a lot better than Charlie.
• 21:45
  Yeah, well, I think because the Bruce McLean clan is like
• 21:51
  massive, but I think they're they're sort of all.
• 21:54
  Go into history, yeah. Yeah, but anyway.
• 21:55
  Where's Angus, exactly? Have you not done your research
• 22:00
  for? The Bruce McLean clan, which.
• 22:02
  Is the first I've heard of any. Of this, yeah, but.
• 22:03
  But basically his story was, yeah, Charles McLean.
• 22:08
  They're an Uska day. Well.
• 22:09
  This is Johnny Walker story. Yeah, So he walks in and says,
• 22:11
  oh, Johnny Walker, read, please. The boy obviously behind the bar
• 22:14
  knows exactly who he is. Oh, my God, It's Charles McLean.
• 22:16
  I'm like, nice to meet you. And he says, can I get some
• 22:18
  Johnny Walker Red Label? And that's what's fantastic
• 22:22
  about something like Charles McLean is he'll still to this
• 22:25
  day talk about how the importance of blended whiskey
• 22:27
  and things like that. You can imagine.
• 22:28
  He prefers blend. Yeah, but I mean, imagine how
• 22:30
  many people we've we've come across people.
• 22:33
  I was one of them at one point where you'd say blinds, blinds
• 22:36
  naked. But yeah, you've got a guy who's
• 22:38
  probably tried some of the most incredible whiskey and he's on
• 22:41
  IMDb as well. He's he's played himself in the
• 22:44
  movie, but Angel share. But like so he's a Johnny
• 22:49
  Walker. I'd please.
• 22:51
  And it came back and said, I'm really sorry, Mr. McClain.
• 22:53
  We don't actually have enough. And he's like, don't worry, just
• 22:56
  put a black bottle on it. And like, you know, I mean for
• 23:01
  this could be no longer there, but how many bottles of whiskey
• 23:03
  would they have banged back I. Think maybe 2-3 hundred Yeah,
• 23:08
  thereabouts at most. And what would you be looking
• 23:10
  at? A range from Johnny Walker Red
• 23:12
  black bottle all the way up to what?
• 23:13
  What was? Cool.
• 23:14
  It's like. The Glendronic 33 cam's got a
• 23:17
  quite funny story about that one.
• 23:18
  Next time he's on, they can get to tell that.
• 23:21
  Do not also. Right, I have to get him on to
• 23:22
  apologise for you too. The McAllen that 12 year old can
• 23:28
  heads Glenn Dumpy. Yeah, and like some really cool
• 23:31
  like really old school bottlings of Highland Park.
• 23:35
  I think like AI forget the name the name of the range from
• 23:39
  Diageo but it was like a Barora. Yeah, they had some.
• 23:43
  Of the collection or something. They had old, really old Martlac
• 23:46
  and I worked there. That was the one that I was
• 23:47
  always really interested in. It was like Mortlac from like
• 23:49
  19. 36. Yeah, like pre, pre World War
• 23:55
  like yeah, Genium bottling it was £200 in it, which now that I
• 23:59
  think about that bargain. Yeah, well, it's funny that it's
• 24:02
  like we look at it and we talk about whiskey prices and stuff
• 24:05
  and like, you know, the price that you've got that Bulmore 27,
• 24:09
  yeah, 25 lbs for 35 mils. Now there'll be so many people
• 24:14
  who listen to this and be like, I can't believe someone who
• 24:15
  spend over £20 on one whiskey. And as I've carried on through
• 24:20
  what I've been doing is I've sort of moved on from being like
• 24:23
  like 7 or 8 lbs for a whisk. Now, of course, it's all, it's
• 24:27
  all about value what you're getting, you know, and this is
• 24:29
  where diggers are so good in the sense that you're getting 35
• 24:32
  mils at a very reasonable price. Yeah.
• 24:34
  Whereas you know, if you were tried by that in town or in
• 24:36
  other places, you would probably pay quite a lot more for.
• 24:38
  That definitely. So.
• 24:40
  That was that particular. More like just about it was
• 24:43
  distilled in 1936. I think it was bottled in the
• 24:45
  70s or the 80s. It was.
• 24:46
  Something like that. Screw top as well.
• 24:49
  That was like a very specific period of time.
• 24:52
  Yeah, it was. We had it in Scotch briefly when
• 24:54
  I first started, so I was fortunate enough to taste it.
• 24:57
  And it was. It's still, it's one of the like
• 24:59
  those Unicorn drams for me that I've never got to try.
• 25:02
  And I remember asking that. She never will.
• 25:04
  Who? Because obviously they had all
• 25:06
  the bottles and used to be used to be shut.
• 25:08
  Yeah, yeah. And where did they go?
• 25:10
  That's that's what I asked I. Was like because.
• 25:11
  There's we have all these. Bottles, a lot of them to Shook.
• 25:14
  There's John down and Shook, there's Landon.
• 25:15
  But hold on, they've got that. The hoop game.
• 25:19
  Oh yeah, it was going to. Be closed.
• 25:21
  They sold a lot of their stock, but obviously a lot of it was
• 25:23
  opened. So a hoop.
• 25:24
  Hoop steam being so basically I've seen it on the board, what
• 25:28
  do you pay a fiver or something? It's a fiver for three hoops.
• 25:30
  And you get 3 hoops and you can truck them over.
• 25:32
  And what everyone that. Wants a bottle?
• 25:34
  You've got your hoop. Round but if you met a drama get
• 25:36
  given what's it whistle? Pig sheep.
• 25:38
  No, she's got. That's the sheep.
• 25:40
  What a great idea like that's to be.
• 25:42
  Fair, it's fun. It was how I discovered that
• 25:44
  sheep dip is actually not bad. Have.
• 25:46
  You've got a terrible end. Really bad end there.
• 25:49
  We go now, Chuck, you have also, you know, you're, you've given
• 25:55
  up the farming game, you've given up the olive oil game and
• 25:57
  you're not you're in employment. I am, yeah.
• 25:59
  I'm gamefully employed. Well done.
• 26:02
  Thanks man, I needed it. You started asking for a fee
• 26:08
  when you're for a fee when you're covered.
• 26:09
  I just thought. You could buy me a pint.
• 26:12
  But obviously you're not working as well.
• 26:15
  What are you doing? So I, I started in December, I
• 26:19
  started working for Edinburgh Whiskey Co, which is the sister
• 26:24
  company of the rare fan guys. So they have a warehouse just
• 26:29
  outside Glenrothes. So I'm now working in the
• 26:31
  warehouse up with them rolling cask, making cash that's.
• 26:36
  Important rolling casks and making cash.
• 26:41
  That's going to be the headline of this podcast.
• 26:44
  Should be making cash and rolling casks, yeah.
• 26:47
  But yes, I'm doing some, Yeah, well, cash maintenance stuff
• 26:51
  with them. I'll be doing some labeling and
• 26:53
  then I'm getting to do some sensory stuff as well.
• 26:56
  Cool. If anyone has heard me talk on
• 26:59
  this podcast before, yeah, it's the absolute fucking dream,
• 27:02
  Yeah. Yeah, because were you were you
• 27:06
  at the time you slightly involved and the tasting of the
• 27:11
  Whiskey Stories podcast 25 Year old blind.
• 27:14
  No, I wasn't involved in that. I was involved in the Wreath
• 27:17
  Rovers. Oh, yeah.
• 27:18
  Then I bought like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:20
  Because I mean, like, that's the thing now.
• 27:22
  So like speaking to Greg friend of the podcast Greg Urquhart has
• 27:26
  been on and you know, he he talked about how at the time,
• 27:30
  you know, he's been part of Glenmore Spirits.
• 27:33
  For employee number one, yeah. Yeah, a long time and he's seen
• 27:36
  that that business grow and grow and grow and you know, the low
• 27:40
  and bond is a massive bonded warehouse.
• 27:42
  Yeah. And the amount of casks that are
• 27:45
  being stored in there is incredible.
• 27:47
  There are leases that they're putting out that the whiskey
• 27:49
  brands that they also have as well and other whiskey brands
• 27:52
  that they work with. It's it's huge.
• 27:54
  So Greg's job, in fact, in the sense of like he he often talks
• 27:59
  about now his role has gone from selecting casks, open them,
• 28:03
  sampling them, to basically working in front of
• 28:05
  spreadsheets. But I suppose you're his nose
• 28:08
  now, Part of his nose. And I think that would be the
• 28:11
  the hope. I mean, Greg is so like humble
• 28:14
  when it comes to all that kind of stuff.
• 28:15
  And like having a conversation with him.
• 28:17
  He's just like, yeah, you know, it's just kind of snowballed for
• 28:20
  him and having conversations with him.
• 28:24
  You hear about stuff when it comes to bottling whiskey and
• 28:28
  maturing whiskey and really planning for these things that I
• 28:30
  would never have thought to ask the questions that I'm going to
• 28:33
  hear about. And even when he's talking about
• 28:37
  kind of trying to plan future releases, he's talking about
• 28:42
  maturations. And then kind of starting to
• 28:45
  understand potentially where things would go from past
• 28:48
  releases and then maybe closing in on that, that scope of time
• 28:52
  frame of maybe how long something would work.
• 28:54
  And it may be cool to see how something would go down the
• 28:57
  line. And I think they're starting to
• 28:58
  get a little bit more comfortable with that with the
• 29:01
  size of the business that it's growing.
• 29:03
  That's fascinating because I mean, I was actually, I was
• 29:05
  hosting a tasting at the Glass House last week because we're
• 29:08
  recording this and it was, it wasn't a verses, It wasn't a
• 29:14
  verses. It was, it was kind of like a
• 29:16
  verses, but we didn't do a scoring or anything like that.
• 29:19
  It was it was Finn Thompson from Vin Thompson Whiskey and we know
• 29:24
  what we're getting with his whiskey because some of them are
• 29:26
  absolutely fantastic. Absolutely 3 drams he had on the
• 29:28
  lineup. And then it was Antonia Bruce,
• 29:33
  Bruce from Adelphi. Probably if Angus was here, we'd
• 29:36
  be able to tell us a distant relative of the Bruce McQueen,
• 29:40
  but she was Adelphi. And of course the Delphi are
• 29:44
  have Arden American as well. But it was interesting, she was
• 29:48
  talking about this sort of the process of Adelphi and how it
• 29:51
  started and it goes all the way back to the history.
• 29:54
  But also I think it's her brother who's the operator,
• 29:57
  managing director of the of Adelphi now.
• 29:59
  And they were talking about how it was very interesting hearing
• 30:02
  her. And I asked her a little bit
• 30:03
  about it during the tasting. And she was explaining how their
• 30:05
  model is not putting casks away and laying casks down.
• 30:10
  I think they might do that, but they said their space is very
• 30:12
  limited and very small. So basically they're kind of
• 30:15
  saying like, you know, we buy casks to bottle and I think
• 30:20
  through the sourcing of CASP, we speak to a lot of independent
• 30:22
  bottlers And one of the things that we've also heard about is
• 30:25
  the challenges that they have when sourcing casks And you
• 30:28
  know, legs been open enough and talked about that as well.
• 30:30
  And there's been plenty of others.
• 30:31
  Woody and Megan is the same. And it's like quite often you
• 30:34
  don't know what you're getting. You get given a parcel and you
• 30:37
  but that if you've got the luxury of being able to lay
• 30:39
  casks down, then when casks come in and you don't think they're
• 30:43
  ready yet or you could be wrapped up etcetera, etcetera,
• 30:45
  etcetera. Whereas an Antonio kind of
• 30:47
  Antonio basically said like, whatever we don't use, we'll try
• 30:50
  and just sell on and get right. And I think that's why I think
• 30:54
  they always wanted to because the Adelphi distillery was where
• 30:57
  Adelphi came from. And basically I think they
• 31:01
  always wanted to get a distillery, which is what what
• 31:03
  Arden marking is now functioning and absolute cracking drums from
• 31:06
  there. But it was very interesting to
• 31:08
  hear her side of it say, we just, we just take the casks and
• 31:12
  we bottle them as is. Whereas if you look at what
• 31:14
  Glenn Moore spirits are doing with rare finds and all the
• 31:16
  different and whiskey roll and all these kind of things, the
• 31:19
  inventory that they have. And then it's about Greg talked
• 31:23
  about scoring systems that he has.
• 31:25
  And then it says like if it's a 7 out of 10 or a mate out of 10
• 31:29
  or whatever was maybe ready to go or we know we're going to put
• 31:31
  in that. So you're future proofing and
• 31:34
  future planning now as well? Yeah.
• 31:36
  Well, Greg would be the first one to say, I think it's very
• 31:39
  new part of the business for them.
• 31:41
  But I mean, like the last couple of weeks they've been able to
• 31:45
  get access to some new make spirit and stuff like that.
• 31:49
  So we've been filling casks and I think that I guess the whole
• 31:52
  would be to see how that would be in 1012, hopefully 20-30
• 31:56
  years time. But the warehouse doesn't stop
• 31:59
  just fully for rarefying releases.
• 32:03
  You know, there's a bunch of other stuff.
• 32:04
  And if it if it turns away that you can't return that or you
• 32:08
  can't put it into a CAS that would rectify the flavour
• 32:11
  profile, then you've got to figure out what you're going to
• 32:13
  do with it. Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:14
  But it's it's really cool to be part of something that's I'm
• 32:17
  not. I just need to clear my foot.
• 32:19
  I'm not getting that emotional. I'm just.
• 32:21
  So glad. I'm just so glad I don't have to
• 32:25
  go back and throw a. Rocks at a.
• 32:27
  Field. Just give a look at feels at
• 32:29
  rocks and cry. No, yeah, no.
• 32:32
  It's really cool to be part of something that's kind of, it's
• 32:35
  hoping to do something like that large and to be kind of, I mean,
• 32:38
  I'm not, I'm not employee number one, but you know, I'm not like
• 32:41
  employee 500 either. Surely it's for a company that
• 32:44
  has growing quickly, but even they've still got that feel of
• 32:48
  getting everyone involved. But when you joined, you were a
• 32:51
  cast pusher. You are.
• 32:53
  Yeah. But now even Greg, when he's
• 32:55
  doing his sensory evaluation, like Chuck, the Internet, Yeah,
• 32:59
  yeah, great. I mean, I had my first sensory
• 33:03
  session with him like last week so.
• 33:04
  So sensory session then? Yeah, talk us through like
• 33:07
  you're saying sensory session to me.
• 33:09
  I'm just picturing you sniffing a lot of whiskey.
• 33:11
  That's pretty much exactly what it was.
• 33:12
  Right. Yeah, you've had.
• 33:16
  The nail on the head, yeah, and. Even in the smell of whiskey.
• 33:18
  That I've heard right. Was that the clock for I've?
• 33:21
  Heard a little rumor right there.
• 33:22
  Greg's actually changed his sensory sessions right to sniff
• 33:28
  it, Sniff it score at 60 seconds.
• 33:31
  Yeah, we've been there all day. If we get 60 seconds per.
• 33:36
  What's that sensory session? Like I mean I've not done a lot
• 33:40
  of them but effectively you've got a bunch of cast samples.
• 33:44
  Generally pull small like 30 mil pores from casks and then line
• 33:51
  them up in glasses and then we'll smell them.
• 33:53
  They might be you might have multiple multitude of different
• 33:56
  sister casks so same distillate filled same day but in
• 34:01
  effectively the same oak and then you're smelling each one of
• 34:04
  them and maybe have a small taste and generally spittoon to
• 34:08
  drive home. Yes, of course.
• 34:10
  We're going to be sensor irresponsibly.
• 34:12
  Yeah. Sensor.
• 34:14
  Responsibly, but yeah. So you're then deciding, like as
• 34:20
  Greg said before, one through 10, is this something we could
• 34:23
  potentially bottle it? Is this something that if we
• 34:24
  give more time, could go into something really, really cool?
• 34:27
  Is has this got a fault? Do we need to just move this
• 34:32
  into a new vessel and see if we can correct that?
• 34:34
  Or is this perfect in every shape and form?
• 34:38
  That kind of thing. Do you do that like blind in
• 34:41
  terms of you don't know what you're tasting, you just know
• 34:43
  it's sample number one? Or do you know right we've got a
• 34:46
  25 year old bulb layer here? I think some of the stuff I
• 34:50
  didn't know anything about. He just wanted my honest opinion
• 34:53
  on stuff and hopefully that continues holding.
• 34:57
  I'll shot myself in the foot by talking about this on a podcast,
• 34:59
  but. I've got to edit this and put it
• 35:02
  out tomorrow so please don't phone me and speak out but.
• 35:05
  No, I mean it's. It's it's a fad that like, I
• 35:07
  think it's, it's a part of whiskey that we all we all talk
• 35:11
  about and hear about And we've we've you know, we've been very
• 35:14
  heavy on the production side this year.
• 35:16
  We started, you know, we've Stephen, Stephen Woodcock and
• 35:20
  then having and going to Port Leith Distillery.
• 35:23
  So I'm actually supporting the Port Leith Distillery T-shirt
• 35:26
  and I got on from our tour there.
• 35:28
  Looks good on you. Thank you very much, but.
• 35:31
  All that barley comes from Harrington, by the way.
• 35:32
  Yes, yes, and and it's the shortest mileage, they reckon,
• 35:40
  one of the shortest, if not the shortest for the distillery
• 35:42
  because it goes. Just great barley man.
• 35:44
  Yeah, it's. Not.
• 35:45
  No, not a rock to be found in those fields.
• 35:51
  If you're wondering what this reference to wrong, please
• 35:53
  listen to stop what you're listening to right now.
• 35:55
  Go back and listen to the truck care episode.
• 35:58
  They came on and had this in hysterics.
• 36:00
  It was brilliant and talks about that that COVID summer in in
• 36:04
  Addington in your. Summer.
• 36:05
  It was two years, man. Two years so far.
• 36:07
  I'm still paying for the therapy class.
• 36:10
  But but but in the production side and it's I've opened my
• 36:13
  eyes, we've talked a little bit to still the character.
• 36:15
  We've talked about the the process of making escape, but I
• 36:18
  and I've always been off there and my mind has been a little
• 36:21
  bit changed over the last few months actually.
• 36:23
  But that, you know, casks is where the flavour comes from.
• 36:26
  Casks is what makes it a flavour.
• 36:27
  But I think, as Stephen rightly said in his episode was if it
• 36:32
  was only the casks, then why not just have one massive distillery
• 36:36
  in the centre of Scotland that just turns out pumps out spirit
• 36:39
  and it's just about the casks. How can you have and it's all
• 36:42
  about distillery character. But at the same time, you're at
• 36:44
  the other end of that now because you're at the point
• 36:46
  where the distillery character has already been decided, it's
• 36:50
  already been decided what vessel is going to be going and what
• 36:52
  wood it's going to be used for. And then it's up to you and
• 36:55
  you're getting it secondary. And that's one of the things
• 36:58
  I've always wondered, and we talked a lot about it with
• 37:01
  George and Rachel on their Fragrant Drops Independent
• 37:04
  Bottle Spotlight was it might now start to swing in the
• 37:09
  bottlers favour with the way that the industry is where it's
• 37:11
  maybe becoming a bit more of a buyer's market.
• 37:14
  Massively. And it's just becoming an area
• 37:16
  where the bottlers can have a little bit more power to say
• 37:18
  because right now the way we talk about it, you know, we're
• 37:22
  hearing so many different things, Curtis says.
• 37:24
  It's maybe a bit of a tricky timing industry.
• 37:26
  Yeah, you know, you can see that like I think one of the big
• 37:28
  examples of how it is maybe on a like much smaller scale, look at
• 37:32
  whiskey options. Like right now you can buy
• 37:35
  bottles of whiskey that would normally cost, you know,
• 37:38
  thousand couple of 1000 and way, way cheaper.
• 37:40
  Yeah. And is that is that the sign of
• 37:43
  like we're trying to actually get an auction an auctioneer
• 37:46
  company that they've agreed we're going to maybe do that
• 37:48
  you. Want to start a rescue stories?
• 37:49
  Auction. No, no, we're no expanding.
• 37:52
  Quickly. I'm trying to I'm trying to
• 37:55
  arrange it. So because I actually got a walk
• 37:57
  through there warehouse with all the bottles that they are
• 38:01
  fascinating. And it's a part of the it's the
• 38:04
  one part of the industry that we've really we've talked about.
• 38:06
  We've really had no representation on the podcast.
• 38:08
  What so they're dead keep and we're going to maybe record an
• 38:11
  episode in the warehouse and maybe I guess in roster, their
• 38:14
  supermarket sweep where they're it's fascinating.
• 38:18
  But one of the things that they were saying is they're saying
• 38:21
  like, you know, they've been in the game for maybe 10-15 years
• 38:23
  in whiskey auctioning. And what they were saying is
• 38:27
  that the big brands have really killed the auction because what
• 38:32
  they've done is they've made it difficult for what you would
• 38:35
  call the flipper, right? Because they've made their you
• 38:38
  can't now say I'm going to buy 10 bottles of that stuff because
• 38:42
  it's so, so reasonable now knowing fine well that in five
• 38:45
  or even in a year's time it's going to be available.
• 38:48
  Yeah, you're definitely seeing it having bigger brands in
• 38:51
  companies and you speak to a lot of their brand management team.
• 38:56
  Sorry, I'm not crying either. They're.
• 38:59
  When it comes to their core products, often it's quite easy.
• 39:02
  And in the younger ages and more consistent releases, they're
• 39:05
  limited. Older stocks, 30-40, fifty years
• 39:08
  plus, people aren't buying that as much.
• 39:11
  Yeah, people that were buying that were often buying that to
• 39:14
  collect, hold onto and resell. Yeah, that's not so much there
• 39:18
  anymore. So the people that are buying it
• 39:20
  to consume is much less. But I mean, exactly.
• 39:24
  I mean, it's a funny one, right? First question to all of you.
• 39:28
  Has anybody bought a bottle of whiskey with the slow intention
• 39:32
  of not drinking it, but one day putting it up for sale because
• 39:34
  it might be more expensive? Yes.
• 39:37
  Right. OK, good.
• 39:38
  Thank you. Not, not.
• 39:40
  Not to be up for sale, but there is a bottle that I that's in my
• 39:44
  collection that when I purchased it, it was under the guise of
• 39:47
  like I knew I wasn't going to open it.
• 39:49
  OK. Yeah, I'm also the same.
• 39:52
  Right. So you're not categorically not
• 39:54
  going to open it or are you going to wait till the right
• 39:57
  time to? Open it.
• 39:57
  No, I think I bought the bottle because I thought I like the
• 40:02
  idea of, you know, God, I love it.
• 40:05
  Old you know, never know how much whiskey you're drinking
• 40:08
  could kill at 40, especially when you go out drinking.
• 40:11
  With Freezer Please go out with freezer responsibly.
• 40:14
  That actually that should be the the tagline and whiskey.
• 40:16
  It's not drink responsibly. It's go out with freezer
• 40:18
  responsibly, but no, I I was very, very fortunate to be able
• 40:22
  to get hands on a bottle of the Spring bank 10 year old Ukraine
• 40:26
  bottling. Wow.
• 40:27
  Yeah, OK. And I remember when I got it,
• 40:30
  the the story of me getting it is mental.
• 40:34
  I was quite friendly with some of the guys at kid and heads.
• 40:37
  I was told that the bottle would be released and that you had to
• 40:39
  be there at like 10:00 in the morning queue for it.
• 40:41
  However, I had a doctor's appointment at half 10.
• 40:44
  So I was like, it's never going to work, but I got my my
• 40:47
  flatmate at the time drove me past the shop OK, and there was
• 40:50
  a massive queue all the way up. So sorry.
• 40:53
  So this is talking through this pink bank tent Ukraine bottling
• 40:57
  then is this in is this was? This one, this was during COVID,
• 41:00
  I think near the end of COVID. Yeah, basically the, I can't
• 41:04
  remember how long it was maybe like a couple of months after
• 41:07
  the Russian invasion of wasn't it?
• 41:11
  COVID at all that was. After COVID, that was.
• 41:13
  No, I was 2020 slap banging. Yeah, I was.
• 41:16
  Yeah, I was working. I was working in HMRC at the
• 41:18
  time. So you.
• 41:19
  Working at HMRC. Yep, I worked for the government
• 41:21
  to enroll. But.
• 41:23
  I was gonna say to you, if we fully dive.
• 41:26
  In in my job history here before.
• 41:28
  Or after you clean your windows. And this was after, this was
• 41:31
  after my career in Windows, I thinking.
• 41:32
  Winners of the HMRC and they just offered you a job.
• 41:34
  Yeah, I. Worked.
• 41:36
  I worked in National Insurance for HMRC and that's the most and
• 41:40
  then and then the tax windows. With one hand CV and.
• 41:51
  It's just they're like tapping on the window.
• 41:53
  By the way, thank you God, I was there.
• 41:58
  They're working with them. So I've got spent a year working
• 42:01
  National Insurance, spent a year and a bit working in tax.
• 42:05
  Best advice, don't ever do it. Yeah, working whiskey is so much
• 42:10
  better. But yeah, so I can't remember
• 42:13
  how like long after the invasion of Ukraine had had happened, but
• 42:17
  a couple of different stillities have done bottlings where they
• 42:21
  were giving either something like 80% of the profit for it or
• 42:26
  100% over to like one of the yeah Ukraine relief charities.
• 42:32
  So go past caving heads and there was a queue all the way up
• 42:37
  the street and I, I said that and then I went, I, I know for a
• 42:39
  fact I'm not going to get a bottle.
• 42:40
  Totally fine. Went off, got my doctor's
• 42:42
  appointment, came back at maybe half 12 and just walked into the
• 42:48
  shop to go and chat with the guys and I walk in.
• 42:51
  I was like, hi guys, how's it going?
• 42:54
  Boy? Time was like, cars are like,
• 42:55
  obviously we don't have any bottles left.
• 42:56
  I was like, yeah, totally fair. It's like, funny story though,
• 42:58
  we've actually lost a bottle. I was like, how do you lose a
• 43:03
  bottle? And he's like, we've no idea.
• 43:05
  But right now we're we're down in a bottle.
• 43:07
  It's like, OK, I was like, well, the bottle looks great.
• 43:09
  And he's like, what do you mean? I was like, well, you've got one
• 43:12
  in your window is your display bottle.
• 43:14
  I was like, it looks fantastic. And he goes.
• 43:16
  He just turned. Around I was.
• 43:18
  Cleaning your window I. Was I was there?
• 43:21
  Cleaning your windows for. For nothing and then I spotted
• 43:23
  this bottle. So he shouts at the back and
• 43:25
  goes. Curtis found.
• 43:26
  The bottle thank. God for our clean windows.
• 43:31
  So I'm stood in the shop and there's still like there's no
• 43:34
  queue, but people are still walking in and being like, hi,
• 43:36
  do you have a bottle of spring back?
• 43:38
  Like no, no, any like in the in the room goes.
• 43:41
  That's obviously unfortunately we can't sell you the bottle
• 43:43
  like, you know, blah, blah, blah.
• 43:46
  But I was there picking up another bottle that I I had
• 43:49
  bought. And then he just leans into me
• 43:52
  and goes, do you want me to stick the bottle in the bag and
• 43:55
  we'll just add it onto your bill.
• 43:57
  So obviously. And so walked out there after
• 44:01
  thankfully not having a queue for an hour and a half and still
• 44:04
  got the bottle. But I've always said, I think
• 44:06
  it's one of those like really interesting ones.
• 44:08
  And you never know, like there's only a couple 100 bottles.
• 44:12
  Keep that for so long. And they've also very clearly
• 44:14
  there's a contract on the bottle that states if you sell this.
• 44:17
  Yeah, put on it. Like if you if you sell this
• 44:22
  bottle, we, we, we will do everything in our power to
• 44:25
  basically stop you getting a hold of anything else.
• 44:27
  And then you've got your name signed on it.
• 44:29
  So I'll never settle it, but I also don't ever plan on opening
• 44:32
  it. I think it's a really
• 44:33
  interesting bottling. Hopefully when I'm older, you
• 44:35
  know, you again might have kids, they might ask about it and go,
• 44:38
  well, there was this, there was this time where the world was
• 44:41
  completely dead and none of us could do anything.
• 44:43
  And Russia decided to invade Ukraine.
• 44:44
  There you. Go.
• 44:45
  Well, it's. Yeah, having bottles on the
• 44:48
  shelf that you wouldn't open. Fraser, what have you got?
• 44:50
  Have you got one? Would you?
• 44:52
  Yeah, I do have some, yeah. Maybe like older bottleneck
• 44:56
  sentimental? Would you ever sell?
• 44:59
  If I was in dire needs, right? Yeah, OK, No.
• 45:04
  So there's a lot of stuff that it's everything I have I've
• 45:06
  planned to open at some point, whether that's a special event
• 45:10
  or for whatever reason. However, if I need a new boiler,
• 45:16
  yeah, I don't have a couple grand.
• 45:19
  Have you tried to fall back on Jolly Topher?
• 45:21
  Have to do that I. Can confirm new boilers aren't
• 45:23
  cheap you. Got a lot of people with.
• 45:25
  A bro that was a bro I had. I couldn't say that.
• 45:28
  Oh, he had a bottle, he said on the podcast.
• 45:31
  That's terrible. I've forgotten.
• 45:32
  He said what what bottle it was. And he said that his biggest
• 45:36
  regret back then. And I think what he sold it for
• 45:38
  back then versus what it. Would be now.
• 45:41
  And he was like, but at the time I was in a situation where
• 45:44
  settle down and. Get a family, buy a house, five
• 45:48
  free cars, Cameron Young and you need some extra cash and you'll
• 45:54
  sometimes sell some bottles. Yeah, that's.
• 45:56
  A good thing when you look at the what was it the guy that
• 45:57
  bought a bottle of Macallan 18 every year?
• 46:00
  And the day his son was. Born and until he was like 20
• 46:03
  and sold that to use for a deposit for a house.
• 46:05
  Yeah. You know, and it's, it's one of
• 46:06
  these things where you just don't know, like you do get a
• 46:09
  lot of people and you guys might probably get a lot more than
• 46:12
  I've had it, But there's been a few people contacting me saying
• 46:14
  like, what do you think of this ball?
• 46:15
  What do you think of that ball? What should I buy this and keep
• 46:18
  it? And then it'll be worth
• 46:19
  something. And like, I don't know, because
• 46:21
  at the end of the day, it's only worth what someone's willing to
• 46:23
  pay for. And the other thing is, I
• 46:25
  remember I flirted with the idea when you're looking on the
• 46:27
  auctions and you're looking for bargains and you think to
• 46:29
  yourself, but you might buy a bottle and what you've got like
• 46:33
  what? I don't know what the most you
• 46:34
  could make. What would have like when things
• 46:37
  were good? What was somebody who's flipping
• 46:39
  a bottle? What kind of mark markup?
• 46:44
  Yeah, I mean McAllen. Couple 1000 on a bottle and you
• 46:48
  hold it for a couple of decades. It can get a couple thousand in
• 46:51
  return, but. Yeah, it was.
• 46:53
  Sometimes looking at a couple 100.
• 46:55
  Miles but then I suppose if you I think probably the biggest one
• 46:59
  you'll see flipping is people flipping Spring Bank and that if
• 47:01
  you feel. Like that one's crazy.
• 47:02
  If you like the 10 year old Castro, the Sherry series that's
• 47:06
  been going on, those sell out infuriatingly quickly.
• 47:09
  You don't even see them in some shops and then they're selling
• 47:12
  on auction for four hundred £500 and they probably sold for 90.
• 47:17
  Fraser's Fraser's fortunate to have the the whole set.
• 47:20
  Have you? Yeah, I've got one all.
• 47:23
  Right. Everyone's looking very
• 47:24
  concerned what's happening. That's all right.
• 47:26
  That's just checking your microphone's working there.
• 47:27
  I think it's OK. But I mean, Chuck, have you got
• 47:30
  bottles that you would ever keep on the shelves or?
• 47:34
  I mean, I'm I've got too much stuff.
• 47:38
  I was like running out. I've run out Glenn Talkers.
• 47:40
  Just you're just waiting for the moment the Glenn Talkers becomes
• 47:43
  the he's. Not all Mystic shoes, and it's
• 47:45
  not. Easy.
• 47:47
  It's not easy being the premier Glenn Talkers collection.
• 47:52
  Yeah, I mean, I bought, I buy tons of stuff and I like opening
• 47:56
  stuff, but I also just sometimes like looking at them, which is
• 47:59
  super, super sad. Actually, I feel like we talked
• 48:03
  about whether whiskey collectors, club competitions,
• 48:06
  guys, when they came on and that's what they were, they
• 48:08
  said, talked about how they first got started.
• 48:10
  They went a family friend of theirs and he had this huge
• 48:13
  collection of whiskey and things like that.
• 48:15
  And you we'll talk about because you worked at Scotch Whiskey
• 48:18
  experience as well and you look. That's never been spoken about
• 48:21
  on this podcast. No, I don't have anyone.
• 48:23
  What's that? But but that collection that
• 48:26
  they've got, is it the largest collection in Brazilian who
• 48:28
  don't? Oh, he passed away recently.
• 48:29
  Is not the largest anymore. Actually the largest collection
• 48:31
  is now in Argentina and a guy came and visited the Scotch
• 48:36
  whiskey experience and decided why should Scotland have the
• 48:39
  largest collection of Scotch whiskey?
• 48:41
  We want this in Argentina and they've got 4000 something
• 48:44
  bottles now, but yeah, I'm. Sure, there's a few folks.
• 48:46
  It was it. Was at the time.
• 48:47
  All Johnny Walker. It's literally just all Johnny
• 48:50
  Walker Red. Actually, yeah, They found the
• 48:51
  cheapest, cheapest they could. They went for it.
• 48:53
  No really, really cool collection they've got in
• 48:55
  Argentina, but the Clive Udes collection that's wee is
• 48:59
  spectacular. But there's no other words.
• 49:02
  Yeah, but like, we've got guys like Sharda Scott Moore on the
• 49:06
  whiskey store, his Facebook page, and Bob Cutting as well.
• 49:09
  You know, I think they've probably got collections that
• 49:11
  could probably rival, Yeah, quite a few.
• 49:13
  Sweeze one's what 3000 looks like 3000 and something really,
• 49:20
  that they've got. And a Harlington house is in
• 49:23
  there. There's a Harlington.
• 49:25
  House box, I don't have it. So obviously Angus is when in
• 49:29
  Japan. Yes, it's a photo of the other
• 49:31
  day of his Dunbar whiskey. Yes, I thought fuck it, I'm
• 49:34
  having that. You're having it.
• 49:36
  So £40 from Germany arrived yesterday.
• 49:38
  I was going to bring it in, but hopefully if he brings the
• 49:41
  Haddington house, I'll bring my Dunbar and we'll compare.
• 49:44
  Finally, which of these will be in blends is better?
• 49:46
  Yeah, there you go. It's fascinating.
• 49:48
  Yeah, but yeah, Scott Moore, the big shout out to Scott Moore
• 49:52
  actually, because as the host of a fairly decent whiskey based
• 49:58
  podcast and it should have really been up to me to wish
• 50:02
  everybody international Scottish date.
• 50:05
  But according to Scott Mueller was three days ago who wished
• 50:08
  everybody on the business to this page.
• 50:10
  And I can't believe that I went ah, shit.
• 50:13
  So thanks for that, Scott. But yeah, Bob Carter, it's
• 50:15
  great. And I think I've got a few
• 50:17
  bottles as well, but I don't know.
• 50:19
  I'm, I've always been, oh, whiskey was made to be drunk
• 50:22
  and, and that's how you know you've got to drunk it and it's
• 50:25
  finding the right moment. But then at the same time
• 50:27
  there's also bottles that you just, there's bottles that you
• 50:31
  can have that the two bottles that I've got in the house where
• 50:36
  I really don't know whether I'll open them is first one I'd love
• 50:42
  to try. I will open it.
• 50:43
  I'm going to have to open it. But when my grandfather retired
• 50:47
  from Ballantine's as a director, he was given a special bottling,
• 50:51
  right? And it's got his name on it and
• 50:53
  everything like that. Now, he retired in 1990 or 1991,
• 50:57
  just before he died. So like two things #1 what's in
• 51:03
  that? Right, there'll be some
• 51:04
  interesting things. Yeah, what's in that?
• 51:06
  And secondly, but it's just it's the sentimental side of it as
• 51:09
  well. You know, it's that pray the
• 51:11
  place on my granny's, he died in 1991.
• 51:14
  So I, I didn't get to normal. It's only two or three 11-2
• 51:18
  years old, but basically I could just remember here that is
• 51:21
  retired. He got to canter and he got his
• 51:23
  bottle and that's that pride and place in my granny's.
• 51:26
  Every time I went to my granny's house that was there with that.
• 51:28
  There was a photo of him when he was at work.
• 51:31
  You know, when he's ones at a desk, he got taken.
• 51:33
  So it's always there and now it's in my shelf as well,
• 51:36
  whether it's the counters. Now I've used the counters
• 51:39
  plenty of times, but it's that, oh, I'm thinking, and the other
• 51:41
  one was the Daft Mill 15. And it was actually, I don't
• 51:45
  know who it was that would have served me.
• 51:46
  It was that, it was that Scotch. And I'd heard about Daft Mill
• 51:48
  releasing the 15 year old the first time they'd ever done an
• 51:51
  age statement and going to cause a bit of a riot here actually at
• 51:56
  the minute. But basically you put the bottle
• 51:58
  down on the table. I was with my wife, current wife
• 52:00
  should say she's where I was with with my current wife and
• 52:04
  we're sitting there and I asked and it was the first time I've
• 52:08
  seen this thing online like Dafmil and from being from Fife
• 52:12
  and stuff like that and family are up that neck of the woods,
• 52:14
  Cooper area, serious and stuff. I was about like, Oh, that's
• 52:17
  daft mill. Never heard of it before.
• 52:18
  Wasn't pigotting whiskey. This is good few years ago now
• 52:21
  and I went in and I said to Cam or Ross, It might have been have
• 52:24
  you got any daft Mill? And I was given a sort of like,
• 52:27
  Oh yeah, I'm not in a secret handshake, a real sort of.
• 52:32
  And they said that because it had gone to a.
• 52:35
  Connoisseur as well. Yeah, really.
• 52:37
  Really made me feel that was probably the first time of the
• 52:40
  under the table. He knows his.
• 52:43
  But this is a good example. So Daphmo, when I started in
• 52:47
  Scotch, Daphmo was a bottle. We had a couple of bottles that
• 52:49
  were not on the menu and not really to be sold sort of and
• 52:54
  someone would come in and ask for and you'd say yes, we've got
• 52:56
  1 bottle I like we can only give it to you if you ask for it.
• 53:00
  Daphnell. Now we can get cases of it's not
• 53:03
  a lot and like to the point. Well, the.
• 53:06
  First, too much. The first ball of Daphnell we
• 53:08
  got in the bar like, we couldn't get Daphnell like.
• 53:12
  For a lot of money. For a lot of money as well, one
• 53:15
  of the cuthberts was staying in the hotel really came down to
• 53:18
  the bar and said you've not got any daft and we're like we can't
• 53:20
  get any went back up to his room, came back, put a ball on
• 53:23
  the. Table a couple has been one of
• 53:25
  the farmers that brothers. Yeah, one of the two brothers,
• 53:27
  yeah, went back up to his room, got a bottle from his room and
• 53:30
  said you can have that one. I.
• 53:32
  Didn't even know that, that's really cool.
• 53:35
  But that 15 year old that went to ballot to buy the bottles, I
• 53:39
  mistake that, but a bottle was like 3300 odd pound or something
• 53:42
  like that. And one of those ones where,
• 53:44
  Yep, some people would have bought two or three out of the
• 53:46
  ballot or got because I'm really going to strain the options and
• 53:49
  had them at 56700 pounds. Yeah, plus whatever.
• 53:52
  But I remember. So I'm saying that I've got this
• 53:55
  daft mill when I was. Oh yes, you know what you're
• 53:57
  talking about. Yeah.
• 53:59
  And basically put it down and I'm sorry, I've seen Cam or
• 54:03
  something or maybe Ross and they were saying about this is hedge
• 54:06
  teeth. You can't really get this.
• 54:07
  We only actually offer it to people that ask.
• 54:09
  And as he's talking to me, I'm looking at the bottom.
• 54:10
  I turn around and I'm just looking at it says clearly and
• 54:13
  it's on on the label the the malt barley used.
• 54:18
  And that was the last malted barley to be used from the
• 54:21
  Robert Colgar Company in Kirkcaldy.
• 54:23
  Oh, really? Yeah.
• 54:25
  And I've since lost a fortune on buying up as many to have no
• 54:29
  bottles because it's got family name on it.
• 54:32
  That's the the malting shoulder, the malt.
• 54:34
  I couldn't believe it, honestly. And of course, the current wise,
• 54:37
  she doesn't get whiskey at all. But look at this.
• 54:39
  She's like great, great, cool. And it was just.
• 54:43
  Do we really need 8 of them? That's why.
• 54:46
  You would realize that it's. It did.
• 54:47
  So I bought like two 2006 summer editions.
• 54:52
  I've got a bottle of the 5th that I bought.
• 54:55
  I went on the auction. I don't know what I spent
• 54:57
  actually, but that that first batch of the. 6th year marriage?
• 55:00
  Maybe don't. Don't.
• 55:00
  Yeah, exactly. But that 15 year olds, I've got
• 55:03
  that there as well and it means a lot.
• 55:05
  But at the same time, I am 100% certain that will never leave my
• 55:09
  house. But I'm also fairly certain at
• 55:12
  some point that bottle's going to have to get emptied bottles.
• 55:15
  That are cool to have because like you're saying that you've
• 55:16
  got the one that was your grandfather's.
• 55:18
  That's the sort of thing that like, you know, your kid gets
• 55:20
  married. Yeah.
• 55:21
  And you open that up there, and it's also like having a bit of a
• 55:23
  memory and like he's there with it.
• 55:25
  And that's the whole point of whiskey, yeah.
• 55:27
  So 100%. That's a fantastic thing to
• 55:30
  have. Yeah, well, it's but none of us
• 55:32
  would flip a bottle. Absolutely.
• 55:34
  Have you? Actually, I'll tell you so
• 55:38
  Jordan was talking about. No, I'm not.
• 55:44
  Oh, that's a story, yeah. Go on, I want people to like me.
• 55:52
  But no. But still bad.
• 55:54
  But I I got a Macallan Genesis the first night.
• 55:59
  Still exclusive Macallan. It was like, I think it was
• 56:02
  about £550. It's probably the most I'd ever
• 56:05
  spent. It was on a bottle of whiskey at
• 56:06
  the time, At the time I love. The add on at.
• 56:10
  The. Time I've.
• 56:12
  Got a job now? But I sold that on auction and I
• 56:18
  got a pretty penny. And it was a do you buy that
• 56:20
  purely for profiting? Because that speculates
• 56:23
  accumulation. You're talking about the most
• 56:25
  expensive now to be. Fair that I bought purely for
• 56:28
  profit because it came in a box that smelled like a new car and
• 56:31
  I was like I can't. Keep this but but but when
• 56:34
  you're when you're because bear in mind that you're buying the
• 56:37
  most expensive bottle of whiskey you're buying at that point.
• 56:40
  Yeah. And we'll probably, we've all
• 56:41
  probably spent maybe what we would argue is too much on
• 56:44
  whiskey at times. And it's that trade off of
• 56:47
  going, it's really, really good whiskey and I'm really going to
• 56:49
  enjoy it because. I'll be honest with you.
• 56:55
  I'll be honest with you. Sorry, I've got really excited
• 56:58
  there for a SEC. I'll be honest with you, I
• 56:59
  didn't think McAllen Genesis was going to be very good.
• 57:02
  I just thought it was a gimmick kind of bullshit so.
• 57:05
  You bought it to. Sell it so I bought it to sell
• 57:06
  it so. When you're partner, when you're
• 57:07
  good five, what was it, 500 and. £550 so yes 500. 50 that's
• 57:12
  expensive but I know don't make money in a few months time I can
• 57:15
  put that back on the. Market.
• 57:16
  I put it on auction bike immediately.
• 57:19
  Really. Yeah.
• 57:20
  And you made-up a big regular turtle I.
• 57:22
  Paid for a new bathroom. Wow.
• 57:25
  Oh, that's basically a story in McAllen, to be honest.
• 57:27
  Yeah, the McAllen. Also, I really needed a new
• 57:31
  bathroom. Yeah, well, that's.
• 57:33
  It I mean if anyone from Scottish knows about my
• 57:36
  bathroom, I. Don't know but what to do.
• 57:40
  Tell us about the broader. I don't tell us about the
• 57:42
  bathroom, but. The bathroom story is more
• 57:44
  relatable. Like you, you've been in my
• 57:47
  flat. Is it worse than mine?
• 57:49
  I know the bathroom story. Yes, it's worse.
• 57:51
  Well, like, yeah, because it's it's an area of of interest, but
• 57:56
  you've got to think about it like.
• 57:57
  But I I don't generally go around buying bottles.
• 58:01
  Pretend them to. Keep No I my my it's an.
• 58:04
  Opportunity. My philosophy is generally if
• 58:06
  everything was right, I'll drink them all and if everything goes
• 58:09
  wrong or sell them. Yeah, like to be first.
• 58:11
  Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's like
• 58:12
  having stock, you know, it's for most of us understand whiskey
• 58:15
  better than stock. That's true, yeah.
• 58:17
  I suppose then it's it's what your justification of the moment
• 58:21
  is. And, you know, it's like, what
• 58:24
  is the right moment to openness and what is it?
• 58:26
  I think we, yeah, we had a bottle of Valentine's theft.
• 58:31
  And then it was the the first Boxing Day Christmas.
• 58:36
  Great day. Where and the of COVID so not so
• 58:41
  great but I bet you were allowed to meet.
• 58:44
  One household was allowed to meet.
• 58:47
  Yeah, from afar, just waving each other from hilltops, yeah.
• 58:49
  Well, I was I can't remember that.
• 58:51
  I don't want to out myself as being some sort of rule breaker,
• 58:54
  but I'm sure we stuck to the rules.
• 58:55
  But the bottom line is we share the bottle of balance things
• 58:58
  there. It was like a unique I.
• 59:00
  Wish it was in your bubble during COVID.
• 59:02
  Well, it was a unique situation, but because it was just like,
• 59:04
  none of us have spent Christmas Day together and I think we were
• 59:08
  able to get together on Boxing Day and just say like, well,
• 59:10
  this is this is a surreal. It is a surreal.
• 59:13
  It was a surreal, surreal moment.
• 59:15
  They didn't lift the restrictions over like.
• 59:16
  Christmas, there was something about it, but yeah, we couldn't
• 59:19
  travel with anyway. But my brother and my cousin
• 59:22
  myself, we were the only the three of us spent Christmas Day
• 59:27
  all individually. Well, my brother and I spend it
• 59:28
  together. My cousin was on his own and we
• 59:30
  said Boxing Day we'll be able to get together and we share the
• 59:33
  bottle about. And then it's Jeff's birthday.
• 59:35
  We'll meet. Up.
• 59:36
  Yeah, that's that high. I'm kind of, I've always kind of
• 59:41
  shout on Valentine's, apart from the fact that Glenn Talkers is
• 59:43
  in it, but Fraser Robson, also from Scotch, he's hang.
• 59:50
  On Is this another guy from Scotch?
• 59:51
  We're going to have dinner. A few.
• 59:53
  Yeah, of course. You.
• 59:53
  Oh God. He's the.
• 59:55
  OG he's there from he was there from day.
• 59:56
  One day, one right, he's the one we've got to get.
• 59:58
  He's the shiny. You'd.
• 1:00:00
  Also love him. Yeah, he was also in hired Cam.
• 1:00:03
  Yeah, you'd love him because he's, now that he's in father
• 1:00:06
  O2, he buys like affordable stuff of auctions and he's like
• 1:00:12
  he's got, I think that's about a century, maybe a century worth
• 1:00:17
  of Valentine's going back. Yeah, I went, I went out to
• 1:00:21
  visit him just before I kind of just after I came back from my
• 1:00:24
  trip and brought a bunch of stuff that I'd had, most of the
• 1:00:27
  stuff I kind of brought for you to taste.
• 1:00:29
  And he was like, well, I need to give you stuff.
• 1:00:32
  And he gave me a bunch of samples and one of them was a
• 1:00:35
  Valentine's 25 year olds, which I had and was fantastic.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:40
  Not a massive fan of Ardmore, which can will never accept as
• 1:00:44
  being a respectable distillery to Ardmore.
• 1:00:47
  Yeah. Well, the reason I was saying
• 1:00:49
  was going to kick off our right was because, and the reason
• 1:00:52
  Valentine's, I always find it so good, particularly age stuff, is
• 1:00:54
  only five grade best. Glen Talkers, yeah.
• 1:00:57
  Best grade in the world. 5 ballet I mean.
• 1:00:59
  That's with strange fingers. That's that's what you're
• 1:01:01
  missing. You're missing a single grade in
• 1:01:04
  there, but. Those are rebel the rocks.
• 1:01:08
  But Curtis, so after you were an actor, after you were a window
• 1:01:11
  cleaner, after you were at HMRC, after you're at this Great.
• 1:01:15
  Yeah. Is there anything else we've
• 1:01:17
  missed? No, there.
• 1:01:18
  There'd be a couple of things before that, but that's probably
• 1:01:21
  best to avoid those you were. You're a Scotch frisky
• 1:01:24
  experience. Yeah, I went up to Swee.
• 1:01:27
  I mean, SWEE has been spoken about loads on this podcast and
• 1:01:30
  it's for for good reason. You know, SWEE is I I will
• 1:01:34
  openly stay one of the best places I've ever worked.
• 1:01:37
  They build up a lot of great people that you look at the
• 1:01:39
  industry now. Swee is fucking everywhere.
• 1:01:43
  Yeah, You know, you've got, you've got brand ambassadors,
• 1:01:46
  global brand ambassadors, UK ambassadors.
• 1:01:48
  You've got people that are starting their own companies in
• 1:01:50
  different countries for some reason, you know, they hired me.
• 1:01:56
  So it's a fantastic place to work.
• 1:01:58
  You know, you're, you're working under an amazing group of
• 1:02:01
  people. I mean, you've got 4 keepers of
• 1:02:02
  the quake, 2 masters of the quake that are directly above
• 1:02:05
  you. You've got a great management
• 1:02:08
  team. What's the difference between a
• 1:02:09
  keeper of the quake and a master of the?
• 1:02:11
  Master. Because we're.
• 1:02:13
  Going to become a keeper, you basically get given an
• 1:02:15
  opportunity to go into an even smaller circle of them.
• 1:02:19
  What we've done for talking about.
• 1:02:26
  I know is basically. Step up.
• 1:02:28
  I immediately regret asking that question.
• 1:02:29
  Consider how it went last time when you understood what that.
• 1:02:32
  There's a new obsession here. Keeper the quake, Quake and then
• 1:02:38
  it's. Smaller quake.
• 1:02:39
  A little quake, yeah, You get one of the barrels that we used
• 1:02:43
  to get used for the barrel, right?
• 1:02:46
  I mean. All the meetings.
• 1:02:50
  Chuck, I can't have you slaughtered the keepers of the
• 1:02:52
  quake on this podcast as a future people.
• 1:02:55
  Yeah. I'm I'm going to say though, the
• 1:03:00
  that barrel ride was phenomenal. If you were a guest, I would
• 1:03:04
  have burnt that thing down happily when I worked there.
• 1:03:07
  So it was just, it was just the screams of joy that drove you
• 1:03:10
  insane. God, that thing we worked on a
• 1:03:13
  very little tight schedule. You're, you're running 5 tours
• 1:03:17
  an hour and everything is everything is like preset.
• 1:03:20
  You've got, you know, you've got to be in and out of rooms at a
• 1:03:23
  specific time. That barrel ride, if it breaks
• 1:03:27
  down, you've got the. Entire.
• 1:03:29
  Tour trapped on this barrel for 15 minutes.
• 1:03:32
  You're then rushing them upstairs and to run through a
• 1:03:36
  preset kind of like. Tour.
• 1:03:39
  In the 1st 2:00 rooms, that's all like automated and you're
• 1:03:42
  stood there with a tour guide popping their head to the window
• 1:03:44
  going, can you hurry the fuck up, please?
• 1:03:47
  So it was the worst thing ever. It was great in terms of like
• 1:03:50
  guests loved it. It was a really cool way to talk
• 1:03:52
  about maturation and things like that, and it sucked for the
• 1:03:55
  intermediate period where we got rid of it and we were setting up
• 1:03:58
  the new tour because we all got set a challenge, which was we
• 1:04:02
  had to run through the entire production process in 2 minutes.
• 1:04:06
  I could do it in like 30 seconds, 5 seconds.
• 1:04:12
  The hack is basically you make beer and then you distill and
• 1:04:18
  stick in a cask. There you go, there you go.
• 1:04:19
  Happy days, but no sweet. Sweet was great for me.
• 1:04:24
  It was really where I learnt what I would say most of my
• 1:04:27
  whiskey like knowledge up until moving to Scotch, where you get
• 1:04:31
  to focus more on kind of premium products.
• 1:04:34
  You get to spend a lot more time focusing on the history of
• 1:04:36
  whiskey. But sweetie's great if you're
• 1:04:39
  you're unsure what you want to do.
• 1:04:43
  I always think to myself. For.
• 1:04:47
  For people who are tour guides and stuff like that, there is
• 1:04:49
  just too many areas and whiskey and the process of whiskey and
• 1:04:54
  everything like that to actually be able to be geeky and cover
• 1:04:57
  absolutely everything. So there'll be like you.
• 1:05:00
  We we get people on the podcast that will say, I want to know
• 1:05:03
  about copper contact and one cups.
• 1:05:05
  And then you'll get somebody else that will tell you like,
• 1:05:07
  Oh, no, I'll tell you all about the source of woods and and
• 1:05:10
  Harry's and wine and all of that can do.
• 1:05:13
  And then you get other people that can say no, no, no, I'll
• 1:05:14
  tell you all about the history. And of all this you get people
• 1:05:18
  who can tell you all 13 of the Glens of space side more and.
• 1:05:24
  More than that, no, You've set yourself.
• 1:05:28
  Up there frat. Twist them off, OK?
• 1:05:33
  But but when you get into working in Scotch whisky
• 1:05:38
  experience and do you almost pick a sort of area that you
• 1:05:44
  want to focus on and just really make that your knee?
• 1:05:46
  Yeah, we're kind of we're given almost like full autonomy over
• 1:05:50
  how we want to take our tours. And there's there's there's a
• 1:05:54
  benefit to that. So when you first start out and
• 1:05:56
  you're kind of like new to it, you get given a script and the
• 1:06:01
  script is like the basic tour, but it's bullet points.
• 1:06:03
  So it's basically, we want you to say this because it matches
• 1:06:05
  up with what's being shown on the TV.
• 1:06:08
  And then you go, the rest of it's up to you.
• 1:06:10
  And then once you've been there for a while, you, you, we've got
• 1:06:14
  two exams when you're working its WE once you go up to being
• 1:06:18
  senior tour guide, you then get the opportunity to go on to do
• 1:06:21
  what's called the platinum tour. Platinum tour is where you,
• 1:06:25
  you've got full autonomy and it's fantastic.
• 1:06:27
  You're doing a 90 minute tour in the building and you're
• 1:06:32
  sometimes, depending on how well you get on with whoever's
• 1:06:34
  picking the, the whiskey, you can pick what's going in there.
• 1:06:37
  Oh really? And you get to focus on
• 1:06:38
  different things. So like when I was coming up and
• 1:06:42
  starting doing my platinums, one of the first, first ones I
• 1:06:46
  watched was Jake. I'm also going to add in here.
• 1:06:49
  Thank you so much for slagging him last week.
• 1:06:51
  So Jake Adkook. Yeah, Jake Adkook, the man that
• 1:06:53
  doesn't like to wear a shirt. Thank you for for putting that
• 1:06:56
  in last week. I really.
• 1:06:56
  Appreciate that one button. To be fair, I think, I think if
• 1:07:00
  he could, I mean, he's got a there wasn't a stop button.
• 1:07:02
  Neither. He's got a.
• 1:07:04
  Decent receipt. He goes to the gym a lot, but I
• 1:07:05
  think he'd be cute. He'd be walking around the
• 1:07:07
  shirtless. Lovely Jake, and I did say I was
• 1:07:09
  going to slag you on this podcast, so you're welcome.
• 1:07:12
  I I watched his for one of my like training ones.
• 1:07:17
  Jake focused a lot on kind of grain whiskey and because he's
• 1:07:21
  production so. He's just mad on that I.
• 1:07:24
  Hate to admit it, yeah, I hate to admit it where he gets to
• 1:07:27
  listen to it, but he's, he's incredibly intelligent and he
• 1:07:29
  really knows his stuff. So he focused a lot on that.
• 1:07:32
  And it was actually him that got me interested in what's maybe
• 1:07:37
  one of my, at the moment favorite things in whiskey,
• 1:07:41
  which is an iced coffee. Really interesting guy and the.
• 1:07:45
  Guy that stills that. Patented the, the well, the
• 1:07:48
  coffee still the coffee still in 1830, but before that, and this
• 1:07:50
  is what I found really interesting.
• 1:07:51
  He he assisted the government in writing the 1823 Excise Act.
• 1:07:57
  You know there. You go so like really
• 1:07:59
  interesting guy, really interesting life.
• 1:08:00
  I'm just going. To be able to.
• 1:08:07
  Tell you where where this man? He's got a really funny first
• 1:08:11
  name. Jake focused a lot on that.
• 1:08:18
  You got other people that focused lots on, you know, the,
• 1:08:21
  the different, different styles of whiskey that you get to make
• 1:08:24
  and things like that. And then I came along and just
• 1:08:26
  waffled on for night. Did you ever just walk here to
• 1:08:28
  go? Hi, I'm Curtis Moran.
• 1:08:29
  You may Remember Me. Every single tour I did I had
• 1:08:35
  that and had a headshot sign just waiting for something.
• 1:08:39
  You never. Knew.
• 1:08:42
  Exactly. I was I was waiting on the day
• 1:08:47
  that we finally got our producer and I could like it's been great
• 1:08:49
  to meet you. Thanks so much.
• 1:08:50
  There's my. I suppose it's very similar to
• 1:08:55
  yourselves when you guys started out with Scotch getting started.
• 1:08:59
  We've, we've spoke to a lot of people, I think yourselves
• 1:09:01
  included, will have mentioned this is like when you've got to
• 1:09:03
  do a tasting, you'll pick, pick what you know, right?
• 1:09:08
  So pick three or four, pick 5 or 6 drams that you absolutely know
• 1:09:12
  and you'd know you can sell to someday and you can give them
• 1:09:15
  the full spiel. You'll memorize everything.
• 1:09:17
  I mean, that's basically what you've had to do as well.
• 1:09:20
  Are you, are you, are you production history or do you
• 1:09:22
  have to with with it being Scotch?
• 1:09:24
  Do you have to be a bit of everything?
• 1:09:26
  It depends who you're talking to, right.
• 1:09:28
  So for our kind of entry, you're more just doing a bit of
• 1:09:32
  everything, Yeah, making sure they understand what's going on.
• 1:09:35
  For kind of upper ranges, depending on sometimes you get
• 1:09:38
  folks that are really interested, Yeah.
• 1:09:40
  And you'll spend an hour talking about barley, Yeah.
• 1:09:42
  And sometimes you get people that are just flexing, yeah,
• 1:09:45
  just want to spend loads of money.
• 1:09:47
  But no, you do tend to go for what you're familiar with.
• 1:09:49
  Like I remember when Curtis joined us, we had to ban Glenn
• 1:09:53
  Scotia Double Cask because that's one of the whiskeys this
• 1:09:56
  week. And we used to have people
• 1:09:58
  coming and they're like, I want to try something from
• 1:09:59
  Campbelltown. They'd be like Glenn Scotia
• 1:10:01
  Double Cask. We're like, it's a £7.00
• 1:10:02
  whiskey. But stop.
• 1:10:04
  Giving this to people so that. Was where Dario gave me the best
• 1:10:09
  advice. Yeah.
• 1:10:09
  Pick 5 discoveries, Yeah. Memorise them.
• 1:10:11
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it.
• 1:10:13
  And you guys used the what was it?
• 1:10:14
  The is it the whiskey yearbook? Is it that you guys?
• 1:10:17
  That's the Bible, yes. That thing is the Holy Grail.
• 1:10:20
  Is is that a new one out yet? Yeah. 2025 is that?
• 1:10:23
  5000 out? Really.
• 1:10:25
  I'm going to say something about it.
• 1:10:26
  I think it's getting worse, OK? Just not as much information.
• 1:10:30
  They've taken away the closed distilleries, right?
• 1:10:33
  Yeah, they're reducing a lot of the geeky stuff. 2016 for me was
• 1:10:40
  like, that was the year that my genuinely upset.
• 1:10:44
  I there was a guy I worked with when I moved to the Last Word
• 1:10:47
  who was really interested in whiskey and I was like, I'm
• 1:10:50
  going to let you use this. It was my 2016.
• 1:10:53
  And it was like doggy or yeah, written in stuff.
• 1:10:56
  I'm so upset I just didn't get it back.
• 1:10:58
  And I'm like, I like it's like probably the book in my entire
• 1:11:02
  life that I like, really, really love, really using like because
• 1:11:06
  I read it constantly. It was absolutely.
• 1:11:09
  It was an absolute tatters as well.
• 1:11:10
  Yeah, but it's so helpful. It's all the information that
• 1:11:15
  you need in one page effectively.
• 1:11:16
  Isn't it fantastic? You're seeing all the sort of
• 1:11:18
  facts and stats, but. Yeah, give you all the bullet
• 1:11:20
  points you want and then you can find them more thereafter.
• 1:11:23
  Yes. And then actually, after I'd
• 1:11:27
  hosted that tasting last week, I came in and saw you boys and I
• 1:11:31
  didn't have a bit of a flex. Twitch it.
• 1:11:33
  Came in my. Slap.
• 1:11:35
  Yeah. It's like Conor McGregor walking
• 1:11:37
  into the bar. Maybe not the correct person
• 1:11:38
  right now. The worst person you could.
• 1:11:42
  Have I managed to make it through the revolving door?
• 1:11:44
  So come on. But without fighting anymore,
• 1:11:47
  but basically Ted Thompson as when he did with our indie
• 1:11:51
  bottle spotlight and it's worth listening back to that.
• 1:11:53
  He is a guy who is a family is ingrained in whiskey history
• 1:11:58
  through his great great, great, great.
• 1:12:01
  I think 7 times great grandfather is what I can go
• 1:12:04
  back and one of the really cool things is his Gen. whatever that
• 1:12:08
  generation was had a had a distillery and Alfred Barnard
• 1:12:15
  visited the distillery and one of these Finn does these great
• 1:12:19
  tastings whenever he does something as he brings, he
• 1:12:21
  doesn't just bring his his family history to talk about,
• 1:12:24
  but he actually brings loads of stuff with him.
• 1:12:26
  Bend eagles bottles, the old encounters that were like old
• 1:12:29
  eagles that you pull the head off and stuff like that.
• 1:12:32
  He brought a really cool because his because his grandfather
• 1:12:37
  ended up having a you should listen back to the podcast to
• 1:12:40
  get this right. But his grandfather was like he
• 1:12:42
  was a wholesale Rep for whiskey. You know, you would buy and
• 1:12:45
  whiskey and sell it. And he had priceless from the
• 1:12:47
  Sixties, 70s and 80s with him. So he's handing them out so you
• 1:12:50
  can see what prices and things were back then.
• 1:12:52
  But they're really cool thing that he brought in was Alfred
• 1:12:56
  Barnard 1st edition. Yeah.
• 1:13:00
  There you go. Hi.
• 1:13:01
  Damn. Yeah, really, really, really.
• 1:13:03
  He wouldn't let anyone near it with a drama in their hand.
• 1:13:06
  Basically just have to. But that's a book that Angus, I
• 1:13:11
  think it was Mike Brown brought it in for the first time and
• 1:13:17
  talked about it. And it's it's it's a fascinating
• 1:13:20
  book when you actually. But would you go into that depth
• 1:13:23
  looking at Alfred Barnard's book to get some wee snippets from
• 1:13:27
  distilleries and stuff like that as well?
• 1:13:29
  I've got one in the house to look at.
• 1:13:32
  The the interesting thing about that one was the story that
• 1:13:36
  another sweet Illuminati. Like the whiskey industry is run
• 1:13:44
  by them. I think that's, I think that's.
• 1:13:48
  Signals but. You're getting too serious now,
• 1:13:52
  but. That's secrets Alex Thompson,
• 1:13:56
  but he talks about the fact that like he's at Glen Turret and
• 1:13:59
  he's like the Glen Turret distillery for since Alfred
• 1:14:03
  Barnard's book came out believed that it's date came back from
• 1:14:07
  that because Alfred Alfred Barnard asked Oh yeah, a worker.
• 1:14:11
  Then he was like, oh, it's been going from this date.
• 1:14:14
  And they were just like, and then once it went in the print,
• 1:14:16
  that was it forever until somebody in 2019 decided, let's
• 1:14:19
  actually look into this. And they established actually,
• 1:14:22
  hang on a minute, We're we're. Mentally, there's probably quite
• 1:14:24
  a lot of that. It must have been absolutely
• 1:14:27
  raging for that guy. He was like I.
• 1:14:31
  Dropped that. That must be it must be.
• 1:14:33
  I've been here since I was born. Literally I'm trying to work.
• 1:14:38
  With it, right? Yeah, yeah, right, we was.
• 1:14:40
  Going to say it. So time didn't exist before I
• 1:14:42
  existed. That works out perfectly for a
• 1:14:45
  question that I have, and this is a question that's been posed
• 1:14:49
  to everyone in Scotch and every single distillery that I've been
• 1:14:52
  to don't yet have an answer. So that's the only reason I want
• 1:14:55
  to bring up here is to see if anyone that listens or anyone
• 1:14:57
  that is involved has an answer. So far that the first ever Bobby
• 1:15:04
  or Porteous Mill. I would like to find out what
• 1:15:07
  distillery had the first. So far the oldest that I've been
• 1:15:10
  able to find is Glen Tunnett. OK, if anyone can find one that
• 1:15:14
  predates that please can you see?
• 1:15:16
  The answer what is this the the? Bobby or Porteous Mills, The
• 1:15:21
  Mills. That's what.
• 1:15:22
  Mills, the the company that made them so, so damn well that they
• 1:15:26
  put themselves out of business. When did they put themselves out
• 1:15:29
  of business? That's going, oh, you're asking
• 1:15:31
  me a question. That's what kind of 19 do you
• 1:15:34
  think it was? 80s?
• 1:15:34
  Or something. Yeah.
• 1:15:37
  I thought I was going to think. Earlier then when you say.
• 1:15:40
  So a lot of these stories had early, early 1900s and then you
• 1:15:44
  just don't really hear. You don't hear anything.
• 1:15:46
  Much about the company after that.
• 1:15:47
  Someone, someone had to have. How did they put themselves like
• 1:15:50
  a business? Because they they made them so
• 1:15:52
  well. The machine was designed so
• 1:15:53
  perfectly that never broke. Effectively.
• 1:15:57
  I was. Going to say when?
• 1:15:59
  I was going. To say when Eduardo started, he
• 1:16:02
  gave a very interesting story. So I can't I can't say that it's
• 1:16:05
  fact, but he said that it's the reason why light bulbs today are
• 1:16:10
  designed to break after so many years.
• 1:16:12
  I can't remember who he said, but he said someone perfected a
• 1:16:15
  light bulb that would never ever break.
• 1:16:17
  And they looked at Porteous and went, well, I'd like to keep
• 1:16:20
  making money, so let's say let's have them break.
• 1:16:22
  Every 10 years. Yeah.
• 1:16:24
  Wow, that's interesting. No, that's a separate note.
• 1:16:28
  Just by chance, I ended up getting chanted to a couple of
• 1:16:31
  guys from Belgium up his face. I never talked away.
• 1:16:36
  And they were they went up there and I'm saying, oh God, do you
• 1:16:39
  like do you like a drama then? And I was praying all right, so
• 1:16:42
  I would like a drama. They do like Whiskey Wednesdays
• 1:16:44
  up there where they all get together and it's just like some
• 1:16:47
  of these showed me pictures of ever at 4 or 5W weddings, some
• 1:16:51
  wild whiskey that they're getting up there.
• 1:16:53
  And they said that's just like a every two weeks with a whiskey
• 1:16:55
  Wednesday, all just five of us get together and that's what we
• 1:16:57
  do. But his son, who'll be in his
• 1:17:00
  sort of early 20s and he's a, he's an engineer or training to
• 1:17:05
  be an engineer. And he was talking about like
• 1:17:07
  all the boys he went to school with and everything like that.
• 1:17:09
  And he said there's a lot of guys that are like boys in the
• 1:17:11
  trade and a lot of the boys caught themselves into us at
• 1:17:14
  Forsythes and all these places. And he said that like, I've got
• 1:17:19
  these boys for I went to school with that from Elgin.
• 1:17:22
  He's like, and he's got the accent.
• 1:17:24
  I'm not do it, but he's like a lot of them.
• 1:17:26
  A lot of them are just pure nutters.
• 1:17:29
  But how he described his pals are all these guys that are like
• 1:17:32
  in trades and stuff and have been I don't know what would you
• 1:17:35
  have to be to be a plumber. That would probably be that sort
• 1:17:37
  of trade that would be associated with the.
• 1:17:40
  Not becoming a Coppersmath. Coppersmath made aye but but no
• 1:17:43
  no shit I. Don't.
• 1:17:45
  Know but basically he said they all went and got trades and they
• 1:17:49
  all a lot of these guys at school went and got trades and
• 1:17:51
  they were all told getting at the trades and then getting a
• 1:17:53
  whiskey on maintenance on and if you're in space yeah but he said
• 1:17:59
  there's boys that is his age like it flown over to Japan
• 1:18:04
  because the Japanese industry will be saying like right well.
• 1:18:07
  We want ourselves still in our distillery.
• 1:18:17
  We just said I'm just a whiskey parrot.
• 1:18:21
  Bring your bed plunger. There's a second business
• 1:18:30
  opportunity to just take a plunger.
• 1:18:33
  But no, no, but like they were saying that these guys are just
• 1:18:37
  lads that left school, got into the trades, ended up working for
• 1:18:40
  somebody like Forsyth or another engineering company and up in
• 1:18:43
  Elgin in space site. And they are they if you go in
• 1:18:47
  with Diage, if your company that you work for and the thing about
• 1:18:50
  whiskey is it's so great, I bet you they'll be still be they'll
• 1:18:54
  be like legacy engineering jobs that are no use anywhere else
• 1:19:00
  except for the whiskey. Like they'll be like the guy
• 1:19:03
  that instead of your mail that you're talking about, there must
• 1:19:05
  be something else that there'll be.
• 1:19:07
  I suppose, you know, there's not got to be a lot of people who
• 1:19:10
  are working on getting proper moving the way it does when it
• 1:19:14
  comes to stills or even kind of finding the right places to.
• 1:19:18
  Bang that shit and things to get the.
• 1:19:20
  Right, amount of reflux and these kind of things and then
• 1:19:22
  working with line arms and figuring angles.
• 1:19:25
  So yeah, I mean, it's a fairly nice job.
• 1:19:27
  I mean, this is the same thing could be said about Coopers.
• 1:19:29
  I mean, there's it's what a job though, especially in the UK,
• 1:19:33
  it's a it's a finite job and it's a very, very hands on all
• 1:19:37
  right aspect of the whole industry.
• 1:19:39
  I mean, if we didn't have casks that held liquid correctly,
• 1:19:42
  yeah, that's a good job. Yeah, I was looking at stats on
• 1:19:47
  this, apparently, I think it was last year there was 250.
• 1:19:50
  Yeah, there's now or maybe the last five years of 250 or
• 1:19:53
  another, but a whole 300? Well, that's what's like you
• 1:19:57
  look at when we went to Border Leaf Distillery, you're looking
• 1:20:00
  at a modern vertical distillery. You're looking at even the.
• 1:20:03
  They've gone for the modernisation of it.
• 1:20:06
  It's vertical. It's got so much stuff going on,
• 1:20:07
  even they've got. They've got the coolest wash
• 1:20:10
  backs you've ever seen. Yeah, that is the saddest thing,
• 1:20:13
  but it's honestly true. What do you like so much about
• 1:20:16
  the wash backs? What is it they you?
• 1:20:17
  Can stand under them. Yeah, you can stand to them.
• 1:20:20
  They're welded. They're hovering wash backs.
• 1:20:23
  They are like welded like four flights.
• 1:20:25
  Above the ground and was it the wash backs that they were
• 1:20:28
  talking about where some of them get like some of them are closer
• 1:20:32
  to the walls which get the weather.
• 1:20:34
  So like even there's like. So when I did the two, they were
• 1:20:37
  in production. So Ian Starling was saying that
• 1:20:39
  now like there's a an Angus kind of cynically said like, Oh,
• 1:20:42
  well, there's a, there's a a money spinner in the future, you
• 1:20:44
  can get like, wash back four, Yeah.
• 1:20:46
  This. This bottle was all from wash
• 1:20:49
  back four because it's the closest to the corner which gets
• 1:20:52
  this the the sea breeze coming up from 1st to 4th.
• 1:20:55
  Wonderful 4th to 4th. But but what but?
• 1:20:59
  Downwind from the sewage treatment plant.
• 1:21:03
  This one is slightly. More manure.
• 1:21:05
  Forward. But the thing about is like,
• 1:21:08
  that's what's great about the whiskey industry is that you can
• 1:21:11
  modernize a lot. And when you go to Diageo and
• 1:21:13
  you go to the big powerhouses, these massive distilleries that
• 1:21:16
  are just built, they're not open to the public.
• 1:21:19
  They're, they're built for production.
• 1:21:21
  And they will, they will have put in so many modern things
• 1:21:25
  that will help maximize production.
• 1:21:27
  That's that next thing. But it still takes a person to
• 1:21:32
  build a cast by hand. You can't automate that.
• 1:21:35
  It's the oldest ages like you know, even things like you go
• 1:21:39
  distilleries now we'll have computer screens where they'll
• 1:21:42
  tell you pressure points of here this and next time on all the
• 1:21:45
  all the all the processes go in there.
• 1:21:48
  But doesn't matter how modern your distillery is, doesn't
• 1:21:51
  matter what it is. And some distilleries will try
• 1:21:53
  and make themselves look nice and cosy and old school and
• 1:21:56
  stuff like that. But deep down you know that in
• 1:21:58
  the back end they're probably, they've probably maximized as
• 1:22:01
  much as they possibly could for production with bringing it up
• 1:22:04
  to speed and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:22:06
  It's the cool thing about. It's also the cool thing about
• 1:22:09
  seeing the contrast where you can see that somebody that has
• 1:22:12
  maybe automated as much as they could, and then you can go to
• 1:22:14
  the story like Dornak, where it's like a guy in what used to
• 1:22:18
  be. Shipping container No.
• 1:22:22
  Well, that's one of the, that's where it's like a meat container
• 1:22:26
  that they put soil in the bottom of.
• 1:22:28
  And then the distillery used to be was the fire department, like
• 1:22:34
  going back to the 1700s, and it's just a guy just figuring it
• 1:22:38
  out. Yeah.
• 1:22:41
  And then do amazing stuff and. I think like we, we talked, we
• 1:22:44
  actually spoke a little bit about it before we start
• 1:22:46
  recording. We're talking about the
• 1:22:48
  differences in the whiskey industry now and there's
• 1:22:50
  challenges and we've, we've, we've mentioned them and you
• 1:22:53
  we've talked a little bit about it.
• 1:22:54
  This year, 2025 is going to be a very interesting year in the
• 1:22:57
  whiskey industry that you know, we've here we're hearing a lot
• 1:23:01
  about the, the costs associated with whiskey and all that kind
• 1:23:03
  of stuff as well. But the other, the other side of
• 1:23:06
  it is we've seen such a, a burst of new distilleries coming
• 1:23:10
  through. And one of the great things
• 1:23:12
  about that is that, like some of these distilleries, you're
• 1:23:16
  drinking Hollywood. Right now.
• 1:23:18
  You've drank, you've finished your Hollywood, but it seems
• 1:23:21
  like they are not in the like you go back 2530 years,
• 1:23:26
  distilleries that we're open, they were about mass production,
• 1:23:28
  about getting, getting the blenders, getting the
• 1:23:30
  consistency and all that. Whereas now the artisanal side
• 1:23:32
  of things is massive, isn't it? I think I think that's an
• 1:23:37
  interest inside the industry now.
• 1:23:38
  And it was touched upon on your your last podcast.
• 1:23:41
  We were talking about, you know, we are within Scotch.
• 1:23:44
  We are, we do have limitations. We have them for a reason.
• 1:23:47
  We are, you know, the the biggest selling whiskey in the
• 1:23:49
  world. But within that there is still
• 1:23:52
  this kind of desire for experimentation and people want
• 1:23:57
  to see what we can do. And it's interesting now to see
• 1:24:00
  these nerds still that he's trying to push the bins.
• 1:24:04
  I mean, one of the really cool things about whiskey is we're at
• 1:24:06
  what, 64 years now of commercialized single malt
• 1:24:09
  whiskey? Yeah, we're, we're still in the
• 1:24:11
  like the early. Days, yeah, when you base it on
• 1:24:13
  that, when you look at how long whiskey's been going.
• 1:24:15
  We're, we're so young into that side of it that now it is cool
• 1:24:18
  seeing these distilleries pop up that are saying, well, let's see
• 1:24:21
  how far we can push this. Let's see what different barley
• 1:24:23
  strains do. Let's see what different yeasts
• 1:24:25
  do. Well, it's.
• 1:24:27
  Almost like going back to basics, yeah.
• 1:24:28
  Exactly. I mean, but I've.
• 1:24:30
  Spoke about before we started. Distillery I'm incredibly
• 1:24:33
  excited about is Kaith Distillery.
• 1:24:34
  It's going to be opening up and I think it's this year actually.
• 1:24:37
  They're meant to start production.
• 1:24:38
  Where's that about Kaith? You're asking the person that is
• 1:24:41
  absolutely awful with geography. So I will turn that over to
• 1:24:45
  Fraser. I think it's I put in the
• 1:24:49
  Highlands somewhere. It's it's in Scotland.
• 1:24:53
  The Highlands of Scotland, but like they're, they're going to
• 1:24:56
  focus on. Scotland, Scotland are going.
• 1:25:00
  To use barley strains that haven't been used since the 60s.
• 1:25:03
  Yeah, yeah. Like, that's going to be cool.
• 1:25:05
  That's going to be interesting. Like their their whole motto is
• 1:25:07
  we don't care about how much we can produce.
• 1:25:09
  We care about how good the whiskey is.
• 1:25:11
  And from a whiskey nerd point of view, that's incredibly
• 1:25:15
  exciting. Well, goes back to like the Daff
• 1:25:16
  mill situation there, like there's, there they are, you
• 1:25:19
  know, and there's great stories of distilleries that are like,
• 1:25:22
  oh, we still have the farm that was originally being used for
• 1:25:24
  the farmer was making the whiskey and things like that.
• 1:25:27
  And it's a nice story, but actually like, you know, the the
• 1:25:30
  Cuthbert brothers who own that farm and they're, they're,
• 1:25:33
  they're farming first. Yeah.
• 1:25:34
  It's about, you know, and, and what's great is they decided to,
• 1:25:38
  I mean, I don't know how much they would have spent to build a
• 1:25:40
  distillery in their sheds and what have you.
• 1:25:42
  But at the same time is it was never about building a brand and
• 1:25:46
  a business. It was, but that was a.
• 1:25:51
  Huge smile came to. Life.
• 1:25:52
  No, Sir. There was a when Daffman were
• 1:25:56
  doing their their first release, they hosted the tasting Roma
• 1:25:59
  whiskeys and I was lucky enough to be there.
• 1:26:01
  There's one of the Kuffler brothers.
• 1:26:03
  I'm I can't remember which one. And they were talking about
• 1:26:07
  someone asked the question like, why have you done this release
• 1:26:09
  now? And it was 12 year old Daphna
• 1:26:12
  was the very first release and he was like, to be honest with
• 1:26:15
  you, like we've been doing, we've been still in the summer
• 1:26:18
  and we've been still in the winter and we've had to move it
• 1:26:20
  all by wheelbarrow, all the barrel in the wheelbarrow and
• 1:26:23
  we're just fairly sick of it. So we thought, so we do a
• 1:26:27
  release so we could buy a malt bin.
• 1:26:29
  So that's the main reason we've done the that.
• 1:26:36
  Is the most that's. The most?
• 1:26:37
  Farmer Cracker. It.
• 1:26:41
  Only took us like a decade and a bit, but we figured we'd just
• 1:26:43
  invest on the profits of this. Like.
• 1:26:48
  Carry that wheelbarrows nearly deep now, yeah?
• 1:26:51
  But that's but it creates, it creates this feeling, doesn't
• 1:26:55
  it? Creates this want and need.
• 1:26:57
  And it's like what we've talked to Corder O'Keefe at Hollywood
• 1:27:00
  before. Then it's just like you just
• 1:27:02
  want to try it because the same with Annandale, although albeit
• 1:27:06
  Annandale's sort of single cask, single malt distillery.
• 1:27:11
  And you just wonder are Annandale going to change that?
• 1:27:13
  Are they going to start saying we're going to have to bring out
• 1:27:16
  a solid more range release rather than just continuously
• 1:27:20
  saying this releases? They've got the they've got
• 1:27:22
  this, the man of words and the man of sword, but.
• 1:27:24
  Even then, there's every single one.
• 1:27:26
  It's always, yeah, it's always single cask.
• 1:27:28
  It's always, it's always different barrels.
• 1:27:30
  It. Finally, gives me a chance to
• 1:27:32
  also slag off Jeff because he used to work there as well.
• 1:27:37
  There you go, Cameron McPherson. But.
• 1:27:39
  His actual. Name.
• 1:27:39
  He went to school with Fraser and Ross.
• 1:27:42
  I, I it is known as Jeff. So I'm not sorry at all,
• 1:27:47
  essentially. During high school, Cameron went
• 1:27:51
  to the same school and one day somebody decided it looked like
• 1:27:54
  a Jeff that. Was him.
• 1:27:55
  And he like named. Jeff.
• 1:27:56
  Jeff. I worked with them.
• 1:27:59
  Yeah, I worked with them at Sui found out and I refused to ever
• 1:28:03
  let it go. Great guy, but he, he worked
• 1:28:05
  them. That was his first brand
• 1:28:07
  ambassador role and really interesting distillery, like
• 1:28:11
  really, really cool things that they're doing.
• 1:28:12
  Absolutely. Well we are fast approaching
• 1:28:14
  that time where we do get to ask our guests of their what 3
• 1:28:17
  drams. So, Curtis, tell us, what are
• 1:28:21
  your what's your first of your, what, 3 drams?
• 1:28:24
  The first one for basically everyone and anyone that knows
• 1:28:28
  me is the reason that I fell in love with whiskey.
• 1:28:32
  I was 18 years old and the first proper drama whiskey that I ever
• 1:28:35
  tried was the Glendronick 18. Glendronick 18.
• 1:28:38
  And it is still to this day my absolute favorite.
• 1:28:40
  So if Glendronick are ever hiring there.
• 1:28:42
  You go. Give me a shout.
• 1:28:44
  Glendronick eighteen. There we are.
• 1:28:45
  Lovely. What was it?
• 1:28:47
  What was the background to that like?
• 1:28:49
  Did you? I was I was 18 years old.
• 1:28:52
  I was dating what would be my first serious proper
• 1:28:57
  relationship. Current relationship.
• 1:28:59
  But it. Was.
• 1:29:00
  It was. It is not my current
• 1:29:03
  relationship, no, but we were together for for four years and
• 1:29:07
  actually bought an engagement ring and all that sort of stuff
• 1:29:09
  so it got pretty serious. But her older brother was
• 1:29:15
  welcoming me into the family. So we're sat having dinner and
• 1:29:19
  he cracked open a bottle of whiskey and kind of again, just
• 1:29:23
  being really, really nice and was like welcome in.
• 1:29:25
  And it was a Glendronicate team. I fell in love with it.
• 1:29:28
  So still to this day, Glendronic are my absolute favorite story.
• 1:29:33
  I could talk with them for hours.
• 1:29:34
  They'll never leave you. Never, you know, girlfriends.
• 1:29:40
  Come and go, but that's. Exactly it.
• 1:29:44
  And so yeah, that that was, it's one, you know, that thankfully
• 1:29:50
  this entire journey, that's the reason that I was willing to
• 1:29:53
  accept the job at iscopy. And now I get to annoy the
• 1:29:55
  living daylights at Fraser and Cameron that's worked in.
• 1:29:57
  Really well for Andronic becoming more and more premium
• 1:30:01
  and Curtis loves to. Sell it so your mics on Curtis
• 1:30:04
  has that. Been on all day.
• 1:30:06
  Your mic's working now, right? There you go.
• 1:30:08
  Good. Good, I adore it so you will.
• 1:30:11
  You will never, ever find a day that there's not Glendronic in
• 1:30:14
  in Scotch. There you go.
• 1:30:15
  Right DRAM #2. Driver #2 I'm actually going to
• 1:30:18
  give Fraser some props here. Because it is.
• 1:30:21
  It is. I'll put the mic down.
• 1:30:24
  This is maybe one of the only times you'll hear me say
• 1:30:26
  something nice about them publicly.
• 1:30:27
  So when I got given I was told I had the job next Scotch.
• 1:30:32
  I was incredibly happy that it'd been a a dream job of mine for
• 1:30:36
  for a couple of years. And my dad is completely
• 1:30:40
  teetotal, so he doesn't drink. And as you can tell, he's
• 1:30:43
  incredibly proud of me for that reason that I now sell alcohol.
• 1:30:47
  But he came up, lives down in England now.
• 1:30:49
  He came up to to see me and wanted to see where I was going
• 1:30:53
  to work. Yeah.
• 1:30:54
  So I took him to Scotch. It was my final evening being
• 1:30:57
  able to show up into the bar. Yeah.
• 1:30:59
  And not working there. And we sat down.
• 1:31:02
  Fraser put out a kind of little tasting for me.
• 1:31:06
  And my dad was drinking ginger beer.
• 1:31:10
  And then I've had my first three jams, they're all fantastic.
• 1:31:14
  Had a tomat in Sutton or other which was done in I.
• 1:31:20
  Can't even mind it. Was a.
• 1:31:21
  It was. I really like Curtis.
• 1:31:22
  I'm not sure exactly. It was a tomat and Sherry let me
• 1:31:25
  try a couple of things, but then he came over to the table and
• 1:31:27
  said it's really nice to have you at the team, you know, like
• 1:31:31
  welcome on and gave me a tomat in 36.
• 1:31:33
  There you go. I'd like to to stay this was
• 1:31:36
  leftover stock from a previous tasting.
• 1:31:40
  Yeah, see, I was going to say before he gets in any trouble,
• 1:31:42
  it was. It was free.
• 1:31:43
  Free stock, but, and that was the one of the times my dad
• 1:31:46
  turned around and went, wow, you've, you've actually done
• 1:31:49
  well. I was like, that's lovely.
• 1:31:51
  Surprisingly, yeah. So that meant a lot.
• 1:31:54
  Fraser's became, unfortunately, a good friend of mine.
• 1:31:56
  Now you know, thought it'd be nice.
• 1:32:00
  Though. All right, Good.
• 1:32:01
  Cheers man. But great DRAM, fantastic
• 1:32:02
  whiskey and shout out to Matt and like that's the it's
• 1:32:05
  actually the pride and joy my collection at the moment.
• 1:32:07
  I bought with Matt and 36. You told I think you said it on
• 1:32:09
  this podcast. It would ruin whiskey for you
• 1:32:11
  it. Was my favorite.
• 1:32:13
  I've now changed it over to Bun Havan 40 as well.
• 1:32:16
  Yeah, sorry. Sorry to that bun of 40 though.
• 1:32:21
  Also 10 out of 10. What a DRAM. #3 or no and.
• 1:32:24
  I was going to say it works it perfectly.
• 1:32:26
  Bun Havan is my my third so weems done a series of bottlings
• 1:32:33
  in 1990 bottlings. One of them was been a haban
• 1:32:38
  called Peach and ginger fizz and still to this day it is one of
• 1:32:45
  the most incredible whiskeys I've ever had where it generally
• 1:32:48
  does taste exactly like it's described.
• 1:32:51
  Peach and ginger fizz is phenomenal.
• 1:32:54
  I'm truly guided with can't get any more bottles in the bar and
• 1:32:57
  I'm considering spending a lot more than a human being should
• 1:33:02
  just to own one of them. So if anyones got a bottle of
• 1:33:05
  that their shelf and want to flip it there you.
• 1:33:06
  Go Yeah. Let me know, let me know.
• 1:33:09
  I'm sure we can come to some sort of agreement.
• 1:33:11
  But fantastic whiskey series of them.
• 1:33:15
  I think it was, it was cool. No, they done, I think it was
• 1:33:17
  six or seven, maybe eight different casks, but they were
• 1:33:20
  all sister casts. So distillate from the same
• 1:33:23
  production that went into the same form of American Oxhead,
• 1:33:27
  then left for the same amount of time and then bottled on the
• 1:33:29
  same day. Oh, wow, 26 years.
• 1:33:32
  Yeah, we had six of them and I managed to get a 7th that we
• 1:33:35
  didn't have that you got that was that's currently sitting on
• 1:33:37
  the Barnaro mask because I'd done a taste and then I just
• 1:33:39
  left the rest. But they're all like so
• 1:33:44
  different and unique. I just, I just showcased that it
• 1:33:46
  can be exactly the same. Yeah.
• 1:33:49
  They sat next to each other in the warehouse.
• 1:33:51
  Yeah, every single cast was was very, very different.
• 1:33:54
  Because I think that's the interesting thing as well,
• 1:33:55
  though, where it does kind of show the the side at how much
• 1:33:59
  different like casks and wood does have an influence on your
• 1:34:04
  on your flavour. Like not saying it's fairly well
• 1:34:07
  documented now that you know whiskey changes depending on how
• 1:34:10
  long you for men all these things, but your cask is really
• 1:34:13
  important. I mean, the difference between
• 1:34:16
  the Isle of porridge and the Peaches in your fist was
• 1:34:18
  massive, but both fantastic. But what a whiskey.
• 1:34:22
  Brilliant well, I think Angus and Ross are bricking it now
• 1:34:26
  lads. I think we could have another
• 1:34:27
  two Co hosts absolutely fantastic.
• 1:34:30
  We made it. We made it through it.
• 1:34:32
  I'm. Going to do that shout out
• 1:34:33
  before we finish. There's the top 50 cocktail
• 1:34:37
  years. Top 54 years has been a nice
• 1:34:40
  one, number two, which is quite important because a lot of
• 1:34:41
  Edinburgh and Scotland bars have done really well looking at the
• 1:34:44
  camera. So it's good just to shout them
• 1:34:46
  out, you know, and and support your boys and girls.
• 1:34:50
  Where's the photo you've? Got #2 was Pandan sons.
• 1:34:53
  Then a list? Hold on, you're ruining it,
• 1:34:56
  right? OK, so.
• 1:34:57
  Preparation for that. But this is quite cool, right?
• 1:34:59
  So Scotland currently takes up 8% of EU KS population.
• 1:35:05
  And I'm more confident if I speak to you, it takes up 8% of
• 1:35:08
  EU KS population and Scotland as a whole has managed to get 16%
• 1:35:14
  of the top 50. So we're fucking, we're fighting
• 1:35:17
  way above our weight. The gate over in Glasgow came
• 1:35:20
  43rd American bar, Glen Eagles 37th.
• 1:35:23
  Bramble bar came 36. Absolute year over in Glasgow
• 1:35:27
  33, Daddy Marmalade in Glasgow 18 and then you had Hey Paloo
• 1:35:31
  16th, Nauticus 12. I'm buzzing about local bar,
• 1:35:36
  like absolutely buzzing for that.
• 1:35:38
  And then Panda and Sons came second.
• 1:35:40
  That's a class. Yeah.
• 1:35:42
  So, so that's what's that. That's the.
• 1:35:45
  Top 50 bars in the UK. Top 50 bars in the UK.
• 1:35:49
  Yeah. And Scotland has 16% I.
• 1:35:51
  Can tell you that's the top 50 of a total of 31,500 and 5037
• 1:35:57
  currently active listed bars. Brilliant.
• 1:35:59
  Well done. First class.
• 1:36:01
  Well done. Absolutely fantastic.
• 1:36:02
  Well, guys, well done. Thank you very much, Curtis for
• 1:36:04
  coming on. Thank you for having me and
• 1:36:07
  Chuck for coming in. And Chuck, good luck in Japan.
• 1:36:17
  Well, listen, you can listen to whiskey stories podcast.
• 1:36:19
  Thank you so much for everybody who carries on tuning in.
• 1:36:21
  Thanks for everybody who watches us on our YouTube channel.
• 1:36:24
  Don't forget, please watch the YouTube channel if you want to
• 1:36:26
  go onto the YouTube channel to watch the guy fall asleep half
• 1:36:30
  an hour before our whiskey tasted someone has literally
• 1:36:33
  fallen asleep. Truly a live podcast recording
• 1:36:36
  at indie box twilight and please do so keep liking sharing, keep
• 1:36:40
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• 1:36:44
  group, get on the Facebook page on Instagram.
• 1:36:46
  Shout out to Scott Moore for keeping us right with all the
• 1:36:48
  whiskey days as well. Keep giving us a there.
• 1:36:52
  Thanks. Thanks for coming on.
• 1:36:53
  All the best cheers. Cheers.
• 1:36:54
  Thanks.