Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / The Most Important Ingredient in Whisky Nobody Talks About — David Hannah, Muntons Malt

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The Most Important Ingredient in Whisky Nobody Talks About — David Hannah, Muntons Malt · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  It was the one when you referred to your current cousin.
• 0:01
  I found that funny. Angus, you know what to do.
• 0:07
  Clap us in. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
• 0:12
  podcast. I think it's one of the least
• 0:15
  talked about parts. I know there's a lot of things
• 0:17
  around local provenance and local barley's and things, but
• 0:21
  it's not really the sexy part of the distillation process.
• 0:24
  I love the fact that the internationally recognised
• 0:26
  symbol for distilling is actually linked to.
• 0:29
  Moulding. Yeah, of course.
• 0:30
  When? They pour it out and they get it
• 0:32
  and they say and they knows it and then they taste it and say
• 0:36
  well it tastes like shite but yielded 4 pen.
• 0:43
  Welcome along the Whiskey Stories podcast, myself Graham.
• 0:46
  We are back in the athletic arms, back in the Diggers
• 0:48
  dungeon sandwich nicely underneath the Giants toilets
• 0:51
  and the bar. Here we are lads.
• 0:52
  How are you, Angus? I'm very good.
• 0:53
  Do you know what's pleasing me most?
• 0:55
  I decided not to wear that T-shirt you've got on there.
• 0:57
  Today we've got we've made a real.
• 1:00
  Fatal error I think is that we we went to Arden American last
• 1:03
  week. We bought the same T-shirt and
• 1:07
  asking for We're asking for trouble with that, but I know.
• 1:09
  Seem pretty chuffed about it in the shop.
• 1:12
  Yeah, but it was a lovely T-shirt.
• 1:14
  Big shout out to Connor McKenzie, who played an absolute
• 1:17
  blinder as he gave us a distillery tour.
• 1:19
  Yep, took us down to the edge of Mclean's nose and gave us a
• 1:23
  drum. Brought us back, gave us
• 1:25
  another, a bit of a distillery tour, took us into the
• 1:27
  warehouse, starts popping casks and then goes, now I'm going to
• 1:31
  take you to the shop. He's a pro.
• 1:35
  Took us into the shop. But how are you, Chuck?
• 1:39
  Well, probably be an absolutely fleece to armed American.
• 1:43
  You are. Well, you just had one too many
• 1:47
  cast sample before you went in the shop.
• 1:48
  Oh. Man, yeah, I think I turned the
• 1:51
  car on the way up. I was like, I can't be stupid.
• 1:54
  Oh yeah. What a trip it was and if I
• 1:57
  managed to get my if I managed to get my editing done before
• 2:01
  then before now, before you're listening to this, then check
• 2:03
  out on the YouTube channel because we had a great time.
• 2:05
  We were very, very well looked after and it was a big part of
• 2:09
  sort of Arden American being giving us a good part of the
• 2:12
  story as well. Drams lives.
• 2:14
  What have you got, Angus? Well, I've got, because we've
• 2:17
  got a Glaswegian on the episode. I've got Glasgow, that's a white
• 2:21
  port. Oh yeah, a white port.
• 2:23
  Castle, full maturation white port.
• 2:25
  Or is it finished? I don't know.
• 2:26
  It's one or the other. I.
• 2:29
  Can never remember which distilleries do full maturation
• 2:32
  and which do finish. I mean I don't know.
• 2:33
  I don't know Anyway. White port cask right?
• 2:35
  It was. That's what it says on the
• 2:37
  bottle. And I have got a signatory 7
• 2:42
  year old Ben Nevis second filler.
• 2:44
  Also casks heavily beaten the nose of.
• 2:47
  That's amazing. Brilliant, Chuck.
• 2:49
  What you got, I got. Then an old school looking
• 2:52
  bottle of Glenn Kitchie 10. So I've got a drama that and
• 2:55
  then I splurged even though I'm skint and I got a Glenn Orgy
• 3:00
  signal signal. Wow.
• 3:01
  Which I haven't had donkeys. Very good.
• 3:03
  There you go. Looking forward to it.
• 3:04
  Well, I've gone, I've got. In fact, I don't even know which
• 3:07
  time Navilin I've got, but basically after and again, I
• 3:09
  don't know whether this podcast episode is coming out after my
• 3:11
  trip up to Tam Navilin or not, but we had Andrew Lenny on a few
• 3:15
  weeks ago, as you'll have and Tammy Owens fast becoming a
• 3:19
  favorite drama 3 lbs. But I've got the white wine cask
• 3:23
  edition I've. Not tried that so.
• 3:26
  Not tried that, but I've also gone for the R and 10 barley.
• 3:32
  Aron Barley. Aron Barley.
• 3:33
  Yeah, Aron Barley. You might be wondering, why does
• 3:35
  Graham go for a drama like that? Well, it leads us perfectly on
• 3:38
  to our guest. Angus has mentioned we don't
• 3:40
  just let a glass weed and come and sit on a broadcast randomly.
• 3:43
  We've had other glass weed. You're.
• 3:45
  Not let them. In, you're not the first.
• 3:47
  We've had tape, we've had to stage them out, so it's just we
• 3:49
  have to get one every so many months.
• 3:51
  So well, this is your time. He's a glass weed.
• 3:54
  Send us a. Letter to Alison and I love to
• 3:58
  cover. No, David, you, we've got David
• 4:01
  Hannah here. Now let me get this right here.
• 4:02
  We have head of distillery malt sales global for mountains malt.
• 4:08
  We've got a monster on the podcast.
• 4:09
  And yes, finally, finally, exactly, David.
• 4:13
  I'm very well guys. Thank you for having me.
• 4:15
  No, thank you so much for coming on.
• 4:16
  We met at the IT was a WWW. Conference, yeah, which?
• 4:23
  Was great. I really, really enjoyed.
• 4:24
  It, it was really good and I felt that really interesting
• 4:28
  insights and really, really good talks.
• 4:31
  I just wanted to see a wee bit more for the raw material side
• 4:34
  because it was all about, you know what, it's quite a
• 4:37
  challenging time at the moment, especially for, for the whiskey,
• 4:40
  the Scotch whiskey sector. And how about how robust it is
• 4:44
  and all the challenges that whiskey has overcome over the
• 4:46
  last 100 to 150 years. And you know, how we'll get out
• 4:51
  the other end of it. And that was really inspiring to
• 4:53
  hear. However, there's this whole
• 4:55
  supply chain who are just kind of like waiting on tenterhooks,
• 4:59
  you know, just sitting there kind of going, yeah, whilst yous
• 5:02
  are getting through this, we're hung out to dry.
• 5:04
  And I just wanted a wee bit of acknowledgement, a wee bit of
• 5:06
  recognition that, listen, not just maltsters, but, you know,
• 5:10
  yeast suppliers, Castle everything, the whole supply
• 5:12
  chain, Please, you know, stick with us.
• 5:15
  We'll get through all this. I'd like to say in a bit more of
• 5:17
  that, but seen him at lunchtime, nabbed him.
• 5:20
  And I was like, as a fan of the pod, I had to kind of say,
• 5:22
  listen, what's not been represented?
• 5:26
  So yeah. Our Graham as well got a bit of
• 5:29
  a reputation at that for us. The Indian whisk.
• 5:32
  Brilliant event. Super.
• 5:34
  Fair play, Ronnie. He.
• 5:36
  Was Graham? Where is he?
• 5:37
  There? He's there.
• 5:39
  God, but listen. What was this?
• 5:41
  Then that was the in Whiskey conference by KD Media.
• 5:45
  It was the first time they've done it.
• 5:46
  So KD Media, the guys that are behind the Is it the World
• 5:49
  Whiskey Awards? Scott Scotch Whiskey Awards,
• 5:51
  Scott Beer awards as well. And they've done, and they've
• 5:53
  got Jen awards and they've done a distilling conference before,
• 5:56
  but this was the first attempt at like, just focusing on
• 5:59
  whiskey is a category. Yeah.
• 6:00
  Awesome. Really good.
• 6:01
  Speaker It was it was great. And you know, we got to got to
• 6:04
  hear from Stephanie McLeod at the beginning of the day.
• 6:06
  You know who's the, she's a director, sort of the blinding
• 6:10
  director for John yours. And then at the end you got
• 6:13
  Billy Walker. There was a few other people
• 6:15
  after as well, but Billy Walker. So it was like 2, two big heavy
• 6:17
  house. And in between that as well, a
• 6:20
  lot of really, really good information.
• 6:21
  Guys from the SWA were there. There was a lot of stuff about
• 6:23
  sustainability. There was a lot of things about
• 6:26
  the innovation. And one of the things that was
• 6:27
  really interesting that I think everybody went into it kind of
• 6:30
  possibly maybe rolled their eyes a wee bit.
• 6:32
  And actually it was one of the best talks was from a lawyer.
• 6:36
  And it was all about cask investment and personal
• 6:39
  purchases of casks and things and the pitfalls, what to look
• 6:42
  out for. And everybody was like, God,
• 6:44
  that's fascinating because it's completely unregulated market.
• 6:47
  So and that was way more interesting it.
• 6:49
  Was funny because it was Vicky Bruce.
• 6:50
  So we had Alex Bruce, her husband of Arden Merkin and
• 6:53
  Adelphi on the podcast a few weeks ago now.
• 6:56
  And Vicky Bruce is his wife. And she, she got up and
• 7:01
  speaking. It was like there was her
• 7:03
  speaking about cash regulations and stuff like that, and then
• 7:06
  there was a lawyer from now. I can't remember the company
• 7:09
  name now. It's gone completely.
• 7:10
  Shepherds. Is it Shepherd?
• 7:11
  And Mirman. No, no, it wasn't anyway, No,
• 7:13
  no, but that'll come to me. But anyway, he was speaking 2nd
• 7:17
  and I thought Vicky was very outspoken about about this,
• 7:21
  about what the industry needs to be doing about what, what the,
• 7:25
  you know, where the, where the responsibility lies with the
• 7:27
  SWA, with the whiskey industry. In fact, there is a podcast in
• 7:30
  there. We're going to get Vicky on and
• 7:32
  talk about that. But as she was speaking, I was
• 7:34
  like, you know, I wonder if this lawyer is going to come on at
• 7:37
  the back end and go just so we're clear, legally, yada,
• 7:40
  yada, yada. He came on and he said, if I'm
• 7:42
  being perfectly honest, Becky didn't say enough.
• 7:44
  You know, you could because because again, you have to be
• 7:47
  very careful if you're using company names and you're using
• 7:50
  things like that. But anyway, more of that.
• 7:52
  We'll talk about that in another podcast because it's not.
• 7:54
  Well, we've done over 120 episodes.
• 7:57
  We've never had a maltster on the podcast.
• 7:59
  So I guess the first question then we know the process, yes,
• 8:06
  right at the start, multi milling, multi milling, well
• 8:10
  done, mashing, well done. Distillation, no fermentation,
• 8:13
  fermentation, distillation, maturation, maturation, well
• 8:16
  done. There we go, There we are.
• 8:22
  Right in the beginning comes malting.
• 8:24
  So I I just just take us through what, what does a maltster do
• 8:28
  from what comes in, what comes out?
• 8:30
  Exactly. So I think it's one of the least
• 8:34
  talked about parts. I know there's a lot of things
• 8:37
  around local provenance and local barley's and things, but
• 8:40
  it's not really the sexy part of the distillation process.
• 8:44
  People are wanting to see all it.
• 8:45
  Depends what turns you on doesn't.
• 8:46
  It does more to say on that later, but what we do
• 8:51
  essentially is we are taking malting barley from farms from
• 8:56
  all over the UK and we are putting through a malting
• 8:59
  process which involves steeping, germinating and killing.
• 9:05
  Why do we do that? So what we're doing is basically
• 9:07
  trying to trick the barley into thinking that it's in the field.
• 9:10
  That's effectively we're accelerating that process and
• 9:13
  we're modifying the grain to allow all that starch to be
• 9:17
  accessible during the mashing process to get the sugars.
• 9:21
  So that's all we're really doing is breaking down the cell walls
• 9:25
  to allow those that starts to be accessible to the distillers and
• 9:28
  the Brewers as well. Now am I right in saying that
• 9:31
  malting barley, that is that only spring barley?
• 9:34
  No. It's winter barley or is it only
• 9:37
  winter barley? No, no, no.
• 9:38
  No, this is a misconception. I'm sure somebody once told me
• 9:41
  it was one of the other. Oh, it's a great question.
• 9:43
  You have spring and winter barley are can be approved for
• 9:46
  distilling and for brewing, right.
• 9:48
  And traditionally, however, spring barley has been the
• 9:52
  dominant barley varieties that have come from the spring crop
• 9:56
  that have been used for distillation, mainly around
• 10:00
  growing conditions around the UK, but also things that
• 10:02
  distillers are looking for like nitrogen levels.
• 10:04
  And we can talk about that later.
• 10:05
  But ultimately, you can use both.
• 10:09
  And actually, more distilling companies, particularly in
• 10:12
  Scotland, are opening their eyes to winter varieties.
• 10:16
  And the reason for that is they've realized and recognized
• 10:20
  that there's quite a bit of risk putting all your eggs in the
• 10:22
  spring crop basket. Yeah.
• 10:24
  And if there's a, you know, God forbid a harvest failure or we
• 10:27
  have a really weird weather pattern that really wrecks a
• 10:30
  spring crop, they and they still need malt.
• 10:33
  You know. Because this was perhaps my
• 10:35
  misconception was that spring barley was the superior product.
• 10:39
  Winter barley was correct not but I guess that's.
• 10:42
  Well it was inch derny, which really might because again
• 10:45
  traditionally I've always thought it was only spring
• 10:48
  barley that would be used. Yeah, this.
• 10:50
  And then I thought when? Sterny, when Scott sned and
• 10:52
  mentioned we use spring barley, winter barley, and then
• 10:56
  obviously they've got their oats and their other, other grains
• 10:59
  that they can use because they've got the mash filter.
• 11:01
  But that that is, I mean, when you talk about the the fact
• 11:05
  that, you know, whiskey's only made from three key ingredients,
• 11:08
  you know, now we're going to have to get someone from water
• 11:10
  and some yeast, by the way. You'd be surprised at how
• 11:16
  interesting that can be. But no, I'm.
• 11:20
  And I want to touch on something because he'll listen to this, is
• 11:23
  that I have a bone to pick with Scott Sneddon.
• 11:25
  OK. Because that's twice he's
• 11:27
  appeared on the pod. One of his own.
• 11:29
  Well, sorry, three times, actually.
• 11:30
  One of his own then when you just went to the distillery and
• 11:33
  appeared at the birthday bash, yes.
• 11:35
  Not once did he mention us? Not once.
• 11:38
  And I've dug him up for this. So when he listens, he'll go to
• 11:41
  a place that that that whole point around the winter and
• 11:47
  spring and in fairness to inch daily really where pioneers and
• 11:51
  flavour exploration because they want to leave no rock unturned.
• 11:54
  They want to see winter spring, they're looking at doing you
• 11:58
  said the oats. That was a print loss collection
• 12:00
  and and different things. I also got the Rylaw, which is
• 12:03
  available all from Fife to be happier.
• 12:05
  Fantastic. So we work very, you know,
• 12:07
  exclusively with Lynch Daily and we've been proud partners of the
• 12:10
  year since the beginning. And obviously our sustainability
• 12:13
  credentials, both of us are very closely aligned.
• 12:15
  So we're very, very big, you know, partners, very proud to
• 12:18
  supply them. But that's three times he's
• 12:20
  missed the opportunity to save. But we're proudly supported by
• 12:23
  Montons Malt. Not once.
• 12:24
  Today. Well, you've yeah, well, let's
• 12:25
  let's go back a bit, right. How do you end up, how do you
• 12:28
  end up as the headed distillery sales?
• 12:32
  How? What got you in?
• 12:33
  Right, well you'll love this. I was friendly with a
• 12:36
  recruitment agent who phoned and said, don't laugh at this, but
• 12:43
  there's a cracking job about to come up selling malt.
• 12:45
  And I went what, like vinegar? And he said no, you know, like
• 12:51
  he was like, no, you know, like malt as in like malt whiskey.
• 12:53
  And I went, oh, right, enough. OK.
• 12:56
  And it was originally to look after sacked malt sales into the
• 12:59
  craft brewing, you know, in 2015, sixteen real revolution in
• 13:03
  craft brewing. And it was to kind of look after
• 13:06
  that market and just in Scotland.
• 13:09
  And I went, well, that's interesting and something I've
• 13:12
  never done before. And I was in FMCG before.
• 13:14
  So it was a completely new kind of concert.
• 13:16
  And I went OK, and I went. FMCG, sorry.
• 13:20
  Fast moving consumer goods. So I was looking for Coca-Cola
• 13:22
  right effectively. So it was much more brand
• 13:27
  focused and rather than it was, it was very sort of B to C
• 13:30
  rather than that sort of business to business
• 13:33
  relationship. So what in turn happened was I
• 13:36
  went down for an interview and I remember walking at the
• 13:37
  Maltings, our head offices in Store Market in Suffolk.
• 13:40
  And I remember walking in going what the hell?
• 13:44
  You know, you just get these smells are like, and I thought,
• 13:47
  but it was quite old school, you know, it wasn't like a modern
• 13:50
  factory, like a refinery style or even like a modern brewery or
• 13:53
  distillery. It was a really old fashioned
• 13:55
  kind of building. And I remember kind of going,
• 13:58
  what the hell, tell them I get myself this is mad.
• 14:00
  Does it have a pagoda roof? No, because we don't have any
• 14:03
  floor maltings there, which are only really for floor maltings
• 14:07
  but have no or visitor centers. Or visitor centers, but I had to
• 14:10
  ask the copper. Capped ones.
• 14:12
  I had to ask the question. No, and it's good because I love
• 14:15
  the fact that the internationally recognized
• 14:16
  symbol for distilling is actually linked.
• 14:19
  To malting, yeah. So, so yeah.
• 14:22
  So I was lucky enough to be to get the job with Montons looking
• 14:27
  after the craft brewing. And the minute you enter, and
• 14:30
  you will all probably attest this the minute you enter this
• 14:32
  type of industry, that's it. Yeah, that's it.
• 14:34
  Just just you're in it for the. Long How long ago was?
• 14:37
  This I was 10 years ago. OK, well, so I moved into
• 14:41
  different things. So I looked after some of the
• 14:43
  larger scale breweries and national breweries.
• 14:46
  And then the big one for me was about two or three years in,
• 14:52
  they offer me the opportunity to go South of the border and look
• 14:55
  after brewing for sort of national and regional accounts
• 14:59
  in England. And I didn't realize, guys that
• 15:02
  Tenants isn't an internationally known brand.
• 15:05
  No. I thought tenant I was like,
• 15:07
  well, are the big the big battle here is going to be up against
• 15:11
  tenants and I've got folk like Shepherd name and Robinson's
• 15:15
  going who? So that was a real eye opener.
• 15:19
  And actually it was fabulous because I got to see cask beer,
• 15:25
  which isn't a thing up here, no. It's just, I mean, you're in a
• 15:27
  real pub right now. I'm no.
• 15:30
  It doesn't. It doesn't.
• 15:32
  But they do sell cask ale. And that was, it's great to kind
• 15:34
  of see that because it was something that being from
• 15:36
  Glasgow, she pointed out. Not something I was ever exposed
• 15:39
  to. Is a cask beer real ale, Yeah.
• 15:40
  So there was this. It was a different game South of
• 15:43
  the border. It's.
• 15:44
  Like a. Huge.
• 15:45
  Huge, like mild bitters, all these different things.
• 15:48
  Yeah, so I really had my eye open.
• 15:50
  But, and at this point, I'd like to, I'd hasten to add, I wasn't
• 15:54
  into whiskey at all. Right, Not my thing.
• 15:56
  My father, Big shout out to Adrian if he's listening.
• 16:00
  But my father was a single malt man, and he always told me that
• 16:04
  it was the best. And I thought, behave yourself.
• 16:06
  It's fire water. It's not for me.
• 16:08
  And I was in Elgin in a bar called the Mansfield Hotel,
• 16:13
  which I urge you to stay at. We plug in there, OK, If you're
• 16:18
  ever up space side, it's a fabulous hotel, great whiskey
• 16:20
  selection. And I was with my predecessor at
• 16:23
  the time and he said, let's, let's go into the whiskeys.
• 16:26
  And I went, Oh must, must we? And you have what you're talking
• 16:29
  about your dad. Again, I know, I know.
• 16:30
  Oh, God. And then one or two went past my
• 16:35
  nose. Yeah.
• 16:36
  And then there was one that I went whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 16:39
  Back up. And then a taste and then on
• 16:43
  further nose and then a bit of water and that just made it even
• 16:47
  more amazing. And I went, I just need left
• 16:49
  alone for a minute. And that with that moment and
• 16:53
  Elgin, the door to the whiskey world exploded open.
• 16:56
  And I just went. And from that point, in fairness
• 16:58
  to Montes, an incredible company, an incredible employer,
• 17:01
  I made my intentions quite clear that I wanted to be involved in
• 17:05
  the whiskey side. And I think you probably quite a
• 17:08
  patriot myself and you know, being from Scotland and I wanted
• 17:11
  to be more interested. Got involved with the Institute
• 17:13
  of Brewing and Distilling, which is quite, you know, well known
• 17:16
  in the industry for, you know, doing exams and learning a bit
• 17:19
  more about it. Got involved with them and
• 17:21
  really just wanted to keep going, keep going.
• 17:23
  So accelerating took a bit of a downturn obviously during COVID,
• 17:27
  but was still had to stay on and make sure the markets were OK.
• 17:31
  And then when we came out of COVID, my predecessor was due to
• 17:35
  retire, and I thought I would have the opportunity to apply
• 17:38
  for the role because I'd made it quite clear, yeah, I wanted to
• 17:41
  go down the distilling route for malt sales.
• 17:44
  And what ended up happening was I got a tap in the shoulder and
• 17:47
  offered it, which was, you know. You don't even have to rewrite
• 17:50
  your CV. No, exactly.
• 17:53
  And it was, I was really grateful to them and, you know,
• 17:57
  so it was a fabulous journey all the way through there.
• 18:00
  And then got the opportunity to start looking after the export
• 18:04
  markets now that yeah, wow, that is a different.
• 18:08
  I've got some questions about that.
• 18:09
  Yes. And so we, we are at Munton's,
• 18:13
  we, we have 3 malting sites. Well, sorry, two malting sites
• 18:17
  and a pitted kiln is a separate entity in the UK, but we also
• 18:20
  have a malt extract factory in Thailand right now.
• 18:24
  We also make malt extract in the UK as well.
• 18:26
  We've got malt extract is. Basically Marmite out of.
• 18:31
  Pretty much and no. Honestly, I'm absolutely
• 18:38
  disgusting I might add, but I mean.
• 18:40
  So I'm not fan, but no, not what I would say is malt extract is
• 18:45
  basically we've got one of the biggest Marsh tons in the UK,
• 18:47
  nothing new, is it? Right.
• 18:48
  And it's in our store market site and we take the war.
• 18:51
  And then what we're doing is evaporating it and making a
• 18:54
  condensed, you know, dried malt extracts, liquid malt extracts.
• 18:58
  And it's used primarily in the food sector.
• 19:01
  It's used in breads, flowers, confectionery.
• 19:04
  So it's a. Maltesers.
• 19:06
  I wonder who makes the middle of Maltesers?
• 19:09
  Oh. Really.
• 19:10
  Is that you? There you go.
• 19:12
  So it's a huge part of our business and we expanded that
• 19:16
  out into Thailand as well. But I didn't know about the
• 19:19
  whiskey side of things in the export markets and we now work
• 19:23
  with big customers in Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand.
• 19:30
  So that really and that got me to understand the export side of
• 19:33
  things which can be quite difficult particularly in like
• 19:35
  Chinese markets. We have to do with customs and
• 19:37
  things. So and that takes us up to about
• 19:42
  two years ago when. So that's the global bit.
• 19:44
  That was the Dash global bit that got added at that point.
• 19:48
  So for my sins, I get to kind of travel around and we look after
• 19:52
  all the markets and my colleague, there's only really,
• 19:56
  there's three of us in the team and we've got a guy who's come
• 20:00
  in who's looking after what I did primarily in the sack malt,
• 20:03
  the craft brewing. Yeah.
• 20:04
  And then my colleague looks after all brewing and I look
• 20:06
  after all the stuff. So yeah, get about a bit and
• 20:09
  then. So that's kind of been the
• 20:10
  journey with Montons and. I mean, when it comes to well,
• 20:16
  it was a few weeks ago we had the Pracan.
• 20:18
  Oh, Thai whiskey, Yeah. Which?
• 20:20
  Was lovely it was. Tremendous.
• 20:21
  Again, that was the question was, you know, they can't make.
• 20:25
  They can't grow barley and they can't grow barley.
• 20:26
  Down. So where do we get it from?
• 20:27
  They're getting it from, from, from Scotland.
• 20:30
  It's, it's Scottish barley that they're, they're using.
• 20:33
  So it's and you know, you go around the world, they'll be.
• 20:37
  I know when I was in Australia where I was working a wee bit
• 20:41
  with Bakery Hill out there and they, they're tiny, tiny
• 20:44
  production, but all they're, they do peated whiskey out there
• 20:47
  and it was all coming from, it was Aberdeen.
• 20:50
  Yeah, I wouldn't repeat. That's getting shipped off.
• 20:51
  From But were they sending the peat or were they actually
• 20:53
  sending the? No, they weren't.
• 20:54
  They were smoking the barley and then they were getting it
• 20:56
  shipped. Over because in India at Goa,
• 20:59
  yeah, they, they because they use they use six row barley out
• 21:04
  there. Yeah.
• 21:05
  So they'll they'll still use their six row barley as the
• 21:07
  malt, but they actually, they import the peat, the raw
• 21:12
  material, Yeah. And give it to their maltsters
• 21:14
  out in India and then they'll malt it.
• 21:15
  Malt. Maybe it was that way, I didn't
• 21:19
  ask the question, but I mean, they're on such a small scale.
• 21:21
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, unless they've got their
• 21:24
  own malting side of it, then they're probably asking for the
• 21:28
  malt that's already been peated. Yeah, yeah.
• 21:30
  And this is the thing with peated malts.
• 21:33
  And I love this part because nobody talks about it.
• 21:35
  And, you know, there's these two very different whiskeys in the
• 21:38
  market about peated malts and grain whiskeys and things.
• 21:42
  And then, you know, unpeated and effectively that section of the
• 21:47
  process, the kilming part, that's just because back in the
• 21:51
  day they had to have fuel. Sources.
• 21:53
  It was the raw material. So they were smoking and and you
• 21:57
  know, the reek, you know, they were billowing it up and that's
• 21:59
  where that flavour profiling came from, was the the kilning
• 22:03
  part of the process. And I just always find that
• 22:06
  funny when people talk about, oh, is it yeah, peated.
• 22:08
  Do you like, do you like a Le Freud?
• 22:09
  Do you like an art bed and stuff?
• 22:10
  But no one's really talking about where did that come?
• 22:13
  From well, I go with such a such a thing yeah like it's such a
• 22:16
  because again, there are people I mean we've had whiskey where
• 22:21
  it's an UN peated whiskey that's been matured in a former peated
• 22:25
  cast. Yes yeah, where you get
• 22:26
  something like that. We've had whiskey.
• 22:28
  Wisp of smoke. Yes, and we've had whiskey
• 22:30
  that's been matured in a Now what's that?
• 22:32
  Mezcal? Yeah, Mezcal, Cal Ask, is it
• 22:35
  there? But ultimately, yes, it's sort
• 22:38
  of just taken for granted that this is just a process for some
• 22:42
  of the top whiskey brands in the world.
• 22:44
  This is a. Simple thing like just using
• 22:47
  peat to kiln to dry. Dry your barley.
• 22:50
  Yeah, there's a good and I don't know if I'm 100% accurate on.
• 22:54
  Well I'm not 100% accurate on dates and stuff but fairly
• 22:58
  certain Glenfarcliffs like famously don't use any peat on
• 23:01
  their barley but I feel I think there was appeared in like
• 23:04
  either the 50s or the 60s when they were using peat on their to
• 23:07
  heat their stills now. We.
• 23:10
  May have to talk about that. Now we may have to talk about
• 23:12
  that. Very possibly.
• 23:14
  I do know that the dead stop peating, sorry, they stopped
• 23:19
  producing their own malt on site at Glenfarcliffs in the 1970s.
• 23:26
  So. But I do know that if you, if
• 23:28
  you're lucky enough to dive into some of the really old Glen
• 23:31
  fatness, yeah, you will actually get some smoke, some smoke going
• 23:35
  on due to the fuel source. Yeah, at the time it's very,
• 23:39
  very subtle. I mean, that's the one that
• 23:41
  jumped out at me just purely because it's so against what
• 23:44
  their stylist, but obviously turns it back, well, going back
• 23:46
  70 years, yeah, to people. Using, Well, well, go back to.
• 23:48
  What's the? What's the unpeated variation of
• 23:53
  our beg Killed killed? No, called art ends the That's
• 23:57
  just the independent stuff. No, there's an unpeated that
• 24:01
  goes all the way back to the cause.
• 24:03
  The malt came from Kirkcaldy and it was at the time, so Hiram
• 24:07
  Walker owned our Beg and our Beg famously had an absolutely
• 24:12
  horrendous maltings on site. You know, it was, it was just,
• 24:16
  it was a death trap. It was well behind time.
• 24:18
  It was terrible and Hiram Walker decided at the time because they
• 24:22
  owned our Beg Ballantines and Milton Duff Glenberg, etcetera.
• 24:27
  They closed it down and the mole things that they had was in
• 24:31
  Kirkcaldy, which was which there's a family connection
• 24:33
  which was Robert Kogaran Co Mall things, which was then purchased
• 24:36
  by Montons Montons in 2000 and. Early 2002.
• 24:42
  Yeah, I see. Right.
• 24:43
  Which we subsequently sold because a lot of the family the
• 24:49
  bugging. I know, I know.
• 24:50
  Excuse me. Excuse me.
• 24:54
  No, I think I'm. I know.
• 24:55
  It was sold in 2006 and I think that the the production was
• 25:00
  underwritten by quite long term agreements with distilling
• 25:03
  companies at the time. So it was kind of we could make
• 25:06
  it work at that point. But when those contracts came to
• 25:08
  an end and also you're pitting on site there and the locals in
• 25:13
  Kirkcaldy were not too happy, no, with the sort of.
• 25:17
  I'm only bastard. I feel they could have just.
• 25:20
  Got on there really for a period of time in our begs history
• 25:26
  because they had to close the mountains down to get a redone.
• 25:29
  And at that period of time the only mold things that Hiram
• 25:32
  Walker had was Kirkcaldy. So there was a large production
• 25:36
  of our beg that went and as unbeated they had enough and
• 25:41
  enough obviously fact dated stock to meet the supply demand
• 25:43
  for for making, you know, for what they use for Valentine's
• 25:46
  and for all the other for selling off to other blenders
• 25:48
  blends. But at the same time, there are
• 25:50
  releases which are quite expensive because it's like the
• 25:52
  few releases that you'll ever get from that distillery that
• 25:55
  kill Dalton or something, I think.
• 25:56
  It's but isn't, It's interesting to talk about that because
• 25:58
  there's clearly been over the last 100 years, there's really
• 26:00
  been a big change in the whiskey industry because if you go to
• 26:03
  any distillerator of an old distillery, you will go and
• 26:06
  there'll be, maybe there will be an old building that will have
• 26:10
  the normally that'll be the old. Windows get away because they're
• 26:13
  always in a line and they're not always on floor.
• 26:16
  On a normal level, it's where you think they would be.
• 26:19
  So there is a history there because there were not
• 26:21
  commercial maltsters, No. Yeah, you know.
• 26:24
  So every distillery was producing their own malt and
• 26:27
  that, but there was clearly at some point there was a change,
• 26:30
  or not at some point, but over the beast.
• 26:32
  It was. It was.
• 26:33
  These were got closed down probably due to economic
• 26:36
  reasons. Yeah, economic, centralized,
• 26:38
  centralized Malta. Absolutely and then when you
• 26:41
  know so for ourselves, give an example.
• 26:43
  We were very much, and so we were formed in 1921, but we were
• 26:47
  very much in the, the food sector for, for more extracts
• 26:50
  and things. And it was, you know, you know,
• 26:53
  Munton, Munton and Fison was the name of the company at the time.
• 26:55
  And the, the, so it was a kind of diversive, it would diversify
• 26:59
  quite a bit and moving into just commercial malting and it's just
• 27:02
  over time we're distillers when we have to hire a whole
• 27:06
  workforce and also. It was a very for them.
• 27:09
  I mean, if you're talking about the old floor malting floor
• 27:11
  maltings, it's Labour intense. It's a great story and it's a
• 27:15
  fabulous thing, but it's lacks efficiency and also at the end
• 27:20
  of the day quality was incredibly hard to control.
• 27:22
  Whereas with the invention of different malting processes like
• 27:25
  the Saladin box for germination and things like that won't went
• 27:28
  too much detail. There's lots of different drum,
• 27:30
  drum maltings and tower maltings, lots of different ways
• 27:33
  where you could produce malt or malt your barley in a more
• 27:36
  efficient manner and it also made it more cost effective to
• 27:39
  the distillery and the brewery. Well, there's economies of scale
• 27:42
  at work that wasn't there. So if you're producing the.
• 27:44
  Physical damage as well, Monkey shoulder and all these kind.
• 27:47
  Of monkey shoulder, so that yeah, I think it was.
• 27:50
  Inhalation of green and all that kind of stuff.
• 27:52
  Yeah. Dust, Dust, Yeah.
• 27:53
  Now what I take. Well, I take it at Muntings
• 27:56
  then, yeah. Muntings.
• 27:57
  Muntings sorry, thank. You God one not getting briefed.
• 28:01
  No, I know. Those were those were Marmite
• 28:03
  comes. From and getting Maltesers.
• 28:06
  I take it it's not a particularly labour intensive,
• 28:10
  it's a very efficient, it's all automatic.
• 28:12
  Yeah, it's not now. It's not now.
• 28:14
  And in fairness to a few of our competitors who still retain one
• 28:19
  or two floor maltings, which is a great story and a great thing
• 28:22
  to have. And I hope that they never
• 28:23
  closed them, because it's a great thing to have.
• 28:26
  It's like a living history type. Thing it is, it's a working
• 28:28
  museum which fits perfectly in with distilleries, particularly
• 28:32
  some of the the old school distilleries that we get up
• 28:34
  here. But no, nowadays everything's
• 28:37
  scatter systems and, you know, automated.
• 28:39
  But, and this is a big but and it needs to be said, there is an
• 28:43
  element of craft involved with malting.
• 28:46
  You cannot just get anyone to go push a button and off it goes.
• 28:50
  There's an element of control and checking the quality, making
• 28:54
  sure that the malt is being modified in the right way, the
• 28:57
  whole finger, the thumb test, making sure that everything is
• 29:01
  modified in the right way. This is a skill, and it's a
• 29:04
  skill that sadly there's going to be gaps appearing.
• 29:07
  And because nobody, as my old boss used to say to me, nobody
• 29:10
  leaves school and says I want to be a malt stuff.
• 29:12
  Yeah, because you'll have to have, you know, you'll have to
• 29:14
  have laboratories, correct, You know, all that kind of stuff.
• 29:18
  Because I used to meet guys that worked for the family business
• 29:22
  and I'd speak to them and all right, there was the warehousing
• 29:24
  side, there was a turn in the floor side, there was the
• 29:27
  operational side and stuff like that.
• 29:28
  But then you speak to someone and say, I'll left school and I
• 29:31
  got a job in a laboratory and they were like, I didn't do any
• 29:33
  signs at school or anything like that, but basically.
• 29:36
  And it was like somebody else has taught me because there's
• 29:38
  elements. And you're talking about the
• 29:39
  finger and thumb test because the one of the other tests they
• 29:42
  always talk about is maybe running it down the side of the.
• 29:43
  Side. Yeah, a bit of a like.
• 29:46
  A chalk, so the finger and thumbs that they just kind of
• 29:49
  nip the end off of the barley grain and they'll squeeze out
• 29:53
  the the endosperm, which is the sort of the grey bit on the
• 29:55
  inside, which is where all the the, the the starch is.
• 29:59
  And then they'll just run it in between the finger and the
• 30:01
  thumb. And you want an ice creamy line.
• 30:03
  And that's an indication of how well modified it is because
• 30:06
  ultimately we're trying to make it as easy for the distillers to
• 30:09
  extract the sugars or can you know so that that's the thing
• 30:13
  that they're looking for. So that is a skill set that
• 30:16
  still cannot be replicated and there's an element a craft
• 30:19
  there. So we're very, and we're lucky
• 30:22
  enough to, we've actually got 3 master maltsters at work at
• 30:25
  Montons and it's a very sought after skill set because not
• 30:31
  everyone can do it. So and it fits nicely into that
• 30:33
  distilling side where can you just bring anybody in to push a
• 30:37
  button and they produce spirit. No, there's an element of.
• 30:39
  Experience you're 3 sites, they're all down in.
• 30:42
  They're all down South, yeah. So that's the elephant in the
• 30:44
  room, right, Because people that listen to this going hang on a
• 30:47
  minute. How can you have a moltings and
• 30:49
  supplies to Scotch whiskey industry and they've not got a
• 30:52
  single location up here in Scotland.
• 30:56
  Yes. So is it you, you mentioned that
• 30:58
  malt from all over the UK? LA Yes.
• 31:02
  People will be listening to this, spitting out their drums,
• 31:04
  going what, it's not got pure 100% Scottish molted ballet in
• 31:09
  my drum. Or is there a case where they
• 31:11
  can do? Both they would be correct, not
• 31:14
  all the time. So we are not something that we
• 31:18
  hideaway from. When we closed Kirkcaldy in 2006
• 31:21
  that ended our production site. The town of them Fairman was not
• 31:27
  pleased that ended our production sites in Scotland.
• 31:33
  Sure. Now we since then have looked at
• 31:38
  revisiting production in Scotland.
• 31:40
  And we went to our customer base.
• 31:42
  And this is the point you made them about where the barley
• 31:45
  comes from. And we, we supply quite a large
• 31:48
  portion of the Scotch whiskey industry and from small up to
• 31:52
  the sort of, you know, large guys.
• 31:55
  And we went to them all and said, would you like us if we
• 31:57
  were to invest in capacity? Would you like us to go into
• 32:00
  Scotland? Yeah.
• 32:01
  And 95% of them said no. Just doesn't.
• 32:04
  Matter because it's not about where the maltings is, it's
• 32:08
  about where the barley is. Now we work with numerous
• 32:12
  farmers and merchants in Scotland.
• 32:14
  We have customers that demand Scottish only and that comes in
• 32:17
  both domestic and export I might add.
• 32:19
  So there is still that demand for Scottish provenance, which
• 32:22
  is great and that we will do. We will segregate and supply to
• 32:26
  spec. However, when you look at the
• 32:28
  likes of where our Bridlington maltings is in Yorkshire, we are
• 32:34
  surrounded by the Yorkshire walls which is prime malting
• 32:38
  barley country where you know it's got great drainage in the
• 32:42
  wet years, it's got a good buffer for moisture in the dry
• 32:45
  years and 99 years out of 100 is going to produce an excellent
• 32:50
  malting barley crop. Similarly, when you go South of
• 32:54
  the wash into Suffolk, where Stow Market Maltings is, you are
• 32:58
  surrounded by Primo. You said that the company has
• 33:00
  been going what's in 1920s, nineteen 21, so there's reasons
• 33:03
  why these facilities have been built in these areas because
• 33:05
  they'll be built in rich barley. Correct.
• 33:08
  It was not a coincidence. Yeah.
• 33:09
  So and our repeated site is actually just about 25 miles
• 33:15
  inland of our Bridlington maltings.
• 33:16
  And all we really do there is we steep the barley, germinate it
• 33:20
  and then transfer it to our peated kiln for for peating
• 33:24
  because we don't want any taint or any cross contamination.
• 33:26
  And you import barley from abroad?
• 33:28
  Or is it all UK? All UK.
• 33:30
  All the barley that we use is from the UK.
• 33:32
  Right. So when it comes to then, right,
• 33:35
  two things here. Number one, albeit I'm drinking
• 33:37
  a DRAM that has it on the bottle, right, But I reckon with
• 33:40
  all all the bottles that we've got behind us, with the
• 33:42
  exception of the R and 10, but heritage barley, what have you.
• 33:47
  How many bottles do you think I have all the ranges of bottles
• 33:50
  that we can see the state in the provenance.
• 33:52
  We can actually look and see 100% Scottish barley on it.
• 33:55
  But you'd be able to tell us from some of these a good trunk
• 33:59
  of the bottles. You can say we supply them.
• 34:02
  They use Scottish only. We supply them.
• 34:04
  They we know they do because we've got their, we know their
• 34:06
  specs. So there are a lot of
• 34:08
  distilleries that are saying still has to be 100% Scottish
• 34:11
  barley, but at the same time they're not singing or shouting
• 34:14
  about. That correct and it's a real
• 34:17
  frustration for all maltsters that one because there are those
• 34:20
  that do for example, certain Fife distillery that we talked
• 34:24
  about earlier on are screaming from the rooftops that they're
• 34:27
  very proud about Fife grown, Fife distilled Fife matured, not
• 34:32
  Fife malted no, but just give me a break but so that is exactly
• 34:39
  what we would expect There are other distilling customers that
• 34:43
  I have that demand Scottish provenance and you have no
• 34:47
  mention of it on the label no mention of it on the website no
• 34:50
  mention of it and it's historic from supporting Scottish farmers
• 34:55
  and supporting the merchants. So there was a bit of me and one
• 34:59
  in particular which I will not name where I said, look, you
• 35:03
  know, there's a, there's, you know, there's premium here
• 35:05
  because there's segregation costs and things like.
• 35:07
  That well that costs more for the yes, yes, we can either give
• 35:11
  you a mix of barley that's come from here there and everywhere
• 35:14
  and it's all going to be molded in the same place.
• 35:16
  It's all going to be molded at the exact same standards.
• 35:19
  Or we'll have to then take the barley that you've either
• 35:22
  sourced or we'll source for you, but we have to keep a warehouse
• 35:26
  2 warehouses or however many warehouses.
• 35:27
  It's just. Bins in it.
• 35:29
  Yeah, and just yeah. And we explain where the costs
• 35:34
  come from. And it's not just that Scottish
• 35:36
  malt stores might be able to trim those costs because there's
• 35:38
  still segregation costs that involved.
• 35:40
  We have to keep it separate and make sure that it's 100%.
• 35:43
  And we're and there was one and protect.
• 35:45
  I said, look, you're not talking about it.
• 35:47
  You're not. And I said, why don't you, I'm
• 35:50
  doing you a favour here. Why don't you look at just pot
• 35:53
  still malt and it's all approved varieties and it's from the UK.
• 35:56
  There might be some Scottish in there, but if you're not talking
• 35:58
  about it, what does it matter? And the head of distilleries at
• 36:02
  the time went, you've got a point and looked at it and we
• 36:05
  worked all the commercials out and he went, OK, as of next
• 36:07
  growing season, just have us on standard.
• 36:11
  I then took a phone call about 6:30 on a Friday night from a
• 36:14
  very panicked individual who said everything we've just
• 36:17
  discussed, reverse it really go back, I says, well, what
• 36:21
  happened? Marketing found out.
• 36:24
  Yeah, well, they've got a bloody cheek because they're not
• 36:26
  telling MD about it. I.
• 36:27
  Suppose being able to just know. Exactly what I and he didn't
• 36:32
  realise at the time was there was a portfolio to all these
• 36:36
  brand ambassadors going out globally for these single malts
• 36:40
  that state Scottish barley 100% so I went.
• 36:46
  And there's also an element of support in the fact like you
• 36:48
  know, when you when you look it up here and you say that if, if,
• 36:52
  if there are farmers, I mean, you do.
• 36:54
  Get that with, I know like Ben Romac and stuff that they show.
• 36:57
  They show like the fields and stuff that they use for their
• 37:00
  organic barley. And stuff, right?
• 37:01
  Yeah, but. One of the questions I wanted to
• 37:03
  ask really is unfortunately from a malt, from a malter's
• 37:07
  perspective, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you go on any tour at least
• 37:11
  maybe 10 years ago, I think it is changing.
• 37:14
  These days. You go on any tour, the first
• 37:16
  thing you're going to get from a lot of people when you do a tour
• 37:19
  is the barley doesn't matter. We are using that for a source
• 37:22
  of sugar and it doesn't really matter.
• 37:24
  And and it was the same with yeast.
• 37:26
  And it does seem people have gone full circle and they are
• 37:29
  focusing on these things a lot more often.
• 37:31
  You're seeing distilleries like Dornak are using heritage bar
• 37:35
  bar varieties. Golden Promise has become much
• 37:38
  more focal point in people talking about that like.
• 37:42
  Well, The thing is with. The Berry.
• 37:43
  But they're Berry and local Barleys and these kind of
• 37:46
  things. I'm wondering from your
• 37:49
  portfolio or from working with it, how much of it is now
• 37:52
  focused on individual varietals or is it becoming more that way?
• 37:57
  Fabulous question because it divides so many different
• 38:00
  opinions. There are a lot of the industry
• 38:05
  that says, is it an approved barley variety for malt
• 38:08
  distilling or grain distilling? Yes, OK.
• 38:12
  And that's fine. Yeah.
• 38:14
  Then there are those that are looking at it.
• 38:16
  Now what we're really doing here is we're moving into the region
• 38:20
  of terroir. Terroir.
• 38:23
  And we are not just where the barley's growing, which is the
• 38:26
  terroir, but also the barley varieties.
• 38:28
  Yeah. And it's really tricky.
• 38:31
  And I, I should have said at the beginning of the pod, all views
• 38:35
  are my own, but I would say that some of my favorite whiskeys
• 38:44
  have come from different varieties of, of barley And as
• 38:48
  long as it's within a the standard, the required
• 38:50
  specification for the distiller. However, the master blenders who
• 38:55
  have got trained and insured noses far more qualified than I,
• 39:00
  who are able to detect subtle changes and new make spirit from
• 39:05
  barley varieties is something that I will never understand.
• 39:08
  Right. OK.
• 39:09
  And I, I understand to the point where they'll say their job is a
• 39:15
  blender and you've had many of them on your podcast, they would
• 39:19
  say their job is to ensure consistency every time the last
• 39:23
  bottle tastes as good as the next one and the next one.
• 39:27
  So I understand there's a real reticence about change in
• 39:32
  things. However, what we have to
• 39:34
  recognise is that barley varieties, particularly in the
• 39:36
  UK, have a life cycle. Yeah, they start to in the
• 39:39
  agronomic yield starts to fall away.
• 39:41
  Therefore something else comes through.
• 39:43
  So it's not as if we've had individual barley varieties
• 39:46
  forever in a day. There are some that have stood
• 39:48
  the test of time and there are some master blenders that will
• 39:51
  argue the point that if you change the variety, there might
• 39:54
  be a subtle change in the new make, spirit, character or
• 39:57
  profile. Now where?
• 40:00
  Whiskey geek and consumer like us would argue as that's
• 40:05
  detectable to the naughty point. Naughty, naughty, naughty,
• 40:07
  naughty. 1% of people, you know, your, your standard consumer
• 40:12
  will not be able to detect after a barley variety has been
• 40:16
  screened, steeped, germinated, kilned, transferred for storage,
• 40:26
  mashed, sorry. Milled, then mashed, then
• 40:30
  fermented. Yeah.
• 40:31
  Then distilled. OK, Then matured for up to 18
• 40:35
  years and a fresh Olaroso casheri cask.
• 40:38
  Are you going to tell me that the general consumer could sit
• 40:40
  in the bar upstairs and go? Well, that was Laureate.
• 40:43
  Yeah. No, I think that was Firefox.
• 40:45
  Yeah, I would argue that point. Yeah.
• 40:47
  So Chuck, the question you've asked is going to be very
• 40:49
  divisive and I think it will stand the test of time.
• 40:53
  People will talk about it forever, but I'm glad people are
• 40:56
  talking. About, I think I think like we,
• 40:58
  we've talked so much about on this podcast that we like people
• 41:01
  in the whiskey industry that have been here that have been in
• 41:03
  it for over 20 years versus where we are now.
• 41:06
  And like we live in the world of information.
• 41:08
  Like everyone wants to find out as much information as possible
• 41:10
  and all ads. And again, from a marketing
• 41:12
  perspective, it's something else to tell a story.
• 41:15
  What I would say from a cynics point of view is any time you go
• 41:17
  to a new distillery, that's the big story point that they've
• 41:21
  got. They don't have the heritage of
• 41:23
  the history to talk about. We've got 200 years of history.
• 41:26
  And this is what the distillery used to be like goes all the way
• 41:28
  back to illicit distilling or the monks or all that.
• 41:30
  So what they have to say, like we went up to when we went to
• 41:35
  Portly Distillery, for example, sure the big chat was all about
• 41:38
  yeast. It was all about yeast and where
• 41:40
  they get the barley. But it was all about and it was
• 41:42
  giving them and and yeah, sure, some people might go.
• 41:47
  I'm really interested in the East.
• 41:48
  But at the same time, and it's difficult because when they're
• 41:51
  doing these tastes, when they're doing these conversations, they
• 41:53
  all they can do at the end of it is give you some new make and
• 41:55
  say, see what our new makes. Like you can really taste the
• 41:58
  difference or you want holy rood distillery that are playing
• 42:00
  around more different yeast. Formats, I argue with Hollywood,
• 42:03
  it is fundamentally obvious. They've done a fantastic job of
• 42:06
  showing that. Sure.
• 42:08
  But I mean, with Varley, I mean, I remember Dave Brim spoke about
• 42:13
  it before where it's like super modern varietals are really
• 42:17
  about producing as much sugar as possible.
• 42:20
  Really. Yeah.
• 42:21
  So. You're getting a lot more
• 42:22
  alcohol, absolutely. So this is the thing that maybe
• 42:25
  a lot of your listener base might not know.
• 42:27
  And it's maybe not even something that when you've done
• 42:29
  your tours around that people talk about is what is it that
• 42:33
  the distillers are looking for? What's important to them?
• 42:36
  So we want to produce within a specification and there's lots
• 42:40
  of parameters that get really technical and people far
• 42:44
  cleverer than I can understand what that does to the process.
• 42:47
  However, it really effects 2 main things.
• 42:50
  The efficiency of how efficient the malt is being processed
• 42:53
  through a distillery. But the biggie is a thing called
• 42:58
  psy. Every distiller listening psy,
• 43:01
  which stands for Predicted Spirit yield.
• 43:03
  That's the. Magic.
• 43:04
  I thought that. Was what I put in my tires.
• 43:06
  PS. As so they're looking for how
• 43:12
  many liters of alcohol per ton of malt now the bit that.
• 43:17
  Is more economic? Is there are economic sum that
• 43:21
  this will give me this amount of alcohol?
• 43:23
  Correct price. Exactly.
• 43:24
  And then they can do their calculation to do their cost of
• 43:26
  goods based on that. Now what they will have is they
• 43:29
  would expect a certificate of analysis to come through at a
• 43:32
  certain level. The keyword for us there is
• 43:34
  predicted Okay however. The monsters get.
• 43:39
  It Oh yeah and it's brilliant by the way, because see when
• 43:43
  distillers call me and they go now now the this isn't hitting
• 43:47
  the the spirit yield and David, I'm not happy and standing right
• 43:51
  OK. And you know there's like I
• 43:53
  said, well wouldn't do we need to talk about price there
• 43:55
  because we're not getting inspect I mean, so see if I
• 43:57
  achieve more than that, can I put the price up?
• 44:00
  No, I can't, right. So and I always find that a
• 44:04
  funny argument. However, they do have, like you
• 44:06
  said, those, those costs to factor in.
• 44:08
  So what they'll do is they'll take from our certificate
• 44:11
  analysis what the predicted spirit yield States and they'll
• 44:15
  know that through their process and through their efficiencies,
• 44:18
  it can vary from every distillery what they are ASI or
• 44:22
  actual spirit yield will be when it falls below that.
• 44:27
  I got a phone call. Funny enough, my phone doesn't
• 44:30
  ring when it goes above that. Yeah.
• 44:31
  Yeah. But I don't care for them.
• 44:34
  That's strange. But so that is really what's
• 44:38
  important. So when you look at, you know,
• 44:41
  super efficient, modern, if you, I mean, the one to talk about
• 44:45
  really is if you get a chance to go to government.
• 44:46
  Have you been to government? Not.
• 44:49
  Yet, right, You get down to government and go and see Elsa
• 44:51
  Bay. Yeah, right.
• 44:53
  We're talking efficiency to the Max here, like there's nothing
• 44:57
  lost in there and their negotiations on spec are always
• 45:00
  dead interesting. And because we've never seen
• 45:02
  anyone achieve that close to what what it could actually be.
• 45:06
  I mean, it's incredible and absolutely first class, but then
• 45:09
  you get other distilleries who have been mentioned loads on the
• 45:12
  pod where they just can't, doesn't matter.
• 45:15
  You can have rocket fuel molt and they just really struggle
• 45:18
  just with their processes to squeeze every last litre out.
• 45:22
  Of it and and this is maybe where we talk about some
• 45:24
  distilleries that are, you know, like you said, also being
• 45:26
  they're set up for efficiency. Other distilleries, maybe ones
• 45:31
  I've been around for 100 years or so, they're set up because
• 45:34
  that's how they've been. Server stills are a bit wider at
• 45:36
  the bottom, yeah, but then the problem is like everything.
• 45:38
  You can't change. Well, this is it.
• 45:39
  This is the problem with them all.
• 45:41
  You can't change. You know, if you replace that,
• 45:42
  still you have to replace it like for like because otherwise
• 45:45
  it's what is that effect going to have on the final?
• 45:48
  Exactly. And I love that.
• 45:49
  I love the fact that every wee dent and A and a still needs to
• 45:52
  be replicated and that and that's and.
• 45:54
  It's the same with barley, right?
• 45:55
  Like what you're saying like? Yeah, back to that.
• 45:58
  We've used Golden Promise for so many years.
• 46:00
  We need to to keep using. That absolutely right on the
• 46:02
  other side then because it's yield both ways, isn't it?
• 46:05
  Because when you're buying it off the farmers, yes, and it's
• 46:07
  the farmers are looking to try and get from what?
• 46:09
  An agonomic yield. Yeah, an argument.
• 46:11
  Yeah. So when they're trying to work
• 46:12
  out, the farmers try to work out.
• 46:15
  I've got to try and get from you've watched Clarkson's farm,
• 46:19
  right? And you see what he's doing and.
• 46:21
  Somebody said he's done more for the farming community than the
• 46:25
  National Farmers Union have done in 40 years.
• 46:27
  Yeah. I gotta say, I was working on
• 46:29
  the farm when season 1 came out and never felt so seen.
• 46:32
  Like yeah, his. Struggle.
• 46:34
  His struggle to get water on for sheep brother.
• 46:41
  If you were born further down South, you would have just been
• 46:43
  Caleb just being the grumpy guy. Like all my all, all the people
• 46:49
  who lived on the cottage of the farm, they would like like 25
• 46:53
  times a day all you'd hear is me screaming like as the line, but.
• 46:56
  That's the other thing. There'll be variety, and we've
• 47:00
  talked a lot about varieties. We talked about it with Tam
• 47:03
  Cuthbert when we did the Aberragi.
• 47:07
  Lauria and Golden promised 2 varietals.
• 47:09
  And one of the things we were saying is that you'll maybe be
• 47:13
  able to help me with this, David, is the fact that one
• 47:15
  variety the distillers absolutely love but the farmers
• 47:19
  hate. And then there's another variety
• 47:20
  that the farmers prefer, but the distillers don't use it as
• 47:23
  often. And it's like, if only they can
• 47:25
  match that up and there'll be other varieties that are in
• 47:28
  that. I would say, I would say so if
• 47:30
  you take Laureate, which is for the listeners that don't know is
• 47:34
  the dominant spring crop variety of malting barley in the UK,
• 47:37
  that's what we. So Laureate has done, against
• 47:41
  all the odds, done very, very well and outlasted a lot of
• 47:44
  spring crop varieties because it does exactly what you said,
• 47:48
  makes everybody happy. The agronomic yield is good.
• 47:51
  So the farmers are quite happy. They're getting X amount of tons
• 47:53
  per hectare or per acre. Yeah, the maltsters are quite
• 47:56
  happy because there's less rejections.
• 47:58
  It's it's a good healthy barley variety and it malts
• 48:01
  particularly well. And we can get it through and
• 48:03
  get a spec in and the distillers like it because it produces what
• 48:06
  they need in their Psys and everything else.
• 48:09
  So keeping everyone happy, those that dictate the barley variety,
• 48:15
  it's a bit trickier there because they.
• 48:17
  Dictate as in those as in farmers or as in distillers?
• 48:20
  Distillers, right? I've said that we want a golden
• 48:23
  promise, so we want. And that's interesting because
• 48:25
  there's a chain there. So I mean, the distillers are
• 48:27
  saying to you, I want golden promise, Yes.
• 48:30
  Do you then have to go to farmers and say you need to grow
• 48:33
  golden promise or it would be nice if you need golden promise?
• 48:35
  What I'll do is I'll use a different example because golden
• 48:38
  promise. Well, yeah, it's actually a
• 48:40
  variety owned by a another seed merchant.
• 48:43
  So I'll I'll move out a body swear.
• 48:45
  Well, maybe come back to them so.
• 48:47
  Just, well, that's like. Berry, Berry.
• 48:51
  Or like BERE. Oh yeah.
• 48:53
  Bear, bear, bear. Yeah.
• 48:55
  So there's there's varieties like that.
• 48:57
  There's also heritage ones that have been brought, Yeah.
• 48:59
  Wait, so someone's someone's someone's TM D and copyrighted
• 49:03
  and owns barley variety? I've got really now.
• 49:05
  We're not going to. We're going to mention their
• 49:06
  name. Short answer there is yes.
• 49:10
  I had a conversation with I think was the first taste in
• 49:14
  that the Daft Mall guys did. Oh yeah.
• 49:15
  And I was talking to him and he grows A barley varietal for a
• 49:19
  company that has the rights to that thing.
• 49:22
  And I was like, how is it? He's like shite?
• 49:26
  I was like. I think the the yields are bad,
• 49:29
  but and they only I think it was only maybe a very.
• 49:31
  Small person and that's the thing.
• 49:33
  That's The thing is that when you're when distillers start to
• 49:36
  dictate barley varieties and this is where all views on my
• 49:40
  own when I think that you leave it to the maltsters, leave it to
• 49:45
  us, that's our job. We get it to you in spec let
• 49:48
  just as long as it's an approved variety.
• 49:50
  We're not using some wild and wacky thing that as long as it's
• 49:53
  an approved variety and we are sourcing it through the correct
• 49:57
  channels through merchants and things, let us handle.
• 50:00
  It that's what we need to we need to come up with our own
• 50:03
  variety. That's a brilliant 1.
• 50:06
  Feels great on fire. I mean, if you can, if you can.
• 50:11
  I mean, we've, we've talked about the birds.
• 50:13
  I've got hassle free variety. But we've got.
• 50:15
  Funky colour. What would we call?
• 50:18
  What would we call? Our variety Hassle free, hassle
• 50:22
  free. Hassle free buy.
• 50:24
  Current variety current. Barley we've.
• 50:28
  Got a current? Variety.
• 50:30
  Because I mean, like it goes the Burnside tobacco that keeps
• 50:34
  going on and on and on. Yeah, the fact that a bottler
• 50:37
  can suddenly say, well, we TM Burnside is a branding.
• 50:40
  So that's it. So anyone that brings it out.
• 50:42
  So could somebody do what other independent bottlers have done
• 50:46
  and come out with a promised gold?
• 50:50
  What I would see about about that is that there is and this
• 50:56
  is the bit that of the industry that nobody gets to see.
• 50:59
  No one sees. This is the amount of work done
• 51:02
  by barley breeders. Yeah, right.
• 51:04
  And all these guys that are trying.
• 51:07
  To figure out the right music. It takes he's already mentioned
• 51:10
  semen on the. Indoors, something he didn't
• 51:13
  mention the. Spell.
• 51:14
  Didn't mention semen, he mentioned endo spell.
• 51:17
  You're the one with their mind in the gutter.
• 51:18
  This is your. Something somebody goes.
• 51:23
  I made eye contact with Graham. When you said that.
• 51:26
  And space for sweat. Sweat.
• 51:32
  I was doing every impossible not to make right so.
• 51:40
  First and foremost, varieties. So there is a variety that one
• 51:44
  particular monster has decided that is we own that and that's
• 51:47
  there. So only farmers so they can ask.
• 51:49
  So first of all, if a, if a distiller wants to grow it wants
• 51:53
  to use that grain, they have to go through that, that monster.
• 51:56
  That monster will then have to dictate to those farmers to say
• 51:59
  if you grow this, we'll buy it off and that's good.
• 52:02
  And that's where, you know, when the risk comes for the farmer,
• 52:05
  where there's an agronomic risk, OK, There has to be all the way
• 52:10
  through the supply chain from distiller to maltster, through
• 52:13
  merchant. Let's not forget them.
• 52:15
  And then the farmer, there has to be an element of choose the
• 52:19
  word carefully or comfort, which is you put the arm around and
• 52:23
  go, we'll buy it, right? And it has to be because,
• 52:27
  because a farmer within his right can turn around and go,
• 52:29
  why would it grow that? Well, because The thing is, they
• 52:31
  all. Grow wheat or something.
• 52:32
  The farmers are, the farmers are always at the mercy because the
• 52:36
  farmer could always be told there's so many screens that
• 52:39
  you've mentioned screens and checks.
• 52:41
  Yep. Now, first of all, you know, the
• 52:44
  price of barley can be dictated on how much of it's available at
• 52:47
  the time. Yep, you know, and things like
• 52:49
  that. So suddenly stress.
• 52:50
  Component when it comes from a farmer's perspective, it's like
• 52:53
  massive. You mean either you can choose
• 52:55
  to sell before it's cultivated and get probably a lower price,
• 53:00
  or hopes that would? So you can lock in pricing, so
• 53:02
  you can look at the pricing before you.
• 53:03
  So I can be a merchant and say, let's just for argument's sake,
• 53:06
  I'll give you £150 a ton right now on all your.
• 53:10
  But that's it. And we're buying as is.
• 53:12
  Yeah. Now that you might have a great
• 53:14
  spring, you might have a great summer and suddenly you're here
• 53:17
  in the farm next door held off and they're getting £250.
• 53:20
  Something might have. Happened.
• 53:22
  I mean if you're into. Also, you could say I'll sell
• 53:25
  you 200 tons for that price and then all your fields get
• 53:28
  flattened and you don't have. That and you get your money.
• 53:31
  You get your money. And that's why merchants are
• 53:33
  incredibly important to the malts, the maltsters, because if
• 53:37
  we went direct to you as a farmer, and that happens, yeah,
• 53:40
  you can't just magic up another 200 tons of barley and
• 53:44
  everywhere. Whereas when we go to merchants,
• 53:46
  there's an element of if you bought a volume, it's your job
• 53:51
  to guarantee that volume. So if one of your farmers has a
• 53:57
  crop failure, you need to pivot and find that else because we've
• 53:59
  got a contract you not with the farmer.
• 54:02
  So there's that element to it as well.
• 54:03
  And how difficult does that become then?
• 54:05
  Because, you know, we you do, we don't hear about it an awful lot
• 54:08
  from, from the guys in production, but I'm pretty sure
• 54:12
  a poor harvest or a bad summer, bad weather can dictate the
• 54:17
  yields that a farmer is going to connect.
• 54:19
  It can also deal the quality of everything that you're getting.
• 54:23
  Yep. So that gets knocked on as well
• 54:25
  on the production line. And that will affect
• 54:27
  distillation? Well, yeah, surely.
• 54:29
  So I'm going to use this year as an example because it's a good
• 54:33
  example. 2025 crop Spring crop. OK, so harvested in August,
• 54:40
  September. So we had a very, very dry
• 54:42
  spring. In the summer, correct.
• 54:44
  So see when everybody was sitting in the back garden with
• 54:46
  a pint going, this is great. I'm just kind of like, oh.
• 54:49
  You're doing your rain dance. What is that?
• 54:52
  My dad was so relaxed as he is now retiring.
• 54:54
  Yes. He doesn't care.
• 54:57
  Because he's going out of here. That's the virus so far, man.
• 55:00
  Yeah. To be very he thinks he's the
• 55:01
  most chill man of all time. And you asked him about I was
• 55:04
  talking about golden promise and how my dad hated it and I got
• 55:07
  dinner with him like last month and I was like gold promise pain
• 55:10
  in the ass, right? It's like, no, it's not like I
• 55:13
  didn't really like it much, but you know, it's fine.
• 55:16
  He's. A change man change man.
• 55:17
  He just. Forgets what he.
• 55:18
  Just forgets. Yeah, forgets the pace.
• 55:20
  But but so whilst whilst these, so whilst these, so whilst these
• 55:24
  great summers are happening, you know this is a detrimental
• 55:27
  effect on I mean this is where the phrase today's rains,
• 55:30
  tomorrow's whiskey. That's it.
• 55:32
  Because so on the 25 crop it was really dry, which means that the
• 55:36
  the crop wasn't going to. Yield.
• 55:38
  Yields are lower, but also there's one element 1 parameter
• 55:42
  in the spec that that really increases and that's nitrogen.
• 55:45
  Now that has a direct impact on the protein and I don't want to
• 55:48
  get too boring about it, but that has an impact on the
• 55:50
  molting process and eventually the distilling and it'll impact
• 55:55
  PSY, which. Is the whole.
• 55:56
  Thing right now I was explaining this to to Graham earlier is
• 56:00
  that the challenge that Montons have is that because of our size
• 56:04
  and our portfolio of Brewers and distillers export and domestic,
• 56:08
  we tend to transfer a transition into new crop almost in line
• 56:14
  with calendar year. So it's a January, mid January
• 56:17
  into sort of, you know, the latest in early.
• 56:20
  February, so pretty much 1st January 2026.
• 56:22
  I mean, we're not a new crop, but you're a new crop.
• 56:25
  And that's the stuff that was August, August, August 2025,
• 56:29
  the. The beauty of that in a bumper
• 56:31
  year where it's really good, is that we're the first to give the
• 56:34
  good news and we come out and we say, Yep, no problem.
• 56:37
  Ever Psy Psy is fantastic. Yeah, just, you know, but where
• 56:42
  it's a difficult year the, the and on the crop where the
• 56:46
  challenge for us, and this is very much a mountain centric
• 56:49
  problem is that we're then the first to give the bad news.
• 56:53
  And that's a real challenge because when a lot of other
• 56:57
  maltsters around the UK are are maybe still got a wee bit of
• 56:59
  stock of 24 crops still hanging around, you know, they can see
• 57:03
  it through. And distillers are going well,
• 57:05
  David. Yeah, they're they're often.
• 57:07
  Asked, you know, come on now. So.
• 57:09
  But that's just something. And eventually we get vindicated
• 57:15
  about sort of April, May, when everybody is on the same, is on
• 57:19
  the same crop, and they go, Oh, yeah, I see what you and we go,
• 57:23
  yeah. Can I ask, is there it's like a
• 57:25
  very simple way to explain what the nitrogen high nitrogen
• 57:29
  levels meet? Like why that's an issue?
• 57:33
  And so the higher the nitrogen, the impacts the amount of
• 57:39
  protein in the barley and it makes it more difficult when
• 57:42
  activate to activate well to break down the cell walls to
• 57:47
  allow it to modify the barley. So it makes it harder to create
• 57:50
  sugar you. Need.
• 57:51
  It's hard to get. Yes, it's hard to get the water.
• 57:54
  So you need and you need the sugar to create the alcohol.
• 57:57
  It's a more labour intensive process.
• 57:59
  It is because. So think of it as which will.
• 58:01
  That increase the. Barley grain endosperm, right?
• 58:04
  And think of that like lots of lots of different, like lots of
• 58:09
  different boxes and you're breaking down the walls.
• 58:11
  And to do that you have to steep it and get the moisture.
• 58:14
  And when it's high nitrogen, they're tightly packed.
• 58:17
  So to get the water in to allow the modification process is
• 58:22
  really, really difficult on high nitrogen.
• 58:24
  Distillers like low nitrogen because it's easy to access the
• 58:28
  sugar because that's all they really need.
• 58:32
  Unlike Brewers who don't mind higher nitrogen because they are
• 58:36
  they, yes, for the base malts, they need a level of extract.
• 58:40
  And this is where it's different between spirit yield and
• 58:42
  extract. The Brewers are looking for
• 58:44
  extract, but they also have coloured malts, chocolate malts,
• 58:48
  roasted barley things which they then they're not looking for
• 58:50
  extract, but they're looking for colour and flavour.
• 58:53
  And that's where brewing and distilling starts to kind of
• 58:56
  move away that one another. That was one of the reasons why
• 58:59
  I picked the whiskey I got today with Glenn Morgan's Signet
• 59:02
  Signet was because they did use colored Barley's.
• 59:07
  I mean chocolate malt is like 10%.
• 59:09
  Absolutely. And you know something, Doctor
• 59:12
  Bill Lumsden at Glen Monje, absolute pioneer in the flavor
• 59:15
  of that because he'd been wanting to do that for years
• 59:17
  because he's big and he's coffee and he wanted to do.
• 59:21
  Now what you do take is if you use chocolate malt or crystal
• 59:25
  malts or something. Now what is chocolate?
• 59:27
  Malt, Chocolate malt is just all it really is.
• 59:29
  It's not actually. It's been roasted, so it's.
• 59:31
  We talked about it with them. I know we did.
• 59:33
  Burden Milk, yeah. Heavy roasted, yeah.
• 59:36
  Heavy roasted, so it's actually you get kilned malts and roasted
• 59:39
  malts and kiln malts are they take it to a certain moisture
• 59:43
  level. So it's kiln to a certain level.
• 59:45
  Then you move into the realm of roasted malts, which is really a
• 59:48
  high intense kilning process. You need a separate piece of
• 59:50
  equipment called a roaster for that, and roasters.
• 59:52
  On this podcast. Excellent.
• 59:57
  I'm annoyed that I didn't jump but you so you need a roaster
• 1:00:01
  for that. And what it does is it gets the
• 1:00:03
  colour of the bar. So it really, really intense
• 1:00:05
  kilning profile and it gets the colour up now.
• 1:00:09
  What that does is you're really only extracting colour and for
• 1:00:12
  SP. Y in the S.
• 1:00:14
  YS. Y yeah, SP.
• 1:00:16
  Y. Yeah, I'll write it down, but.
• 1:00:19
  That must have an impact on the distilling as well, because why
• 1:00:22
  would somebody? Use that.
• 1:00:24
  So when you add things like that into the constituents of grist,
• 1:00:28
  you know, for when it goes out in the mash, your spirit yield
• 1:00:31
  drops dramatically. But you're not doing it for
• 1:00:34
  spirit yield deficiency, you're doing it for flavour.
• 1:00:38
  Yeah. And where Glamorangy and the
• 1:00:39
  segment came through was we're not going to do this isn't our
• 1:00:42
  everyday run. We are going to do this as a
• 1:00:45
  special and. Because no one would do it all
• 1:00:48
  the time. Because it'd.
• 1:00:48
  Be exactly and one of the best stories because this is the
• 1:00:51
  Whiskey Stories podcast and we need to always remember that
• 1:00:54
  because one of the best things that I'd ever heard was from
• 1:00:58
  Inch Day on a distillery. And Scott's talked to you all
• 1:01:00
  about the oats and things like that.
• 1:01:02
  And I remember we did a particular malt for them and the
• 1:01:08
  Psy came out about 65% of what it should.
• 1:01:12
  Be so psy being. Predicted spirit yield, right.
• 1:01:14
  OK. And I went up to not Scott.
• 1:01:17
  I went up to the chairman and I remember saying the chap called
• 1:01:21
  Ian Palmer, legend, master of the quake, a legend in the
• 1:01:25
  industry. And I went up to him and I say,
• 1:01:26
  and I was petrified. I was.
• 1:01:27
  I was really nervous about telling him that this is going
• 1:01:30
  to be shit, you know, this is. And he stopped me and I was
• 1:01:34
  really nervous when I said I was like, listen, Ian, this is where
• 1:01:36
  we're going to be. And he said I'm going to stop
• 1:01:38
  you there, David. We're an alcohol beverage
• 1:01:42
  producer, not an alcohol fuel producer.
• 1:01:45
  Now, spirit yield and efficiency is important for our day-to-day.
• 1:01:50
  Yeah. But see this particular one,
• 1:01:54
  when we then distill it and put it in special casks, mature it
• 1:01:58
  for however long, and bottle it, Somebody buys it and then keeps
• 1:02:02
  it for 10 years and opens it at the daughter's wedding or the
• 1:02:07
  birth of a grandchild or some moment that they want to mark
• 1:02:10
  the occasion with this very special bottle.
• 1:02:12
  And they pour it out and they get it and they say, and they
• 1:02:16
  knows it. And then they taste it and say,
• 1:02:18
  well, it tastes like shite. But it yielded 4, So he said.
• 1:02:26
  So on this particular occasion, I'm not after maximum yield on
• 1:02:33
  alcohol, I'm after flavour. Now if I came in with that
• 1:02:38
  particular dilemma with this day-to-day malt, it would be a
• 1:02:40
  different conversation. But that what I did, I'll never
• 1:02:43
  forget that because I went right C DS and the signet is a prime
• 1:02:46
  example of that. It's not about efficiency, it's
• 1:02:49
  not about litres of alcohol, it's about producing something
• 1:02:52
  that the flavor is completely as long as it falls in the
• 1:02:55
  Southwest rules of being Scotch whiskey is incredible and needs
• 1:02:59
  to go out there, so it's not. And that is the nice thing that
• 1:03:02
  separates the whiskey industry from being just a production
• 1:03:08
  industry to be in a craft industry.
• 1:03:09
  And it doesn't matter. You can be the size of like
• 1:03:11
  Monji, which is all over the world and the size of
• 1:03:14
  production. You look at the stills that they
• 1:03:16
  yeah, by the size that they are, they still haven't like they
• 1:03:19
  could just say we'll turn on our stills and we'll produce X
• 1:03:21
  amount of whiskey every year. And that's what we'll do.
• 1:03:24
  And we'll, we'll do it that like you look at Glen Allocate for
• 1:03:26
  example, they've slowed, they've quoted.
• 1:03:29
  Them yeah, like the fermentation time has gone like through the.
• 1:03:32
  Roof yeah. So I mean, it makes no economic
• 1:03:34
  sense to do what they're doing. And some like someone would look
• 1:03:37
  at that from outside the whiskey in this way and say, wait, wait,
• 1:03:40
  wait, hang on a second. As a business, you've made made
• 1:03:42
  the decision to slow everything down.
• 1:03:45
  And literally, I don't even know, is it more than half that
• 1:03:48
  they've reduced or less than half?
• 1:03:50
  Glenn Monje No Glenn Alloc I. Think it's probably.
• 1:03:52
  I think it's almost like 1/3 of what it was.
• 1:03:55
  Absolutely. I mean, if you're looking, if we
• 1:03:57
  looked at all distilleries across the whole Scotland, none
• 1:04:01
  of them would have pot stills and all be on column still.
• 1:04:03
  Correct, absolutely. But the fact is that there will
• 1:04:06
  always be in the element of the flavour first.
• 1:04:09
  Yeah. But you know, that is important
• 1:04:11
  no matter what. And if that means, you know
• 1:04:14
  what, we're going to get a terrible yield and alcohol from
• 1:04:17
  this particular batch of grain, the.
• 1:04:20
  Flavour is going to be so outstanding that nobody is going
• 1:04:23
  to give a shit. Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  But, you know, at that time, that example I gave, what they
• 1:04:27
  are going to do is they're going to taste it and go.
• 1:04:29
  That is just incredible. But a way to mark something and
• 1:04:31
  what a way to celebrate Scotch whiskey and something that's
• 1:04:34
  very personal to me. Yeah.
• 1:04:35
  And nobody ever, ever has drunk a whiskey.
• 1:04:38
  And when did you see what the yield was in that?
• 1:04:41
  No one's ever done that. I've talked about the flavour of
• 1:04:43
  it do. You not do that now though.
• 1:04:45
  No. Now as a monster I'm not good
• 1:04:48
  yield on it, but. Then on the other side of it as
• 1:04:51
  well as it goes back to the importance of blinds, Yeah, she
• 1:04:53
  goes. When you actually think about
• 1:04:55
  it, you know, we still, we still sit in our room like this in a
• 1:04:59
  pub like we're in. We're over 800 bottles of open
• 1:05:02
  whiskey, yada, yada, yada. But 90% of the industry is
• 1:05:05
  still. Blends.
• 1:05:06
  Blends. And when you look at a monster
• 1:05:09
  like yourselves, Yep, you know the big blinding powerhouses
• 1:05:12
  will be your biggest, biggest. You know you'll be the biggest
• 1:05:15
  supplier to them because it's going into blends that are sent
• 1:05:19
  all over the world and that's huge.
• 1:05:21
  And that's where, you know, the, the, the kicking behind the
• 1:05:25
  curtain of where blends come from and understanding the
• 1:05:29
  blends are really just constituent, you know, they're
• 1:05:32
  made-up of constituent parts of malt whiskey and grain whiskey
• 1:05:35
  and all of these things. And I agree, blend without
• 1:05:38
  blend, Scotch whiskey doesn't have an industry.
• 1:05:41
  So we are forever grateful to them.
• 1:05:44
  And I'm trying to get away. There's a lot of people, I fell
• 1:05:46
  into this, you know, the whole snobby kind of a blend and, you
• 1:05:51
  know, and all that. And, you know, talking about
• 1:05:54
  even things like Johnnie Walker, there's people that drink
• 1:05:58
  Johnnie Walker Black, right? That's their drum.
• 1:06:02
  And they go, oh, I despise peated whiskey.
• 1:06:04
  I love that guy. Touch this stuff or it's just
• 1:06:08
  minging. And then you go, really, because
• 1:06:11
  I'd like to see what Emma Walker's got to say about how
• 1:06:13
  much peated whiskey is actually involved in the constituent
• 1:06:16
  makeup of Johnnie Walker Black. So, you know, blends have always
• 1:06:20
  got its place, but when it comes down to that is really where the
• 1:06:24
  art of the blender comes in, where we sit in that.
• 1:06:28
  And This is why I love this industry and I love what I do is
• 1:06:32
  that I love being a part of that.
• 1:06:36
  It's so exciting. And I call me a geek, call me
• 1:06:38
  whatever. It's just that sort of when
• 1:06:40
  people talk about, you know, the Glenfiddis or Glenn Farkless and
• 1:06:43
  stuff like that and everyone's dead excited.
• 1:06:45
  Alcohol is quite a. Oh, I definitely.
• 1:06:47
  That's why we did a podcast. Hi.
• 1:06:49
  Hi. So to be a small part of that,
• 1:06:51
  that's great. I love.
• 1:06:52
  When and the supply chain is huge because sliced it isn't,
• 1:06:55
  but like this is The thing is, and I'm talking about the when
• 1:06:59
  I'm talking about the the blenders, the big blenders.
• 1:07:02
  And it's it's it's like this you mentioned earlier, right the
• 1:07:04
  start. The supply chain is the most
• 1:07:07
  important thing we've had people.
• 1:07:08
  What was it Steven Rankin on the on the podcast, you know, what
• 1:07:12
  is he 4th, 5th generation or the Gordon Macphail 4th generation?
• 1:07:16
  And there's and he said it's been passed down in the family
• 1:07:19
  yesterday. Always look after your
• 1:07:21
  suppliers. That could be the guys that are
• 1:07:22
  giving us the woods. It could be the guys that are
• 1:07:24
  giving us the, the, the whiskey, but also equally it's the guys
• 1:07:28
  that are providing the bottle. We had the Raymond Davidson on
• 1:07:31
  the podcast from you know. Glenn.
• 1:07:34
  Glass crystal. And he's saying, you know, you
• 1:07:37
  speak to him and you go, yeah, I can't.
• 1:07:39
  And Raymond being Raymond, he was like, oh, you know, that
• 1:07:41
  distiller is one of one. I think we must have made about
• 1:07:45
  10 of the decanters that all these, you know, but also for
• 1:07:50
  hundreds of thousands of pounds. Yeah, he's the guy that makes
• 1:07:52
  the decanters. They go in there.
• 1:07:53
  There's guys that supply the glassware, there's guys that
• 1:07:56
  supply the boxes, there's guys that supply the stoppers and the
• 1:07:58
  court. They're all part of the supply
• 1:07:59
  chain. And when the industry is in a
• 1:08:01
  bit of a dip, they're surely. But it starts with the fire.
• 1:08:04
  It starts with. The and this is the thing we'll
• 1:08:07
  see when, you know, way back to the end whiskey conference and
• 1:08:10
  they were talking, talking about how robust we'll get through
• 1:08:12
  this and stuff when yet the supply chain's kind of hung out
• 1:08:14
  to dry because we can't produce it.
• 1:08:16
  They go well, OK, but see, when farmers start going well, I'm
• 1:08:20
  not going to grow malting barley.
• 1:08:21
  I'm going to grow. I'm going to go feed barley.
• 1:08:23
  I'm going to go wherever else, right.
• 1:08:24
  See, when it comes back on and it's it's in a cycle.
• 1:08:27
  We know it will come back. We know it's robust, but see
• 1:08:30
  when it does and the whiskey industry go, hey guys, give us
• 1:08:34
  your Yeah, we go. No, no, it's not quite that easy
• 1:08:36
  because we've got 18 months. We can't turn the lights on like
• 1:08:40
  that, it needs to. And these are the same
• 1:08:42
  distillers, and I speak on behalf of the malting industry,
• 1:08:45
  the same distillers that will squeeze the life out of us on
• 1:08:48
  price for everything, even though for however many years
• 1:08:52
  this sort of downturn has taken place where we are, bear boards
• 1:08:56
  try to keep the lights on, trying to keep things going.
• 1:08:59
  So when the whiskey industry comes back on and we say, well,
• 1:09:02
  we're trying to recoup what they're the first ones.
• 1:09:06
  And I know procurement people, it's what they have to do.
• 1:09:09
  They're doing their job. But I think a bit of recognition
• 1:09:12
  and a bit of acknowledgement that you know what, the supply
• 1:09:14
  chain's been hung out to dry for the last 3-4 years.
• 1:09:17
  If I'm a farmer, I could just suddenly go, you know what?
• 1:09:19
  I'm just going to do cattle feed.
• 1:09:20
  Yeah. And then suddenly you go.
• 1:09:23
  You go to them saying we need barley and you're tough.
• 1:09:25
  Two years ago exactly. I've not.
• 1:09:28
  Grown but what's interesting about you know it's true the
• 1:09:31
  whiskey industry itself all these things take time so if
• 1:09:34
  suddenly someone turns around and say right sales are up we're
• 1:09:36
  increasing production yeah go get go it's like well I.
• 1:09:40
  We need to get this, I mean. Hang on a minute.
• 1:09:42
  We need, we need get the we need so that, you know, we need to
• 1:09:44
  get the crop that's. Why I like going back to the
• 1:09:46
  blending, you know, that's why, you know, if you're a bottle, if
• 1:09:49
  you, if you're a bottle making factor, if you sell bottles, you
• 1:09:52
  know, we what we, we are very quick to look at how centric
• 1:09:56
  whiskey is in Scotland and you go right, you can pick like hard
• 1:10:00
  to mark in. For example, right now you might
• 1:10:02
  say to hard to mark in, Oh, well, how many bottles are you
• 1:10:05
  going to need this year for all your releases?
• 1:10:07
  And let's just pick a number. I don't know, say 200,000
• 1:10:09
  bottles or something like that, right.
• 1:10:11
  But then you suddenly William Grant and sons, how many bottles
• 1:10:14
  of grams are you needing for everybody on global production?
• 1:10:17
  And they go, well, we're didn't have 2 million or whatever it.
• 1:10:20
  Could be Well, we're caught between a rock and a hard place
• 1:10:22
  because we can't hold a gun and say, take it and produce it.
• 1:10:26
  That would be illegal. And they just don't have the
• 1:10:29
  space to to do this. Like they're like, well, what do
• 1:10:32
  you want this to do? And the problem we've had is
• 1:10:34
  that there's been a weakening of every market, every market.
• 1:10:37
  The only green shoot that and it's going to take years is
• 1:10:40
  India. Yeah.
• 1:10:41
  But the there's been a weakening because we were due a downturn
• 1:10:45
  in Scotch whiskey. COVID came along and
• 1:10:47
  artificially inflated that and then everyone switched to
• 1:10:50
  premiumisation and it was great. And distillers couldn't keep up
• 1:10:53
  because their warehouses and casts were getting emptied.
• 1:10:56
  And they're like, keep going, keep going.
• 1:10:57
  And this is where there's that question.
• 1:10:59
  Dave Broome once said that way back at the whiskey lock in the
• 1:11:03
  80s and the same's happening now, which is a sales director's
• 1:11:07
  not going to turn around and say, do you know what, boss?
• 1:11:10
  See next year I want to sell less, right?
• 1:11:13
  Because somebody at some point during 2223 should have went
• 1:11:17
  guys, this isn't sustainable. You can't keep going like this,
• 1:11:20
  but an inevitably that this has happened so.
• 1:11:23
  A couple of sales. Well, you a.
• 1:11:26
  Couple of sales reps as well have been like saying it might
• 1:11:29
  have been room as well. So again, it's like people are
• 1:11:30
  actually gonna have to sell whiskey now.
• 1:11:32
  Yeah. Yeah, Arthur on the podcast,
• 1:11:34
  Yeah, yeah, for the first time, Arthur said on the podcast.
• 1:11:37
  Two things he said, number one, we shouldn't be surprised that
• 1:11:41
  the thing we knew was going to happen, happened and #2 he said
• 1:11:45
  what is happening right now is for the first time in 10 years,
• 1:11:49
  people are having to start selling whiskey.
• 1:11:50
  But very interested. We had that in whiskey
• 1:11:52
  conference. Billy Walker sat there and we
• 1:11:55
  had Alex Bruce on the podcast a couple of weeks ago, a few weeks
• 1:11:58
  ago now talking about, you know, he started Alex Bruce started
• 1:12:01
  the outfit in 2004, which is round about the same time that
• 1:12:04
  Billy and Billy Walker just I've told the story two or three
• 1:12:07
  times on the podcast already, but it's important, as Billy
• 1:12:10
  Walker said, 2004, I decided to buy my first distillery, right?
• 1:12:13
  And he bought Dean Stem and he bought Dean Stem.
• 1:12:15
  And too, Bon Stewart. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:17
  And he said that's what they bought, right?
• 1:12:20
  Glenn drawn. I can.
• 1:12:22
  He had Glendrona, Glen Glasso and Ben Riok after he sold.
• 1:12:25
  Aye. Oh, sorry, sorry.
• 1:12:26
  So, but yeah, so he, Deanston and Tobermory and what he said
• 1:12:29
  was we picked those two distilleries, yeah, out of 16
• 1:12:33
  mothball distilleries in 2004. And remember Alex Bruce in the
• 1:12:38
  podcast, and I'm looking at a bottle of it right now, Alex
• 1:12:40
  Bruce said in 2004, Drambuie were selling 30 year old McAllen
• 1:12:45
  and 40 year old Glenn Livet. Because if they didn't sell it,
• 1:12:48
  it was going at the Drambuie because in that time where the
• 1:12:51
  industry was. So it's in important for people
• 1:12:53
  to remember that in perspective. I didn't.
• 1:12:55
  Know I didn't know what you were going to say.
• 1:12:56
  I thought you were going to talk about Malibu.
• 1:12:58
  No, Billy Walker, but Billy Walker did say that, you know,
• 1:13:03
  OK, there is some people are having a downturn and maybe the
• 1:13:06
  bigger they are, the harder you fall sort of like, but also even
• 1:13:09
  saying Glen allocate, you know are in markets that just find
• 1:13:13
  the markets that are there. And you mentioned India stuff.
• 1:13:15
  It is potential, but I'm wanting to talk a little bit about that
• 1:13:19
  international side of things. So travelling the world, getting
• 1:13:22
  to deal with different cultures, you know, Where is Scotch barley
• 1:13:25
  going then? China.
• 1:13:29
  Yeah, Japan. And will they have the same
• 1:13:33
  stipulation because it's whiskey?
• 1:13:35
  Well, they say it needs to be Scottish barley.
• 1:13:38
  Or where they go, you hear? The stories about Japanese
• 1:13:40
  stuff, like historically they were like importing water.
• 1:13:42
  Oh yeah. God, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:44
  So imagine there's loads of that.
• 1:13:45
  Yeah, I would say that the Chinese market are very, very,
• 1:13:49
  very into it, right. I'd say that these Thai, Taiwan,
• 1:13:55
  Japan are very UK barley, you know, good quality potstyle
• 1:14:00
  malt. That's for us.
• 1:14:02
  China, however, we've noticed in the last few years have really
• 1:14:05
  put a fixation on Scottish provenance and there's a there's
• 1:14:10
  a few I'm. Jane, there's an element of
• 1:14:11
  that. It's interesting because we
• 1:14:14
  alluded to we're talking about Japanese importing water from
• 1:14:16
  Scotland. There's an element where Chinese
• 1:14:19
  whiskey probably doesn't have the international credibility,
• 1:14:23
  let's say Japanese, no, what Scotch whiskey has.
• 1:14:25
  So it's an element of, right. We need to be very, very
• 1:14:28
  specific here so that we can say we're doing this exactly how the
• 1:14:32
  Scotch are doing it. And now we're as good as
• 1:14:33
  legitimacy. Yeah.
• 1:14:35
  It's almost like a. Legitimate Chinese market,
• 1:14:37
  because I was out there at the beginning of the year.
• 1:14:39
  And here's the thing about the Chinese whiskey market, they
• 1:14:42
  don't care, no, right, Because their market, it is not an
• 1:14:47
  export market. Their market is the China.
• 1:14:50
  Therefore, so see the way the Japanese work is that we are not
• 1:14:54
  here to compete with Scotch. We are here to produce the best
• 1:14:57
  Japanese whiskey on the planet. That's our job, to produce the
• 1:15:01
  best Scotch. You go to Scotland.
• 1:15:02
  So they're not trying to compete, they're trying to add
• 1:15:05
  to this portfolio, this category.
• 1:15:08
  What I found in China was that because they're not trying to
• 1:15:13
  export to the masses, they've got 1.4 billion people in their
• 1:15:17
  own market, right? Yeah.
• 1:15:19
  So what we discovered was that they're using Forsyth stills.
• 1:15:23
  No, they're using, it's all Scottish consultants that are
• 1:15:27
  out there. Yeah, yeah, they're trying to
• 1:15:29
  replicate Scotch. They're like, no, we're.
• 1:15:30
  Not able to sell Scotch? Correct.
• 1:15:33
  Chinese but not as Scotch. Yes, that's.
• 1:15:35
  Right, it's Chinese whiskey. But by the way.
• 1:15:37
  It's as good as as good as. Downforce as we can get to
• 1:15:39
  Scotch yeah whereas Japan was very like well you know
• 1:15:42
  Takatsuru come over we've got this kind of you know link to
• 1:15:45
  Scotland but we're going to do it different and we're going to
• 1:15:47
  create our own category excellent China are very no the
• 1:15:51
  Scots. They've got something.
• 1:15:53
  You've got something there and we're trying to replicate even
• 1:15:55
  as going down to the marketing, the labels and things like that,
• 1:15:58
  dangerously close dangerously. Close SWA.
• 1:16:01
  SWA and the sweaty are looking at it going hang on, but the
• 1:16:06
  product and I went out to some new distilleries in China and
• 1:16:09
  they're for sized hills and they're you know, and I've tried
• 1:16:12
  the new make and it was outstanding.
• 1:16:15
  It's exactly. What I mean, Angus Dundee have a
• 1:16:18
  Chinese distillery. So I mean, I mean, we had when
• 1:16:21
  we had when we had Flora on and she, she talked about the fact
• 1:16:24
  that, well, look, we're international beverage.
• 1:16:27
  We're owned by a Thai company. Yeah, we have a Thai distillery.
• 1:16:30
  It's easy to make the, we're just, it's easy for us to make
• 1:16:33
  the and you look at Angus Dundee, they've got an Indian
• 1:16:37
  and Angus and sorry, sorry, Ian MacLeod distillers in India.
• 1:16:40
  Angus Dundee have a Chinese distillery.
• 1:16:43
  So they're able to probably just go.
• 1:16:44
  It makes it easier, right? Because it's just.
• 1:16:46
  That people are. Fighting with.
• 1:16:48
  The market, but I suspect the Chinese, we've talked about the
• 1:16:51
  Japanese whiskey industry and I suspect if you go back 50 years
• 1:16:55
  ago there may have been an element of that.
• 1:16:57
  There was a bottle of whiskey I saw in Japan that had been
• 1:16:59
  produced years and years ago called Dunbar, and I suspect
• 1:17:02
  they just opened the map of Scott.
• 1:17:03
  Maybe I'm being and it was. Like there's a very strong
• 1:17:06
  chance that. There's a town in Scotland too
• 1:17:08
  called Dunbar, let's call it honestly Dunbar.
• 1:17:10
  And, and we know Takatsuru, it was like when he came back to
• 1:17:13
  Japan, it was, he opened Yoichi because it was like, here's the
• 1:17:16
  place that I reckon has the climate closest to Scotland, so.
• 1:17:19
  By the way, and but you're absolutely.
• 1:17:21
  Right. But, and I suspect the Chinese
• 1:17:22
  are doing exactly that now, but in years to come, it will be
• 1:17:25
  like, right, let's finesse this. Let's yeah.
• 1:17:27
  And yeah, they've got their own their own side with their own
• 1:17:29
  blending teams and things. But ultimately they've taken a
• 1:17:32
  standard for excellence. And when that works.
• 1:17:35
  So let's just do that. And it makes perfect sense.
• 1:17:39
  So the Chinese thing, I've found that's been an explosive market
• 1:17:43
  over the last and that's probably a small green shoot.
• 1:17:46
  I would say that in India is where things are.
• 1:17:50
  Kind of going back to the conversation because we don't
• 1:17:52
  have, we don't have too much longer left.
• 1:17:54
  But. You know, you've mentioned in
• 1:17:56
  sternly, you've mentioned that you that you work with those
• 1:17:58
  guys and things like that and. Partners.
• 1:18:01
  Yeah. And we, there's loads of things
• 1:18:02
  we could talk about here, but ultimately we can't sit here and
• 1:18:05
  ask you to name every single one of the the customers that you
• 1:18:08
  work with. But no, does it work on a basis
• 1:18:11
  of they'll have sort of heritage relationships that go all the
• 1:18:15
  way back versus there'll be some distilleries who rightly so in
• 1:18:19
  some cases, well, just go where the price and go where the.
• 1:18:22
  Market goes, of course, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:18:23
  So I mean, when it comes to these sort of heritage
• 1:18:25
  relationships, then are they sort of old, old school where
• 1:18:28
  you've got the old books that you can dust off and go, well,
• 1:18:31
  we can see what a price of barley.
• 1:18:32
  Was Oh God. 50 years ago. And they do that, Yeah, yes.
• 1:18:36
  Because just very quickly on that front, my dad used to deal
• 1:18:38
  with her. She's long past now.
• 1:18:40
  God, and they had a farm out just they actually used to win
• 1:18:44
  the best bar. That's why they used to win the
• 1:18:46
  awards for the when the mobsters would do the awards for where
• 1:18:49
  the best Barley's come from. This farm.
• 1:18:53
  What was her name now? She she her husband died very
• 1:18:56
  young in a farming accident tragically.
• 1:18:58
  And she ran the farm until she was in her 90s, right.
• 1:19:01
  And she used to drive this Beck old Mercedes car.
• 1:19:04
  By the time she would got into her 90s, she didn't know where
• 1:19:07
  she was going. She used to have she, she used
• 1:19:10
  to have in her tractors, every tractor had a notebook, right?
• 1:19:15
  And on the notebook it told you about every single field and
• 1:19:18
  every single field it told. And in the, in the track, on the
• 1:19:21
  notebook as well, her field, it told you what, what level of
• 1:19:27
  pressure should be in each tire. So that, yeah, that was the
• 1:19:31
  level that because they for years, they won awards for their
• 1:19:34
  barley. But what she also did was she
• 1:19:37
  kept a diary for seven years. So what she'd do, she'd scratch
• 1:19:42
  off the she'd score out the days of the year, so that and every
• 1:19:46
  single. So she would always keep her
• 1:19:47
  record should. Have one diary that would last
• 1:19:49
  her seven. Years.
• 1:19:49
  One diary would last for seven years.
• 1:19:50
  So when they went, when the Rep from the Robert Kogerko would go
• 1:19:55
  and try and buy the barley off that, yeah, she would be able to
• 1:19:58
  just open the right. Let's see.
• 1:20:00
  Well, I can see for a. Lot of 10 years.
• 1:20:02
  That you've been the price has consistently been going down or
• 1:20:05
  or or she could say no two years or what three years ago our
• 1:20:08
  barley was just as good as the barley as this year.
• 1:20:10
  So it's going to like you that's the price so.
• 1:20:13
  Yes. And when?
• 1:20:14
  When it comes to these relationships, then with the is
• 1:20:16
  it the other way with distilleries?
• 1:20:19
  So I would say that there's we've got lots of relationships.
• 1:20:22
  Sorry, Gene Cochran. Gene Cochran from the from the
• 1:20:25
  farm there. That was our name.
• 1:20:26
  Gene Cochran. I know him, yeah.
• 1:20:27
  And I would say that we've got a really kind of mixed bag of of,
• 1:20:33
  you know, heritage relationships, modern ones, new
• 1:20:36
  take ones, long term agreements, annualized contracts.
• 1:20:39
  It's quite a mixed bag, but the one that is really close to my
• 1:20:44
  heart. And I'm glad you mentioned
• 1:20:48
  because it's Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 1:20:49
  So that is. Yeah.
• 1:20:51
  So when I told you earlier on about my father was the single
• 1:20:55
  malt drinker, and I remember him bringing me a glass of this
• 1:20:58
  before I was legally allowed to have it, was a Glenn Farkless.
• 1:21:04
  And he swore that Glenn Farkless was the best single malt in the
• 1:21:08
  world. And he just told me that since I
• 1:21:09
  was a wee boy, and that was it. And then in my third week with
• 1:21:13
  Moncton's third week, 2016, I find myself at Glen Fartless
• 1:21:19
  Distillery with my predecessor to visit what a distillery is.
• 1:21:22
  And I remember phoning my dad saying, you're not going to
• 1:21:25
  believe what I was today. And he was like, you're joking.
• 1:21:27
  And I said, but there's quite a lot of distilleries in Scotland,
• 1:21:29
  Dad. So you're maybe maybe that's
• 1:21:31
  just your one. But, you know, and little did I
• 1:21:34
  know that looking at the process with them, looking at everything
• 1:21:38
  from the family ownership all the way down to the direct fire
• 1:21:41
  and all the stills that actually he was right and that it was one
• 1:21:46
  of the best. And then I found out that we
• 1:21:48
  supplied them and we've had a relationship with the Grant
• 1:21:51
  family, the last independent, you know, owned distillery in
• 1:21:55
  Scotland. Well, firmly independent and one
• 1:21:57
  family ownership. So there's everything about them
• 1:22:01
  I fell in love with immediately. There's the family connection
• 1:22:03
  with my dad who swore by it. There's the the fact that we've
• 1:22:08
  supplied them for a very long time.
• 1:22:09
  There's the fact that the new make spirit is demanded by the
• 1:22:13
  Scotch whisky industry because it's arguably that, you know,
• 1:22:15
  because of the direct firing. You're maybe getting a bit more
• 1:22:18
  toffee, a bit more caramel in the new makes better than you
• 1:22:21
  would maybe in, you know, a conventional steam distillation
• 1:22:26
  all the way to the family ownership.
• 1:22:28
  Even when you visit it, it's just you're driving down that
• 1:22:31
  road and you just go, oh, something special is happening
• 1:22:35
  here. So.
• 1:22:35
  And on that, I brought a gift for the podcast.
• 1:22:39
  Oh, very kind, yeah. So this is, it's unfortunate,
• 1:22:43
  it's not a crazy bottling, it's a standard 12 of Glynfartless.
• 1:22:46
  However, it's unique in the sense that Munton's Malt
• 1:22:49
  commissioned this with Glynfartless to celebrate our
• 1:22:53
  100 years of, of production, but also the partnership between
• 1:22:59
  Glynfartness, Glynfartless and Munton's the distillery manager.
• 1:23:04
  And this is a complete plug because he's like one of my best
• 1:23:06
  pals and has authorized me to talk about them as much as I
• 1:23:10
  want and the fact that we supply them.
• 1:23:12
  So what I'd like to do to celebrate not just the
• 1:23:16
  partnership that we have, but also the podcast of which I'm a
• 1:23:19
  fan and I'm proud to be here as I'd like to open it up if.
• 1:23:22
  Please feel free. And we'll have a DRAM and also
• 1:23:26
  prevents it going up on eBay. And of course, the important
• 1:23:30
  thing about this Montons logo. The Montons logo on the bottle
• 1:23:32
  and there's a wee blurb on the back which talks about it.
• 1:23:37
  So the bottle itself you can fight amongst yourselves about.
• 1:23:40
  Well, we'll probably stick it. In the bar here.
• 1:23:42
  Kev, it's there. So DRAM taxes do a DRAM tax
• 1:23:45
  actually for them. But I mean, I think when you
• 1:23:48
  look at the well, Angus and I, we did the tour at Glen
• 1:23:50
  Farcliffe. We did it last summer, yeah.
• 1:23:52
  And then it close to the Mike. Shucks, Spain as well.
• 1:23:54
  Yeah, get a good pop on it. Oh.
• 1:23:55
  Didn't I was a rotten. Pop But I think it was it the
• 1:23:59
  first ever or one of the first or was it the first?
• 1:24:01
  That's for me. Distillery visitor sent I guess.
• 1:24:03
  That was. So.
• 1:24:04
  Yeah, early 19. 70s, that's how he goes, yeah.
• 1:24:08
  And like I say, that was. And you're right when you drive
• 1:24:10
  up, because it's kind of like you said, it's a nice long
• 1:24:12
  little drive as you turn in and you've got the the hell is
• 1:24:16
  Michael Tor, isn't it? In the background?
• 1:24:18
  Ben Rennis. Ben Rennis.
• 1:24:19
  I knew it was 1. Close.
• 1:24:21
  Yeah, we need to be even you. Need an even.
• 1:24:24
  This is a bit of a lethal bar. As I say.
• 1:24:26
  That's what that bits for that's.
• 1:24:27
  What that? But yeah, I'll get there.
• 1:24:31
  You're right. Look, I mean, we turned up on I
• 1:24:33
  think the hottest day of the year of a cloud in the sky and
• 1:24:35
  it was just look at you look absolutely beautiful.
• 1:24:38
  I've knocked my mic off of her with my pop.
• 1:24:41
  You're all right. I'm all right.
• 1:24:41
  I'm all right. But yeah, I mean, well, first of
• 1:24:44
  all, thank you. Very much cheers.
• 1:24:49
  Cheers. Cheers.
• 1:24:51
  Yeah. I mean, again, going back to
• 1:24:52
  economics and things like that, one of the things that it's
• 1:24:55
  funny, like you have a distillery like Glenn Farcliffe
• 1:24:59
  and you'll go, this doesn't make sense, lies, it doesn't.
• 1:25:03
  And you go and it's like we do things this way because this is
• 1:25:06
  the way we've always done things.
• 1:25:07
  But actually you go through the history of Glenn fartless and
• 1:25:10
  you go through talking about hard times and everything like
• 1:25:12
  that. And if it was the whiskey lock
• 1:25:13
  back in the day where the Grant family just went play on, I
• 1:25:16
  keep. Going.
• 1:25:16
  Double down, yeah, double down on it.
• 1:25:18
  Because guess what's going to happen is when it does come back
• 1:25:20
  around, everyone's going to want our stuff because they're not
• 1:25:23
  going to have enough of their own stuff.
• 1:25:24
  And we've talked about it as well, the benefit of being
• 1:25:27
  family owned. You don't.
• 1:25:28
  You're not answerable to shareholders, correct.
• 1:25:31
  And that's something that is really liberating for them is
• 1:25:35
  that they will never do anything that will alter the whiskey.
• 1:25:40
  And they tried to move away from direct fire in 1982.
• 1:25:45
  And a member of the family took one nose of the new experiment
• 1:25:47
  and said, that's not going fat. Let's put it back.
• 1:25:50
  And so there were and that was a really brave decision because I
• 1:25:54
  mean, I can wash it with gas prices down to direct fire all
• 1:25:59
  of your styles. Now I know that there's there's
• 1:26:01
  there's things happening now. And I feel that the Grant family
• 1:26:04
  must be looking back and going told you likes of Centauri
• 1:26:09
  global spirits. I've now got a direct fired wash
• 1:26:11
  still at Glengiri. Right.
• 1:26:14
  Now they have done things with super Critical, which is where
• 1:26:19
  they're basically producing hydrogen on site to be able to
• 1:26:23
  direct fire. It was a proof of concept done
• 1:26:25
  in Japan brought. Now they're doing that with one
• 1:26:28
  wash still at Glengiri because it has been scientifically
• 1:26:31
  proven that the flavour profile increases.
• 1:26:34
  It's better with direct firing. It's not efficient and it's not
• 1:26:38
  cheap. However, it is the best and for
• 1:26:41
  a family owned company to stand behind that, they do everything
• 1:26:45
  that way and it's all done very, very traditionally.
• 1:26:48
  And the distillery manager, you know, and I urge you to go back
• 1:26:53
  once you've spoken to Callum and very, very good friend of mine,
• 1:27:00
  he's just a custodian of the spirit, as a lot of them would
• 1:27:03
  say. Most distillery managers would
• 1:27:05
  say that we're just, we're just here to look after it, you know,
• 1:27:07
  at our time. But they are 100% all of us are
• 1:27:11
  Sherry cast mature and a bodega and Herath de la Fontera, who
• 1:27:16
  which has been mentioned a lot on the podcast, is Rosie Miguel
• 1:27:19
  Martin. It was John Grant that started
• 1:27:23
  that relationship and brought that to Scotland.
• 1:27:24
  So I know there was a lot of companies now use, of course,
• 1:27:27
  Martin casks and that's and it's known as the standard of
• 1:27:30
  excellence that just showed you how good the family is.
• 1:27:32
  The one that just there is, you know, to be the heads of the
• 1:27:35
  family and we'll just make. But they knew what they were
• 1:27:36
  talking about. And we kind of sneered when we
• 1:27:39
  were doing doing the tour because you see the vast scale
• 1:27:43
  of the land that the distillery is actually on that goes around
• 1:27:46
  and all the warehousing and they'll still say 100% done on
• 1:27:49
  my house. And you're sitting there going
• 1:27:51
  what makes no sense. Just don't dies it and build a
• 1:27:55
  big mess. 7. High but they make great whiskey
• 1:27:57
  but anyway look we are fast approaching that I also.
• 1:28:00
  Actually, one other thing I love the fact, like clear family
• 1:28:03
  business thing as well, is that the fact that they're still
• 1:28:05
  Highland despite their fact they're on space side.
• 1:28:07
  Yeah, purely because they've existed in space side.
• 1:28:10
  Yeah, and they don't muck about with their bottles or anything
• 1:28:12
  like that. No, no, no, no.
• 1:28:13
  And then they're 70 year old. Was it 70?
• 1:28:15
  70 year old Yep, and it still comes in that very very
• 1:28:18
  reasonable £20,000 if you're. Interested.
• 1:28:19
  Yeah, right. But we are passed sorry that
• 1:28:21
  part even where we do ask our guests.
• 1:28:23
  So David, I'm looking forward to this year what 3 drams, any 3
• 1:28:26
  whiskeys that have any sort of meaning, association or story
• 1:28:29
  associated with them. OK so do they the question and I
• 1:28:34
  and I should have look more pods to find this out.
• 1:28:37
  Is this just on flavour profile? Anything you want.
• 1:28:40
  And then that means something to.
• 1:28:41
  You and if you've got, meaning if you've got any sort of
• 1:28:44
  anything. OK, so we're going to start with
• 1:28:47
  the first one, which is going to be the best whiskey in terms of
• 1:28:49
  flavour profile that I've ever tasted in my life and it is the
• 1:28:53
  Glenfartless 21 year Old age statement core range.
• 1:28:55
  Great job. And it just when you you know,
• 1:28:59
  isn't taste that you go Yep, Sherry.
• 1:29:01
  But it's it's the smoothest thing like there's no rough
• 1:29:04
  edges on it. And then see it was telling him,
• 1:29:06
  let's see, once you swallow it. Yeah, the part there's a
• 1:29:08
  different dimension that goes bang like that under here you
• 1:29:11
  go. There's no words to just
• 1:29:14
  something's happening there. And I've never experienced
• 1:29:17
  anything like it. Can you remember the first time
• 1:29:19
  you tried it? The 21 yes I do.
• 1:29:23
  I bought a bottle after being in warehouse number one with my pal
• 1:29:28
  and tasted some older stuff and I bought a bottle and brought it
• 1:29:30
  home because he. Said they get you when you're a
• 1:29:32
  very. Important.
• 1:29:32
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:36
  Get. Down the warehouse 1 and I
• 1:29:38
  brought. It home, I brought it home and
• 1:29:40
  about a week later I tasted it and I was transported because
• 1:29:46
  obviously it's better. Your sense of smell is very
• 1:29:48
  emotive. And I was transported to
• 1:29:50
  Warehouse 1. And the thing about warehouse
• 1:29:52
  one, it's not just the smell and the tastes, it's the sound.
• 1:29:57
  Because you go into it because of the the way that dunnage
• 1:29:59
  warehousing works with the stones and freezing cold, the
• 1:30:02
  cobwebs and things. Do you know what you can hear?
• 1:30:04
  Fuck all, Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:30:06
  And see that deathly silence all.
• 1:30:08
  It's like chucks. Beard.
• 1:30:09
  It just dulls all the. Silence.
• 1:30:10
  It absorbs the noise, Yeah. And you just go wow.
• 1:30:13
  So I would say on flavour profiling alone, yeah, that is
• 1:30:18
  very, very special. And I would urge anyone, it's
• 1:30:21
  not extravagant. I can't afford to buy it all the
• 1:30:23
  time, but maybe on an occasion. Yeah, it's a weird feeling in a
• 1:30:26
  dunnage warehouse that because you get that, you get hit out.
• 1:30:29
  That sense where you get hit with a feeling of a dunnage
• 1:30:31
  warehouse. There's a there's a feeling in
• 1:30:33
  the, there's a heaviness in the air, there's a smell, but also
• 1:30:36
  earthiness. And then of course, there's
• 1:30:38
  there's like what you just said. There's an outdoor.
• 1:30:41
  There's nothing the thing, the thing as well, especially at
• 1:30:44
  Glenn Fartless, those that dunnage warehouse you're talking
• 1:30:47
  about with the old stone walls thick as you know, whatever it's
• 1:30:51
  like on a as I said, we were very practically on the hot stay
• 1:30:54
  of the year last year. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:30:55
  And you walk into that dunnage warehouse and you're kind of
• 1:30:58
  almost Where's my jumper? That's right, and it's fabulous.
• 1:31:01
  So I would say that's that one. I'm going to stay on the theme
• 1:31:05
  of flavour profiling and because I think it's important because
• 1:31:10
  yeah, things have meaning and I'll get to that.
• 1:31:12
  But in terms of being up there with a flavour profile is
• 1:31:17
  Bonnerhaven. Yeah, right. 21 yeah.
• 1:31:21
  PX 2024 edition. Right.
• 1:31:25
  OK. And then it's like drinking plum
• 1:31:30
  Jelly. Yeah, it was just.
• 1:31:33
  And I've tried like so the Glenford of grown crew and
• 1:31:35
  things just did creamy on the power and things.
• 1:31:37
  But I tried this and it was the distillery manager, Andrew
• 1:31:41
  Brown, and that let me try it. And was this at the distillery?
• 1:31:45
  Yes, it was. I may or may not have taken a
• 1:31:49
  wee bit home as well. Was this a warehouse 1?
• 1:31:51
  It was warehouse. No, it was in his office
• 1:31:55
  actually. And I remember when I got it
• 1:31:57
  home and it was elevated actually when I took it home
• 1:31:59
  because you have time to you're not in the moment.
• 1:32:01
  You just and I went, Oh my God. And I know that Bunner having is
• 1:32:06
  in particular the cask strength stuff is incredible.
• 1:32:09
  I mean the 12 cast strength at 60.1, you think that you a wee
• 1:32:13
  bit of water when it goes cloudy bang and you go wow.
• 1:32:16
  And it's just the mouthfeel and the flavour.
• 1:32:17
  So Bunna having is particularly special to achieve that level of
• 1:32:20
  flavour profiling and being unpeated and very contrary to
• 1:32:24
  the Isla kind of theme. I'm going to I'm going to just
• 1:32:27
  just quickly, I'm sorry to interrupt you in your what 3
• 1:32:29
  drums, but it is a part of the business and a part of the the
• 1:32:32
  podcast. I want to actually just quickly
• 1:32:34
  talk about is the fact that, you know, you suddenly you've
• 1:32:37
  mentioned here, you know, you're good pals with the distillery
• 1:32:40
  manager are going far less and you're getting an opportunity to
• 1:32:42
  try this stuff. Probably the distillery manager
• 1:32:44
  of it been happened. And it is something that it's a
• 1:32:47
  phrase that I've used on this podcast a few times as people by
• 1:32:49
  few people and in this industry, we definitely know that there
• 1:32:53
  really is that sort of feeling of, you know, you still have to
• 1:32:56
  go through the process of shaking hands, yes, looking
• 1:33:00
  someone in the eye and having a conversation.
• 1:33:01
  But equally, I know from historical stories from my
• 1:33:06
  family side of it, my dad used to say that, you know, he used
• 1:33:09
  to have to drive my grandfather. Around yes and.
• 1:33:12
  Take him to each farmer and every because basically deals
• 1:33:15
  were done on a handshake and then a big, big hefty measure
• 1:33:18
  that drama and it was like that was work.
• 1:33:20
  So for your perspective, that still must have been regularly.
• 1:33:23
  Brand ambassadors that you get on the podcast and some
• 1:33:26
  phenomenal ones, they get to stand behind some incredible
• 1:33:28
  brands. The beauty of my job is I get to
• 1:33:31
  travel around the mall, right? And that's the beauty of my job
• 1:33:35
  and that I go around them all. And the biggest compliment I
• 1:33:38
  have ever had ever was from a distiller who said, and I
• 1:33:43
  overheard them, which makes it even nicer because he wasn't
• 1:33:45
  saying it to me was he said I don't buy from Montons mall.
• 1:33:48
  I buy for David ha. So that whole people buy for
• 1:33:52
  people. That's where.
• 1:33:53
  And in fairness to Montons, they recognise that because I'm not,
• 1:33:57
  I'm not degree, I'm not an educated person, I'm not a
• 1:33:59
  clever person. And they went no, but we can try
• 1:34:01
  and teach you the content in the subject matter as best.
• 1:34:05
  But you have to be quite good with people.
• 1:34:07
  You have to be in a set of sales environment.
• 1:34:09
  So that is, and that's why I want to keep mentioning people's
• 1:34:11
  names. It's not to name drop, but it's
• 1:34:13
  more to say these people are integral to this stuff.
• 1:34:17
  It's important about them. They're understanding the barley
• 1:34:19
  and the malt and everything. So yeah, when I talk about
• 1:34:22
  Andrew Brown and his officer, you know Callum, they're.
• 1:34:24
  A part of your job, but. A part of my job, but my
• 1:34:27
  journey, we've all gone in the journey together.
• 1:34:29
  We're all different parts of the journey, but they're a part of
• 1:34:33
  it and they will always be a part of it for as long as I'm in
• 1:34:35
  the industry. So you're absolutely right to
• 1:34:37
  call that out as being a vital part of not just sales, but this
• 1:34:41
  industry in particular. And it's also great when you get
• 1:34:44
  to go to the office, you make the deal, you sort out and go,
• 1:34:46
  right, let's get the key. Warehouse 1, Thank you.
• 1:34:51
  DRAM #3 Let's go. DRAM #3 is not one that I have
• 1:34:55
  drank. OK.
• 1:34:58
  So, and we go back to the beginning and it was with my
• 1:35:01
  father who was taken on a trip to Glenn Fartless when he was
• 1:35:07
  actually under routine back in the time and when he discovered
• 1:35:12
  Glenn Fartless at the place and didn't divulge his age and how
• 1:35:16
  do we nip and stuff. So I took him back to Glen
• 1:35:20
  Fatless probably around 7-8 years ago and Callum Fraser,
• 1:35:25
  again, a very good, good friend, gave my dad a VIP tour and that
• 1:35:30
  was really special to him because he was like, wow, I've
• 1:35:32
  not been here since I was 17 and you know, this is incredible
• 1:35:35
  and, and then. IDM or anything like.
• 1:35:38
  That it was and it was fine. And then we did the usual in
• 1:35:42
  Warehouse 1 and things of that nature.
• 1:35:44
  But he then took him into the the chairman's got a special
• 1:35:48
  kind of tasting room and things that he took him in there and he
• 1:35:51
  gave him a drama of the 19. It was distilled in 1955, which
• 1:35:55
  was my father's birth year. Now I have to this day I have no
• 1:35:59
  idea if it was any good or not. However, at the end of it, it
• 1:36:05
  was all my dad was had enjoyed himself and there was, you know,
• 1:36:09
  kisses and cuddles and things. But we stood at the car park.
• 1:36:11
  I was driving, you know, but we stood at the we stood at the the
• 1:36:16
  foot of, you know, Ben Rennis. Yes, I hadn't tasted the
• 1:36:19
  whiskey, but that moment and I had the credit to the study
• 1:36:22
  manager and made it happen. And it was my dad's birthday.
• 1:36:25
  So I was and he turned and he said, I know I've had a wee, but
• 1:36:29
  he said, but I'm awfully prouder that you're in this industry
• 1:36:31
  because I wouldn't have thought that all those years ago that my
• 1:36:33
  boy would have been and this and he says here I'm at the foot of
• 1:36:36
  Ben Rennes and Glenfarthus's car park, having drank the guts of
• 1:36:40
  thousands of pounds. I was waiting for an invoice.
• 1:36:44
  So I would say that the DRAM that of the three, you know, the
• 1:36:48
  two that for me that tastes the best, but that 1 is really,
• 1:36:50
  really special to me because this.
• 1:36:52
  Would have been one of the family cask ones.
• 1:36:53
  I, it was, it was a family cask in 1955.
• 1:36:56
  I didn't taste it, he said. It was fantastic.
• 1:36:58
  To be honest, it could have been anything, but the fact that me
• 1:37:01
  and my dad were, you know, kind of, you know, arm in arm and
• 1:37:04
  kind of looked up at Ben Willis and do you know something?
• 1:37:06
  You name me a vodka distillery that does that to families and
• 1:37:10
  friends, and you name me a rum distillery that does the same
• 1:37:13
  thing. I know that everything is
• 1:37:14
  cultural and things, but it's the most complex drink on the
• 1:37:18
  planet. And I think that that's what
• 1:37:20
  makes whiskey stories is that. So, well, that's my 3.
• 1:37:24
  David, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your
• 1:37:26
  stories. Absolutely fantastic.
• 1:37:28
  No, really, really been a pleasure and I'm so glad we we
• 1:37:30
  got a chance to. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:37:32
  Thank you for having. Thanks.
• 1:37:33
  Great. Thank you very much.
• 1:37:34
  Cheers. Thank you very much for
• 1:37:35
  listening. All the best, Sanjivar.
• 1:37:36
  Cheers.