Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Dr Whisky Sam Simmons - Atom Brands, Master of Malt and Boutique-y Whisky

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Dr Whisky Sam Simmons - Atom Brands, Master of Malt and Boutique-y Whisky · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  Right, right. I guess.
• 0:01
  You know what? We're good to go.
• 0:02
  We're all set. We've got drums.
• 0:03
  We've got a guest. No, Chuck.
• 0:05
  If he turns up, great. If he doesn't, that's fine.
• 0:08
  Clap us in. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
• 0:14
  podcast. It's the worst podcast ever.
• 0:17
  Oh, it's. Honestly, go if you're still
• 0:19
  listening, everybody. It's not their fault.
• 0:20
  Yeah, it's my fault. I think in 2023 I took count of
• 0:24
  how many new whiskeys we put out and it was 200 and something.
• 0:27
  So not a lot of thinking at 200. Just like, is this the end?
• 0:34
  Because I'm going to piss my fucking.
• 0:36
  Pants I've. Heard that guy?
• 0:41
  Welcome to. The Whiskey Stories podcast,
• 0:43
  myself, Graham. Together we're back in the
• 0:45
  athletic arms, back in the Diggers dungeon sandwich,
• 0:48
  underneath the toilet and the bar.
• 0:50
  We've got loads of drums around us.
• 0:51
  How are you, Angus? We've got a few drums around us.
• 0:54
  We've got a few more around, but.
• 0:56
  We've got those around. Yeah, just blending into the
• 1:01
  surroundings that, yeah. That's too familiar down here
• 1:04
  now. There's no signs that say not
• 1:07
  for Gray or Angus up here. There's plenty not for Ross.
• 1:10
  We could probably tap it. Yeah.
• 1:12
  And actually, you know what, because of the weather outside,
• 1:16
  the temperature in here is absolutely spot on.
• 1:18
  It's perfect. In the summer, this place has
• 1:20
  been a bit of a hot box. Yeah, it's not particularly.
• 1:23
  Comfortable this is, this is, I would say this is.
• 1:26
  Optimum, Yeah. Yeah, there we go.
• 1:27
  We've got the one week of the year where it actually is.
• 1:30
  A comfortable temperature. No Ross.
• 1:32
  Today. Ross is over.
• 1:34
  Ross is over with his father-in-law, mother and
• 1:36
  father-in-law, and he is Michigan.
• 1:39
  And yeah, no, in the Wilds of northern Michigan.
• 1:42
  Brilliant. Good luck to you, Ross.
• 1:44
  With a, with a rifle, yeah. Oh God.
• 1:47
  I don't think you should. I don't think you should.
• 1:49
  I think I think he's there to he's there to stuff the animals
• 1:53
  sinking wall Mountain them turn up on these terrible tax of army
• 2:00
  pages. I've seen Ross run away from a
• 2:02
  spider. But we are joined by somebody
• 2:06
  who doesn't know what they're talking about.
• 2:08
  We've got a doctor in the house. Mr. Sam Simmons, how are you?
• 2:11
  Fantastic. Yeah, all good.
• 2:12
  I also agree the temperature is divine.
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  And I noticed we're surrounded by a lot of closed bottles.
• 2:17
  I guess it's inventory. Yes.
• 2:18
  Yeah, pretty sexy open ones. Yes, exactly.
• 2:22
  There's no, there's no lines. Kev doesn't draw lines on the
• 2:24
  bottle on the open bottles just yet.
• 2:26
  But no, but it's great. But Sam, welcome along to the
• 2:28
  whiskey store. This podcast, Doctor Whiskey,
• 2:30
  you're head of whiskey for Atom Brands.
• 2:33
  It'd be great to have you here and we've spoken quite a little
• 2:36
  bit over the phone and stuff like that.
• 2:38
  You're flying in. It's a fleeting visit, so we've
• 2:40
  managed to get you because you're normally based out of
• 2:43
  that strong Norwegian accent that you've got.
• 2:45
  There was the giveaway wasn't. It pretty true.
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  It's very true. I live in Tonsburg.
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  It's a nice city in the South of the ball sack of Norway.
• 2:54
  It's like the Swedish. Chef from the moment, But yeah,
• 2:57
  you're visiting. You're visiting.
• 2:59
  Yeah, I, you say visiting and I was explaining it to colleagues
• 3:02
  down South. I do feel like I'm coming home
• 3:04
  when I come to Edinburgh, which is, I sound so stupid probably,
• 3:07
  but I'm not ashamed of it. This is where my adult life
• 3:11
  began. I became like a grown up living
• 3:13
  in the city and it became my life, my whiskey life, my wife,
• 3:19
  friends for life. All that kind of shit happened
• 3:22
  here. So I definitely feel like
• 3:24
  Edinburgh's a home of. Mine, but you're not from
• 3:28
  Edinburgh or Norway. No, neither of those places.
• 3:30
  I'm from Toronto. Brilliant.
• 3:32
  That's you can tell by the way I say Toronto.
• 3:35
  Yeah, from Toronto and I, but I moved to Edinburgh 2002 and have
• 3:40
  been away from Toronto ever since.
• 3:42
  Wow, well, well, so welcome along Let's get stories podcast.
• 3:45
  We had a colleague of yours and friend of yours, Boutiki Dave,
• 3:48
  on. Who is Dave Worlington?
• 3:50
  Dave Worlington for a brilliant guest, brought a lot of great
• 3:52
  drums with him and he had an incredible line and a great
• 3:54
  story as well. Starting off just by writing
• 3:57
  sort of little whiskey reviews. On Facebook, going to whiskey
• 3:59
  festivals with his daughter as well.
• 4:01
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cat had some great stories,
• 4:04
  yeah. So what got you?
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  How do you end up? First of all, I've got written
• 4:08
  down here, Doctor Whiskey, because that is your, that's
• 4:09
  sort of your handle, but you're not.
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  Are you a doctor of whiskey? Yeah, but that that handle
• 4:15
  similar to Dave's story. Whiskey Discovery is, is a blog
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  I started. So I lived in Edinburgh, like I
• 4:21
  said, 2002 to 2006, moved down to London and and when I lived
• 4:26
  here, I was, I worked in Auburn's at Queensferry Rd.
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  I think it's gone now, but yeah, yeah.
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  Auburn's, Queensferry Rd. friends with anyone on the Royal
• 4:34
  Mile. Royal Mile Whiskey's, of course,
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  just a whiskey nerd because I didn't know anybody.
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  So I joined a whiskey club and just got enamoured with the
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  spirit and the folk. Were you a fan of whiskey before
• 4:44
  you moved to Scotland? No, I would say no.
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  I stole. I stole a green bottle with a
• 4:49
  white label from my grandfather and it tasted like cancer.
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  I. Was like.
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  I'm good. I do not need to drink that.
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  That's foul. No.
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  So no. But yeah, when I moved here,
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  mostly as a way to meet people, I went along to a whiskey
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  society, the Edinburgh University Water of Life
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  Society. Oh yeah, yeah.
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  Yeah, and there's mostly English folks or posh Scots and and one
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  woman from Sweden named Jess who was the mascot.
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  And they sat around going oh, divine.
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  Oh, yeah. Oh, quiet.
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  No popcorn. Oh, I agree, James, but I really
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  got into I, I, I, I thought whiskey was like one thing, a
• 5:30
  monolith. Johnnie Walker was the same as
• 5:32
  Glenn Livet. Glenn was the same as Glenn
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  Physic. I didn't know.
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  I didn't really know. So I, I got really enabled with
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  the whole thing and then the people.
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  And then I remember that first night at that whiskey club kind
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  of floating home. It was a different drunk.
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  It was a different high and I I loved it.
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  And that was you. So basically from that, from
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  that moment you kind of that was that was the start of it because
• 5:54
  I mean Canada has a good whiskey well history.
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  Yes, you know, I mean, I don't know, I know a lot about it.
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  I mean, I know that, you know, maybe you can light this a
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  little bit, but I know these kind of big powerhouse Canadian
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  club and all this sort of stuff, absolutely massive.
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  Well, you also, they from a historical point of view in
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  Canada was influential in getting whiskey into the States
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  during prohibition. You know, the smuggling, the
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  smuggling routes. You've got Hiram Walker, who was
• 6:18
  a Canadian. Yeah, yeah.
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  Whiskey maker, what was who came over, bought Ballantine's and
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  what have you. Yeah.
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  What's the other big. Well, there was another big
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  Canadian whiskey brand that came into Scotland as well.
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  Someone, someone will be sitting shouting at it at their radio
• 6:33
  right now. But coming into Edinburgh then
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  as a as a way to meet people, that's an interesting noise.
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  Hope. The mic is on the.
• 6:41
  I hope the mic is picking that at home.
• 6:43
  Just a hump there that's going to give me a lots of editing to
• 6:45
  do in the background. Yeah, someone's blocked,
• 6:48
  someone's blocked the toilet or something, I don't know.
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  But the like when you when you come to Edinburgh, then this is
• 6:54
  what's always fascinating for me is like as a Scott and other
• 6:58
  people that we've spoken to on the podcast who are Scottish,
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  you feel like some you'll I always feel really disappointed
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  when you meet a Scotsman, A fellow Scotsman, Scottish person
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  and they go, I can't stand whiskey, mate.
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  You are like, it's, it's meant to be your heritage.
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  It's like can't stand whiskey, can't stand haggis, don't like
• 7:14
  football, can't watch the rugby. And you're like, well, what
• 7:17
  identity and kilts? I can't wear a kilt.
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  And you go, well, what's your identity like that sort of
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  identity in some cases. Now it's wrong to say
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  stereotypes like we're not stereotypes.
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  Or have you? I'm racking my brain for
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  something that you don't like. But I but I hold it.
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  I like, I, I, oops. I hope that and other people
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  hold it to them about like I remember Speaking of Colin Hines
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  from Tipsy Midgery when we interviewed him and he said he
• 7:42
  was travelling the world and as a Scotsman, it was like that was
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  what made him feel like I should know about whiskey.
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  So when I'm speaking to a foreign.
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  Person I've heard, Yeah. I could say so.
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  I'm always fascinated from the other point of view, when you
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  meet somebody who's not Scottish but obsessed with whiskey.
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  What was it that? Was it just a thing that you
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  thought? I'm going to have to tick this
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  to say I'm coming to. Scotland.
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  I think a kid, a kid growing up in a Chocolate Factory might not
• 8:05
  love chocolate. And I think you guys are
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  spoiled. It's everywhere.
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  Your uncle had his fucking breath stank and you didn't want
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  to be around him. No, I want someone else to say
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  goodnight to me. I don't want Uncle Tommy to read
• 8:14
  me a fucking story. Smells like gross and you didn't
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  know what it was. I think that's a really common
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  story. And when I, when I started
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  working with Balvini in the US in 2008, we then hired mostly
• 8:28
  Scots to take on the role. And, and not all of them were
• 8:33
  whiskey fluent. They didn't give a shit.
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  They didn't grow up in a house that yeah, and I and I totally.
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  But then at a distance, they're like, wait a second, I I see it
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  with a different perspective now because it's too close.
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  So why? What what?
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  What is it about it or why? I just find like, was it a case
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  of, look, I'm coming to Edinburgh to study whiskey is
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  part of the Scottish thing. You said I'm going to did you
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  make a conscious effort? Was it like, so your wow moment
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  was that the water of life, whiskey society?
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  But that's a big step for somebody just to take to go.
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  Obviously you're saying from a social point point of view,
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  yeah, probably else, but but you know, because there'd be a lot
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  of people that would go, I'll go to a public diggers, try a
• 9:16
  couple of drams because it's like it ticks a box of like come
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  to Scotland, try some whiskey. Well, no, you can't do that.
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  I'm, I'm, I hope it's different now, 20 plus years of companies
• 9:29
  investing in ambassadors and education.
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  But I have to be honest, back then a wall like what you have
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  at Diggers or or any great whiskey bar is really
• 9:38
  intimidating and not and not welcoming.
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  It doesn't bring people in. Actually, it make it turns
• 9:43
  people away, unfortunately, and I think that unfortunately is
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  still true. Having great people on the bar
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  who can speak but and not make it patronizing helps.
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  But I I think without that first little bit of education and
• 9:56
  information that it's OK to say bridge ladage and no one's going
• 9:58
  to make fun either. Just correct you otherwise, that
• 10:02
  first experience when you say can I have the La Perhag and
• 10:05
  someone laughs at you, you're never going to drink that again.
• 10:08
  And that was that was prominent. Yeah, well, that was yes, I've
• 10:11
  said it before and I'm so glad you've said that because I've
• 10:13
  said that by the SMWS and I love, we love the Scotch Malt
• 10:17
  Whiskey Society and they've been there.
• 10:19
  And you, you're out tomorrow. We're going to enjoy a lovely
• 10:22
  meal down there some. Publisher next.
• 10:25
  Week by the time this goes out, doesn't that we've had our
• 10:28
  lunch, but but I've said it and that that that intimidation
• 10:33
  because the two things that really put me off was #1 not
• 10:38
  knowing what was on the bottle. So the I didn't have the trust
• 10:41
  that I would like because I didn't know what I liked.
• 10:44
  What I knew I could like was what I like.
• 10:47
  For example, going for the 15, I knew I liked, so I saw it behind
• 10:51
  the bar. Good, I'll go for that.
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  And then maybe if you've got a good bar person working behind
• 10:56
  the bar, they might go, if you like that, yeah, we could get
• 10:59
  you this. Yeah.
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  Whereas going in the SMWS and looking at a wall of whiskey and
• 11:03
  going, I don't know what to pick.
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  And then the fact that. All right, I think they're
• 11:08
  tasting notes are very cool. And I like the way they do their
• 11:10
  tasting notes and how they describe a bottle.
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  I still just go, I don't know, I just want something that I like
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  and I know and I know I'll like. So that that was that.
• 11:19
  Then the other side of it was I like what you're saying about
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  the water life society about sometimes you can go to these
• 11:25
  places. The pretentiousness that
• 11:26
  sometimes surrounded it made like you're saying, I don't want
• 11:29
  to be the guy that makes a mistake or sometimes sitting in
• 11:32
  the room when everyone's going and I'm still that guy.
• 11:34
  And I'm quite happy to talk about it now when everyone goes,
• 11:36
  can you get I'm getting I'm getting that on there and I'm
• 11:39
  sitting there going. No, I I don't.
• 11:40
  Smells like whiskey. Stuff.
• 11:41
  Yeah, yeah. But yeah, look, Georgie, Mark
• 11:44
  Watt, Georgie Lagvulin, you know, Port Ellen now, they
• 11:49
  worked at the bar, Yeah. And.
• 11:51
  And they were not snobby. They were.
• 11:54
  And it is an intimidating thing, but you could just say the thing
• 11:57
  I know I like is Solaris or whatever was called back then.
• 12:00
  The. Yeah.
• 12:03
  Glenfiddich 15, which is gorgeous.
• 12:04
  Whiskey still is. You could say that and they'd be
• 12:07
  like, OK, great. And they'd steer and they
• 12:08
  wouldn't make you feel like a Dick.
• 12:09
  No, no, make you feel dumb. And I think the society,
• 12:12
  although it's a society and yeah, yeah.
• 12:14
  Leather couch. How?
• 12:15
  Does that operate then? Is that like a weekly thing?
• 12:18
  Do you, do you meet? Do you get people in from
• 12:20
  outside? Do you go and kind of for our
• 12:22
  Edinburgh whiskey or the society?
• 12:24
  Yeah, Life Society. So a separate thing that there's
• 12:26
  SMWS, but now the water Life Society, when I, I was like, I
• 12:29
  say it was like 12 people. We, I really got into it.
• 12:33
  We we grew it to be 2 bottles per session, so 56 people.
• 12:39
  And was that you just clubbing together, buying your own
• 12:41
  bottles? Everyone threw, everyone paid a
• 12:43
  membership fee, I think of 5 lbs.
• 12:45
  So you had a you had a Kitty and then £5 per meeting.
• 12:48
  So you could always buy a bit ahead and just covered your
• 12:51
  costs. And then maybe a brand.
• 12:53
  That's How I Met Richard Patterson.
• 12:55
  That's How I Met John Glazer. I would I so I just said these
• 12:58
  guys. Came and.
• 12:59
  Could what? Would you guys send a bottle?
• 13:00
  Oh, oh, call myself Sam. Yeah.
• 13:03
  Yeah. And they were the warmest, most
• 13:06
  generous people and made the whole thing feel welcoming.
• 13:11
  Did you have to change the carpet?
• 13:12
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's where this
• 13:15
  went. But I mean that.
• 13:19
  No, no, but exactly they were warm and welcoming and made it
• 13:22
  really easy. When we go back to when we
• 13:23
  talked, we talked to Arthur Motley, I guess yes, you heard
• 13:26
  Arthur talking about the early 2000s.
• 13:28
  We only know whiskey from what we when we really started
• 13:33
  drinking whiskey. Sure.
• 13:34
  Which is like, you know, 2018 to 2020.
• 13:37
  Exactly. Everything before is ancient,
• 13:39
  history isn't. It yeah so suddenly you're
• 13:41
  looking at like the world now of where whiskey like you're saying
• 13:44
  that bars maybe bars have like diggers for example, in 2002
• 13:49
  wouldn't have had the whiskey collection at.
• 13:51
  But. No, I came here when I lived
• 13:52
  here, you know. We were talking about this.
• 13:54
  Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, you were saying that it
• 13:58
  just didn't. You knew this bar from when you
• 14:00
  were at Edinburgh University and it just didn't have the whiskey
• 14:03
  selection. It had a it was a great pub and
• 14:05
  you could speak to people. It was it was a great pub, but
• 14:07
  it was not a whiskey destination.
• 14:09
  And that's obviously something Kev's put in place since he's
• 14:12
  been, you know, we spoke about that when we had.
• 14:14
  Well, Kev mentioned that yeah, I mean as a as a sort of blueprint
• 14:16
  for that 35 mils and loads and loads of bottles in the back bar
• 14:19
  and you know, but. Then you mentioned you know you
• 14:22
  were here then in Edinburgh to 2006.
• 14:24
  You mentioned 2008, you were working in whiskey, so a career
• 14:27
  in whiskey, Was that something you always wanted to pursue or
• 14:29
  was that something that just just happened?
• 14:32
  I don't know that existed. I remember.
• 14:34
  Remember like when you started? Was this was this due to them
• 14:36
  being odd bins that this opportunity came back around or?
• 14:40
  No, not quite. So, no, no.
• 14:43
  So after living in Edinburgh, made contacts in whiskey.
• 14:48
  It gave my soul joy. It definitely was the happiest
• 14:51
  bit of my life. Whiskey stuff, and then you
• 14:55
  asked about the society. We did do trips and stuff.
• 14:57
  We'd hold all. Right, so you.
• 14:58
  Would go up to distilleries. Or so that I I would have to
• 15:02
  reach out to you and Aaron say, hey, I want to bring 20 people
• 15:06
  over. Can we?
• 15:08
  Of course. And they would and every the
• 15:10
  answer was always yes. How can we make it happen?
• 15:11
  Everyone was so warm and welcome.
• 15:13
  It was just awesome. And I could use other people's
• 15:16
  money to for myself to go. Do you have any favorite trips
• 15:20
  that you went on with the society then?
• 15:22
  Well, yeah, Aaron crossing Aaron to Ila, you know, to Kin Tire,
• 15:26
  then to Ila. That was a cool way to do.
• 15:28
  It that is, yeah. So getting the ferry from Aaron
• 15:30
  to Kin Tire, Kin Tire then to Ila, Exactly.
• 15:33
  That's the back route, right? Yes.
• 15:35
  Yeah, yeah, well, we like it in the back way, you know, it was
• 15:38
  awesome. My favorite memory was being in
• 15:42
  Pit Lockry where we stopped you when Pit Lockry was a great
• 15:45
  place to visit. Easy up from here if you're
• 15:48
  driving and you and you it's a very cute town and you could do
• 15:53
  a walk through the hills end up at you could start a Blair Ethel
• 15:57
  walk through the hills, see a deer, probably see a waterfall
• 15:59
  end up at Edward Dower. It's perfect, you know.
• 16:02
  And after that we get back to the cars to the like these buses
• 16:06
  that we've gone. And the American guy Alaric is
• 16:09
  the president of the club says I'm ready to drive.
• 16:12
  No, I haven't had enough to drink.
• 16:14
  I'll I'm fine to drive. And as we pull out of the
• 16:17
  parking spot, he says, just so you know, I haven't driven in 10
• 16:22
  years, and this is my first time driving on the left side of the
• 16:30
  road. And within seconds, If not,
• 16:32
  yeah, minutes. Maybe he's scratched the car.
• 16:36
  Off. And we had, we had to stop and
• 16:38
  we waited for the person to come.
• 16:40
  We made a note, but then we just waited and we're in the but
• 16:44
  anyway, we're all half lit anyway.
• 16:46
  We had a great time and he took it like a guy.
• 16:49
  But anyway, that was that was it should be a distillery story,
• 16:52
  but that's one of my favorite that is.
• 16:54
  Well, that's the thing. That's what sometimes like when
• 16:56
  we've done these trips on yesterday.
• 16:57
  Oh yeah. Well, that's it.
• 16:58
  It's almost the kind of incidental things that happen
• 17:00
  around. Yeah, exactly.
• 17:02
  That's we've had, we've had, right.
• 17:03
  So go Edinburgh then right. That's.
• 17:06
  My fault we're. Going anywhere?
• 17:07
  Let's go back, Doctor. Whiskey.
• 17:08
  So you're not a doctor of whiskey then?
• 17:10
  I'm not a doctor of whiskey, but my buddies.
• 17:11
  So when I was here in Edinburgh, 2002 and 2006, I was studying
• 17:14
  towards a PhD in literature and running this whiskey club.
• 17:18
  And so my buddies all started. I definitely spoke more about
• 17:21
  whiskey than about Ezra Pound or poetry, which was what I was
• 17:24
  writing about. And so jokingly people started
• 17:27
  calling my buddy Ran, who I'm staying with now, you would say
• 17:30
  doctor, whiskey, doctor whiskey. And then that just became a
• 17:33
  thing. So when I left Edinburgh for
• 17:36
  London, my brother-in-law, my wife now his yeah, my wife's
• 17:41
  brother said you should currently.
• 17:43
  Thank you said, you know, the Internet's the thing you should,
• 17:49
  you should start a web log. A web log.
• 17:52
  Yeah. OK.
• 17:52
  What the fuck is that blog? blogger.com.
• 17:55
  All right, so check it out. And I could start just having a
• 17:59
  whiskey and writing about it and how to justify justifiable
• 18:04
  reason to keep in touch with you in an Aaron or Richard Patterson
• 18:07
  or John Glazer, whoever it was, Bill Lumpser was also very
• 18:10
  generous in those early years. And it would give me an extra
• 18:13
  reason to be like, hey, I'm doing this thing.
• 18:16
  Can I check a fact about original or whatever icon
• 18:19
  warranty. And I sort of started writing
• 18:21
  about it and I the name I gave it was Doctor Whiskey, right.
• 18:24
  Yeah. And then that became you said,
• 18:26
  did you get the job because of Queens for a no doctor whiskey.
• 18:29
  There were there were there was Serge Valentin whiskey fun still
• 18:32
  going with Angus and Serge. There was an American guy named
• 18:39
  Kevin who had a website called I'm I'm really sorry, Kev.
• 18:42
  Fucking hell, there were only like 3 English language websites
• 18:46
  happening so if someone wanted to look up Glenn Livet 15 or
• 18:49
  Glenn Fiddick 15 it was I came on.
• 18:51
  Yeah, yeah, which is great. Yeah.
• 18:54
  You say that early day, like the early days of it.
• 18:57
  Paul Maine. We've talked about Paul Maine a
• 18:59
  lot. Paul went on the podcast.
• 19:00
  He said I was a whiskey geek when like in the 90s.
• 19:04
  And it's like you had to wait for magazines to come through.
• 19:06
  And then obviously. If only we'd started the podcast
• 19:10
  then. I know exactly.
• 19:11
  We have 3000 followers on Instagram, but because it's like
• 19:18
  I, you know, that early day of being involved in writing and
• 19:21
  even Speaking of the day, like Bhatika Dave, they were talking
• 19:24
  about, you know, back then, you're talking, he was well,
• 19:27
  maybe 15 years ago, just writing a review of a DRAM on Facebook
• 19:31
  just for his pals. It led to a blog it led to then
• 19:35
  and that's what it where it stands.
• 19:36
  Interestingly, the odd bins thing, I'm trying to think how
• 19:39
  many. We've had a few odd bins.
• 19:41
  You're not even the first Canadian that worked in odd bins
• 19:44
  on this podcast. No, that's right.
• 19:45
  Megan Murdoch. Yeah, She she started an odd
• 19:48
  bin. Yeah.
• 19:49
  That's true, yeah, To. Yourself.
• 19:50
  Jamie Dawson, I'm sure he was an odd bins guy.
• 19:53
  Yeah, and there's. There's other There has been a
• 19:56
  couple. It's funny like that route into
• 19:58
  it, so odd bins just was a job whilst you were a student just
• 20:01
  to get by and work and work. Yeah, yeah, it.
• 20:03
  Was it was exactly it was a way to pay the bills and.
• 20:06
  Did it give you an opportunity at that time were odd bins
• 20:09
  focusing on on whiskey or was it literally just you had a whiskey
• 20:13
  thing and odd bins weren't really doing anything with with?
• 20:16
  Whiskey other than no, I'm just so the front bit of the shop was
• 20:19
  all whiskey and that's where I was to stand, right.
• 20:23
  I was already nerdy about it, but and I educated.
• 20:26
  I walked around Bulmark and I'm looking up and go home and get
• 20:30
  Michael Jackson's book out and try to look it up.
• 20:31
  Didn't you use the Internet? Really used books, the old
• 20:34
  fashioned? Way which I mean like The thing
• 20:36
  is maybe there wasn't so much information back then.
• 20:40
  So the information you were putting on now, it was then what
• 20:44
  people would use for for information that they found.
• 20:47
  But ultimately I find now it's actually a trusted source is
• 20:51
  probably the best way you can get it.
• 20:53
  And there's still whiskey books that you can look at now.
• 20:56
  What year but whiskey Yearbook? Is the best.
• 20:58
  Yeah, I mean, I would feel more comfortable taking the facts out
• 21:01
  of the Whiskey Yearbook than I would be trying to find it
• 21:04
  online. Yeah, because you could, you
• 21:06
  could probably look online, you could probably find different
• 21:08
  variations, different things. Wikipedia, you're relying on if
• 21:12
  it's been updated properly or anything like that.
• 21:14
  Whereas actually you go the Whiskey Yearbook and you don't
• 21:16
  know what if you actually have to reference something if you
• 21:19
  say it's come from the whiskey yearbook, people in whiskey will
• 21:21
  just go, yeah, well, that's probably the best reference
• 21:24
  point you'd. Get if there's one thing to have
• 21:25
  in your bag as a whiskey nerd, that's definitely the one.
• 21:28
  And it's been since 2005, maybe 2005.
• 21:32
  That's an amazing resource. You're right.
• 21:34
  I was trying to look up a fact about Blair Ethel the other day
• 21:39
  and now fucking Google AI is the first that comes up you have.
• 21:43
  To scroll across which? You can scroll across to web if
• 21:45
  you want it, but you can't default web.
• 21:46
  No, the AI is. There and so the AI comes up
• 21:49
  first and it tells me about Bob Blair and I knew that because I
• 21:51
  know the details of Bob Blair at 1798, but whatever year it was
• 21:54
  definitely 18th century, 18th century.
• 21:57
  So totally wrong, but I don't I'm worried.
• 22:01
  Nevermind, just whiskey. Well.
• 22:03
  Everything else really helps. I was just interested just just
• 22:06
  because any of our listeners in Dundee, when they hear AI, what
• 22:09
  we're talking about, it's something on Internet lads,
• 22:18
  because I just find it fascinating that the access, I
• 22:22
  mean, first of all, I would say that the access hasn't been very
• 22:26
  difficult for us. You know, we've reached out to
• 22:29
  plenty of people and there has been so many people who have
• 22:33
  been so open and helpful. And that's what you find in the
• 22:36
  whiskey industry. I think as long as people are
• 22:37
  talking, writing, whatever it is they're doing about whiskey,
• 22:41
  then people are really happy to push it.
• 22:42
  And there's always that friendliness.
• 22:44
  But I would say now the the names that you've mentioned back
• 22:50
  in the early 2000s, accessibility to them then
• 22:53
  versus now, like Doctor Bill the message, Doctor Bill Lumsdone on
• 22:56
  Instagram and he's Yep, sure, we'll try and see what we can
• 22:59
  do. Really, really friendly, really,
• 23:01
  really helpful guys. It's mental.
• 23:03
  That would not happen if Nike, if you want to speak to someone
• 23:06
  in Adidas, yeah. Which is just, that's mental.
• 23:09
  It's super cool. But then at the same time, you
• 23:12
  know, I think the way that whiskey's gone, it makes it
• 23:15
  harder for them to go. I could just pop on the phone,
• 23:18
  have a blithery or pop down or anything like that.
• 23:20
  You know, we have seen it and rightly so.
• 23:22
  We've had we've, we've got big brands lined up for, for the
• 23:25
  future, then 2026 for the podcast.
• 23:28
  But again, there's a lot more of we'll need to run through a few
• 23:31
  more ways of getting you to speak to these people so that we
• 23:35
  don't have that. And that's fine.
• 23:37
  Because when you look at where the brands probably were back
• 23:39
  then to where what the corporate, the way the corporate
• 23:43
  world is now with whiskey, that probably governs a lot of the
• 23:46
  high end. Then part of it it makes it
• 23:48
  makes it trickier, doesn't. It Oh yeah for sure, but but
• 23:51
  it's not your role as a you're you're doing a podcast to chat
• 23:54
  and to have a human connection. Like I said, I just listened to
• 23:57
  an episode the other day and laughing out loud embarrassingly
• 24:00
  in front of strangers. I said, we've said that it's
• 24:03
  embarrassing, but because you did a podcast yourself, you had
• 24:08
  a, you had a podcast. Oh, yeah, when we had the time
• 24:11
  and wherewithal. Yeah, I loved it.
• 24:13
  We loved it, David. I both, I mean, so I remember
• 24:16
  adding Doctor Whiskey's website. I remember after I started, more
• 24:21
  English language whiskey websites appeared.
• 24:23
  I remember adding Dave's to the link wall at the side and it
• 24:27
  was, there were 6 links maybe and then 12 and then 27 and then
• 24:32
  50, and then it was a whole other page.
• 24:34
  It was like links here. You had to go to another thing.
• 24:36
  It blew. I was just at that time to do
• 24:38
  that. And but the objective source,
• 24:40
  I'm really going to say is you're trying to talk to people
• 24:42
  and just like humanize it all. It's not corporate Dr. Whiskey.
• 24:46
  I was never. The website was never like it
• 24:48
  was only information and no judgement, no scores.
• 24:51
  All right, OK. It was never like this is shit
• 24:53
  or I think this is shit or this is objectively shit.
• 24:57
  That was not the purpose. The purpose is like a great film
• 24:59
  review or record review. The good ones tell you about the
• 25:03
  film as objectively as possible and you decide if you think
• 25:06
  you're going to dig this. And I think that idea was true
• 25:12
  to whiskey. I learned that from whiskey, the
• 25:14
  wit and Scotland, not to patronize you guys, but I think
• 25:17
  Scotland is a very Scottish people have a very special
• 25:21
  demeanor and and outlook that is it has permeated other parts of
• 25:25
  the world because of innovation, you know, for the last 200
• 25:28
  years. But there's a certain special
• 25:30
  Scottish Scottish. There's something in
• 25:33
  Scottishness that self deprecation.
• 25:38
  You're right. I think it's really important to
• 25:40
  not take yourself and that attitude is everywhere.
• 25:44
  Absolutely. I mean, it's like what you're
• 25:45
  saying about the reviewing side of things.
• 25:48
  It's something that we've looked at and it's like, look, this is
• 25:52
  the other thing is click bait and all that kind of stuff.
• 25:56
  Opinions. Or you'll get clicks.
• 25:57
  If you, if you say something like I'm going to tell you the
• 26:01
  five worst whiskeys that I've had of 2025, yeah, people.
• 26:05
  And you'll get people going like what are you talking about?
• 26:07
  And it's very easy to then suddenly say, look what we could
• 26:12
  do. We could sit there and say, I'll
• 26:13
  tell you what I'm going to do is I'm going to stick an ARD Beg 10
• 26:16
  in there. Because I know if I put ARD Beg
• 26:19
  10 in my 5 worst whiskeys in 2025, someone's going to go
• 26:22
  mental about it. And it's going to create this
• 26:24
  create, spark and create. And then it's eyes on.
• 26:27
  And then I can think of three current examples of content
• 26:30
  creators or whatever the fucking called online and I who
• 26:33
  specifically do that. And it's that's not, that's not,
• 26:36
  that's not. Cricket.
• 26:37
  Jokes, but I've been worried about it because I sometimes
• 26:40
  feel like I'm I, I'm we are reluctant to pass.
• 26:44
  Too much judgment and opinion on a draft Yeah, well, I, I, I
• 26:47
  never wanted to really do whiskey reviews because I never
• 26:50
  felt I was qualified to do them, especially starting out.
• 26:53
  And even still now I don't feel like I've got I've got enough
• 26:58
  conviction in my own opinions to be able to pass judgment because
• 27:00
  at the end of the day, I don't want to say something.
• 27:02
  Well, I mean. It's great.
• 27:03
  Or someone's crap and then someone disagrees with me.
• 27:04
  That's exactly what I don't want.
• 27:06
  Before we start, before we do start sounding like hypocrites,
• 27:08
  we do do we do we do, we do. I know it's going at 62nd
• 27:13
  Whiskey reviews, which we haven't done in a little while,
• 27:14
  but yeah, we tried. But it's more.
• 27:17
  I just find that like, sometimes, yeah, you're but.
• 27:21
  It's not an in depth series. So when those are subjective
• 27:23
  opinions, I watch. Those, yes.
• 27:25
  That's different. Or Ross's thing that he's doing
• 27:27
  where he's blind. He's fucking brave.
• 27:29
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 27:30
  Because you're going to expose yourself as an idiot.
• 27:32
  But that's OK, he's good at that.
• 27:33
  But. Nobody.
• 27:34
  Nobody. He's not an adept.
• 27:36
  He's not an. Adept.
• 27:36
  No, of course not. But that I think that's coming
• 27:40
  from the right place, yeah. I just, I, I, it's an
• 27:43
  interesting way. So when you're writing reviews,
• 27:46
  so when you are putting those reviews out, you're just saying
• 27:48
  this is this whiskey, this is what it is.
• 27:51
  Are you? I tried to tell the story of the
• 27:52
  distillery or some personal vignette.
• 27:54
  If I visited it or something I heard from somebody else who did
• 27:58
  or a link to another. I was always trying to elevate
• 28:00
  other people doing whiskey. A link to another website who
• 28:04
  who reviewed this before. And then in terms of the tasting
• 28:08
  notes, like I think it did nose, palate taste or whatever, nose,
• 28:11
  palate finish. Typical real, real creative
• 28:14
  cinemas. But that, that was, it was never
• 28:17
  like there were no value terms. It was mostly just like it's,
• 28:23
  it's carbolic or it's I, I is this baby sick or, you know,
• 28:27
  it's still be there, be negative things.
• 28:30
  But I, it was just trying to be as factual about it as possible.
• 28:33
  And if you like material, people do.
• 28:35
  If you like sulphur, people do. Yeah, yeah, this whiskey's gone.
• 28:38
  Absolutely. That's it.
• 28:39
  No, that's well on on the subject of drams, we've actually
• 28:41
  all finished our drams. But what have we been dramming?
• 28:43
  We've got sulphur. We've.
• 28:45
  So we, we, we have we've, we've had the full St. of Jane St.
• 28:50
  Yeah, we've had the full. Street So tonight Woody and
• 28:54
  Megan are launching Jane St. their.
• 28:56
  Brand and we featured the bottles on a previous episode as
• 28:59
  well. When we were down at their
• 29:00
  warehouse, we had a kind of sneak peek.
• 29:02
  Although actually interestingly, when we were there, I don't know
• 29:05
  if we mentioned it on the pod or when it was after recording with
• 29:07
  three bottles on the table, but they were actually Woodrow's
• 29:11
  whiskeys. Yeah, they didn't have the
• 29:12
  whiskey these. Were made.
• 29:13
  These were Woodrow's whiskey labeled with Jane St. for
• 29:16
  photographs. Yeah.
• 29:18
  So when we kind of said, oh, can we try it, it was like, Oh,
• 29:21
  well, it's actually not Jane, This is Jane St.
• 29:23
  We have So Jane Street, so basically they talked about it
• 29:27
  on the podcast. They're bringing out a sort of
• 29:29
  their own brand of Jane Street where they're going to.
• 29:32
  It's not blended, blended. It's not splendid.
• 29:34
  Malt. What do I guess?
• 29:36
  It is grim. I think it is.
• 29:38
  It's blended malt. It's blended malt because we
• 29:41
  talked about it on the it's blended malt.
• 29:43
  Sorry, apologies, I. But it's yeah, the aim is for
• 29:46
  yeah, 3 consistent different flavor profiles.
• 29:48
  So there's now what? Did they describe them on the
• 29:52
  bottom? There's a Sherry one, there's a
• 29:53
  barbony one of the smoky one. Exactly.
• 29:54
  Exactly. So John, Mark and Robo, we're
• 29:56
  ahead of the time. Have you ever heard of that?
• 29:58
  No. So John Mark and Robbo, they
• 30:00
  were too early because this concept is great.
• 30:03
  I'm not dissing Megan Woody's. I think it's great they're doing
• 30:05
  this. John Mark and Robbo, the cartoon
• 30:08
  label. I like that.
• 30:09
  Yeah. Cartoon label.
• 30:11
  Guy used to work at McAllen and two of his buddies, and they had
• 30:14
  a rich one, Rich, rich sweet one, Smooth sweet one.
• 30:19
  Sorry. It's a rich, spicy one.
• 30:20
  Smooth sweet 1, which was green. The first one was red it works
• 30:26
  and a Smokey PD one. There you go.
• 30:28
  And that was. And they were they were before
• 30:30
  they were ahead of their time 2005 they had scratch and sniff
• 30:33
  stickers. You.
• 30:34
  Get this. Card it was fucking great and it
• 30:36
  was it was it was brilliant and the whiskeys were great too, but
• 30:39
  the world I don't think the whiskey.
• 30:41
  Was, but anyway, I, I, I had the Smokey one, yeah.
• 30:44
  I had the Sherry 1 Sherry. I remember it's a type and.
• 30:47
  Smooth readers, Yeah. Or whatever.
• 30:49
  Very very nice, very easygoing and they're talking about 40 odd
• 30:52
  percent. I can't remember off the top of
• 30:53
  my head what the percent of the ABV's are, but it's not
• 30:55
  basically what is is Woody and Megan are bringing out something
• 30:58
  that's not single cask. It's not cast strength, it's
• 31:00
  blended malt and it's a consistent product.
• 31:02
  It's a consistent product that you can get and it's a lunch
• 31:04
  tonight which we the three of us were inviting along to but
• 31:06
  neither of us could make it there because we're doing this.
• 31:08
  So we just wanted to say thank you very much to them for that.
• 31:11
  Yeah, although we still paid he. Can make it because he was
• 31:13
  speaking to us. We can make it because we were
• 31:14
  speaking. To that exactly.
• 31:16
  Yeah. Bye, but lovely, lovely dramas
• 31:19
  all the same. Very, very good.
• 31:20
  And oh. Really.
• 31:21
  And Scott Mover is here. He is, yeah.
• 31:25
  We've met him before. He's at that event.
• 31:28
  He was upstairs. He was in this room about an
• 31:30
  hour ago. And.
• 31:32
  How was that? We've met him, he's over.
• 31:33
  He very kindly gave me this Glen Kern glass, which I suspect
• 31:37
  probably very few other people in Scotland have.
• 31:39
  Memphis Symphony Orchestra. Can you play it?
• 31:43
  I don't like to take my old Morgan Graham.
• 31:46
  You leave that to the current way.
• 31:47
  Exactly. But we're lucky.
• 31:52
  But no. So Scott Moore's here.
• 31:53
  It's great. It's we've got a big weekend
• 31:55
  ahead of us. We're taking Scott out and about
• 31:58
  in Edinburgh tomorrow and then we're heading up to Glenn
• 32:00
  Caddham. Cody Reynolds is sort of
• 32:02
  slightly interesting. Like just a bit.
• 32:03
  Of vlog to the public as well. Oh yeah, there'll be a couple of
• 32:06
  vlogs coming out and maybe a special episode as well.
• 32:08
  Ross, ironically, our American listener has flown all the way
• 32:12
  from America to come and see us at the same time that Ross has
• 32:14
  flown all the way from Scotland to America.
• 32:16
  So but there is a they are back on Tuesday.
• 32:20
  We are there are. We're all in the same room on
• 32:22
  Tuesday. All all all going well.
• 32:24
  I think they're just balancing it out really well.
• 32:26
  That's exactly, yeah, 2 two big heavy hitters from the Whiskey
• 32:29
  Stories podcast. Can't have them all in the same
• 32:31
  place once. What are we drinking just now?
• 32:33
  Well, this is it. You've strategically.
• 32:35
  Turned the label away from us. What we got?
• 32:37
  What have we got here? We, we've talked a lot about
• 32:40
  Doctor whiskey, but I, I work with Adam Brands, which is
• 32:42
  Master Malt, right? Yeah.
• 32:43
  So worked with Balbeni and Glenfiddich for years and now
• 32:47
  I'm head of whiskey at Adam Supplies, which is Master Malt.
• 32:52
  The online retailer Maverick Drinks, the UK importer and
• 32:55
  distributor and Adam Brands where we make shit up and try to
• 32:58
  make shit that I would buy basically, which is a dream.
• 33:02
  Yeah, because I mean that that that we spoke a lot with Dave
• 33:05
  Warlington about the boutique brand of things, but Adam Brand,
• 33:08
  so. So Adam Brand.
• 33:09
  So yeah. And Adam?
• 33:11
  Brand, well, this is one of your brands we're drinking this 110
• 33:13
  year old. So if you could maybe explain
• 33:16
  what we've got here and. I will do, yeah, let's do that.
• 33:19
  Then I, when I was into whiskey, getting into whiskey, started
• 33:26
  geeking out, you know, about fermentation times and all that
• 33:28
  kind of shit and condenser types.
• 33:31
  I thought that Craig Elleke, Ben Rennes, Spring Bank had
• 33:36
  something Tallisker Gun Kinchi had something different than
• 33:40
  other distilleries. It's amazing.
• 33:43
  I think we don't take, we take it for granted.
• 33:44
  We don't really recognize it. The classic malts, the the Aggio
• 33:47
  classic malts are almost all worm tub distilleries.
• 33:51
  So the distilleries they chose can't expand.
• 33:54
  So Nick and and the team, when they decided that I think they
• 34:00
  weren't thinking just commerce, they were thinking like how we
• 34:03
  protect cool distilleries. Yeah, yeah, cuz there's no room
• 34:06
  for some of these open can't grow.
• 34:08
  No. Well, this is it.
• 34:09
  You've got, Yeah. It's done.
• 34:10
  That's the capacity. Is the capacity.
• 34:13
  And that's the one they chose. Were for flavor, not just for
• 34:18
  money. Yeah, that's fucking.
• 34:20
  Cool. That's fair.
• 34:21
  Yeah. Everyone who shit talks Diagio,
• 34:23
  the decisions they've made have always been to elevate the the
• 34:27
  category, not to elevate just their own brands.
• 34:29
  So yeah, yeah. So anyway, all to say I learned
• 34:32
  because of that, I learned that warm tub, there was something
• 34:34
  about distilleries that used warm tub condensers.
• 34:36
  They're big fans of them. We are big fans.
• 34:38
  We had, we had a great experience just to kind of yeah,
• 34:40
  go on. We we went to Spayburn in the
• 34:42
  summer and we stood on top. They they were in their silent
• 34:47
  season so that we were able to stand on top of the worm tub.
• 34:50
  And normally where you can't, it's pretty cool see anything
• 34:53
  because it's just, you know, we could see the whole worm tub all
• 34:55
  the way down the copper pipe. And yeah.
• 34:57
  Yeah, really anyone listening to this but.
• 34:59
  Anyone listening to this? No idea but.
• 35:01
  Yeah, No, they don't. We.
• 35:03
  We. Got worm tubs a lot.
• 35:05
  We do talk a lot of worm tubs. I'm talking.
• 35:06
  About but it that is no, but it is the image you have a whiskey
• 35:09
  baking with this tub with water and but it's not practice
• 35:13
  anymore. It does have an effect on the
• 35:15
  spirit and so I thought for a year long before I came to to
• 35:19
  Adam. That was one of the first things
• 35:20
  I did was warm tub. Try to think I want to make a
• 35:24
  whiskey called worm tub right. We gives like what we were just
• 35:28
  saying with Jane St. gives you the flexibility to use different
• 35:30
  distilleries. Only a handful.
• 35:32
  Yeah, but you can have a 10 year old Castrank Sherry cast meaty
• 35:36
  style whiskey. Yeah, that is meaty.
• 35:38
  Yeah, because this is a single malt, so.
• 35:40
  It's always a single malt. Always a single malt.
• 35:42
  The distillery might change. In fact, the first time we
• 35:44
  released it in 20. 1850, yeah. In 2018, it was a blended malt.
• 35:49
  I thought that would give me more flexibility.
• 35:51
  Yeah, but it's a, it's a really cool concept for a brand as
• 35:54
  well, because it's, it's like, you know, you're, you're going
• 35:58
  more specific about, OK, we're, you know, unnamed distillery,
• 36:01
  but you're going to get this you're, if you like that sort of
• 36:05
  flavor. This is, yeah, exactly what you
• 36:08
  described, meaty Sherry. I hope so, yeah.
• 36:10
  And the Sherry helps that. I think especially with Craig
• 36:13
  Ellaki or Ben Rinis, a bit of Sherry helps and but we have the
• 36:17
  flexibility to mess around and. Each.
• 36:20
  So this is a single mop. Always a single.
• 36:21
  Mop so this is so we don't know where this is, where this batch
• 36:24
  is from. No, every batch is different.
• 36:26
  But what we do know is that you can sit there.
• 36:28
  But what you I mean, the real fun thing you could.
• 36:31
  I mean, because we have talked about doing it the where there's
• 36:34
  a God talk about Allie Baxter's bedroom window Bingo.
• 36:38
  But basically the 14 Glens of spaceite is something that we've
• 36:42
  talked about all but somebody did.
• 36:44
  I think it was Fraser Soonest did stick it on the Facebook
• 36:46
  group saying can we list? Distilleries that have warm
• 36:49
  tongue. All the distilleries in Scotland
• 36:51
  that have warm tub condensers now you might off.
• 36:54
  The top of your head. Well, it was a challenge.
• 36:56
  You put it to a challenge because and then we try to work
• 36:57
  out, well, how many actually is that?
• 36:59
  That's about 27, maybe more. You heard less.
• 37:03
  I think it's about 17 less something.
• 37:04
  Is it? Yeah, I think it's less than 20.
• 37:07
  So the newest I mean are no. Right.
• 37:11
  Val Andalic, which you don't see much, although now they're
• 37:15
  finally out and I mean I'm buying everything they're.
• 37:18
  Making Well, this is the fact you're a guy that probably can't
• 37:21
  leave them off the top of your head because you've.
• 37:22
  Got Well, yeah, I'm a fucking nerd.
• 37:26
  Well, you're making a, you're making a whiskey.
• 37:28
  You're so, so whiskey. The cool thing is a lot of them,
• 37:31
  Cragamore, Talisker, Spring Bank, you can't really get,
• 37:34
  yeah, you know, as an independent bottler, which is
• 37:37
  fundamentally what we are. So that makes it fun to try and
• 37:40
  seek those things out because they are out there and Spring
• 37:43
  Bank is. So this could be a spring bank,
• 37:45
  that's what you're saying this could be?
• 37:47
  If it were, unfortunately in today's market, we wouldn't put
• 37:50
  it in a 50 LB bottle. Is that what it is?
• 37:52
  A 50 LB bottle. 50 lbs Castrank Sherry casket.
• 37:55
  I don't think we can do that. No, no spring bank.
• 37:58
  I think it would be a dumb dumb business idea, or telescope for
• 38:01
  that matter, but it's one of the other ones.
• 38:04
  But there's. So you're saying so, yeah.
• 38:05
  So you've got three there, but so you're saying there's.
• 38:07
  I thought there was. I thought there was more than
• 38:09
  20. No.
• 38:10
  Dalwini, we can keep going. Probably.
• 38:12
  This is boring. Good fuck.
• 38:13
  Hey, if you're listening, Google it.
• 38:14
  Yeah. No, don't go in the whiskey, go
• 38:17
  in the Whiskey Yearbook. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, do.
• 38:19
  The proper way, but right, OK, because brands then this is what
• 38:23
  this kind of stuff head of whiskey is that your job then is
• 38:28
  your job to go? Are you managing stocks?
• 38:31
  Are you looking at spreadsheets or are you coming up with
• 38:34
  brands, new brands like exciting brands like Worm Tub?
• 38:37
  Are you sitting there going right, let's come up with this
• 38:39
  kind of cool brand because you've got a really, really,
• 38:42
  really good route to market effectively, because you could
• 38:46
  certainly go right ahead of whiskey.
• 38:48
  We're going to come up with we're going to source some
• 38:50
  liquid. Now your buying power would be
• 38:51
  pretty cool, pretty good to have that you've got.
• 38:54
  Then you've got the ability to buy the liquid quite, quite
• 38:58
  comfortably. Then you've got the ability to
• 39:01
  create a market around it, create a brand.
• 39:04
  And then you've got the other end where you can stick on
• 39:06
  Master of Malt and you've got the market there that could and
• 39:09
  your own promotion that could do that as well.
• 39:11
  So having somewhere that you can actually just sell The thing is
• 39:15
  a great advantage because I can fart.
• 39:18
  We could have fart an idea of out of our mouths.
• 39:22
  It'll smell terrible right now, and I think within two, between
• 39:27
  2 1/2 and six weeks, I could have it on a website.
• 39:29
  Yeah, it's mental. And learn if people give a shit.
• 39:32
  And then if organically no one's looking at it, then we'll do an
• 39:35
  e-mail, see if someone's interested, and if it doesn't,
• 39:39
  cool, we'll stop. And that, that the job, the job
• 39:41
  I signed up for was to be able to riff on that kind of stuff
• 39:46
  and not be in Excel docs, but try to make whiskeys that I
• 39:50
  would buy. Unfortunately, now I'm, I am a
• 39:52
  lot in Excel docs and being asked to like answer financial
• 39:55
  questions that I mean, I'm a fucking rhythm guitar player.
• 39:58
  I've got, I don't know, ask someone who cares, but I can
• 40:01
  still everyday dream up the next thing I might be into buying.
• 40:06
  And that's I feel very lucky to be able to continue to do.
• 40:09
  That what kind of numbers are you talking on your, on your, on
• 40:12
  your? What's that?
• 40:12
  What's that? What's that e-mail mail shop
• 40:15
  list look like? How?
• 40:16
  What kind of numbers are you looking at on that?
• 40:18
  How do you mean? Sorry, how many people would
• 40:19
  you? Could you file an e-mail out to
• 40:21
  a few? A million.
• 40:23
  Right. So you can certainly say, right,
• 40:25
  yeah, you know that and. It's a pretty good gauge, right?
• 40:27
  Yeah. Already whiskey engaged people.
• 40:29
  Yeah, I have a black whiskey. I've always want to make a black
• 40:32
  whiskey. And I'd love to talk because
• 40:34
  even here as I was taking a piss as I left the toilet OVD mirror.
• 40:38
  Oh yeah, yeah, Canadian coming to Scotland.
• 40:41
  It blew me away that when that dark drink I saw everyone
• 40:44
  drinking in the old man pubs that I like wasn't even Scotch
• 40:47
  whiskey. What the fuck?
• 40:49
  I really want to make a Scotch whiskey that is that black
• 40:53
  Scotch. Because I mean, well, there's
• 40:54
  been attempts at that in the past, that kind of course,
• 40:56
  really dark whiskey. I don't think it's always been.
• 41:01
  You know. Something that's been, well, I
• 41:03
  don't know, people are totally very critical of it in the past.
• 41:05
  So it's something interesting for you to say that you want to
• 41:09
  do and want to maybe. But just having a better thing
• 41:11
  is. Is that you know?
• 41:13
  It's not for a Glencairn wanker. That whiskey is for the old man
• 41:16
  at the pub, for the old man. So if you want, Serge Valentin's
• 41:19
  not going to like it, Angus is going to laugh at it, and that's
• 41:22
  cool. Yeah, yeah, it's not for that.
• 41:26
  It's for when you're at the pub. Why are we in Scotland at great
• 41:30
  pubs? Why are we buying OVD?
• 41:32
  It sort of upsets me. I think we should be buying
• 41:34
  Scotch whiskey and if it takes making it black and making it
• 41:39
  pair well with a good multi beer, that's what we made.
• 41:42
  Well, that's what I mean. It's funny when you like the
• 41:45
  pairing and what it goes well with and all that kind of stuff
• 41:47
  because the famous half and half like that, yeah.
• 41:50
  Half. And half with that with the
• 41:52
  measure. Why was it called 1/2 again?
• 41:55
  Do you remember why the I met the?
• 41:56
  Half Gill, half. Gill, half Gill.
• 41:57
  Yeah, that's it. So like, that's it.
• 41:59
  That was the sort of basis of that story.
• 42:02
  But yeah, you look, you look back at people that have to say,
• 42:05
  like, I always love the story of Cobra beer.
• 42:09
  It was like, Lord, I always get the guy name mixed up, Lord Beel
• 42:13
  Amaya, I think his name is probably butchered.
• 42:14
  That Indian guy studying over in England through the 70s.
• 42:19
  And he said that he couldn't have a beer that went with a
• 42:21
  Curry. He said if you had an ale, it
• 42:23
  was too warm and too heavy to have with a Curry.
• 42:25
  And if you had a lager, it was too frizzy and too hoppy to go
• 42:29
  with a Curry. So he actually, he started
• 42:30
  mixing coming up with a blend where he would actually mix an
• 42:33
  ale and a beer together, which would go perfectly Curry.
• 42:36
  He went back because in India that was it.
• 42:38
  And then it's certain things like they picked the bigger
• 42:40
  bottle because in India it was like table wine a beer would be.
• 42:44
  So they were. So Cobra were the first was
• 42:47
  IT75750. Or maybe even just 7. 100 mil a
• 42:51
  guy but it's the first big. Bottle, yeah.
• 42:53
  And by the end, it worked two ways, because shop owners and
• 42:57
  restaurant owners hated it because they didn't have fringes
• 43:00
  big enough for the beer. But at the same time, they also
• 43:02
  loved it because people would see it on the tables in
• 43:06
  restaurants and go, what the Hell's that?
• 43:08
  And then when they said it's a beer that goes well with your
• 43:10
  Curry, and they said that the Friday night in England, the
• 43:13
  Friday night beer and Curry, you know, that that that sort of
• 43:17
  culture, that was what it is anyway with completely
• 43:19
  diversity, no. But I think that the honesty of
• 43:22
  coming from a place trying to make a thing that you wish
• 43:24
  existed, that's all it is. It's I'm not looking at an Excel
• 43:28
  document when I'm trying to make a whiskey.
• 43:29
  Like how much money we're going to deliver this quarter.
• 43:31
  I don't give a fuck. I mean, sorry, sorry boss.
• 43:35
  Please don't for me tomorrow we're going to have to cut all
• 43:36
  this out, but. No, no, no, no, I don't work
• 43:39
  for. I work for an independent
• 43:40
  company owned by a friend of mine, so it's all good and I
• 43:43
  have the freedom to do that. And that's, that's great because
• 43:46
  they've like they've just pulled the bottle up that we've talked
• 43:49
  so much about on this podcast. Oh yeah, the Dalry milk, which
• 43:53
  again, there's a world where there's quirkiness, OK, And then
• 43:59
  there's there's there's a world where like, is everything you
• 44:02
  put out just going to be a quirky joke or do you look at?
• 44:05
  But then there's also like the seriousness of the whiskey of
• 44:09
  making like for example, well. Is this the independent
• 44:12
  bottling? I mean, is this the independent
• 44:15
  bottling finger putting the odd big 10 in the five words whiskey
• 44:18
  here, you know, you know that this is going to garner some
• 44:20
  attention, but also. It didn't come from that, but
• 44:24
  yeah, I think I. I unintentional, but also there
• 44:28
  and from a cynics point of view as well.
• 44:31
  This is where and this is what leads to this book and also I
• 44:33
  can now vote for that as well. But there's a world where you,
• 44:36
  because I remember when I saw that, all right, milk and I
• 44:39
  thought that's funny, But then I also went gimmicky whiskey has
• 44:44
  this, you know, is this a smash and grab job where you can go?
• 44:49
  We could stick. And I've been there.
• 44:52
  I've been part of bottling projects where you could, we
• 44:54
  know we could if we wanted to put anything in that bottle and
• 44:59
  we know it will shift, right. But of course you don't because
• 45:02
  I come from a whiskey background in that project where I've had
• 45:05
  the conversation with the guy saying can we not just put that
• 45:09
  stuff in because it's cheaper to sell it?
• 45:11
  My argument is no, because if somebody opens that bottle and
• 45:15
  has it, they're never going to buy another bottle off us again.
• 45:17
  Exactly. So but but.
• 45:19
  That's not just your responsibility to that bottling
• 45:21
  to the whole. Category absolutely, but this
• 45:23
  the Delray because. I should have.
• 45:25
  We're both big fans of. This.
• 45:27
  But we've done a few drums. Where have they been?
• 45:29
  We've been somewhere. I can't remember, was it maybe
• 45:32
  when we went to Rosebank or? No, no, we had.
• 45:34
  It was somewhere. We've been out for the day.
• 45:36
  All right, it was somewhere we've been out we.
• 45:37
  Ended up in here, Yeah, and we saw it in the shelf.
• 45:40
  I can't remember it. We have some push something
• 45:42
  else, so push something extracurricular to our whiskey.
• 45:46
  Activity. We were.
• 45:47
  We were. We were.
• 45:47
  But we came here and yeah, we were.
• 45:49
  And. The, the Woody was there.
• 45:51
  Actually, Woody was there because I, I tried that and I
• 45:54
  don't know how pushed I was, but I was like, they've put
• 45:57
  chocolate in there, right? And that was adamant that.
• 46:01
  Graham actually was convinced you'd put chocolate in this, and
• 46:04
  I was. Well, so give me a chance then
• 46:05
  to explain it because I, I, I'm saying it last night.
• 46:07
  I think people, none of it comes from a bad place.
• 46:11
  I promise. Of course, the most, the most.
• 46:14
  Let's start at the beginning. I've talked about Edinburgh
• 46:18
  feeling like home. Yeah, we've left the UK, my wife
• 46:21
  and kids, and we've moved to Norway.
• 46:23
  I think after COVID, after Brexit, we were like, is this
• 46:26
  island sinking? And we just felt like I would be
• 46:30
  a bit when when borders closed, I realized, shit, I can't get
• 46:33
  home to see my brother. That's scary.
• 46:36
  So we were looking around. The kids too were like, hey,
• 46:39
  let's try something different, so let's do it.
• 46:41
  So we moved to Norway after a year, everyone's digging it.
• 46:47
  I don't think we're coming back. And that's sinking in.
• 46:50
  And boys, men, we aren't I'm not super in touch with my emotion.
• 46:54
  I totally recognize that, but they always catch me eventually.
• 46:58
  So I was in Edinburgh last November or the first week in
• 47:02
  December, sorry. And I was on the airport express
• 47:05
  in from the airport. And as we came to Kistorf and we
• 47:09
  we decided in the context is we decided we aren't we aren't
• 47:13
  coming back. And on the on the bus as we
• 47:17
  enter Kistorf and I catch a whiff on the bus of North
• 47:20
  British, that only thing in the air and I just started crying.
• 47:26
  Yeah, that's just a little bit. And then it like I caught
• 47:29
  myself. Why am I crying?
• 47:30
  And then it got like one of those kind of ones.
• 47:33
  It was fucking embarrassing. There are people sitting face.
• 47:35
  I was in one of those seats where people are, look, you
• 47:37
  know, we're facing each other. A bit embarrassing.
• 47:41
  But anyway, just let it happen because obviously it needed to
• 47:43
  happen. Something was going on.
• 47:44
  Just let it happen. And then I decided I got to make
• 47:47
  a N British. Because that smells quite funny,
• 47:50
  because I mean, I, I think it divides a wee bit of opinion
• 47:53
  because my, my current wife, I'll drive on that road quite
• 47:57
  often. I live kind of near so often way
• 48:00
  and I drive on that Western approach Rd. quite frequently.
• 48:02
  And I'll wind down the window and go, oh, there you go.
• 48:06
  Lauren just got that. Smells of farts, you know.
• 48:09
  Well, it's actually stopping now.
• 48:10
  I mean, that's what the back label says.
• 48:11
  The back label says. Sadly, of all the social and
• 48:14
  economic issues the local council could address, it was
• 48:16
  mandated in 2009. The distillery install an odor
• 48:19
  control tower. That breaks my fucking heart.
• 48:21
  It does. It does.
• 48:22
  And I remember, I mean, you know, going to school in
• 48:25
  Edinburgh, we're at the other end of Edinburgh.
• 48:27
  But when you got that and out, to be fair, when we were there,
• 48:30
  that was one of the but when you got that westerly wind, you
• 48:35
  would just get, you know, you got a real whiff of it in
• 48:38
  Edinburgh. I remember coming to the roof
• 48:40
  for the very first time and spelling it and not knowing what
• 48:42
  it was. I didn't dislike it, but I just
• 48:45
  remember that was it was it was like Edinburgh Oldrique as well.
• 48:50
  Yeah, that's what they call it, Oldrique.
• 48:51
  Is absolutely iconic. Yeah.
• 48:53
  So this is it. You've decided a Northbridge.
• 48:55
  I need to make a Northbridge whiskey.
• 48:57
  Yeah, I love letters to Edinburgh type of thing and I'm
• 49:02
  allowed to do whatever like I want, which is great about my
• 49:04
  job. So I mean the Dalra milk thing
• 49:06
  came later. All right, Because I was going
• 49:08
  to say this is an interesting thing because you've talked.
• 49:10
  Liquid. Came you've talked about being
• 49:11
  well, I was going to say this tail wag the dog here because
• 49:14
  you were talking about being. You know, oh, it's cool.
• 49:17
  When I'm thinking of what brands I can make and I'll go and seek
• 49:20
  that cask out sort of thing, or is it a case of you get the
• 49:23
  parcel in and it's like, right, what can I make out of this?
• 49:27
  Or did you just source the liquid?
• 49:29
  Do you see what I mean? Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 49:30
  Do you see what I mean? Because I no.
• 49:31
  We already had, we already had 415 year old.
• 49:35
  Well, I think we bought it when it was 10.
• 49:37
  Yeah, it's been sitting mature and we have, we had a bunch of
• 49:40
  we still have a bunch of North British.
• 49:41
  So I want to bring this, I have this, I'm going to bring this
• 49:43
  whiskey out again. I don't give a shit about the
• 49:45
  fucking chocolate thing. We don't.
• 49:47
  The chocolate thing was just so, so, so the whiskey is delicious.
• 49:53
  Grain whiskey. That's what I wanted to make as
• 49:55
  a love letter to Edinburgh. And then as you know, what was
• 49:59
  that? December.
• 50:00
  So then January, we're having meetings.
• 50:01
  Oh, maybe April Fools could do something.
• 50:04
  And I was thinking about other nostalgic things.
• 50:08
  When I grew up, my mom, my mom was a bit of an Anglophile,
• 50:12
  loves, I mean, Coronation Street.
• 50:14
  I couldn't, I wasn't allowed to go into her bedroom Sunday
• 50:17
  mornings because she watched the.
• 50:18
  Omnibus, yeah. She watched the omnibus on on
• 50:21
  the. Better things to do in Canada?
• 50:23
  No, no, my Sunday morning she watched the five days of Cory
• 50:27
  from that week. I wasn't allowed in her room.
• 50:29
  That was like you'd get yelled at and in her room.
• 50:32
  So my mom had a friend, Brenda, I think it was from Manchester,
• 50:36
  really. Sounds like she's straight from
• 50:38
  Coronation Street, yeah? Yeah, and whenever she'd come
• 50:40
  back to Canada, when she ever come home and I come back to
• 50:43
  Canada, she had to be a Dairy Milk.
• 50:45
  Oh yeah, and. So there'd be Dairy Milk next to
• 50:48
  my mom and so you'd, you know, you go cuddling up to my mom was
• 50:51
  like just to get a square. You weren't allowed to take it.
• 50:54
  So there was that like cozy. So then I started playing with
• 50:57
  that idea and then Delray and then it just sort of rode
• 51:01
  itself. And then fuck, you know what we
• 51:03
  could do? We could do this.
• 51:04
  And everyone was like, yes. It triggered so much
• 51:07
  conversation on the podcast. We we had a situation where
• 51:11
  Angus explained his dad's habits of we well, first of all, well
• 51:15
  explained it triggered that. It triggered a conversation of
• 51:18
  whether we should, whether you put chocolate in the fridge or
• 51:22
  not, keep. Chocolate in the fridge.
• 51:23
  I heard that. I heard.
• 51:24
  Yeah, yeah. And I, yeah, I explained.
• 51:27
  My dad puts Cadbury's cream eggs in the freezer.
• 51:31
  Yeah, yeah, I. Heard yeah, which is the cool
• 51:33
  Hesley well, I mean I mean yeah, she was like cheeses.
• 51:36
  I mean, there's. Controversial.
• 51:37
  And then there's. Life.
• 51:38
  So, you know, it's a label from when I was a kid.
• 51:40
  That's yeah. Because that's something now.
• 51:41
  That's the old school. That is the old school.
• 51:43
  So it's a mom, it's my mom. It.
• 51:45
  Looks like the old school daily about label but.
• 51:47
  My mom, you know, so it's a totally honest emotional thing,
• 51:50
  not a gimmick. I mean, it's April Fool's, but
• 51:55
  it's as honest as possible. And I know and look, they were
• 51:59
  super cool about it when they came and said what the fuck you
• 52:02
  doing? Stop.
• 52:03
  They were really cool about it. And I, we still got plenty of
• 52:07
  the liquid. So I want to make it.
• 52:08
  I want to keep making it without the gimmick.
• 52:10
  So it's what, 16 year olds? 16 year olds N British in
• 52:13
  Olaroso and power quartile. Like I say, whether or how
• 52:19
  pissed we were that night, I can't remember.
• 52:21
  I can't remember where we'd been, which tells us how pissed
• 52:23
  we maybe were, but I can remember of that.
• 52:25
  Night. Well, I mean, you, you.
• 52:26
  You thought someone was great? And genuinely not it's it's
• 52:30
  smelled to the end. Stuck it in, yeah.
• 52:32
  And that that's I have to be a totally honest, that is just a
• 52:35
  happy accident because I was trying to make something yummy.
• 52:38
  Yeah, I was not trying to. The chocolate thing came later.
• 52:41
  Well, I'm going. Woody, Woody, come here, come
• 52:43
  here. Woody, will you just come over
• 52:44
  and I'm going, Yeah. Smell that.
• 52:45
  Smell that taste that. I said there's chocolate that
• 52:47
  isn't that. It is good kind.
• 52:49
  Of I, I I think it's because labels and tastes somehow.
• 52:53
  It's one thing I suggest. Yeah.
• 52:54
  I mean, and when you're pushed exactly.
• 52:57
  And I'm a suggestive. I'm I'm out there.
• 52:58
  It's suggestible, yeah. No, but that made me really
• 53:00
  nervous. What should happen is that
• 53:01
  people were. I didn't want people to expect
• 53:03
  chalk. It was.
• 53:05
  Well, it's. A very vain project, you know,
• 53:08
  it's like it's just about, it's just something to to this, an
• 53:11
  ode to the city, my life and wife and all the shit I said
• 53:14
  earlier. This is that.
• 53:15
  That's all it is. I don't want someone to open and
• 53:18
  say, oh, that's not chocolatey and there's lots of tastes
• 53:20
  notes. That's not.
• 53:21
  Very chocolatey I. Wasn't trying to it was not
• 53:24
  trying to be ever. It worked for you.
• 53:26
  It was never trying to be just trying to be a delicious grain
• 53:28
  whiskey and N British is one of the best.
• 53:30
  It's made a maize corn whiskey's king I think has a great drink
• 53:35
  in in any country. Corn whiskey's is delicious.
• 53:39
  And yeah, and a lot. I mean, there's a lot.
• 53:41
  A lot are. We all right to have Yeah, yeah.
• 53:44
  It's that OK Ohh. Thank you.
• 53:45
  Yeah, we'll. There we go, I guess.
• 53:47
  Yeah, Angus on the poor say we'll get half fight.
• 53:51
  Yeah, TV can split the G You know, guys split the G.
• 53:58
  Whiskey needs to come up with an equivalent for that, right?
• 54:00
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 54:01
  It was reckless, wasn't we? But all right.
• 54:02
  But please drink. So what's that?
• 54:04
  How often are you having these meetings where you you can sit
• 54:08
  down and go? Meetings.
• 54:09
  I love that everyone. Thinks or just cover.
• 54:12
  I'm not trying to beat that sounds, but you, I, you see
• 54:15
  comments on like, oh, fucking Mark, Oh, it's a bunch of
• 54:18
  marketing. We don't.
• 54:19
  What does that even mean? People don't know what marketing
• 54:21
  means. Marketing means like trying to
• 54:22
  get a thing to market. There's no marketing.
• 54:24
  There's like three of us who think who have somewhat one of
• 54:28
  the three has a good idea. The other two are like that's
• 54:31
  fucking dumb or that's cool and that's the end.
• 54:33
  Of it Oh yeah, but like. It's a bunch of people.
• 54:35
  Do you ever so do you get like we had them Carol crafts from
• 54:41
  from Arden Merkin on and he was talking about the tasting panel
• 54:44
  and I think he said what was it? He said was it like they were
• 54:48
  tasting something? And he went, what would happen
• 54:50
  if we just, I don't want to get the phrase wrong here, but it
• 54:53
  was almost like it was like, what would happen if we just
• 54:55
  fucked about it Sherry in there. And they were like, OK, and they
• 54:59
  tried it. And they're like, that's, that's
• 55:01
  that's it. And you're going, well, that was
• 55:04
  that was the meat. That was the conversation that
• 55:06
  was had five or six guys around the table, people drinking
• 55:09
  drams, trying for one of the Arden American next releases.
• 55:14
  And basically what would happen if we talked about Sherry and
• 55:16
  that And they went, OK, try that.
• 55:17
  And it was how much they found the Sherry, but put a bit in and
• 55:21
  went, that's nailed it. That's what are there
• 55:25
  conversations that you guys, the three of you guys are sitting
• 55:27
  around the table going what's next?
• 55:30
  What can we come up with or what have we got access to?
• 55:33
  Or do we go out and look for liquid or are we just, or what
• 55:37
  have we already got? Because the other thing is you
• 55:40
  speak to Gregor Kirk or other people who are head of here,
• 55:43
  they're looking at stuff. Greg's doing sample sessions all
• 55:45
  the time. And when he's doing a sample
• 55:47
  session, he knows he'll say that's good to go.
• 55:50
  Now we can get that out of the casks in the outcast and in the
• 55:54
  glass right now. Or he could say we could, that
• 55:57
  could wait. We could put that to the side.
• 55:59
  Is it that is that driven by what stock you've got available,
• 56:01
  what stocks ready, what stock you can get your hands on, or
• 56:04
  just the ideas that you can come up with?
• 56:08
  OK. I think in 2023 I took count of
• 56:12
  how many new whiskies we put out and it was 200 something.
• 56:15
  So not a lot of thinking at 200 just like I.
• 56:22
  Mean, I suppose with that you've got to think no.
• 56:24
  It's a dream. Well, man, because I guess.
• 56:26
  It must. There must be a question of what
• 56:28
  brand is this whiskey? Is it so that's?
• 56:31
  Is this a petite? Whiskey or is.
• 56:33
  It so these are brands I mean this I would love I wish they
• 56:37
  hadn't stopped as we could continue with that we will
• 56:39
  continue with Dollarai milk and just.
• 56:41
  You just need to do it well. You could do a Galaxy version
• 56:43
  of. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 56:45
  No, it doesn't need, it doesn't need to be chocolate related.
• 56:47
  So continue worm tub, it's because of inventory.
• 56:50
  You know that we I know that I can speak to Diageo or Beam
• 56:54
  Suntory or someone or doers who has distilleries with worm tubs
• 56:59
  or Inver house who have distillery with worm tubs and
• 57:02
  just always get a supply. So I know that's you've got that
• 57:05
  that can happen. So the concept works.
• 57:07
  Check, let's try it. Boutique catches a lot of the
• 57:12
  stuff I think you're talking about where like you tasting
• 57:14
  like that tastes like diesel. Well, that's we're not going to.
• 57:18
  And there's only one cast that tastes like diesel.
• 57:20
  So that's a boutique, yeah. Right.
• 57:22
  You get someone to draw a nice cartoon of a diesel.
• 57:24
  Yeah, exactly. There you go.
• 57:26
  Yeah, yeah. Or something that's like a super
• 57:29
  typical clean, crisp, fresh linkwood.
• 57:33
  Yeah, that's master malt indie bottling.
• 57:36
  We just put it out as a refill cast master malt, 35 lbs.
• 57:39
  We'll see you later. And like brands, if you're
• 57:44
  trying to make up we've, you know, we've had seaweed eons
• 57:47
  digging. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:49
  Or butterscotch and and and that thing.
• 57:52
  And I like those because it's almost a bit like that SMWS
• 57:56
  thing where it's like, you know what, we're just gonna very
• 57:59
  plain label. No, Kind of.
• 58:01
  Someone brought one on. Yeah, didn't.
• 58:03
  They we've had it. It was the seaweed, the seaweed
• 58:06
  a on. We had that.
• 58:08
  I think it was actually it was at the Edinburgh Whiskey
• 58:11
  Festival, I think. Was that that?
• 58:13
  Yeah. Really, really nice.
• 58:14
  It was really, really nice, but nice to go.
• 58:17
  Just flavour LED. This is what you're getting.
• 58:19
  We're not going to say that, you know, distillery is not on the
• 58:21
  front. We're not doing that.
• 58:22
  This is it. That that, yeah, baseless.
• 58:25
  Hoping that you can always get 10 year old Isla whiskey.
• 58:27
  Well, I mean, this is the thing like you're talking about the
• 58:30
  source of, I mean. So the source is a big part.
• 58:32
  And we're, and we're also in our mind when you, you, you
• 58:36
  mentioned like in the being an independent bottler, your
• 58:38
  independent bottler in our head is, you know, you go, you speak
• 58:41
  to somebody who maybe says we can get depending on parcel
• 58:44
  sizes. And that's, that's what dictates
• 58:46
  what they're able to get. Whereas if you're I mean for
• 58:49
  example this. This is cast strength, but it's
• 58:53
  not single cask. No, we do have warmed up single
• 58:55
  cask, but no, that's that's not a single cask.
• 58:59
  That's not so the volume I get like how many what's an out turn
• 59:03
  look like roughly? I mean, I'm not asking for
• 59:05
  exactly. I can't remember what we did
• 59:07
  this time, but I think one of them we did, 6000 is probably
• 59:11
  the biggest and 1000 is probably 1001 so that we hit a certain
• 59:16
  minimum order quantity on labels.
• 59:19
  OK. Yeah, probably the smallest in
• 59:21
  itself, like just the thought of putting 1000 bottles out.
• 59:25
  But then when you you see the vastness of what your market
• 59:28
  could look like, where you could put that out to, you know that.
• 59:31
  Yeah, that's global. So that's not just massing model
• 59:32
  of the UK exactly, that's everywhere.
• 59:34
  So I mean, that's it. Whereas when in my mind,
• 59:36
  sometimes you think about like an independent bottler, you're
• 59:39
  thinking about one of one of 220 bottles because someone's
• 59:44
  bottled A hogs head refill Hogs head of like you say, Lightwood,
• 59:48
  but but you also have that well, I.
• 59:51
  Mean lanes, Teamers, Beastie, and I mean that model inspires
• 59:56
  me. I used to work for them too, and
• 59:57
  they're all friends. And I think that's a that's a
• 1:00:00
  model that works. The things that that are 1 and
• 1:00:02
  unrepeatable put in a single cast.
• 1:00:04
  The things that you can get consistency in the cast are up
• 1:00:06
  and down, but you need to blend them to make them.
• 1:00:09
  Viable. Let's make that team risk or
• 1:00:11
  let's make that whatever other other thing in the range.
• 1:00:15
  I think Scotch from whiskey society does that.
• 1:00:18
  I think Compass Box is a independent bottler.
• 1:00:21
  I know they're. Blunders, but that's it.
• 1:00:23
  They really are independent bottlers in that they, because
• 1:00:25
  you have diverse inventory availability, you'd find a way
• 1:00:28
  to make something make this. Work something to.
• 1:00:31
  Worry, yeah, but yeah. But how?
• 1:00:32
  All right, so let's go back then.
• 1:00:33
  So we've seen where you started and we'll see where you are now.
• 1:00:37
  How do you get to a position where you can sit there and and
• 1:00:39
  go right, we're going to put this release and we're going to
• 1:00:42
  do that. What was the next step?
• 1:00:43
  So you've studied in Edinburgh? This.
• 1:00:46
  Is the worst podcast ever. Honestly, God, if you're still
• 1:00:50
  listening to everybody, it's not their fault.
• 1:00:52
  It's my fault, but like they get a transcript, ask Gemini to
• 1:00:57
  summarize and put it in chronological order.
• 1:01:01
  That's how I'm. I know, but it's like all these
• 1:01:02
  good films that go from. Yeah, yeah, this is it.
• 1:01:05
  We're we're exactly what we're going to do is we're going to
• 1:01:08
  put it every time we flashback, we'll put a little like 22,000.
• 1:01:12
  Yeah, 2000. Exactly.
• 1:01:13
  Make some of it black and white. Make some of it color.
• 1:01:16
  We just go down a rabbit hole and then we have.
• 1:01:18
  To we have to climb right back out.
• 1:01:20
  I'm just conscious that we've got to where we are now.
• 1:01:23
  Like so far people might be going well.
• 1:01:26
  How the fuck do you get from working at odd Bins and writing
• 1:01:28
  A blog to being able to have such a vast reach over whiskey
• 1:01:33
  and such a vast selection and such a big market to be able to
• 1:01:36
  stick it out? And also what makes you
• 1:01:39
  qualified to be able to do that? Nice because.
• 1:01:42
  Because I'm a woman. Women, you can't.
• 1:01:45
  You can't possibly like whiskey. I get that even with the sack
• 1:01:48
  and I do. Because.
• 1:01:50
  I'm very sympathetic to women in our trade who say that because
• 1:01:55
  I've had it my whole time, because I talk like this.
• 1:01:57
  Because you're, because you're a kid, because you're not
• 1:01:59
  Scottish. Yeah.
• 1:01:59
  Really. So how can you know?
• 1:02:01
  Yeah, because essentially you were saying when you worked with
• 1:02:03
  Balveni and you were trying to get Scots involved to do it in
• 1:02:06
  their level of interest in whiskey, but at the same time.
• 1:02:09
  That's because it legitimized me.
• 1:02:12
  Yeah, because if I suppose you could imagine if you're an
• 1:02:14
  American or anywhere from the world or Australian, wherever
• 1:02:16
  you've travelled all the way to Scotland and you want to hear
• 1:02:19
  someone talk about whiskey and a non Scott turns up and we've had
• 1:02:23
  it one of the on the podcast saying, yeah, can I not have a
• 1:02:26
  conversation with the guy over there, please about whiskey.
• 1:02:30
  And actually there's plenty of females who work in whiskey who
• 1:02:32
  could tell you more about whiskey.
• 1:02:34
  And the one the classic 1 was. Everyone just wants Cameron Ewen
• 1:02:37
  to turn up. Yeah, big, big, big bald ginger
• 1:02:41
  guy I killed. But even things like Monique
• 1:02:44
  Depace or who's married now, married to Tom-tom and Monique,
• 1:02:48
  she's a Canadian as well. I'm sure she's been on.
• 1:02:50
  She was a Canadian. Yeah, she was a Canadian.
• 1:02:53
  She used to work in the whiskey shop with her partner Tom.
• 1:02:57
  And she loves Pete Twiskey. And he doesn't.
• 1:03:01
  Right. And then what would happen is
• 1:03:03
  you'd get a guy saying, I need to take like, what's a good
• 1:03:06
  whiskey for a woman? And he would be like, well, what
• 1:03:12
  can I say? Because my partner over there
• 1:03:15
  would blow my socks off with yeah.
• 1:03:17
  What does that? Mean the PTS smoking and
• 1:03:19
  actually we've said it before through our what 3 drams.
• 1:03:24
  I'm confident. I've never collated at all yet,
• 1:03:27
  but I'm confident that more females have given Peter Twiskey
• 1:03:29
  on their, what, 3 drams than than males, which is a very
• 1:03:33
  interesting like you, just whether it means anything or
• 1:03:36
  not, I don't know. But it just is a fact that I can
• 1:03:37
  say that there are more, there's more.
• 1:03:39
  So yeah. But what what I'm saying is how
• 1:03:42
  do you get to a position where you've got an inventory that
• 1:03:44
  you've got at your disposal to be able to come up with these
• 1:03:48
  ideas? Was it an accident you got into
• 1:03:50
  that job or was? It Oh yeah, it's all it's just
• 1:03:52
  luck and generosity of other people.
• 1:03:54
  But I odd bins moved to London, started the blog, was trying to
• 1:04:03
  figure out what the hell am I going to do.
• 1:04:05
  Academia is competitive and I didn't like the vibe because
• 1:04:09
  you're always fighting for the same funding.
• 1:04:12
  And then there was a Scotch blog.
• 1:04:13
  I said Kevin earlier. American website.
• 1:04:16
  Scotch, I'm going to say there we go.
• 1:04:17
  Won't call back. That's a recall.
• 1:04:21
  No, but he, he. He was he.
• 1:04:23
  That's fine. So I I seemed smart.
• 1:04:25
  He he, he was, he carved. It in English.
• 1:04:28
  Definitely he surge Kevin and then and doctor was he it was
• 1:04:33
  easy to to find if you Google I came up so that may be
• 1:04:36
  prevalent. So he he told me that Balvini
• 1:04:41
  was looking for a brand ambassador in New York.
• 1:04:44
  So he sent me the job description and like The Who did
• 1:04:47
  e-mail, I did that. I met a guy named Robert Hill.
• 1:04:52
  And right at the same time, it's worth saying, right at the same
• 1:04:55
  time, because I worked at the Whiskey Exchange as well, in the
• 1:04:58
  shop and in the store and the main warehouse, Bushmills was
• 1:05:05
  hiring a brand ambassador. Believe me, I can talk about
• 1:05:07
  whiskey for a living. I didn't know where that fucking
• 1:05:09
  existed. But then I mean, were brand
• 1:05:11
  ambassadors a big? No, not a big thing.
• 1:05:14
  It was a new ish thing definitely.
• 1:05:16
  There was Colin Dunn Bomar who really inspired me when he came
• 1:05:20
  to odd bins. There was a guy Andy Forrester
• 1:05:24
  at John Mark and Robbo. But there weren't, no, there
• 1:05:27
  weren't really ambassadors. The ambassadors were Bill
• 1:05:29
  Lumsden and Bill and. Yeah, they were.
• 1:05:31
  They were the ones actually having to do that.
• 1:05:32
  They were having to do the the graph.
• 1:05:34
  There's such the. That's right.
• 1:05:35
  Yeah, who knew incredible people and rather than some wanker from
• 1:05:38
  English poetry who worked in Hobbins once.
• 1:05:42
  So you know, No, no. And then then that there were a
• 1:05:45
  bunch of interviews at the same time.
• 1:05:48
  A few of the big companies that I interviewed with were really
• 1:05:51
  impersonal and just, I just felt not nice.
• 1:05:54
  I met Robert Hill at William Grant, and it was a beer and
• 1:05:59
  chat and natural and felt good. And then they called me and
• 1:06:04
  said, do you want to fly over to New York and meet the team
• 1:06:07
  there? Yeah, of course I'll fly to New
• 1:06:08
  York. And then it became a brand
• 1:06:11
  ambassador. And I'm telling you all this
• 1:06:12
  because that's the path. And so then worked in with
• 1:06:18
  Balveni across the US country was too big.
• 1:06:20
  We had to hire someone else. And that team grew.
• 1:06:23
  And there was an opportunity to move back to the UK to be the
• 1:06:25
  global ambassador. And I would like, I wanted to
• 1:06:28
  come back. I like New York, but nice place
• 1:06:30
  to visit. Wouldn't want to live there.
• 1:06:31
  It's totally true. And moved back to London and
• 1:06:36
  then in living back in the UK, lived in the distillery during
• 1:06:38
  that really snowy year, 2008, 2000. 10/9.
• 1:06:44
  Or 2010, I think. Oh, no, at the end of 2009,
• 1:06:47
  you're right. Yeah, I was going to say I was a
• 1:06:49
  student in Sterling and my heat are packed in for about four
• 1:06:52
  weeks, so. That crazy snow where there's
• 1:06:54
  pictures of the whole island just covering snow and we had a
• 1:06:58
  newborn and we just. I was wearing 5 layers and
• 1:07:04
  breathing my own breath and. We pushed the car up the hill
• 1:07:08
  from Craig Elochy. So you were in.
• 1:07:10
  So you were in space Aide? Yep.
• 1:07:11
  So when I came back and asked if I could live there and be at the
• 1:07:14
  distillery and like breathe it all in and stuff, which we did
• 1:07:16
  that for a while and then we're closely in those years as a
• 1:07:20
  global ambassador, of course, I built a team of ambassadors.
• 1:07:22
  Men and women were saying what we were talking about earlier
• 1:07:26
  and people all over the world and worked closely with David
• 1:07:30
  Stewart and Brian Kinsman in like stock management.
• 1:07:35
  Like I had a million questions. How do you how do you make
• 1:07:37
  grants taste the same? And how the fuck does all that
• 1:07:40
  work? So I learned about as well.
• 1:07:41
  I mean, you must have learned so much from those guys because I
• 1:07:44
  mean, they're kind of storied names within the West game.
• 1:07:47
  Well, their names are on the bottles, effectively, yeah.
• 1:07:48
  Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
• 1:07:50
  And they, and so that, and I mean it blew me away that David
• 1:07:54
  Stewart, when they would do a vading of Balveni, they'd have
• 1:07:58
  all the cast going into a tank to be finished and he'd go up
• 1:08:02
  and down to find foul cast, not to find good ones.
• 1:08:05
  To find the. Wrong one if there was a.
• 1:08:07
  Fault I'm nosing and tasting every cask which is just.
• 1:08:09
  Definitely nosy. Not necessarily tasting every
• 1:08:12
  cask. I mean, which is incredible,
• 1:08:14
  right? What other company of that size
• 1:08:17
  was doing it does that It was it was very inspiring and sort of
• 1:08:20
  learning all that and. From his age as well, because.
• 1:08:23
  Oh, yeah, he was back there younger then, but yeah, he was
• 1:08:25
  still he definitely even then probably should have retired,
• 1:08:30
  but it was it's his DNA. It's not work for for David.
• 1:08:34
  And he was such a gentleman all the time, always and showing me
• 1:08:37
  things like Homo Sam and and Ton 14 O1, those type of project,
• 1:08:42
  working with really ancient stock, learning how we married
• 1:08:44
  them. Because that's, I mean, that's
• 1:08:47
  how a brand ambassador should be taught effectively is.
• 1:08:50
  And we've spoken to people who have been on that journey as a
• 1:08:53
  brand ambassador where they go now you're going to spend time
• 1:08:57
  on every part of the production, speaking to the, the engineers,
• 1:09:01
  the everything so that when someone does which so you, well,
• 1:09:05
  it's not so much about if someone asks you a question,
• 1:09:07
  you're able to answer it. It's more about just so you are
• 1:09:10
  a part of the DNA of the of the brand that we're talking about.
• 1:09:14
  Because if you could sit there and go, I've been in the room
• 1:09:18
  with the guy or I've been in the warehouse with the guy who
• 1:09:20
  literally what I can, the drum you're drinking right now.
• 1:09:23
  The person who's put that together has made it a point
• 1:09:26
  that knows every single one of those cast before it even gets
• 1:09:29
  stuck in the bag to find out. And he's in his sixties, 70s or
• 1:09:33
  whatever. And people go like, fuck, no,
• 1:09:35
  wait, Yeah, because. And if you don't know about
• 1:09:37
  whiskey and you hear that level of because you see the level of
• 1:09:41
  production when you're working for a company like Grandsons,
• 1:09:43
  what they're pushing out to the world, that level of production
• 1:09:47
  is just absolutely massive. But the level of care at that
• 1:09:51
  scale is unnecessary actually. But the fact they do it shows
• 1:09:58
  you what's important. 100% And then if you're able to learn
• 1:10:00
  that first half and then tell somebody that absolutely there's
• 1:10:03
  no way that people can say, yeah, you're talking rubbish.
• 1:10:05
  No, no. One of the things, one of the
• 1:10:06
  things that very valuable that we learned there and that I
• 1:10:08
  taught every ambassador was you don't have to know everything.
• 1:10:12
  You can say I don't know, don't. It's not about bullshit.
• 1:10:15
  You don't. And those guys don't know
• 1:10:17
  everything. And Brian's the most modest guy
• 1:10:20
  and humble. And David, you'd say David, Oh,
• 1:10:22
  I love the new, whatever the fuck new thing came out.
• 1:10:25
  He was, oh, well, the lads are the distillery.
• 1:10:26
  They work day and day. It's, it's that modesty is a
• 1:10:30
  very, it's a Scottish thing. But also just recognizing that
• 1:10:34
  there are elements at work that are out of your control as much
• 1:10:37
  as you try to control. And it's an art and that being
• 1:10:40
  humble about the whole thing is vital.
• 1:10:43
  And that, yeah, that whole institution, that family owned
• 1:10:45
  company, massive company. But doing all these things
• 1:10:49
  because it's the right thing to do, rather than it makes
• 1:10:51
  financial sense, is fucking. Awesome.
• 1:10:53
  Well, we had Dougal Gordon on a few weeks ago and Dougal talked
• 1:10:56
  about, which really blew my mind was the fact that they have like
• 1:11:01
  within the company, they create a tasting panel for like so the
• 1:11:05
  accountant, the person in the office, the people who are
• 1:11:07
  working in the, in the, in the distilleries, tour operators and
• 1:11:10
  things like that is they get, if they want to be part of that.
• 1:11:13
  So they can they get sent samples where they get to try
• 1:11:17
  it. And what they do again to make
• 1:11:19
  sure even more is they still stick a few dummies in the
• 1:11:22
  sample just to make sure people pick it up so that they're
• 1:11:25
  going, you're not just smelling it going, yeah, it smells good.
• 1:11:27
  And just identify. So the right people are doing
• 1:11:30
  it. But the fact that that that
• 1:11:32
  makes it everyone's job in the distillery to make sure that the
• 1:11:37
  product that's going out the door is as high, higher quality.
• 1:11:40
  If you want to foster internal belief that come everyone who
• 1:11:44
  worked when I worked there, I think it's still probably true
• 1:11:48
  would happily spend full not only staff price full price on
• 1:11:53
  the bottles that they make because they're proud of what
• 1:11:55
  makes they feel a part. And, and maybe, maybe it's
• 1:11:59
  fucking curtains and everything, but it's the right thing to,
• 1:12:01
  it's the right thing to foster like that internal belief and
• 1:12:05
  it's genuine, it's real and it's a massive company.
• 1:12:09
  Start This guy must have been good though.
• 1:12:11
  I never benefited from that. Actually we got people at the
• 1:12:15
  production sites had but. We are looking for sponsorship
• 1:12:18
  and from episode #1 to now if William Grant and sons or anyone
• 1:12:23
  listening, I do go if you want to send this, I'm going for the
• 1:12:25
  T-shirts. I probably heard about the pot
• 1:12:28
  is there, but we're big fans that but right so so how long so
• 1:12:32
  how long were you there for then?
• 1:12:33
  What were you sort of working so you're?
• 1:12:34
  Talking I never, I never, someone said to me you can't
• 1:12:36
  work in one job for more than 10 years a long time ago, but that
• 1:12:40
  was always in the back of my mind.
• 1:12:42
  So did the US ambassadorship, came to the UK, was a global
• 1:12:46
  ambassador. And then as time was approaching
• 1:12:50
  10 years in total, actually, irrespective of that, I came
• 1:12:55
  back from a trip and it wasn't like from Taiwan or from Hong
• 1:12:58
  Kong. It was like something innocuous
• 1:12:59
  like Newcastle or Aberdeen where I just was late and I told the
• 1:13:03
  kids and my wife I'd be home and I and I wasn't.
• 1:13:07
  And I felt shitty. So I came home, already felt
• 1:13:11
  shitty, and on the dining room table was a painting that one of
• 1:13:16
  the kids had made, or a drawing or some shit with a cliche
• 1:13:19
  you're about to hear. It comes where it was mom and
• 1:13:21
  the two kids and no. Daddy.
• 1:13:23
  Oh really? And.
• 1:13:24
  It was like a fucking knife. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:26
  What am I doing? Yeah.
• 1:13:28
  I'm missing their life. Because a global brand and
• 1:13:30
  master, a brand and master job in itself.
• 1:13:33
  You know, I, I remember I we still work within oil and gas
• 1:13:36
  and everyone talked about the money that you can make working
• 1:13:39
  out offshore and stuff like that.
• 1:13:40
  Yeah, but a lot of guys would say it's a young single man's
• 1:13:42
  game because you don't. If you can, if you can cope with
• 1:13:46
  being away from your family and your kids for a long time, then
• 1:13:49
  yet great if you can live with that.
• 1:13:50
  But from a global brand ambassador's point of view,
• 1:13:53
  you'll be you've been out and up and about.
• 1:13:54
  Yeah, living out. OK.
• 1:13:56
  And we look at the global ambassador lifestyle and you're
• 1:13:59
  thinking of flying out to here and you're whiskey this and
• 1:14:02
  you're tastings at these people and you'll be meeting some
• 1:14:05
  amazing and clients and everything like that.
• 1:14:06
  And that is one side of it. But then there's also the side
• 1:14:09
  of like. Work life balance.
• 1:14:12
  In a hotel all your life and all that.
• 1:14:14
  And look, I'm pretty sure it was, it was probably great to
• 1:14:16
  work for a company like that. But if you've got a wife and
• 1:14:18
  kids, family back home, yeah, you've got to make that.
• 1:14:20
  Balance. I'm not complaining, it was
• 1:14:21
  wonderful, but an airplane is a bus in the sky.
• 1:14:24
  It's sitting on a fucking bus. So the 44 from wherever you are.
• 1:14:29
  Nah. And yeah, I think, I think,
• 1:14:34
  yeah, I think you've absolutely nailed it.
• 1:14:36
  That's the that's the, that's the trade off.
• 1:14:39
  It is. It is wonderful to be able to
• 1:14:41
  represent something you love and care about.
• 1:14:45
  But the being away and all that stuff.
• 1:14:49
  Anyway, in my story, it got it got to me.
• 1:14:51
  And that's why I started calling around saying, is there another
• 1:14:54
  thing I can do? And yeah, turned out there was.
• 1:14:57
  And there are a few different things I was exploring.
• 1:15:00
  And my buddies owned Master Malt.
• 1:15:02
  Justin and Ben were founders. And they said, yeah, you know
• 1:15:05
  what? Good timing.
• 1:15:06
  So these guys you'd been buddies with?
• 1:15:09
  Only through Doctor. Yeah, through Doctor Whiskey.
• 1:15:11
  So when I was doing Doctor Whiskey, they were doing like
• 1:15:14
  the bloggers blend, I think they called it, right.
• 1:15:17
  And they send a bunch of bloggers recipe and then we're
• 1:15:20
  all supposed to share online how we made it.
• 1:15:22
  And there's a cool campaign. Smart idea, but and then I would
• 1:15:27
  go. I knew Ben, I knew Justin.
• 1:15:30
  I played music with Kat. Who started dating Justin?
• 1:15:33
  Kat Spencer. Rhythm guitar.
• 1:15:36
  Sorry, I don't. Know yeah and so yeah through
• 1:15:42
  just friendly avenues and then they said there might be a thing
• 1:15:46
  here I started with them when was that left so this is 2018
• 1:15:53
  but I Grants was so cool though when I said I'm going to leave
• 1:15:57
  and I handed over. For 10 years, then at.
• 1:15:59
  Least just 9-9 years, nine months.
• 1:16:02
  Yeah, just didn't quite get. I was in my head all the time,
• 1:16:06
  handed it over to Gemma and that, yeah, March, I think 2018
• 1:16:16
  and started and then within months they were bought by ABI.
• 1:16:19
  So that's why Ben was like, come now, because we're about to be
• 1:16:22
  bought by money, really. So I was the master remote story
• 1:16:26
  then. I mean, we're we are we've got
• 1:16:28
  to watch our time here. But like what is this I?
• 1:16:30
  Feel like we're fucking waffling.
• 1:16:31
  No, we're doing fine. What what is what is this I
• 1:16:33
  because this is it. I mean, what the numbers that
• 1:16:37
  you've said and the scale of a brand like Master of Malt.
• 1:16:41
  And again, it was, there was Dave that talked about it, Dave
• 1:16:44
  Warrig that he said Atom Brands and we were, he said, now you
• 1:16:47
  know what Atom Brands stands for.
• 1:16:48
  Can you remember what Atom Brands stands for?
• 1:16:50
  I've forgotten completely. A taste of malt, isn't it?
• 1:16:53
  Right? Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:16:54
  So we're obviously dealing with people who are whiskey fans.
• 1:16:57
  Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 1:16:57
  Who started Master of Malt then? And.
• 1:17:00
  Oh, Master Malt was started by Justin's dad in 1985.
• 1:17:05
  Really good. Lord.
• 1:17:06
  Yeah, as an mail order whiskey company.
• 1:17:10
  So you would you would get a piece of Netflix.
• 1:17:12
  Of whiskey, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:14
  But Netflix, do you remember? That when it was, yeah.
• 1:17:16
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I.
• 1:17:17
  Mean or CDs, You know what I mean?
• 1:17:19
  DVD. There was mail order.
• 1:17:20
  Mail order back and forth? Yeah, Fuck.
• 1:17:21
  Can you? That's fucking crazy.
• 1:17:23
  I've been saying that out loud. I forgot that until you just
• 1:17:25
  raised it, but that's what it was.
• 1:17:27
  And you'd fill out a form, you fill a piece of paper and you'd
• 1:17:30
  get a bottle and ask for them all independent bottling.
• 1:17:33
  Yeah. I think you can still see them
• 1:17:35
  at auction websites from the 80s and 90s.
• 1:17:39
  So what's that 40 years ago? So our 40th anniversary was 2020
• 1:17:44
  is now. So we did a Gervin 40 to
• 1:17:46
  celebrate that. But so that's before Justin was
• 1:17:48
  your little boy. And then Justin, I guess is a
• 1:17:51
  nerd, grew up around whiskey, but he was, you know, a tech
• 1:17:54
  nerd. Don't mind me saying that,
• 1:17:56
  Justin. And he said, Dad, you can do
• 1:17:59
  better. You can make this.
• 1:18:00
  There's there's a thing called the World Wide Web.
• 1:18:01
  I think it's going to be a really big one.
• 1:18:03
  And then he's got better stories and I'm going to be able to
• 1:18:07
  relay. But basically that was like,
• 1:18:08
  shut the fuck up. That's never going to be a
• 1:18:09
  thing. No one's ever going.
• 1:18:10
  To wait a minute, did it not come second to begin a surgery?
• 1:18:13
  Oh, no, no, this is this is, yeah, some story, whether this
• 1:18:18
  is a true fact or not. But it was the 19, 1991
• 1:18:20
  invention of the year. And there were three nominees
• 1:18:24
  and 1/1 was 1 was the World Wide Web, one was something else, and
• 1:18:28
  one was the Guinness and. The Fire Raider the one the
• 1:18:31
  rabbit one the. Widget in the Guinness can that
• 1:18:33
  means you get that perfect draft.
• 1:18:35
  I do like that won the invention of the year 1991 and some
• 1:18:39
  companies awards like over there.
• 1:18:41
  Oh my. God.
• 1:18:44
  Well, better Plato, I mean. Yeah, I mean, look, I love the
• 1:18:47
  witch. I think it is a great divide.
• 1:18:49
  It's great. I mean, it's still going to this
• 1:18:51
  day. Well, that's it, yeah.
• 1:18:53
  Do you think that's gonna be the?
• 1:18:57
  Thing it's like all the fair buggers that like, yeah, yeah,
• 1:19:00
  never got their number one when Joe Dalte shut up at your face.
• 1:19:04
  Oh yeah, that's the famous one. It was Vienna Ultravox.
• 1:19:07
  It was Joe, Dalte said. Over your face was #1I.
• 1:19:16
  We are a funny bunch. We're a bunch of apes, people.
• 1:19:18
  There you go. Not that clever.
• 1:19:20
  Right. So, so that's so whatever on on
• 1:19:22
  to the Internet then. And then it just was yeah.
• 1:19:24
  So it. Became an online website yeah,
• 1:19:27
  but you know Ben it's justice buddies.
• 1:19:30
  The childhood friends came and joined them and they made it
• 1:19:33
  into the master mote we know now ships all over the world.
• 1:19:37
  And then I think they they started having a thing like why
• 1:19:40
  isn't there a dot dot dot? And that's why the part of the
• 1:19:44
  business that I'm responsible for started.
• 1:19:46
  Ben was like, why isn't there a gin that does this?
• 1:19:49
  Why isn't there a rum that does this?
• 1:19:51
  Why isn't there a whiskey does this?
• 1:19:52
  And they made bathtub gin, Ramboulian boot and boutique
• 1:19:54
  whiskey. Really.
• 1:19:56
  Yeah. And so, yeah, so, so you get the
• 1:19:57
  call and and that's it. You've and how many people are
• 1:20:01
  like you're so you're head of whiskey, but how many people is
• 1:20:04
  there an assistant to hit to the head of whiskey or anything like
• 1:20:06
  that? Is that is that?
• 1:20:07
  So our whiskey sort of production decision making or
• 1:20:12
  whatever the fuck. So I was with the team in
• 1:20:14
  Edinburgh, so we got a warehouse in bottling hall because all
• 1:20:18
  Scotch obviously needs to be done up here and we might do
• 1:20:21
  some other spirits up here too. You're not supposed to do any
• 1:20:24
  whiskeys in Scotland. You can't make a whiskey in
• 1:20:26
  Scotland. It's not Scotch according to the
• 1:20:27
  SWA, which is just dumb for for industry in Scotland.
• 1:20:31
  It's a really dumb idea. It's like when Wales said Welsh
• 1:20:35
  whiskey can only be bottled in whales.
• 1:20:36
  Well, I'll stop buying pen there and then.
• 1:20:39
  Yeah, because you can't bottle it if you're not going to build
• 1:20:42
  a warehouse and bottle it. Really short sighted, really
• 1:20:44
  dumb yeah yeah anyway, but we do and so yeah, that team I count
• 1:20:51
  as part of my team. So that's three people now plus
• 1:20:55
  the bottling side of it cuz that and J5 people in Edinburgh and
• 1:21:00
  then. The So your warehouse is in
• 1:21:01
  Edinburgh. In Portobello.
• 1:21:03
  Yeah. Wow.
• 1:21:03
  Cool. Yeah.
• 1:21:05
  Yeah, come. We should go down.
• 1:21:06
  And we were looking at Cassidy 24.
• 1:21:08
  So I'm pretty lit. Maybe that's my fault.
• 1:21:12
  While this podcast is going out as it is, we had 27 cast, I
• 1:21:17
  think down there looking at some that are foul, some that are, Oh
• 1:21:21
  my God, pieces of heaven. So that's great.
• 1:21:25
  So those five folks and then Phoebe, Dave, James and Dylan
• 1:21:29
  are the team that I meet with every day.
• 1:21:31
  Every morning we meet online and say, hey, what are we doing?
• 1:21:34
  That's it, really. Yeah.
• 1:21:36
  That's so exciting and. Like, and now we're sorry, we
• 1:21:39
  were bought by ABI, but now Justin owns it again.
• 1:21:41
  We're 100% family of, you know, founder owned independent, big
• 1:21:45
  independent company. I mean task wise in your in your
• 1:21:49
  place in Edinborough, what kind of numbers are we talking
• 1:21:51
  roughly? Do you know?
• 1:21:52
  Can you say? But small.
• 1:21:55
  No, we're not. We're not, we're not big like so
• 1:21:58
  those 200 and something including octaves, so really
• 1:22:04
  small ones. But that that that's like
• 1:22:07
  because that would be more of your independent bottling like
• 1:22:10
  your, your. So Even so, the stuff we get
• 1:22:14
  from our the big company supplier that supplies warm tub
• 1:22:19
  distillates, we have to Sherry finish it.
• 1:22:21
  We do all that. All right, you do that.
• 1:22:23
  Yeah, we got it on the site. So that's all.
• 1:22:25
  That's a lot of that is that. But yeah, like old Ben Nevis or
• 1:22:31
  what have we got? Yeah, 50 year old whiskeys, all,
• 1:22:34
  all the precious ish stuff is there.
• 1:22:36
  We used to have a lot of third party warehousing, but most
• 1:22:39
  mostly we keep it out of brand what we're trying to.
• 1:22:41
  I think when I the big boom after ABI, we sort of had
• 1:22:45
  10,000,000 lbs of inventory and now we're maybe £2,000,000,
• 1:22:48
  right. We try to just keep it a little
• 1:22:50
  tight. Yeah.
• 1:22:50
  Anyone keep it tight? Yeah.
• 1:22:51
  Fantastic. That's really, really exciting.
• 1:22:54
  Wait, we're taking this perfectly.
• 1:22:55
  We always get to the stage of the evening.
• 1:22:57
  I haven't briefed you about this.
• 1:22:58
  No. I.
• 1:22:59
  I listened to the podcast. Then basically we do ask our
• 1:23:02
  guests for their what 3 drams, any 3 whiskeys that have a sort
• 1:23:04
  of story or meaning or anything towards towards them.
• 1:23:07
  So I'm really excited to hear this Sam.
• 1:23:09
  So what are your What, 3 Drams? Johnnie Walker Black.
• 1:23:13
  Brilliant. Go.
• 1:23:15
  I love I love blended Scotch whiskey.
• 1:23:18
  I made Green aisle, our blended Scotch that has never really
• 1:23:21
  taken off. But even though we by most of
• 1:23:24
  our measures, we shouldn't keep making it.
• 1:23:25
  But we do because I say sorry. That's why I'm here.
• 1:23:30
  Yeah. I'm proud of it.
• 1:23:31
  I love it. And it's.
• 1:23:33
  I love. That's a smoky style everyday.
• 1:23:36
  What do I feel like? You look at a wall like this.
• 1:23:38
  What am I going to have tonight? Let's start there.
• 1:23:40
  Let's start there. Whiskey.
• 1:23:42
  So that's got to be Johnny. Wall we've talked about it as
• 1:23:45
  well. Ross Bar sometimes on this
• 1:23:47
  podcast so. Nice.
• 1:23:49
  Yeah, Yeah. When he walks into the bar
• 1:23:52
  sometimes and he maybe sees that wall of whiskey in a bar and he
• 1:23:55
  just doesn't know where to go, he'll just say get me a bowl of
• 1:23:58
  any 12 now and then I'll decide once I've had the drama, I'll be
• 1:24:02
  like, right. Yeah, the drama.
• 1:24:03
  The drama. That's a similar kind of thing.
• 1:24:05
  It's like right? I know did.
• 1:24:07
  You guys have this yet? Yeah, Lovely.
• 1:24:08
  Fantastic. It's that drama.
• 1:24:11
  It's like, right, I know what I'm going to get here.
• 1:24:13
  I know it's going to be great. I know it's going to be yeah, so
• 1:24:17
  I know I can. Order it and they like.
• 1:24:18
  Any and you can. Let's face it, with Johnny
• 1:24:20
  Walker Black, you can get it anywhere.
• 1:24:22
  Well, we're talking as the other plus 100%.
• 1:24:24
  Yes, we talked about it. I've been doing a lot of digging
• 1:24:28
  into the archives of the podcast in the last day or so.
• 1:24:33
  And basically it was Simon Smith's first episode that he
• 1:24:35
  came on. I think that was like episode
• 1:24:37
  number 11 or 12 or whatever. And he talked about and I, it
• 1:24:42
  was one of the few times and really interesting.
• 1:24:44
  I posted three times about whiskey stories on Reddit and I
• 1:24:47
  asked Scott Moore tonight, how did you find whiskey stories?
• 1:24:50
  Like I was just on Reddit and I saw a post and it must have been
• 1:24:53
  one of the posts I did but. The other, no.
• 1:24:56
  It could have been one of the posts could be.
• 1:24:57
  Numerous. Of people, but.
• 1:24:59
  One of the posts I put up and blast Simon.
• 1:25:02
  I wouldn't go into Reddit, but he said about he talked about no
• 1:25:06
  such thing as bad whiskey, right?
• 1:25:08
  Yeah. And he said that because it's
• 1:25:10
  subjective, it's whatever he takes.
• 1:25:11
  But he also then said that Johnny Walker Black has to be
• 1:25:14
  listed as the best whiskey in the world because when you look
• 1:25:17
  at volume distribution. I'm looking at a bottle of it,
• 1:25:22
  right? There, I agree.
• 1:25:23
  Yeah. And like we said, you could go
• 1:25:25
  anywhere in the world, and that was and that that.
• 1:25:29
  Is and that ties into well, I, I chose that as one of my stores
• 1:25:32
  and it ties into the fact that you can get it anywhere on this
• 1:25:35
  kind of very remote island in Greece there it was in the kind
• 1:25:38
  of little corner shop so. And that's that's it.
• 1:25:40
  So he was sort of saying like consistency, volume, price,
• 1:25:44
  where you can get anywhere in the world that has to be, has to
• 1:25:47
  rank us up there as one of the best whiskies in the world.
• 1:25:50
  And there'll be people that say, I know it's crap because it's s
• 1:25:52
  s That's the next thing. But at the same time, you know,
• 1:25:54
  and also like what? Like what?
• 1:25:57
  The funniest story that extends from your what to do DRAM story
• 1:26:00
  is the fact that you can get that whiskey anywhere in the
• 1:26:02
  world except for the athletic arms.
• 1:26:07
  Here's what happened. I'm just secretly sneaky bugger,
• 1:26:11
  right? I'm just secretly didn't tell
• 1:26:12
  anybody he was getting married, right?
• 1:26:15
  And it was. It was.
• 1:26:17
  Certainly didn't tell the wife. I mean, he wasn't getting pushed
• 1:26:22
  out aisle with a shotgun or anything like that before anyone
• 1:26:24
  but but I he was being very coy. You had been a bit funny what I
• 1:26:28
  say this. Is Graham.
• 1:26:30
  Graham's done me too long to know it.
• 1:26:32
  Yeah. Something was afoot.
• 1:26:34
  I said. Somebody.
• 1:26:35
  'S not right and he's been really I can't do Thursday and
• 1:26:37
  I'm busy on Friday and I can't do anything and I was a bit like
• 1:26:40
  and I was like, what's he doing? And I sort of said quietly, you
• 1:26:44
  get married and he could be. Anyway, I and we were doing a
• 1:26:50
  recording on the Wednesday night.
• 1:26:51
  That's right, yeah. And were you married on the
• 1:26:53
  Friday or the Thursday? It was a Friday, Friday, but I
• 1:26:55
  wasn't going to see you on the Thursday.
• 1:26:57
  So I said, well, we'll have a wait.
• 1:26:58
  So we finished the podcast. I can't remember what episode it
• 1:27:01
  was. Maybe we went back.
• 1:27:02
  It would have been six months in to the pod.
• 1:27:05
  Aye, so well, when was your what's your wedding date?
• 1:27:08
  It was a chest test of nearly. 10th of May. 10th of May, right?
• 1:27:11
  Well, we'll be able to find that.
• 1:27:12
  But anyway, we finished the pod and I thought, right, we'll
• 1:27:15
  stay. We'll, I said at least stay for
• 1:27:16
  a DRAM. It's Wednesday night, we'll have
• 1:27:18
  a DRAM. And I remembered because it was
• 1:27:20
  after you'd got engaged was you'd bought the only whiskey
• 1:27:23
  you can get on the island in Greece was Johnny Walker Black.
• 1:27:25
  So I thought that's I'll get you a drum, we'll get a Johnny
• 1:27:28
  Walker Black and it'll just be a nice little bit to the bar that
• 1:27:32
  is going to get 2 Johnny Walker Blacks please.
• 1:27:34
  The guy by the bar was like and they do have it because we could
• 1:27:39
  see a bottle. Of it, I was going to say that
• 1:27:40
  we keep it. Open either run out or they
• 1:27:43
  hadn't replaced it or whatever they couldn't find and they were
• 1:27:45
  looking everywhere and they were like, and I said you've not got
• 1:27:48
  it. Yeah anyway, I'll be in a
• 1:27:49
  cupboard somewhere but we don't actually have it available. 2
• 1:27:52
  Glenfiddich 20 ones or something like that instead.
• 1:27:54
  Nice. Cost me a lot more.
• 1:27:55
  Yeah, yeah. That's an upgrade.
• 1:27:58
  But there you go. So you get it.
• 1:28:00
  Most accessible whiskey, except for in the pub.
• 1:28:02
  There's over 850 open bottles. But don't worry, Kev, if you're
• 1:28:07
  listening to this and going, we fucking do have it.
• 1:28:09
  I've got a bottle here. Nice.
• 1:28:10
  Here later a bottle. There's the final bottle of the
• 1:28:14
  iconic, the classic one. Yeah, brilliant.
• 1:28:16
  Great drum for #1 Fantastic, right?
• 1:28:19
  Sam #2, please. About any double wood and that
• 1:28:23
  is the first bottle I bought living on the Royal Mile and the
• 1:28:28
  student residence at the top of the Royal Mile and that little
• 1:28:30
  square with a fucking bagpiper every Saturday would be outside
• 1:28:34
  going every morning I I could wish I had a pellet gun.
• 1:28:40
  Yeah, I bought it from Royal Mile Whiskeys and it was a
• 1:28:41
  small, it was 375 maybe or 200 maybe.
• 1:28:46
  I couldn't afford. I mean, that was a lot of money,
• 1:28:49
  yeah. Yeah, for booze.
• 1:28:51
  Yeah. Yeah, as a student.
• 1:28:52
  Yeah, that was not, I was not buying a bottle, but that was my
• 1:28:54
  favorite. That was the best 1 I had tried
• 1:28:56
  to that. Day.
• 1:28:57
  Yeah. So that was something you knew
• 1:28:58
  about. You went into Romeo Mesky and
• 1:29:00
  you said I. Was in that whiskey club I.
• 1:29:01
  Want to buy this? Yeah.
• 1:29:02
  That's something I want in my house.
• 1:29:03
  I'm not going to spend whatever it was 24 lbs more.
• 1:29:06
  Way more expensive now, but I wasn't going to spend 24 lbs
• 1:29:10
  whatever it was, £25 for a full bottle.
• 1:29:12
  So I'll just get the small and then I ended up working there.
• 1:29:16
  And so there's that story as well.
• 1:29:17
  And I still think, like I say about Edinburgh, but that's the
• 1:29:21
  taste. That's the feeling of home.
• 1:29:22
  I definitely feel settled in a in a glass of odd of any double
• 1:29:26
  wood is comfort and it's still great.
• 1:29:28
  It's always been great. I have a collection of bottles
• 1:29:31
  from different vintage for different periods.
• 1:29:35
  Of course it's changed like Johnnie Walker.
• 1:29:36
  I have, I have. I have a bunch of bottles in the
• 1:29:39
  basement of my parents house in Canada, many of which they've
• 1:29:41
  opened because they thought it was oh it's just a Johnnie
• 1:29:43
  Walker. I but it's a.
• 1:29:45
  But it's a 60s or a 70s or an 80s or a 90s that I kept on
• 1:29:49
  purpose anyway. Whatever, it's OK.
• 1:29:51
  It's just booze. But they're all different.
• 1:29:53
  It's evolved over time and like Johnnie Walker, so it's always
• 1:29:56
  been a double word, but it still is a great job.
• 1:29:59
  That's my. That's probably number.
• 1:30:00
  Two well, I mean being able to this is what's really cool about
• 1:30:04
  when you look go back through the years of it and the ages of
• 1:30:06
  it and we're going to see that because with famous Grouse is
• 1:30:11
  the flavour of famous grouse is going to change because they're
• 1:30:13
  moving production from North British to Girvan and Girvan
• 1:30:18
  uses wheat and N British uses maize.
• 1:30:20
  So there's like there's going to, but it won't happen like
• 1:30:23
  that You're right. But I bet you if you buy a
• 1:30:27
  bottle of Famous Grouse right now and hold on that for five
• 1:30:31
  years and then have a a Famous Grouse in five years time, there
• 1:30:36
  will be there will be a change because there'll be the grain
• 1:30:38
  content. Well, man, I'm, I love that.
• 1:30:40
  That's the first thing because I think a lot of people would say,
• 1:30:43
  oh, the malt, the malt blunt, it's about the grain.
• 1:30:45
  That's the light and the stage and and you're so right.
• 1:30:49
  Corn behaves as wheat behaves totally differently.
• 1:30:51
  Corn and malt in those two shades of white is are very
• 1:30:56
  different. I didn't think about that.
• 1:30:57
  Fine. Well, the the the thing the
• 1:30:59
  reason it sticks with me and again, there's like a we
• 1:31:01
  Canadian connection. There was Harnan Walker when
• 1:31:03
  they built and bathed in distillery.
• 1:31:05
  Then they used a completely different still columns that I
• 1:31:08
  calm still. They used a completely different
• 1:31:11
  column still and the column still they used could only use
• 1:31:14
  maize and they did it from a Canadian grain production side
• 1:31:18
  things. But I remember it was Mark
• 1:31:21
  Thompson who talked about, I can't remember where we were
• 1:31:24
  before we started the podcast, but he said like old
• 1:31:27
  Valentine's, you get that buttery popcorn flavour because
• 1:31:32
  the grain they were sourcing at that time was from Dumbarton And
• 1:31:36
  Dumbarton could only use maize in the in the, in the
• 1:31:39
  production. And suddenly it was the first
• 1:31:42
  time it ever popped in my head where like just the fact,
• 1:31:45
  because that's the thing, single malt, single malt, right?
• 1:31:47
  It's malt barley. All right.
• 1:31:49
  There are people who will tell you we can use different barley
• 1:31:51
  varieties and things, but single grain can be, you can certainly
• 1:31:55
  say it. And also you can look at history
• 1:31:57
  and you can see through what was cheapest at the time to buy, you
• 1:32:01
  know? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, right.
• 1:32:03
  Blinded whiskey tasted like this in this period of time because
• 1:32:07
  probably the big green distillers were buying like
• 1:32:09
  this, were buying maize, corn, Yeah.
• 1:32:11
  So it's fascinating. Yeah, it's totally.
• 1:32:13
  I never, I have old Valentine's and I never connected the
• 1:32:17
  Canadian. I never connected the Dumbarton
• 1:32:19
  thing, which is totally true. Yeah, that's pretty sweet.
• 1:32:22
  Yeah, there we go. Right tram #3.
• 1:32:27
  That's the hardest, isn't it? You can you can be on brand.
• 1:32:30
  We'll give you a spare we'll give you.
• 1:32:31
  An extra no, no, no, no, no, no. Look, I I'm very proud of
• 1:32:35
  everything we've made. That's not no, probably the
• 1:32:39
  whiskey that when I realized because you're, I've heard other
• 1:32:42
  people answer this and you're not, you're not asking what's
• 1:32:44
  the best whiskey ever had. No, no.
• 1:32:46
  It's so it's something that's important.
• 1:32:48
  It's important. So when I realized that whiskey
• 1:32:51
  was going to cost me a fortune to drink was when I tasted the
• 1:32:55
  guys in Royal Mile whiskeys. When I still lived in Edinburgh
• 1:32:58
  I tried a 30 in the old Bow Blair Bow Blair bottle.
• 1:33:02
  Oh yeah. 38 year old. Vintages as well with Bow Blair.
• 1:33:06
  And those before that, before no, no, before the vintages was
• 1:33:10
  in that this bottle, wasn't it? Right, OK.
• 1:33:13
  With the fat cork before that it was older.
• 1:33:15
  Than. That it was like, yes, I think
• 1:33:18
  it was called 38 year old and they poured it for me and it
• 1:33:23
  blew my fucking mind. What is happening?
• 1:33:28
  Like kaleidoscopic tropical fruits, multi bit of pee.
• 1:33:32
  What the fuck's happening here? How much is that?
• 1:33:35
  And I think it was not, I mean it wasn't, it wasn't today
• 1:33:39
  prices or the past 10 year prices, but it was still like
• 1:33:42
  eye watering. I was like, shit, now I have a
• 1:33:45
  problem. Now I need to try Highland Park
• 1:33:48
  18 and I need to try Highland Park 25 or like whatever the
• 1:33:53
  because there's a reason those things are sought after and
• 1:33:57
  people pay money for them. And how old would you have been
• 1:34:01
  then? So you were just 26, right?
• 1:34:03
  So yeah. So I mean, again, they always
• 1:34:05
  say that the older you get. Try and whiskey older.
• 1:34:08
  Yeah, try and whiskey older when you're in your 20s because when
• 1:34:11
  you're in your 20s and on and unless you're Ross Bart that is
• 1:34:16
  still in his mid 20s. No, we've had whiskeys that.
• 1:34:19
  We were just talking about this with Scott Moore upstairs and he
• 1:34:22
  said, you know, his birthday is I'm sure he won't mind me saying
• 1:34:26
  yeah, 1961. So to try and, you know, he to
• 1:34:29
  try and find something that date specifically, you know, in
• 1:34:34
  America, impossible in Scotland possible as he's been finding
• 1:34:38
  out. But it's, you know, it's, it's
• 1:34:42
  if you speak to the right people, yes, but it's not.
• 1:34:45
  The other one that's worth saying is I I worked with
• 1:34:47
  Sikandar Singh in the whiskey exchange a few years after that
• 1:34:50
  and he had a great array of things.
• 1:34:53
  And there was that regular Klein leash 12 year old, but from the
• 1:34:56
  70s, Ainsley and Habrin. I think it's set on it was like
• 1:34:59
  orange and yellow, right? That also gave me that feeling
• 1:35:04
  of I need to fuck. I know it's £200 plus a bottle
• 1:35:08
  but I need to keep trying to find that that that's what made
• 1:35:10
  me realize I've got a problem. Yeah, no, I mean Ross, Ross,
• 1:35:14
  Ross talked about the he said it on here.
• 1:35:17
  The whiskey that will ruin whiskey for you is.
• 1:35:19
  It tomato, tomato 36 for Ross, he said.
• 1:35:22
  Yeah. He said it so whiskey because
• 1:35:24
  once you try him, in a way you're like, right, This is what
• 1:35:27
  whiskey because you you try something like that and you go
• 1:35:30
  whiskey can taste like this. Yeah.
• 1:35:32
  So. It's hard to go back to that.
• 1:35:33
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:35:34
  Solara's great. Concrete 15's great.
• 1:35:36
  But how? Yeah.
• 1:35:37
  Yeah, it's and it goes back. We've talked a little bit about
• 1:35:43
  it age statement and you know, you can go through and say age
• 1:35:46
  shouldn't matter on whiskey and stuff like that.
• 1:35:48
  But I think ultimately it does in some degree where if you get
• 1:35:53
  a good aged whiskey that's been aged there, we've had we've had
• 1:35:57
  really not great aged whiskey. We've, yeah, we've had.
• 1:36:01
  Some few, few of them not as not that many, but we've had whiskey
• 1:36:05
  what's been bottled for the age and not for the quality of it.
• 1:36:07
  Well, but when you get a whiskey in like if you're saying a 38
• 1:36:11
  year old whiskey that is being put out.
• 1:36:14
  Yeah, but or that kind of issue that was only 12.
• 1:36:16
  Yeah, exactly. But it was a time machine
• 1:36:18
  because the way they made the spirit is not the way we make it
• 1:36:22
  today. So it just, it's not.
• 1:36:24
  So age is definitely part of it, but it's also the distillate to
• 1:36:27
  begin with. And even old bottlings and some
• 1:36:31
  old bottlings are horrific You've because they've gone.
• 1:36:33
  They just don't. Well, this is, and I, I often,
• 1:36:36
  you know, we, we wonder as well when, you know, we've had older
• 1:36:39
  bottles sometimes, you know, but I remember there was a White
• 1:36:41
  Horse from the 60s that we tried.
• 1:36:43
  But it's, it's again, it's like, well, we're not really tasting
• 1:36:46
  what it would have tasted like if we'd open that fresh in the
• 1:36:49
  1960 and said, because, you know, 40, well, 60 years in a
• 1:36:54
  bottle, that's got to do something.
• 1:36:56
  I mean, OK. Also just flavours of whiskey.
• 1:36:58
  Change if it's been kept in a cool dark place, but I mean, you
• 1:37:01
  know. Well, that's where I keep a lot
• 1:37:03
  of Tullabarden in the cellar, so that in 20 years is going to
• 1:37:06
  taste great. Yeah.
• 1:37:08
  Yeah. I love you.
• 1:37:09
  I love you Roz. I'm just, I'm just beating into
• 1:37:13
  the myth. Great distillery, but way
• 1:37:15
  underrated. But anyway.
• 1:37:16
  Yeah, no. Well, look, Sam, we got there in
• 1:37:18
  the end. It's been, it's been an absolute
• 1:37:20
  cracker. Today is this the end?
• 1:37:21
  Because I'm going to piss my fucking.
• 1:37:22
  Pants don't just. I've heard that guy.
• 1:37:28
  Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for the drams.
• 1:37:31
  Thanks. Thank you.
• 1:37:31
  So honestly. Yeah, it's been fantastic.
• 1:37:33
  It's been great. Thank you to everyone who's been
• 1:37:36
  listening. Don't forget there are still
• 1:37:38
  some of our bottles might still be available.
• 1:37:40
  Glen Elgin 13 it's actually whiskey now the spirit drink has
• 1:37:45
  been taken out of it because it has the rest of it has been
• 1:37:47
  bottled under bond. So they are available on the
• 1:37:50
  Woodrows of Edinburgh website. There'll be a link.
• 1:37:52
  There's a link in our bio on our Instagram account.
• 1:37:54
  Check it out. You've got.
• 1:37:54
  Limited Limited bottles left. Yeah, I think we've got like
• 1:37:57
  1520 bottles left, so 65 lbs plus your postage packaging
• 1:38:01
  they'll send out to you. Anyway.
• 1:38:02
  Sam, thank you very much. All the very best sponge of our.
• 1:38:05
  Cheers. Thank you.