Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / How Do You Blend the World's Best Selling Whisky? — Johnnie Walker Master Blender Dr Emma Walker

Transcript

How Do You Blend the World's Best Selling Whisky? — Johnnie Walker Master Blender Dr Emma Walker · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  Right guys, we already are rocking.
• 0:01
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Cheers.
• 0:03
  Sandman, lovely to see you. Lovely Sandy here next to you
• 0:06
  back in the wee room. It is.
• 0:07
  I like this. One here's the Mondays.
• 0:12
  Nice. Easter Mondays, though, 11
• 0:15
  e-mail. It's nice.
• 0:18
  We've got drams in front of us. Angus, you know what to do.
• 0:22
  Clap us in. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
• 0:27
  podcast. I get called doctor and walk.
• 0:29
  It makes me so nervous. It's like getting your full name
• 0:31
  from your mum. I feel like I'm definitely
• 0:33
  getting in trouble. So that's the only time we're
• 0:35
  saying that. So I'm the Johnny Walker, my
• 0:38
  splendor. I still have to pinch myself
• 0:39
  because I'm I'm convinced that someone's going to realise
• 0:41
  they've made a terrible mistake. So we've got nearly or about
• 0:46
  11,000,000 cast maturing, maturing Scotch whiskey.
• 0:49
  You make right the way across Scotland.
• 0:52
  All it is is it's full of green and they just Chuck a little bit
• 0:55
  of molten and that's how they can sell it.
• 0:56
  So don't get through that then I'm.
• 0:58
  Trying to keep my language clean.
• 1:00
  On that welcome on the Whiskey Stories podcast, myself Green,
• 1:05
  we are back in the athletic arms.
• 1:07
  We're back where it all began, sandwiched nicely between the
• 1:10
  gents toilets and the bar in the dugout.
• 1:12
  Ross, here we are. How are you?
• 1:13
  This is my favorite room. I'm delighted to be here.
• 1:16
  And I'm it's a Monday recording. I had to make myself available
• 1:21
  for this one. I'm really happy to Yeah.
• 1:23
  And I've come into Diggers and I've spotted something straight
• 1:26
  away of it. Oh my goodness, I've got to grab
• 1:28
  that. So if it just thrusted myself
• 1:29
  straight into my house, how are you?
• 1:31
  Graham, I'm fine. I'm good.
• 1:32
  How are you? I'm good.
• 1:34
  I'm excellent. Yeah, I'm really, really good.
• 1:35
  Right. Go and rush.
• 1:36
  Your tails wagging. You're champing it in the bed.
• 1:38
  Well, I won't be. I'm unprizzy.
• 1:40
  Or what? Have you got so in this first
• 1:42
  glass I I have a 1989 Glen Kinche.
• 1:45
  Special year, Yeah, Great year. Well, is that your boys this
• 1:48
  year? And we're both born.
• 1:49
  It's. A Distillers edition, but it's
• 1:53
  bottled 2003 so it's a wee bit older than what the kind of
• 1:55
  modern interpretations and distillers editions have been
• 1:58
  from Glen Kinche and it is a delight.
• 2:00
  And then next to it someone I haven't had in years.
• 2:03
  I've got a Johnny Walker 18 nice.
• 2:05
  Both both both of the same brand.
• 2:07
  Actually I. Guess what have you got?
• 2:09
  I've got telescope. It's an 8 year old, a limited
• 2:12
  edition. It's in fast fill American,
• 2:16
  heavily charred fast fill American.
• 2:18
  So it's excellent as you'd expect.
• 2:21
  And I've got I can't believe it. We've all gone on there.
• 2:23
  You have to that I'm going to climb Route 14 and I have that's
• 2:28
  a revolution DRAM for me finally, because we've had so
• 2:31
  many people on the podcast talking about it.
• 2:34
  Yeah, and saying how great it was.
• 2:35
  I think that was the problem as they talked it up too much where
• 2:38
  I was expecting when I would pour it and expect fireworks in
• 2:42
  my mouth or something happened and it never happened, which
• 2:44
  always left me slightly disappointed.
• 2:46
  I mean it wasn't till I got back from India.
• 2:48
  Angus and I sat here at our first tram together when we got
• 2:50
  back before we record with Fraser Soon as I thought I'll
• 2:52
  give it one more go. I was annoyed at myself for
• 2:54
  ordering it because I thought I'm just going to go through the
• 2:56
  same problem again. And I have Guinness and I was
• 2:59
  sort of going through that. And then I just thought I picked
• 3:01
  the drama up and I tried it and I had to interrupt Angus halfway
• 3:03
  through what he was telling me. Just like by the way.
• 3:05
  And you tried tightly square feet because I have and I was
• 3:09
  wrong. And I went to the party.
• 3:10
  But why? We're, we're, we're all on
• 3:12
  Diageo. We are, We are.
• 3:13
  And Talska was an easy choice for me because we, I, I chose
• 3:16
  the Talska 10 for one of our snippets of its scorer videos.
• 3:19
  Yeah. And was it had been a long time
• 3:21
  since I've had time and I blew my mind how good it was.
• 3:25
  Yeah. And I haven't had a lot of task
• 3:27
  recently, but I straight away. And then, well, I can, I can
• 3:30
  safely say that there's nobody, you know, the head regions from
• 3:33
  the Johnny Walker experience. I'm standing behind the camera
• 3:35
  pointing guns. We've decided to go on brand
• 3:39
  tonight because we are joined by and I'm really excited for this
• 3:42
  doctor Emma Walker. Emma, how are you?
• 3:46
  I'm not bad. Not bad, especially for a Monday
• 3:47
  afternoon, this is. This is the way.
• 3:49
  It's a. Great way to spend it.
• 3:50
  Yeah, I. Mean, what I really like is the
• 3:51
  fact that whilst we were talking about these drams, you were
• 3:54
  nodding along, which means that we're probably talking and
• 3:56
  they're like we we know we're talking about it.
• 3:58
  It's a bit nice because I mean, first I'm going to ask you to
• 4:00
  introduce yourself. Doctor Emma Walker.
• 4:02
  Who are you and what do? You do.
• 4:04
  So yeah, I get called Doctor and Walker.
• 4:05
  It makes me so nervous. It's like getting your full name
• 4:08
  from your mum. But yeah, like I'm definitely
• 4:09
  getting in trouble. So that's the only time we're
• 4:11
  saying that. So I'm the Johnny Walker Master
• 4:14
  Splendor and I've been in that role, I think it was since the
• 4:18
  start of 2021-2022. Wow, so the Johnny Walker.
• 4:23
  I don't remember in years and that.
• 4:25
  But the Johnny Walker Master Blender.
• 4:26
  I I soft pinch myself because I'm I'm convinced that someone's
• 4:29
  going to realise I've made a terrible mistake.
• 4:33
  Oh, wait till this podcast is our Emma.
• 4:36
  But I mean that lads, I think we've we've had people talking
• 4:41
  about Johnny Walker a lot. In fact, I guess it was one of
• 4:44
  yours. One of my was your first three
• 4:46
  drums. And episode #1 and that's not.
• 4:49
  Johnny Walker, Johnny Walker Black was the drama I had, I
• 4:53
  think, before I proposed to my current wife.
• 4:55
  You have to deeze the nerves and it was also the drama afterwards
• 4:58
  to ease my nerves. But it was in a island in Greece
• 5:03
  with a convenient store that had Johnny Walker Black.
• 5:08
  And I think I had a car due as well.
• 5:09
  But it was and. And you know what?
• 5:11
  Yeah. Despite the limited selection,
• 5:14
  Johnny Walker Black's a great. Yeah.
• 5:15
  And I'm a big fan. It's.
• 5:17
  Lovely. It's just a world of.
• 5:18
  Balance. You know, everything you want is
• 5:20
  the drama. I remember filming with Charlie
• 5:21
  McLean for the first time. Yeah.
• 5:23
  And we said, Charlie, what do you want to film?
• 5:26
  And we've done a video that was Johnny Walker Double Black
• 5:29
  versus Johnny Walker Black. And before we even started
• 5:31
  filming, he went and where was last year Johnny Walker Black?
• 5:34
  And he said, we'll have one before we start going.
• 5:36
  Yeah, he said, this is delicious.
• 5:38
  And I think it was still one of the times he's he's always.
• 5:40
  Well and and the thing I love about it just my wife my current
• 5:43
  wife and me both love the kind of more petered which cases just
• 5:46
  that yeah that hint of people. Well on the subjects of we have
• 5:50
  to go back and say how and I still can't remember who it was
• 5:54
  told us at the Independent Spirits festival.
• 5:56
  He said, Oh yeah, that Ross Barbs actually Traveller
• 5:58
  Mclean's Big Brother and got you're you're the guy that got
• 6:02
  Charlie MacLean in that whiskey. But we've been Johnny Walker's
• 6:04
  been a few times, Simon Smith in the first episode, and here he
• 6:08
  referenced it say pound for pound, Johnny Walker Black Label
• 6:11
  is the best whiskey in the world because it is a whiskey that
• 6:13
  goes the furthest for the volume, for the value it's
• 6:15
  worth. We're unbelievable.
• 6:18
  So-called it an age statement. Yeah, mass market age statement.
• 6:22
  We also had it referenced, Ali Reynolds referenced that
• 6:26
  basically as yeah, former Brandon master.
• 6:29
  And he also said that, you know, there was a time when every
• 6:32
  master blinder was asked what would they like to sign off on,
• 6:35
  said Johnny. Welcome Black.
• 6:36
  We had Hector McLean on the podcast talked about one of his
• 6:40
  what 3 jams and it was he was out with his cousin Charlie
• 6:44
  McLean, the foreman, Charlie McLean and Uska Bay.
• 6:47
  And there was a young guy working behind the bar and
• 6:49
  suddenly realised, Oh my God, that's the Charlie McLean.
• 6:51
  He's come up and he's going to like, what have we got in the
• 6:53
  back bar? It was going to be, I can't
• 6:55
  remember it too much, but you'll be able to say it had quite a
• 6:56
  lot of different drams on the back.
• 6:58
  And he ordered a Johnnie Walker red.
• 7:00
  And the poor lad was that embarrassed that he couldn't
• 7:03
  actually fill the full measure. And John claim, I don't if
• 7:07
  you've got a bit of black label, just Chuck that we'll make a
• 7:10
  blended blend. So Jonny Walker is huge, Emma
• 7:15
  and I have you here. I mean, yeah, Kev, shut the pubs
• 7:19
  because you're you're coming in. We need to make sure there was
• 7:22
  no press or media. So we got full access to you.
• 7:24
  But I'm going to say it. You'll not say it because you're
• 7:27
  you're you're you. Even if you don't like the The
• 7:29
  Doctor talk about, you're a superstar.
• 7:31
  You're a whiskey legend. You're a whiskey legend.
• 7:36
  You're going to give me a panic guitar?
• 7:37
  It is really weird. I mean, it's really, we've been
• 7:43
  in this role so everyone know, like your nieces and your
• 7:46
  nephews are really difficult to impress now that they can Google
• 7:49
  me and actually see like videos and ask like I've gone way up in
• 7:52
  the rest of Mission. I've got a selfie with Stormzy
• 7:55
  from last year. And so they're now like, you are
• 7:56
  the favorite. You're the best you've met.
• 7:58
  Swansea you've. Met Emma Walker.
• 8:00
  You're the first person on this podcast we've ever had this best
• 8:03
  Stormzy I. Made such an hour.
• 8:08
  Wow, yeah. I was talking him through
• 8:12
  drinking some of our whiskeys, like at the dinner for the lunch
• 8:14
  for Johnny Walker Vault, and I'm just like on Stormsy there.
• 8:17
  You've got Henry Golden's there. I don't know what's happening.
• 8:19
  Wow. That is incredible.
• 8:21
  But it is. It's a it's a spirit and it's a
• 8:23
  brand. Yeah.
• 8:24
  Started in Kilmarnock. Yeah.
• 8:26
  It has reached every corner of the world.
• 8:28
  And that's what I love is it's that sort of brand that people
• 8:31
  recognise. My brother-in-law, he went
• 8:34
  travelling lights in Nepal and that's what we set might with
• 8:36
  like packs of miniatures, a John Walker Black label.
• 8:39
  So it could help him, you know, if every like language barrier,
• 8:41
  yeah, it'd just help him sort of.
• 8:42
  It'd probably ended up in a remote.
• 8:44
  Valley in Nepal and actually could have just bought a bottle
• 8:47
  of wine there in a way, but that and that kind of relates to my
• 8:51
  stories. What I found is it is just a
• 8:52
  DRAM that you know, you can be in some pretty weird and
• 8:55
  wonderful places and it is there and you know what it is and you
• 8:58
  know where it's coming from and you know the concern.
• 9:00
  Well, Kevil, Kevil argue this when he's listening to it
• 9:02
  because he will have a bottle down the stairs.
• 9:05
  But I remember because Angus when he got married was very
• 9:08
  secretive about it was a quiet affair.
• 9:10
  You know, his father-in-law wasn't pushing him down the
• 9:12
  aisle with a gun or anything like that.
• 9:13
  But but it's but I, I Angus, I knew Angus was awfully going to
• 9:18
  get married and no one else really did.
• 9:20
  And we'd finished recording in here and I said, well, we'll
• 9:22
  have a drum before you go away and get married.
• 9:25
  So I went up and I thought right.
• 9:26
  Angus had the drama he had before he popped the question to
• 9:29
  to to the lovely Laura was Johnny Walker Black label.
• 9:32
  Well, that'll be nice. Well, I'll do Johnny Walker
• 9:34
  Black and sentimental when I'm and asked about some bastards.
• 9:37
  Can we get to Johnny Walker Blackson?
• 9:39
  Look, we've got that 850 open bottles of whiskey on the back
• 9:42
  bar and they they didn't have any.
• 9:44
  But I would say, and I've said this before.
• 9:46
  I was just going to say I had that happen when I was at a work
• 9:49
  thing up in Dornoch, really, but it was you had Ivan was there,
• 9:53
  Ivan Menezes, you had John Williams is like the head of
• 9:55
  sort of Scotch and that. And yeah, they'd run it, Johnny.
• 9:58
  Well, it's a good sign that they've run out.
• 10:00
  Yeah. Someone had to go running down
• 10:01
  to the Co-op. To go I guess.
• 10:03
  Good job is a fairly accessible drug, but I've said it.
• 10:06
  OK. I put Johnny Walker up there on
• 10:10
  on branding as a brand with Coca-Cola in the global market.
• 10:14
  Yeah. And you know, I've I my my, my
• 10:16
  current wife, she she's from Bangalore.
• 10:19
  We travelled to India twice a year.
• 10:21
  Yeah. And I was it's just mental that
• 10:23
  I will walk off a plane in India and the first thing I will see
• 10:26
  is a trading man and I'll just be a huge Johnny Walker area.
• 10:31
  They are big branding everywhere and you go so.
• 10:33
  But what's very frustrating for me, and I've been guilty about
• 10:36
  myself until starting the podcast and really diving into
• 10:39
  it, is the fact that Scotland has a brand the size of
• 10:43
  Coca-Cola. Yeah, across the world.
• 10:46
  And yet we really don't shout about.
• 10:48
  It, no, I, I think we're getting, I think we are getting
• 10:50
  a bit better at it sort of talking about it and realising
• 10:53
  it is an important part of the whiskey world, hopefully.
• 10:56
  Because if you go back through history where like part of the
• 10:59
  reason we've got the range of malts, like if you look at the
• 11:01
  traditional malts is because that's what the blenders were
• 11:03
  looking for. Like, you know, your Buchanans,
• 11:05
  your, but I like they were looking for certain flavours.
• 11:08
  So that's why we have that range and across all.
• 11:10
  Markets now is that I mean Johnny Walker Blue is the iconic
• 11:14
  luxury. Spirit, yeah.
• 11:15
  And that was the first, it was almost that sort of first luxury
• 11:19
  at at sort of at scale and it was sort of created for out of
• 11:23
  Scots. It is amazing that you people
• 11:25
  from all walks of life, but this was seen maybe even on a whisky
• 11:28
  drinking culture. Yeah, as this almost business
• 11:30
  transactional congratulatory gifting bottle, but also
• 11:34
  something you'd sit up in your in your cabinet and go, I've got
• 11:37
  a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and now all the releases that
• 11:40
  have come from that as well. Tell us, how did you get into
• 11:43
  whiskey? Oh, I, I fell into it completely
• 11:46
  by accident. Like it's fully serendipitous.
• 11:48
  It's like making a Scotch whiskey.
• 11:51
  So I did chemistry Admiral Uni and then went into the PhD down
• 11:55
  at Sheffield because I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
• 11:58
  So did a PhD in organic organic chemistry.
• 12:01
  So. You weren't sure what to do, so
• 12:02
  just. Go ahead, be a.
• 12:04
  Student for long. Moved back up to Scotland to
• 12:08
  write up. So I was living in five and I
• 12:10
  was like, I need to start looking for a proper job.
• 12:12
  You've got to start thinking about a pension and savings and
• 12:15
  actually trying to do this. Trying to do my driving test
• 12:18
  very. Very switched on.
• 12:19
  You're thinking about a pension at that.
• 12:21
  I know I was, I was getting on because I went to uni a couple
• 12:23
  of years later. So it was getting a bit, it was
• 12:25
  getting a bit ropy and my partner at the time, Dave, well,
• 12:30
  my partner now still, but he worked for by council at the
• 12:33
  time. So they had a really good sort
• 12:35
  of relationship with Diageo. So I started looking at that and
• 12:38
  part of what I really liked was the relationship that with the
• 12:40
  council was the support for the community and different things
• 12:43
  like that. For me was, was actually what
• 12:45
  drew me to it, not the range of alcohol, which you wouldn't have
• 12:48
  thought at that age. So I was like, I don't know what
• 12:50
  I'm going to do, I'm just going to keep on applying for job set.
• 12:53
  And I applied for one that was for a project scientist back in
• 12:55
  2008. And I turned to put this place
• 12:58
  ministry that I'd never ever heard of before this tiny, tiny
• 13:01
  wee village, went in to start doing the interviews.
• 13:04
  He had to do all the different things, like nosing reviews.
• 13:08
  You've got to do presentations. I've got John Berfridge and
• 13:11
  Maureen Robinson and Keith Law and Abdicron.
• 13:14
  Even I recognize, even I recognize those names.
• 13:16
  I know they went in whiskey. It's just a job in whiskey.
• 13:19
  And at the end of the day, Keith Long went running away and came
• 13:21
  back and we all got a bottle of whiskey.
• 13:23
  So we got a bottle of Loch Royal, Loch Nagar to take home
• 13:25
  with us. OK, nice.
• 13:26
  So I was like, if I don't get this job, I'm applying for
• 13:28
  another one because this place seems amazing.
• 13:30
  Yeah. So wait.
• 13:31
  So let me get this right. You went for a job interview and
• 13:33
  didn't even know that you were getting an interview for working
• 13:35
  in whiskey? No, because.
• 13:36
  They didn't tell you it was in whiskey.
• 13:37
  It was a project scientist at the technical centre at
• 13:39
  Ministry. So it could have been for any of
• 13:41
  the different brands than that. Are you turning up?
• 13:43
  And yeah, so it was. It was for the whiskey team.
• 13:46
  So yeah, I must have impressed someone that said something,
• 13:49
  right? So they offered us the job and
• 13:51
  I've refused to leave ever since.
• 13:52
  It was. Jim Beverage, the master blender
• 13:54
  at that time, he was. And Maureen was the master
• 13:56
  blender for Buchanan's. Caroline Martin was then.
• 13:59
  She was the mass blender for Bells and J&B Rare and I think.
• 14:01
  It's something that we, you know, we speak about Johnny
• 14:04
  Walker a lot and the portfolio single malts.
• 14:07
  I meant the most memorable whiskey we've had from the
• 14:09
  diagio portfolio on this podcast was a bottle of dimple that you
• 14:12
  brought on. You brought on and and again, as
• 14:15
  somebody worked at Glen Kinchy and and also now I only deal
• 14:18
  with a majority of the time North American clientele.
• 14:21
  They say, well, I like I like a pinch.
• 14:24
  Pinch is a new name for dimple. And that was that was a product
• 14:27
  that also said to me, so you're blending team.
• 14:29
  Yeah. How many years have been So
• 14:30
  we're we're. Normally team of 12, we've got a
• 14:32
  few, there's some people that are on family leave at the
• 14:34
  minute, there's some people that are in on sort of covering for
• 14:37
  those guys, but we're about 12 or 13 and so.
• 14:39
  While you're the master blender for Johnny Walker, you're also
• 14:42
  do all the blending for all these other brands, so.
• 14:44
  All of our our team, we look after the quality and
• 14:46
  consistency of all of the Scotch whisky that goes out from
• 14:49
  Diargio. So our team's responsible for
• 14:51
  the quality of all of our single malts, our single grains,
• 14:54
  limited editions, so things like special releases and that, as
• 14:57
  well as all of our blends. So Johnny War could be cannons.
• 15:02
  Hague. Well, you've still got Hague
• 15:04
  Supreme, a temple. That's I'm gonna.
• 15:06
  Miss on old par. Old par, Old Par's.
• 15:09
  Men as well. Yeah, whenever.
• 15:10
  Whenever I've had somebody in from Argentina, yeah, what old
• 15:14
  par have you got, really? And I remember the first time
• 15:16
  being asked that in my full kilt, telling them this is
• 15:19
  whisky and blah blah blah blah, going what's old par?
• 15:22
  And then I found old par and this kind of square, the Browns
• 15:25
  bottle, the sort. Of corners off at the bottom.
• 15:27
  I've had a couple I. Bought an auction from from, you
• 15:30
  know, decades ago. Again, just great whiskey, but
• 15:33
  amazing that that was the reason that these people were coming to
• 15:36
  Scotland, because of Old Par. I've been so lucky.
• 15:39
  I got to go to Columbia a few years ago, aren't I?
• 15:41
  Oh, I love that. I've got invited to go over to
• 15:43
  the whiskey festival that they have at Badenquier, but I got to
• 15:47
  go to I've got what you call the the capital of Bogota.
• 15:52
  Thank you completely. There we go coming down Dick
• 15:56
  eddiography, eddiography, eddi culling and when I was.
• 16:00
  Talking to people, they were talking about like sort of
• 16:02
  dimple null power as well as Johnny Walker.
• 16:04
  And I'm sure there's a town in Columbia where they are
• 16:06
  convinced that one of those whiskeys is named after their
• 16:09
  town because it's. It's just that is their whiskey
• 16:12
  really. Yeah.
• 16:12
  So. But it is so intrinsic like and
• 16:16
  huge. Volumes, by the way, you've got.
• 16:18
  Yeah. That's a bit the international
• 16:20
  market is a bit that so many people really forget about
• 16:22
  millions of. Cases I.
• 16:23
  Want to go. You're talking about the
• 16:25
  portfolio? I mean what?
• 16:28
  Scale are we talking with the actual casks are and volume of
• 16:33
  distilleries casks, all that kind of stuff.
• 16:35
  So we've got. Nearly or about 11,000,000 casks
• 16:38
  maturing maturing Scotch whisky and you make right way across
• 16:43
  Scotland 11,000,000. So if you think about that
• 16:45
  putting into a spreadsheet, you know, so you can start playing
• 16:48
  with over twice. The population of Scotland,
• 16:50
  exactly. So.
• 16:51
  Everybody. In Scotty, everybody in Scotland
• 16:53
  can have about 2 1/2 cars. Yeah, I also.
• 16:56
  Think that's about half of all Scotch whisky and I guess.
• 16:58
  More I mean and. We're like.
• 17:00
  Comes and goes. We're looking at about 2223
• 17:02
  million casts in Scotland. Is that what it is, right,
• 17:04
  Because I don't, right. OK.
• 17:04
  So you've got that in terms of distillery portfolios there, how
• 17:09
  many, how many distilleries is that you're covering roughly?
• 17:12
  I think I always, I'm always worried I'm going to get it
• 17:14
  wrong. Single.
• 17:15
  Malt's of it at 29 and then we've got Cameron.
• 17:17
  Bridge so like biggest distillery in Scotland as well
• 17:20
  again an amazing history over 200 years and then you've got
• 17:23
  even. Distillery as well even.
• 17:24
  You've got the pilot plants. We've also got sort of half
• 17:27
  shares in North British as well. So we saw Astral footprint in
• 17:30
  Edinburgh as well just down the road.
• 17:31
  So then you've. Got access to that now.
• 17:33
  We've had other blinders on, people that work in the blinding
• 17:36
  team. We've had people, you know, from
• 17:38
  small new distilleries all the way up and you know the access
• 17:42
  that they can do. You know, some people can just
• 17:45
  nip into the warehouse and have a little look for a cask for
• 17:49
  you. Then how does that work when
• 17:50
  you've got still look? Must be.
• 17:52
  So challenging. Well, that's.
• 17:53
  Part of the reason that we're situated where we, yeah, so our
• 17:55
  base is administry. So that's where you've got the
• 17:58
  archives, you've got the technical sensor.
• 18:00
  So we've got the folk that do chemical analysis and that first
• 18:02
  as well. You've got regulatory sort of
• 18:04
  all the core parts, but you also between leave in the shield
• 18:06
  hall, you're just off the a nine, so you can get up to the
• 18:09
  months salaries and that as well.
• 18:11
  But just down the road you've got black range and canvas.
• 18:13
  So that's like the biggest part of our sort of warehousing sort
• 18:15
  of infrastructure that we've got and it's amazing just going in
• 18:19
  there. So some of our favorite people
• 18:21
  and we do. Is this an underground?
• 18:23
  Facility No. No.
• 18:25
  If you go up the Wallace Monument, yes, you can see it's
• 18:27
  spread out. Part like.
• 18:29
  You get a beautiful view of the warehouses from there, so you
• 18:31
  can see like metro colloxial. Warehousing, yeah, I can't
• 18:34
  remember. The size of that place, but so
• 18:37
  yeah, the warehouse guys are some of our favorite people that
• 18:39
  we make sure they get lots of chocolates that yeah, you gotta
• 18:41
  look. After them because.
• 18:43
  They're the guys that got so we use a different couple of
• 18:46
  different systems that were sort of brought together for HMRC
• 18:49
  reasons, but that's how we keep track of what's where in an
• 18:52
  operation. So we'll put in orders to those
• 18:54
  guys and they're the ones that actually go out into the
• 18:55
  warehouse. So we're not allowed to use the
• 18:58
  the cherry egg. It's kind of friend upon if we
• 19:00
  try and. But and do you get to do you get
• 19:04
  an opportunity to like have you ever stumbled across something
• 19:08
  like I was at like I was at a taste thing that power of the
• 19:11
  pod Cameron you and put on Anthony Walker experience.
• 19:13
  And then there was a manic Moore 1990 with a 27 year finish in
• 19:19
  virgin. Oh, yeah, right.
• 19:21
  Which was just mental. And he kind of was just sort of
• 19:24
  saying that, you know, there are experimental ranges that the
• 19:26
  Azure doing all the time and there's stuff that just gets put
• 19:29
  away, put away in, forgotten about.
• 19:31
  And then someone got back 27-A Lye.
• 19:33
  Whiskey from Tina last year. Tina.
• 19:35
  Looking Cameron Bridge. So we've got a lot of lot of
• 19:37
  that sit in the books. We've only released that as high
• 19:39
  rye over in the US, so Johnny Walker high rye.
• 19:42
  But we had to like lay that down before anyone in the in the that
• 19:47
  seems so we have to make sure we had that laid down and sort of
• 19:50
  ready and burned So, so, so. In terms of finding, so in terms
• 19:53
  of finding things that you get an opportunity, yeah, so.
• 19:55
  We do. So a lot of the cast we talk
• 19:57
  about with that 11,000,000 is like is mature in single casks,
• 20:01
  but we also have, you know, experiments where we might have
• 20:04
  laid down, we might have put a blend together and put it back
• 20:07
  portions into different types of casks.
• 20:08
  Sure. So that'll sit down and leave in
• 20:10
  so we can just sort of get the guys to go in there.
• 20:11
  It's easier for us to access. Although that's the one where we
• 20:14
  do like the secondary maturation for Johnny, one for.
• 20:17
  Black Ruby and stuff like that. You've got black.
• 20:19
  Ruby, you also have for the the sales editions and that they'll
• 20:21
  sort of sit in that out. So all of that stuff sitting
• 20:23
  there. So we've got all these different
• 20:25
  things and some of it you're like, I don't know what we're
• 20:27
  going to do. Some of it I've been
• 20:29
  rediscovering it for the Johnny Walker vault going.
• 20:31
  We made that with Jim sort of 10 years ago.
• 20:34
  It's been sitting in cask. I'm going to see how that comes
• 20:37
  together and what what happens when you do different things
• 20:39
  with it. So we've got all this, this huge
• 20:41
  range. So yeah, you've got
• 20:42
  experimentation that we do at scale.
• 20:43
  Like for Tiananic, there's a Glen Elgin that we'll talk about
• 20:46
  in a bit where we've looked at using different yeasts.
• 20:49
  So we'll do it from new make experimentation.
• 20:51
  We'd be looking at different cuts, distilling cuts at Glen
• 20:54
  Orge and some browser distilleries as well.
• 20:55
  So you can follow what happens throughout the distillation and
• 20:58
  we can keep those that's. Fun separate.
• 21:01
  That's really fun. Oh, it's amazing.
• 21:02
  And it doesn't do what you sort of think it should do as it's
• 21:06
  going through. So you get to 1 bit where it's
• 21:08
  like, I thought this book was going to be completely
• 21:11
  different. And so it's amazing.
• 21:12
  Just challenging your own thoughts around what happens
• 21:15
  during the distillation, what are the flavour profiles to get
• 21:17
  through? And you've got all like the cast
• 21:19
  maturation, like where we can experiment with that.
• 21:21
  So when you're doing. Something like a project on
• 21:23
  Johnny Walker Red? Yeah, with, with Jim Beveridge
• 21:26
  before you took over or as you were taking over, the scale of
• 21:31
  that, yeah, must be frightening as somebody who's is there a
• 21:35
  large. Enough somebody.
• 21:36
  Who is now the MASH winner of Johnny Walker?
• 21:38
  That's unbelievable. Do something wrong?
• 21:40
  You've stopped like looking after and so how?
• 21:43
  How? Big would a vatting of of Johnny
• 21:45
  Red be? It can.
• 21:47
  Depend. So you might 'cause it depends
• 21:49
  when we're doing, when we're doing blends, we're working with
• 21:52
  our colleagues in planning and inventory.
• 21:54
  So we're making sure that we're blending so that it's going
• 21:57
  directly into bottle because you want to make sure we're, we're
• 22:00
  only bottling when there's a sort of odd is when there's a
• 22:02
  need for it to go through. So you've got a range of
• 22:04
  different size fats that you can do.
• 22:06
  So it could be anywhere between like 1000, it could be a small
• 22:09
  thousand metres or it could be up to like 50 + 50,000 plus for
• 22:14
  global markets. And it all depends on what's
• 22:16
  what's been asked for at that point in time 'cause it's not
• 22:18
  just about getting liquid there. You also have some very clever
• 22:21
  people, including my colleagues that were as part of the the
• 22:24
  Scotch brand changing innovation team that are looking at the dry
• 22:26
  boots and bringing all yeah, that's.
• 22:28
  When you got to get that in and you've got to make.
• 22:30
  Sure. The glass is coming at the same
• 22:31
  time and the closures are coming in and the labels are all
• 22:33
  coming, all of that. So a lot of people.
• 22:35
  All have to feed in together to make sure there's one product
• 22:38
  that's just one. Well, but also, yeah, but also
• 22:41
  the the one product comes out. As it's.
• 22:43
  Meant as a. Consistent product every time,
• 22:45
  whether it's when the guys. Are going back to the
• 22:46
  warehouses, they're dropping casts out of that one warehouse.
• 22:49
  Save the arrow for Glen Elgin. Yeah.
• 22:51
  But the cast that they're dropping there might won't just
• 22:53
  be for one blend. They'll have a sort of list
• 22:56
  that's going. So they'll have like 10 that
• 22:57
  might be going into a red label, they'll have 10 that might be
• 22:59
  going into a black. But there'll be other things
• 23:01
  that are going on as well and they'll have different
• 23:03
  distilleries that are in there. So like.
• 23:05
  There's just lots of different things that have a little Emma
• 23:08
  we. Mentioned about how you got your
• 23:09
  job at the Agile. What What's your career at the
• 23:12
  Agile being like? How, how, how, how, how?
• 23:14
  How's the journey been from you starting at the Agile to
• 23:17
  becoming the master blender? So I spent about the first four
• 23:21
  years working with Jim Beveridge and Andrew Ford.
• 23:24
  He used to. He was Jim's consigliere.
• 23:28
  They worked together on lots of projects.
• 23:30
  So I learned from those guys, from Caroline, from Maureen,
• 23:32
  from the rest of the team, learning about sort of flavour,
• 23:35
  how flavour is made, where it's made in distilling and
• 23:38
  maturation. Did my distilling diploma.
• 23:41
  So started doing that one module.
• 23:43
  One year I realised I hated studying again because it'd been
• 23:46
  a while. So next year I did 2 modules
• 23:48
  because I wanted to get over into Nice.
• 23:51
  Yeah. So just learn it and learning
• 23:53
  that inventory, how you looked at it.
• 23:54
  What are the different systems you use?
• 23:56
  So we're doing a little more technical projects with Jim and
• 23:59
  other people on the team, sort of understanding what's
• 24:01
  happening with inventory. How are the different salaries
• 24:03
  maturing in different ways? What's what else is happening?
• 24:06
  I was then lucky to get to move out to Leven on Cambridge.
• 24:10
  So I went out there. What's now known as like this
• 24:13
  sort of process improvement. It's a huge.
• 24:14
  Bottling plan, Yeah. I mean, you've got Lyndon,
• 24:17
  you've got so it's also blended for rum, for vodka, tankery, all
• 24:22
  that together. Exactly.
• 24:24
  So I was working sort of as a slight patamanic.
• 24:28
  So looking at what can we improve, what can we change?
• 24:30
  So supporting the different business leaders looked after
• 24:32
  different areas. I got given the the development
• 24:35
  opportunity to manage the the quality team at Leaven Spa, so
• 24:39
  the sweetened products area and Cambridge Distillery.
• 24:42
  So got roared into the world of management.
• 24:44
  So was managing the team of about 14 people.
• 24:47
  It's a stressful. Development opportunity it.
• 24:49
  It was an impression, John. The team are absolutely amazing,
• 24:51
  but they were also so experienced, like they, some of
• 24:53
  them have been working on that longer than I'd been alive.
• 24:55
  Yeah. So I spent like just over a year
• 24:58
  learning so much from those guys, but also I think being a
• 25:01
  manager, it's almost sort of protecting them, making sure
• 25:03
  they can just get on and do their job.
• 25:05
  I then got the opportunity to be a trainee site operations
• 25:08
  manager. So I moved up to in the candle
• 25:10
  distillery. So so I was a distillery manager
• 25:13
  for a year really. I absolutely loved I, but I
• 25:17
  still remember it was like my first or second week, I was just
• 25:20
  excited. So when the guys came and told
• 25:22
  me there was a problem. So I went outside to the draft
• 25:24
  shop and I was like, so they used to have the big sort of
• 25:26
  square draft hopper and the candle and it cracked in the
• 25:29
  seam and I'm just looking at going, well, I'm not meant it's
• 25:32
  too bad at that. You get the welding out with the
• 25:35
  welding mask, but I mean we quite hands on as the singery
• 25:38
  manager we do, you get in hold and so I tried.
• 25:40
  To be on so I've seen a couple of shifts with the guys, but
• 25:43
  they're they're the experts so they know exactly how to run
• 25:46
  that so I well I'm. Just trying to change it.
• 25:48
  Do you make any changes to the Spirit when you were there?
• 25:51
  No, because that's what we were trying to do with that was make
• 25:53
  it as consistent as possible. But because in the candle you
• 25:56
  get a cloudy wart there, so you're doing the faster
• 25:58
  filtration out the out the mash ton, we would have to deal with
• 26:02
  the problem malts that other distilleries would have as well.
• 26:06
  So a lot of thing you may be tweaking things and the guys are
• 26:08
  tweaking stuff to make sure you're getting the production
• 26:10
  coming through and there's. Another whiskey that people in
• 26:12
  Scotland might not have had much of.
• 26:14
  Huge in France. Oh, massive and absolutely
• 26:17
  colossal in France for a long time.
• 26:19
  But people don't really associate in our calendar as
• 26:21
  being a huge single malt because it's not in the classic malts.
• 26:26
  Yeah, it's not in the flora and fauna.
• 26:27
  Yep. There's kind of these three
• 26:28
  distilleries, Royal, Lochnagar, Glen Elgin and Nocardo that are
• 26:33
  kind of missing a group of pals. They're not.
• 26:35
  Yeah, yeah, they're not in Singleton, They're not in.
• 26:38
  And so, yeah, they're always the ones, whenever I'm testing the
• 26:41
  team, I say the Azure 29 challenge and you can write down
• 26:44
  all your distilleries and blah, blah, blah.
• 26:46
  They're always the ones that somebody will miss.
• 26:47
  Yeah, but the whiskeys are always really they're leaving.
• 26:49
  As well as another one people miss well.
• 26:51
  As at Rose Isle and leaving and stuff like that, people who are
• 26:54
  going to forget fairly easily. But it's like, but then we try
• 26:57
  the whiskey, for example. I don't think we'd ever get Rose
• 26:59
  Isle. Yeah, I remember speaking with a
• 27:02
  distillery manager for distillery up in space.
• 27:04
  I used to. Work.
• 27:05
  It was probably one of the first ones we had on the pod, really.
• 27:07
  I remember. It was it was a man called Sandy
• 27:09
  McIntyre. Oh, Sandy So.
• 27:11
  When I was at the candle, he was next door and so was it Tom.
• 27:14
  Do yeah. So I remember Sandy, I remember
• 27:17
  the the day that the first announcement, the first rose I
• 27:19
  was specially 12 year old was coming up to me three years ago
• 27:22
  I was on site with Sandy and he went I can't believe it.
• 27:25
  I don't know we're going to ever do the single.
• 27:28
  And actually since then there's been 2 twelves and a 14 year
• 27:30
  old. Delicious.
• 27:32
  We were. So excited about that and see
• 27:34
  like, Oh well you've got the staff shops and different
• 27:36
  things. the Rose Isles sold out straight away so the whiskey
• 27:39
  team couldn't get hold of it. So we actually ended up getting
• 27:41
  in touch with the the the shop they've got down at one HQ in
• 27:45
  London and we bought up the stocks you've got.
• 27:47
  That stock I know it's. Sent back up to Scott.
• 27:49
  Well, I've. Got a couple.
• 27:50
  I've got a couple of points to to.
• 27:52
  First of all, you mentioned about the the Azure site and
• 27:55
  leaving. Yeah, about FIFA and me too.
• 27:59
  Yeah. Always up.
• 28:02
  Top at the Kingdom for life. But I I worked in that neck of
• 28:06
  the woods, yeah. And I worked with a lot of
• 28:07
  people from that area leaving windy gates, Yes.
• 28:11
  And everybody knew somebody yeah, who worked at the Asia.
• 28:13
  And one of the things that they all said was, you know, it was a
• 28:16
  great place to work. The perks, benefits were were
• 28:18
  that was what everyone talked about.
• 28:20
  Or you'll get your you'll get your your shop whenever.
• 28:23
  Yeah. And you get.
• 28:23
  But but they also said that working for a company like the
• 28:26
  agile, you are always just very, very well after.
• 28:29
  And everyone said, and at some, I mean, there was a phrase it
• 28:33
  was, you know, it was dead man's boots a lot of the time to get
• 28:35
  in some of the jobs because you were like, people will work in
• 28:38
  that. You know, guys finish school on
• 28:41
  the Friday. Their auntie or uncle or mum or
• 28:43
  dad had managed to get them a job in the Azure on the Monday
• 28:46
  and then they'd be there from 60 or right the way through to 65.
• 28:49
  Well, we. Talked about Keith Laur.
• 28:51
  So he used to be part of the whiskey team.
• 28:52
  So he sat, actually sat down at the Cali right.
• 28:54
  And his dad worked there and then he got taken in after
• 28:57
  school and that and then he started when they did the
• 29:00
  release of the Calais 40, he picked whiskeys that him and his
• 29:04
  dad had both worked on when they were distilling.
• 29:05
  And that. Yeah, that's.
• 29:06
  Right. Yeah, which and I love that we
• 29:08
  can sort of do that. Yeah, that.
• 29:10
  Was the first point, the second point on the Rose, I think I
• 29:12
  can't remember who it was on the podcast.
• 29:14
  I've talked about as well, you know, like we're not going to
• 29:18
  talk too much about the Diagio because of the biggest, they're
• 29:20
  the easiest to take a pop at and people that, but the, the, the
• 29:24
  the comment that the guest made, I can't know who it was, was
• 29:27
  said. Just remember as well that
• 29:29
  Diagio have bought a lot of distilleries not based on
• 29:32
  production, but based on flavour profile.
• 29:34
  So, so a lot of the time they'll buy the there are other bigger
• 29:38
  distilleries or other distilleries that could have
• 29:40
  been purchased that they could have gone.
• 29:41
  From a business perspective, we can grow this distillery, we can
• 29:44
  add more to it where actually there's some distilleries that
• 29:47
  they've purchased that you guys have in your portfolio that you
• 29:50
  know, we can't go any bigger than this.
• 29:51
  But at the same time we've parted that because X flavour
• 29:55
  first rather than on the business model.
• 29:57
  And actually this morning I was, I was looking through the agiles
• 30:01
  and salaries and reacquitting myself of what what was on your
• 30:04
  kind of and I suddenly realized I've never actually seen a
• 30:08
  picture of Rose Isle. I've heard all about it.
• 30:10
  We've spoken about it, so I've spent a morning on Google Maps
• 30:13
  and Google Images and it's a really cool looking distillery.
• 30:16
  Actually, it's really looking attractive.
• 30:19
  And see when you go and walk up to the front where you've got
• 30:20
  that big window. Yeah.
• 30:21
  And the man? Has got a kind of big glass, a
• 30:23
  big glass screen, and then you can see the kind of the lineup
• 30:26
  of styles 1 after another do do do.
• 30:29
  Do do do do like you are walking in the middle.
• 30:31
  It's just a cathedral. Whisky really stunning.
• 30:33
  And just even going in and seeing the size of that mash
• 30:36
  tub, yeah, like I've seen it so many times.
• 30:38
  You're still like going, yeah, that's off your bed.
• 30:41
  Well, I haven't seen the master. That's one.
• 30:42
  That's the Third Point I wanted to make, Emma, is that we need
• 30:45
  to address the elephant and obviously help you get into the
• 30:48
  job that you got because your name's above the door.
• 30:51
  I can't believe we've not even talked about your great, great,
• 30:53
  great great grandfather is starting whenever you go.
• 30:55
  To a global market they must go. Wow.
• 30:57
  Oh they do. And for your great, great
• 30:59
  grandfather to have started it. Oh no.
• 31:01
  I used to joke and I don't anymore because my dad's side of
• 31:04
  the family are from Merseyside, so there used to be a bit of
• 31:07
  joke saying we got kicked out for different reasons, but I
• 31:09
  don't say that. But you are no.
• 31:12
  No, I'm from a Walker family, but not that Walker family but
• 31:15
  the short. Red lot then.
• 31:16
  Well, I've. Met them and then lovely as
• 31:18
  well. But my dad's, my dad was in the
• 31:22
  Navy. That's part of the reason we
• 31:23
  were born up here. Because he was stationed at
• 31:24
  Recite Life. Yeah, sure.
• 31:25
  And because of his name, that was his, his nickname was
• 31:28
  Whiskey. Because was that, you know,
• 31:29
  because the forces are so good at having the original.
• 31:31
  Yeah, original nicknames. But what I think is amazing is
• 31:34
  when you're talking about the portfolio of the distilleries
• 31:37
  and trying to make this consistent, yeah, whole product,
• 31:40
  that's also changed. Yes.
• 31:42
  And so Diagio were kind of made to sell some really big
• 31:45
  distilleries that we know now, particularly you look at the
• 31:47
  Dewar's portfolio, Aberfeldy, Kregelke, etc.
• 31:52
  And Rob Brackler, you know, that whole, that whole group pretty
• 31:55
  much was sold by Diagio. But you'll still be using casks
• 31:58
  from those distilleries for your blends.
• 31:59
  Well, the. Best one to sort of showcase
• 32:01
  that is if you look at a bottle of Jane Be Rare, it talks about
• 32:05
  being made from 42 distilleries, Yeah.
• 32:07
  So. I always love like when you're
• 32:09
  talking to people because what what we do in our team is we
• 32:11
  look at quality, we look at experimentation, lean down for
• 32:14
  the future, but we do get to talk to people within the agile
• 32:17
  external folk. Talking about whiskey and
• 32:20
  trading is such an important part and it always has been.
• 32:23
  I think that's actually part of what I absolutely love about the
• 32:27
  whiskey industry, especially if you look at the production side
• 32:29
  of it, is it's one big industry, but also work exactly.
• 32:33
  We're all working together to make sure we're doing the right
• 32:36
  thing for the industry. It gets a bit more argumentative
• 32:38
  once you go over the over the wall to sort of marketing.
• 32:41
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But on this site, like if you go
• 32:43
  off Tyler or up in space site, if something breaks down the
• 32:46
  Isle, it might take weeks to get the part over there.
• 32:48
  So you often see folks also or share the stuff about in that as
• 32:51
  well. And it's also you've got the
• 32:52
  families. So you have the husband to work
• 32:54
  with one still there are whites running a different one.
• 32:57
  The kids are doing the like tour guiding for a different one.
• 32:59
  Yeah. So it's it is all just and, and
• 33:01
  people, it's really. It would be really easy for
• 33:03
  people to assume, Wow, 2930 distilleries, That's why they're
• 33:07
  able to do it. Actually, no, it's such, it's a,
• 33:09
  it's a nationwide effort. Yeah.
• 33:11
  That's able to make these blends and they're so important for
• 33:14
  Scotland. Yeah.
• 33:15
  Because these blends are selling more bottles than any of the
• 33:18
  malt. I mean, we, we found this all
• 33:19
  the time. I think it's still about 90%
• 33:22
  blends over malts. And as much as we're always
• 33:25
  sitting down trying to, I mean, I'm wetting my pants for
• 33:28
  everything. It's fascinating, right, With
• 33:32
  29, yes, it is fascinating. You know, with 29 distilleries,
• 33:36
  you think, well, you wouldn't have to do cast trading, you
• 33:39
  wouldn't have to do spirit trading.
• 33:41
  But it's such. But you do and.
• 33:43
  It's such an important. Thing it's important for you,
• 33:45
  it's important for all the other companies, and it helps a
• 33:47
  message you know exactly it keeps.
• 33:49
  Everything working we. Had the you know when we talked
• 33:51
  to Stephen Rankin yeah from Mcgormick Hill and he said you
• 33:57
  know there was times where Gordon it fell help distilleries
• 34:00
  out by saying we'll take an order of new make off you at the
• 34:03
  time when it's quiet. We've had other we've had other
• 34:04
  people talk about times when they couldn't get hold of they
• 34:07
  couldn't get their malt delivery done.
• 34:09
  So they're like we'll need to can we just get some of your
• 34:11
  malt and help out? There's there's loads of these
• 34:13
  Cool. That's what's.
• 34:14
  Just amazing. Like genuinely like, so we had
• 34:17
  my kids, it's just sort of retired recently.
• 34:19
  Doug Gill's taken over, so he was, he was like, ah, head of
• 34:22
  finance in Scotch. But a lot of what he did was the
• 34:24
  trading relationships. So a lot of his work was done on
• 34:27
  the golf courses. Yeah.
• 34:28
  But he just knew everyone and there was that just that
• 34:31
  understanding of all how all the different, the different
• 34:34
  businesses interact and what they need to do to the the.
• 34:36
  Island communities is such an important one.
• 34:38
  Yeah. To mention one of my first time
• 34:40
  on Isla, the first tour that I ever done at Isla was not of a
• 34:43
  distillery. It was a oh, it was Port Ellen
• 34:46
  Maltinks. Yeah, I've never been so at my
• 34:48
  death. But you know, the point was, you
• 34:54
  know, the Port Ellen distillery had been closed forever long at
• 34:57
  that point and all but one distillery on Isle were reliant
• 35:01
  on the Port Ellen Maltinks. Yeah.
• 35:03
  Yeah. So it is just, it's amazing the
• 35:05
  scale of things when it comes to Jonny Walker.
• 35:10
  Is there a product you relish working on the most?
• 35:13
  I mean it's. This is like having to pick your
• 35:16
  favorite whiskey because it's it's they're all sort of a big
• 35:19
  part. But I think I mean what
• 35:22
  whichever innovation you're working on is always your
• 35:25
  favorite that point in time. But I would say my favorite
• 35:27
  actually, I think the one that almost helped me sort of grow
• 35:30
  into what I'm doing now was I got to do the handhold on the
• 35:33
  blue Label an awful lot. So when we talk about that being
• 35:36
  a luxury whiskey, it does have sort of more manual intervention
• 35:40
  with it. There's lots of things going on.
• 35:41
  So we have like batons in there. So we do a baton that we sort of
• 35:45
  shot him called the sort of Sherry baton.
• 35:47
  So it's whiskeys that have been matured in X-ray casts or bodega
• 35:49
  season casts. Notice you really get that deck
• 35:52
  that you want from Blue Label. So they get put together and
• 35:54
  then we've got our rare vafting that we do.
• 35:56
  So that's lots of like high edged whiskeys.
• 35:58
  So it was the inspiration for Ghosts and Rest.
• 36:01
  So you've got the Port Ellen in there, you've got Glen Ewery,
• 36:03
  you've got Pave It like you've just got all these beautiful
• 36:05
  whiskeys, singletons, some really old brains, and all of it
• 36:08
  goes into that. And then a portion of both of
• 36:10
  those goes into every single bottle of Johnny Walker Blue
• 36:13
  Label. That's a while.
• 36:14
  And I still remember working with Gem on this and went up to
• 36:18
  the archives. I love going into the archives
• 36:20
  and talking to Christine. And we're looking at the old
• 36:22
  blending books, so from 100US Plus.
• 36:25
  And when you go through you can see that the Walker family and
• 36:28
  who was blended at the time was used in vatting.
• 36:30
  So the talker like and off the Scotland vatting.
• 36:32
  So they will create and sort of flavour building blocks that
• 36:35
  they would then use that would be the base of what they were
• 36:37
  doing. And then using all the
• 36:39
  distilleries you still work with.
• 36:41
  And I loved that we might use Excel, might use different tools
• 36:45
  to sort of do the blending, which is great for me because my
• 36:47
  handwriting is not off the standards.
• 36:49
  Oh, you are a doctor. Oh my.
• 36:50
  God, I can't read my handwriting half the time, but we're still
• 36:53
  blending in the same way. We're using different tools,
• 36:56
  things to support us, but we're still doing exactly and.
• 36:58
  What's crazy is can can you? I mean, I couldn't in my job,
• 37:01
  but there can't be many jobs that 100 years ago.
• 37:05
  You can look back and there's almost a procedure for how to do
• 37:08
  what you're doing. Yeah, it's when you looked at
• 37:10
  it, there's not that many differences we might have the
• 37:13
  biggest difference you see is like an industry wide
• 37:15
  difference. So you've seen the change with
• 37:17
  American Oak. So, and that's like when people
• 37:20
  say, so you see changes in black label and different things is
• 37:23
  because of things like that. The industry changed.
• 37:25
  So when you are seeing the sort of American oak coming in, if
• 37:28
  you taste the whiskey from like the sort of 60s or 70s, they'll
• 37:30
  have a slightly different body and slightly different flavour.
• 37:33
  But overall it's the same whiskey.
• 37:35
  And that's the only thing you've seen different.
• 37:37
  But you've seen Glenn Country, we taught us about Hammond
• 37:40
  Bridge, all these different names that you've seen Port
• 37:42
  Ellen in the embroidery as part of the blended months.
• 37:45
  Had to make red, you know, decisions and different periods
• 37:48
  of the whiskey and so where you go OK, and Glenn Kinshi, we're
• 37:51
  going off the production and so Rosebank's because I'm going to
• 37:54
  have to take a step back of Rosebank and that's going to
• 37:56
  change all of those recipes going forward.
• 37:58
  I always assumed I'm surprised that the label was your answer,
• 38:01
  though. I guess it's really fun as it
• 38:04
  must be the hardest to create a consistent product with because
• 38:08
  of the age of the whiskey you're using.
• 38:10
  It's a non age statement. Whiskey.
• 38:11
  People see it all over the world, but you know, Johnny
• 38:14
  Walker Blue has some, it's very old whiskey in it.
• 38:17
  But what's? Exciting about it is it's a mix.
• 38:20
  So we're talking about, you know, we put all of the stock
• 38:22
  that we have into one big spreadsheet instead of just
• 38:24
  looking at one column that's all 12 years old or all 18 years
• 38:27
  old, we get to look at all of it.
• 38:29
  So you've got some really high edged whiskeys in there that
• 38:31
  give it that depth and the flavour and the texture.
• 38:34
  But when you mix those with some more vibrant, younger, more
• 38:37
  youthful whiskeys, it's like it stretches it apart, it opens it
• 38:41
  up. So, you know, sometimes with an
• 38:43
  older whiskey like you are, you're sort of sitting warming
• 38:45
  it up. You're sort of putting energy
• 38:46
  into it to almost like get the break your life with this, it's
• 38:49
  sort of jumping up to meet you and you have got the sort of all
• 38:53
  those really rare aged whiskeys. But then you've got a vibrancy
• 38:56
  in there. Have we?
• 38:57
  Are we just hiding manic water? Yeah.
• 38:59
  And so on. Let me get attached to me
• 39:01
  blending Johnny. That must be blending Johnny
• 39:04
  Walker, 18 then. So much more of a challenge
• 39:05
  because you've got that hard. Blocker.
• 39:09
  In where it's like, no, we need to find something.
• 39:11
  It's very nice of a certain age that gives us Yeah.
• 39:14
  And it's. Also, when if you think about as
• 39:16
  well, so when we lay down whiskeys, by the time you get
• 39:18
  this Johnny Walker Black label, you've lost about 25% of the
• 39:21
  volume that you originally laid down through maturation losses,
• 39:25
  agel shit. So as you're going through to
• 39:27
  you're 18, you get a smaller and smaller proportion because
• 39:29
  you've also we've then by the time you're 18, you've done your
• 39:33
  12 year old, you've done your red labels White Horse.
• 39:36
  So you're just you're winnowing down what's there.
• 39:39
  So try to make sure. And that's part of what's really
• 39:41
  interesting is if you're looking at all these different products,
• 39:44
  we have to sort of think about the here and now.
• 39:46
  So what we're bottling for red label, what black label, but
• 39:49
  also what do we need in 10 years time, 20 years time.
• 39:52
  And especially when there are things going on in the industry
• 39:55
  where we might be changing focus on what we're looking at, we've
• 39:57
  still got to keep a longer institutional memory to go.
• 40:01
  We know we're still going to ask, get asked why don't we have
• 40:04
  that whiskey? Yeah, in ten, 20-30 years size.
• 40:06
  So we need to make sure that we're sort of preserve and we're
• 40:08
  doing different things. What?
• 40:10
  You brought you brought drams in?
• 40:11
  Oh yeah, yeah. Can I?
• 40:12
  We better get on today. So yeah, we've got 3 whiskeys in
• 40:15
  front of us. You've been very kind to bring
• 40:17
  these in. What are the three drams that
• 40:18
  we've got so. We have.
• 40:21
  Well actually I was getting laughed at by my 2 colleagues,
• 40:24
  Dr. Craig Wilson and Craig Wallace because I've stolen two
• 40:26
  of their whiskeys to bring along as well.
• 40:28
  So cheers guys. Thank you.
• 40:32
  What? I've put in the whiskeys that
• 40:34
  you can't often get in Scotland at the minute, so there's a
• 40:37
  Buchanan's. So we've got Buchanan's Green
• 40:38
  Seal. So that's one that's just been
• 40:40
  released in the last 12 months over in the US only.
• 40:44
  We have never seen that. Bottle before otherwise, but it
• 40:46
  looks retro, yeah, so it's really playing that.
• 40:49
  Space, we've also got Johnnie Walker Blue Label as year
• 40:52
  because we like to have really long, long names for the blue
• 40:55
  Label series just tripped me up. So that's going to be one that's
• 40:58
  only going to be released as a global travel, but it's it's
• 41:02
  extending that world of Johnnie Walker Blue Label smells like
• 41:04
  chocolate, yeah. And then we've also got the
• 41:07
  Singleton Golden Tresor. So this is a whiskey, it's been
• 41:11
  finished in extra term casks that it's only for Taiwan as
• 41:16
  well. So that's where we thought we'd
• 41:17
  bring these in, something different.
• 41:18
  Yeah, because I mean. That that like, like what we
• 41:20
  just said, blending keeps the lights on it.
• 41:22
  So it's the it's the thing that's everyone's talked about
• 41:25
  effort for so long. Let's break down some barriers
• 41:28
  then, right? People will tell you.
• 41:30
  The first thing is people will here's here's a myth or myth or
• 41:33
  fact I want to find out from yourself.
• 41:35
  Then people will tell you that, well, blends were better in the
• 41:39
  80s because they had a bigger focus.
• 41:41
  They didn't have as big a focus on single malt.
• 41:43
  So you've got the better malt content would go into the blends
• 41:47
  versus now where they'll say, well, the brands will hold on to
• 41:51
  the better casks for single malt releases versus putting them
• 41:54
  into the blend. From people we've spoken to,
• 41:56
  they'll tell you know a wood management policy is a wood
• 41:59
  management policy. So let's break that one first.
• 42:01
  Is it fact or affection? I would.
• 42:02
  Say for me it's fiction and talking to Maureen, Jim,
• 42:05
  different people that are very heavily involved at that time.
• 42:08
  So where I would say a wood policy has developed massively
• 42:13
  over the past 20-30 years so that there's a lot more care and
• 42:16
  attention we have. We use tint meters.
• 42:18
  So when the cast have been emptied, we're looking and
• 42:20
  checking the quality, the colour of liquid coming out to see can
• 42:23
  that cast be used again or has that reached the end of that
• 42:26
  lifetime as it is? So it'll go to be rejuvenated,
• 42:29
  sort of restore it. I'm trying to remember.
• 42:31
  We call it rejuvenated, but it's like Nestea.
• 42:33
  Yeah, yeah. Save those.
• 42:35
  So there's lots of different care and attention.
• 42:37
  We've also got. We're just bringing that, we're
• 42:40
  bringing in cast tagging as well.
• 42:41
  So we'll look and see how do we start tracking casts through
• 42:44
  their lifetime. Because with the old HMRC
• 42:46
  systems, you were tracking the alcohol.
• 42:48
  That was the important bit. Yeah.
• 42:50
  So we're looking to see how do we make sure we can define what
• 42:52
  what's there, what we're looking at.
• 42:54
  So we'll continue looking to see what can we do different, what
• 42:56
  can we improve, I think with the analysis we've got.
• 42:59
  So I remember talking to Jim and he was would sort of say when he
• 43:02
  was, when he's was enrolled for the 40 years, it was almost like
• 43:06
  that coming together of science and production.
• 43:08
  So starting to really look at chemical analysis.
• 43:11
  What does that show you? What does that tell you about
• 43:14
  what we've always noticed in tests and given more information
• 43:16
  about what are we looking for? So we've sort of got that as a
• 43:19
  sort of tool now. So there's lots of different
• 43:21
  things that are coming in. So we are looking at, when we're
• 43:23
  looking to blend, we're looking at new make day.
• 43:25
  So we're looking at casting information.
• 43:26
  We're bringing it all together. So I think, I think there's
• 43:30
  probably a bit more, there's almost more tools than we had in
• 43:33
  the 80s. Yeah.
• 43:35
  You said earlier that it's about 90% of our inventory goes for
• 43:38
  blends. So if you say even if we kept
• 43:40
  the best of the bet, like the top 10 casts, there's still a
• 43:43
  huge amount of casts. Are there malt?
• 43:46
  We want malt whiskey to grow, Scotch malt whiskey to grow.
• 43:48
  We would like, we'd like to have more that selling around the
• 43:51
  world. But blends are also a huge part
• 43:53
  of our inventory. So it is all about using
• 43:56
  different casts at the right time and what might be the best
• 43:59
  cast for a single malt might not be what you're looking for for a
• 44:02
  blended Scotch as well. So there's different things that
• 44:05
  you're looking for. If you look at the core range of
• 44:06
  single motes for John, for Diagio, it's really interesting
• 44:10
  compared to some of the other the other whiskey makers because
• 44:13
  we really look at sort of refill casks.
• 44:15
  We want to be able to taste those different distillates.
• 44:18
  We want to really sort of showcase that it's almost as you
• 44:21
  go old or younger where you look to expand that range.
• 44:23
  You start to look at different maturation styles and it's same
• 44:26
  actually if you look at Johnny Walker Red Label, for me, Red
• 44:28
  Label is about distillery character that you're really
• 44:31
  looking at a sort of smoke. You're looking at the freshness,
• 44:33
  that bit of spice that's in there, that coming together, but
• 44:36
  then that change. So you go through and I guess.
• 44:37
  It's looking for those products, those markets as well.
• 44:40
  Yeah. And it's.
• 44:40
  Also looking at the combination of those different things
• 44:43
  together as well. So it's if you're looking at a
• 44:46
  job Walker, it's you're not just looking for one style, you're
• 44:48
  looking for the different styles.
• 44:49
  When they come together, they create one product.
• 44:52
  Yeah. So it's about balancing all of
• 44:54
  that. And I think that's what makes it
• 44:55
  interesting. And I think it's just
• 44:59
  understanding that that's not what a lot of people want to
• 45:01
  think. But I just want to know what's
• 45:02
  the good? What's?
• 45:03
  The. Next one then and look, so the
• 45:06
  concept in the podcast here was that, you know, to 2023, Angus
• 45:11
  Ross and I sat in here and recorded the first ever episode
• 45:13
  and we drank a blend that was one of the drums.
• 45:16
  And because one of the things that Angus and I are not from
• 45:19
  the whiskey industry, we didn't know.
• 45:20
  We just liked the drama and wanted to learn more about it.
• 45:23
  So one of the things that we really wanted to start doing was
• 45:25
  actually work out our what you grew up hearing like blinds are
• 45:29
  rubbish and single malt superior.
• 45:30
  Is that true? Other ones, a real revelation
• 45:33
  for us was single grain whiskey, just how good single grain
• 45:37
  whiskey could be. So when it comes to people that
• 45:39
  will say right, I tell you what, then these products, these
• 45:41
  blinded products can be so cheap.
• 45:43
  And so consider the shelf because they're all filled.
• 45:45
  It's just all it is is it's full of grain and they just Chuck a
• 45:48
  little bit of malt and, and that's how they can sell it.
• 45:50
  So don't go through that there. Oh, I'm.
• 45:52
  I'm trying to keep my language clean on that.
• 45:57
  As you said. I'm a Fifer as well.
• 45:58
  I've managed the quality lab at Cambridge that is one of my
• 46:02
  favourite whiskeys. Like genuinely, I think it is
• 46:05
  beautiful. And whenever people say brain
• 46:08
  whiskey is boring, it's just, it's filler.
• 46:10
  It's got nothing in there. They don't.
• 46:12
  Know if you. If you have a glass of Cambridge
• 46:14
  in the glass N British in a glass of Gervin and say, I'm
• 46:18
  going to say part of that as well because I'll stick to the
• 46:20
  ones that I know a bit more. They are all so different.
• 46:24
  So Gervin's like ethyl acetates, like pet drops got N British.
• 46:28
  It's a little bit more meaty, like it's got more body in that
• 46:30
  to it. Cambridge for me is like apples,
• 46:33
  like you're starting to make apple juice and that it's got a
• 46:35
  loving sweetness. But what these also do is all
• 46:38
  have their own individual texture as well.
• 46:39
  They've got a softness on the palette.
• 46:41
  Use different. Use different grains because of
• 46:43
  circumstances. So when you're.
• 46:44
  Blending, that's perfect. You want to have, you might want
• 46:47
  to have some whiskeys that be matured in ex Sherry cast, but
• 46:51
  they can have that astringency, that drying.
• 46:53
  And if you blend that with Cameron Bridge that's been
• 46:55
  American oak, you're bringing a softness to it as well.
• 46:58
  So being able to bring those together is amazing.
• 47:01
  Aged grains. I mean, I, I will talk to the
• 47:04
  cows come home about Cali. Like I think Cali is just
• 47:07
  perfect. We've got, I mean, the adore.
• 47:09
  Canvas as well. Calvas is some of the canvas
• 47:12
  you've bottled. It's just under Remember Bridge
• 47:13
  that. We did a couple of years ago.
• 47:15
  Oh yeah. I bought, we bought for another
• 47:18
  project, we bought a 22 year old Camel Bridge and absolutely
• 47:21
  fantastic. And it was a hard, it was, it
• 47:23
  was hard because when you're starting to sell it, there was
• 47:25
  people because again, what in, in Fife in particular, people
• 47:29
  will look and go because that's the, The funny thing is it's
• 47:31
  Cameron and Bridge, but Cameron and Brig because Cameron and
• 47:34
  Brig was a brand and it's in itself.
• 47:35
  And the game was beautiful as well.
• 47:37
  Yeah. Absolutely, and I love that if
• 47:38
  you. Still go in Fife, you can see it
• 47:39
  on the optics, yeah. Absolutely right.
• 47:41
  The the the the third thing I want to ask you, I was just
• 47:45
  going to. Say about the green thing.
• 47:46
  Sorry, one of the ways I've been starting to talk about that is
• 47:50
  talking about sort of grain whiskey and blends like you talk
• 47:53
  about smoke as well, where it's bringing its own thing, so its
• 47:57
  own flavour, its own texture. But what they also both do is
• 48:00
  reveal more of the others. So like when you smoke smoky
• 48:03
  whiskey, if you're making like a blend of Scotch, it's almost a
• 48:06
  bit like salt and pepper. If you don't have it in there,
• 48:08
  you're not. It's not as fruity, it's not as
• 48:10
  sweet, it's not as many of those are the flavours in there.
• 48:13
  It's the same with the green whiskey as well, as they deliver
• 48:15
  so much of themselves. It's just all they also showcase
• 48:17
  more. Affairs there for me Emma
• 48:19
  there's just little people that don't know yeah.
• 48:21
  Green whiskey. Yeah, because we've never pushed
• 48:23
  it as an industry. Exactly.
• 48:24
  And so when I came back to the Balmoral Hotel 10 months ago, I
• 48:28
  would say our our consumption of single grain is probably going
• 48:30
  up 3 or 400%. Yeah.
• 48:32
  And that's because you look at you look at a market and you go
• 48:35
  Americans, bourbon drinkers. Perfect.
• 48:37
  Here's a N British. Yeah, it's made with corn.
• 48:40
  Yeah, it's a Scotch whiskey. It's so it's still doing Earth
• 48:43
  and I need to. It's got cracking.
• 48:44
  Age on it, because you could chase an age with.
• 48:47
  If someone does chase age, you can say, well, do a four year
• 48:49
  old. Yeah, Oh my goodness.
• 48:50
  The value in old grain, but not there's a value in old grain
• 48:53
  because people don't really haven't found out, don't really
• 48:55
  as how good it is yet it's delicious.
• 48:57
  Oh my. God, you want it in refill
• 48:58
  bourbon? In my opinion, Yeah.
• 48:59
  You want it in first of all, but you don't want any daft cast
• 49:02
  type on it because you want it to taste like grain.
• 49:04
  Yeah, and I that's what has opened my eyes certainly in the
• 49:08
  last couple of years. I think it's quite good that you
• 49:10
  mentioned it. You're right, 23 is for a
• 49:12
  podcast. You probably wouldn't have taken
• 49:14
  a blended whiskey. Well, no.
• 49:15
  We, we, we, we, we had a blended whiskey on the opening episodes.
• 49:18
  I was like I we packed. I we packed that we did.
• 49:21
  We did because we wanted to start the podcast in the way we
• 49:24
  wanted the the tone of the podcast to be.
• 49:26
  Yeah, basically Angus and I, we don't know an awful lot about
• 49:29
  whiskey. We want to speak to people who
• 49:30
  do. But we're we're happy to go.
• 49:32
  Listen, tell me that blames aren't they rubbish?
• 49:36
  Or are they maybe maybe someone in the industry or the people we
• 49:39
  met would actually go. You're probably the right lads.
• 49:41
  It's it's it's actually all, but it's like I'm all but but we
• 49:44
  knew it probably wouldn't be that.
• 49:45
  Yeah, because everyone that we've spoken to now the last one
• 49:48
  that is interesting. What I've heard you speaking
• 49:51
  about when you're blinding recipes.
• 49:55
  OK. And sting notes.
• 49:57
  Yeah. What's very interesting when we
• 49:59
  Craig Johnson on the podcast who used to work at Glenn Country
• 50:02
  talked about actually, a lot of the time when you're blending,
• 50:06
  you're blending to you're you're not blending to flavor and
• 50:11
  profiles, you're blending to distillery characters a lot of
• 50:14
  the time because it's like, you know, it's it's more about what?
• 50:17
  Because when you're purchasing or when you're thinking about
• 50:19
  blending, you're not just looking at going, well, we've
• 50:21
  got those casts available now. Let's get them in.
• 50:23
  You've got to look at and go we've got 50 + 1000 litre VAT,
• 50:27
  right? So we can't just suddenly just
• 50:29
  as we want just nip out right. I'll go ahead and pick 10 cast
• 50:32
  that'll do us for the Johnny Walker Red.
• 50:34
  It's done. You're laying down and you've so
• 50:35
  you've got to look at distillery character what where that hits
• 50:38
  texture wise and just like what you were saying and then.
• 50:40
  How that interacts with different cast types as well.
• 50:43
  So when I, when I start thinking about blending, I'm going back
• 50:46
  to keep on using the spreadsheet analogy because it's how my
• 50:49
  brain works is you do think about the sort of spreadsheet.
• 50:51
  So you have a distillery at the side, you've got your different
• 50:54
  cast types. So you've got your refill, you
• 50:56
  might have X bourbon, X Sherry, you've got a rejuve, and then
• 51:00
  you've got your crazy other casts that are coming in as
• 51:02
  well. So if you look at a single malt,
• 51:04
  you've just got one one row, but you might be looking at those
• 51:06
  mix of different whiskey. So like for a lack of those 16
• 51:09
  might be mostly refilled, but you might be looking to use some
• 51:12
  other casts in there as well to get the right for life profile.
• 51:15
  So if you're looking at a blend, you're then looking at multiple
• 51:17
  different rows come down site. Are you doing the same thing?
• 51:21
  But what we'll do is we'll start thinking about you might set
• 51:24
  groupings or your whiskeys together a little bit more.
• 51:26
  So obviously all your grains together, but you might think
• 51:28
  about your ones that are sort of more green grassy.
• 51:30
  So like your Glenology Dustins. You might think about your
• 51:33
  fruitier ones like like your Auburn, your car do's you sort
• 51:38
  of putting those that you going out like gripping those.
• 51:40
  And so you always have groups. And what we think about is 12
• 51:44
  years ago, Tina might been getting a new mash filtering or
• 51:47
  something. So you take that out when you're
• 51:49
  making, you might take that out, but it's not as simple as then
• 51:51
  going, well, I'll put liquid in instead.
• 51:54
  It's like, well increase. Nobody else has a.
• 51:55
  Mash filter. How are you going to recreate
• 51:57
  that? Yeah, so you're.
• 51:57
  Looking at I'll increase, I'll increase the liquid, but I've
• 52:00
  also got then increase say the BIM redness because you're
• 52:02
  thinking about the oiliness. But then you've got to change
• 52:05
  the sort of ratio of the different cast styles and that
• 52:07
  there as well. So what you almost have, and
• 52:09
  it's not like we don't have a recipe saying you've got to have
• 52:12
  10 casts of TNF. You've got a 2 cast Koila.
• 52:15
  You end up with a heat map each time you make it because you've
• 52:17
  got the that table and the vulgar.
• 52:18
  But it's interesting. You've got to think about
• 52:20
  flavour, you've got to think about mouth feel.
• 52:22
  You've got to well, that's. What you're.
• 52:24
  That's what that is what we need to get people's on some whiskey
• 52:27
  is flavour. That's what you are, that's what
• 52:29
  you're talking about. That's what you're tasting,
• 52:31
  that's what. That's what that's.
• 52:33
  The most important part, well, making alcohol, but the most
• 52:36
  important part that you're making is less than 1% of the
• 52:38
  content. It's about those different
• 52:40
  flavour countries, like how you run the mashed and how you run
• 52:43
  the fermentation, how you run the stills.
• 52:45
  What different cuts are you taking?
• 52:46
  Because you look at Lag Vol versus Khalila, they're really
• 52:49
  similar in their production till you get to distilling.
• 52:52
  I think Khalila's got a slight longer fermentation, so you get
• 52:54
  more the apple. But Lag of All's got a much
• 52:56
  longer spirit cut, so you get more of those big greasy smoke,
• 53:00
  you know, the big phenolic beasts coming through.
• 53:03
  Whereas for me with Khalila it's more about that sort of sweet or
• 53:06
  wood smokes that you get coming through.
• 53:07
  So it tastes like Bonfire Night? Yeah, it's like a toffee apple
• 53:10
  next to a bonfire. That's for me, what I get when I
• 53:12
  taste Khalila. What's?
• 53:14
  Interesting is when you have been maybe pushed to experiment
• 53:18
  so making less whiskey cling leash making this waxy Dal yuan.
• 53:22
  Yeah, we have an audience that actually then I've discovered Oh
• 53:26
  my God, how good's Dal yuan. Oh my God.
• 53:28
  Or I remember when you'd done a peated dragging more, yeah.
• 53:33
  Despite all can't remember which special it was, it was
• 53:35
  especially. I've got 19, I want to say, But
• 53:38
  that was fun. I was doing Westgate.
• 53:40
  I went well, Kragen was not Peter, and it was, I think it
• 53:43
  was a Talisker relief. It was a mold.
• 53:46
  That was supposed to go to Talisk, but I think there was a
• 53:48
  drought that year and they didn't.
• 53:50
  Nursing had to stop and do. Yeah, deal with.
• 53:53
  That. Those stories are amazing and it
• 53:55
  made great liquid and there'll still be some of that liquid in
• 53:58
  cask now. Oh yeah.
• 53:59
  But it'll be super fun to go see what well that end up in a
• 54:02
  Johnny glue. All that brings them the smoky
• 54:04
  now that's what. We would look to do is where we
• 54:06
  do limited sessions like with a Johnny Walkable label.
• 54:09
  So that's the second one that we'll talk about is we will look
• 54:12
  at these small pockets, these experimentations because you
• 54:14
  want to be able to have them make a big part of the story.
• 54:17
  And these might be just a very small mic you've got to work
• 54:20
  with. So we could use them in Blue
• 54:21
  label, we could use them in Black Label, but how do we sort
• 54:23
  of make them the core of the story?
• 54:25
  And really so you can test it so you can see what's going on with
• 54:28
  that. And that, I think is really
• 54:30
  important. Could.
• 54:32
  Like could you go as far back as like poor?
• 54:36
  Like if you have a poor summer and the barley that has been
• 54:39
  really, really poor to the point where you could be looking at it
• 54:42
  going and whether do you have to have your eye on that to go?
• 54:47
  It was a really, really bad summer in 2006, which means
• 54:50
  suddenly all the casks coming from XY and Z distillery when
• 54:54
  they hit 12, they're just not hitting the flavour that we need
• 54:56
  to. Yeah.
• 54:57
  So we. Have, so we work very closely
• 54:59
  with our quality teams at Cambridge and up in Elgin as
• 55:02
  well. So the team up in Elgin, they
• 55:04
  knows all the batches of Newmixper and they have done for
• 55:08
  decades. That comes off the stills.
• 55:10
  They also get analysed and to look at funerals levels,
• 55:12
  different things like that. We can access all of that data
• 55:15
  so we can then start to tie it together.
• 55:16
  So we have all those flare like that, that sort of
• 55:19
  categorisation because it's like, is it inspect?
• 55:21
  Is it out respect? Where is it moved to?
• 55:23
  So we have all that noted on our system.
• 55:25
  So we'll know when those those problem children so some that
• 55:30
  you might look so we had yeah, you might look to intervene
• 55:33
  sooner. So you might have actually put
• 55:35
  that into different style casts. At least went.
• 55:36
  To our first one. Yes.
• 55:38
  So there might be some like there might be it's been super
• 55:40
  sulfury because we've changed production or we've got
• 55:42
  production or we're down production.
• 55:44
  So we're getting more sulfury notes coming through.
• 55:46
  So we know that we need to do that.
• 55:47
  So we might put them into normal casts and then sample them and
• 55:50
  go over. We need to put those into this
• 55:51
  type of cast or we might look at through blending.
• 55:54
  So how do you manage that as going through?
• 55:56
  So do you think back in the day when we had borrower, was it a
• 55:59
  sort of true blending malt? But you have the butyrics, No,
• 56:03
  Yes, people love that for some of the bottlers for for single
• 56:06
  malt, but they don't want that in like the Johnny Walker.
• 56:09
  So that would be about the job of worrying different people to
• 56:11
  go. How do you manage that into the
• 56:13
  inventory as well? How do you How do you?
• 56:15
  Sorry, Ross. How do you?
• 56:17
  Just we're just excited when. I'm when I saw you there talking
• 56:22
  about you're, you're looking at the heat maps and stuff like
• 56:24
  that. How do you taste whiskey?
• 56:27
  How do you how? Because we've had people talk,
• 56:30
  we've heard people saying you can almost taste in colour at
• 56:33
  times. There's other people that How do
• 56:35
  you taste when you're roofing it down?
• 56:36
  To a really low yeah so we'll. We'll start when we get cast
• 56:39
  samples in as you might be screening boards and boards or
• 56:42
  cast samples, we'll take them down to about 23% ABV.
• 56:45
  Yeah. So part of the reason you do
• 56:46
  that is if there are rough notes in there, they tend to be sofa
• 56:50
  based. So you'll be pushing them up and
• 56:53
  so the high hydrophobic, so you're pushing them up into the
• 56:56
  headspace. So if you picking out casts that
• 56:58
  need more time, you can then leave them and say that I'm not
• 57:01
  working with those just now. But there's also different
• 57:03
  flavours in there that you can pick up.
• 57:05
  Also, if we're doing a lot of cast samples, if we take that
• 57:08
  stroke down, we're not going to sort of kill.
• 57:10
  Your nose, so we wanted. To get through these, we don't
• 57:14
  actually start increasing the strength till we maybe get a bit
• 57:16
  further through. So you might start putting these
• 57:18
  into building blocks like you're saying.
• 57:19
  You might almost do mini vans in the lab to go.
• 57:21
  I'm going to be looking at, I know that's the button I want.
• 57:24
  I want those grouped together, but I don't know how I'm going
• 57:26
  to mix that lighter style, these more complex styles.
• 57:29
  So you might start looking at higher strength, but then when
• 57:31
  you go to the prototypes as well, you tend to look at those
• 57:33
  lower strengths to start with because you've got people that
• 57:35
  drink it on the rocks. You'll have people around the
• 57:37
  world that'll drink it in cocktails or drink it in
• 57:40
  highballs because we whenever we're doing an innovation, we
• 57:43
  have to have a brief because we need to make sure we're not
• 57:45
  making whiskey for us. Yeah, we are making whiskey for
• 57:48
  our customers. So we have to be thinking about
• 57:50
  what is almost, what's the challenge that's been given to
• 57:53
  us and for a. Specific market as well because
• 57:55
  there's so many different whiskeys, I guess.
• 57:57
  Yeah, so. This we're working on one, we've
• 58:01
  been working with our colleagues in India.
• 58:02
  So looking at a special, a special release that'll be
• 58:04
  coming up soon. So we've collaborated with the
• 58:07
  with the team that we have over there, the USL team that work
• 58:09
  with us in Diageo. So we've been talking to them.
• 58:12
  So trying to get experience from those guys as well so we can
• 58:14
  understand more about the sort of Indian palate.
• 58:16
  They've said taste these sweets, go and buy these.
• 58:19
  So yeah, so the, the T&E bill's been really interesting too.
• 58:22
  It's been like looking for specific flavours to sort of
• 58:25
  inspiring for that thing this. Singleton is a brand has been
• 58:28
  such a huge success. Yeah.
• 58:30
  And those are big push for Singleton just now.
• 58:32
  And there'll be a lot of people that listen to the podcast that
• 58:34
  buy Singleton and don't necessarily know that they're
• 58:36
  drinking Dufton. Oh.
• 58:38
  Duffton as. I love Duffton.
• 58:41
  Duffton I know is. One of your favourites.
• 58:43
  I know when you've done your own range of premium Altimas in 2022
• 58:48
  and I understand it feels so long ago.
• 58:50
  Amanda, your favorite whiskey from that was it was a Duffton
• 58:52
  was I bet a lot of the private clients by premium Altima are
• 58:55
  going Duffton. Yeah, really.
• 58:57
  Because it's not, it's not the sexiest name, no, in the
• 59:00
  portfolio, but really delicious whiskey.
• 59:03
  I got to know. Duffton Inside Out.
• 59:05
  So in my previous role when I was part of sort of a member of
• 59:08
  the team, we all look after different single malts in the
• 59:12
  Botlins. Well, you're doing your projects
• 59:14
  and that as well, so you get to know these distilleries inside
• 59:16
  out. So I was lucky I looked after
• 59:18
  cardio and Duffton. So, yeah, I got to know Duffton
• 59:21
  inside out and especially older Duffton, you know, that lovely
• 59:24
  sort of cake mix. So it's like, you know, when you
• 59:26
  have bacon with your mum or your granny, you like, are you
• 59:28
  licking the spoon? It's like you have notes of
• 59:30
  that, like uncooked, like ShopRite, you know, stuff you're
• 59:33
  not meant to eat because it can make you.
• 59:34
  Well, that's what it tastes like.
• 59:36
  It's that oily, buttery, but then you've got that fruit in
• 59:39
  there. So it's like you're making, it's
• 59:41
  like you're making an apple, an apple pie, an apple crumble.
• 59:44
  And that's come to life, that that's why.
• 59:45
  For me, when I get the drags an art, Yeah, well, people in Asia
• 59:49
  will buy Singleton. Yeah, but they might not,
• 59:51
  though. They're always drinking.
• 59:52
  Yeah, Glen or Yeah. Or in America, Glendola.
• 59:54
  Well. Yeah, I, but my dad is a friend
• 59:57
  in Germany and again, my dad not a complete whiskey expert.
• 1:00:01
  And he said, oh, there was a distillery I went to and he
• 1:00:04
  said, oh, that will be the Glenn Ord distillery.
• 1:00:07
  He said, and where can I, where can I get a bottle of that?
• 1:00:09
  He said, oh, just buy a Singleton.
• 1:00:11
  And he went to Germany and bought a Duffton.
• 1:00:13
  Yeah. But anyway, I give him on to
• 1:00:18
  what Glenn or do you need to buy?
• 1:00:19
  But yeah, but I was going. To say Duffton is one that we
• 1:00:21
  always have in the house. So always have like Red Label
• 1:00:23
  and Black Label and we'll always have Duffton because it's just
• 1:00:26
  see if you want to just sit at the end of the day and just
• 1:00:29
  enjoy your whiskey and watch your filming that it's just.
• 1:00:32
  Singleton of Duck tonight. Oh my God.
• 1:00:34
  What's your what's your what's your personal process?
• 1:00:36
  Then like you're talking, OK, yeah, bringing it down.
• 1:00:38
  But like for you, I mean, he's just hearing you talk about cake
• 1:00:41
  mix. So we can see that you have this
• 1:00:43
  palette. This was that something you
• 1:00:45
  always had? Have you had to develop it, hone
• 1:00:47
  on it and and work on it? Definitely.
• 1:00:49
  Need to development. I mean, when I went for that
• 1:00:51
  interview, you had to nose whiskeys and you what you had to
• 1:00:54
  do and you also had to nose older pots.
• 1:00:57
  So what, you can smell them, but you don't know what's in there
• 1:01:00
  because they had to make sure that you could actually smell
• 1:01:02
  like that. You had a sense of smell.
• 1:01:04
  And it was really weird for me because the week before I'd been
• 1:01:07
  working on a contract for Glaxo Smith Kline.
• 1:01:09
  I'd been working on something that you had to have like the
• 1:01:11
  air hoods on and work in the fume hood and have someone
• 1:01:14
  watching you because if you got this on your skin, it could have
• 1:01:16
  killed you. So I went from not being able to
• 1:01:19
  like pick anything up and smell it to then you would like you
• 1:01:22
  have to smell everything and describe it.
• 1:01:23
  So it's a really interesting sort of change, change of pace.
• 1:01:27
  But it was I really enjoyed that because it was it was actually
• 1:01:31
  better with the older pots when you can figure out what it was
• 1:01:33
  because then you were like, oh, this has got almost notes of
• 1:01:37
  coffee, but it's notes of chocolate.
• 1:01:38
  And I want to realize it was coffee.
• 1:01:40
  Like I don't know how to describe that as coffee.
• 1:01:42
  Whereas if you don't know what it is like, I was like, this
• 1:01:44
  smells like cucumber melon. And so you are just almost
• 1:01:48
  trained attack. And even then, I think you're
• 1:01:50
  sort of trying to tie it with smells that you know, memories
• 1:01:52
  that you know. Yeah, but all the time, like
• 1:01:54
  you, we spend so much time nosing whiskeys together.
• 1:01:57
  So doesn't matter which project you're working on with the whole
• 1:01:59
  team will have smelt different whiskeys on this process or one
• 1:02:02
  was signing off single vats and different things like that.
• 1:02:05
  And you? Know, I guess as a as a team,
• 1:02:07
  yeah, you're all gonna have your strengths and weaknesses as
• 1:02:09
  well, like exactly. So we're team at 12, 12:13
• 1:02:13
  depending on which month, but we're we're as diverse as you
• 1:02:18
  can be in Scotland. That was safe.
• 1:02:19
  So we're very, very pale. We are really pale.
• 1:02:23
  We are about 50. 50, it's normally 5050, but give or take
• 1:02:28
  at the minute because we've got a few people off having babies
• 1:02:31
  and that as well. And we've got a mix of ages.
• 1:02:34
  So you've got Craig and Craig and myself.
• 1:02:36
  We're sort of sitting at that 50.
• 1:02:38
  So we're now the we're now the old office and the team.
• 1:02:41
  So when everyone else retired we suddenly turn around went ohh
• 1:02:44
  really adults? They had.
• 1:02:46
  They were the responsible ones there.
• 1:02:48
  I know. That was Terry, and you might.
• 1:02:49
  Use different descriptors. No, that's.
• 1:02:51
  It so we bought we got younger members of the team that are
• 1:02:54
  liking this on mids early mids. Well, that's.
• 1:02:56
  A discontinued Sweets that no one can get anymore.
• 1:03:00
  Let the boy tell us. Yeah, well, Murray.
• 1:03:02
  Would always talk about palm violets.
• 1:03:03
  He like none of us say that we were kids because he's probably
• 1:03:06
  what's he held with them. So my partner Dave, he's
• 1:03:08
  actually been going out. He was getting, he got some mud
• 1:03:10
  fellows and I'm like, I know I don't like them, don't like me.
• 1:03:13
  So we can take mince because there's a note that always comes
• 1:03:15
  up. Yeah.
• 1:03:16
  But yeah, it's we have the flavour wheel and we use it a
• 1:03:19
  lot when we're talking about Johnny Walker.
• 1:03:20
  But we do actually use that a lot.
• 1:03:23
  So you've got the top half of ours is like distillery
• 1:03:25
  character. The bottom half is more
• 1:03:26
  maturation style and we use it almost so we can calibrate
• 1:03:30
  against each other. So where someone in the team
• 1:03:33
  might say it's green grapes, I make it more as apple or pears.
• 1:03:37
  But we know we're in that sort of same sort of segment.
• 1:03:39
  So we're, and that's what you're doing is we need to make sure
• 1:03:41
  we're sort of can all work together and have something that
• 1:03:44
  comes together. But what's really interesting is
• 1:03:47
  then translating that to sort of tasting notes for products.
• 1:03:50
  Yeah. Because we've got to be very
• 1:03:51
  aware that flavour wheel that we have.
• 1:03:53
  Yeah, is very UK, It's very Scotland centric.
• 1:03:56
  Yeah. Like still has things like
• 1:03:57
  Hollux and kids don't know what Hollux.
• 1:04:00
  But it goes back to when you were talking about creating that
• 1:04:02
  product for India and it says well, you have to create
• 1:04:05
  something that you know would be there are certain markets that
• 1:04:07
  have certain you know Taiwan I know is you try.
• 1:04:10
  These. One the other, yeah, you know,
• 1:04:13
  is a very specific flavour. So when it comes to creating a
• 1:04:16
  new product for Johnnie Walker, because you've obviously got
• 1:04:17
  these products that you've got this recipe that's been there
• 1:04:20
  for 100, you know, for Johnnie Walker Black, etcetera,
• 1:04:22
  etcetera. How how does it come about the
• 1:04:25
  OR how does a new product come about?
• 1:04:27
  What's the process? Because something like Black
• 1:04:30
  Ruby, which I know you're a part of, like how did that go, go
• 1:04:33
  from inception to actually getting out in the market?
• 1:04:35
  So we've got. Like a global brand team.
• 1:04:36
  So you've got the John Walk global brand team.
• 1:04:38
  You've also got innovation teams that work around the world.
• 1:04:41
  So they are always looking, they're almost doing like sort
• 1:04:44
  of horizon scanning sort of where where do we want to almost
• 1:04:47
  be competing? Where do we think that we not
• 1:04:49
  got a product that's working well, what do, what is the
• 1:04:51
  different spot? So it's almost like you.
• 1:04:53
  Get a brief and you've got a. Celebrate rather than.
• 1:04:55
  You having carte blanche to say I want to do and that's.
• 1:04:57
  What? That's what you want, but
• 1:04:58
  that's. This is how a if we just made it
• 1:05:00
  carte blanche. The Rangers are great.
• 1:05:03
  You'd get narrower and narrower it, so we just would make the
• 1:05:05
  one that we like. And what's really interesting is
• 1:05:07
  you get a challenge and you might be.
• 1:05:09
  I mean, I've grown into the real liking Sherrod whiskeys, but I
• 1:05:12
  did not like them when I started.
• 1:05:14
  You're quite a big Peak fan. Yeah, I've also, I started off
• 1:05:17
  as a huge peak fan and I'm probably now I'm getting to an
• 1:05:19
  age where Pete just I've got to have Gaviscon at the same time.
• 1:05:24
  But so that was again was a challenge sort of understanding
• 1:05:27
  about how do you explore the wider world scheme that as well.
• 1:05:30
  So I think it makes us better blenders by having that beef
• 1:05:32
  coming in there. May be a master blender, I know
• 1:05:36
  there's enough no? First off, noting the, but it's
• 1:05:41
  so you have the brand team in Taiwan going, we'd like another
• 1:05:44
  Singleton, but something that we've not had before and you go,
• 1:05:47
  OK, how many people in Taiwan are drinking Sauterne?
• 1:05:49
  Maybe not that many that will really work for that palette
• 1:05:52
  based on success and the better. That's it.
• 1:05:54
  And. You've got, but what you've also
• 1:05:55
  got to do is we maybe wouldn't do a Saturn finish for Johnny
• 1:05:58
  Wappit. Yeah, Because then you're
• 1:05:59
  looking at a different range and a different scale because we've
• 1:06:02
  also got to make sure that we're doing the like the double
• 1:06:05
  maturation at the right time is for when it's going to go for
• 1:06:09
  bottling as well. Yeah.
• 1:06:10
  So if it's the product that's for one market, that's almost
• 1:06:12
  easier for us to manage. If it's something that's going
• 1:06:14
  everywhere, it's a. Huge scale and you know I use.
• 1:06:17
  Up all yeah now that because it going back to what you're saying
• 1:06:19
  and like what Angus was talking about so last year I was at a
• 1:06:22
  whiskey tasting in India in Mumbai and it was we had three
• 1:06:26
  cherries and 10 drums They know how to oh God they had a good
• 1:06:29
  kick in the ball that night but there was myself and another
• 1:06:33
  brand ambassador who was we were the only Scottish people in the
• 1:06:37
  room yeah and when we'd start with the finished Sherry's and
• 1:06:40
  the first question there was 40 people in the room so does
• 1:06:42
  anyone ever tried Sherry before and the only two people that put
• 1:06:45
  their hand up I mean the other guy so so suddenly you've got
• 1:06:48
  this and then what he's what the what the brand ambassador said
• 1:06:50
  was he said Scotland at the moment the Scotch industry we
• 1:06:54
  need to get away from Christmas cake yeah because you said
• 1:06:57
  there's people in there who've never tried Christmas cakes so
• 1:06:59
  suddenly you go and then they will use your own and in France.
• 1:07:02
  Another plate, like even place we've been working for years.
• 1:07:05
  Yeah, so suddenly. Saying, you know, would anyone
• 1:07:07
  ever go I'm getting notes, said Jira Masala on this one, or I'm
• 1:07:11
  getting, But that's The thing is so interesting.
• 1:07:13
  And when you've got a global product, it tells you how
• 1:07:16
  different local case are because I'm one example is not nothing
• 1:07:20
  to do with whiskeys. If you think in Japan, if you've
• 1:07:22
  ever had a katsu Curry. Oh yeah.
• 1:07:24
  So that's based on the British Indian naval Curry.
• 1:07:27
  It was, it was British naval guy, even blink to yourself
• 1:07:32
  there. And yeah, naval, it's great.
• 1:07:33
  But it was based on something that was a borrowed cuisine from
• 1:07:37
  India. So it was the British, the
• 1:07:39
  British, this Curry that was adapted to British taste that
• 1:07:42
  was served to Japanese and they adapted it then themselves to
• 1:07:45
  their own taste. So you are, you end up with
• 1:07:47
  three different products, the Indian Curry, the British Indian
• 1:07:49
  Curry and then this Japanese, you know, and it's all three of
• 1:07:53
  them wildly different. Yeah, again, that's.
• 1:07:55
  What makes everything interesting when it comes to
• 1:07:58
  like the flavour profiles, that's where we that's part of
• 1:08:00
  the reason that we have amazing bargain basses that were either
• 1:08:03
  global like Tim Phillips, Johansson or working in
• 1:08:05
  different markets so that we can actually work with those guys
• 1:08:08
  and tap into them and the relationships they have with
• 1:08:11
  bartenders in different parts of the world.
• 1:08:13
  So things like world class, we always try and get someone from
• 1:08:15
  our team to go to world class so they can see what are the
• 1:08:17
  trends, but also so they can see how the different bartends are
• 1:08:20
  describing the whiskies in different ways as well.
• 1:08:23
  You have come back here world class.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah. You can tell me anything about
• 1:08:26
  Westgate, I'll just agree. But the other thing as well with
• 1:08:29
  the Indian market is what you start.
• 1:08:30
  To see is, especially with the Azure having such a big share of
• 1:08:35
  the market in there, it's that there's two ways of looking at
• 1:08:37
  it. You can say what are people
• 1:08:39
  drinking, but you can also go what can we push to people so
• 1:08:42
  suddenly like for example, in Bangalore, you know peated
• 1:08:45
  whiskey has jumped from the 7th most drunk whiskey up to the
• 1:08:47
  third most drunk whiskey. Now what you've got to ask
• 1:08:50
  yourself, as you're saying now is that people's flavour profile
• 1:08:52
  in the last two years has changed or have brands actually
• 1:08:55
  started to look at and go, yeah, let's start pushing a lager
• 1:08:58
  villain a little bit more and seeing if it lands and what it
• 1:09:00
  is is landing and and marketing activations.
• 1:09:03
  Yeah, getting it in front of bartenders getting importing it
• 1:09:05
  and doing it in different ways like putting a lager bill in it
• 1:09:08
  like oh, we had the Smokey cokey conversation where about.
• 1:09:11
  But, but it is interesting to know, and especially when you're
• 1:09:15
  saying that I like to sometimes there's there's people who
• 1:09:18
  listen to the podcast and the person who is listening to the
• 1:09:21
  podcast will know who I'm talking about is when I like to
• 1:09:24
  wind him up. And I'll say it's all marketing,
• 1:09:26
  isn't it right, Because the debate is always is it flavour
• 1:09:31
  LED or is it what selling lead? And I think when it's mixed
• 1:09:34
  about, it has to be, has to be like there's got to be a
• 1:09:36
  reaction to you you're talking. About an Indian.
• 1:09:38
  Release yeah well we're just about to get a huge tariff
• 1:09:42
  change which is going to be for the biggest drinks company in
• 1:09:45
  the world, the biggest Scots WW you know producing company
• 1:09:48
  Diageo that's a huge opportunity yeah and it's a huge opportunity
• 1:09:52
  for Scotland for Scotland and it's also one that we take
• 1:09:55
  really personally so my. Boss's boss.
• 1:09:58
  So the gentleman that's in charge of the Scottish category
• 1:10:00
  for the Aggio star, Roman is from India, so it's something we
• 1:10:04
  will actually make him proud as well to make sure we're doing
• 1:10:06
  the right thing. And we've got so many folk like
• 1:10:09
  also talking harken back to Ivan Menezes as well.
• 1:10:12
  There's so many different influences that come through and
• 1:10:14
  we won't make sure again that we're doing a really good job
• 1:10:17
  that we are sure we're creating whiskeys that really work for
• 1:10:20
  people in different parts of the world, but also showcasing some
• 1:10:22
  of the traditional whiskeys that we have to see what they like.
• 1:10:25
  But what I also love is we get to work with the the Indian
• 1:10:28
  whiskey team over in in India as well and seeing what they're
• 1:10:32
  doing like. So you've got the God of like
• 1:10:34
  God one, God one, sorry, God one O 2 is is, you know.
• 1:10:39
  God One O 2 is one of my favourite trams, but the O1 and
• 1:10:42
  the O2, the O2 are just like well up there, but you know,
• 1:10:45
  like the the God one is the heaviest flying bird in the
• 1:10:49
  world and it's an endangered species and they actually help
• 1:10:52
  preserve that because it's an Indian bird and apparently it
• 1:10:55
  takes ages to take off because it's so heavy and that but the
• 1:10:58
  good one is absolutely fantastic.
• 1:11:00
  And so it's great that we get to work with those guys.
• 1:11:02
  So we're really lucky we get. To work with whiskey makers.
• 1:11:05
  So Craig Wallace and team, he sat up the whiskey forum.
• 1:11:07
  So we actually, it was over COVID, you know, when everyone
• 1:11:10
  started getting used to Zoom and different things.
• 1:11:11
  So we would actually have chats with the whiskey makers of in
• 1:11:14
  North America within with India, with Ireland, with different
• 1:11:18
  parts. Starwood have joined in.
• 1:11:20
  So that's changed timings. So we can do things.
• 1:11:22
  I'll call these and that just so we can chat to people.
• 1:11:24
  It's partly what you want to know is what you guys do and
• 1:11:26
  what have you learnt about stuff that we can just all bring
• 1:11:28
  together. So collaborative.
• 1:11:30
  It's now on the. Front topic of collaboration.
• 1:11:33
  I don't know how much you listen to the podcast, I won't be
• 1:11:35
  offended, but about a month and a half ago I decided, no, let's
• 1:11:40
  I'll buy a vatting tank, 60 litre vatting tank and we'll
• 1:11:43
  just start blending. Yeah.
• 1:11:44
  So I want to tap into. I think it's happened to your
• 1:11:47
  expertise. Yeah, can I get can?
• 1:11:49
  I get a payment for. That we'll make you a doctor.
• 1:11:53
  We'll make you a doctor of the podcast.
• 1:11:54
  That's actual pledge of the West.
• 1:11:56
  You showed his podcast. I mean like.
• 1:11:58
  You can put your name on the bottom.
• 1:12:00
  No, but like for people like for example, we've got a listener
• 1:12:04
  Bob Cutter. Yeah, OK, try to Bob.
• 1:12:08
  He's got whiskey shed TM down down South and Henry and his
• 1:12:11
  pals and they love the rugby. You've got a shed filled
• 1:12:13
  whiskey. But every year they make a Six
• 1:12:15
  Nations blend and they blend it from and they've got Italian
• 1:12:18
  whiskey. Yeah, right.
• 1:12:19
  They've got a one of the we one leader wooden can, wooden cast
• 1:12:23
  and they add it all and and we gave him you gave him the best
• 1:12:27
  compliment you could have in one of the episodes a couple of
• 1:12:31
  weeks ago. I think he said it's not shite
• 1:12:36
  you'd say that. I'm sorry Bob, but.
• 1:12:37
  That's probably the best I could give you because.
• 1:12:39
  I think it was a tasty whiskey it.
• 1:12:42
  Was it was really positive? Yeah.
• 1:12:43
  Scottish person. That was good.
• 1:12:44
  Yeah, it's. Like it's no bad.
• 1:12:46
  But he. Said he's setting.
• 1:12:47
  Us up and you're good we've. Got and I've actually.
• 1:12:48
  Got a sample of 2025 and 2026 and I was a side by side I need
• 1:12:52
  to have. But we were talking and we're
• 1:12:54
  like, you know what, how do we blend?
• 1:12:55
  How do we become blenders? And what's very interesting was
• 1:12:58
  and hearing you talk about the building blocks.
• 1:13:00
  Yeah. Now basically we we're reverse
• 1:13:02
  engineering blending. Yeah, we're just starting with a
• 1:13:05
  VAT. Yeah, right.
• 1:13:05
  We're not, we don't have any liquid yet.
• 1:13:08
  So if you're an independent bottler or you're a distillery
• 1:13:11
  or something like that, you're going to get a phone call or a
• 1:13:13
  good go and give it 20 liters or something and we can play around
• 1:13:16
  with it. But it's something that.
• 1:13:18
  So how do you, where do you start if you're talking now,
• 1:13:21
  bearing in mind that we're not endorsing, you know, underground
• 1:13:24
  blending good to go or anything like that, we do it where we
• 1:13:27
  have a. We have a an.
• 1:13:29
  HMRC bonded facility that we're going to be doing it fantastic.
• 1:13:33
  We have people who are going to help with that so.
• 1:13:35
  We've got. All of that on board.
• 1:13:37
  So you've done all the paperwork, all the things that
• 1:13:39
  you've had to do, yes. We've got, I'm impressed with
• 1:13:41
  that. We've got, well, somebody else
• 1:13:43
  has done all that, but. Basically someone said to me,
• 1:13:45
  you can do it at my place. I've got a bonded warehouse.
• 1:13:48
  I'm happy to help you any way. Impossible.
• 1:13:51
  So where do we start? If you're saying to me right,
• 1:13:52
  this is where you start when, what do you do?
• 1:13:54
  So as I said, like I often start with that grids where you might.
• 1:13:57
  Have say, lighter styles. So you think about like your
• 1:13:59
  grassy grey, your fruity flavours.
• 1:14:01
  I think about the sort of complex styles almost together.
• 1:14:03
  So you know, you're thinking about your meats here, like your
• 1:14:05
  Bembrinness, your mark laps or your like.
• 1:14:08
  And then you've got like your nutty spicy, like your Blair
• 1:14:10
  Rassells and the candles and that.
• 1:14:13
  And you've got your sort of different styles of smoke.
• 1:14:15
  So you can simplify almost grouping those together and then
• 1:14:19
  then what you want your wishy to taste.
• 1:14:21
  Yeah. So you want to do that at the
• 1:14:22
  same time, so and then you're also thinking about your.
• 1:14:23
  Maturation style. So if you've got more refill,
• 1:14:25
  you get more of those celery characters coming out.
• 1:14:28
  If you've got more sort of Sherry style in there, it's
• 1:14:30
  going to be a bit more dry and astringent.
• 1:14:33
  And if you've got more the American oak, you're going to
• 1:14:34
  have softer flavour on the palate.
• 1:14:36
  It's going to be sweet, it's going to be more caramel.
• 1:14:38
  So you're thinking about how they mix skin and how they mix
• 1:14:40
  together come down inside, but you also think about what do you
• 1:14:43
  want the air points be? So if you want a whiskey that's
• 1:14:46
  like more sweet or caramel, you're going to have more
• 1:14:48
  American Orcaness. You can have more ex bourbon,
• 1:14:50
  maybe refill. If you're thinking you want more
• 1:14:52
  sort of dried fruits, more richness, you're going to up the
• 1:14:55
  you're going to up the Sherry. You might have a bit of wine
• 1:14:58
  cask in there as well, because that can bring a bit more the
• 1:15:00
  red fruits, you know, like clums and different flavours.
• 1:15:03
  But you still want to have some American orcan there because you
• 1:15:05
  want to sort of take some of that astringency while you serve
• 1:15:08
  the richness. So you're sort of building it
• 1:15:10
  like that in sort of layers. So you start to almost build a
• 1:15:13
  picture. So we do a thing that we call
• 1:15:14
  sort of spider plots. You know, you have the the
• 1:15:16
  flavour wheel. So that's almost like
• 1:15:19
  graphically how that whiskey looks.
• 1:15:21
  So like when red label is quite spiky.
• 1:15:23
  So you've got like smoke, you've got the freshness, you've got
• 1:15:25
  the spice. And if you go to go liberal
• 1:15:28
  reserve, it's almost at the inverse.
• 1:15:29
  So you've got a much more sort of maturation in there.
• 1:15:31
  You've got like multi flavour, it's got richness, you've got
• 1:15:33
  sort of sweet caramel. So you've still got some of
• 1:15:35
  those other parts in, but you're just thinking about what do you
• 1:15:38
  want that final point? What's the texture?
• 1:15:40
  So that's what you're thinking about.
• 1:15:42
  And then you translate that back to to that grid, I think we're
• 1:15:45
  going to get a marketing department because.
• 1:15:48
  Because otherwise it's like why I said is we'll end up just
• 1:15:50
  honing and honing and owning until we go.
• 1:15:52
  That's what we like. That's what we like.
• 1:15:53
  Or we have to get. We have to go to the Whiskey
• 1:15:54
  Story's Facebook group and say, what blend would you like to get
• 1:15:58
  the Whiskey Story? Actually.
• 1:16:00
  A question about blending. When it comes to grain whiskey,
• 1:16:03
  we talk. We talk a lot with the malt
• 1:16:04
  whiskey about how it's the silvery character.
• 1:16:06
  Now we know grain whiskey, it's almost a bit of a broad
• 1:16:09
  category, and it could be all sorts of different marshmallows
• 1:16:13
  that are going into that. So we will have different ones.
• 1:16:15
  Yeah. And so how does that work?
• 1:16:16
  Yes, when it comes to blending. Is when you're dialling down
• 1:16:19
  into the grain. So how are you then dividing?
• 1:16:22
  That's one that we did recently. We just released Johnny Walker.
• 1:16:24
  Black Cask over in the US, So again, you were talking about
• 1:16:27
  the sort of U.S. markets trying to sort of play with that.
• 1:16:30
  So we've just used whiskey sipping matured next bourbon
• 1:16:32
  cast. So you're really getting that
• 1:16:33
  flavour style coming through. But the green whiskey is so
• 1:16:36
  important because of that mash bill.
• 1:16:37
  Sure. So we've really looked at
• 1:16:39
  picking out sort of having the core of that being Cambridge
• 1:16:41
  because you have got the wheat in there, you've got different
• 1:16:43
  things coming through. So again, it depends on what
• 1:16:46
  you're sort of looking at, where it might be.
• 1:16:48
  There might be other whiskey, other ones that we're looking at
• 1:16:51
  where we actually want some more that effervescence, that
• 1:16:53
  fruitiness. So we might use some more the
• 1:16:55
  Girvin that we've got in the inventory as well.
• 1:16:57
  So it's depending what you want. So it's not just about the whole
• 1:16:59
  body of the whiskey. It's like, what do you want the
• 1:17:01
  top notes to be? What do you want there?
• 1:17:03
  So if you want something that was richer, more complex, you
• 1:17:06
  might be thinking about parked in Dass or North British.
• 1:17:08
  Yeah, but you might want a mix of different maturation styles
• 1:17:11
  in there because you're looking to for different parts of that
• 1:17:13
  coming through as well. So it all depends on what is so
• 1:17:16
  much to think of it isn't it is I mean and and future proofing.
• 1:17:19
  Like you're you're. Something like I say, you can't
• 1:17:21
  just suddenly go, I'm just going to pick all those 12 or 18,
• 1:17:24
  whatever. And they're now before we get
• 1:17:26
  out because we are going to we're we're we're fast
• 1:17:28
  approaching the point where we ask for your what, 3 drums?
• 1:17:30
  But before we do that, I'm going to quick fire your favorite
• 1:17:34
  Johnnie Walker for Angus Ross and myself favorite Johnnie
• 1:17:37
  Walker, at least Angus Ross. Angus, will you first?
• 1:17:39
  I, well, I'm I'm going to go for the obvious 1 and it is it is
• 1:17:42
  the Johnnie Walker black. It has that.
• 1:17:44
  It does have that sentimentality for me.
• 1:17:47
  So I'm going to have to go for that.
• 1:17:50
  It's a special whiskey. I've had it neat.
• 1:17:54
  I've had it. In.
• 1:17:57
  You know, at home I've made old fashioned side of it.
• 1:18:00
  Special whiskey, the granny whiskey Negroni.
• 1:18:02
  I have not tried that. But.
• 1:18:04
  Yeah, I've just because it's got that slightly heated and
• 1:18:08
  actually if I'm allowed an honourable mention, double black
• 1:18:11
  is great as well. Double black is actually.
• 1:18:14
  Really good in whiskey Negroni because the smoke almost goes to
• 1:18:17
  a bit of milk chocolate, but black label with blood orange
• 1:18:22
  soda in a highball face like summer, I'll let you.
• 1:18:27
  Leave you? Alas, but you have a good one,
• 1:18:29
  right? Very recently, actually within
• 1:18:32
  the last two months, we had been on a good, I guess, which
• 1:18:35
  involved a train trip up north. We took a few sample bottles
• 1:18:40
  with us and we had a few drams on the way up and we got to
• 1:18:42
  where we were needing to go and I kind of went right.
• 1:18:44
  OK, I looked at the back bar and it was and we actually on that
• 1:18:48
  train trip, we did see the Glen or distillery from the train.
• 1:18:51
  So there was been the Dingwall. So they're like 4 of my whiskers
• 1:18:55
  on the back bar where we were. I thought we'd actually have a
• 1:18:57
  bit more, but one of them was what you don't often see in the
• 1:19:00
  back bar was Johnny Walker Green label, and I said I will Johnny
• 1:19:04
  Walker Green label. I don't know very much about
• 1:19:06
  Johnny Walker didn't know much about it, tried it and I went
• 1:19:08
  wow and proceeded to have two as the other one.
• 1:19:11
  I just wanted more link code Khalila.
• 1:19:13
  Yep, and it's. Not just so far.
• 1:19:15
  They're the key for OH. I was assuming it was because
• 1:19:17
  you because you name them. No, but what we do, so it's the
• 1:19:20
  same one we talk about Black Label.
• 1:19:21
  We'll talk about clinking she, Kardu, Kleinleish and Khalila.
• 1:19:24
  I always miss one out. So they're the whiskeys that are
• 1:19:27
  always in there. But then we'll use combinations
• 1:19:30
  of the oath of whiskeys that we have in there as well.
• 1:19:32
  Because you use those because they are so important.
• 1:19:34
  And was it a 15 year old Green label?
• 1:19:36
  Yeah, yeah. So.
• 1:19:37
  There may be a lot of different distilleries.
• 1:19:39
  In Green Label, I'll say that it's a green label's a winded
• 1:19:42
  malt. Then yes, it's a blended.
• 1:19:43
  Malt, and it is beautiful. So blended malt can.
• 1:19:45
  Be more, even more challenging to work with because you don't
• 1:19:48
  have that Cambridge in there that gives some harmony in that.
• 1:19:51
  So you've got the all almost these big, these big characters
• 1:19:54
  that are like blocking heads. You have to add to work harder
• 1:19:57
  to try because you can't. Yeah, so you've got to find the
• 1:19:59
  right point when they actually resonate with each other.
• 1:20:01
  So, you know, if you think about sound waves, you've got to think
• 1:20:03
  when they're actually going to sort of resonate and make a
• 1:20:05
  bigger impression, then sort of cancel each other out.
• 1:20:07
  So it's trying to make sure that's fair.
• 1:20:09
  And some people think it's really smoky, but it's actually,
• 1:20:12
  it is. It's really balanced.
• 1:20:13
  I love it. Sometimes it gets really smoky.
• 1:20:16
  And sometimes I get it's. Like I'm getting the other
• 1:20:18
  flake, like cracking, like you can taste like yeah, like that.
• 1:20:21
  It's just beautiful. Honestly, it was.
• 1:20:22
  It was the perfect drum at that. Moment and genuinely love it and
• 1:20:26
  so if you've not had it before and you are.
• 1:20:28
  A slob of it blends. Try try.
• 1:20:33
  Dream Label. Because, you know, it's good
• 1:20:35
  value as well for a blinded Moat.
• 1:20:37
  Yeah, 15 game. And all the rest of it.
• 1:20:39
  Mine is a slightly. Less obvious answer than Black
• 1:20:42
  Label. Mine is Johnnie Walker, Princess
• 1:20:44
  St. Winter edition hand film #2
• 1:20:47
  yeah, so chock full of like. Kinchy yeah, but.
• 1:20:52
  It does taste like winter. It's almost.
• 1:20:54
  Like coolness, a balloon this about.
• 1:20:55
  He's not seen this before. You can go to Johnnie Walker.
• 1:20:58
  You can fill your own bottle and they do these seasonal releases.
• 1:21:03
  I was given a bottle of this one to.
• 1:21:04
  Release. And they went and had to buy one
• 1:21:08
  because it was just for me as I'm primarily drinking whiskeys
• 1:21:13
  and bourbon casks. It was a wee bit extra proof and
• 1:21:18
  I knew it was chock full of Glenn Kenji.
• 1:21:20
  So I had the emotional time for me as well.
• 1:21:22
  You haven't built this salary. Thank you and before you.
• 1:21:24
  Thought Jolly McLean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:27
  Many good. Probably I'm not.
• 1:21:28
  That old. And I just this winter edition,
• 1:21:32
  I've got this bottle got half woken them.
• 1:21:34
  I'm kind of afraid to drink it. But it's a unique Johnny Walker.
• 1:21:38
  If you're local to Edinburgh and you want something unique, go to
• 1:21:41
  Johnny Walker Princess St. and get yourself one of these
• 1:21:43
  seasons. Because once it's gone, it's
• 1:21:45
  gone. Well, I would say also by the
• 1:21:46
  way, if and this. Isn't a paid promotion, I have
• 1:21:49
  to stress that, but if you are local to Edinburgh or in the go
• 1:21:52
  to the Johnny Walker experience, ohh, tourists will go to the
• 1:21:55
  Johnny Walker experience. We did it, the three of us all
• 1:21:57
  yes, Disney. Yeah, we did it.
• 1:21:59
  And I know I'm. Biased.
• 1:22:01
  I've been so many times. And every time I go, I
• 1:22:03
  absolutely love it. I get a we tear my eye on that
• 1:22:05
  bit that you know about. Oh yeah, believe it's amazing.
• 1:22:07
  Like 3 or 4 times I've done that too.
• 1:22:09
  Yeah. So when?
• 1:22:10
  When it first opened, like the first few months.
• 1:22:12
  The guides realized it was a group of ladies that kept on
• 1:22:15
  going. Every couple of weeks they just
• 1:22:17
  sort of appear and they, so they worked a wee bit and they kept
• 1:22:20
  on going. They're like, why are you going
• 1:22:22
  out? Like, oh and they're like, well
• 1:22:23
  we absolutely love it. Yeah, but also where else in
• 1:22:26
  Edinburgh you go to get 3 cocktails for £25?
• 1:22:28
  Wasn't that nice? I mean that is a bit I've I've
• 1:22:31
  spoken to a lot of. Personalized team I've spoken to
• 1:22:34
  a lot of people about. It because things like.
• 1:22:35
  You know, there are people that you say, oh, I can't go there
• 1:22:38
  because they don't like whiskey and you go, it's fine.
• 1:22:40
  So I've taken, I've taken my mum.
• 1:22:42
  She does not drink so. She's loved the different
• 1:22:44
  serves. So I've had my nieces and that
• 1:22:45
  as well and they live all the different serves.
• 1:22:47
  We took Dave's mum with us and she would have the odd ram but
• 1:22:51
  did not drink whiskey. A month later we took her to
• 1:22:54
  Dumfries and she was doing sort of Castro whiskey, a bladnock.
• 1:22:57
  So that was like a sort of gateway to sort of a world of
• 1:22:59
  flavour. Like you said, Russ, you get the
• 1:23:01
  personalized, you get the bracelet and.
• 1:23:03
  Then you get all that. But the entertainment factor, I
• 1:23:06
  think, look, we don't want to talk too much about what, but
• 1:23:09
  there is a point in that where an actor or actress, it's
• 1:23:13
  fantastic, it's so passionate. I do want to cover 1.
• 1:23:15
  Final Don't know how they get the.
• 1:23:17
  Rabs going in the direction I. Tried to do that nearly
• 1:23:19
  dislocate my shoulder. I want to very quickly, you
• 1:23:22
  know, women in whiskey is. That is a big part of you were
• 1:23:25
  interested in the diversity of the team earlier on and you
• 1:23:28
  know, to be in your position in whiskey as as a female, it must
• 1:23:32
  be usually proud for yourself. But also why should it be in the
• 1:23:37
  sense that you know you're doing a job that anyone should be able
• 1:23:40
  to do. So it was really interesting,
• 1:23:41
  like when, when I. Got offered the role.
• 1:23:43
  I actually got offered the role in the summer, but it didn't get
• 1:23:45
  announced for a few months because that's when the opening
• 1:23:49
  of Johnny Walker experience had been postponed.
• 1:23:51
  So they wanted to announce that like have that open first.
• 1:23:53
  And then. So that's partly where my my
• 1:23:55
  fear of the going to realise that they pick the wrong person
• 1:23:57
  comes from because it nothing was talked about for a while.
• 1:23:59
  So I was like, have they changed mind?
• 1:24:01
  Oh God, I right. OK, but when we.
• 1:24:03
  Started looking at doing the press releases and.
• 1:24:05
  All that. So that was all new to me.
• 1:24:06
  I was like, we've got to do what I really wanted the headline to
• 1:24:11
  be. I'm the next Johnny Walker
• 1:24:12
  Master blend and not I'm the first female.
• 1:24:14
  But that did become a thing further down and I got it.
• 1:24:18
  But it was only I've been in a row for a few months and we
• 1:24:21
  actually had the teams over from it's the CCA team.
• 1:24:25
  So the Caribbean and Central America team were over sort of a
• 1:24:30
  mass. They were doing this big award
• 1:24:31
  ceremony and I got asked to go along and I got to meet so many
• 1:24:35
  people. There was a couple of people
• 1:24:36
  that cried when they met me. And I was like, what have I
• 1:24:38
  done? And this gentleman could just,
• 1:24:40
  he wanted to talk to me, wants to give me hugs.
• 1:24:41
  He was like, I was so proud when you got it got announced that
• 1:24:45
  you were going to be the Johnny Walker master blender.
• 1:24:47
  And I got to go home and tell my daughters that our boss, the
• 1:24:50
  person that's charged with a whiskey is a woman.
• 1:24:51
  And I was like, oh, oh, that's why this.
• 1:24:54
  Yeah. But, you know, for myself, it
• 1:24:56
  was important to be understood that I was getting the role
• 1:24:58
  because I was good at what I do. Of course, not because I've got
• 1:25:01
  ovaries. So it's like I'm good at what I
• 1:25:05
  do. But it's interesting stuff sort
• 1:25:07
  of growing into the role. I understand why that why it's
• 1:25:10
  important. I do remember years ago when I
• 1:25:13
  was a chemistry student going to the royal site of chemistry and
• 1:25:15
  go to Burlington House and you walk in, you've just got all
• 1:25:18
  these portraits of, you know, the great and the good chemists
• 1:25:21
  and they're all very white, older gentleman, lovely beers.
• 1:25:24
  I mean, beautiful facial hair. But you are they're going.
• 1:25:27
  So we're not involved in this. So I think being able to be part
• 1:25:31
  of the team and to sort of help people to go, if you can see it,
• 1:25:35
  you can be it. But what I'm really passionate
• 1:25:37
  about is I want to get to the point where we don't talk about
• 1:25:40
  women. We talk about who's making the
• 1:25:42
  whiskey because there's always been women involved it.
• 1:25:44
  So we talk about Jim. Jim did was it 4142 years as
• 1:25:48
  Johnny Walker? Splendid.
• 1:25:50
  Well as in the role, so he was masculine for about tight years,
• 1:25:53
  but you have Marian Robinson work for about 4344.
• 1:25:56
  So she actually had a few more years in it and there was always
• 1:25:59
  sort of pivotal to. Whiskey as well, so.
• 1:26:01
  There's always be amazing women, the whiskey like you go back to
• 1:26:04
  the comings like Elizabeth and Helen Cummings, They've always
• 1:26:08
  been part of the world. We've just not always been good
• 1:26:10
  at talking about it. So industry needs to get better
• 1:26:14
  at talking. About it.
• 1:26:15
  But media also needs to get better that making it seem
• 1:26:18
  normal yeah as well and not making it like look we've got
• 1:26:22
  the token woman come out and blush the back yeah.
• 1:26:25
  So we need to all. I think it's something that is
• 1:26:27
  important We all need to work together because you hear so
• 1:26:29
  many stories like your challenges that female barn
• 1:26:32
  ambassadors, female batons and that half.
• 1:26:33
  So I think we all need to work together to normalise the
• 1:26:36
  whiskey's fair for one, that being in the bars, fair for one
• 1:26:39
  that we cannot. We can all be experts.
• 1:26:42
  We might look different, we might have different opinions,
• 1:26:44
  but one opinion is not better than another 100%.
• 1:26:46
  So how do we get people to understand that and realise
• 1:26:49
  we're all passionate about this thing that just tastes really
• 1:26:51
  good? Love that tastic.
• 1:26:54
  No, I really. Really appreciate that, am I
• 1:26:55
  right? Is that time of the evening
• 1:26:57
  where we ask our guests for their walks?
• 1:26:59
  Three drums your your theme song is playing.
• 1:27:04
  So any. Whiskey.
• 1:27:06
  Or any? Any whiskey that has a meaning.
• 1:27:07
  Association of story to you. So I'm going to, I am going to
• 1:27:10
  say blue level because of. That almost that sort of all the
• 1:27:13
  journey walks are so special to me.
• 1:27:15
  But that one I'm going to say because it's it was created by
• 1:27:18
  two people that I worked with. So Jim and Maureen sort of
• 1:27:21
  created that and it became this huge privilege to thing and
• 1:27:24
  there's something worth more luxury whiskey.
• 1:27:26
  It's like that is a step into it.
• 1:27:27
  It's just so important, but also it ties back like you talked
• 1:27:30
  about with the archives, ties back to what's come before.
• 1:27:33
  And it's just something that's amazing.
• 1:27:35
  And I think if we tried to create that now, there will be
• 1:27:38
  such push. Oh yeah, it doesn't have any
• 1:27:40
  statement. How can we do this?
• 1:27:42
  I'm going to be cheeky and saying the candle as well.
• 1:27:46
  Yeah, the candle 18. Partly because if I don't
• 1:27:50
  mention, I said if I don't mention the candle, Norman and
• 1:27:53
  all the rest of the guys will come and hunt me down.
• 1:27:57
  I. Absolutely loved my time up
• 1:27:59
  there working. There for the year, the guys
• 1:28:01
  were just so fantastic I they were the experts they knew
• 1:28:05
  exactly what they were doing and they'd all had connections with
• 1:28:08
  that distillery like one of the guys who's retired now he was
• 1:28:11
  born on that site he lived on that site all of his work and
• 1:28:14
  life so he was involved with copper dog and different like
• 1:28:17
  the guys just had this normal Mackey his the uncle used to be
• 1:28:21
  the Cooper on site and so he's just had just this connection
• 1:28:24
  and this really means a lot to you and I guess because of.
• 1:28:27
  That do you almost feel like a brand?
• 1:28:29
  Ambassador yeah, in your role now for not big nothing.
• 1:28:31
  Use it because you feel I'm you'll take the mic.
• 1:28:34
  Like in the team? IPhone.
• 1:28:35
  'S favorite. So people are like, ah, and I
• 1:28:36
  can't do it. And you're like, don't you dare
• 1:28:41
  and. Again, I just loved it.
• 1:28:42
  It's just one of those. Under almost like under under
• 1:28:45
  spoken about whiskey. So it's just like a sort of you
• 1:28:48
  don't see, you don't see very often.
• 1:28:50
  Yeah, yeah. But it always takes me back when
• 1:28:52
  I was up. There, my friend Deborah, she
• 1:28:55
  had a daughter Andrea, so we've got a bottle of it in the
• 1:28:57
  candle, 12 year old, so sort of signed it and dated it.
• 1:29:00
  So that's for her talk when she gets to be a scene as well.
• 1:29:02
  So I'm very happy about that. The other one, I'm actually
• 1:29:06
  going to say I'm going to chance it and see if I can get away
• 1:29:09
  with another Diagio one and say Bullet Rye because I absolutely
• 1:29:14
  love rye whiskey and I do love Scottish rye, but that was
• 1:29:18
  almost like my sort of introduction to the world of rye
• 1:29:20
  whiskey. And I genuinely love rye
• 1:29:24
  whiskey. I love the mouth feel, I love
• 1:29:26
  the spiciness. I love that it's almost got like
• 1:29:29
  that spiciness, hence the cinnamon, without being a silly
• 1:29:31
  fireball whiskey. It's just got different things
• 1:29:34
  in there as well. And I think Bullet Rye, it's
• 1:29:36
  just got that beautiful balance where it's got punchy flavours,
• 1:29:40
  but it's a really sort of almost easy to drink whiskey.
• 1:29:43
  And that as well, because sometimes I just wanted to drink
• 1:29:45
  my whiskey. I don't want to have to fight
• 1:29:47
  with it anymore. I just want to enjoy my whiskey
• 1:29:49
  as well. And I've been very lucky that
• 1:29:51
  I've got to go to Stitzel and meet some of the folks that work
• 1:29:53
  over there as well. Superb, superb.
• 1:29:56
  Fanta. Emma.
• 1:29:57
  Thanks. So much thank you so much for.
• 1:29:59
  Coming along and. Thanks to everybody.
• 1:30:01
  There you for making it happen as well, because I mean, let's
• 1:30:03
  let's start out with a conversation outside a pub after
• 1:30:06
  the after whiskey fringe. So it's been it's been great to
• 1:30:11
  get you in here, get you into the pub and have a chat and go
• 1:30:14
  through the drams with you and just hear your story.
• 1:30:16
  Thank you so much. No, Mason, don't forget if
• 1:30:18
  you're listening to us and enjoying it.
• 1:30:19
  You can. Subscribe and like get on the
• 1:30:21
  Facebook group. There's some great conversations
• 1:30:23
  going on there. Big thank you to Emma Walker for
• 1:30:25
  coming along. All the very best slunge of our
• 1:30:27
  cheers. Cheers.