Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Our FIRST Master Blender Iain Forteath and Brand Ambassador Cameron McPherson - Glencadam & Tom (Jones) in (a) Towel

Transcript

Our FIRST Master Blender Iain Forteath and Brand Ambassador Cameron McPherson - Glencadam & Tom (Jones) in (a) Towel · Whisky Stories Podcast

0:00
Definitely on shot there, right, that's I'm going to cheers guys,
0:03
All the very best. All right, cheers, cheers.
0:05
Nice to see you. Thank you for coming in.
0:07
Cheers to a happy Monday. Absolutely.
0:09
What's best to start the week? Absolutely right, Angus, You
0:14
know what to do. Clap us in.
0:19
Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
0:23
The reason I kind of ended up in the blending row is the week
0:25
every year in the company we do a sensory analysis.
0:27
So they test everyone's palates so you can pick your quality
0:30
control panel. Yeah and yeah.
0:32
So I managed to achieve the highest score in the company,
0:34
which I've maintained 98%, which is alright.
0:36
But from then they ended up picking me to then go.
0:38
I kind of got fast tracked into blending.
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So that was in 2017. So I went into the blending team
0:43
kind of worked up from being ABA and A and a blender on the side.
0:47
And then that transition to 2021.
0:48
I got a phone call to yeah in January to for me tell me I was
0:51
going to be the master widow. So.
0:53
Welcome along the Whiskey Stories podcast for myself,
0:55
Graham Cogar. We're back in the athletic arms,
0:57
back in Diggers, back where it all began.
0:59
We're in the snug, and yes, we are.
1:00
And it's extra snuggy because Ross isn't here today.
1:03
Absolutely. There's a bit more room.
1:05
Here he is. He's out with the current wife,
1:06
his current wife at the moment. They're celebrating his
1:09
birthday. Yeah, it was his birthday on
1:11
Sunday as we're recording this, and it's a Monday.
1:13
We're here, but we are joined by two fantastic guests this
1:17
evening. We have Cameron MacPherson, who
1:20
is brand ambassador, and we have Ian 40th, who is I think, the
1:26
first master blender that we have had on the podcast.
1:29
I'm I'm certainly as we've had other blenders, but we've not
1:32
had a master blend and these guys both work for Angus Dundee
1:36
Distillers. Guys, welcome along.
1:37
How are you? Thanks for having.
1:39
Us, thank you for coming along. Now we have just witnessed a a
1:44
group of people who have just been trained by yourselves.
1:49
Leave the room. We.
1:50
We we're slightly later than usual recording this podcast
1:54
episode because you guys have been doing a training session at
1:57
the athletic arms that diggers for our staff.
2:00
And I'll tell you what, Yeah, I I want you're a training.
2:03
Center. To see how some of these people
2:05
like big shout out to Moira, right?
2:07
Moira, it's Monday and as you're listening to this, you'll
2:09
probably still have a hangover from from tonight.
2:12
But it it looked and it sounded fantastic.
2:15
It was good fun. Yeah, I think so.
2:17
I mean, yeah, they have an amazing selection of our our
2:19
whiskeys here and great supporters of our brands.
2:21
So for us, yeah, I was kind of giving back a little bit,
2:23
showing them some whiskeys that maybe haven't tried, but also
2:26
explaining what's behind it. But we did bring a few.
2:28
Yeah, I mean, this, this is not what mandatory staff training
2:32
looks like in my usual night of five.
2:34
Yeah, exactly. Actually used to be a forklift
2:36
training instructor. I think if I'd had, what's that,
2:39
123412 drums, about 12 drums to get us going, man, the training
2:44
sessions would be a lot more interesting, let me tell you.
2:46
It's, I suppose it's the, the pro and con of having two
2:48
distilleries is we never know which ones to leave out.
2:50
So, so we asked yeah Cameron to bring some stock along today
2:53
and, and he did. And I brought everything.
2:55
You brought? Yeah, certainly did.
2:56
Now, Cameron, I believe you. You know you're absolutely
3:00
gutted that Ross isn't here tonight because heartbroken you
3:03
2 both went to school together. Yeah, yeah, Ross.
3:06
Ross was in my year at school. And that was Fraser, Sooner
3:09
said. Fraser sooner said as well,
3:11
then. Fraser was in the year below me
3:13
at school. Is he right?
3:13
OK, yeah. Now tell us.
3:15
Right. Ross always goes on about how he
3:17
was a great footballer and he could have done.
3:19
And by looking at Ross, you know, I mean he doesn't, he
3:24
still doesn't have the height to be a footballer.
3:26
But I mean, he's, he's certainly not got the shape anymore.
3:29
He tells us he spins a yarn every time he's talking about
3:32
it. He says he was like a pretty
3:34
decent footballer back at school was he was.
3:36
He, I mean, I think football so I couldn't tell you, but most of
3:40
my experience with Ross is on the PlayStation and you should,
3:43
you should believe the amount of money he's spent on FIFA points
3:46
really so. Hence.
3:48
Being good at at football is probably just all in the
3:50
PlayStation. It's not in his head as well.
3:52
A. Messy of them I was.
3:53
Going to say that he normally uses like belly or something.
3:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, he's not here tonight.
3:59
So you're, you're going to be able to actually finish the
4:01
questions that we ask you. He's a big fan of Glen Caramel,
4:05
yeah. Well, that is it.
4:06
And I should say, yeah, you know, like we've we've and Angus
4:09
Dundee Distillers, for those who are listening who maybe aren't
4:11
familiar with Angus Dundee Distillers, you know the two,
4:15
you know, the three brands that you actually have, but the two
4:17
ones that we're looking at and you've also brought some of the
4:20
third is Glenn Caddam and Tom and Towell.
4:22
Indeed. Yeah, well done.
4:23
Pronounced correctly as well. Well, it's, listen, we've, we
4:27
had a bit of a scenario. We had a whole throughout the
4:31
summer last year. Mark Thompson, OH.
4:34
If I know because he filmed me, that's right.
4:36
He's my precious in Singapore. Yeah, there you.
4:39
Go. So I went over to say hi to his
4:41
booth. So we're at the same festival in
4:43
Singapore and yeah, he came over and he's like, Ian, remind me,
4:45
is it Tom and Teller? Tom and Tell.
4:47
And he's like, oh, it's Tom and Teller.
4:48
He's like, right, stay there. But Mark's not an ugly looking
4:52
guy. And I, I didn't look my best.
4:54
I'd bought some cheap Singaprean hair products.
4:57
Nothing wrong with Singapore or their hair products, but the one
4:59
I bought was terrible and I was a little bit less fresh.
5:03
Yeah, sure enough. I didn't know that was going to
5:04
broadcast everything. Yeah.
5:05
Yeah. Well, he's got a few followers.
5:06
Yeah. That was my first introduction
5:07
on Marks again, so thanks, Mark. There you go.
5:09
I would like to add as well, it is literally on the back of the
5:12
tune. It tells you how to pronounce
5:14
it. So all Ross had.
5:14
To do was. Really.
5:16
They're actually. Getting it from but I mean the
5:18
master blender is bound to know exactly how it should be
5:20
pronounced. I mean, to be fair.
5:22
So I was telling the guys here today, I mean, it reads like
5:25
tools, so I understand. But now I remember getting
5:27
corrected. I was driving through Belgarry
5:29
on the way to the distillery, and our cars have Whiskey Regis,
5:33
but I won't tell you which one because people will know who got
5:34
them off. But it's probably Cameron.
5:39
But But yeah, though. So I pulled up inside a bakery
5:42
there. I was getting some lunch and
5:43
someone's clocked the red. She's like, oh, do you work in
5:45
whiskey, son? I do, yes.
5:46
What distillery do you work for? I was like Tom and Tower.
5:49
She's like, oh, son, it's not Tom and Towel, it's Tom and
5:52
Tool. Other Insta accents are
5:57
available, yeah, but I was like, it's not though.
6:04
Because I think your brother-in-law I guess, yeah,
6:09
yeah, he kind of is a few generations down the line.
6:12
But yeah, he is kind of grandparents from Tom and Towel
6:16
and and he was a bit, he didn't really know which was the
6:19
correct way either, because it was one of these ones.
6:21
I think some people say Tom and Tool, some people say Tom and
6:24
tall. I think it depends.
6:25
Yeah, yeah, maybe. Which side of the village
6:27
you're? Probably easier to say.
6:28
I guess it kind of rolls off the tongue.
6:29
Gonna be easier so we don't hold it against people.
6:31
Too bad. I think, I think having looked,
6:33
you know, you're absolutely right.
6:34
It's on the back of the ball. I think that's it now settled,
6:36
Tom and Tall. There we go.
6:38
There we go. We know.
6:39
We know exactly. I always say picture Tom Jones
6:41
coming out the shower. That's the way I remember images
6:46
coming out. Also, pictures going to be for
6:49
the for the front of the. Podcast, I've got you.
6:52
And you know, the Internet and you know, I was going to say, I
6:56
don't think it's the hardest task you ever been assigned.
6:58
A picture of Tom Jones and a towel.
7:00
I'm sure that there's a nice one.
7:02
It's not unusual. In the 1970s So what start for
7:09
this podcast. I mean so so Cameron, you're
7:13
you're a brand ambassador tonight, not just tonight, just
7:18
tonight you're gonna be but you're a brand ambassador.
7:21
So when it comes to a training course that you're delivering,
7:25
is it you that's doing most of the work and Ian's here just to
7:28
back you up or is it a double act that you do?
7:30
Or are you just here to bring the stock and Ian's doing all
7:34
the talking or what's the sort of dynamic?
7:36
So I mean, to be perfectly honest, when you're doing a
7:38
taste and and you've got the master blender right there with
7:41
you, it's much, but it's literally coming from the
7:44
horse's mouth. But with all the staff here and
7:46
exactly how Ian's made it. So a lot of the time if I'm
7:49
doing a training, most of the time it's going to be myself
7:54
doing the training with that pub just by myself.
7:56
But sometimes we, we get lucky and we can bring Ian along and
8:00
he can, he can give them literally any information that
8:03
they could ever wish for about all of our drums.
8:06
Fantastic. And.
8:07
He can try them all. Well, and.
8:08
I can just see you in the corner.
8:10
I can try them all. Just go yeah, it's absolutely
8:12
small then because it's part of the job from a brand ambassador
8:15
point of view. Now I should say a big thank you
8:17
to Cody Reynolds for for he sort sort sorted this out for us
8:21
tonight to to be able to tie us in.
8:22
It worked very, very well. I just happened to message him
8:25
last night saying look, we're we're looking to do a bit more
8:29
kind of thought we'd maybe get Cody back on, but we we got we
8:31
won the watch. We didn't have to get this in
8:33
him. I.
8:39
Was going to say my second favorite brand ambassador.
8:43
I'm just kidding. Cody.
8:44
I did promise him that he wouldn't get slaughtered tonight
8:46
because he did say he was nervous about him not being here
8:49
to back himself up. But no, Cody was episode number
8:52
four or five. I think it was on on the podcast
8:55
and it was a real insight. And I think he I think he might
8:58
have been the first brand ambassador.
8:59
Maybe he was the first brand ambassador and I think at the
9:02
time of recording he was the UK brand ambassador.
9:08
And I think he just kind of knew, but couldn't say on the
9:11
podcast that he was going to be a global brand ambassador.
9:13
Yeah, which which is huge. But one of the things that when
9:16
we speak to brand ambassadors, you always hear people talking
9:18
about, like travelling around, you've mentioned there that you
9:21
have been out to Singapore and we've seen Cody and so many
9:23
others, Mark Thompson and, and other guys who have been brand
9:26
ambassadors that are flown out, You know, just so many, so many
9:31
out to kind of Canada, the Far East.
9:33
Yeah. And, and there's a glamorous
9:35
element to that. And then there's the whiskey
9:37
shows. There's all that kind of stuff.
9:38
And then there's nice fancy events and stuff.
9:40
But a big part of your job, Cameron is also training by
9:44
going into bars speak bar staff to make sure that they fully
9:48
understand the product that they're putting you're putting
9:50
on their shelf. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I
9:53
would say that is easily one of the biggest parts of my job or
9:56
at least most important parts of my job.
9:58
Because as long as you've got bartenders on site, they're the
10:02
ones who are selling it every day to their to their regulars,
10:05
whereas I'm, I'm rarely speaking to the same person twice.
10:10
So I suppose a massive thing to actually get the team of a bar
10:14
like Diggers on on your sides and they understand your drams.
10:19
I think, I think Ross has mentioned it and I might be
10:21
Shannon Buck. And he's also mentioned it on
10:23
the pod saying actually the best brand ambassadors, any whiskey
10:26
brand can have is bar staff. Yeah, yeah.
10:28
You know, because after a training session, like, I mean,
10:31
I'm just worried that half of them won't remember.
10:35
Please, please, please go circle.
10:37
Please train responsibly when you're.
10:40
Taking notes for at least half of the taste.
10:42
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
10:43
It end up as like nice caricatures at the end of it.
10:45
But that makes such a difference if if the people who worked at
10:48
this like arms and, and we're on this court training course
10:51
today, you know, tomorrow, the week after, whatever, if it
10:54
sticks in their mind and they they can suddenly go.
10:57
No, actually, because let's be honest, you know, when you look
11:00
at a back bar like that and you see there's 800 whiskeys, over
11:03
850 whiskeys and, you know, one of the largest whiskey
11:07
collections in Edinburgh. But ultimately it's very hard to
11:10
get your brand to stick out. Now with the greatest respect in
11:13
the world to Angus Dundee Distillers is they're not the
11:17
biggest. And that's that's not, that's
11:18
not a bad thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely not a bad
11:20
thing. So it's then trying to convince
11:23
somebody that you know what, instead of trying that premium
11:26
brand or not premium brand, but that brand that you always go
11:28
for, try that, try that Glen Cardamom, try that Tom and
11:32
towel. And and that's how do you do
11:35
that? Then how do you get that across
11:37
to to the people that you're training to try and get them to
11:40
to like your brand and to get them to sell it?
11:42
I mean, The thing is we were talking about this earlier on
11:45
tonight. Half the time the liquid does
11:47
all the talking for you because we, we do make very good quality
11:51
whiskeys. So half of the trouble to be
11:54
honest, is actually getting people trying it and tasting it
11:56
and becoming familiar with it. Because like you said, Glencadam
11:59
and tomato, they're not massive brands.
12:01
So usually once people are trying it, they start to get a
12:05
little bit more on board with it.
12:06
And we, we, one of the bartenders tonight told us that
12:10
they had a group of maybe 5 or 6 people who came in after a, a
12:14
rough hearts loss and they just asked for a whiskey.
12:17
They all got given Glencadam 10. They didn't know what they were
12:19
getting. They just got 5 drums.
12:22
And as soon as they all tasted it, they went up to the bar and
12:24
they asked to see the bottle because they absolutely loved
12:27
it. So that is genuinely the biggest
12:29
thing. It's there's no big flamboyance
12:32
coming from myself, maybe from Ian, but there's, there's no
12:36
flamboyance or anything like that.
12:37
It's it's literally letting the whiskey speak for itself and
12:41
helping people understand the whiskey and the distilleries
12:45
himself as well, because they've got incredible history behind
12:47
them as well. One of the things from this
12:50
podcast, Angus is I've I've said it unapologetically as well, is
12:54
this has been AI keep talking about the the journey.
12:57
It's been a trope that we've said it's a sort of cliche of
13:00
the journey that myself and maybe Angus has been up as well
13:02
from doing this. We we were whisking novices when
13:04
we started this podcast. Just two guys that really
13:05
enjoyed the DRAM. Hence the reason we needed to
13:07
know it all, little Ross Barrack.
13:09
Come on and. Start telling us.
13:11
But the thing about it is that even before I'd met Cody
13:15
Reynolds to do that, that that episode, I couldn't have told
13:19
you about Tom and Tyler or Glyde Caddo.
13:20
And, and, and actually, I mean, what Graham's saying as well is
13:25
now that we do a whiskey podcast, people are always
13:27
asking, oh, what should I try and what should I try?
13:30
And it is a bit of a, you know, people expect it almost in a
13:33
way, but it is a bit of a flex as well.
13:35
If you can say a brand that maybe they haven't heard of,
13:38
getting them to try a whiskey that they haven't heard of and
13:40
also have the reaction of, oh, that's really nice.
13:43
How do you know about that? No.
13:44
Yeah, It's a flex. Like no.
13:47
I mean, both brands definitely fly under the radar.
13:49
So I used to sell both going Callum and Tomato before I
13:51
worked at Lancaster D and actually I did the global brand
13:54
ambassador role for a very good few years.
13:56
So I've lived at a suitcase for a while and beginning to be fair
14:00
though, so, so as you, we all know the whiskey industry is
14:02
pretty close knit, really. Like we all get to know each
14:04
other. OK, we compete on shelf space,
14:07
but actually we all have drinks around the world and we all kind
14:09
of get kind of we're all friends when it comes to catching up and
14:12
trying each other's whiskeys. We all love whiskey for the same
14:13
reasons. I've got good friends who work
14:16
for the big brands, but I always liked being the the surprise
14:19
because actually, so if people went to my master classes and
14:22
things, if I have friends who work for, I'd name it other
14:24
brands, but kind of a caling a little bit, etcetera.
14:27
The people that go to those tastings know most of their core
14:29
range because they're really big international brands.
14:32
So yeah, OK, they might have a new release, but actually most
14:35
of the master class, they'll be retrying things they know.
14:37
And I used to love showing people that come along to like
14:40
Caddo. They're like, oh, I've never
14:42
heard of this before, but they're great.
14:43
I don't know why I've not heard of them.
14:45
And yeah, it's kind of slow and steady, I guess with us.
14:47
So it's amazing how much the brands have grown even since I
14:50
joined them in 2015. Not just me, but just just the
14:52
way that they've had transitioned over time.
14:54
And yeah, now we've got Cody and Cameron and Gabby kind of going
14:56
out there and kind of, yeah, spreading that message further.
14:59
So it's, it's funny because Glenn Adam is becoming a bit
15:02
more of a household name now. I mean, the, the selection here
15:04
is crazy, even compared to like, yeah, 5-10 years ago, you would
15:08
never see. I think they've got 11.
15:09
Glenn Adams, No. I mean, there was a time where
15:12
there was a time where after the episode of Cody, it just felt
15:15
like we were sponsored by Glenn Cadham.
15:17
Yeah. Because ultimately I I'd come in
15:19
though. Well, yeah, Yeah.
15:21
But I mean, we are looking for sponsorship, but sponsorship is
15:24
still available. But The thing is like the
15:26
shelves, the the wee bit of the shelf that you guys had.
15:29
And the one thing about diggers is, you know, every now and
15:32
then, maybe cable have cleaned the shelves a little bit and
15:35
you'll see a bottle that's gone from 4 back to the front or
15:39
maybe someone's ordered a whiskey that's maybe someone had
15:42
to look back through. But yeah, it just seemed like
15:44
every time I came in for a recording, there's another Glenn
15:46
Caddam and I'm going, I've got to try that one and I've got to
15:49
try this one. And every single week for a long
15:51
time. And I also had to almost
15:52
consciously say that I need to not drink Glenn Caddam on this
15:55
podcast because but we are drinking Glenn Caddam tonight.
15:58
Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, I guess what
15:59
were we both not drinking the same Glencarnum?
16:02
I don't think No, we're not. I picked a different one from
16:04
you, but to get started. Plus we were waiting on this
16:06
incredible sounding training course to end.
16:09
We were sitting. I had a cheese and ham toasty, a
16:12
famous Diggers toasty and and it was washed down lovely.
16:15
With the new Arden Merkin Madeira cast.
16:17
Yes, release, which I believe is the second Madeira cast release
16:20
that they've kind of thing, but release.
16:22
Yeah. So Arden Merkin, our real, real
16:25
firm favorite of mine. Yeah, I did say the new Glen
16:27
Carter. I've just been taking them.
16:31
Thanks for. Coming but but but no, it was it
16:34
was it was lovely. But you followed up your Madeira
16:37
cast with, well, another Madeira Madeira cast.
16:40
So this was the tell me which I can't find.
16:43
So this is the. 15 Madeira, Yeah.
16:45
Do you want to go some geeky stuff about this one?
16:47
Give me some. So if you look at the colour of
16:49
this, it's the colour of our national drink, yes, which is
16:51
iron brew, Yeah, rather than it's very our first sparkling
16:55
natural drink, national drink. But yeah, no.
16:58
So this is actually, this is single varietal Madeira, which
17:00
is kind of nerdy. We're going to start geeky.
17:03
So most Madeira is made from white grapes.
17:05
This is from one of the only two red grapes in Madeira that are
17:08
used. When we launched this, I
17:10
remember discussing whether we can call it this particular
17:12
grape style. And they said that the world's
17:13
not ready for single varietal Madeira cast finishes.
17:16
But I'll tell you guys, nobody even knows what Madeira is, but
17:20
let alone, yes, this has got Tinta Negra moly.
17:23
It's a it's a red grape. It was only allowed in Madeira
17:25
100 years ago, which is quite short for Madeira aging.
17:28
But yeah, so that's why you get this kind of rusty kind of
17:30
coppery orange, which is quite cool.
17:32
So there you go. So it's slightly different,
17:34
although they're both Madeira cast.
17:35
Yeah, no, but it's something. Well and there there is
17:37
obviously you know, you we've we've talked a lot over the last
17:40
few weeks about the importance of distillery character as well
17:43
as just finishing whiskey or WW aging in casks and what the
17:47
casks do. But I know there definitely is.
17:49
You could there's something a little bit different there.
17:51
Yeah. What should I get?
17:52
What's the difference from from your point of view?
17:54
What are you looking for in the flavouring of that particular
17:58
style there? Yes.
17:58
So for that one, so I mean the Madeira that we tend to use the
18:01
whiskey industry is boil, which is quite a sweet Madeira.
18:03
So that's the standard kind of go to with Tintinegra.
18:06
You're expecting a little bit more red fruit, which may be a
18:08
bit of an obvious one, but I get like gingerbread and almost like
18:10
cherry Bakewell, is what I was saying to the guys earlier.
18:12
It's got this, this nice kind of cherry jam, but of spices there,
18:16
but kind of cool. But like I say, it's, yeah, it's
18:18
something a bit nerdy. But remember, we went too deep
18:19
too early. No, no.
18:20
No, I'm just sort of thinking, you know, I don't know how
18:22
familiar you are with the podcast, but we do have a
18:24
feature called Wanky Tasting. But we love it so.
18:27
Yeah. Feel free to go wild with it.
18:31
Don't, don't say anything that's on the back of one of your
18:33
bottles as a tasting though, because I know it's suddenly
18:35
slow, right? So let's talk about yourself
18:37
then. Ian, you, you are a master
18:41
blender. Now I'm going to say it.
18:43
You, you, you've you've mentioned earlier on, but I did.
18:45
I didn't expect you to be as young as you were when we walked
18:48
in. How old are you?
18:50
65 Drink whiskey for breakfast. Please, please look at the
18:55
YouTube channel for for confirmation of just how good
18:57
this guy looks. I'm 35.
19:00
The same age as myself there. And I think it's I'm 35 as well,
19:03
yeah. So.
19:04
So, 35 years old, A master blender?
19:07
Yeah. Or not just one distillery
19:09
either, no? I look after a few casks, Yeah,
19:11
so. That's that's that's.
19:12
Impressive. And, and I believe you were sort
19:13
of saying earlier on that at one point, I think when you began
19:16
your journey as a master blender, you were the youngest.
19:18
I think when I was, yeah, when I was promoted to, I think it was
19:20
the youngest, it was a, it was a shortlist thing.
19:22
So, so Kelsey Mckechnick, I remember named, who is now
19:26
taking over for David Stewart. I think she's a little bit
19:28
younger than me. And then I think Julian
19:29
Fernandez is the youngest, as far as I'm aware, in the in the
19:32
Scotch whisky world. How old were you when you began?
19:34
So it's 2021 the guy, if you remember.
19:36
So yeah, 32, yeah, 3131, yeah, 31.
19:41
But I was, yeah. So I was a blender in Angstandy
19:43
for a good while. So I joined them as global brand
19:45
master. So I used to sell their products
19:47
and then and then their sales guy kind of said we're looking
19:49
for this interesting role. So transitioned onto the dark
19:52
side. I used to be a wine guy.
19:53
I left my red corduroys at home. But yeah, but I kind of always,
19:57
always trained in tasting, really.
19:58
And on the wine side, I was always in that involvement as a
20:01
Brandon master. The reason I kind of ended up in
20:04
the blending row is the week every year in the company we do
20:07
a sensory analysis. So they test everyone's palates
20:10
so you can pick your quality control panel.
20:11
Yeah. And yeah.
20:12
So I managed to achieve the highest score in the company
20:14
which I've maintained. 98% which is all right, that's not a
20:18
massive brag. Sorry, I can't put my head
20:19
through doorways anymore. But yes.
20:22
So from then they ended up picking me to then go I kind of
20:24
got fast tracked into blending. So that was in 2017.
20:27
So I I went into the blending team kind of worked up from
20:31
being ABA and A and a blender on the side.
20:34
And then that transition to 2021.
20:35
I got a phone call to yeah in January to for me tell me I was
20:38
going to be so. See the train then when when you
20:41
find you get that score and you find out.
20:43
Did now you've mentioned about working in wine?
20:46
Did you know that your palate was sensitive to being able to
20:50
taste? Yeah.
20:51
From, from the retail side. So, yeah, so I worked in wine
20:54
and spirits retail for five years and I got into it because
20:57
I thought it was a cool job. I actually, I, I did a degree in
20:59
geography. Same.
21:00
Same as Cody, actually. Yeah.
21:01
I had the best of intentions to go into avalanche studies.
21:04
Hey, wow, that's very specific. I was that I was that guy out of
21:09
uni. Yeah, man, I'm gonna go and
21:10
study some snow. But yeah, but the the blessing
21:14
of that, I guess is that that those jobs don't come up till
21:16
the winter. So I graduated.
21:18
And had seasonal pretty much just snowballed from there?
21:20
Yeah, really. Stop it.
21:27
I love it. I.
21:27
Was trying to think of a good route to come back there about.
21:29
Yeah, but yeah, so, so, yeah, so I was looking for jobs that just
21:35
to keep me going. I've always kind of been a
21:36
worker. I've worked since I was 14.
21:38
I used to work in an Italian restaurant, which again, I guess
21:40
comes a little bit yeah into the flavour thing.
21:43
But yeah, so I had taught English and France for a little
21:45
while. Where are.
21:46
You from Where are you from originally?
21:48
There are you. So there is a Carnoustie.
21:50
So. Yeah.
21:50
So same place as Sandy Hislop, actually, Yeah.
21:53
So it's a town of golfers and blenders.
21:55
Yeah. Apparently not much else.
21:58
Sorry Carnoustie, but yeah, so so a cash transitions were there
22:02
so when I joined Woodwinners to work for again the US have a
22:06
Woodwinners here in Edinburgh, but I joined in zero hours.
22:08
I've convinced them to give me a job told the manual about wine.
22:11
I didn't really, but but I did but I was willing to learn.
22:15
So yeah, zero hours contract and they kind of took a whim, but it
22:18
was actually early on. Sorry this is a long way of
22:20
time. No, sorry.
22:20
Come on, it's good whiskey stories.
22:23
Yes. So early on in that, so the
22:24
owner of that company, we did a tasting together in about two
22:27
months into the job, but I gave some tasting notes.
22:29
Just take my thoughts. And he kind of recognised that
22:32
he's like, you've got quite a good palate.
22:34
So kind of diverted me into into learning to taste properly.
22:36
So I worked with so amazing people.
22:38
They both still work in Bridge of Allen.
22:39
So Shane Dunning and Kim that's over there spent a lot of time
22:42
training me up. So I did my WSCTS and and kind
22:45
of but yeah, again. So Shane, to give you a context,
22:48
can blind taste burgundy to the vineyard and the vintage.
22:52
So he's he's shit hot about swear.
22:54
Yeah, of course. Sorry.
22:55
So this is the kind of guy that was showing me how to use my
22:57
palate properly. So so actually, although I was
22:59
doing my my courses and tasting, working with people like that
23:02
was was, yeah. Second done the word the term
23:04
mentor gets thrown about a lot, but but I worked with some
23:07
incredible palates. Kim's got an amazing palate as
23:08
well. Doug, who owns it.
23:10
So yeah. So I kind of got fast track
23:12
through there and then, yeah, I worked in a a couple of
23:14
different retail sorts. I worked for Robertson's
23:16
Bitlockerry for a while as well, if you know them.
23:18
So Ewan as well. So I did some tasting stuff for
23:20
them. And then yeah, John, Angus and
23:21
the Deep. So I always only from being told
23:23
I had a good palate, I kind of learned I could taste.
23:26
But yeah. But as a whiskey nerd, I never
23:28
thought of becoming a master. I was going.
23:29
To stage, I guess when, when did you stop being a wine nerd and
23:32
become a whiskey nerd? Because I was always, or rather
23:35
I was really worried to wine. Yeah, so are you.
23:37
Looking for a career and running wine or did the Korean whiskey?
23:40
No. So I was into whiskey first.
23:41
So I was actually, when I joined, that was pretty much
23:43
what I said is I don't know that much about wine, but I do know
23:45
whiskey. So my dad and my granddad were
23:48
big whiskey fan. So I was kind of brought up on
23:50
whiskey for an age, not on the stuff that work with these days
23:53
they were drinking. Stuff.
23:54
Were they drinking? Were they?
23:56
So my grandma was a working class guy, so he had always had
23:58
whiskey in his house and it was like a special thing as you'd
24:00
have a drum with him. But it was usually what was on
24:02
promotion and the supermarkets. And yeah, my dad was the same.
24:05
So kind of he was very bit more exposed to some of the other
24:08
stuff. So his dad, my other granddad
24:10
was in the RAF. So they kind of had a bit more
24:12
of a whiskey culture, although my granddad didn't like it.
24:14
But my dad ended up with some kind of yes and taste for it
24:16
along the way. But yeah, so I always respected
24:19
whiskey and this sounds sexist, which is not, but but it kind of
24:22
in in the East Nuke of Fife, where my grand was from.
24:25
It was like in any birthday, Christmas, funeral, whatever it
24:29
may be, that's all. The guys kind of gathered
24:31
together in the corner and had drams.
24:33
I remember kind of coming of age moment when I was invited to
24:35
join them. I'll say 18 for legal reasons.
24:37
I also remember. Off the kids table, yeah.
24:40
Very much. And my granddad, unfortunately
24:42
not this anymore, but yeah, he was kind of famous for tams
24:44
drams. So he was Tom Tams Drams were
24:47
half pints. So I think my first drama at his
24:50
house was a Glen Murray 10 year old.
24:53
I don't remember much else at Christmas, but but I remember
24:56
being like, it was always a special thing.
24:58
So. And I could smell whiskey in the
24:59
room when I was younger and then kind of, yeah.
25:01
So I'd always kind of admired it and I found it really
25:03
interesting. And then like many other people
25:05
you've had on the podcast, went to uni and couldn't afford to
25:07
drink whiskey. So.
25:09
So I just admired it from a distance.
25:12
But yeah. And then got a capstone ball
25:13
from there, I guess, which. Part of the east nook of Fife is
25:15
yeah. Seller Dyke.
25:16
Oh, I. I So I hast the way.
25:18
Yeah, yeah. Probably I no, I mean, it's it's
25:21
fascinating. And Cameron what?
25:22
Be yourself. You know, you've grown up in
25:24
this whiskey hub. You're talking, you know, he was
25:27
talking about he was talking about, you know, what Caroustie
25:29
gave to the world. But you know, we've got you Ross
25:33
Bar and Fraser soon as we're just Titans in the industry that
25:38
I've got in. Not sure Titans.
25:40
Well, not sure I can include myself in as a.
25:45
But, but I mean, what was it like for you getting into to
25:48
whiskey? Was it something that you always
25:50
been interested in or is it a job that you kind of fell into
25:52
or, or what was your sort of journey like into?
25:54
That, I mean, it was very different.
25:55
It was something that I probably did kind of fall into, but
25:59
because, I mean, before I worked in the industry.
26:02
So this is maybe a first for the podcast, but I worked in
26:04
McDonald's for six years. Oh, wow.
26:06
So like the, I've got three siblings.
26:09
All of them went to uni. They, they've, they've become
26:12
like doctors and scientists. So they all got the brains of
26:14
the family. But I got a pretty decent liver
26:18
and I worked at McDonald's for, for like I said, six years.
26:22
I and it got to the point where I like it was just taking up so
26:26
much of my life because I was assistant store manager.
26:30
So you weren't? Loving it then definitely not
26:34
loving it. I mean, it was, it was great
26:36
for, for like the, for the time that I was there because at
26:41
first, like I, I in 6th year of high school, I would go through
26:45
UCAS and I'd look for university courses.
26:47
I wanted to, to go and do because the rest of my family
26:50
had gone to uni. So I thought that was the thing
26:52
I had to do. And I figured out none of them
26:54
sounds interesting to me at all, not even young studies or
26:59
geography. Yeah, I'm the youngest.
27:01
The one, the last one is he's finding himself in Westgate.
27:06
But but yeah, like I went through UCAS, there wasn't any
27:09
courses that jumped out to me. I didn't want to just go to uni
27:12
for the sake of it because everyone else had, so I already
27:16
had a part time job after school at going to McDonald's.
27:18
So as soon as I finished school I thought, sack it while I don't
27:22
know what to do, I'll just just go full time.
27:25
I'll earn a bit of money while I'm at it.
27:27
That went a bit too far and six years down the line I was still
27:29
there and I'd moved around a few different stores, but I got to
27:35
the point where I was just. 'Cause they actually have a
27:36
McDonald's in Dunbar now. They do.
27:38
So that's when I started. When you started that, yeah.
27:40
So they they came into the school.
27:43
They. I was thinking you'd be too.
27:45
You're obviously younger than I think you are 'cause I think
27:47
that's opened like two years ago.
27:48
But I'm. Oh no, I opened a good while
27:50
ago. I.
27:52
Feel like it was. That I think it was all
27:54
happening. I think it was the first
27:56
McDonald's in East Lothian, which is, yeah.
27:58
Yeah, it was. I didn't.
28:00
Tell you when it opened, but it was, it was when I was in like
28:03
fifth year of high school. Front page of the career they
28:06
they. Came into the school and they
28:07
did like a wee talk and all the classes and told you like and.
28:10
Ross Barr stopped them halfway through and finished all their
28:12
finished all their information, but.
28:14
Ross was too busy building Glenn Kinchy so.
28:19
Good. No more.
28:22
But not so, so and when they came into the school and gave us
28:26
the whole talk about like, come and get a job at McDonald's and
28:28
all that, I went, I went along to the interview.
28:30
Wasn't an interview. It was literally just a chat to
28:32
make sure you're, you're sound and you kind of got the job.
28:35
So, yeah, Fast forward six years.
28:38
I was pretty fed up at that point.
28:41
And I was on, on kind of like the cusp of becoming a store
28:46
manager. Like those were kind of the next
28:48
steps and you'd have to like fully commit and I was already
28:51
putting in an insane amount of time of my life into working at
28:55
McDonald's, which almost sounds a little bit ridiculous.
28:58
So at that point I just decided to call it quits.
29:02
There wasn't any like big event or anything.
29:04
I just thought I'm fed up of fed up of it not enjoying my job and
29:08
I'm spending too much of my personal life like invested in
29:13
my job as well because even on my days off I'd be getting texts
29:17
from people or phone calls from people saying I want. 12 big
29:20
Nuggets. But like but.
29:24
Because I was like, because of the position I was in, if like a
29:28
fryer broke before you call out an actual engineer, you go and
29:31
call like all the managers or whatever and see if they can fix
29:34
it first. So I'd be on my day off and I'd
29:36
end up having to run into McDonald's and fix a fryer or
29:38
fix a grill or something like that.
29:40
And I was sick of it, so I just handed it in.
29:42
My notice didn't have anything else lined up and I took a wee
29:45
bit of time off after that as well.
29:47
Just me there, just two seconds because we do have to go to a
29:49
quick ad sometimes if I've had too much whiskey whilst
29:52
recording Whiskey Stories podcast and wake up in the
29:54
morning feeling really rare. Rough I guess.
29:56
I love a McDonald's breakfast. McDonald's breakfast.
30:00
One of the best things to cure a hangover.
30:02
Yeah, sometimes if I'm still under the limit I'll drive all
30:04
the way to Dunbar go to I would I would say that that Dunbar
30:08
McDonald's if I'm if I'm driving down the East Coast for
30:10
something and I have to leave early in the morning that Dunbar
30:13
eat McDonald's is a great first stop for a breakfast gone
30:16
downhill over the last couple of years I've said don't know what
30:19
I was by the Friars. It's alright.
30:22
So anyway. I know you're still looking for
30:24
sponsorship, but I think McDonald's are maybe a bit of a
30:26
big swing for you guys. We're talking about McDonald's
30:29
that work up in space side every time.
30:32
Yeah, exactly. Right.
30:33
So, so you took a year out? There absolutely has to be.
30:36
It just has to be a Ronald McDonald and whiskey industry
30:39
somewhere, hasn't it? But you.
30:40
So you took some you. Took a wee bit of time out and I
30:44
was browsing through Indeed and your other other job sites are
30:47
available, but like I so I had already actually at this point
30:54
accepted another job completely unrelated to whiskey.
30:58
It was taking a wee while for like the onboarding and
31:00
everything to kick off going through with it.
31:03
So I was still kind of browsing through Indeed while I'd
31:05
accepted this job, and I saw a wee advert for the Scotch
31:08
Whiskey experience. Another one, yes.
31:12
Unstoppable. You probably won't want to say
31:14
too much about it because everyone else, but yeah, I saw
31:18
this ad for the Scotch whiskey experience, and at this point I
31:21
kind of liked whiskey. I, I'd buy a bottle from, from
31:25
Asda's or Tesco's every now and then.
31:27
So I thought, why not? I'll go and I'll go and do the
31:29
interview and I'll see how it goes.
31:31
And I went in before the interview.
31:33
They put me on a tour at the, at the Whiskey experience.
31:36
And I thought, I thought it was just dead cool.
31:38
And then I went into the, into the actual interview and I got
31:42
on really well with the people who were interviewing me.
31:44
So I thought, why not? If they offer me the job, I'll
31:47
go for it. Because the whole reason I left
31:49
McDonald's is because, jeez. So the whole reason I changed
31:54
McDonald's is because I wanted to go and do something that I
31:58
could actually enjoy and I could get like invested in as well.
32:02
Yeah, exactly. Get passionate about.
32:04
And so yeah, I, I, like I said, I already kind of liked whiskey
32:08
at the time, so I felt it was quite a good fit for me.
32:12
If they offered me the job, I, I would take it.
32:15
Now I, I, I do quite a lot of like Munroe climbing in my spare
32:19
time. And, and about a week after my
32:21
interview, I was climbing Monroe called Scorgui, which is it's a
32:26
little bit like SE or maybe just east of Aviemore.
32:29
And this was, this was just at the start of the year, while you
32:33
still had all the snow and spring.
32:35
It was just absolutely beautiful.
32:36
So I was at the top of the of Scorgui, clear, clear blue
32:40
skies. It was a beautiful day.
32:42
I could see like right the way across the Cairngorms and for
32:45
some reason you always get like the best signal at the top of a
32:48
Munro. And I was sat at the top of
32:51
Scorgui at a wee hip flask. And it was actually, so it was
32:55
Highland Park Viking scars, which is like it was, I think I
32:59
got out of Tesco's at the time. But that's what was in my hip
33:02
flask at the time when I was drinking it.
33:04
And I got the phone call from the Scotch Whisky Experience
33:06
when I was on top of Scorgui. Like I'm not, I'm not the
33:10
whiskey God. To.
33:12
Believe in that kind of stuff like whiskey gods or or just the
33:15
universe or anything. But at that point, to me, I was
33:19
at the top of a Monroe, completely surrounded in snow.
33:22
I was drinking whiskey out my hip flask and I just got offered
33:25
a job in whiskey. So I just I just jumped at it.
33:28
I went for it and I was at the Whiskey Experience for maybe
33:32
about two years. Yeah.
33:33
And I just absolutely loved it. As soon as I started I just I
33:35
just got hooked. And it was just a few.
33:38
Luminaries of the pod oh, it's got whiskey experience
33:41
Illuminati. Oh, it's the crash of the
33:44
whiskey. So who who Ally Baxter obviously
33:48
was he went there when you, yes. Ally Baxter was my manager when
33:51
I was there. Yeah, yeah.
33:53
He was. Alex Thompson.
33:54
No, I didn't work with Alex Thompson.
33:57
He was. I have no idea what the gap
33:59
between me and Alex was although.
34:01
What? Ross's dad.
34:03
No, I definitely don't worry. Ross's dad.
34:06
Go to school with Ross, they're having to go to work with his
34:08
dad to Bobby Bad. But I I who else we had I mean,
34:14
I worked with Jake. Yeah, I worked with.
34:16
Jake for a good while, so I'm. Trying to give Cody and.
34:19
Curtis Curtis Yeah, I didn't actually work with Cody, but I
34:23
think I actually worked out in my first interview with Angus
34:26
Dundee, which was with Ian and my my boss Fergus.
34:30
I think I worked out that after Cody left, I was the first
34:35
person that the Whiskey experience hired after Cody.
34:39
That's not for certain. But from the timelines that we
34:42
were talking about in the in the interview, I'm pretty certain I
34:46
was one of, if not the first person that they hired after
34:50
Cody, 'cause there was a big gap with yeah, with.
34:52
COVID as well of. Course, yeah.
34:53
So they weren't really hiring people that are.
34:55
You there when they had the barrels or did were you?
34:56
Yeah, yeah, I was there with. Those.
34:59
Barrels, Yeah. I mean, The thing is those
35:02
barrels, they were great, but they were absolutely terrible.
35:05
I was gonna say, I was gonna say instead of instead of being
35:07
called on your day off to fix a Ferrari, you're being called to
35:10
fix a barrel. But I didn't have that kind of
35:12
responsibility experience, thankfully.
35:15
But I mean, the barrels were great for everyone.
35:17
Unless you were the tour guide. Yeah, because if you're the tour
35:20
guide, the barrels were running behind your whole tours running
35:22
behind. You're starting to stress out
35:24
because all your customers, they've been stuck on the
35:25
battles. Whereas anywhere else you're,
35:28
you're just, you're just kind of chilling because everywhere's
35:30
been put on hold for the next 10.
35:32
Minutes or so. It's a big regret actually for
35:34
me not being able. I can't.
35:35
I don't think that was again. Another thing was you never took
35:38
a ride on a barrel. No, no, I don't think so.
35:41
But basically, yeah, so. I think I look.
35:44
Back at the you know, we've talked about the Scotch whisky
35:47
experience probably the first time with Cody on the podcast.
35:50
Yeah, because I think we talked about the barrel rider.
35:53
I said that's. I think I would have mentioned
35:55
that yeah, because I said that's what your wife calls you.
35:57
But anyway but the. Are we allowed to laugh at that?
36:07
But I I had this idea that like whiskey and again with the Royal
36:12
Mile whiskeys as well whiskey on the Royal Mile like just stay
36:15
clear that because it's tourist trap, right, you're going to get
36:18
chucked in you're going to get flogged are really like a golf
36:21
decanter of whiskey. There are those available.
36:26
You should say on that. But then speaking to people and
36:28
then finding out Scotch whiskey experiences run and owned by the
36:32
industry, you know, it's, you know, so it's not just and then
36:35
I asked a question about, you know, did the Scotch whiskey
36:38
experience get really angry when the Johnny Walker experience
36:41
comes to Edinburgh because they're suddenly like, oh, no,
36:44
now we're not the only whiskey experience we can have here.
36:46
No, we're rubbing our hands together because it means now
36:48
people go to the Johnny Walker experience go, I want more.
36:51
And they'll say right now I can go.
36:52
And then Edinburgh, we've talked about it so much is the fact
36:54
that you can go to Scotch whiskey experience, you go to
36:56
Holy Rood distillery, you can go down to Port or Leaf distillery.
36:59
You can do so much that's. Coming down whiskey Mecca,
37:01
really. Yeah, it is for a capital as
37:02
well. Like yeah, it works really well.
37:04
I think it all flows off each. Other really well.
37:05
I remember speaking to somebody who worked in, they were working
37:08
in what, like not construction, but like they worked in finance
37:13
in Edinburgh and they worked in building industry and stuff like
37:16
that. And they were, they explained
37:18
about the building. What was it used to be in?
37:20
What was the shop? It used to be before there was
37:23
Johnny Walker Fraser. Yeah.
37:26
And he was telling me as House of Fraser was kind of closing,
37:29
he said that, you know, they're putting a, a Johnny Walker
37:32
experience in there. So really.
37:33
And then he said, well, the the explanation that he had been
37:36
given by the person who was telling them this was the fact
37:38
that, like, you go to you go to Dublin and you got the Guinness
37:41
experience. You go to Amsterdam, you got
37:42
there the Heineken experience and all these capital cities.
37:45
It's like whiskey is our thing. Yeah.
37:47
And then you can come to Edinburgh and you wouldn't know
37:50
the Scotch whiskey experience if you you could find it, but you
37:52
wouldn't know. And you just like, how many
37:55
countries do you travel to? Yeah.
37:56
Where you walk off the plane in a completely different country
37:59
and the first thing you see is the Johnny Walker.
38:01
Yeah. Yeah.
38:02
And it's everywhere in the world except for in Edinburgh.
38:05
Yeah. And now it now it is.
38:06
But it's fascinating. So I'm.
38:07
I'm well, actually I was going to ask kind of leads quite
38:10
nicely on that tourism obviously being a big thing.
38:13
Glenn Cadham, Ross, what it's coming, it's coming.
38:17
I've visit our experience. So Glenn Cadham is is now,
38:21
correct me if I'm wrong, is it it hasn't been open to the
38:23
public before? No, never.
38:25
Well, well, it has, because it used to be a public walkway and
38:28
there's lots of great stories. Right.
38:30
But yeah, right to Rome and all that.
38:32
Yeah. Right to Rome.
38:32
Yeah, lots of lots of people coming back to the pub trying to
38:34
haggle you if the change in their pockets for a cask.
38:37
Guys here, I've got 570 here. I'll take one of those
38:40
eighteens. Yeah.
38:43
So apart from that. So we did.
38:44
We were unpopular because we fenced it, but mainly because
38:46
you had people stumbling about our construction site or our
38:48
work site. But you know, this is the first
38:50
time we're going to have a visitor experience.
38:53
It's kind of true to Glencarron, which is cool.
38:55
So it's Glencarron is not a big distillery.
38:57
It's 200 years old this year, which is cool.
39:00
But yeah, it's going to be kind of small scale in a kind of nice
39:03
kind of way. So it'll be, yeah, I'm trying to
39:05
think about not bougie. It's not about two star Michelin
39:09
restaurant attached but. We do have a barrel ride.
39:11
No, I'm getting that. If you have a barrel ride, we'll
39:13
be first. They're.
39:14
Bringing it back, it's got the loop, the loop and everything.
39:15
Yeah, but Corkscrew. No, no with no barrel rides.
39:17
So where is Glencadam distillery then for geography wise?
39:20
Whereabout is it breaking Breaking.
39:22
Yeah, so have you heard of the Asheville Chippy?
39:25
No, no, but we've beat we've we've heard a Glee park we've
39:27
got. Breaking a few times.
39:28
So basically back breed the the so there there was a chippy
39:31
around the corner called the Asheville which famous the
39:32
Asheville whale challenge 16 oz haddock.
39:35
Wow. Have the certificate.
39:36
That's why I'm not thinning anymore.
39:39
We're actually talked just by just by that.
39:42
So yeah, so we're actually because since it's been there
39:45
for so long, it's literally the town's kind of evolved around
39:47
it. Well, I was going to say.
39:48
Bacon isn't a good big place. So you kind of, when we said
39:50
Glee Park, he said, oh, you know.
39:51
Yeah, so you can actually see it from Glee Park, depending which
39:53
standards it then. Aye.
39:55
So we're just behind that. Because it was actually really
39:58
funny because friend of the podcast Mark Davidson, yeah, he
40:01
keeper of the quake and he does some great tastings and he's
40:04
always really interesting and how he does his.
40:06
But he's great if you you follow on Instagram.
40:10
Brilliant. I follow him on LinkedIn as
40:12
well, and he's got some great ones.
40:13
But he put a thread up on that actually should have.
40:15
I'd never said it to you, but it was, it was a picture of the
40:18
Breaking City shirt sponsored by Glencadam.
40:21
Yeah. And he also, then he went down a
40:24
full list of football clubs of Scotland that have been
40:27
sponsored by, you know, distilleries.
40:31
And there's quite a few. There's a few.
40:33
And then some people real and I'm a whisky.
40:36
Yeah, yeah, I love my whiskeys, but also I love my football.
40:38
Some of you, some people listen that famous, famous.
40:40
There's quite a few different ones.
40:42
But it was, it was really. I know obviously when you go up
40:44
into the Highland League in Scottish football, there's loads
40:47
of like little clubs that have massive sponsors because you're
40:50
like, wow, they're sponsored by that distillers.
40:53
I should have these Rovers are looking for short sponsorship.
40:57
If there's someone you need to contact with Graham Kilgamer.
41:00
Well, but that's that's my day job.
41:01
But it's fascinating like so. So you are getting a visitor
41:05
centre so that will, that will and you know for what's the
41:08
nearest distillery to Glencaddome.
41:10
Fetter Cairn I think about either Fetter Cairn RB key,
41:13
they're kind of. Equidistant for people who are
41:15
travelling up that neck of the woods and you know you could
41:17
because you know when you are travelling to a distillery we as
41:19
we might be doing very shortly I guess.
41:20
Absolutely. As you know you start looking
41:22
and going well if we're going all the way up there suppose
41:25
about you with a Monroe bag in. Well this is it when you when
41:27
you travel right back in Well yeah, you travel all the way up
41:30
to climbing Monroe. You probably try and climb two
41:32
or three in this sort of area. You've still got the energy.
41:35
Yeah, actually what's the the most northern Munroe in
41:38
Scotland. There's one for you, Munhope,
41:40
Yes. Ben Hope.
41:41
Sorry, no, we don't do that here.
41:42
Ben hope. Ben Hope.
41:43
Yeah. Ben Hope for me I am.
41:45
Unrow as well, because it's such a ridiculously steep climb that
41:50
only actually takes you about an hour.
41:52
To get up tell me what the views like because the only attempt
41:56
I've ever had climbing a Munroe was when I was doing the North
41:59
Coast 500 and I thought you know what if I'm already here right.
42:03
So as we were going down Durness Way and decided right myself and
42:09
an ex-girlfriend of mine we said we'll climb this.
42:12
She was not happy, but she's an ex-girlfriend, left her up
42:15
there, but there was no hope for us after a bed.
42:21
But basically, Nope. Yeah, that's.
42:23
Why it was was? Basically, we started climbing
42:25
it and the weather was really, really, really, really bad.
42:28
And it was one of those where I'm saying it's fine, keep
42:30
going, we'll be, we'll clear this bit, clear this bit.
42:33
She's getting more and more irate about this and rightly so
42:35
because it actually was pretty bad.
42:36
And again, we can probably just up that bit and a couple of
42:40
folks were coming back down the way.
42:42
And I'm saying, have you guys been to the, the top?
42:44
And they're like, no, we, we didn't get it was just far too
42:46
windy. We're going back down.
42:48
That was it for us. We had to make the decision
42:50
because please climb mountains responsibly.
42:54
So we turned back down, had to had to go all the way at the
42:56
bottom. And that drive, I was raging
42:58
because I was like, you know what, if I do start climbing?
43:01
Yeah, let's go back. Yeah, I'm going to come all the
43:03
way back. I'm going to start.
43:05
I might as well start the furthest one away and then want
43:07
my way back down. But yeah, Ben, Nope was
43:09
definitely what it was there. But are you a proper Munroe?
43:12
Bagger then would you clap? I'm ticking them early class
43:14
myself as a Munro bagger, and this isn't me trying to be like
43:18
a hippie trying to be different. Yeah, but I'm not too fussed
43:21
about climbing every single Munroe and ticking all of them.
43:23
They're supposed to be perfectly honest.
43:25
They don't all excite me. No.
43:27
And I mean a couple of them you do require kind of serious kit
43:29
and that's sort of thing. I don't know if that excites you
43:32
or if that takes you, you know it's.
43:34
Too easy for you? I know quite a lot of the line
43:37
there's about 3, isn't there? And if people kind of end up
43:39
doing all of them but those and stuff.
43:41
But I mean, if climbing whiskey, I mean, yeah, I suppose we had a
43:44
whiskey story on the podcast, which is.
43:46
It was Finn Thompson. Oh, wait.
43:48
What was it? It was his So.
43:49
So Glasgow was it petered Glasgow's five.
43:52
Yeah, he he he opened the sample.
43:54
I mean, a bit like you up at the top of a mountain and magic
43:58
things happened with whiskey. He had the whiskey and it was a
44:02
cask sample. He was going to try it and it
44:04
was pissing it down as it tends to happen at the top of
44:08
mountains in Scotland. And and just the kind of the
44:11
right amount of water hit the glass to when he tasted it.
44:14
When you know what I'm going to, when I do come to bottle this,
44:17
I'm going to take it down just a wee bit just to the amount I
44:20
reckon that it had been taken down for like 58 to 56,
44:24
something like that. Basically, I think he I think he
44:26
had tried it before or try that before.
44:31
He poured the glasses and went, oh, maybe that there's this is
44:34
just a bit too 5 year old Glasgow peated.
44:37
He was like, it's a bit too rough around the edges.
44:39
And then as he poured the glasses for his bowels as they
44:42
were hunkered down with the wind and rain, I said it sounds like
44:44
a little market and bullshit, but it's.
44:47
Pennsylvania, it's like we're doing it 23%.
44:51
I finished last year. He has told that mobile.
44:54
I've heard that a second time, but it is it's it was a sort of
44:58
climbing story. But what I'm interested in here
45:00
then with yourself, Ian, because one of the things I've openly
45:04
discussed and talked about to people and actually, you know,
45:07
said that tastings and things as well is I am not able to
45:10
distinguish different tastes between whiskey very well.
45:15
No, I, I, I, I again, I mean, Graham and I've talked about
45:18
this. I'm I'm kind of the same.
45:20
I don't think have a brilliant palate, if we're being honest.
45:24
I'll enjoy whiskey and I love it.
45:25
But in terms of, you know, I said like, you know, when we're
45:28
kind of humbled almost a wee bit when we have Chucker or even
45:31
Ross Bar on and they're saying, oh, it tastes custard cream and
45:35
I'm like, now I get it. But I've never been able to say
45:38
I've. Also ever showed you how to do
45:39
it though? Because that's the thing.
45:41
Maybe. Maybe I've just got an
45:43
uneducated palate. So, yeah, how do you you've been
45:46
trained, You've you've you've obviously had some sort of skill
45:49
set in that. And I mean, would you call it a
45:51
skill? I guess so.
45:52
I think so. So.
45:54
So there's two parts to this. I guess so Firstly, so, so I'm a
45:57
whiskey geek that turned my passion into a profession and I
46:01
still pinch myself every now and again.
46:02
I collect whiskey books for fun. I've got books from from your
46:05
Richard Parsons of the world. And I kind of, I remember
46:08
meeting Stephanie McLeod for the first time when I was younger
46:11
and be like, oh wow, Master Blender and Jim Mcewins and
46:13
Rachel Barry's and all these amazing kind of names.
46:16
So to share a job title that was quite wacky.
46:18
But on the flip side of it, I think that kind of part of what
46:21
I tried to do when I do testings is to be accessible because
46:23
actually other people can do this job too.
46:26
Obviously not as well. But no, I'm no, but killing it.
46:30
Joking aside, I think that's the thing that if you see these
46:33
titles and things, and again, I was guilty of it too, of like
46:36
worshipping these kind of these kind of job titles.
46:38
But actually, you can train up to do it.
46:40
And the way I was always taught is, is I don't know if it's the
46:42
real name for it, but it was the drill down method is what I was
46:44
told. And you can train yourselves.
46:46
It's kind of like, yeah, it's kind of like singing.
46:48
If you put me on karaoke, no one's going to thank you.
46:51
But if I had a vocal coach, I'd probably be all right.
46:54
And tasting is the same. So if you can taste anything,
46:56
then it means you're not palette blind, which means you can train
46:58
it. So yeah.
47:00
So the drill down method is, is challenging yourself to identify
47:03
flavour, one step beyond where you're at.
47:05
So if you say this smells fruity and the next question would be,
47:08
well, what kind of fruits is it? And it doesn't have to be
47:09
specific. You don't have to say ha ha
47:11
mandarins. But if you if you say, OK, I
47:14
think it smells like berries or it smells like orchard fruits or
47:17
it smells like citrus, then then that's great.
47:19
And then you stop there. The next thing is when you smell
47:22
again, if it's citrus, what kind of citrus is it or what kind of
47:25
berries are they? And then are they cooked?
47:26
Are they fresh? Are they, and, and when you do
47:28
that, subconsciously, you start training yourself to be able to
47:32
jump to that the next time. So when you smell grapefruit,
47:34
the next time, you can jump straight to grapefruit rather
47:36
than going down that process. And then, and then the next part
47:39
is then we'll find something else.
47:40
So when you think you've got it nailed, pick a different thing.
47:42
So is it nutty? Is it smoky?
47:43
Is it spicy? Is it whatever else?
47:45
And you can challenge and you do it as baby steps.
47:48
So I've done that over years, I guess.
47:50
So I've, I've been working this year, I'll be 15 years in the
47:52
industry, which is quite cool on various formats.
47:55
But I guess that, yeah, I've I spent a lot of time tasting
47:58
things, but, but a lot of it is building that repertoire.
48:00
It's the same with with how blending works, I guess.
48:02
So in my head, I have a kind of web of what distilleries taste
48:05
like, and well, that's the. So the blending side of it then,
48:08
because, you know, one of the big things that we talk a lot
48:10
about is it's funny, you know, people will often talk about
48:14
blends. We we, we're big on blends.
48:16
We always say like, you know, once the industry stands on
48:19
blends, Yeah, I agree. But also at the same time,
48:22
you'll get plenty of people who will say, Akka, a blend's crap.
48:24
I'm not going to drink a blend. But yeah, at the same time, that
48:27
concept that actually, if you drink single malt whiskey, it
48:30
has been blended. Yeah, of just casks from within
48:33
one distillery. Yeah.
48:35
And your job then is over the two distilleries that you've got
48:39
is how do you match those casks up?
48:41
Now some of the the the ranges that you've got in front of us
48:44
won't just be you've given me the Madeira cast there is that
48:49
100% Madeira casks that's in. No, that's a three-year finish.
48:52
So it's 12 years in bourbon and three years in Madeira.
48:55
And So what you'll have had to do then is pick the the casks
49:00
from the bourbon cast that could be suitable to then match what
49:04
we. Because yeah, it's not as simple
49:06
as just going right. Take those 12 casts of bourbon
49:09
that are now, was it 10 years? You said it's about 12.
49:11
Yeah. Taylor's, Taylor's take 12/10/12
49:14
year olds, put them at the side because they're going in the
49:16
Madeira. It's not just a case of picking
49:17
them. You'll have to sample those and
49:18
go and what are you looking for where you know that when you put
49:22
them in that Madeira cask for three years, they're going to
49:24
match that flavour, right? Yes.
49:26
So it's kind of selecting the right barrels to finish I guess
49:29
when it comes to. So we do quite a lot of cast
49:30
finishes. I really like finishing rather
49:33
than film maturation because it gives you a kind of best of both
49:35
worlds. So for both of our spirits, both
49:37
Tom and Tal and Glencadam, they're quite light spirits in
49:40
different ways. Glencadam's kind of a bit
49:41
heavier, but very fruity. Tom and Tal is very creamy and
49:43
nutty. So actually if you take that and
49:46
stick it straight into a really active cast, like a PX or a 20
49:49
port or something like that, you'll eventually kind of
49:51
overpower it with the weight of the woods.
49:52
So when you finish, you give it some conditioning, you give it
49:54
time to kind of, yeah, do the rocky moment and kind of build
49:56
itself up montage. But so yes, but then, but then
50:02
we wouldn't pick the most active, most robust casts to
50:04
finish because why would you take a really full flavoured
50:06
thing and then and then try and hit it with something else
50:08
that's full flavoured? So we're looking for casks that
50:11
are going to take the flavour well.
50:12
And I guess that kind of comes down to a bit of practising and
50:16
of kind of knowing, OK, well these flavours are good, but
50:18
they'll be enhanced by certain wood types and knowing that
50:21
yeah, they're too active, we'll leave them as yeah, all bourbon
50:24
or whether these ones need something else.
50:26
Maybe they're too lights for the finish.
50:27
We'll have in mind when we use it for a a wine finish or
50:30
something a bit lighter. White wine, red wine finish
50:32
would be contradictory but but yeah, but that's it's just a
50:35
case of kind of recognizing those flavours I guess are.
50:37
You are you dealing directly with the distillate, like the,
50:40
the distillate is coming off like so are you dealing with as
50:43
it's coming out of the spirit still sort of the spirit safe?
50:47
Are you dealing with that and then go and and working on that
50:52
character before it goes into the woods?
50:53
Not. Really.
50:54
So that's Robert's job. So so Robert Fleming's our
50:56
master distillery, right. So he's a fourth generation
50:58
whiskey maker. If I can get him on the podcast
51:01
for you. Generations.
51:03
No, So previous three were at Glenn Livet.
51:05
So he grew up. He he grew up and guy Glenn
51:07
Livet distillery. Wow.
51:09
He's got great stories about cooking eggs and the furnaces
51:11
and all sorts of things. Quite cool, but.
51:13
But if I could get him on your podcast, well, he he's a really,
51:17
really humble guy. So it's a privilege to work with
51:19
him. I mean, he literally, he's been
51:20
in the industry for 52 years now.
51:23
We had his 50th. We did a bottling for his 50th
51:25
just recently. Yeah, he's pretty incredible
51:28
guy. I'm very, very humble.
51:30
And again, when I was mentioning your kind of blenders that
51:32
people know Robert's not necessarily a household name,
51:34
but actually he's he's been there and done that with the
51:36
rest of them. But he's not, he's not really
51:38
kind of, he's not a heavy guy in the limelight, although he'll
51:40
talk whiskey to you all day long.
51:41
And I mean that in a nice way. But no.
51:44
So, yeah. So he kind of looks, his job is
51:45
to make sure that Glenn, Callum and Tom and Tower are
51:47
maintaining consistent spirit every day, every hour, every
51:50
week. And then we have Douglas who's
51:52
the distillery manager at Glencadam who kind of sorts that
51:54
side. Roberts based at Tom and Tal.
51:56
But it's over the sites. So my job really is kind of
51:58
looking at it after it's had a bit of time and wood.
52:00
So I will be involved for maybe spirit analysis.
52:02
So if there's something that's not quite right or they've
52:04
changed the cuts, then they'll bring me in to give it a sniff.
52:07
But really all the managers guys, all the managers of both
52:09
sites are able to identify differences.
52:12
So if there's a difference then they'll call me to have a look.
52:14
But generally their job is doing the new make.
52:16
My job is I get the easy part really.
52:17
I don't do any of the chemistry, I just I deal with the flavour
52:20
side. So I start interfering with
52:21
casts and getting in the way, but.
52:23
There's also kind of scale question here, because if you
52:26
you think of, let's say Glencarnon 10 for one vatting of
52:30
Glencarnon 10, how many casks are we talking?
52:33
Yeah, about about 30, Yeah. So they're quite small scale
52:35
compared to, yeah, some of our peers and other companies.
52:38
And yeah, you're saying about blending.
52:40
I mean, so we do. Blends are a massive part of
52:41
Angus and D, It's still over 80% of our business is making better
52:45
whiskeys. And it's funny because when you
52:47
do whiskey shows and tastings, the whiskey geeks, which I mean,
52:50
endearingly, I would class myself as a whiskey geek, don't
52:53
care about that. So I showed them a single cask
52:57
and it'll be like, Oh yeah, the same.
52:58
It's amazing. Single cask is the easiest part
53:00
of my job. All I do is pick a nice cask.
53:02
So it's done. It's not quite.
53:04
So actually they're identified through a cask analysis process,
53:07
but other than that, it's just saying that one's really good.
53:09
We should maybe bottle that as a single cask.
53:12
Done, job done, no blending required.
53:15
When it comes to single malts. It's then a broader range, so
53:18
we're recreating flavours or creating new flavours in the
53:20
range. So yeah, so maybe 30 for Glencam
53:21
10, Thomas 16 is about 40, and then other ones are a bit
53:25
smaller really, but for blends it could be 120 casts or more.
53:29
And what blended brat? What brands I.
53:31
Can't tell you I'd have to kill you.
53:35
No. Well, so Angus and east side of
53:36
blending is really interesting. So they kind of saw a gap in the
53:39
market really. So so the 1950s or 1950s, I
53:41
think was the actual founding year.
53:44
But instead of going out and signing their Johnny Walker or
53:46
their Chivas or their brands, what Terry is the founder of the
53:49
company did was he had a team of blenders.
53:52
He would buy and trade casks, but he went out to markets and
53:54
said, well, we'll make a whiskey for you.
53:56
So he's built an inventory. So it's not exactly like a
53:59
dedicate. You're saying it's not like a
54:00
dedicated blend because there is a blend Dundee?
54:04
Yeah, yeah, there's a few. So we do, Yeah.
54:06
So the Dundee is one of ours for Pete's sakes, one that sells in
54:09
Scandinavia. You can come across in the UK as
54:11
well and we've got we have about 85 different markets that take
54:15
it and probably another kind of. Huge.
54:17
Because, yeah. So basically if, if Angus and I
54:19
decided like we want to set up a blend, yeah, we could.
54:22
Yeah, we could do, we could do a Whiskey Story's blends.
54:24
Yeah. But yes, yeah, we have.
54:29
But, but honestly, yeah. So that's kind of.
54:31
And so that's a much, much larger scale.
54:33
Yeah. So some of our customers are
54:34
taking kind of several containers a week or tankers a
54:36
week. That's 28,000 liters of tanker.
54:38
Wow. So yeah, it's it's, it's funny,
54:41
but if you show that to your average whiskey geek, that's not
54:44
that exciting. And I have utmost respect for
54:46
guys that work for Famous Grouse and Johnny Walker and etcetera,
54:48
because the scale that they're working on is, is 10 times what
54:51
I'm working. On what was the question, there
54:52
was a question actually asked on Whiskey Stories Facebook group
54:56
that we've got going a nice sweet community there.
54:59
We've got about 140 odd people in there and with weekend drama,
55:02
roll calls being great and stuff like that.
55:03
But somebody did ask a question of saying like if and obviously
55:07
Famous Grace is now owned by willing grandsons.
55:10
But what they were saying was when Edmonton owned Famous
55:13
Grouse and McAllen goes into it and, and things that why can,
55:16
how can they make Famous Grouse so affordable or how can the
55:21
price be so low? And it was Connor O'Keefe, who
55:24
he's a big, big friend of the podcast, big listener as well.
55:27
Shout to Connor. He, he kind of gave this great
55:29
explanation about how he visited the team at Edrington and went
55:33
into their blending room and stuff like that.
55:34
And he saw the scale. And obviously as well, it was,
55:37
you know, OK, they used predominantly younger stock that
55:40
they're, they're putting into famous scripts or they used.
55:42
But at the same time, I think what he was saying was that it
55:45
was all done. Everything was done at the same
55:47
time. So it wasn't down to like, oh,
55:50
let's get these casks and put them to the side for Famous
55:53
Grouse. Yeah, it was just the person who
55:54
was tasting, probably doing job similar to yourself would say
55:57
that's okay for that, that that will work for Famous Grouse,
56:00
that that's maybe going to go into a different product.
56:02
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
56:02
And. Yeah, I mean, I think he named
56:04
checked that, you know, 40 year old Island Park.
56:07
Yeah. It could be a 40 year old Island
56:09
Park that goes into Famous Grouse.
56:10
Yeah. If if on the knee on the
56:12
blending room when someone's tasting and sampling out, they
56:14
could say that's yeah, that's exactly what we need for that.
56:17
And that's where it's going. And it's funny what you're
56:18
saying about. Yeah, you're right.
56:20
We get very excited about Psycho Cast, but at the same time from
56:23
your job's point of view. The hardest work is the cheapest
56:26
stuff. Yeah, which is, yeah, it's a
56:29
strange one. And again, I, I that was part
56:31
of. So when I started blending with
56:33
Angus and D, that was what I was kind of involved in.
56:35
Now I kind of head up the single box part.
56:36
It's not just me that blends. We've got a QC team that'll work
56:38
on it too. But yeah, but no, I think
56:41
that's, that's so the, the biggest part of my job these
56:43
days is cask analysis. So, so my, my day job isn't
56:46
doing tastings anymore, but it's tasting casts all day long
56:50
looking at grading. So we're looking at different
56:52
parcels. It all gets filed in the big
56:53
system and, and like you said about designation, so, so
56:56
effectively every cast gets grouped.
56:59
It's, it's rated, but it tends to be grouped by flavour profile
57:02
kind of things like extraction and colouring and, and, and
57:05
balance colouring as to what comes from the cast adding.
57:09
But so they all get grouped and then everything gets to score.
57:12
So single casts are things that get 9 plus out of 10.
57:14
So they're always casts that I've read as exceptional, but
57:16
everything gets kind of grouped in flavour profiles.
57:18
So then when we come to blend, we can't taste every cask every
57:20
time, but we can pick from cask so we know are there.
57:22
So it's so it's different for single malts.
57:25
Every single cask snows and checks when you're working on
57:27
economies of scale. For blends, we have sampling
57:30
profiles, so we'll take a parcel of them rather than of.
57:32
Course 120 Now, in terms of the, the, the, that system that
57:37
you're talking about, I can't remember who I was speaking to.
57:39
And they talked about, you know, don't forget and they gave her a
57:43
number. And I don't want, I don't want
57:45
to say it because I don't know exactly to be able to get it
57:48
right. But it was the McAllen they were
57:50
talking about. And they said that every single
57:52
before McAllen makes it into a bottle, doesn't matter what age
57:55
is how many times that liquid has been sampled for quality to
57:59
go all the way through from the moment it's left the, the, the
58:02
spirit safe to the moment it goes into the, into the glass
58:05
bottle. And that what that person was
58:07
basically trying to say was, you know, that is where the level of
58:10
quality for a for a many, many McAllen.
58:13
Yeah. So from your point of view then
58:14
before, let's just use your 10 year old there before that 10
58:17
year old ends up into the glass. How many times will that 10 year
58:20
old liquid be sampled and tested?
58:22
Yes, it's. Probably been checked at three,
58:24
maybe at 5, maybe 8, maybe at 10.
58:26
So yeah, probably. You're talking, yeah, 4:00-ish
58:28
times minimum. The 10s, actually.
58:29
Probably not the best example because it's all the same cast
58:31
type. Well, it's all bourbon cast.
58:33
So there's first fills, second fills, third fills, refills.
58:35
But but yeah, but if it's hosted newcast finishes, So things like
58:40
the Madeira, which is the first time we use the Madeira cask
58:42
that was getting sampled every three to six months because we
58:45
kind of we want to make sure we do quite a long finishes in our
58:47
company. So most of what we do is at a
58:49
minimum of 12 months, most of two years.
58:52
But we always check it because extraction particularly with
58:54
with active wood types and we use a lot of European oaks so
58:57
that you get a lot of spice and oil and extractive.
59:00
So yes, we test them a lot more actually.
59:01
So, so your standard bourbons we've done for so long, they
59:03
probably don't get checked as much.
59:05
Yeah, yeah. But for the others, they're
59:06
getting tested probably 8-9 ten times.
59:08
And that's a lot of work, you know, that is that's part of
59:10
your job and stuff like that. The other thing as well, talking
59:13
about core ranges and your job is we were I was delivered a
59:16
tasting actually, with more would be the trusted girl
59:20
Codies, codies better half, and it was it was an introduction to
59:26
whiskey for for people in one of the the lineup was fantastic.
59:30
Actually, where it was a Glenn very.
59:32
I really enjoyed it because it was a lineup that more picked
59:35
and a lineup that I wouldn't have gone for at all because as
59:39
you can sometimes get a bit carried away where we are in the
59:42
whiskey sort of journey, we get to try so many great whiskeys.
59:45
But the line up really brought us back down to earth and it was
59:47
a Glen Finnick 12, Johnny Walker black, Glenn Scotia double cast,
59:50
Holy rood arrival, Talisker poetry and Arbeg.
59:53
I know right, So all core ranges and the idea was was these are
59:56
all accessible whiskeys that anyone could purchase for any
59:58
for a decent price. And what one of the things is
1:00:01
because there was people in the room who weren't really that
1:00:02
familiar with whiskey. I was explaining about how, you
1:00:05
know, we were talking about going Finnick 12 and the scale
1:00:07
of what it does, but at the same time.
1:00:10
I may not be able to do it, but I'd love to try.
1:00:12
It is take a Glen for the 12 that's bottled today and then
1:00:16
find one that was bottled 20 years ago.
1:00:17
Yeah. And there will be small
1:00:19
inconsistencies in there. I don't know how small they
1:00:22
would be, but that distance. But of course, that's part of
1:00:24
your job is. Yeah, Because that's what's
1:00:27
great is that you're not when Cadam is a factory of making
1:00:30
whiskey at some point, but it it's also a factory of making
1:00:33
whiskey. That can't always be consistent.
1:00:35
Yeah, I, I guess so The funny thing with blending, I guess
1:00:38
that, that I, I get if you ever guys, if you guys wanna come and
1:00:40
do a blending session sometime very fun, but it's funny.
1:00:47
So I've done some trainings with, with staff and things.
1:00:49
And actually what I always do is actually pick a, a pretty
1:00:51
unexciting style blend. Not that it's a bad whiskey, but
1:00:54
I pick something that's kind of relatively affordable,
1:00:56
relatively simple, But I, I give them kind of ingredients to say,
1:00:59
OK, well, what do you think goes into here?
1:01:00
And I, I give them a choice of usually 3 grains, 3 malts, 3
1:01:04
peats. You have a little bit of smoking
1:01:05
there because the other thing is people completely overestimate
1:01:07
how much peat needs to go into a whiskey to give a, a yeah.
1:01:10
So you end up with these there some massively overly repeated
1:01:13
drams every time. But yeah, so I kind of get them
1:01:16
to break it down. So I pre mix all the malts and
1:01:18
the grains and things. So I give them a bit of a cheat,
1:01:19
but actually just try and identify your ratios and
1:01:23
proportions of what it may be. But yeah, so the other thing for
1:01:25
blending is so although we follow the same recipe as the
1:01:28
last adjustment is the biggest part of what I spend time doing.
1:01:31
So so Glencadam 10 for example. So we have 45% first of all
1:01:34
bourbon casks in that mix. We might have another kind of 25
1:01:37
of second fills. The rest is refill, but the next
1:01:41
time that won't be the same. So what we do is we will pick a
1:01:43
sampling of first fill bourbon cast that are 10 years old, a
1:01:46
sampling of second fills, refills, etcetera.
1:01:48
We'll taste it based on the original ratio and then adjust.
1:01:52
So then it's a case of, well actually this time maybe it
1:01:54
needs a bit less first fill because the second fills are
1:01:55
massive or the refills not really given enough.
1:01:58
We need to put a bit more of second or first.
1:02:00
So so yeah, that's the adjustment thing.
1:02:02
And when we talk briefly about tasting and learning to blend or
1:02:06
learning to kind of identify flavour, that comes the same
1:02:09
with with blending. It just comes down to practice.
1:02:10
So it's like if you, again, I'm, I'm not making assumptions of a
1:02:14
veganism or anything, but if you guys make spaghetti bolognese
1:02:16
really. Well, this is the example I
1:02:18
often use. If you make a batch of it and
1:02:20
it's not quite the same as you would normally make it, you can
1:02:23
identify what's missing without having to look at a recipe book.
1:02:25
Yes. OK.
1:02:25
So you might say, oh, this needs some oregano or more salt or
1:02:28
beef stock or rooster sauce. I was trying to think of things
1:02:30
you might actually, Yeah. Well, you did work on an entire.
1:02:33
That's. It needs more strawberries.
1:02:40
It's a bit more term as soon in the corner, but some of our
1:02:43
ideas. So they train us to be able to
1:02:45
say, OK, this is what I think is missing, Let's remake it again,
1:02:48
but using a higher percentage of this.
1:02:51
And that's a lot of it. So it's kind of dialing back.
1:02:54
So it's more ridiculous than it sounds.
1:02:55
Everyone thinks I take a nice shiny village and just go
1:02:57
through the warehouse skipping away a 60 year old.
1:03:01
Yeah, yeah. It's not quite.
1:03:03
The other side of it as well is and something again, that was
1:03:07
who pointed out this, this tasting was the fact that like,
1:03:09
OK, so come back to your 10 year old whiskey there.
1:03:12
That's the youngest stock that's in there.
1:03:14
Yeah, right. So now what, what, what we're
1:03:17
interested in as well is that you're you're obviously working
1:03:19
very close with you're saying about the percentages needs a
1:03:22
bit less second filler. But but also you've got stock
1:03:24
management because that's a big part where if, if you've got to
1:03:27
look ahead, you see, if you suddenly say, I'm going to use
1:03:30
all the bourbon cast that we've got at 10 years old, then
1:03:33
suddenly you say, well, hang on a minute, because that means
1:03:35
when we get, we're 21. Yeah, last thing you're trying
1:03:37
one year old stock or whatever it may be.
1:03:39
So yeah, so, so to be fair, so that's a lot of it comes to the
1:03:42
owners as well. So Tanya, who's who's who's one
1:03:44
of the owners of the company, she's really involved in the
1:03:46
stock management side. She's bad with numbers than I
1:03:48
am. Probably I could do my ratios.
1:03:49
I'm fine with percentages, but yeah, so so she's very good at
1:03:53
kind of identifying and also saying, yeah, you need to go
1:03:56
easy on the whatever maybe to keep that stock for for the next
1:04:00
kind of runs. So yeah, we tried to sorry, it
1:04:02
runs was a terrible worse, but yeah, to to to be able to
1:04:07
maintain that stock for future because yeah, every time you
1:04:12
bottle a cast like you say, you're cutting into the.
1:04:13
Well, that's a good Yeah, Cameron, I've had a blank Adam
1:04:17
pick me up. What's the best Tom and what's
1:04:18
the best Tom and Tower? What would you, what's your what
1:04:20
are you going to for? For lesson, go to Tom and Tower.
1:04:24
Well, for a Sherry tart. He's done his homework.
1:04:31
We got to go with the the Tom and tow PX.
1:04:33
Wow, OK, look at the colour of that.
1:04:35
It's an absolute belter. Right.
1:04:37
So a lot, a lot of people who have maybe listened to the
1:04:40
podcast and hopefully you guys as well, you'll you'll have
1:04:43
tried the Glencadon PX, which is fantastic.
1:04:46
It's done. Thanks.
1:04:50
But yeah, the Glencadon PX has done absolutely tons for the for
1:04:54
the brand of Glencadon as well. Pop one.
1:04:56
Oh yeah, as. Well, I guess just a small for
1:04:59
me. Because it's, it's just such an
1:05:01
incredibly well balanced RAM where it's not, it's not a
1:05:04
gigantic cherry bomb. You're getting a really good
1:05:06
balance between Glenn Adams spirit and the cast type.
1:05:10
The Tom and Till PX is using the same casks as the Glenn Adams
1:05:17
PX, except this time we're using Tom and Till spirit as well.
1:05:19
So it's got that softer, creamier side to it.
1:05:22
And like a lot, one of the most common things people say about
1:05:26
PX is that it goes great on ice cream.
1:05:29
That for me, this is almost just like PX on ice cream because
1:05:32
it's got that creamy vanilla side to it with the PX, that
1:05:36
it's got the rich, the rich, dark dried fruits with it.
1:05:38
It's just, it's a beautiful drum.
1:05:40
Yeah. And, and, and we've, you know,
1:05:41
we've spoken a lot on the podcast over the, you know, over
1:05:44
the episodes about Glencarum Tom and Tau really isn't one we've
1:05:48
made. Oh, it's not so much.
1:05:49
I've always other than just argue about the name.
1:05:51
I don't know the. Name.
1:05:52
I mean, I've always, I've always been, you know, I, I don't want
1:05:56
to bring it down. When I'm saying this, I don't
1:05:57
mean this in a kind of backhanded way at all, but you
1:06:01
know, you see a lot of questions online.
1:06:03
It probably will come up on our maybe our whiskey stories group
1:06:06
at some point. But someone will say I'm really
1:06:08
looking to get into whiskey. What whiskey would you recommend
1:06:11
for me to get into? And for me, toe and toe was
1:06:13
almost, you know, I remember getting into whiskey and you
1:06:17
always get that burn and you never sometimes that's quite a
1:06:22
was one of the first whiskeys that I just didn't get that web.
1:06:28
And I was just like, you know what, I can just sip and drink
1:06:30
this quite happily. Yeah, You know, I'm actually, I
1:06:35
do like Tom and tell a lot. I think so the reason that end
1:06:38
up with the kind of slogan, the gentle dramas because it's
1:06:41
really easy. Yeah.
1:06:43
So that one, a 40% whiskey is actually natural color because
1:06:46
because, but, but you know, I mean and that cost you about
1:06:50
£40. That's the other thing about
1:06:53
both. I mean, you, you will have
1:06:54
premium grams, but what one thing is what we've always said
1:06:58
with the with, and that was probably one of the reasons when
1:07:00
you're here is that if like ours, we were getting 35 mils
1:07:04
and at the price that we were getting at, which you know, and
1:07:06
Kev's not doing it to lose money.
1:07:08
He's he's not making massive amounts of money on on.
1:07:10
But it's very fair, yeah. Very, very fair pricing, but at
1:07:13
the same time fair pricing but for the quality of of whiskey
1:07:16
that we're getting like you. Yeah, this, this, this whiskey
1:07:18
here is an absolute cracker. And you're saying no.
1:07:21
How much you said for for quite? Yeah. 40 lbs, you know, just
1:07:24
depends who you go for, but the value for money with it and the
1:07:27
actual quality you're getting, it's fantastic.
1:07:30
Well, it goes back to the Glen. We had Stephen Woodcock from
1:07:32
Glenn Murray on. And one of the big things that
1:07:35
he said that really sort of resonated with me when he said
1:07:37
it and it, you know, it wasn't a penny drop sort of moment.
1:07:40
But what he said is like he said, you know, people often go
1:07:43
up to them. And Glenn Murray is that it's
1:07:45
not household dramas such, but it's a it's a very your core
1:07:48
ranges. You'll get them at the
1:07:49
supermarkets and stuff like that, which is very, very fun.
1:07:51
Yeah. And sometimes people look down
1:07:52
at that being. Like if you can get in a
1:07:54
supermarket it's probably. Too accessible, all that kind of
1:07:56
stuff. But one of the things is some of
1:07:58
these people who ask him like, why are you so cheap?
1:07:59
And he says, no, it's not why are you so cheap?
1:08:01
It's why is everyone else so bloody expensive?
1:08:03
Yeah, Yeah. And I think it's a fairpoint.
1:08:04
And one of the things is that it you know, ever since that
1:08:07
episode, Glenn Murray has been a a whisker on my radar.
1:08:10
Now where so much of it. And yeah, you maybe I have been
1:08:13
guilty of the fact that, well, you can get in the Co-op.
1:08:15
So like you can get there Glenn Murray 10 or, you know, in the
1:08:19
Co-op. So I'm not going to bother
1:08:20
getting Glenn Murray. I can find something a bit more
1:08:22
rare or unique online. Yeah.
1:08:23
But actually, sometimes these are the best drums that you can.
1:08:25
Yeah, hold on. Yeah, Yeah, I mean, The thing is
1:08:26
as well. So with with what?
1:08:28
You were saying about. What Stephen Woodcock said about
1:08:31
how Why is everyone else so, so expensive?
1:08:34
You can use that same argument with what you were saying
1:08:36
earlier about how does Macallan go into grouse.
1:08:38
They're using the same ingredients, they use the same
1:08:40
production methods. And again, this isn't anything
1:08:43
to to bash Macallan, but it's it's to help kind of understand
1:08:47
how these elements make it into those blends is at face value.
1:08:52
It's not so much about the price of these these ingredients that
1:08:56
are going into it. No.
1:08:57
Well, I think it's supposed you. Look at you, look at you.
1:08:58
It's just almost. The kind of, you know, when
1:09:01
you're talking about, obviously it's almost a matter of
1:09:03
coincidence where A1 cast could probably sit next to each other
1:09:06
in a warehouse somewhere. One might end up going into
1:09:09
famous garage retailing for X1 goes into Macallan age statement
1:09:13
retailing for Y. It's just yeah, you know, right.
1:09:16
Yeah. Oh, sorry.
1:09:17
Well, I was. Just going to say it is
1:09:19
interesting. When you look at the likes of
1:09:22
like a Glen Murray, Glen carom, Tom and Tom and Ty and you say,
1:09:24
you know, we we, you know, these are brands that keep the price
1:09:29
point where they wanted to be. But what you then you get and
1:09:33
that's where like you're saying about the 10 year old that the
1:09:34
guys had that didn't know what they were getting.
1:09:37
It's then soon as somebody tries that, and I'm going to use the
1:09:40
phrase that Cody Reynolds used on the podcast as soon as
1:09:44
somebody gets the liquid to lift.
1:09:46
But I think it must be a big. Thing for you.
1:09:49
Cameron and yourself and Ian as a brat previous as a Brian
1:09:52
ambassador getting people to try the Glencadam to then suddenly
1:09:56
go like wow that's fantastic I like what it was for me yeah I
1:10:00
mean without being disrespected. Tom and Tom and Tower.
1:10:02
It's the Glencadam for me is that, you know, it's our, it's
1:10:05
our real stand out. And I've actively gone and found
1:10:08
more Glencadam after trying it for the very first time.
1:10:11
Yeah. And just being like, yeah, that
1:10:13
is a DRAM that I absolutely love.
1:10:14
But one of the drams I want to question you about.
1:10:17
Oh, oh, here we go. OK.
1:10:20
There's a there's a whiskey story that Angus and I have
1:10:22
enjoyed. We we've enjoyed it.
1:10:23
It's a shared whiskey story. Yeah.
1:10:25
Lots of people have talked a lot about.
1:10:27
People have mentioned it. Actually, Angus and I have
1:10:29
travelled around quite a lot. And on our travels, we've had
1:10:32
some travelling whiskies. There's a, there was a great
1:10:34
photo of Angus with a bottle of Glen Murray train on a train.
1:10:38
He that we were allowed to drink on trains at that point.
1:10:41
He did have it in a glass. He was holding the bottle.
1:10:44
It did look like he was wearing a shirt and a really smart pair
1:10:47
of trousers and drinking Glen Murray out of the bottle.
1:10:49
But he did have a glass. Was there a cork to be seen?
1:10:51
There was, there was no, there was no cork on that cork.
1:10:53
The cork had gone. There was a Glen.
1:10:54
Grant the cork was taken out and out of thrown out the train
1:10:57
window. I think there was a Glen Grant
1:10:59
10 that we enjoyed, the Glen Grant 10 fantastic.
1:11:02
But right, we were heading up last summer, we were heading up
1:11:05
to Dingwell. Yeah, Inverness, Dingwall for a
1:11:08
weekend away. We know how enjoy ourselves.
1:11:12
But still happened. I went to Jeffrey St.
1:11:15
Whiskey and tobacco. Shop and I decided I'm going to
1:11:17
get a nice DRAM to treat everybody.
1:11:19
We've been doing a podcast for just just over just under a
1:11:22
year. So yeah, people like, oh, used
1:11:24
to do that podcast, get us a good DRAM and what have you.
1:11:27
I went in and I thought, where do I go here?
1:11:29
What do I do? And I was looking at the Jeffrey
1:11:31
St. whiskey tobacco are very, very good with independent
1:11:34
bottlers. And I thought, right, maybe try
1:11:36
it. But then I was thinking to
1:11:37
myself, maybe that's too much of A flex with some of the guys
1:11:40
that we're going with because they like a DRAM, but they
1:11:42
really want to be pulling out a 5556% single cast for for for
1:11:47
that where it's a bit or or did I try and I saw a Glenn Cannon.
1:11:52
I went right. Never seen that bottle before.
1:11:54
We bought that bottle. We enjoyed that bottle on the
1:11:58
second day of our trip when we were very hungover.
1:12:00
And that was the bottle that really kind of.
1:12:02
I shouldn't encourage this, right?
1:12:04
Please. Yeah.
1:12:05
Drink responsibly. But.
1:12:06
If you're drinking. Glenn Gaddam I It's fine, but we
1:12:10
absolutely loved it and I've since found out that.
1:12:14
Whiskey's been taken off the. Market it was a Glencadam 14
1:12:17
reserved the cognac cognac finished 2006 it is a cracker
1:12:21
yeah so so that was my recipe so.
1:12:23
I'm glad you liked. No, no, exactly.
1:12:30
That was one of the favorite whiskeys of last, actually.
1:12:33
Oh, brilliant. Absolutely tremendous.
1:12:34
Yeah, No. So I yeah, I sourced this casks.
1:12:37
So I I saw that from from to cantling into cognac to to when
1:12:40
it was released. Really.
1:12:41
But yeah, it's a cracker. Did it get taken off the market?
1:12:46
No, just we just ran out of stock, right?
1:12:47
Oh, was that? In my store behind.
1:12:51
It so so it's it. All of these are small batch.
1:12:53
Runs if you like that did you try the 15 white port that we
1:12:56
did as well because that's also come and gone.
1:12:58
We did. I think we, I did.
1:12:59
I think we had. Some colour of the way it's
1:13:02
green. Yeah, we did so.
1:13:05
If you like the. Mouthfeel on the 14.
1:13:07
Cognac, it's the mouthfeel, the white port.
1:13:09
It's kind of similar. You get like this kind of cocoa
1:13:10
fat kind of oiliness to it, which is cool.
1:13:12
Can you make one of that? Could you just so there's a
1:13:15
tomato? One generally there's a 14 year
1:13:16
old tomato. Cognac at the Moment 40. 6% same
1:13:19
finishing regime, same cast. Like Tom Tower.
1:13:22
Yeah, 14 year old Tom source to food that.
1:13:25
Was it was in, it was in the bag.
1:13:27
It was in my it was in my bag there.
1:13:29
It was a cracker, to be fair. Honestly, Absolutely.
1:13:32
Delicious. And, to be perfectly honest,
1:13:33
like there was. Non whiskey drinkers, yeah.
1:13:35
But there was guys who like, if we're all having a drama,
1:13:37
they're like, oh, I'll see if I like this.
1:13:38
Yeah, everybody. So I got geeky with that, to be
1:13:42
fair. So.
1:13:42
So one of the bug bears I have, and I'm not going to name and
1:13:46
shame, but cast finishing is is a very loose term.
1:13:49
So you can cast fish for a couple of months, you can cash
1:13:51
finish for years. And then there's the whole
1:13:53
question of a double maturation and all this stuff.
1:13:55
Like I said, our minimum finishes are are for for 12
1:13:57
months. Everything else tends to be two
1:13:59
plus that's two years and eight months.
1:14:01
I think in cognac, and it was deliberate because cognac is a
1:14:04
so again, from the wine world, great.
1:14:06
Just that's kind of in tuned into you.
1:14:09
Cognac finishing in whiskey is something that I'd previously
1:14:12
not had many great experiences with.
1:14:14
And again, there's drams that I bought think, oh, cognac finish.
1:14:16
I try it like, yeah, I don't I'm really having to like look for
1:14:18
the cognac here. I'm trying.
1:14:20
And when I'm saying look for cognac, I don't expect it to
1:14:21
taste like cognac. But the reason cognac cast is so
1:14:24
expensive is there's some of the most expensive wood you can buy
1:14:26
in France. So this is using limousine oak.
1:14:29
So this is really expensive stuff.
1:14:31
It uses a tree called Quark of Petraea.
1:14:33
Have you heard of that one? High bar spells.
1:14:39
And cooks robo, but it's it's a mixture.
1:14:42
And yeah, so these are expensive, really, kind of
1:14:44
really sought after casks. Sure.
1:14:46
And, and so I was looking for French choke pepperiness.
1:14:49
I'm looking for kind of characters to come out of the
1:14:52
cognac wood as well as obviously the the kind of the buffering
1:14:54
that you would have for the cognac liquid in these casks.
1:14:56
So these are exo cognac casks. I can't tell you where it came
1:14:58
from. I was going to give you a clue
1:15:01
there, but it's too obvious. But they're really cool.
1:15:05
And yeah, so, so after like six months, it was interesting.
1:15:08
After 12 months it was getting there.
1:15:10
After 18 months, it became really peppery and nutmeggy and
1:15:13
kind of what I expected for French oak.
1:15:15
And then after two years it really came to life.
1:15:17
So it brought out this, if you've ever had really good
1:15:19
cognacs, so Camus Exo boundaries, if you've not had
1:15:22
it, it's brilliant. It's like a single estate style
1:15:24
cognac. Not that expensive there.
1:15:27
VSOP is really good too, but it's famous or it's not famous,
1:15:31
but it's classic for me because it brings up notes of violets
1:15:33
and I'm really good old cognac has this kind of Violet, Parma
1:15:36
Violet kind of thing. Now after about two years, I
1:15:38
started getting a violent note coming out and I'm like, that's
1:15:40
really cool. This has actually given me what
1:15:43
people in cognac desire. So yeah, so I had this kind of,
1:15:45
yeah, mixture of kind of really lovely nuttiness, creaminess,
1:15:48
this nice oily mouthfeel. You also got a bit of kind of
1:15:50
brambles and kind of red fruits. So no, it was really cool, but
1:15:53
it took, it took a while for that to come through.
1:15:56
So in a, in a not cost cutting, but corner cutting away the Tom
1:15:59
and tails like a mimic of it. So if you like, if you like the
1:16:01
Glencadam, the Tom and tails really good too.
1:16:04
I have to admit I'm not not a. Cognac drinker by any I
1:16:08
actually, the only time I think I've ever really knowingly kind
1:16:12
of ordered cognac was I was on holiday.
1:16:15
We were in hot, we were in went to Macau and they were kind of
1:16:18
all these adverts for cognac, cognac, cognac.
1:16:21
And I was going, I've never really had cognac.
1:16:23
And we went then on to Thailand and we're in Thailand and I was
1:16:26
just like, you know what, Laura was my current wife.
1:16:29
I said, you know what, I'm going to order a cognac after after
1:16:33
dinner. I'm like, I'm going to do, yeah,
1:16:34
I'm going to have a. So I ordered this, came in this
1:16:38
huge glass just like, how's the goldfish?
1:16:41
And then I was like, yeah, but you know, it's like the first
1:16:44
time you have something and you're like, well, I didn't know
1:16:47
what I expected. And I kind of had it.
1:16:49
I went, I think I was like, well.
1:16:52
I've had a cognac now. But the holiday continued.
1:16:57
It's a feature that I would like to run.
1:17:00
Going big on running features with the podcast last week, we
1:17:03
did the player distilleries right for the very first time.
1:17:06
But I think we're going we're going to break back.
1:17:07
I just need to find some background music for that one.
1:17:09
So look out for that. But one of the things Curtis
1:17:13
actually mentioned it on on the pod and he said a Unicorn DRAM.
1:17:18
And it really got me thinking like, 'cause you know, Unicorn
1:17:21
DRAM being the sort of DRAM that you've either not tried, but you
1:17:24
wish you had tried and now it's gone.
1:17:26
Obviously you're desperately one day it might pop up on the
1:17:28
auctions or one day you might see a what is it?
1:17:31
An old dusty going? What is Scott Moore called it in
1:17:34
a met over in the states. Our our now official US brand
1:17:37
ambassador to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
1:17:39
He goes dusty hunting in some of the shops over in the States.
1:17:43
He'll cross liquor stores. He'll cross I he'll go to your
1:17:45
cross borders county lines to find a liquor store and rummage
1:17:49
through find a dusty bottle. Go wow, that's a belter.
1:17:52
Yeah, now like so I've got me thinking and I was kind of like,
1:17:54
what would my Unicorn drammy And until we knew we were doing this
1:17:57
podcast and I knew I was going to talk to you about that one
1:18:00
because I had actually heard that the SW had taken it off the
1:18:03
mark. Well, so there was a bit of a
1:18:05
thing about the. Font size.
1:18:07
Right now that's, which is the so it.
1:18:10
Wasn't removed, so we got to. Sell it through.
1:18:11
But because the word cognac is a bit too large, they thought that
1:18:14
people would get confused between cognac and that's not
1:18:16
just the SWE. But no.
1:18:18
But yeah, the people would go, oh, Glen cap cognac.
1:18:20
They've branched out so. Right.
1:18:24
OK, so I had. Heard that actually, because of
1:18:26
that, because that was going to lead me on.
1:18:28
Another thing was that would be a really fascinating tasting.
1:18:33
Yeah, whiskey stories podcast idea.
1:18:35
OK, copyright, but I'm I'm pretty sure that to be.
1:18:39
Perfectly honest, I bet. You Mark Davidson's already done
1:18:41
a tasting like that, but like whiskeys that maybe have been
1:18:45
taken out by the SWA that you wouldn't be able to do.
1:18:48
Yeah, I mean, champagne cast. Cider.
1:18:52
Yeah. The Glen Murray Cider cast.
1:18:54
Yeah, I'd always. Heard a bunch about but I've
1:18:56
never managed to try. Yeah so and champagne cast.
1:18:59
I think people have got in trouble.
1:19:00
With the yeah, so I remember. So again, in the retail days I
1:19:02
was selling. Spring Bank Calvados for ages
1:19:04
and then I realized that Calvados wasn't the legal cask
1:19:06
at the time because so it is now.
1:19:08
And actually I've been trying to get them for years because I
1:19:10
thought it was an amazing finish.
1:19:12
But yeah, but I remember, I remember trying to inquire about
1:19:14
it like, yeah, it's illegal. I'm like, oh, I sold loads of
1:19:16
them. Whoops.
1:19:19
Pretty sure of. Illegal to benefit from it.
1:19:21
It was more of a spring. Bad thing, but yeah, I remember
1:19:22
them. Having that as a, as a release,
1:19:24
there's only looking back at it like, oh, right.
1:19:25
Really. Yeah.
1:19:26
That's why I've never seen another one.
1:19:28
Right, One more. What's that last there?
1:19:29
Well. What was that?
1:19:30
What's that last drama I'm going to have?
1:19:33
I mean have you had Grandcadome team before?
1:19:36
Because like, it's like nectarines and custard.
1:19:38
It's pretty well, well, well. It's kind of more restrained
1:19:43
than some of the other ones you've tried.
1:19:44
But it's but it's all bourbon cask super elegant, just shows
1:19:47
you what a nice bit of time it would does for well, I I went
1:19:51
and just helped myself to be. Honest to all ball and true.
1:19:53
Now briefly talk. I mean it was it was pre
1:19:57
podcast, which is kind of before I knew much about whiskey.
1:20:00
Well, I was in Tom and Towel itself.
1:20:02
And I could have had all the space side whiskey at my
1:20:04
disposal. And I said, but I actually
1:20:06
really quite like my beated. And the guy behind the bar said,
1:20:09
well, have you tried Old Ballantra?
1:20:11
And I said, I've never heard of Old Ballantra.
1:20:12
And he said it's Tom and Tao, but it's beated.
1:20:14
And I went, well, I never knew such a thing existed.
1:20:17
Yeah, 55 PM as well. And it was fantastic.
1:20:19
Yeah, yeah. And it was fantastic.
1:20:21
It is heavily. Beaten and you know, obviously,
1:20:24
you know, I mean used to heavily beated islands and you have that
1:20:26
kind of maritime, you know they have that maybe kind of TCP,
1:20:30
yeah, sort of thing you don't get.
1:20:32
That with this, it's not a. Cereal it's just it's like a
1:20:35
slab of beef on a BBQ or some vegan alternatives is that is
1:20:40
this is this like a week of production that you do Peter so
1:20:43
started off as a week of production so yes in 2001 we.
1:20:46
Did our first run of old Ballantrine and we did it
1:20:48
actually as a blending ingredient to begin with.
1:20:50
So, yeah, so, so Terry, so the owner of the company, he's still
1:20:53
with us. He's now in his 90s, so he's
1:20:54
kind of taking a back seat. So it's just some of his son and
1:20:57
daughter that run it now. But Terry kind of thought why
1:21:00
don't once we acquired our own distillery.
1:21:02
So we bought Tom and Tell in 2000.
1:21:03
Before that we just traded. Sure.
1:21:05
And yeah, he, he kind of thought, why don't we try and
1:21:07
make our own? So it's like we keep buying
1:21:09
island for blending. Why don't we try and make our
1:21:10
own island? Yeah.
1:21:11
And I think Robert kind of gave him the view that we can't
1:21:13
because we're at space side. Yeah, there's not too many space
1:21:15
side distilleries that have a. Kind of standard.
1:21:18
PITA delays, No, lots of people do.
1:21:20
There's like a special and yeah, so Ardmore are the guys that you
1:21:22
kind of bother. This was outside of it and
1:21:25
you've got Ben Riek, I guess because they've kind of done a
1:21:27
bunch. But no, we've been torn.
1:21:28
I was, I mean, not at 55 PPM, no.
1:21:31
Yeah, so they literally, they did it for a week.
1:21:34
To see how turned out. They did it again in 2000 and
1:21:36
two, 2003. They tried what had been brought
1:21:39
out in 2001 and thought, oh, this is pretty good.
1:21:41
And yeah, so it's slow, kind of, it's slowly kind of grown,
1:21:43
sorry, over the years. So now it's six weeks of
1:21:46
production. So we do three weeks of the
1:21:47
winter, three weeks. So that's quite a lot of time.
1:21:48
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so.
1:21:50
So we have to. Give it a full the system.
1:21:52
Gets about 10 full caustic flushes.
1:21:53
So we don't, yeah, we don't do the the thing where you can't
1:21:55
transition from pitted to non pitted and then kind of just
1:21:58
bleed it out. We literally Tom and Tal would
1:22:00
taste pretty weird if it had a bit of old balance and tint in
1:22:02
it. And and the reason that it's
1:22:04
kept in a black or kind of brown bottle or kind of a black glass
1:22:07
and and a different name is actually just because it's so
1:22:08
different to the standard Tom and Tal.
1:22:10
You don't want to confuse people.
1:22:11
Yeah, it's always been. 50 ABV as well, so 50. 5 PPM, 50 ABV.
1:22:16
Big chunky. Yeah yeah.
1:22:17
Humanity hugely. I love old band train.
1:22:20
Whenever I whenever I kind of am lost for getting something
1:22:24
pitted at the bar somewhere and I see old band train, I will go.
1:22:27
I used to love sliding into people in blind tastings.
1:22:29
Because because it's a good one to get people confused.
1:22:31
Yeah, well The thing is as well, it wins over.
1:22:34
Quite a lot. Of new people.
1:22:35
Who aren't too into peated whiskey because their idea of
1:22:38
peated whiskey is big and medicinal and postal whereas
1:22:43
balantroon. Has got none of that, no.
1:22:45
And and something we should mention.
1:22:47
I know we're, you know, as usual times probably getting away from
1:22:51
us, but two distilleries, but there's going to be 1/3.
1:22:54
Distillery. For Is this Dundee?
1:22:57
Yeah. And it's not in Scotland.
1:22:58
No, it's not. It's not Enrique.
1:22:59
It's in. Shunan yeah, yeah.
1:23:01
So we are China. China, yeah, that's that's so
1:23:04
very Trumpy. China.
1:23:06
We need to be strong. Really.
1:23:08
Yeah, no. So it's it's coming great bunch
1:23:10
of hands to China. No, it's pretty.
1:23:14
Good, I would say. But yeah, it's very exciting.
1:23:17
So actually. So that came around.
1:23:19
So we have an office to Shanghai.
1:23:20
It's a big part of our business, blended whiskies particularly.
1:23:23
Well, we've got a couple of domestically there and single
1:23:27
casks and single malts as well. But yeah, we actually, so we did
1:23:30
a bit of consulting for two other distilleries and kind of
1:23:33
China and kind of that, that kind of neck of the woods.
1:23:35
And there was a bit of a pause of like, wait a minute, if we're
1:23:37
helping other people build them, why are we not?
1:23:40
Why aren't we doing it ourselves?
1:23:41
Yeah. So yes.
1:23:42
No, we have, we have this, this new product.
1:23:44
In China, which is quite cool. So I mean, is that all?
1:23:46
Because I mean I, I. Saw it on your website because,
1:23:49
I mean, Ross mentioned it, so yeah, you have to mention this.
1:23:52
I mean, it's like something out of ink painting.
1:23:54
Yeah, it's amazing. So.
1:23:55
So it's. It's 1000 Island Lake is what it
1:23:58
translates has and it's it's it's about as Scottish as you
1:24:01
can imagine a part of China to be.
1:24:03
But no, it's amazing. So all these little kind of
1:24:05
things you gonna invent the kind of the the, the. 1000 island
1:24:08
late Nessie is that yeah yeah, I was gonna I was gonna say
1:24:11
dressing, but yeah that's. But yeah, yeah, we need.
1:24:15
To kind of get some form of. Yeah, prehistoric creature in
1:24:17
there. But no, it's, it's looking
1:24:19
amazing. To be fair.
1:24:20
I'm very excited about it. There's some cool stuff coming
1:24:21
through. That's part of your remit as
1:24:23
well then, but I'll be involved in some.
1:24:25
Wednesday coming online And when does that?
1:24:27
Well, it's funny. So so the visitor centre at
1:24:29
Glencabham's taking. I don't even know how long,
1:24:30
about 8 years. 5 I'm alright. When?
1:24:37
Does that, When does that open? Is that slate that's open?
1:24:39
This year, so that so like Adam, yeah, late summer, late summer.
1:24:42
Is this latest? You need anyone to cut the
1:24:44
ribbon? Yeah.
1:24:45
Oh yeah. Well, take the first ride on the
1:24:47
barrel. Yeah, that's right on the
1:24:49
barrel. For the whiskey story. 3 mph
1:24:52
yeah. Yeah.
1:24:54
So that's, that's that late summer, yes.
1:24:57
And that's you now actually kind of it's a different level of
1:24:59
construction there. So probably before the visit
1:25:01
center. Yeah, I think it's a year pretty
1:25:04
much it's completion. For Oh wow.
1:25:05
Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean a pretty cool volumes pretty the.
1:25:09
Same as tomato, same as yeah, 3 million.
1:25:11
Mark, I think is the plan. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
1:25:14
We're. Working on again.
1:25:16
Once. Once it's a bit closer to time,
1:25:18
I'd have to tell you more. Yeah, well, there's some very
1:25:20
exciting stuff happened. We're gonna need to get you
1:25:22
backward 'cause I mean, as I say, we've we're fast.
1:25:24
You've gotta get a train home. And we're also fast running
1:25:26
into, you know, territory where Cameron Newton gets annoyed.
1:25:29
But if we if we go over this March.
1:25:32
So yeah, we are getting to the point of the podcast where we do
1:25:34
ask our guests for our what, 3 drams or their what, 3 drams?
1:25:37
She says. Cameron, I'm gonna come to you
1:25:38
first. Well, should we do one for one
1:25:40
or should we do 1 each? What should we do?
1:25:42
Let's do one for one for one. Well, he does the same.
1:25:44
You can do one. Well, there we go.
1:25:46
You're right, So. Cameron DRAM what 3 drams any
1:25:49
DRAM, whiskey or anything that has any meaning.
1:25:51
I tell you what we'll do we we allow a bonus one if you want to
1:25:54
go on brand as well. So what what would you what
1:25:57
would you pick as your first DRAM of your what 3 drams?
1:26:00
So my first DRAM would probably actually be one of the first
1:26:02
drams that. Actually got me into whiskey as
1:26:05
a whole. So it was ages ago now, but me
1:26:09
and my, my brother, we were away up on a camping trip up in
1:26:12
Torridon and we, we figured, let's treat ourselves, let's get
1:26:17
a nice whiskey for this trip up to Tordon.
1:26:19
So we went into Tesco and the I think the most, I think it was
1:26:24
the most expensive one in Tesco at the time, which by our
1:26:27
standards was obviously the more expensive it is, the better it
1:26:31
is kind of thing. But it was Talisker 10, not not
1:26:35
a ridiculously. Expensive whiskey, but in terms
1:26:38
of. Tesco Drams, it was it was right
1:26:41
up there and yeah, we took that up north with us.
1:26:45
We had I don't know if any of you guys have been to Tardon
1:26:48
driven path through it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:26:51
So. Tardon is just our absolutely.
1:26:54
Stunning part of Scotland. Like, I really would urge anyone
1:26:58
who hasn't been to Tordon to go there because, I mean, a big
1:27:01
part for me about working in whiskey is like Cameron knew and
1:27:04
said on his, like, I view myself as a bit of an ambassador for
1:27:07
Scotland as well. Yeah.
1:27:08
Yeah. Because places like this are
1:27:09
just. That's mad.
1:27:10
They're amazing. Fantastic.
1:27:12
Yeah. Yeah.
1:27:12
It's absolutely amazing. So anyway me?
1:27:15
And my me and my brother, we went on a wee hiking and camping
1:27:18
trip up in Tordon and the first night when we were camping we
1:27:21
had this bottle at telescope 10. But we had, we'd been eating
1:27:26
like our dinner, if you can call it that, which was literally
1:27:29
scooping out some cold beans out of 10.
1:27:32
Yeah, that was a couple, couple of pork pies, maybe a sausage
1:27:36
roll. And that was kind of it.
1:27:38
But yeah, we were just drinking this bottle of Talisker 10.
1:27:41
And we we'd, so we'd went to Spar for all of our shopping,
1:27:45
for our food, and we'd picked up some Sparzone Mars Bars, Spars
1:27:50
bars, Spars bars. You heard it here first.
1:27:53
But genuinely the. The combination between Talisker
1:27:57
being peaty and salty and the the caramel and the chocolate
1:28:02
with the Mars bar, it was just absolutely incredible.
1:28:04
And from that point on, I was, I was just kind of hooked in a
1:28:07
good way, obviously, because I mean, I've never really been
1:28:11
that into whiskey beforehand. Like me and my brother or dad.
1:28:14
He's he's always drank a bit of whiskey and he's always talked
1:28:17
about how like just how great a drink it is.
1:28:22
But we'd never really delved into it ourselves.
1:28:24
And we thought, why not on this trip up north, what's more
1:28:27
fitting than get ourselves a wee bottle of whiskey?
1:28:29
And Talisker was also my dad's go to as well.
1:28:31
So that's kind of why we went for it as well.
1:28:34
And yeah, we were just at the top of, well, not not at the top
1:28:38
of Monroe, but at the top of a hill where we popped up our
1:28:40
campsite, just sat as the sun's going down, drinking this bottle
1:28:44
of Telescar, eating our sparse bars.
1:28:47
And yeah, it was it. Was just incredible and I'll
1:28:49
I'll. Never forget that.
1:28:51
Well, it's interesting because like speaking, speaking.
1:28:53
To yourself, Ian, and you know, so many of our, what, 3 drams
1:28:57
have been like situational location as well.
1:29:00
Like we've had people. Was it Vicky Wicky Elliott
1:29:03
talking about was it the Ugga Dao she mentioned there?
1:29:07
Oh yeah, I was on the beach when the kind of bonfire going.
1:29:10
Yeah. And we've had loads of people
1:29:12
talk about different scenarios and different situations.
1:29:14
And one of the things that I well, it was actually one of the
1:29:18
best so far, wanky tasting notes that we've had on the podcast
1:29:21
was that George and Rachel from Fragrant Drops.
1:29:24
It was their inch Gower and the, the the one of the, one of the
1:29:29
girls on The Who was in the in the room tasting it.
1:29:31
She said she's from up this neck of the woods, but she's like,
1:29:34
that's like, I won't do her accent fully, but she's like,
1:29:37
that's like you're, you're on, you're at the beach at Bonf.
1:29:43
And she said you're. Eating a.
1:29:45
You're eating a A. Wee crippled tin thing of sticky
1:29:49
toffee pudding getting hit in the face of sea breeze.
1:29:52
Now that's a taste in though that I can really bind it
1:29:55
because as somebody who maybe can't distinguish or what was it
1:29:59
you said, What was it? Drill down on the tasting
1:30:01
flavour notes. But sometimes a smell or a taste
1:30:03
can take you someplace else and and is that difficult for?
1:30:07
You then Ian, where? You're going God, that just
1:30:10
smells like sitting in a dusty room books.
1:30:14
But could you? Put that down as a tasting note.
1:30:16
Or do you have to then suddenly go hang on a minute?
1:30:18
What kind of book? What am I?
1:30:19
What am I, Harry? Potter, what am I?
1:30:23
What am I going to? What does that actually?
1:30:25
Smell like because that you that telescope 10.
1:30:27
I'll imagine always taste me back There you go.
1:30:30
You're right back to. Toradol, you're suddenly going
1:30:32
right sitting, whole beans stored.
1:30:34
In spars bars, like there you go that there's there's tasty notes
1:30:39
that I can buy in there, right. Whereas sitting there and going,
1:30:42
you know, pineapple or you know, so is that something that can be
1:30:45
Yeah, so there's a science behind that actually.
1:30:46
So so the part of your brain that.
1:30:47
Detects flavour is also where you kind of store a lot of your
1:30:49
core memory. So, so a lot of a lot of smells
1:30:52
and aromas and taste is all kind of located together as an
1:30:55
experience. So, so if you had like a really
1:30:57
good apple, I know that's really random, but if you ever have you
1:30:59
ever had like an apple that's like, oh wow, this is yeah,
1:31:02
you'll remember that apple, but you'll remember biting.
1:31:03
Into it as well, you'll just remember.
1:31:04
Eating it and actually the random plug, which is I don't I
1:31:09
don't love the band, sorry, guys, but 21 Pilots, if you
1:31:12
remember the song is all my friends are heroes tickets,
1:31:15
though, whatever it's called. There's there's a lyric in that
1:31:18
which is brilliant when she's saying that, oh, if if only I
1:31:21
could get that smell of growing up and kind of put it into a
1:31:24
candle. But I can't remember that I'm
1:31:27
doing justice. But I'm right here and think
1:31:28
that's actually really clever because it's kind of saying that
1:31:30
yeah, if I wish I could make it a smell capture it, But.
1:31:33
And I'd only ever sell one probably to my brother.
1:31:35
And it's kind of this kind of point of, yeah, it's it's a
1:31:37
rumors to take you back. So yeah, no, there's a science
1:31:40
that really. I suppose me saying this reminds
1:31:42
me of tasting whiskey in my granddad's attic doesn't really
1:31:43
mean anything to anybody else. No, but but yeah, there is a
1:31:46
there's a link up. So a lot of associative as well,
1:31:49
you know, so I always. Literally describe Yeah, whiskey
1:31:51
for me. Is like the frame around the
1:31:53
picture. So all my best moments of
1:31:55
drinking whiskey have been in a great situation, not honestly a
1:31:59
happy situation, but just it's been a fulfilling, uplifting,
1:32:02
whatever it may be. I remember a lot of people's
1:32:05
like kind of elders and stuff that we've lost kind of by what
1:32:08
we drank at their wake, which is kind of morbid but kind of
1:32:10
interesting. So I drink those drams.
1:32:12
I remember them, which is kind of cool.
1:32:14
You never want to pick a drama you really love because it's
1:32:16
miserable. But.
1:32:19
No, Yeah, there is. There's a science too as well
1:32:21
it. Really is fascinating, right?
1:32:23
So you know, I'll go for you then.
1:32:24
What's your drama number one? So you've got 3 drams?
1:32:27
Yeah. So so on a similar theme to I
1:32:29
guess yours in. Terms of the first whiskey I
1:32:30
really, really liked was Dawini 15.
1:32:34
And so we always so one of my friends was born on exactly the
1:32:37
same day as me and we, we kind of grew up together.
1:32:39
We've been chattered friends literally since his his mum and
1:32:42
my mum were, were pals in the same ward.
1:32:45
And yeah, so we, we, I mean, well, I'd say we drank at 18.
1:32:47
But before then, if you ordered a whiskey in a bar, you didn't
1:32:49
get IDD. But but, but traditionally we
1:32:53
always ordered margin 10 because that was his grandda's favorite
1:32:55
wisdom. And so I remember so on our 18th
1:32:59
birthday, by the dots. So we both met up.
1:33:01
It was a school night. We both went down to the local
1:33:03
pub that we'd drank in for years.
1:33:09
Sorry, I hope this doesn't. Yeah, a big responsibility.
1:33:12
Yeah. Underage drink.
1:33:13
Underage drink response, I mean. To be fair, if you listen.
1:33:15
To this podcast, good on you 15 year old.
1:33:18
Aspirational. I'm kidding, but yeah, so, so,
1:33:24
so he went in at midnight on purpose and we went for our
1:33:26
first legal drink and we got, we got a pint of Best and
1:33:29
Anaglymology 10. And then so I remember the
1:33:32
barman asking us, do you guys have ID?
1:33:34
Because we were being a bit wide just on purpose and like, yes,
1:33:36
we do. And he was like sitting doing
1:33:38
the maths and I was like, we are technically 18 now.
1:33:41
And then there was. A bit of computing.
1:33:42
Of like you were here last week, but but he actually said if you
1:33:47
like Glenn Morndry. So we went to get another round.
1:33:48
We end. Up having far too many in the
1:33:50
space between 12:00 and we went the bar shop.
1:33:53
But but yeah, he was like oh, if you like Glenn Morndry should
1:33:55
try that winning. He's like, because it's also
1:33:58
quite sweet and it's easy going and I remember there's a guy
1:34:00
that's been on a whiskey training course.
1:34:02
Yeah, Andrew got to him. But this is probably because on
1:34:07
my. 18th I went to Tesco. I was a student, went to Tesco
1:34:10
in Sterling and I bought a big carry out.
1:34:13
So I had like bottles of wine, big beer, maybe not whiskey, but
1:34:18
at that time, but you know, I just big carry out apple sours.
1:34:21
Yeah, into the checkout like 30-40 quids of.
1:34:25
Booze. Check out.
1:34:28
Right. That's 45, you know, 40 LB
1:34:30
Fifty. Yeah.
1:34:31
There you go. Thank you.
1:34:31
It didn't get ID. Yeah.
1:34:34
All right. You're like, wait more 80.
1:34:35
Perfect. Let's sing with it in.
1:34:38
Hand like I'm just thank. You very much that that went in
1:34:42
50 so yeah. So he said that if.
1:34:44
You like the Margie again, there was no real.
1:34:45
Questions after that, but he was like, oh, you should try this.
1:34:47
He's like if you like a kind of sweeter drama and this is
1:34:49
actually, I think it's softer but really easy drinking.
1:34:52
And I remember tasting, oh, that's actually really good.
1:34:56
It wasn't that I didn't like that munch.
1:34:57
That munch is a great brand. But yeah, I remember tasting
1:35:00
that and being like, oh, it's just a bit more rounded.
1:35:02
It's a bit creamier. I don't really know what I back
1:35:04
then I wasn't doing tasted nuts. No, tasted well.
1:35:06
But it was your best of your sunrise and Ben.
1:35:09
Lenny don't know. But but yeah, it was kind of I.
1:35:13
Remember that being like, oh, this is a brilliant.
1:35:14
Brand and after that I kind of sought it that was kind of my
1:35:16
drink for a while if I could get one at birthday I never drank it
1:35:19
at uni but birthdays I asked for that 115 there you go very nice
1:35:24
right Cameron? Second one for you.
1:35:26
So my second one is is on brand good but.
1:35:29
It's an actual like genuine one as well because so this kind of
1:35:33
goes in chronological order after the Talisker as well.
1:35:37
I'd spent a wee bit of time just trying out different whiskeys
1:35:41
from the supermarkets, trying all the different supermarket
1:35:43
drams. And then when I got my job at
1:35:46
the Whiskey Experience, first day at the Whiskey Experience,
1:35:50
at the end of my shift, we had a staff training, staff training
1:35:53
on tasting, which was absolutely fantastic.
1:35:56
My mind was blown and I was like, Oh my God, I'm literally
1:35:58
being paid to sit here and drink whiskey.
1:36:01
I thought it was the best job ever.
1:36:03
Second day was pretty average. It was a pretty normal day.
1:36:06
And then the third day was again, normal shift.
1:36:09
And then at the end of our shift, we had a staff training
1:36:12
from Cody for Glenn, Kadam and Tom and Tall now at.
1:36:15
This point. Like I said, I'd been through a
1:36:18
bunch of supermarket drams and I would absolutely never call and
1:36:21
I wouldn't now call myself an expert by any means at all,
1:36:24
right? But at that point I I was barely
1:36:27
even able to pick up any individual notes from whiskey.
1:36:30
I could tell the difference between a Talisker, a Glenfidic,
1:36:34
and Allafroid because they've got massive differences between
1:36:37
them. But at the end of the day, if
1:36:39
you're drinking drams that are relatively similar to each
1:36:41
other, it's not like you're getting the difference between
1:36:43
like Coke and Fanta or anything like that.
1:36:46
But anyway, so I'd never been able to pick out any specific
1:36:50
wanky tasting notes or anything like that.
1:36:52
But the first DRAM on this tasting was the.
1:36:55
Glencadam. 10 And without Cody even saying a word about it, as
1:37:00
soon as I smelled it, it was just like foam bananas.
1:37:03
And every time I have it now, it like it was such a special
1:37:07
moment for me in terms of my, my journey in whiskey.
1:37:09
Because that was like my little light bulb Eureka moment where I
1:37:12
could actually start pinpointing and drilling down on things in
1:37:17
terms of tasting notes in whiskey.
1:37:19
And now every time I have the Glencadam 10, it takes me back
1:37:22
to that kind of Eureka moment. That's that's a huge reason why
1:37:26
I even decided to join Glencadam and Toronto is because it is to
1:37:30
me, a massive point in my like journey of appreciating whiskey.
1:37:35
Super drill it down. What you're getting?
1:37:37
Fruit kind of fruit. Foam foam fruit, Yellow fruits,
1:37:41
Wally. Foamy 111.
1:37:42
You can pick out a kind of childhood.
1:37:44
Sweetie from a whiskey yeah, I think I've been so blooms that's
1:37:49
why I was so we've. Had the debate it was.
1:37:51
Cola cubes on church? Yeah, cola cubes.
1:37:54
But he'll say there's church floor, which maybe we go, When
1:37:57
was the last time you tasted a church floor?
1:37:59
But I have a church Pew, I thought was church pews.
1:38:02
Well, our church books anyway. Anyway, big shout to Chuck who
1:38:07
could be he really made it out of here after this last.
1:38:10
Episode. And he was.
1:38:11
Flying. He was flying.
1:38:13
Japan, and God help him, I would have liked to be on that.
1:38:16
Flight anyway if. I was an issues, but anyway,
1:38:18
Ian, your second drum please. So I'm allowed to 4th as a as an
1:38:22
on brand one. Go on.
1:38:23
Then because I was trying to think you're the first master.
1:38:25
There's a lot there. There's, I mean there's, so
1:38:28
there's loads. That are related.
1:38:29
To our brands and there's kind of one.
1:38:30
That holds a special place more than others, but they're all
1:38:32
kind of yeah Tom does 16. I drank a lot of it was my first
1:38:35
kind of Tom and tell. I really fell in love with the
1:38:37
Academy. But the one I'm and we're going
1:38:38
to go for, for the second one that is off brand, I'll go, I'll
1:38:40
go on brand at the end tie up nicely like that, but no.
1:38:43
So you get 5444. No so the.
1:38:47
First whiskey that I thought holy.
1:38:49
Shit, whiskey is amazing. So Domini was nice.
1:38:52
The first one that was was Mortal 16.
1:38:53
Flora and fauna to this day a pretty infallible DRAM, apart
1:38:58
from the price point if you can get your hands on one.
1:39:01
But yeah, I think looking at it now, it's the reason I love it
1:39:05
is because I've had a few more since I bought a few before they
1:39:07
went absolutely non florin fauna one.
1:39:10
They do it kind of general. Yeah, it's good.
1:39:12
I know the guys there quite well, so I don't want.
1:39:14
To disrespect but the but the florin fawn has never quite been
1:39:17
replicated, but the the it's, it's awesome juice and at the
1:39:21
time I loved it and I I've tasted it since looking back
1:39:24
from a from a blenders perspective I guess.
1:39:26
And even then it's pretty solid whiskey.
1:39:29
It's kind of got a bit of everything you want minus Pete,
1:39:31
but everything else it's big, it's meaty, it's rich, it's
1:39:33
complex. I drank a bottle on my wedding
1:39:35
night with some friends. We had some pretty cool stuff
1:39:39
from Angus and D but I managed to source a bottle of cracks
1:39:41
with some pals and a lot of them had never tried it before.
1:39:43
And again, the feedback on it was just oh this is awesome.
1:39:45
One of my friends had far too much.
1:39:46
He sat beside him in the row, sitting around a fire, and I
1:39:48
realised he was pouring himself like a third glass.
1:39:52
I don't know. Your wedding I like you, but you
1:39:56
know the one DRAM only affair yes so I.
1:40:00
Think if if I was thinking this through.
1:40:02
There's so many great dramas, but yeah, for off off brand that
1:40:05
one's yeah, an all time favorite.
1:40:07
I'm trying to think I'm looking, I'm desperately looking, but I.
1:40:09
Think that's been more like 16 for aesthetic.
1:40:13
Yeah, yeah. So it's just joined Glen Alki
1:40:15
actually, but yeah, yeah, it's it popped up right.
1:40:19
But. I.
1:40:20
Mean, I suppose, like finding that drum.
1:40:23
Where do you get that? Moment I don't.
1:40:25
Think I've ever had it and I don't.
1:40:27
I might, but I just find it fascinating when you do get that
1:40:30
sort of like, oh, I've been tried far and far and more like,
1:40:32
no, I have a. Dribble left in the house?
1:40:34
Well, yeah, but from your. Perspective as well looking,
1:40:39
having a drum that you can then look back on from your point of
1:40:42
view where you're sitting there going actually, you know, I can
1:40:46
really appreciate this now you can taste the whiskey maybe
1:40:49
before you're really into the whiskey industry and go that's
1:40:53
lovely. But then being able to approach
1:40:54
it from a completely different point.
1:40:56
But yeah, I remember parting with the cash for what a current
1:40:58
ball costs for. Not quite as much as that, but I
1:40:59
remember thinking, I hope this is as good as I remember it
1:41:01
because in my head it was like the sky was amazing.
1:41:04
And I remember opening it and be like, yeah, it's still really
1:41:05
good actually. I mean, there's been a few and I
1:41:09
could probably say I've. Opened, I mean, but yeah, I
1:41:11
mean, I've always had the kind of opposite experience where.
1:41:13
I've had a. Whiskey that I've again, really
1:41:16
early on before I was. Kind of really into.
1:41:18
Whiskey when I went to Isla, I bought a bow more 15.
1:41:21
That's like the travel exclusive.
1:41:23
That's bourbon, you know, and I remember drinking that and the
1:41:28
whole time I was going through the bottle, I was like, is this
1:41:30
good? Do I like this?
1:41:31
Is this nice whiskey? I'm not too sure.
1:41:34
And I think actually in hindsight, it was really, really
1:41:36
fucking good, but I just didn't realize it at the time.
1:41:39
So again, I've definitely had a lot of.
1:41:42
Disappointments, I guess, looking at it from a
1:41:44
professional level back on some of the stuff I used to really
1:41:47
like. Really.
1:41:47
So you'll look back and go. There's some.
1:41:49
Things that I love that I'll try again and be like, yeah, that's
1:41:51
all right. Again, I won't, I won't say it
1:41:53
because again, whiskey's personal and there's one of
1:41:55
these things, there's lots of one person's least favorite
1:41:57
drama, someone else's favorite. But there's lots of things that
1:41:59
I used to think were really good that my actually in terms of
1:42:02
makeup, it's not, it's maybe a bit one-dimensional or whatever.
1:42:04
Yeah, they're not bad. They're just not.
1:42:06
Yeah, but yeah. But that's that's one that's
1:42:08
interesting. All right, Cameron, Jeff, your
1:42:11
last one. Had to get in there.
1:42:14
So DRAM #3 for me is actually incredibly recent.
1:42:18
So, well, I actually bought the bottle over a year ago.
1:42:23
You bought another brand. Get.
1:42:26
Out it was before. It was before I worked for.
1:42:28
Angus Dundee, but but not so I bought this bottle a while ago
1:42:32
now, over a year ago and it was an absolute steel that I got in
1:42:35
an auction. And it's so in the the 70s and
1:42:39
80s. I think it's more the 80s that
1:42:41
they released them. But Glenn Fiddick did release
1:42:45
for the, the clans of the Highlands and one of the clans,
1:42:49
the, I think there was eight clans that they, they did a
1:42:52
bottling for and they came in this lovely little 10:10.
1:42:55
I've got one of those things in the house.
1:42:56
Oh. Have you Yeah.
1:42:57
What what clans it for and no idea.
1:42:59
I was actually looking at the Lakers.
1:43:00
Was clear now. But I, I looked at, I've had
1:43:03
this for years from like my grandparents cleared out a house
1:43:07
or whatever full of pencils. Yeah, literally.
1:43:08
Yeah, it's just full of stuff. But it's not actually got any
1:43:12
Anyway, sorry. Well, I need to find that out
1:43:14
now. That's well, yeah.
1:43:15
So. So I managed to get a.
1:43:17
Bottle off an auction for the McPherson clan because, well,
1:43:20
I'm a McPherson and I thought it was just a nice thing to have
1:43:24
around and I would open it at a kind of special occasion.
1:43:27
And there was actually in the auction that I was on, there was
1:43:30
two of these going for sale. One of them was like pristine
1:43:33
condition and one of them was like really beat up and it was
1:43:37
really rusty and nobody was nobody was bidding on it.
1:43:40
Nobody was bidding for the one that was really rusty.
1:43:42
And to me, the rusty one that has much more value than the one
1:43:46
that's pristine because that almost tells a story in itself.
1:43:49
So I snatched it up for a story that someone's had it and I'm
1:43:54
just like. I'm just like I've.
1:43:56
Forgotten about. It's like that whole feel of.
1:43:59
Having a whiskey. From like the 80s.
1:44:02
And so, yeah, I snatched up for literally a fifth of the price
1:44:07
that the pristine one went for. Really.
1:44:09
Yeah. So I've, I've kept that in my
1:44:11
house for ages and ages. And then this year at the start
1:44:15
of this year, I went over to New Zealand for my brother's
1:44:18
wedding. Nice.
1:44:18
So he just got married to, well, to Shivani is his current wife
1:44:23
and I. I.
1:44:27
Thought it would be lovely to bring that over since we're in a
1:44:30
sense welcoming a new member into the McPherson family.
1:44:34
We can all sit and share that bottle and we drank it in like
1:44:39
kind of backpackers hostel style of place.
1:44:42
But we had a view of Monk Tom Guriro, which is like this
1:44:47
beautiful volcano. It was Monk Doom and Lord of the
1:44:50
Rings for anyone who's a fan. So it was just such a cool
1:44:53
situation to be able to sit there and share that DRAM with
1:44:56
that incredible view as well. And my brother's been over in
1:44:59
New Zealand for the past 15 years or so, and this is the
1:45:01
first time I've actually managed to make it over and see him.
1:45:04
I've always been there. So I think all of that just
1:45:07
added to it as being such a special occasion.
1:45:09
And at the same time as well, with the bottle that was inside
1:45:12
this rusty tin, I was really worried about it because I
1:45:14
thought the bottle's been left alone for absolutely ages.
1:45:18
What happens if the whiskey ends up being absolutely terrible and
1:45:22
I'm not going to like it? I've taken over to New Zealand
1:45:23
and said to my brother, I've got this really cool gift for you.
1:45:26
Spend ages explaining it to him. We open it and it tastes like
1:45:29
like window window fluid or something like that, but it was
1:45:33
delicious. I love it.
1:45:34
It was absolutely delicious. So that was that was such a it
1:45:38
was a moment of relief, but just kind of joy at the same time as
1:45:41
well. That's great.
1:45:42
Honestly, That's these are what the that's what the.
1:45:44
You know, whiskey stories is all about these kind of stories and
1:45:47
things like that. It's great.
1:45:48
And that's I'm going to have to check that tin when I get back
1:45:50
as well and have a look at that. But yeah, that's great.
1:45:53
Right. You've got two more, Ian.
1:45:55
Yeah. So.
1:45:56
Well, so one of them is is. Personal on brand and one's on
1:45:58
brand, so yeah, so another one. Again, I was trying to think
1:46:01
because again, I've had so many, I've been privileged to have
1:46:03
some amazing whiskey moments and again, it's such a brilliant
1:46:06
industry for that and get to try some crazy stuff.
1:46:09
But the personal 1 was so I did, I did my own blend for our
1:46:12
wedding. So some of the themes actually
1:46:14
following through. So I've always dabbled with
1:46:17
blending even before I was a blender, so very much on a non
1:46:19
professional basis. And I love to make my own
1:46:21
whiskeys. If you guys don't do at home,
1:46:22
you definitely should. And that goes to everybody else,
1:46:24
I mean about. Deviating too much I I really
1:46:28
have thought very seriously about the Infinity bottle, but
1:46:31
the Infinity bottle is fine. But you have to think it out,
1:46:33
because otherwise. It's just a bottle of mush.
1:46:35
Well, yeah, I I put some, I put some whiskies.
1:46:37
In a cask. One litre cask, yeah, stored
1:46:40
that. We tried it on the podcast and
1:46:41
we just got detergent flavours because I put in my earring
1:46:44
cupboard. It was a leader of that was when
1:46:50
the. Wonky tasting, though it was
1:46:53
personal. It was when I gave it everybody,
1:46:56
anybody. It smells like fresh towels.
1:47:00
Shite. Absolutely.
1:47:03
Like we're not doing like the Forbes.
1:47:05
That's. Literally a place.
1:47:07
Made by a guy who cannot identify takes.
1:47:09
The notes. So I catch something, It's quite
1:47:12
clean, you know, I don't. Don't I try my bolognese?
1:47:15
Trust me. So when you're when you're
1:47:17
talking about. Making whiskey in your own
1:47:19
house. You're talking about getting a
1:47:20
bottle here, a bottle there, and just going, yeah, So I've done
1:47:22
it for you. It's for fun.
1:47:24
And I guess I don't know when I started or why I started doing
1:47:26
it, but what I think actually, so I remember buying, I kind of
1:47:30
won't name a shame. I remember buying a couple of
1:47:31
whiskeys before that. I thought that's not that good.
1:47:33
But I had a kind of little mini whiskey bar at the time when I
1:47:35
kind of we're talking about 8 or 9 bottles.
1:47:37
And I was like, well, what, what can I, how can I make that
1:47:40
better? So I've always dabbled it and
1:47:42
now I do it slightly better. They paid me to do that.
1:47:44
But but, but even at home, I still make home blends for a bit
1:47:47
of fun. But it kind of, I've done it for
1:47:49
15 years. So just out of the bottles and
1:47:52
yeah, just bottles, bottles. I have the.
1:47:53
House and so and I've also charged.
1:47:56
Myself about like cheap blends and tried to make the better and
1:47:58
these things just for a bit again before I did it for work.
1:48:02
And I remember first. So for our wedding, I made a
1:48:03
blend of whiskies from mine on my ice vintage, so 1989 and
1:48:07
1990. So I I bought these bottles and
1:48:10
I said it was for a special project.
1:48:11
So I didn't get in trouble for buying them up.
1:48:14
And it was so I had some Glencadam in it.
1:48:16
I had some Tom and tell in it. I had some Linkwood, some
1:48:18
Mortlack, some Longmourn. It was a bloody good blend.
1:48:22
And actually write that down there.
1:48:25
It's. A recipe.
1:48:28
So I'll do you. One better and I'll give you
1:48:30
some to try. I meant to bring a few today,
1:48:32
but I was in a bit of rush. But yeah, so we made enough for
1:48:35
miniatures for all the guests. So everyone had, it's got a nice
1:48:37
cheesy label of me and wife half cut in Tuscany.
1:48:41
They were in this wine shop, but they gave you these giant hats
1:48:43
anyway, so there's a good picture in the front of it.
1:48:44
I always, any home blend I always make deliberately naff,
1:48:47
even if it's even if the liquid's ridiculous.
1:48:50
Yeah. So this was a blend of our
1:48:51
vintage just, I think I called it the perfect marriage to be
1:48:53
cheesy like marriage of cast. But yeah, we literally.
1:48:56
So we made two full bottles at 7 Seattle and the rest was
1:48:59
miniatures. That was it.
1:48:59
I've still got a couple of minutes.
1:49:01
I literally meant to bring you one to try.
1:49:04
I've not retasted it in a while. Might be crap.
1:49:07
But at the time it was pretty cool and I remember saying to.
1:49:09
Everyone like oh I. Actually made that like after
1:49:10
people had tried it. I actually did it for Cody as
1:49:12
well. So for Cody Moore, that was one
1:49:14
that was both of them. Well, no, sorry, it was Moore's
1:49:16
Walter. Jones because when we
1:49:17
interviewed Cody, they know they just got engaged.
1:49:20
Yeah, So yeah, so Moore, I did mention that one, yes.
1:49:22
So did I say I got some more? Actually, kind of I'd.
1:49:24
Spoken to her before it because Cody's terrible keeping a
1:49:26
secret. So Moore had had kind of given
1:49:29
me some Swedish whiskey so that I could kind of work with it.
1:49:32
So I made them a mix of Scottish and Swedish.
1:49:34
I gave it a cheesy name and put a, again, Microsoft Office
1:49:37
printed flag in the bag. But I always.
1:49:40
So again these days I make more ridiculous stuff every now and
1:49:42
again of just of crazy old things.
1:49:44
But I always give it an athlete. So yeah.
1:49:46
So that was my probably again, it's I guess I have one bottle
1:49:49
left, a full bottle that will open at some stage and a couple
1:49:51
of minutes. How long you've been married?
1:49:53
Yeah. So 2018 was?
1:49:54
The word so that's. Good time, You know that?
1:49:59
Yeah. No, yeah, I've gotten OK my
1:50:00
memory. 'S gone, yes, that was that.
1:50:04
But yeah, it's a fun one. But I was going to bring you it
1:50:06
rather than rather than just tell you about something.
1:50:08
Here's a whiskey you'll never have you brought.
1:50:09
You brought 12 other bottles. That's all I could carry.
1:50:12
What you can do is you can make a blend for it.
1:50:15
I mean, I could show you some fun stuff for that actually.
1:50:18
But yeah, I'm the on brand one. If I can add one more actually
1:50:21
are you doing another? I don't want to.
1:50:23
I can do if we want. We'll go in there it.
1:50:25
Was a pretty impromptu one, but to be honest I feel like I'd
1:50:28
probably get a lot of stick from people if I didn't bring this up
1:50:30
because I swear for the first year when I was at the Whiskey
1:50:34
Experience the only bottle that I sold was Kilholm and Sydney.
1:50:40
Absolutely love that DRAM. It's almost the walk 3 DRAM for
1:50:43
I did a different. Walk 3 drama.
1:50:45
I just talked about Famous Grouse, but the Seneg is almost
1:50:49
the one. Yeah, because The thing is, so
1:50:51
when I started at the Whiskey Experience.
1:50:54
They've got in the shop, they've got this wall that is just full
1:50:57
of miniatures, and I made it my aim when I started there to work
1:51:01
my way through every single miniature so as I could just
1:51:03
kind of like if I'm selling whiskey to people, I need to
1:51:06
have at least tried it. Yeah, that was my thing behind
1:51:08
it. And the very, the very last
1:51:12
section on that wall of miniatures is the Isles.
1:51:15
And when I got to the Isles and when I got to the Kilhome and
1:51:19
Seneg, I I can't lie, it's a, it's a pretty expensive
1:51:23
miniature for what it is, but because I think it's about 14
1:51:25
lbs fourteen 15 lbs for a miniature.
1:51:27
But but they do the sort of 30 CL bottles as.
1:51:30
Well, yeah, they do. They do the wee half bottles as
1:51:32
well, which and. To be fair, they're really nice
1:51:34
half bottles because they're the exact same style as their full
1:51:37
70 Acls, but just a little bit smaller.
1:51:39
It's a nice to be touch. But yeah, once I got to the
1:51:42
Killhomen Seneg, which was like one of the last drums I went
1:51:45
through in this whole wall, like my eyes just kind of lit up.
1:51:48
And it was. It was almost like that Eureka
1:51:50
moment again that I had with Glencadam, but this time with
1:51:52
Pete. Whiskey, I suppose.
1:51:55
The Pete and Sherry. Together I mean I always like
1:51:57
Pete whiskey Graham again it kind of goes back to when I was
1:52:02
trying Graham was always I love Sherry whiskey Sherry Sherry,
1:52:06
Sherry and I saw this whiskey that was Pete and Sherry and I
1:52:09
tried it and I was like wow there you go and it was a real
1:52:13
thing yeah it's a real yeah but yeah as as soon as I tried that
1:52:16
for the. Next year I just didn't shut up
1:52:18
about the Kilomas, and it used to because it's just an absolute
1:52:21
belter. And even to today it's a bottle
1:52:24
that I've always got in the house.
1:52:25
Yeah, constantly. That's gonna be brilliant.
1:52:28
Cracking DRAM. 4 cracking drams there, right?
1:52:31
Yeah. And yeah, so, so again, I wasn't
1:52:33
sure if we could do on man. Stuff and like I said, I've got
1:52:35
great stories with a lot of these through the production
1:52:37
side, but actually a special one for me is like Adam 25, which
1:52:42
again, I know I'm going to kind of high end with this.
1:52:44
The reason being is actually so my granddad that I mentioned a
1:52:46
couple of times. So he he was the guy that really
1:52:48
got me into whiskey made me love it.
1:52:50
And the stuff that he had this house was always, it was always
1:52:52
affordable supermarket specials and whatever maybe.
1:52:55
But laterally in his life I used to bring him stuff that I was
1:52:59
really nice. Well, it's funny.
1:53:01
So he practically tell. Me to piss off because I tell.
1:53:03
The price afterwards, but I'd love to go and show him like,
1:53:05
yeah, these these. So I deliberate.
1:53:07
I think I just bring him like, yeah, 47 year olds, whatever
1:53:09
else, just to be like just to try it and like, this is worth 3
1:53:12
grand. So, so like I wasn't trying to
1:53:15
kill him off but but but so, so it was like a deliberate.
1:53:19
Thing me and my dad. Still do the same thing
1:53:20
actually. So I when I catch up with my
1:53:22
dad, if we ever have free time, I've got a little one at home
1:53:24
now, but sometimes we go fishing.
1:53:26
So I'll catch up, we'll sit in a boat somewhere in a lock, get
1:53:28
beaten by meggies and and I always bring like a ridiculous
1:53:31
drama on purpose. So because we're both driving,
1:53:33
we have we share 1/2 like a yeah three CL between US and I think
1:53:37
the last time we were having a long more than 78 or something
1:53:39
like that. But it's like, so I deliberately
1:53:40
make it because he's got lots of pals, everything into whiskey
1:53:42
and he's like messages like I'm drinking this so.
1:53:47
So this became a thing. So when I go and visit my
1:53:49
granddad, I always bring him some daft so stuff that he would
1:53:52
never buy, stuff that I would kind of.
1:53:54
I was fortunate to try what I do now, but I remember that
1:53:57
sometimes he wouldn't like it, sometimes he would.
1:53:59
He's used to the kind of gawk at the price.
1:54:01
But for his, I remember showing him Glencam 25 before he
1:54:03
released it. So I had a sample of it and I
1:54:05
showed him it just to see what you think of that.
1:54:07
And he was like, that is amazing.
1:54:09
If you've not tried Glencam 25, it's really special, super
1:54:13
elegant, medium bodied, has a finish that lasts for weeks,
1:54:17
just really, really well balanced.
1:54:19
But by the way, so I gave him a taste and he's like, that's
1:54:21
amazing. So for his 90th I got him a
1:54:24
bottle that we had like made for him.
1:54:25
So he tams drams like I said thing.
1:54:28
So for his 90th we had this this bottle that had carried him
1:54:30
grave done. It was called the Tams Drams
1:54:31
90th edition. So we gave him it and he was
1:54:33
loving it. I remember he had like less
1:54:36
family coming or like less close family came to his 90th and he
1:54:39
was telling them to stop pouring it for themselves.
1:54:43
Pretty much you're more like. Slapping people off.
1:54:48
I like to share my whiskey. I'm just kidding, really.
1:54:49
But yeah, but he was like telling people off or drinking
1:54:51
too much of it anyway, so. And eventually when he passed,
1:54:54
that was the bottle. So.
1:54:55
So when so he passed away a couple of years later and we
1:54:57
had, so I actually had two bottles of Tam's DRAM made
1:55:00
because I thought just in case it wasn't going to work out, I
1:55:02
had a spare. Yeah, so far As for his wake, we
1:55:05
all kind of got together that way.
1:55:07
So I knew he loved it, but it was one of these things like, so
1:55:09
I drink that now. I still remember beds.
1:55:10
It's a cracking DRAM anyway. But anyway, that's my own brand
1:55:12
one gotten rushy for the Oh no honestly.
1:55:15
Guys, what a what a way to spend a Monday night.
1:55:19
Yeah, absolutely fantastic. I can't thank you enough for
1:55:21
coming along. Thanks.
1:55:22
So so how can people find both of you keep up to date on online
1:55:25
socials, everything like that camera what be yourself, How do
1:55:27
people find you In terms of finding me online, you can just
1:55:31
get me on. Instagram my handles whiskey in
1:55:33
the wild. Yeah cool and well actually in
1:55:36
terms of my job, I do a lot of work with the with like the on
1:55:39
trade as well for like well all of Scotland really yeah so if
1:55:43
anyone who's listening that works in a bar you run a bar or
1:55:46
anything like that and you don't have Glenn Cadam or Tom until
1:55:49
you want to we know a wee bit about it.
1:55:50
Drop me a message. Yeah, I'll stop in.
1:55:52
And anything that you buy from them, the Whiskey Stories
1:55:54
podcast will receive. A Commission on that so.
1:55:59
Exam for everybody, please please.
1:56:00
Do that. Yeah, yeah.
1:56:01
I love it yourself. Ian yeah, so again, Instagram's
1:56:04
best place played me, so I'm at. Scotch Voyager.
1:56:07
So like like a whiskey loving Star Trek geek, which it's funny
1:56:11
because when I when I chose it, so I used to be whiskey wino and
1:56:14
I got told it made me sound like an alcoholic.
1:56:16
So I chose that. And then someone said, oh, are
1:56:18
you into Star Trek? Like Scotch troopers into into
1:56:20
into Star Wars. I was like, I think I've only
1:56:22
ever seen like one episode of Star Trek.
1:56:24
Got people doing Trekkie sides of the show at the festival.
1:56:27
Yeah, I'm afraid I'm not. I'm not really into Star Trek.
1:56:30
Sorry guys. But yeah, but that's where.
1:56:31
I kind of picked it, but yeah. So that's where you find me.
1:56:34
And again, yeah, if. Yeah, we'd love to see you the
1:56:36
disturbies as well. If you fancy coming to say hi,
1:56:38
let us know. No.
1:56:39
Thank you so much for that SP Magically.
1:56:41
Fantastic. What?
1:56:41
What a night we've had. Yeah, we just.
1:56:43
Ross has missed a belt. Absolutely delighted Ross.
1:56:47
I know what I would say is, you know, I.
1:56:48
Was sitting there thinking you tell me about how your brothers
1:56:51
your brothers and siblings that got on doctors and I just
1:56:55
thought, yeah, you sat beside Ross Bar at school, you know
1:57:00
you're. Going down was like you need to.
1:57:01
Shift that guy so you can really focus on your career.
1:57:04
But it's worked out all right in the end, 'cause you're sitting
1:57:06
here on the Whiskey Stories podcast.
1:57:07
Mine is. I'm absolutely loving my job.
1:57:09
Absolutely. Yeah, so I'm gonna say I what?
1:57:11
What A. Naive.
1:57:12
All we've got to do now is finish the recording.
1:57:14
And by the way, thank you so much for thanks so much for
1:57:18
coming along. Thanks for having us.
1:57:19
Fantastic to to meet you and hear some of these.
1:57:21
Great. Stories and hear all.
1:57:22
About you Thank you to everybody who listens to the Whiskey
1:57:24
Stories podcast. I can't thank you all enough.
1:57:26
It's fantastic. We're fast approaching 15,000
1:57:28
downloads. We've got listeners all across
1:57:30
the globe, all over the world. It's great.
1:57:31
Keep the whiskey stories Facebook group going.
1:57:33
We've had some fantastic videos where Scott Moore, who gave us
1:57:36
his whiskey collection talk through, which was just
1:57:38
incredible. And then Bob cutting followed it
1:57:40
up, but his whiskey shed and what just join it just to see
1:57:44
that we have the the the whiskey stories YouTube channel.
1:57:47
If you like listening to the podcast and wonder what it looks
1:57:49
like when we're recording it, then jump on.
1:57:51
You'll see a lovely selection here.
1:57:52
You'll get to see what everybody looks like and, and some of the
1:57:55
drams that we're trying and, and if you watch back to the
1:57:57
fragrant drops episode, you all we also get to see the guy
1:57:59
falling asleep 40 minutes, 40 minutes into our whiskey
1:58:03
tasting. Which tells you just.
1:58:05
How good our whiskey tasted that are are are in the bottle's spot
1:58:07
as well, but it's been fantastic.
1:58:09
Thank you so much. Find us on Instagram, pass the
1:58:11
pod, give us a like, give us a share, subscribe, all that kind
1:58:14
of stuff. Thank you, Angus, well done.
1:58:16
We've done it again, lads. Thank you so much for coming on
1:58:18
slightly back.