Latest / Whisky Unfinished / From Banking to Lobsters - Alex Schultz on why he left Goldman Sachs

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From Banking to Lobsters - Alex Schultz on why he left Goldman Sachs · Whisky Unfinished

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: You were here with Goldman Sachs for a couple of years and then as maybe no one has done in Goldman Sachs history, you moved from Goldman Sachs to doing a teafood logistics business.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure if I told my boss about designing to start a teafood business, he would say, you're absolutely nuts.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Your company Curnberry, which does teafood and logistics around the world.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: What was that moment where you went from Goldman and you resigned?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Working in a corporate environment and looking at who's next to me and my boxes.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought to myself, I want to match your in 10 years from now.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: 18-year-old Glenn Gronick, what's the hardest part in terms of the product, the timing?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: The zero shelf life.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: It could be anywhere like 72 to 100 hours.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm dealing with the exact opposite, right?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Whiskey pretty much once it's in a cast, it's gonna last like 60 years.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is a needed blend current.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Some people think hey, I gotta save up hundreds of thousands.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: How much capital did you actually start with?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was between 10 to 25,000 US dollars.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is woven super blend.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've never really done it before.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: How did you convince them and go, hey, trust me, I will get you your seafood on time?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: This may sound sad to say, but as a white guy walking into an Asian market and saying I'm selling lobster from Canada and the US, it kind of allowed me to just get my foot in the door, right?
• 1:28
  unknown: Let the numbers be still right in the door.
• 1:30
  unknown: We went to Unfinished.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, Rakesh here, the Whiskey Chief.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Firstly, thank you so much for watching this.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you could like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Alex, to Whiskey Unfinished, where the whiskey's never done, and neither's the conversation.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Excited to have you here and thanks for making the time.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna try four different whiskeys today, as we always do.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, Alex, you and I know each other through Entrepreneurs Organization for about the last year or so.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get into unpacking uh more about your company, Turnbury, which does seafood and logistics uh really around the world, North America, China, uh, Southeast Asia.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Learn a bit more about your background.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: I really know nothing about the seafood logistics business, though I do love seafood and eat a lot of seafood.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to unpack that a little bit.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then in terms of whiskies, I know you're you know you're a whiskey guy, but not, you know, you're still learning as we all are.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: So the theme for today is kind of a little bit around the world.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be starting with a woven uh super blend.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're gonna then go over to Scotland, have some really good sherry style whiskies, and end with a nice PD style.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the plan for today.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And again, thanks for joining.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: We'll we'll kick off, Alex, getting into maybe a bit of your origin story.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I found it very interesting that you moved to Hong Kong in 2014, was it?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: 2014.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh so you were here with Goldman Sachs for a couple of years, and then um, as maybe no one has done in Goldman Sachs history, you moved from Goldman Sachs to doing a seafood logistics business.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is that right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: That is right.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, tell tell us about that.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: What was that moment where you went from Goldman and you I I assume resigned?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And take me back to that moment and what was going on.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, firstly, thanks for having me.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm certainly happy to be here.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is uh whiskey's always an enjoyable topic, not only to speak about, but also to consume.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So very excited, very happy to be here.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I first came out to Hong Kong 2014.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh originally I was working with the bank in New York uh area, Jersey City, uh, a little bit of Manhattan, and then um I asked to be relocated out here in 2014.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, 2015.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't here too long with them, but I uh sort of used them a little bit to help me get out here to Hong Kong because previously, before working with them, I was doing a summer analyst internship here with Citibank back in 2011.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you knew you wanted to come out to Asia, you knew you wanted to come to Hong Kong.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh almost uh a little bit of a love at first sight kind of city.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was very similar to New York, where you know, you just have the energy and you have the excitement.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you just have people moving and grooving.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, around that time, it was just post-financial crisis.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, in New York, I remember it was a little bit challenging getting jobs and things like that.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the finance industry, Wall Street was having a little bit of a situation.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality was when I came over here, I felt like a totally different type of environment and it was extremely entrepreneurial.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Even during that internship, I knew that this was going to be a place I wanted to start a business and I wanted to be an entrepreneur.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just felt like there through a little bit of talking to people during the time, I learned that there wasn't so much red tape, that there was many entrepreneurs here.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and China at that time was really growing, it was really picking up.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the 2010s period was really put me forward into feeling as if that I once I resigned from the banking job, that you know, becoming an entrepreneur was maybe in the back of my mind, but it was at that point pushed to the front and I and I got started doing uh sort of what I what I'm doing now still.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So and how did that come about?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, you know, it's not like you you woke up one morning and you know you have the job at Goldman, you go, hey, yeah, you know, I love lobster.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I should probably get into moving it around the world.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: How did the seafood logistics part come into your into your thinking?
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm pretty sure if I told my boss, you know, at that time that I was resigning to start a seafood business, he he would have more than the eight eyes he had when I was retiring, he would say, You're absolutely nuts.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But uh before getting into seafood, my my plan after I've resigned was to start like a uh a marketing efficiency app.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you know something's uh if you know what Hootsuite is, yeah, yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was essentially that concept where I just realized that you know, in Hong Kong, there was uh, you know, in any big any big city, there's all types of restaurants that are looking to run flash promotions, if you will.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, in 2014, I basically was trying to code and put together a bit of a an app.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mobile apps were going crazy at this time, and I was thinking about putting an app together that essentially you would put input details on a promotion, sort of flash promotion.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you wanted to encourage people in the nearby area to come visit your restaurant, you would basically just put into one file app the details of your promotion for five fields, and then it'd be reformatted and distributed across all different types of platforms at that time, like you know, Google or uh Facebook or Foursquare, you know, things like that.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember back then I think Groupon was huge, right?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Groupon was huge, yeah.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: What happened to Groupon?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: This is a good question.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they they're they're not around.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: So we gotta have somebody look that because I remember like it was such a craze.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Groupon, like they had like cracked something you know miraculous, it seemed like at the time.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it was like you were just getting these crazy good deals, everybody was all after it.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't even thought of that name in I don't know, maybe 10 years.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that was happening at that time.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: That I I do remember they were pretty big here too.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and you're right, they were hot for a moment and then not, and and I forgot what happened, but certainly that was sort of the idea originally.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll have to get the uh the founder of Groupon on the podcast at some point.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: You should, you should get that story from his side.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I think Groupon was international though, right?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was it was uh it was a big deal then, and I knew that was like a little bit of my competition.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: But so did you set up the app?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Did you actually get that far?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was working at the bank, I was pretty good with VBA programming.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I took a financial modeling course in college and I excelled with that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, my professor who taught me the financial modeling class, he's the one that got me the job at Goldman.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I when I started working there, I was doing a lot of projects, but I was doing these VBA projects on the side.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought to myself, you know, like I'm getting some recognition within the bank for doing this.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like maybe I may have a chance to go out and do this on my own.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And quickly, what I found out was is that there's so many other types of languages out there, and to learn them took a lot of time.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I realized I wasn't an expert enough to get it to an MVP type of level.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, when I had left and and I was trying to build that, I realized this really was going to be much more challenging than I had thought.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was gonna have to raise money, a lot of money.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna have to find a uh a programmer because I would have to do the sales uh side of things.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, and also I think I realized quickly that I just don't love being in front of a computer my whole life, you know, and I I really much rather talk to people and have relationships outside of outside of the office or whatnot.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it quickly was a combination of a few things.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: One is I certainly was running out of my personal savings trying to start this business at 24 years old here.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was trying to have a bit of a social life.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to, you know, when I was working for the bank, I didn't have many friends because I was always working.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then I left and then I had a little bit of a social life and I wanted to explore Hong Kong a little bit.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then also I wanted to build this company, which ended up being costing me more.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something I would say later is that you know, building a runway for yourself financially is a very is a is a challenging thing to project in the beginning because you really don't know what mistakes or really know how the how much things are gonna cost.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to go into a different direction, you don't know how much that would cost.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a long, long story short is I that that field or that path was not for me anymore.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe also because it was fine, I was finding it challenging to put all the pieces together.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I had originally during that time after I left the the banking job, I was I was out there and I was doing a lot of networking.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And oddly enough, I put my name on uh one of the yacht club websites here as a crew wanted on the weekends.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to to meet some people that were.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking if somebody had a big sailboat at one of the yacht clubs here, maybe they they would have some cash to invest in in one of these projects I was working on.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Funny thing is, is the I had a person reach out to me and they saw my bio and they say, Oh, I see you're from New York.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I'd like to know, can you help me source some lobsters?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I said this is a this must be spam or this is a gym.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: This was an email, or did somebody just send you this out of the blue?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or they were responding to what you had put in the on the yacht club community.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the yacht club community, which I'm not a member of, right?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it was just more of any member of that club would see on the forum or on the crew wanted list that you know Alex's is willing to help on the weekends, and so I guess they responded to that, and I got an email.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um but that's really random, right?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Super random.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not you, you had nothing listed that would require that kind of like elicit that kind of response.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I can promise you in the four or five sentence bio I put on there, I knew nothing about C Food.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Lobster was not mentioned.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was not mentioned in the bio, so it was pretty random.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And and I remember I dressed up in a suit and I met this person.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: We met at the foreign correspondence club here for dinner.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, at the time, like just trying anything and everything and seeing what kind of could what's would stick and just meeting people was sort of what I was doing a lot of at the time.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this person said, Well, I'm a sales representative for a Canadian lobster company.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you become a broker and you don't just work with one company, you can work with many companies.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's an opportunity for you to sell uh, you know, at higher margins.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and so with her just talking to her for a little bit, and she kind of was feeding me the little bit of the appetite that was happening in the market.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And again, what I said earlier is that China during the 2010s just felt like it was booming.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like I mean, she was saying she was saying she was getting requests left, right, and center.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, How do we get it to Taiwan?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get it to Shanghai?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do this and that?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, I ended up not really working with her.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: I never ended up working for that any of the companies that she had mentioned.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I really went about like researching and and figuring out on my own.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And really, what was challenging when I left the banking job to starting my own businesses, I didn't really know how it would operate with the visas.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that you know I would have to get it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: You knew nothing about this industry, really, except that you thought there was some strong demand, and then you figured the rest out.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I look I saw it as an opportunity to make some money in the short term.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I thought maybe there's an opportunity that's just trading, I could just buy here and sell there, and you know, I might be able to maybe be able to break a little.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so that's sort of how it started.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know that's pretty amazing.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, congrats on where you've come to, considering that's where you started, which is uh, I don't know, the universe calling out to you, a little bit of luck, uh, whatever you put out there, probably some combination of of everything in between, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's have a whiskey and continue this conversation.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna start our journey.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: A good friend of mine, one of the founders of this really cool independent bottling company called Woven.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is their woven super blend, they call it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a mix of whiskey from Scotland, America, England, and Germany.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's meant to be basically an introduction to different blends, different styles of blends from around the world.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's really what they they focus on.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is at 46.1%.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: There's uh you know, some dropper if you want to add some more straight up.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I'm happy with it straight up, but if you want to add a couple of drops, I think you can.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna try as we go along to rate the whiskies.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna rate the whiskeys.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we'll both do it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I'll go first and you you can give us your opinion.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna rate the whiskeys on a scale of one to ten with decimal points included.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: One is Utter Shite, ten is Scottish Freedom.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's that's the scale that we're on, and then we'll see, you know, what what you think.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I really enjoy this super blend.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's got some really nice light fruit notes.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's easy to drink and it's well balanced.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like the end isn't too harsh, it doesn't kind of you know just fall off, which is something that I'm more um sensitive, let's say, to the the back palette or the the finish.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, I think this has all of the right structure.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's pretty hard, actually.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they have a great master blender to bring whiskeys from all these different countries, have very different flavor profiles, and put them into something I think that kind of works and a bit of unity that the world could use right now.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: I you're right.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think um it's it's it's packs a punch, I would say.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and I agree with you saying, you know, the lasting impression of how it sits on your palate.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's always they always kind of they give you a a lasting impression for sort of how long it stays on your palate in some ways, and and I I like it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like that.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: I like I like when a whiskey does that.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like this to me is nice, easy drinking.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think it retails for somewhere around 40 pounds, 40 or 50 pounds um in the UK.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a fantastic whiskey, great value, in in my opinion, um, and always uh good to support a friend who you know has a brand.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think they've created something unique here with these blends.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So g just just to divert just quickly for a second, what's the is there a proper technique on how to have it sit on your tongue or you hold it in your mouth for a little while to sort of get the most amount of aroma or taste or yeah, it's a great question.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So generally when you start drinking whiskey, because you've had coffee today and food and all those kinds of things, is you want to start with that first sip and really swish it around.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, ideally, if you can, even 20 or 30 seconds, or I mean under the tongue, both sides, top of your mouth.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that first sip, let's try it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I typically have it really, really get it around, and all you're doing is is setting up your pellet to then be able to drink whiskey.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then after that, it's more enjoying it.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: I would suggest try it with a couple of drops of water.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: You try it on its own.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think the water just helps open up that expression a little bit and kind of bring it up.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: How many drops are we gonna do here?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think two or three, and then you know, look, I think the thing with adding water is you can keep adding water, you can't take water out, right?
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So add little, see how you like it.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you like the direction, add a little more, so on and so forth.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: But don't don't add too much because then you know it's hard to bring out.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: But so I'm gonna give this, uh, think about where what you think you would rate this.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I really like this, and I think it's great value.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I would give this a solid 7.5 out of 10.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I'm at.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was in around that ballpark too.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's got a nice smooth taste to it, it hits me right away, but it does kind of have a nice taste in my mouth even after a few seconds.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you're maybe a harsh critic.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I'm gonna I'm gonna give it a maybe a 7.7.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's quite good.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's quite good.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want to go back to something you said about entrepreneurship.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: You said that you know, you moved to Hong Kong, you had in mind you wanted to be an entrepreneur.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean to you that you you had you had in mind, you know, even when you took the job with Goldman, even when you moved to Hong Kong, what is it about entrepreneurship that excited you or made you know that, hey, that's something I want to do?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I think like I I take a look back at, you know, working in a corporate environment and looking at who's next to me, and my bosses are sitting there and they're five or ten years ahead of me.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I just thought to myself, you know, I I I think I can do something on my own and I want to give it a chance.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't necessarily want to be in that chair that's there.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't want to sit in that chair in 10 years from now.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there was always like the expressions that people said is if you feel like you're really good at something and you you uh you you feel like you can make it something happen, then you maybe go out and try it on your own.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think around that time I was reading books a lot, and there was a book that I was reading at the time that was about an entrepreneur from Pennsylvania who was also in a corporate role, went to Penn State.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't go to Penn State, but you know, just he was me.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he came out here and then he ended up starting his own business.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Then he eventually, in sort of sort of a similar industry, and he ended up selling his business.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember reading that book at the time, and I said, I maybe just was looking for that final like knockout blow to just walk into my boss's office and say, uh, you know, this is the time to do it.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like I I just always kind of feel like betting on yourself is the is the best attribute.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And entrepreneurs, you know, you you always have to be mindful of that there's ups and downs, and you don't know what you're doing, the uncertainty.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's always, you know, the unknowns, and and I think that's lots of unknowns.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think that's the beauty of it.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if if it we're sitting here and I'm talking about, you know, starting this kind of a business.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I growing up, I would have never ever imagined saying that.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think my childhood dream has always been to like I wanted to start my own business.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of come from a little bit of a family that has uh a lot of business background.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: My dad's been involved in startups, my grandfather ran some big companies growing up.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, it was always something that, and I always looked up to my uncles who, you know, we'd I would be the little kid at the table and they'd be talking about business.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just always so interested in that.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was more of like, I saw I I didn't want to be sort of where I saw my managers in some way.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I thought, you know, this is a now is the right time.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm young, no kids, no not married.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's take a chance.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So and I'm glad you did.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I hope you're glad you did.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are 10, 10 plus years later, 12 years later now.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's no way to go back.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's like it's like once you start flying business class, how do you go to the back of the bus?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it's very hard, you know.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a great journey, obviously.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Tons and tons of uh, you know, lessons learned along the way.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think uh, you know, we we always think about you know what we could do differently, but I think it's all part of the journey.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: You have to you have to enjoy the journey and you have to expect uh and anticipate that uh you're gonna you you may be going down a different path at some point, but at least like you trust what you're doing and you feel confident with the work you're doing.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's always a lot of adjustments.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's dive a little bit more into learning more about your business today, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Turnberry, you you have you know seafood and supply chain across North America, Greater China, Southeast Asia.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: What's the hardest part of keeping everything together in terms of the product, the timing, like the trust?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have this all aligned because obviously, very, very perishable product that you're I'm dealing with the exact opposite, right?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: Whiskey pretty much once it's in a cast, it's gonna last like 60 years.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you get even six days, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: So tell tell us more about how that how that works.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: How do you keep all of that aligned?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, certainly you nailed it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there's zero shelf life.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you have a long shelf life, we certainly do not have any shelf life.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: From honestly, when uh a lot of the seafood is caught from the ocean, for example, to when we receive it here, it's a it's a maximum of like almost seven, it could be anywhere like 72 to 100 hours, and that's sort of the the time frame.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the perishability of of the product is something that requires the most amount of time.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, working with the supply chain that understands the the importance of that timely communication, um, handling of paperwork where there's no errors, and there's essentially working with people and partners that understand that any small little mistake could lead to large financial loss.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so typically, you know, the timing of of when we when we place an order with, say, one of our suppliers in in Canada, for example, and we have it shipped over to China, you really have to be quite available all the time.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the challenge is being available all the time um has become sort of the DNA of of making this a successful business.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's the expectation from all sides.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: All sides.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Except your wife, who probably doesn't want you to be available all the time.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, definitely not.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely not.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's uh yeah, she she understands it quite well at this point.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you kind of get a little bit of the ebbs and flows, but in the beginning, I remember I would be stressing over every tiny, tiny little thing every minute.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I it would be hard to sleep, actually, because you would be checking your flight.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the shipments they go by air.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you'd be I'd be checking the flights, make sure there's no delays, I'd be checking to make sure that the person received the goods, I'd make sure that the boxes were delivered.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and there's so much trust that goes into this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're dealing with something that's highly perishable, you have to trust your supply chain.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because if your suppliers are not going to be, let's say, packing boxes with the highest quality, you know, you're going to hear about it on the customer end.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you what if there's some problems on the customer side where they're saying, well, actually, you're just trying to cheat us by paying us l, you know, send less quality goods and and now uh you're expecting us to pay the premium price or whatnot.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It it just you you can lose some trust with your customers that way.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: But are the interject are the customers the end restaurants or are the are the customers some distributor who's then getting it to the restaurants from your business?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where are where are you in that supply chain?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Combination of both.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It depends.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you do deliver directly to certain restaurants, like whatever, Japanese or whatever seafood restaurants.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we do, we do it, but they have very high standards.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, they're they're a little less um they're a little less picky, frankly.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: The restaurants are a little bit less picky because they receive it, they receive a box of, let's say, live seafood or live lobsters, for example, they can cook it right away.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if something is maybe on its way, like dying, um, you know, they will they'll just kind of cook it right away and they can serve it.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because you you don't necessarily want to cook anything dead, but there's certain you know there's still a little bit of a shelf life with a with a product that uh you know you may you may be able to cook it that day, but for instance, some of other like wholesale supermarkets or whatever, you can't do that, right?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because they don't know when they're gonna sell it.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, another, if you're selling to anybody that's holding it, let's for instance, if I sell to another wholesale distributor and they want to hold it in their tanks and the quality's not so good, they they typically will have orders throughout the week.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if they order and they get a delivery on Monday, they're expecting the lobster or the seafood to be within to stay alive in the tanks through, let's say, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So then when they're delivering it at the end of the week, they still have live uh to sell.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we we kind of deal with different people.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: We obviously we have we we've sold to hotels, we sell to restaurants, um, and then we obviously sell to other other distributors.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: We combine shipments together and then we will collect them from the airport, and then we'll deliver them either directly to a restaurant or we'll deliver them directly to another wholesaler.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we sell into other countries like um China, for example, we'll we'll work with other local distributors there and they'll basically handle everything from collecting it at the airport to delivering it to the restaurants or to holding it in their own sort of um their tanks or their storage space, et cetera.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: So in Hong Kong, we operate a little bit more as a distributor.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in China, for example, where we do a lot of other business, we do more of uh more brokerage, I would say, where we're we're kind of coordinating logistics.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we receive an order from them uh from some of our distributors or some clients in China, and then we'll basically coordinate with our suppliers, we'll have them deliver to the airport, we'll book all the logistics, we'll handle everything from you know leaving either the US or Canada and then having it arrive to China.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll handle the whole process.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: Super complicated from my point of view, and lots of touch points where things can go wrong, certainly, which I'm sure has happened maybe more than once or twice.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: And at this point, yeah, having run the business for 12 years, obviously I assume you have a lot of repeat customers.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's the goal, they're getting their shipments, I don't know, every few days or once a week or whatever it is.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you then kind of does that work enough that you can now focus on new markets and new customers?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you always have to have an eye on, hey, even though I've set this supply chain up and it's been working for two years, it could still break tomorrow?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Is there is there that level of risk?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or once that's set up, you're happy, you're good.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think it's interesting because like pre-COVID, post-COVID, the market has really changed.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Pre-COVID, um, you know, there were so many players in the industry.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: The good the business, the industry was growing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: We were having a lot of new customers come in, there were a lot of suppliers.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: But now I think, you know, the as the expression is sometimes, you know, if there's a the water has gone out to sea and you kind of see who's still sticking around.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a really good set of customers now.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we we're not super aggressive with getting new customers at the moment because I think the market is in a challenging environment.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're working on focusing on some new channels.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we focused a lot on live and fresh goods that we deliver here, and then we basically sell pretty immediately.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're now trying to do a bit more sourcing of frozen products, we're trying to work on more processed products and we'll we'll continue to do the distribution.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, an example would be we have a client come to us and say, Hey, can you help us source um you know crab meat from the Philippines?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're looking to have it processed in China for it to be delivered to uh a type of chain in Hong Kong, for example.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we're working on projects like this where if we're having a big brand or a big food service come to us, we're able to source what they're needing.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um we can also work with some partners that have um all the food regulations in their processing facilities for them to create some sort of end product for a large customer.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna try to be like a package type product that ends up where on uh in a supermarket or could yeah, okay.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Could be.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, fast food chain would also be interested in doing that.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: For instance, like basically making it a ready-to-consume product.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what we find is that sometimes a lot of these larger customers they don't want to really spend the time with the sourcing or the the logistics or the um you know there's a lot of verification.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Southeast Asia is a little bit fragmented and sort of who It's a lot of paperwork, I assume, right?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of paperwork, but also there's a lot of due diligence you need to do too, because there's tons and tons of certifications and regulations that, especially with food products, you need to make sure that all the documentation is is you know crossing the T's and dotting the I's and they have all the proper paperwork to in order.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no claim coming back to them, or there's no sort of lawsuit if there's something that's sold that's you know been tampered with or is not been going through the proper government channels or or things like that.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So certainly a lot of uh documentation involved in in shipping as well.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when you sell to China, which is what we do, and every single person I meet, they're like, You sell you sell to China, everyone else is out here in Hong Kong and they're selling things from China, you know, to the E to the West.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, China is extremely particular about the importation, importation of document, you know, the importation.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like if there's a period in the name and it's not supposed to be in you know the the company's you know incorporation documents, for example, like then it the shipment won't go through, right?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or if a label's wrong, um, they won't let it through.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And again, we're talking about perishable goods, so timing matters.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so yeah, I mean we've experienced that importing whiskey into China, and I'm talking about bottles, and there are tons of delays, but there's no risk like on our side, right?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: We just redo the paperwork, it takes a few extra days, you know.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not nothing.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't the value go up even too?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe, right?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Even a little bit.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: So back on to our whiskeys here, continuing our journey.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, Rakesh here, the whiskey chief.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you made it this far in the episode, firstly, thank you so much.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: As you know, it takes a lot to put on these kinds of episodes.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm taking you back to Scotland um to one of my favorite distilleries, the Glendronic.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've had this one before.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: But Allardyce, James Allardyce.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is named after 18-year-old Glendronic in Sherry Alorosso cask.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I believe it's in Sherry Allarosso its whole life.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, 46% ABV.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is probably this is honestly probably the whiskey that got me into whiskey and loving whiskey.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: I remember this again must have been around that time, 2014, 2015.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I just started the whiskey fun and was uh really getting it around the same time you were you were starting this company, and I remember trying this whiskey and going, yes, fuck yes, this is a great whiskey because it's for me it's quintessential sherry style whiskey, right?
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: You're getting all of that apricot, dried fruit, raspberries, like just I love everything about like the style of the of what this whiskey is.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: I immediately taste the sherry, right?
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really right away.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know the grading scale is coming later.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: I the problem is is we start with something now tastes a little bit more.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say blend's gonna sound negative, it's not, but this is certainly a much more rich yes uh taste.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I've and I and I it seems in some ways more refined.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I know think when the blends and the age, right?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got quite a difference here between the first and the second.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: We've gone from you know blends around the world to single malts, we've gone very sherry, we've got 18 years of age, which is you know significant in our world.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, the Glendronic, one of my favorites.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have had the love lovely opportunity to visit the Glendronic Distillery.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Which, if you ever get the chance when you're in Scotland, I'll be happy to hook you up.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I definitely want to do that.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I certainly want to do a little bit of a a whiskey, whiskey tour through Scotland and maybe add a little golf in there or something like that.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I I certainly want to go and it's amazing when you start drinking whiskey, you realize the the variety and the amount of options that are out there.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the education, I think just sometimes comes through experience and just going there.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: 100% comes through experience.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very different when you I think just like anything, right?
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh winery, you go see the wine.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: If you're into cars, you go to the car manufacturer, like going to the place, the the birthplace where where it all started, the origin, right?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have a different appreciation for the environment and the people and everything that go into making this wonderful whiskey.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, um, from the one to ten scale, I'm giving this a solid eight.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is uh this is a very, very good whiskey.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: Eight for me out of ten is uh is an excellent whiskey.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've I think I'm only given one nine.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never given anything above a nine.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't think.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you're a tough grade.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just telling you where how I do it.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it on your own.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a bit more of a novice.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I do like whiskies, uh, but let's let's be real.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: You probably know them a bit better than I do.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you're the master.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just where are you putting this one?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's it's to each their own.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to always take a look at these and and judge them slightly differently.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, this is different than the first one.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the super blend, this is this is much more refined, if you will.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: What would you give it out of 10?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'd say eight point eight point three.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I like it.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: I might be a 10.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean the next one might be a 10.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see, let's see where we go.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: For those people listening who maybe have a corporate job and are thinking about entrepreneurship, or those who um, you know, even are entrepreneurs or thinking about starting a second business or a third business.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: Take me back to you know, those days when you started the seafood business.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: How much how much capital did you actually, if you're willing to share, start with?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: And what did you do in those early days that now seems kind of scrappy, but actually it was essential?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I would say not only early days where you are you supposed to be scrappy.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I still think it's a great quality to have as an entrepreneur, even though you have been in business for a long time.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Staying scrappy is a is just uh it's almost like that survival tactic that just kind of keeps you pushing you forward.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: In some ways it's a negative because you think like, well, it's never never enough, so I need to keep working.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I started this business really with personal savings for a couple of years, uh, working.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was yeah, I can't remember the exact number, but I would say it was no more than it was between 10 to 25,000 US dollars.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I think that I mean that's a significant amount, but it's it's not an an obscene amount in the sense that some people think, hey, I gotta save up hundreds of thousands.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is possible with a lot less.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is, but I think it depends on what industry you're in too.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think for in the the challenging bit, and what I would tell what I recommend to people now is that try to give yourself as much financial runway as possible.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously that's easier said than done.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in the beginning, I was very I had to be very scrappy and I had to use a lot of my supplier credit to to grow the business.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we we were very fortunate to to work out credit terms with a lot of our suppliers and customers where we were sort of operating on a negative cash flow cycle where I was essentially receiving money from my clients before I had to pay my suppliers.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that was really helping me in the beginning kind of scale.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, it's a little bit about market timing and the and and the macroeconomic conditions at the time allowed for just orders to come in quite easily.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we were able to to grow.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I really in the beginning tried to do the most I could to satisfy and and and treat my suppliers as as well as possible.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: But on the same side, I did utilize you know, credit lines, I did utilize credit terms.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had to do that.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: I I'd say though, the the challenge with in the beginning is when you have a new supplier, they always want you to pay up front.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know who you are.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: So in the beginning it was very, very challenging.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna ask about that.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you remember your first customer and and who they were and why why did they trust you who really didn't have much supply or didn't really have, you know, you'd never really done it before.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: How did you convince them to go, hey, trust me, I will get you your seafood on time?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh this is this may sound sad to say, but as a white guy walking into an Asian market and saying I'm selling lobster from Canada and the US, it kind of allowed me to just get my foot in the door, right?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, uh Hey, you have to, I don't think there's anything bad with that.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have to use whatever advantage you have at that moment, right?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody owes you anything either, right?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to really fight for these things.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember at the time when I was doing the research in the beginning, I was reaching out to freight forwarders, and one of the freight forwarders who I was just trying to like come up with quotes and pricing, see how much it would cost to actually sell to a customer, right?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: How am I gonna get a customer if I don't know what it's gonna cost?
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right, yeah.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: So do you want to buy some lobster?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: How much?
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you that's not a good sales tactic, right?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: But did you put on a Canadian accent in these first two?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: I could go with the o's a little bit, you know, in in Nova Scotia, they they pronounce their O's a little differently.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm from Philadelphia, remember?
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I really don't know.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's no lobsters there.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's no there's not much seafood there.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, Philadelphia and uh not known for their lobsters.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, cheese cheese steaks maybe, but yeah.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I'd say the scrappy bit uh in the beginning was I did so much door-to-door like walk-in.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I flew to Canada in the early days.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: I flew to Canada, I landed at Halifax Airport, I rented a car, and before I got there, I remember I printed out Google Maps and I did a seafood wholesale search and it popped up all these companies around Nova Scotia.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I printed out a map.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had a little star, I had the company name, and I spent three days driving around the province of Nova Scotia, which is not small, mind you, and it was December.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was freezing.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you chose December to do this.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: The fantastic time to visit Nova Scotia.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was, you know, it was freezing.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: But uh that was sort of the the time of the year where the the new season begins, which is around December 1st, and that's when most of the play that's when most of the lobster is caught.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also when it's the cheapest time of the year.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that was it was a little bit more uh scheduled out that way.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd walk in and uh, you know, I'd walk on, walk inside the the office with no appointment and say, Hey, I'm Alex, I live in Hong Kong.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm looking to source some lobsters for some clients there, which obviously I didn't have, but fake it till you make it.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh certainly, certainly.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, you gotta be a salesperson at some point, and even selling yourself to buy to purchase is also in some ways a scales sales skill.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I I met a lot of contacts there, I met a lot of connections, met a lot of suppliers I still work with today.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: They took a chance on me, they were able to sell to me.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I had to pay for that, pay for the goods first, but we started small, we took minimum orders, we you know, we worked with only one client in the beginning to make sure that the the supply chain would work and see I needed to educate myself too.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to grow too quickly because uh it could have resulted in some financial loss.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: But on the customer side, one of those freight forwarders I was talking to received quotes, said, Oh, I know one of my high school buddies.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: He's uh he works over in the in the in the fish market.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe let me talk to him, see if I can connect to you with him and see if he can maybe help you out.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I met that connection and he ended up being my first customer.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they were more of a broker, but they were looking to enter the market.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, around 2014, 2015, it was business was rather booming.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like I everyone was trying to get in, so it was easier to start, but it ended up being a bad relationship.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, we we didn't get along very well.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, they were new and I was new.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you that's some that's also some advice I have is when you're a new company and you're working with another new company, I don't advise it because you're if you need if you need to pay your suppliers quickly, for example, but the customer you're dealing with is like getting terms from their client and they don't they're not experienced with paying you quickly enough, then that can disrupt your relationship with the supplier.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it breaks down, yeah.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was also there was a lot of questions they were asking, they were spending a lot of time.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it just was uh but then again, like you know, you have to start somewhere.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, you know, the top top clients out there are not gonna really work with somebody new.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: When you're starting, you know, beggars can't be choosers.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: You'd take any client, right?
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: To to start, uh, so long as you think you can make some money there.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that's also helpful.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was also helpful because, as like I said before, using using myself walking into a fish market, for example, that's nobody really speaks English in there, and there's a white guy walking in there.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was very easy for me to get interest from people.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and this is the negative about the industry is that pricing dictates your ability to get sales or not, and very quickly.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, a tactic you could have done, which I did a little bit of, is I purposely priced myself a little bit lower than some of the existing players, uh, some of the existing places just to get access, right?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I wouldn't say I like lost, but I would certainly say that was a motivating tactic.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And combining the fact that this guy's come so far and he's got lobster or he's got seafood, like obviously let's take a and his price is pretty good.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: We'll give him a chance.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up doing that in a lot of cities in Asia and particularly in China.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and it it basically led to eventually where there was more better buyers that I was able to approach because I had more experience, and then I was starting to get referrals.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I it just was you know, that scrappy bit of just walking, just doing the door-to-door sales tactic, and it's helpful to stand out.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, you know, and in any way that you can, yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and I remember I'd go to these meetings in like suit tie and jacket, and no, that doesn't do a seafood, yeah.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't I don't really put those two two things together.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely not.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you know you figured it out.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Figured it out, figured it out.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you gotta know who you're talking to.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you gotta know your audience.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta know your audience.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's always important.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: So all right.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're gonna move on to whiskey number three here.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_02: Whiskey unfinished.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is a special treat we've added to the mix.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, since you're a good friend and you're not even in Hong Kong as often, I thought you should try something really special.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a 32-year-old McAllen.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is a cask sample.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sherry, been in sherry its whole life, 47.7%.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've had 32-year-old McAllen directly from the cask before.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Most people probably haven't.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, this is the epitome of sherry aged, age cherry.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason we put this in here, particularly after the Glendronic, right?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: Because the Glendronic is, as I said, classic spaceside.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now the McAllen is now we've taken it up, you know, 14 years in age, but we're actually not that far away in terms of where we are in spacide.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: McAllen and Glendronic, not not too far away from each other.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Very similar styles of whiskey in terms of what they're trying to produce.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: McAllen, obviously a behemoth of a brand compared to Glendronic.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: But in your opinion, do you taste the age difference?
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: What what what comes across to you?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a this is a casual drink I could have.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't feel the hit, you know.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is very, very easy to drink.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's extremely smooth.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that's a function of the age.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and obviously the distillation and the cask and all the other things, but I think the age makes a big difference.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I don't I don't necessarily always play into the age so so much as a consumer.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say, well, is that a little gimmicky?
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I would say.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I think generally speaking, when I when I when you take the 18, you take an 18 or a 32, this is smooth.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is refined.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is high quality.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: I would agree with you.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_01: Age doesn't always mean it's better quality.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that's true, but it does a lot of the time make a difference because it's just about the m the amount of contact the wood and the liquid are having with each other over long periods of time.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: It it creates that I would say smoothness, which is what you said, but complexity um and integration.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: What you're getting is integration between the oak and the spirit, and that's what creates magic, I think.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I would put this.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: So uh yeah, we're we're we're slowly going up in the scale.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was at uh 7.5 and 8.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to give this a solid 8.8, which is this is very, very, very good whiskey.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think I always scored one and nine.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: So 8.8, this is up there for me.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: That I'd certainly say, I'd certainly say it's up there.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would have to say I I I might go I'd say nine point one.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my but again, my scale is a little bit different than your scale.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean you could give it a ten if you want.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it's the best.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why it wouldn't be a ten, frankly.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: I should.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to be a little bit more uh sophisticated here, but give it what you look, the there's no consequence to the scaling mechanism.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's yours.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: If I see this in the if I see this in the stores, I mean yeah knowing I've tasted it already, I would certainly pull that and say this is a special occasion type of whiskey.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when you saw the price tag, you'd definitely think it was a Special agreement type type of whiskey.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: So 30-year-old uh McAllen.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think if you were gonna buy a bottle of it right now, it would be somewhere around two thousand pounds a bottle, um, give or take.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_01: So not cheap by any means, maybe up or down, depending on if it was a a single cast bottling or not, and cast strength and all that stuff.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, 30-year-old McAllen, uh two to three thousand pounds pretty easily.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I would say, you know, whiskies sound to me like great investments because it's really hard to finish the bottle so quickly and you can enjoy it for a longer period of time.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it does if it doesn't age as much, then or with time it seems to get nicer.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not worth drinking this so regularly.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, special occasions you know make this a fantastic type of uh drink to have.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: And great to share with good friends, which is what and cheers, by the way.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm lucky, I'm lucky to do this.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I really am.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: This is a privilege.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: So coming back to your business, uh, obviously the business is the core of the business.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: What I'm hearing is reliability, right?
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like every step of the supply chain, the customer has to trust you, the supplier has to trust you that you're gonna get it, the logistics providers at each different step have to trust you.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that matters, and you've said that a few times.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: It matters sometimes even more than growth.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're not trying to grow too fast.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: I want to grow, of course.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Every entrepreneur does, but you want to do it in a sustainable way, right?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's what's a leadership lesson you have from you know 12 plus the years of of running Turnbury that you think would apply to any entrepreneur?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: When when it comes to reliability.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you certainly want to be reliable.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's there's no there's no way around it.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be reliable to your employees, you want to be reliable to your customers, you want to be reliable to your suppliers, uh or any third-party uh stakeholder for that matter.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: In early days, being vulnerable with less employees is important because that builds trust.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's it's also you you have that opportunity to to build something together, which I think is very, very important.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I'd also say that open communication has been a reason why I think we've been successful is because just being keeping people up to date, responding to people quickly with with uh with information that helps them make decisions is really important.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, I remember in the beginning, a lot of times, you know, the the questions we'd get from customers or suppliers or or employees would be just more about like, how do I handle this?
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I like as a leader, you want to be always somebody that uh people look up to and and you want to lead by example.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I always found that, you know, I always try to be someone that's a good communicator.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: I always try to be available to people.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that automatically leads into feeling that other people, other people will feel more comfortable uh talking to you and doing business with you if you're always like keeping them updated, giving them quality information, et cetera.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I agree with that.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, there's the the relationship management uh is extremely important, being open-minded, uh being vulnerable when it needs to be, and and accepting sometimes that you make mistakes.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that just builds honesty with anybody.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_01: So take me through one of those examples.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like what's what's a what's a car crash, train crash, you know, moments that you can that you can call on where shit really hit the fan, and how did you how did this communication strategy get you through it?
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I agree with your communication strategy.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's good to tell tell a little bit of a story, a seafood mishap, perhaps.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, there's many.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I had to, if I had to pick one, I guess I'll just from from recent episodes, just you know, we you deal with suppliers and you you feel as if uh you you have everything you know put together, everything is ready to go, and then if you take your if you take sort of your eye off the ball once in a while, the you know, there's there's prones to making mistakes.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't think you should ever feel as if that you can trust somebody doing things uh completely on their own without some sort of lack of oversight.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess uh to answer the question, being able to uh quickly identify issues and addressing them quickly, and then trying to educate the people that maybe why this was an issue and and to take us to an example, like what what happened recently where there was uh well I mean, like we we go back to sort of the documentation we have a shipment that's going to China, you know, from from the Philippines.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for example, for example, this one we're doing uh we're doing some frozen containers of uh raw crab meat.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, not to get into too much uh raw crab meat from Philippines.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, the details get from Philippines to China.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean we have tons of you know requirements that the buyer has asked from us.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, for instance, like shell tolerance, like if this is going to be an end product, a ready-consumed product, there needs to be proper handling of the of the of the product itself.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be packaged in a certain way.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we're up against strict deadlines and certain timelines.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we need to make sure that the our customer likely has another customer and the reputation that you're delivering, that making sure that the shipment arrives when it's supposed to arrive, it allows that your customer to feel like they're doing the best job to their customer.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: If if you're providing that, if you're able to make sure that the supply chain or the process is going smoothly and everyone's aware of if there's any challenges along the way.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, what happened in this case?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, we've had some delays recently because um overcommitment sometimes with uh a little bit of a we had documentation that needed to be revised.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: It had to be 12 times.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when we had some paperwork that we reviewed, we said, okay, this is good.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then we received the final documentation.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: It had been changed, it had gone back to the original draft that we had them correct and needed them to update.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: So then the the shipment is ready to go out.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not able to go out because our China, our China consignee said, Well, no, these are these will not clear.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened was is because we had to spend so much time going back and forth with our supplier to confirm all the paperwork was correct, we ended up missing that shipping ski shipping uh sailing schedule out of the Philippines, and we had to delay it a week.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because we had to delay it a week.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: My customer got quite upset with me saying, Hey, look, you know, our reputation's at stake here.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: You said you would be able to deliver this.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_00: And for something simple like checking documentation, with it requiring so much back and forth, um, you just sometimes can't take you have to always be uh aware, communicate with all parties to just make sure that they that they're doing things correctly.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we ended up shipping a week late.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: That just means that the end product is going to arrive to to the customer late.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it affects the downhill implications of maybe getting more orders, for example.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like if they think like if their reputation's at stake and you're the reason why they're they're not able to deliver to their customer, then they might not place the order with you again in the future.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and especially when you have new customers, it's really important to make sure things go as smoothly as possible.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this one, you know, just uh recently was had to do with, you know, working with a rather new supplier.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's not really that uh long-term working experience together.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: And also when you're dealing with China, you got to be extra, extra careful, almost too careful.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: And being too careful sometimes has led to delays and it makes too confusing for people.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: So having a process or having structure in place and being open to communication has just been has led to things just going smoothly.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then again, your reputation, everything before us, everything that gets before us is part of our reputation.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't just sit to my customer and say, Oh, uh, my supplier messed up, you know, uh, it's not my fault, it's their fault.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's it's part of my rib tip reputation, right?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's all about having open, honest communication, keeping people uh updated updated every step.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know again, like this is the logistics aspect of the business, which is which is can be a lot of hand holding, but it's quite important.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean it's a fascinating business.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not an it doesn't sound like an easy one by any means.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_01: So what business is easy?
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know what is I want to go into that one.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Bitcoin 15 years ago, that would have been the right one with the crystal ball.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna end today on a very different note.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask you to prepare yourself before you go in here because it's very, very different.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is also a cask sample.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is a peated Glen Turret from 2009.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get a lot of peat smokiness right on the nose, and it's at 63.7 percent.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a lot of whiskey and a lot of alcohol in here.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_01: It ties into the story a little bit because Glen Turret used to be owned by Edrington, which uh owns McAllen.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: So a few years ago, actually, maybe five, six years ago now, Edrington sold Glen Turret to Lalique, the guys who make like crystal decanters and all that.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: So now it's out there on its own.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_01: Glen Turret is a space-side distillery, so they actually don't make much peated uh whiskey, but there was a period this is distilled in 2009, way back in 2009, um, when Edrington still owned Glen Turret, they needed some Petey whiskey because Ardbeg, who was their supplier for their blend that they make, the Edrington blend that they make, um, wasn't available those years or whatever happened.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_01: They basically shut the distillery down and turned it into making PD whiskey for a couple of years.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: So this always makes sherry whiskey like what we've been having.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think we'll continue to make sherry whiskey going forward.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_01: But this is a flashback to a period in time where they made a bit of PD whiskey, so it's a bit unique.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is certainly unique.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it really strong.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's very strong.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this one definitely needs some water, don't it?
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in my opinion.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: But let's try it.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: Have as it have that look.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: I always like to, I always like to have it without.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think it's good to try without first, yeah, and then see see where it goes.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: So relatively high uh peats, uh peat parts per million.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's at 17 years now, ex bourbon cask.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually a very classic bourbon style PD whiskey, which has got some really, really nice you know notes to it.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, got a little numbness going here on my on my tongue.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um that may be the culmination as well.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I I I I like it.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm not too fussy, but I would say that this is certainly more of an acquired taste for for most people.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would agree with that.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_01: But if you love a good PD whiskey and some people do, yeah, this is definitely your jam.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's not my jam.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would give this a solid 6.5.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm not.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be a little higher than that.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I think this is it's it also tastes refined in in ways.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just a different type of whiskey, in my opinion.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's not we can't compare it so much to the others as but I I would still say um it's also not really particularly what I would buy, but I'll still appreciate for what it is.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh I'd say uh 7.5.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, very nice.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's pretty good.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_01: So if you had to put these in in order, what's your ranking here?
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: Was it McAllen one, Glendronic 2, uh Glen Turret 3, and Super Blend 4?
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is that where you ended up with, if I remember your numbers?
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would say Super Blend is three.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Super Blend 3 and the Glendurret 4.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think those were tied, I think uh both said around 7.5.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's right.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_01: So McAllen one, Glendronic 2, and a tie for third at Woven and uh and Glendroit.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: But hopefully you enjoyed um our journey through Whiskey, and thank you so much for sharing your journey, which I think was a fascinating one from Goldman Sachs to amazing global seafood logistics.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned a lot from the from the up uh from the experience in the last hour or so.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for coming to share your story with us.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think um what you've accomplished and being able to really from the start um be able to go out there and and get clients and and convince suppliers, uh, I think is is marvelous.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then to grow that over the years into what you have now, where communication, it sounds like is still at the at the bedrock or the foundation of of everything that you do and and being transparent, and that's really one of the keys to to being a good entrepreneur.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we thank you so much.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, the whiskey's never fully finished, and neither's the conversation.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully we'll have you back again one day.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's been fantastic.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me, and I I'm very happy to enjoy these fantastic whiskeys.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, thank you.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, for Cashier, the whiskey chief.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: Firstly, thanks so much for for watching this episode.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: It really means a lot to us.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you can like and subscribe below, it just really helps us to keep bringing you the best whiskeys in the world.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: Salon, and I'll talk to you soon.