Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Opening the Case with Justine Hazelhurst - The story behind the infamous Pattison Brothers

Transcript

Opening the Case with Justine Hazelhurst - The story behind the infamous Pattison Brothers · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  So, Brian, yes, you know what to do.
• 0:02
  Oh, we we're going straight. Now we're going straight and
• 0:04
  clap us in. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
• 0:09
  podcast. What came to light afterwards
• 0:15
  was maybe the shady dealings that were going on, not just
• 0:19
  with the padsens, but it was it was across the entire industry.
• 0:24
  They certainly were criminals. I'm not going to suggest they
• 0:28
  won't. And a lot of people talk about
• 0:30
  how they were scapegoats and in to a certain extent, extent they
• 0:35
  were. Welcome along to the Whiskey
• 0:38
  Stories podcast with myself, Kareem Koga.
• 0:40
  We are back in the athletic arms, back above ground this
• 0:43
  evening. Absolutely pharma we are.
• 0:46
  We're not underneath the snug or the toilets or anywhere like out
• 0:50
  of the Bar as we were last week with Hazy.
• 0:53
  Well, when I when I came in, there's a rat behind the bar, he
• 0:56
  said I could hear you when I was in the toilet.
• 0:58
  I could hear you boys laughing and I could hear your podcast.
• 1:02
  And I said, well, we could hear what was going on in the.
• 1:04
  Toilet. Yeah, if you do get a chance.
• 1:08
  We've done 2 recordings I think down the stairs and the what
• 1:11
  we're calling it. Is it the whiskey bunker?
• 1:13
  I well under whiskey. Bunker Digger, Digger.
• 1:16
  Vault Digger's fault. Yeah.
• 1:18
  Yeah. Kev's faults.
• 1:19
  Anyway, we're underneath, underneath.
• 1:20
  Kev trusted us in the back, underneath the the pub, in the
• 1:25
  bar with all this whiskey that isn't made it onto the the back
• 1:28
  bar yet. We were down.
• 1:29
  Yeah, Yeah. With Hazel McLeod.
• 1:31
  Yeah. What a laugh.
• 1:32
  Great laugh. You get a chance to listen to
• 1:33
  that podcast or watch it. If you want to see what it does
• 1:35
  look like in the Digger's vaults then get on the YouTube channel.
• 1:38
  It was great, no loss this evening.
• 1:40
  No. He's a quiet 1:00 tonight.
• 1:43
  It will be a quiet one. He's otherwise engaged.
• 1:45
  He's at the launch. Should we just say where he is?
• 1:48
  I think he's at the. Launch of the launch of fragrant
• 1:50
  drops is new brand Elevens is which I think they're targeting
• 1:55
  bottles at kind of affordable prices, but still single cast
• 1:59
  cast strength, you know from all the wonderful casks.
• 2:03
  I'm sure that they have in there well.
• 2:05
  If there's anything like some of this you get with fragrance
• 2:07
  drops, it says it's it's excellent.
• 2:09
  I'm sure it's all, but we do have to have an expert, Angus
• 2:11
  says. We don't know what we're talking
• 2:12
  about. No, we don't have to esteem.
• 2:14
  I don't. Know, we know.
• 2:15
  Nothing. We've actually got a an esteemed
• 2:17
  author on the podcast. Published author, published
• 2:21
  author. We've got Justine Hazlehurst
• 2:23
  back on the podcast. Justine, welcome back.
• 2:25
  How are you? I'm.
• 2:26
  Very well. Thank you.
• 2:26
  How are you guys all? Good.
• 2:28
  OK, good stuff. You're looking, I have to say,
• 2:31
  and I mean this, with the best will in the world, you're
• 2:33
  looking a lot better. And I thought you were going to
• 2:35
  look considering last week you were it was Fife Whiskey
• 2:38
  Festival. Yes, not last weekend, but the
• 2:40
  weekend. Before last, right?
• 2:41
  OK, so you had a little bit of time to relax.
• 2:43
  Had a week or so to recover. How was it?
• 2:45
  It was very good, Yeah, it went really well.
• 2:47
  So this was our biggest 1 yet. Yeah, we had 50 exhibitors.
• 2:51
  So that's the largest number of exhibitors that we've had since
• 2:54
  we started in 2018. And obviously we've extended the
• 2:59
  festival over three days now. So the opening dinner at Lindo's
• 3:04
  Abbey Distillery was fantastic, some fantastic drams.
• 3:08
  We had a cheese course this year as well paired with whiskey
• 3:11
  which was superb. Did you enjoy the cheese course?
• 3:13
  No, because I've got gallstones. 'Cause I wonder.
• 3:18
  They didn't say to me you had gallstones, so you're kinda your
• 3:20
  diet was a bit. I don't know if I should.
• 3:22
  Bet No, no, I've told everybody, I've told Granny that I've got
• 3:25
  gallstones is I was just doing my night in 'cause hopefully I
• 3:31
  can drink. I can't drink a huge amount but
• 3:33
  I can still have a couple of drams on a night.
• 3:34
  But all of the things that I like eating, cheese, crisps,
• 3:39
  crackers, all of those sort of things, totally, totally off
• 3:42
  until I get this gallbladder. And there, there was Angus,
• 3:44
  sitting there enjoying a cheese and ham.
• 3:46
  No, that's working. Yeah, that's why she mentioned I
• 3:50
  was sitting enjoying ice, cheese and ham toasting.
• 3:52
  Just athletic arms, diggers, cheese and ham toasted.
• 3:55
  Just Justine was kind of. Looking long fully.
• 3:58
  At it, it's. Too painful.
• 4:00
  Too painful So. Vitamin 5W.
• 4:03
  I mean, one of the things I would we were gutted.
• 4:06
  We were. Yeah, last last year Angus and I
• 4:08
  were. Last year, when I was not so big
• 4:11
  and not as big as ever, we were exhibiting.
• 4:14
  Oh, you're always playing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:15
  Basically we were sneaking. Through the back door.
• 4:20
  We had to work for our our supper that day.
• 4:22
  But yeah, I, I, I, I, I think I said it the last time that you
• 4:26
  were on the podcast, A whiskey festival that I'd always like,
• 4:30
  I'd, I'd see it after it had happened.
• 4:33
  And I'd always kick myself being like, damn right, I need to
• 4:36
  remember next year. And for whatever reason, every
• 4:39
  single year, it's because it sells out so quickly, doesn't
• 4:41
  it? Yeah.
• 4:42
  And the tickets go on sale months before the event.
• 4:45
  Yeah, I mean, we, so we put tickets on sale.
• 4:47
  It's usually the first weekend of September and it's and, and
• 4:51
  the reason we do that is because we don't want to clash with any
• 4:54
  of the other whiskey festivals when they put their tickets on
• 4:57
  sale. So there's a certain etiquette,
• 4:58
  I think, where you don't want to, you don't want to annoy
• 5:01
  people by, you know, setting up a new festival and then and then
• 5:04
  putting your tickets on sale. So it clashes with the more
• 5:06
  established ones. So we've always done that since
• 5:09
  2018, and we've kind of stuck with that.
• 5:10
  I think we were saying earlier, people like consistency.
• 5:13
  Yeah. So they know it's gonna be the
• 5:15
  first weekend of September when they can get them.
• 5:17
  How quickly did they sell out this year?
• 5:19
  I mean, are you the finish? Given.
• 5:21
  Us a run for their money, yeah. So session ones hold out in just
• 5:28
  under 12 minutes. Wow.
• 5:31
  Session 2 always takes a wee bit longer.
• 5:33
  I don't know, Maybe. Is it always.
• 5:35
  Yeah. And I, I, I just think that
• 5:37
  perhaps perhaps the sort of people, the people who come to
• 5:40
  the 5W festival, just enjoy day drinking.
• 5:42
  I don't. Know well I was going to say
• 5:43
  like so session 2 what time would session 2 start?
• 5:47
  It starts at 5 finishes and we're not talking a late 1/5
• 5:50
  until 8:30 but. I I couldn't think of anything
• 5:54
  worse then what time does. What time does session one start
• 5:58
  and finish? Session one starts at 12:30 and
• 6:02
  finishes at 4:00. I couldn't think of anything
• 6:04
  worse. See now we always say this when
• 6:07
  it comes to whisky festivals. Uh huh.
• 6:09
  Please Whisky festival responsibly, right, Because it's
• 6:13
  well, I think and we've we've spoken to people who we've
• 6:16
  talked a lot about different and international festivals as well.
• 6:19
  But the concept isn't the same as it is up in Scotland where
• 6:21
  it's different. You pay to get in, but you also
• 6:23
  pay for the drams that you get. So you are very a lot more
• 6:26
  conscious of what what, what exhibitors you want to go to try
• 6:30
  etcetera. Whereas there's a naivety where,
• 6:36
  and it reminds me of the story actually I've told on the
• 6:39
  podcast before, where Whiskey Festival first actually appeared
• 6:42
  on my radar years and years and years ago and I was getting a
• 6:45
  train back. It was one of the last trains
• 6:47
  back from Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy when I lived in Kirkcaldy in
• 6:50
  Fife. Which festival wasn't?
• 6:52
  Well, I don't know what festival was, but there was a guy who was
• 6:55
  worse for wear, should I say? And he was like, all right mate.
• 6:58
  And we were on the train together.
• 6:59
  They said you had a good night. I said I have a great day.
• 7:01
  What about yourself? Oh, let me tell you, I've been
• 7:03
  at this whiskey fest. I can't remember what it was.
• 7:06
  He says, but I don't drink whiskey myself like, but he says
• 7:09
  the Gee, this wee glass and he went in his pocket and pulled
• 7:11
  out this Glen Cairn. So you get one of them when you
• 7:14
  when you when you get in and you just go up to all these stalls.
• 7:16
  You just hand it, hand it over and they fill it with whiskey
• 7:19
  and then you get it back. And he says, and there's about
• 7:21
  there's hundreds of them. What a great day.
• 7:24
  Now I was going. That sounds absolutely bloody
• 7:27
  brilliant. And from that point on, whiskey
• 7:29
  festivals are kind of being on my radar.
• 7:31
  But never managed to go to Antagus and I went to the
• 7:33
  Edinburgh Whiskey Festival. Yeah, a couple of years ago.
• 7:35
  We're. Not as good as a planning.
• 7:37
  Thing no, but but I think what I was meaning was see it 4:10 if
• 7:45
  I've been at a whiskey festival since 12 half 12 and it's 4:10.
• 7:49
  You ready for bed? I'm.
• 7:50
  Thinking about when am I get a kebab or when am I getting to my
• 7:52
  bed? Where do you go?
• 7:55
  What do you do after 4:10 after you've been at a whiskey
• 7:58
  festival? Try these whiskeys.
• 8:00
  Wouldn't even. Wouldn't even, you know?
• 8:02
  I know I mean. It's amazing though, how many,
• 8:04
  well, we, we, we've kind of stopped that to for the most
• 8:08
  part now, but it's amazing how many people try to come into
• 8:11
  both sessions. I bet you know change, change
• 8:14
  their hat, you know, change the jersey, change the glasses, put
• 8:17
  put glasses on or whatever. And we only had one this year.
• 8:20
  Whiskey disguises, Yeah. I mean, you could technically
• 8:24
  buy 2 tickets. You could buy a session 1 ticket
• 8:26
  and a session 2 ticket. Couldn't.
• 8:27
  You yeah, there's not really much we can do to stop somebody.
• 8:30
  I mean again, if somebody's buying 2 tickets, they might buy
• 8:34
  2 tickets in one name and then the other person might buy 2
• 8:36
  tickets for the second session in in their name.
• 8:39
  So they're different names, but we do have a system whereby if
• 8:43
  you come in session 1, you have this sort of indelible UV marker
• 8:47
  pen on your hand. And then session 2, if the
• 8:51
  little UV torch picks it up, obviously you can't come in.
• 8:54
  But there was one guy who came in the the main entrance, put
• 8:58
  the torch on his hand, could see it being in session one, sent in
• 9:01
  packing. So he just walked around to the
• 9:02
  side entrance. Try design I'll.
• 9:05
  See these chances now. I mean, I suppose like, you
• 9:09
  know, you've, you've mentioned that it's like a three day
• 9:11
  festival this time and you've also said that, you know,
• 9:13
  biggest one, biggest 1 yet. So talk us through what were the
• 9:16
  differences this year from the years before that made it so
• 9:19
  big? And you're saying three days?
• 9:21
  What was it sort of three days? What did it look like?
• 9:23
  So the dinner, we had 76 people at the dinner.
• 9:27
  We actually had 80 last year. So we had a few fewer this year,
• 9:30
  but we had more drams and we, we had, we had Lefroy actually.
• 9:35
  So Suntory Global Spirits asked if they could attend the
• 9:40
  festival and also attend the dinner.
• 9:42
  So they poured some fantastic drams.
• 9:45
  An 8 year old Lefroig to go with the starter, which was a kind of
• 9:49
  distillery exclusive bottle of your own.
• 9:51
  So that was quite, that was quite nice.
• 9:53
  And then a 25 year old Lefroig to pair with the dessert, which
• 9:59
  again was lovely. And then we had a a special cask
• 10:03
  selection from Lindo's to pair with the cheese.
• 10:05
  So that was these nice unique whiskeys that people won't
• 10:09
  necessarily have, you know, been able to try anywhere else.
• 10:12
  So that was that was wonderful. And Lindo's, the staff there,
• 10:16
  they're just amazing. They're just like so supportive
• 10:18
  of the festival and the hospitality and services just
• 10:21
  top notch. So amazing stuff.
• 10:23
  Shout out to them. But then on the Saturday, as I
• 10:27
  say, 50 exhibitors. So sometimes we're like, oh,
• 10:31
  we're gonna squeeze them all, you know?
• 10:34
  But Karen's Karen and I, obviously we both run the
• 10:37
  festival and we have different remits.
• 10:39
  And Karen looks after the exhibitors and all the
• 10:42
  registrations and does the floor plan for the venue.
• 10:45
  And she's always convinced that we can squeeze in a few more,
• 10:48
  squeeze in a few more. And she seems to make it work so
• 10:50
  that, that, that's great. And yeah, super well received
• 10:54
  this year. And yeah, just, it's just a,
• 10:57
  it's just a really nice vibe. We never, we never have any
• 10:59
  issues. I know sometimes you do go to
• 11:01
  some whiskey festivals. And you know, as you were
• 11:04
  saying, there were folk who think, oh you know, I've paid my
• 11:07
  £35, I'm going to drink. As well you.
• 11:09
  Can drink, yeah. But thankfully at the 5W
• 11:12
  festival, you know, obviously it's a festival, it's a whiskey
• 11:14
  festival and people want to enjoy the drams and you know,
• 11:17
  and they do, but there's never any kind of I've got to keep
• 11:22
  going. I've got to keep going until I'm
• 11:23
  absolutely banjax. You know, it's like people are
• 11:25
  there to appreciate whiskey and a lot of folk ask us if we could
• 11:30
  make the sessions longer, not because they want to drink for
• 11:33
  longer, but because they spend so much time chatting.
• 11:36
  Yeah, well, I mean, it was, it was something that when we were
• 11:39
  when we were exhibiting, I guess like, yeah, you suddenly become
• 11:42
  we. You'll know there'll be people
• 11:45
  that were exhibiting at Fife Whiskey Festival who literally
• 11:50
  like brand ambassadors and people that work for
• 11:52
  distilleries where a large part of their weekend life is whiskey
• 11:57
  festivals, whiskey shows and exhibits.
• 11:59
  And there must have, they must have to have a knack to when
• 12:02
  they know the cut off point of conversation is with somebody,
• 12:06
  because the more you're speaking to that one individual person,
• 12:09
  the more people that might be wanting to come in, but they see
• 12:12
  off, they're engrossed in quite a conversation.
• 12:14
  So I'll, I'll skip past them. And when you've got, if you're
• 12:17
  the one exhibitor of of 50, then you know if that person walks
• 12:22
  past and they've got another 49 W whiskey distilleries to go or
• 12:27
  whiskey brands to speak to, they could end up not coming back and
• 12:31
  try and try and whiskey. So.
• 12:33
  But but the thing I liked as well when we were exhibiting was
• 12:36
  there was so many people of, you know, there were people coming
• 12:40
  up to you that would kind of probably know more about Glen
• 12:43
  with us than I did, which wouldn't be very hard if we're
• 12:45
  being honest. There were people that maybe
• 12:47
  heard of Glen with us but didn't know much about it.
• 12:50
  And there were people that just knew nothing at all and weren't
• 12:53
  maybe even whiskey fans particularly.
• 12:55
  But we're interested. And I was just fantastic
• 12:59
  speaking to all these different people when, you know, they
• 13:01
  were, you know, like, like I said, it was just, it was a nice
• 13:04
  mix of kind of really, you know, hardcore kind of whiskey fans
• 13:08
  and also guys just well, you know, local area people that
• 13:11
  were just, you know, come along for the event.
• 13:13
  Well, that was what was quite nice, especially with a brand
• 13:15
  like Glenn with this is, you know, I, I just didn't know too
• 13:18
  much. I know I knew a little bit about
• 13:20
  it. And then we'd had Megan Murdoch
• 13:22
  on the on the podcast with some samples and stuff.
• 13:25
  And it's interesting with new distilleries now is that they
• 13:28
  can manufacture spirit to be absolutely fantastic, that
• 13:32
  young, younger agent. Sure.
• 13:34
  And that that makes a huge difference because I think there
• 13:36
  was a lot of people when we were doing it, yeah, 03 year old
• 13:40
  whiskey or 4 year old whiskey and then trying to be like,
• 13:42
  that's actually bloody nice. But also where we were
• 13:44
  positioned, I think it was right beside at the time lag.
• 13:49
  That's right, yeah. Right.
• 13:50
  And also, what was the IT was. The opposite us was Mika Tour.
• 13:54
  Mika Tour yeah Glen Allocate Yeah or opposite us and.
• 13:57
  What we were able to say, we sort of got our pitch absolutely
• 14:00
  spot on. Yeah.
• 14:00
  We were saying like, you know what, if you're going around
• 14:03
  that way and you're about to hit lag and Mika tour, this is the
• 14:05
  perfect starting point. Get you, get you in.
• 14:08
  It's soft, it's easy to drink. It's nice.
• 14:10
  I think we were using the term breakfast whiskey.
• 14:12
  Yeah, it's easygoing, very easy. Or if you've just come the other
• 14:15
  way and you've had loads of Sherry, you've had a bit of
• 14:18
  smoke, bit of Pete, this is the perfect palette cleanser.
• 14:21
  It's going to just get you, get you back on and then you're
• 14:24
  straight around the corner and and on to the other ones.
• 14:26
  And I think we, but it was fascinating that you're talking
• 14:29
  about the the amount of people that we spoke to who, who don't
• 14:33
  like whiskey, but what it was was like.
• 14:36
  Not necessarily. Well then.
• 14:37
  Well, no, but. I never tried to class
• 14:39
  themselves as big because maybe there was 3 or 4 guys that were
• 14:41
  like you're coming up. I, I was mostly men.
• 14:44
  I'd say on that front, because a lot of the, the women that were
• 14:46
  there were whiskey fans, so they were interested in that.
• 14:50
  Whereas maybe there was a guy who said, look, my 3 mates love
• 14:53
  whiskey. So all they talk about when
• 14:55
  they're, when I'm round it, when we're out on a day out or
• 14:57
  something, they'll get the drags here and I've got nothing to
• 15:00
  talk about. So they've dragged me along to
• 15:02
  this and, and, and it was great because then you were speaking
• 15:05
  to them and saying how you finding it?
• 15:07
  And there is a, we've always said on the podcast, other
• 15:10
  people said as well, there is a whiskey for everybody.
• 15:13
  Absolutely. So when you go, it's the best
• 15:15
  place to go to try it, isn't it? If you go a whiskey festival, 50
• 15:18
  exhibitors. Yeah, I mean, and there's a
• 15:20
  whiskey festival for everybody. You know, festivals, whiskey
• 15:23
  festivals are a bit like the whiskeys themselves.
• 15:25
  You know, they all kind of got their own kind of take on things
• 15:27
  and attract a different kind of audience, let's put it that way.
• 15:32
  So I think with the Fife Whiskey Festival, because we pretty much
• 15:36
  focus on the independent distilleries, the smaller
• 15:39
  distilleries, smaller companies, let's put it that way, don't
• 15:43
  really, although this year was an exception and a lot of the
• 15:48
  independent bottlers. So we tend to attract more of
• 15:52
  the whiskey enthusiast and people who already know a fair
• 15:55
  bit about whiskey. But likewise, we still get a,
• 15:58
  you know, a good few whiskey enthusiasts who are maybe just
• 16:02
  starting out, They're picking up a few bottles at the
• 16:04
  supermarket. They're intrigued, they want to
• 16:06
  try more. And, and so we do tend to have a
• 16:11
  few, few guys like that coming along.
• 16:13
  But I think in common, what everybody has is this
• 16:16
  appreciation of whiskey, this willingness to learn and to
• 16:20
  listen to what the exhibitors are saying.
• 16:22
  And and I do think that's it must be quite, you know,
• 16:27
  disconcerting, I guess, when you go to as a brand ambassador,
• 16:30
  when you go to a whiskey festival and all you see is this
• 16:32
  kind of sea of outstretched arms with holding glencairns, you're
• 16:36
  just pouring the liquid in. You don't get the chance to
• 16:39
  actually talk about your product and that that enthusiasm and
• 16:42
  that passion that you have for what you do doesn't come
• 16:44
  through. So that's why we always keep our
• 16:46
  festival relatively small so that you know each exhibitors
• 16:51
  table we aim at least so that they're not like 3-4 deep with.
• 16:56
  People. Well, I think you said that the
• 16:57
  last episode was like here you designed it for.
• 16:59
  Short people. But it's a shame because Ross
• 17:02
  isn't here to clarify that is is perfect festival, isn't it?
• 17:06
  But I, I I. I'm sorry, it's a bit.
• 17:09
  How long have you been doing the 5W festival now?
• 17:11
  What year was the one? The first one was 2018, Yeah, if
• 17:15
  you ask Karen, she'll say it's 2016, but it was. 2018 I mean
• 17:18
  what what I would say is another kind of defining characteristic
• 17:21
  of the 5W fest. Well, it is the low is the five
• 17:24
  side of it because we've seen almost.
• 17:26
  Things of tear glass, eye that rings.
• 17:28
  Of tear glass eye but you've seen it now obviously you've
• 17:31
  people from the fraud coming. You have people for you know
• 17:33
  it's Falkirk Sterling, but DAF Mill were there when we were
• 17:38
  there last year. I don't know if they were there
• 17:39
  this year, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:40
  So they weren't there in 2018, but they've been ever.
• 17:42
  Since they've been ever since, so you know, and of course, I
• 17:45
  remember last year your bottling was the, was it the James Ed?
• 17:50
  What was your bottling last year?
• 17:51
  Sorry. Last year was Fib whiskey.
• 17:54
  Yeah. So again, another five.
• 17:56
  And then this year, well, we were at the Lady of the Glen and
• 18:02
  Al Getty Bay, Yes. And Gregor was able, Gregor was
• 18:06
  able to give us a little sample of your.
• 18:08
  Of the festival. Of your festival this year,
• 18:10
  which we noticed there was a printing error on the bottle.
• 18:16
  I think we are manifesting I've. Been asked because because the
• 18:21
  region it must have been a terrible printing error when you
• 18:24
  know down the line at the printers and the guy said what's
• 18:27
  the region? I said Lowland and he said your
• 18:30
  line's breaking up. I can't hear you.
• 18:32
  I'll. Put it in five bytes of lowland,
• 18:35
  right? Right.
• 18:36
  That something like that must have happened, am I right?
• 18:38
  Well, I think, yeah. I mean, I can't comment
• 18:41
  obviously. No.
• 18:42
  I think we've been asked quite a lot what we think about Five
• 18:46
  becoming a Scotch whiskey region in its own right.
• 18:49
  Because we have seen it almost in our own lifetime.
• 18:51
  I mean, in our own lifetime, yes, almost in the lifetime of
• 18:54
  the, of the festival, the kind of flourish and all these
• 18:58
  distilleries in Starney, Daft Mill, King's Barns, they've all
• 19:03
  appeared in Fife in the last, you know, 1520 years.
• 19:06
  Yeah. And you know, it's a real Fife
• 19:09
  is just a real centre for whiskey right now.
• 19:11
  And not just, not just and we've talked about this, but there'll
• 19:14
  be people who are going to give our S Graham right here he goes.
• 19:17
  Now talk about Fife again. I mean, I I'll be the first one
• 19:21
  as a proud Fife. And, and, and you know, you, you
• 19:25
  have to look at, you've mentioned that just a few of
• 19:27
  the, the distilleries in yeah, five there, but also the
• 19:30
  independent bottlers that we have.
• 19:32
  I mean, everyone, we'll, we'll talk about it later on.
• 19:34
  But Leaf is a bit of a hub right now and has been in the past
• 19:38
  historically for independent bottlers.
• 19:39
  But you look around and you see like we were at Dalgety Bay
• 19:42
  where we enjoyed the Lady of the Glen hospitality.
• 19:44
  Yeah, absolutely fantastic. You've got the single cask guys
• 19:48
  that are in there, you've got event as well.
• 19:50
  Yeah, fib, fib. And then you've got even things
• 19:54
  like, well, you've got the low and bond in Glenrothes, which is
• 19:58
  where, you know, rare find. You've got the the new bond next
• 20:03
  door to Lindo's as well on the farm there, so.
• 20:05
  Yeah, the optimacti bond is it? Well, you've got Optimacti bond
• 20:08
  and you've also got the I want to see Bree side bond.
• 20:11
  I'm probably. Got that and that's the next
• 20:12
  part is and that you know that's.
• 20:14
  The explosion also without mentioning Cameron Bride.
• 20:16
  Well, that was what the explosion of of bonded
• 20:21
  warehouses in warehousing in Fife.
• 20:23
  You know, it'd be fascinating to know you obviously have space
• 20:25
  side and you hear about the vast amounts of casks that are stored
• 20:29
  up in space side with new distilleries up there.
• 20:31
  But at the same time, you know, you've got to remember that
• 20:34
  Diageo has two massive bonds in five.
• 20:37
  You've got the Clooney bond just outside Kirkcaldy between
• 20:40
  Kirkcaldy and King Lassie, and you also have In Leave in you
• 20:43
  have their Cameron Bridge and the Massive.
• 20:45
  Area huge village that is Diageo.
• 20:47
  Yeah, exactly. And you see all that there?
• 20:49
  You drive, I'd be so. Fascinating to no, you know what
• 20:52
  if there was a sort of percentage of whiskey store, if
• 20:56
  you could work out a percentage of whiskey storage, like where
• 20:59
  is where is the whiskey being stored and how much of it maybe
• 21:02
  is in in Fife with all these bonded warehouses.
• 21:06
  Like I say, you've got Mukti bond and that's that's now part
• 21:09
  of the. Scotch whiskey investments.
• 21:12
  Scotch whiskey investments. I don't know if that's still on
• 21:13
  plan, but they were building a. Huge 7 bonded more meant on
• 21:17
  Glenn Rothfest. There was, there was talk about
• 21:19
  them building this huge kind of Scotch whisky.
• 21:22
  I don't know, like a museum, an attraction in Falkland.
• 21:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's still on the
• 21:26
  cards, but I haven't heard much since you've got.
• 21:28
  So much going on there. And, and then like Angus has
• 21:31
  said, but the distilleries, now there's a, there's a whiskey
• 21:34
  festival as well. And you know, surely, surely,
• 21:38
  you know, plant the flag in the ground egg.
• 21:40
  We're getting, we're getting ourselves.
• 21:41
  That's it. We're going for it.
• 21:42
  Aren't we going? For the region.
• 21:44
  Yes, yes. So Kevin and I have great plans
• 21:46
  for the future. For once you cross see when you
• 21:48
  go over the the the 4th bridge over the Gulf of Fife.
• 21:52
  Uh huh. Yeah, golf and get it says
• 21:56
  welcome to the Kingdom of five. You're you're wanting to see a
• 21:59
  sign just below it saying Scotland's newest whisky region.
• 22:01
  Absolutely a. Brown sign That's all you need a
• 22:04
  brown sign on the road I. Think that's super expensive?
• 22:09
  Very expensive, right? So yeah, that's day day 2.
• 22:12
  So day one, you've had your dinner at Lindo's.
• 22:15
  Yeah, the two sessions on Saturday day.
• 22:17
  Two sessions there. So what does day three look?
• 22:19
  Like so the Sunday, what we always try to do is a smaller
• 22:22
  event on the Sunday. Well, a couple of smaller events
• 22:25
  on the Sunday because as we mentioned, like you know,
• 22:28
  tickets sell out for the Saturday fairly quickly.
• 22:30
  So it's for those folks who perhaps didn't manage to get
• 22:34
  tickets on the Saturday, maybe they can pick up a ticket on the
• 22:37
  Sunday. And also we have people
• 22:40
  travelling from quite far afield.
• 22:42
  So when we first started the festival in 2018, you know, a
• 22:46
  three and a half hour session wasn't really an incentive for
• 22:50
  somebody to travel particularly far.
• 22:53
  But if you spread the festival over three days with some like
• 22:55
  exclusive events, then people will travel.
• 22:57
  So again, we have people from Japan, we have people from
• 23:01
  Norway, from Switzerland, from Belgium, they travel from all
• 23:06
  over to spend the three days in in fight.
• 23:10
  It is. It's great, yeah.
• 23:12
  Well, I, I was, I was going to mention sorry earlier when we
• 23:15
  were talking. It's just, you've reminded me
• 23:18
  that we've, we've, we've recently started using a phrase,
• 23:21
  which I think we're going to have to get rid of on the
• 23:23
  podcast. Is pink shaming right?
• 23:26
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't think it's come
• 23:29
  out of my mind, but basically. I away from whiskey, I have a
• 23:33
  fascination, a fixation with them, with stationary.
• 23:38
  Right. Oh, I was.
• 23:40
  Like oh geez. No, no, he does especially see.
• 23:43
  And, and The thing is right. And and that's I can remember
• 23:46
  that. I can't remember the chat.
• 23:47
  You'll maybe know who I'm talking about here just by
• 23:49
  description. OK.
• 23:51
  But basically there was a few people and I have to credit
• 23:53
  Vicki Wicki Elliott, friend of the podcast as well.
• 23:55
  Yeah, of course. We've been a few whiskey
• 23:57
  festivals with her and she's. I'm always jealous of the person
• 24:00
  that writes everything down. Oh, OK, right, right.
• 24:03
  I know what she does is she'll have a pen and a bit of paper or
• 24:05
  she'll take the we were at Whiskey Fringe with, with Vicky
• 24:09
  and she had the the the book. She'd take the book and she was
• 24:12
  writing in the pen and stuff like that.
• 24:14
  Yeah, but I remember distinctly this guy and he had this and
• 24:18
  this is what I love is like he had a leather bound pocket boot,
• 24:23
  bulging dog eared, worn out, wrapped round like like elastic
• 24:28
  bands wrapped round there and everything that for for the and
• 24:31
  and basically this was his, it must be his little whiskey book.
• 24:34
  And he was going around each stall and he was tracking away,
• 24:37
  trying stuff and then writing it into this and this thick book
• 24:41
  that he had. OK, I.
• 24:43
  Can remember it was yellow with a leather front cover.
• 24:45
  It was it looked fantastic, all these little bits of paper
• 24:49
  hanging out of it and it was dog eared as anything but that's
• 24:52
  seen a fair few whiskey festivals.
• 24:54
  But he he was documenting in his little book OK, the drums that
• 24:58
  he was having and I think he I can't remember whether he had
• 25:01
  the direct like I'm trying, you know, categorizing it.
• 25:04
  I'm trying the new stuff 1st and then I'm going to try the core
• 25:07
  releases or anything like that. But he just had all this and
• 25:09
  that for, for me really dictates like you were saying earlier on,
• 25:14
  Justine is like the the type of people that are coming to the
• 25:17
  different festivals. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:18
  Because there is, that is somebody who's made a conscious
• 25:21
  effort and they're not there just to go, there's my glass,
• 25:24
  fill it up. I'm going to drink that and.
• 25:25
  They're there to appreciate the change.
• 25:27
  He's there and going right. I'm going to try that and I'm
• 25:28
  going to write it down and. Keep a record.
• 25:31
  Of what do I don't know what he does with that record.
• 25:32
  I don't know whether he gets home.
• 25:34
  Maybe he makes it a day later when he goes right.
• 25:36
  I'm going to actually look at that and see what I drank or, or
• 25:39
  whether he he blogs about it or whether he he puts it in a
• 25:42
  spreadsheet, who knows? I've no idea.
• 25:44
  I think I know who you're talking about, Isaac.
• 25:46
  Quite a hundred guy maybe in his six days, 56 days, he walked
• 25:50
  around, they had this, this pocket sized notebook that just
• 25:53
  was full. And it was fascinating.
• 25:55
  And I just find that that sort of for me epitomised a lot of
• 25:58
  the sort of people. And also there was a German.
• 26:01
  I was gonna say if he's if he's listening and you know who we
• 26:04
  are? We almost have a leaf through.
• 26:05
  Yeah. Yeah, let me have a let me have
• 26:07
  a little. Tell me who your stationer.
• 26:14
  But people could do that and it's but it's fantastic the
• 26:17
  distance as folk travel. I mean, we do we we see it in
• 26:20
  reverse with Chuck Kerr away at the Chichibu Whiskey Festival in
• 26:23
  Japan. Yeah, These people are the
• 26:25
  reverse Chuck Kerr. Yeah, they come from Japan over
• 26:27
  to five, so. The German lady that came up to
• 26:30
  us, Yeah, come all the way from Germany.
• 26:31
  Yeah, I mean, I, I remember as well.
• 26:34
  I mean, maybe not even, you know, you think people up from
• 26:36
  kind of Lancashire and stuff like that, you know, just.
• 26:39
  Incredible. But the train station Angus.
• 26:41
  And the train station, Yeah, the train station on the way.
• 26:47
  So we get the train back to Edinburgh and we were in the
• 26:50
  second. Well, we're in both sessions,
• 26:52
  but at the end of the second session, we kind of leisurely,
• 26:54
  leisurely walk to the train station.
• 26:56
  And the platform was a central. Chippy The.
• 26:59
  Platform was a party. Yeah.
• 27:02
  It was, it was what happened. The train home, there was drums,
• 27:06
  Drums go lower. What happened obviously is we,
• 27:08
  we'd kind of finished when, you know, we're exhibiting and the
• 27:11
  kind of the, the kind of quarter filled bottles were all being
• 27:15
  traded around the exhibitors and there was a bit, a lot of kind
• 27:18
  of bottle swapping going on. So we ended up with a couple of
• 27:20
  bottles. We weren't the only people that
• 27:23
  ended up with a couple of bottles.
• 27:24
  So on the train it was, you know, we, we sat down, had our 2
• 27:28
  bottles. There was a table of four, next
• 27:30
  was the bottles, and there was. Actually got a nice picture of
• 27:34
  it maybe? Yeah, maybe it's a nice picture.
• 27:36
  With a chippy and a drum, I. Think so, yeah.
• 27:39
  That's a good question. But there was a, a tram back to,
• 27:42
  I mean, the, the, the, the train back to Edinburgh was great fun.
• 27:45
  Great. Which which whiskey pairs well
• 27:46
  with fish and. Chips.
• 27:47
  Well, I say exactly. It's a it's a great.
• 27:49
  Question good that's a good question.
• 27:50
  Anyway, if anybody has a good suggestion for a drum that pairs
• 27:54
  with fish and chips, let us know.
• 27:56
  Instagram, Facebook group I I want to know what's like what's
• 28:00
  a fish and chip? Well, I think chips up fish
• 28:03
  something. Like the the the Cooper Cooper
• 28:05
  has out because for me, so Cooper holes are really nice.
• 28:09
  My so the the boots. Besides, no, that's gone.
• 28:13
  My mum worked there. Oh.
• 28:14
  Right. OK, I was going to.
• 28:15
  Say that's why it was our first job before you're going to say
• 28:16
  that's why you bought your first pack of Johnny.
• 28:19
  Johnny Walker, but my mum, she used to work in there as a kid
• 28:23
  and my family are from Sears just outside.
• 28:27
  And latterly my grandparents had a farm.
• 28:29
  They, they sold the farm and they moved into Cooper.
• 28:32
  And there's a, there's a great pub called the Westport and in
• 28:38
  Cooper. And what we used to do was when
• 28:40
  my grandmother was my grand, well, my grand grand and
• 28:42
  granddad, they were, they were getting old.
• 28:44
  They were in their 80s. And my cousin, my brother and I
• 28:46
  stayed in Edinburgh. So what we would do is
• 28:48
  everything was like the last Friday the month because we
• 28:51
  would finish work a wee bit early.
• 28:52
  We'd jump a train from Edinburgh to Cooper, and at the time you
• 28:55
  were allowed to, you'd have a few beers on the train all the
• 28:57
  way through. Yeah.
• 28:59
  But what we would do is we would, we would take my Gran.
• 29:01
  We would tell my Gran we were arriving for maybe like 6:30,
• 29:05
  but we'd be on like the 3:30 train, right?
• 29:08
  And again at Cooper. And we go to the Westport pub in
• 29:12
  Cooper, which is right next door to another fish and chip shop
• 29:15
  we'd get. And then what we would do is
• 29:16
  that like 20 to 6, I'd phone my Gran that's nearly here.
• 29:22
  What are you wanting for the from the chippy?
• 29:23
  Oh, a scampi stuffer. Right.
• 29:25
  OK, so we'd go, I'd then go into the the chippy, put her order
• 29:28
  in, go back to the pub, have another quick one, grab the fish
• 29:31
  and chips. And then we'd walk to our house.
• 29:32
  All right, have our fish supper. We'd wind her up, my granddad
• 29:36
  up, have a bit of a laugh. And then we would, she would say
• 29:38
  now mind to get the train straight back to Edinburgh now.
• 29:40
  And we'd be right, yes, Gran I, And then we'd be 3 or 4 pubs in
• 29:44
  Cooper. And then we'd be on the last
• 29:46
  train from Cooper back-to-back to Edinburgh and we'd have a
• 29:49
  great time. My granddad then passed away.
• 29:51
  And so my Gran, there we were. We were always conscious to make
• 29:54
  sure we'd always do it. And what was really nice is, you
• 29:56
  know, every month or two months or whatever it was that went 6-7
• 29:59
  weeks went past, we'd walk into the Westport and we'd become
• 30:03
  semi regulars because we'd come in and the woman by the Barrett,
• 30:06
  these are the boy. You had to see your Gran.
• 30:08
  No, you didn't see your Gran. I just know us.
• 30:11
  Yeah, as there's the boys that come from Edinburgh, I see their
• 30:14
  Gran and they and we and then it wasn't till she got a wee bit
• 30:17
  older and she wasn't she wasn't keeping great.
• 30:19
  And just before she started I were chatting away and it was
• 30:21
  one of the last times we went and she says, you know, she
• 30:24
  played the game every single time, but she knew fine.
• 30:27
  Well she went for us at 20 to six.
• 30:30
  Are you on your way? She and I said yes, Graham, I've
• 30:32
  just arrived at Cooper. We've been there for about an
• 30:34
  hour and a half before the pub. But she knew every single time.
• 30:37
  And she. Had a fish supper when she.
• 30:40
  Yeah, that was it. But I Cooper so I I really
• 30:43
  enjoyed Yeah, just the fact that like from from a from a point of
• 30:47
  view for bringing people into Fife and bringing people, it's
• 30:49
  easy. You could have picked Saint
• 30:51
  Andrews. Well, we, we could have, but we
• 30:53
  dismissed it pretty when we first, when we first looked at
• 30:56
  how we were gonna organise the festival, we looked at Saint
• 31:00
  Andrews. I mean, it's not great to get
• 31:03
  there. So, you know, it's like you get
• 31:05
  the train to Lucas and then you know what happens after that.
• 31:08
  But also, there's a lot of money in Saint Andrews already.
• 31:11
  There's got student population, there's a lot of money with the
• 31:14
  golf, I mean everything. So we looked around, we looked
• 31:17
  at Dunfermline and then. But then you looked elsewhere.
• 31:21
  Well, it's, it's a lot to do with the venue, a lot to do with
• 31:24
  the licensing. And then we saw the Corn
• 31:27
  Exchange in Cooper and it's just a great building.
• 31:30
  We, we love the building. And then we looked at the High
• 31:33
  Street and we thought it, it's the same as every High Street in
• 31:37
  these small towns across the country.
• 31:38
  You know, there's, you know, when you think about the rent
• 31:41
  and the rates that these small businesses have, you know, have
• 31:43
  to pay. And it's just really, so we
• 31:45
  thought, let's choose Cooper. It's perfect.
• 31:48
  It's on the train line. People can come all the way from
• 31:49
  Aberdeen, they can go up from Bush, you know, Edinburgh, it's
• 31:52
  perfect. And it'll bring people into the
• 31:55
  town. And and so the first one, you
• 31:58
  know, obviously taxi companies made a fortune restaurants.
• 32:02
  You've got the Imperial Bar right across the road.
• 32:03
  They they were raking in, yeah. It looks well, they'll be well
• 32:07
  there. But then as we've expanded it,
• 32:10
  we have, you know, sort of spread the visitors, I guess
• 32:13
  over, over various different places in price.
• 32:15
  So, so Cooper's still the, the, the hub, you know.
• 32:20
  But this this year on the Sunday, yeah, sorry, sorry.
• 32:23
  On the Sunday, we had an event with the guys at Lady of the
• 32:26
  Glen in Dalgety Bay and then also with the single cask in, in
• 32:31
  Glenrothes. So they opened the bonded
• 32:34
  warehouse for warehouse tastings.
• 32:36
  So we try to do this every Sunday as a Sunday events for
• 32:41
  for the festival, something that you couldn't do at any other
• 32:45
  time. And we I guess we've taken
• 32:46
  inspiration from spirit of space side when they open the doors to
• 32:51
  distilleries for the festival. Although the bloody pricey this
• 32:54
  year, I have to say. I don't know if you saw but
• 32:56
  like. No, we haven't had a close look.
• 32:58
  Some of the, I mean, I don't know, it is, it is what it is.
• 33:01
  The tickets sell out. So, you know, it's maybe I'm
• 33:04
  just being a bit of a tight arse like, you know.
• 33:07
  I know what you. Mean, you know people are people
• 33:09
  are still willing to pay but. The business are on if they sell
• 33:11
  for that. Then exactly, that's what people
• 33:13
  do. Exactly.
• 33:14
  But I mean you know it's £103.00 for some of the distillery
• 33:17
  tours. I don't know what the tastings
• 33:18
  like afterwards could be phenomenal, but and then some of
• 33:22
  the Puno Rica, they were like 2 distilleries.
• 33:26
  So you had Braeval and Glenn Livet I think was one pair
• 33:30
  that's £186. Well that's pretty.
• 33:32
  That is a lot of money. Thank goodness, but let's be
• 33:34
  saying managed to create our situation where they have people
• 33:37
  that way but. People are buying the tickets,
• 33:39
  so they. Braeval as well, a distillery
• 33:40
  you're not gonna get access to for the other 364 days in a
• 33:44
  year, so. So so we sort of take we've
• 33:46
  taken inspiration from that whereby it's quite nice where,
• 33:50
  you know, you have something A1 off for the festival.
• 33:53
  So bonded warehouses open the doors and in previous years
• 33:55
  we've had inch Derny, for example, they opened the the
• 33:59
  distillery and and so something unique, something a little bit
• 34:04
  different that you can't do out with the the festival weekend.
• 34:08
  And so, yeah, great warehouse tastings at Lady of the Glen.
• 34:12
  Bit windy and the gazebo, but it worked.
• 34:15
  You know, like, you know, somebody's sitting in a
• 34:20
  industrial estate in Glenrothes I.
• 34:24
  Know maybe that's where space side, you know, has the trump
• 34:26
  card. There are beautiful locations.
• 34:28
  But you know, but it begs a point like, you know, we're
• 34:30
  sitting in the athletic arms diggers, you know, a proud home
• 34:34
  of the whiskey stories podcast with this one of the largest
• 34:37
  whiskey open whiskey collections in Edinburgh. 850 drams there
• 34:41
  are in Edinburgh, you can you can picture and they can
• 34:44
  pinpoint easily 10 whiskey bars, right where you know, pubs,
• 34:50
  boozers, there's whiskey bars, right, OK, where there are
• 34:53
  there, you know, there may be dedicated whiskey bars, but then
• 34:56
  there's also pubs that are established and known for the
• 35:00
  whiskey's kind of like like here.
• 35:03
  You've then got knocked guess down and down in leaf and stuff
• 35:05
  like that as well. But I'm just really trying to
• 35:09
  think in Fife if there are a sort of.
• 35:13
  Well, what I would say, Graham, is the crowning Kinghorn have a
• 35:16
  really nice whiskey selection and that's, that's a, that's a
• 35:19
  pub of yes, yeah, again. Because there's not many even
• 35:23
  like I keep across it. I keep across it.
• 35:25
  What, what happens, you know, still have ties and connections
• 35:28
  in Fife every single day. And you know, you don't see
• 35:31
  people doing whisky tastings as often in, in, in Fife area in
• 35:35
  some areas. I mean, I'm pretty sure like,
• 35:36
  like for example, we mentioned Saint Andrews.
• 35:38
  Now what people from Fife will say is Saint Andrews has a its
• 35:42
  own micro economy. Yeah, it's right.
• 35:44
  It's like London is to England, like Edinburgh's to.
• 35:46
  Scotland, yeah, it's like. Exactly.
• 35:47
  Saint Andrews is to Fife. You know, as a, as a, you know,
• 35:53
  grow up in Kirkcaldy and stuff like that and you'll say,
• 35:55
  listen, you'll meet somebody and you'll say, where are you from?
• 35:57
  Scotland, which part of Scotland?
• 35:59
  And either say, oh, just very close to Edinburgh or, you know,
• 36:02
  Fife, which is, you know, where Saint Andrew's is.
• 36:05
  People forget that Kirkcaldy, the town where linoleum was the
• 36:08
  highest produced. Oh, absolutely.
• 36:10
  And the documentary the town, the town that floored the world.
• 36:18
  But it is when you're talking about putting Fife on the map,
• 36:22
  if you're talking about becoming an established whiskey region
• 36:28
  and things like that, yeah, you know, there will be pubs like
• 36:31
  Highlander, the Highlander in space.
• 36:34
  Name Craig Allocate, Yeah. You know that is that, yeah,
• 36:36
  that you go to. There will be an equivalent of
• 36:39
  that and. So what you're saying really is
• 36:41
  like, Fife can't really be a whiskey region until it's got a
• 36:45
  big established whiskey bow. Yeah, but I really.
• 36:48
  Say you know. At the moment that's.
• 36:50
  Five the Bowl More hotel in Isla.
• 36:52
  Right. The Highlander in in space site,
• 36:56
  there will be an equivalent in, you know, and there'll be
• 36:59
  there's there's all these places up in the hotels that have
• 37:03
  really famous places that are WW bars and stuff or whiskey hotels
• 37:08
  and Campbelltown. There will be pubs that you walk
• 37:10
  in in Campbell. Well, well, I think we've heard
• 37:12
  about it. Oh yeah.
• 37:13
  But spring back on spring back 10 on the optics.
• 37:16
  But do you? Think those bars have have
• 37:18
  become established because the whiskey region, the whiskey area
• 37:22
  has already been established and not and and not the other way
• 37:25
  round like you were suggesting. So, for example, if Fife were to
• 37:28
  become its own Scotch whiskey region, and then the more sort
• 37:33
  of whiskey tourists would arrive, then they would be the
• 37:37
  market. They would be the, I think the
• 37:38
  audience. Yeah, a specific.
• 37:40
  Well, this is. I think rather than the other
• 37:42
  way, it's. Tail wagging the dog thing,
• 37:43
  isn't it? But I think also Grahams spotted
• 37:46
  a wee gap in the market there. As well.
• 37:50
  Exactly. You know, if we're seeing, I
• 37:51
  mean, you know, right. And you look at, I mean if you
• 37:53
  look at you've got Daft Mill, you've got Lindor's Abbey,
• 37:55
  you've got Eden Mill not too far along the road there.
• 37:58
  Then you've also got Kings Barns if you've and and.
• 38:00
  Actually, if you go, if you go on TripAdvisor and you look, you
• 38:02
  put in things to do in five, I think Kings Barn Distillery tour
• 38:07
  is in the top three. Uh huh.
• 38:08
  Yeah. So you.
• 38:09
  Know I do, I I was just playing devil's advocate because I do
• 38:12
  think if you've got a really good whisky, but let's take the
• 38:14
  artisan, right? The Artisan is in the middle of
• 38:17
  nowhere. Like really not there's no,
• 38:18
  there's no other reason you would go there and to to go and
• 38:22
  visit the Artisan and that brings, I mean, that's an
• 38:24
  amazing whiskey bar. It's where for people listen who
• 38:27
  are I'm. Going to say whishaw?
• 38:28
  Is that how you say it? Yeah, yeah.
• 38:30
  Yeah, Whishaw is a pleasure, but then it's like in Bareilly Hotel
• 38:33
  that we've had Simon Smith, you know?
• 38:36
  You know you. Win for a whiskey.
• 38:37
  Bar no. I mean, it's won awards.
• 38:39
  And I think this is the thing. It's like you there are awards
• 38:42
  for these places. Simon Smith curated the whiskey
• 38:45
  bar at the Ember Area Hotel and then won awards for Whiskey Bar
• 38:50
  of the Year and things like that.
• 38:51
  So now people will absolutely go.
• 38:55
  There's a bar that's if we're visiting Scotland or we're going
• 38:58
  on a wee trip. I mean, I would do it.
• 39:00
  You would do it. I would do it.
• 39:01
  I did that with Highlander Inn. You know, when when I was when
• 39:03
  we took your current wife up to space eight.
• 39:06
  Yeah, I made sure like we're going to pop in here and it's
• 39:11
  twofold. I think when you go to these
• 39:13
  places, it's got, it's like the diggers.
• 39:15
  We've said constantly that if it has read upholstery in
• 39:19
  Edinburgh, you know you're in a, you know you're in a real.
• 39:21
  Tradition. You know you're in a safe.
• 39:23
  Place. Yeah, right.
• 39:24
  I agree it's 6 of 1/2 a dozen of the other.
• 39:26
  Like it's, it's very difficult for somebody to say, right, I'm
• 39:28
  going to set up a whiskey bar here when there isn't that sort
• 39:31
  of kind of whiskey, Scotch whiskey culture, I guess in that
• 39:35
  area. But then if it's a really good
• 39:38
  whiskey bar, it will draw people to the area.
• 39:40
  So it's. Well, I can sort see both sides
• 39:42
  told us the stories about like, you know, Tuesday morning at
• 39:47
  11:00 when he's coming in to open, he's had a, he's had four
• 39:51
  or five Asian tourists waiting for him open because they're
• 39:55
  about to jump on a train. They're on holiday.
• 39:57
  They're about to jump on a train to go either back down South to
• 40:00
  visit the rest of the UK or I can't know whether it was to go
• 40:03
  West and start, start that up. But basically they knew that if
• 40:07
  someone had told them you need to go to Diggers.
• 40:09
  And he said that they, I think they, I think it was like 110 LB
• 40:12
  each on whiskey because they knew the whiskey that he had
• 40:14
  behind the bar. There were certain whiskeys that
• 40:16
  they just wanted to try in a pub in Edinburgh.
• 40:18
  And he said there's 11:00 on a, on a Tuesday morning and they
• 40:21
  had them there. And so it does drop people and
• 40:23
  it does, it does clear that. But I mean, with the other side
• 40:25
  of it though, who was it? We had somebody on the podcast
• 40:28
  that talked about a trip to over what we're trying to say, Spring
• 40:33
  Bank area. I am Campbelltown Campbelltown
• 40:35
  and I can't have had Spring Bank 10 on all.
• 40:38
  Tips. So you're walking in a real old
• 40:42
  style. It might have been, yeah, it
• 40:44
  might have been a different story as well.
• 40:46
  I can't remember who it was. I do remember the story, but
• 40:48
  there was also somebody visiting Campbelltown and he was there
• 40:52
  the night before and he had a, he had a meeting with somebody,
• 40:55
  Ali. Was it Ali?
• 40:56
  Was it maybe Ali? Actually the meeting was, I
• 40:57
  think it was Ali Baxter, the meeting the next day, one of the
• 41:00
  distilleries or an interview and he was there a night before and
• 41:03
  he went for a Chinese meal and then the next day he went to the
• 41:06
  interview and the guy said you enjoy your Chinese meal last
• 41:09
  night then. Because I mean, like I say,
• 41:13
  Saint Andrews is at Saint. You can go into Saint Andrews
• 41:16
  and you can go to plenty of bars in Andrews and there'll be some
• 41:18
  that have very nice because they're hitting.
• 41:20
  I think the keys is at the keys bar in Saint Andrews.
• 41:22
  Yeah, may be the case, but they're hitting the target
• 41:24
  audience like you're going to have tourists coming in from the
• 41:27
  States, from from abroad that are here.
• 41:29
  They're playing golf at the, you know, they're playing golf at
• 41:32
  Saint Andrews. They're big spenders.
• 41:33
  So they'll have a decent back bar of back, you know, good
• 41:37
  expensive whiskies and stuff like that.
• 41:41
  However, you know, a real traditional whiskey bar, whiskey
• 41:46
  boozer where you can fight in some place like a Cooper or you
• 41:51
  know, anywhere where, where. And you can say to yourself
• 41:53
  like, because the catchment area of that, because you you look at
• 41:57
  your distilleries that are based there, you know, you're not
• 42:00
  looking, you're looking, you're not looking W Fife.
• 42:02
  You're looking at the east nook area.
• 42:05
  Glenrothes further up. I'm trying to think if there's
• 42:08
  anybody further South Fife that there isn't, is there?
• 42:12
  I'm sure there might. Well, because you've got to say
• 42:14
  Inch Darnie's Glenrothes. Sure, there's nothing further
• 42:17
  South or West than Inch Darnie, is there?
• 42:20
  Only Cameron Bridge, yeah. Cameron Bridge, No, but even
• 42:23
  that's E that's further, that's further north and eastern
• 42:25
  Glenrothes about Cameron Bridge. So that's up the east nook.
• 42:29
  So you're going, you've got Cameron Bridge, right?
• 42:31
  Then you go, then you've got up to the.
• 42:33
  What you're really saying is there's a whiskey region within
• 42:35
  5? Well, yeah.
• 42:36
  And then you're going further then you look and you're saying
• 42:38
  then you've got. But you're right, Daffy, you're
• 42:40
  right. Lindor's Abbey.
• 42:42
  So they're up the sort of Cooper in that.
• 42:44
  Area so Lindor's yeah, Newburgh just.
• 42:47
  And then you go, then you go further and you've got Eden Mill
• 42:51
  God. King's Bar Kingston's on the.
• 42:53
  I'm missing anyone out. So we're there.
• 42:55
  I'm going to. So I'm going to do the other way
• 42:57
  round to you. So we've got Kingsbans, Eden
• 42:59
  Mill, Lindores, Inch, Derny. Daff Mill.
• 43:03
  Daff Mill. Daff Mill just kind of yeah.
• 43:06
  S Cooper and then and then Cameron.
• 43:09
  Bridge, yeah, they're all in one particular area of of Fife in
• 43:14
  that that area which the right. Side of Fife.
• 43:16
  Well, it's a scenic route. It's a scenic car if I could
• 43:18
  ever, maybe ever darn it. But but it does show you that,
• 43:22
  you know, in that sort of area there's sort of right.
• 43:25
  Well, I was going to say, I think while we're talking bars
• 43:28
  and whiskey, because I won't have escaped the YouTube
• 43:31
  audience. So we've got drums in front of
• 43:32
  us. Of course.
• 43:33
  Well, so. I think I should ask you what?
• 43:35
  What have you got there, Graham? You've got three drums in front
• 43:37
  of you. I've got 3 drums and all three
• 43:41
  have a reason behind them. Oh well.
• 43:44
  My what, 3 drums? What 3 drums in the evening?
• 43:47
  I've got a Thompson Brothers 14 year old Altmore and Angus.
• 43:52
  You and I are very, very excited.
• 43:54
  I'm giddy. I'm.
• 43:56
  Wasn't I'm. Practical.
• 43:58
  We we are. When you listen to this, I think
• 44:00
  it'll be the week of the trip that we are going to do.
• 44:02
  We're doing our first ever whiskey stories proper trip.
• 44:06
  We've done a few train trip. We've done a train trip.
• 44:08
  We've done a bit. We've been out of the diggers
• 44:09
  before. Yes, we've been through the
• 44:11
  Diggers. Well, we have.
• 44:12
  We have been asked, we've been invited by the Thompson brothers
• 44:16
  to head up to Dornoch. That's a great place, yeah.
• 44:19
  Ross yourself and we well we've roped.
• 44:22
  We needed somebody that could drive a car and hold the camera.
• 44:26
  Chuck, if you listen to that's you found out what your job is
• 44:29
  because he just thought he was coming along for a jolly.
• 44:31
  But we need somebody that can drive and hold the camera.
• 44:34
  That's it. Because Ross doesn't have his
• 44:36
  licence. It's effectively we're we're
• 44:39
  calling this Ross not driving. No, no, I think he chooses not
• 44:43
  to drive. OK, he chooses to be his.
• 44:44
  Current wife drives, which is handy for him, but we are
• 44:47
  calling this trademark pending, and as long as there's no legal
• 44:50
  disputes, this will be the Whiskey Story's Grand Tour.
• 44:54
  Right now, one of the three of us is James May, the other one's
• 44:57
  Richard Damon and the other one's Clarkson.
• 45:01
  But I, well, we'll keep our political views to ourselves.
• 45:04
  We can do that. You can decide for yourselves
• 45:06
  who do. But but yeah, so I've got that
• 45:08
  Thompson brothers. Big shout out to the to the
• 45:09
  Thompson brothers. Thank you for having us.
• 45:11
  So we're looking forward to a weekend up there.
• 45:13
  Brace yourself. Donna Lindor's distillery cast
• 45:16
  exclusive release. A distillery release.
• 45:20
  I wanted, I wanted the Fife release, which the Fife
• 45:22
  exclusive. The Fife exclusive.
• 45:24
  So I mean that. So that isn't anything to do
• 45:27
  with the Fife Whiskey Festival per SE, but it was launched on
• 45:29
  the 1st of March and I think that particular whiskey is
• 45:33
  exclusive just to the Fife retailers.
• 45:36
  So what I want to do is Murray Stephenson shout to Murray, who
• 45:40
  is the brand ambassador of indoors Abbey.
• 45:42
  So we're we're we're currently in the process of getting a
• 45:46
  trying to work out, get a Lindoors Abbey episode out.
• 45:49
  So watch the space for that. But Murray, it's funny because
• 45:53
  Murray was like, right, you know, this is a Fife exclusive
• 45:57
  whiskey. And I was trying to say, oh,
• 45:58
  come on, get it in the diggers. We've got to be careful because
• 46:02
  it's it's a Fife exclusive. And I think I've done myself
• 46:05
  justice. Tonight's episode, I said, well,
• 46:07
  I'm a FIFA and I always talk on Fife on the podcast.
• 46:11
  So how about you give me a bottle and we'll put it, we'll
• 46:14
  put it on the table and have a chat.
• 46:15
  But Lindos Abbey, a distillery that very close to my heart, I
• 46:22
  think there's the farm next door is where my grandmother grew up
• 46:26
  and the farm, one of the farms close by to the if not next
• 46:30
  door, but close by Lindos Abbey there and.
• 46:33
  Lindos eventually just recently released a whiskey for
• 46:36
  International Woman's Day. So it's the first bottling that
• 46:42
  has Helen's Helen McKenzie Smith's signature, Oh, brilliant
• 46:46
  label. It's the first bottling, yeah,
• 46:47
  very, very. I've got a bottle of that.
• 46:49
  Haven't opened and tasted it yet, but I'm sure it's
• 46:51
  phenomenal 'cause we're bringing out some great stuff.
• 46:53
  Absolutely, yeah. And a great 'cause it's, well,
• 46:55
  great sort of incentive as well. And the the the final one I've
• 46:58
  gone and again, we're going to touch on this, OK, I'm going for
• 47:01
  a Glenn Farkless 15. However, this is an exclusive
• 47:05
  bot line for It's a Highland Games Edition.
• 47:08
  OK. Is it still 43 percent or?
• 47:10
  No, this is cast. Let me double check now.
• 47:12
  I just said give me AI said to Dom.
• 47:15
  Give me a Glenn Barkless. Yeah, well, I said to Dom, who
• 47:18
  you'll have recognised from the start of last week's episodes.
• 47:21
  I saw you hand him up the ladder, Graham.
• 47:23
  But Dom clapped us in last week, if you remember correctly.
• 47:25
  Yeah, Dom clapped us in, made an absolute mess of it, but he
• 47:28
  clapped us in last week. So I said to Dom, who is the
• 47:32
  whiskey guru at the the Athletic Arms.
• 47:34
  I said Glenn Farkless, but something different, something
• 47:39
  not 'cause they do have quite a nice Glenn Farkless like.
• 47:41
  And sometimes we have sometimes we straight away too much from
• 47:44
  the core, but not the big brands.
• 47:47
  But why you've got those I? Think I think I have had a Glenn
• 47:50
  Farkless at some point in the podcast.
• 47:52
  But this is 51.5% fifteen now it says bottled exclusively for
• 47:57
  Hannan and Carhoo on the front of that.
• 48:01
  But and it's got a beer and a kilt throwing, not the caber.
• 48:06
  What's the ball? Throwing a hammer, throwing a
• 48:08
  hammer, Throwing at the Highland Games.
• 48:09
  It's a Highland Games. OK.
• 48:11
  Some 1 bottle of 348. Nice, so a single cast. 15 year
• 48:15
  old single cast exclusive for a Highland games.
• 48:18
  I don't know what Highland games, but shout out to Hannan
• 48:20
  and yeah, thanks for coming along.
• 48:24
  There is a reason for going farthest, which I'm sure we'll
• 48:26
  come to very shortly I guess. What?
• 48:27
  Have you? You've drowned.
• 48:28
  Well, I've finished one already. I picked 3 drowns.
• 48:31
  First day I guess. Three draft first day, I guess
• 48:33
  indeed pick three drums for no special reason whatsoever.
• 48:37
  So I can't I can't reel off any reason.
• 48:40
  So in a, you know, huge open bottle, you know, you could go
• 48:44
  into diggers every day and not have the same DRAM twice.
• 48:47
  I've come in here and had one of the drams I had last week.
• 48:50
  But I was thinking about it. I was thinking today sometimes
• 48:53
  in the afternoon at work, you know, when it, you know, your
• 48:56
  mind wanders sometimes. And I think, what am I going to
• 48:58
  have when I get to the diggers? I'm glad that's what you said
• 49:01
  was your mind was. Wondering and I just couldn't
• 49:04
  stop thinking about the IT was the Bonington and it was the
• 49:10
  It's not Madeira. It's a lot of fortified wine,
• 49:13
  Muscat, Muscat. And I just yeah, I had it again
• 49:18
  and it was fantastic. I've got A and again, this is
• 49:21
  just because they're near behind the bar here.
• 49:23
  I've got a Bladnik, an 8 year old double matured and bourbon
• 49:29
  and red wine casks. Nice.
• 49:30
  It's delicious and I've not tried.
• 49:35
  It's a new one from Ardene Ho Cherry, ah.
• 49:39
  The latest one? The latest from Ardene Ho.
• 49:41
  It's the Cherry. They're doing good stuff at
• 49:43
  Ardene. Yeah, I mean, I've, I've got an
• 49:44
  Ardene Ho cap at home, so from when they were on the phone with
• 49:48
  so I feel, yeah. Well, I have to.
• 49:50
  I have to also say I'm trying to desperately find it, but today
• 49:54
  this is there were a lot. Oh yeah, of course it was
• 49:56
  Cheltenham races today. And so you, you, there was like
• 50:00
  there was a you've been. Indoctrinated by the
• 50:02
  sponsorship. You, Glenn Farkle sponsor
• 50:04
  Cheltenham. And another one.
• 50:06
  Race there is there is a particular I.
• 50:08
  Think I've got a win on a bit today, so I'll enjoy it going
• 50:11
  far less. Yeah.
• 50:12
  Courtesy of Betfair. Please, please bet responsibly.
• 50:17
  Absolutely. One nil to Graham.
• 50:18
  Yeah. And and.
• 50:22
  Justine, you just have a lemonade because you're driving
• 50:24
  down the borders. Yeah.
• 50:25
  So, yeah, I've been, I mean, I came through to Edinburgh this
• 50:28
  morning, so delivered some of the books to Hollywood
• 50:32
  Distillery and delivered books to Port of Leith Distillery.
• 50:35
  And then I was spent the afternoon hanging about in
• 50:38
  graveyards. You can ask about that.
• 50:39
  Yeah, did like and and then and then heard you here.
• 50:44
  But I do have to drive back. Yeah.
• 50:45
  And we'll get onto the books and just the same, but going to the
• 50:48
  borders, Borderlands, Borderlands.
• 50:50
  Borderlands. Whiskey Festival, Yeah Yeah is
• 50:53
  your other whiskey festival that you organise.
• 50:55
  It is, yeah. Later in the.
• 50:57
  Have you got a date for that? Yeah.
• 50:58
  Not yet, no. So Karen and I, we always have
• 51:03
  this huge mega planning day and it's usually will in the past
• 51:08
  it's been about June, but because we now have Borderlands
• 51:11
  Whiskey Festival, we've brought it forward.
• 51:13
  So that'll be the beginning of April and that's when we'll set
• 51:17
  the date for the next Borderlands Festival and also
• 51:20
  work on the plans that we have for the 5W festival.
• 51:23
  And, and we've got quite a lot of plans for that.
• 51:27
  So we, we just need to sit down and work on a date.
• 51:29
  But we did decide we wouldn't do it until the Fife Whiskey
• 51:32
  Festival was over. And we've had a week to recover.
• 51:35
  And then we can like, you know, because that's, that's, I think
• 51:38
  sometimes people forget the way sometimes folk talk to us.
• 51:42
  I think they think there's a, there's a huge team behind the
• 51:45
  Fife Whiskey Festival. It's just the two of us.
• 51:48
  It's just the two of us. And I, I say just the two of us,
• 51:50
  but we have amazing volunteers. We have obviously Louvians, the
• 51:54
  on site retailer, we have the amazing exhibitors and Lindos do
• 51:57
  a lot of help, a lot of support with the, with the planning of
• 52:00
  the opening dinner. But it's just, it's just the two
• 52:02
  of us that kind of coordinate everything.
• 52:05
  And, and we are absolutely knackered.
• 52:08
  We just like in a heap, you know, on the Sunday evening.
• 52:12
  So we said let's just, let's just give ourselves a week, 10
• 52:15
  days, whatever, just to, you know, get back on track And
• 52:18
  then, and we've already started sort of discussing plans for the
• 52:22
  future. So so when we get together we'll
• 52:25
  have a date for the Borderlands, but it will be in the autumn
• 52:27
  definitely. In the autumn I'm would.
• 52:31
  It be right in saying then you know Fife Whiskey Festival must
• 52:34
  be one of the first of the year. It is usually, I think there's
• 52:39
  one of the the the national whiskey festivals maybe January
• 52:44
  or something, but apart from that.
• 52:47
  It really does like it is it's funny as like kicking off the
• 52:49
  season. I should just say for anyone
• 52:51
  listen, it was the 1520 at Cheltenham and Cheers to Stop
• 52:54
  Down, which is part of the Glen Farmers Cross Country Chase.
• 52:57
  There you go. There you go.
• 52:58
  Who was the jockey? Who was the trainer?
• 53:00
  I do like the horse racing. Oh, no idea jockey trainer, but
• 53:03
  cheers. Really testing.
• 53:06
  I should, from a racing point of view, listen to listen to
• 53:09
  Russell. Well, we're talking about Fife
• 53:10
  being a great. Agent, listen to Russell.
• 53:12
  Russell apart. Apart from the horse and the
• 53:14
  4:20 that came in about 7. But I forgot one on Saturday,
• 53:17
  didn't get whatever. So there we are the the the
• 53:19
  Horse Racing Stories podcast. You have to pay for that one,
• 53:23
  but. Graham's top tips.
• 53:29
  Doesn't fall far from the tree there.
• 53:30
  But anyway, let's let's we are talking about talking about
• 53:33
  chancers moves us on this because you have mentioned, you
• 53:38
  know, dropping your books in Now, the last time we had you on
• 53:43
  the podcast, we talked about African grey parrots.
• 53:46
  Yeah, we talked, we talked about the history of Leaf.
• 53:49
  We talked about your your walking tours being trains,
• 53:52
  being commandeered. Yeah, yeah.
• 53:55
  Loads of great stories and a story that I have to honestly
• 53:59
  admit to you, Justine, this was one of the incentives that I had
• 54:05
  when it came to the concept of whiskey stories.
• 54:08
  And it's the story of the Patterson brothers, right?
• 54:11
  Yeah. Because I thought whiskey is
• 54:13
  littered with some fantastic, great stories.
• 54:17
  And we talked a lot about it because you were at the point of
• 54:19
  writing your book when you came in the last time.
• 54:22
  But I have in my hands right now the book finally, hard hardback
• 54:27
  book as well, Opening the case. Yes.
• 54:31
  The Story of the Affairs of the Patterson's Whiskey by Justine
• 54:35
  Hazarst. You have a book?
• 54:36
  Fantastic. Well done.
• 54:38
  Wow. Self published.
• 54:40
  It is self published. Crowdfunded as well, so.
• 54:43
  So I'm not sure, like, I mean, this is new territory for me, so
• 54:46
  I don't know. I didn't know anything about
• 54:48
  publishing before I started doing this.
• 54:51
  But I think it's a very niche topic and but it's one that's
• 54:55
  quite dear to a lot of whisky enthusiasts hearts.
• 54:57
  They've they've heard about the Pattersons, they've heard about
• 54:59
  the story. They perhaps want to know a
• 55:01
  little bit more about it. But it's still a very niche,
• 55:05
  yeah. Also the good thing about the
• 55:07
  liabis laws is just wait till they're dead, whatever you like
• 55:10
  about them and they can't say wait till they've been dead 100
• 55:12
  years and even better. To be honest, there's a lot that
• 55:15
  I wanted to include in there but didn't dare because there are
• 55:19
  still people and companies that and and I.
• 55:22
  Wouldn't have been able to. Afford the legal fees.
• 55:24
  So I kind of left that out. But yeah.
• 55:27
  But self-publishing was obviously the, the route that I
• 55:30
  chose to go down And, and nothing, nothing more than
• 55:33
  money. I mean, traditional publishing,
• 55:35
  for every book you sell, you probably earn about 10%
• 55:38
  Commission, you know, So it's a lot of work for, you know, a
• 55:42
  couple of quid each book. So when you've only got a very,
• 55:45
  you know, you're only going to sell a limited number.
• 55:47
  It's a very niche topic. Then for me, self-publishing is
• 55:52
  is is the path to go down Brian? Well, yeah, for for people who
• 55:56
  maybe missed the previous episode that you were on.
• 56:00
  Uh huh. I'm just trying to find when it
• 56:02
  was actually but it. Was a wee while ago, now I'm
• 56:04
  trying to think. Yeah, there I think maybe in
• 56:06
  September or something. Yeah. 11th September, Yeah.
• 56:09
  Can you remember, can you just quickly before we, before we
• 56:12
  move off to this, I want you, can you remember your what, 3
• 56:16
  drams from back then there? Was definitely a Glen Ord.
• 56:19
  Glen Ord, 12 Yeah. There was a hanky banister.
• 56:21
  Hanky Banister. Yeah, yeah.
• 56:23
  Oh, now what was the other one? Oh no, I can't remember the
• 56:26
  other. One so Delphia Longmore, 1990.
• 56:28
  2:00 but when I hid in the cupboard.
• 56:32
  But we, we talked a lot about, I mean, it's something they've
• 56:35
  they they've appeared a few times on the podcast.
• 56:38
  Uh huh. Beforehand the the, the sort of
• 56:40
  legend of the Patterson brothers.
• 56:42
  Yeah. So for people who maybe haven't
• 56:45
  listened to that episode, and I suggested do because we talked
• 56:47
  about was it a Puma in a pub in. Oh yeah, I mean, that was.
• 56:50
  Yeah, yeah, they were in the cage.
• 56:52
  No, but that episode was was African grey Paris and a human a
• 56:56
  puppet. It's fantastic.
• 56:57
  The alliteration there was great, wasn't it?
• 56:59
  Back in the second the 60s and 70s.
• 57:01
  Yeah, talk us through the Patterson brothers, give us a
• 57:04
  brief insight into who they are. Brief.
• 57:07
  That's the word, right? OK, So the Patterson brothers
• 57:10
  ran a company, Patterson's Limited.
• 57:12
  It was originally called Patterson Elder and Co.
• 57:14
  It was their father's company. They took it over, floated it as
• 57:19
  a limited company and it became Pattersons Limited.
• 57:22
  And it was one of the biggest companies, Scotch whiskey
• 57:26
  companies, not just in Leith, but across the entire country.
• 57:30
  It was it was huge. It was a huge empire.
• 57:33
  And then in 1898 it went bust. Essentially what happened was
• 57:38
  one of the banks called in, called in a debt, and the
• 57:43
  Pattersons didn't have enough money to pay that debt.
• 57:46
  And sorry, let me explain that again.
• 57:48
  Somebody called in a debt, the Pattersons didn't have enough
• 57:51
  money to pay that debt. The banks wouldn't advance any
• 57:55
  more money to the Pattersons. So the company then they had to
• 57:58
  stop-payment. And because it was such a huge
• 58:02
  enterprise, once the Pattersons have gone bust, the domino
• 58:06
  effect throughout the whole of the trade is that a lot of
• 58:08
  smaller companies also failed, but then bigger companies were
• 58:13
  starting to fail. And then what came to light
• 58:16
  afterwards was maybe the shady dealings that were going on, not
• 58:20
  just with the Pattersons, but it was it was across the entire
• 58:24
  industry. They certainly were criminals.
• 58:28
  I'm not going to suggest they weren't.
• 58:30
  And a lot of people talk about how they were scapegoats and,
• 58:34
  and to a certain extent, extent they were because the Pattersons
• 58:39
  only got away with what they got away with because somebody
• 58:43
  somewhere was facilitating this. Right.
• 58:45
  OK. So there are people who were
• 58:47
  equally as guilty. Yeah.
• 58:49
  But. They were the ones that took.
• 58:50
  They were the fall guys. In a sense, in yeah, they were.
• 58:53
  Only doing what other people were maybe doing.
• 58:55
  So the, the reason the company went bust, I'll say I don't want
• 58:59
  to give too much away. We explained, I, we were talking
• 59:01
  about this earlier, 'cause still want people to buy a book and
• 59:04
  find out. But you know, one of the reasons
• 59:06
  why they went bust, which because for the most part, the
• 59:09
  company was operating on credit, but the pretty much the entire
• 59:13
  industry was operating on credit and there was this huge tangled
• 59:17
  web of financial transactions between all of the companies.
• 59:20
  Some people were selling casks, you know, person A was selling
• 59:24
  casks to person B, but person B was also selling casks to person
• 59:28
  A Person A will be selling casks to B, but they didn't actually
• 59:31
  belong to them. They belong to person CC was
• 59:34
  selling casks to B, but those casks actually didn't even
• 59:36
  exist. I mean, it was just like this
• 59:38
  huge. And at the start of the book, I
• 59:40
  call it huge tangled ball of wool.
• 59:43
  And it took forever to unpick all of the threads and then lay
• 59:46
  them. The the the the thread out is
• 59:48
  one big long piece. And then bend it into a kind of
• 59:51
  narrative arc. And you must be one of the only
• 59:53
  people that have that have done that then.
• 59:55
  Well, I think lots of people have.
• 59:57
  I mean, one of the things that one of the things that I've I
• 1:00:00
  discovered was when the story was originally told perhaps in
• 1:00:04
  the press and also to a certain extent by other parties.
• 1:00:09
  So I'm going to say William Ross from Distillers Company Limited.
• 1:00:15
  You know, to kind of to kind of shift any kind of sort of blame,
• 1:00:20
  wrongdoing, involvement away from themselves.
• 1:00:24
  You know, they put they put across a certain narrative
• 1:00:27
  regarding the Pattersons and this was never questioned at the
• 1:00:30
  time. And then it was repeated and
• 1:00:32
  repeated and repeated to the point now where you can pick up
• 1:00:35
  any reference book on whiskey. And if they refer to the
• 1:00:38
  Pattersons, it's the same story. Yes, that is is is constant.
• 1:00:42
  Nobody actually questions whether the original 1 was true.
• 1:00:44
  Yeah. So I mean, is this, is this, is
• 1:00:46
  this an attempt to kind of retell the story and go back to
• 1:00:50
  the original sources? So one of the, one of the things
• 1:00:53
  that I obviously loved about researching this was that the
• 1:00:56
  Pattersons weren't just a company, they were a family.
• 1:01:00
  And we, we often talk about Robert and Walter.
• 1:01:03
  Those are the two brothers, but they had, you know, a whole
• 1:01:05
  bunch of other siblings. And all of those siblings have
• 1:01:09
  their own stories to tell and fascinating stories.
• 1:01:14
  Some of them were involved with the company.
• 1:01:16
  Some of the sisters were involved to the point, you know,
• 1:01:19
  they kind of bailed out the brothers.
• 1:01:20
  You know, it's it's kind of it's a fascinating mix.
• 1:01:23
  I. Mean you might not know about
• 1:01:24
  the kind of descendants around today of the Patterson brothers.
• 1:01:27
  So Walter Patterson's great grandson is I was actually there
• 1:01:33
  just on Thursday returning some of the items.
• 1:01:35
  So during COVID, I didn't really have very much to do.
• 1:01:38
  No tours, no tastings could take place.
• 1:01:41
  And so researched the entire Patterson family tree and met
• 1:01:46
  with David, Walter Patterson's great grandson.
• 1:01:50
  And he has all the old photo albums.
• 1:01:52
  He has like Walter's old wallet. He has a whole bunch of stuff.
• 1:01:57
  And it's through those photographs and documents that
• 1:02:00
  really brought Walter Patterson's family to life and
• 1:02:05
  the whole whole story to life. And that's why when I wrote this
• 1:02:10
  and I decided it was the Patterson story and it should be
• 1:02:13
  told just as a story. There are so many amazing,
• 1:02:18
  brilliant whiskey reference books on the shelves, but I
• 1:02:22
  didn't want to write one of those.
• 1:02:23
  So this is a genuine again, I wrote, I read a book about how
• 1:02:28
  to write a book. The last, the last time I wrote
• 1:02:31
  a story, I was probably in primary school.
• 1:02:33
  So I thought, geez, how do I do this?
• 1:02:35
  So I wrote, I read an amazing book called Story Craft by by
• 1:02:39
  Jack Hart and that gave me the the inspiration to form the
• 1:02:43
  narrative arc and put all the plot points on.
• 1:02:45
  So this reads as a story. So it's so you so so this isn't
• 1:02:49
  like a a whiskey book where or a historic history book where if
• 1:02:54
  I, if I was to read it, it would say here's a date and this is
• 1:02:57
  what happened. It reads as a story.
• 1:02:59
  So you're taking the reader on a story?
• 1:03:02
  And each section is written from the point of view as of of one
• 1:03:05
  of the characters. I'm going to call them
• 1:03:07
  characters. But everything in the book is
• 1:03:12
  non fiction. I think maybe some people have
• 1:03:14
  read it and perhaps thought, oh, she's been a bit creative with
• 1:03:17
  this bit of artistic licence. But absolutely everything in the
• 1:03:20
  book I can substantiate with trial papers, distillery plans,
• 1:03:27
  family documents, bankruptcy papers.
• 1:03:30
  Because I'm, I'm thinking of when you're researching the
• 1:03:33
  book, it goes back to a degree in history, believe it or not.
• 1:03:37
  And yeah, I know. And some of some, some of some
• 1:03:41
  of some of the ancient history now, I guess some of my time was
• 1:03:45
  spent kind of in a library looking at microfiche and old
• 1:03:47
  newspapers. Is that was that?
• 1:03:50
  Was there a bit of that as well? I.
• 1:03:51
  Take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:53
  I mean, most of most of the, I mean, documents are everywhere.
• 1:03:58
  So as I say, David had lots of the old photographs and on the
• 1:04:02
  back of the photographs they were a little scribbling.
• 1:04:04
  So that gave me an insight into who, who was sending photos to
• 1:04:10
  the Pattersons. I mean, there was a there's one
• 1:04:13
  photograph and on the back it said it was, it was from Ada to
• 1:04:18
  Eliza. And then it said Kenneth, six
• 1:04:21
  weeks and there's a picture of a baby.
• 1:04:23
  So made me think, who, who are these people?
• 1:04:26
  Well, Ada was Ada Mae Bristow and she married William Mark
• 1:04:32
  Sanderson of VAT 69 fame, huge leaf whiskey family.
• 1:04:36
  They had a son, Kenneth Sanderson, and he eventually
• 1:04:40
  took over the running of the company.
• 1:04:42
  William Sanderson and and, and, and this photo was, and I found
• 1:04:47
  out when Kenneth Sanderson was born.
• 1:04:50
  So this photo was sent after the Patterson Company had gone bust.
• 1:04:55
  So these families not only worked together, they, you know,
• 1:05:01
  professionally in Leeds dealing with whiskey, but they were also
• 1:05:05
  friends. Friends.
• 1:05:06
  Family. Yeah.
• 1:05:07
  Yeah. And they remained friends after
• 1:05:09
  after the crash. Whether they remained friends
• 1:05:11
  after the trial, I don't know. I mean.
• 1:05:14
  I've got, I've got 2, two or three questions for you on on
• 1:05:17
  this front end. The last time you were in, you
• 1:05:20
  were talking about the challenges with the book,
• 1:05:22
  because there is so much. Yeah.
• 1:05:24
  Hearsay around what was said about the Patterson brothers,
• 1:05:28
  right? There's loads of these great
• 1:05:30
  infamous stories that people can talk about.
• 1:05:33
  And I think Angus might have alluded to one about trains and
• 1:05:37
  stuff like that. Yeah.
• 1:05:38
  And the difficulty you had was finding it may have been hearsay
• 1:05:42
  at the time and it might have even made it to print, but
• 1:05:45
  finding the source to find out whether that was true or not.
• 1:05:47
  So that when you're writing this book you didn't get tangled up
• 1:05:50
  and the rumour mill. So the, the story we heard and
• 1:05:54
  I, I had read was the fact that as a part of a sort of party
• 1:05:58
  piece, I think they lived, they were nice and they, they had a
• 1:06:01
  nice big town of people's. They had a nice big outhouse,
• 1:06:04
  and Peebles are not. So yeah, Robert lived in
• 1:06:07
  Peebles, at Kings Meadows, and then Walter had a big place at
• 1:06:11
  Clovenford's. Yeah.
• 1:06:12
  So when you look at the again, it's all part of the research.
• 1:06:16
  When you look at the Victorian train maps, it's like, geez, how
• 1:06:20
  Why haven't we got that now? I mean takes me about 3 days on
• 1:06:22
  public transport to get from January the.
• 1:06:24
  Borders. Well, basically.
• 1:06:25
  But like, you know, back in the day you could Peebles and
• 1:06:28
  Plumfords, you could jump on the train and be in Edinburgh in
• 1:06:30
  less than an hour. The story was one of the
• 1:06:33
  brothers, I don't know which one, and it used to be a sort of
• 1:06:36
  they'd be it was it was a party piece where they would be out
• 1:06:39
  until they would deliberately miss the last train out of
• 1:06:43
  Edinburgh and then charter their own train.
• 1:06:46
  Yeah, so take. Out the money that they were
• 1:06:48
  making at the time and they're they're sort of yeah, this from
• 1:06:51
  from the stories I've read this sort of they were trying to
• 1:06:56
  portray this we the how big they were in the in that sort of
• 1:07:00
  Victorian age. So that particular story I've
• 1:07:02
  read about a lot, but essentially, you know, one was
• 1:07:06
  living, Robert was in Peebles, Walter was in Cloven Fords.
• 1:07:09
  And what they would do is deliberately miss the train into
• 1:07:11
  Edinburgh and then call the journalists so that then when
• 1:07:14
  they charted their own private train, the journalists were
• 1:07:18
  there. And that's the story I've read
• 1:07:19
  quite a lot now. I've scoured the newspaper
• 1:07:22
  archives, absolutely gone through, and have not found one
• 1:07:26
  single article or mention about this, so I'd like to think that
• 1:07:32
  if they did call the journalists that there would have been at
• 1:07:35
  least one story somewhere. So that's where I find it.
• 1:07:38
  I mean, you're talking about if you go back 18.
• 1:07:40
  Yeah. So.
• 1:07:42
  You're like, but I'm not saying it didn't happen.
• 1:07:45
  I'm just saying that I couldn't find anything in the newspapers
• 1:07:49
  to back that up. So because I couldn't find
• 1:07:51
  anything to back it up, I didn't put it in the book.
• 1:07:55
  So only I think it would be quite confusing for the reader
• 1:07:59
  if they didn't know which bits were true and which bits
• 1:08:02
  weren't. So everything, everything I've
• 1:08:04
  got can be backed up so. Tell me please, did Africa and
• 1:08:07
  Grey Parrots make a reference in the book?
• 1:08:09
  They did, but only because I could find 2 newspaper articles
• 1:08:14
  to back it up. But I think, I think I mentioned
• 1:08:18
  this on the last podcast, last year's Fife Whiskey Festival.
• 1:08:23
  Our guest of honour was for the dinner.
• 1:08:24
  Our guest of honour was Doctor Nicholas Morgan.
• 1:08:26
  And sitting next to him and I'd literally just written the
• 1:08:31
  chapter where I included everything about these these
• 1:08:34
  parrots. And the following day or maybe a
• 1:08:38
  couple of days later, he had written a, a published an
• 1:08:41
  article on the Whiskey Exchange blog basically saying there's
• 1:08:44
  absolutely no way that these guys kind of.
• 1:08:46
  Resisting 'cause as soon as I thought, is that why?
• 1:08:48
  I mean as 500 African grey parrots, Yeah, were supposedly.
• 1:08:52
  Told taught taught to say bipartisans whiskey.
• 1:08:55
  Is it so basically and and there is a newspaper article to back
• 1:08:59
  this up. So I did am an hour about this
• 1:09:02
  and I did think it's probably the one of the most famous
• 1:09:05
  stories about the Pattersons. I mean, when people talk about
• 1:09:08
  it, they always reference that particular element of the
• 1:09:12
  Pattersons buying. It was 50 grey parrots and some
• 1:09:17
  some people have reported it as 500, but yeah, 50 grey parrots.
• 1:09:21
  And what happened was, you know, the boat came into Leith and
• 1:09:25
  they got wind that these these parrots were on board.
• 1:09:28
  So they sent somebody down there to, I say to the to, to the boat
• 1:09:32
  owner, if you can teach them how to say, buy Pattersons whiskey,
• 1:09:36
  we'll buy them all off you. And apparently a few days later,
• 1:09:39
  you know, the guy went back and sure enough, he was greeted with
• 1:09:42
  buy Pattersons whiskey. And so he bought all the
• 1:09:44
  parrots, put them in guilt cages and sent them down to Liverpool
• 1:09:48
  because that's where the Pattersons were looking to
• 1:09:50
  break. Into Oh yeah, and that because
• 1:09:52
  I'm gonna be saying this is my theory that this was in the
• 1:09:55
  1890s and uh huh. Obviously African grey parrots
• 1:09:58
  can live until, you know, until kinda 60 year old.
• 1:10:01
  Yeah, very possible that one of The Beatles walked into a shop
• 1:10:04
  and he said but my Pattersons were skate.
• 1:10:07
  So I, I won't, I won't repeat it, but I think it prompted me
• 1:10:10
  to tell a terrible joke. I was a bit started to hear you
• 1:10:13
  rescued from a brothel at Liverpool, by the way.
• 1:10:16
  You have it now. Now the next thing.
• 1:10:18
  So I've got two or three questions right now.
• 1:10:19
  OK, the next thing is. So I'll just quickly say there
• 1:10:22
  is a disclaimer in the book about the parrots because I
• 1:10:25
  could not bring myself to write a book about the Pattersons.
• 1:10:29
  And not. In crucial there is a.
• 1:10:31
  Big disclaimer in the back around them, yeah.
• 1:10:34
  So I'm trying to work out which which which question to leave
• 1:10:37
  with here. I'll go with this right.
• 1:10:40
  So actually this is dated back to 23rd of July 2023.
• 1:10:46
  This is my Whiskey Stories book and this is before we started
• 1:10:48
  the podcast. I was writing down little
• 1:10:50
  stories. And what I like to do is I'm a
• 1:10:52
  bit of a romanticist as well and I like to piece things together.
• 1:10:55
  And Angus will back this up is sometimes, you know, don't let
• 1:10:58
  the truth get in the way. A good story by Ally.
• 1:11:01
  Some people would say I've been guilty of embellishing stories
• 1:11:04
  every now and then. I'd say that's a load of
• 1:11:05
  nonsense. But anyway, but I I I wrote a
• 1:11:10
  small theory down about the Patterson.
• 1:11:11
  Brothers, OK, let's go for. It and the theory I have was
• 1:11:14
  that and you'll maybe be able to tell the value and the cost and
• 1:11:18
  what have you and if. There's a load of nonsense just.
• 1:11:21
  From my own like limited research that I'd done on this
• 1:11:24
  particular day when I was bored, DCL Distillers Company Limited
• 1:11:29
  bought the stock of the Patterson brothers, or a large
• 1:11:32
  percentage of the stock of the Patterson brothers.
• 1:11:35
  OK, was. When you know, it was that the
• 1:11:37
  bonded warehouse down in Leith, I think DCL, from my
• 1:11:40
  understanding they bought a lot of stock off that at a
• 1:11:42
  particular price which was way below the market value because
• 1:11:46
  the crash had happened. OK.
• 1:11:47
  So I think, yeah. So I think I know what you mean.
• 1:11:50
  So just off Bonnington Rd. after that, so where the biscuit
• 1:11:54
  factory is, there's two huge buildings.
• 1:11:57
  They're very tall. They're kind of like a red sort
• 1:12:00
  of sandstone colour buildings. So those were two bonded
• 1:12:03
  warehouses Patterson's constructed.
• 1:12:07
  And it was DCL that picked those up for an absolute song at
• 1:12:11
  auction after. But there was no stock in there.
• 1:12:13
  OK. The stock, all of the stocks
• 1:12:16
  that the Patterson's owned was put up for auction, various
• 1:12:21
  different auctions, whether it's the wiser spirits, the whiskeys,
• 1:12:23
  etcetera. That was a big, big scary moment
• 1:12:27
  for the industry because you see, Leith had been built on
• 1:12:33
  what we call the three BS. Yeah.
• 1:12:34
  So sort of blending, bottling, brokering and brokering at this
• 1:12:38
  point actually just ground to a halt because the pads and stocks
• 1:12:43
  were so immense that nobody was going to be buying anything.
• 1:12:47
  They were waiting to see what appeared on the market and there
• 1:12:50
  was this huge fear. So you almost have, you almost
• 1:12:52
  have this flood. Yeah, you almost have this kind
• 1:12:54
  of deflationary thing. So instead of people going and
• 1:12:58
  you know, people are saying well let's not buy a cast today
• 1:13:01
  'cause it might be cheaper tomorrow.
• 1:13:02
  So just to just to clarify then. So DC.
• 1:13:04
  Didn't buy the whiskey? Well, not, not directly from the
• 1:13:08
  past, since they may well have 'cause we don't know who the
• 1:13:10
  buyers were at auction. So they may have bought a lot of
• 1:13:13
  the stocks at auction, but they the, the, the story of them
• 1:13:17
  buying, you know, Patterson's premises, you know, I'd say I
• 1:13:22
  think it was about 30,000 lbs at the time that.
• 1:13:24
  That's the number that rings. I'm not gonna run down here,
• 1:13:27
  but. It cost the Patterson something
• 1:13:28
  like 80 grand to build it and they never actually moved in
• 1:13:31
  and. When you talk about, when you
• 1:13:32
  look at what that would be, you're talking about what the
• 1:13:35
  1899 sort of time or 18/19/99 sort of period maybe you're
• 1:13:40
  talking about 30 grand versus 80 odd grand back then the
• 1:13:43
  equivalent of that would be what that.
• 1:13:45
  That I do a weak calculation in the front just to make it easy
• 1:13:48
  for the reader. Because one of the things I did
• 1:13:51
  was I ditched shillings and pence.
• 1:13:53
  Yeah, because there's no way you can read a story and like it
• 1:13:57
  just it just breaks up the flow. So I just ditched and rounded it
• 1:14:00
  up, but also did a very easy calculation.
• 1:14:02
  I think at the start I think it's 10 lbs = 1000 lbs. £10 per.
• 1:14:07
  So there you go, someone who's got a lot quicker mass.
• 1:14:09
  Let me just what, 30 grand? Well, I I, I, I I I can.
• 1:14:16
  Yeah. So 10 lbs in 1898 would be
• 1:14:19
  equivalent to just over 1000 lbs today.
• 1:14:22
  So. That's a very add on two add on
• 1:14:24
  2. Zeros basically.
• 1:14:25
  So if you're saying that Stanworth around about 80, was
• 1:14:28
  it, did you say 80 grand? That's, well, that's what they
• 1:14:30
  paid for it. I'm not saying that's what no.
• 1:14:32
  So they paid 80 grands. 8,000,008.
• 1:14:35
  Million and it's all that DCL for 30 or 3 million, right.
• 1:14:39
  So, but my, my logic there was at the time with DCL being
• 1:14:43
  founded and you're saying, you know, at one point, I think this
• 1:14:48
  is from the, I can't remember where I got this from, but it
• 1:14:50
  said estimated DCL controlled over 80% of the domestic market
• 1:14:54
  and almost 75% of the world market at that at that period of
• 1:14:58
  time. And you're saying like DCL for
• 1:15:00
  people of Distillers Company Limited went on to then become
• 1:15:03
  what we know today is Diageo eventually.
• 1:15:06
  So you just wonder, you know, the Patterson crash.
• 1:15:11
  Phoenix from the flames if if. DCL hadn't taken you know hadn't
• 1:15:15
  moved in and grabbed what they got.
• 1:15:18
  They had at the steel that they possibly had yesterday might
• 1:15:21
  have maybe you know as I said from a man this point of view,
• 1:15:25
  could you could you put a straight line or a straight a
• 1:15:29
  possible line as possible from the Azure as we know it today to
• 1:15:32
  DCL making somebody at DCL making the decision in 1899.
• 1:15:37
  Oh, I think so. I mean, William, William H for
• 1:15:40
  us, he was the eventual sort of chairman of DCL and he
• 1:15:43
  definitely put the slowest company on a, on a path of sort
• 1:15:46
  of acquisition of, of various different distilleries and
• 1:15:51
  companies and, and, and building and, and, and just, and that
• 1:15:55
  that was his definite sort of goal.
• 1:15:58
  But then, you know, you had the Paterson crash at the end of the
• 1:16:01
  1890s, two world wars, prohibition in the states.
• 1:16:07
  All of those things were too much for a lot of the smaller
• 1:16:11
  companies to kind of navigate and Distillers Company Limited
• 1:16:15
  being this, you know, huge mighty company could could, you
• 1:16:21
  know, take over and whether those storms are a lot easier
• 1:16:23
  than the others. So I do often joke and, you
• 1:16:26
  know, refer to DCL and Diarggio as the, you know, the evil
• 1:16:29
  empire. But on a on a kind of serious
• 1:16:32
  side, if they weren't there, I think personally it's unlikely
• 1:16:36
  that we'd have the Scotch whisky industry.
• 1:16:38
  Yeah, we have today. Without them, the landscape
• 1:16:40
  would have been in so, so much different.
• 1:16:43
  So it's maybe impossible, it's maybe a stretch to try and say
• 1:16:46
  that one decision, but at the same time it probably was part
• 1:16:49
  of a, you know, because. Part of a bigger, yeah, bigger.
• 1:16:52
  Because I mean about my. Decision making process.
• 1:16:54
  Look at that point as you know when things are going bad, it
• 1:16:57
  always works out quite well for somebody else.
• 1:16:59
  And you know, whilst, whilst everyone at the time in the
• 1:17:01
  industry was probably looking going, Oh my God, 'cause I'm not
• 1:17:04
  going to be right and saying this is one of the first major
• 1:17:06
  whiskey crashes within the, within the industry.
• 1:17:09
  Yeah, I'd say yeah. Definitely again whilst things
• 1:17:13
  are going downwards for somebody, you know somebody else
• 1:17:15
  is going well wait a minute, that was they bought that for to
• 1:17:17
  report 8 million today's money and we're getting a chance to.
• 1:17:21
  Purchase that well, my my. Understanding of it was at that
• 1:17:24
  point as well, but without knowing what you know and with
• 1:17:27
  the facts that you have is the fact that I my understanding was
• 1:17:30
  they bought the stock as well as the building.
• 1:17:33
  But if it's just the building, maybe it's a bit of a stretch to
• 1:17:36
  try and. Say, yeah, so the liquidators
• 1:17:37
  basically, you know, their, their aim, that's what they're
• 1:17:41
  they're forced to get as much money out as of everybody as, as
• 1:17:45
  you know, as they could. So the stocks were sold at
• 1:17:47
  auction. The everything was put on
• 1:17:51
  auction, to be honest. And some of the some of the
• 1:17:54
  properties were put on auction maybe about three times before
• 1:17:58
  they eventually sold the business.
• 1:18:00
  Pattersons wasn't profitable, right?
• 1:18:02
  I'm not giving away too many spoilers here, but the
• 1:18:04
  liquidators arrived at the conclusion that this business
• 1:18:07
  should never have existed. There was only one profitable
• 1:18:11
  element of of the Pattersons whole enterprise and that was
• 1:18:14
  Doddingston Brewery. That was a auction for it was
• 1:18:19
  about 3 times I think until it was finally bought by Robert
• 1:18:22
  Duca. So he got that for a song as
• 1:18:26
  well, you know? So there's a there's probably a
• 1:18:29
  lot to be thank you. There's a lot of people that are
• 1:18:30
  thankful for what they didn't. The last question I have on this
• 1:18:33
  before I get Angus or read an extract from the book as it does
• 1:18:37
  when we do get somebody who's published the book out.
• 1:18:40
  When you're when you hear about people that write books and
• 1:18:42
  write stories and sometimes it's a fiction, non fiction, but
• 1:18:46
  sometimes if it's a fictional character, they kind of they get
• 1:18:49
  into the characters, they create these personalities.
• 1:18:52
  Sure. Now you are doing that from a
• 1:18:54
  non fiction point of view where you're knowing what these guys
• 1:18:56
  are like trying to build this profile you've mentioned about
• 1:18:59
  the history and speaking to the family.
• 1:19:01
  What what's your opinion of them?
• 1:19:04
  Were you like these scallywags? Scoundrel.
• 1:19:07
  Chancer boys, that we can, we can look back with the benefit
• 1:19:10
  of hindsight and say, oh you know what he is like or are you?
• 1:19:15
  Or did it change whilst you were writing the book?
• 1:19:17
  At some point we were like, these assholes nearly killed the
• 1:19:20
  industry. No, I, I so, yeah.
• 1:19:23
  So I mean the the two brothers. So Robert was definitely the
• 1:19:27
  most sort of flamboyant, outgoing character.
• 1:19:30
  Walter not so. I think he just followed his
• 1:19:34
  brother and if he didn't, he played a good role during the
• 1:19:38
  trial to, to, to give that impression.
• 1:19:43
  But Robert, I think somebody asked me this at the book launch
• 1:19:46
  and the only way I could explain it is, I mean, as I've just
• 1:19:49
  said, the business wasn't profitable at all.
• 1:19:51
  So imagine you're telling everybody the business is
• 1:19:54
  profitable and you're living this flamboyant lifestyle and
• 1:19:56
  you've got, you know, you've got these huge mansions and you've
• 1:19:58
  got these, you know, horses and stables and you're jetting.
• 1:20:01
  You're, well, not jetting off, but sailing off to the States
• 1:20:04
  for, you know, first class accommodation on the ships.
• 1:20:08
  I mean, you're just spending money.
• 1:20:10
  It's a bit like when somebody tells a lie and then they don't
• 1:20:13
  want to admit to telling the lie.
• 1:20:14
  So all they do is tell another lie and another lie and another
• 1:20:17
  lie and just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
• 1:20:20
  And I think that's essentially what Robert was doing.
• 1:20:23
  He he was absolutely devoted to his mother, absolutely devoted
• 1:20:28
  to his family. But he wasn't married.
• 1:20:30
  He didn't have children, and Walter did.
• 1:20:33
  And he was absolutely devoted to his wife and daughter.
• 1:20:36
  He was absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:20:37
  And and so I think that's why he didn't play quite such a big
• 1:20:41
  role in the business as Robert, because he had other things
• 1:20:44
  going on, but Robert didn't. This was his life.
• 1:20:47
  This was what he had to portray. And he just didn't.
• 1:20:49
  I just got the impression he just didn't want to admit defeat
• 1:20:53
  and so he just told moral lies and moral lies to try and cover
• 1:20:58
  the previous ones and it just got to the point.
• 1:21:00
  Where do you? Celebrate them or do you look at
• 1:21:02
  them and go they were bad men? They were certainly criminals.
• 1:21:06
  Yeah. I think they were good people
• 1:21:09
  who did bad things. A bit cliched, but I think
• 1:21:12
  that's what they were. I think as well, the other
• 1:21:14
  members of the family are just as intriguing.
• 1:21:17
  There's some great stories in there about especially their
• 1:21:19
  sister Laura. I thought, I wish I could find
• 1:21:21
  out a lot more about her, but she's she's quite a character in
• 1:21:26
  the book. And I think she was probably my
• 1:21:27
  favorite character. And I so so they were real
• 1:21:33
  people, though. And I think sometimes the name
• 1:21:35
  Patterson is bandied around because it's talking just about
• 1:21:38
  two brothers in the whiskey industry.
• 1:21:39
  But they were a real family and they experienced awful tragedy
• 1:21:44
  with children dying. They experienced, you know,
• 1:21:48
  they, they, you know, they have huge parties for, you know, the
• 1:21:51
  kind of social circle they're but they were, they were just,
• 1:21:54
  they were a real family doing real family things.
• 1:21:58
  And they're very close knit as well.
• 1:22:00
  So, yeah, I, I, I liked them all.
• 1:22:03
  That's why I was actually very reluctant to write the books.
• 1:22:07
  I didn't want to share them with anyone.
• 1:22:09
  Here's here's. Here's a big question, right
• 1:22:11
  this, because I, I just picture it now, you know, if they're
• 1:22:15
  writers and the directors of the Peaky Blinders were suddenly say
• 1:22:20
  we listen to the Whiskey Stories podcast and then we purchase one
• 1:22:23
  of your books and we want to create.
• 1:22:25
  You know, the Peaky Blinders were these brothers that were
• 1:22:28
  horrible, horrible guys based on a gang down in Birmingham,
• 1:22:32
  right? About the similar sort of
• 1:22:33
  period, maybe a little. Bit I've never seen it, but my
• 1:22:35
  mum loves it. Yeah, but.
• 1:22:36
  You know, and it's funny because you sort, you sit there watching
• 1:22:39
  that. Basically what Graham's asking
• 1:22:42
  is, is there a six part DV series in there?
• 1:22:44
  Ever is it's it's amazing because you're that's probably
• 1:22:48
  the 4th time somebody said that to me.
• 1:22:50
  So, I mean, I pictured a story because it's such a fantastic,
• 1:22:53
  fascinating story based on, you know, based on true history.
• 1:22:58
  And like you say, the Peaky Blinders was based on a real
• 1:23:00
  gang, Peaky Blinders. But what's fascinating is when
• 1:23:03
  you what, I guess what I'm asking you is when you watch
• 1:23:06
  that series, you look at them and you go, yeah, you love them,
• 1:23:10
  right? But then what you notice is that
• 1:23:12
  horrible, horrible men, that there's horrible, horrible
• 1:23:16
  things to people. And it's like the craze.
• 1:23:18
  Everyone looks back at the Cray Twins and they get celebrated
• 1:23:21
  now. But yet there'll be so many
• 1:23:22
  people who go I. Mean you.
• 1:23:23
  My my grandfather was kneecap by Reggie Cray.
• 1:23:27
  Why should this guy be celebrated?
• 1:23:29
  Or you know, my, my, you know, somebody's great grandfather
• 1:23:32
  would have gone missing at some point.
• 1:23:34
  And it was they would have been related to the Cray twins.
• 1:23:37
  But these brothers. And it's funny when you look at
• 1:23:39
  the whiskey in this and it's like you look back and there's
• 1:23:42
  certain brands who you look at the Glenn Livett one, What's the
• 1:23:45
  guy with the guns Smith is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:50
  And and you say, oh, that's great because we could celebrate
• 1:23:52
  these guns that were, these pistols that were getting used.
• 1:23:55
  Well, you've got to remember it's like a period of history.
• 1:23:58
  That guy had vested guns for his own safety.
• 1:24:02
  So we're celebrating it now hundreds of years later.
• 1:24:05
  But at the same time, yeah, you know, if he had to use them to
• 1:24:08
  kill somebody, he would've. And he's say, is it should it be
• 1:24:11
  celebrated or should it not? Should we celebrate the
• 1:24:13
  Patterson brothers or should we look at them and go, you are
• 1:24:16
  very bad boys? Or should we go they were a bad
• 1:24:19
  blight on the on the whiskey industry.
• 1:24:22
  I think no, I think we should. I don't think we should
• 1:24:25
  celebrate what they did in as much.
• 1:24:28
  I mean, they were criminals. At the end of the day, you can't
• 1:24:30
  celebrate no crime, not. We it was as soon as podcast.
• 1:24:33
  Do not celebrate crime. Please commit crime responsibly
• 1:24:37
  and crime does not pay. But you know, there are other
• 1:24:40
  members of the family who weren't dishonest and I think
• 1:24:44
  they should be celebrated for the way that they kept the
• 1:24:46
  family, you know, kept the family together and, and, and
• 1:24:51
  kept going. And also, I think the, I think
• 1:24:55
  the biggest thing that should be taken from this and, and it
• 1:24:57
  hasn't, hasn't been the case is that, you know, there were lots
• 1:25:02
  of lessons in what happened during that, that particular
• 1:25:06
  period that should have been learnt.
• 1:25:08
  And haven't you know when we look further along at 1970s very
• 1:25:14
  similar case of overproduction and and the market not being
• 1:25:19
  able to absorb it and then we look at the landscape today.
• 1:25:21
  Yeah. And especially when we look at
• 1:25:23
  say like cask investment companies and the shady goings
• 1:25:26
  on there. And again, not too dissimilar
• 1:25:28
  when you're talking about people selling Cascade to person B to
• 1:25:32
  person C Zoo actually has a cask.
• 1:25:35
  I mean, so this, you know, it couldn't, you know, the
• 1:25:37
  Patterson brothers, A lesson from history.
• 1:25:39
  Well, I don't know if this is in the book.
• 1:25:41
  I can't remember if I decided to put this in on A10.
• 1:25:43
  I did read my own book, yeah, but it's been a while, so.
• 1:25:47
  Put put it typed up in the first draft, maybe later.
• 1:25:51
  There was a lot of stuff. I mean, the book was twice as
• 1:25:53
  thick as this. I mean, there's about 120,000
• 1:25:55
  words in its first form. And I had to, yeah.
• 1:25:58
  So I've I've taken about sort of sort of 50,000 words out.
• 1:26:02
  No filler in here anyway, no? And so a magazine that was
• 1:26:09
  published, it was called Distillers, Brewers and Spirits
• 1:26:13
  Merchants magazine, I think it was called, and or spiritual
• 1:26:16
  trade magazine. And one of the articles that
• 1:26:19
  they published shortly after the trial actually was that the
• 1:26:25
  problem with the industry at the time was that if the the
• 1:26:30
  distillery was selling a cask to the blender, great, they sold it
• 1:26:34
  for that price and that's what they paid.
• 1:26:36
  And therefore you knew the value of that cask.
• 1:26:39
  If the distillery was selling it to a broker, let's say 5000 lbs,
• 1:26:44
  who then sold it to another broker, 6000 lbs who then sold
• 1:26:48
  it to another broker, 7008 thousand.
• 1:26:50
  When the final, when the person, the customer bought it off that
• 1:26:53
  final broker for 10 grand, then they realised it's actually only
• 1:26:58
  worth five. Yeah, but I've paid 10 for it
• 1:27:00
  and. Everybody's added on their their
• 1:27:03
  markup. Yeah.
• 1:27:04
  And and how different is that from today?
• 1:27:06
  We had. Conversation.
• 1:27:08
  Exactly before Angus does. Was it Hugh Mack of any?
• 1:27:12
  But he reads an extract from it. I was people can buy this book.
• 1:27:17
  How can they get hold of it? Where?
• 1:27:18
  Where can they find it? So this morning I dropped some
• 1:27:21
  off at Holy Rood Distillery so you can buy your copy there.
• 1:27:23
  Now Holy Rood has supported me ever since I became
• 1:27:26
  self-employed. So if you know give them your
• 1:27:29
  money that'd be great. Also Port of Leith, I dropped
• 1:27:32
  some copies off there so they should be in the shop at Port of
• 1:27:35
  Leith. This story Lindor's have got
• 1:27:37
  copies. Can you buy online?
• 1:27:41
  Yes, yes. I'm just gonna say if you
• 1:27:43
  remember the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society, you can pick up a copy
• 1:27:46
  at the Vaults and also a bothy experience up at Glenprozen.
• 1:27:50
  So they've all got copies. If you're nowhere near there any
• 1:27:54
  of those places, you can buy it online, but there'll be a small
• 1:27:58
  delivery free. So just go on to caskwhiskey.com
• 1:28:01
  and it's on the website. Cask with AK.
• 1:28:03
  Cask with two KS? Yeah, is that?
• 1:28:05
  Right. Two KS, yes.
• 1:28:06
  And and finally as well, just for people who maybe listen to
• 1:28:10
  the drams I'm drinking. Why am I drinking Glenfarclis?
• 1:28:12
  What's the relevance here? So the person's had a 50% share
• 1:28:16
  in Glenfarclis. They they were Glenfarclis's
• 1:28:20
  biggest customers for many, many years.
• 1:28:22
  And then it made perfect sense for them to to offer, you know,
• 1:28:27
  to buy 50% of the of, of the distillery.
• 1:28:30
  So that the grand brothers, I suppose they were, they were
• 1:28:35
  more used to concentrating on the farming aspect of, of the
• 1:28:38
  business. And, and therefore it made
• 1:28:41
  perfect sense for these successful brothers down in
• 1:28:44
  Leith to take on 50% of the company.
• 1:28:47
  And, yeah, huge connections between the Parsons and Glen
• 1:28:51
  Farkas. Yeah.
• 1:28:52
  Right, Angus, you've picked a wee.
• 1:28:54
  Extract that section. Give us a little section of.
• 1:28:56
  This I think it's a good section because I think it's.
• 1:28:58
  Hold the mic nice and close. I will.
• 1:29:00
  Hold the mic nice and close. I think.
• 1:29:01
  I think it's the same time story, Sir Angus.
• 1:29:03
  It's the start of things going wrong.
• 1:29:06
  I think. So it's it's Saturday the 25th
• 1:29:08
  of July 1896. So it says George, George Hope
• 1:29:12
  Malcolm, now 26 year old, had started at Patterson Elder and
• 1:29:15
  Company some three years ago and had worked his way up to become
• 1:29:18
  the Chief Clark at Patterson's limited correspondence
• 1:29:20
  department. It was George's responsibility
• 1:29:23
  to open letters when they arrived at the office, but that
• 1:29:25
  was all. His employer, Robert Patterson,
• 1:29:27
  actually unfold, unfolded and read them all.
• 1:29:32
  All George did was sit there open.
• 1:29:35
  All George did was slit them open.
• 1:29:37
  Slit them open. Well done, he said. 3 drops.
• 1:29:41
  It was quite a responsibility. Today though, George had been
• 1:29:44
  signed a different task. Earlier that morning, Robert,
• 1:29:47
  who had drawn 1500 lbs from Parsons Limited by way of two
• 1:29:51
  checks, both for £750 each, which he then charged to
• 1:29:55
  himself. Soon after he instructed George
• 1:29:57
  to head along to the bank to pay them this money in.
• 1:30:00
  George took the short walk from the head office on Constitution
• 1:30:03
  St. up Leaf Walk before arriving at the National Bank.
• 1:30:07
  After George had paid the money into Mr. Roberts his private
• 1:30:09
  bank account, he dutifully followed the next set of
• 1:30:12
  instructions by immediately withdrawing the money and
• 1:30:14
  purchasing a draft for the sum of 1401 lbs payable to Mr. James
• 1:30:19
  Ferguson and Company. Payment Payment for the 11,000
• 1:30:23
  gallons of Ardlasa Whiskey Ardlas Ardlas Whiskey, which
• 1:30:29
  Ferguson's had invoiced surpasses an elder and company
• 1:30:32
  back in December last year, was now due.
• 1:30:36
  As George made his way back to the office, he asked himself,
• 1:30:39
  what with the bills being paid privately in this way by Mr.
• 1:30:42
  Robert, had the entry gone? Had the entry even gone through
• 1:30:46
  the company's accounts? Right, we go away.
• 1:30:51
  But simply, it hadn't Robert's financial move Robert Robert's
• 1:30:59
  financial manoeuvres over the course of the last few months
• 1:31:01
  had in fact proved to be nothing short of a creative accounting
• 1:31:05
  master class. Using a series of carefully
• 1:31:08
  orchestrated transactions, he moved money to and from his
• 1:31:11
  private bank accounts, just as he had done today, and then
• 1:31:14
  funnelled it through various other accounts, ensuring the
• 1:31:17
  transactions didn't appear in the company's books.
• 1:31:20
  This convoluted process involving multiple banks ensured
• 1:31:23
  that the bills relating to the whiskey and Brandy whose
• 1:31:26
  purchase price had been omitted from the accounts were Julie
• 1:31:29
  met. It also ensured that those debts
• 1:31:32
  remain concealed from the accountant size, with the
• 1:31:34
  inflated profits they afforded maintaining the appearance of a
• 1:31:38
  prosperous and growing company. Wow, there you go.
• 1:31:41
  And of course, audio book is available read by Angus.
• 1:31:46
  I'm actually considering doing an audio book so I'll be in
• 1:31:50
  touch. Small fee.
• 1:31:52
  Well, I mean, yeah. So that was the starting point
• 1:31:54
  was it, when people started to realise there's a little bit of
• 1:31:58
  accounting, say well. I think, yeah, there was.
• 1:32:00
  I mean, there was definitely an element of people must have
• 1:32:03
  known what was going on. But, and again, this was a
• 1:32:05
  question I was asked at the book launch, you know, did any of the
• 1:32:08
  employees know what was happening?
• 1:32:11
  And they had to, they absolutely had to.
• 1:32:13
  But this was a time, you know, there was no, you know, whistle
• 1:32:16
  blowing. There was no Social Security.
• 1:32:19
  There was a. What you're better?
• 1:32:20
  Yeah, you needed a job, so you just did it and shut up, you
• 1:32:23
  know? It's nice hearing about like the
• 1:32:27
  short walk from, you know, if you know Edinburgh, if you know
• 1:32:29
  leaf constitution. On the map.
• 1:32:32
  Yeah, Constitution, the short walk from Constitution St. up
• 1:32:35
  the up leaf walk to the bank. You know that, that you, you can
• 1:32:39
  picture that if you know the area you're talking about.
• 1:32:42
  And of course that that is something that you've, you've
• 1:32:44
  done a lot of and we talked a lot about that is, you know,
• 1:32:46
  your whiskey tours, whiskey walks, relief.
• 1:32:48
  Uh huh, you are still doing them.
• 1:32:49
  I mean, it was Peter from Woven. Ironic.
• 1:32:53
  Pete Allison. Yeah, it was.
• 1:32:54
  Pete Allison from Woven that we had on who mentioned you.
• 1:32:56
  I called you out on the podcast that night.
• 1:33:00
  I'll be back. We want to get Justine on and
• 1:33:03
  you, you, you, you duly reached out and then we got you on the
• 1:33:05
  podcast. And ironically, last week we had
• 1:33:07
  Hazel McLeod, who's now working with Woven on the podcaster.
• 1:33:10
  Thanks for your connection. Maybe like whiskey crashes, the
• 1:33:13
  Whiskey Story podcast are cyclical.
• 1:33:18
  But but yeah, I mean, I mean, that is another part that you do
• 1:33:22
  as well, isn't it? You, you've, I don't know how
• 1:33:24
  often you're doing them now, but.
• 1:33:25
  Not not as often now that I've moved to the borders, but
• 1:33:28
  obviously the book was crowdfunded.
• 1:33:30
  So one of the rewards for the crowd funders was to buy the
• 1:33:33
  book and then also attend like go on a a leaf whiskey trail.
• 1:33:39
  So, so I've set up a few for the for the crowdfunders and then
• 1:33:44
  after that I, I will still do them, but maybe not as often as
• 1:33:49
  I was doing in the past because you know, it's nice to if you're
• 1:33:52
  driving an hour and a half to, to do a tour, it's nice to have
• 1:33:56
  a full house. So I just do every few months
• 1:33:58
  and then we have. To do one, we have to, yeah.
• 1:34:00
  Absolutely. There's a lot of people who who
• 1:34:03
  have said, Oh yeah, I need to make it.
• 1:34:04
  It's just sometimes I put the dates out and, and, and
• 1:34:07
  unfortunately they, yeah, they, they're not available.
• 1:34:09
  So I'll just keep scheduling the dates and then hopefully
• 1:34:12
  everyone, everyone will get shot.
• 1:34:14
  Brilliant. Well, we are leaning to it now.
• 1:34:16
  You're getting an extra 3 what? 3 drams?
• 1:34:18
  But I think we're said we're gonna keep them to Fife Whiskey
• 1:34:21
  Festival. What?
• 1:34:22
  3 Drams. Oh.
• 1:34:23
  Yeah, or if you want 5. Drams.
• 1:34:25
  What 5 drams then you go, there you go.
• 1:34:27
  We're getting, we are getting that planning.
• 1:34:29
  If anyone from the Fife Council is listening, any councillors,
• 1:34:33
  Gordon Brown maybe like help us out as well.
• 1:34:36
  Actually had Willie Rennie and Wendy Chamberlain at the dinner
• 1:34:41
  and then Jenny Gilworth came to the single cask event at SO.
• 1:34:45
  These councillors like to come. Oh, it's pretty whisky involved.
• 1:34:49
  Oh, fantastic. Yeah.
• 1:34:52
  Enjoy the drive. What I'll say is, yeah, so, but
• 1:34:54
  what I want to add is if there is, if you, you have a wild
• 1:34:57
  card, if there's a Patterson Brother, I'm just bringing on on
• 1:35:01
  this now. If there's a Patterson's, what,
• 1:35:03
  3 drams, one of them if you want to Chuck that in as well.
• 1:35:06
  So we're looking for Fife Whiskey Festival or anything
• 1:35:08
  from the Patterson Brothers yearbook here.
• 1:35:10
  If there's a a DRAM that sticks out or you know about or
• 1:35:13
  anything like that, please let us know.
• 1:35:14
  So what's your DRAM? So I think the obvious first one
• 1:35:18
  is going to be the Fife Whiskey Festival bottling that I think
• 1:35:21
  you guys mentioned. Earlier, yeah.
• 1:35:23
  So this was, well, you go ahead. Yeah, so this was the thing
• 1:35:27
  Lassie so distilled the inch Danny six years old when Gregor
• 1:35:33
  Hannah, because this was bottled by Lady of the Glen.
• 1:35:35
  When when Gregor did his Reel on Instagram, he said when they
• 1:35:41
  acquired the spirit, they didn't know what to do with it, so they
• 1:35:43
  just put it in tired casks. I haven't met Gregor.
• 1:35:50
  He's a guy that. So watch the reel.
• 1:35:52
  That's exactly what he said. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna say
• 1:35:55
  refilled bourbon, but lovely. It's a beautiful whiskey.
• 1:36:01
  And actually the fact that it is in refilled bourbon or tired
• 1:36:05
  casks, you really get that distillate character coming
• 1:36:08
  through. It's not it's not overwhelmed by
• 1:36:11
  you know, it's I probably would work in a Sherry casket for a
• 1:36:14
  certain amount and and we only bottled half the cask.
• 1:36:17
  The other half of the contents has been re racked into.
• 1:36:20
  I think there's a Madeira cast, so it'll be interesting to see
• 1:36:23
  how that a. Less a less tired cask.
• 1:36:25
  Come on. Yes.
• 1:36:26
  Yeah, not a knackered cask at all, but it's a, it's a, it's
• 1:36:30
  got a beautiful texture. So when Kevin and I were trying
• 1:36:33
  the samples, we had a a sample of Finglassie and we had a
• 1:36:36
  sample of Strath Henry, which is the unpeated inch Derny.
• 1:36:40
  And Karen isn't particularly keen on peated whiskey.
• 1:36:43
  So I thought I know which one she's gonna go for.
• 1:36:46
  And then when we tried, we tried them separately.
• 1:36:47
  And then we we did a quick zoom call and she's like, I really
• 1:36:51
  like that thing Last year I was like, the texture on it is
• 1:36:53
  phenomenal. It's.
• 1:36:54
  Just as a lover of Peach whiskey, as most of the
• 1:36:57
  listeners will know, I'm a huge fan of peated whiskey.
• 1:37:00
  But it's super it's it's quite citrusy as well.
• 1:37:02
  I. Think White as well.
• 1:37:04
  Yeah, I just remember. It's all sort of lemon, lemon
• 1:37:07
  cake, lemon bonbons with it's beautiful, beautiful so.
• 1:37:11
  And nice that they can tie in a A5 independent bottler that's
• 1:37:17
  independently bottled A5. WW that's exactly what we
• 1:37:21
  wanted. So yeah, absolutely. 55.
• 1:37:23
  Ticks all the. Five boxes.
• 1:37:30
  OK, so drum #2 there. I think I don't, I don't drink
• 1:37:35
  at the Fife Whiskey Festival because the license is in my
• 1:37:37
  name. But I did taste Dafmil 15, the
• 1:37:40
  new Dafmil 15, which was a beautiful DRAM as you have come
• 1:37:43
  to expect. And you were talking about
• 1:37:44
  whiskey bars earlier. I'd love to I'd love to see a
• 1:37:47
  whiskey bar in in Fife with Dafmil 15 on the optics that
• 1:37:51
  would be we had them. I don't know how to get at last
• 1:37:55
  I told a great story about the the brother.
• 1:37:59
  I was at Francis Cuthbert Acer. It might have been and they were
• 1:38:01
  they were chatting. It may have been at scorcher.
• 1:38:04
  No, he was at tasting. I think he was at or I can't
• 1:38:07
  remember what it. Was.
• 1:38:09
  But this sums it up. And I love the romantic, like
• 1:38:11
  there is something really romantic about the Daff Mill
• 1:38:14
  story, the fact that these brothers, the, the, the, the,
• 1:38:18
  the family, the farm comes first.
• 1:38:20
  It's it's not about the whiskey and stuff like that.
• 1:38:22
  And Chuck told the story that he said they were chatting away and
• 1:38:24
  they said, so why did you bring out your whiskey?
• 1:38:26
  Like what made you start? And he was like, well, we just
• 1:38:29
  really needed a malt bin. We were getting sick of sick of
• 1:38:34
  borrowing, but you know, ferrying barrel loads of malt.
• 1:38:37
  From a malt bins with a better start bottling some of this
• 1:38:41
  stuff so we can actually start selling it so we can afford a
• 1:38:43
  bloody malt bin. And I just love that because
• 1:38:47
  that is the fascinating thing about Daft Mill is it's become
• 1:38:50
  it's, you know, the cult status. I remember when the Daft Mill 15
• 1:38:53
  came out. That was a first non age
• 1:38:55
  statement. It's annoying, but that was a
• 1:38:57
  first aid statement whiskey. OK, and they did the you had it
• 1:39:00
  was a ballot to buy the bottles and the bottles went for and the
• 1:39:05
  secondary sale, which I'm sure they wouldn't be too chuffed
• 1:39:07
  about because that they don't get much of that.
• 1:39:09
  But the secondary sale had that period.
• 1:39:11
  No exactly. Well, The thing is, it's a fine
• 1:39:14
  balance because people, it's. A kind of a knock on effect.
• 1:39:17
  Yeah, if people see Daft Mill selling for four or five times
• 1:39:20
  the price of what it was, Oh yeah, retailed, people suddenly
• 1:39:23
  started going, hang on a minute, I want to know what that's all
• 1:39:25
  about. Yeah, but I mean, it's just
• 1:39:27
  fascinating that the story and then you meet them at the, you
• 1:39:32
  get to, you know, you meet them at the Fife Festival in their
• 1:39:35
  exhibit. And then the Francis and Hazel
• 1:39:37
  are there, and Hazel always makes a cake, and everyone's
• 1:39:39
  like, oh, where's Hazel's cake, you know?
• 1:39:41
  Yeah, great. They're they're.
• 1:39:43
  Yeah, they. And yet their their bottles go
• 1:39:47
  miles around the world and very swanky bars in Singapore, Hong
• 1:39:51
  Kong, Japan. And it's like.
• 1:39:54
  I mean, I mean, think they attend the Fife Whiskey Festival
• 1:39:56
  because it's 10 minutes up the road from them and it's their
• 1:39:58
  local festival. But at the end of the day, you
• 1:40:01
  know, and we'll see a lot more of this.
• 1:40:02
  I think as whiskey production has ramped up, you'll see a lot
• 1:40:06
  of whiskey festivals, a lot more exhibitors.
• 1:40:08
  There's a lot of stock out there.
• 1:40:10
  And, and so people need to find, you know, buyers, consumers for
• 1:40:14
  that stock. Yeah, Daphnell doesn't have that
• 1:40:16
  issue. No.
• 1:40:17
  So they don't need to attend festival.
• 1:40:18
  No, it's just nice to love it. Yeah.
• 1:40:19
  You know, Yeah. It sells.
• 1:40:22
  They don't have to do anything, it just sells.
• 1:40:24
  All that you know, coming through the Fife farm and stock
• 1:40:26
  myself like that, that nonchalant attitude of just down
• 1:40:29
  the road so right and that that story Chuck told and I'm all
• 1:40:33
  men. So we just saw we better bought
• 1:40:34
  some of that stuff so we can sell it that.
• 1:40:36
  No, they're grateful. I mean, a few years ago we had
• 1:40:39
  it was through Luvians. We didn't do it there.
• 1:40:41
  Louvians did the the festival bottling that year and Francis
• 1:40:46
  and Louvians bottled a a cask of Dath Mill and set the price.
• 1:40:51
  It was quite high. There were two different prices,
• 1:40:55
  but the money was going towards our local charity that we
• 1:40:59
  support, Age Concern Cooper. So I think that year we
• 1:41:02
  actually, because of that bottling donated 5000 lbs to Age
• 1:41:07
  Concern Cooper, which was just enough phenomenal amount for
• 1:41:10
  them. And that's all thanks to Francis
• 1:41:11
  and and Louvians. They, they, they were involved
• 1:41:14
  in all of that. So you know, it is life.
• 1:41:18
  It's like, you know, it's a local community thing.
• 1:41:20
  And even though it's, as you say, the bottles go all around
• 1:41:22
  the world, they're still very much invested in what's
• 1:41:26
  happening locally. Now, now, if I'm right now, is
• 1:41:29
  it sort of a yellowish bag that the Louvians?
• 1:41:31
  Yes, as. Angus and I missed a trip that
• 1:41:35
  night on the train and well, we actually talked about that on
• 1:41:38
  the way back from the Fife Whiskey Festival and we thought,
• 1:41:40
  you know something, if we were smart, someone's bound to have
• 1:41:43
  had too much to drink Is going to leave a yellow bag on the
• 1:41:46
  train. I'm pretty sure somebody,
• 1:41:49
  somebody, I shouted to Robert Barr, who left the left his
• 1:41:52
  whiskey on the on the bus with a lot of buses.
• 1:41:55
  A lot of people leave their bags actually at the festival.
• 1:41:59
  So obviously they come in, it gets and they get a bit warm.
• 1:42:02
  So they go and hang their coat up and put it on the rack And
• 1:42:05
  then at the end of the festival they've got their purchases and
• 1:42:07
  they go, oh, better get my coat. So they put the bag down, put
• 1:42:09
  the coat on, walk off and leave the bag on the floor.
• 1:42:11
  Straight back on the shelf is that.
• 1:42:14
  There was one year I think I had about 8 bags.
• 1:42:16
  I brought them home and yeah, and people had to.
• 1:42:19
  I was living in Leith at the time so people had to make the
• 1:42:21
  journey to Leith to come and pick up the bottles.
• 1:42:23
  Well, I, I, I, I from the Ludhian's point of view is Chris
• 1:42:27
  Pizarro, who's one of the, the, yeah, one of the sons.
• 1:42:30
  I think of the he's about ages of ourselves, Angus.
• 1:42:32
  But we would have played rugby against, we played definitely
• 1:42:34
  played rugby against 'cause he's he was a, he was a strong, he
• 1:42:37
  had a professional career for many years as well and.
• 1:42:39
  So, so Vince, Luigi and Luvians, Andreas, I don't know they, so
• 1:42:52
  they're obviously quite old now, so get into sort of 70s and
• 1:42:56
  ready for retire, although I don't think Vince will ever
• 1:42:58
  retire to be honest. So Emily, Vince's daughter,
• 1:43:01
  she's now running one side of the business and Chris is
• 1:43:05
  running the other side. So.
• 1:43:08
  So yeah. New real family, yeah.
• 1:43:09
  Real family business. Family, yeah, well, I think my
• 1:43:11
  mum, she was a week, I think she might have been a few years, but
• 1:43:14
  they weren't at the same school together and stuff.
• 1:43:16
  Yeah, yeah, the belt back stuff. Just on the road, yeah.
• 1:43:19
  Stuff like that, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:43:21
  Good stuff. And I've got to have a third
• 1:43:22
  drown, yeah. 3rd Drown. Do yeah.
• 1:43:24
  Third. One so I'm going to choose.
• 1:43:26
  So I recently had and I can't remember the name of it but it
• 1:43:28
  was. That's.
• 1:43:29
  Helpful for me to write it. I will find the name out for you
• 1:43:32
  but it was at the book launch so it was a an SMWS 36 and I'll
• 1:43:36
  find out which cast and what the name of it is but it's a Ben
• 1:43:39
  Rinas and so Ben Rinas has links to the story as well.
• 1:43:44
  Not because the Pattersons owned the distillery or part owned the
• 1:43:48
  distillery, but because of the repercussions of of the
• 1:43:52
  Pattersons on another big player based in Leith called FW and O
• 1:43:58
  Brickman. Nobody speaks about them
• 1:44:00
  anymore. They were a huge company.
• 1:44:03
  They paid all of their bills on time.
• 1:44:06
  Yeah, they, they, they were, they were really nice guys,
• 1:44:09
  which is probably why nobody's ever heard of them, because
• 1:44:11
  there's no scandal involved. And, and but they, they were,
• 1:44:15
  they were, yeah, very well respected whiskey merchants in
• 1:44:21
  Leith who went bust as a direct consequence.
• 1:44:25
  Oh. So they were Hanson's good.
• 1:44:26
  Guys, they, they owned Ben Rin. And they part owned Ben Rin's.
• 1:44:30
  Yeah, there we go. Well, Justine, thank you so much
• 1:44:33
  for coming in again. No, thank you for having me.
• 1:44:35
  Again, we'll get you. We'll get you to sign these as
• 1:44:37
  well so I can. Stick there was real.
• 1:44:39
  Yeah, so I can stick them up on an auction, set them on an
• 1:44:41
  auction and. Still, I haven't got used to it
• 1:44:43
  yet. It's.
• 1:44:44
  Great. It's been fantastic.
• 1:44:46
  Thank you so much for everybody who's tuning in.
• 1:44:48
  Thank you to Justine for coming along.
• 1:44:50
  Please, if you get the chance, if you get a chance to visit one
• 1:44:52
  of the places where Justin said they're on sale, pick one of
• 1:44:54
  these books up. I'm really looking forward to
• 1:44:56
  reading this story. I am.
• 1:44:57
  Don't forget Angus is available for hire if you want to read
• 1:45:00
  your children bedtime stories to sleep.
• 1:45:03
  It's a side project. He's got his full Ndas and all.
• 1:45:07
  He's got no ideas. He's got all his.
• 1:45:09
  He's got all his things, he's got all his documentation.
• 1:45:11
  He could do it. He'll read your children a
• 1:45:13
  bedtime story after. Hearing I'll get most of the
• 1:45:15
  words right. Have you heard them?
• 1:45:16
  That would be perfect for reading the B1's.
• 1:45:18
  A bedtime story at bed. The bedtime stories at
• 1:45:24
  whiskeybedtimestories@whiskeystories.com. Just say, Angus to read my big
• 1:45:29
  kids to sleep. Anyway, thanks to everybody for
• 1:45:32
  tuning in last night. I have to very quickly make.
• 1:45:35
  We stumbled across a little bit more information.
• 1:45:38
  Angus, we're actually, we've got more listeners.
• 1:45:40
  We actually thought, yeah. Yes, we might have mentioned
• 1:45:44
  download numbers on the pod before.
• 1:45:47
  Turns out we don't know what we're talking.
• 1:45:48
  About no, we're absolutely clueless, absolutely clueless as
• 1:45:52
  the answer because I, I mean, you've spoken to me about
• 1:45:54
  downloads before and I was just to see him downloads covered
• 1:45:57
  everything. And you know, if you, if you
• 1:45:59
  stream a podcast, you're downloading a podcast
• 1:46:01
  effectively. What did I know?
• 1:46:03
  We've only been, we've only been saying thank you to the people
• 1:46:06
  who have downloaded the podcast. However, 12 1/2 thousand people
• 1:46:10
  have downloaded the podcast, but 23 1/2 thousand people have
• 1:46:13
  streamed or played the podcast. So so there you go.
• 1:46:16
  Yeah, so, so big thank you to those guys.
• 1:46:19
  Basically, basically we weren't aware of 66% of our audience,
• 1:46:23
  but now we are. So thank you.
• 1:46:25
  Thank you for listening. Thanks very much.
• 1:46:26
  And don't forget, please pass it on.
• 1:46:28
  It's great. We've got so much coming up.
• 1:46:30
  We've got our trip to door and I have to look forward to it.
• 1:46:32
  That's going to keep your eyes on the YouTube channel if you
• 1:46:35
  want. To see it going to be a real
• 1:46:36
  visual. Yes, well, that's it.
• 1:46:37
  The YouTube channel of us where to go?
• 1:46:39
  We're we're we're slowly growing that there's some great content
• 1:46:41
  out there. If you want to see what it's
• 1:46:43
  like when we're recording one of these podcasts and watch on the
• 1:46:45
  YouTube channel, pass it on. Just pass it to everybody.
• 1:46:49
  Yeah, keep up to date with what's going on the Facebook.
• 1:46:51
  Join the Facebook group whiskey stories Facebook group if.
• 1:46:55
  You've got a whiskey bar at home and you want to show people what
• 1:46:58
  you've managed to create. Then let us know.
• 1:47:00
  Watch what the other guys have done and and do that and also
• 1:47:03
  keep your eyes peeled for the next sort of indie bottle or
• 1:47:07
  spotlights that we're doing and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:47:09
  But listen, Justine, thank you so much for coming along, so
• 1:47:11
  much for. Asking me again, yeah.
• 1:47:12
  Yeah, it's great to have you here.
• 1:47:13
  It's great to hear from you. And I'm really, really looking
• 1:47:16
  forward to to these. Oh yeah.
• 1:47:17
  Opening the case, Justin Hazlehurst, I'm I'm really
• 1:47:19
  looking forward to it. Good stuff.
• 1:47:21
  Cheers guys. All the very best.