Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Whisky Bars, Feis Ile & Big Night Out Plans – with Sian Buchan & Jane Ross

Transcript

Whisky Bars, Feis Ile & Big Night Out Plans – with Sian Buchan & Jane Ross · Whisky Stories Podcast

0:00
Right, Angus isn't here. Ross isn't here.
0:04
So, Chuck, you know what to do. One of my son, two o'clock 2:00
0:09
Yeah. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
0:13
podcast. Oh, John Tealing of Tealings,
0:18
the brother's dad. He done my hen party in Tealings
0:20
for me. What the guy from the company
0:25
did your? Head like no the two brothers
0:27
who own feelings they're dama sometimes just float a bit on a
0:30
Sunday and he done my hen party for me and dealing this like 70
0:35
year old man he just. He died.
0:41
He just saw that. I wish.
0:44
Welcome the Whiskey Stories podcast myself and we are back.
0:49
Back when it all began. Chuck, we are back in the
0:51
dugout, the tiny little room sandwiched nicely between the
0:54
gents toilets and the bar at the Athletic Armor Diggers.
0:57
And we've got some background music this evening as the
0:59
fiddlers are in doing their stuff and they're snug there and
1:05
everyone's going to get lots to talk about tonight because Ross
1:08
isn't here. He's he's, he's got a new job.
1:12
He does fuck at work. He's concierge, concierge at the
1:17
Vora Hotel. He's got he's, he's in a suit at
1:22
the moment. I'm sad about it.
1:23
Because it's it. Doesn't look great either.
1:26
To be fair, there's only One Direction for men to go and that
1:29
is the tweed suit. Yeah, well, he's got a tweed
1:31
suit he's got, he's just got a standard suit on at the moment.
1:33
Yeah. So he's not managed to get the.
1:35
He's still on his work experience.
1:38
Yeah, gotta get an upgrade. Once he's passed, he gets a kilt
1:40
and tweeds that night, but. Three months probation period
1:44
and then yeah, and then they can get their legs out.
1:46
Yeah, that's exactly it. You know, he's he's he's he's
1:50
he's he's working hard, I believe.
1:51
So he's in there and of course a big kilt kilt to fill with Big
1:55
Cam not being there anymore. And I believe as well, Fraser
1:59
soon as he's he's tonight is his last night behind the bar there.
2:04
Another one bites the dust. Another.
2:07
One Ross is in and Fraser's gone.
2:09
Nope, No, I think Fraser's got some exciting news that she'll
2:14
probably be announcing, but I think it's, sorry, it's Phoenix
2:16
today. Gordon Macphail.
2:18
He's yeah, fantastic. Very exciting.
2:19
Excellent, really exciting. And we can probably get him back
2:22
on for a pod now. A.
2:24
New job? You.
2:24
Yeah, I. Mean after his first attempt at
2:27
a podcast, I don't know, but he said how's things are you Chuck?
2:30
How's life all right? Am I right?
2:31
Yeah, just been doing my forklift license this week.
2:34
Fantastic. Yeah, Load centres I absolutely
2:39
fantastic. I have, I don't say that we they
2:41
do PowerPoint presentations for like an hour or two in the
2:44
morning and I have the attention span.
2:47
Well, it's not existing. That sounds so boring.
2:49
And I'm like a great, it's two of us in a room and I'm
2:52
aggressively trying not to fall asleep.
2:54
Yeah, he makes so much eye contact with me and I'm pinching
2:57
myself in the legs. And I think like this morning,
3:02
he was genuinely concerned because, like, my eyes were
3:04
going in like, different directions.
3:07
It's important though. That's what I mean, I think.
3:09
You can look always when you're on the forklift.
3:12
Always forklift responsibly. I think I've always said that.
3:15
And I think the your instructor would probably, yeah, probably
3:18
say the same. Thing I mean I am.
3:20
Careful. About it, I mean, I think and I
3:22
I do believe we have some, you know, I'm not going to give too
3:25
much weight, but I think we will be visiting your workplace
3:28
shortly with a camera and some microphones.
3:30
All right. OK.
3:31
Yeah, you'll be working. You'll be working.
3:34
Maybe on a forklift? Yeah.
3:36
See me my all my high vis. But I mean.
3:38
I'm. On a forklift with the camera.
3:41
Where do you work, though? I mean, when you got to think
3:42
about it, and it's something that I always find really,
3:44
really interesting, is the fact that like you're taking casks
3:48
off a racking system. Yeah, right.
3:50
And that's, that's a massive job because if you get if you get a
3:53
wrong, it's not like you're like, ah, don't worry about it.
3:55
There's another one. If that's a 35 year old casque
3:58
of something, then you know it's gone.
4:00
Once it's gone, it's gone. And it's a bigger picture
4:02
bracket system you guys have there as well.
4:05
Yeah, it's well, sorry. What was the question?
4:10
I'm not a PowerPoint presentation, it's yourself.
4:13
There's a lot. Of.
4:14
Information all at once. It's a tall racket.
4:17
It's a 14 rack high. Yeah, it's.
4:19
Oh my God, yeah, it's huge. I think this like special
4:22
forklifting that goes up like 12 meters.
4:24
And they're trusting you with it.
4:26
I'm not going. To touch it I just I roll the
4:27
casks on, that's all but. We do have, we do have guests as
4:32
well. So first thing, I guess Angus is
4:34
on all OK, He's he's doing the Ozo stories tonight.
4:38
He's. In Grace.
4:40
So Angus is over there. So it's it's like I say, it's
4:42
just the two of us chatting. We've got some fantastic guests.
4:45
We've got Shannon Bucket who's returning for is it episode 2.5?
4:49
Because this is your second official episode in the.
4:52
Yeah, I don't know if you Remember Me talking to you at
4:53
the the Whiskey Friends. I don't know if that one counts.
4:57
I actually got to. I'll go back and have a look.
4:58
In fact, my paperwork from my, when we're editing that, I think
5:03
I was going back. I'll find it.
5:05
But we're also, we're also joined by a new guest.
5:08
In fact, we've got Jane Ross who's joining us here.
5:11
Jane, how are you? I'm Ari just back from fish, so
5:14
I'm still dying. Yeah, well, I'm sleeping.
5:16
I want to talk about that because I mean, that's a very
5:19
exciting. But first of all, thank you so
5:20
much for coming along. Thanks for bringing your band
5:22
with you. Well, you know it.
5:23
I stole them from from Milan. Yeah, they're doing a great job
5:26
next door. Well, it's great to have you
5:28
here. How, how, how?
5:29
Well, you're just back from phase then.
5:31
So were you the full week over there?
5:32
No, just the last three days. So Cole Coleman been having an
5:36
ARD big day. Wow.
5:37
Which was good way to be, to be fair.
5:39
Yeah. How was it?
5:40
How was it? Messy.
5:42
Yeah, very messy. I had my sporting debut in ARD
5:45
Bay. We done was like games where you
5:48
could win full bottles of whiskey.
5:50
And I hope no one from the island now sees this, but I
5:53
skipped the queue on the pinball machine.
5:55
Is that sport? No.
5:56
Pinball. I would say, I would say it's a
6:01
spark because it needs some sort of coordination.
6:04
Yeah. Chess is a sport.
6:09
So we've. Got.
6:10
A grand what we've. Realized is I'm not very sporty.
6:13
OK if you want. It to be a sport.
6:16
We could make a sport. Thank you.
6:17
Yeah. Anyway, there was 20 minutes
6:19
left and he was like, right, we've got 3 bottles left.
6:22
If you can get them in these little little hooks on the
6:25
machine, then you you win. But I skipped the cue, right, So
6:28
there was only one guy ahead of me.
6:29
He won none. And then I smashed and got all
6:32
three of. Them.
6:33
Yeah, and everyone was breeding because the guy was like, oh,
6:37
just let her go, you know, she's just let her go.
6:39
She's just drunk. She won't mean anything doing
6:43
laughs at the machine my balls so.
6:45
What did you win? What did?
6:47
You I won three. Smoky verse.
6:49
Really. Yeah.
6:51
Yeah, 3 smoky verse 70 sales. Yeah, there.
6:53
You go mad, I mean. No, I gave one to each member of
6:59
staff Decane. You're so nice.
7:01
And then the other one that's just for, just just for the bar,
7:05
so is. This a work.
7:05
So this is a work trip then? For the task man, yeah.
7:08
Yeah, absolutely. Training staff training.
7:11
Because, I mean, that's that's the thing, yeah, your.
7:13
Research and development. Are you, you're the owner,
7:17
you're the proprietor, the owner.
7:18
You're the owner of Mother Superior Powder Room and False
7:21
Widow 3 bars down in the sort of leaf area of Edinburgh.
7:24
Yeah, yeah. Fantastic.
7:26
Now, I know mother, Mother Superior has been mentioned
7:28
quite a few times on the podcast as a as a as a boozer with a
7:32
fantastic selection of whiskey there.
7:34
Yeah. So how did that, how did that
7:35
all come out? How did that start?
7:37
It started when I worked in the Black Cat, so I was managing
7:39
there for like 8 years. And then all of my time, you
7:42
know, in your work events or you like do stuff for brands, they
7:44
give you bottles of whiskey. Yeah, I used to just squirrel
7:47
them away or like if, if it was like our big day, I'd buy a
7:50
bottle in myself through the bar or whatever was coming up.
7:53
That was special. I just kind of saved them.
7:56
And I got my husband to build lockers around the bed so we
7:58
didn't be able to like underneath.
8:00
We couldn't get to them when we were drunk.
8:02
You had you had lockers of whiskey around your house.
8:05
Yeah. Really.
8:06
Yeah. And then we'll have a.
8:08
Husband as a joiner? Yeah.
8:10
Also, yeah, I think if you open a bar, if you.
8:12
Join her husband. You get back when you get back,
8:14
like, come on, let's always like right, If you can get that's
8:16
ball. That's why I won all my bars.
8:24
And what happened then? And then obviously.
8:27
Lockdown happened. Well, so wait, no, I viewed what
8:30
is fear before lockdown. I was kind of thinking about
8:33
getting a bar and then obviously COVID happened and I was like
8:36
fuck it, why not? Very smart financial.
8:40
Decision, right? Well actually it took the lease
8:43
price. I'm very open when it took the
8:45
lease price down from 95,000 and I got it for 10.
8:48
All right, OK. That was a very all legal fees.
8:51
I was like sure if we lose it like why as well Just give it a
8:55
bash and. In terms of dates, then when you
9:01
look back at lockdown, it's all a blood, isn't it?
9:03
Yeah, but there was lockdown where it was like no one can
9:06
leave the house. Then there was lockdown when it
9:08
was like you can't leave the house, you can go to pubs and
9:10
stuff like that. There was a eat out, help out
9:12
sort of campaigns and all that, sort of like.
9:14
So where were you in that story? During the I took it over during
9:18
the first lockdown, so when you couldn't leave your house, we
9:21
had to approach the police, ask for permission to do, to do the
9:25
bar up. We had to have records of COVID
9:27
tests, and we had to sign people in and sign people out.
9:31
And the police were like, are they your circle?
9:33
And I was like, sure, yeah. And they were.
9:37
And then obviously we opened and then we closed.
9:41
And then we opened and then we closed.
9:42
The open first time was that summer.
9:44
July 2020 we opened to the public for the first time and
9:49
then no, no, but. We could go for a walk for 10
9:52
minutes and then within a mile then pop in.
9:55
But to be fair, I was really lucky.
9:56
My landlord was incredible. So he agreed to put in the lease
10:01
that whatever my capacity was during COVID was my rent.
10:03
Oh, wow. So if my capacity was 0 inside,
10:07
then I paid 0 rent. If it was like 10 percent, 10%
10:09
rent. So it was like he because he
10:12
understands the trade, he ran bars for years.
10:14
So he was like, you won't survive.
10:16
Like there's no point in you buying at least doing a pub up
10:18
and then not surviving. Yeah.
10:20
And even now, like, oh, if he'll go, oh, Jane, you've done loads
10:23
of the pub and like you're good for rent.
10:25
And I'm like, yeah, yeah. He's like, OK, if you're not,
10:28
just let me know. And I'm like, yeah, like.
10:31
I don't honestly don't like talking about this because it
10:33
makes me so angry. When when they do no mass?
10:36
Remind me when they do no mass. We we open 5 weeks before the
10:40
1st logged out. Yeah, it was brutal.
10:45
Yeah yeah, we're still here somehow.
10:48
Again, our our landlords are multi millionaire G1, you know
10:51
what I mean. So they just they're like don't
10:52
worry about the rent. And then after we reopen,
10:53
they're like, haha, worry about the backdated rent now.
10:58
But no, we were we were pretty lucky as well.
10:59
But also the bad thing for us was because we opened literally
11:02
so soon before lockdown, we hadn't run payroll yet.
11:06
So we got no furlough. We got no nothing like it was.
11:08
It was really brutal, but we're. Still here we are still there.
11:11
You know, it's how many of the, well, the last time I was in no
11:18
mass was the ATF tasting through Bevy that Ross was organizing
11:24
and hosting with Woven and Chuck.
11:27
You and I were in a team, wasn't it?
11:28
It was a great concept, actually.
11:29
So what the concept was was Ross had prepared.
11:33
Oh. Yeah, all the.
11:34
Picture cards of the tasting notes I like Peter Allison had
11:37
come up with of what was in now. We then had to try the whiskey's
11:42
blind and through the picture cards work out what flavour
11:45
profiles were and then work out what one of the woven range it
11:49
was. But also the biggest issue for
11:52
me that night was your highball sunshine only.
11:56
Sunshine only, yeah. I don't know how many.
12:01
They're the reason they have so many, so I would.
12:06
Say, just give me another hat and I'll just take another one.
12:09
This was our entry for the Woven Highball competition, which I
12:12
know you've obviously spoken about a few times on the pod.
12:16
So yeah, Ben will hopefully find out this week whether or not he
12:19
has won the trip to Japan. Fantastic up.
12:22
Against Coley Hutchinson. Yeah.
12:23
Up against mother soups, Yeah. Really.
12:25
So what was? Your word.
12:26
What? It was a pear and oh God, a
12:29
Japanese pear and honey highball.
12:31
Oh my. God with the hemispheres.
12:33
They wanted to call a hemispheres hemispheres.
12:35
All of them were like, no. And we were like Ross.
12:40
Ross really dropped the ball on that night because he asked our
12:44
team name and it was we were PSV Einwoven, right?
12:48
But he just didn't realise it was Wovet PSV Einwoven.
12:52
And just said PSV Einwoven. And he was like, why are you
12:54
walking it? Why are you naming your team?
12:56
Why are you naming your pub quiz team type thing after a Dutch
12:59
football team? But I was like, no, it's PSVI
13:01
woven. But anyway, that was that.
13:03
But it was a great night. That was a fun night.
13:05
I can't remember very much of it.
13:06
You seem to. Have a lovely time.
13:07
The the. I I I don't know how I really
13:10
got home that day. You.
13:11
Still have a tab. Actually, you have to pay.
13:13
That's why she turned up today. Sunshine on Leaf?
13:17
I think at one point we were having a debate.
13:18
That's how bad things are going to was where, when is it?
13:20
Sun shines on Leaf as a plural or sunshine on Leafs?
13:24
How many sun shines on Leaf have I had versus how many sunshine
13:27
on Leafs have I had? I think leaf is like, I think
13:30
leaf is like sheep. It's just.
13:31
There's no way. Conversation killing, yeah.
13:36
It's just amazing how much value Angus.
13:37
Actually, you really don't notice them until he's not here.
13:43
All right, so you, you'd take on a pub in the middle of lockdown,
13:47
right? Or yeah.
13:48
And you just. We both did, yeah, yeah.
13:50
Well, I didn't know about it. Yeah.
13:52
You made the decision halfway through lockdown.
13:54
Yeah. I was bored.
13:55
Yeah, fair. Enough.
13:56
And then in terms of your whiskey, Germany then like what
13:58
was the entry point for you into whiskey?
14:00
What got you into whiskey? Is there a particular moment or
14:02
was that did you always like it or was it literally just working
14:05
the black cat behind the bar and seeing people people getting
14:08
into it? I worked my first ever shift on
14:11
a bar was for Burns Night in the Corn Exchange for Robbie Barnes
14:16
and everyone was ordering whiskeys and I didn't have a
14:17
clue what they were saying to the point where it's like some
14:21
man was just saying glam orangey constantly to me.
14:24
And I was the more he said it, the more like sweat was rolling
14:27
down my head and I just had to repeat it back in his accent to
14:30
my manager being like, what is this man asking for?
14:33
So that's what I think. I became aware that whiskey was
14:35
so popular, I think because in Ireland not that many people
14:37
actually drink it. You know, like you go to most
14:40
bars, Well, not city center bars, but like local pubs.
14:43
They maybe have just Jameson behind the bar.
14:45
So I was like, oh, interesting. And then I worked the weirdly,
14:49
the famous Grace and the Naked Grace lunch in the Corn Exchange
14:52
and then kind of fell away from whiskey a little bit.
14:55
We worked a few whiskey events there and then.
14:57
Yeah, I think it was probably the black car.
14:59
I liked to get into the bar. They were like, you like
15:01
whiskey. I was like, yeah, look at me,
15:03
I'm Irish, I drink. And I think they just believed
15:06
me. You didn't even.
15:07
Ask did you actually like? Whiskey.
15:08
No, I hate it. Right, right.
15:10
You looked at. You saw it as that, Yeah,
15:13
there's a, there's a business model there, or not a business
15:15
model, but like a. Business model I was like,
15:16
there's there's like a, there's a vibe there's a like a society
15:19
or like a tradition like a community around I suppose.
15:22
And then so how I started to like whiskey was I used to host
15:26
a pub quiz in the black cat and I decided I would just drink
15:29
whiskey the whole time I was doing the quiz even if I didn't
15:32
like it. So I just moved my way through
15:34
all like multiple months in the entry level ranges and now look
15:39
at me now. Look at me now, Mark.
15:46
Yeah, when you when you look at different people, I mean, Chuck,
15:48
you're quite similar to like so many people we've had yourself
15:51
as well, Shannon, Jodie, your husband and loads of people that
15:54
work through the bar trade or gone through trading and stuff
15:57
like that. And it's like people that see
16:00
that there's an Ave. here, like there's there's people to speak
16:03
to about whiskey. And you, if you're outside of
16:05
that bubble, you don't fully appreciate this is a big thing.
16:09
This is a big thing. And suddenly, you know, being
16:13
having that extra if you're working behind the bar might
16:15
just be work at the end of the day.
16:17
Yeah. But at the same time by adding
16:19
that little bit of value. Oh, totally.
16:21
I know that that person and and Chuck that was similar to
16:23
yourself when it was. Yeah, I mean, well, I mean.
16:26
You got spite. You were like you got into
16:27
whiskey with spite. I.
16:28
Really wanted to screw over my manager at the time.
16:31
We used to work at the Cali and he, yeah, all he wanted to talk
16:33
about was like the history of the White Lady cocktail to
16:35
Americans. And they said I could be.
16:38
I was hired as a bartender, refused to leave me behind the
16:41
bar. And then you know.
16:43
What's he called it? I wish it is.
16:45
This is my stage. Is that how we referred to the
16:47
bar? I was like, well, you're.
16:49
You're a wanker and they had like 80 bottles of whiskey.
16:53
And I didn't know anything, so I.
16:54
Just got to Americans and be like, oh, you never believe you
16:59
really had certain colourings for certain.
17:01
You know all the bullshit and then did start reading up about
17:05
it and then became fully obsessed and.
17:08
Yeah, I think the folklore caught me as well.
17:10
Like the folklore and the stories and like, you know, like
17:14
the little fun facts about the distilleries.
17:16
I think that kind of got me. That was like the the hook.
17:19
Yeah, I think one of the reasons I started getting into it, when
17:21
I was working in Aberdeen with we Mike McGinty, any time we
17:25
were doing a stock take together, he'd be like, he'd
17:27
pick up a bottle and be like, go and learn one fact about that
17:29
one this week, Go learn one fact about that one.
17:31
And because he's such a history nerd, like that was his love of
17:35
everything behind it was the history and stuff behind it.
17:37
So like he ingrained that into me as well.
17:40
So it was. A big fall for me when I got the
17:42
job at Scotch working with Fraser Robson, who's now manager
17:46
of Go to McPhail shop in Elgin Cam.
17:50
They would be like, Oh yeah, pick a distillery on your break.
17:52
We'd up about that, come back. That's what you think about it,
17:55
just pick distilleries. They got like a bunch of games
17:57
that they would play, you know, 7 distilleries and all this kind
18:00
of stuff. You just, you know, keep you get
18:02
really, really into it. And Scotch whiskey.com, when
18:05
that was running, I was like. Oh, I still never read now how
18:08
that's still how that's not doing anything.
18:12
Yeah, I know. But it's still there.
18:14
It's still, there's so much you can learn from it.
18:16
It's fantastic. Yeah.
18:16
But yeah, there's so many people we've had in the podcast that
18:21
one way or another, a lot of it, it's like, oh, just got into bar
18:24
work at uni because it was a job I needed.
18:26
And suddenly look, there'll be so many.
18:29
I don't know what the ratio would be.
18:30
But for every person that's decided like what you've done is
18:33
gone, I'm going to kind of learn up on this because it might be
18:35
worth it. I don't know.
18:36
There'll be 5 other people that go.
18:37
I don't really care. I just want to serve people and
18:39
do my shift, get my money and go home.
18:41
And that's a job. And then they move on and what
18:43
have you. But then what's really nice
18:45
about it is the fact that it's like of all you like people like
18:48
yourselves. You didn't get into going.
18:50
I love whiskey and I want to learn more about whiskey and I
18:52
want to be in there. It's it's an accidental thing
18:55
that's happened and look where it's slightly 10 and things like
18:57
that. So in terms of.
18:58
Whiskey Stories podcast. Well, that's it.
19:00
You've made it. You've made it, you've made it.
19:03
That's it. Yeah, honestly, loads of people
19:06
have said that I'm. Just going to sell up tomorrow,
19:09
yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's it.
19:11
Come on, we're going off the planning a tour.
19:13
But normally at this point I would ask what are people
19:16
drinking? But you're you're.
19:19
The water of life. You're on the digger's water,
19:23
which is really popular. I'm driving.
19:25
Yeah, sadly. Chuck, you're.
19:26
I'm gonna get a 0 because I'm also driving.
19:28
You're gonna get a zero. Yeah, Shan, we're not driving.
19:31
I've. Put my trust in you.
19:32
And we're not podcasting responsibly either.
19:34
That right? Two drums is fine.
19:36
We're doing OK drums wise. What are you?
19:40
What are you drinking? Again, both things that I've
19:42
just trusted you with. So the Tomatton Virgin Oaks 6
19:46
year old is that you said? Unbelievable.
19:48
The big news this is this is coming.
19:50
Maybe as we're recording this, people will probably already
19:54
know about this, but we were asking earlier in the bar if
19:58
there's ever been a reference or such a thing as a whiskey gasm
20:01
and I have on the video. Chuck was there, but I had one.
20:05
If I won't watch? That and it was we were in the
20:10
tomato and there'll be so many people listening to this being
20:12
like, Oh my God, it's here. Yeah, I'm quite glad I was my
20:15
Lincoln cast for that moment, so I can't really remember it too
20:18
well. Yeah, I mean, it was, I don't
20:20
know what it was. It was incredible.
20:21
But basically we got handed. So we were up at the Semantics
20:24
LA doing a tour and they're recording and we got given.
20:31
So it was before the hand. We got to try the handfuls that
20:34
were going to be coming out and we got to try them first.
20:37
And I don't know, it was this virginal 6 year old.
20:42
I just, it was incredible. It really was.
20:44
And basically we've been my message back and forward.
20:47
People have been in touch with the podcast.
20:48
Kev got in touch. Say, was it as good as you were
20:51
saying? I was like, yeah, yeah.
20:53
And then I started to panic because I was good.
20:55
Was it? Was it because we got one glass
20:58
between the three of us? And I, because it was one of us.
21:01
Oh yeah, I was driving. So driving to go.
21:03
But it was a real why Was there a moment for you?
21:06
Genuinely, so there's been a lot of backwards of there's a bit
21:10
backwards and forwards with the Iworks.
21:14
Another Ross. My tail was wagging.
21:19
But yeah, basically anger's like yeah, that's nice.
21:21
Ross said. That's nice.
21:22
I just couldn't go over it. Been messaging backwards of
21:25
forwards with the distillery and they've been very good, very
21:28
good to us and they've sent us 3 cases of this stuff, handful, so
21:34
you can only get it up at the distillery, but we've managed to
21:36
get 3 cases. Whiskey stories have these
21:38
cases. If I've decided before this
21:40
recording was out what we're going to do with those bottles
21:43
then yeah, carry on. If not, I don't know.
21:46
But what I. I've got one for yourself.
21:48
Yeah. Unbelievable.
21:49
I'm on my second and I was so glad when I arrived at the pub
21:52
today. It says let's try it again.
21:54
And it was yeah, yeah, it's up there.
21:56
It's. All you remembered.
21:57
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Yeah.
21:59
So it was, it was very, very good.
22:01
Like I say, it's it's it's a nice moment.
22:03
I'd say definitely drama 2025 so far anyway, That's really OK.
22:06
Interesting. And second drum, we're not the
22:08
same, aren't we? What?
22:10
Was it the smoker's Jane's? Not one of Jane's 3 bottles,
22:15
but. Yeah, you've had plenty.
22:20
Of this. What's the story with the Smokey
22:22
bars? I don't know what is the story
22:24
with the Smokey bars, I just. So from what I remember
22:29
blurryly, it's the 10 year old without the purifying arm on.
22:33
All right, OK. Yeah.
22:36
Oh, cool, nice. What does that mean, Chuck?
22:38
I'm terrible to say, like terrified to say anything after
22:41
last time I was on talking about Dalian.
22:43
And Chuck, yeah, I'm not saying go on now.
22:47
Yeah, well, there's always a purifying arm, first of all.
22:49
I'm genuinely not entirely sure I'm panicking.
22:52
Do you know I it was just. A.
22:55
It's an arm that comes off the line still so it can send reflux
22:59
to heavy vapours back into the into the still it goes back
23:04
down. Thank the Lord we've got
23:05
somebody who knows what they're talking.
23:07
About. So basically they cut that off
23:09
so that all the heavy phenols travelled up and went over and
23:12
did a condenser. So it's a more heavy.
23:15
Heavily smoked less. Well, they were like less
23:17
refined. This is your second time when I
23:19
left this year. Yeah, yeah, it is right.
23:22
Well, lucky ducky. Talk us.
23:23
Lucky Ducky talk us through it. Right.
23:25
So I've never been to, I've been to Isla as a child.
23:28
So I've never been to Isla on the sort of basis of Chucky
23:31
Youbie, you've not been either. No, I've never.
23:33
Been no. Yeah.
23:34
We've been together. We went together.
23:36
You. Absolute wild one this year as.
23:43
Well, oh wait, we were there together the second time this
23:47
year, the first time of the two every time.
23:50
I'm there. I walked up my bedroom and you
23:54
were there. Just standing, waiting.
24:00
Right. Talk us through a Isle, a trip,
24:02
right? So tons through phase.
24:03
Yeah. Right.
24:04
Have you been at phase before? No, Shan, no, you've not been.
24:07
This is my second fish is. That right.
24:09
OK, fish. Fish.
24:10
What are we fish that fish? Whatever.
24:12
Talk us through it, right? What's the plan?
24:14
Attack. How do you deal with it?
24:16
What are you doing? What's it look like?
24:18
One, it's easier to get around the island because there's loads
24:21
of buses, which is really good because normally you either need
24:24
to book taxis or have a designated driver to get in
24:27
between distilleries. It's a lot.
24:28
They're a lot further than you'd expect.
24:30
Well, Fesh was basically for the open days especially, you just
24:35
turned upon the day, you were greeted with a drum glass,
24:38
tokens for drums, and then you just kind of wandered around the
24:42
distillery. So everything was completely
24:43
open and they had games, music obviously, like cocktail bars,
24:49
food stalls. Oh, and the distillery?
24:51
Sort of. Yeah.
24:52
And the distillery. Yeah, yeah, each.
24:53
Distillery has its own day, right?
24:55
Yeah, a day dedicated to. It there's not many distilleries
24:57
now they have to share these. No, no.
24:59
No, I think they do. So they just I think there's
25:00
extended. Days or something rather than
25:02
many. So yeah.
25:03
So because I was asking actually, when do you get a
25:06
distillery, the distilleries open, are they going to extend
25:09
again? They were like, yeah, and the
25:11
locals are not happy. Like this is one thing that I'm
25:18
I'm guilty of it. And if Angus was, he'd be able
25:20
to probably tell us the exact square mileage of Isla.
25:24
But everyone pictures Isla being this tiny little island because
25:27
it is in some cases when you look at the map, tiny little
25:30
island and everyone looks at the the condensed amount of
25:32
distilleries in your place. But again, naively maybe people
25:37
think like, oh, literally you go into Balmora, you come out, you
25:40
cross the road, you go down the road 10 minutes and then you go
25:42
home in or someplace like. That no, it's about 40 minute
25:44
drive between. Them So it's still a Big Island.
25:46
It's a big old island. It's not.
25:48
Yeah, and the roads are not exactly straight.
25:49
And then passengers are normally not sober, so you can't really
25:52
go as fast as you probably should.
25:54
Yeah, because everyone. Will be sick and it's a one
25:57
track Rd. and wait for the next car to go and so on and so
26:00
forth. But there are clusters of
26:02
distelling. There is, yeah.
26:03
There's. A few that are like was it?
26:04
Like lafarie and hard beggar like are easy are probably the
26:08
easiest ones to get to because you could.
26:11
The longest is between lafrag and like a volum but you could
26:13
still walk it like it's doable but the rest of them it's by
26:17
car. So in terms of the island island
26:19
then as well, there's not like a dedicated town centre.
26:22
There's no more. There's no.
26:24
More considered the capital. Is that it's got the Co-op.
26:27
It's got the Co-op. Well, no.
26:28
Portland has a Co-op. Oh, that's.
26:30
True. Bless that man.
26:30
How's that big? One though, poor Ross last year,
26:32
I remember actually this time last year recording with Ross
26:35
who had just come back from and here it was a tough time as
26:38
previous employer baby. They go out the week before, do
26:43
a lot of recording when they're out there, and then he decided
26:45
he came back for like 2 days and then gone back out for the full
26:48
festival and he came back on and he complained that you can't get
26:52
sushi on Isla. Sushi on Isla.
26:55
He was really sad about it. Some of the best seafood in the
26:59
world. Yeah.
27:00
I get sushi, never mind. You can't get he was mourning.
27:04
I have to say he was he sent a video to me of what he'd said to
27:09
Fraser soon as I like Fraser had asked for like, what's your
27:12
update of what you've been doing the last two days?
27:15
And bearing in mind, so he was there the week before.
27:18
So if you watch all the videos that they've done, it's glorious
27:21
sunshine. So they've got the week before
27:23
when we were all basking in sun and I like not clouds in the sky
27:27
and Ross and he starts, he starts the video and I pulled
27:30
him up on it and he's like, right, what have we done?
27:34
Last two days we arrived, we've got a private tour of Bomo and
27:39
into the warehouse and we got to try this.
27:40
We got to try that. And then we had to go to the way
27:45
it was like the hard to try. Yes.
27:47
Such a hard time to sit. We're a bit, you know, it's
27:49
Tuesday night. We're sitting outside having a
27:51
just. What was me just having?
27:52
A beer and it's just sitting in the sun just having a beer
27:54
because we've got a busy day tomorrow, we've got a frog and
27:57
we've got my life. Is so hard.
27:58
Oh shit, it's just a guy that's not got.
28:01
Sushi. I don't have anyone to bring me,
28:06
but right. So, so in terms of like the
28:08
island then, is there a buzzer, just a constant buzzer around
28:11
the island, everyone? You know what, it was quieter
28:13
than what I expected, right. OK, so felt quieter because
28:16
like, you know, you hear about fashion if you hear about like
28:18
it's really hard to get there. It's really hard to go and it's
28:22
crazy busy. But it was nothing compared to
28:24
fringe, you know, like, you know, when I was thinking, I was
28:26
thinking the buzz of when you go into like the grass market and
28:30
like like, you know, that kind of buzz in the distillery.
28:32
But it was still, I suppose it was eyeless.
28:34
So it was still pretty busy but but.
28:36
Do you think we've seen us because we were talking about
28:38
this not that long with the podcast about like Angus has
28:41
mentioned it like a real resurgence since COVID.
28:44
Yeah. Where, you know, people, local
28:48
people actually, they're saying, oh, there's a whiskey festival
28:51
in space side that lasts a week. I can we you know, Covic
28:55
restrictions meant holidaying was difficult.
28:57
So well, why not just drive up spirit space side festival and
29:00
spend 5 days up and up in space side and dot around and do that.
29:04
Similarly, going over to ILA, you know, and people would
29:07
always put if you're a like myself, probably is Iowa's
29:11
always been on the list. But then when you're looking at
29:14
holidays and you're looking at plans, you're like, right, do we
29:16
go, yeah, but we're also saying like, do we go to Iowa or do you
29:19
go abroad? And then you're like, well,
29:20
actually we'll go abroad this year, but maybe next year we'll
29:23
go to Iowa. But it always just gets knocked
29:25
down that. Lockdown.
29:26
Yeah, so, but then you hear people like yourselves that have
29:29
come back from. Honestly, I went for the first
29:31
time. Jodie and I went last September
29:34
for the first time and I was like, why have we not done this
29:37
before? Like let's go back, let's go
29:39
back now, enjoy. Just like she would buy a house
29:41
here. I was like chiller, I need a
29:44
cinema. Like.
29:49
It's got this. It's got this vibe about it
29:51
that. It's really special.
29:52
Makes you want to go back. And is that is that constant all
29:55
year round? Yeah, I've been, I've been in
29:57
the depths of winter the like, you know, in sunshine.
30:00
I've been like, I've been, I like, I go twice here every
30:03
year, right? Because I mean, that's the one
30:04
thing is I've had a couple. Of I'm known by the locals now
30:07
it. Was in April time?
30:08
Was it maybe early April? I've had a couple of drinks.
30:11
I like to have a pint and a couple of whiskeys on a Sunday.
30:14
Go out for an hour or two, usually into diggers on
30:16
whatever, but anyway, and I've had a piping with second whiskey
30:19
and I was kind of just doing a few note taking about the
30:22
podcast and saying that and I went, I wonder.
30:24
If we could go to fish and. I sort of text the lads and I
30:27
was like, listen, shall we go? And then I guess I don't know if
30:31
we'll be. And he's obviously a way to
30:32
Greece. He's like, it's a better.
30:34
And we were looking and Ross, similar to what you were saying
30:36
earlier, where do we stay? That's how you know that phase
30:39
is going to be difficult and stuff.
30:41
And I was kind of looking online, seeing what the cost
30:42
would be and I was looking at the flights.
30:45
I was looking at the ferry or saying what we could build a
30:47
load of content around it and be great to go.
30:49
But I was saying I just don't want to wait another year to go
30:54
to Isla. Yeah.
30:55
And Russ's like, yeah, but you could go to Isla.
30:56
Anytime and I'm. Going to say the same.
30:58
They've both been there. Like you could literally go to
31:00
ILA anytime and I kind of was like, but would it be, would it
31:03
be good? Because would there still be
31:04
that bug I. Actually think sometimes it's a
31:06
like I enjoyed fresh. Don't get me wrong, it was
31:09
incredible. But actually when you go just
31:11
maybe a little bit after the Jazz Fest, like the Lagaville
31:14
and Jazz Fest. Jodie made the mistake of going
31:17
during Jazz Festival in September.
31:19
We didn't know it was a Jazz Festival and we went that
31:21
weekend and we struggled to go anywhere because everything was
31:24
booked. Yeah, OK.
31:25
But I no, but I feel like if you're going, if you're going
31:28
outside, like kind of in between or before or after the just the
31:31
busy busiest times, you get the locals at their happiest because
31:34
everyone's just left and and also.
31:36
Best friends with a woman on the flight over.
31:39
Yeah, you did. We were.
31:40
That flight is so short. It's like 25 minutes, Yeah, it's
31:44
so short. Like we spent two hours in
31:46
Glasgow Airport waiting for the flight, get up and down and.
31:49
I would like to I'd like to fly and ferry back, ferry out and
31:53
fly back just to say to. Do someone say that they flew
31:56
flew to Isla and they had to circle around because there was
31:59
sheep on the runway or something?
32:00
Yeah. No doubt it's the smallest
32:02
airport I've ever seen. My life, Stephen.
32:04
Woodcock when he worked for Bunhavin and he said he called
32:09
it the bone rattler. He said, getting that flight
32:11
over. I think there was, what, 12 of
32:13
us on the flight, Yeah. And we took up the majority of
32:15
yeah, it was. Teeny Time because it was great.
32:18
The other it was so much fun. The two things on the left you
32:20
wore flighty. Yeah, you get 88 mils of water.
32:23
Was it Frank Murphy was very curious.
32:25
It's. Like 8 mils of water and a bit
32:27
of shortbread or. Autonomic sea kick.
32:28
Yeah, on the plane for free. That's your snack.
32:34
Yeah, it's so. Yeah, it's so, yeah.
32:38
Frank, Frank. Probably doesn't sleep at night
32:40
because of it. But like, Guy, the a trip to
32:45
Iowa would be absolutely fantastic to do.
32:47
It's just knowing when to go. And you're right, maybe it would
32:49
be. Yeah.
32:50
So you can't. And it's always going to be
32:51
touristy and stuff like that, as well as our people, because they
32:54
must be all year round. They must get.
32:56
I think it is, but it's different because obviously when
32:59
if you're in the trade, when you go, it's very different because
33:02
they spoil you. Like nothing is too much really.
33:05
Yeah, they really do. They really look after you have
33:08
to. Go away.
33:10
You have to I'll. Come with.
33:12
Hey, I know everyone. Let's go.
33:16
Fantastic, I've. Got two weeks off at the
33:18
beginning of July so I might just take the car.
33:21
Yes. The ferry is so long.
33:23
Two hours. Well, the ferry is too long, but
33:25
like to drive up should go all the way past Infinity.
33:28
Yeah. And background.
33:29
So it's about what, 3 1/2 four hour drive?
33:31
To the ferry drive. Then two hours on the ferry and
33:33
then you've got all. The way there, it's fine.
33:35
It's all the way back. I saw Dougie Little.
33:38
That's what I do. I just drive over.
33:40
But I haven't special thing and he talked to me through it a
33:42
little bit through Royal Mail whiskies.
33:44
He was, Oh yeah, he was there. They got a ferry from Invererry.
33:46
Yeah, no, they they hired a boat, so it was cheaper than
33:48
getting accommodation on the island.
33:50
Right, but how long is that? I was, I was, I saw their posts
33:53
on, I saw the took his posts on social media about it and I was
33:55
like, how long is that crossing? It was about an I think they
33:58
said it was about an hour. Yeah, because it's obviously
34:00
much quicker than a slow going ferry with loads of cars on it
34:03
so. They got like essentially A
34:04
speedboat over. We could charter a boat.
34:06
Yeah, you can. Is the budget of the whiskey
34:08
storage podcast is is a lot higher than I've been told?
34:14
I mean, I mean, I suppose we could, we could chart on a boat,
34:19
Taylor. Right, OK.
34:22
We talked about chartering a canal boat to Rosebank.
34:27
No, but to be fair, if you go out like out of like peak
34:30
seasons, it's not that spending for the ferry, it's like £40
34:33
return. Yeah, the accommodation, you
34:35
know what I mean? The.
34:36
Accommodation things won't be too bad.
34:38
Yeah, like you can get places for like £60 night, £80 night,
34:41
see. I'm thinking of just putting a
34:43
tent in the back of the car. Hey, but yeah, yeah, well, the
34:47
weather is very windy. Midges.
34:49
Midges as well. I've seen, I've seen videos of
34:53
the midges on Iowa. They do know that they're meant
34:55
to be, absolutely. Well, I've got a Volkswagen
34:57
Polos, there's tons of legroom of us.
35:01
When we were there, we were staying obviously luckily like
35:03
with brew Claddy, which was great.
35:05
So we were staying in the house right beside the distillery, but
35:08
like there's two houses that the the group was split into and at
35:12
about 2:00 in the morning, Frank and I went from one house down
35:15
to the other and went through the distillery to have a look at
35:18
everything workings when we were there.
35:20
There's quite a lot of it not on.
35:21
And we're there looking through windows, looking at this mill
35:24
going this distillery workers like you All right, guys.
35:28
We're like, yeah, he's like come on in out the rain.
35:30
What do you want to know? Come and have a chat.
35:32
That's awesome. Like it was so fun.
35:34
They just, they just don't care. They're like, ah, come on in.
35:37
So. You see, so you're mentioning by
35:40
like you, you went with your staff and stuff like that as
35:42
well. So in terms of going as with
35:44
trade, yeah, do they open that up?
35:46
Well, I don't think that guy knew who we were.
35:48
They were just. Like, no, they did you guys work
35:51
in the trade. So yeah, that's something that
35:52
I'm always interested in is like, whiskey is so inclusive
35:56
because everybody wants, well, shelf space.
35:59
Yeah. And they also want you guys to
36:00
be pushing products. Yeah.
36:01
Exactly. What I could say like, oh, we'll
36:04
invite you over to ILAR, we'll invite you up to our distillery
36:07
or whatever. Yeah.
36:08
So does that happen quite regularly for you guys getting
36:10
opportunities if you and do you have to have some sort of stamp
36:16
of kind of whiskey bar for people to go?
36:20
Are there a whiskey bar? I think it's just passion for
36:22
the brand. Yeah.
36:23
And also I think it's a lot about, like I've said this so
36:25
many times before, like the relationship building that
36:27
happens within the hospitality industry is mental.
36:30
And like, if you know someone who knows someone and you know
36:34
what you say, like I'd never been to ILA before and then
36:37
managed to go twice quite quickly.
36:39
Because, I mean for us, I think it was because we did the
36:42
closing party of Edinburgh Bar Show right with Brick Claddy.
36:46
I think Sarah invite me because I was Irish.
36:48
Also fair. So yeah, I think, but like they,
36:52
they choose these people to come to these things because
36:54
obviously they're they want you to talk about how great things
36:57
are for sure. And obviously it helps if you're
36:59
you're selling a bunch of the products.
37:01
Do go up after you go. Yeah, 100% like.
37:03
Yes they will. The bartenders are the biggest
37:05
advocates you're going to have. And if if you feel passionate
37:10
about something, you're going to pass that passion on to someone.
37:12
Yeah. Yeah, I agree, because I mean,
37:13
there's, I think your husband Jodie was talking about there's
37:16
what, 3 drums and stuff like that.
37:17
And I think there was one of them was, and we've heard about
37:19
it like the festival that they used to William Branson's used
37:22
to put on up in, up in spacing. Yeah.
37:24
And it's like, and it makes sense because and you're talking
37:28
about COVID and stuff like that. And you know if a brand looks
37:31
after you and helps you. Yeah.
37:34
Then you will always automatically default to push
37:38
them as much as you possibly can.
37:39
And it's simple things like, and we've always joked about it.
37:43
Never had one sent yet actually, but a T-shirt, it used to say
37:47
it's whiskey stories podcast open for sponsorship.
37:49
Just Giza T-shirt. Yeah, right.
37:51
Because I always look behind the bar.
37:52
There's the the guy behind the bar and *** Tonight's winner,
37:55
Glenn Caddon. No Glenn Fartless T-shirt.
37:57
We've got some really nice woven ones.
37:59
Yeah, it's cool. I like it.
38:00
The Black Bulls from. Duncan Taylor always make a
38:03
point if we go to a distillery, which we've done quite a few
38:06
distillery tours of now is I'll buy a try and buy a T-shirt from
38:09
them because I like to have them.
38:11
It's a nice week. Angus likes the hats and stuff
38:13
like that to be fair. When we did donut they gave me a
38:15
T-shirt. I got one of the Thompson
38:17
brothers. Thompson brothers gave a wench.
38:19
I gave a teen a waxy banter on the back.
38:21
That's the. Place I've still never been is
38:22
up to Dorne. I want to.
38:24
Go up fantastic. But yeah, it's I just love that
38:28
idea because, I mean, I've spoken to you guys at Scotch
38:32
well, when you were at Scotch Chuck and I've heard the stories
38:35
about like Scotch being tied in with a Macallan and the trip
38:38
that they used to get up there and.
38:41
It was. Soundsies.
38:42
That was after my time. That's probably how they managed
38:44
to forge like we had. We were with Glenmore when I was
38:48
there, Glenmore and G, So I did get to go with them and I had a
38:51
very like mental two days up there to the point my my
38:57
grandfather, I skipped out on the second day.
38:59
My grandfather just had a heart attack.
39:01
And I went to. Visit him in hospital and.
39:03
I told him I had no sympathy for him because I was sure I felt
39:06
rougher than he. I can assure you I feel.
39:18
You had two broken ribs and he cursed me out because I made him
39:20
laugh. I'm glad he's got a sense of
39:23
humor. It's.
39:25
Just if you ask politely, they're more likely to open the
39:28
doors for you. Yeah, like I've been having a go
39:30
at Mike McGinty for years about getting up to Bratclaw, and I
39:32
finally got in last week. Yes, you.
39:34
And you were there. No, sorry.
39:35
Say that again. Where were you?
39:37
At Royal Bratclaw. I don't know if you've heard of
39:38
it. Never heard of that.
39:39
That's weird. Do you're a Co star?
39:42
Can't say it. Properly.
39:44
Royal Bratclaw. No, I.
39:48
I'm going to start calling that just to piss people.
39:50
Off and it was just what please don't I will I will I.
39:53
Really get a really great shine gears.
39:55
That I think because I've like, I grew up in Nair.
39:57
Yeah, it's in Coder. It's 5 minutes away.
40:00
Obviously you shouldn't know how to say it.
40:01
Yeah, yeah. But.
40:02
It was just it's not so nice to be able to go round and.
40:05
Yeah, so you've got talking to the.
40:08
Public, but they didn't really invite me.
40:10
I basically badgered Mike enough that you invite final ask
40:13
because. He's we've had Mike.
40:15
Well, we did our recording with Mike.
40:18
Whiskey. Festival and I think he gave us
40:23
crag and more no Craig, Alec. Sorry.
40:27
Altmore. Altmore and a Black Flag.
40:29
Yeah, fantastic, delicious. But that's his job, isn't it?
40:32
He takes people up to, takes people on the tours of the
40:35
distilleries and things of that as well.
40:37
So how was it? What was it?
40:37
What was the highlight? You've showed us a piece of kit.
40:39
I saw a bit of kit that I've never seen before and like I
40:43
say, I thought it was like some sort of MRI scanner or
40:45
something. It looked mental like for
40:47
something. I'll show you a photo of it for
40:49
a distillery that's been there since 1881.
40:52
I was like, what is this futuristic piece of kit?
40:54
And it was just a de Stoner for the barley, but it looks mental.
40:59
I wonder if Ross would even know what that is.
41:00
I said the first thing I did when I left the building was
41:03
message that vote to Ross would be like, have you ever seen this
41:05
before? And he was like, what is that?
41:06
Did he go wowzers? Yeah, he's like, that's cool.
41:11
Oh. My God AD Stoner because
41:16
famously at the Tematic distillery.
41:19
Yeah. Well, that's very interesting
41:21
over there, Libby. Joe, what's that?
41:22
It's a condenser, isn't it? Answering questions he's asked
41:27
before anyone gets to answer them.
41:28
Bye. Really beautiful distillery.
41:30
It was really cool to. Nice.
41:31
And when you get that opportunity to go into like a
41:33
distillery, we caught it with the Internet guys.
41:35
You know, you're in a place that you know, like no one else
41:38
really gets in here. My dad was chuffed as well
41:40
because we Brackler guessed. 5 is on.
41:45
He drives. So I was like, dad, can you take
41:48
me to distillery? You can come too.
41:51
Well, what I will say is I've found the whiskey fringe
41:54
recording work that I was doing. So I've I've gone through this
42:00
is the list of what I was planning.
42:02
Intro walk in hard beg cut to fit Alex Thompson, Mark
42:07
Thompson, Conroe key fragrant drops, Stuart Dick Fraser and
42:11
Dario Woody Dougie Little. Then there's a wee bit there
42:14
that says starting to look and sound pest Jodie, and that's the
42:20
arrow points to both Dougie Little and Jodie and Shannon
42:23
starting to look inside a bit pested Simon Smith and one hour
42:26
46 split clips. That's what we've that's what
42:28
that's what we've sold for that. But yes, that that that well,
42:31
because whiskey fringe is coming round.
42:32
Tickets will be sold out now very short.
42:35
You know that. Missed Mr. Short.
42:37
I know. I just asked about it today and
42:39
I was like, Oh yeah. Don't even look at the website.
42:42
Don't worry, we've got plans afoot for whiskey.
42:46
I'll give you a camera. Nice, you can do whiskey fringe.
42:49
Oh yeah, Many times. The first time I went, I lost a
42:51
shoe. What?
42:53
Elsie? Me and Elsie, Well we got lost
42:55
and we rang. How did you get lost?
42:56
It's very. Doesn't matter, we got lost.
42:59
We don't. We blame Mariella because she
43:01
gave. We went the whole day and then
43:03
Mariella gave us loads of new make at the end and then loads.
43:07
Of new make. Yeah, next minute, next minute
43:10
we're lost. And we ring my husband to be
43:13
like we're lost. And he's like were in Leith and
43:16
we're like, we are, we're lost. And he was like drop a pin.
43:19
We drop the pin and we were in Gayfield Square.
43:22
And then next, and this is Elsie, who works for Hollywood
43:25
Distillery, who's just moved to Loch Lomond Distillery.
43:28
And next minute I say, I was saying, hey, stop kicking my
43:33
head, my friend in the head. And then Nick was like, who's
43:37
kicking Elsie? And I was like, stop kicking
43:39
her. And then the phone went dead.
43:40
So he came and found us and, and maybe I was kicking her in the
43:44
head, I don't know. I wasn't.
43:46
I wasn't. No one was.
43:47
Kicking in but I wasn't sure what happened.
43:49
I don't really remember. And then me and Elsie woke me
43:52
and Elsie woke up at 2:00 in the morning like.
43:54
What happened? Dave Fields Square right next to
43:56
a police station. Yeah.
43:58
Yeah, and I and I only live there for the French.
44:01
Responsibly. I mean, Ross missed it.
44:05
I just get married and, you know, genuinely, you're at some
44:11
point rather like he was talking about maybe shifting the
44:14
shifting the date because he was so gutted to be missing it.
44:17
And also the fact that he was missing it.
44:19
But Angus and I weren't getting our.
44:21
Yeah, of course. Yeah.
44:23
It's always a fun day. I mean, the Sunday we went, that
44:25
was Sunday we went. I've said it before, it was my
44:28
enlightening moment in smoky whiskey with our beg.
44:31
But it was. There's something special about
44:33
it, isn't there? Something really.
44:34
Three days in Edinburgh. Yeah, that you know and that was
44:38
the first year that 3-4 or something because.
44:40
Julie was working American American whiskey bit.
44:42
Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic. So I think we have got some
44:45
plans to make sure we're there. Do you know, it was really
44:48
special. Not one person saw me and Elsie
44:50
ruined. I was like, so you see me a
44:52
server and I was like, yeah, yeah, you were ground.
44:54
Me and Elsie were like. No one said.
44:57
No, no one saw. So you got away with it.
44:58
We got away with it until right now.
45:01
I'm sorry, Elsie. Everyone's gonna go, oh, wait a
45:03
minute. That was her rolling around the
45:06
mall. Leaving her shoe, right?
45:09
I missed that shoe. But in terms of so we've made,
45:12
we've talked a lot about plans. Actually, Chuck, we did the
45:15
that's yummy. We did the the podcast episode a
45:21
few weeks ago now where it was just the four of us downstairs.
45:24
Yeah, I'll never wear shorts again for an episode.
45:27
Watch YouTube video. You understand?
45:31
Maybe don't. Sitting at a weird.
45:34
Angle A weird angle with a pair of shorts.
45:37
That's the episode we're. Not doing any favours.
45:48
Long trousers from now on, but check the YouTube channel out
45:52
and subscribe as well. Career's only fans, only drums.
45:58
Yeah, but yeah, we talked a few, few things.
46:01
There's been loads of plans, but Whiskey Stories Big Night Out
46:05
was something that has kind of started to gather momentum.
46:08
We've looked at it and we've said right now, is there
46:10
something we can do? We do our indie bottler
46:13
spotlights. We do.
46:14
We did our first ever distillery spotlight, which are great.
46:16
It's great. We're in the the snug there and
46:18
Diggers and we've had people come along.
46:20
It's fantastic. But we had people messaging
46:22
saying I'd be in, I'd be in for a whiskey store this big night
46:25
out. Yep.
46:26
Yep. So basically I'd.
46:27
Be in the ball. I'll be drinking that night.
46:29
The ball, I've got a proposition for you, the ball is roll now
46:33
rolling and we have to start to move with that momentum.
46:36
So yeah, we've been putting a bit of pen, a bit of paper,
46:38
trying to work out a little bit of plan about it.
46:40
And Shant, as soon as you're in this evening, I was looking at
46:43
sort of well, we, we we use the athletic arm stickers.
46:47
Fantastic location but venue but we need more space and Uno mass.
46:51
All the space in the world. All the space in the world.
46:55
So much space there. You go, you've got loads of
46:57
space, how many people can you fit into Uno Mass in the
46:59
different areas so I can gauge where we need to look at.
47:02
About 100. Right.
47:04
Only 100. Toilets.
47:07
We only have 3 toilets. That's.
47:09
So where would that be? Where would the 100 be in?
47:11
What is the Bears under? The whole thing right?
47:14
My God. What is Spears 120?
47:17
Wait, you've only got? 3 toilets.
47:19
Oh no, you've got the toilet downstairs.
47:20
So Mother Superior, right? No, but.
47:24
Shan's is more perfect. Between between Uno Mass and
47:27
Keller we could fit about 2:50. Right, so you've got the space,
47:30
loads of space. So we've we've been looking at
47:32
it and saying right, would we be able to put on a whiskey stories
47:34
big night? What would that whiskey stories
47:36
big night look like now, if you do, you remember correctly last
47:38
year, I got carried away with an idea of when I first heard the
47:42
concept of a takeover. Yeah, we looked at say like, oh,
47:46
we could do a takeover at Uno Mass.
47:48
And I think you said you were keen on it.
47:50
And it was going to be that it was.
47:52
We still might try and do something along these lines, but
47:54
it was going to be along the lines of like an apprentice
47:58
style where Ross, Angus and I get a budget that we've got to
48:01
buy some whiskey. We can't spend over that budget.
48:05
And then on the night we would work behind the bar and try and
48:07
shift as much of that. And similar to the woven idea.
48:11
Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
48:12
Similar to the woven, it's. A competition between
48:14
yourselves, take your own serves and see you win.
48:16
Well, that would be it. But and like the woven, it would
48:19
be done on two parts, it would be done on experience and it
48:21
would be done on volume sold. Yeah, So and it would just be a
48:24
case of, look, we've got X amount of money to spend.
48:27
So it'd be 3 bottles from Ross, 3 bottles from myself and three
48:29
bottles from I guess. And then we'd have three jobs.
48:31
So that's an option we've got there.
48:33
Another idea that came to me is we want to do a distiller, A
48:37
blinder, A bottler as guests. A Candlestick maker.
48:40
Yes, exactly that yeah, yeah, we'll get a Candlestick as well,
48:44
but that's the idea. We get 3.
48:45
So we're looking at guests for that.
48:47
We still need to contact anyone if anyone's listening and they
48:50
want to get in touch. I'm a distiller.
48:51
I'd like to be involved in this. Whiskey studies big now we're
48:54
looking at player distilleries, right?
48:59
Truck getting angry about something or other, hey.
49:04
I'm chill man, I'm all chill. Until we're not like a scuba and
49:06
orchid and you get pretty wound up.
49:09
No sushi and any. So yeah, we'll do.
49:13
Sniff it, sniff it, score. It's yeah.
49:15
Angela Deneen talked about on the Scotch Whiskey Experience
49:19
episode. I've had an Alice that Ali
49:21
Baxter play whiskey stories. Bingo.
49:23
Bingo. I was like, that was a good
49:24
episode. Why have we?
49:25
Why have we not come up with that idea?
49:27
Right. So again, a bingo and yeah, just
49:30
looking at mashing it all together and seeing about just
49:33
getting people. We'll get podcast listeners and
49:35
we know we do have some local podcast listeners Edinburgh and
49:39
surrounding area. So get them into Edinburgh.
49:41
It'll be a Friday night. So you can spend the weekend in
49:43
Edinburgh or whatever, or spend the night there.
49:46
If there's anyone who's down. We've had Lance, Lance Morgan
49:49
came up with his current wife and enjoyed our Indie Bottle
49:53
Spotlight with Pintails. So yeah, there's there's scope
49:55
there. So yeah, something like that.
49:57
But on our side of it as well, Jane, you as well as running
50:02
manage and owning 3 bars, you're also whiskey and witches.
50:07
Yes, Now what's that? So whiskey and witches is a
50:11
concept that myself and a woman called Christine Camera came up
50:15
with. Basically, we met the day before
50:18
COVID in the Black Cat, and we ended up getting really drunk
50:22
together. And then COVID happened and I'd
50:23
never seen her again. And then one day I was looking
50:26
out the window, Mother Superior, and she was just standing
50:28
outside and we were both like, just like staring.
50:33
She'd be like, I know you. And she was like, I know you.
50:35
It's been 3 long years. And then, yeah, she came in, we
50:41
started drama again. And she's a musicologist and a
50:44
musician, and she studies like, Viking and Celtic music and its
50:49
origins and plays 16th century instruments.
50:53
And, you know, she's like the Dave Grohl, the folk music.
50:56
She knows everything. She's, she's incredible.
50:58
Yeah, she's incredible. And I used to do musical theatre
51:01
in Dublin when I was a kid, like for 15 years.
51:04
And so I've always had a love of like, music and dance and
51:08
storytelling and stuff. And we were just chatting and I
51:10
was like, I wish we were both saying like, Oh, I wish it was
51:13
like kind of like a little bit more accessible way for people
51:17
to enjoy whiskey, almost like a theatre show rather than asking
51:22
people, Oh, do you smell the caramel?
51:24
You know, because it gets it gets boring, right?
51:26
The format is a lot is a lot the same.
51:28
We wanted it and we wanted to try and get a different
51:30
demographic in. And because we're quite we're
51:33
alternative. We thought we were like laughing
51:37
away And some Mamas like are Kaplan like a bunch of witches.
51:40
And we were like whiskey and witches.
51:42
And we were like, Oh my God, that's it.
51:45
And that was and that was it. Like literally that.
51:47
Like within a couple of four or five months after we've done
51:50
loads of research and Chris wrote music for the show, we
51:53
just went for it. So there's a show there.
51:55
Yeah, so it's a 2 hour show and we get 5 whiskeys and we
51:59
basically link the whiskeys to the land folklore.
52:03
And then we we kind of talk about the villainization of
52:06
women in the alcohol industry from the 13th century.
52:09
And then Chris has written music that goes with the music and the
52:13
whiskey, inspired by the whiskey.
52:15
So she drinks the whiskey and then writes the music to to
52:18
match it. And you sing along with her.
52:20
I don't sing. People would leave you.
52:23
Pour the drams. I do the drams, do the whiskey
52:25
taste, even though Chris is in the whiskey industry as well,
52:28
because I can sing. Obviously we need to, we need to
52:30
balance it a little bit. So I do the whiskey and then we
52:34
both share the stories. We kind of enter, you know,
52:36
bounce back off each other and then Chris does the music.
52:39
Wow. Fantastic.
52:40
So we're on year three. We've done Fresh Aisle, Belfast
52:44
Whiskey Week, just our third fringe this year.
52:47
We sold 92% of our tickets last year.
52:50
Denmark, Norway, we're going to be hopefully contract signed
52:56
soon. We'll be going to Ireland, to
52:59
Dublin. So yeah, we've.
53:01
And you so you curate the taste things to go with the stories or
53:05
do you always have the same lineup that you have or?
53:07
No, no, it changes. So our first sponsor was
53:09
Spearfield Gordie. Gordie came to the the show,
53:15
which is like, oh, this is this is fantastic.
53:17
He's like, can Mythical Beast get involved?
53:19
Like Spearfield Mythical Beast get involved because they're a
53:21
new whiskey bottler and they're trying to get their name out.
53:23
And we were like, perfect well. Whiskey.
53:25
Witches. Mythical beasts.
53:27
Yeah, it was, it was like a perfect fit.
53:29
And then we've worked with our brands, Beam, Tutori, Woodrow's,
53:33
Fragrant Drops, like we've worked with kind of a good, good
53:37
few people. And then this fringe, we're
53:39
working with SMWS for the fringe, which is really
53:42
exciting. But yeah, it's kind of my
53:45
little, I was called like my little side hustle.
53:47
Yeah, it like it keeps the IT keeps the love oh of.
53:50
Course. Running bars is boring.
53:52
I'm gonna say it's boring, it's hard work and it's fine.
54:06
The other two happened because my landlord came to me and says,
54:11
Jane, can I speak to you? And I was like, right.
54:13
And I thought he was going to put my rent up, but he said, I'm
54:17
don't want these bars. Do you want them?
54:19
And I went, why would I need them by?
54:21
And he's like, like a month. And I was like, all right,
54:23
Gondan. And then I went home to my
54:25
husband said. Harry so chill about this stuff
54:27
it actually boggles my brain. And then I went home to Nick and
54:30
I was like, Nick and what are you?
54:32
How are you booked up for like for work because he's a
54:35
Carpenter. And he was like, oh, I'm fully
54:36
booked for the next 8 months. And I was like, OK, we have to
54:41
finish you. Barry for and Tim for that man
54:48
is the most relaxed man ever. He was just like, fine, I'll
54:53
teach you how to use the tools. So if you ever go into my bars
54:55
and you're like, wow, that's kind of a shit.
54:57
That's my fault, right? That's.
54:59
Fantastic. So like so.
55:01
Well, first of all, you've got it's boring, no?
55:06
But like I mean when I say boring.
55:07
Bars and a side hustle. I mean, like, it's boring in the
55:11
sense that people think when you own a bar, especially like when
55:15
I'm not working behind the bar anymore, people think, oh, she's
55:18
just running around having a great time.
55:20
But it's a lot of invoicing, It's a lot of admin.
55:23
And, you know, it's a lot of, you know, like the part that I
55:26
love is the events. And I love, well, I'm whiskey
55:29
and which is it gives me that, yeah.
55:30
There's AI mean. It's like Greg Urquhart, you
55:34
know, he's got a great. All the spreadsheets.
55:36
Yeah, he's got a great job and Greg Urquhart and you think, oh,
55:39
you're just going in a warehouse and looking at casks and going
55:43
samples and and he does his sample sessions.
55:46
But he's also said more recently that as then Moore Spirits has
55:50
got bigger and bigger and bigger.
55:51
This is like my job. It's literally spreadsheet,
55:53
yeah, looking at what inventory is coming in and what inventory
55:56
we need to go out and all that kind of stuff.
55:57
And I suppose, yeah, there's everyone loves the clamour of
56:02
behind the bar and working the bar and the buzz and everyone
56:05
being busy. Yeah, the amount of times I've
56:07
been in the toilets, plunging the toilets, the glamour of a
56:12
ball. Hey, get to stand still for two
56:14
minutes. I.
56:17
Suppose if it's less of on the front dealing with people and on
56:22
events, I suppose as well. You know, when you've got a bar
56:25
like like what both of you guys have.
56:26
I don't know what powder room and falls, what it was like, but
56:29
if you've got event space, yeah, that creativity, being creative
56:33
to say we could put something on and it brings more other people
56:36
in that that's. But it also puts more pressure
56:38
on you to create things and put stuff on when you sometimes
56:42
don't have that's. A fun.
56:43
Time. No, it is, I'm telling you now,
56:45
like shit out of Chris, because whiskey and witches wouldn't
56:48
probably be where it is. Whatever her and her German
56:53
Danish mind being able to like, you know, she's she's musician,
56:57
she's actually booking gigs. She's naturally like organizing
57:01
these things, and because I am so busy running three
57:03
businesses, she does do generally the Moat more of the
57:06
bookings and the organization in the background of whiskey, which
57:09
is which I'm really grateful for because otherwise I would not be
57:12
able to do it. It would have been off hours in
57:14
the day. Well, you meant you mentioned
57:16
these collaborations you've done.
57:17
Can you put whiskey and witches and whiskey stories podcast down
57:20
as as part of this whiskey stories back do you?
57:23
Know what I would love to say? Daphne yes, but I need to check
57:25
with Chris because she is a busy one if you've seen her calendar.
57:29
I've not seen her before. Yes, right.
57:32
Yes. Of course.
57:34
And that'd be great, because it's rude.
57:35
Nothing. Oh my God, I know.
57:37
How rude. How rude you started following
57:40
me on Instagram this year. I don't do the Instagram.
57:43
I've been friends. For years.
57:45
As I know Chris, we. Don't even know each.
57:49
Other. To be fair, to be fair, right,
57:54
I'm getting serious now, right, Getting serious.
57:57
Sham will know what this is about.
57:58
So there's obviously there's lots of glamour around owner
58:00
bars and being in this industry, but also for women particularly,
58:06
there is it's, it's there's a lot more, I'm going to say
58:11
safety issues. We get a lot more shit thrown at
58:14
us because we're women owning bars than a man particularly
58:17
would get. So for example, I borrowed a guy
58:21
this verse, I'm actually saying this publicly.
58:23
I borrowed a guy and they they've been stalking me for
58:29
eight months. Oh my God.
58:35
They'll say their name, but it's come out that it's not one
58:38
person, that it could be up to several.
58:42
Yeah, it's mad. Getting tires slashed got.
58:45
Tires, OH. Sorry, I'm making a.
58:47
Joke. No, no, like.
58:48
Key. Key car.
58:50
Like my car was keyed. They photos of me through my
58:52
flat window. Really.
58:54
They done my husband's van. They done my bar manager's car.
58:57
Barred from a. Pot, yes.
58:59
Soups. Is that good?
59:02
And you know, like, so I probably forgot that we were in
59:06
for Gladdy because that was the first time I was out of the
59:08
house in six months. Really.
59:09
At nighttime. Yeah, I remember.
59:11
You saying? That, I mean, that's terrible.
59:13
Which is mad, but that's the like that is kind of the.
59:17
The pros and cons. The pros and cons of owning a
59:19
bar that sometimes you know you do like I I would always take
59:23
there for the staff. If someones being barred, I
59:24
always say make sure they say it's from me like it's I'm the
59:27
one who's barred. It's my my building and I'm glad
59:30
I've done it that time because imagine if they were stuck on my
59:33
stuff. Yeah, somebody else said, yeah,
59:35
no one should have to go through that.
59:36
No madness. Madness.
59:38
That's terrible. I mean, but we've heard.
59:40
It's still ongoing. Well, yeah, we've heard about
59:43
things we've talked to when we have female guests or we've
59:45
talked about the fact that, like whiskey industry is a male
59:47
orientated environment. You talk about like working in
59:49
bars as well from a safety point.
59:51
Yeah, it's scary. It's not.
59:52
And it's something that can very easily be taken for granted as
59:54
well, where, you know, we will never have to deal with it.
59:57
We're sort of subjective. Yeah.
1:00:00
But where somebody's saying you, you, what do you know about
1:00:03
whiskey? You're you're not, you're not a
1:00:05
bloke or anything like that. And and we always joke about it
1:00:08
a little bit. Where?
1:00:09
You know. There are three white guys in
1:00:12
their 30s that all have beards. So even on the Whiskey Stories
1:00:16
podcast, there's the demographics of whiskey
1:00:18
drinkers. It's there's.
1:00:20
There needs to be more done on that front.
1:00:23
There was a study done in 2022 and it actually showed that more
1:00:26
drinkers were moving. Yeah, it's fantastic.
1:00:28
Yeah, it really is. Which?
1:00:30
Is I'm really, really pleased to the fact that like we I've done,
1:00:35
I know the guys who have got the Scottish Single Malt Amateur
1:00:39
Club over in India and they, they post something and there
1:00:42
was like the first time, I think it was them, they did a tasting
1:00:46
over in India. I can't remember which city it
1:00:49
was, but it was the first time they'd had it where there was
1:00:51
more females great than males. So whiskey witches generally has
1:00:54
more females. Yeah.
1:00:56
And it really No, but it's so funny because it really changes
1:00:59
how they react to the show. So when it's more women, like
1:01:02
majority, it's more women in the audience.
1:01:04
And you can see them getting hyped up and like, almost like,
1:01:07
like a little bit angry and feisty.
1:01:09
And then when it's men, you can see them all thinking it's very
1:01:11
true. Oh.
1:01:12
God. They're like, oh.
1:01:14
Shit. Well, you're, you're talking
1:01:15
about what, female oppression of the 13th century and stuff?
1:01:18
Well. Just the whole way through,
1:01:19
like. You know, yeah, because I was
1:01:21
going to say, is it got any better?
1:01:22
But I mean by the sound of it from your stalker.
1:01:26
It'll get better, but. Like I like to think that things
1:01:28
are getting better and then when Jodi and I went to Ireland
1:01:31
September and the only distillery we went to funnily
1:01:34
enough is Brew Gladys. I've been to Isla twice and only
1:01:36
been to 1 distillery and we we got on a warehouse tasting and
1:01:41
it was me, Jodi and 14 German men.
1:01:45
I was like, look at this, I won't.
1:01:48
I won't say the bar, but I went into a very prominent whiskey
1:01:51
bar in Edinburgh about two months ago.
1:01:54
And I sat at the bar and then someone, we got chatting and the
1:01:57
person went, oh, you're Jane. And I went, oh, God, what have I
1:02:01
done? And they were like, you own
1:02:03
Mother Superior? And I was like, yeah, yeah,
1:02:04
that's me. And then another guy down the
1:02:07
end of the bar went, so you own the mother's spear.
1:02:10
And I was like, yeah. And he's like, what?
1:02:13
Your husband. Like you're you and your
1:02:14
husband. And I was like, no, no, just me.
1:02:17
And he was like, so you? And I was like me.
1:02:19
I can't grow a Dick. Like.
1:02:21
And then he went, and then he just went.
1:02:23
No, no, you just look very young.
1:02:25
I'll take that. Let's take that.
1:02:27
It's. Tough.
1:02:28
Oh no, I didn't. I looked like shit that day.
1:02:30
I was like, there's no way I look young.
1:02:32
Honestly, I haven't all the time, like even in a mass like
1:02:35
and obviously I've been there for since the day we got the
1:02:38
keys and the amount of people that walk past me to speak to
1:02:41
one of the boys and the first thing they do is just turn and
1:02:44
go ask Shan. Like Shan knows more about
1:02:46
whiskey than anyone else in here.
1:02:47
Like. I mean, Ross, Ross, the degrees
1:02:49
probably suffered slightly on that front with regards to age
1:02:53
where someone would maybe go. I mean, from a guy who's been,
1:02:58
you know, 18 years old was when Ross really started.
1:03:01
We joked about it. Hey, Mark Thompson made a laugh,
1:03:04
made it, made a joke about it saying like when Ross was
1:03:06
working at the whiskey shop. So I said what what kind of
1:03:08
security on the door or somewhere when he was 18.
1:03:11
But people have this assumption that it's an older male.
1:03:15
And but The thing is, it is with regards to where the heavier
1:03:19
demographic will lead. Yeah, well, I'll look at and and
1:03:22
I love it when I see it, but I'll look at the whiskey stories
1:03:25
demographic and we'll see that there's a large percentage of a
1:03:27
male. Yeah.
1:03:28
But one thing that's really interesting about it is that we
1:03:30
do have a growing female listenership.
1:03:33
But also the fact is that it's the young, it's the younger
1:03:36
demographic. But people really don't get
1:03:38
their head round when you speak to people outside of whiskey.
1:03:42
You know, even for me say to people like we do a podcast at
1:03:44
this whiskey, they're like, what's that like?
1:03:47
And then you look at them ages of the people that we've had on
1:03:50
the podcast. Is it it's our younger
1:03:52
demographic of people. Yeah, we were at a taste in last
1:03:57
week. Yeah.
1:03:59
And one guy who's older. So I said, like, whiskey really
1:04:01
needs to do more to get youngsters in whiskey.
1:04:03
And I was like, I didn't. And what is it they are?
1:04:07
They are. There is a massive growth of
1:04:10
young people. Geekiness is something that
1:04:12
people absolutely love is the fact that like what we we live
1:04:16
in an age of information. We want to see information,
1:04:18
information, information. So whiskey distilleries are
1:04:21
doing it. Whiskey brands are doing it by
1:04:23
saying, guess what, this wood has come from a particular area
1:04:27
of America. Does it make a difference?
1:04:31
Whether it comes from the Ozarks or not.
1:04:33
But at the same time, people love to know that information.
1:04:36
So I think that a lot of the younger demographic are drinking
1:04:41
less quantity but better quality stuff.
1:04:44
So I think that's probably also why more people are getting into
1:04:47
whiskey, because you know that there's an element of quality to
1:04:50
it before you even start like. I also feel like they have more
1:04:54
money as students now for some of our reason.
1:04:57
I feel like when I was when I was just yeah, do you know what
1:04:59
I mean? Yeah, They have so much more
1:05:01
money. They come in and go.
1:05:02
I'll take a like in soups, I'll take a whiskey under 10 lbs and
1:05:04
a pint. And I'm like, I used to buy a
1:05:06
bottle of vodka for 80 lbs and Asda I was going to wake up with
1:05:09
cuts all over the. Guy this week, I swear to God,
1:05:11
he must. He must have only been in his
1:05:13
early 20s and over the space of the night you had 9 drams
1:05:18
between him and his pals. It wasn't just him, to be fair,
1:05:20
but he bought them all nine drams.
1:05:22
The ship was 25. And I was like really?
1:05:24
How old are you? And where are you getting your
1:05:25
money, man? Yeah, like.
1:05:27
That's that's what. Overdraft.
1:05:29
Yeah. No interest in your overdraft.
1:05:34
But The thing is like, yes, the the drinking habits are changing
1:05:37
and stuff like that, but there's there's just an element of like,
1:05:39
yes, Tim Nick. Who was it Tim Nick that we had
1:05:44
on Tim? I don't know.
1:05:46
Oh, wait a minute, Tim, not Tim Nick.
1:05:47
Tim, what's the car? What's the car heads anyway?
1:05:53
I mean, it's never been in cabin is white money we're on all
1:05:57
right. They used to work at the
1:05:58
Whiskey. Oh, I listened to that one.
1:06:00
Yes. She was a big PE fan.
1:06:01
And he wasn't. Yeah, and that.
1:06:03
Was The funny thing is they worked at the whiskey shop
1:06:04
together. I've told this story so many
1:06:06
times, but they worked at the whiskey shop together and they
1:06:08
were going out with each other and he couldn't try peat whiskey
1:06:11
couldn't drink it. But this and she's a tiny little
1:06:14
Canadian girl, great lovely personality and everything like
1:06:18
that. And she just it's all about it,
1:06:21
right. But what you would get, you said
1:06:22
you get Americans coming in. They've been on their holidays,
1:06:25
been golfing, whatever it is or not just Americans, I should say
1:06:27
just anybody. But you said predominantly
1:06:29
tourists coming in and say I need to take a whiskey back for
1:06:32
my wife. What's a good whiskey for a
1:06:34
woman, right? And he's good.
1:06:37
I love the Sherry stuff and the sweet stuff.
1:06:39
But my missus over there, she will take a lagging rule and you
1:06:43
know a real Pete, heavy peated and more females.
1:06:48
I love peaty whiskey. I'm.
1:06:50
Not done it 100%. I want to do it as something
1:06:53
that, as this book keeps getting more and more doggy and further
1:06:56
and further away, we've got everyone's Walk 3 drams.
1:06:58
I am convinced that we've had more peaty whiskey in the Walk 3
1:07:04
drams from female guests than from male.
1:07:06
Guests. Damn, I would say.
1:07:08
I would say definitely. Like, I drink that much peaty
1:07:10
whiskey that sometimes when I have an unpeated whiskey, I'm
1:07:12
like, it's almost like there's something missing from me.
1:07:16
Yeah, I've brainwashed myself. So I almost like because I've
1:07:19
always. I expect it.
1:07:21
So when it's not there, I'm like, that's weird, I remember.
1:07:24
Like the first time I went to Mother Superior, I was like,
1:07:25
wow, it's a really big, hard big so.
1:07:29
Also. The thing I love most about
1:07:30
Mother Superior is because Jane goes so many distilleries and
1:07:33
does so many hand fills and that she deliberately puts the labels
1:07:36
on upside down so you can go over into the bar and be like,
1:07:39
that's a cool handful. Yeah, that 10.
1:07:41
Really. That's why.
1:07:41
And then the reason I was got was for objects.
1:07:43
I'm like, no, it's just so you can spot them on the shelf.
1:07:45
Yeah. So it's because that's another
1:07:47
great thing. We'll talk about the tomato and
1:07:49
that we've got here. But being able to get those
1:07:51
diggers, cave, cave as much as possible, we'll try and get as
1:07:54
many. And does that make a difference
1:07:56
for people coming into your bar and, you know, appealing to the
1:07:58
West? Yeah.
1:07:59
Yeah, I think so, because obviously they're especially if
1:08:02
they're tourists, they're probably coming out of the city
1:08:03
centre to maybe come to Mother's where So if we have something
1:08:06
that that is a bit special or different then and.
1:08:09
What's the what's the demographic here?
1:08:11
I've been. Do you have predominantly local
1:08:13
drinkers? Do you get people coming into
1:08:16
Mother Superior because of the whiskey?
1:08:19
Do you get people that maybe hear about?
1:08:21
A bit of everything really. I think, you know, we get.
1:08:24
Loads of regulars. Loads of regulars, loads.
1:08:28
How you doing guys? No, loads of regulars.
1:08:32
Like my regulars are, are my bread and butter.
1:08:35
They're great. But actually I would say, you
1:08:37
know, majority of our regulars probably aren't.
1:08:41
Maybe I'm lying. I don't work behind the bar so I
1:08:42
don't really know, but I feel like they aren't the big whiskey
1:08:45
drinkers that come in. I think the big whiskey drinkers
1:08:47
that come in are the ones that random randomly come in and see
1:08:49
the big shelf and they're like whoa.
1:08:51
So I mean, how many bottles of whiskey are we talking behind
1:08:53
the bar? We the last time I counted was
1:08:56
287. Significant amount of.
1:08:59
Bottles and half was island. Half of them's island so yeah,
1:09:02
you know if you're and again handful stuff in.
1:09:04
Handful Distillery exclusives committee and committee releases
1:09:09
and then, you know, I'm quite looking at that because I do.
1:09:12
I've gone to Isla so much, if I can't get out to them, they'll
1:09:17
just send them to me now. Do you have a process of
1:09:19
curating our whiskey collection or do you just Chuck it?
1:09:22
Up if I like. If I like it, I bite.
1:09:24
If I don't like it, I don't. Buy it you have a Max.
1:09:26
Is that shelf space full of that to over 200 bottles?
1:09:29
Yeah, it's, well, technically we could go up under a row, but all
1:09:32
the staff are really short at the moment, so.
1:09:35
So I think they're really they. Just lost 3 short team.
1:09:42
They're so tiny. So we are thinking about
1:09:45
expanding the shelves above, but at the moment we're doing great.
1:09:50
I feel like sometimes if a shelf goes too big, a kind of loses
1:09:55
its personality, you know? Like I feel like things can get
1:10:00
lost and just sit there for years and I hate that rather
1:10:03
than everything gets drunk. What are you talking roughly?
1:10:08
Scotch wise or just? Whiskey wise, I.
1:10:12
Mean so half of our bar is whiskey.
1:10:14
Right. So like we have 8 shelves and
1:10:17
there's one that's world, one that's American, and then two
1:10:22
that are Scotch. And what what we're talking?
1:10:23
Number like maybe 100. That's classic.
1:10:26
Your rotation is pretty quick as.
1:10:28
Well, yeah, like, yeah, like as soon as something's gone, it's
1:10:31
it's gone and we change out for something else.
1:10:33
The lower volume, the lower amount of whiskey that yeah, I
1:10:35
like what you're saying because what's the shelf life?
1:10:37
What? What how long would you?
1:10:40
People always say Chuck that a bottle of whiskey will only go
1:10:42
off, but I'm pretty sure I've had whiskeys that.
1:10:46
You've not been for too long. So.
1:10:48
Especially if your your shelf is in the sod right you.
1:10:51
Know No Fear of that for me. How long, how long will whiskey
1:10:56
sit on your shelf? What would you be looking at
1:10:58
between the pair of you? If you're saying right, we're
1:11:00
buying this bottle of whiskey, whether or what what the expense
1:11:04
of it would be regardless, whatever.
1:11:05
But if you're saying right, that's going to sit in our
1:11:07
shelf, how long would you be wanting that?
1:11:08
To sit. I don't want anything sitting
1:11:09
there for more than nine months Max, right?
1:11:12
But we do have some whiskeys that have sat there since the
1:11:15
beginning because they are rare and they're, you know, like
1:11:17
we've got in our big day 2012 and we've got, we had a Rose
1:11:22
Bank 1989, but you know, we keep them in the back.
1:11:27
So this one doesn't get yeah, but like there is some that do
1:11:29
sit there longer, but majority like we go through maybe 40
1:11:34
bottles a week or something. Really. 25ML35ML. 2535 Yeah,
1:11:38
Really. They're crazy on the 25.
1:11:42
Yeah, 25. Yeah.
1:11:44
So, yeah, I mean, it's pricing it up as well.
1:11:47
You know, we've spoken to Kev, who's been on the podcast twice,
1:11:49
and we say, how do you price bottles up?
1:11:51
And do you classify yourselves as a bar that has a nod towards
1:11:57
whiskey or would you classify yourselves as whiskey bars?
1:12:01
I would say Mother Spear is a whiskey bar.
1:12:03
Whereas I would not say that Uno Mass is a whiskey bar, but we
1:12:06
have, when you look at it that way, that half of my bar is
1:12:08
whiskey, then I guess it probably is.
1:12:10
Yeah. I still wouldn't class class it
1:12:13
as that. Yeah, no, that makes sense.
1:12:15
I get it. Yeah.
1:12:16
What would you call it? Uno mass?
1:12:17
What would you say in like a sentence?
1:12:19
What is Uno mass saying? Because I've heard so late
1:12:22
night. Cocktail, I'm still going.
1:12:23
To be able to talk about it because you've got like,
1:12:25
cocktail. You do you.
1:12:26
Is it a cocktail bar? We're just.
1:12:29
A late night bar. Yeah, late night.
1:12:30
Bar like we do a bit of everything, like it doesn't
1:12:33
matter if you're drinking. Same results.
1:12:35
A martini, A nip, a pint. Or classic vodka Coke Jane when
1:12:40
she's when she's steaming vodka. Black couldn't lemonade.
1:12:43
Yeah, we'll sell it all. We'll.
1:12:45
Sell it all. You're not in the wrong when you
1:12:48
speak to guys. When you deal, when you speak to
1:12:50
guys like, but did you guys, did you end up?
1:12:54
There. On.
1:12:56
Wednesday. No, on Wednesday, no.
1:12:59
And I went home. I think, I think some people
1:13:01
did. Cams last, cams last.
1:13:03
I wasn't. I wasn't there.
1:13:04
I was up in. There I was in bed by 7:30.
1:13:07
That was Sunday. That was a Sunday.
1:13:09
Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday I had to go at work in the
1:13:12
morning so. I think a few of them ended up.
1:13:14
There, yes, I left just before they were leaving to go to No
1:13:17
Mass. And then the next day I was so
1:13:20
happy, no offense, so happy that I didn't make it, too.
1:13:25
So many sunshine on me. She can drink.
1:13:30
Sunshine on Leith and a smoked sausage on the side was
1:13:32
fabulous. I mean.
1:13:34
The amount of times when I was working at the last words with
1:13:37
Anthony, we'd call, you know, massive, can we get a table?
1:13:40
Yeah, we'd go there, have a couple beers, couple of shots,
1:13:44
great time, then go back home. Because that's what I heard.
1:13:46
Like people that work in the trades.
1:13:49
As you were saying, bread and butter, that is our bread and
1:13:51
butters hospitality staff finishing work and coming for a
1:13:54
drink after. Work.
1:13:55
Brilliant. Fantastic.
1:13:57
I have our whiskey stories big now.
1:13:59
We'll. Get a date.
1:14:01
Yeah, we'll be there and. Which is if we can get the.
1:14:04
Dates, right? Yeah.
1:14:06
And I will not be on water. And to get to Mother Superior,
1:14:08
then how am I getting to Mother Superior from Edinburgh?
1:14:11
Because I've never been, but I'm going to come for a pipe and a
1:14:13
drum. Tram our bus Bus leaves you
1:14:17
closer I would say. And where are we talking
1:14:19
geography wise? My geography, at least, is not.
1:14:20
Great. So we're, if you're at the
1:14:23
Playhouse, we're at the very opposite end.
1:14:26
Right, so you're. At the very end of Leith Walk.
1:14:28
So down towards Constitution Street then?
1:14:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Turn off for Jane St.
1:14:33
Yes, that's my bar is on my. It's called Jane St.
1:14:37
Ah, there you go. So.
1:14:38
You know what the big Tesco is? Kind of.
1:14:40
Yeah, on Leith Walk, it's pretty much like they're out of the
1:14:43
entrance of at Tesco. You're pretty much there.
1:14:45
Right. Yeah, OK.
1:14:46
All right. Fantastic.
1:14:47
Because leaf, I mean, leaf is becoming such a like.
1:14:51
We've had Justine Hazelhurst on talking about the history of
1:14:56
leaf and whiskey, and the history is there.
1:14:58
We were at the Finch, or Finch is it now?
1:15:02
Yeah, Simon. Simon Smith, yeah.
1:15:04
And I'm buzzing for that to open.
1:15:05
Yeah, it's going to. Be I drove past about 20 times
1:15:07
moving my stuff. Back to me.
1:15:10
It's so funny, right? So that night we recorded and
1:15:14
they bought our spotlight with Pintail in there.
1:15:17
And I felt really bad because I didn't know that the next day it
1:15:21
was Simon Smith's birthday. Yeah, right.
1:15:24
But basically the way it worked was obviously Simon Smith does
1:15:28
work with Pintail. We'd be going through Simon
1:15:30
Smith, but unfortunately Keith couldn't make it on the night,
1:15:35
so it was just going to be Simon Smith and and then you wise, I
1:15:39
think Diggers had the tasting on that night anyway.
1:15:41
So Simon Smith said, well, look, I didn't also realize that he'd
1:15:43
got the keys at 2:00 PM that afternoon.
1:15:46
I get you guys in quick. We rocked up that that.
1:15:51
Gym. We rocked up at 5:30, six
1:15:53
o'clock and we were like wow, this is fantastic and we had the
1:15:57
place. The half set the cameras up and
1:15:58
it made a nice table for the place.
1:16:00
What was really funny was there was about like 6:00 and we were
1:16:05
getting set up and a few people had arrived and there's some guy
1:16:08
like full work gear had been working on a construction site
1:16:10
or some of that. And he must be a look guy.
1:16:11
He's just walked in like, so he's open now.
1:16:13
Then I he's like normie open. He's like, oh, and then he came
1:16:18
to look at his words like when he's opening and he went
1:16:21
probably two months. Certainly not today the.
1:16:25
Guy was absolutely livid. Because you've obviously been
1:16:28
seeing that they've been shut. Yeah.
1:16:30
How long it been since? What does that for a?
1:16:32
Point just what that just choking for a beer?
1:16:34
Yeah, great. We like crawl now that you can
1:16:35
do around me like a long day. Chancho, False Widow, Nauticus
1:16:40
Mothersups. Yeah.
1:16:41
Well, that was The thing is that was great.
1:16:42
I mean, if we evolved the conversation, the conversation.
1:16:46
I. Mean if you, if you.
1:16:48
The conversation that we had a few weeks ago when we did a
1:16:50
podcast with just the four of us and it moved on from picking it
1:16:54
out to what about whiskey stories?
1:16:55
Big weekend, right? In Edinburgh.
1:16:58
Right, we're wild. Yeah I mean, I almost went to I
1:17:01
mean we also then said what about whiskey stories meets
1:17:04
Clarkson's Farm? We take over the distillery.
1:17:07
We went all the way. Chuck was still the huff because
1:17:11
he wasn't going to get to go to Orton I.
1:17:13
Was chilled. I can't, I can't equalize.
1:17:16
So we're not getting any scuba that night.
1:17:19
You look at, you say like whiskey stories.
1:17:21
Not in Edinburgh. We've got a whiskey French,
1:17:24
which does brilliantly, but I was always looking.
1:17:25
And now with the distilleries that we've got, you've got Port
1:17:28
Leaf, Barrington, Holy Rood, and then, you know, you've got N
1:17:33
British up this neck of the woods and you look at what
1:17:35
Edinburgh. Yeah, it's.
1:17:36
Incredible. It's a whiskey place.
1:17:37
Edinburgh is a whiskey destination.
1:17:39
Yeah. Yeah, maybe we should do like
1:17:42
whiskey stories, pub crawl to all the different bars.
1:17:45
Whiskey bars. As we said, we talked about, you
1:17:47
said like I, like you're talking about phase.
1:17:50
Yeah, you're suddenly saying like well, days in Edinburgh,
1:17:52
you suddenly look down, you say, well, you, you leaf deserves its
1:17:55
own day. You've got it down.
1:17:57
There, well, we have LEED festival.
1:17:58
Yeah, exactly. You've got.
1:17:59
Yeah, So you've got that and you've now with the bars that
1:18:01
are down. Yeah.
1:18:02
You know the things that are going on, then June is.
1:18:04
Fantastic 14th. All right, OK.
1:18:06
There's Leaf gala day and Leith festival.
1:18:08
Leith Jazz Fest is coming up as well.
1:18:10
Nice. There was the in the Baller fest
1:18:12
as well in Leaf. Yeah, Fest, get Factory and
1:18:14
stuff like that. No, it was the back of the Leith
1:18:17
library. Yeah.
1:18:18
It's like an area. Yeah.
1:18:19
That's cool. Yeah.
1:18:21
I mean, there's when you look at the indie bottler scene in
1:18:23
Edinburgh, Yeah, a huge, massive yeah.
1:18:26
Leaf. Alone as well, yeah.
1:18:29
It's fantastic. It's an exciting time.
1:18:31
I've said it all year is and last year, it's an exciting time
1:18:35
to be a whiskey drinker. You know, yes, you're getting an
1:18:38
opportunity there. There's so much whiskey
1:18:39
available, new distilleries popping up.
1:18:41
I mean, as I say, we did then stir the collaboration last
1:18:44
month and. Yeah, that was class.
1:18:46
Just like what they're doing. Just incredible.
1:18:48
But it's there's so many other people doing doing similar
1:18:51
stuff. So it's great, right.
1:18:52
Well, we are approaching that time of the evening where we do
1:18:55
ask our guests for their what 3 drams.
1:18:57
I'm really excited about this. Oh God.
1:18:58
So some of your stories already this evening have been
1:19:00
fantastic. So Jane, give us your first DRAM
1:19:04
of your what 3 drams. Anything which whiskeys with a
1:19:06
story or any meaning. Or yeah, they probably all have
1:19:08
the story. So the first one is the Kalila
1:19:11
Muscatel finish. And that's mainly because my
1:19:17
weirdly, I started speaking to this woman in Morris Superior
1:19:20
who was an Irish woman and she ended up being my cousin.
1:19:24
And you were unaware of? This I was unaware that she was
1:19:26
my cousin. So we were both, we were both
1:19:28
like, let's see who we know because we were living roughly
1:19:31
in the same area. And then we both pointed at
1:19:33
someone who went, that's my cousin.
1:19:34
And we realized we were cousins. It was the most funniest but
1:19:40
also kind of wow. We do maybe we are all related
1:19:43
moment. But also she she, she was
1:19:46
working in Johnny Walker at this point.
1:19:47
They had brought her over from Guinness to work in the Johnny
1:19:50
Walker experience. So she bought us this bottle for
1:19:52
a wedding and engraved it. And my husband, who doesn't
1:19:55
really drink that often, like he drinks once a year, really.
1:19:59
Maybe. Seen Nick?
1:20:00
Yeah, he doesn't really. Fit bars for you when?
1:20:03
We were drinking in his bed. When we were drinking in the
1:20:05
graveyard over lockdown, that's when I saw Nick drinking.
1:20:09
No, I'm not a massive drinker, but he drank the majority of
1:20:11
this bottle and someone said to him, hey, your wife is looking
1:20:16
for you. We've just been married and he
1:20:17
was like, I'm married and he was just like, he just like he's
1:20:22
just forgotten happens And that's that's probably why,
1:20:24
because there's kind of. A Kelly Love Official Bolton A.
1:20:27
Distiller's. Edition.
1:20:28
A distiller's edition. That's cool.
1:20:30
Yeah. And he just.
1:20:31
Yeah. The fact that it was linked to a
1:20:33
woman who was my cousin, who I didn't know was my cousin.
1:20:37
And then the fact Nick forgot he married me.
1:20:40
Nice, So which part of Ireland are they from then, dear?
1:20:42
Dublin, right beside the Guinness factory.
1:20:44
Right. Ever tried a Powers gold label?
1:20:47
No, actually. Soul Drop.
1:20:51
John Tealing of Tealings, the brothers da.
1:20:54
He done my hen party and tealings for me.
1:20:58
Yeah, the guy from the company did you?
1:21:00
Like, no, the two brothers who own Tealings, they're da
1:21:04
sometimes just float about on a Sunday and he done my hen party
1:21:06
for me and dealing this like 70 year old man.
1:21:12
He just, he just saw that. I wish he just saw that there
1:21:21
was a hen party coming to the distillery for a day.
1:21:24
So he decided that he wanted to host us and it was like the
1:21:30
cutest thing. And then one of the girls was so
1:21:33
moreover, she got sick in every single toilet and Tealings and
1:21:38
brutal. And it was just, he was just, he
1:21:41
went. He went from being really happy
1:21:43
to being horrified at the fact that we're all Rogers.
1:21:47
Well, that's actually I've not mentioned.
1:21:49
I mentioned it in the newsletter.
1:21:50
I went out as we're recording this this week, but a couple
1:21:54
weeks back I got stitched up my Kev, not stitched up.
1:21:59
You'll get upset if I say he stitched me up.
1:22:01
Yeah, but basically we were in here on the Thursday recording
1:22:05
our night, right. And before that he sort of said,
1:22:07
listen, I've got a group coming in doing it, want a taste in,
1:22:11
They've asked for a host, would you mind doing it?
1:22:13
And I said, yeah, no problem, man.
1:22:15
Yeah, fantastic. And I said, what's the group
1:22:18
that I'm not 100% sure, but I'll give you a bit more details.
1:22:20
But so on Saturday I said, well, I'm not going anything on.
1:22:22
So Saturday. Yeah, sure. 2:00 fine.
1:22:24
Yeah, 2:00, fine. And then he sort of messaged me
1:22:26
back and he was like, yeah, so they're golfing in the morning,
1:22:30
so I'm going, right. OK.
1:22:31
And he sent me the line up of what they're getting.
1:22:34
So I was like solid line up, right, what they've bought, what
1:22:38
they've offered and he's like a few of them know about their
1:22:40
whiskeys and stuff like that. I'm like, alright, OK, so the
1:22:44
lineup well, aye. So anyway, that was the sort of
1:22:48
that was adjustable. So I've got home and like Friday
1:22:51
night, I'm like, right, I'm going to I don't I've delivered
1:22:55
three. I think that was my third, maybe
1:22:57
second dedicated official whiskey tasting.
1:23:00
So I'm like, right, no, the lineup going to go through all
1:23:04
got the part. I got all this.
1:23:07
And that was Friday. We turned up for the indie
1:23:09
bottle spotlight. So I've got all that sort of
1:23:11
line up sorted out. And then Dom was like, Oh yeah,
1:23:13
here, you're doing the stag do tomorrow.
1:23:15
Graham and I went, fuck, I'm in for a stag.
1:23:20
Well, hang on a minute, Stag do. But it's golfers.
1:23:24
They know they're whiskey. Maybe second marriage, maybe guy
1:23:27
that's not been married before, but it's a wee bit older.
1:23:29
Whatever the line up that Kevin picked.
1:23:32
So I've turned up on the Saturday right and the line up
1:23:36
there. So the line up to start with
1:23:37
Woodrows of Edinburgh, Aberlauer 12.
1:23:40
So straight off the bat you're taking a, you're taking in a
1:23:44
cast strength, decent drum there, right off the bat, lovely
1:23:48
drum, second drum, Arden Port Cask, right.
1:23:52
So not again, not a bad drum, but again, I think that's
1:23:54
setting up there. That's pretty punchy. 50% or
1:23:56
something. Yeah, yeah, 50% then.
1:23:59
Then we moved it around. Then it was a King's Barn
1:24:01
Bellrock that is 61 point whatever.
1:24:06
These boys, they know their stuff.
1:24:10
Then the next one, Highland Park Castro, that's 63%.
1:24:16
I love a Castro. Killed Karen 12.
1:24:19
That was like milk for these boys because that's at 46%.
1:24:22
What's the point? Then it was an odd big 8 for
1:24:25
discussion, right? Yeah.
1:24:26
So that's that's what the line up is.
1:24:28
I've got all my power. Got it already.
1:24:30
I'm realizing it's a stag do. I'm all set up for it.
1:24:33
I've come in here and I'm speaking to the guy behind the
1:24:35
bar and I says hi. So one of these boys arriving,
1:24:39
well, as soon as they finished their pitch and putt, no
1:24:42
golfers, no golfers. They've been at the Golf Tavern
1:24:47
from from 11:00, right? And then to my horror, 16 Dutch
1:24:53
boys, half cut, turned up right. And basically I the the half of
1:24:59
them were kind of half interested and, and that, but
1:25:02
basically one boy just downed every single draft.
1:25:06
Oh. My God.
1:25:08
To be fair, I didn't taste the Scotch we used to do.
1:25:11
We used to do regions old and rare and dead.
1:25:15
One called decades and it was like 4 drums.
1:25:18
We'd do one for the 2000s, one for the 90s, one for the 80s and
1:25:21
one for the 70s were the 70s were getting really hard to
1:25:23
find. Yeah.
1:25:25
And I had this boy come in. He was, he was having it as part
1:25:27
of them, two of them doing it. And he was like, yeah, it's my
1:25:29
retirement gift. I've been doing this.
1:25:31
I was like, that's amazing. Nice.
1:25:33
Together this lineup and there's a cask end at Scotch.
1:25:39
I think I'm trying to think of what I picked for it, but it was
1:25:41
like, I think it was a closed to salute from Inverness.
1:25:46
It was like. Melbourne.
1:25:49
Yeah, Melbourne or or Glen Alban or something like that, like
1:25:53
some 1976 Glen Alban eighteen maybe.
1:25:57
It might have been like that long 183.
1:25:59
I was 90s, probably like Glenn Scotia 92 or something like
1:26:04
that. And then someone from the 2000s.
1:26:06
I was like really pumped. I was like, right guys, I'm just
1:26:08
going to grab this, this, this casket and we'll get started.
1:26:12
Turn away, walk back and they've done them all.
1:26:15
I just shot them off. So that was fantastic.
1:26:18
Thank you so much for the left. Really.
1:26:20
Yeah. Yeah.
1:26:21
Like. And I was like, all right.
1:26:25
Like, yeah. Like I don't want to meet them.
1:26:28
Genuinely like, yeah, my God. And then we're like, that's us.
1:26:32
Thanks so much. Cheers.
1:26:33
Thanks for having us. Like we're not listening to this
1:26:39
content. That's us.
1:26:44
But I mean that was the. People of men.
1:26:48
So you. Mean there's How much would they
1:26:49
have spent on that? I think it was 125 lbs of.
1:26:53
Cash. That's not a bad price for that,
1:26:54
but like, holy. Boy.
1:26:56
That's a That's a quick 120. 5%. This is 2020.
1:26:59
Yeah, a different. World though, but.
1:27:01
You put me in the hen parties stag do like Chuck and whiskey
1:27:05
in and that is it. Is it I mean?
1:27:07
Dangerous mix. It is a dangerous mix.
1:27:08
Those boys came in at 2:30 in the afternoon on Saturday
1:27:11
afternoon. They would have been in their
1:27:12
bed by 9. They'd been out on the Friday
1:27:14
night, so some of them were coming in.
1:27:16
They were worse for wear. Two or three them.
1:27:19
They had two dramas. They didn't touch the rest of
1:27:20
it. That's what this boy was doing.
1:27:22
And everyone's cheating them on. Yeah, that is 63%.
1:27:28
You go die. Yeah, and the basically the boy,
1:27:31
they're all Dutch. They just went after about an
1:27:35
hour and 10 minutes, I was on the second last and they went,
1:27:37
can we play Dutch now? So there was a darts board.
1:27:41
I went, you can have that DRAM. I won't get you the darts and
1:27:45
I'm finished for the rest of the afternoon.
1:27:46
But all right, we had a wedding. Noodle Mass on Saturday and we
1:27:50
had to send a guy home that they were in at 6:00 and by 6:45 I'd
1:27:55
send him home because he couldn't stand up.
1:27:57
Really. Like he didn't have a drink of
1:27:59
them with us. And I was like, you need to go
1:28:01
home, man, I'd like. To be a cheap date like that.
1:28:04
I'd have a fortunately burst. What?
1:28:07
Have you? Done.
1:28:08
Today. 3 pints and three drams. An hour.
1:28:10
That was a Chuck. Did you have a bottle of Whiskey
1:28:13
Stories podcast that he was just offering everybody?
1:28:18
That's the previous one. You need my other bottle today.
1:28:20
I know, right? I'm OK.
1:28:23
But I mean, hen parties and stag dos, nice idea, but I can
1:28:29
imagine. Yeah.
1:28:30
First of all, as a host you would.
1:28:32
Oh, no. And secondly, where do you go
1:28:35
after sex cast? I mean, we were 20 lbs.
1:28:41
Lads, with this child you'll never survive fish.
1:28:44
Well, that's true. Well, anyway, DRAM #2 then.
1:28:47
DRAM number two, I was on a trip or Ardbeg because I used to run
1:28:51
the Ardbeg embassy for the Black Cat.
1:28:53
Obviously we got the embassy status and they brought us, they
1:28:57
flew us to Ardbeg and then we they brought us fishing and the
1:29:00
fishermen on the boat. I decided to Nyard Beg by giving
1:29:03
us all the Frank 10. So the Frank 10.
1:29:07
And the reason why I always sticks with me because everyone
1:29:10
was fishing and all their fishes were normal coming out, You
1:29:12
know, they could take them off and put them back.
1:29:14
But every fish that I caught, it was like through their stomach,
1:29:18
it was true. Their eyes, every single one of
1:29:20
them had to be put down. And I'd caught like 14 of them
1:29:24
because it was like a multiple lion and it was just blood all
1:29:27
over this boat. And I was just like.
1:29:29
Sorry, sorry. Just sipping this before 10, be
1:29:32
like, I'm never fishing again. So that was no fish.
1:29:37
Yeah. No fish in a fish.
1:29:40
It was it was terrible. And as a vegetarian, I couldn't
1:29:46
even eat the fish. So our peg would like they would
1:29:49
arrange for all that. I just can't.
1:29:50
Get Yeah, they flew us over. They brought us out on a boat
1:29:53
and brought us fishing. For these kind of things.
1:29:56
I don't know, I. Don't know sometimes when they
1:29:58
invite me, I'm like me pay me for like that trip.
1:30:03
I went normal you guys. I was like oh, remember that I
1:30:05
was like I was like like fucking bar legends here.
1:30:09
This is mad my hair. Our trip was mad.
1:30:11
It was mad. It was me, Jane Kyle from
1:30:14
Nauticus, Frank from the Pot still, Graham Suttle from the
1:30:17
Finniston, Andy Gemmell for the gate.
1:30:19
Andrea from. Andrea from Glen Eagles.
1:30:22
Like, it was a mad trip, Yeah. And it was like the weather was
1:30:25
really bad. Yeah.
1:30:27
We were meant to go on this boat and like, go and I think have
1:30:29
some shellfish and, yeah, do a nice.
1:30:33
But instead, this was a mental bit of the trip.
1:30:35
Like it was two nights and then the second morning, yeah, they
1:30:39
like, we can't go out in this boat, so instead we're going to
1:30:42
go to the Isla Whiskey bar. Yeah, the Whiskey Vault.
1:30:45
Whiskey Vault That was a. Never seen incredible selection
1:30:48
like that my life. Before, we've had eight drams.
1:30:53
And they were like, just buy what you want.
1:30:55
Yeah, they were like, take whatever you want.
1:30:56
And like the women behind the bar just kept being like, oh,
1:30:57
have you tried this one? No, try that.
1:30:59
Try to enjoy the like the black hearts.
1:31:01
I try that. I quadrupled the stuff she's.
1:31:03
Trying some whiskey I never even heard.
1:31:05
Of try that and I was like, I I'm going to do.
1:31:08
And Kyle were dying. Me and Frank were like keep
1:31:10
going and. Then we got to lunch and they
1:31:13
gave us a martini and I was like, I need.
1:31:16
Food. Mental it was.
1:31:19
It was. Unbelievable.
1:31:21
We've had so many, so spoiled. Charlie even talked about trips
1:31:24
he's had out Iowa through the Malt Room up in Upper Inverness.
1:31:27
And like I. Just seems.
1:31:30
To be like, I mean, I take it Iowa has that, but other
1:31:35
distilleries will be similar. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:31:38
It's just the fact that when you're on the island.
1:31:41
You're there. It's easier when you're at
1:31:43
O'Brien because they have obviously transport when you're
1:31:46
you know, it becomes very expensive when you're going via
1:31:48
taxi everywhere because you know you're talking 20 to 60 lbs per
1:31:52
taxi between distilleries. Yeah, she's.
1:31:55
There OK on Isla. On the on Isla, Yeah, really.
1:31:57
Well, you're stuck in you. Well, that's it.
1:31:59
Yeah, like. There's nowhere else to go.
1:32:00
One of my favorite haggle in those, yeah.
1:32:02
One of my favorite Charlie Hume stories was actually after a
1:32:05
Whiskey Fringe and I'd never met him before, but Jodie knew him
1:32:08
from Malt Room and he was 3/4 burst as he was leaving Whiskey
1:32:14
Fringe and he just started singing at Jodie Campbellton
1:32:18
Lock. I wish you were a whiskey.
1:32:20
And Jodie was like, this is this is my wife.
1:32:22
And then I just remember Charlie Hume getting in a taxi and Jodie
1:32:25
and I were walking home and we were maybe 5 minutes down the
1:32:28
road. And so there's Charlie Hume,
1:32:29
sticking his head out of a taxi. Campbellton Lock.
1:32:34
He was like enjoy your enjoy your dinner Charlie good luck.
1:32:38
He like would meet his pal and his dad's.
1:32:41
Dad we would be friends for. Dinner.
1:32:43
Great guy. Charlie Fantastic.
1:32:45
Only person so far in the Whiskey Stories podcast that
1:32:48
I've had to do retrospective anything after the podcast.
1:32:53
I don't doubt. It so you're lucky that I'm
1:32:55
sober today I. Was yeah, we got a message
1:32:59
saying from somebody else saying see that story.
1:33:02
Could you just remove me from that story and that's it.
1:33:07
It's the Charlie U MEPs was still available for listen to
1:33:09
it. He brought in some fantastic
1:33:10
drams. It's what 3 drams?
1:33:12
Incredible. Have a listen if you if you want
1:33:14
to hear back, if you've not already heard that.
1:33:16
OK, third and. Final third, final whiskey
1:33:18
again. We're in Ila.
1:33:20
I'm sorry. Lots of my funny stories from
1:33:21
Ila. Well, lots of my memories is
1:33:23
eligible in 1954. Me and me and Nick went.
1:33:30
To. Because I go so much and I know
1:33:33
a lot of the locals when it opened back up after COVID, I
1:33:36
said, Nick, we should go and support some of the small
1:33:38
businesses and I land go drinking and stuff.
1:33:41
So no, no, no, no, no, no, listen, listen.
1:33:44
So no, like what you mean like the bars, restaurants and stuff.
1:33:46
And we're walking past like a pollen because lots of the
1:33:49
distilleries weren't doing tours.
1:33:51
So we just popped in. We're just like, hey, we're just
1:33:52
having a look. And then we said, are you doing
1:33:55
a tour? She was like, not really, but we
1:33:57
could do a little tasting witches if he's want.
1:33:59
We're like, all right. So we're chatting away to the
1:34:02
girl, the lady who was serving us and it was Isla, this woman
1:34:06
who know who then moved to Holy Rood Distillery shortly after
1:34:09
when that opened. But we're chatting away to her
1:34:12
and she went, you know, what is our first customers after
1:34:16
lockdown? So we'll, I'll pull out
1:34:19
something really nice. She pulled out in Likeville in
1:34:20
1954. And me and Nick walked down till
1:34:23
they have this like little like wood.
1:34:25
What do you call like a wooden boardwalk, like off into the
1:34:27
sea. And it was like 20°.
1:34:30
The sun was shining and we're drinking this jam.
1:34:32
And then Nick goes to me. If you met my husband, this
1:34:35
makes sense. He was just like, do you know
1:34:37
what? I'm just, I'm really annoyed.
1:34:39
And I was like, well, and he was like, I forgot it.
1:34:42
And I was like, forgot what? And he was like, I was going to
1:34:44
propose, but I don't have the ring.
1:34:45
And then just walked away from me.
1:34:50
And he just walked away. Well, he said it so casually.
1:34:55
And I'm just like, he just went, I'm just, yeah, oh, never mind.
1:34:59
And I'm just left to stand there like.
1:35:03
That's incredible. Wow.
1:35:04
What a guy and. He just walked away drinking and
1:35:07
I was just standing there. So long.
1:35:10
After that. Probably about eight months
1:35:13
after. And then, not long after you're
1:35:15
married, forgot. It's never roller coaster being
1:35:19
married today. That's so funny.
1:35:23
Just. So casually done it and I was
1:35:24
just like, it was like, to be fair, it wasn't that scoring
1:35:27
done. I was just like, you know, you
1:35:30
could just ask anyway. He's like, Nah, not the same.
1:35:36
Love that. Well, Shan, we have your what, 3
1:35:41
drums from the last time? What I will be willing to do is
1:35:45
give you a DRAM of 2025 if you have one.
1:35:49
Yeah. What would you say?
1:35:51
So the magical, magical trip from my end to I do.
1:35:55
Remember I. Suppose we the morning that we
1:36:02
were meant to go on that boat, that we ended up at the Whiskey
1:36:04
Vault before we even went to the Whiskey Ball.
1:36:06
We went down to Mackere Bay and had a wee.
1:36:10
We walk along the beach and Abby, who's the global
1:36:14
ambassador for Bru Gladi, took along a bottle of Octomor 15.3
1:36:22
and having that on Maccabee Beach.
1:36:26
And then Abby has a thing where she loves whiskey and crisp
1:36:29
pairing. Oh yeah, crisps.
1:36:31
Yeah. She loves a bag of.
1:36:32
Crisps. Yeah.
1:36:33
Honestly, always be with Abby. She always has good crisps.
1:36:36
Always good crisps And she'd just come back from Spain and
1:36:40
she brought over a packet of like, you know, is it that lays
1:36:44
like the walkers like and they were ham and cheese toasty
1:36:48
flavoured. Crisps.
1:36:49
All right, OK. Unbelievable.
1:36:51
Like I was the whiskey that was good or if it was just the
1:36:53
crisp. Yeah, that then being battered,
1:36:57
the wind. Yeah, like being absolutely.
1:36:59
Like, it was just so windy. And there was Mike Aikman.
1:37:02
He was another one on the trip. Mike Aikman and Andy Gemmell
1:37:06
basically being children, like throwing a Frisbee at each other
1:37:08
on the beach. Frank Murphy's like stringing
1:37:11
off and running into the sea. And screaming in agony because
1:37:14
he was so cold. I was having to like save his
1:37:16
clothes because the wind was blowing so hard that his clothes
1:37:19
were running away. And then he goes in soggy pants.
1:37:22
All day, just. Yeah, that memory will live with
1:37:25
me for a very long time. It was a That was a great
1:37:28
morning. Yeah.
1:37:30
Well guys, you've managed to make it through a Whiskey
1:37:32
Stories podcast without Angus or Ross.
1:37:35
Huge Oh. My.
1:37:35
God. No, I've had one episode before,
1:37:40
I think, where we've not had Angus or Ross on there, but this
1:37:42
has been a good one. Yeah, it's.
1:37:44
Been fun. Thank you so much for coming in.
1:37:46
Thanks, Kyle. That's great.
1:37:48
Yeah. Really.
1:37:48
Look, I'm going to head down to the mother Superior.
1:37:51
Have you? How do people keep in touch with
1:37:52
you? How do people find out what's
1:37:53
going on? They don't.
1:37:54
She's rubbish at getting in touch.
1:37:56
I am actually there was. Somebody that's been trying to
1:37:58
organise this podcast over the last 28 hours.
1:38:01
I'm really bad if I show you my WhatsApp right now I've got like
1:38:05
1000 unread messages. I honestly I sometimes just
1:38:09
delete more. Well, if you want to find out
1:38:13
Instagram probably true. The bars is probably the the
1:38:16
place I would post most my my private one is currently private
1:38:21
for reasons that I explained. But yeah, I would say Instagram
1:38:25
is probably the biggest one. Most superior whiskey and
1:38:27
witches powder room obviously and falls about Oh yeah so just
1:38:31
what I'm doing between the bars really.
1:38:33
I would say the powder room smashed the Instagram like the
1:38:36
most. Powder room is fun.
1:38:37
Yeah, they're fun and it's those guys deserve more.
1:38:39
Doors down from my house. Yeah, it's great.
1:38:42
Good vibes, yeah. But yeah, come see us.
1:38:44
Come for a jam. Brilliant.
1:38:45
Well, Duke Shan will be yourself.
1:38:46
Got anything to push out? Any way people can find out more
1:38:49
about Unamass or anything like that?
1:38:50
Just at Unamass Bar on Instagram, At Shan 86, probably
1:38:54
on Instagram. Yeah, just the years just come
1:38:58
have a drink. Come say hi.
1:38:59
Yeah, the majority of the time. I'm never there, so sorry.
1:39:03
Yeah, Chuck, you got any you want to say for the push?
1:39:06
Not protection. I hope you get your fork
1:39:08
license. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:39:10
Oh, actually, a mate of mine is getting married at the end of
1:39:13
the year and he's looking, he's asked me to give him a hand
1:39:16
looking for bottles of whiskey. His favorite whiskey is Edgar,
1:39:19
down 10. So if anyone's got any
1:39:21
recommendations in the Facebook group.
1:39:23
Yeah, fantastic. Probably below some £50 a bottle
1:39:26
or something like that. Kind of our vibes are just good
1:39:29
recommendations. Pin a wee taste together from in
1:39:32
a couple of weeks. That's cute.
1:39:33
Just an excuse for us to get absolutely share faced.
1:39:36
But that'll be so yeah. If you want to do that, Facebook
1:39:39
group, Whiskey stories, podcast. Absolutely fantastic.
1:39:41
Yeah, don't forget, guys. Thank you very much for
1:39:43
listening. Thanks to our guests for coming
1:39:44
on. Fantastic to meet you, Jay.
1:39:46
Jay, Lovely to see you again, Shan.
1:39:48
Always a pleasure. We've got whiskey stories, big
1:39:50
night out to plan. We've got loads going on.
1:39:52
Don't forget like and share pass the pod We've got.
1:39:55
Well, I don't know what if you're listening to this, we've
1:39:57
probably already they've done something with the Temat and six
1:40:00
virgin Oak, which is absolutely fantastic.
1:40:03
Big thank you to those guys for for sending that down to us.
1:40:05
Loads and loads of stuff going on.
1:40:07
Get on the Facebook page, get on the newsletter weekend DRAM roll
1:40:11
call. There's so much going on
1:40:12
Instagram. We're we're Tik tokers as well,
1:40:15
Chuck, we're the Tik tokers. That's it.
1:40:18
More snippets if it scored at 66.
1:40:21
Anyway, guys, thank you so much for coming on.
1:40:23
Thank you very much for listening.
1:40:24
Cheers, Sandra.