Latest / Whisky Stories Podcast / Global Whisky Adventures with Barley Baxter: Old Pulteney, Speyburn & Stories from Around the World

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Global Whisky Adventures with Barley Baxter: Old Pulteney, Speyburn & Stories from Around the World · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:03
  We've we've done this before. I'm in safe hands, just you.
• 0:06
  Relax. Oh, it's that kind of.
• 0:10
  This is entrapment. I saw you put the door,
• 0:11
  actually. Yeah, you can't get out.
• 0:13
  That's a damn shot. I don't want to, to be honest.
• 0:17
  Right, OK, we're ready to rock'n'roll.
• 0:19
  We are. We are. 849-8649.
• 0:21
  There we go 6. 40. 9 Angus clap, I said.
• 0:26
  Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 0:30
  Because at the end of the day, they're investing their own
• 0:32
  personal money and buying your product.
• 0:34
  You have a duty of care for that person.
• 0:36
  You have a duty of care to provide them with the best
• 0:37
  experience with the education, etcetera.
• 0:39
  And if you're out till 5-6 in the morning, you can't do that.
• 0:42
  And physically you can't do that.
• 0:43
  I think there's a responsibility to yourself personally to make
• 0:46
  sure that, you know, apply your own auction.
• 0:48
  I'm asking first before helping people.
• 0:49
  Yeah, it's making sure you're OK and you can't sustain it.
• 0:52
  If I drank every whiskey that was handed to me, I'd be dead.
• 0:56
  Welcome along to the Westgate Stories podcast with myself,
• 0:58
  Greg Gogar. We are back in the athletic
• 1:00
  cars, back in the glorious surroundings of Digger Sangus.
• 1:03
  How are you? I'm very well.
• 1:04
  Thank you. Delighted to be back here.
• 1:07
  Excellent, excellent setup. We've got in front of us a few
• 1:10
  really exciting bottles as well. We've lost Ross as well, which
• 1:13
  is great for our. Guests, I mean it's.
• 1:14
  The only reason I came? So some of us can handle a trip
• 1:18
  away at a weekend, others. Yeah, I mean, this, this episode
• 1:22
  is for everyone. It's good out.
• 1:23
  You know, I think it'll be good out later in April as as we're
• 1:27
  recording this, it's not even hit April.
• 1:29
  Yeah, no, no, no. Well, we're on the back end of
• 1:31
  our trip to Dorner. We were back, we were up there
• 1:34
  with the lads helping raise all that money that they managed to
• 1:37
  raise before that episode of ours even went out.
• 1:40
  But it's great. And yeah, Wee Ross is just
• 1:45
  needing a wee bit of a rest up. A bit of R.
• 1:47
  And R, that's it. But it's great.
• 1:48
  And of course, as ever, Angus, we have always said this on the
• 1:51
  Whisky Stories podcast. If it's just the two of us, we
• 1:53
  do need somebody who knows what they're talking about.
• 1:56
  And we have Stuart Baxter here. Stuart, how are you?
• 1:58
  I'm very well, very excited to be here, by the way, This is
• 2:01
  this is the dream come true. That's the bucket list for the
• 2:03
  rest of my life. This.
• 2:04
  Is that you've beat? This is it.
• 2:07
  This is all downhill from here. Oh my God, I wonder if I can
• 2:09
  submit my resignation for the end April.
• 2:11
  Bye. Well, well, but the the next
• 2:14
  hour and a half is going to be fantastic.
• 2:16
  But after that, everything is going to just be a slightly
• 2:18
  different shade, but fantastic. Thank you so much for coming
• 2:22
  along. You are the Global Spirits
• 2:24
  Ambassador for International beverage.
• 2:27
  That's the one. Yep.
• 2:28
  So tell me who are or what is international beverage?
• 2:31
  So international beverage, we, as you can imagine, we sell
• 2:34
  international beverages, but we have a, a pretty.
• 2:37
  Beverages internationally. That's probably the best way to
• 2:39
  do. So no, we sell international
• 2:41
  beverages internationally. That's.
• 2:43
  Exactly what it is. So we've got a pretty incredible
• 2:46
  portfolio, some of which you can see up the front here and we've
• 2:48
  diversified. So I think a lot of people
• 2:50
  probably still know us as Inver House.
• 2:51
  There's others, right? It's as you guys were talking
• 2:53
  about earlier. That's what I was about to
• 2:55
  erroneously introduce you as. Well, but you're, you're, you're
• 2:58
  not wrong because that's been as historically and a lot of, you
• 3:00
  know, partners, distributors have always said, but
• 3:02
  international beverage was kind of recognising the fact that
• 3:04
  we've, we've diversified our portfolio pretty extensively, as
• 3:07
  I'm sure a few people know. But we went from Inver House,
• 3:10
  which was just Scottish distilleries and Karun Gin.
• 3:12
  And then we've now introduced Cardrona Larsson Cognac and
• 3:16
  we've always had prior rum in just outside of Bangkok and then
• 3:19
  Prakan, which is the first Thai single malt wool in the world.
• 3:23
  So that's why international beverage is the coolest thing.
• 3:26
  That's, I mean, it's, it's, it's not a brand like International
• 3:31
  Beverage or even an Ember House. I think I'd come across Ember
• 3:33
  House before. But when you talk about some of
• 3:35
  the some of the distilleries and some of the some of the products
• 3:38
  and brands that you guys will put it under, I think yeah, from
• 3:40
  our point of view, I guess it's been favourites of the pod.
• 3:42
  I mean, if you go back through the walk through jams, I mean, I
• 3:45
  know. Obviously ball player will be
• 3:47
  well known old palm they probably maybe them yes, well,
• 3:51
  you know old puntly has a lot of representation through the.
• 3:54
  Paul Pauli, 17, was specifically Thompson.
• 3:58
  Yeah, I think it's come up a couple of times.
• 3:59
  And actually Spayburn, at the weekend we met, I think
• 4:02
  Spayburn's biggest fan. Oh no.
• 4:04
  Is it Simon A? Kind of bold man with a
• 4:06
  moustache. Oh.
• 4:08
  He was, absolutely. I mean, he, he, he, he'd come,
• 4:11
  he'd come to Dornick specifically for Glen Alecy
• 4:13
  tasting. But he said, Glen Alecy is my
• 4:16
  second favorite distillery, my favorite Spayburn.
• 4:19
  He's like just huge. Deposit It wasn't my dad wearing
• 4:22
  a mustache, was it? He's.
• 4:24
  An English guy, so he lives. He lives in.
• 4:26
  He lives in Aberdeenshire. And I love that he talked.
• 4:30
  It was great to hear. He I mean, he literally he said
• 4:32
  like my two favorite distilleries, Spay burn England
• 4:34
  Alec and he'll go to the distilleries and just chat for
• 4:37
  just go to the bar. He'll drive to the bar.
• 4:39
  He's. A big fan of the bar of spay,
• 4:40
  but is there a bar of spay but? There is a bar of spay, but it's
• 4:42
  not, it's not an actual like legal selling whiskey bar.
• 4:45
  It's a bar that was actually built by the distillery team,
• 4:47
  right? So they they built it during
• 4:49
  lockdown. They, you know, we had twiddled
• 4:50
  their thumbs. They were doing production, but
• 4:52
  there's no tours coming through. Yeah.
• 4:53
  So they built from the old wash bags.
• 4:55
  They built a full bar. Wow.
• 4:57
  Full functioning bar, everything.
• 4:58
  They had their Christmas party there that I wasn't invited to,
• 5:00
  but fridge, running water, everything.
• 5:03
  So it's sad. We met, he said he was at the
• 5:05
  Christmas party. It's good to know that I'm just
• 5:08
  like. #1 fan, maybe he does get invited well.
• 5:12
  It was fascinating because, I mean, it does show you that sort
• 5:15
  of whiskey fandom can happen and I don't know what the he said.
• 5:18
  He stays in Aberdeen area so I don't know what the journey from
• 5:21
  Aberdeen to Spayburn would be. What time?
• 5:24
  Not too far, maybe an hour and a half?
• 5:26
  Two hours maybe. But he'll say, like he was
• 5:28
  saying to us, you know, our release would come out and he'd
• 5:31
  be interested. And also he was maybe he was
• 5:33
  talking about, you know, the maybe the more expensive
• 5:35
  releases. Yeah, he would say, I'm not
• 5:37
  going to spend, I'm not going to spend over, you know, £800 on a,
• 5:41
  on a dry, on a bottle of whiskey, but I'll spend £45 on a
• 5:45
  DRAM, Yes. And I'll drive an hour and 20
• 5:47
  minutes. And one of the great things was
• 5:48
  he was to kind of talking because it, I mean, it's the
• 5:50
  great thing about the Dormer Castle and what the boys up
• 5:52
  there do 100% is that, and we've talked about this quite
• 5:55
  recently, I guess actually it's about whiskey destination hotels
• 6:00
  and whiskey destination places. Yeah.
• 6:02
  And you look at the Highlander Inn and.
• 6:05
  Tattoo you and the incredible. Team as well.
• 6:08
  There's AI think Vicky Wicky Elliott told us about it and she
• 6:11
  asked us immediately not to mention it on the podcast about
• 6:14
  you've only mentioned it. Are you gatekeeping?
• 6:16
  Is that it? But it's, yeah, I, it's, I think
• 6:19
  it's the deal that they do in like the winter months at the
• 6:21
  Highlander and. Oh, no.
• 6:23
  Is it Charlie Hume? He was talking about this in the
• 6:25
  Yeah. Guys, I think he mentioned it.
• 6:27
  Incredible because you you get credit for them.
• 6:30
  So I think I don't, I can't remember what it what the deal
• 6:31
  is, but basically if you go in you get basically you pay for
• 6:34
  your but I think you get pretty much most of your room belt.
• 6:38
  Yeah, covered behind the bar and credit.
• 6:40
  It's amazing, but like speaking to Donna Castle, like because of
• 6:43
  Belle Blair and just the vicinity of where it is, we stay
• 6:45
  there quite a lot with, you know, Phil inside.
• 6:47
  But I mean, what they don't know about whiskey, it's just not
• 6:49
  worth knowing. They're two of the best whiskey
• 6:50
  makers of our generation. By hundreds of mine see the
• 6:53
  success that they've had now. But what this guy did was he was
• 6:56
  saying like, you know what he said we we decided I said did
• 7:00
  you come up here just for the Glen allocate tasting?
• 7:02
  Oh yeah, yeah, we've come up to stay the night.
• 7:04
  He said I had to go through a craft fair this morning with the
• 7:06
  with my wife. I.
• 7:10
  Had to enjoy a crafts fair this morning, but they've made it to
• 7:13
  Dorna. Glen Alkie Jason's worth it.
• 7:15
  That's worth it. And I love that like, like
• 7:17
  people, you'll drive whatever an hour, maybe a couple of hours,
• 7:21
  spend the night, But he'll say it'll be worth it because I get
• 7:23
  to go and have a Glen Alkie station.
• 7:26
  But it was it was fascinating. And it's it's a whiskey.
• 7:29
  It is a side that I definitely see more of now where I would I
• 7:35
  would jump in the car now with the current wife and say let's
• 7:39
  go up the road couple hours. What would you have to endure
• 7:42
  for a morning to please your current wife for you to do?
• 7:46
  This. No, I don't know actually.
• 7:47
  It's 1. Way of wording that.
• 7:50
  Screaming bearing in the back of the car probably is about right,
• 7:54
  but no, I genuinely I think because the hotel was such a
• 7:56
  nice setup and and you know, with the drams that you get and
• 7:59
  the selection's incredible. That's.
• 8:00
  Fantastic. You know, I mean the glass
• 8:01
  cabinet just go and the cost, they really run it cost as well.
• 8:05
  You know, Phil and Simon, they're so generous with their
• 8:07
  the whiskeys they buy and then running them at the price they
• 8:09
  do, it really gives. You some in the episodes in In
• 8:12
  episode 1, you. Know the the the depth of old
• 8:15
  bottlins, weird old Glen Elgins and things like that, but also
• 8:19
  the international side of it, the Japanese selection of
• 8:22
  chicken beers and all that. I mean, just, I think poor Chuck
• 8:25
  blew his mind a wee bit. He did.
• 8:26
  And he had to actually like he actually had this.
• 8:28
  Yeah. Now they have a please don't
• 8:30
  touch the glass sign after Chuck.
• 8:31
  And I'm just with the Chuck 'cause they were just looking at
• 8:33
  it like drill coming out sticky fingers all the way down.
• 8:37
  They like track touch the bottle through the glass cabinet and
• 8:40
  everything like that was terrible.
• 8:41
  But I, I would say what, what, what final thing on, on those
• 8:43
  guys because they are gonna have to bring it send us back up if
• 8:46
  we endorse them anymore because. You're looking for sponsorship,
• 8:48
  right Thompson? A free T-shirt, by the way.
• 8:52
  Thank you, Simon for that as well as everything else.
• 8:54
  But but what I really loved and it really does show and when
• 8:57
  we're sitting here in athletic arms with what Kev's done with
• 8:59
  the with the back bar here as well.
• 9:01
  One of the biggest whiskey collections, open whiskey
• 9:04
  collections in Edinburgh, over 800 bottles there and very
• 9:07
  reasonable price. And that's what they did is they
• 9:08
  talked about and if you haven't and you're listening to this
• 9:11
  podcast, you're thinking, what, what was that?
• 9:12
  Go back to episode 1 and episode 2 of our donor a trip, the Grand
• 9:18
  Tour. And what they talked about was,
• 9:20
  which was very interesting as they realized that in some
• 9:22
  places what happens is the more premium the whiskey, the bigger
• 9:25
  the margin that some places will put on.
• 9:27
  Yeah. Whereas what they do is they do
• 9:28
  the opposite. The more premium the whiskey,
• 9:30
  the more expensive the whiskey is costing the buy in.
• 9:33
  The margin gets smaller and smaller.
• 9:35
  And what they're doing there is they're not trying to rinse
• 9:37
  people on buying 111 DRAM. No, because they know where they
• 9:41
  are. I mean, we did a pub crawl on
• 9:43
  the Friday night in Dorner. Yeah, I.
• 9:45
  Think the corner pub crawl. There's a few, there's actually
• 9:47
  a couple of decent pubs. Well, you know, I'd see the
• 9:50
  Dorner Castle probably. It's the only one we.
• 9:53
  Tried to find them but. I've been a few yeah, but but
• 9:57
  but like you say, what they what they do is they say, well, stay
• 10:00
  like don't come in for one expensive DRAM. 100.
• 10:03
  Percent. You'll go and you'll maybe have
• 10:05
  a couple of nice drams and then you'll say, wow, how much is
• 10:07
  that? And you'll find out it's
• 10:08
  actually a bargain. And to speak to that very
• 10:10
  briefly because like, I think they deserve the time they
• 10:12
  really do is, is that there are. And it's a big ethos that I
• 10:15
  really love about whiskey is its accessibility.
• 10:17
  Yeah. And it's also, you know, you
• 10:19
  guys have talked about in the pod before where it's not the
• 10:21
  oldest or the, the darker the better.
• 10:23
  It's about, you know, what's the best whiskey for you as an
• 10:25
  individual? Yeah.
• 10:25
  And they do that so well. I mean, the last time we were
• 10:27
  up, I was speaking to, I had a group of Americans.
• 10:29
  We were up and they were saying, you know, Stewart, what's the
• 10:31
  right way to drink whiskey? And I was like, anyway, you
• 10:33
  want. And they're like, OK, you know,
• 10:35
  whatever. As soon as we went up, Phil, we
• 10:37
  did a single cast ball in the Volt pole and he was the first
• 10:39
  full bourbon cast strength, pretty high.
• 10:40
  BVI walked up and he went, have you tried it in a highball?
• 10:42
  Threw it in a highball for me. Tasted.
• 10:44
  Wow. You can see the Americans going,
• 10:45
  you can't, can't do that. You can't do that.
• 10:47
  I was like, well, you're actually speaking to one of the
• 10:49
  best whiskey makers in the world right now.
• 10:50
  Yeah. So you can do it, and it was,
• 10:53
  and that was the point. It's like it's making whiskey
• 10:55
  accessible not just through how you drink it, but also giving
• 10:58
  you that access to all these different flavours that exist,
• 11:01
  from old whiskeys to young whiskeys and whatever.
• 11:02
  And I think whiskeys are, you know, whiskey's a great leveller
• 11:06
  when it comes to, I would say, I think I've said it on the
• 11:10
  podcast before. I think I might have been with
• 11:12
  Pete from Woven. And I think you have to explain
• 11:14
  it a little bit where it's like whiskey in Scotland is classless
• 11:18
  in the sense that what you can do is you can, you can drive
• 11:21
  down. And I actually remember meeting,
• 11:23
  I won't mention the person, but he's a fairly significant
• 11:26
  person, but I think his net worth is over a billion.
• 11:30
  I don't know how the two of us ended up in the same room.
• 11:32
  And I won't, I won't continue that element of the story.
• 11:36
  And I was basically ushered into a room going, Graham, you know
• 11:39
  about whiskey because we don't, but this guy does.
• 11:43
  And that was the so went and had a conversation with the guy and
• 11:47
  the two of us were able to just bond over whiskey.
• 11:50
  Don't get me wrong. Right.
• 11:52
  I said, oh, you got a particularly nice whiskey.
• 11:55
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. For my now, I think it was for
• 11:58
  my 50th, I was gifted a cask of Glenfarclas.
• 12:02
  I was like, wow, but that's lovely.
• 12:03
  There's the separation. There's the disparity right
• 12:07
  there. But at the same time, you know,
• 12:09
  and that's where I think when when one thing that we've
• 12:12
  learned a lot through the podcast and doing this is take
• 12:14
  the label away. And we we did this SNWS
• 12:17
  bottlings, but also like blind tastings and what have you is
• 12:20
  is, you know, you could put that down, put a drama, it doesn't
• 12:23
  matter. I think it's got a castle in
• 12:24
  fartless. I can give them if I suddenly
• 12:26
  went I really like this DRAM. Yeah, probably at the moment an
• 12:30
  Arden American. I would say try an Arden
• 12:33
  American. I won't tell.
• 12:34
  He probably wouldn't know maybe wouldn't know who Arden American
• 12:37
  are what they are even your distillery and maybe some things
• 12:39
  people would tend to stay further away from new
• 12:41
  distilleries. But I would have it and if it
• 12:44
  was Arden Market and Sherry, I absolutely love and want a
• 12:46
  bathtub full of it. Then I'm pretty sure if you use
• 12:50
  bloody lovely right and then you go yeah, great.
• 12:52
  You've got class casket Glen fat list you're that's good for you.
• 12:55
  Brilliant. But we've also got some really
• 12:57
  just nice drams and. I do the same thing when it's
• 12:59
  and especially that label away, as I always say, like I'm a
• 13:01
  really bad and brand of bastard because it's not, it's not label
• 13:03
  is not important because we get so blinded by it.
• 13:06
  You know, you get bought into the sites like this is 18 years
• 13:08
  old and this is that and that's dark.
• 13:09
  It's going to taste like that. Do you like it or do you not
• 13:12
  like it period? You know, do you like liquid in
• 13:13
  the bottle? And if you don't, that's fine.
• 13:15
  You know, there's I see appreciation and liking or two
• 13:17
  different. Things absolutely A. 100% Do you
• 13:19
  like it? No, that's fine.
• 13:20
  But is there something in there that you do like?
• 13:22
  Yeah, but it's, and one thing I get taught when it's that you're
• 13:25
  trying to, it's not about upselling, it's making sure you
• 13:28
  get the right DRAM for the right person or the right thing for
• 13:30
  the right person. But it's that whole idea is if
• 13:32
  you just say that I don't like that and it's a new whiskey
• 13:35
  drinker, you're not going to find out what you do like.
• 13:37
  No, because if you say like a first filled bourbon, you're
• 13:38
  like, no, I don't like this side of it, but I really love that
• 13:40
  vanilla. Yes, right.
• 13:41
  And it's like, well, follow that because that that line will lean
• 13:44
  you around to this part. And it's like, actually I really
• 13:45
  like first filled bourbons that aren't peated, for example.
• 13:48
  Or maybe whiskey. And it takes you down a line of
• 13:50
  find something you do like and that will start expanding and
• 13:52
  bring you into spaces that you never knew existed actually.
• 13:55
  That's, I mean, it's a fascinating way of looking at
• 13:57
  it. We were actually just talking
• 13:58
  before we started to record about something that I not
• 14:01
  explored an awful lot of, but I really want to, as the, you
• 14:04
  know, Sherry Tart of the. Yeah, hence why I brought.
• 14:08
  The one, yeah. But one of the things I were
• 14:11
  just talking there, you're labeled as the Sherry, I'm
• 14:13
  labeled as I. I think, I think now you're, you
• 14:15
  know, we talk about Cody Reynolds and his circle.
• 14:18
  Yeah, his circle of whiskey liking.
• 14:20
  I think you're, I think you're over the Sherry.
• 14:22
  I am, I am. But one of the things that I,
• 14:24
  I'm coming back round to is we, we tried the drama again.
• 14:28
  It was Arden Merkin and again it was a Thompson.
• 14:30
  It was a Dornet Castle bottling, I think it was.
• 14:33
  But it was and I was trying to work out why I like this so
• 14:35
  much. And it was after having the Glen
• 14:38
  Alloki tasting. Now you can imagine with the
• 14:40
  Glen Alloki tasting, there was a lot of Sherry.
• 14:42
  There was a lot of Sherry. I mean, it was very dark, like
• 14:44
  lovely, lovely whiskeys that we got to try.
• 14:47
  But one of the things that I, you know, Sherry is, you know, a
• 14:51
  Sherry whiskey is a very easy whiskey to get people into.
• 14:54
  And I think that's where I started.
• 14:55
  Yeah, that's how that's where that's the entry level I got
• 14:57
  into. It was a sort of nice, like the
• 14:59
  flavours. Glen Alachi 15.
• 15:01
  In fact, that was that was something that I I really took
• 15:03
  that. That's great.
• 15:04
  But this Arden American was Sherry refill.
• 15:07
  And what I loved about that is that it's just it's shared.
• 15:11
  It's got this slight sharedness and yeah, but it's the refill.
• 15:14
  So it's nowhere. It's not as it's not in your
• 15:17
  face. Absolutely.
• 15:17
  Not slap a Sherry and that no not to not let's not take away
• 15:21
  and you'll surely will tell us this as well.
• 15:23
  Most people will is that, you know, it's not the shared
• 15:26
  influence, it's the wood influence that you're getting
• 15:27
  and I. Yeah, the wood is the most
• 15:29
  important thing. You know, when we I was very
• 15:31
  blessed. We, we've a few people do this,
• 15:33
  but Jose, Miguel, Martin and Nerez.
• 15:35
  So there are Miguel Martin. Oh, wow.
• 15:39
  Yeah, I was speaking to my Spanish pal and he nailed that.
• 15:42
  But they're our last cast supplier, our Spanish old
• 15:44
  supplier, as well as a few other people in the industry.
• 15:47
  And Jose sadly passed away a good few years ago.
• 15:49
  But Miguel, his brother runs the the business for them and just
• 15:52
  shadow him for a very brief period.
• 15:54
  What he doesn't know about. I used to speak to Sherry very
• 15:56
  confidently. Right.
• 15:57
  These things you're like, this is, this is that I knew nothing
• 16:00
  really. You know, when you go there and
• 16:01
  you learn about it and it was, it was amazing to see that it's
• 16:04
  not about the Sherry. Sherry quality is important.
• 16:06
  Yeah, yeah. But the crucial thing is the
• 16:08
  wood. No, of course.
• 16:09
  If you've got bad wood, it doesn't matter what quality of
• 16:11
  Sherry you put in there. That's absolutely, yeah.
• 16:14
  Wood is bad wood. And I suppose as well, the
• 16:16
  challenge that you can have in the whiskey industry is not
• 16:18
  making it about the Sherry flavour.
• 16:20
  It's what we've talked about it before.
• 16:23
  Mark Thompson did a tasting with us, and I think it was Mark
• 16:26
  Thompson anyway. And he pulled out and it was a
• 16:29
  mystery, kind of. And he said, right, Tell me what
• 16:31
  you think this is. Yeah.
• 16:32
  And it was Mark Thompson and. And everyone.
• 16:35
  Sherry. It's Sherry.
• 16:36
  Drinking it and people would say it's argument is this is, this
• 16:39
  is it PX is. It one guy said it's in Sherry,
• 16:41
  right one. Guy say this one guy said that
• 16:43
  is PX. One guy said no, it's all
• 16:45
  they're also but for back for it's European virgin oak, yeah.
• 16:49
  Because it's the tannins in the oak, right?
• 16:50
  Because I think a lot of people, I mean, I, there's another
• 16:53
  podcast. I won't say it, don't worry.
• 16:56
  But Charlie McLean talks about this as well, where it's, you
• 16:58
  know, I think a lot of people get tripped up with talking
• 17:00
  about Sherry or bourbon bases. The colours although, but it's
• 17:05
  the tannins. Yeah, right.
• 17:06
  That's the most important part. And that's the thing.
• 17:07
  That's the real impact and colour.
• 17:09
  And I think that's where like, yeah, I think the danger is that
• 17:12
  what you can do is you can end up making the whiskey taste like
• 17:15
  the Sherry. Yeah, right.
• 17:17
  And that's where everyone was. And that was that was what Mark
• 17:19
  was trying to get across to people.
• 17:20
  He was trying to say, look, we all assume that when we try a
• 17:23
  Sherry cask, it's the Sherry that's giving it the flavour.
• 17:26
  Yeah, right. If you're in the whiskey
• 17:28
  industry and you're one of the, if you're the blinder, that's
• 17:31
  your worst nightmare because you're saying we've lost all our
• 17:34
  distillery character. Yeah, that's now coming through.
• 17:36
  All we're getting is a whiskey that's tastes a little bit more
• 17:39
  like Sherry. Yeah.
• 17:40
  And I think that's where the the the finding that balance must be
• 17:43
  really, really tricky. It is absolutely is, but it's,
• 17:46
  you know, there's something to be said for distillery
• 17:48
  characters, a really crucial part.
• 17:49
  But then you get, for example, I'm just looking what we have in
• 17:51
  front of us here. This may burn single cast.
• 17:53
  It wasn't about reserving distillery character.
• 17:56
  It was also showing that distillery character being
• 17:58
  amplified in a way or evolving. It's more like this is a canvas
• 18:02
  like what can we put on it? You're something pretty fucking
• 18:04
  cool, right? You know it's but whereas when
• 18:05
  you're looking at maybe core range or and I would say there's
• 18:08
  something to be said for a good whiskey, you'll still see
• 18:11
  distillery character, you'll see oak and you'll see that
• 18:14
  combination of the two. But sometimes it's also pretty
• 18:17
  cool to just see something that is completely obtuse in one way
• 18:20
  or the other, and it tastes good.
• 18:22
  Yeah, You know, I. Mean, yeah.
• 18:23
  And I mean, when we talk about distillery character, we've got
• 18:26
  drums in front of us and we've all.
• 18:28
  Graham has gone for two. I've gone for one old.
• 18:31
  Bulkley. And I mean, when you talk about
• 18:33
  distillery character, there's a distillery with character.
• 18:36
  Because I mean, I, I tasted that and I knew exactly.
• 18:39
  It's not. It's the one I've got that
• 18:41
  started off as a French joke. Oh, that's my favorite.
• 18:44
  That's that's just an exclusive. That is my favorite right now.
• 18:47
  What you've ever bottled. That's my.
• 18:48
  Favorite. Yeah, well, I I knew as soon I
• 18:51
  thought, and you just get that salty hit and it's like lick, I
• 18:55
  said to Graham. It's like licking.
• 18:57
  It's like licking a pretzel when.
• 19:00
  You said Lick. I was like, oh, here we go.
• 19:02
  But, you know, it's that kind of real aggressive sea salt.
• 19:05
  Yeah, absolutely. That you can pick up and it
• 19:07
  just, you know, if you have an old pulp me, you're going to get
• 19:11
  that. Yeah, it's one thing I always
• 19:12
  talk about and I can see you're you're peeling out something
• 19:15
  here that's pretty cool. The Pinot de Chant I've got.
• 19:16
  A pinot de chant and also we've finished.
• 19:21
  No. There you go.
• 19:25
  Yeah, that's an interesting one actually.
• 19:26
  So Hoddart is the name of the street that we're on.
• 19:29
  This is a long winded story. You can edit the hell out.
• 19:32
  No, no, no. So Huddart was our non age
• 19:34
  statement and it's finished in peated casks.
• 19:36
  Yeah. So it's not a peated whiskey.
• 19:37
  And the cast that we use are Aberdeenshire Pete, not Isla
• 19:40
  Pete. So it's that more campfire smoke
• 19:42
  than, let's say that iodine medicine.
• 19:44
  Yeah. And and it's not better or
• 19:46
  worse. It's just different, right.
• 19:48
  Depending what you're looking for.
• 19:49
  So Huddart was the name that we gave it.
• 19:51
  And this was before my time in a national beverage.
• 19:53
  And so we were, I was asking, I was like other like why didn't
• 19:56
  we call it Poultney? Like old, like William Johnson
• 19:59
  Poultney, the guy that founded the Poultney town up in Wick.
• 20:02
  So Huddart is the name of the street, but it was named after a
• 20:05
  guy called Captain Joseph Huddart.
• 20:06
  So he was a cartographer who mapped out the North East coast
• 20:09
  of Scotland to allow Poultney Town to be built.
• 20:12
  WIC was actually built around Poultney Town.
• 20:15
  Town was effectively the originator of the the main bulk
• 20:17
  of of people living there and started the fishing and the
• 20:20
  herring fishing etcetera. So all of the street names in
• 20:23
  Poultney Town are named after head of the Fisheries, which
• 20:26
  Thomas Telford was the head of, and all of them are members of
• 20:29
  the fisheries apart from one street and that's the street in
• 20:31
  which the distillery sits on and that's Huddard St. named after
• 20:35
  Captain Joseph Hudders. That's for the name.
• 20:36
  Now that I don't know what your your history is like with Shan
• 20:42
  Buchan was on and it led to a bit of a deep dive from my point
• 20:46
  of view was Shan Buchan was talking about how at one point
• 20:49
  the distillery was actually used as a morgue.
• 20:52
  Yeah. Also then that led to why was it
• 20:54
  used as a morgue and things. And there was also some form of
• 20:57
  prohibition went on. Longer than America?
• 20:59
  Yeah. Is that is that?
• 21:01
  25 years, so 19, what was it, 1922 to 1947 really?
• 21:06
  You had prohibition in the whole NE of Scotland and it was when I
• 21:10
  first started 3 1/2 years ago. And Poulton was a drama that I
• 21:13
  admired. I actually sat on my shelf as
• 21:15
  soon as I got offered the job. My dad was like, if you don't
• 21:17
  take this, I can still disown you.
• 21:18
  And I was like OK, but yeah, 1922 to 194725 years of
• 21:23
  prohibition. However, there wasn't roads too
• 21:27
  WIC until the late 1920s, so we were still able to produce
• 21:31
  spirit, right, Right. And ship it out.
• 21:33
  You just couldn't drink it. But you've got a lot of very
• 21:36
  wealthy fishermen, yeah, sitting up in WIC, right, With a load of
• 21:39
  money in their pocket, with a distillery, and you can't drink.
• 21:42
  Come on. Come on, we know what's.
• 21:45
  Happening, right Well, the, the story that I read and I don't
• 21:48
  know the the full fact, so I'm going to butcher this, but
• 21:52
  basically there was some sort of like American, I don't know
• 21:55
  whether he was American or not, but he was like a local
• 21:57
  councillor, right? And what happened was so the the
• 22:01
  story that I read about this was that most people that owned
• 22:05
  fishing boats also owned a pub in the town or had some sort of
• 22:09
  Co. There had been a significant
• 22:10
  number of pubs. Yes.
• 22:11
  And, and what happens is when you these these fishermen had
• 22:14
  been at sea for days, weeks, whatever it was, they were
• 22:17
  collecting their wages in the pub.
• 22:20
  Now you know that because what are these guys who have been
• 22:22
  starved of drink for God knows how long coming back into the
• 22:26
  bar? They've just been handed a load
• 22:27
  of cash and we should probably have a drink to thank the Lord
• 22:30
  that we made it back safe. And then what happening is our
• 22:33
  wives are coming down and dragging them out the pub and
• 22:35
  finding out that either all or half or a large chunk of their
• 22:39
  salaries had been spent behind the.
• 22:41
  Back, of course it was. So what this guy, this
• 22:43
  councillor, I don't know whether he was an American or whether he
• 22:45
  just by the drink was the devil, right?
• 22:47
  It was one of those, the demon drink, all that kind of stuff
• 22:50
  even. In America without being too a
• 22:53
  lot of the you know, temperance movements where female
• 22:57
  orientation came from that kind of tied up with the kind of
• 23:02
  suffragette movement etcetera, etcetera.
• 23:04
  So you know this isn't similar. Well, this is where basically
• 23:08
  this guy. I think this is a bit.
• 23:09
  I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the story is around about
• 23:14
  the fact that he put himself up for an election round about the
• 23:16
  time when all the I. Don't know the story but.
• 23:18
  I think he put himself up for an election round about all the
• 23:20
  time. Most of the men in the towns
• 23:21
  were out at sea, right? And he was canvassing told our
• 23:25
  wife say like you hate drunk, don't you?
• 23:27
  Because every time your husband comes back, he gets drunk and he
• 23:29
  spends Oh, of course, vote for me.
• 23:31
  And he went around, went round and apparently it was one of the
• 23:33
  lowest ever turnouts, right. But he won the he got in or and
• 23:37
  then passed this legislation that then said that we're we're
• 23:41
  making this area. You heard the research right.
• 23:44
  Shut up. Brilliant.
• 23:47
  I might have just made all that right.
• 23:48
  No, it's absolutely brilliant. I've not heard that story.
• 23:51
  But then that's, that's what's fascinating about like when you,
• 23:53
  when you see like you're talking about a distillery at that time,
• 23:56
  because when you look at what, what was pulpiness at the time
• 24:00
  through the 1920s and the 1940s, what was Poultney's purpose as
• 24:03
  such? What was the liquid being used
• 24:05
  for? Was it going to local bars?
• 24:06
  Was it being exported? Was it going into blends?
• 24:08
  What was it actually doing? Because obviously there was a
• 24:11
  reason why it must have. It was memorable quite a few
• 24:13
  times and through that period of time and through its own history
• 24:16
  as well. During that period, you also had
• 24:17
  a huge boom in in blended Scotch.
• 24:19
  Yeah. So like coming off the back of
• 24:21
  the, I mean, you look at the Fluxer disaster back in the
• 24:23
  1800s, etcetera. If we don't know what that is,
• 24:25
  it's the whole idea where all the grapes were destroyed.
• 24:27
  Yeah. In France, etcetera, yeah.
• 24:29
  And so the high society were like, well, we need something,
• 24:31
  yeah. So then blended Scotch took off.
• 24:33
  So John Walker and sons, John Deeres and sons, etcetera.
• 24:35
  So poultney would have been a contributing factor to that
• 24:38
  right back in the 1920s into 1940s.
• 24:40
  But of course it would have been shipped all the way down.
• 24:42
  Yeah. But I just would love to see the
• 24:45
  books on it. Yeah.
• 24:46
  Because I wonder how many casks left left the harbour versus the
• 24:49
  volumes that was produced and how many casks.
• 24:51
  Well, that's well it would be, it would be interest.
• 24:53
  Volume versus it would. Be interest you know old
• 24:56
  Poultney had the records that Ball Blair has because I am
• 24:59
  understand Bal Blair's records back years and years and years
• 25:03
  into the kind of 18. Significant Even so Spayburn
• 25:06
  just to kind of touch on that as well.
• 25:07
  We we've got the original boiler receipt.
• 25:09
  So from 1897 is it maybe, maybe we've got mandates from there,
• 25:13
  but we've got the original boiler receipt.
• 25:15
  So signed by founder, everything's there.
• 25:19
  So So Bal Blair is the third oldest distiller licensed
• 25:23
  distillery in Scotland. Cool, so it's yes right.
• 25:26
  So what what what before we move?
• 25:28
  You're clearly I was. Just to give an honourable
• 25:30
  mention because it's another brand of yours that's definitely
• 25:33
  been mentioned by Dustin Hazelhurst.
• 25:35
  We had on friendly recently how one of her work 3 drams was
• 25:39
  talking about blended Scotch Hanky Bannister.
• 25:42
  Yes. Best name?
• 25:43
  Yes, I mean one of the best names of a Scotch brand.
• 25:47
  It's brilliant, right? Off the tongue.
• 25:48
  Right. Brilliant Beaumont Hanky and
• 25:50
  Hugh Bannister, The founders are.
• 25:52
  Actually a really old brand. I didn't realize because I.
• 25:54
  Had. HB and BH I had.
• 25:56
  A little reason I did not realize that it goes, I mean
• 25:59
  there their business as a kind of wine merchant goes right,
• 26:02
  right back. All the way back, Yeah.
• 26:04
  Do you want to know a wild story that I discovered?
• 26:06
  So I was unearthing a lot of the history because we like Hanky
• 26:08
  Banister. For us, it was a bit of a
• 26:10
  strategic brand for a long time. And it's in Eastern Europe.
• 26:12
  It's huge. You'll go to places in Poland
• 26:14
  and Warsaw. It is like taps, like tap
• 26:17
  cocktails with hanky banisters. Massive.
• 26:19
  But one of my favorite things. I was doing some digging and
• 26:21
  then Doctor Seuss, Captain Hat, you know, he designed the mascot
• 26:26
  for Hanky Banister. Oh, really?
• 26:29
  Yeah. So it was based on World War One
• 26:31
  and it was the pigeons, the carrier pigeons that used to go
• 26:33
  back from the front lines. So he designed a drunken duck
• 26:36
  and a kilt that would carry it to the wrong places.
• 26:39
  And it there's a there's an actual statue of this, a small
• 26:42
  statue that's in. I've still yet to see it, but
• 26:44
  it's in a London library. And so if you Google the hanky
• 26:47
  bird, hanky banister, Doctor Seuss, you will see it.
• 26:50
  That's cool. Google.
• 26:52
  And so there's a. Very arbitrary exact.
• 26:56
  The next week is a very. Arbitrary link to Doctor Seuss
• 26:59
  and Hanky Bastard, Which you'd never know, right?
• 27:02
  You'd never think about. We'd be talking.
• 27:04
  About. No, I know, right?
• 27:07
  But what I was going to say is like, so, you know, you can
• 27:09
  clearly tell that you're a whiskey enthusiast of it.
• 27:12
  Now talk us through then what? What was your starting point in
• 27:16
  whiskey? You'd mentioned about even your
• 27:17
  dad saying, you know, so was your dad a whiskey drink?
• 27:20
  Is it? He was.
• 27:21
  And I, I hated whiskey until I was about 1892.
• 27:24
  I never understood it. I mean, my dad since I was a
• 27:26
  kid, I mean, you're teething, right?
• 27:27
  You'd get around, you're not gums to stop you crying.
• 27:30
  But I never understood. I would taste the stuff that he
• 27:32
  would have and smell it. I'm like, dad, how can you drink
• 27:34
  that? And you would give me, you know,
• 27:36
  let me smell like peated whiskey, bourbons, et cetera.
• 27:39
  I didn't get it, never understood it.
• 27:40
  And when I first fell in love with a whiskey and Ian Allen,
• 27:44
  the global for Glen Murray, I've actually never told him this
• 27:46
  story. So I'm worried about this now
• 27:48
  was the first time I actually enjoyed a whiskey was Glen
• 27:51
  Murray 12. And my dad had gifted it to me
• 27:54
  the start of university. And it sat in my shelf for four
• 27:57
  years just gathering dust. And I was like, Nah, I'll never
• 27:59
  get into it. And then I finished my last
• 28:01
  handings for university and I looked at it and went, I've got
• 28:05
  £1.17 in my bag. And if anyone knows beard or the
• 28:10
  12 pack they used to get, I think that was about £3.50.
• 28:13
  I couldn't afford that. So I was looking at it.
• 28:15
  I went right, OK. So I got stuck into it, I think.
• 28:17
  And I brought a bottle of Coke from, I stole from a flatmate at
• 28:20
  the time. And I started sipping it on its
• 28:22
  own because I thought, you know, Dad will that'll be happy if I
• 28:25
  try that. And I've just loved it.
• 28:27
  It's like this is the first time I've actually enjoyed it.
• 28:29
  I drank about half the bottle my flatmate came in, he'd finished
• 28:31
  his hand in and he went you can you help me the rest of it and
• 28:36
  we finished it and from there I went home and I spoke to dad and
• 28:39
  I was like, look, I know you've told me about petered West and
• 28:41
  this and that and said you would write my boys hope great and
• 28:44
  took me in and started showing me all these different types
• 28:46
  like Sherry's bourbons, etcetera.
• 28:48
  And what you're saying is Glen Murray 12 is best when it's sat
• 28:51
  on my shelf for four years? 100%, yeah, there's yeah,
• 28:53
  alteration and bottle ageing, you know, and then from there.
• 28:57
  So what university? What's that you were at there?
• 28:59
  That was the Dundee, Dundee, Dundee.
• 29:01
  I mean, there's not much else to do.
• 29:02
  It's. Terrible.
• 29:06
  I've got problems up there. Dundee listeners I will say is a
• 29:09
  Fife for Dundee and Fife always have a little bit but my
• 29:11
  grandfather always used to say. Kingdom of Fife.
• 29:13
  You can't I the Kingdom, absolutely.
• 29:14
  There seem to be whiskey Kingdom of Fife, but my grandfather
• 29:17
  knows you can't. Why?
• 29:18
  Folk in Dundee never smile, eh? Because when it rains, all the
• 29:21
  water just runs down the city and runs through it.
• 29:24
  So. But that was that was his.
• 29:25
  That was his keeps. Place clean though, you know.
• 29:29
  Yeah. So that was your, that was your
• 29:31
  way in. And when did you decide?
• 29:33
  When did you decide to get into working in whiskey then?
• 29:36
  So I never really knew what I wanted to do.
• 29:38
  So I was in an international business degree and I had no
• 29:40
  idea what I wanted to do. But I knew I loved spirits and I
• 29:42
  was working in bars and pubs and I'd worked as a comedy smelly
• 29:45
  for a festive period with Glen Eagles.
• 29:46
  That kind of give me a bit of an inspiration around like flavour
• 29:49
  and nosing and palate and the culture and history behind
• 29:52
  product. Yeah.
• 29:53
  We're not just seeing it as, you know, sewers, apple sewers and
• 29:56
  all that, you know, and drinking for the sake of drinking.
• 29:59
  And when I was with him with another flatmate, he said
• 30:01
  there's careers fair down there, down at the university.
• 30:04
  Do you want to go down? There's some whiskey guys.
• 30:06
  I was like, OK, so I went down. And Shivas, who were doing an
• 30:09
  ambassador programme, they still do it to this day, an incredible
• 30:12
  programme. I applied for that and it's a
• 30:14
  pretty rigorous process. You go through that.
• 30:17
  You do like kind of mock interviews and mock media
• 30:20
  really. Really.
• 30:20
  Well, I suppose if you're going. To be a brand ambassador, you're
• 30:22
  representative, Yeah. I mean, we've spoken to a few
• 30:25
  brand ambassadors before. I mean, Brown comes to mind,
• 30:28
  yeah. Yeah.
• 30:30
  You know, former actor and it was like the presentations, I
• 30:33
  can't remember the exact story, but the presentations he put on
• 30:36
  when he was applying, so the current role he was in, I mean,
• 30:38
  they were incredible. The amount of kind of
• 30:40
  preparation and. Yeah.
• 30:41
  Absolutely. He was doing, you know, the
• 30:43
  really. Regret.
• 30:44
  Well, you forget. Like when you're representing a
• 30:45
  brand. One mistake.
• 30:47
  Oh, you know. And it's important, you know,
• 30:49
  and I think there's a level of like what we do specifically
• 30:51
  'cause every company is different.
• 30:53
  You know, some like Danny Dyer, know, you've had the podcast.
• 30:55
  He was representing grants. He was Grants, but.
• 30:57
  He won that. Yeah, Yeah.
• 30:59
  Yeah, I actually entered the same competition and said when
• 31:01
  you got it, Yeah, yeah. I'll never forgive him.
• 31:05
  I know, right? He won it, but there's a level
• 31:07
  of kind of chameleon aspect, you know, it's like it was paper and
• 31:10
  versus the read versus that, you know, you kind of have to adapt
• 31:12
  to it. And then it's not just brand to
• 31:13
  brand, it's the portfolio. So is it a high end tasting?
• 31:16
  Is it a low end? So there's a level to that.
• 31:18
  But I applied to it, I got through it and it was great.
• 31:20
  And I'm thinking, you know, I'll be UK or Scotland ambassador
• 31:24
  India. Really.
• 31:25
  Oh, really, India? Well, I know.
• 31:27
  That they go the. Ground.
• 31:28
  Yeah, Yeah. So I, I was sent to India for
• 31:31
  two years. I think it was there.
• 31:33
  So Gurgaon. Oh yeah, Gurgaon broke Bangalore
• 31:36
  in Mumbai. But Gurgaon is kind of my my
• 31:37
  central. Ah, here we go.
• 31:39
  So I was a bit in Bangalore. So Bangalore, I was there the
• 31:43
  least it was Mumbai and Gurgaon. Bangalore, I'm trying to
• 31:46
  remember where we were but it was not.
• 31:47
  Is it the 1000 foot? Roads 100 feet Rd. 100 feet Rd.
• 31:50
  Yeah. So we weren't far off that, but
• 31:51
  I didn't do a huge amount of activity in Bangalore because
• 31:53
  you'll know, right? What was it you were like?
• 31:54
  What when you're in India? What are you doing as a brand
• 31:57
  ambassador? So I was the single malts
• 31:58
  ambassador, OK, But you'll know the tax rate going in.
• 32:00
  It's just that's why Gurgaon, we were talking about this, that's
• 32:04
  the lowest in the whole event. Yeah, yeah, It's incredible.
• 32:07
  Haryana, right? Yeah.
• 32:07
  So it's, and then Mumbai, Maharashtra is just
• 32:10
  extortionate. So you inevitably organically
• 32:13
  end up going to like pretty bougie places.
• 32:15
  You know, you're walking around. It's like, which football team
• 32:17
  do you? And I was like, are you talking
• 32:18
  really? I got a bit of a crash Uber
• 32:21
  here, I got an auto, so that was pretty wild, but I was there.
• 32:25
  I did 27 cities in about 20 months.
• 32:27
  Right. So, so because this is the one
• 32:29
  thing we we've talked to brand ambassador so many times about
• 32:32
  and, and it's like we see the brand ambassador lifestyle of,
• 32:36
  you know, delivering tastings or sometimes even just weekend by
• 32:39
  weekend being a different whiskey festival and different
• 32:41
  fairs and stuff like that. But there's another element to
• 32:44
  it, you know, there's the training that you have to do.
• 32:45
  There's going into bars, there's talking to members of staff,
• 32:48
  trying to convince, not convinced, but try and sell the
• 32:51
  product and brand to the brand, to the people behind the bar.
• 32:53
  Yeah. So that when they have to pick
• 32:55
  up a bottle off a shelf, it's a bottle that you've told them
• 32:58
  back. So when you're in India, then So
• 32:59
  what, what are you doing as a brand ambassador in India?
• 33:02
  What were you doing in the? Central, Are you there
• 33:03
  effectively yourself or is there a team around you or?
• 33:06
  There there's a team around us. So we had, I was reporting into
• 33:09
  the brand manager, the national brand manager for single malts
• 33:11
  portfolios. That was Glenn live at Scapa
• 33:13
  Longmore and in Aberlaver, right.
• 33:15
  So we were covering all of them and, and different parts of
• 33:17
  India have different levels of money, right?
• 33:19
  Yeah, Mumbai versus Punjab or Patiala Pig, I'm sure you
• 33:22
  probably know that it's like the biggest drinkers in Punjab or in
• 33:25
  Patiala, you know, it's big, big drinking culture, but it really
• 33:28
  depends what you're doing. So staff trainings or staff
• 33:30
  trainings actually kind of bread and butter in your is.
• 33:32
  That hotels 9:00 to 5:00 in. Hotels.
• 33:34
  Bars. Exactly.
• 33:36
  And mainly hotels and high end bars, right Jameson guys, they
• 33:39
  were heading to kind of university bars lower, lower
• 33:43
  like cash range spaces. It just so happened because of
• 33:45
  that tax rate. I mean, it was 120% or something
• 33:48
  coming into the yeah, into the the country.
• 33:51
  And then each state had its own tax on top of that.
• 33:53
  So what? Would you mean so what's a
• 33:54
  drama? So, so was this with this wasn't
• 33:57
  within the House said. No, no, this was with ternary
• 33:59
  card service, yeah. So you're talking about like
• 34:01
  Glenn Livet then, for example. Yeah, right.
• 34:03
  What was a Glenn? What's a drama Glenn Livet
• 34:05
  called? Testing me now.
• 34:06
  So I think a bottle of Glenn Livet now we'd be looking at in
• 34:09
  GBP what, 45 pounds, 40 lbs, I'm trying to think.
• 34:13
  Over there, No, no, no. Over Here 12.
• 34:15
  Year old Glenn Livet. Here here.
• 34:17
  Here about 40. Four.
• 34:18
  Yeah. So what do you?
• 34:19
  What do you? What's that?
• 34:20
  Really be in Maharashtra, Mumbai, highest tax rate and
• 34:23
  you'd be looking about £120. Yeah, GBP.
• 34:26
  So then when you're looking at trying to drama, that as well.
• 34:28
  It's a very different level. I mean like I'm not made of
• 34:31
  money, I'm not buying a Glen of the 12, you know, if it's a
• 34:33
  bottle, that's a very different level.
• 34:35
  So ultimately you're going to pretty high end places and
• 34:38
  you're suited and booted and doing that.
• 34:40
  But when it came to staff trainings, you were training bar
• 34:41
  staff who unfortunately just used to the economic system,
• 34:44
  just didn't have the opportunity to taste it.
• 34:45
  So that in itself was a very exciting time to be able to
• 34:49
  share that because I think Cody talked to this as well.
• 34:51
  Bartenders are your. Best advocate?
• 34:52
  Yeah, that's. Absolutely, because it comes
• 34:54
  from a very organic space. And that was the really exciting
• 34:57
  part was to be able to share whiskey that we get is
• 35:00
  commonplace with bartenders who are just in a position that and
• 35:04
  I was, I was also in the exact same position that luckily I was
• 35:06
  working for the brand that yeah, for free.
• 35:09
  But you I would have been the exact same position on the
• 35:11
  salary I was on that I couldn't afford that or justify doing.
• 35:13
  For that well, that's that's it. But one of the you mentioned
• 35:16
  this I don't think I've mentioned it on the pod, but
• 35:18
  I've definitely spoken about it was when I was last out there in
• 35:21
  January. I took the whiskey stories yeah
• 35:23
  25 year old blamed yeah nice. I took it out with me and it
• 35:27
  was. OK, you were our brand.
• 35:28
  Number I was a brand number one bottle.
• 35:30
  I sold none. But, but basically I, I did a
• 35:34
  bit of sort of networking when I was out there.
• 35:36
  Who, you know, I spoke to few guys and there was actually I,
• 35:38
  I, we never got an opportunity to do it.
• 35:40
  But these guys were cocktail bar in Bangalore that especially
• 35:43
  like they do whiskey and stuff like that, but they have their
• 35:45
  own podcast as well right now. The problem was with the way
• 35:48
  that we ended up getting in touch.
• 35:49
  We just couldn't, couldn't end up getting the meeting in the
• 35:51
  right time. But I ended up meeting them
• 35:53
  three or four days before I flew home.
• 35:54
  We just couldn't get a date. We were going to do a a
• 35:56
  crossover podcast with them, by the way, got charged them and I
• 36:00
  thought, right, I'll take, I'll take my bottle.
• 36:01
  A bar full of Shivas products. Well, that was The funny thing
• 36:04
  is when you go there very heavy on the sort of main brands that
• 36:07
  you're looking. Yeah, you ultimately are.
• 36:09
  Yeah, and I've taken a bottle, brought, brought my bottle with
• 36:11
  me. I thought, right, I'll be
• 36:12
  hospitable. Plonked the bottle on the table
• 36:15
  and these guys are like, what's this?
• 36:16
  I said it's it's it's our blind Now, firstly, it just shows you
• 36:20
  like people are so brand orientated in India because they
• 36:24
  see the same brands over the bar.
• 36:26
  Glenn Leather, Ardmore, Aberlawa are, you know, very heavily on
• 36:30
  Chivas was actually everywhere you kind of looked.
• 36:31
  It was all that Diageo ones, Johnny Walker and all that kind
• 36:34
  of stuff. But so they're looking at this
• 36:36
  and going and what's this? And I'm trying to split the
• 36:37
  independently bottled side of things.
• 36:39
  Just completely bloodiest of that.
• 36:40
  I don't understand it. But then you say it's 25 year
• 36:43
  old Scotch. Yeah, what?
• 36:44
  And I said 25 year old Scotch. I said pour a drum.
• 36:48
  And he says no, no, no, no, we can't do that.
• 36:50
  I said, no, have it. I brought it for you guys to
• 36:51
  try. And the guy's got a glass out
• 36:54
  one of the bar and he's poured, poured.
• 36:56
  I said, come on, what a proper drum, right?
• 36:58
  And he's, he's like, I can't, I don't want to take this off you.
• 36:59
  I was like, listen, mate, we've got boxes and stuff.
• 37:02
  Some of these bottles are still available, but I said well, try
• 37:05
  it. And I said and the bar star,
• 37:07
  he's calling them over and they're like getting outside.
• 37:09
  And then I was like, get your make up, make an old fashioned
• 37:11
  out of it. Let's see, you know they're
• 37:13
  gonna go. Panic, right?
• 37:14
  Absolutely. Bag then they got excited and
• 37:16
  they're like they were saying like this is the guy was he got
• 37:19
  his camera and started taking photos.
• 37:20
  We're all taking selfies with the bottle and stuff and he was
• 37:23
  start saying like this must be at the time in the area.
• 37:26
  Is it one of the most expensive bottles open right now?
• 37:28
  100 and Bangalore 25 year old because he said how much is this
• 37:31
  now? We reasonably retailed this at I
• 37:33
  think it was £71 was it or £80.88?
• 37:36
  Price that's. Fantastic A.
• 37:38
  Great, a great. Any available still?
• 37:40
  There's a few minimum minimal, there's a like 4 lorry loads.
• 37:47
  I feel like they'll my trot with my bar.
• 37:49
  I know, right? I've had a load full of this
• 37:50
  stuff. This time next year, I guess
• 37:52
  we'll be millionaires. But select bottles.
• 37:54
  Now there's a few bottles left. There's only 69.
• 37:56
  So I think we've got about 65. No, we, we sold a good few.
• 38:00
  But no wait, I took over there. But The funny thing was right
• 38:03
  and I said, listen, leave it behind the bar.
• 38:06
  Yeah, right. I think I, I've take, I've got
• 38:08
  about six or seven that I've kept back.
• 38:10
  We're going to use for a few tastes and some good things to
• 38:12
  hand over as gift gifts to people.
• 38:13
  So put it behind the bar and the guys that I can't, I spit behind
• 38:16
  the bar and he said if I get caught with the rules here over
• 38:20
  the time, if I get caught, not that I said I'll lose my.
• 38:22
  License. It's a it's a really, it's
• 38:24
  really, really, really important.
• 38:26
  It's crazy. And there was days that we would
• 38:28
  have tastings or even like big events that we had invested
• 38:30
  heavily in to promote a certain product or whatever.
• 38:32
  And then all of a sudden it was just a dry day, just randomly
• 38:35
  and you're like. It's like it's.
• 38:36
  Like, what do you mean? It's like everything's
• 38:37
  cancelling, like, OK, right, that's that down the toilet what
• 38:41
  we do so. That this is something that
• 38:42
  happens in India on a regular basis, holiday, kind of
• 38:44
  religious observance, yeah. A lot of religious observance,
• 38:47
  but there was one day where a politician died he just passed
• 38:50
  away and it was seemed recognized immediately that day
• 38:53
  resting a dry day and it was like OK and that just wouldn't
• 38:55
  happen here in any other culture but.
• 38:57
  That. Guy there's I don't there's ever
• 38:59
  a dry day in Scotland, no. Well, in Karnataka, where one of
• 39:04
  the the wedding when we were over there I guess was I think
• 39:06
  you guys are all gone not. Many dry days.
• 39:08
  There, there wasn't, but there was a seriously, not long after
• 39:12
  you guys had left and it was there was the there were just
• 39:16
  all protests banned. They called it and it was
• 39:20
  Karnataka banned, which is like the protest and to the point
• 39:23
  where it gets quite heated. It was all over water sources
• 39:25
  between two. I think the Karnataka state had
• 39:28
  given up some of their water source to the neighboring state
• 39:31
  and all the Karnataka guys and the states.
• 39:33
  You're very proud of their state origins.
• 39:35
  Yeah. And so basically, you know what
• 39:37
  was happening was in Karnataka, the the the language that they
• 39:40
  speak is Canada. Yeah.
• 39:41
  And to the point where and and. The partially Howard the way
• 39:45
  India, Indian regions are divided generally by linguistic
• 39:48
  lines, yeah. So what what there's there's
• 39:51
  certain places where they'll say like if you don't speak Canada,
• 39:53
  you know, it's like France, if you go to France, Paris, they
• 39:56
  always say like the French will ignore you if you don't try and
• 39:58
  speak French. Certain parts, yeah, there's,
• 39:59
  there's areas like that, that there's areas of Bangalore where
• 40:03
  if you don't speak Canada, even if you try and speak Hindi,
• 40:06
  they'll just say. It's amazing.
• 40:08
  A friend of mine, Hemant, who was the Bacardi ambassador,
• 40:11
  great guy, but he spoke 5 languages, 6 languages.
• 40:15
  And we're at the airport once together and there was this
• 40:17
  husband and wife shouting and screaming at each other.
• 40:18
  And I was like, what they say? And he was like, I don't know.
• 40:20
  And when I was like, what do you mean?
• 40:21
  He was like, well, they're speaking.
• 40:22
  I think there's Maharati or something else like, but you.
• 40:24
  And he was like, yeah, I speak 6 languages.
• 40:25
  That's not one of them. Yeah, it's like, yeah, but.
• 40:27
  It's there's like 27 different language or dialects in India
• 40:31
  and it's just incredible when you meet somebody say yeah, I
• 40:33
  speak 6 languages. They speak in the house and then
• 40:35
  over there and there they. Speak three in the house.
• 40:37
  So but but and I know which one whenever I'm trying to learn
• 40:40
  Canada and I know when they're speaking about me is the other
• 40:42
  one. Yeah.
• 40:43
  But when you're see when you're doing these tastings then right
• 40:45
  and you're talking about high end and stuff of that sort of do
• 40:47
  you get put in the room or did you never get put in the room
• 40:50
  with some of the big, big dogs And and in the word, was that
• 40:53
  literally to sell high end products for the brands you're
• 40:56
  working? For yeah, absolutely.
• 40:57
  I mean, like I just one name that came to mind.
• 40:59
  I don't know if you remember James Bond with the big seat guy
• 41:01
  Kabir Betty, we can do. It was he one of the.
• 41:05
  He was like, I think he's, I mean in real life, he's like
• 41:07
  6566 big shoulders. Is it one of the films?
• 41:11
  Yeah, I did a tasting where he was in attendance.
• 41:12
  Really. That was pretty cool because I
• 41:14
  was looking at him like that's a big guy, That's a big guy.
• 41:17
  And at the end of it I just asked because I had no idea who
• 41:19
  she was because I didn't actually recognize him.
• 41:20
  I was like, who's that man That's give your beddy That's,
• 41:22
  you know, big Bollywood guy. And I was like, that's how the
• 41:24
  golden James Bond is it OK, right.
• 41:26
  Cool. But you were, you were in rooms
• 41:28
  with, in some cases, billionaires.
• 41:30
  Yeah, really, really wealthy because you've seen the
• 41:33
  disparity and, well, of course, exists in India.
• 41:35
  You're in the room with some and stupidly rich people.
• 41:37
  And it's a percentage game. As well, Because you look at it
• 41:39
  and you say, right, OK, maybe there's only like A 1% or 2 to
• 41:43
  3% of the population in India can actually afford a lifestyle
• 41:46
  where you can be regularly buying Scotch whiskey and
• 41:49
  drinking it. But the point is you're talking
• 41:51
  about a population of billions. So that 3%?
• 41:55
  Is massive, massive, but I absolutely adored my time there
• 41:58
  because it was just some of the best food the the most
• 42:00
  hospitable human beings on planet Earth that I've
• 42:03
  experienced. Now I've been very blessed to be
• 42:05
  able to travel extensively with work, etcetera and and
• 42:07
  personally as well. But I remember I would go to
• 42:10
  cities that would regularly visit and my friends would see
• 42:12
  me like post something up and Instagram be like, why are you
• 42:14
  not staying with me? What do you mean?
• 42:15
  I was like, well, you know the company's yeah they were like
• 42:18
  you said you're and they'd be angry.
• 42:19
  I'm really sorry and it's like you said you'd come over I was
• 42:23
  going to cook your dinner and they'd be genuinely upset with
• 42:25
  you and I've I've never experienced food hospitality
• 42:28
  like it anywhere else in the world just organically, you
• 42:31
  know, just people really wanting you to come into their home.
• 42:34
  Honestly, I love it. I absolutely.
• 42:35
  Adore it. They did.
• 42:36
  We did. We was a Blair was a Blair.
• 42:38
  Well, I was going to mentioned this actually, because it's a
• 42:40
  nice it's a nice little coincidence is that I came out
• 42:44
  obviously figured Graham got married in Bangalore.
• 42:47
  Yes, and I went out for the wedding.
• 42:49
  Shout out to the. My mom was twisted training
• 42:55
  there. Mom was twisted and I took I
• 42:59
  took out a bowl. Blair Travel exclusive 15 year
• 43:02
  olds. Yes yeah yeah yeah.
• 43:04
  As my kind of cause Graham kind of said bring out a draft.
• 43:06
  Well, I mean, I don't know if you even said it.
• 43:08
  I just. No, we did, because being.
• 43:10
  Out a few bottles you said you won't be able to get any whiskey
• 43:12
  on. Your I was saying it cost you a
• 43:13
  fortunate you were. There, you know, so we were so
• 43:15
  I, I brought that out and, and actually it was one of the more
• 43:18
  popular ones. So I it was one of those ones
• 43:20
  where. 15 year old yeah, I really, I really.
• 43:22
  Do everybody else drank that bottle very quickly and I
• 43:24
  managed to get a couple of drams out.
• 43:26
  But you know what? You know what?
• 43:28
  It was absolutely delightful. Well, that was The thing is the
• 43:30
  way we, we had the organised wedding was basically and I, The
• 43:35
  thing is with India is when you get a group, big group of Indian
• 43:37
  people together, there's so many people that don't drink alcohol.
• 43:40
  There's some, some of them that really love a drink and stuff
• 43:42
  like that. So what my father-in-law had
• 43:44
  said was like, look, you've got, you've got 20 odd folk here that
• 43:47
  are coming from Scotland or like a drink.
• 43:49
  So that was it. That was a trade off.
• 43:51
  We I covered the booze, he covered everything else.
• 43:53
  So I said that's fine. So I'm now and you know, the
• 43:55
  culture over in India, it's like it's haggle a little bit as
• 43:58
  well. A.
• 43:58
  Little bit, yeah. Father-in-law has a as a phrase
• 44:00
  where he goes. He just says what you're giving.
• 44:03
  So you'll see, you'll go. And he actually found out the
• 44:05
  hard way when he came with Harvey Nicks in Edinburgh,
• 44:08
  visited Edinburgh. He spent an absolute small
• 44:09
  fortune, right. And then as the time.
• 44:12
  No, he didn't. Yeah, he's running it up.
• 44:14
  I mean, he spent a fortune and then she rang it up and said the
• 44:18
  price and he looked at and he went, what do you what you given
• 44:20
  like that? And she went or a seat in a
• 44:21
  handshake. Fair, that's a good answer.
• 44:26
  But there but the so I'm start speaking to the lad.
• 44:30
  I'm saying listen right. So we're ordering how many I had
• 44:33
  to pre-order the beer, right, And I'm ordering the beer and
• 44:36
  Kingfisher. Kingfisher ultras broke.
• 44:38
  My ultras went ultras Jesus Kingfisher like.
• 44:40
  Spencer. And then, then it was the wine.
• 44:42
  And it's like, right, some great wine in India.
• 44:44
  Well, that's. Really, really good.
• 44:46
  Local for that so that wasn't too bad and then it was the
• 44:48
  spirits and you're trying to work out like who did what do
• 44:50
  you need a bottle of vodka in there?
• 44:52
  So we had to get you know so there's a smart enough bottle of
• 44:54
  vodka and then it was the whiskey right.
• 44:56
  I'm saying right, we've got and I'm trying to convince the boy
• 44:58
  and he said look, I'm saying hope my current wife and her
• 45:03
  father don't listen. This is a charge more than the
• 45:04
  food. Give me discount on the drink.
• 45:06
  Really take your prices up with the food that just take the
• 45:10
  margin you're going. To take it off at the other end
• 45:12
  of the food. Anyway, what are you giving?
• 45:14
  Exactly. But basically he said look, I'm
• 45:17
  trying my best and it was Glenfiddich 12 was all we could
• 45:19
  get a job. It's a fantastic DRAM, but it
• 45:21
  was going to cost us between 120 a 130 LB a ball.
• 45:25
  And that's it, I. Said I can't and he and I argued
• 45:27
  and argued that, he said. Let's have to settle for Balboa
• 45:30
  50. No so well, so that was the plan
• 45:31
  which. Every everyone fill your bag as.
• 45:33
  Soon, well, that was it and we had strategically located areas
• 45:36
  around the hotel well. It was quite nice because
• 45:38
  everybody brought up different. Things, yeah.
• 45:40
  Never had flats. And as a whiskey lover, you
• 45:43
  would have loved that as well because like people are
• 45:44
  surprised, you know, like, oh, it's like, you know, that's
• 45:46
  brilliant. When you get gift like cards for
• 45:48
  your wedding or something, it's like, oh, that's the same card
• 45:50
  over and over again. You would have seen repetitions,
• 45:53
  but every so often there would have been like oh fuck what?
• 45:55
  What was really nice was the appreciation of because, you
• 45:57
  know, there was a few of the Indian family out there who, you
• 46:00
  know, they like the DRAM, but they only like the DRAM of what
• 46:02
  they had available to them, right?
• 46:04
  So suddenly you're able to say, oh, I think there was a travel
• 46:07
  exclusive Glenferrick as well. What we brought, I don't know
• 46:10
  what age it was. I remember.
• 46:11
  Yeah, there. Were a few but, but basically
• 46:13
  I'm saying, you know, you're Glenferrick and this person I'm
• 46:14
  speaking to my, my, my wife's uncle, he's going, yeah,
• 46:17
  Glenferrick 12. This is like a 16 or an 18, you
• 46:20
  know, Glenferrick 18. And of course, and that's when
• 46:23
  the next thing is like age that that, that when you're doing
• 46:26
  these tastings, right? And the market is where the
• 46:30
  market goes, if you know what I mean.
• 46:31
  And one of the things that you'll maybe see is that some
• 46:33
  markets really chase the age because there's the especially
• 46:36
  with the way in the eyes, I think like the society that you
• 46:39
  have is people will sit there and go, I'm rich, I can afford
• 46:43
  this, ergo, why would I drink that when I like a non age
• 46:46
  statement or something like that, when that 21 year old must
• 46:49
  be the best. So I want that 21 year old
• 46:51
  versus like what we were speaking about.
• 46:52
  Earlier and it's that that mindset is consolidated in in a
• 46:55
  place like India cause of that tax rate and that value, right.
• 46:57
  It just is. And what I didn't quite realise
• 46:59
  is what I was opening in these tastings and these staff
• 47:01
  trainings where 18 year old Glenn Livet's right.
• 47:04
  It was really expensive stuff as it goes and I didn't really
• 47:08
  think about it because, well, first of all, I'm getting it for
• 47:10
  free. So, you know, I'm not really,
• 47:12
  you know, still am, but it's that whole, you didn't really
• 47:17
  appreciate what you were doing for, for, for bartenders over in
• 47:21
  India because you're opening up. It's like, you guys look, you
• 47:23
  need to know this and I'm opening up.
• 47:25
  You see people's faces and I was like, what's happening?
• 47:27
  I went, oh, I actually what I'm opening here is a £500 bottle of
• 47:31
  whiskey as far as you're concerned, whereas over here
• 47:34
  it's nowhere near that level of price.
• 47:35
  For us, you know, a £500 bottle of whiskey, we no, no, no a. 100
• 47:38
  I would have been the exact I was the I I would have been.
• 47:40
  Exactly. But of course.
• 47:43
  But but in terms of was that a challenge that was your role
• 47:46
  then push premium. Because as we're saying, we're
• 47:50
  whiskey drinkers and you're a whiskey fan and you're saying to
• 47:53
  yourself like actually the the difficulty is, is I know that's
• 47:57
  really, really good liquid. Yeah, right.
• 47:59
  But I also know that if I put that in a line up, besides these
• 48:02
  two other bottles which are more premium, that's going to get
• 48:05
  forgotten about. Even though if you were to say
• 48:07
  put three, I won't get you to name them if you were to pick 3
• 48:10
  drams, right? I think, I think you could.
• 48:12
  I think we, I think I know you're getting at here is, but I
• 48:14
  understand aspects like the nature of being in India and the
• 48:18
  nature of the price point that it sat at.
• 48:20
  You didn't have a choice, you know, whereas maybe over here or
• 48:22
  in different countries, you could say it's the best DRAM,
• 48:25
  it's the right DRAM for the right person.
• 48:26
  Yeah. You didn't have that option in
• 48:28
  India because by by the nature of the price point, yeah, 18 is
• 48:31
  better. And it didn't matter what you
• 48:33
  said. You're not changing this
• 48:35
  ingrained mentality around that. Yeah, at the highest level and
• 48:39
  the only people who could do with, there's a great whiskey
• 48:41
  club in Mumbai and we we spoke to them.
• 48:43
  They have that understanding. Which one was that I'm.
• 48:46
  Trying to remember. The name come across a single
• 48:47
  more amateur club. No, it wasn't them.
• 48:50
  I, I, I came out, I met them. They're they're.
• 48:52
  Great. It'll come to me.
• 48:53
  And we met a couple of times and we had some great trams, but
• 48:56
  they had that mentality. It was like, no, I prefer Glenn
• 48:58
  Live at 12 because it's more bourbon, it's more fruity, it's
• 49:00
  more tropical, you see more spirit character.
• 49:02
  And the other the other side of it, maybe they just sees the
• 49:05
  age. Everyone else.
• 49:07
  Everyone else. Says that bottle is £500.
• 49:10
  That bottle is £200. Exactly.
• 49:12
  And from a commercial point of view, that was ultimately what
• 49:15
  you're driving for is that you, you just reinforced you, you
• 49:17
  inevitably had to or not had to. That was what we were asked to
• 49:20
  do, is reinforce that concept of like, Yep, this is not.
• 49:23
  Better. Why?
• 49:23
  Why wouldn't you? No, you're a business.
• 49:25
  And that that was sad because it's like we're seeing, we're
• 49:27
  seeing it, you know, like I think the Jack, as we're
• 49:31
  recording this, you know, it's only a few weeks ago, I think
• 49:33
  Jack Daniels managed to get there.
• 49:35
  They've got it down to 70 odd percent.
• 49:38
  Or is it down to 100% just now taxes from 150, whatever it is.
• 49:42
  But now the worry is, is the fact that tax on bourbon and tax
• 49:46
  on Jack Daniels and bourbon and, and in India has dropped.
• 49:49
  It's not. Just that Daniels.
• 49:51
  Yeah. Bourbon.
• 49:51
  Yeah. Bourbon.
• 49:52
  So you're suddenly saying there's a real chance that the
• 49:55
  Scotch market loses out big time because what that's going to do
• 49:59
  is it's suddenly made brands like Jack Daniels and American
• 50:03
  bourbon affordable drink. And with the way that the the
• 50:07
  Indian markets going, we're only seeing the emergence of like a
• 50:10
  middle class in India in the last 20 odd years.
• 50:13
  And what's happening is, you know, people who are our age are
• 50:18
  in the, you know, they're in their late 20s, early 30s.
• 50:20
  They're getting used to now going actually now I can't
• 50:23
  afford to go And, and I want to, I want a Scotch.
• 50:26
  I want to try Jack Daniels. I want to see, because they're
• 50:29
  seeing it. They've seen the marketing,
• 50:30
  they've seen it all across the world.
• 50:32
  Now they're saying, well, that's an accessible drink now.
• 50:35
  And the one is that there could be a whole market of potential
• 50:39
  Scotch drinkers completely lost there.
• 50:41
  Because what they're going to do now is they're going to go to
• 50:43
  Burbank. Yeah.
• 50:44
  And I think there's something to be said for that for the the
• 50:46
  general consumer in India. But what's really incredible
• 50:49
  looking at India is the education level around bars.
• 50:52
  It's some of the best cocktail bars, some of the most
• 50:54
  incredible food spots. There's a place called Mask in
• 50:56
  Mumbai that I'm a huge fan of. And they've just, I think moved
• 50:59
  premises as well. But they were, I think they won
• 51:02
  best restaurant in India, if not Asia, don't quote me on that.
• 51:05
  But like the education level is there.
• 51:07
  So people that are have that purchasing power for Scotch as
• 51:10
  well as bourbon etcetera, price for them doesn't necessarily
• 51:14
  come into question, flavour and profile and style does.
• 51:17
  But I think there's an education level in that space who can
• 51:20
  afford scotches etcetera, because there is an expense
• 51:22
  thing and that comes down to general volume concept.
• 51:24
  But they they know what they want and it's and if that's
• 51:27
  bourbon, great. And if that's Scotch, that's
• 51:28
  Scotch. But there's an education
• 51:30
  understanding that Scotch has this distinct different to
• 51:31
  bourbon, which is different to Irish, which is different
• 51:33
  etcetera. And that's what what's great
• 51:35
  about it, because in that space, high tide rises all boats.
• 51:39
  Yeah, right. And there's that level of kind
• 51:40
  of not natural selection, but competition that drives.
• 51:43
  Quality suddenly the Jack Daniels might become the middle
• 51:46
  range brand, whereas if you want a Glen limit, yeah, suddenly
• 51:49
  it's like, Oh well, you drink Glen limit, you're a fly
• 51:51
  society, you're not like, yeah, not like the the the guys that
• 51:54
  can't afford to be less. Less judgment.
• 51:56
  In spaces the. Modern Indian.
• 51:57
  Consumers. Yeah.
• 51:58
  And of course, in a, in a, in a kind of aspirational society,
• 52:01
  that that plays a huge part as well.
• 52:03
  Yeah, You know you've got. Because our parents would have
• 52:04
  been that, you know, they would have fruit in India like our
• 52:07
  parents would have been like, if you're not drinking another 15,
• 52:09
  I don't want to know you. Whereas if you brought over a
• 52:11
  Jack Daniels. It would be like, right?
• 52:13
  Well, we can get that. Great.
• 52:14
  I love, you know, I love Jack Daniels or or Single Barrel,
• 52:16
  wherever it was, and then you actually have a place for.
• 52:18
  It and did you ever come across the guys telly hoe or what's the
• 52:23
  you do like the best bars in India?
• 52:24
  Well, I can't remember the name Vikramachant.
• 52:26
  I think his name. Is I know Vikramachant.
• 52:28
  Yeah. I'm trying to invite his face.
• 52:29
  I I oh, my God, you're driving me nuts here.
• 52:32
  The bartenders that have come out of India are outstanding.
• 52:35
  Specialist. So Vikram, he I think it's his
• 52:38
  his 30 best bars in India. He runs by his big and big in
• 52:42
  the whiskey. Bring it like that, that so,
• 52:43
  yeah. I've met Vikram a few times and
• 52:44
  I'm trying to place in the amount of times I've met him,
• 52:46
  but yeah, it's. He knows.
• 52:48
  He's done a he did a podcast not long ago and I was listening to
• 52:51
  him speaking and I was like, yeah.
• 52:52
  No, I think that was the podcast.
• 52:53
  I think that was with the guys that did the podcast Soca Bar in
• 52:57
  Bangalore. I think it was Soca and it's
• 52:59
  fascinating. But yeah, India chat we go.
• 53:01
  Sorry. I know, I know, I.
• 53:02
  Know it sounds like you're a great two years always.
• 53:04
  Good fun. OK, So what?
• 53:05
  What happened? What happened next after you
• 53:08
  left India? So when I left India, I was
• 53:09
  actually interviewed for a role for with Douglas Lane.
• 53:12
  OK, so you guys will know Douglas Lane with, you know, Big
• 53:14
  Pete with your heads all the way to the airport.
• 53:17
  You'll see Big P plastered up in the big warehouse now in
• 53:20
  Hillington. So I went there and it was at
• 53:22
  that point we were out of a small townhouse just off a
• 53:25
  Woodlands in Glasgow and that's where I kind of really kind of
• 53:28
  cut my teeth. Could you go from an ambassador?
• 53:30
  Was this not an ambassador role? Then no, this was a it.
• 53:33
  Was a. Global Zoom Ambassador.
• 53:35
  Oh right, this is Lochner. This is dreaded Lochner.
• 53:38
  Well, can I just say Douglas Lena when my wife just bought me
• 53:41
  and it's it's guys in nice as well with conversations.
• 53:44
  Yeah, it's the, I can't remember the name of it now, but it's a
• 53:46
  it's a blend of Indians, Indian malt whiskey and Scotch.
• 53:49
  Oh, does that the, the, the double cask?
• 53:51
  That's it. Yeah.
• 53:52
  Incorrect. Like what?
• 53:53
  Lovely drama, by the way. Solid.
• 53:55
  So hard to do. Like you're taking just two
• 53:57
  casks and you make that decision and this is what we're going to
• 53:59
  do. And then you have to proportion
• 54:01
  that out. And I mean, Graham was, I hadn't
• 54:02
  heard about these the, the range at all.
• 54:05
  But I mean, just such an interesting range to take, not
• 54:08
  just the kind of India and the Scotland thing, but also to just
• 54:10
  say, you know, distillery A, distillery B.
• 54:13
  And this is like, you know. Let's work out.
• 54:15
  Yeah, let's let's work out. Let's make this delicious.
• 54:18
  It's a tough, yeah. It's a very underrated like skew
• 54:21
  within their portfolio as a whole.
• 54:23
  I don't think it gets this is. Really interesting.
• 54:25
  Because if you think about it like, you know, we've had
• 54:26
  blenders on and, and you, you talk about the fact that if
• 54:30
  you're trying to blend whiskeys together, it's easy when you've
• 54:33
  got more ingredients, isn't it? It's like trying to say make who
• 54:35
  was it that was odd? And it talked about a talent
• 54:38
  making a making a spaghetti Bolognese.
• 54:40
  Ian for teeth, right? Yeah, the nicest man in.
• 54:42
  Whiskey. Imagine if he said, right, I
• 54:44
  want you to make a spaghetti Bolognese, but I'm only going to
• 54:46
  give you two types of this ingredient.
• 54:48
  You know, I, I listened. To that episode and I felt so
• 54:50
  vindicated because see that drill down method, I've been
• 54:52
  doing that for years. And then when I heard Dean say
• 54:55
  I'd never heard him say that and I was like, that's my thing.
• 54:57
  Like, that's not my thing. It's like I've been saying that
• 54:59
  and I'm so glad that a master blender is also saying it and
• 55:02
  that's how we get Bolognese. Thing is.
• 55:05
  Right. I I find it really tough as
• 55:06
  well, but you just keep drinking, you know?
• 55:09
  I mean for TV like you said, nice is going.
• 55:11
  Oh brilliant, I've got a huge amount of time for.
• 55:13
  You. But as I say, like if you're
• 55:14
  talking about making spaghetti Bolognese, that's easy when
• 55:17
  you've got loads and loads and loads of ingredients and then
• 55:19
  you can make it even better seasoning, et cetera.
• 55:20
  Yeah. But with what they've done here
• 55:22
  is they've made like they've taken 2 casts from India from a
• 55:24
  distillery, 2 casts from a distillery in Scotland, Yeah.
• 55:27
  And then made a whisky. And at that point, a real
• 55:29
  challenge, it's a massive challenge because like as you
• 55:31
  say, when you're talking about spaghetti Bolognese, you've got
• 55:32
  the onions, you've got the meat, et cetera, the sauce.
• 55:35
  And like if you're just in the tomatoes, the citrus, et cetera,
• 55:38
  whatever you're trying to do, whereas what you're trying to do
• 55:40
  here is taking two casks, right? And then it's purely 51.5%
• 55:44
  versus this. And yeah, you're just adjusting
• 55:47
  it back and forth. Because if you try it and then
• 55:49
  you go, well, we need to take it up a wee bit or we need to.
• 55:51
  You start to put. In the gas more and more and
• 55:53
  more and. More do it, you know, it's just
• 55:54
  you've got 2 casks. It's very underrated side of
• 55:56
  their portfolio and it's incredible, but I don't think it
• 55:58
  gets the noise that it deserves. You know, for.
• 56:00
  How cool and interesting it is from whisky geek point of view.
• 56:02
  That's one we we talked about it didn't We talked about the drive
• 56:06
  up and the record. There was some awful nonsense
• 56:08
  that was spoken. Oh, drive up.
• 56:11
  Thanks for giving me 3 1/2 hours of content that I needed to try
• 56:14
  and squeeze in at 45 minutes. So that didn't make it.
• 56:17
  But what I will say is it's a fantastic DRAM wife.
• 56:20
  It was an early birthday present for me and that's.
• 56:23
  Nice of you, early birthday. I know it was great.
• 56:26
  I don't know why I've done right there, but basically she
• 56:30
  panicked. I bought you a whiskey and
• 56:32
  without sounding terrible, I'm like, Oh no, I don't because you
• 56:36
  don't know or like whiskey. And what you try and do is you
• 56:39
  try and buy a whiskey for me that sometimes the date she's
• 56:43
  done it before, which she'll buy a whiskey is far too expensive
• 56:47
  and what she's got is expensive. So it must be nice.
• 56:49
  So I'll get that for Graham and I go, well, I know, thank you,
• 56:52
  thank you. I'm grateful this is Indian and
• 56:54
  are coming out. It's like Graham, I'm grateful
• 56:56
  for what you've done. Before anyone jumps on me and
• 56:58
  goes, what an ungrateful asshole of husband, But you suddenly go,
• 57:02
  you know, so there was a rule. I don't buy her particular types
• 57:06
  of clothes because I always get it wrong.
• 57:07
  Yeah, she doesn't buy me whiskey because there's a chance that
• 57:10
  she might not get it right. But she said, look, I've done
• 57:12
  it, I'm sorry. She's apologising for getting me
• 57:16
  a birthday present. That's how terrible it is.
• 57:17
  You sound an awful. I know, I know.
• 57:19
  I know a toxic husband. I'm digging myself out.
• 57:21
  Oh yeah. But basically it was fantastic.
• 57:23
  And we've got a six month old because the reason it was an
• 57:26
  early birthday present was her daughter turned 6 months.
• 57:28
  And you know, half Indian, half Scottish, wee lassie.
• 57:31
  Fantastic. That's a pair regardless of if
• 57:34
  you like the whiskey or not, Graham.
• 57:36
  Likes his children like he likes his whiskey.
• 57:38
  Blended but but and it's great. It's the it's the Unicorn head
• 57:46
  with a Bengal tiger body. That's incredible and.
• 57:49
  You know what? See if you don't like the
• 57:50
  whiskey, right? Ultimately, if you end up not
• 57:52
  liking it and see the concept of it.
• 57:54
  It fits the bill. I've already ordered another
• 57:56
  bottle. Yeah, I I said I'll crack home
• 57:58
  and we'll try it. Tried it.
• 57:59
  I said absolutely love it. We're getting in Arpan.
• 58:01
  And my wife, she does not like whiskey at all, but she is, I
• 58:05
  would say, compared to me anyway, a super.
• 58:08
  Super taster. A super smeller, yeah.
• 58:09
  I can actually, what I've done in the past is I would say right
• 58:12
  I was sitting having a DRAM usually on a Friday night you
• 58:14
  get on DRAM weekend DRAM local. And what I would do is I would
• 58:18
  get the bottle, get the drink and get the tasting notes
• 58:20
  because as I've mentioned, I cannot taste it.
• 58:22
  And I just put it in front of her and say, what do you smell?
• 58:24
  And after she goes smells like whiskey.
• 58:27
  Afterwards she goes. But I'm getting.
• 58:29
  See, when I'm doing the weekend, I'm go call, just go.
• 58:31
  I'm having this. It tastes nice.
• 58:33
  Yeah. I'm always jealous of somebody
• 58:36
  that can do that. Anyway, sorry Douglas Lane,
• 58:38
  you're you're working for. That yeah, jeez, I completely
• 58:40
  forgot this train of thought as well.
• 58:41
  So it was a Douglas Lane and that that for me was where they
• 58:44
  kind of cut my teeth because you go back to Perano and Chevis is
• 58:46
  an incredible company It is you're not really in the mix of
• 58:50
  seeing like cast election. That was something I was really
• 58:52
  kind of keen to understand a bit more about because there's a
• 58:55
  self claim. Whiskey nerd.
• 58:56
  Yeah, that's the exciting part. You know, it's the spirits and
• 58:58
  the distilleries and you're so far removed geographically from
• 59:01
  them and seeing what's happening, you just didn't get
• 59:04
  to see it. So we Douglas laying it was a no
• 59:05
  brainer for me. It was you, you, you've gone
• 59:07
  into. So you've joined Shivas.
• 59:09
  What? What year was that?
• 59:10
  You joined Shivas then? Graham, I wish I'd done my
• 59:12
  research in this. I'm passing.
• 59:14
  That was nine years ago, roughly 9 years ago.
• 59:17
  Some of that been in the game 9. Years, yeah, so. 28, nine years
• 59:20
  ago, some of that, yeah. 20/14/20. 16/20/15 But we were
• 59:24
  we were literally working out of a townhouse in, in Woodlands,
• 59:27
  right. So that and compared to what
• 59:28
  they have now which is Hillington and we were, we were
• 59:30
  there just before just before I left, but it was you're sat in
• 59:33
  the room with sales, downstairs was procurement and there was
• 59:36
  customer service you. Were right in the mix.
• 59:38
  Right in the mix, and of course with and.
• 59:40
  Of course, you know if you're in India, receive us.
• 59:43
  You've got that team around you, but you're so far removed from.
• 59:46
  The Blenders and the Stellars, et cetera.
• 59:49
  If you're in, if you're in, you know, an office like that where
• 59:53
  everything. Everyone's there, everything.
• 59:54
  Speaking to every sector of the business and getting to speak to
• 59:58
  these guys on a. Day and.
• 1:00:00
  The and the the agility with that, the agility with that, the
• 1:00:03
  decision making, you know, like something that would take us
• 1:00:05
  from a very larger space and there was needs for that would
• 1:00:07
  have to pass through so many different people, whereas you'd
• 1:00:09
  nip downstairs. You got right Scott.
• 1:00:11
  Any chance that we can? Yeah, no problem.
• 1:00:13
  Expedited and get that done. And that's where I got exposure
• 1:00:16
  to, you know, Fred Ling and one of the icons of the world, Carol
• 1:00:19
  Ling. She's just one of the loveliest
• 1:00:22
  people I've ever met. Super modest and and incredibly
• 1:00:25
  knowledgeable and just being next door to them.
• 1:00:28
  Accessibility. It was just outstanding to be
• 1:00:30
  able to just ask questions that were really geeky.
• 1:00:33
  And the amount of times I'd go through, I'm like, Fred, I'm
• 1:00:35
  really sorry, I'm asking this. And he's like, yeah, no problem.
• 1:00:37
  At all going from such a big company to.
• 1:00:39
  Completely small, like complete opposite.
• 1:00:41
  I think there was 2424 of us in that, in that space, in that
• 1:00:45
  small townhouse. And I suppose the, the, The
• 1:00:48
  thing is, I think Ross has talked about this before as
• 1:00:50
  well. It's like.
• 1:00:51
  Ross has talked about a lot. He's talked.
• 1:00:52
  About a lot. He never gets anything wrong
• 1:00:55
  either. But when when you think about it
• 1:00:57
  from there's a lot of time and what's interesting when you're
• 1:01:00
  working for like Shibis and stuff like that and then going
• 1:01:02
  to an independent bottler like Douglas Lane and stuff is that.
• 1:01:05
  And again, he's getting another mention, Mark Thompson here, but
• 1:01:09
  he, he talked about, you know, going from working at
• 1:01:12
  Glenfiddich 1 brand, Yeah, right.
• 1:01:13
  One brand. You need to know absolutely
• 1:01:15
  everything. And he did.
• 1:01:16
  And his entertainment value when he did tastings and what he
• 1:01:18
  could. Tell oh he's brought it.
• 1:01:19
  He is but. Incredible ambassador.
• 1:01:21
  Now working with Duncan Taylor, an independent bottler, one of
• 1:01:25
  the things he was saying when I remember when we talked to him
• 1:01:27
  when he first, when he came on the first time on the podcast,
• 1:01:29
  not long after he just joined Duncan Taylor, he said he's
• 1:01:32
  getting to learn about distilleries because it's every
• 1:01:37
  bottle that he's doing. That's the really exciting part
• 1:01:41
  and see coming from somebody that loves the the history and
• 1:01:44
  the production side of things and and everything's different
• 1:01:47
  going from fair enough. I was working across a number of
• 1:01:50
  distilleries with Shivas, but all of a sudden I'm working
• 1:01:52
  across 65 distilleries that we were cast sourcing from.
• 1:01:55
  And then you're looking at. So let's say Talisker we've got
• 1:01:58
  we're sorry, we Douglas Lane have a great source of Taliskas,
• 1:02:02
  but then you've got first filled bourbon, second filled, third
• 1:02:04
  filled, 4th filled is a barrel as a hog said then is it?
• 1:02:06
  But this is Pedro Jimenez then is it's X amount percent.
• 1:02:08
  Is it this all of these different things and you're
• 1:02:10
  seeing Talisker at completely different spaces and not just
• 1:02:14
  Talisker every other people they work with.
• 1:02:16
  So you're getting to see every side and every concept of what
• 1:02:20
  Talisker could and ever be. And it's just it was just
• 1:02:23
  exciting and it was it was overwhelming at times because we
• 1:02:26
  had so many releases or they still have so many releases
• 1:02:30
  coming out and you have to kind of keep up with it.
• 1:02:32
  But what was driving that was kind of thrown into the deep
• 1:02:34
  end, but in a really positive way because you're like, I'm
• 1:02:37
  getting to learn, getting to learn and.
• 1:02:40
  You said as well you were Zoom ambassador.
• 1:02:42
  Yeah. So obviously this was your
• 1:02:43
  knockdown. The bars were all closed.
• 1:02:45
  The hotels were all closed with a limited hospitality.
• 1:02:48
  That was tough, yeah. What was the change?
• 1:02:51
  Who were you speaking to? Who were you?
• 1:02:53
  Who were you being a brand ambassador to at that time and
• 1:02:56
  what what you know? How did you adapt to?
• 1:02:58
  It was interesting. Kind of the kind of obviously
• 1:03:00
  the limits of what you could legally do. 100% and I mean, I
• 1:03:04
  think you guys would have seen it as well.
• 1:03:05
  Is that during lockdown people adapted or the industry adapted
• 1:03:09
  into how tastings worked, but it became a lot less staff
• 1:03:12
  trainings, which is a shame because hospitality just, you
• 1:03:14
  know, it took a massive hit as we all know, but it became a lot
• 1:03:17
  more direct to consumer. So like this consumer tastings
• 1:03:20
  and partnering with relevant retailers, etcetera, globally,
• 1:03:24
  you know, and then working with our distributors.
• 1:03:26
  So one of ours was Demonic Drunken, who's in the
• 1:03:28
  Netherlands, an incredible distributor, like a real kind of
• 1:03:31
  framework of what it should be. And they started doing consumer
• 1:03:34
  tasting. So it was direct to some of key
• 1:03:36
  consumers who were who were spending a lot of money, but
• 1:03:39
  retailers training the trainers and then taking the also the
• 1:03:41
  opportunity to start planning long term, you know, what's this
• 1:03:44
  going to look like when we come out of COVID, What's going to
• 1:03:46
  change? And then having that thought
• 1:03:47
  process and behind because justifying my salary during that
• 1:03:51
  time was tough. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:53
  Brandon Masters, is that luxury or does that need to have?
• 1:03:56
  Exactly. So I started supporting
• 1:03:57
  marketing, I started supporting sales a lot more.
• 1:03:59
  And then as we kind of started coming out of it and hospitality
• 1:04:02
  came back a bit, how does that look?
• 1:04:03
  And you had to really react and think about it.
• 1:04:05
  But luckily we were a very supportive team at that point
• 1:04:08
  and we really started focusing on driving into the trade.
• 1:04:11
  How can we support you? Like what can we do for you that
• 1:04:13
  will help you get back in your feet?
• 1:04:15
  And that was really encouraging to have from Douglas Slane being
• 1:04:17
  a family running and part of the reason that there's such a a
• 1:04:20
  well thought of company to this day, right?
• 1:04:23
  And Karen Fred had a really good idea of what they wanted the
• 1:04:25
  company to look like and. I was fascinated.
• 1:04:27
  I mean, we, we've talked so many times about what the, the, you
• 1:04:31
  know, COVID and was a horrible time for the, for the world.
• 1:04:34
  And yeah, I think we're seeing it right now as we're recording
• 1:04:37
  this, you know, we're sort of hitting five year anniversaries.
• 1:04:40
  I know over this period, just like five years ago, this
• 1:04:43
  happened. Five years ago that happened.
• 1:04:44
  There's a lot of retrospective conversations going on where
• 1:04:47
  it's easy to see now whether what we did was right or wrong.
• 1:04:49
  And we always knew at the time, but one of the things is like,
• 1:04:52
  it's hard a time for so many people was or as you've
• 1:04:55
  mentioned, a lot of opportunistic people came about.
• 1:04:57
  Yeah. And I think the whiskey industry
• 1:04:59
  really, we've said this before, really had to accelerate.
• 1:05:02
  Yeah. And adapt and move.
• 1:05:04
  And it's funny, you look at like whiskey tasting for probably one
• 1:05:07
  of the first locked out or COVID restriction friendly events
• 1:05:10
  because what you would do is you would sit in a pair at a table
• 1:05:14
  socially distanced from everybody else and have somebody
• 1:05:17
  at another end of the room doing that.
• 1:05:18
  So I can remember going a couple of tastings once things started
• 1:05:21
  to open up. Brilliant.
• 1:05:22
  Though, like, the community side of it, I remember the amount of
• 1:05:24
  tastings that were recorded. And then at the end of it, you'd
• 1:05:26
  like write recordings over like, oh, thank God.
• 1:05:28
  Right. OK who's opening what?
• 1:05:29
  And you would start. Yeah.
• 1:05:30
  Talking to these whiskey clubs that have been around for years.
• 1:05:33
  And we're good pals. And we're doing this every week
• 1:05:35
  or two weeks. And you'd start opening stuff.
• 1:05:37
  I'd. I would be there in my lounge
• 1:05:38
  peshed at 2:00 in the morning talking about whiskey and
• 1:05:41
  sharing love and passion and opening bottles that weren't
• 1:05:43
  part of the the tasting that I'd just done.
• 1:05:45
  And that's what it was all about.
• 1:05:46
  It retained a sense of community around whiskey, which was nice
• 1:05:49
  to see. You know you.
• 1:05:50
  If you look at like there was whiskey clubs that would only
• 1:05:53
  ever managed to hear about Belle Blair or speak to somebody about
• 1:05:57
  Blair if somebody had driven down or they had travelled up
• 1:06:00
  and a whiskey club excursion maybe and things like that.
• 1:06:04
  Whereas suddenly now they're able to say you're.
• 1:06:05
  At the end of a phone. Line yeah, we can you direct.
• 1:06:09
  I mean there's so many people as well in the podcast where their
• 1:06:12
  journey and whiskey started. People really got I mean I did.
• 1:06:15
  I liked that drum. It wasn't until lockdown
• 1:06:18
  happened where I really liked so many other people spent on
• 1:06:20
  Absolutely Fortunate. Options and, and, and oddly
• 1:06:22
  enough, for me it was more, it was actually more when we were
• 1:06:26
  coming out of lockdown, you could only holiday in the UK.
• 1:06:29
  I was like, I'll just go and visit a distillery.
• 1:06:32
  Around, yeah, no. What hurt you I.
• 1:06:34
  Know, I know, but I thought it did that and I think it kind of
• 1:06:37
  kicked the industry into a sort of yeah, a movement where and
• 1:06:42
  it's brought so many I mean, look at like Jake Adkook, we've
• 1:06:45
  had him on the podcast and he's like, he's not what's an
• 1:06:48
  assistant blender yeah Ian McLeod, distillers.
• 1:06:51
  They're saying he wouldn't be doing what he does right now had
• 1:06:54
  it not been for lockdown where he really decided I'm really.
• 1:06:56
  Getting what we're doing. Well, exactly, this podcast
• 1:06:58
  wouldn't have been wouldn't have started if it wasn't for it
• 1:07:00
  wasn't through the lockdown side, I think.
• 1:07:01
  So I think it's it's a fascinating time that we'll look
• 1:07:05
  back on for the rest of our lives.
• 1:07:07
  But at the same time, there will be people in the industry that
• 1:07:09
  kind of, and it's hard to shout and absolutely make a noise
• 1:07:12
  about it because it's hard to celebrate a time when people had
• 1:07:15
  a really hard time of it. But at the same time probably
• 1:07:18
  helped the industry to degree and giving the business side of
• 1:07:23
  it and yeah, that giving the consumer that accessibility.
• 1:07:27
  Absolutely. And then also I think it gave
• 1:07:29
  the industry a huge amount of respect for what the on trade
• 1:07:32
  does right, because it was seen as this arm, this channel of of
• 1:07:37
  commercial justification. But all of a sudden when when
• 1:07:39
  hospitality were on its knees and it was horrible to see
• 1:07:41
  because someone that came from hospitality, that's a horrible
• 1:07:44
  place to be. But all of a sudden that coming
• 1:07:46
  away, you saw the industry just respect it's so much more coming
• 1:07:49
  out of it. And it's a very slim silver
• 1:07:51
  lining to all of the horrible things that would have happened
• 1:07:53
  in businesses closing, et cetera.
• 1:07:55
  But all of it, you know, William Grants are an incredible example
• 1:07:58
  of this, of supporting the on trade and, and really investing
• 1:08:01
  in it and have done historically and just other companies that
• 1:08:04
  maybe saw it as this other aspect or channel to what they
• 1:08:06
  do. They respected it so much more
• 1:08:08
  because it was like, if this falls, you know, this, this is a
• 1:08:11
  real impact on the business. And as much as it's a commercial
• 1:08:13
  side of things, it's like having those people that are advocating
• 1:08:16
  for your brand organically because they love the liquid and
• 1:08:19
  they share these passion points. It's invaluable.
• 1:08:21
  It's invaluable. My grandfather who who worked in
• 1:08:24
  the whiskey industry and worked in the farming industry and he
• 1:08:28
  always had a phrase where he just says people by Fe people,
• 1:08:30
  yes, right. And you look at it and I think
• 1:08:32
  that's what I love about the whiskey industry is that it's
• 1:08:34
  still as modern as it'll get. It still boils down to there's
• 1:08:38
  personal relationships. We've heard it so many times.
• 1:08:40
  Exactly. People have said like, you know,
• 1:08:42
  deals and. Even the concepts as the brand
• 1:08:44
  ambassador is such a personal. Correct.
• 1:08:46
  Yeah. And I think that you look at and
• 1:08:48
  you say and you work for a family company at that time, who
• 1:08:51
  will know, Like we depend on these guys.
• 1:08:53
  Yeah. And if we're good to them,
• 1:08:55
  they'll be good to us. Yeah.
• 1:08:56
  And it's became that sort of support network where everyone
• 1:08:59
  can support each other. But what's also very interesting
• 1:09:02
  is like that direct to consumer element as well, would have
• 1:09:05
  probably got, you know, so many different people would have
• 1:09:08
  gone. I've never heard of these guys
• 1:09:10
  before because I'd only ever known, you know, I don't know,
• 1:09:13
  there's like myself, if I was a whiskey drinker, I'd maybe go
• 1:09:16
  into a bar. I'd pick the core ranges that I
• 1:09:18
  recognise. I wouldn't have gone for
• 1:09:20
  something obscure or different. Of course, being sort of exposed
• 1:09:24
  to that element now where I'm never heard of these guys
• 1:09:27
  before, I'm going to give them a go and then suddenly that's
• 1:09:29
  fantastic. Yeah.
• 1:09:31
  I mean, I don't want to get my lanes mixed up.
• 1:09:33
  Was it provenance? Is that Hunter Lane or Douglas?
• 1:09:36
  No provenance is Douglas. Lane yeah, See, I went through a
• 1:09:39
  period of I felt, I felt a foot taller than all the other
• 1:09:43
  whiskey. Drinkers because it was single
• 1:09:44
  cask, it was affordable single cask in.
• 1:09:47
  Provenance. What's that?
• 1:09:48
  It's an inch An inch car. Provenance.
• 1:09:50
  Love it. Single cask.
• 1:09:51
  I don't know if it's by Hunterling or Douglas Stage but
• 1:09:53
  but. I'm always petrified of, oh,
• 1:09:58
  making that mistake. I know, I know it's.
• 1:09:59
  I remember Cara spoke to me once and she when we when I first
• 1:10:02
  started, she was like, do you remember that Twix advert that
• 1:10:04
  it was the two different brothers that made each?
• 1:10:06
  Oh yeah, She was like Twix and right.
• 1:10:09
  She was like, that's yeah. She went it's just the two Twix
• 1:10:11
  is kind of your side. It was very tongue in cheek joke
• 1:10:13
  from her, but it's, you know, there's the old malt cask and
• 1:10:15
  then you've got old particular right?
• 1:10:16
  And it's the two sides to Yeah, that was really.
• 1:10:18
  Now, so moving on from there, then what?
• 1:10:20
  Yeah. What was the next move after
• 1:10:22
  that? That was.
• 1:10:22
  Your current role into my current role into your.
• 1:10:25
  Current role I was going. To say you've almost had more
• 1:10:27
  jobs in Rust, but I. Used to say we haven't built a
• 1:10:30
  distillery. More clubs than an Elka, you
• 1:10:32
  know. You're not allowed to talk about
• 1:10:36
  him on the. Podcast.
• 1:10:37
  He's bad because I've been with international beverage for three
• 1:10:40
  years, 8 months I think now I think just about yeah, it is.
• 1:10:44
  And it's gone so quick because we've just, it's just been from
• 1:10:47
  like strength is strength in a lot of ways.
• 1:10:49
  But yeah, I left Douglas Ling, I joined.
• 1:10:51
  And what the great thing about that was, is that, you know, 5
• 1:10:53
  distilleries in Scotland, right? And, and the one thing that
• 1:10:56
  Douglas Ling didn't have at that time, which we they now have was
• 1:10:59
  distilleries. And that was the other kind of
• 1:11:01
  side to things as much as it was the grassroots whiskey business.
• 1:11:03
  Yeah, yeah. You know, bottle design, label
• 1:11:06
  design concept, MPD, cask sourcing, blending fantastic.
• 1:11:11
  But what international beverage, which I was really excited to
• 1:11:13
  join because old Potley has been my dad's shelf since I was a
• 1:11:15
  kid. And as I said, I didn't want to
• 1:11:17
  get disowned at 20 odd years old was old Potley.
• 1:11:20
  It was a it was a massive draw. And I remember going to the pot
• 1:11:24
  still and I sat down and I was like, right, been offered
• 1:11:27
  international beverage. I've actually not had Anoch
• 1:11:29
  before. I'd never had Anoch for and I'd
• 1:11:30
  never had Spayburn before because the UK market wasn't a
• 1:11:32
  big focus for it. And I sat down and I went
• 1:11:35
  through and started tasting it when this is good, this is
• 1:11:37
  really good. And I was like, I like because I
• 1:11:39
  think the big thing for me going through Chevis and going through
• 1:11:43
  Douglas laying is that I can't sincerely represent something I
• 1:11:46
  don't believe in. And I think as as, as people
• 1:11:49
  that know me being quite emotionally charged, that would
• 1:11:51
  come through it would absolutely.
• 1:11:53
  And we've spoken about this to other brand ambassadors and, you
• 1:11:56
  know, quite a lot of them have said, you know, I couldn't, I
• 1:11:59
  couldn't almost be a brand ambassador for someone else now.
• 1:12:02
  You almost see it. It's tough.
• 1:12:03
  It's tough. It's.
• 1:12:04
  Hard because you also and I suppose it might be easier in
• 1:12:07
  your circumstance when you're working for like you like the
• 1:12:09
  brands that you've worked for like she was Douglas Lane and
• 1:12:13
  then the and then international beverages is the fact that they
• 1:12:17
  own multiple distilleries. Because what ends up potentially
• 1:12:20
  happening is you end up being known as the X brand guy.
• 1:12:24
  Yeah, like so if it's A1 distillery, if you're A1
• 1:12:26
  distillery person, you make like, you make that all about
• 1:12:29
  you, You make that all about who you are.
• 1:12:31
  You live and read that one brand and it almost means that you're
• 1:12:35
  you're you're typecasted in as a. 100% the best piece of advice
• 1:12:39
  I've ever given was Ian Logan, who works with Mark Duncan
• 1:12:43
  Taylor. He was my mentor at Shivis.
• 1:12:45
  And the best piece of advice I've ever given is you'll get to
• 1:12:47
  go to crazy hotels and do these travels, etcetera.
• 1:12:51
  You're not the Rockstar, the whiskey's the rock stars, right?
• 1:12:54
  You're the roadie. Yeah.
• 1:12:55
  And and he and he said it very seriously with a lot of kind of,
• 1:12:59
  you know, you know, negativity in a lot of ways.
• 1:13:01
  But it's so true because I've seen so many ambassadors that
• 1:13:04
  have kind of risen and fallen in in a very short space of time
• 1:13:07
  because they've been like, I'm, you know, I'm big shot and et
• 1:13:09
  cetera. Yeah.
• 1:13:09
  No, you're there to make sure that these whiskeys.
• 1:13:12
  Look good shots. They're the big shots.
• 1:13:13
  You are replaceable is a very hard word, but you know because
• 1:13:17
  a lot of people Mark Thompson a great example is Mr. Glenfiddich
• 1:13:19
  right and and leveraging his knowledge and everything that he
• 1:13:23
  is is incredible. But at the end the day Glenn
• 1:13:25
  physical survive yeah always and forever yeah yeah and it's about
• 1:13:28
  making sure that you make and and Mark's a good example of
• 1:13:31
  doing that is making sure that the brand is first or the
• 1:13:34
  whiskey is first because see the people that make it yeah the
• 1:13:36
  love that they give and and the the time that they give to
• 1:13:39
  making it. It's nothing compared to what we
• 1:13:41
  do I. Couldn't help but notice that
• 1:13:43
  you have brought along some drugs.
• 1:13:45
  Yeah, I guess iron them up myself.
• 1:13:48
  And I think now that we've reached this point, it's a good
• 1:13:50
  chance to speak. I'm going to say I'm podcasting
• 1:13:52
  responsibly this evening. Graham is podcasting very.
• 1:13:55
  Responsible. I'm up early tomorrow morning.
• 1:13:56
  He's taken he's taken the leaf out of the councillors of WIC in
• 1:14:01
  the 1920s and decided to abstain.
• 1:14:03
  Well, I've had like what was I fully abstain?
• 1:14:07
  I've not fully because I've had I've had 1 1/2 smaller drams of
• 1:14:11
  poking. But what I am going to do, and
• 1:14:12
  it's an opportunity to to advertise that Kev at Diggers
• 1:14:16
  Athletic Arms in Edinburgh are still doing takeaways.
• 1:14:19
  Very good to know. Whiskey takeaways, 50 mil
• 1:14:21
  bottles, I think you pay an extra £0.50 for the bottle on a
• 1:14:23
  label that goes on. So that's I am going to maybe
• 1:14:27
  nose and sample a tiny little bit of some of these, but we've
• 1:14:30
  taken some of them away with me so I can.
• 1:14:32
  Absolutely, absolutely my own. Time so the first thing you've
• 1:14:35
  brought along for us here is a 10 year old cast single cast Bay
• 1:14:39
  burn. I think this is we're distilled
• 1:14:42
  2. 1004 Bottle 2020. 4 So we're about, oh, 20 years, 19 years.
• 1:14:47
  Ago excellence. Terrible math, so my.
• 1:14:50
  Part Well done. I am.
• 1:14:53
  A great start. Extra finger I've got.
• 1:14:55
  I know exactly. I know you guys are whiskey
• 1:14:57
  lovers and actually, I mean the whiskey.
• 1:14:59
  The whiskey, the cherry tire? Yes, please let.
• 1:15:02
  Anger. No.
• 1:15:02
  No, don't you pour? Can you pour yourself?
• 1:15:04
  Otherwise you'll have none of that left.
• 1:15:05
  But I tell you, I, I, I'm banned from pouring drams, pouring that
• 1:15:10
  aren't my own anguses. There we go there.
• 1:15:13
  We go and I'll pour. I'll pour a driver's one.
• 1:15:16
  Leg, I'll let you have a little nose of that, Graham.
• 1:15:18
  So cherry tire, right? I know, I know that you're
• 1:15:22
  moving away and diversifying your palate a wee bit, but this
• 1:15:24
  was something I really fell in love with.
• 1:15:25
  Your Angus have a. Go for it, I'll wait.
• 1:15:27
  You sure after him? So this was so Spayburn as a
• 1:15:32
  distillery. We opened the doors to that
• 1:15:34
  nearly three years ago for the first time ever.
• 1:15:36
  We've never done it. Yeah.
• 1:15:38
  Have you guys ever been up? No, we haven't.
• 1:15:40
  And I tell you what, it's a crime.
• 1:15:42
  Shame, because I've not, I've not visited Spayburn.
• 1:15:46
  I've not actually tasted. I don't think you you wouldn't
• 1:15:48
  have and I. Don't think I've tasted a lot of
• 1:15:50
  spaber. No, you wouldn't have any at.
• 1:15:52
  All. No, you wouldn't have my first
• 1:15:54
  taste. Oh.
• 1:15:54
  You're joking? No, I'm getting pretty specific
• 1:15:57
  taste of it, but if you're ever up we will definitely organise
• 1:15:59
  you guys getting a tour coming round.
• 1:16:01
  So please, we know. Where in space ID you sit?
• 1:16:03
  There, so Rothfuss, so you've got Aberlauchy, Gellechy, we're
• 1:16:06
  in Rothfuss right next to Glen Grant this delivery if you've
• 1:16:08
  been past. It I I've I've been to Glen
• 1:16:10
  Grant the scene. You know when you're going up
• 1:16:12
  the hill towards Elgin, on the right hand side you see that
• 1:16:14
  pagoda and the trees? That's paper that's behind I
• 1:16:17
  it's one of the most historically significant
• 1:16:19
  distilleries in Scotch whiskey, and I don't say that lightly.
• 1:16:22
  We've got thing the drum maltings, for example, is a
• 1:16:24
  museum piece, so it was discontinued in 1967, so.
• 1:16:27
  What's the drum maltings? The drum maltings I know.
• 1:16:29
  About floor maltings. Yeah.
• 1:16:30
  So the drum maltings where you've actually still got
• 1:16:32
  examples of them. Port Ellen have drum maltings,
• 1:16:34
  right, But these are the original ones.
• 1:16:36
  So 1905, we were the first malt distillery.
• 1:16:39
  I don't know the if what grain distillery installed them first.
• 1:16:42
  We were the first malt distillery to install them.
• 1:16:44
  No, it was purely to replace monkey shoulder, right?
• 1:16:47
  You know, monkey Shoulder without turning the barley.
• 1:16:49
  It was purely replacing that. It wasn't drying out at all.
• 1:16:52
  And these were huge drums and the building that surrounds them
• 1:16:55
  was actually built after the drums were put in, right?
• 1:16:58
  So the built the drums were built, installed by a
• 1:17:00
  London-based engineers that know the linguist, and then the
• 1:17:03
  building was built around. Them build the building.
• 1:17:04
  Around them. Incredible.
• 1:17:05
  So we actually originally thought that they were drum
• 1:17:07
  floor maltings because it's the you know, you get 3 levels,
• 1:17:10
  etcetera, never where they were installed when the whiskey was
• 1:17:13
  incepted. And yeah, so it wasn't like they
• 1:17:15
  they ripped the building out and put the drums.
• 1:17:17
  In no purely for it. Built the building they put the
• 1:17:19
  drums in. Built the building.
• 1:17:20
  Absolutely. So we opened the doors to tours
• 1:17:23
  just about 3 years ago. So what I love about it is that
• 1:17:25
  it's a real piece of whiskey history.
• 1:17:27
  Because in 1967, right, That's a long time ago.
• 1:17:29
  Yeah. If you're the Whist Distillery
• 1:17:30
  manager at that point, it's like, well, let's RIP this old
• 1:17:33
  equipment out and let's put in more wash bags or stills and
• 1:17:35
  let's expand. No, for whatever reason, never
• 1:17:38
  did it. So it is now protected by the
• 1:17:40
  National Trust and it is a protected piece of.
• 1:17:43
  So. So when were the drums?
• 1:17:45
  When were the drums built in? 1905 they were completed and in
• 1:17:48
  use, but they started in 1897, but just due to finance etcetera
• 1:17:53
  that never happened. So we were actually purchasing
• 1:17:54
  our malt externally which is is is fairly really a time.
• 1:17:57
  And then 1905, they started operating.
• 1:18:00
  In 1967, discontinued. Wow, there you go.
• 1:18:03
  That's so that's that's delicious.
• 1:18:05
  That is this. Is a realtor.
• 1:18:07
  There's a real sort of chocolatiness there, yeah.
• 1:18:09
  Well, it's just that nuttiness in there.
• 1:18:11
  It's just I'm drilling down. I got nuts.
• 1:18:13
  I got eagles not. Spirit of space side bottling
• 1:18:17
  the first ever spirit of space side we did and I've kept it and
• 1:18:19
  I drained this very very. I wanted to bring you guys some
• 1:18:21
  cool stuff, but yeah, first of all, they're also single cast.
• 1:18:24
  Get 58.6% for that 19 years X months on the in the final age
• 1:18:30
  I. Mean when When this comes out,
• 1:18:33
  it probably will be a just about a roundabout, the spirit of
• 1:18:35
  space side festivals or anything plan this year for Yeah Space.
• 1:18:39
  Yeah, some pretty cool stuff. I'm trying to remember
• 1:18:40
  watersheds and embargo tates. No, we've got, we were running
• 1:18:45
  normal tours throughout spirit space site, but you and
• 1:18:48
  Henderson, who's our master Stiller and myself along with
• 1:18:50
  the brand team and an amazing brand homes team, we've
• 1:18:53
  developed a managers tour and, and we took the opportunity to
• 1:18:57
  not just focus this around the core range.
• 1:18:59
  You know, at the end of the tour, you'll be given core range
• 1:19:01
  sample bottles take away or sample packs to take away.
• 1:19:05
  We've got 4 casks that we're going to be sampling in the
• 1:19:09
  warehouse and we've specially. From the cask.
• 1:19:13
  Specialist. Dogs are all.
• 1:19:15
  Valances, valances. Yeah, I might have.
• 1:19:18
  Some shaky shaky pores coming from I've.
• 1:19:21
  Heard, I've heard. So we've got 4 casts that we
• 1:19:23
  specifically selected and the the objective behind it.
• 1:19:26
  You know, we're trying to, we were talking about like, OK,
• 1:19:28
  storytelling. How do we pack this up?
• 1:19:30
  No, just cool stuff. Yeah, just really, really cool.
• 1:19:32
  Stuff I suppose like. And this, this again, goes back
• 1:19:35
  to being Whiskey's the rock star.
• 1:19:37
  It is, it is absolutely. And it's about that experience
• 1:19:39
  that ultimately spirit of space is the opportunity to kind of
• 1:19:43
  just enjoy yourself and come to the distilleries.
• 1:19:45
  And you know, we're we're very a lot of brands are brand focused
• 1:19:48
  at this point. It's like, well, maybe we should
• 1:19:49
  put the core engine. No, yeah, you're at spaper and
• 1:19:51
  Distillery, the only place on planet Earth where this spirit
• 1:19:54
  can be made. You're thinking about spaper and
• 1:19:57
  it doesn't matter if you're given the 10 year old etcetera.
• 1:19:58
  So this was an opportunity for us to just really show.
• 1:20:01
  Here's some really cool stuff that we have in the warehouse
• 1:20:03
  that you and has selected our master distiller that we're just
• 1:20:07
  going to show. Well, if you see a bald man with
• 1:20:10
  a sort. Of big mustache.
• 1:20:10
  Handle that handle. Mustache pair of yeah, yeah.
• 1:20:15
  Just what's he call it on the back?
• 1:20:18
  Of his head. What do you?
• 1:20:21
  Call it like a thing that keeps. Like a lanyard type thing I must
• 1:20:23
  have. Met this guy.
• 1:20:24
  Sorry, I must have met this guy. At some point it comes out and
• 1:20:26
  you'll know exactly who we're talking about.
• 1:20:28
  But if if you see him. He's and if he listens or what?
• 1:20:31
  If he does listen. Yeah, thanks for reach out
• 1:20:33
  please. He was, he had a wee notepad as
• 1:20:36
  well, so everything he was trying I must have met.
• 1:20:39
  And he had actually, he actually went into.
• 1:20:40
  It he was a huge. Spay, but he had a bit of Fair
• 1:20:43
  khaki, sort of coloured. What do you call them?
• 1:20:46
  Kind of trousers. On like cargo shorts?
• 1:20:48
  Yeah, cargo. Trousers And he went in and he
• 1:20:50
  pulled out and he had a little Ziploc in a plastic bag,
• 1:20:53
  sandwich bag which had his notepad in it.
• 1:20:56
  And he had these tiny he had a little sample bottles and what
• 1:20:59
  he did and even had he brought his own funnel?
• 1:21:02
  No, aye. So what he would do is he would
• 1:21:04
  funnel professional some of his DRAM into that, write it down
• 1:21:08
  and his little notebook as he's going back for like that's a
• 1:21:10
  pro. It's a pro because it's a nice
• 1:21:12
  way to do it because. At the next level.
• 1:21:14
  Environment will adapt and how you're tasting, right?
• 1:21:16
  You know, it's I think Ross has said this before in the podcast,
• 1:21:18
  not to quote him, right? It's when he talked about it's
• 1:21:21
  not, there's no such thing as a bad jam, it's the wrong people.
• 1:21:23
  No, I can't, That's terrible. He's not here to defend himself,
• 1:21:29
  but it was that way. It's the environment really
• 1:21:31
  effects it. So being able to take that away
• 1:21:32
  and shit and taste it in different spaces.
• 1:21:34
  But but what it does by doing that spirit space side look up
• 1:21:37
  we we've been honest and and you've said it as well like of
• 1:21:40
  your range that you've talked about is Bob Blair familiar
• 1:21:44
  with. Yeah, yeah, very.
• 1:21:45
  Full. They definitely know about it.
• 1:21:47
  Yeah, Spay Burn. Not at all.
• 1:21:49
  At all I think that might be the first time I've tried Spayburn
• 1:21:51
  absolutely delightful but that's what spirit spaceflight can do
• 1:21:54
  and as you've said all right someone could see spayburn we've
• 1:21:58
  never heard of them and then maybe we see it in the shop they
• 1:22:01
  might buy it but you have a chance like this is what's great
• 1:22:04
  is when people and and and I'm I'm not visiting many
• 1:22:09
  distilleries you know so when you do visit a distillery you
• 1:22:12
  come away and you can't help but then kind of like I know a bit
• 1:22:15
  more about this up yeah of. Course.
• 1:22:18
  I've tried it with the cast mate.
• 1:22:19
  I know a little bit more about it I've.
• 1:22:21
  Bumped my head off the mash. Done.
• 1:22:24
  Tried the truck, but ultimately like that's what can happen so
• 1:22:27
  yeah, you get that opportunity where you get somebody in the
• 1:22:30
  door on this managers to they go around and then they because
• 1:22:34
  what you know is if they have a really positive experience yeah
• 1:22:37
  OK, they're going to buy it, but you're going to create a. 100%
• 1:22:41
  fine and spam is one of those ones that and I'm not surprised
• 1:22:44
  that you guys actually haven't seen or taste this before
• 1:22:46
  because the UK hasn't been a big market.
• 1:22:47
  No, right and. I I think I've seen the kind of,
• 1:22:50
  I have seen bottles in the supermarkets.
• 1:22:52
  You will. Have.
• 1:22:52
  Yeah, yeah. Now you will definitely again.
• 1:22:54
  Again, it's, you know, you know, it's, it's very easy to
• 1:22:57
  sometimes kind of wrongfully overlook these.
• 1:23:00
  Absolutely. And there's nothing wrong with
• 1:23:02
  that, because that's a historical.
• 1:23:03
  Thing just not being I've just not had a proper.
• 1:23:05
  Well, I have now a proper introduction to the brand.
• 1:23:08
  But it's amazing when you go to distillery like nothings off
• 1:23:10
  limits in regards. It's kind of we just kind of say
• 1:23:12
  to people, look, if you want to go somewhere, just ask us,
• 1:23:15
  right, And then we'll say yes, you know, just depend on how
• 1:23:17
  dangerous that space is. But it is really kind of at all
• 1:23:19
  access, but you know, it's we've got this one of my largest
• 1:23:23
  stills in Scotland, which is my favorite still in sorry to the
• 1:23:25
  other distilleries. It's one of my favorite stills
• 1:23:27
  in all of Scotland. A.
• 1:23:28
  Man, who's a favorite still? Ohh, doing doing.
• 1:23:31
  It's gorgeous. It sets up in its own little
• 1:23:33
  stage. Huge.
• 1:23:34
  We just doesn't matter. We need to get.
• 1:23:36
  We need to get a. Picture of this, but I've got.
• 1:23:39
  Multiple photos on my phone of it with me.
• 1:23:41
  But we've also got we've got shell and troop condensers and
• 1:23:44
  warm Tom condensers as well, which is like, you know, so out
• 1:23:46
  of all distillers in Scotland quote a number here, I think
• 1:23:49
  it's around 20 that are warm. Tops, someone will pick you up,
• 1:23:52
  yeah. That's fine, but.
• 1:23:53
  But but I. Really wish I had a favorite
• 1:23:56
  still. Yeah, that.
• 1:23:57
  Is ±10% right? 20 or plus 10% probably 20 odd
• 1:24:02
  distilleries that have worm tubs but spaper and has both.
• 1:24:04
  So we get shell and chewable for a wash and our two spirit stills
• 1:24:06
  run into our worm tubs. So distillery character is
• 1:24:08
  interesting, right and it's not when we go to America is a
• 1:24:11
  really big market for us. So when Americans see it and how
• 1:24:14
  it's always been proposed and we've always been kind of kind
• 1:24:17
  of production LED, whereas now we're much more brand LED and
• 1:24:19
  you're going to see some really exciting stuff coming from us,
• 1:24:22
  really exciting stuff. Now it's an.
• 1:24:23
  Absolute. Crap.
• 1:24:24
  Americans go like, yeah, you know, it's a volume value drug
• 1:24:26
  brand. And then when they visit,
• 1:24:28
  they're like we had, I never knew this, but it's not just
• 1:24:31
  bulk production. It's like, and it's never been
• 1:24:33
  that. It's just interesting worm tubs
• 1:24:35
  shell that's 72 hour fermentation.
• 1:24:37
  We've got, we've got split between stainless steel and
• 1:24:40
  wooden wash backs to give that point of differentiation as
• 1:24:42
  well. And people don't know it.
• 1:24:43
  So if you guys are ever up or if you're planning to get in space
• 1:24:46
  and let me know when. I'll get you.
• 1:24:47
  That's a mistake. Not at all, which won't be had
• 1:24:50
  my problem at that point. But I mean.
• 1:24:53
  I think I'll, I'll pick out another drum because we should
• 1:24:56
  talk that about It is international spirits, man.
• 1:25:00
  It is international. Beverage, and this is, it is
• 1:25:03
  international beverage. This is in the context of where
• 1:25:07
  we are in Scotland and international beverage the Card
• 1:25:09
  Runner, which I, Graham and I are slightly more familiar with
• 1:25:13
  because we have tried it once I I have, at least in a way, at
• 1:25:17
  the Edinburgh Whiskey Festival about two years ago.
• 1:25:20
  Right, okay. I remember, I remember being
• 1:25:23
  particularly impressed by whatever I tried there.
• 1:25:26
  I have no recollection of what it was.
• 1:25:27
  It may have been slightly later on in the evening, but I
• 1:25:30
  remember being particularly impressed by Kadrona and I'm
• 1:25:33
  delighted. I'm fortunate it's taken me two
• 1:25:35
  years, but I'm delighted to try something.
• 1:25:37
  I I, I love it. So this was single cask yeah.
• 1:25:40
  I think it was IWSC single cask of the year 202425.
• 1:25:45
  Someone can Fact Check me on it. So this is a single cask Otago
• 1:25:48
  Pinot Noir cast. So we've got exclusive use of I
• 1:25:51
  guess if you could, I guess if you could do the honours of
• 1:25:53
  shouting out the distillation and bottling dates of it.
• 1:25:57
  Yeah. So, well, bottling dates, yeah.
• 1:25:58
  So I mean, where are we now? So this is quite interesting.
• 1:26:02
  So this is OPT. Filled into.
• 1:26:03
  Castle Yeah. Filmed 2nd of May 2018.
• 1:26:07
  So. And then you've got the hand
• 1:26:09
  bottles. Hand bottled in 2020.
• 1:26:11
  Four 2nd of December, 6 year old.
• 1:26:14
  That's that is. Very interesting and and and
• 1:26:16
  interesting because obviously so this is Hagopina and war.
• 1:26:20
  So tapping into that New Zealand.
• 1:26:22
  Why? So this is a New Zealand, Yeah,
• 1:26:24
  New Zealand whiskey, which so that's, I mean, I haven't had
• 1:26:27
  much. This spirit's definitely
• 1:26:28
  travelled further than any of these, yeah.
• 1:26:30
  Yeah, yeah, definitely. Has yeah, the only experience is
• 1:26:34
  other than maybe trying that. And again, this is a here,
• 1:26:36
  right? No, no.
• 1:26:37
  No, this is mine. I think I should have.
• 1:26:39
  Said what was it? Was it?
• 1:26:41
  I was. Saying this tastes very similar
• 1:26:43
  to. Was it hemisphere by woven
• 1:26:46
  Hemisphere by Yes, yeah, yeah. Is using New Zealand whiskey
• 1:26:49
  that's blended. So that's really the only sort.
• 1:26:51
  But when you look at when we've talked to people about
• 1:26:54
  international whiskey's, Australia gets a lot of
• 1:26:56
  mentions. Yeah, like Star Wars and some of
• 1:26:58
  their stuffs. That's right.
• 1:26:59
  The ginger beer cat was great. I tasted that last year.
• 1:27:02
  Oh my God. But when you look at like New
• 1:27:04
  Zealand and you look at the the sort of that everyone talks
• 1:27:06
  about when you go internationally, the the, the
• 1:27:09
  differences with the way the maturation process goes.
• 1:27:11
  You've got different water sources, you've got different
• 1:27:13
  temperatures, yeah, you've got different variation of
• 1:27:16
  temperatures, altitudes and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:27:19
  So what are we expecting from from our New Zealand frisky, I
• 1:27:23
  mean. Looking at the age, right, so
• 1:27:24
  we're looking about what's 6 years old.
• 1:27:26
  It was ice like the colours incredible.
• 1:27:27
  So we're we're not seeing a massive variation to what we see
• 1:27:30
  in Scotland, but it's how active the casks are and that's where
• 1:27:32
  we're seeing the colour come into.
• 1:27:33
  It's this natural colours as a non chill filtered and the cast
• 1:27:36
  strength. I can't remember the cask on it.
• 1:27:38
  Sorry, Graham, the ABV on it. Are we looking 52?
• 1:27:42
  Two? Yeah.
• 1:27:43
  So it's just an absolutely incredible DRAM.
• 1:27:45
  But Sarah and the team, what they do is it's a tiny
• 1:27:47
  distillery. I mean, it's tiny on the South
• 1:27:50
  end of the South Island. But Sarah Elsom, who's our
• 1:27:52
  master distiller, she's just an absolute genius in how she wants
• 1:27:56
  to drive this. And it's, I mean, I've got the
• 1:27:58
  vodka here, which is, I don't know if it's the first vodka.
• 1:28:01
  I'm sorry. It's the first vodka that's been
• 1:28:04
  brought on the bottom. It is.
• 1:28:05
  And you know, I'm not a vodka guy and we'll come onto that,
• 1:28:08
  but whatever loving this is, how elegant it is, it's not too in
• 1:28:11
  your face and yet has this level of complexity that is you're
• 1:28:14
  seeing this kind of vanilla. So it's all American oak, it's
• 1:28:16
  Quercus Elba. So we're seeing that white oak
• 1:28:19
  of vanilla coconut, that kind of atypical side.
• 1:28:22
  But of course that Pinot noir has something to say that it
• 1:28:24
  really does. And I think that's where that
• 1:28:25
  texture and that softness comes into it.
• 1:28:27
  And 52% bottling, I think that's probably optimum because I think
• 1:28:32
  whiskeys have this point where you know, when you get cash
• 1:28:35
  strength whiskeys, right, that's not the best ABV for you as an
• 1:28:40
  individual. That's not going to be right.
• 1:28:41
  Everyone has their own thing. Alcohol by definition is a
• 1:28:43
  solution not to problems, but by definition.
• 1:28:46
  So you have suspended flavors there, right?
• 1:28:48
  And ultimately by reducing or increasing depending which side
• 1:28:52
  of the whiskey making you are, you're changing the flavors that
• 1:28:55
  you dissolve. And that's going to be different
• 1:28:56
  for everyone. So at 61 odd percent, that's
• 1:28:59
  probably not your favorite way to have that whiskey.
• 1:29:02
  It might be .2% less than that. Yeah, you know, being large
• 1:29:05
  there. But that's the idea.
• 1:29:06
  But I think 52% for that, it's probably optimum, yeah, but not
• 1:29:10
  say that's where you should. Have have you been out to this
• 1:29:12
  story? No.
• 1:29:13
  Not yet. They've not invited me.
• 1:29:14
  Yeah, it's terrible. If I can get start making a plea
• 1:29:16
  to get me. Yeah.
• 1:29:18
  No, yeah, not yet. So it's been we've we've
• 1:29:20
  Cardona's been part of the the family, if you like, for the
• 1:29:23
  past year, I believe now. Yeah.
• 1:29:26
  So we've got some exciting stuff coming up with it.
• 1:29:29
  But yeah, I need to kind of justify that that plane ticket.
• 1:29:32
  Yeah, soon as global spirits ambassador and we're kind of
• 1:29:34
  joked the international and global spirits and stuff like
• 1:29:37
  that, but will be part of the job you'll travel far one. 100%,
• 1:29:40
  yeah. So where, where is it?
• 1:29:41
  You're sort of off off and about.
• 1:29:44
  So Europe, so we've got ambassador based out in
• 1:29:47
  California, got Maurice Chevalier, the 4th incredible
• 1:29:51
  name Maurice. Chevalier, the Fort the.
• 1:29:52
  Catrion, yeah, he's an incredible guy.
• 1:29:54
  So he's based out in California for us, covering the whole of
• 1:29:56
  the states. We've got Pat Fraser, who's our
• 1:29:59
  global ambassador for Cardrona Spirits.
• 1:30:01
  He's based out in New York in the East, East Coast of the US
• 1:30:05
  We've got Paul who's based in Bangkok, as well as Bank who are
• 1:30:08
  based in Bangkok. And at this point, which I think
• 1:30:11
  when this goes out, we will have or nearly have a European
• 1:30:14
  ambassador who will be covering specifically UK, France,
• 1:30:17
  Germany, but covering the rest of Europe.
• 1:30:18
  So we have a big network, which means that I don't necessarily
• 1:30:21
  need to travel. Yeah, as frequently as as as
• 1:30:24
  needed. These guys.
• 1:30:25
  These incredible educators, advocates for our brands and if
• 1:30:29
  we're doing big launches, that's kind of leveraging and and I've
• 1:30:31
  always seen it as this. It's not about the person, it's
• 1:30:33
  the role. Yeah, you know, and and how
• 1:30:35
  people see it. And that's The thing is if we
• 1:30:36
  need a global ambassador support, then great, let's go do
• 1:30:38
  that and let's support that in the way that we want to do that.
• 1:30:41
  But it's it doesn't mean, you know, Maurice is incredible,
• 1:30:43
  Paul and banker incredible. But in September last year was
• 1:30:46
  was a good trip. We were in Japan, South Korea,
• 1:30:49
  Thailand and one of Asia, which was, I mean the food.
• 1:30:53
  Asia is my favorite place in. The world for food.
• 1:30:54
  Is. It What's the food like when you
• 1:30:57
  come back? Oh, it's just.
• 1:30:58
  So boring it's. A.
• 1:31:01
  Great toasty you can. Get here and the potato scones
• 1:31:03
  though, right I've. Been nearly a year ago just now
• 1:31:06
  Ross. Ross came back from facial.
• 1:31:10
  That's right. I love facial after.
• 1:31:12
  The summer a year and last me and.
• 1:31:14
  He can play. There was nowhere in an aisle to
• 1:31:16
  get sushi. I mean.
• 1:31:21
  Regardless of facial or not, I don't think there ever is.
• 1:31:23
  Right. But do you ever get a chance to
• 1:31:26
  revisit old haunts? Because you're now what I would
• 1:31:29
  say is you're a seasoned brand ambassador.
• 1:31:32
  Seasoned cheese. Is that the pepper in the?
• 1:31:33
  Yeah, but I mean, do you get to go back?
• 1:31:37
  Have you ever been there and gone?
• 1:31:38
  Hang on a minute, I've been here before.
• 1:31:40
  Yeah, I do, and it's good fun because.
• 1:31:42
  You're not try ourselves. I love it anymore.
• 1:31:46
  No, you do. And it's really exciting because
• 1:31:48
  the nature of what we do is it's an exciting place to live in,
• 1:31:50
  right? You're it's sociability, it's
• 1:31:52
  you're sharing really incredible liquids and you know, regardless
• 1:31:55
  of brand loyalty, whatever it you meet, get to meet people
• 1:31:57
  from that kind of world of loving spirits and loving liquid
• 1:32:00
  and different things. So yeah, it's great walking into
• 1:32:02
  a bar years later and I remember I went into, but I think it was
• 1:32:06
  in Sweden, he was in Gothenburg. And I was like, I've never been
• 1:32:09
  to Gothenburg before and arrived with our sales manager and we
• 1:32:11
  walked into this bar and it goes like Baxter.
• 1:32:13
  I was like, never mind, I have. Actually been here.
• 1:32:16
  I mean, it sounds you always hear these like, and that's The
• 1:32:19
  thing is we brand ambassadors and stuff like that.
• 1:32:24
  You speak to a lot of Brandon Busters and they're very humble
• 1:32:26
  in the fact that they're like, listen, the job I think it was
• 1:32:28
  who was it? Champagne lifestyle in a
• 1:32:30
  lemonade. Right.
• 1:32:32
  I think that was. Who was it?
• 1:32:34
  Well, we're not. Name them.
• 1:32:35
  True words of nervous. But you mentioned on the pod.
• 1:32:37
  But basically sort of saying like it sounds great, sounds
• 1:32:40
  glamorous. Yeah, jumping on flights, flying
• 1:32:42
  out to this place, going to Dubai, going to and you're in
• 1:32:45
  different places and things that.
• 1:32:46
  But of course. Oh, that's work.
• 1:32:48
  Yeah, right. It was great for us to jump in a
• 1:32:51
  hired minibus and drive up to, don't have to still have a bit
• 1:32:55
  of a laugh. We've had a good time when we've
• 1:32:57
  done Fife Whiskey festival and stuff like that.
• 1:32:59
  Yeah. But we, we, that's not our job.
• 1:33:01
  That was a sort of an excursion into that lifestyle and it was
• 1:33:04
  fantastic. But I can imagine that
• 1:33:05
  travelling, it gets very and it's, it's meeting people, it's
• 1:33:08
  being on brand, it's being constantly making sure you know
• 1:33:12
  what you're doing. Yeah.
• 1:33:13
  And we hear like rock stars. What was it?
• 1:33:16
  Somebody famously turned up at Tea in the Park in Scotland,
• 1:33:19
  like Rihanna or whoever it was and said hello Glasgow.
• 1:33:21
  Oh, it was. Eminem was.
• 1:33:22
  It yeah, that was I remember. That right, because on the other
• 1:33:25
  side of the country. But where are we flying to
• 1:33:27
  today? We're flying into Glasgow and
• 1:33:29
  it's an hour and a half drive to get to where you need to be.
• 1:33:31
  Yeah, right. So there must be that element
• 1:33:33
  where you've been just so busy on travel that you you don't
• 1:33:36
  know. And sounds ridiculous to be
• 1:33:37
  like, I can't remember ever being here and then it turns out
• 1:33:39
  you have been. But it's true.
• 1:33:41
  It is. It's really.
• 1:33:41
  Weird. And it's how frequently you've
• 1:33:43
  been like how many times have I been to Hamburg, for example?
• 1:33:46
  You know, I think I've been there four or five times because
• 1:33:48
  Germany is a big key market for us, right.
• 1:33:49
  But The Beatles. But it's, it's a side, it's a
• 1:33:58
  side of ambassador work. That's really.
• 1:33:59
  That was brilliant, sorry. We're taking a break, ladies and
• 1:34:09
  gentlemen. You should be in a search of
• 1:34:14
  that. No, it's, you know, our master
• 1:34:21
  distiller, we recently went to Nuremberg, right?
• 1:34:24
  We went to a festival in Nuremberg.
• 1:34:25
  Right, right carry. That anyway, so our master
• 1:34:34
  distiller and we went to Nuremberg and we did this really
• 1:34:36
  cool tasting and and he's an absolute rock star.
• 1:34:39
  David Rogers, he's a master steller for Bell Blair.
• 1:34:40
  Sorry, he's the youngest master distiller the Bell Blair's ever
• 1:34:43
  seen, 32, wow, 32 years old. And the guy, what he doesn't
• 1:34:47
  know about whiskey, he's just an incredible guy.
• 1:34:50
  And we did this great taste thing and we went out that night
• 1:34:52
  and I had to go, not had to go out.
• 1:34:54
  I went to this lovely tasting or, or whiskey club held by a
• 1:34:57
  guy called Bernard Schaefer, Good friends.
• 1:34:59
  Bernard. It's good to see if you're
• 1:35:01
  watching because I'm sure he might actually.
• 1:35:03
  So Bernard runs this whiskey club and it it's great.
• 1:35:06
  You go there and there's there's ambassadors and there's all
• 1:35:08
  these people from the industry and whiskey clubs and you get to
• 1:35:10
  share your passions and that's great.
• 1:35:12
  But of course, it's exhausting, right?
• 1:35:14
  You know, you're only a human being mentally, physically,
• 1:35:17
  you're travelling, you're moving, you're tasting and
• 1:35:19
  talking and sharing your energy and giving that energy as much
• 1:35:21
  as it's enjoyable. Yeah.
• 1:35:23
  But then you get to a point and you're going, you get to hotel
• 1:35:25
  room, you're like, I'm done. Like I'm I'm done.
• 1:35:27
  And where's the chance to reset and drink water and and go home
• 1:35:30
  and speak to family? And it's quite ironic because
• 1:35:32
  Nuremberg was also where Graham and I were feeling a bit
• 1:35:35
  fatigued after. That's right.
• 1:35:37
  We, we, we went and this is a total sidetrack.
• 1:35:40
  But really it's the podcast because we did do a podcast out
• 1:35:42
  in Cologne, Yeah, in the summer for the EUR for Scotland Peter
• 1:35:45
  class, We had about Peter class. Keep it quick.
• 1:35:48
  All right. So we had about 3 or 4 days in
• 1:35:50
  Munich and and we went after Munich.
• 1:35:52
  We, a friend of ours departed. There was only three of us and
• 1:35:55
  we went up to up to Nuremberg and Nuremberg was definitely
• 1:35:58
  where we were starting to get a little bit of the old travel
• 1:36:00
  fatigue. Yeah.
• 1:36:01
  And The thing is when. You're working, though.
• 1:36:04
  Like, OK, this might be the third day of a whiskey festival
• 1:36:07
  that you're at. Yeah, but for that one person
• 1:36:09
  who's sitting talking. Absolutely.
• 1:36:11
  That's you. It's their.
• 1:36:12
  Their only interaction, the only time that they'll know what
• 1:36:15
  Spayburn or whatever at the Bablair or Poultney, that's what
• 1:36:19
  they want to know. And if you're just like.
• 1:36:21
  You have a duty of care to the the person that wants to because
• 1:36:24
  at the end of the day, they're investing their own personal
• 1:36:26
  money and buying your product. You have a duty of care to that
• 1:36:29
  person. You have a duty of care to
• 1:36:30
  provide them with the best experience with the education,
• 1:36:32
  etcetera. And if you're out till 5-6 in
• 1:36:34
  the morning, you can't do that. And physically you can't do
• 1:36:37
  that. I think there's a responsibility
• 1:36:38
  to yourself personally to make sure that you know, apply your
• 1:36:41
  own auction to mask in first before helping.
• 1:36:42
  Other people, yeah. It's making sure you're OK and
• 1:36:45
  you can't sustain it. If I drank every whiskey that
• 1:36:47
  was handed to me, be dead right. You just, you know, you just,
• 1:36:51
  you just can't. You just can't 'cause you're in
• 1:36:53
  those situations where you go on nights out and people are
• 1:36:55
  handing cocktails and shots, et cetera, and you just, you can't
• 1:36:58
  do it. You have a duty of care to the
• 1:36:59
  person. Well the next day at the
• 1:37:00
  festival who as you say has spent money to come to festival,
• 1:37:03
  join your master class to provide them with an.
• 1:37:05
  Experience. I think that's where we would
• 1:37:06
  base up with the master, I think.
• 1:37:08
  I think so. We.
• 1:37:10
  Will be it took me a while. To learn this.
• 1:37:12
  I think in that spirit, we'll skip the vodka and we'll go.
• 1:37:16
  I think we should Final DRAM, right?
• 1:37:17
  I like your bra. I only brought the vodka out.
• 1:37:19
  Of interest for you guys that. Was, I know it's the biomedic,
• 1:37:22
  which is not a distillery. Out of your whole kind of five
• 1:37:26
  scope distilleries, it's probably the one that has.
• 1:37:30
  For me it's the least exposure. We do.
• 1:37:33
  You would not bottle this. Behind the bar.
• 1:37:34
  We don't bottle it, so we never bottle this.
• 1:37:37
  This is we, we, I mean the, the distillery used to, we under
• 1:37:40
  like brands like Cromdale, etcetera.
• 1:37:42
  I've got a funny story. My mate's grandfather used to
• 1:37:44
  work at Balmenic and I found this out a really, really good
• 1:37:47
  friend of mine. And I said, look, any chance
• 1:37:49
  your granddad be interested in speaking to us in history?
• 1:37:51
  And he went, you know, I'll ask him, But and I was like, look,
• 1:37:53
  no pressure. And he spoke to his granddad and
• 1:37:55
  his granddad was like, I told you they'd come from a whiskey.
• 1:37:58
  I told you they'd come from a whiskey, so he's got some great
• 1:38:01
  bottles, but I'm I'm not going to push him.
• 1:38:02
  Pretty. So we've got an 18 year old
• 1:38:05
  here. So this was done to commemorate
• 1:38:08
  the 200 year anniversary of Manic and it was a single.
• 1:38:12
  First fill bottle something for once.
• 1:38:14
  Yeah, there was 200 years of history.
• 1:38:16
  So this was a first fill Olaroso Sherry cask and it was given to
• 1:38:20
  every employee of the company. So this doesn't exist in the
• 1:38:24
  wild and I think I might be one of the only employees that's
• 1:38:27
  opened it. So me and my dad cracked it on
• 1:38:29
  Christmas Day just there. And that's what I've got left
• 1:38:32
  because I think for me is, yeah, it's a cool bottle and I could
• 1:38:35
  keep this forever and I could have it on my shelf forever and
• 1:38:38
  I could just look at it. Yeah, No, I'm sorry.
• 1:38:40
  This is an my pals don't like whiskey.
• 1:38:41
  Not a lot of them do anyway. We'll help finish it tonight.
• 1:38:44
  This was an opportunity for me to share it with in a, in a
• 1:38:47
  place where people are interested in whiskey, want to
• 1:38:50
  talk about it and and that, that was it.
• 1:38:52
  That's the reason I wanted to bring you no.
• 1:38:54
  Not at all. I've got 1.
• 1:38:55
  Last question, it's a really cool.
• 1:38:56
  Liquid about the ball manner can.
• 1:38:57
  You may or may not know this, but you know, you've got to
• 1:38:59
  200th anniversary coming up. At what point is the kind of
• 1:39:02
  it's been. No, no, I know.
• 1:39:04
  Yeah. I mean, I'm talking in the kind
• 1:39:06
  of past tense. Yeah, you've got 200
• 1:39:08
  anniversary. Oh, sorry.
• 1:39:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Point is, the decision made of
• 1:39:11
  which casts are we going to use for this special anniversary
• 1:39:14
  bottling? When do you do you know when
• 1:39:15
  that kind of process happened? Yeah, so we were.
• 1:39:17
  I was part of it, which was really exciting.
• 1:39:18
  So Stuart Harvey, our master blender, he, he had shortlisted,
• 1:39:22
  obviously. I mean, he's Stuart Harvey.
• 1:39:24
  Just incredible guys. Like 6 foot eight, I think the
• 1:39:28
  tallest man ever met, but just lovely.
• 1:39:30
  But we we went up. A fight with that Indian boy I
• 1:39:33
  know. So we went down to the lab and
• 1:39:38
  and Stuart had shortlisted. I think it was 5 casks to, to,
• 1:39:42
  to do it and like great, exciting.
• 1:39:43
  And, and also part of that was like, I don't need to open the
• 1:39:45
  ball. Of course I'm going to the ball.
• 1:39:46
  So we'd shortlisted 5 casks. So we'd bourbon, we'd share
• 1:39:49
  cherries of different breeds. So we'd all are also mainly in
• 1:39:52
  bourbon's hogs heads, etcetera. And this was the one that we
• 1:39:54
  just thought was the most weird, interesting, funky.
• 1:39:58
  And that's what we wanted it to be.
• 1:39:59
  It was the other ones were delicious, but.
• 1:40:02
  This just spoke to us and it's first of all, so it's really
• 1:40:04
  tannic, right? So Spanish oak, really tannic.
• 1:40:07
  There's a dryness to it and it's 60 one, 8%.
• 1:40:10
  I think it is, yeah. So it's like 18 years old or we
• 1:40:14
  lose about .5% on average per year, right?
• 1:40:16
  So you'd expect to lose 18. You would expect to lose 9%,
• 1:40:20
  right on this. So this would have been filled
• 1:40:21
  at 69% and it just would have been a bit of a tighter cask.
• 1:40:25
  I was. Going to say it's a Cooper
• 1:40:26
  that's good with Hammer. Exactly, that's so tight cast it
• 1:40:30
  retained a huge amount. But what's interesting the
• 1:40:31
  colour on it is is for 18 years. First of all, it's not as dark
• 1:40:36
  as you would maybe. Expect when you look at, but if
• 1:40:38
  you look at beside the Spaber, oh, you're taking.
• 1:40:40
  Decent extraction for 18 years, you know at that point, so quite
• 1:40:44
  tannic and I think see a little touch of water in it.
• 1:40:46
  It really breaks it, and just after based on the vicious sweet
• 1:40:49
  side of it. Lovely, right?
• 1:40:50
  Well, we are. I mean, we could sit here and
• 1:40:52
  chat. Oh, sorry, I know.
• 1:40:53
  We are fast approaching them. The fiddlers coming in.
• 1:40:56
  Yeah, play their music. Oh yeah, Monique can tell me.
• 1:40:59
  I remember that. But yeah, if you, if there's a
• 1:41:03
  time of the night where we ask our guests or what 3 drams, I'm
• 1:41:06
  really excited to hear these because you've had such a
• 1:41:08
  fascinating story. So sure.
• 1:41:11
  What's your first drama of your, what, 3 Drams?
• 1:41:13
  So I was thinking about what order to put these in, right,
• 1:41:15
  because I was, you know, preemptive of it.
• 1:41:17
  And I think first is Glen going 15, the old 15, right.
• 1:41:22
  Yeah, yeah. So I I've had Door Glen going
• 1:41:25
  and my whole life I've lived next to it.
• 1:41:27
  So I grew up in Mogai where a lot of people from Glasgow, like
• 1:41:29
  you're north of Glasgow. I knew it, I knew it right.
• 1:41:34
  Goodnight. This is where the accent comes
• 1:41:39
  from. Jesus.
• 1:41:39
  Milton, Gavin, OH. My God, yeah.
• 1:41:41
  If I ever said butter, my Gran would smack me in the back of
• 1:41:43
  the head. Butter.
• 1:41:47
  Oh yeah. Brilliant.
• 1:41:49
  But I grew up next to Glen God my whole life, right.
• 1:41:50
  My mum and dad moved to Drummond, just passed it off, as
• 1:41:53
  you know, about seven years ago. And I've grown up next to my
• 1:41:57
  whole life and my grand drank it, my granddad drank it, my dad
• 1:42:00
  drank it. And and as I said earlier in the
• 1:42:02
  podcast is that Heineken beers can be made anywhere in the
• 1:42:05
  world, right? And whatever, but spin it
• 1:42:08
  distilleries, there's only one place in the world you know, if
• 1:42:11
  you pick up Madrid. Madrid can only be brewed and
• 1:42:14
  Burton on Trek. I've heard it.
• 1:42:17
  But if you pick up Spay Burn or Glen going wherever in Japan, in
• 1:42:20
  Australia, there's one place in the whole world where that can
• 1:42:24
  be made. And Glen going for me is home.
• 1:42:27
  Yeah. And and and it's and it's about
• 1:42:29
  that. It's not.
• 1:42:29
  Is it the best whiskey ever taste in my life?
• 1:42:31
  No. It's incredible whiskey.
• 1:42:32
  Right. But is it not?
• 1:42:33
  And I would say that about any of my whiskeys.
• 1:42:35
  Is it the best whiskey I've ever tasted?
• 1:42:36
  Objectively, probably not. But it's an incredible DRAM,
• 1:42:39
  always has been. And one thing my Gran used to
• 1:42:42
  say, and before I tear up, because I've had a couple of
• 1:42:43
  trans, but my Gran always used to say when you can see the camp
• 1:42:46
  seas, where it sits, the food, I'm going.
• 1:42:47
  So if you can see the camp seas, your home, right, You're your
• 1:42:50
  home. You can walk home.
• 1:42:51
  You are that's where you live. And and that's why Glen Goings a
• 1:42:55
  really got holds a really special place emotionally in my
• 1:42:57
  heart for me. Fantastic.
• 1:42:58
  No, I, I there is something we said, Angus is one of the first
• 1:43:02
  episodes. I think the first episode we
• 1:43:03
  did, Angus talked about Haddington House.
• 1:43:05
  Yeah, just being on. The other side of the world
• 1:43:07
  where the bottle you're, it's crazy.
• 1:43:09
  Name on it I was in India, I've. Never seen it anywhere near
• 1:43:11
  Harrington. I was in India and there's a
• 1:43:14
  blended Scotch called Kelvin Bridge and it's got a photo of
• 1:43:16
  Kelvin Bridge. And I was saying again, I was
• 1:43:18
  like, I live there. What you mean there's like my
• 1:43:19
  flat? It's 3.
• 1:43:21
  Blocks away from that and he went, no there's not.
• 1:43:23
  I showed him a photo and I was like what the fuck is Kelvin?
• 1:43:25
  It's in Scotchman. Yeah.
• 1:43:27
  And that that that ability and I think I mean, it must be
• 1:43:29
  fantastic if you're, you know, a master blender or if you're the
• 1:43:33
  person who's maybe names on the bottle.
• 1:43:34
  I didn't go on the other side of the world.
• 1:43:36
  Harrington house. See.
• 1:43:38
  Yeah, see, it's good, good. Bring that bottle down for me.
• 1:43:40
  And then being able to actually say that's my, that's my.
• 1:43:43
  That's it. That's my haunt.
• 1:43:44
  I mean, that's a big, it's fantastic, right?
• 1:43:46
  Great first drive, great first story, fantastic second DRAM
• 1:43:49
  there. Hope only 17.
• 1:43:53
  Oh, is that the third? Mention it might be and old
• 1:43:58
  Pontney I I we talked about this, the flavour profile of it.
• 1:44:01
  Like licking a pretzel. It's and you know what love
• 1:44:04
  that. I'm going to use that in the
• 1:44:05
  next tasting, though. It's it's.
• 1:44:06
  You get no. Royalties for this time.
• 1:44:10
  Credibility I've ever had. But this interesting thing is
• 1:44:13
  that and speaking to a little bit is like old Pultney 12 and
• 1:44:16
  people ask me to show them all Pultney.
• 1:44:17
  Old Pultney 12 is what I show them because there's this
• 1:44:20
  interesting piece with it is that we the majority of casts
• 1:44:22
  are raised at the distillery, right?
• 1:44:24
  They go into single mole and you have this piece where and
• 1:44:27
  maturation has this exponential curve.
• 1:44:29
  It gets faster and faster and faster because the Angel share,
• 1:44:31
  right? It's this increase in wood
• 1:44:32
  contact, but you also have maritime minerality that
• 1:44:35
  increases. But at a certain point, you
• 1:44:37
  know, this disparity gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
• 1:44:39
  So an old poultney 18 has more salted caramel chocolate,
• 1:44:42
  whereas old poultney 12 gives you much more of that maritime
• 1:44:44
  minerality because it's more accessible, right?
• 1:44:46
  So what old Poultney 17 for me was just one of those sweet
• 1:44:50
  points and and 17 year old whiskeys I think for me are.
• 1:44:53
  Just that it's. Interesting.
• 1:44:55
  Specifically re racks. So refill bourbon into refill
• 1:44:57
  Oloroso, right? There's that re rack in a
• 1:44:59
  certain ratio 17 hits to the hits the other heads.
• 1:45:02
  But the story I have with it is I was in Washington DC 2 years
• 1:45:06
  ago and there's this, I can't remember the name of it.
• 1:45:09
  There's this well known retail shop and they do tasting.
• 1:45:12
  So it's like a 2-3 hour tasting. I think it's two hours
• 1:45:14
  specifically and they bring bastards in and they have to
• 1:45:17
  sell X amount of bottles. And the guy said to me, look,
• 1:45:20
  the most bottles ever sell are 1212 bottles.
• 1:45:24
  I'm very competitive. And I was like, OK, cool, Target
• 1:45:27
  done in the mail. So I went and looked around in
• 1:45:29
  stock before I started and I went upstairs and I saw, I saw I
• 1:45:31
  don't put me 17 in the shelf gathering dust.
• 1:45:34
  An old dusty. An old, dusty old $140 U.S.
• 1:45:38
  dollars, right? And there's a secondary market.
• 1:45:40
  I'm not sure how much it's going for, but it's significantly more
• 1:45:42
  than 140 USD. So as I said, if you buy that,
• 1:45:45
  you can flip it for 100. It was a wee earner for a year.
• 1:45:50
  So I'm sitting there like, you know, I asked them and I was
• 1:45:52
  like, what's the point? I just can't sell it.
• 1:45:53
  And I was like, are you joking? I showed him and he was like,
• 1:45:54
  all right, OK, SO2 cases. That's 12 bottles, right?
• 1:45:58
  That's the mark, right? That's that's literally the
• 1:46:00
  mark. So I sold, started showing
• 1:46:03
  people and I was like, that's it on secondary auctions like give
• 1:46:05
  me 3. It's like no problems, give me 4
• 1:46:07
  and I'm sitting there. I was like, you know what the?
• 1:46:08
  Thing you did was you actually sold them.
• 1:46:10
  You should just bought them yourself.
• 1:46:11
  I. Don't.
• 1:46:13
  I never regretted anything in my life apart from this.
• 1:46:17
  Didn't buy a single one and I sold all of them as well as two
• 1:46:20
  more and I beat the record in under an hour and I was so
• 1:46:25
  chuffed myself. But I've never regretted
• 1:46:27
  something more because I could have just bought a case from,
• 1:46:29
  sent it back and it still would have been cheaper than each
• 1:46:31
  bottle. And it's a drama.
• 1:46:33
  I have looked for a lot on options and stuff like that
• 1:46:37
  because I think it's hard to know what the value of it would
• 1:46:40
  be or what the value of it is. But at the same time, there's
• 1:46:44
  been a few times when I'm always like, I'll just always look and
• 1:46:46
  you see them and you go, all right, I see what it's priced at
• 1:46:48
  just now. And it's whether I've hovered
• 1:46:50
  over a few times going like bed now or whatever.
• 1:46:52
  And and I think now having you being on the pod and saying
• 1:46:57
  because it's such a what's interesting with the what 3
• 1:46:59
  dramas, what 3 DRAM is, it's had three mentions now from three
• 1:47:03
  different people, I'm sure. And it's it's, it's not an
• 1:47:06
  accessible DRAM, but it is a slightly accessible.
• 1:47:09
  From a price point of view and then also rarity and trying to
• 1:47:11
  find it, absolutely. But see from a flavour point of
• 1:47:13
  view, I think it is quite accessible.
• 1:47:15
  I think it rounds off a lot of edges that you might see in
• 1:47:17
  other whiskeys. And it's just this really
• 1:47:19
  easygoing DRAM. And Malcolm wearing is our
• 1:47:22
  master Stiller. He's get I think 9 or 10
• 1:47:25
  bottles. And I keep saying to him,
• 1:47:27
  Malcolm just put a price on it and he's like, no, that's my
• 1:47:29
  retirement. He's like, absolutely not when
• 1:47:31
  I'm not selling a single one. Well, fair enough, that's going
• 1:47:33
  to be a difficult 1 to get hold of, right?
• 1:47:35
  OK DRAM #3 Fantastic story so far.
• 1:47:37
  DRAM #3 Ballantine, 17 year old. I think for me, you.
• 1:47:42
  Really tapped into Graham Kilgar here.
• 1:47:45
  I talked about India and now we're on to Ballantine.
• 1:47:48
  'S and the the story of in this is is India Ballantine 17 year
• 1:47:52
  old. I think from you is one of my
• 1:47:53
  favourite blended scotches. I think it just it was just a
• 1:47:56
  perfect it's a perfect DRAM. It sounds perfect, but I was in,
• 1:47:59
  I was in Punjab. This is a wild story.
• 1:48:01
  I actually had forgotten about this until a couple of weeks ago
• 1:48:03
  when a friend said something reminded me that sparked it back
• 1:48:06
  in. Our brand manager for single
• 1:48:08
  malt said, look, there's a new hotel opening up in Punjab.
• 1:48:11
  Any chance you can go up and train the staff?
• 1:48:12
  And I was like, yeah, nothing new, no problem, easy peasy.
• 1:48:15
  So I landed in Chandigarh and I drove 5 hours into Himachal
• 1:48:19
  protection to the the foothills of the Himalayas.
• 1:48:22
  And we're driving for five hours with this guy in the curvy road
• 1:48:25
  and the hills and we get in there.
• 1:48:27
  So I arrived to this Immaculate 5 star hotel, like stunning.
• 1:48:31
  The place is just pristine. Everything's brand new.
• 1:48:33
  And I was like, OK, to be expected.
• 1:48:35
  And I arrive at the, the hotel and, you know, I get the full if
• 1:48:37
  I was over and Bindi in my, my forehead and the hotel manager's
• 1:48:41
  there. And I was like, OK, I'm looking
• 1:48:42
  around and I was like, Oh, it's quite quiet.
• 1:48:44
  And he went, oh, no, you're the only guest.
• 1:48:45
  And I was like, I'm sorry, what? And he went, no, no, no, you're
• 1:48:49
  the only guest for the next two nights.
• 1:48:51
  We're going to practice on you. And I was like, sorry, what do
• 1:48:53
  you mean? He said, we're going to practice
• 1:48:55
  our services on you. And I was like the whole hotel.
• 1:48:58
  And he went, yes, every service is available to you and Full
• 1:49:01
  breakfast, the leisure centre is going to be open for you.
• 1:49:03
  And I said I'm the only guest. He went yes.
• 1:49:05
  So when you the leisure centre open to you, so you got five
• 1:49:08
  guys watching you lap the pool. So great.
• 1:49:13
  I'm like, OK, this is freaking weird.
• 1:49:16
  So we walk in and I'm thinking in the back of my head, I'm
• 1:49:18
  like, I'm going to get a suite. Like I've I've got to be able to
• 1:49:21
  get the top room. No, no, no, double, double.
• 1:49:23
  We're breaking down here. Like I'm not precious, but I was
• 1:49:28
  like, you're fucking kidding me. And the first thing was that we
• 1:49:34
  went past the leisure centre. So there's the lifeguard, right,
• 1:49:37
  standing there. The Jets are on in the jacuzzi,
• 1:49:39
  right? All of this is going on in the
• 1:49:41
  lifeguards waving at me. And I agree and.
• 1:49:43
  Position, it's fully operational.
• 1:49:44
  And I realised that we didn't go in the elevator up and I went,
• 1:49:46
  oh, that's suspicious. And they go in, it's just one of
• 1:49:47
  the random rooms halfway down. So I arrived and I sat in that
• 1:49:53
  night. And of course the reality comes
• 1:49:55
  in because I'd ride quite late at night and I was like, I am
• 1:49:57
  the only human being in this whole hotel.
• 1:50:01
  They are, they've got night staff, they've got the lecture
• 1:50:03
  centre, there's a kitchen that has a 24 hour room service.
• 1:50:06
  They all know I'm here, so I'm in there.
• 1:50:09
  I ordered room service that night.
• 1:50:10
  So I got chicken club sandwich, keep the room, thanks very much.
• 1:50:13
  The next morning I come down for breakfast with the hotel manager
• 1:50:16
  to invite me along and I arrive 12 kitchen staff, full buffet,
• 1:50:23
  omelette station. What like.
• 1:50:25
  All the fruit. The biggest I did my
• 1:50:27
  dissertation on food waste. The most amount of food waste
• 1:50:29
  I've ever seen in my life because I'm not a Big Breakfast
• 1:50:32
  eater, but I felt like I would have.
• 1:50:33
  Done a wee bit more damage. I started breakfast at an Indian
• 1:50:38
  hotel with this money. Definitely would have I.
• 1:50:39
  Felt terrible. I had eggs and a yogurt that
• 1:50:41
  was. That did you tap?
• 1:50:43
  Did you have to tap everywhere? Of course.
• 1:50:45
  I felt like right, It's like but.
• 1:50:50
  But that that evening was the OR that afternoon was the tasting,
• 1:50:53
  right. And of course the flight, the
• 1:50:54
  way it worked out, I had to stay another night.
• 1:50:56
  So that and I did it and I did the tasting.
• 1:50:58
  But of course I didn't just do the tasting on the malt side of
• 1:51:00
  things. I felt obliged.
• 1:51:01
  I did Jameson, which is part of the Irish Distillers.
• 1:51:04
  I did Chevis, but they bought in a Ballentine 17.
• 1:51:07
  It was because that's a very, very expensive, yeah, blended
• 1:51:10
  Scotch for them. So I did the tasting on that as
• 1:51:11
  well. But it just kind of reinforced
• 1:51:14
  how weird that situation was. But it was also sitting amongst
• 1:51:17
  the foothills and sharing that drama, thanking them all
• 1:51:19
  actually individually for being the only person, first person in
• 1:51:24
  this five star hotel. It was a weird, weird
• 1:51:27
  experience. A few people.
• 1:51:28
  That ever done right? Like, no, it was bizarre.
• 1:51:31
  And of course, he felt like that night as well.
• 1:51:33
  For dinner I was like, well I'm gonna need to go to the
• 1:51:35
  restaurant because they've got 2 restaurants.
• 1:51:37
  Not. In the hotel.
• 1:51:41
  Did you ever start in one restaurant?
• 1:51:42
  Your main course. Or the other?
• 1:51:43
  No. It's.
• 1:51:44
  Like which ones I choose? I don't wanna make the other one
• 1:51:46
  feel bad. It was.
• 1:51:47
  Really a weird. It was a bit like I'm gonna go
• 1:51:50
  to the gym. I don't want to give a
• 1:51:51
  badminton, no. I was going, I was like, you
• 1:51:52
  know what, the pool looks quite good, but I am not gonna do that
• 1:51:55
  with one life. I just staring at me.
• 1:51:56
  That was a weird one. That's a great one.
• 1:52:01
  That's sure. Yeah, you've got some.
• 1:52:02
  Great draft fate stories, great entertainment.
• 1:52:03
  Thank you very much for the whiskey as well.
• 1:52:05
  Thank you. How can people listening find
• 1:52:06
  out more about you? How can they get in touch?
• 1:52:08
  Barley Baxter Instagram is probably the best way you know
• 1:52:10
  modern day. That's absolutely it.
• 1:52:11
  And if anyone wants to know anything about the brands, just
• 1:52:13
  send me a message. Things about your your spay burn
• 1:52:16
  stuff are up in the please yeah up up in the spirit space side
• 1:52:19
  festival still tickets available.
• 1:52:21
  I'd imagine a big. Thing There'll be a couple left,
• 1:52:23
  but we're doing a night with Lauren Murray at the Downs as
• 1:52:25
  well. So we're doing like a kind of
• 1:52:27
  dinner and drinks things, spirits and paired paired
• 1:52:29
  whiskeys with you and Henderson, our master distiller.
• 1:52:32
  So there's still tickets for that, I think, well.
• 1:52:33
  Listen, thank you so much for coming along.
• 1:52:34
  Thank you guys. For the drums, thanks for the
• 1:52:36
  great stories. Listen.
• 1:52:37
  You've been listening to the Whiskey Stories podcast.
• 1:52:39
  Don't forget, please, please give us five stars.
• 1:52:41
  Also, if you listen, give us a follow as well.
• 1:52:44
  It gives you more head start on up to date like what we're doing
• 1:52:48
  everything like that false on Instagram, get involved in
• 1:52:51
  there. Join the Facebook group Face.
• 1:52:53
  Look for the Facebook group Whiskey Stories.
• 1:52:55
  Yeah, Whiskey Stories pod in the Facebook.
• 1:52:57
  The legendary, I think now legendary weekend drama all
• 1:53:01
  called. You'll see some fantastic drams.
• 1:53:04
  Any questions you want to ask? Yeah.
• 1:53:07
  We. Occasionally monitor it, yeah.
• 1:53:10
  Listen, get involved. Thank you so much.
• 1:53:12
  Give us, give it like you say, pass the pod on to as many
• 1:53:14
  people as you possibly can. It's been absolutely fantastic.
• 1:53:17
  Sure. Thank you so much.
• 1:53:18
  Thank you for thank you guys. Thanks for the jams.
• 1:53:19
  All the very best. Cheers.
• 1:53:20
  Cheers. Lunch.