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Blender - Bottler - Distiller Spotlight: Aberargie Inaugural Release · Whisky Stories Podcast

• 0:00
  Right, Angus, we've all got drums in front of us.
• 0:02
  Yep. You know what to do.
• 0:04
  Clap us in. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories
• 0:08
  podcast. This is.
• 0:09
  Actually my first time introducing Abaragi inaugural in
• 0:13
  a tasting. And so this is really, really
• 0:15
  exciting for me. Distillers, butlers and Blenders
• 0:20
  for the last 2 1/2 years with the with the company, I've been
• 0:23
  talking a lot about bottlers and blenders elements of business
• 0:26
  and now we finally get to talk about the distillers part.
• 0:29
  Absolutely and moving on. Moving on from sibling bullying
• 0:34
  and burning hospitals. Cherished memories.
• 0:43
  Whack along the whiskey stories. Blender, Bottler, Distiller,
• 0:47
  Spotlight. I'm the rightful Angus.
• 0:56
  Yep. And what you did and one take as
• 0:57
  well there. We are.
• 0:59
  We're getting good at. This absolute bro.
• 1:01
  We're getting good. We've done it again, I guess.
• 1:02
  We've managed to convince people to come along to a pub, we've
• 1:04
  managed to convince a brand to bring some drams and we've
• 1:07
  managed to get Chuck here on time.
• 1:10
  Just about, yeah. Why are you Chuck?
• 1:12
  I'm all right, man. I saw your brother downstairs
• 1:14
  and he serenaded me in song about Conway Harvested.
• 1:16
  I told him to do that. Second year in high school.
• 1:20
  Yeah, there you go. So, yeah, but we are aren't the
• 1:23
  first. That's a real end joke.
• 1:27
  That is a real, I think three people who listen to the podcast
• 1:30
  will probably get that. But anyway, we are, we're in
• 1:33
  Diggers Leaf, the new Diggers Leaf.
• 1:36
  That's fantastic. We've got some drams and we are
• 1:38
  joined by Tam Cuthbert, who is What's your official title term?
• 1:43
  UK sales manager UK sales manager Morrison.
• 1:46
  Scotch whiskey distillers, Morrison Scotch whiskey
• 1:48
  distillers, and tonight you're taking us through.
• 1:50
  This is why tonight we're not just calling it an indie bottler
• 1:53
  Spotlight because we're getting an indie bottle from Card Moor,
• 1:57
  we're getting a blend from Old Perth and we're also getting now
• 2:02
  Mctalla. Is that a single malt as well?
• 2:03
  Yes, a single malt from Mctalla, but also the inaugural release
• 2:07
  of the Aberdagy Distillery. Brilliant.
• 2:12
  Well done. You guys are good at this,
• 2:14
  right? We're not going to wait too long
• 2:16
  before we get into the drums because it's Friday evening.
• 2:18
  It's just gone. 7:00. Talk us through the 1st ram that
• 2:20
  we've got in front of us. Yeah.
• 2:21
  Absolutely. So the first Ram in front of you
• 2:24
  is the forward DRAM and it's from I guess our potentially our
• 2:30
  best known brand within the portfolio and our most
• 2:33
  traditional independent bottling or bottler style.
• 2:37
  So this is from Carmore. This is a liquid so a distillery
• 2:42
  that probably people are familiar with from independent
• 2:44
  bottlings across various brands. This particular 1 is a 2017
• 2:49
  vintage. It is being finished or double
• 2:52
  matured. I'm happy to argue either way.
• 2:55
  In Tokai. So sweet Hungarian wine, 2017
• 2:59
  vintage, bottled this year. 8 years old.
• 3:02
  It's been in Tokai for quite a while.
• 3:05
  Been in Tokai for sort of 6:00-ish years.
• 3:07
  Single cask, 228 bottles, yeah. 51.2% so I think it's got quite
• 3:14
  a lot of that kind of sweet wine wood influence I would say.
• 3:18
  Well, Sanjar, cheers. Weekend DRAM roll calls now
• 3:22
  open. That's it, we're on.
• 3:24
  So Angus, last time we were actually in this room, we were
• 3:28
  recording with a gentleman who's sitting across from us.
• 3:30
  And actually it's the first time I've been in this room recording
• 3:33
  and I can actually see them because it was pitch black.
• 3:35
  We were. We say hunt.
• 3:39
  And it was a liquid that Fraser brought along it.
• 3:42
  Was yeah, we talked, we talked very highly about liquid.
• 3:45
  Yeah, because it was. It's a drum that I've been
• 3:49
  guilty of just leaving aside. Well, this is right.
• 3:52
  Because it's so readily available.
• 3:54
  It's it's well known as in the Flora and Flora and Fauna
• 3:58
  series, but also it's been bottled by independent.
• 4:02
  So many independent hawkers have done so many different things,
• 4:05
  but I'm not sure I've ever had it in Takai.
• 4:07
  No. And I think one of the things
• 4:09
  that Fraser talked about or. Takaji as I used to call.
• 4:12
  It Fraser talked about the fact that the the the the liquid that
• 4:17
  comes out of liquid distillery can be so easily lent to so many
• 4:21
  different finishes. So from your own point of view,
• 4:23
  Tam, then when you when you do have a a brand like car and more
• 4:27
  and you get a lot of access to liquid, how how easy is it when
• 4:31
  you have something like a Linkwood to especially with a
• 4:33
  different type of double maturation or yeah, or or or
• 4:36
  finish like this? I mean, for us and I'll, I'll
• 4:39
  listen to what what Fraser was saying about Linkwood and it's,
• 4:41
  it's totally true that if you have something that's really
• 4:43
  consistent and consistently really good kind of works in
• 4:47
  anything, kind of works in various different styles,
• 4:50
  various different tasks for us for car more, I mean, I used to
• 4:54
  sell a lot of it behind the bar. It was one of them that if it
• 4:57
  says car more on the label, it's a real box of chocolates, but
• 5:00
  it's always high quality drams. Yeah.
• 5:03
  And in terms of inventory, so on site at our distillery, we've
• 5:08
  got kind of about 35,000 casks. So it's about selection of when
• 5:13
  things are ready and the style of whiskey that we want to
• 5:15
  bottle at any particular time. So that so just go sorry 2
• 5:18
  seconds, that's 35,000 casks that are filled with different.
• 5:24
  So that covers car more Aberraggie, Old Perth and
• 5:26
  Mctalla, right. So our whole portfolio, I
• 5:29
  wouldn't know the exact split. There's a lot of Aberraggie
• 5:31
  there because we've been distilling since 2017, but we're
• 5:34
  talking about a decent scale. I would say it's never going to
• 5:37
  be the biggest of 1,000,000 and 1,000,000, but it's, it's enough
• 5:41
  to select what we want to bottle at a particular time when it's
• 5:45
  ready and in various different styles that we want that we want
• 5:48
  to do. I think CAR more as a brand, and
• 5:53
  we'd say this before I worked for the company, just puts
• 5:55
  really, really good whiskey in a bottle.
• 5:57
  Yeah. Sometimes distilleries that you
• 5:59
  might know that are a cool expression of that distillery,
• 6:02
  or sometimes ones that you might not know in a funky wood finish
• 6:05
  or straight down the middle. Like we did a Klein Leash last
• 6:08
  year, 11 years, 11 years old in bourbon, and it was just like,
• 6:12
  yeah, absolutely perfect. And then you've got something
• 6:14
  like the the Linkwood and Tokai, which is nice and fruity.
• 6:18
  Nice way to start. I would say like a really pretty
• 6:20
  easygoing drum. Chuck Linquid then talk us
• 6:24
  through what your thoughts on Linquid is.
• 6:26
  I mean, I think it's kind of been said already.
• 6:29
  Great liquids predominantly used in the blending process, but
• 6:32
  very versatile in cast maturation.
• 6:35
  This would be the second Linquid I've ever had in Tucker.
• 6:38
  The only other one I could think of is the fragrant drops one.
• 6:40
  I think it was 12 years full maturation.
• 6:43
  I think this is great. Like, clearly enough spirit to
• 6:46
  hold up to like the sweetness that you're getting from a
• 6:49
  dessert wine. You've terrified me, Chuck,
• 6:51
  because I think I might have had that fragrant drops on as well
• 6:54
  and I said I'd never had this and like took eye before.
• 6:57
  So there you go. No one would have known if you
• 6:58
  hadn't said. Anything.
• 6:59
  No, I know exactly. I thought I'd just made my own
• 7:01
  but I think. We we actually talked about it
• 7:04
  last week or two weeks ago on the podcast.
• 7:08
  We were saying about how, you know, with Lightwood being the
• 7:11
  size of a discovery that it is sure.
• 7:14
  And like what Fraser talked about was the fact that, you
• 7:17
  know, there's so much Linkwood produced, but it's so good that
• 7:20
  I just get hoarded by Diagio for going into their blends.
• 7:24
  But a company like Diagio could easily say, well, we could put
• 7:28
  it out to, you could put a 12, a 15 and 18, a 21 on the
• 7:32
  marketplace. And Diagio with their route to
• 7:34
  market and with everything that they've already got, they could
• 7:36
  probably fill shelves and probably put it all around the
• 7:38
  world, like probably a lot of their other Florida and Fauna
• 7:41
  releases. But the fact that it is so
• 7:43
  limited makes it a little bit more exciting.
• 7:45
  A lot of time depending what's needed.
• 7:46
  For the other product. You're absolutely blend.
• 7:48
  It's so good. It goes into blend.
• 7:49
  And that's it. It's always an interesting
• 7:50
  choice for these foreign fauna ones that they do put out that
• 7:54
  one expression and that's how you get it from source.
• 7:57
  And then obviously through independent Bottlene.
• 8:00
  So you can, you've got that ability to play with it.
• 8:03
  Yeah. And you want as as an
• 8:04
  independent baller, you want something that can be versatile,
• 8:07
  right? You want something that can
• 8:08
  lend, lend the spirit to various wood types, various kind of,
• 8:14
  yeah, different styles of maturation, big cast, small
• 8:17
  cast, like everything really. And you know that Lincoln's
• 8:20
  going to going to be able to stand up there.
• 8:21
  And that's quite interesting because that's probably
• 8:23
  something we've not maybe touched on before when we talk
• 8:26
  about a consistent product. That's something that, you know,
• 8:29
  the big distillery, the big companies are looking for in
• 8:31
  terms of blending, but also it's something that the independent
• 8:34
  bottle absolutely clearly looking forward to looking for
• 8:37
  because you're not wanting an inconsistent product or a some,
• 8:40
  you know, this is a do you know what I mean?
• 8:42
  Yeah, no, absolutely. I think like across across the
• 8:45
  industry, apart from single casks, you're looking for
• 8:48
  consistency. You want something that people
• 8:50
  can come back to and pick up and become a fan of.
• 8:52
  Like I, I love single cask independent bottles as much as
• 8:55
  the next person, but you don't want to have to hang on to that
• 8:58
  much liquid because that's all you're ever going to have again.
• 9:00
  Like you want to have or you want to have access to that
• 9:03
  stuff, but also have your, your daily drinkers and be able to
• 9:06
  say, this is what I enjoy drinking and I can finish a
• 9:08
  bottle and pick it up and, and kind of have.
• 9:11
  And that's where the big brands have, have done so well.
• 9:13
  You know what Glenfaric 12 tastes like?
• 9:14
  You know what Johnny Walker Black tastes like because it's
• 9:17
  the same and consistent all over, all over the world.
• 9:19
  So talk, talk me through your car and more as a brand then,
• 9:21
  because I'll be honest, you know, you see a lot of it.
• 9:24
  I mean, we probably the majority of people in this room, we see a
• 9:28
  lot of independent bottlers all over the place.
• 9:30
  And there's the big ones that kind of people stick out to, you
• 9:33
  know, you get your Thompson brothers and Gordon Macphails
• 9:34
  and all these kind of things. But car and Moore's up there as
• 9:36
  well. But at the same time, is it
• 9:38
  where, where does car and Moore sell best?
• 9:40
  Is it on on trade? Is it people that are buying up?
• 9:44
  I mean, as soon as you put a lease out, do people just snap?
• 9:46
  Because when it's an independent bottler, you've only got 200 or
• 9:49
  300 bottles, sometimes less. Or is it international markets
• 9:52
  as well? But both to be honest, like it's
• 9:55
  funny because like kind of 10 years ago you would say maybe
• 9:58
  car more G&M couple other like big independent bottlers.
• 10:03
  But now that pie is the same size, but there's lots more
• 10:06
  independent bottlers with with similar ish liquid.
• 10:11
  But we sell a lot through traditional retail.
• 10:13
  We don't do very much with the on trades, just a time
• 10:16
  management thing for for for me and us.
• 10:19
  We want to do more of course. And we're looking to put out
• 10:24
  some really, really like really high quality, just different,
• 10:28
  different stuff. Like we did a Ben Nevis in a
• 10:29
  Klein leash last year. We've done a Kriegelke and Fino
• 10:33
  along with this one, which you have the chance to try as as
• 10:37
  funky like. I'd be interested to know what
• 10:39
  people think of it. I think this is more of a just a
• 10:42
  really, really well put together DRAM.
• 10:44
  So something that I think everyone's going to enjoy and a
• 10:46
  nice way to start. I think if you put various other
• 10:48
  drams in there, you know we're going to have six drams.
• 10:51
  So, but how, how, how old is the Carnmore brand then?
• 10:55
  How long has that been going? About 10 years maybe just just
• 10:59
  over that. It's gone through a couple of
• 11:01
  rebrands in in that time as well.
• 11:03
  It didn't always look like this. This, this label in particular
• 11:08
  is is a new addition to us. So we've taken our printing in
• 11:11
  house. So now we do all all of this
• 11:14
  sort of printing. But that's interesting.
• 11:15
  So it's only really been going as long as the distillery has
• 11:18
  been going. Yeah, more or less.
• 11:19
  Yeah. So I mean, when you talk about
• 11:21
  the casts that are at your home distillery, that's always been
• 11:24
  the case that that you know that the home of car and more
• 11:27
  effectively is the yeah, Abaragi.
• 11:30
  Distillery, and I like what we found out from it, was Carl
• 11:34
  Crafts came on and talked about Arden Merkin and of course
• 11:38
  Adelphi, the independent bottlers who are part are the
• 11:42
  owners of Arden Merkin Distillery.
• 11:43
  And one of the things that you said was actually it makes it a
• 11:45
  lot easier when you have liquid coming out of spills, where what
• 11:49
  you can do is instead of purchasing casks, you could be
• 11:51
  trading casks for liquid. So yeah, it's doesn't, you don't
• 11:54
  have to have that cask, that cask cash transaction and also
• 11:58
  be chasing whether you can actually start having a bit of
• 12:01
  power where you could be going to people and saying.
• 12:03
  So I'm assuming something like that might have been going on as
• 12:05
  well. As well for you guys with using
• 12:07
  Talk Outcast first fills for Linkwoods and stuff like that
• 12:10
  then that can then be utilised for the distillery.
• 12:13
  Yeah, I mean our warehouses are full of every, every wood type
• 12:18
  that you could, you could think of really.
• 12:20
  And some of that I'll see, we'll see in in our official
• 12:24
  bottlings, some, some you won't. But in terms of procurement, so
• 12:29
  we're a family owned business. We're owned by the Morrison
• 12:31
  family and they've got kind of five generations of of whiskey
• 12:36
  history, I guess. And that's procurement,
• 12:38
  distilling, bottling, blending. And certainly before Abirargie,
• 12:42
  we, we still had a skin in the game in terms of procurement of
• 12:45
  whiskey. So it was like we're as a family
• 12:48
  business, we were still buying and selling whiskey.
• 12:50
  So the inventory for car more didn't necessarily start.
• 12:54
  With the distilleries. Yes, in terms of in terms of
• 12:58
  buying and selling whiskey. And like we've like we've heard,
• 13:00
  unreliable. Failed relationships.
• 13:01
  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:02
  So what we think, has anyone added water?
• 13:04
  Yeah, No. What?
• 13:06
  What we think with water is it? Yeah, I think I don't want to
• 13:11
  start off with task strength. No.
• 13:13
  No. Fair.
• 13:14
  Yeah. I thought you told us you start
• 13:18
  at 3:00 this afternoon. But yeah, because I mean, what
• 13:25
  was what percentage did you say this was setting up for?
• 13:27
  51. 51 So I mean, it's not yeah, mega punchy for a but at the
• 13:32
  same time, like you say, it's the first DRAM.
• 13:33
  And yeah, I'd be interested to make try a wee drop of water,
• 13:35
  especially after this week's conversation with Gregor Kurt in
• 13:37
  the corner there about that. The the what?
• 13:39
  The addition of water to what? What can do to drams as well?
• 13:42
  I've done what I tend to do at a whiskey tasting and just
• 13:44
  absolutely tan the first drama. Any consideration to water at
• 13:48
  all? That's a good, that's a good,
• 13:49
  that's a good endorsement for. It Yeah.
• 13:52
  But tell me Tam about your like your role then, because, you
• 13:55
  know, pounding the streets and knocking on the doors and
• 13:59
  getting these things sold. You've even mentioned the fact
• 14:01
  that it must be a tricky balance to have because you're talking
• 14:04
  about you know when you've got how many bottles or how many
• 14:09
  releases will go in and out turn.
• 14:10
  For example, you bring out six at the same time or or it'll
• 14:12
  just be as and when it. Really varies.
• 14:14
  So we'll probably like, on an average year, do 4 car more
• 14:18
  releases and they could vary from 2 drams to six drams.
• 14:23
  And then we'll also sprinkle in a couple of our kind of more
• 14:26
  premium stuff, which is celebration of the cast.
• 14:29
  So that'll be kind of single cast 20 years plus.
• 14:32
  And then we've also got the option to do a family reserve.
• 14:34
  So that's the kind of top, top level of probably like Glengira
• 14:38
  or Contosion or Bulmore from the family days.
• 14:42
  And then with like the likes of Mctalla, we'll do a couple of
• 14:45
  releases as well and old Perth likewise.
• 14:48
  And yeah, so the so the day's busy.
• 14:51
  Yeah. I mean, because that's it.
• 14:52
  And then like you said as well about the fact that when you do
• 14:54
  bring out these releases, if there's only two or three
• 14:56
  hundred or something less than 200 bottles at all, how, how,
• 15:00
  what, how small and out town you'd look at doing.
• 15:02
  But at the same time, from your perspective, perhaps spread that
• 15:06
  across all these different places because there'll be
• 15:08
  retailers you'll probably know that you could sell.
• 15:11
  I bought like one run of this 200 odd bottles through just the
• 15:14
  retail connections that you. Have in your game.
• 15:16
  Which then means that people like us can't go into the
• 15:19
  diggers and see it on on the back bar.
• 15:21
  It's a relationship game as well.
• 15:23
  Like it's like who who supports other other parts of our
• 15:27
  business, Who do we want to be seen doing business with?
• 15:30
  And also like getting it as as far and wide as possible is a
• 15:33
  big thing for us as well because you can get quite Scotland
• 15:36
  centric or you can get quite even Edinburgh centric.
• 15:38
  But you want to have it you know as as far as possible.
• 15:42
  And across the UK then, yeah, yeah, sorry.
• 15:43
  Like so how far and wide does does the brand go?
• 15:46
  There, so we do, we do a bit of work in London with the likes of
• 15:49
  Three Greek St., formerly Milroy's, with the Whisky
• 15:53
  Exchange as well and. Hello London.
• 15:55
  Just what I say, Our biggest audience, our biggest audience
• 15:57
  is now officially in London. So everyone 123.
• 16:00
  Hello, London. So, so my eyes.
• 16:05
  So Melrose is now 3 Reed straight, Yes.
• 16:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it's a very, it's had a
• 16:11
  refurb, right. So the bars now on the other
• 16:14
  side if you were ever in it before.
• 16:16
  But that's how you do a refurb. Put the bar now.
• 16:18
  Yeah, but it's a better use of space to be fair to them.
• 16:20
  And they are are a really nice partner of ours.
• 16:24
  They're a Metalla lighthouse, which we'll cover later.
• 16:27
  So we work pretty closely with them on on pouring drams and and
• 16:30
  also and also selling bottles as well because there are quite a
• 16:32
  unique place where they have there a bar and also a retail
• 16:36
  facility as well. Superb.
• 16:38
  What's everyone's thoughts on the DRAM so far?
• 16:39
  Anyone got any wanky tasting notes that they want to divulge
• 16:43
  or get out? Anyone want me to come along?
• 16:45
  I'll put the glasses on and I'll truck a mic under your nose.
• 16:49
  Is everyone ready for that yet? No.
• 16:52
  OK, right A. Couple people shaking their
• 16:54
  head, Graham. Scared of me just now, right?
• 16:56
  Well, what we'll do is because actually one of the one of the
• 16:59
  great tips again, Gregor in the corner they gave us was I liked
• 17:05
  it. Unlike Angus, who's very greedy
• 17:06
  when it comes to pouring whiskey and also drinking his drams.
• 17:10
  I like to leave a little bit so you can come back so that you
• 17:13
  can you can check that so. But you've only got 2.
• 17:15
  Glasses so don't we do your eyes so don't leave too much.
• 17:18
  You've only got 2 glasses. But we will move on to the next
• 17:21
  DRAM then Tam. So this is the exciting one for
• 17:24
  me. What are we?
• 17:25
  What are What's in our second glass?
• 17:27
  Yeah, I mean, this is it's a long time in the making.
• 17:30
  This is my first. This is actually my first time
• 17:32
  introducing Abragi inaugural in a tasting.
• 17:36
  So this is really, really exciting for me.
• 17:40
  Distillers, butlers and blenders.
• 17:42
  For the last 2 1/2 years with the with the company, I've been
• 17:45
  talking a lot about bottlers and blenders element of the
• 17:48
  business. And now we finally get to talk
• 17:50
  about the, the distillers part and we have a distillery.
• 17:54
  We began distilling in 2017. We built a distillery sort of
• 17:59
  the year before. We're on a farm.
• 18:02
  We're a farm distillery. We sit on 300 acres just South
• 18:06
  of Perth just along the road from, from Bridge of Earn.
• 18:10
  We grow barley and we make whiskey.
• 18:13
  And that's quite, a, quite a simple, simple approach to it.
• 18:16
  I guess the, the key part of, of Abirargi is being sympathetic to
• 18:23
  our surroundings, sympathetic to our landscape.
• 18:25
  So in the fields we grow specifically Golden Promise
• 18:29
  variety of barley. Great, great variety.
• 18:31
  Which if if anyone's had the chance to try anything Golden
• 18:33
  Promise related, it's makes a really, really for me, texture
• 18:38
  and structure are big things in whiskey and that is what Golden
• 18:41
  Promise does. It really, really elevates it.
• 18:43
  We support that with barley from other Morrison owned farms in
• 18:48
  Scotland. So we grow Laureate, a more
• 18:50
  commercial strain or a more kind of modern strain of barley.
• 18:54
  Golden Promise is inefficient in the field, it's susceptible to
• 18:59
  disease and yeah, it's just a bit of a nightmare to work with.
• 19:04
  Joe. Yeah.
• 19:05
  Shite yields. Shite yields and it's tough to
• 19:10
  work through your distillery as well.
• 19:13
  It is a little bit kind of volatile I guess and, and can
• 19:17
  clog up your, your systems a little bit.
• 19:19
  However, we, we feel it's, it's worth it.
• 19:22
  So what we do at Aberraggy and what we've been doing since 2017
• 19:25
  is that we produce 2 new make spirits.
• 19:27
  So we distill lock laureate barley in the exact same
• 19:32
  fashion. And then we distill Golden
• 19:33
  Promise for a period. So that may be 3 months, three
• 19:36
  months, three months, three months.
• 19:38
  We mature them independently. We fill them into exclusively,
• 19:42
  first of all bourbon and first of all Sherry casks and 2026 we
• 19:47
  have 4, all four of those elements in a bottle.
• 19:50
  So we have 52% Golden Promise spirit, 48% Laureate Spirit, 50%
• 19:55
  Firstfill bourbon, 50% Firstfill Sherry.
• 19:59
  For me, it's it's just got, it feels like a complete
• 20:03
  representation of of the spirit that we want to provide the
• 20:07
  mouthfeel texture. Yeah, 48.2% was our bottling
• 20:13
  strength. This is our first ever ever
• 20:15
  release, as I say, inaugural, but it should be a really nice
• 20:18
  representation of where we feel our whiskey, why it's made like
• 20:23
  this. You should be able to taste that
• 20:25
  in terms of in terms of structure.
• 20:27
  And yeah, we're delighted to share it.
• 20:31
  Well, Sandra Martin cheers here. Inaugural whiskey, inaugural
• 20:35
  tasting. Diggers Leaf.
• 20:41
  Laurie, it seems quite old school barley variety as well.
• 20:44
  Yeah, it's very like early 2000s.
• 20:46
  Yeah, but this is interesting because you were saying it was a
• 20:48
  modern variety and clearly, clearly John doesn't think it is
• 20:51
  at all. Well.
• 20:53
  I'm just going, I'm just looking from a producing perspective,
• 20:57
  right? I remember I speak to my old man
• 20:59
  about it and he was like fucking hate grown it.
• 21:02
  Like. Heavy rains, it would just
• 21:05
  flatten yields were bad. But then also after every every
• 21:08
  year, when you keep on growing the same barley varietal you're
• 21:12
  more likely to get infested by, you're more likely for your crop
• 21:17
  to get infected. Just because of having it the
• 21:20
  prior year, just because encouraging.
• 21:22
  Stuff get more accustomed to it and pesticides don't work as
• 21:25
  well if they're heavily used. So you are it's it becomes
• 21:29
  harder and harder to produce over time.
• 21:31
  Yeah. And you may be getting.
• 21:32
  Smaller, I guess, and, and that's something that's really
• 21:34
  interesting 'cause I'm right to say I'm you may, I may be
• 21:36
  repeating what you just said, but your barley only comes from
• 21:39
  about two or three different farms.
• 21:40
  Is that right? Exactly.
• 21:41
  Exactly. All based in the same.
• 21:43
  Area or are they all? No one in Aberdeenshire, one in
• 21:47
  Ayrshire and E Lothian as well. So and.
• 21:49
  And your, your farm is, it's in Perthshire, isn't it?
• 21:53
  It's just outside. Five.
• 21:54
  Yes, exactly. And there's No 5 barley in here,
• 21:56
  Graham. No, no, you can keep that, but I
• 22:01
  guess, I guess from a kind. Of tail, but it's very close to
• 22:06
  being 5 barley. It's very close, but from a,
• 22:09
  from a farming and agricultural point of view.
• 22:13
  So our operations director, who also is our whiskey blender,
• 22:18
  he's, he's a farmer by, by family and regenerative farming
• 22:23
  is, is a big part of what we, we try and do.
• 22:26
  So like we in the winter, we'll plant cover crops like turnips
• 22:30
  and, and various other things. We get the sheep in, they graze
• 22:34
  on them. They do what sheep do.
• 22:37
  And then that gets some nitrogen into the soil.
• 22:40
  So trying to kind of look after the land it, it should reduce
• 22:43
  the need for, for pesticides and that sort of thing.
• 22:47
  But just trying to look after, look after the land it, it
• 22:49
  really is making whiskey and making booze is an extension of
• 22:52
  farming. Really.
• 22:53
  It's how to keep your crops from going bad.
• 22:57
  But no, we're, we're and in terms of what we do on site.
• 23:00
  So we grow the golden promise barley right in front of the
• 23:03
  still house and, and on the surrounding 300 acres.
• 23:07
  We then send our malt down to Simpsons who malt it for us to
• 23:11
  our specifications. Bring it back.
• 23:12
  We distill, we mature and we bottle everything on site.
• 23:16
  And so we've currently got 2 warehouses, as I say about
• 23:19
  35,000 cash capacity and they're almost full.
• 23:23
  So yeah, we need to either sell some more or but no.
• 23:28
  Or build some more in. Terms, yeah.
• 23:30
  But in terms of like we want to, we want to have control.
• 23:33
  So we want to say we can trace provenance of barley, of the
• 23:38
  distillation, the every, every kind of element of it.
• 23:40
  We want to we want to have some element of control and going
• 23:44
  into the maturation side of things.
• 23:47
  So we work direct with the guys over in the States to for our
• 23:51
  for our woods. So we buy direct bourbon
• 23:55
  barrels. We request that they are
• 23:56
  unrinsed, unsteamed and shipped home.
• 23:59
  So in terms of that provenance as well, it's like we want to
• 24:03
  have the almost like the the best ingredients I guess.
• 24:06
  And similarly over in Spain with with the guys over there, we
• 24:10
  work direct and we and we ship all our cash hole And this is
• 24:13
  all this is exclusively first fill and but I guess the top
• 24:18
  line of Abargi is two different barley varieties probably cash,
• 24:21
  Sherry cash. Yeah, Because you mentioned
• 24:23
  everything is currently being filled into first fill.
• 24:25
  Is that right? Is that something you'll be able
• 24:28
  to sustain? Is that because you can then use
• 24:30
  the casts and your other company?
• 24:32
  You know your other products? So now we have Abargi refill
• 24:36
  woods. So now, now that we've bottled
• 24:38
  some, we can start that process of, of it being full Abra.
• 24:43
  You're yeah. It's a case of starting with
• 24:45
  first fill and then the refills come down exactly.
• 24:47
  Yeah, because I mean we will talk about it's a non age
• 24:50
  statement, right. But at the same time, we know
• 24:53
  from what you've been just been, you know, if you're, if you're
• 24:56
  good at maths, you'll know that. You don't have to be that good
• 24:59
  at. Well, you don't, you don't have
• 25:01
  to be that good at, but if you are, you'll know that you'll
• 25:04
  know that this probably isn't just three-year old liquid
• 25:07
  that's been that's been that's been put out.
• 25:08
  There'll be a mix I'm I'm sure. But at the same time, there'll
• 25:11
  be some liquid that's probably come from from some of the first
• 25:14
  installation potentially. Yeah, I mean, if we weren't
• 25:18
  recording Atkins. Yeah.
• 25:20
  We could talk about that after the recording, but but my point
• 25:22
  being is that it's not like what we know is that just keeping.
• 25:25
  The specs already mentioned. No basic.
• 25:28
  Basically. I'm extremely happy to share
• 25:31
  what in terms of makeup is in this portal but not.
• 25:36
  To go, yeah, I know, of course. But what I'm what I'm basically
• 25:38
  saying is that what we know is that the distillery has been
• 25:40
  producing spirit for longer than three years.
• 25:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what we know is that this
• 25:44
  isn't predominantly 3 year old, I don't know, I don't know, you
• 25:47
  know 3. So how what I'm wanting to ask
• 25:49
  from your point there, how long have you been working with the
• 25:50
  business for? 2 1/2 years.
• 25:53
  Right. So how, how often?
• 25:55
  I mean, I suppose it'll be acknowledge to a lot of people
• 25:58
  that you guys have been building a distillery and then
• 26:00
  distilling. And so how many times when
• 26:02
  you're having these conversations are you getting
• 26:04
  people? Have you had people asking you
• 26:05
  when are we going to start seeing single malt?
• 26:07
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 26:08
  I mean, it's it's one of them that we've been pretty quiet
• 26:11
  about it. Yeah.
• 26:13
  And very deliberate on that front because we want we wanted
• 26:16
  to time it so that you're not having too big of a like it's
• 26:20
  coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's
• 26:21
  coming. And then ten years later or, you
• 26:23
  know, however long later. So we only really started
• 26:25
  talking about Aberraggy at London Whiskey show last year
• 26:28
  where we showcased our two new make spirits, an expression of
• 26:31
  Aberraggy and first of all bourbon, an expression of
• 26:33
  Aberraggy and first of all Sherry.
• 26:35
  But prior to that, it was more kind of like my customers that
• 26:38
  were like when Zabaragi coming and it was the answer was when
• 26:42
  it's ready and we weren't aiming for a specific vintage.
• 26:45
  We weren't aiming for an age very much when we feel it's
• 26:49
  ready to go. And that was a kind of keeping
• 26:54
  an eye on the spirit as it as it were, and really saying, yeah,
• 26:57
  we this is where this is the time to time to put it out.
• 27:00
  That's presumably it's all completely unpeted malt.
• 27:02
  Is there any peeted in any of your barley?
• 27:05
  Is that peeted, I told you, do a peeted run or is it just all
• 27:08
  completely unpeted, you know? It's.
• 27:12
  I just always want to ask the question.
• 27:14
  Mostly unpeted, mostly unpeted, No, The thing is like so.
• 27:18
  So I guess in terms of Abaragi, these are for the four takeaways
• 27:22
  and this is our first kind of showcased it to everyone.
• 27:26
  And we want to know that. We want people to know that we
• 27:27
  are about these four elements of first of all, bourbon or bourbon
• 27:30
  Sherry, two different types of of barley variety.
• 27:33
  Of course we have experimentation across the board
• 27:36
  of everything you can think of. That's the benefit of having
• 27:38
  your own distillery where you can say, yeah, well, let's,
• 27:42
  let's see how that reacts or, or works.
• 27:44
  And you know, in 20 years time or in 10 years time, you might
• 27:47
  see something a little different.
• 27:49
  But in terms of inaugural release, you want to have a
• 27:51
  really strong house, house style or what you're what you want to
• 27:55
  be known for. You don't really want to muddy
• 27:56
  the waters with sure, this or that or, or something different,
• 27:59
  even though it might be exceptional.
• 28:01
  But it's it's about showcasing what we will be known for.
• 28:05
  Yeah. And and so when you're talking
• 28:07
  about like, not, you know, the whiskey will not go out until
• 28:11
  it's absolutely ready, was that I mean, you start, you do have
• 28:14
  to plan for these things. Like, you know, I think there
• 28:18
  are people in the room who have been part of production and
• 28:21
  distilling and putting out bottles and stuff like that.
• 28:24
  And you'll know from yourself as well, from your background in
• 28:26
  sales, you've got to make sure everyone is ready for it to come
• 28:29
  out, albeit not be screaming and shouting saying we're going to
• 28:31
  release this at 10 or so. Everyone's counting down the
• 28:33
  days, but whatever. But it does take a wee while to
• 28:37
  to get bottles ordered to get all this stuff ready, bottles,
• 28:40
  labels, etcetera, etcetera. But how long from do you did you
• 28:44
  know that this was coming out? At this point, probably this
• 28:48
  time last year right, if not slightly before, it was a case
• 28:53
  of working to get the the spirit kind of makeup correct I guess.
• 28:59
  And that took up a while of fine tuning through different
• 29:03
  prototypes. And I was lucky to be kind of a
• 29:06
  little bit involved in that in terms of like getting to getting
• 29:09
  to try some of the, the final samples and having having a
• 29:12
  little, little say in that. We're a small company.
• 29:15
  We're we're 16 people. Right, so that was that.
• 29:18
  Was the one next we're our, our sales and marketing team is, is
• 29:21
  five people including the managing director.
• 29:24
  So it's, you know, I look after the UK, we have international
• 29:27
  sales Gen. and and two 2 brand managers.
• 29:31
  And so then are you, I mean, how exciting is it from your job to
• 29:34
  go out and actually be selling a single malt?
• 29:36
  So you're able to then chop on the doors of everybody, all the
• 29:40
  contacts that you've already got, all the people who are
• 29:42
  buying your car and more old pair from Metalla.
• 29:44
  And now you're able to actually phone these guys up over the
• 29:47
  last, well, over the last month, I suppose.
• 29:49
  Just a couple of months. It's ready, Yeah.
• 29:51
  Get your, get your orders. I mean, it's amazing.
• 29:54
  It's, it's really not every day that a single malt distillery
• 29:57
  launches its first product and, and to be involved in that as
• 30:02
  mega and to, and to really, and for it to be so well received.
• 30:06
  I don't know what people are thinking about, about the drama
• 30:08
  itself, but it's, it's been extremely positively received in
• 30:12
  terms of flavour profile, in terms of price point, in terms
• 30:15
  of branding, everything. And yeah, the, the whiskeys,
• 30:19
  we're, we're really proud of that.
• 30:21
  And how much is the bottle of that sort of 65 pounds, 65 lbs
• 30:24
  again? And like you said, there's a,
• 30:25
  there's an element of there'll be a lot of people who have
• 30:28
  bought that bottle, that, that bottle will remain unopened
• 30:32
  because there's plenty of people who like to buy inaugural
• 30:34
  releases and just keep hold of them and that's it.
• 30:36
  They'll, they'll either be a sentimentality or element of it,
• 30:39
  but it'll always be an element of someone going, this might be
• 30:41
  worth about a Bob or two when, you know, in a few years time.
• 30:43
  But one of the other things that we've talked about in the
• 30:45
  podcast a lot over the over the couple of years is, you know,
• 30:48
  with the how many new distilleries we're seeing
• 30:51
  opening up. It's a really exciting time as a
• 30:54
  as a consumer, as we've mentioned so many things, but
• 30:56
  it's like it's, it's a great thing where there is nobody
• 30:58
  alive today that sat in a room like this trying go ahead and
• 31:03
  fit it or spring back or something good.
• 31:06
  You know what, I can't wait to try that when it's 12 or 15
• 31:09
  years old or anything like that. You know, it's literally so when
• 31:12
  we the age that we live in now where the new distilleries are
• 31:16
  opening and there's experimentation.
• 31:18
  And one of the things that is probably is really interesting
• 31:20
  with new distilleries, like what what you were talking about
• 31:22
  earlier on is when you're a new distillery, we've we've spoken
• 31:26
  to the guys at Port Leith and we've got Arden Mark and there's
• 31:28
  plenty of new distilleries we spoke to.
• 31:30
  The focus all has to be on production.
• 31:32
  It all has to be on yeasts or barley or anything like that.
• 31:36
  But I suppose that helps now that there's an age of whiskey
• 31:40
  geeks that's right there. People actually do get excited
• 31:43
  and barley varieties that are going in because that's the only
• 31:45
  story you've really got to tell is such about the distillery,
• 31:49
  you know, about the sustainability, the farming, the
• 31:51
  heritage of that. Yeah.
• 31:52
  You know, you don't have a 200 year history to go well back in
• 31:55
  this, you know, but that's what you're doing is you're making it
• 31:57
  interesting by adding those elements in.
• 31:59
  Yeah. And not with not with this
• 32:01
  specific distillery, but in terms of in terms of history,
• 32:04
  family, family histories is has helped big time with, with the
• 32:08
  Morrisons previously owning Bulmore and Glengarry and
• 32:10
  Alcantosham. But this is our first kind of
• 32:15
  showcase of a, of a new, new distillery like the other half
• 32:18
  of the Morrison family has Clayside distillery.
• 32:21
  But this is our, our side of the Morrison.
• 32:24
  Morrison really nice. And I I'd like to ask another
• 32:27
  slightly cheeky question which you might not be able to answer,
• 32:29
  but it's more. Well, we'll have another. 1.
• 32:36
  Let me ask Graham, you know. We can guess, you know.
• 32:39
  Well, it's more, it's more the question is what can we expect
• 32:42
  in the future? I mean, is there a core release
• 32:44
  coming? How long we have to wait for
• 32:45
  that? Or is that just yeah, wait and.
• 32:47
  See, no, there's a core release. We want to get to a core range
• 32:51
  product, but we've not rushed anything yet.
• 32:53
  Sure. And we will.
• 32:55
  We'll have a core release, yeah, in the future for sure.
• 32:59
  But we want to spend the next. So the inaugural release has
• 33:02
  been extremely popular and that's, that's great.
• 33:05
  But you really want to, we want to follow up with telling the
• 33:08
  story of, of everything that we do beyond one single bottle.
• 33:13
  So in the next 18 months or so, you'll see the the journey of
• 33:16
  Aberrargie towards a core range product.
• 33:19
  Brilliant. Well, thank you very much.
• 33:20
  What we'll do is we'll stop for a quick break, give us time to
• 33:23
  finish what's in our glasses, then refill it with the next two
• 33:26
  drums. But thank you very much, Tam.
• 33:27
  That's absolutely fantastic. Cheers.
• 33:31
  All right, ladies and gentlemen, already a rock'n'roll, right?
• 33:34
  Let's see if I can get this right again.
• 33:36
  Welcome back to the Whiskey Stories podcast, Winter Baller
• 33:39
  Distiller with Morrison Distillers and *** Lead.
• 33:46
  You can tell you always know once you've had the 1st 2 dramas
• 33:49
  out of these everyone just so this is, this is quite exciting
• 33:54
  Tam because you've we've now moved on.
• 33:56
  So we've had the bottler element, we've had the distiller
• 33:59
  element and now we're on to the blinder element.
• 34:02
  So this is this is old Perth. Yeah, that's it.
• 34:05
  And so we, we wanted to cover all bases in our portfolio when,
• 34:11
  when we began the distillery and with our location with
• 34:15
  Perthshire having such a rich history of, of blending, you
• 34:18
  know, back in the day from, from grouse and Jews and, and various
• 34:21
  others. Bells.
• 34:22
  And bells. Yeah.
• 34:23
  I mean, that's one. I always think it's anonymous.
• 34:25
  Yeah, I mean, so, so blending, blending whiskey in Perthshire
• 34:30
  goes goes way back. You OK in the back there?
• 34:34
  Sorry, I just think we're only. We're only talking about a brand
• 34:43
  of blended whiskey right now. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:45
  Yeah, so we wanted to be blending in Perthshire and Old
• 34:50
  Perth is actually a brand that goes back to 19 O 8 started by
• 34:54
  the Thompson family grocers kind of familiar story back from 120
• 34:59
  odd years ago. But Old Perth in its in its
• 35:02
  current form is a blended malt. So exclusively space side single
• 35:07
  malts, exclusively mature and Sherry casks.
• 35:10
  And yeah, I mean, some of the liquid that we've put out as as
• 35:13
  Old Perth has been phenomenal. So it's like every, so just
• 35:17
  confirmation there because I didn't know this.
• 35:19
  Everything from Old Perth is blended malt, yes.
• 35:21
  So there's no grain whiskey? Blended blended space side malt.
• 35:25
  Yeah, yeah. So.
• 35:25
  Its own Sherry, right? OK, fantastic.
• 35:27
  So it's very specific. And we, we, we made the, the,
• 35:33
  the, the specification of space side single malt so that we can
• 35:38
  say that there's no Abargi in it because a lot of people would
• 35:41
  assume that you just, yeah, yeah, like, okay, you've got a
• 35:43
  blended malt brand. It's clearly got that in it.
• 35:45
  But it's space side single malts.
• 35:47
  A couple of our vintage collections are not space side
• 35:49
  single malts like we did in McAllen Highland Park 21 last
• 35:52
  year. Highland Park's not on Space
• 35:55
  Shack, No. So, so you scoop up there.
• 35:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and so I, I just sorry.
• 36:01
  So does that go all the way back to the beginning origins,
• 36:05
  origins of Old Perth, or is that something that Morrison
• 36:07
  Distillers decided to do exclusively?
• 36:09
  There's something that Morrison Distillers.
• 36:11
  Decided to do so. How?
• 36:12
  How long have Morrison has had the brand now?
• 36:13
  About. 10 or 12 years, something like that.
• 36:16
  It's not always always looked like that.
• 36:18
  It used to have a, a slightly different kind of branding to it
• 36:22
  and you will see a couple of old pairs that might not be
• 36:26
  specifically Sherry, specifically blended malt, but
• 36:31
  in the last, you know, eight or nine years it's been Spacey
• 36:34
  single malts, mature and Sherry casks.
• 36:37
  I guess on on site our distillery again, we go back to
• 36:40
  doing as much as we can on site. So we have 5, they're at least
• 36:46
  70 year old Sherry bots that we bought straight from straight
• 36:49
  from her F they were used in the drinking Sherry market and we
• 36:52
  have them filled up with blended malt and we teaspoon a little
• 36:56
  bit of that kind of it's it's pretty intense stuff into pretty
• 37:01
  much everything that we do with Old Perth.
• 37:03
  So it's just that kind of that DNA kind of running through and
• 37:07
  commitment to Sherry cash maturation as well as authentic
• 37:10
  as as we can be. So sorry, just so we go back to
• 37:14
  that, you mentioned about the Thompson family.
• 37:15
  So we're talking about, is that the Thompson family of Finn
• 37:19
  Thompson? Exactly.
• 37:19
  Yeah, yeah. So it's Finn Thompson's
• 37:20
  granddad, our great, great granddad.
• 37:23
  We're one of the grandparents. Yeah, they had.
• 37:26
  So yeah. Because it's, it's funny when
• 37:28
  you, you look, you look, I mean, on a larger scale, you've got,
• 37:32
  you know, Famous Grouse being bought by Edgington and stuff.
• 37:36
  But it's it's interesting when you look at buying a brand and
• 37:39
  there's when you because we've heard stories about buying
• 37:41
  distilleries and it was, you know, Ian MacLeod distillers
• 37:44
  where the Russell family when they bought Tam do it was all
• 37:46
  about, you know, you look at what inventory you're buying
• 37:48
  with that. Yeah, I take it when what's the
• 37:51
  situation when you're buying a blend?
• 37:53
  Can you buy inventory or are you literally just buying the brand?
• 37:56
  Yeah, I actually. Don't know about the the
• 37:58
  procurement side of of old pairs in terms of that.
• 38:00
  I don't know if there was a there was a liquid deal as well,
• 38:03
  but it was a case of taking old path and, you know, specifically
• 38:08
  blended in percher again and making it as high quality as we
• 38:11
  can. So single malt from space side
• 38:13
  is is high quality thick. People understand that Sherry
• 38:16
  cask is high quality thick. So hopefully those elements
• 38:20
  because blended whiskey gets gets a tough wrap.
• 38:23
  But if you have high quality single malts and you have them
• 38:26
  in high quality Sherry casks, then you can create something.
• 38:29
  And speaking to your gentleman here, like putting recipes
• 38:32
  together of different makeups or spirits is, is very hard.
• 38:36
  If you're working with one spirit, you know, fine.
• 38:38
  You understand what that's going to react to in one specific cast
• 38:42
  once you put, you know, grassy or nutty or malty or whatever it
• 38:45
  is, and then put them together and, and how they're going to
• 38:47
  react. It's it's proper art of
• 38:49
  blending. Yeah.
• 38:50
  Absolutely. I mean and, and what we're
• 38:52
  probably going to do. Sorry, what did you ask?
• 38:53
  What's the first one we. Got well, I was just going to
• 38:56
  say what we're going to do, I think is we're going what we're
• 39:02
  actually going to do is we're going to have these side by
• 39:04
  side. So because they're because
• 39:06
  they're both old Perth. So what are?
• 39:08
  What are the two that were so I guess.
• 39:11
  The one, the one that was in front of you might be to your
• 39:14
  left or right now is our Old Perth double Sherry wood.
• 39:18
  So I guess goes back a little bit to what I was saying about
• 39:23
  consistency. And this is part of our core
• 39:25
  range. So we've currently got 4 drams
• 39:27
  in our core range of Old Perth with various different makeups,
• 39:30
  various different Sherry types. This is our most recent edition.
• 39:34
  We added it in 2024 in the summer of and it is a
• 39:40
  combination of all the Russell and Pedro Hammond and Sherry.
• 39:42
  So double Sherry woods 48.2% alcohol for me.
• 39:48
  This is just a nice soft, easy going space either like it's
• 39:55
  yeah, something something for everyday, a little bit
• 39:57
  chocolatey. This is kind of 45 quids a
• 40:01
  bottle, something like that. Again, with blended whiskey or
• 40:04
  blended malt whiskey, you have to price it accordingly because
• 40:07
  it's got the B word on it, but. Where is your blending site
• 40:11
  then? You mentioned it's in Percher,
• 40:12
  is that in your? On site.
• 40:14
  On site at your decelerator. Yeah.
• 40:16
  So in terms of warehousing, we warehouse all of our old Perth
• 40:20
  here. In terms of discouraging so
• 40:22
  emptying cask we do everything on site and in terms of bathing
• 40:25
  and blending we do everything on site as.
• 40:26
  Well, and what's the second? What's the second RAM?
• 40:28
  Sorry. Then and the second one, so this
• 40:30
  is part of our core range and then we have a limited edition
• 40:33
  that we did last year last August.
• 40:35
  We, we released this and we'll do limited editions kind of
• 40:38
  throughout the year to showcase different cherry styles or
• 40:40
  showcase just different kind of elements of what we do with old
• 40:45
  Perth. This is old Perth bodega and
• 40:47
  it's a combination of three different sheddies.
• 40:49
  This one. So we've got all Rosso PX and
• 40:52
  Paolo Cortado. I think that the PX element is
• 40:55
  absolutely there. You can see by the colour of it.
• 40:58
  It's, it's, it's pretty strong. Paolo Cortado really lifts it
• 41:01
  and gives it a bit of a bit of vibrancy from for my palette.
• 41:05
  And this is 52.4. I think this drinks ridiculously
• 41:11
  easy at 52. Yeah, for any Sherry tarts, I
• 41:14
  think is the is the term. Yeah, I used to be one of them,
• 41:17
  apparently. Where's the girl?
• 41:20
  Apparently now you're pretending to light beated whiskey.
• 41:24
  Yeah, I mean, Tammy, when you're talking about blending on site
• 41:29
  and everything being done on site now you're obviously going
• 41:31
  to have and I'm assuming a master blender for the for the
• 41:36
  single malt. Yeah, somebody who is nosing
• 41:39
  casts and signing them off for going into their car and more
• 41:43
  probably working with whiskey and spirit for your metallic and
• 41:47
  then of course blaming Old Perth.
• 41:50
  Is that one team of people that does all of that What?
• 41:53
  Or is there a particular person that's that's sort of sole
• 41:56
  responsible or is that split as like there's a car and more
• 41:58
  team, the Abargi team, the Old Perth team in the Mcallity?
• 42:01
  As I mentioned, we're pretty small operation, that's almost
• 42:06
  one person's job. Yeah.
• 42:08
  So our operations director, Graham, Graham Mckerry, he is in
• 42:12
  charge of kind of what eventually goes into bottle.
• 42:15
  He'll work with our managing director in terms of cast
• 42:18
  selection for specifically car more, but also for Mctella and
• 42:21
  Old Perth as well in terms of where, what direction we we want
• 42:24
  to go in and presenting options. And then, and then it's a kind
• 42:27
  of team decision from there in terms of the Graham and and Neil
• 42:33
  as well. Occasionally with, with the
• 42:35
  likes of car more, you know, we'll get as a, as a sales team,
• 42:38
  you know, what do you, what do you think of this?
• 42:40
  Will this work? Because we're, we're a little
• 42:41
  bit closer to what's out there as well.
• 42:44
  And in terms of in terms of presenting different stuff, but
• 42:47
  in terms of liquids, putting it together to be presented to go
• 42:51
  into a bottle, it's, it's one person.
• 42:52
  Because that's an interesting thing you just mentioned to
• 42:54
  bring it slightly back to car more because it's just a
• 42:56
  question I thought of. There is we've maybe spoken to
• 42:59
  other independent bottomless and maybe off the record they said,
• 43:02
  oh, we might keep that back because somebody else has
• 43:04
  released the Linkwood this year. So we might wait six months and
• 43:07
  then put it out. Is that, is that the kind of
• 43:09
  things you're feeding back to your operations director saying,
• 43:14
  look, look, there's a few Linkwoods out right now.
• 43:16
  Maybe we we wait six months. Yeah.
• 43:18
  And I mean you've got to you've got to have a look at the market
• 43:20
  in in general as well. It's not, it's not a kind of
• 43:24
  insular like, oh, let's just, we're definitely going to do
• 43:27
  what we're going to do. It's about about reaction as
• 43:29
  well. And because we're a small
• 43:30
  operation, we can decide what goes into a bottle more quickly
• 43:35
  than our operations director would like.
• 43:37
  You know, it's like we could say, let's, let's do this or
• 43:39
  I've got a customer who, who, who would like this and that.
• 43:41
  And because we're all on site, it's like we can be quite
• 43:44
  dynamic with that. Of course, we have a plan of
• 43:47
  this is what's going to happen. This is what we would the what
• 43:51
  we would like to happen in terms of bottling, specifically for
• 43:53
  car more all Perth and metals are slightly different.
• 43:55
  So all Perth is like this is what we're we're going to do
• 43:58
  regardless, because it's quite AI mean.
• 44:00
  It's it's a smaller category in terms of it's not just oh,
• 44:03
  there's there's link without their orders, you know, XY and
• 44:05
  Z. And to have as an independent
• 44:08
  bottler, as a blender, to have a core range product or core range
• 44:12
  force core range products is is tough going.
• 44:16
  Yeah, you know, and making sure these are always consistent.
• 44:19
  They go across the world and they're always of of the same
• 44:22
  quality. Well, you, you mentioned the B
• 44:24
  word, right? And we've talked about it so
• 44:26
  many times about about blinds Now, first of all, you know,
• 44:30
  people are listening to podcasts.
• 44:31
  Well, no, we always talk up blinds and things like that as
• 44:33
  well. In fact, I'm very close to, you
• 44:35
  know, filling a 60 litre VAT that I bought and I'm trying to
• 44:39
  find the home for because Ken, if I've said categorically
• 44:41
  you're not allowed to have it. Down in the basement and ***
• 44:47
  bonded is it? It's not.
• 44:49
  Bonded, yeah, No, but the thing about it is, I mean, I think we
• 44:52
  had it with Simon Smith and it's funny when you look at the blend
• 44:55
  category because you can have blended Scotch, blended malt and
• 44:58
  blended grain. Yeah.
• 44:59
  And one of the things that we've we've said is that people just
• 45:02
  see blend and just think, right, it's a blend.
• 45:05
  And so automatically what they do is they switch off a lot of
• 45:08
  the time. Whereas we would have spoke
• 45:09
  about Gregor's episodes out this week as we're recording it.
• 45:11
  Greg's job at one point was blinding for, for, for Whiskey
• 45:16
  Row and then other products. Glen more spirits.
• 45:17
  But you know, Greg coined the phrase and the first episode is
• 45:21
  on. You're creating flavour.
• 45:22
  Yeah, that's what that's what's cool.
• 45:23
  And, you know, to be able to sit there and we've done a blending
• 45:26
  experience with Jake as well on a single mop front.
• 45:28
  And so when people see that you when you get different flavours
• 45:31
  in front of you, you get the opportunity.
• 45:33
  I mean, for interest. Has anyone in here done a
• 45:35
  blending experience, a distillery or or or so you guys
• 45:39
  have done one of you. What?
• 45:46
  No, thank you. Strath Isle.
• 45:49
  Yeah. Brilliant.
• 45:49
  So because it's good fun if we've done it and.
• 45:54
  It's, well, it's good. It's good fun until you get.
• 45:56
  It's good fun until you get Jake to try your blend and.
• 45:58
  Then he just slaughters it. But no, it is good fun.
• 46:03
  But then there's the other element that the fact that so
• 46:05
  many and I was guilty of this, I used to genuinely think that the
• 46:08
  blend category was one particular category of whiskey.
• 46:11
  Well, that's it, So. Then when you actually say well,
• 46:12
  when so when you get an opportunity to say to people,
• 46:15
  no, hang on a minute. This is this is because I think
• 46:18
  it was we talked about with Simon Smith and we said, can we
• 46:21
  start to can we start to campaign against a far blended
• 46:27
  malt to have its own category in terms of I think we call it
• 46:31
  multi multi malt. Multi malt is what we said
• 46:34
  because or because or the pure malt as woven brought out as
• 46:38
  well. But because there are so many
• 46:40
  people that would just turn their nose up at a blend.
• 46:42
  But when you actually speak and say, well, see that single malt
• 46:46
  that you like the Glenfed F-12 for example, in fact, there is a
• 46:49
  master blender who picks out what casks are good enough to
• 46:53
  put into a VAT that then puts that so the bottle that you get.
• 46:56
  So that is effectively batting and blending that's going on.
• 46:59
  But this old perf and other blended malts like that is an
• 47:03
  opportunity to go hang on a second here.
• 47:05
  We could just pick single malts from all over.
• 47:07
  So we don't we're not just restricted to 1 distillery and
• 47:10
  1, you know, 1 spirit style and and within within that to be
• 47:14
  able to go space side as well and share it.
• 47:16
  That is niching it down. But at the same time.
• 47:18
  There does seem to be a move into like artisan blends almost.
• 47:22
  I think Woven very much takes that category.
• 47:25
  Not whiskey society. They've done some really, really
• 47:28
  small batch blends. I'm assuming the old person kind
• 47:31
  of. Especially with the limited
• 47:32
  releases and special releases, you are doing small batch
• 47:36
  blends. Yeah, I mean.
• 47:37
  Maybe making a flavour profile and then filling that out with
• 47:41
  the acquired liquid you have in your own?
• 47:43
  Would that be safe to say or? Yeah, I mean that bodega or this
• 47:46
  bodega one that we did last year, that's about 1200 bottles.
• 47:50
  All right, so it's worldwide, so that's pretty small.
• 47:53
  We'll occasionally do an annual release that might creep up to 3
• 47:56
  1/2 thousand, something like that.
• 47:58
  Pretty small, yeah. Yeah, Well, I guess in terms of
• 48:01
  categorising, and it's had a tough life.
• 48:04
  Blended malt, it used to be vatted malt and as you see,
• 48:07
  people don't really understand it.
• 48:09
  But to categorise a whole thing and be like, that's what I don't
• 48:13
  what I don't like or what I do like, it's, it's, it's crazy
• 48:16
  because with blended whiskey, you know, sometimes it can be
• 48:19
  harsh because of younger grain. But with, with blended malt,
• 48:24
  don't have that element in there, of course.
• 48:26
  And you mentioned about one of the ones you mentioned about one
• 48:28
  of the ones where you can say it's literally got Macallan and
• 48:31
  Highland Park in it. Yeah.
• 48:32
  How open can you be with the Old Perth to be able to say now
• 48:35
  you're able to say to people that space side and it's Sherry,
• 48:39
  Sherry, whiskey. But are there are there Old
• 48:41
  Perth releases? Where are are current ones that
• 48:44
  we're drinking? Are you are are is the consumer
• 48:47
  able to access more information on where the the liquids come
• 48:50
  from? Absolutely.
• 48:52
  They're all from space, right? Yeah, and they're all mature.
• 48:54
  They're sharing. An extension of that question or
• 49:00
  maybe is are you sourcing the casks yourself and filling
• 49:05
  spirit with that, or are you sourcing casks and spirit
• 49:09
  externally and then it's just getting blended?
• 49:11
  No, we're we're maturing the spirit and we'll buy a lot of
• 49:15
  new make spirit specifically for old Perth and we'll get to
• 49:17
  Mctalla as well. But I'm I'm mixture of we're
• 49:20
  buying new make spirit and aged spirit to kind of keep that
• 49:24
  maturation going and we're it's not so that binding.
• 49:27
  That means you've been in charge of the whole wood management
• 49:29
  side of things from when you've received the bulk and you make
• 49:32
  and then filled it yourself into aged it yourself and then
• 49:36
  blinded. And it's not.
• 49:37
  It's not like a, it's not like we have all these single malts
• 49:41
  together and then we just blend them and bottle them.
• 49:43
  No, it's like these are, we've got blended malt sitting in the
• 49:46
  warehouse that will be old Perth in the future.
• 49:49
  And it's kind of like, OK, it might need a bit more of that
• 49:52
  grassy element or it might need a bit more of nutty or, or, you
• 49:55
  know, whatever it is. So it's, it's keeping that blend
• 49:58
  moving. So that's why we don't get as
• 50:00
  granular as. This is exactly what is in this.
• 50:03
  Course. Well, once you start to do that
• 50:05
  becomes difficult because suddenly.
• 50:07
  From a consistency. Point.
• 50:07
  Yeah, exactly. Maintaining consistency.
• 50:09
  And I would challenge anyone to ask why would you like to know
• 50:14
  that? No, of course, from a sales
• 50:16
  perspective, I suppose that is the sad thing about it is you
• 50:19
  can say to somebody, this is a blended mole and people will go,
• 50:24
  all right, it's a blend. But then if you were to say to
• 50:26
  somebody, well, it's got it's it's it's Highland Park and
• 50:29
  McAllen. Do you like Highland Park?
• 50:31
  Yes, it's a great distillery. Do you like McAllen?
• 50:33
  Yes. Well, what we've done is we
• 50:34
  blended the two of them together.
• 50:35
  So that is like the Uber DRAM for you.
• 50:38
  But I mean, it's wrong because like what most people will say
• 50:41
  is that flavour LED conversations is what's better.
• 50:44
  But at the same time, we all know that actually the general
• 50:48
  consumer also looks towards the brand name as well.
• 50:51
  That's there. So it becomes and it's just a
• 50:53
  trickier job from a sales perspective.
• 50:55
  Because we've luckily we have this and we've done quite a lot
• 50:58
  of space size with this. Yeah.
• 51:00
  So suppose I'm in a scene warehouse.
• 51:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fair, Yeah.
• 51:05
  So yeah, like not I'm talking about Carmore, sorry,
• 51:09
  specifically not maybe not Linkwood, but if you look at
• 51:12
  Carmore's back catalog, you know that's there's lots of space
• 51:15
  like single motes that we've done there.
• 51:16
  Yeah. So people can't.
• 51:17
  Yeah. Has the brand done?
• 51:18
  Anything. I mean, obviously Old Perth
• 51:20
  you've stated is all space like it's all Sherry cast mature,
• 51:22
  yeah. Has the brand done anything
• 51:25
  deviating from that in a blend format?
• 51:27
  Have you done the bourbon maturation or is it?
• 51:30
  Pure, not anytime recently, right, OK.
• 51:33
  And no, because we're we're really trying to showcase even
• 51:37
  the flavour within that. So we've done Manzania, we've
• 51:39
  done Paolo Cortado, we've done a Monteado, we've done PX, we've
• 51:43
  done kind of lots of different Sherry cast maturations that
• 51:47
  offer very, very wide flavour profiles.
• 51:50
  If you can imagine Monteado next to PX, it's it's.
• 51:53
  Well, we know from Ross that Monteado is a sexy Sherry, so he
• 51:56
  says. Yeah, check.
• 52:00
  Check his Internet. Check his hard drive.
• 52:06
  But and time then going away from just the old Perth because
• 52:10
  the history associated with the brand, but also it wasn't until
• 52:13
  you actually mentioned and again, I'm not heard of research
• 52:16
  on the podcast. Angus says no, but I wasn't it
• 52:19
  wasn't until you mentioned that, you know, the Morrison families
• 52:22
  and the ball Moore connection. Suddenly there was a penny drop
• 52:24
  for me and suddenly went, Oh shit, that's that's the same
• 52:27
  people. So, so the history of that, the
• 52:29
  family then what's, what's the story behind the Morrison family
• 52:33
  and where where they went and where they are now?
• 52:35
  Yeah, I mean from, from a buy and sell and whiskey point of
• 52:38
  view, it goes back five full generations.
• 52:42
  The most famous family history is ownership of Bulmore
• 52:46
  Distillery in the mid 60s. And then we, we, I say we as a
• 52:49
  family. So that the Santori in the mid
• 52:51
  90s, we also had Akin Tosh and and Glengiri in our portfolio.
• 52:56
  It was, I mean, it's a crazy time in whiskey between the 60s
• 53:01
  and the 90s, but Bulmore is one of those distilleries that is
• 53:05
  just worldwide recognition and a being on Isla is, is just that
• 53:12
  more special in itself. So that was Jamie Morrison,
• 53:16
  who's our current owner, his grandfather, Stanley P He he
• 53:21
  procured or bought all more distillery in the 60s and and
• 53:25
  owned and operated it like pretty close to the operation
• 53:28
  until, until the 90s. So that's the that's the family
• 53:32
  history of that's the more history side of the history, I
• 53:35
  guess. And then and then Abu Argue came
• 53:37
  along in 2017. It was the sale to to Santori
• 53:42
  was never planned to get out of the whiskey game.
• 53:46
  It was just. Well, I mean, when you think
• 53:48
  about the yeah, I mean, buying, buying distilleries in the 60s
• 53:51
  and selling them in the 90s, especially to a company like
• 53:54
  Santori, they probably did. All right.
• 53:55
  Imagine so because you know, and like what we've said, when
• 54:00
  you're in that, when the family holds that name, that can carry
• 54:03
  because like you said, there'll be there'll still be people on
• 54:05
  the island and Iowa and they'll be.
• 54:07
  They built the swimming pool. Didn't they?
• 54:09
  There you go. But there'll be even plenty.
• 54:12
  Every time you go for it. Yeah, famously heated by this.
• 54:17
  Yeah, heated by the distillery. Right.
• 54:21
  I didn't even know that I did not.
• 54:23
  Know that the swing is more than the swimming pool, Yeah.
• 54:26
  It's right next to the. Distillery.
• 54:27
  Oh, I'm going to have to go for a swim.
• 54:29
  On the other side, you've got the sea, so you know, you make
• 54:31
  the decision because. I mean, yeah, I suppose, you
• 54:34
  know, being able to the Morrison family, you know, they'll walk
• 54:36
  on the island and there'll be people on the island who still
• 54:38
  remember the family. Oh, absolutely.
• 54:40
  But then also there'll be plenty of people in the industry who
• 54:43
  still remember the family. The element of I've done, you
• 54:48
  know, I've done the no, we do. There were people who were
• 54:51
  saying I, I, you know, I did work with your granddad or I did
• 54:54
  work with, you know, I know your family and that carries, you
• 54:57
  know, you look at the Urquhart and the Rankin family for Gordon
• 55:00
  Macphail and there's plenty of other family businesses that,
• 55:02
  that around the industry where suddenly all right, they don't
• 55:07
  own the distilleries anymore, But those relationships will run
• 55:10
  pretty deep, particularly with cast procurement as well.
• 55:12
  Oh. And I mean, there's a wash back
• 55:13
  with in Bulmore, that's a Morrison wash back.
• 55:15
  And if you go into any of the warehouses, you know, there's,
• 55:18
  there's Morrison Bulmore casks lying about all over the place.
• 55:21
  That's, that's the Morrison family.
• 55:23
  It's, it's not, it's a connection.
• 55:26
  That's that's mega. He's a big guy that.
• 55:28
  Yeah, it's a big. I mean, it wasn't until you,
• 55:30
  like I said, I've not done my research too much today, but it
• 55:33
  wasn't until you mentioned earlier on, but in the first
• 55:35
  part. But what do we think of the
• 55:36
  first two drive these two drums in?
• 55:37
  Is there, because we're doing it side by side.
• 55:39
  Is there a particular favourite that stands out?
• 55:40
  Yes. OK.
• 55:42
  What about yourself? Bodega is beautiful.
• 55:45
  Bodega. Yeah, we're getting that.
• 55:47
  Yeah. Good.
• 55:47
  Anyone else want to? What else?
• 55:50
  I've got the roving mic. I'm going to come at you for it.
• 55:52
  You're sitting quiet in the corner.
• 55:53
  Too quiet. Here it comes.
• 55:55
  Right. What are we thinking for it?
• 55:58
  The bodega. The bodega?
• 56:00
  The bodega? OK, anyone not.
• 56:03
  What would be the first one? The other.
• 56:04
  The other one. Number one.
• 56:06
  You like #1? Fraser.
• 56:09
  I prefer #1. Why?
• 56:12
  Because I do like. There we go, Jake.
• 56:14
  You are nodding frantically there and ask if there's a
• 56:17
  particular favorite. Which one do you like?
• 56:19
  Yeah. Is there any particular reason
• 56:22
  behind it? Just that you like it?
• 56:25
  Yeah. Well, we were going to say
• 56:28
  something else then what are you going to say?
• 56:30
  I. Think number one's a little bit
• 56:31
  sulphur. I think it's got a bit of a
• 56:33
  couple casks in there. OK, brilliant.
• 56:37
  There we go. Greg, you like?
• 56:38
  You like them all? Yeah.
• 56:39
  Really like the bodega one, really well balanced, good
• 56:41
  complexity on it. Good.
• 56:42
  Are we going to get a wanky tasting note?
• 56:44
  Oh, we've got one from. Chuck.
• 56:45
  Chuck. Right.
• 56:46
  Come on, Chuck. I don't need to give you the
• 56:47
  mic. You've got one.
• 56:49
  But the not the bodega one but the other one which is probably
• 56:53
  my favorite. The two it's just like caramel
• 56:55
  Coco pops. So the first one.
• 56:57
  So the first one you like? Yeah.
• 56:58
  Double cherry, Double cherry, caramel, Coco pops.
• 57:01
  Anyone getting me? Exactly.
• 57:03
  He's definitely done wanker. It's made at home, Chuck.
• 57:18
  Chuck would rather have a bowl of caramel.
• 57:20
  East Cocoa bottle. Yeah, yeah.
• 57:22
  I think the Bodega's got kind of cocoa bottle vibes as well,
• 57:24
  yeah. I think it's, I think it's more
• 57:26
  of a kind of nutty thing with the second one.
• 57:28
  I I really like that. So, so Tom, you mentioned the
• 57:30
  price of these good. What's the price of these ones
• 57:32
  again so? So the double Sherry wood is
• 57:34
  about 45 lbs depending on where you buy it from.
• 57:37
  And I think as a, as an everydayer and just an easygoing
• 57:41
  DRAM for less than 50 for £45, it's, it's a lot of whiskey.
• 57:45
  The bodega again, we was a limited release that we did last
• 57:49
  August. If you can still pick it up
• 57:50
  it'll be 5253 quid something. And and when it comes to for
• 57:55
  again, selling it, because this is what's interesting from your
• 57:57
  perspective is you, you're the guy that has to actually go out
• 57:59
  and punt it. So where, where again is it
• 58:01
  straight into retailers? Are you are you looking at bars
• 58:04
  as well? From us a lot, a lot into
• 58:06
  retail. We've got some real old pair
• 58:08
  supporters. I mean from good work by myself,
• 58:11
  but you know people, people who really bought into the brand
• 58:15
  understand the liquid proposition in terms of how good
• 58:17
  it is and how like fair fairly priced it is, I would say.
• 58:21
  And like we've got original double Sherry, cash strength and
• 58:25
  12 year old in the core range. And we've got, you know,
• 58:27
  customers who pretty much on on order every X amount of time.
• 58:33
  We're like, Yep, we need more original, we need more double
• 58:35
  Sherry. We need more 12 because their
• 58:37
  their customers want something that's that's the same and
• 58:40
  consistent. They come in every month for
• 58:41
  their bottle of double Sherry or, or whatever it is.
• 58:43
  So yeah. Does it do?
• 58:46
  Well, in Perth. Well, well, our Dunk, Dunk L
• 58:49
  whiskey box. Yeah, there's.
• 58:50
  Docks a lot. Which is in Perth, sure.
• 58:53
  Yeah, and. And I was in there a couple of
• 58:56
  weeks ago and it was, yeah, I saw a lot of old.
• 58:57
  Perth, yeah, so and Carlmore, it'd be interesting if old Perth
• 59:00
  were like, Nah, we like the new Perth like.
• 59:04
  Yeah, most most of the spirits in Perth also.
• 59:07
  And JL Gill in grief, I guess. And does this travel around the
• 59:12
  world or is it mainly? Yeah, so there's 20.
• 59:14
  Five different markets. Wow.
• 59:16
  Yeah. And see from your own personal
• 59:18
  point of view, because we've had you on the podcast before.
• 59:20
  We've had you twice actually. There was you had a dedicated
• 59:23
  episode and then we also had you on for the roasting of Ross Bar,
• 59:26
  which was his, which actually. Should be every every week.
• 59:31
  Well, let's think back. It could be arranged.
• 59:34
  Because that was his wedding. He was over in America getting
• 59:36
  married. And we, we all decided to get to
• 59:37
  Diggers. There's quite a few of us and we
• 59:39
  just slaughtered him for an hour and a half and he wasn't even
• 59:41
  there to defend themselves. So it was, it was quite good
• 59:43
  fun, but your own personal story because you're, you're, you're
• 59:47
  in sales pushing whiskey, but you come from, you know, you
• 59:49
  worked. Did you work with Chuck as well?
• 59:51
  No. So you chat with colleagues.
• 59:53
  Pat, that's Scotch. Yeah, don't we help their
• 59:56
  customers to fuck? Look.
• 1:00:01
  At sounds like Chuck too. Yeah, I've spent the next few
• 1:00:04
  years undoing all that good work, Chuck.
• 1:00:06
  Me too. No, exactly, but I mean, it's
• 1:00:09
  I'm a whiskey fan at the end of the day, so I like I like
• 1:00:12
  promoting whiskey in general. I like if people are drinking
• 1:00:15
  more whiskey, they're drinking more of our whiskey.
• 1:00:17
  Yeah, exactly, Yeah, stands to reason and like getting into
• 1:00:20
  drams and and chatting, chatting to like minded people as much as
• 1:00:22
  possible hosts and tastings is is one of the one of my favorite
• 1:00:26
  bits of the job with you get to, you know, come along with a bag
• 1:00:30
  of drams and you have people's undivided attention for couple
• 1:00:33
  of hours. Yeah.
• 1:00:33
  And to and to get feedback and say what you know, what do you
• 1:00:36
  like and what what don't you like and and to tell the story.
• 1:00:39
  And with our portfolio, it's I mean, we could do, I could do a
• 1:00:42
  car more tasting, I could do an au pair tasting.
• 1:00:44
  I could do a Mctella tasting. The Aberrargue one at the moment
• 1:00:48
  would look like probably 2 new make spirits, 2 cat samples and
• 1:00:51
  inaugural. But you can still do that sort
• 1:00:53
  of thing, in fact, in time in time.
• 1:00:57
  Because you, you guys, do you have a brand ambassador or is it
• 1:01:00
  literally sales? Sales are part of the brand team
• 1:01:02
  as well. Exactly.
• 1:01:03
  Yeah, we. Don't we, don't I, I, I came
• 1:01:05
  into the business as a brand ambassador and was doing a lot
• 1:01:09
  of, of UK sales and we still, I still support like the, the
• 1:01:12
  European festivals, like I was over in the Netherlands that
• 1:01:14
  last month. I'm going to Germany in April
• 1:01:17
  because we are such a small team.
• 1:01:18
  It's like. Marketing in sales of one
• 1:01:20
  department. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
• 1:01:22
  But still Whiskey festival in Germany.
• 1:01:24
  I'm at Lindberg. Yeah, it's good fun.
• 1:01:26
  I've done it. I've done it once before.
• 1:01:28
  And that's proper. Like what angle are your line
• 1:01:31
  arms? And that's.
• 1:01:32
  Well when Giri has a crazy line arm which is was popped up that
• 1:01:36
  that that came up with family. Oh yeah.
• 1:01:37
  Yeah, that. Was that was one of our seven.
• 1:01:40
  Can't measure the angle of it too.
• 1:01:41
  Sick of going to German whiskey festivals and talking about it.
• 1:01:45
  But Tammy, because it is interesting when you're when
• 1:01:47
  you're talking about when you're a sales.
• 1:01:49
  Now look, we, we had, I think when this goes out last week,
• 1:01:52
  Tim Walker on the podcast, who you know, he, he holds the he's
• 1:01:56
  the luxury account manager for William grandsons.
• 1:02:00
  If you haven't listened to that episode, give it a listen.
• 1:02:01
  We were very spoilt. Probably the most expensive
• 1:02:03
  hangover I've had for a long time.
• 1:02:06
  You paid for it, did you? No, I paid for it the next day.
• 1:02:09
  But but you know, Tim, Tim was very open about it and he said
• 1:02:12
  like he got into the job and he's in sales and he said I
• 1:02:16
  didn't like whiskey. He got to like whiskey.
• 1:02:19
  And he understands it. But there is an element of, you
• 1:02:21
  know, you can work in sales and you can sell.
• 1:02:23
  If you're good at sales, you can sell anything really.
• 1:02:25
  You're going to get the core points and understand and no.
• 1:02:28
  And sometimes even if you're selling to retailers, the person
• 1:02:32
  that you're speaking to a major retailer isn't going to sit
• 1:02:35
  there and go. I don't care what the mouth feel
• 1:02:38
  is like. I just care if it's going to sit
• 1:02:40
  on my shelves and shift and but at the same time from you know,
• 1:02:45
  with the fact that car more is an independent baller.
• 1:02:48
  So you're you're always looking at smaller batches.
• 1:02:51
  Truck used the term artisanal as well.
• 1:02:52
  So there is an element of that the artisanal element with the
• 1:02:55
  distillery and also all Perth. It means that from your
• 1:02:59
  perspective, being able to go and speak to a retailer, you're
• 1:03:01
  speaking to people who are probably passionate about
• 1:03:03
  whiskey. So being able to actually, if
• 1:03:05
  you're buying could we've talked about the, the phrase people buy
• 1:03:09
  for people. And I think that if, if, if
• 1:03:11
  you're a whiskey person and the person who's selling you the
• 1:03:13
  whiskey is able to actually speak to you about the whiskey
• 1:03:16
  properly and has a background and understanding in it, then it
• 1:03:19
  makes it hell of a lot easier to go, yeah, I get it.
• 1:03:21
  I'll buy that and then I'll be able to pass on what you've just
• 1:03:23
  said to me. Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  And I mean also like kind of getting an understanding of my
• 1:03:27
  customers business, it's like, OK, well what what goes well for
• 1:03:30
  you, you know, because they're not going to buy something that
• 1:03:32
  doesn't go well. And like, OK, we're selling
• 1:03:34
  loads of, I don't know, insert brand or distillery here.
• 1:03:38
  I'm like, OK, well, you might like this out of our portfolio.
• 1:03:40
  I'm blessed because I've got such a wide range of of drams
• 1:03:44
  that there should there should be something that will that will
• 1:03:47
  work for yeah anyone retailer and we go back to relationships
• 1:03:49
  as. Well, so it's basically like
• 1:03:51
  working at Scotch again. No.
• 1:03:54
  Somebody, somebody's saying, oh, I like this.
• 1:03:56
  You say, well, why don't you try this?
• 1:03:58
  Yeah, a little bit. And, and also we'll go back to
• 1:04:00
  like, OK, you can support me with with doing this.
• 1:04:02
  And it's, it's a relationship piece as well.
• 1:04:04
  It's like, OK, I, I know, I know these people personally and, and
• 1:04:08
  I try and make, make it work for everyone in terms of like you, I
• 1:04:12
  want to sell as much whiskey as I can.
• 1:04:14
  But if it's just going to sit there, that's not really a sale.
• 1:04:17
  It's like, how do we manage the after sales?
• 1:04:19
  How do we manage the push pull through?
• 1:04:21
  And that's, that's a kind of wider activation piece and, and
• 1:04:25
  branding piece as well. But yeah, it's yeah, I like
• 1:04:29
  selling whiskey. Of course, and we've mentioned
• 1:04:31
  Asti already with the Arbor argue.
• 1:04:33
  But I suppose going back to that question in the sense of you'll
• 1:04:36
  have accounts that are probably really, really good at just
• 1:04:38
  saying give us everything that you're bringing out car more
• 1:04:41
  yadda, yadda, yadda. But there'll maybe there'll be
• 1:04:44
  other accounts that were a little bit OK, we'll see what
• 1:04:46
  you've got. We don't know if it'll shift,
• 1:04:48
  but do you have to do you have to prioritize people now that
• 1:04:52
  you have a a a like a a single malt because suddenly you might
• 1:04:56
  be an accountant that goes, you know what?
• 1:04:57
  Maybe we won't take so much old power.
• 1:04:59
  Maybe we won't What? We want their car more, a little
• 1:05:01
  bit more than that. Yeah.
• 1:05:02
  But suddenly it's like, give us as much abarrage as you can.
• 1:05:05
  You can give us and now. You can my week well.
• 1:05:07
  Yeah, yeah. So can you.
• 1:05:08
  Now you can go back and say, listen guys, we've got to
• 1:05:11
  prioritize for people who have been good to us in the.
• 1:05:13
  Past a a little bit I would say again, it's about it's about
• 1:05:17
  reach and distribution as well but I mean people who have
• 1:05:20
  supported Opeth and Mctalla and car Moore from the start yeah
• 1:05:23
  they'll they'll get Abargi and and we we appreciate that Also
• 1:05:27
  worth saying that car Moore Opeth and Mctalla are not going
• 1:05:30
  anywhere it's not like OK these these guys have allowed us to be
• 1:05:34
  very patient with this and bring it out when it's ready I say
• 1:05:37
  these guys these brands and we spent a lot of time and money
• 1:05:40
  building them and putting really high quality drums in a bottle
• 1:05:44
  there's. Well, let's say you wouldn't do
• 1:05:46
  that to then just get. Rid of?
• 1:05:47
  No, you're not. Going to do Mcgourne Mcfailed
• 1:05:49
  it. You say that's it.
• 1:05:50
  We're going to shut our doors as an independent bowl, right?
• 1:06:01
  What we'll do is we'll stop there for these.
• 1:06:03
  We'll finish these two drums. We'll go around and reload this
• 1:06:06
  for the last two drums of the evening.
• 1:06:08
  Cheers, Pam, thank you very much.
• 1:06:09
  Cheers, right. I guess clap us in.
• 1:06:13
  I didn't clap you in before. Welcome back to the whiskey
• 1:06:17
  stories. Baller blinded a star Marcy to
• 1:06:19
  Sellers ending as Lee. That was even better the first
• 1:06:26
  time. No, I'm glad you did that.
• 1:06:28
  I was waiting for you to mess up to make a mess of.
• 1:06:30
  That, Well, no. But what I do have to say is I
• 1:06:33
  do have to. I want to put on public record
• 1:06:35
  an apology. I've been contacted from a
• 1:06:39
  representative of Gordon Macphail.
• 1:06:41
  Want to just clarify they have not closed their doors.
• 1:06:46
  I say that I. Was.
• 1:06:48
  I'd had a DRAM or two. I was wrong in what I said.
• 1:06:52
  What actually has happened is that, I mean the stock that
• 1:06:55
  those guys have will continue for long into the future.
• 1:06:57
  We'll probably out see the two of us I guess.
• 1:07:00
  Almost certainly and. Here's hoping they do because
• 1:07:02
  they're a cracking bunch of labs and ladies.
• 1:07:05
  Thanks. That's it.
• 1:07:06
  There we go. So that's it.
• 1:07:08
  Don't say, don't say. We never retract.
• 1:07:09
  But what I was saying before I forgot to hit the record button,
• 1:07:13
  there was Mctalla. I'm excited for this.
• 1:07:18
  The room does smell a little bit smokier I guess.
• 1:07:20
  It does. There's a nice rugged Isla smell
• 1:07:23
  to the room. There's a.
• 1:07:24
  Few in the air, you can say that, but but actually Tam, you
• 1:07:28
  brought in sample bottle on the episode that you came in and it
• 1:07:33
  was a Mctalla phase release. And I can remember just being
• 1:07:36
  like, oh, God, Because at that point I wasn't pretending to
• 1:07:40
  like, I wasn't pretending to like, peated whiskey.
• 1:07:43
  You're pretending to dislike. It, well, I wasn't pretending.
• 1:07:45
  I just didn't like it. Actively disliked.
• 1:07:48
  I've spoken about it plenty of times before and you know
• 1:07:51
  actually, well and I'm not just saying this to blow peated smoke
• 1:07:55
  up your backside, but that's good.
• 1:07:58
  Yeah, I did actually enjoy it. Now whatever happens and Ross
• 1:08:02
  may listen to this and he'll just sit there and no matter
• 1:08:05
  what happens now, anytime I'll taste beated whiskey and I enjoy
• 1:08:09
  it, Ross will go, Nah, you're pretending, you're pretending
• 1:08:12
  because I'm so averse to it. But I'm excited for this.
• 1:08:14
  So we again, I think what we're going to do with these two drums
• 1:08:16
  is we're going to do them side by side like we did with the old
• 1:08:18
  Perth. So talk us through the 1st drum
• 1:08:20
  that was poured, which I believe is probably the less and the the
• 1:08:24
  clearer one, the the the less, yeah.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah, there's a big colour difference between these two.
• 1:08:27
  Probably the two easiest to tell apart of, of the evening.
• 1:08:32
  It's, it's funny you say about, about peat whiskey in general.
• 1:08:34
  Like for me, it's, it's not simply peat or unpeted.
• 1:08:37
  It's, it's a real scale. Like it's, it's not, it's, or
• 1:08:40
  it's not just peated whiskey. It's, it's a scale of lots of
• 1:08:43
  different factors. And that's, it's like, you know,
• 1:08:46
  saying you don't like the whole category of, of wine or beer or
• 1:08:49
  whatever. So Mctalla is all about a
• 1:08:52
  journey of, of flavour across Isla.
• 1:08:53
  We mentioned Morrison connection to, to Isla with, with Bulwar
• 1:08:57
  distillery. Now we're no longer tied to 1
• 1:09:00
  distillery or one style. So we are looking to showcase
• 1:09:03
  variety, showcase diversity and hopefully between this two DRAM
• 1:09:07
  tastes. And you can see what Mctalla is
• 1:09:09
  all about the the lighter colour one is Mctalla Mara.
• 1:09:14
  So Mctalla means echo. So it's the Morrison family.
• 1:09:19
  EEE shocking. Terrible.
• 1:09:29
  We weren't recording. So with our core range, and I'll
• 1:09:36
  go back to core range because I think it's really important of
• 1:09:39
  being able to produce something as an independent bottler.
• 1:09:41
  We buy new make spirit from various Isla distilleries.
• 1:09:43
  We mature it ourselves. Each Mctalla is an Isla single
• 1:09:47
  malt, various different styles and and flavour profiles across
• 1:09:50
  the range. So Mctalla, Mara, Mara, be in
• 1:09:52
  the sea. This is at cash strength, so
• 1:09:56
  take care. My guess it's 58.2%.
• 1:09:59
  And for me, it's like really salty, really citrusy, doesn't
• 1:10:03
  drink like 58.2. Yeah, like just like bright kind
• 1:10:08
  of salt. The caramel vibes for me, very,
• 1:10:12
  very typical from Isla, I guess, however you categorize that,
• 1:10:15
  whether it's 11 style or the other.
• 1:10:17
  But yeah, full bourbon cash maturation, believe it or not, I
• 1:10:22
  guess across the range, if you couldn't tell, we don't chill,
• 1:10:25
  filter or add colour to anything that we do.
• 1:10:28
  So this is full bourbon, cash maturation, nice and salty, nice
• 1:10:31
  and citrusy, and of course a little bit of smoke in there as
• 1:10:35
  well. Yeah.
• 1:10:35
  So everything from Mctalla comes from Isla then.
• 1:10:38
  Exactly. I'll always be an Isla single
• 1:10:40
  malt, an Isla single malt and pitted as well.
• 1:10:42
  Because one of the things like you've just said is, I mean,
• 1:10:45
  I've mentioned it plenty of times that the, the opening was,
• 1:10:48
  it was the hard beg when we went to, in fact, Vicky, Vicky, you
• 1:10:51
  were there, Vicky Elliott, you were there that day for the
• 1:10:55
  Whiskey fringe. And we were, we got early
• 1:10:57
  access. You were, you were hanging
• 1:11:00
  because you'd be at whiskey privacy this Sunday and Vicky
• 1:11:04
  was holding the camera for us. But we, we got there and, and
• 1:11:08
  basically the first the, the we got there early doors.
• 1:11:11
  I was at half ten. We had a coffee, we did a bit of
• 1:11:13
  chat and then we got in and the first access that we were given
• 1:11:17
  was our begged area. So it was like 11 Sunday.
• 1:11:20
  Yeah, 11. O'clock on a Sunday morning and
• 1:11:22
  the first 3 drams that we were going to be drinking.
• 1:11:24
  Graham was scared that Whiskey Fringe was about to be ruined
• 1:11:27
  for him. Yeah, I genuinely was.
• 1:11:28
  But when it was broken down and it was just like what you said,
• 1:11:31
  damn. It's like there is a scale of
• 1:11:33
  peat that you can have and there's softer, gentler peat.
• 1:11:36
  There's there's, there's heavier smoky, there's the TC.
• 1:11:38
  Everyone always goes to Isla. And then for people, what I
• 1:11:42
  would used to say is just smells like iodine or TCP.
• 1:11:44
  But actually what we do know is that now if I'm opening up,
• 1:11:47
  there's bonfire smoke, Smokey bacon, there's loads and loads
• 1:11:49
  of different. Because I mean, people ask me
• 1:11:51
  because I would say, you know, Russell wax lyrical about my
• 1:11:54
  pizzas. Oh wait, he's not here to go.
• 1:11:56
  But I don't actually like pea and whiskey, so I always ask
• 1:11:59
  Angus. I know.
• 1:12:00
  Yeah, exactly. But I would say I I.
• 1:12:03
  When it's almost like it's in the room, it's almost.
• 1:12:07
  Like, but I would say I placed myself somewhere in the middle
• 1:12:10
  and I kind of prefer like medium pizzas.
• 1:12:12
  I don't like the kind of optimores, the kind of really,
• 1:12:15
  really strongly beated. I'm a lot turns me off a little
• 1:12:17
  bit, but equally I like a little bit of something there but.
• 1:12:20
  I'd almost argue that ultimately is less pity than like the frog,
• 1:12:23
  yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:24
  I think that's supposed to be cuts, but like, yeah, I am.
• 1:12:27
  I am on the same view. Like the frog I've described as
• 1:12:31
  like, sibling bullying. Yeah, like.
• 1:12:34
  Like, and I have to admit as well, the frog.
• 1:12:38
  Always comes with my dad. But if you're the bully.
• 1:12:43
  Lefrog isn't. Lefrog isn't a choice making
• 1:12:47
  again that that heated that TCP. Isn't very much like, like very
• 1:12:54
  Tokyo drift and burning hospital vibes.
• 1:12:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, I'll do these side by side,
• 1:13:04
  so we might as well introduce a second drive as well.
• 1:13:07
  Absolutely and moving on. I'm from sibling bullying and
• 1:13:12
  burning hospital. We've all.
• 1:13:18
  Got our cherished memories. So, so this is I brought these
• 1:13:24
  two drams. It could have been a various
• 1:13:26
  different Mccalla's I guess this is full bourbon cash maturation.
• 1:13:30
  This, as the name suggests, Mccalla PX.
• 1:13:32
  This is our 2026 limited edition.
• 1:13:34
  So we'll do an annual release that kind of showcases a
• 1:13:37
  different style of of Isla whiskey.
• 1:13:39
  This is full Pedro Jimenez Sherry maturation, combination
• 1:13:43
  of butts and hogs heads and probably a little more gentle on
• 1:13:46
  the on the smoke, to be honest. Definitely.
• 1:13:49
  And Sherry. Sherry and smoke.
• 1:13:50
  Or Sherry and Pete and whiskey. Or Isla whiskey.
• 1:13:53
  For me, it's just a combination. Yeah.
• 1:13:54
  Made in heavens. Yeah, I see.
• 1:13:56
  It's interesting because I would go the other way and my oh,
• 1:13:59
  preference, I mean it's. You prefer the bourbon and.
• 1:14:02
  Bourbon. And smoke for me, that sweet and
• 1:14:04
  smoke element, like I'd beg 10 for example, because I would
• 1:14:08
  disagree with you, because I I would go, I would always go with
• 1:14:11
  the fight, fight, fight, fight. Because for me, I've mentioned
• 1:14:15
  on the pod Kahomensen egg was a big gateway DRAM me that Pete,
• 1:14:20
  that Sherry altogether fantastic.
• 1:14:24
  But this is slightly more dialed down on.
• 1:14:27
  The software What's AB on the PX52?
• 1:14:30
  It's still cast. Well, it's still over 50.
• 1:14:32
  Yeah, absolutely. But The thing is like this as a
• 1:14:35
  2 DRAM, these are very, very individual styles of Violet
• 1:14:39
  whiskey. They're very different.
• 1:14:40
  And this is much more of that coastal.
• 1:14:44
  The PX is, is a little bit of that kind of softer, softer
• 1:14:47
  smoke. And with the Sherry integration.
• 1:14:49
  And again, we buy these as new make spirit and we take them
• 1:14:52
  from full kind of lifespan into into bottle, which we do on site
• 1:14:57
  as well. So it's about how we create
• 1:14:59
  flavour through different vintages together, different
• 1:15:03
  cast types, different, you know, all sorts of different things
• 1:15:06
  that we do to create metallic, to make it make it.
• 1:15:09
  A lot of these bottlings, vattings of younger spirit and
• 1:15:12
  older spirit to find like the right point.
• 1:15:14
  Yeah. I mean a little bit that's why
• 1:15:16
  we kind of do non age statement mostly because we allows us that
• 1:15:20
  flexibility to put in older stock, a little bit younger
• 1:15:23
  stock to to kind of get that get that balancing act.
• 1:15:26
  And when it comes to it, so this is the thing we we kind of put
• 1:15:29
  me in my place when I was asking you about the old Perth, about
• 1:15:33
  giving him more information. Yeah.
• 1:15:34
  We've spoken to Mike Brown from Ian MacLeod is Stiller to
• 1:15:39
  Smokehead, you know, one of the brands that he works with,
• 1:15:41
  Smokehead brand. What's great is after a few
• 1:15:44
  drums and once the camera's off, he always tells us where
• 1:15:46
  Smokehead comes from. Once we've applied the
• 1:15:50
  thumbscrew, no. No, just for clarity, he doesn't
• 1:15:53
  but but in terms of does it make it less complex that like when
• 1:15:59
  it comes from as new make spirit.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah, and you're doing what you're doing to it yourselves.
• 1:16:06
  It means that there can't be people that can distinguish it
• 1:16:10
  makes it hard to distinguish, you know, very few people.
• 1:16:12
  There's how many how many distilleries are on Iowa and I
• 1:16:14
  what we're talking 12 distilleries on Iowa.
• 1:16:16
  So it it there definitely will be people who could identify it
• 1:16:21
  potentially, but there. But you then have to be dealing
• 1:16:25
  with people who are so familiar with spirit style that we'd be
• 1:16:29
  able to drill all the way down to whether or how old this is.
• 1:16:33
  We don't know. But at the same time, you know,
• 1:16:35
  once it's been sold to you guys as Spirit, put in your own wood
• 1:16:39
  management program, then batted as truck saying with older stock
• 1:16:43
  to then be put out and occasionally with.
• 1:16:46
  And Peter and Peter spirit from the same place, yeah.
• 1:16:48
  So it would be almost. Hard, you know, like some, some
• 1:16:51
  Halo distilleries spirit is inconsistent.
• 1:16:53
  Yeah. So like there's that.
• 1:16:57
  So yeah, I mean, and also that would also rely on me telling
• 1:17:00
  them where it's from after the guest, correct?
• 1:17:03
  Which I won't do. No, but I I think I just think
• 1:17:05
  it's interesting when you're looking at don't guess.
• 1:17:07
  Yeah, no, but it's just when you talk about the old Perth and you
• 1:17:10
  look at how many distilleries are in space site.
• 1:17:12
  Yeah, you can't. You would if anyone was able to
• 1:17:15
  narrow, especially in a blind. Impossible.
• 1:17:17
  Yeah, I'll put it out there. That's impossible, right.
• 1:17:20
  But then there will be people who will drink Metalla and there
• 1:17:22
  will be people that drink Smokehead that will try really,
• 1:17:25
  really hard and will be convinced, but they are
• 1:17:28
  absolutely certain where that spirit is coming from.
• 1:17:30
  Yeah, but at the same time, when you actually break it all the
• 1:17:33
  way down and you go, you think yourself even an island, there
• 1:17:36
  only been 12 distilleries. It shouldn't actually be that
• 1:17:39
  difficult. But it just goes to show that
• 1:17:41
  with spirit character added into another brands wood management
• 1:17:46
  program and that would almost make it semi impossible as well.
• 1:17:49
  Or the type of people. Yeah, I mean, we're not trying
• 1:17:51
  to make it impossible in terms of like, OK, like that's not a
• 1:17:55
  it's not necessarily a guessing game.
• 1:17:56
  It's it's we want it to taste how we want it to taste.
• 1:17:59
  We want it to be Isla single mole.
• 1:18:00
  It'll always be Metalla will always be Isla single mole.
• 1:18:03
  It'll be a journey of flavour across, across in terms of of
• 1:18:07
  makeup and in terms of what what's in the glass, like even
• 1:18:11
  from A2 DRAM taste. And you can kind of be like, OK,
• 1:18:13
  these are quite clearly very different drams.
• 1:18:15
  It's not just the same one done in different ways, very
• 1:18:18
  different ways or different vintages or etcetera.
• 1:18:21
  And then sometimes it'll be, you know, people keep keeping people
• 1:18:25
  guessing as well with like, oh, this is doesn't taste anything
• 1:18:28
  like it. It is.
• 1:18:30
  But for me, it's a perception thing, right?
• 1:18:31
  So if I tell you this is I don't know, inserts tell you this is
• 1:18:34
  Port Ellen, then you have a. Or lagging Bay.
• 1:18:37
  Whatever the two distilleries is definitely not.
• 1:18:41
  You have a you have a perception of what it should taste like.
• 1:18:44
  And also when you own a distillery like boom or you have
• 1:18:48
  an obligation to say this has to taste like a boom.
• 1:18:50
  Yeah, this is what people expect.
• 1:18:52
  But we have not not that obligation to say this has to
• 1:18:56
  taste a certain way because it has this on the label.
• 1:18:58
  So it gives us a bit of flexibility to say we want to
• 1:19:01
  make really good either single malt whiskey done in a variety
• 1:19:04
  of ways. Because that's probably quite
• 1:19:05
  freeing as well, like taking the spirit from XYZ distillery and
• 1:19:10
  then just maybe more blending it and maturing it for a flavour
• 1:19:14
  profile rather than to. Stay spirit character.
• 1:19:17
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But I'd say that's quite, again,
• 1:19:19
  it's quite freeing because you're not selling this
• 1:19:21
  distillery or that disorder, you're selling Isla.
• 1:19:23
  This is Isla, absolutely. And this is what it's, you know.
• 1:19:26
  So like for for we also do a phase aisle or a face release
• 1:19:30
  every year, was that? A rum cast when?
• 1:19:33
  You brought in, was it? We had a rum cast.
• 1:19:35
  Yeah. So it was.
• 1:19:36
  It was 10 years in bourbon and then five years in first fill
• 1:19:39
  rum. Yeah.
• 1:19:40
  Or four years, 11 months and two weeks.
• 1:19:45
  And that was a beauty. And then we said Amaroni last
• 1:19:48
  year, which read Italian red wine.
• 1:19:50
  And the last two years that we've done Isla Whiskey
• 1:19:54
  Festival, we go over like call it work because.
• 1:19:58
  What do you do for that because you don't have a base?
• 1:19:59
  Exactly. So we in terms of activation
• 1:20:02
  last year we did, we lent into Italy to Isla with Amaroni.
• 1:20:05
  So we did. Pizza matched with drams, so we
• 1:20:08
  did 6 slices, 6 drams, like just just a really, really, really
• 1:20:12
  fun taste. And we also did a a walking
• 1:20:16
  tour. So we want to celebrate the
• 1:20:17
  landscape of Isla Mara being the sea, we have Terra strata and
• 1:20:21
  flora. So we want to celebrate the the
• 1:20:23
  landscape of Isla. We don't have a distillery base,
• 1:20:26
  so we want to. So we did a walking tour.
• 1:20:28
  So we had one of the guys, Dougie, who's a local, he's a
• 1:20:32
  walking tour guide and we went all around the island and, and
• 1:20:35
  had a drama and, you know, on the beach in the, in the woods
• 1:20:39
  and like really, really fun thing to do.
• 1:20:41
  Like really interactive, like not just a distillery tour like.
• 1:20:44
  You celebrate, you say it's a fun thing to do, but I, when I
• 1:20:47
  went to Isla, I, I, no, I went to, I went, I went to, I went,
• 1:20:53
  I, I took the current wife, the then fiance to a cast strength
• 1:20:58
  Lagavulin tasting at 10 AM and then in the and then after that
• 1:21:01
  I drove up and we went for a walk on the cliffs.
• 1:21:03
  I wouldn't recommend it, no. Yeah, it was.
• 1:21:07
  Well, it's funny. Because you also, I also
• 1:21:09
  couldn't see beyond my arms because of the fog.
• 1:21:12
  Again, I know, I know. It's funny because we did it two
• 1:21:16
  years in a row. The first year was like
• 1:21:19
  tropical, like I was wearing shorts, T-shirt, like it was
• 1:21:22
  about 20°. It was gorgeous.
• 1:21:24
  The second year we did it, we were on like ferry watch to see
• 1:21:28
  if we were going to make it to Isla in the 1st place really.
• 1:21:31
  And the morning of the The Walking tour, it was sideways
• 1:21:36
  rain like, and I was like, no one's going to turn up for this.
• 1:21:39
  Full house, completely full house ponchos on like.
• 1:21:42
  And it was, it was just as good. Like people were like this feels
• 1:21:45
  authentic. And yeah, I look, it was great.
• 1:21:48
  I've always like felt because like with Angus and myself, you
• 1:21:53
  know, when we started drinking whiskey and started talking
• 1:21:55
  about whiskey, I can remember it was actually, I can remember an
• 1:21:58
  afternoon of us going to Diggers and it was one of the first
• 1:22:01
  times we'd actually ever gone to diggers.
• 1:22:03
  And it was like I was purely like Sherry, as heavily Sherry
• 1:22:07
  as you could possibly get, space side sort of in the 40% region
• 1:22:11
  and you were drinking. It was Cohoman and you gave me a
• 1:22:14
  chance. In fact, I remember somebody
• 1:22:15
  actually coming over. I was good.
• 1:22:16
  I could smell that DRAM from here.
• 1:22:19
  And I could remember this and I'd.
• 1:22:20
  Just be like no I. Can't you buy you buy me dramas?
• 1:22:22
  I was going, that's incredible, really, really nice.
• 1:22:24
  And I'd buy you a drama. You go.
• 1:22:28
  And I always felt a lot and then I could see like you saw brands
• 1:22:31
  like Mctalla or Smokehead coming up and you see this when
• 1:22:36
  someone's into peated whiskey and Smokey whiskey, there is
• 1:22:39
  this like. Fanatical element.
• 1:22:42
  There really is this. Is like Iowa's world worldwide
• 1:22:45
  famous. Yeah, and then you're watching
• 1:22:46
  what's the Parks and Recreation and what's.
• 1:22:48
  His name? What are Ron?
• 1:22:50
  Swanson, Ron Swanson and the lag of and you suddenly and you see
• 1:22:53
  all these people that are absolutely obsessed with Smokey
• 1:22:55
  whiskey. And I genuinely always felt like
• 1:22:58
  on the outside looking in being like, what's the big deal?
• 1:23:00
  I don't get it. And then starting to understand
• 1:23:03
  it a little bit more than getting into it.
• 1:23:04
  And I really do enjoy it. But it's, it's, it's funny
• 1:23:08
  hearing or interesting here. What you're saying is the fact
• 1:23:10
  that I always picture people having like you see the ARD Beg
• 1:23:12
  fans and they have the ARD Beg embassies.
• 1:23:15
  You've got a massive collection of ARD Beg, haven't you?
• 1:23:17
  I mean, how many ARD beg bottles have you got that you're willing
• 1:23:19
  to share with the audience? How many you've got?
• 1:23:22
  7070 bottles of ARD Beg. Yeah, see, that's insane.
• 1:23:25
  So you get that element, then there's that's.
• 1:23:27
  Because you love our big style, right?
• 1:23:28
  Like the spirit character? Yeah.
• 1:23:30
  And that's so I've always looked at it from that perspective that
• 1:23:34
  when I so when you get a brand like Mctalla that go, we don't
• 1:23:38
  say what we are. Yeah.
• 1:23:39
  But when you hear yourself talking about the code, we're
• 1:23:42
  actually just here to celebrate whiskey from the island.
• 1:23:44
  And so it is there some releases that are hits and some releases
• 1:23:48
  that aren't as big a hit or is it always a hit across the
• 1:23:51
  board? I mean, the variety in releases
• 1:23:53
  is really, really broad. Like this is actually the second
• 1:23:56
  PX that we've done. We did one for Phase 2023, I
• 1:24:01
  think totally different DRAM to this.
• 1:24:05
  But again, it's, it's, it's about having that variety.
• 1:24:08
  We did virginal last year, which was on the softer side.
• 1:24:11
  I guess the Super heavily peated stuff does better because that's
• 1:24:16
  what is expected, I guess for my ma.
• 1:24:18
  But that's we're not just here to do what is what is expected.
• 1:24:21
  We're here to celebrate. Everything.
• 1:24:23
  Everything. Diversity and variety and you
• 1:24:25
  say everything we've not, not everything that we've done is
• 1:24:27
  peated like we've done one or two unpeated.
• 1:24:31
  Releases. Oh, interesting.
• 1:24:32
  Yeah, yeah. And what have you got planned
• 1:24:34
  this year from Phase? Our release.
• 1:24:39
  No, but I mean what are you doing?
• 1:24:41
  What are you doing in terms of are you doing any events on the
• 1:24:44
  Ireland? Pizzas available.
• 1:24:46
  Well, it's, it's funny because like with with Abaragi and I say
• 1:24:50
  that we're, we're a pretty small team.
• 1:24:52
  We'll be at the Independent Whiskey Festival on Isla, and we
• 1:24:55
  might sprinkle in a couple of other things, but over the last
• 1:24:59
  four years we've done Isla big, really, really big.
• 1:25:03
  Like full team over events, tastings, the lot.
• 1:25:08
  Luckily, with Aberragi kind of coming alive, this has taken up
• 1:25:14
  a lot of our time. And not to say that Mctalla is
• 1:25:16
  not, it's not a big part of that, but it's just time
• 1:25:19
  management if. You need anyone to go over,
• 1:25:20
  We're free. Yeah, OK.
• 1:25:22
  We're we're happy to help. How are your references?
• 1:25:24
  Yeah, we're good, but we do OK. No, no, we'll be we'll be on
• 1:25:32
  Isla for assurance in some capacity.
• 1:25:34
  It's just yeah, it's it's a big year for for Morris and
• 1:25:37
  distillers with Aberrargi and yeah, the the drum for for face
• 1:25:41
  this year. Keep an eye out for it's a It's
• 1:25:44
  a beauty. And in terms of from from an
• 1:25:46
  audience point of view, then what?
• 1:25:47
  Because we've got 2 very sort of completely different drums here,
• 1:25:51
  1 heavily peated bourbon. What are we thinking?
• 1:25:54
  Which one do we like better, the first one or second one?
• 1:25:56
  What we've got? PX is gorgeous.
• 1:25:59
  PX gorgeous. Yeah.
• 1:26:00
  Anyone else want to challenge that or everyone in agreement?
• 1:26:03
  The. One that's not PX.
• 1:26:07
  It's got that lovely smoked mackerel.
• 1:26:10
  Yeah, absolutely. My grand question do all Iowa
• 1:26:14
  whiskies get their malt from Ireland?
• 1:26:17
  So because there's Island peaks and there's mainland peak which
• 1:26:21
  are quite different. Yeah, they're Pete or they're
• 1:26:22
  Malt. Sorry, the.
• 1:26:25
  Malted barley, is it all for the peak?
• 1:26:27
  For the malted barley are they all getting from Port Charlotte,
• 1:26:30
  which I presume is all the peak? I mean there's Port Charlotte
• 1:26:34
  Maltings is it get all its peak from the island?
• 1:26:37
  Port Island. Port Island I would.
• 1:26:41
  I would, I would. I don't know the answer but I
• 1:26:43
  would argue like financially it would make more sense to not
• 1:26:47
  ship it off the island to get smoked rather than do on.
• 1:26:50
  I think because I said Port Ellen only services a few of the
• 1:26:54
  distilleries on the island and then you.
• 1:26:56
  Have, but I know, I know, Simpsons do different
• 1:27:00
  specifications for. The earlier whiskey gave us from
• 1:27:03
  Simpsons, now Simpsons, yeah. But my understanding is that it
• 1:27:08
  means that they have is all mainland peat.
• 1:27:10
  They also do peat at like multiple different
• 1:27:12
  specifications. All right, So what they'll do is
• 1:27:13
  sell, so they'll they'll, I'd imagine.
• 1:27:16
  Because they do a lot of stuff internationally as well.
• 1:27:18
  Yeah. So they'll if peat at malt is
• 1:27:21
  needed in Australia or sorry, they won't.
• 1:27:25
  Get the peat from. Australia.
• 1:27:26
  No. No.
• 1:27:26
  No peat it. Here and then ship it to because
• 1:27:28
  what? I'm saying, is that the peat
• 1:27:30
  from Ila? Very specific, very different.
• 1:27:33
  Peat from the Yeah, from the North Harbor, yeah.
• 1:27:36
  Your base composition is going to be completely different.
• 1:27:39
  So I think that, I think I mean, so basically, I don't know if
• 1:27:43
  anyone here knows. I was actually in India
• 1:27:45
  recently. Yeah.
• 1:27:47
  Yeah. I knew.
• 1:27:47
  You weren't worried. What?
• 1:27:49
  Were you doing over there? Why were you in India?
• 1:27:52
  Like I just took it to. You like an hour and a half of
• 1:27:55
  a. I know, but I know you've done
• 1:27:58
  very well. I went, I went to find myself.
• 1:28:00
  But what did you find? But what I would say is Paul
• 1:28:09
  John, for example, Paul John import Scottish P from the
• 1:28:14
  Scotland Scottish Highlands to India to give to their mobsters
• 1:28:18
  in Rajasthan. And that's where they, so I'd
• 1:28:20
  imagine, and maybe there's people in the room who know a
• 1:28:23
  little bit more about this than I do, But I what I do know is
• 1:28:25
  that Port Ellen malting service some of the distilleries that
• 1:28:29
  are on the island and then other malt barley, malted barley comes
• 1:28:33
  onto the island. But I'd imagine that the peat
• 1:28:36
  comes from Isla. And like what Chuck was saying,
• 1:28:39
  like someone like Simpsons would be able to actually malt to
• 1:28:43
  specific. I mean, they'll malt to
• 1:28:44
  specifications for most people. They'll say if they've got big
• 1:28:48
  contracts with big distillers. For everyone, yeah.
• 1:28:50
  For everyone, certainly. From our point of view, yes.
• 1:28:52
  Yeah. So they'll say to our argue,
• 1:28:53
  what do you, what is the multi, what do you want to go to that
• 1:28:56
  specification. So I'd imagine that there'll be
• 1:28:58
  a process where Pete is actually moved from and that'll be
• 1:29:01
  stockpiled. It won't just be a, you know.
• 1:29:02
  That'll be, I guess. That was my question.
• 1:29:05
  They can do the specifications. For the PPM yeah yeah but the
• 1:29:08
  Pete that they'll whether. The Pete actually, clearly,
• 1:29:11
  actually Pete. Yeah, I would, I would argue
• 1:29:14
  maybe with if they're doing industrial drying on that scale,
• 1:29:18
  it might be Pete provided by customer and by the.
• 1:29:21
  Fraser Market and Fraser as soon as has a point to make here.
• 1:29:24
  Hang on. Just to try and ask the question
• 1:29:26
  here. So I was at a.
• 1:29:28
  Couple years ago. So grew a lot of their barley.
• 1:29:30
  I think if you just start off I think you'll find.
• 1:29:37
  I think you'll find. I'd like you to so so.
• 1:29:41
  Brick Laddie grew a lot of the room.
• 1:29:43
  Barley but don't have the the place to be in the room
• 1:29:46
  mountains. So they send it over up to the
• 1:29:49
  north of Aberdeen, right? So it's used in Aberdeenshire
• 1:29:51
  peat. So grown an Isle of Barley, put
• 1:29:54
  mature, both peated with Aberdeenshire peat and then
• 1:29:56
  brought that to Ireland. So it's not one set way for each
• 1:30:00
  distillery. Yeah.
• 1:30:03
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they've got a malted
• 1:30:19
  facility, not 100% malted. But I suppose I help, I suppose
• 1:30:35
  it helps with the fact that there can be so many different
• 1:30:39
  flavour profiles coming from the peated side of it.
• 1:30:41
  Like when we did that, when it was the guy Mungo, his name was,
• 1:30:44
  and he showed us the paediotic table that beg.
• 1:30:47
  And it really did. And they're talking about how
• 1:30:49
  they can break down the phenols of every like the flavour
• 1:30:53
  profile of every single phenol that comes out as a phenol being
• 1:30:56
  an element of the smoke. The smoke sits on the husk of
• 1:30:59
  the, of the, of the grain of barley when it's peated.
• 1:31:03
  And then that get when it's when it turns into flower and what
• 1:31:05
  have you, that's where you get, But at the same time, you can
• 1:31:08
  suddenly go from this, we can get the smoky bacon phenol and
• 1:31:12
  the salty phenol. And that is what goes in there.
• 1:31:16
  And if you're only getting your peat from one source, that would
• 1:31:19
  probably with 12 different distilleries, that might
• 1:31:21
  actually make it a little bit tricky.
• 1:31:22
  That's a good question. I mean, I think what we can
• 1:31:24
  safely say is it's all distilled on Isla, but everything else is
• 1:31:27
  1. You know, one size doesn't fit
• 1:31:29
  off. And I actually think taking it
• 1:31:31
  back from my personal my opinion, I much prefer the PX
• 1:31:34
  DRAM. Not much prefer I actually
• 1:31:36
  slightly prefer the PX DRAM, but that tasting though of that
• 1:31:39
  smoky mackerel. I'm that's exactly what I'm
• 1:31:42
  getting from that first time. It's like it's like it's like
• 1:31:45
  smoke mackerel with macro party on an oat cake.
• 1:31:49
  Yeah, if we're to take it to the wanky level.
• 1:31:52
  No, no, To finish off the wankiness, can you tell us where
• 1:31:55
  you are when you're eating the oat cake?
• 1:31:58
  Just. In the bath with some tea lights
• 1:32:02
  because it's smoky. There you go.
• 1:32:04
  Brilliant. Tea lights smoky.
• 1:32:06
  How is your relationship with your siblings at this point?
• 1:32:08
  Well, with Alex. I would say with the with the
• 1:32:11
  Mara, like it's easy to say something that's cash strength
• 1:32:16
  and it's booze forwards. Yeah, I would say that this is.
• 1:32:19
  No different. Pretty well integrated with
• 1:32:21
  alcohol working with spirit working with wood type to have a
• 1:32:25
  bit of pepperiness like you know you're drinking it but it's not
• 1:32:28
  not just a slap in the face with with ABV could.
• 1:32:31
  You pass on somewhere. Yeah.
• 1:32:32
  Because does that, does that affect you then Sam, when again,
• 1:32:36
  when you're, because look, we, we're often we've, we've had a
• 1:32:39
  lot of discussion on the podcast over the last few weeks about
• 1:32:43
  consumerism and who is ultimately right when it comes
• 1:32:46
  to whiskey. And you know, ultimately
• 1:32:49
  there'll be people in the room that will say, we should have it
• 1:32:52
  at 46% non chill, filtered, no colour, all this kind of stuff.
• 1:32:55
  But then you, you're, you've got a foot in two camps, haven't
• 1:32:59
  you? Because you're ultimately
• 1:33:00
  you're, you're somebody who is very, very keen and passionate
• 1:33:03
  about whiskey from your background and stuff like that.
• 1:33:05
  But at the same time, you're also somebody that knows what,
• 1:33:08
  what will sell, where the market goes.
• 1:33:09
  So ultimately, you know, we know that slapping an age on things
• 1:33:14
  can sometimes sell things a little bit easier.
• 1:33:16
  We know that giving more information about certain caste
• 1:33:19
  structures and caste types can make it easier.
• 1:33:21
  But how does it balance for yourself then?
• 1:33:24
  I mean, strength is a, you're never going to please everyone
• 1:33:26
  with strength, like ever. For me, if the strength is
• 1:33:31
  thought out, that's one thing. And if it's and if it feels
• 1:33:35
  correct, if it's caste strength, like we've got kind of batch
• 1:33:40
  strength here with the PX and with the Bodega and we've got
• 1:33:45
  kind of bottling strength for the double Sherry wood in the
• 1:33:47
  abargie. And these feel very much thought
• 1:33:50
  out like they've been putting a bottle at that strength
• 1:33:53
  deliberately. And some people want everything
• 1:33:55
  at cash strength. I understand that as well
• 1:33:57
  because. There's always an argument, you
• 1:34:00
  know, with cast strength. You can always take it down and
• 1:34:02
  you'll get some people. But you will you will absolutely
• 1:34:05
  change the risk sale when you bring.
• 1:34:06
  It If you're selling something at 43 percent, it's like, well,
• 1:34:09
  you're just charging me for water, you know?
• 1:34:11
  Oh yeah. And I and I get that as well.
• 1:34:13
  And but sometimes you just won't whiskey in a glass.
• 1:34:15
  And it's that it's that balancing act of OK, let's let's
• 1:34:18
  have something at cast strength versus let's have something that
• 1:34:21
  we've felt like it was an appropriate bottling strength.
• 1:34:24
  But you will never please everyone with strength.
• 1:34:26
  Ever. And I suppose like, you've got
• 1:34:28
  the range, like you, you. You'll never please everyone
• 1:34:30
  with smoky whiskey. You'll never please their own
• 1:34:32
  single cast whiskey. Yeah.
• 1:34:33
  But then what? You'll never please everyone
• 1:34:35
  blind the whiskey out of the lineup tonight.
• 1:34:37
  You know, when you look at the brands that you have in front of
• 1:34:39
  you when you've got the car more the Aberrargate, the Old Perv
• 1:34:42
  and the Metalla is there one? And I suppose Aberrargate has
• 1:34:46
  maybe got a wee asterisk beside it because it's so new and it's
• 1:34:48
  exciting just now. But is there one of the brands
• 1:34:51
  that you see selling more in the market than than others?
• 1:34:55
  We've had great success with Mctalla specifically because
• 1:34:59
  we've we've grown a really nice following of people that
• 1:35:03
  understand it and people that can appreciate that we take it
• 1:35:07
  from spirit to to bottling. We do it all on site and that we
• 1:35:10
  have done a lot of various different stuff with it and with
• 1:35:13
  various different celebrations of, of Isla.
• 1:35:16
  Again, we've got 4 products in the core range, which are all
• 1:35:19
  very different. Like if the well this could be a
• 1:35:21
  Mctalla tasting quite easy where we go through the four core
• 1:35:23
  range and our 2026 limited edition, everyone would have a
• 1:35:27
  different favorite DRAM. And so that's, that's we're
• 1:35:31
  doing something correct with Mctalla in my, in my opinion and
• 1:35:34
  we've seen it growing across. Does it do well?
• 1:35:37
  Yeah. I was going to say, does it do
• 1:35:38
  well in particular markets? Yeah, I mean France has, France
• 1:35:41
  has done really well with with Mctalla.
• 1:35:42
  Germany again really, really good growing in the UK as well.
• 1:35:47
  But yes, it's about kind of getting the message out.
• 1:35:50
  And you mentioned our big embassies earlier.
• 1:35:52
  We've got a lighthouse programme where people can go and do a bit
• 1:35:57
  of a discovery of, of Metalla where, you know, it's not a paid
• 1:36:01
  for partnership, It's not here's lots, lots of money.
• 1:36:04
  It's like we're working with these people where they are
• 1:36:07
  passionate about Metalla. We are passionate about Metalla
• 1:36:09
  so people can go and discover it there.
• 1:36:11
  Yeah. So I mean, really.
• 1:36:14
  I mean, we'll go through the room then.
• 1:36:15
  I mean, it's quite interesting what it might do is we'll go.
• 1:36:19
  I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's try this first old pair
• 1:36:23
  for Mctalla. What what do we see on that one?
• 1:36:26
  If you're a picker, A picker favorite of the bra of the drums
• 1:36:29
  that we've had before, we go through our favorite drum.
• 1:36:32
  If you're a picket down old Perth Mctallas are our favorite
• 1:36:35
  for for for show me how show hands for old pair.
• 1:36:39
  Just enjoyable and just idea brand everything, everything
• 1:36:43
  mixed into one, everything mixed into one for tonight, for
• 1:36:46
  tonight as well. So we'll start old Perth, just
• 1:36:49
  say. Just say liquid.
• 1:36:50
  I think that makes sense. Right, You enjoy the old Perth,
• 1:36:53
  Right. OK.
• 1:36:53
  And then the Metalla then from that fry.
• 1:36:55
  OK. So yeah, OK, good.
• 1:36:56
  And in terms of in terms of people who drink peated whiskey,
• 1:37:00
  is there a few people in the room who enjoy a smoky DRAM
• 1:37:03
  then? So yeah.
• 1:37:03
  Yeah, quite a few people there. Right.
• 1:37:05
  Well, we'll go through from Statford.
• 1:37:06
  I'll ask Chuck first. Chuck, what's your favorite of
• 1:37:09
  the night? What's the old Perth?
• 1:37:11
  The basically the double sharing, that's the favorite.
• 1:37:16
  OK, very good. Angus will be yourself.
• 1:37:18
  I'm going to go, I'm going to stick with type and say I
• 1:37:21
  really, I really like the PX metallic.
• 1:37:24
  I really like the. PX I'm going to say from my
• 1:37:26
  point of view, I've actually really enjoyed the Mara, which
• 1:37:29
  is going to really piss Ross off, but there.
• 1:37:33
  So let's say a show of hands for the car more the the Linkwoods,
• 1:37:35
  let's say show of hands for that favorite further.
• 1:37:37
  OK, very good. Good, strong start there for the
• 1:37:39
  first one and and then the Aberlarge on the single malt.
• 1:37:44
  OK, we've got 3-4. Yeah, OK, that's fine.
• 1:37:47
  Right. Then we've got the old perf,
• 1:37:50
  which was the double cherry, double cherry, double cherry,
• 1:37:53
  old Perth double Cherry and then the Bodega.
• 1:38:01
  Enjoying that one, the Mara, Mctalla Mara.
• 1:38:04
  Yeah, good. And then the last one, the
• 1:38:06
  Mctalla PX, going for a second vote there.
• 1:38:09
  Yeah, that's fine. Everyone's making up as we're
• 1:38:12
  going on. I feel in a way, like Pete and
• 1:38:22
  Sherry Berman and Sherry, there's only one way to find out
• 1:38:26
  what's best. Let's just fight.
• 1:38:28
  I think, I mean, to be honest, we've had, we've had quite a
• 1:38:31
  few, we've done these indie bottler spots, We've done a
• 1:38:33
  distillery spotlight. We've never done the Blinder
• 1:38:36
  bottler and the stellar Spotlight event, and I think it
• 1:38:41
  really does show you, like Tom said, he said it two or three
• 1:38:44
  times. We could be doing a tasting for
• 1:38:46
  almost every single. Individual brand, and in a way
• 1:38:48
  it's that it's probably the hardest tasting to pick a
• 1:38:51
  favorite because everything's so different.
• 1:38:53
  I would. I would totally agree with that.
• 1:38:54
  That's what I was. Going to say, you know that when
• 1:38:56
  there's a category, yeah, when we've had other independent
• 1:38:58
  bottlers and it's like right, here's 6 independent bottled
• 1:39:02
  ABCDEFG. Whereas this is like, right?
• 1:39:05
  Well, this is a single cask whiskey.
• 1:39:08
  This is AG7 by the way, G7. We do actually have a
• 1:39:16
  malpetition in the room. Sometimes, sometimes we do get 7
• 1:39:20
  drafts. Only watch 6.
• 1:39:21
  Drafts. I like what you're saying, I
• 1:39:25
  guess, but I suppose it's it's very good for a brand, I suppose
• 1:39:32
  time to have that scale. It must be, you know, to be able
• 1:39:35
  to get so many like there's there hasn't been a single drama
• 1:39:37
  in the room that no one's had their hand up for.
• 1:39:39
  There's been some drams in the room that most people have had
• 1:39:41
  their hand up for. And there's been drams that have
• 1:39:43
  been voted for along the way as well.
• 1:39:44
  So it's it just shows you. The well, yeah, there has been
• 1:39:46
  the drama. Just Chuck it as that.
• 1:39:48
  But I mean, but I would say Chuck's hands were probably 10
• 1:39:52
  people's hands in this room, you know?
• 1:39:56
  I. Mean, yeah.
• 1:39:57
  I needed that. Lucky, lucky with with the
• 1:39:59
  portfolio and with the the diversity of liquids across the
• 1:40:04
  range like favorite, least favorite or you know, G's
• 1:40:09
  favorite. It really like it's it that
• 1:40:13
  comes down to personal style of what whiskey you like, but I
• 1:40:17
  think. Hopefully everyone can agree
• 1:40:18
  that each each drama is is thought out and and of of a high
• 1:40:22
  quality. It's it's but the across the
• 1:40:25
  board, we've got a little bit of everything.
• 1:40:27
  Absolutely. Well, look, let's show an.
• 1:40:28
  Appreciation for time for coming along.
• 1:40:32
  Absolutely. Thank you very much.
• 1:40:36
  Let's hear of our diggers leaf as well.
• 1:40:37
  Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much.
• 1:40:43
  You lesson in the whiskey stories.
• 1:40:44
  Blame my border disteller. Morrison Distillers, Thank