Joel Harrison, a veteran whiskey writer, joined the “Rolex Whiskey Passion Project” to discuss the dramatic changes in the whiskey industry over his nearly 20-year career.
They centered on the evolution of whiskey pricing, with Harrison and host Gavin Linde recalling a time two decades ago when quality, mature whiskies, including rare bottles from now-closed distilleries like Port Ellen, were abundant and significantly cheaper.
Harrison shares his “aha” moment with Balvenie Doublewood and his eventual transition from the music industry to full-time whiskey writing, highlighting the global, passionate nature of the whiskey community.
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[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back everybody to another fun episode of the Rolex Whiskey Passion Project.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of you listen to it, don’t know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The best acoustics for this show are in my car.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I take almost all of these podcasts in my car.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I am amazing to produce a brass code and clean it up and you’d have no idea.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Today’s episode is going to be a first.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I’m calling this episode to go, since I’m driving.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t normally take these driving, but I gotta do this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I’m excited for my guess.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I met him briefly in London on that insane four-day whirlwind trip across with friends of La Freig and I got to spend literally 18 seconds with Joel and a lovely dinner where we sat at opposite end of the table where we still had a good time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Joel Harrison, welcome to the show, my friend, and congratulations on your latest award and accolade.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Please introduce yourself to the audience.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Gavin.
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[SPEAKER_02]: My name is Joel Harrison.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I have been a whisky writer for nearly 20 years now, Britain’s 707 books on spirits and whisky.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I’m based just outside London, actually.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So in a little town called Windsor, which is where we have the big castle and lots of royal events go on here, big castle.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, it’s nice.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It’s nice and, you know, same island as lots of distilleries.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It’s not too far to get up to Scotland.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s where I was the most of my towering.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I’m curious on the 20 year thing though because what was that like when you first started writing 20 years ago like who were the what were you writing about like because obviously in the last 10 years like the game went on steroids but 20 years ago must have been almost like pleasurable when I say it was calm.
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[SPEAKER_00]: in my mind.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it’s absolutely funny because really around that time, there were, and I was based in London, I’m from Oxford originally, but I moved out to move into London for a job that I had, I was working for a major record company as an A&R executive, and that’s what got me over to London in like the late, very late 1990s, early 2000s.
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[SPEAKER_02]: The whiskey writing scene at that time was very narrow, you know, it was like you had Jim Murray’s whiskey Bible before, you know, the Aurora and around him kicked off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You had a doctor, do friend of mine, Charlie McLean, who’s written a foreword in my lady.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Totally, totally, you know, you had some degree Michael, you know, Michael Jackson, who is the kind of doyan of it all really, and of course, Dave Brumman, and then a couple of the people like Dominic Ross Grimm, sadly passed away a couple of years ago.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so that was kind of the UK base.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the end, this is also the beginning of the internet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s a lot of ride a man.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so you had a couple of people online at that point search doing whiskey fun.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And you had Sam Simmons who went on to become the Balvani, Balvani Global Brown Ambassador.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then now Master of Mole Attenbrands doing their renovations.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So he had a website called Dr.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Whiskey.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that was kind of it, really.
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[SPEAKER_02]: coming at it from a completely new kind of viewpoint writing almost as sort of fanzines in a fanzines style, you know, with my kind of music background hat on and it was it was a fascinating time because big dreams companies actually didn’t know really what to make of younger generations coming through and I would include Sam Simmons.
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[SPEAKER_02]: and myself and Neil Ridley, who I started a blog with at that time, and we didn’t really know, you know, we were hanging around places like the Whiskey Exchange, and it was almost like, I would describe it like the film high fidelity, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that, but, you know, the record story and high fidelity, that’s the Whiskey Exchange was like at the time, some other staff are still there, and, you know, hang out, I lived about 15 in it walk away from their original story,
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[SPEAKER_00]: You could have a dream and then write about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You’re like, yeah, I wondered if pouring today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like a social bloke.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t know.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was a it was a cheap and easy way to experience lots of whiskey at that time, because that always had something I would kind of like first to then use that work.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Use the word cheap.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, just 20 years ago, people were not talking about the days of horses and buckies and just like that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just 20 years ago, you got a lot of all of the whiskey for cheap.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Gavin, you are a member, one point.
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[SPEAKER_02]: This must have been, so we’re looking at like 2,000 and 90,000 and 10.
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[SPEAKER_02]: being in Canary Wharf in the business district of downtown London, and going into a supermarket, so over here, our supermarkets are grocery stores, so liquor as well, so they’re not separated out.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Going into this grocery store with weight trolls, and you could buy the portellen’s third release from the special release for like 99 pounds.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And it’s just actually nine for nine pounds.
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[SPEAKER_01]: going for was a little demanding.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I wrote something the other day about how like my whole life, I thought Apollo Johnny Walker was financially and obtainable.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But you’ve got to be crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You just spend that much money on it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It out and now it’s like, you know, I mean, I don’t even know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t even know what we call defensive anymore.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Find edge.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think that’s.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think one of the really interesting things about that is, you know, that time, early 2000s into the mid 2000s, you had a lot of great whiskey that was coming through from a period when whiskey wasn’t particularly, you know, 20 years previous to that, whiskey was going through the doldrums and you had whiskey from the early 1980s that was from, you know, wrote bank and port Ellen and Colburnum.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, hillside and some of these incredible distillers that were closed, a brawl, of course, that will come in through that were they were just getting rid of it effectively.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it’s been sitting in a warehouse for 20 years, it’s like, ah man, you know, if we can get 50, 60, 70, 100 quid a bottle, you know, some of the independent bottle is around that time.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Bloody hell, I mean you could get.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I remember I think I picked up her.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was of it was I’ve actually very brothers and Rudd 1979, which is my my vintage in 1979 taught Ellen.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It’s very light.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t know.
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[SPEAKER_02]: There’s like 70 quid or something they were doing it for.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It’s just madness of this sort of state.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have a comment you made is like this younger generation in 20 years ago guys once again, stupid joke.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the days of you know horses and buggy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is only 20 years ago, whiskey was still kind of an older person’s drink.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I’ve saluted.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we’re only one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore, therefore, like, you know, all the people drinking at their homes, they bought, they went to liquor stores, grocery stores, they bought the whiskey, they went home, like they’ve been doing on that parent’s midnight.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They didn’t really go to bars, they went to bars, they went for a pint or two, like they might get a whiskey very rarely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But only 20 years ago, it feels much, much going on.
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[SPEAKER_02]: No, absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think in London,
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[SPEAKER_02]: They’d be one whiskey bar at that time, and that was salt, which other than exists anymore.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was up there to wear a road, which is sort of near Marble Arch.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then there was maybe one other one in Trafalgar Square, but it was like a Scottish theme, but it had to have whiskers.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was more Scottish theme than it was.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was interesting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, and Irish whiskey was everywhere too, because like that’s just, they would every age was drinking that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah absolutely and it was it was it was it was whiskey for drinking as well.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, but he yeah it wasn’t really a collector’s market in that respect and and also stuff now the question a good question there was was whiskey under price at that point.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it probably was here that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so so I’ll question back.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody financially did the math and said like, hey, we’re okay with a 48% margin.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because the marketing costs weren’t what they are today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, I look at a brand today.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They launch and they like, well, fuck, we got to get an ad in Times Square in New York.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we got to get Piccadilly Circus and we got to do that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, that’s 2 million.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but the whiskey has seven quit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, no, no, no.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Marketing is going to add another 50 quit to that bottom line.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you’re 42%.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the packaging these days, you know, it’s like, I mean, don’t want to know, at Whiskey Exchange, we’re having a good laugh about the boxes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We’re like, the box of the worth more than the cost of the whiskey and the glass.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It’s crazy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When you put Whiskey in a barrel in 1965, minimum labor was like, I’ll give you Whiskey on a Friday, that’s how I’m paying you.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I’ll tell you a little story.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I’ll tell you in the story about that, Gavin.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I was, I was up to it all clean.
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[SPEAKER_02]: This is in Highland Park.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They’ve issued probably 20, 10, 20, 11, something like that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I’ve been drinking it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn’t particularly expensive.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was still a three-figure bottle back in those days, but low, you know, 120 quid or something.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, and, and there was a second edition that came out that was just like the lower ABV.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I think one was 46% and this other one came out, and it was bang on 40%.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And I spoke to the whiskey maker at the time, maps, and I was like, listen, this new one you’ve put out, this new 21 year old is just phenomenal.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It’s really, really good.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But the ABV’s lower.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They said, I said, what’s the deal with that?
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[SPEAKER_02]: He said, I said, well, we’re actually taking some orders for our, when he won your old.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And we didn’t have enough stock to fulfill it because the orders, you know, the stock profiles were over the place some years.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They made a lot of the years.
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[SPEAKER_02]: They made very little.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, so basically that particular bottling that’s down at 40% has 40 year old, highland bark in it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: stuff, but like, wow, that’s why it’s so good.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was like, yeah, but on a ballad sheet, that was the cheapest liquor in the warehouse, right?
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[SPEAKER_02]: Because the the coal was cheaper, the peak was cheaper, the people were cheaper, that you know, and it’s on a ballad sheet.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s what he used.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn’t about, I’ll save that back for a 40 year old or save that back for a over-age for a 50.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I still think that island
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s far of a core item, a core 25, you know, just the lesson of the level of whiskey that my person, I’m like, man, like, you know, I take that over almost anything in a 25 year.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously independent ballings different.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It’s like, you know, but I’m like, that those are special bottles of those final part 25s.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, wow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, but, you know, all right, I’m going all over the place.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It’s just how this podcast goes 20 years ago.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You start writing, but what made you start writing in whiskey?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, what was your whiskey aha moments?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, hey, I like this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I know you said you were in history.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can’t imagine.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I heard it 20 years ago, the ANR guys sitting around and drinking a lot of whiskey, but you could be like, hey, that’s wrong.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody bought it in the Glendronic one day and I was like, fuck, this is amazing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t know.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think there’s a couple of interesting stories there, which were, which is the first one being that that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: the job kept me out late at night, you know, my job was to go and just have a new talent, you know, and it was, it was walking into bars and and going to see gigs and and sometimes, you know, you’d, you’d go in and the band would be rehearsing for their books, for the good deal playing late with the night, so it could be like 6 p.m. and sometimes you’d go in and see them, and they weren’t on stage till one o’clock in the morning.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so you were constantly out, you would especially around London at that time, you would drive around London because you would maybe sing three or four gigs in a night so you’d need to be mobile.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You’d be leaving London and you’d be going to Liverpool or Manchester or somewhere that’s, you know, for context, like two or three hour or three hour drive up north from London.
11:46.705 –> 11:55.433
[SPEAKER_02]: And you’d be in those cities because their vibrant creative cities, you’d be in those cities three
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[SPEAKER_02]: MPN, so you just go, I’m going to drive home after so you get home at 1 o’clock 2 o’clock in the morning and that’s when you’d have a drink and that was your moment to relax and just chill out and you know you didn’t have to be in the office to 10 a.m. if up the next day because of it, it the way that you’re you business hours worked.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I started drinking in my 20s, a little drama whiskey, and the wouldle whiskey that, you know, I’m no bones about saying this, the whiskey that got me into, it was barely double would.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was, you know, the 12 year old.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And you could, I love this ritual that you could drink as liquor or as much of it as you wanted.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you could add ice or water or nothing at all.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And a bottle could last you, you know, six days or six months.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It really wasn’t, there’s no issue with it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s what got me into it and then I started, you know, having a bit of a big, big selection and more bottles and this and then I remember, like, you’re, you’re a decompression drink.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I used to run restaurants in nightclubs for 20 years and there was nothing better than I look forward to getting home and having a little drama watching some mindless TV because my brain was just fried from working and being a sad, you know, you used to be a people talking the whole time and I’m like, I just want silence, whiskey, et cetera, am mindless TV show.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And this is, you know, this is back.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So we’re talking, like, 2000 won, 2000 won, 2002.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So exactly that thing you’d come in.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You have a drama whiskey.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It’s stick on, you know, MTV, whatever.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And you just let it play out in the background.
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[SPEAKER_02]: You weren’t really watching it.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was like wallpaper.
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[SPEAKER_02]: But you were just needed that decompression moment.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And you’ve been in smokey bars at that point.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, you know, everyone else around you was drinking.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So it was nice to come back and have something like that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And then,
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[SPEAKER_02]: The one that I think the first time I felt I was going down a slip, re-slope towards this being a real passion point was the first time I tried to catch a unicorn bottle really and that was when I first had Ardbeg a still young.
13:47.412 –> 13:55.575
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, it was on its journey towards the new 10 year old and someone had said, ah, you know, there was there’s a bottle before this could very young.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So the journey is very unstill young almost there, 10 year old.
13:58.804 –> 14:01.271
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought I’ve got to try and get myself a bottle of this very young.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And so I ended up
14:02.414 –> 14:25.266
[SPEAKER_02]: phoning the distillery and phoning different liquor stores around the UK, trying to find it, and eventually I just sent a massive care package of CDs from our cupboard in the office at time, to the distillery, and they ended up bringing it, bringing me back up going, to know what we managed to find a bottle of this somewhere, and I was like, excellent, or, like, he’s a huge,
14:25.634 –> 14:31.704
[SPEAKER_02]: that was my first time that I really went after a proper bottle of whiskey that I couldn’t buy.
14:31.724 –> 14:43.062
[SPEAKER_02]: And it had only been on sale, I think it had been on sale maybe like six months before hand, maybe a year before hand, but it was rare that stuff would sell out quickly in those days, and I don’t even miss bottles at liquor stores by like a couple of days.
14:43.823 –> 14:48.250
[SPEAKER_02]: So that’s when I was a bit like, oh gosh, yeah, this is now a passion point.
14:48.972 –> 14:52.816
[SPEAKER_00]: So you get hold of this Bible and now, I mean, how’s the switch count?
14:52.977 –> 14:55.319
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I mean, you’ve gone from Belveny to Ardbeck.
14:55.840 –> 14:58.463
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, it’s very different profiles.
14:58.483 –> 15:05.031
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was just loving exploring, exploring the category and trying different stuff and smokey PT.
15:05.071 –> 15:07.674
[SPEAKER_02]: Whiskey wasn’t something that I immediately fell in love with.
15:07.734 –> 15:09.356
[SPEAKER_02]: I worked up to it, you know?
15:09.376 –> 15:15.823
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the lack of a little, the lack of a little in distillers edition was probably the whiskey that got me to PT whiskey, smokey whiskey.
15:15.803 –> 15:23.935
[SPEAKER_02]: And that point rich, delicious, you know, petro-hemeners, matured, so you have that incredible kind of fruityness from somebody else.
15:23.955 –> 15:28.682
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice to hear that in bullshit, like it’s coming out of a shake or they just like, effort in there.
15:29.083 –> 15:30.165
[SPEAKER_00]: Real sharp, saloonly.
15:30.385 –> 15:32.428
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, proper, proper, sherry slayser.
15:32.645 –> 15:36.089
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m gonna use, so you start writing.
15:36.550 –> 15:45.161
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the journey begins and are you just voracious, meaning like I want to see every distillery, I want to try it all, or you’re still hanging out at the whiskey exchange.
15:45.221 –> 15:47.784
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re gonna like, this is a pretty good fucking situation here.
15:48.165 –> 15:50.267
[SPEAKER_00]: I could try crazy stuff, like, and write about it.
15:51.048 –> 15:54.012
[SPEAKER_02]: That was definitely the star.
15:54.515 –> 16:08.310
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to a place about 2007-2008 where I’d started to think about doing, you’ve always been a bit of a self-starter, so I started to think about making my school set and becoming self-employed in the music industry.
16:09.051 –> 16:16.279
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had two artists that I’d found that I wanted to manage and management was what I’d done before getting into working at Universal.
16:16.819 –> 16:18.261
[SPEAKER_02]: So I spoke to my boss.
16:18.393 –> 16:19.736
[SPEAKER_02]: and he was like great thines.
16:19.816 –> 16:34.984
[SPEAKER_02]: I went off to manage these artists and I remember that then allowed me to travel more and I was getting commissions at that time to then write a acelat whisky magazine and other outlets and I was able to spend a lot more time in Scotland visiting distilleries.
16:34.964 –> 16:39.289
[SPEAKER_02]: But the big switch came for me when I was writing an article, I was on the island of Isla.
16:39.669 –> 16:42.092
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was outside the, I walk in Bowmore.
16:42.792 –> 16:46.877
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was, again, in 2008, I think, 2009, 2008.
16:47.057 –> 16:49.219
[SPEAKER_02]: And there’s, like, sideways rain.
16:49.440 –> 16:52.623
[SPEAKER_02]: And I’m in a phone booth, because I couldn’t get any mobile phone sitting at the time.
16:53.124 –> 16:59.110
[SPEAKER_02]: Trying to do a three-way call, putting pound coins in this, in this, you know, a coin-op telephone.
16:59.791 –> 17:03.655
[SPEAKER_02]: And my artist.
17:04.512 –> 17:09.099
[SPEAKER_02]: And I came out of that phone box, having put loads of power coins in, and I just thought that I’ve got a quit.
17:09.239 –> 17:12.164
[SPEAKER_02]: This is, I just need to do the whiskey writing full time now.
17:12.204 –> 17:21.137
[SPEAKER_02]: It took huge risk, massive risks that back from an industry that would be very good to me for probably better parts of 12, 13 years, and, and, OK, the penniless whiskey writer.
17:22.501 –> 17:26.387
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s stupid that you’re doing, but it’s a great decision also.
17:26.507 –> 17:44.636
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a great, a great thing about it, Gavin, is it, you know, the music industry took me to some amazing places and gave me some incredible experiences and weren’t missing amazing artists, but the whiskey industry is more global, you know, I don’t think I would ever have been to Taiwan with the music industry.
17:44.656 –> 17:47.981
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think I would have been to Japan as many times with the music industry.
17:48.001 –> 17:48.762
[SPEAKER_02]: I, you know,
17:48.742 –> 17:50.932
[SPEAKER_02]: all these places it takes me around the world.
17:51.455 –> 17:56.980
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m so so grateful that whiskey is a global globally enjoying globally made now, product, you know.
17:57.280 –> 18:00.786
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I love that you used that word global because it truly is.
18:01.146 –> 18:05.633
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can, I, I look and I see this experience I had.
18:05.653 –> 18:15.850
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, I thrive on global, you know, when I started, you know, what, the investment strategies, financial, obviously Rolex was he, itself was kind of just a side effect of what I was doing.
18:15.870 –> 18:21.178
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the anti-Instagram Instagram, whatever in my fucking wildest dreams,
18:21.158 –> 18:42.812
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 years ago when I started this journey did I think I would be sitting on Isla would ever say you know I used to go to London and party never did I think I’d be sitting there and like look at hanging out with William Defoe Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
18:43.315 –> 18:47.386
[SPEAKER_02]: This is your absolutely right and that’s the first time I went to Kentucky.
18:47.426 –> 18:58.455
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember being picked up staying in a hotel called the Galt House Hotel and got picked up by Chris Morris who at the time was at a master.
18:58.435 –> 19:05.367
[SPEAKER_02]: distiller, and I think he might be mastered still at Maritas now for Brown Forman, so you know, but across Jack Daniels and Woodford and everything else.
19:05.848 –> 19:10.537
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember getting in the car with him in the first thing he said to me was just like, right, we’re going to go see some distiller.
19:10.557 –> 19:13.562
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s don’t believe any of the bullshit they tell you, and I’m just like, this is great.
19:14.023 –> 19:18.391
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they honesty that people have in the industry is fantastic, and you know, I think, why?
19:18.431 –> 19:20.815
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they’re with the people.
19:20.795 –> 19:43.208
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously, even I haven’t spent enough time to know, but like, each other, meaning like, we’re just normal guys, like you can fucking relax, like you don’t, you don’t have to be like scared of like blind your peace and cues, I would assume with me definitely you don’t, you’re writing about it, so they might have to cut a couple of keys and keys, you know, but like you can do yourself like I’m not going to come out.
19:43.188 –> 19:50.337
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think that’s one of the things that resonates with me most, and I’ve got a new book out of the Whiskey World Tour.
19:50.857 –> 19:53.441
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it covers, it’s broken only to five sections.
19:54.001 –> 20:01.370
[SPEAKER_02]: So North America, Ireland, Scotland, the rest of the world, I’m in Japan, and it’s 52, distilleries that you can visit.
20:01.390 –> 20:05.516
[SPEAKER_02]: So they all have visitors centers, or open to people to go and don’t have a look.
20:05.536 –> 20:09.921
[SPEAKER_02]: But what resonates, you know, they’re kind of golden thread to red thread that rose through the entire book.
20:09.901 –> 20:10.762
[SPEAKER_02]: It is twofold.
20:10.822 –> 20:12.263
[SPEAKER_02]: Number one, whiskey is made by people.
20:12.984 –> 20:14.786
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s people with a passion.
20:14.886 –> 20:17.749
[SPEAKER_02]: And number two, on the whole, it’s an agricultural product.
20:18.229 –> 20:23.655
[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s made by people in places that are relatively remote, that draw on the land.
20:24.075 –> 20:25.797
[SPEAKER_02]: And they’re grateful to see you when you turn up.
20:25.837 –> 20:27.919
[SPEAKER_02]: And therefore, you tend to have a good time.
20:27.979 –> 20:33.385
[SPEAKER_02]: If you’ve made the effort to go to Isla, or Kentucky, you know, Taiwan, it doesn’t really matter where you’re going.
20:33.765 –> 20:35.807
[SPEAKER_02]: They just stay welcome you with
20:35.787 –> 20:41.974
[SPEAKER_02]: That is so indicative of why the industry is such a wonderful place and what a product is such a wonderful product, right?
20:41.994 –> 20:53.587
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, and I get addicted to their passion, you know, like I wouldn’t like, you know, like, you’re an eyelash, talk to some of you, like, before I, for example, the girl that took us right, oh, yeah, I’m born and raised you, what was that like?
20:53.607 –> 20:58.352
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but yeah, take a ferry to go get clothes, I don’t have a clothing store here.
20:59.750 –> 21:06.435
[SPEAKER_00]: She’s like, and it depends on the weather, you know, we could, like, it was fun with training sideways, they’re very ain’t going.
21:07.090 –> 21:36.743
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I remember, I was like, I was at Jack Daniels, well, I was at down at Jack Daniels and the guy who showed me round was a former Navy seal and, you know, some of his stories were just unbelievable and he moved back there because he’s from Tennessee, he’s from nearby Lincoln County and his mum was sick and he moved home to look after his mum and he’s just like, this is great, you know, that’s the sort of people that you’re engaging with and it’s just, it’s wonderful, it’s a wonderful industry, really, really when you go to
21:36.723 –> 21:55.592
[SPEAKER_00]: I went there like 12 years ago and the guy who did the tour and we got like the fancy tour whatever it was called the angels tour or I already should like that whatever the name was and the guy was in in overalls and he was like six foot six and he was he was a retired teacher and he was like yeah, it’s kind of fun to do this.
21:55.572 –> 22:20.787
[SPEAKER_00]: And then so we get them through the thing and I’m like lot of lot of lot of lot and then I’m like hey guys like why don’t you do anything else other than these like party drinks you know because that was like the day of like hot honey and all that stuff like oh yeah and this is like it’s not 12 years ago actually and he’s like and he’s like and then like now like why would we do that and then four years ago when they started doing single barrels I’m like oh they got the memo
22:21.256 –> 22:44.985
[SPEAKER_00]: the business is changing you can you can you can drive a lot of marketing demand back to the name that’s not just basic stuff If you do some unique expressions, but I like you know, it’s like so so I believe and you probably see this also because you’re in there like The mentality has changed the people have it the passion is there, but the company mentality
22:44.965 –> 22:52.301
[SPEAKER_00]: Because of, I believe, you know, the writing, the social media, the exposure has changed the game.
22:52.742 –> 22:56.390
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you’re just whisky, it’s just way more visible than it’s ever been.
22:58.113 –> 23:01.641
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, and that’s, that’s no longer earth, you know, I do.
23:01.756 –> 23:03.337
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a bit like the hotel bar scene.
23:03.357 –> 23:06.641
[SPEAKER_02]: I wrote a piece recently about the rise and rise of the hotel bar.
23:06.701 –> 23:23.056
[SPEAKER_02]: And I remember, you know, the late 1990s, you go into a hotel bar and it’d be a TV screen flickering in the corner, it’d be lonely businessmen, you know, and what have you sitting around to be sticky carpets and they’d be like, and maybe a bottle of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of 10 behind the bar if you were lucky.
23:23.116 –> 23:27.400
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, America was, oh, bond.
23:27.420 –> 23:29.241
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, 10 meals.
23:29.261 –> 23:29.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Johnny Walker.
23:30.157 –> 23:36.290
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, some Glenn, Glenn, you know, some Glenn was there and then, you know, make his mark.
23:37.453 –> 23:44.588
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and a lot of a decent amount of rum, some to kill us and vodka, this America and lots of beers on tap.
23:45.175 –> 23:45.636
[SPEAKER_02]: that’s it.
23:45.896 –> 23:46.117
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:46.357 –> 23:46.638
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
23:47.058 –> 23:54.291
[SPEAKER_02]: And people would just sort of, they were kind of happy with their lot, but that slow creep of people wanting to drink better quality.
23:54.411 –> 24:08.976
[SPEAKER_02]: And then obviously the environment they’re drinking it in being, you know, if you’re going to push the price of a single mole or a old fashioned or whatever it might be or even a Margarita Manhattan or something, you know, people are like, well, make the place I’m drinking it better.
24:08.996 –> 24:10.018
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think
24:09.998 –> 24:25.594
[SPEAKER_02]: those two things were symbiotic and it helped the industry because people became more comfortable out drinking and in nice environments and they wanted to spend more and they wanted to drink better quality stuff and I think that’s the direction the industry went in which was a great one,
24:25.574 –> 24:46.167
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you used to ask where it’s spent and say that was really interesting because when I ran restaurants and bars, you charge $10 for a cocktail and $8 for anything single, you know, like that was it because the choices weren’t the, you know, like a Johnny Walker red was a pot, say, but now multi-hundred dollar flat pours, multi-hundred.
24:46.488 –> 24:47.970
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it’s not that.
24:47.950 –> 24:51.136
[SPEAKER_00]: And nobody finishes like it’s just like, oh that’s crazy.
24:51.316 –> 24:57.407
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s crazy, you know, I don’t mind it as long as the quality’s there That’s the the big thing for me.
24:57.447 –> 25:06.583
[SPEAKER_02]: So I the industry can My watch out for episodes that the whiskey industry is a whole whether it’s a you know US bourbon whether it’s a single malt scotch or
25:06.563 –> 25:11.754
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Japanese whiskey is, you know, if you’re going to charge a lot of money for it, make sure it’s some of the best stuff you’ve done.
25:11.774 –> 25:12.876
[SPEAKER_02]: And that’s that’s always.
25:13.016 –> 25:18.087
[SPEAKER_02]: Don’t drop all of what over our eyes with some crappy, you know, marketing-led thing.
25:18.107 –> 25:20.472
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure the quality of the liquidity needs the prize point.
25:20.620 –> 25:21.161
[SPEAKER_01]: And I’ll get it.
25:21.461 –> 25:23.183
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can’t even say, yeah, not that good.
25:23.484 –> 25:23.904
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
25:24.124 –> 25:24.805
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
25:24.885 –> 25:32.495
[SPEAKER_00]: And you, especially in East Gatchford, but then you realize how powerful the market is because gentlemen, X walks in and he’s like, I’ll get that 18.
25:33.256 –> 25:34.618
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn’t even look what else is on the map?
25:34.658 –> 25:36.079
[SPEAKER_00]: He’s like, I’ll just get that 18.
25:36.640 –> 25:37.401
[SPEAKER_00]: He has read it.
25:37.501 –> 25:38.182
[SPEAKER_00]: He has seen it.
25:38.563 –> 25:39.384
[SPEAKER_00]: He has felt it.
25:39.444 –> 25:42.928
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s been a thing of prestige for him.
25:43.649 –> 25:45.271
[SPEAKER_00]: And he’s like, I will get that 18.
25:45.331 –> 25:46.773
[SPEAKER_00]: And he’s like, but there’s so much better whiskey.
25:46.853 –> 25:47.694
[SPEAKER_00]: Nope, that’s what I drank.
25:48.034 –> 25:48.535
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
25:49.257 –> 26:16.783
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what, if that’s what, if it keeps, if it keeps scotch or whiskey, you know, at the forefront of people’s minds, then I don’t mind so much, but just, you know, the second make sure they make sure that they’re enjoying it, you know, it’s just a, a labor of, you know, drinking it to status rather than enjoyment because the minute that people kind of realize that don’t enjoy it is the minute that they’re going to move on to something that they do enjoy because it’s their money.
26:18.029 –> 26:20.985
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think this is just the ultimate time to be exploring.
26:22.113 –> 26:24.557
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, God, how do you tell me?
26:24.577 –> 26:25.017
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you tell me?
26:25.037 –> 26:25.498
[SPEAKER_00]: I would tell you.
26:25.558 –> 26:27.742
[SPEAKER_00]: So much great whiskey out there.
26:28.443 –> 26:39.920
[SPEAKER_00]: And for me, because living in America, I have to come to your neck with the fine, what I would call the honey hole like that’s a little bar that I could find at 1965, no, I lied.
26:39.940 –> 26:42.304
[SPEAKER_00]: 1985, I wouldn’t find that just a little more.
26:42.604 –> 26:44.668
[SPEAKER_00]: Just sitting on a shelf next to a bunch of pints.
26:45.409 –> 26:48.413
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that’s sitting there because like, people come there to drink pints.
26:48.834 –> 26:49.315
[SPEAKER_00]: So they do.
26:49.655 –> 26:50.196
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
26:50.176 –> 26:51.002
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and he’s me.
26:51.022 –> 26:51.526
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s too good.
26:51.546 –> 26:53.097
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was my mind every time.
26:53.238 –> 26:56.440
[SPEAKER_00]: I every time I go there and burn I’m like, they don’t fucking drink here
26:56.690 –> 27:05.523
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m like, if you love, I’m out, I’m out of whatever that station hotel in, you know, out by, I was out there, Ben, Roma, and stuff like that.
27:05.783 –> 27:07.606
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t even know what part of the country that is.
27:08.167 –> 27:16.019
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have this station and they have all these old vintage Gordon McPhales for like 45 bucks a pour.
27:16.039 –> 27:19.203
[SPEAKER_00]: 19, eight, eight, five, and shit like that.
27:19.243 –> 27:24.351
[SPEAKER_00]: And you like kid me, they’re like, hey, if people come here, they do the tour, they go for dinner, they come
27:25.107 –> 27:33.141
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re happy, they’re happy, they’re happy, they’re like, oh my God, I want to come here, I just want to get up, I just want to go door to door and see who’s got watch.
27:34.604 –> 27:43.960
[SPEAKER_02]: It was funny, I was up in Scotland last year and I was cute to be flying back from Inveness Airport and it was like an afternoon flight.
27:44.581 –> 27:53.353
[SPEAKER_02]: back down to London, and I had a bit of time, so I ended up in a place called the Cordle Inn, which is about 15 minutes from the Ness Airport.
27:53.894 –> 28:06.471
[SPEAKER_02]: Near Royal Bracklars, a stillary, and I’m sitting there, having a bit of lunch, I look at the back bar, and there’s a couple of bottles that were on there that were just insane, it was like, there was a blend of it, is it blends of it?
28:06.451 –> 28:12.482
[SPEAKER_02]: And there’s a blank Geary, 1985, and I said to the woman how much is that for a measure?
28:12.522 –> 28:15.547
[SPEAKER_02]: She got us five pounds of measure or something.
28:15.567 –> 28:18.412
[SPEAKER_02]: So there was about a third of the bottle left, so I ended up buying the bottle off her.
28:19.013 –> 28:28.189
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was traveling with Handlega Jolie, so I was with my wife, and we had to swing by a local kind of pharmacy to buy a small piece.
28:28.625 –> 28:42.880
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, what I did was I bought a tiny little bottles to cancel it into the small bottles, which I could then know, actually, I could then take those in my hand luggage and then I took the big empty bottle through and refilled it once I was through the security bit.
28:42.900 –> 28:47.325
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, it was just like, you know, the rest, but that’s high for five quid a gram.
28:47.365 –> 28:48.846
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, well, yeah, crazy, you know.
28:48.987 –> 28:52.450
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we’ll see if I was at their bottle of cash if peanut butter they got it.
28:53.291 –> 28:54.492
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, exactly.
28:54.552 –> 28:55.293
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a good naked.
28:55.313 –> 28:56.194
[SPEAKER_02]: It was delicious stuff.
28:56.234 –> 28:56.995
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah.
28:57.920 –> 28:59.883
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Glenn, Gary, talk about a comeback.
28:59.903 –> 29:00.884
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I’m kind of excited.
29:00.944 –> 29:04.409
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything I’ve drank in the last two years has been phenomenal.
29:04.449 –> 29:08.855
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don’t think we would start it to see whether it’s going to come.
29:09.697 –> 29:10.478
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I agree.
29:10.498 –> 29:17.768
[SPEAKER_02]: And actually, what the owner’s story is doing, which is talking earlier about,
29:18.355 –> 29:23.862
[SPEAKER_02]: getting into drinking whiskey in the early 2000s because a lot of the stocks were stocks from the 80s.
29:24.622 –> 29:31.270
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, we in that period, that kind of awful period around sort of 8384, where lots of distilleries caused their doors.
29:31.751 –> 29:36.877
[SPEAKER_02]: They were running, you know, pretty inefficiently, but they were making flavor, flavor driven whiskeys.
29:36.897 –> 29:41.983
[SPEAKER_02]: And then throughout the 90s, early 2000s, you had efficiency being driven in.
29:41.963 –> 29:46.189
[SPEAKER_02]: where flavour was taken out, really, to some degree, not everywhere, but in a lot of places.
29:46.870 –> 30:02.510
[SPEAKER_02]: And what Santoria does is they’ve really looked at that and they’re putting inefficient practices back here, and you know, you’ve got a gland of air in there and they put in a floor moldings, which is ridiculous, you know, it’s crazy, because it ups the cost of your whiskeys substantially.
30:02.931 –> 30:08.899
[SPEAKER_02]: But they turn around and they said, yeah, but it impacts the flavour in a positive way, and you have to admire that that somebody,
30:08.879 –> 30:12.533
[SPEAKER_02]: And they’re not looking at the cost of it, they’re looking at the quality of it first and foremost.
30:12.794 –> 30:15.283
[SPEAKER_02]: Fabulous, fabulous stuff.
30:15.303 –> 30:20.222
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I hope one day it’s a study case, but people feel like Centauri.
30:20.793 –> 30:35.753
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely, so do you think or like, you hang out with anyone from Centauri, the passion that they have, you know, I think, except for a few exceptions, Centauri’s brand ambassadors are probably the best in the game, the piano that they have.
30:36.314 –> 30:37.796
[SPEAKER_00]: They work there for a long time.
30:37.856 –> 30:48.150
[SPEAKER_00]: They, they know everything, every looking cranny, and then you hang out with the master distillers, and they’re just like absolutely grateful that people love the whiskey that they’re making.
30:48.130 –> 30:49.215
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, like, wait, what?
30:49.456 –> 30:50.783
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re not celebrities at all.
30:50.843 –> 30:52.350
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though they aren’t fucking celebrities.
30:52.752 –> 30:54.280
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re like, they ain’t here, believe it.
30:54.300 –> 30:54.883
[SPEAKER_00]: They’re amazing.
30:54.903 –> 30:55.626
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m a shock.
30:57.125 –> 31:21.192
[SPEAKER_02]: could the quality of bow more like there’s that it’s over here in in the UK bow more have launched an Amazon exclusive and it’s a nine year old stub 30 quid so and it’s super super price you know but it’s super cheap I would say that like let’s that not be around the bush and the quality of it is through the roof I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the otherwise can now.
31:21.172 –> 31:50.520
[SPEAKER_00]: it’s just yeah otherwise for them you know like it’s just like I’m so ingrained like they were they really ignited my passion for whiskey yeah I know it was galo life but some touring just changed the game when I drank that first one I’m like whoever made this my stupid thing was like they’re give a fuck level with so hot that they didn’t work they throw it away they’re like we don’t release this like nobody cares about us we’re like Santori nobody gives a shit like we’re just not gonna put it out
31:51.327 –> 31:52.348
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
31:52.528 –> 32:03.220
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that quality control is just, well, it’s very, very diligent, but and I look at them and I look at pictures because like, pictures, nothing gets released unless they all agree on it.
32:03.981 –> 32:08.866
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there’s not like they sit down with a tape like every single limited release, of course.
32:09.247 –> 32:12.691
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like they sit down and they’re like, no, that’s why they’ll skip 10 years.
32:13.171 –> 32:14.713
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, this 10 year doesn’t work for us.
32:15.113 –> 32:17.896
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re not releasing it.
32:17.936 –> 32:19.478
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re like,
32:20.133 –> 32:25.946
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s about building a brand that people actually understand that it’s quality over every person.
32:26.828 –> 32:33.163
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to trust it, you know, I think that’s something, you know, you become blood and grain.
32:33.203 –> 32:36.150
[SPEAKER_00]: You’re like, I know every time I drink, I’ll always satisfy.
32:36.738 –> 32:37.759
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
32:37.799 –> 32:42.366
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m on the same with some of the Buffalo Trace products, you know, I think there isn’t a bad for me.
32:42.386 –> 32:55.444
[SPEAKER_00]: There isn’t a bad whiskey that walks out about the stillery and and I mean, whether it’s watching, I mean, I’m watching now, you know, I Buffalo Trace is like a is like an oil boom, you know, they went so big now with billions of liters.
32:55.985 –> 33:02.053
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you’re seeing it just sitting everywhere, but it’s not really sitting where you’re seeing is it’s available everywhere.
33:02.438 –> 33:05.004
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was sort of available because it was gone in one second.
33:05.545 –> 33:09.734
[SPEAKER_00]: So sitting first, the available are kind of, you know, the same thing.
33:10.115 –> 33:12.400
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it doesn’t mean that anything slowed down.
33:12.440 –> 33:14.424
[SPEAKER_00]: It just means that it’s just, it’s there now.
33:14.464 –> 33:15.166
[SPEAKER_00]: It never was.
33:15.266 –> 33:17.451
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was done through a backdoor deal.
33:18.052 –> 33:18.152
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
33:18.132 –> 33:19.275
[SPEAKER_00]: That and that was it.
33:19.816 –> 33:33.407
[SPEAKER_00]: I and when I sat down with Harlin I’m like, I just don’t get why you guys don’t charge more because like you You know you’re selling these things for 79 bucks and that means your cogs of your marketing or everything it’s good And it’s a thousand bucks
33:33.387 –> 33:42.637
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m like, why don’t you charge 400 and like literally four acts of revenue and he’s like, fly and I was like, it’s just because the distribution game is a whole different game.
33:42.797 –> 33:44.719
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, that’s whole bread in there.
33:44.739 –> 33:46.161
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m like, oh, I love my pay grade.
33:46.501 –> 33:55.611
[SPEAKER_00]: But then like sitting sitting in London, you know, a few months ago and going to, I forget the the drama I think it’s called, I work in the garage.
33:56.011 –> 34:01.217
[SPEAKER_00]: The drama I went there and he had a papi 23 and he had a Mr. George.
34:01.349 –> 34:06.782
[SPEAKER_00]: are the shelf just sitting there and the one who was 42 quit and the other one was 46 quit.
34:07.583 –> 34:08.064
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
34:08.606 –> 34:10.009
[SPEAKER_02]: I had that, I had that Mr. George.
34:10.029 –> 34:10.450
[SPEAKER_02]: He’s good.
34:10.670 –> 34:11.693
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a good solution.
34:12.475 –> 34:13.457
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a great brand.
34:13.537 –> 34:14.860
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the bottle of it.
34:14.880 –> 34:19.611
[SPEAKER_00]: If, you know, it’s a $1,000 US plus bottle that you can’t even get.
34:19.895 –> 34:29.693
[SPEAKER_00]: And there it is, just sitting on that bar, you know, right before cocktail week, you know, just sitting there and I’m like, I look at Raj, I’m like, what’s your bourbon knowledge?
34:29.753 –> 34:32.158
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just three and he Brooks, he’s like a little bit, though, much.
34:32.178 –> 34:36.966
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m like, I want to get a support of these two, he’s like, oh, he’s really good at this price.
34:37.347 –> 34:39.812
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s just not that good at three and fifty bucks support.
34:40.874 –> 34:42.797
[SPEAKER_01]: It’s funny because it’s
34:43.165 –> 34:43.846
[SPEAKER_01]: exactly.
34:43.906 –> 35:01.275
[SPEAKER_02]: We’ve got, we’ve got quite a bit, a sazaraka been very good in the UK about distribution and there’s a, you know, you can find puppies around in places that you wouldn’t normally like, I know it’s not technically part of the UK, but it falls under the distribution, but I was in
35:01.255 –> 35:02.977
[SPEAKER_02]: visiting Middleton to Stilarian.
35:02.997 –> 35:08.422
[SPEAKER_02]: I walked into a burger joint in Cork, which you dial in second city, you know, it’s not particularly big.
35:08.582 –> 35:10.324
[SPEAKER_02]: Ireland’s a pretty rural country anyway.
35:10.664 –> 35:16.110
[SPEAKER_02]: I walked into a burger joint in in Cork and they had a bottle of Papi 12 behind the bar.
35:16.190 –> 35:22.456
[SPEAKER_02]: Papi 10 and it was like, yeah, like, well, well, well, you arose for a measure or something.
35:22.476 –> 35:26.820
[SPEAKER_02]: And I’m just like, this is a burger joint in the middle of a, you know, the second city there.
35:26.840 –> 35:30.604
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that’s where I go back to like the rush, you know, they made a lot.
35:30.584 –> 35:36.291
[SPEAKER_00]: and now they can put it everywhere and you might not have seen it now, but now you’ll see it in more places because they have more of it.
35:36.311 –> 35:43.421
[SPEAKER_00]: So if in order to get a burger joint to get a papy 12 they’re like, hey dude, I need you to sell a shit ton of vodka or shit.
35:43.841 –> 35:44.943
[SPEAKER_00]: And the guy is like, yeah, be cool.
35:44.963 –> 35:45.944
[SPEAKER_00]: I really wanted to drink it.
35:45.984 –> 35:46.385
[SPEAKER_00]: I won’t.
35:46.465 –> 35:48.547
[SPEAKER_00]: In New York, I was at a pizza place.
35:48.587 –> 35:51.712
[SPEAKER_00]: I went next door to a beer, a beer pub.
35:51.792 –> 35:54.055
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I, you know, a major Brooklyn beer pub.
35:54.395 –> 35:57.699
[SPEAKER_00]: And they had the most insane American whiskey selection.
35:57.739 –> 36:00.523
[SPEAKER_00]: Like all the papy’s everything and I’m like, what the fuck?
36:00.875 –> 36:08.006
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is, like, literally, you have 60 taps and then you have this insane, like, all the, like, everything was there.
36:08.026 –> 36:09.327
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything, like, you name it.
36:09.348 –> 36:10.970
[SPEAKER_00]: They were just 20s, everything.
36:10.990 –> 36:24.570
[SPEAKER_00]: And I’m like, what the fuck they’re like, all the owners, the owners love, you know, love,
36:26.069 –> 36:27.050
[SPEAKER_01]: That’s insane.
36:27.591 –> 36:29.033
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is she’s back.
36:29.133 –> 36:32.038
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, the owner isn’t, you know, because we move a lot of weights here.
36:32.078 –> 36:33.760
[SPEAKER_00]: We can, you know, we can get allocated it.
36:34.561 –> 36:39.909
[SPEAKER_00]: Don’t, we’ve just killed 41 minutes, like it ain’t no saying on the Rolex podcast to go.
36:39.929 –> 36:42.693
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to get one more question in my list.
36:42.833 –> 36:44.456
[SPEAKER_00]: My list is gonna only listen so long.
36:44.756 –> 36:49.103
[SPEAKER_00]: You and I need to do a whole other episode on the books because I’m very interested in that.
36:49.623 –> 36:50.124
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s good.
36:50.565 –> 36:54.270
[SPEAKER_00]: I know they’re listening quality at how long they can stay online.
36:54.250 –> 36:55.593
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to ask a question.
36:55.693 –> 36:58.440
[SPEAKER_00]: I know you’ve had a lot of crazy moments the last 20 years.
36:58.540 –> 37:04.615
[SPEAKER_00]: Are there any like holy shit I can’t believe this moment that really just stand out immediately when I ask you that question
37:05.692 –> 37:19.809
[SPEAKER_02]: I’d tell you one of them was, it was a festival, isle, a whiskey festival that must have been in about 20, 10, and we deal 20, 20, 11.
37:19.849 –> 37:26.077
[SPEAKER_02]: And somebody hosted in what has now become the rejuvenated Port Ellen Distillery.
37:26.597 –> 37:34.787
[SPEAKER_02]: In one of the old warehouses there, a retrospective clothing of all of the special releases up to that point, which I think must have been about eight, eight or nine,
37:34.767 –> 37:38.851
[SPEAKER_02]: and then a load of other poor Ellen, that independent bocklings and bits and bobs.
37:39.271 –> 37:42.334
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was one of the wise moments but you’re just like, yeah, this is the way.
37:42.374 –> 37:52.503
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was like a hundred, it was expensive, it was like 75 pounds, or I’m gonna pass for a ticket, but you got like nine grams of 10 grams of these incredible poor old poor Ellen’s.
37:53.023 –> 37:55.425
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was one of those moments where you just like, this is great.
37:55.625 –> 38:01.090
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m in a close to stillary in a warehouse of who’ve just stillary this Chloe drinking, the whiskey from that, the stillary.
38:01.391 –> 38:04.133
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was when, you know, no one knew it was gonna reopen at that point.
38:04.113 –> 38:05.857
[SPEAKER_02]: This was Death Stalk, can’t do it.
38:05.877 –> 38:12.252
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s 2011 and also the Fest always like, you know, it was small compared to what it is now.
38:12.632 –> 38:20.350
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that’s when you could queue up and get like a big, like in 1975, like single price for not 200 quits of
38:20.414 –> 38:25.642
[SPEAKER_00]: In the back house, we’re going to make fucking three grand this weekend that we’re going to serve them top and level.
38:26.082 –> 38:29.528
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the less we’re going to make 30 grand that we’re going to serve them kind of top level.
38:29.948 –> 38:32.031
[SPEAKER_00]: All the old boomers, like five or six of them.
38:32.692 –> 38:37.940
[SPEAKER_00]: And I walked away and I’m like, if I were to never drink whiskey again after this, I’d be good.
38:37.960 –> 38:42.527
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, if you’re in it, it’s not like, it’s the environment, it’s the mountains.
38:42.567 –> 38:42.847
[SPEAKER_00]: Good.
38:42.908 –> 38:46.813
[SPEAKER_00]: And now it’s like, all right, now I’ve had like 50 moments like that.
38:46.873 –> 38:49.257
[SPEAKER_00]: I’m like, oh my god, I fucking I’m still drinking it.
38:49.237 –> 38:52.740
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I’m not so because I just geek out about the history.
38:52.840 –> 38:53.541
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, we got it.
38:53.561 –> 38:54.902
[SPEAKER_00]: We got to do a part two of this.
38:55.383 –> 38:56.624
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody interested Joel.
38:56.664 –> 38:57.725
[SPEAKER_00]: How do they follow you?
38:57.785 –> 38:59.247
[SPEAKER_00]: Just mention a couple of your leads.
39:00.708 –> 39:01.208
[SPEAKER_00]: There he is.
39:01.749 –> 39:05.433
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the best way is Instagram and it’s at Joel Drum.
39:05.453 –> 39:08.415
[SPEAKER_02]: J-O-E-L-D-R-I-M. Joel Drum on Instagram.
39:09.056 –> 39:09.997
[SPEAKER_02]: Is the best way to get hold of me?
39:11.078 –> 39:12.179
[SPEAKER_00]: Grab some books guy.
39:12.199 –> 39:13.801
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he’s living it.
39:13.941 –> 39:17.404
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you’re
39:18.245 –> 39:37.114
[SPEAKER_00]: they are music with you like out there just having fun I mean and and telling the world like hey there’s talent here hey there’s something here let me tell you about it there’s some great chances I mean that’s what the real need the world need really like we can’t be drinking the same basic stuff like there’s a lot out there
39:37.094 –> 39:39.056
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody, exactly, and thank you for listening.
39:39.217 –> 39:45.384
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the first whole Exviskey Passion Project podcast on the on the road.
39:45.904 –> 39:46.826
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate all of you.
39:47.106 –> 39:48.808
[SPEAKER_00]: We will definitely do a part two at Joel.
39:49.128 –> 39:50.029
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening.
39:50.149 –> 39:51.811
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate everyone of you.
39:51.892 –> 39:53.453
[SPEAKER_00]: Here we are almost four years later.
39:53.874 –> 39:57.278
[SPEAKER_00]: Just having fun talking to people that are truly passionate about whiskey.
39:57.418 –> 39:58.680
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate each one of you.
39:59.000 –> 40:01.443
[SPEAKER_00]: Please take when you listen to the episodes, make sure to rate them.
40:01.783 –> 40:05.768
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you,
40:05.748 –> 40:07.541
[SPEAKER_00]: but we’ll schedule a session too.
40:08.065 –> 40:09.778
[SPEAKER_00]: Happy happy and we’ll chat soon.
40:10.503 –> 40:11.269
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s a wrap.
