James Bond and whisky? Whisky has been paired with food for decades, although in more recent years we’ve seen whiskies paired and matched to cigars, watches, music, and even movies! If you’re going to sit down in your comfy sofa and pass away a few hours being entertained by 007, then having a good dram in your hand goes a long way to enhancing the James Bond experience.
Of course, Bond’s drink of choice may be a vodka martini, but we can shake and stir things up for the whisky drinkers out there who are James Bond fans: Here is our effort to pair and match the perfect whisky to every (official) James Bond film.
When new businesses are founded and launched, there are numerous financial and business models that help get the product to market. There might be schemes to raise capital; funds assigned to support marketing and promotion; and then comes the down-and-dirty process of actually selling the goods. It’s obviously a very diverse and varied minefield to tread. If you’re wondering how to start a new whisky brand, or even how to start a new whisky distillery, the minefield is particularly tricky to navigate…
The whisky industry is an example of a sector where that diversity and variation is most evident: There are brands and businesses that go large scale and are backed by investors who put up millions of pounds/dollars, and there are – quite genuinely – “mums and dads” businesses that are launched off little more than sweat and elbow grease in combination with passion to create a craft, artisan product. And, in more recent times, there are distilleries that get established off the back of crowdfunding or barrel investment schemes – with mixed degrees of success.
William Grant and his wife. Were the challenges of establishing a whisky distillery and brand much different in 1887 to today?
A question often pondered is whether or not the process of getting a whisky business off the ground is easier or harder than it was in the past? There’s a multitude of different factors and considerations. William Grant, together with his family, spent over a year physically building Glenfiddich with his bare hands and started distilling on Christmas Day in 1887 to establish his own brand. In contrast, if you’re armed with a website, a social media account, and access to some spirit distilled at Cooley, it seems you can quite easily launch an Irish whiskey brand overnight – complete with an impressive backstory!
In the harder basket, distilleries setting up today have planning and environmental controls that their predecessors didn’t have to worry about. Council and municipal applications and approvals can take years to get through, and the days of casually discharging distillery effluent and by-products back into the river downstream are long behind us.
In the easier basket, as we’ve seen already, the internet and social media marketing means you can broadcast and promote your brand to a wider audience than ever for relatively little money. Online sales via your own website mean you don’t even have to fight anymore with wholesalers or distributors to get your product on to the shelves of retail liquor outlets. The days of Tommy Dewar hopping on a ship and spending months sailing around the globe to get sales are also well and truly behind us.
Let’s look at a few distilleries and brands from around the world that have forged very different steps in very different landscapes to see how the process unfolded….
You’ve probably heard the saying, “You’re only as old as you feel.” It’s often accompanied by its well-worn colleague, “Age is just a number”. And when it comes to whisky, never a truer word was said!
In the context of whisky, your perspective on a bottling’s age is probably a function of when you started drinking the stuff. If you got into whisky more than 30 years ago, then a whisky’s age statement wasn’t much of a big deal to you. The vast majority of whisky available and being consumed was blends without age statements, and for the enlightened few who had discovered and preferred single malts, the small number of distilleries available showcased their whiskies with humble age statements typically between 8 to 12 years.
If you’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by all the new whisky distilleries to appear in recent years, you’re not alone! The Scottish whisky distillery construction business is in a true boom cycle at present, with the building pursuit effectively splitting itself into four vastly different endeavours.
The first is the raft of new, relatively small distilleries being built. Of course, this got its start a little over 10 years ago or so with the likes of Daftmill and Abhainn Dearg, but has exploded more recently with the likes of Kingsbarns, Ballindalloch, Ardnamurchan, Wolfburn, Glasgow…and well, the list goes on, right down to the tiny operations of, say, Strathearn and Dornoch. If you haven’t kept up, it’s almost alarming to discover that over 30 new distilleries have recently started up or are currently under construction from the Lowlands to the Islands and everywhere in between.
[Updated April, 2024] Visiting Scotland soon? Are you planning a trip to Scotland to visit your favourite whisky distilleries? Yes, for every whisky lover, it’s the ultimate pilgrimage: After listening jealously to other people’s travels and dreaming of making it to the promised land, you’ve FINALLY saved up for and planned your first whisky trip to Scotland. Exciting times!
Of course, every first-timer always asks the same questions in the early stages of planning: Where’s the best place to stay? Which distilleries should I visit? Should I hire a car? Do I have time to get to Islay? How many days should I spend in Speyside? Is the trip up to Orkney worth it?
Naturally, the answers to these are highly subjective and individual. They’ll depend on your budget, the amount of time you can spare, which distilleries are your favourites, and what transport options are at your disposal. But there are a few things to appreciate about visiting distilleries that you won’t read in the guide books or find online. Here are ten things you ought to know before heading off to Scotland…
When was the last time you poured yourself a healthy dram of Braeval?Or had a good swig of Miltonduff?How about a Glenburgie?Or an Allt-a-Bhainne?An Auchroisk?Dufftown perhaps?Have you even heard of these whisky distilleries, let alone seen a bottle of their whisky at your local liquor retailer?
What about Ardbeg?Oban?Bruichladdich?These names are more familiar, yes?And, chances are, you’ve had a dram of their product more than once or twice on your malt journey.
The irony here is that the first group listed above are some of the biggest distilleries in Scotland.And the second group are amongst the smallest.There’s a cliched conclusion here that you might have heard before:Size doesn’t matter, it’s what you do with it that counts!
[Updated April 2024] Yes, of all the things to do in Speyside, the most obvious is to visit the distilleries and drink whisky. But there’s so much more on offer if you look beyond the distilleries…
A joint essay & publication by Matthew Fergusson-Stewart of Whisky Molecules, and Whisky & Wisdom.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, your two correspondents were co-hosting a tasting event together and explaining the distillation process to the audience, going into detail about the fractioning – better known as the foreshots, middle cut, and feints. We explained that the foreshots was heavy in methanols and other undesirable elements, which everyone was happy to accept. We also explained how the foreshots and feints are never wasted, but are mixed back in with the next batch of low wines, and the process continues repeatedly. Everyone was happy to accept that, too. Well, almost everyone. One chap sitting near the front objected: “If the foreshots keep being recycled and mixed back in, won’t you get a continually increasing build-up of methanol in the spirit?” Ummmm……
It’s a vexing question that’s since been posed to us both many times. What do they do with the methanol and where does it go?
{This is an older post from the 2016 Championship. See our newer post following the 2022 event}
The Australian Malt Whisky Tasting Championship is a bit like the internet. It’s something you might think is a relatively “new” thing, when the reality is that it’s been around for decades longer than you gave it credit for.
In actual fact, the Australian Malt Whisky Tasting Championship has been around since 1989! As the name suggests, it is a tasting competition, and had its origins in Adelaide, South Australia. The competition’s principal format and structure has remained largely unchanged over the years: Competitors are presented with eight whiskies pre-poured before them, and supplied with a list of nine possible whiskies – in other words, the eight whiskies that are on the table, plus one red herring. Competitors are then given 30 minutes to identify which whisky is which and to write their answers on the answer sheet. Of course, having a list with all of the possible contenders in front of you makes the exercise seem a little easier, but the challenge is also in establishing which whisky of the nine on the list is not on the table!
Want to know about David Stewart and his role with Balvenie / William Grant and Sons? Read on….
If you’re an employer or in charge of Human Resources, you’ll be aware of the dynamic and shifting nature of your workforce in recent years. Being Generation X myself, it was drummed into me that you should show loyalty to your employer and stick around. We were constantly told by the Baby Boomer generation above us that “your CV will look more impressive and you’ll be rewarded if you’ve demonstrated that you stay at the one place for five to ten years.”
This is in stark contrast to the Gen Y and Millenial approach, where the thinking seems to be that a CV littered with multiple positions and experience gained across a many different roles and jobs is the more attractive pursuit.
So with that as context, what do we make of an employee who sticks with his boss for 54 years? What do we make of a role and a career that has outlasted many people’s lives, let alone most people’s professional undertakings? Such is the story and the appeal of Mr David Stewart of Balvenie.
