Category Archives: Scotching Myths

A Flavour of Chemistry

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Like me have you ever wondered how or why your whisky smells & tastes like sweet apples, fresh cut grass or smelly old rubber tyres!? How can this be given that it is made up of only three ingredients water, barley and yeast? Remember also that the addition of artificial flavour enhancers is strictly forbidden so where do all the flavours come from? The simple (or not so simple) answer is plain old chemistry!

The flavour of your dram is a combination of hundreds of things called chemical compounds. There are several factors that can have an influence as to what compounds are imparted into the liquid such as the type of grain used (barley, wheat, corn, rye), the size & shape of the copper stills in the distillation process but most importantly the type of oak chosen for the maturation process and what its previous contents were. It is argued that the final stage in the production process is responsible for as much as 70% of the end flavour in your glass and is 100% responsible for the final colour (unless of course caramel E150 has been used but don’t get me started on that!).

It would be almost impossible and to be honest quite boring to go on and list all of the different types and groups of compounds, however, I will take you through four of the more common starting with LACTONES. These are absorbed into the spirit from the oak and come in a couple of forms. TRANS-3-METHYL-4-OCTANOLIDE & CIS-3-METHYL-4-OCTANOLIDE. In the case of the trans isomer these add a woody, coconut flavour whereas the cis version adds more of a spicy coconut element.

Next up is ALDEHYDES. These too are extracted from the oak barrels and this time around you have four main culprits. SYRINGALDEHYDE lends a spicy, woody element. VANILLIN gives off a …… yep you’ve guessed it vanilla aroma while FURFURAL adds more of an almond like flavour. Finally, we have HEXANAL which offers up grassy notes.

You still with me? Great! The third group I’m going to talk about is my personal favourite ESTERS which arrive as a result of the fermentation stage. These are the compounds that tend to add the more fruity-like flavours. There are too many to list but a couple of examples would be ETHYL HEXANOATE which is similar to that of a sweet apple like aroma while ISOAMYL ACETATE on the other hand gives you more of a banana or pear smell.

Last but by no means least we have the ones that most people can easily identify with, the big and bold PHENOLIC compounds. These generally add smoky flavours and that of bitterness to the liquid. If peat is used during the drying of the malted barley this often results in the addition of CRESOLS which smell medicinal.

There are literally hundreds of other compounds, some that give off floral notes, buttery or zesty notes and some that are responsible for, dare I say it, those smelly old rubber tyres I eluded to earlier! As I stated at the beginning it would be almost impossible for me to go thorough and list them all so I’m going to stop here. I hope that this has in some way helped to clear up a few of the doubts you may have had about where in fact all these flavours in your Scotch come from.

Cheers

Johnny Mitchell AKA Kilted Whisky Man

Be sure to check out www.kiltedwhiskyman.com and follow me on twitter @KiltedWhiskyMan

Johnny is a Whisky Ambassador trainer based in Philadelphia. Contact him direct, for courses or tastings.

Is it beginning to look a lot like Aldi?

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One of the most commonly asked questions we get is: “Dear Ambassador, where are those supermarket whiskies from and are they any good and should we risk losing our friends and our parking space at the the golf club over them?”. Well…as we got invited along to a press launch of the Christmas drinks for Aldi supermarkets recently, we can now begin to tell you!

The first real hurdle you face is that none of the PR people, nobody in the stores, none of the whisky companies and certainly none of the writers seem to know or want to discuss where supermarket brands originate from.  There is stll a fair amount of snobbery about it and when it comes down to discussing the supermarkets at the lower end of the market, it is worst still.

Aldi is a really interesting case in point, as we feel they have done a bit of a ‘Skoda’ recently and maybe deserve further investigation. Their great new tongue-in-cheek ads, along with the fact that some of their products are winning awards, well this means their position as ‘low rent’ supermarket is all but gone. I shop there (and Lidl too) so a chance to see a sneak preview of the their offering was too good to miss!

The venue for the tasting was good, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Edinburgh. Set the stall out and showed they are serious about being taken seriously.

So, down to what we tasted, whisky in particular. Is any of it any good? Let’s start with Glen Marnoch. Don’t look for the Distillery on a map, because there isn’t one. In fact, on my extensive travels around Scotland, I don’t remember ever seeing Glen Marnoch. I thought he was one of the Sex Pistols? Anyway,  ignore the name, it’s the dram inside that is the important bit. They have three Malts, all bottled at 40%ABV and all with nice  looking bits of packaging, which would stand up against most other drams.

The 12 year old  Single Malt old is nice but I sort of discounted this, due to the fact that over Christmas, it would be competing against some cut-price drams on the inevitable supermarket price wars deals, you see all over the media at this time of year. So, would I drink a 12 year old single malt from a made-up place over, say a bottle of Aberlour or Singleton, which might also be coming in at a good bit South of twenty quid? Er, no. There will be other distillery products at silly prices this Christmas, there always is. At eighteen pounds, this  probably might keep label snobs away from Glen Marnoch. Nothing wrong with the drink inside though.

Talking of twenty quid, this brings us round to their 18 year old. A fruity pineapple of a dram and at about half the price of similar age brands from actual distilleries, this was beginning to make more sense. Twenty quid, for an 18 year old, single malt, from Scotland? The Man from The Ambassador, he say…Yes!!!  Total bargain. Mix it with 15 year old Drambuie you can get now for an amazing Rusty Nail on Christmas Eve.

Next, their Glen Marnoch 24 year old Single Malt,  which I found a bit odd. It didn’t taste very old and as the label referred to ‘continuous distillation’ , I got  very confused. General feeling is that Malt whisky is distilled in pot stills, so I will leave this one for the geeks to argue over. Again for less than thirty pounds, an amazing price point, it’s just I had a few concerns over the taste. Not the unctuous mouth I’d expect for a quarter century old dram. I would rather drink the tasty 18 year old.

Finally, on their  dram front, they have a new blended Malt called Glen Orrin (he was in Beverley Hills 90210) and a 30 year-old traditional blend also named after this actor who I think might have been in ‘Dynasty’ as well.  The Blend is okay although we didn’t taste the blended malt, which I have heard is rather good. Again, great prices. Fifty quid for an ancient blend and TWELVE of our Earth pounds for a blended malt. Daft not to really.

So, to summarise, of course, there is better out there but some of these drams and their bonkers pricing are well worth buying, to drink, at Christmas. The Whisky Ambassador would say, ignore the snobs, buy with your eyes, taste stuff and buy the stuff you like the taste of. You are a free person, not a number and all that jazz.

There were other drinky poos highlights and the nice wine man from Scotland on Sunday ‘marked my card’ to tell me the goodies they have. So go in and erm…give it Aldi, but in no particular order, the 15 year old Guyana rum, the Grand Cru champers (my favourite of the entire day), the 30 year old Tawny Port and the Amarone are all very, very good. As well as this, there was a lot of ‘brand’  stuff at great prices. McEwans champion ale, Glen Moray malt, lots of other beers, stuff we knew, from other shelves.

So there you have it. The Whisky Ambassador saves your Christmas. No need to thank us. All you Waitrose and M&S drinks snobs out there, go at night, it will be dark…We are not saying shop exclusively anywhere but it is definitely good to see another retailer mixing things up!

We’ve just launched Ambassador Events and we’ll be certainly throwing a few of these drams into the mix at the consumer tasting events we do!

Glasgow’s got Business Talent!

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We are in the semi-finals of Glasgow’s got Business Talent!

It’s something we entered on a whim, if we’re honest. It’s serious now! We have four minutes to convince the judges that we are the best new business talent in Glasgow and we’ve now met all the other semi finalists and got video’d for the presentation! Lots of the other semi finalists are business contacts and pals of ours, so it was fun seeing all the great ideas and new businesses coming out of Glasgow – ‘The Dear Green Place’. So, we have had a great time meeting ‘the competition’ but the gloves are now off! We are DEFINITELY in it to win it!  We will be giving it our all.

It’s going to be an exciting few days!

 

http://www.glasgowforbusinessweek.com/glasgows-got-business-talent

Irish Whiskey – Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

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There’s an obvious whisky/whiskey connection between Scotland and Ireland. When you’re over in Ireland, you could be excused for thinking Irish Whiskey was every bit as big an Industry as Scotch whisky, mainly because they drink their own whiskey, by default.

The ACTUAL fact is that Ireland only has four distilleries.  Bushmills in Northern Ireland and Middleton, Cooley and Kilbeggan in the South. Scotland of course, has about 100.

This is where the Irish are clever, you see. The have spun out many a brand from these 4 distilleries and with their slightly woolly descriptions about what constitutes a blend, or a ‘pot still’ whiskey, or a single malt whiskey, they also go on to lose a bit of this in the translation, to the extent that most drinkers are not really all that sure what they’re drinking.

This, ladies and gentlemen, might be confusing but it’s certainly a HUGE help in disguising the fact that there are only the 4 distilleries in the whole of The Emerald Isle. There’s a sort of blur between the truth, the legislative facts and the amazing ability of the Irish to talk things up.  And as I was to find out, in the World of Irish whiskey, the ability to talk things up is very valuable.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some AMAZING Irish whiskies and you only have to look at any recent Whisky/Whiskey Awards to see that Irish drams punch well above their weight. The rather excellent Redbreast (it’s a Pot Still Whiskey using malted and unmalted barley) is rather splendid and was something we enjoyed as an exemplar of a great dram, regardless of Country of origin. It’s made in Cork at the Middleton Distillery and is one of the new breed of Irish Whiskies which is making a name for itself.  Nope, there are some cracking Irish Whiskies, it’s just that a lot of the not-so-good whiskies are labelled ‘Pure Pot Still’ or ‘Irish Pot Still’ and various other things and they might very well be a blended whiskey containing other grains, not just barley. It’s a bit confusing to me, someone that knows a wee bit about it, so heaven knows what the casual visitor must think.

Here’s an example of the Irish ability to never let the truth get in they way of a good story. I visited the Jameson Whiskey Visitor Centre in Dublin, which is several hours drive from Cork, where they actually make the stuff. Okay, they make it clear that it’s NOT the distillery where they make the whiskey that you’re visiting but after this, things began to get a bit ‘abstract’, in that particular Irish way.

For instance,  I was somewhat amazed at a tasting at the end of the tour, where Jameson, this most Irish of spirits, was tasted against Johnnie Walker Black Label. The suggestion that Johnnie Walker is not very good because it is ‘smokey and a mix of all sortsa whisky from all over Scotland’  could be seen to be slightly playing with words, especially since at NO TIME during the tour did the guide suggest that  Jamesons was also ACTUALLY a blend. They did tell us it was all ‘from one distillery’ and they DID lay heavy on the ‘Pot Still’ chat, but they never once mentioned that this Whiskey was in fact bulked-up with grain Whiskey! It’s a moot point whether you think Johnnie Walker is any good or not but it’s certainly clever the way they portray Jameson as being superior, because they don’t have any other Irish distilleries to blend it with! Johnnie Walker, all kindsa stuff in it!

As a proud Scot I was also really keen to see a picture of the great man John Jameson, who came over from ALLOA IN SCOTLAND to form this most Irish of Whiskey companies. Sadly, or cleverly, which ever way you want to look at it, this isn’t mentioned anywhere and the crowd were quite surprised when I mentioned the fact that John was indeed a Scot, a Clackmannanshire man. In fact, in the very entertaining information video that you’re shown on the tour, Mr Jameson is revealed to have a lilting Dublin brogue. Yep, they like a good story in Ireland. and why should the truth get in the way of this good story?

Okay, the slightly negative aspects aside, the Irish sell their whiskey with pride and passion. Many bars have their own single malt in bottles and detailed tasting notes which they use as promotional material. The rather splendid Palace Bar in Fleet Street, Dublin has it’s own 9 year old Single Malt, made for them by Cooley’s and it’s a nice drink. Over and above this, it’s a real talking point and marks them out as Whiskey experts. They use it on their posters, beermats and on the printed whiskey lists they give drinkers, as a memento of their visit to this incredible Victorian drinking ‘Palace’. It’s a bar that any lover of Whisky/Whiskey should visit, because they’ve got loads of Scotch Whisky as well.

Along the road, in the heart of the Temple Bar district lies The Temple Bar itself. This massive bar should be a hideous tourist trap but it’s not and its hundreds of whiskies are available to view on colourful fliers, situated in polished brass leaflet boxes. Again, this is here to take away.

The beauty of these two bars is that they are amazing Whiskey Bars, right at the heart of the action and they are encouraging NON whiskey drinkers to have a go and try the local spirit. They are making Whiskey accessible, they have it on posters, on optics and available. On the nights I was there there were lots of people trying it who very obviously would never drink Whiskey again, but they tried it nonetheless. They were selling Irish Whiskey as something that SIMPLY HAD to be tried whilst in the country.

So what’s to take away from this rather splendid, too short, working break to Dublin? Whether you reckon Irish Whiskey is better than Scotch isn’t the argument. It’s clear that for a country with only FOUR distilleries, they’re pretty good at getting the word out. Scotland has TWENTY FIVE times the amount of distilleries but if your first visit to a Celtic Country was Ireland, you’d never know this. The other interesting thing is that they are looking to get even better at this. Because of the very nature of the boom/bust situation Ireland’s faced, there was mixed abilities, when it came to serving up drams. Some, like the very engaging barman called Damian who served us in the legendary Shelbourne Hotel, he was VERY good. He opened up the closed bar so we could take photos and really knew his stuff. Others, were not quite as knowledgeable, not native Irish but seemed to have a very friendly ‘nothing is too much trouble’ attitude.

Most if not all of the owners/head barmen and spirits experts we spoke to were very excited about the growth of Irish Whiskey and as we’ve seen before, when the Irish want to get the word out, they’re pretty good at it. Of course, the one-time ‘Celtic Tiger’ is much more of a pussy cat these days but I wouldn’t bet against them returning, with some vigour, to continue to punch above their weight, in the spirits World. Scotch, you’ve got to watch out!

To sum it up, any Nation which can have TWO places purporting to  be: ‘Dublin’s Smallest Bar’ are good at marketing things, great at hyperbole and fabulous at finding a unique ‘angle’ to hang their marketing hat on.

As one of the hugely entertaining locals of one of the places The Lotts Snug, that goes under the mantle of  ‘Dublin’s smallest pub’ said to us: “As smallest bars go, the one we’re standing in is feckin’ HUGE, but you came in for a drink didn’t you?”.

Yup, and we also bought him a drink AND he also took a couple of Euros off us, with his lottery-type, last-one-in-takes all ‘beermat game’. Obviously corrupt but just too funny and amusing to not take the most obvious of hooks. Write your name on a beermat and be amazed that yours isn’t chosen from all the other beermats from blokes in the bar. It’s a totally fair drinking game! Especially, as they let me play even though my beermat had a bit torn out of the corner. Doh!!

Dublin, what an entertaining City.

 

 

 

Whisky. It’s DEFINITELY not for girls. Except for everywhere else on Earth…

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According to an article in the Scotsman newspaper recently, girls only represent a third of  Scotland’s whisky drinkers. It probably surprises you that it’s as much as that. It certainly surprised us. We trained an ALL-female class in St Andrews yesterday and only a couple of them were whisky ‘likers’, never mind lovers, so we’ll be conducting our own research on this, over the next few months.
However, things are changing and you’ll see from the above flyer for the Belladrum Festival, it’s happening quite quickly. The ‘Beverly Knight’ pitcher and one of Scotland’s most traditional and largest distilleries!
It’s not surprising really. In countries such as France and Russia, when it comes to whisky, the figures are much more an even split of men and woman. Emerging markets like Latin America and the Far East are in many cases, much more female biased. That’s maybe because whisky’s drunk in very different ways. This would also explain why the demand for blended Scotch whisky, worldwide is so high. In Scotland, we really, seriously, need to take the blinkers off.
After all, if YOU were offered ANY spirit basically in ‘shot’ form, be it tequila, rum, brandy or vodka to try,  for the very first time, you’d probably find it quite intimidating. Gin is another one. Imagine you got raw gin from someone, with nothing in it, at a party. You’d think this was very strange.  Gin on it’s own? No tonic? Eh?
So why is it that we regularly INSIST on letting people have their very first taste of Scotch whisky in this way? Maybe it’s time for Scotland to catch up with how the rest of the world serve our National drink?
  • In Russia, they don’t think it’s a big deal to drink diet Coke with ancient malts
  • In South America, whisky can often be a long drink with coconut milk, lemon and ice.
  • 60% of Chinese whisky drinkers are under 35 and drink blends (and fine malts) with sweet green tea and ice
  • In Bulgaria, Scotch Whisky  is a clubber’s, party drink, served with Red Bull-type drinks
  • In South Africa, whisky is popular in cocktails and clubby punches
  • In Australia, surf dudes also like it in mixed punches. It’s not a macho thing though, lots of girls love it
I we had a pound for every woman that we train who initially reckons Scotch whisky is ‘too strong’ or has a ‘medicine’ taste, we’d have a right few quid. The problem is that quite often, the first taste of whisky has maybe been as a young drinker, where a girl has got to sample something from a young Scotsman who has been extolling his manly virtues by imbibing a Laphroaig or a Bowmore, to demonstrate that the stronger and more peat laden the dram, the more of a sexual powerhouse he is. Because of this and similar scenarios, it’s ingrained in many a Scotswoman’s mind that whisky’s not for them. This is in spite of the facts that:
  • There are lots of sweet, exciting, unpeated Malts
  • Some of the ‘new makes’ (under 3 years old) whisky are GREAT in cocktails
  • The finishes available, using sweet white wines, burgundy and rum, lend Scotch a much more approachable taste
  • The female palate is actually superior for whisky nosing and tasting
  • Many of the World’s top distilleries are run by females, with their superior noses
  • Lots of women actually PREFER peaty whisky, our Whisky Ambassador graduate Bayile being one!
So the next time anyone tells you that whisky is not for girls, you can tell them that factually, this is actually is a load of boll..erm balderdash.
On a final note, there would be those who may argue that the LAST thing we want to see is lots of young girls drinking lots of cheap alcohol at festivals. We’d agree 100% and that’s why we’re educating young females, young men and basically everyone to choose our own National Drink. Fine Scotch is a thing of delicacy, to be sipped and savoured and our  Drink Less. Drink Better.  mantra can become all the more real! Exciting times!

So, what IS The Whisky Ambassador?

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In the excitement of us training some of our Nation’s best hospitality operators and fielding calls from all over the World, from organisations who want to get involved with The Whisky Ambassador, we’ve been busy. Because of this, we may have been guilty recently of not putting enough on our blog about what exactly The Whisky Ambassador programme is all about. We’re keen to get lots of our whisky and hospitality industry opinions over on here but maybe we’ve not given enough detail on what our actual ‘task-in-hand’ is?

Perhaps? If so, let’s rectify that now! Here’s what The Whisky Ambassador can do for you.

In a nutshell, we’re the UK’s only Accredited whisky training for the Licensed trade.

We introduce bar staff to the wonderful world of selling Scotch (and World) whisky. This means:

  • We increase whisky sales for premises and educate bar staff in ‘up-selling’ techniques
  • We teach bar professionals  to actively promote whisky- ‘Scotland in a Glass’
  • We tell our delegates about the different brands and where in Scotland they come from
  • We talk enthusiastically about the history (and some of the mystery) of Scotch whisky
  • We get excited about the Global impact of ‘Scotch’ and the incredible success it is enjoying
  • It can only be made in one small country, on the edge of Europe, yet there’s a bottle in every bar in the World
  • We educate our delegates, in a fun way, in the different processes of whisky making
  • We ask delegates to sit a 30-question, multiple choice exam
  • We also ask them to nose and taste specially-selected malt whiskies and be able to differentiate between them
  • We spread the ‘Whisky’ love and get delegates to enthuse about Scotch Malt whisky
  • We definitely aim to increase profits for those who sell Scotland’s National drink, with pride and knowledge

We’re a ONE day course which starts at £200 per delegate and yes, we DO give Group discounts and yes, we ARE a fully accredited ILA centre. So, there’s a chance that if you meet their criteria, your journey with The Whisky Ambassador could be FREE!

The picture above is one of our Directors, Sue Beatt, in the middle of some of our latest Whisky Ambassadors. This is quite typical of the people who are wanting to get involved with The Whisky Ambassador. We’re engaging with young people, starting off in their ‘Hospitality’ Industry career, from all over the world.

However, we’re  also training Senior Management, whose aim is to help their hospitality organisations (of all kinds, both large and small) to increase their sales. ‘Whisky ‘Professionals’ with many years experience, who want their guests to recognise their credibility. They see The Whisky Ambassador Accreditation as the ‘cherry on top’ of their already impressive whisky pedigree. Certification that they really know what they are talking about. We’re training them how to build their Scotch Malt Whisky bars, write their whisky menus, put on and promote revenue-generating tastings and choose exciting, unusual and artisan whiskies, from the thousands now on offer. Whiskies that will sell and get guests talking about them.

We may be all about results and education but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Having had to sit through ‘training days’ ourselves, one of the first things we wanted to achieve with The Whisky Ambassador programme was make it fun to undertake and also be a good day out. Yeah, we’ve got serious learning outcomes to consider and we do have people fail our course, if they don’t pay attention but generally, we want to offer a day that we’d quite happily sit-in on, ourselves. In fact, we sometimes do, just for the ‘craic’!

We’re incredibly lucky to be working in an environment, where we’re training the next generation of Hospitality professionals and ‘bigging-up’ Scotch whisky, something that’s part of the very essence of Scotland. If some of our enthusiasm can spill-over and ‘infect’ delegates with our love for ‘Uisge Beathe’, then we think we’re doing our job. We’re finding that this enthusiasm, combined with newly-gained whisky knowledge is the secret to an increase in sales of whisky in the bars we’ve worked with.

It’s still very early stages in The Whisky Ambassador journey but already, we’re engaging with the biggest and the best in Hospitality, so we know that things are only going to get even more exciting.

We urge, nay, we implore you…join us on our journey.

The Whisky Ambassador. Drink Less. Drink Better.

Golf and Whisky gang th’gither!

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Ivanka Trump

It’s quite incredible that a small country in the chilled (and so far this summer, pretty damp) extremes of North West Europe is responsible for two of the most globally-recognised leisure icons in the world: Golf and Whisky. It’s amazing that Scotland’s responsible for BOTH these multi $billion industries, which are just getting bigger and more successful, every year.

When we got asked to bring Whisky and Golf together and work with the team who are creating the incredible, £70 million Trump Golf development in Aberdeenshire, we jumped at the chance. We’re training all the main front of house and bar teams in The Whisky Ambassador programme and as their commemorative dram is going to be a 25 year old belter from Glendronach, one of our favoured dramming houses, we were more than happy to get involved. Top class golf, top class drams, a great combo.

Okay, we’re the first to admit that Donald Trump can court controversy and in his roles as  ‘TV celebrity’ and professional ‘Billionaire’, you’d certainly call him outspoken. However, if you look at the scale of his golf resort empire, you’ll see that although he might not be to everyone’s taste, his company doesn’t do things by halves. The Trump courses are recognised are World class. If you look at their website, you’ll see see that Donald may be the famously  half-Scottish figurehead for the Scottish development but he’s got a lot of clever people pulling golf projects together, all over the World.

We believe that Golf tourism in Scotland has been incredibly undersold, outrageously so, when you consider it’s something that the Scots gave to the world. For instance, imagine if you can that ‘The Home of Golf’ was the brainchild of any other developed country: Do you think they’d think it was okay for there not to be a direct rail link to this hallowed spot? Hmmm..nor do we. Here’s another crazy fact. For a number of years, Ireland was attracting more inbound Golf tourists than Scotland, which seems an unbelievable situation. We haven’t checked on the latest figures for this but we do know this is changing. Some critics of VisitScotland’s ‘golf’ strategy would say that with many really good golf clubs struggling to make ends meet, this is not changing quickly enough.

The unusual conundrum that Scotland has with a number of bold new tourism initiatives, be they £multi-million golf course projects, or indeed £multi-million Distillery developments, is that our unspoiled vista, the very thing that lots of people come to Scotland to see, has to be altered in some way. Many think these alterations will be detrimental to the wild nature that our country is famous for. When it comes to architecture and ‘development’, you only have to look at the furore our ‘ain’ Duke of Rothesay can create, simply by commenting on what he thinks is superb, or sickening in the ‘buildings’ world. It’s very much a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, though. One Prince’s meaty Castle is another Sheik’s poisonous lair. All that glitters can be too much gold. Taste is, after all, very subjective.

One thing’s for sure, or rather, two things are for sure, though. If Scotland doesn’t start to invest time, energy, love, cunning, creativity and MONEY on Golf AND Whisky, as we’ve already seen, there are plenty other countries who will fill this void. We realise there’s a chance of shooting ‘the goose that laid the golden egg’ in changing the Scottish landscape but if we can’t capitalise on the two MOST FAMOUS things that our little country has given the world, then we’re missing the biggest duopoly of tourism tricks that have ever been presented to a Nation.

To do it properly, there’s going to be lots of debate, possibly heated discussion and certainly many different facets of our diamond of a country to be considered. It’s probably because we’ve had a fairly geographically compact central belt, which led the world in heavy industry and finance, that we’ve not had to consider the financial value of our more outlying and idyllic aspects of this amazingly unique country. However, we don’t build the same amount of steam locomotives or ships as we used to, so ‘Tourism’ in it’s broadest sense, that’s what we have to get world class at now.

It’s certainly a case of ‘build it and they will come’.

It’s interesting to reflect back to the times when Glasgow was Second City of the Empire and Edinburgh was The Athens of The North. If we look at some of the heinous and historic development decisions that had to made, in far less morally enlightened and spiritually  ecological times. Amongst the filth, corruption and haphazard, unparalleled growth, some epoch-setting planning decisions had to be made. Beautiful landscapes and buildings were created back then. Indeed, some of the World’s very finest. If we think about it, we can continue to make Scotland beautiful. We just have to balance this track record of building beauty with the more recent and particularly stark reminders of our less gorgeous planning past. Please don’t let us get tram-lined into this way of thinking.

 

 

The first three months. What we’ve learned. Where we’re going.

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There's a whole world out there.

You need a really good map, to know where you're going

We’re only a few months into the journey with The Whisky Ambassador and already, we’re beginning to add lots to the basis of why we actually set up The Whisky Ambassador in the first place.

So far, we’ve had many of Scotland’s leading ‘players’ put people through the programme. People from the likes of the Missoni Hotel in Edinburgh, The Grand Central Glasgow, The Radisson Group, The George Hotel in Edinburgh and Cameron House at Loch Lomond. We’re also putting lots of bartenders through the programme, from the likes of The Pitcher and Piano and The Artisan. We’re actively speaking to some of the most famous names in Scottish hospitality, so our ‘wish list’ of the great and the good of Scottish hospitality we’d like to work with is beginning to come true, much quicker than we expected. We’re also undertaking the programme in other parts of the UK, in spite of this not really being on our radar for the first year, never mind the first three months.

Although we want to train bar professionals to sell Scotch Whisky with enthusiasm, knowledge and passion, with an eye to our our mantra of ‘Drink Less. Drink Better’, we’ve also got other ideas. We want to help bars to sell more Scotch Whisky, that’s for sure and we’re now getting statistics on the upsurge in sales figures from them, to back this up. However, we’re actually about a lot more than just this. We’re getting asked all the time about ‘the other programmes and courses you do’ in spite of the fact, this wasn’t something we planned to look at till 2013, at least. So, we’ll be creating additions to The Whisky Ambassador. For those who want to visit Distilleries, become ‘Whisky Professionals’, build their OWN whisky bars or generally gain previously unavailable, prestigious Accreditation, for decades of work in the Whisky world.

Since we jumped, head-first into ‘Whisky Land’ to become the UK’s only Accredited whisky training, we’re learned a hell of a lot. We’ve learned that the love of Scotch Whisky is boundless. We get emails every day from the furthest corners of Earth, extolling the virtues of a natural product that quite a lot of Scots don’t really give a second thought about. People from EVERYWHERE want to get involved with us. Our National drink is loved, by lots. Whisky, the stuff that a large amount of alcohol-friendly Scots don’t even drink, is more popular in areas of Brasil, than it is in Scotland. The bloggers, ‘malt maniacs’, drammers, tasters, brand ambassadors and aficionados we chat to, just about every day on the social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are really Scotch Whisky’s trump card. Most of these people are unpaid and spend their free time (or their life) tasting, festival-ing, writing, tweeting, blogging or simply drinking, in a Scotch Whisky ‘stylee’. It’s made us genuinely humble and proud to be living in Scotland and welcomed into a global, Whisky family.

We’ve learned that some of the most knowledgeable whisky people in the World are not Scots and we’ve learned the fact that there are now lots of women crashing into this formerly, male-dominated party. We’ve learned mainly that we’re always going to be learning! Scotch Whisky’s not just a product, it’s a way of life, the fabric of the Scottish landscape. We’ve learned it’s something that, if we play our cards right, is going to be hugely important to the future of Scotland. It’s blinking exciting!

Above all, we’ve learned that if Scotch Whisky is to remain as an iconic symbol of our great wee country and if it’s going to go on, to even greater heights, it’s not going to be one Superhero, using magical powers who will achieve this. It’s a big ‘gang’ of whisky ‘Ambassadors’ who will power Scotch whisky onwards and continually upwards.

In our first few months, we’ve spend a lot of time meeting people. Because Scotch Whisky is important (like, creating £225 per second for the UK economy, important) we’ve found out The Scottish Government, Business Gateway, The Scotch Whisky Association, Scotland’s Food and Drink, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Development International and Visit Scotland all have lots to say, lots of clout and can bring lots of positivity to Scotch Whisky. That’s before you even consider all the Distillery ‘Groups’, the individual distilleries , The British Institute  of Innkeepers,  The Scottish Licensed Trade Association, all the UK hoteliers, restaurateurs, bar owners, from the Lizard, to Lerwick.  It’s all those people. We want to work with ALL of them. It’s not a competition, it’s a giant whisky alliance and we want to be part of it.

So, if you add all these together (along with the others we’ve not met yet), you get the UK whisky landscape. It’s huge.

This is quite daunting. Only a few months since formation and we’ve got LOTS of people to convince, encourage, support, lend a hand to, train and take on the first steps of their Whisky journey. We’ve got legions of people we’d love to build alliances with, set up mutually beneficial arrangements with and generally, get along with.

To further compound this, we really, seriously have plans to have The Whisky Ambassador in lots of places. At the moment, Scottish Development International are kindly supporting us in developing a strategy for growth into new territories. We’ve already attended a number of workshops which are helping us form a plan which will hopefully be the building blocks for organic growth, to spread the whisky love, everywhere. We’re speaking to people in USA, Lithuania, Holland, Singapore and China, we just need to focus a bit.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride of a start alright and although we’re not really that shy, lots pf people have opened doors for us.  We’d really like to thank all the people who have offered us advice and pointed us in the right direction, when we’ve been heading into a dead end. Those who have generally extended the hand of whisky friendship with kind words and encouragement, when we were beginning to get frustrated or over-enthusiastic! We’re not really out of the traps yet but because of the support, we know that the weekends, late nights, heated ‘debates’ and rather erm..interesting Director’s meetings we’ve already had, well, they’ve all all been worthwhile.

Thanks, whisky lovers! Here’s to The Whisky Ambassador! Here’s to Scotch Whisky! Slainte!

 

Why we need a Minister for Scotch Whisky

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Gavin Hewitt, Chief Executive, Scotch Whisky Association

The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) is a Century old this year.They’ve just launched a nice new website which is light years better than their old one. It’s much more representative of some of the rather nice literature they produce. For those not in the know, you be forgiven for thinking that this organisation, SWA is THE Whisky organisation in the World.

You might think they’re almost like a ‘Whisky Marketing Board’, an Independent body spending lots of money marketing Scotch whisky, in a very non brand-centric sort of way. You’d also probably think that EVERY whisky producer in Scotland in 100% behind them and steadfastly support every move they make. Protecting Scotland’s National Drink and promoting our product with a massive marketing budget. After all, you see painted buses, 48 sheet posters and all manner of advertising promoting Milk, surely Scotland’s National Drink will have an even bigger budget to promote the generic product? Right?

Wrong.

Whilst the SWA does sterling work in policy production and controlling what is and what isn’t ‘Scotch’, their role is a very legislative one. The promotion and the large-scale advertising is left to the ‘Industry’. There’s no Government organisation in Scotland that’s solely in charge of the actual promotion of Scotch Whisky. This brings a few problems. The first one is the fact that unsurprisingly, the big ‘Distillers’ have the biggest marketing budgets and because of this, the focus of media attention falls on the products they produce. In the view of a number of craft distillers, this is driving the whisky world down a generic, ‘blended’ route and is doing to Scottish Distilling what Lager did to Scottish Brewing. Detractors would argue that ‘the big boys’ don’t really care about craft, they just want to give the world a taste for a cheap-to-produce blended whisky, that they can churn out in the millions of litres.

The ‘big boys’ would respond to this by saying, the Global market is very bouyant and to meet the demands, Whisky in Scotland has got to gear up to meet this. So, whilst people might not like huge, NASA like, cutting-edge distilleries like Diageo’s Roseisle distillery, they are a necessary evil.

To voice their displeasure, some of Scotland’s really well known Distillers are NOT members of the SWA. Admittedly, there’s not many but we’ve found that in our travels, the SWA don’t get as good a ‘press’ as perhaps they deserve, or demand.

Which brings us round to the ‘bigger picture’ question, we’d like to ask all you whisky lovers out there. At the moment, Fergus Ewing is the man who looks after Scotch Whisky at Parliamentary level, in his job as Food and Drink Minister. With, beef and lamb, shellfish, dairy, salmon and other Scottish foodstuffs doing really well, we’d suggest that as Scotch exports bring in £134 a SECOND to UK coffers, is Scotch whisky not a big enough, iconic enough, uniquely Scottish enough and fast growing enough product to merit it’s OWN Minister?

At the moment, SWA are doing a fair job but is an Association where membership is voluntary and a Minister who is presently having to spread himself VERY thinly, really the best that Scotland can do to protect its  ‘Crown Jewels’?

The burgeoning export market is really exciting for Scotch Whisky but it also flags up a number of challenges. Only Scotland can make Scotch Whisky but ANYWHERE in the world can and does make excellent Malt Whisky. So without even entering into the ‘big is beautiful’ debate, there’s an increasing amount of competition for niche, boutique, crafted, bespoke, artisan whisky as well. The biggest pot still in the World has just been installed in Ireland and at the recent World Whisky Awards, Scotland didn’t really do too amazingly. It’s competitive! We need to really up our game and present a united front that’s much more consumer facing and powerful. Something with the might of the Government behind it.

We ask the simple question: Is a small window of a Minister’s increasingly packed diary and a governing body which is still a voluntary association really going to give Scotch Whisky the voice it needs in this massively-expanding Global market?

It was recently announced that Mexico is Accrediting their mescal sellers and as you might be suprised to hear, lots of areas in Mexico have Tequila days, which are local holidays. Scotland’s beginning to develop initiatives similar to this but at the moment, they’re the preserve of well meaning and independent companies (like us). We think it’s time for a Minister of Whisky who has clout to get some proper funding behind a unified sales and marketing approach, that’s not controlled by the ‘big boys’. A strategic masterplan which tells the world that Whisky is much more than a ‘product’, it’s part of the very fabric of Scotland. Whisky tourism is great for Scotland and it’s certainly not about a brand. It’s not really about drinking whisky at all. We need to let the world know this.

Some of the cleverest entrepreneurs to come out of Scotland put whisky on the Global map, well over 150 years ago. They were hungry, dynamic and they had an EXCELLENT eye for publicity, at a time when Scotland’s skillbase, transport and manufacturing might put it in a VERY strong position to capitalise on this marketing prowess. We don’t have this mastery of communications channels now.

We need to return this sales and marketing prowess to Scotland and we need a united front, with a large set of teeth to deliver it. Yes, Minister?

 

Glenglassaugh in profit already!

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Their innovative 'new make' selection

We love the news that recently reopened Glenglassaugh, near Portsoy in Aberdeenshire is ALREADY in profit.

After being mothballed by Edrington in 1986 it was then bought by Scaent, a Dutch consortium, for £5 million in 2008. So, it’s now a small and independent distillery. Which are the ones we usually like.

We also really like what MD Stuart Nickerson is doing up in Portsoy and most, if not all of it, is based around making really nice whisky. Stuart thought it would take as much as ten years for Glenglassaugh to turn a profit, based on similar distilleries that had starting distilling again, after a period of  ‘mothballing’. He’s been proved wrong, in a nice way.

The emerging markets in Asia and the resurgence of  USA  have helped Glenglassaugh to turn a profit of £100,000 on £1m in sales. Small, put perfectly formed.

There’s lots of innovation at Glenglassaugh and they are also experiencing strong demand for small “octave” casks of whisky, which are bought by companies, whisky clubs and even as wedding presents.

It’s not just about quirky ‘new makes’ which are introducing new drinkers to whisky and other ‘gimmicks’ though, The distillery has been refurbished to produce Revival, a single malt that remains true to the whiskies being distilled at Portsoy until the 1980s. It’s young but it’s now on sale and it’s a fine dram.

More great news for the smaller independent.