Interview with Adam Hannett – Bruichladdich Head Distiller

Hello everyone.

This is an interview I‘ve been hoping to do for quite a while and we finally got a date in both diaries earlier this month. Adam Hannett succeeded Jim McEwan as Head Distiller in charge of all creation of their single malts in terms of the choice and putting together of different cask types and ages for their single malts whether Bruichladdich, Port Charlotte or Octomore so supreme blending skills also required. I wanted to know about Adam‘s work and life outside the distillery.

Where were you born and brought up? What was it like there?

I was born in Paisley – there‘s not many born on Islay any more. They all tend to go to hospital on the mainland. Mum and Dad lived up at Ardnave House at the top of the island when I was born. I‘ve got an older brother and two younger sisters so quite a big family. We were just let loose on the beaches and the hills around there so it was a lovely way to grow up. My Dad built a house down the road later on.

So you‘re an Ileach through and through!

No! My parents are from Manchester. They moved to Islay in 1980 or 81. My Dad knew someone who lived here and they used to come up for holidays and they loved it so basically just settled. You might detect a bit of an accent. My Mum used to say I‘d come home from school with a Scottish accent and it gradually changed to more English when at home.

Right enough, Adam doesn‘t have a totally Islay accent if you listen carefully. I did wonder about that and thought he‘d maybe lived elsewhere for a while.

I read elsewhere you joined Bruichladdich as a tour guide and was it your sister who was already working there? Did her experience there influence you? What did you do before Bruichladdich?

I joined in 2004 and I think it was the other way round. For her it was maybe more of a summer job but she did work in the visitor centre for a while. She got the job through Ailsa [founder of Spirited Soaps in Bowmore who subsequently joined Bruichladdich] then left and came back later as one of the foragers for The Botanist. I joined when I‘d just turned 20. I‘d left school and gone to university in Aberdeen. I lasted about a year and a half up there. I missed home and family and wasn‘t really enjoying the course. It wasn‘t really me. So I came home and took a bit of time to figure out what was to be done next so I was doing odd jobs like painting houses and not really much of a plan. I was living at home and my Dad said, „ You need to think about what you‘re going to do next.“ He put me in touch with Ella Edgar who was the distillery PA [indeed, Ella was an important part of the distillery team before her retirement]. Both my parents are nurses, well-known on the island and they‘d been looking after Ella‘s husband when he was ill. So she was very kind in taking me under her wing and starting me off in the shop and as a tour guide.

I‘d noticed from another interview you did that you covered several jobs at the distillery leading to where you are now. What led James to single you out as distiller/blender potential? Did he ever tell you?

No he didn‘t! I left the distillery in 2005 and came back in 2006. I had planned to go back to college later that year but they said they could use an extra pair of hands. I‘d worked hard for that one year and must have made an impression. I took a job in the warehouse and a full-time job came up so Duncan [McGillivray, the late manager] asked me if I‘d like to stay. It took me all of half a second to say yes. If you think back to the distillery at that time, we were growing but it was a small team and quite a lot of opportunities. So I was able to step in and get involved with mashing and the stills, in the warehouse, be flexible. Working alongside Jim in the warehouse, I just showed an interest and still love learning new things. Working with someone like Jim, I was a sponge. Obviously when he got to thinking about retirement he thought he could spend some time training me up to take on that side of things.

Leaping about a bit here but what more do you think you can do with terroir at Bruichladdich and are there any developments you can tell us about?

In terms of terroir it‘s commonplace now and simply a part of what we do. It‘s not a new thing for us to be sourcing from specific farms, tracing those ingredients, all the details. The first years we didn‘t say much about it but were watching the spirit grow. As we released it, it was a big project to talk about but now it‘s more commonplace in the industry. At the time it was an alien concept with a lot of pushback but not now. What we did to highlight the concept was bottle young, as a vintage, but young so the influence of the cask is less, but the influence of barley is out front when the spirit has youth and vitality. We have more and older stocks now so the next chapter for me of Islay barley or terroir is looking at how do these spirits develop, at what point do they start to peak and get to that sweet spot. That‘s something we‘ve been working on for a while and developing that range so it‘s not the same proposition all the time of young, barley-forward whiskies. We think about all aspects, age, cask type, how it comes together and how we create these expressions. It‘s only time that can do that. There will maybe be things in future where we start to evolve that range a bit.

What more, if you can tell us, is to come on Black Art?

I‘ve always got something up my sleeve! Those stocks have become older and won‘t last forever. There‘s been a bit of a pause but there‘s a couple of ideas floating around. The recipes – you‘re always working on them and you can always come up with something but what I was provoking with the team was that when Black Art was first released it was 19 – 20 year old whisky and it was about the cask maturation types and each year it became older as we had that gap in production [referring to the years the distillery was mothballed] so you don‘t always have a 19 year old spirit travelling through. We‘ve always done a lot of work on the spirit and casks in many different vintages so the idea was that we would continue Black Art but we‘ve looked at the whole range and we‘ve taken a pause. We‘ve reached 18 year old whiskies and we have 21 Year Old in travel retail but it‘s still there being worked on in the background. For now, we‘re giving the other whiskies a chance, looking at the stocks we have and seeing how we bring them on to the shelf.

Looking at Octomore, 10 Year Old aside, the 15.3 was my favourite. I‘ve seen the video and read the info and know it‘s all about the balance between land, cask, phenols and strength. You‘re like an artist mixing several colours to make a new one. How do you approach each year‘s issue? What‘s in your head as you start out? Presumably anything with those phenol levels must be planned ahead.

A lot of it is quite organic in terms of that process because we can‘t dictate what those phenol levels will be. It‘s once the maltings have processed it we get that analysis but the great thing about the way we make whisky here is that it’s done by hand so when you‘re in the mash house you can watch what‘s going on – you smell it; you taste it; you see how the process is going right the way through the distillery. Over time we know what casks will work for Octomore so we know we‘re going to fill a good percentage into bourbon casks. Again, it‘s that Bruichladdich style – cask sourcing, looking for different things, trying things that are that bit different. Seeing what we have available and what suits the spirit as you distil it. I like the idea that, because you‘ve got that single vintage, for example, barley for 15.3 is from Octomore farm and the way that barley behaves will be based on the growing season and how James [Brown] has managed to bring it in. That will help dictate the phenol levels as well as the peat that‘s coming from the north of Scotland so when we create that malt it‘s not something we can control. It‘s natural elements that help to shape the final spirit so I really like that with Octomore. Specifically the .3 expression because we don‘t always know what we‘re going to get and the mashmen are going to be processing it in a way that‘s not identical to the malt coming through before. Because we make whisky by hand and through experience, it‘s those traditional skills are so important in shaping that spirit. You‘ve got guys like Budgie with 30-odd years in the still house knowing how to coax that spirit from the stills as we think about ageing it. The great things is we‘ve got the casks all around us; everything is maturing here so I can keep an eye on that spirit as it‘s developing, make any changes we need, any cask influence we want to add or move on from. It‘s all at our fingertips.

The one thing that always astounds me about Octomore is that the peat is definitely there but not fierce or in your face. There‘s more peat smoke on the palate than the nose. You say it shouldn‘t work but it does – why? Does the cask strength need to be there to mitigate the phenol levels?

We say it shouldn‘t but does as if you take some of the facts – for example, this whisky is 5 years old, it‘s at 57.9%,it‘s at 108ppm and to the uninitiated or casual whisky drinker, 5 years old is too young, that percentage abv is too strong as it‘s usually 40 or 43 to them – or 46 – and a high phenol level is usually 40 -50 so the „shouldn‘t work“ is a provocation, a challenge to those industry things that are easy for people to follow. We need to step beyond that so it‘s high strength which is less dilution, less water so the texture and character of the spirit are going to be different. It‘s well distilled with our slow distillation and no need to rush or force things, so a slow fermentation to develop lots of flavour; slow distillation to preserve that texture. With the size and shape of our stills we get a light, elegant spirit. With peat, people normally think of the very peaty whiskies like Laphroaig, Ardbeg but because of our still shape you get a delicate spirit and don‘t pick up a huge amount of peat on the nose. Then with the cuts we take and the way we are distilling means it‘s about the elegance and we then see where the peat fits in. So we may start the process with 108ppm in the malt but over the process we‘re going to lose about two thirds of those phenols. So when I say it‘s a provocation on age, strength, phenol levels, if you then spend a bit of time tasting it, it‘s not what you expect at all.

I enjoy Port Charlotte too and PC 18 was one of my favourites from this last year. It‘s at a consistent phenol level for bottling but why offer both PC and Octomore? Do you like to make your lives difficult?

Basically, yes. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot with making life difficult! When we reopened the intention was always for Bruichladdich to be unpeated. Jim McEwan, in particular, was keen to make a peated whisky as well. If you think back there were 5 directors and the shareholders so we had a lot of freedom and traditional distilling methods, so it made sense. If you give someone like Jim a distillery and a blank sheet of paper, he‘s going to fill that with ideas. If you go back pre-1960‘s, Bruichladdich would have been a peated malt like most others here. Changes were made in the 60‘s and on-site malting stopped. The owners at the time wanted unpeated whisky for blends and so overnight the recipe changed. We wondered what that earlier whisky would have tasted like and that was one of the reasons Port Charlotte came along.

[At this point I recalled that Mark Reynier wanted to build another distillery along the road but that was quietly sidelined so I wasn‘t going to go into that point.]

No, but it‘s a good story. It was our festival day in 2007 and Sir John MacTaggart‘s wife cut the very first turf of that site but little did we know it was also the last one. The financial crisis hit the world and we were still a small independent at that time. We still have the drawings but we also realised there was so much more work to do at Bruichladdich and we had capacity – we still do – to increase production. So building a new distillery, nice though it would have been, wasn‘t quite the right thing to do. And today, when you think how many distilleries there are on the island, we really don‘t need any more. Let‘s get back to the PC/Octomore.

Yes, why do I get more peat from PC than from Octomore?

Again, it‘s the process of distillation so we started up and made Bruichladdich and Port Charlotte and Octomore was another of Jim‘s ideas. We wondered how much peat we could get in there. In 2001 we bought the malt from Diageo in Port Ellen but as we got to the end of the year they didn‘t want to supply any more. We asked lots of questions and wanted several different things so we had to look elsewhere for the malt in 2002. We went to Baird‘s Maltings and they didn‘t have a lot of production space for peated malt so they tried to get as much smoke into the grain as they could. It took an extra few days to make that batch but they could push the levels so high that they could then make it go further by blending it with unpeated malt to give each distiller a certain amount. So, instead of trying to hit 40 they tried it at 200 which was then blended with unpeated to give everyone a 30 or 40 or whatever. So when Jim heard that he said, „Could we have some of that really strong peaty stuff that‘s not cut?“ They said they didn‘t sell that because batch to batch there was no consistency and that wasn‘t what customers wanted. To us at the time, we thought if no one else was doing it and it wasn‘t consistent that didn‘t matter. We just wanted something that was really peaty to see what it was like, just to taste it. It was to push and try new things.

[At this point I mentioned the small bottle of Bruichladdich‘s quadruple distillation at 88%abv given to me by Jim McEwan years ago.]

Yes, it was powerful stuff. It was in 2006 we did the first one. We still have some left.

Where does the impetus come from for a new expression? Is it production led where you have an idea from certain stocks or marketing led when they need something for a specific market or consumer group? In the beginning it always seemed to be production led and still does – playful yet very serious.

It‘s probably more production led than it ever was. Early on it was a survival thing due to stock gaps and it was hard to have a consistent product. There were many different products released while we were building our new stocks. The Bruichladdich philosophy was laid out in the early years so we could have the Islay barley, the bere barley, these exploratory things. There‘s always been input from Marketing too. We always need knowledge of what‘s required. There‘s no point in making stuff that we can‘t sell. Rye is an example. We distilled it in December 2017 for the first time. We‘d been discussing it and it was something Allan [Logan – Production Director] brought up. Jim had retired and we were on our own, still with that freedom. Allan was talking to a local farmer, Andy Jones, that we‘re in the coastguard with, about different crops as he grew barley for us – and he was asked what else he might grow, maybe oats or rye. So from that conversation we brought it to life. It fits nicely in our story. It‘s about regeneration, a different grain makes a different type of whisky. It‘s about stepping out of the usual.

Just a quick aside on that. It seemes to me that Bruichladdich led on openly experimenting with new or different cask types. Would you say that‘s correct?

It‘s fair. We weren‘t the only ones doing it but we had ability and freedom to try lots of different things. Jim and, certainly, Mark with his contacts in the wine world were looking at the quality of casks that could be brought in. When we reopened Jim was saying we needed bourbon casks, sherry casks, whatever else but you couldn‘t always get good sherry casks back then. I remember we bought sherry casks in and a couple of years after filling we had to re-cask them because staves were splitting. It was hard for a small independent to get good quality casks because a lot of other companies had that supply taped up. Mark said he could get Rivesaltes casks from France – a fortified wine which was not the same but similar and the quality of the wood was incredible. Then there were red Bordeaux and others all because Mark and Simon had the knowledge and the contacts. Black Art was born from there – from using those types of quality cask, by watching the quality that the guys from these vineyards were using, seeing how that shaped the spirit. A lot of Bruichladdich made in the 80‘s and 90‘s was for blending. The spirit was good as it was made the same way as now but it didn‘t always go into the best quality casks. For blending that wasn‘t the number one priority. A lot of people would send the casks to the distillery to be filled and they stayed here. Some of those casks we would buy back later but they weren‘t always the best wood. One of the main things for Jim was getting to know the stock and having to improve where he could. So you think a whisky isn‘t developing as it should then all of a sudden you have this suite of amazing wine casks and can try new things. Also, being a small independent, trying new things was good PR and advertising. It was stuff other people weren‘t doing. We wanted to explore flavour. Fundamentally that‘s what whisky is about. It was a great opportunity to understand and bring in different influences to see how that shapes our spirit and it creates so many options.

Others like Bill Lumsden and David Stewart who‘ve always been innovative on maturation were doing things like this. The wine casks weren‘t all down to us but we were more willing to go out and try things and be transparent and open about it.

The Bruichladdich Feis Masterclass is massive and always a sellout. Apart from being a tour guide, were you used to public speaking before being a distiller and do you enjoy it?

I would say even now I‘m quite a shy person. Certainly as a kid, as I was very shy and one of the best things for me was that tour guide experience. I was so nervous before my first tour. Once I‘d done it and knew I could, it was a real growth thing for me. Actually because I was really passionate about the Bruichladdich story and telling it, I was so proud of doing that. It was easier to talk about something you really care about.

Adam went on to tell me a story of his one of his first tastings which was with Jim McEwan, over in New York, to the Remy Cointreau salesforce after Remy bought Bruichladdich. He tells how Jim had 200 people mesmerised while Adam was standing, terrified, at the side waiting to speak about a couple of whiskies and he did fluff his lines a little that first time but he got through it and felt better having done so and enjoyed the buzz afterwards.

Jim built this amazing Masterclass moment at the festival and all I‘ve done is pick up that baton. The whiskies are the stars and my job is just to talk about them but I still don‘t find that easy getting up in front of 250 people. I don‘t think it would be right if I did.

You‘ve been in the industry a number of years now. What are the major changes you see? Anything you do or don‘t like?

I find the industry as a whole incredibly friendly. People are always willing to help, particularly on Islay. There‘s rivalry amongst the distilleries but it‘s a very friendly one. We share knowledge and passion. People have come to us to learn what we do too and then go off and build their own distilleries. It‘s one of the main changes over the years. It used to be just the big guys and big distilleries but there is now a proliferation of smaller, niche distilleries doing their own thing, in their own way and in their own location. Way back whisky was more local, a way of preserving some of the grain you‘d grown that year. I think this innovation has changed the industry a lot. The bigger guys are experimenting more now. Social media is a part of it too, the communication and transparency around whisky. Someone in a small distillery can have their voice amplified and make more impact. The bigger guys have had to react to that. People like the niche, the uniqueness, the speciality of product. It‘s a really good thing as it keeps everyone thinking about details instead of just price and mass production. It‘s nice to step back from only massive scale and have variety.

Sustainability is another change. We know about climate change across the world. We can‘t hide from it and need to do more so we‘re seeing more care and attention for the location. It‘s a great thing. This industry has a high profile and the amount of peat we use is minimal compared to garden compost etc. but we still have responsibility and the power to do something. Pretty much every distillery involved is doing what they can. The adaptability, the care taken, the interest people have in what we do are great things about the industry.

What do you like to do outside of work if you get time?

Well, I have two small girls and they take up a lot of time. Living where we do, I step out of work and walk 10 minutes home and I can get the dog out for a walk along the beach, get the family out for a barbecue. Just recently was my younger daughter‘s 7th birthday and she wanted to go and have a cup of tea on the beach so we took the Kelly kettle [that‘s a camping kettle] and gathered some driftwood, made a cup of tea and toasted some marshmallows. It was a beautiful day and we had a nice wee fire going, with the dog sitting on the beach too, the tide was calm. I actually went in for a little swim. It was freezing but bracing and lovely. [I commented here Adam‘s a braver soul than I am.]

The thing I love about going in the water, you know it‘s going to be horrible and cold and difficult but you do it and just get this glow afterwards which is fantastic. I enjoy socialising, meals with friends – nice easy stuff. I love it when I can to go through to Edinburgh and catch a rugby match. That‘s a highlight.

I wondered if Adam is looking forward to the 6 Nations rugby tournament which starts soon.

Oh, I‘m very excited. There‘s that usual thing as a Scotsman where the hope starts to build up…

Also, I love gardening – ever since I was young. I just enjoy being outside. We‘ve got a lot of hens round the garden as well. I built a wee coop for them, so DIY stuff too. There‘s not a lot of spare time, though, by the time the kids are doing all the things they do and ferrying them around; then the garden. There‘s nothing better than sitting down to a meal that I‘m cooking. I actually love cooking too. I wouldn‘t say I was the best but I love having a go and trying different things.

Do you have a signature dish?

I love cooking the Christmas dinner. That‘s a bit of a triumph, if I may say so myself.

What do you grow in your garden? Flowers and shrubs or fruit and veggies or all?

It is mainly veg I enjoy growing, as well as some soft fruits. I always put potatoes in and the standards like onions, carrots, salad leaves, beetroot, peas and beans etc. but I like to grow heritage varieties where I can, to try something a bit different. There is nothing like watching the cycle of the seasons each year and harvesting fresh food for the table. It’s a bit of a joke in our house now where I ask the kids where something on our plate is from and they roll their eyes and go, “Our garden!” I did try some winter cover crops in the veg beds this year to protect the soil and put nutrients back into it. I planted rye and mustard and they have taken well despite the hens‘ best efforts to get into the garden and eat the young plants! There is aways a bit of a seaweed harvest as well as it does wonders for the soil and is great for a mulch to keep the weeds down.

[Adam’s welcome to visit our garden which is currently all mud and hardcore while we have it „re-landscaped“. Is that a word?]

What are your favourite place to visit for a) work and b) leisure?

Oh, for work, I‘m lucky that I‘ve been to a number of countries that I wouldn‘t have got to otherwise. China I‘m fascinated by and I got back from a trip to Japan in October. The culture is just so different, so friendly and welcoming everywhere I‘ve been. The Far East has been a fantastic experience, particularly Japan. The U.S. is a fascinating country for so many reasons but again for being treated so well, being in these iconic cities and meeting really good people. It‘s always the people that make the place and generally, wherever I‘ve been, they‘re great.

Leisure – we spend quite a bit of time in Edinburgh where my wife is from. Otherwise, it may not sound very glamorous but I think Islay is a wonderful place [he‘s right] as someone who grew up here; going down to the beach, getting my head down and seeing what the tide has washed up – a bit of beachcombing. As a kid that was something we were always doing.

Do you have any unfulfilled ambitions for a) work or b) personally?

Oh, goodness me. For work I think you always want to be striving for something. I don‘t think there‘s a point where you think, great, that‘s it, I‘ve done everything. It‘s in our nature and it‘s the way I‘ve been raised in this distillery – to always be looking for something more, always progressing. That‘s life, things change all the time so you‘ve got to keep looking forward and always learning. In terms of the distillery we‘re growing and things are good but the bigger you get, you need more resources and things you didn‘t think of ten years ago become essentials.

At this point I interjected to ask about the distillery‘s malting plans which are mentioned now and again.

I always say that whenever we look at plans for the next five years the maltings are always in year 3! It never gets further away or any closer. The plans are still there to do it but not at the moment and there are a lot of other plans for bottling and warehousing so there are other priorities. The plans and the will are there but it‘s timing. Given resources on Islay we couldn‘t get an electrical supply to it till 2027 anyway. This is one of the things about building more distilleries on Islay. Some of these won‘t get power for years. One of them will be running diesel generators for a while till they get an electricity supply. Given those logistics, even if we wanted to do it today, we couldn‘t.

So that‘s workwise but what about personally?

I‘m sure there would be something if I put my mind to it. I‘m not going to say bungee jumping or anything! To be honest, I‘m quite content as we are. Every now and then you stop and look at your situation and I‘ve got a beautiful wife, two young kids, a lovely job and an amazing community and I am content with that. Of course there are projects that crop up. We built a house a few years ago that was a massive project and who knows if there may be something else like that in future.

This is something I‘ve noticed in others in the whisky industry, this contentment and enjoyment of life as it is.

We talk about life being so busy, everything goes so fast and you‘re constantly striving so you‘re not always realising you have to stop and enjoy the day where you are today. That‘s something I try to do as much as I can. Again, go for a walk on the beach and at this time of year you might think oh, it‘s dark but if you stand there on this beautiful beach and look up at the stars, this amazing array, I could be wishing away the winter or enjoying what‘s there in front of me rather than wondering if I‘m missing something.

Last question I ask everyone. If you were stuck on a desert island with only one whisky, what would it be?

It would be the Bruichladdich 1970 Vintage that was released many years ago. It no longer exists. Growing up on Islay you‘re surrounded by whisky so it was just taken for granted. You‘re working with whisky, getting to know the range and talking to people but maybe, early on, still of a mindset that it‘s a bit strong but thinking, „It‘s okay, I could get on with this“. In the summer, I was coming out of the shop, finished work when Duncan, Mark, Simon were sitting in the sunshine having a dram and they had bottled this 1970. They poured me a dram and I sat there and sipped it in the sunshine with them. It was just one of those things that was magical, the flavour of that whisky. We don‘t have it now and it was very expensive back then. I hate to think what it might cost now if you could get hold of a bottle. It would have been a similar age to the old legacy bottlings. It was just a classic Bruichladdich. There‘s been a few drams over the years like that if you listen to the older guys like Duncan McGillivray who worked with it, tasted it, enjoyed it, who knew Bruichladdich so well. Whiskies like that stick with you. We did a 1988 vintage a few years ago that was refill bourbon, hogsheads that were quite unusual and the whisky from that was just phenomenal because it was simple, – just the quality of spirit and a good cask that had aged it beautifully. You‘ll get amazing whiskies with the Haut Brions, Yquems and olorosos but Bruichladdich from bourbon, nice and simple is, to me, one of the absolute joys. It just works so well. The 1970 was just a few hogsheads that were phenomenal and worth going to a desert island for.

So there I left Adam on his imagined desert island with that unforgettable dram, with my thanks, of course, for his time and considered answers. Yet another, amongst several I have interviewed before who are so content with the way their lives are in the industry it shows in the whiskies they make for us and extends to outside of work too. It‘s a joy to hear.

Till mid-February, happy dramming. Valentine‘s whisky anyone?

Slainte mhath,

Caroline

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