Pray Angus, you know what to do. Clap us in.
Welcome along Whiskey Stories podcast live at Mother Superior
with Adele. That is the bet that keeps me up
at night. I know once I've got through
that, everything's going to be great.
I guess we're down here in Mother Superior.
I've never been here before. Yeah, no, until 20 minutes ago I
hadn't either. Well, I say 20 minutes, about 40
minutes now. Yeah, Yeah, what a fantastic.
Place brilliant. Absolutely fantastic room.
It's great. Nice and nice and cool as well,
yeah. Very nice.
And we've got an audience, a room full of people here to see
us. And we have Callum and Connie
all the way from Arden American. Well, 50% of euro move, hard
working. Callum, you've headed down
today. Yeah, I had a nice.
I think I've done it in about four hours, actually.
That's a heavy right foot you've got there.
It's. A new, new electric car, you
know, good. It's yeah, it moves.
Brilliant. Well, thanks for coming down,
Connie. You, you don't you don't live up
in the western peninsula. I.
Live 5 minutes away from here. Brilliant.
There we go. Happy days.
Well, look, let's get stuck at the drama.
It's Friday night. What's the first DRAM on the
lineup that you guys have brought along with you?
You got a 10 year old. Excellent start.
Strong. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is Arne Mercken 10, yeah.
Yeah, an age statement and the only so is this.
This is the This is the inaugural core release 10 year
old Arne Mercken. Yeah, I think that's the best
way to put it. Yeah, Yeah.
Because we've done a 10 year old when we first.
So there was an Adelphi bottling of 10 year old.
Yeah. And it was never an, it was
never really an intention to go straight away again another 10
year old. So and there was a lot of
discussion between the age statements on one of our
ballings. A lot of their whiskey now is
getting up to a decent age. So it's like do we put an 8 year
old on the label or looking at our stocks, we kind of thought
maybe we could actually get away with putting a 10 year old on
one of our core releases, which is quite a big deal I think for
a distillery that's just about to turn 12.
So we don't have that much of the stock, but we have enough to
go out with like a core offering of a of a 10 year old.
Well, Solangeloar, everyone, cheers.
Cheers. Yeah, it's, we've talked about
this before in the podcast about new distilleries.
And one of the things that we've said is we live in a great
period of time as whiskey drinkers where there's been this
sort of, you know, so many new distilleries coming out and
there's some distilleries that haven't released anything yet.
There's guys like yourselves who've put loads.
In fact, we had the episode with with Alex Bruce on and Alex
actually said you guys were putting out spirit, you know,
before it even turned 3 years old.
But Graham, what's? What's the line that a new
distillery will say when you ask about whether you're going to
release an age statement or a whiskey at all?
Well. We'll release it when it's
ready. That's that's what that's what
they say. But.
When the finances are ready. Well, there is that, but we I've
said, you know, there's nobody alive today that tried spring
Bank when it was new and went can't wait to see what it tastes
like when it's 10, you know, or anything like that.
So for that for us to be here and for you guys to be, I
suppose you still technically at the back of the the whiskey
yearbook as the new distillery, but are you a new distillery
with a lowercase N now, because you have age statement whiskey
out and is that a big milestone moment for a distillery?
I think. 100% I think it's one of those moments when you're
doing a new venture of any sort that when you get to an age
where you kind of dream of being able to put numbers in a bottle,
that means you did it a certain extent, right.
But I think with our American as well, it's, it's not by the
numbers, it's about the liquid at the end of the day.
So as long as you've got a good quality of liquid, it doesn't
really matter whether it's a 5 year old, 15 year old, what have
you, as long as it's good, it will be bottled and it will be
released. That's.
Great afternoon. Well, it's, I mean, look, we,
we've look, I have said on the podcast that I wanted to fill a
bath full of Arden Mark and Sherry and bathe in it.
And we've just become obsessed with the distillery.
And I'm, and again, I'm not just saying that because he's sitting
beside us on the podcast. And Jeeves, Jesus here you, what
did you remind us? What did you pour us that day
when we didn't know what you were pouring?
But you're walking around Edinburgh Whiskey Festival at
Murrayfield, pouring drams out of your own bottle.
For legal reasons, I can't say it was.
But no. Well, for legal reasons, Jeeves,
you weren't pouring anything. But what did you not pour for
us? Basically it was.
Being the on the mirror bowling from 2024. .25 which was Cherry.
And it caught us, but like we've we've as a as a distillery and
the whiskey that you guys have put out and like you say, a lot
of this stuff is non age statement.
It's not it's not had an age on it.
But at the same time, you've built up very, very quickly this
following of people who are obsessed, me being one of them.
And I'm sure there's other people in the room who are the
same with Arden American. So how?
Because Callum, you've been at the distillery from.
No, I've, I've been at the distillery of becoming four
years, four years. I came up to the distillery for
three months four years ago. Well, so you came up as a what
to? Be a tour guide right?
I was working for Bricklady as a tour guide there.
Went travelling for a bit in my camper van that.
Was what are the market? No.
All. All around, all around the
place, all around the country, over to Europe.
And then I got as far as Croatia and realized we're doing our
finances, realized we were out of cash so much so we actually
couldn't afford to get home. And so he's where's messaging my
brother saying you want to buy any whiskey office, we need
money for fuel to get back. But in the process of this, I
knew Graham Mackay who works for us.
I messaged him and say you're working for Arnon Murkin now, is
there any jobs going? And he said yes.
He put me in touch with the the visitor centre manager had a
phone call on top of a mountain and they're like, yeah, when can
you come? I was like, it's about I don't
know how many 1000 miles away, but I'm on my way and I started
running, working as a tour guide.
Really, and from a tour guides perspective then, because
visiting the distillery, it's not big, you know, it's there's
a lot of cool things at the distillery.
One of the things that Chuck care who?
Well, we don't know where Chuck is, right, But Chuck did say it
reminded him a lot of the of Japanese influence, right, of
the distillery, having visited Chichibu in different places
like that. And I know that Alex said on the
podcast when they were talking about the distillery, they
weren't going to go there. So what for you was the standard
point when you decided to become a distillery tour guide there?
And what still to this day, something that you really hold
on to? I think this is quite easy to
answer. So if I take way back, I was
working the Whis, the whiskey trail on the Royal Mile whiskey
shop. Yep, there.
Nah de cantos. Aye, so a lot of quality stuff
there. We'd often drink in the Ensign
Yurt. Yep.
Came in there one day.
I'd already tried Artemark and a bunch of us had tried our
inaugural stuff and it was already the moment you poured
it, everyone's nose in it and look at each other and go, OK,
OK, this is interesting. But it was actually when I came
in and the guys behind the bar poured me something, said
Callum. I'm not going to charge you for
this, just want you to your opinion on it.
Smelt it and I was like, Jesus, that smells like blue cheese.
And for those who have some idea what I'm talking about, the
Arden Merkin or Adelphi should say released a whiskey called
the Arden Mcgurkin. And it was a whiskey that was
absolutely hoching. It was stinking.
It was a weird cast and the fact that they took a they took a
whiskey that was deemed to be, let's say, interesting and.
Funky. Funky.
Yeah, funky is a nicer word. And thought it would be funny to
put it in a bottle and call it the Ardner McGurk.
And that must have sat in my head for a bit and thought,
yeah, the whiskey is good, but they obviously have pretty good
crack and don't take themselves too seriously.
And obviously being there at the distillery, the community there,
not to mention the liquid is just honestly, it's the best
place in the world. Do you live up there now
yourself? I literally live next door to
the distillery. But you're not local to.
I'm not, no. I'm local to Ayrshire.
All right. OK, Ayrshire originally.
But you were in the panto. I was in the panto.
Yeah, yeah. So.
So when we went up there was a panto going on, I think.
Here's why that wasn't a Christmas, no.
Yeah, which wasn't the Christmas at all.
It's like everybody else that I'm gonna get there late.
So they have their they have their Christmas panto in April.
It felt it felt like Christmas because there was a bit 3 inches
of snow. On the road, on the road.
Did snow the night we were there?
Yeah, yes. So what?
What was your role in the panto? I had a very small role as a a
knight that was more like a Jacobite than anything.
It was a bit off period, but yeah.
Good. Well, I had a line or two, so a
big a big deal. You're one of those actors,
aren't you? Yourself, you're, you're fairly
new in the in the in the role. So you've only been Ardemarker
and Adelphi for a wee while now. Not not long at all.
Barely a month, yeah, yeah, Super, super fresh in the tour.
I was Yeah. Well, previously this, I've been
in the industry for quite a while, but as September was
taken aback by Ardemark Hin. It's kind of one of those
brands, I think hopefully all of you will agree.
Just you knew what you were getting when you got the ball.
You knew it was going to be good.
You know it's going to be solid DRAM but also exciting.
It wasn't boring, like it wasn't kind of oh God, it's just
another one of the same kind of thing.
Every single release is different.
It's all got reason find it and it like as Callum says, it's a
bit of fun in there as well. Like the next one, we're going
to have the labels, like, why the hell not?
And it was fun. It's kind of new, but it wasn't
trying to horse. Yeah, it was just kind of
unapologetically doing your thing.
And was it you do it the for the company now then what's your
what's your role? I'm the UK sales manager.
UK sales manager So how easy is it driving up and down the
country? Because it's when you you know,
it's albeit it's easy for us. We're in a pub in Leith that's a
great whiskey collection and we mentioned diggers loads of
times. You go in there and there's
there's a lot of places that you'll probably know I can go in
there and I know I'll sell whatever it is.
But what about when you're in Carlisle and you're trying to
well, like, because how far and wide does ardent American travel
to the general whiskey drinker versus You really have to know
ardent American to understand what it is and to enjoy a drama
a. Bit of both to be honest.
I think we now distribute to 50 countries around the.
World most of that. Yeah, yeah.
Which is, which is decent, but the UK is still still huge for
us. I think it's kind of like
there's two kind of camps there. There's there's a the whiskey
guys who super excited about the next release, know the back
catalog ABS incredible music to my years doing sales.
Like you just say you're releasing something like cool, I
just get that. I'm like, Oh my God, that's
great. Whether you do have to introduce
people to the ground, but I think it's so easy to fall in
love with as well. It's it's not reinventing the
wheel. It's just having a bit of fun
with it. Pretty much.
That's kind of the way I think about it.
And then and I think using the really kind of like pretentious
like trait things like liquid to limps.
But like as soon as you try it, it's kind of the main thing,
isn't it? Yeah, you just enjoy it.
Like it's it's give somebody a little drama, hard working.
That's kind of them. So to a certain extent.
Well, I've said it myself on the podcast, and I'm unapologetic
about it, is that was the first ever mention of Arden American
properly on the podcast was on, it was Charlie Hume that his
episode is what, 3 drams? What 3 drams that that night.
Actually, in terms of what 3 drams we've had in the podcast,
his three were absolutely crackers, but one of them was
Arden, Arden American, Paul. Now I can never pronounce that.
Paul in. One Paul in one, but it was
before it had been released. It was the first before the
release. And I can show you my book.
Well, I'll show you at some point.
Wait, I've got, I write down everyone's what, 3 drums?
And this is very early on in the podcast and very early on in my
whiskey journey and being like what?
And I don't like the spelling of it in one, one sense is
absolutely shocking. But I remember being really
disappointed because I was like, of all the drams that you've
tried and all those whiskeys that you've had and all the
stories that you've told to tell to pick that one of you've got 3
whiskeys that you can pick as you, you've got any story
association or meaning with them and you've picked a distillery
this brand new and barely has anything out.
I was a bit disappointed because I didn't know who you were.
And then it was that situation as you get to try it and you go
actually I totally, totally get it.
But again, you know, CC worked up at the Malt Room at the time
before he buggered off to where is it is now.
He's still got an ease in Cayman Islands, like the Cayman
Islands, but. Someone said pretending to run a
whiskey bar or. Yeah, All right, Charlie.
But, but basically like for him to pick that and it was
basically said it was a day at the distillery.
Connell took us into the warehouse, started popping casks
and we can speak now from our own experience.
Yes, I get it. I totally get it because it's
absolutely fantastic. So what's, what's your job then?
Callum at the distillery? Varied.
I do some tastings now and then, but it's not my bread and butter
I'm my day-to-day is marketing. Right.
Yeah, it's Instagram, man. I'm Instagram.
See I'm on Instagram seeing the videos.
I am the guy that some people come up to and see you're the
guy that came out the law with a bottle of whiskey.
I have done that, yeah. My job is mostly social media,
but any kind of marketing related stuff.
And I'm Cascurator and the distillery as well.
Cascura, So you're part of the Cascuration team or is there or
are you are the cascurator? For Arden Marketing, it's just
me. Just you.
So when it comes to cask curation, then what does that
actually mean? Sounds good, doesn't?
It it does really does. Essentially, I kind of can look
at casks feedback to the blending team if they want me to
look at anything, kind of checked progress of casks.
But the main thing is supporting the sales team if they want to
select a single cask for certain markets, markets that maybe
can't come to the distillery. Because normally if, if I say a
bar or a or a shop wants to do a single cask, one of the criteria
normally for us is that they come to the distillery and they
pack it themselves. But obviously if you're in
Taiwan, that's maybe challenging.
So the last need to do that, yeah, I'll select the the some
samples and send them away. And having that opportunity,
because one of the things that you mentioned, Connie as well,
is like the amount of variation in the releases.
It's a conscious effort that you're going.
We're not peered, we're not UN peered.
We're not just bourbon matured, we're not a Sherry matured.
We, we, you have so many different tasks and, and, and
variety and variety as well. So does that make your job
easier or harder? I will both of you for that one.
So like Connie for yourself, picking a market and picking
people to sell something too. Is it making it easier because
you've just got such a wide portfolio, But then would you
rather hone them in on one thing, or or or or or is it just
nice to be able to just have different things for living,
living people? I feel spoilt with might we
have. So it's like want to show
everybody everything, but it really like, I want to say like
a retailer in Glasgow or somebody wants single cask you,
you tend to know what they're what what kind of get them like
what they like, whether they want like a chewy drum.
They want something super sherried, something kind of
funky, like we've kind of got the full spectrum to choose
from. So being able to hone down on
that and, and kind of give them exactly what they want is a huge
kind of part of the job is that we're not just Sherry, we're not
just weird yeast, We're not just whatever it's, you can kind of
tailor it to whoever you're choosing for, which is really
fun as well. And there's so much in there as
you guys probably saw that, yeah.
Yeah, like, can't remember much of it.
You were just like jumping around casks when I was up a few
weeks ago. And it was like, I just feel
like, I wonder what this one is. You're like, oh, this is a weird
thing that we've got here. And those giant casks as well.
What are they called? Oh my God, they've got a really
weird name. Gourdas.
Do you see them?
Gourdas. Oh no, I don't think we did see
these. What are?
They like 7. 100 litres, Are they 700 litres?
They're masters. They're they're vigorous in
cherry butts. Right.
Yeah, there's some weird funky bits going around.
And yeah, and do you see, do you see trends as well then from a
sales perspective? Like for instance, I had a chat
with Woody, good pile of the pods.
Most people, you know, get Woody Woodrows of Edinburgh and stuff
like that. And Woody actually said, if I
wanted to, I could just put out 5 or 6 releases of just Sherry
peated whiskey every out turn and it would sell.
Because when you look at an out turn that that most independent
bottlers will do if it's peated, if it's Sherry, it goes.
And that's what people that there's a market for people that
just love that dark Sherry Twiskey and Pete, he's like, I
could just like it was Williamson, which I think is the
name for Lefroy that the, that the, the independent.
It would just be Williamson Sherry.
I was like, would you? Why are you telling me this and
not doing it? That'll be boring.
Wouldn't it? Well, it would by the same time
it's funny when you look at the commercial element versus the
the craft and experience. So from your perspective, do
you, and I know you're only in the door very early, but is
there numbers that we'd show you that actually our pitted stuff
shifts more than our unpeted stuff, our shared stuff shifts
more than than the mixtures or or anything like that?
And maybe you think we get off with it because we don't say
peated around peated on the label as such.
So I think we kind of get around it.
And I was actually doing a tasting last night and this guy
was quite vocal in his dislike of anything even slightly
peated. And he, his favorite was our
kind of most peated release. I had an offer.
I was still doing a tasting with Graham the other night and it
was Adelphi's and. Did did when he found out it's
peated, did he accept that it was beated or was he like no,
no, no, I actually didn't like that very much.
He was. It was not coming through.
Well, this is interesting. Are you sure it's peated?
I'm not. This is my grandfather disliked
cauliflower, hated cauliflower. And we were at a hotel somewhere
and, and he got, he got the soup and and he's this, this soup's
incredible. So there's a taste to this soup.
It's delicious. And anyway, waiter came over.
OK, what was the soup we had in the cauliflower soup?
Oh, I didn't really like it that much.
Only see, that's happened so many times for me doing these
things. But yeah, Graham Hussein, really
interestingly that a kind of last release like 2 times ago
kind of had some more funkiest stuff, kind of international
ones as well. Whereas the latest release, it
was a very conscious decision to make.
It kind of reminiscent of the times where everything was kind
of under 100 if possible, and things were kind of accessible
to a certain kind of thing. So like cost of living and stuff
like that comes hugely into it. So like price points are a huge
thing. We want people to drink our
American. It's not there to sit fancy on
the shelf. It's there to be drunk.
And so pricing yourself out the market I think is the biggest
kind of trend right now is that you have to have things that
people will drink. They want to treat themselves.
And like I will say this thing is like I've always got like a
whiskey that's like not paying any like drams saying that it's
just like anything whiskey. But I always call like my
favorite drams, Gogglebox drams, the drams you can sit down on
Friday night at 9:00 and just drink and like it feels like
that we treat on a Friday night. And I think for me, that's what
I think our American is that I know I'm going to get a really
banging DRAM. And but yeah, in terms of kind
of what we do, it's yeah, there's some funky yourself.
Actually, the funkier stuff tends to be limited releases.
So that's. Well, they'll sell.
Peeling as well. Well, they'll sell to 1 market,
but it's just more about like what, what?
What the general whiskey drinker like what you're bourbon cherry,
bourbon cherry. OK, very good.
Right, So the few empty glasses on the first one, we'll move on
to the second drama actually. So the second one, you've
already kind of mentioned the fun side of things, Callum, and
this is the Aldermark and midgie.
The midgie. Now you guys do this as a
special release every year, isn't it?
Yes. So what 1's this one?
Is this the most recent? This is batch 2.
Yeah, the most the most recent match.
This is actually my favorite whiskey to release.
Yeah. Not necessarily my favorite
whiskey of the line up, but it's the, it's the release I get the
most pleasure out of marketing, so to speak.
It's the again, it's just another sign that even now, I
mean, Arne Merkin's coming into a new phase of we're well into
being 10. We are kind of young, but we're
old young, but we are still having fun every day, but
particularly when it comes to this.
So the midgie is an annual release, but it's a release that
we don't stick to the usual recipe.
So we can, we can play around with things, we can change cast
types, change the amount of peat and unpeated spirit in there.
So last year's release, this one here is predominantly port cask
matured Ruby port. So this was the first time we
used port casks, not a CAS. Type and any release.
And any release, yeah, yeah, not a CAS type that I'm normally too
enamoured by. I think sometimes it can be
overdone. But another thing that's really
nice about any really ardour marking expression is that the
cask is it's not taking anything away.
The the spirit itself is pretty robust.
So we can actually use these fun casks or turns and mezcal and
and port casks and ardour marking spirit will always come
through pretty strong. And it's also a big portion is
bourbon. So the bourbon is in a lot of
the way. Yeah, yeah, the port's adding
something. It's not taken away, which I
think is really, really. Important and is there peat in
this whiskey? And there is 25% peat is better,
75% unpeated, that's 48%. So our standards are normally
46.8. We wanted to make a whiskey with
a bite. Yeah.
So this was $0.40. .8 I take. It That would take way too long
to last, yeah. No worry.
Sorry. That's that's after everyone's
just had 1 1/2 draft. That would have taken a lot
longer than when we were in the seventh draft.
They've had their sixth draft because everyone got what right.
But well, you talk about, I mean, you're the only
distillery, only whiskey brand to have ever teamed up with an
insect repellent company. You know what?
It's so delicious. But I I love that that that's
the thing. You don't take yourselves too
serious seriously. And we had Carol crafts on the
pod last year. That's what he said.
He said, look, you know, there's distillery, there's there's
whiskey brands and distilleries that use stags.
There's whiskey brands and distilleries.
They use, you know, birds and eagles and all this kind of
stuff. We reached out to Ferrari but
they wouldn't. They wouldn't do it.
They wouldn't. So you went with the mid chain
instead? I don't know.
For a guy. But does that, does that can
that work two ways though? Because there are whiskey
drinkers out there that will look at a brand and there are
the traditional whiskey drinker that will sit there and go, I
know what Scotch whiskey is. Scotch whiskey is this Scotch
whiskey is that you are just running amok there.
That's not that's not whiskey. And does that mean that there's
a world there where there might be a whole load of whiskey
drinkers that bypass the major release because they'll be going
well, that's not, that's silly. That's a gimmick kind of thing.
Because what we know is that it's like when we had Sam
Simmons on the podcast talking about the Dalry Milk.
And you look at that release and you would say to yourself that
is that just master remote? Just chucking out a funny label,
putting anything in the bottle and doing that.
But there's a lot of story behind the the Dalry Milk.
Good, good whiskey. An amazing whiskey.
Yeah. Really, really good whiskey.
So what you want is you want people to buy it and open it and
drink it but and realise it's actually very, very good.
So how does does that? Can that work against you in
some cases? Maybe.
Probably, I think. It was more of a concern to
begin with. Really.
So at the time it was, but then I suppose having the other
releases around it, people just know what hard the market is.
So it's whatever you're putting in the bottle, it's a bit better
possibly. Yeah, it's been fun.
I think people, I think it really took on the international
credit, I think the first one, because people didn't know what
images were. They had had the pleasure of
knowing what images. Whereas Scottish people were
like, yes. What you what you need is
somebody from far afield to come to the distillery to say I
wanted to experience the midges because I've heard so much about
it and I've no idea. That's the story I really want
is that somebody turned up to ARN Demarkin because of the
Midget the. Midges get a bad press, so we
just want to do something to put a wee bit of, you know, a
positive spin on. Them on the midges.
I would suggest as well, Graham, that the kind of whiskey drinker
you're suggesting that might be turned off by the Midget.
Well, that's kind of half the point in a way is maybe that
isn't actually really the drama for them in the 1st place.
And I know self deprecation doesn't always work, but I think
with the Midgie it really does. You know, we've got a man in the
midgie T-shirt there. So it's it's clearly, it's
clearly working. Somewhere and like having the
ability to have a bit of fun that must take the reins off
because it's a new brand. So there'll be people that have
maybe come from fun and entertaining marketing roles in
other industries and moved into the Scotch whiskey industry and
then work for a brand that's very traditional, has this in
front of and that in front of it and had to have somebody go.
Listen, we like what you're doing and you're bringing
energy, but there is absolutely no way our brand could be
associated with something like that versus for you, Callum, if
I mean is it how much free rein do you get when you're doing
social media posts and all that kind of thing?
Full free range, right? I got.
We never had them. The knuckles wrap for anything
you've done. Nope, not that you're willing to
admit in a way. But 8 is still young.
Angus. Something from Alan America is
good. You were doing what before you
were on stage. Put it this way, I managed to
get Graham Mackay, Alex Bruce, Connor Mackenzie standing
outside the distillery just below our wash backs.
A lot of CO2 during fermentation, Maggie's love CO2.
So I got the three of them standing outside.
It was teaming with Maggie's and I got them to introduce this,
the last year's midgie on camera with the swarm of midgies
absolutely chewing every. You're there to fill Midgie.
Mat No, I was actually getting eaten as well.
I I did have, well I had some smidge on so it was fine.
Well thankfully it was pissing down the rain when we went so we
didn't get any midgies. Yeah.
So yeah, I could do that. Yeah, I mean, Alex, Alex talked
about the, the, the fact that when, when they were building
the distillery and one of the things that they, when the
grants were available and there was lots of happening to build
the distillery And they said they, they, I think the
consultant that we're using was we build a, make a visitor
centre. And Alex said, no, that's the
last thing we want. We don't want people coming up
here. We just want to make whiskey.
And I think what was, it was clear that basically, first of
all, the more you can do to help the local economy, creating
local jobs, it's more than there's more finance available.
And I think the expert said that, you know, after the 1st 10
years, you'll be lucky to hit 10,000 visitors.
But Alex said, you know, within the first two or three years
you've managed to hit 10,000 visitors.
So what is it that people who haven't been up to the
distillery, when they go up, what is it they're getting?
What's the first thing? And how many nationalities are
you getting as well? All over the world, all over the
world, what people are getting is honestly the warmest welcome
you'll get in just about any distillery.
We were whiskey fans. In fact, Connor, you can speak.
You came up last year as a hunter.
Hunter Yeah, came up with fun. Right loved it and that was you
hooked get. Me a job.
Yeah, it worked. No, no, it.
Didn't, it's just, I've done tours at countless places.
I remember going when I joined to be a tour guide, going on a
tour with the with the staff. They were doing tours and was
just like, you know, brilliant. No2 tours were the same.
The numbers might have varied a little bit.
Who cares but the passion? Everyone who works there, and
this is no exaggeration, everyone who works that
distillery drinks the stuff. Yeah, they're passionate about
it, they enjoy it. And I don't think a lot of
distilleries could say that. And how often does Mr. Bean come
in? I've never seen him.
Have you not? No, he was in a couple of months
ago, I know that. But yeah, he's got house.
Mr. Bean has a Rowan Atkins. On the peninsula I'm.
Doxing I'm here. But basically, you know, if
you're going to see Ardemark and distillery pop in and see Mr.
Bean as well. But like it's, it's a beautiful
part of the world. But what I would say is it's a
long way to go for a for a Now, I would say that if I was being
perfectly honest with you, you're going to have to go and
do two or three other things. There'll be people who drive all
the way up to go to Ardemark and distillery, but at the same time
it's four or five hours, you're half an hour away from really
any sort of main towns and other areas there.
So it's not like you can say, oh, we'll park the car here.
There's a hotel, a couple of pubs and we can walk along and
do the distillery. You once you once you get to the
you're at the distillery and then once you leave the
distillery, you're invited around to Callum's for, for
dinner next door. That's right.
Yeah, that's what you're lot that's.
True. I think it's I think there's a
few reasons why people go up. I think hopefully touch rude
people go up for the distillery, but it's on the way to Mallow as
well if you're getting. Freddie Well, this is what I'm
saying. It's a known loot you can do
where we didn't have time, but you can go.
You can get the ferry from the peninsula on to Mall Tobermory.
Well, you guys do your weekly shops or not?
That's somewhat easier sometimes, is it?
Yes and not I wouldn't say I do my weekly shops.
It depends where you are. So I'm basically distillery.
Yeah, it's an I don't have to Fort William.
Yeah, where you get substantial shops.
We also get like home delivery, believe it or not, from
Morrison. Let's.
Take it in three weeks, I. Mean yes, that's really that's
why I don't do it. Your toilet roll.
You're like right, how much? How much have I got?
But. If you're really short and you
just want to get a few things you can, there's a few local
shops that will really be absolutely perfect.
Or you can take a 40 minute ferry across the mall and you've
got the pub and you've got the Co-op, so you know.
And how often is that ferry running?
Is that fairly? All the time, yeah.
Yeah. Because we on the way up.
Another interesting fact about the way up is you get to
experience if you if you don't want to go the full way around,
there is a tiny little ferry service that shuttles you
across, which I've been told is the most expensive.
The most expensive method of transport, public transport,
public transport in Europe are kilometre travel.
That's 12 lbs. And I think it's, I mean, you
can't believe it, You can Chuck a rock from one Bank of the the
the lock to the. Other.
But it's good. I mean, there's a lot of talk
about should we build a bridge and maybe a tunnel?
No, keep the ferry. Because when you take a ferry,
you feel like you're going somewhere.
Yeah. It's almost, I mean, I know
you're not an island, but I mean, we talk about sky and the
bridge and it's like you want to keep that island. 100% and then
I like. It So what is the what's the bet
when tourists come and or people travel to the distillery and
they see it? What's the bet that really
stands out for them? What's there is there a what's
the moment that they go Oh my God, because there's different
places that have wow factors. We've talked about them on the
podcast steep line arms or the the the 33 stills at Rosebank or
even the the mill that they've got.
What's the sort of bet that you can show people?
That's the bet of a showpiece of the distillery, which?
10 for me personally, I think it's different for everybody.
I think it's the warehouses. So 100% of the stock is kept on
site and nothing's, nothing's kind of closed doors.
If you want to see it, go see it and people will see casks from
all over. They'll see, I don't know,
exadelphy casks are put up their night.
Does that have hard market spirit in it?
It's like, yeah, sure. Most of the time you team tend
to just crack them open and be like let's see what it tastes
like. Not on standard tours.
But if you use if you use the discount code WSP 15 the thing.
The thing that really impressed me on the turn we, we, we were
lucky enough to see it was there was a delivery of wood chip to
the biomass when when we went there.
So we got to see the truck reversing through.
I mean, I don't know what the tolerance was between the, the
buildings pretty tight and then just lots of wood chip falling
into it. I mean, it was like Tracy
Island, the flat. It opened up and then the wood
chip went down. That's amazing smell and it
smelt like you a play park. Yeah.
Well, when when I went, I was a punter, I went with my husband
who's a distiller also and he loves the boiler.
Is that why he called you? He, the guys were in service in
the boiler and I think Roxana was like, be warned, the boiler
guys don't shut up. And then Cal Cal went down to,
was trying to Alister one of the distillers, which you may have
met. And Alister loves this kind of
stuff as well. And I just lost them for like 2
hours and they were like, we're chatting to the wood chip guys.
And I was like, Oh my God. Like, so they, it depends kind
of what, what parts of the distillery you're into.
But for me, I think it's a full transparency and everything.
I think it kind of ticks, ticks muscle boxes.
You've got like the wooden wash backs, like stainless steel wash
backs. I think the part I love is how
manual the whole process is. You think from a new distillery
you'd kind of make it easy like you might have like some touch
screens, you might have some pumps that might automatically
flow through. You might have some sensors and
no, they're keeping an eye. They'll be like walk and talk
with me. I've got to open the steam
valve. It's it's so manual, which I
think is a very conscious choice and from being a new distillery,
it's the financial choice as well means that you've got full
control over ABS everything and kind of minimise is room for
error in terms of like tech going down.
Well, the better I loved my favorite part and then echoes
what you've just said is we were we were there.
And I do have the video of this and I do want to put it probably
needs a stand alone video but basically.
What did you? Break well, no, nothing, but we
were there and I just went what is that for right and you know
the dog throwing the dog ball throwing things right, there's
one of them right and it's on it's got a lot it's been taped
to a long bit of wood and I'm like Connor, what's that?
And he's looking at it and he goes good question.
I don't know what that is and they just shouts over what
exists. The guy goes, oh, we use that in
the mash done to take samples of the samples of the mash out of
the, of the draft out of the mash done.
And it's just a dog walking and it's like it's distillery
ingenuity. It's just absolutely fantastic
where someone's gone. How do we get samples of that
out? I don't know, but I've got a dog
and we can use this and it's great.
And The thing is, it's, it's like what we said about the when
we went on the Glen Cadham tour, you know, you go, people forget
and there'll be tourists that forget.
A story always comes to me with speaking to somebody who worked
in Saint Andrews and they had, and I'm sorry for generalizing
here, but an American was in Saint Andrews and was basically
talking to this person and said, I can't believe that they built
this town for the for the university.
They were like, yeah, yeah. They even put the ruin of a
cathedral there just to add a little bit, just a bit of a
effect for them. But it's because this, this
American just thought I like the authenticity of the town.
And there's just normal people walking around.
There's normal, normal shops and stuff.
And it's like when we went to Glencadam Distillery, there'll
be people that go to these distilleries and forget that
they're not just visitor centres that have been built to show you
how whiskey is made. They are working distilleries.
There are people walking around doing a job at the Glencadam 1.
You know, the guy's lunch bag was just there's a wee chair,
like an old school chair right beside the still with a lunch
bag right beside it. And you're on a tour and you
forget like that. That's because there was a
there's a stillman that has to come and work here, right.
What we're thinking to the drums in guys, if I pick a favorite
out of the first two, what we got going over the 10?
What about the Midget? We've got the Midget.
Any Midget fans? Well, it's an equal split,
right? What we'll do is we'll stop
there. We'll get our glasses refilled,
take a wee toilet break and whatever.
Brilliant. Absolutely fantastic.
Thank you very much. You've been listening to the
Whiskey Stories podcast live. Delphi Erard de Mercen.
Here we go. OK, right, Angus, you know what
to do. Clap us in.
Welcome back to Whiskey Stories Live without Delphi Erard de
Mercen. There we go.
Now I'm going to I'm excited for this DRAM, the the next DRAM
that we've got. So lead us in.
Callum, what is this next DRAM? I know.
He doesn't want to say it and he doesn't want to spell it.
Tell me what this tell us about this drama.
I can say it, I very much can't spell it either.
So I'm with you there. So next drama is probably the
most sought after Arden Merkin expression that we do year on
year. We release this whiskey and it
disappears and people message me on social media going where can
I get that someone? Anyway, it's the pollen, the AD
pollen law. So we have this great
collaboration with great family run Champagne House in Laminio
and they send us not that many casks every year that we fill
our beautiful Arnamarkan spirit. And in this case, we're filling
these casks with X American bourbon and then we're finishing
it in these pollen law casks. And these casks are doing some
heavy lifting in terms of like, they're definitely adding an
extra dimension. And probably for that reason,
that's why you're finishing around doing.
Oh, 100. Percent.
And this is, this is 57.4%, Yeah.
So it's a big jump from the last one that we've just had there.
So now, Graham, this is, this is, this is that, that is the
bottle you came home from Arden. American so that now we we.
We were very lucky. We were.
This is where we just say, right, we're spoiled because one
of the casts that we sampled in the warehouse where Connell, he
said, whoa, do you want to try some of these Paul Noir casts?
And we said OK then. Alright, I suppose.
When in Rome, you know, And yeah, there was a real treat to
try this straight from the cask and I didn't Graham you.
Well, yeah, very much. Connell's a sly dog.
He's a great guy. I'll have to say.
Connell looked after us, and Connell's background is
hospitality, and he gave us some absolutely fantastic as, as I'm
sure other people at the distillery would have given us.
But, you know, we were very lucky.
We got a chance to stay in the staff quarters.
Callum wouldn't let us in as cottage.
Yeah. I had stories so.
Well, what I would say is what was, it was a Friday.
We headed up early morning on the Friday, got there and we
were, we did the distillery tour and like I said, I've got
content. I need to try and get out for
this. But we were taken down to
Mclean's nose and we'll talk about that.
And we're given a chance to have a drum on the peninsula with of
Mclean's nose looking out to Mclean's nose, take it back up
and then we were taken into the warehouse.
And we're in the warehouse, must have been about an hour.
And we're in a bit in the warehouse and Cornell's freely
popping casts open and saying try this, try that, try next
thing. And then he goes, oh, listen,
lads, whilst I remember it's 4:30, the distillery is about to
shut at 5:00 and the shop will shut, which means that you'll
not get an opportunity to buy anything if you want to buy
anything. Now, by this point we're about 6
1/2 cash straight grams deep, and I don't know whether Coral
planned this or not, but basically we walked in there and
you know, that was the problem was suddenly everything just
looked amazing. Well, this is I would very much
say for anyone that's wanting to go up to Arden American, that's
a real handfuls into the story, you know, and some great we both
came away with AT shirt. T-shirt.
Well, it was. Curtis, who was with us, got a
hoodie. Pink hoodie, pink hoodie.
But Chuck, poor Chuck, right? And Chuck was Chuck's on the way
up and he's like, listen guys, I really can't spend any money
here. I'm going to really need to be.
Strict myself, strict myself. We let Chuck left with like 4
bottles and then on the way home Chuck was just like Oh my God
what am I doing? Chuck, Poor Chucks had two weeks
of beans on toast after that. But one of the bottles I got was
the Paula Noir and it's it is a crack and whiskey.
It's it really is. There's there's something just a
little bit different about that which which which adds to again,
just that Arden Merkin spirit coming through.
And we were lucky enough to try the cast samples and stuff like
that. But there was there was a
handful. I think actually Uno Mas Curtis
bought a handful for Uno Mass. So you can get a handful from
that work. It was with the sharing.
Handwriting on the label, yeah. So Peter Cherry Uno Mass if you
want to get a drama from that stuff, it's there was just so
much to choose and just so a little space in the boot of my
car. But it's but it was it was great
and. So do we know how long this has
had in the Pollen Noir or is it not?
It's not really declared, is it? But it's a seven years in
bourbon. Yes, we reacts for 18 months. 18
months. Yes.
Good Asia. Yeah, I think that's the sweet
spot. You saw that the patient cream
coming through, but it's not overwhelming.
It's a bit like the art American kind of coastal spirit that
comes through as well, which is really good as it is hasten and
Saturday and be described as fizzy and I found good my mind
another cat. Really.
So you got a better fit, You always.
Thought it's an effervescent. Yeah, it's the first.
Like an effervescent whiskey. Oh, they are effervescent.
Yeah, I don't even know what that means.
Fizzy, fizzy but like an Adele free tasty note, right?
There. Yeah, because I mean there's
been, we've had, we had Alice today from Rasi on and we know
that Rasi have used champagne yeast right in their production,
which it doesn't. Give you a bit of a similar
effect. Yeah, I reckon there is
something in that. It's almost like flat fizzy
water. Yeah, there's just something a
wee bit. Delicious.
No, I mean, that's a really bad way of describing it, but but
you. Woke it up with a truth and
you're like, what have I got that flat fizzy water from?
From Glass. Because it's obviously not
carbonated, but there it's just like a wee bit of like, oh,
there's something there, are we? But.
It's also important to say that it's we're we're using these
casks from a Champagne house. Yes.
They're not champagne casks. No, no.
They're you can be very careful about that and a legal one.
Don't you? But essentially, I think we
didn't mention this with the other two.
We talk a lot about, you know, or what kind of cast we're using
or the ABV's or batch sizes, all these different numbers.
And we like to talk about them because we know them and we're
happy to share them. But if you're ever like curious
about any expression bar in the marking, if you don't know this,
see the QR code in the back. It's not everyone gets super
excited about QR codes, I must say.
But that QR code will tell you absolutely anything you would
want to know about our release. A bottler who bottled it?
Really. The person who bottled that
bottle? Jimmy.
Yeah, we'll give you the number out of the batch as well, what
number your bottle is. Wow, it will tell you it gives
you APDF. Pretty much of every cast goes
in there as well. Full transparency, it's super
geeky. Some people just like drinking
it, but that is the but there is that.
Sure, there's a few in here that quite like to know every detail
well. We live in that world now where
you know, I was, I was talking earlier today about how master
blenders, you go back maybe 2530 years ago and master blenders
would have been people that were in lab coats that were kept well
away in the lab that nobody really feel like there was maybe
probably still names around like David Stewart Balverney and
things like that. But what we live in now is
social media has grown and the need for information is grown
and and it now it's created a a network of people who are so
excited about whiskey and they want to find everything out.
I mean, if either people are. Full complete transparency
because I mean I've done the QR code just to give you an
example. So I can tell you that this is
bottle 1232 out of 5726. I can tell you that it was
bottled 34% by Kelly Coombe, 33% by Holly McCaffrey and 33% by a
certain Reece Davidson. Reece Donaldson.
Yeah, OK.
And it was bottled on the 10th of February this year.
So there you go, we are probably paid.
Up for me to write a room close. Yeah, I know it's but is this
world that we live in now from a marketing perspective, it does
help, doesn't it? I mean, how much does it really
sell or change? Let you know that it was Reese
Donaldson bottled the last little bit of this.
But at the same time, but we've had, we were having a discussion
before we started a social media clip that we've had a better
discussion about with the barley variety.
How important is the barley variety for the whiskey drinker?
But how important is it that the distilleries can tell us what
that is? Cast types, wood types, all that
kind of thing. We live in that world where we
can do it. And I suppose as a newer
distillery, you can start by that from that point rather than
having to worry about, you know, if you're a distiller that's
been going for hundreds of years, like for example, even
just being able to know that there's over 5000 bottles of
this stuff in circulation. We've asked people from other
distilleries, do you mind asking how much was in that release?
And they'll go, can't really tell you that whether they know
or not. It's just more we don't really
want to make it public knowledge that there's X amount of these
bottles being released. Can the older distilleries brand
names that you recognize that's kind of enough leverage to a
certain extent, like I'm sure we all know that drinker is like, I
only drink McAllen, I only drink this and that kind of has enough
weight to for them just to trust in whatever release that that
distillery comes out with. Whereas new distilleries in
terms of the last 1520 years, we don't have any leverage.
So if we can put it all out there, spell it out.
Hopefully that will start to kind of whether the barley is
something that somebody's somebody's interested in,
whether it's the percentage of the recycled glasses in their
bottle where there's a fact that Mcleans nose labels made out
thoroughly like those small things.
That's a little bit. So people might kind of just
jump on and go, ah, that's kind of pricked me a little bit.
So you kind of just to things that have to tell everybody
everything. And I think just whiskey
knowledge in general over the last decade or two is so much
more than what we used to. So you've got to work a little
bit harder. And with all these releases,
let's. Get some.
Real. Let's kind of just literally.
And as a consumer, we feel better knowing everything.
Like we don't feel like we're being we're not feeling
anything's being hidden from us or anything like that.
It's I was on a taste thing with I feel guilty about the brand
tell it's in the brand, but it was a tasting with Glenn Scotia
and they were very open about saying these these four in the
lineup that you're trying right now are chill filtered and
colored and that the whiskey consumer can sometimes feel like
a dirty word to talk about like you're adding artificial
colouring to it. But that was the same.
I said, well, people who know know.
So the bottom line is we would rather be the ones telling you
that have people whispering about it going do they don't
they do they don't they? What we know is artificial
colouring offers consistency in all markets.
And if you can keep that consistency going and that's
fine. But what they also said is like
the brand ambassador was tournament said, we, I want to
get us away from that. And as a brand, we we want to
get away from that. But at the end of the day, this
is where you have when you have a whiskey maker sitting beside
someone who's selling the whiskey.
Sometimes that's just the way that's that's the way it has to
be. You know, if, if, if a market
likes that colour, then you to keep that consistency, you have
to use that. But at the end of the day,
that's what sells the bottles when it comes to your job.
Callum, what do you prefer more cast curation or the social
media side of things? What do you think?
I don't know. I don't know.
Stripping your colleagues off to stand outside eating alive by
midges could be a little bit fun.
I wasn't that evil. They had clothes on, right?
OK, well, we're wearing shorts. Right.
Some T-shirts. You can do that for the.
Next I was. Thinking, you know, a Midget
release coming up, you know, probably not that far away.
I think I like the freedom on both sides of, of my, of my
role. But the creative side obviously
is what everyone sees, you know, because it's on social media.
But there's quite a lot of behind the computer, which is
less glamorous. And obviously going into the
warehouse it's quite a lot of hard work actually climbing up
and down stores and taking samples and really difficult.
We're getting a lot sympathy tonight for that one.
But social media is a great way for, I mean, some say social
media is going to be a big thing suit you had.
It here first. So I think social media is a big
thing, but it's, it's quite difficult to take our social
media say it's from my perspective and go, does this
contribute to sales, right, Because we rely on bars and and
on trading off trade. We're not we're not selling
direct sales. So I can't say like I've done
this promotion of the art number content and then we gained X
number of sales from it. That doesn't happen.
We're just kind of relying on engagement and luckily we're
getting good engagement, but it's not necessarily salesy.
What we're really trying to do is promote the distillery, not
always just the products. Yeah, which I think is
important. Program How is our social media
doing? Well, today's we had 10,000
followers tonight on Instagram for their ledges, which is
great. Yeah, so I'm still skint a
pound. A follower would have been
lovely because you're right, it's it's we, we can sometimes
see it where you'll have a you'll have a video that maybe
peaks and then you'll see a spike in listeners.
So what you're seeing is you're you can see a direct route.
And actually there was one with Alex Bruce episode, the hard
Markin brand. People saw the saw the clip so
that there was an episode and we can see a journey that someone's
gone on. But for you guys, you can't see
that as such because there's no direct sales.
But at the same time, you also know for two things.
Number one, it's the the ability to get the brand to people so
they can see it might attract somebody to it going.
These guys are doing something completely different because
let's be honest, if you follow a lot of when you work in the
alcohol industry, there's only so much that you can be allowed
to be putting on before you start working towards what are
the parameters of where we can advertise realistically?
I mean, there's please advertise responsibly.
Yeah, exactly. Well, that yeah, there's,
there's, there's distilleries that have social media accounts
that barely post anything on their Instagram accounts.
Some of them even like you can't repost it unless you're age
verified and all this kind of stuff because.
A hierarchy to approval. Yeah, for example, I was just
saying to client before we started those like how many
distilleries do you think post at least 5 posts a week?
Because that's what we do, you know, it's quite, Yeah, maybe,
maybe 5. Reels this week as well, right?
44. Yeah, it's a graph reels.
And it's trying to work that. It's trying to work out what is
the means to an end and they'll that this is what's when we go
back. You're a new distillery, so
there'll be the likes of somebody at maybe at William
Grant and Sons is going, do we really need to be putting
anything out on social media for the Balveni because we know it's
going to sell anyway? Yeah.
Do you know, like we're already an established brand, whereas
for you, you're in the you're in the fight to try and get eyes on
the brand all the time. So you can do that.
You've got to be in mind, Arnimarkin.
If you go to whiskey festivals, you it's not unusual to see, you
know, three people deep. Yeah.
And we dramaard marking is our bread and butter is whiskey
enthusiasts, you know, such as yourself.
But you've either heard of us and you're a fan normally or
they're like, who is Arne marking?
So I guess social media is really good for hopefully
putting some eyeballs on the distillery.
Never heard of us or intrigued about us.
And that's that's also true for whiskey festivals as well.
So working then with Adelphi Connie on your side of things,
you'll see a complete difference in being able to have over 5000
bottles of a special release that you know will sell very
well versus having, you know, is there a bottle 44477 on this and
cast numbers as well. So first of all, what is it
we're drinking right now? You're.
Drinking a coin leash? Start and set it.
You got 9 year olds. Coin leash X olaroso.
Refill. Yeah, refill Olaroso. 54.5% as
well, so a little bit punching there.
So yeah, the first two drams were deleted down to kind of
desired strength where it's the last three flash four that
you're going to have are all cast trends.
So Adelphi's terms of these releases are always cast through
as well. They're they're WL fish, so are
an American if you talk about the core and we can kind of roll
them out and keep them a consistent on the shelves.
That's kind of my job to keep it on the shelf.
He'd be consistent like in a new releases, limited editions,
mezcals, whatever, they're in an allocation basis, but they're
slightly larger. So let's say like 6 to 8000.
When it comes to Delphi that is, that's a passion project because
I don't think people like us for the allocations that go out.
It's fair to say it's no exaggeration.
Say that a shop that you think might get 3-4 cases might be
lucky to get 3-4 balls. We're tight these releases in
the most part and with this being the exception and go
international. So the UK we get a little pot
which then I distribute and then the guys will distribute and
amongst those kind of Fair, we can swap the one you're trying
isn't was an expert only from last year things last year and
we think it was Germany. Don't quote us on that.
The guys are in Germany right now and couldn't really reply to
me and they think it was Germany very fame.
Maybe it's just. Basically what you're saying is
that if anyone likes this, it's going to be difficult to get
their hands on a bottle because they might start in Germany.
So Klein leash, 9 years old, single cask, one of only 477
bottles. There's still 2015 bottled in
2025. So I can look.
I'm looking at Jake. I was looking.
At Jake, I was looking at Jake and Jake was looking at me and
he was he was giving me approval, approving look.
Starting approval. This is this is this is nice.
This is very, very nice. If you're an independent
bottler, you're always going to have that comparison against the
core range because we know a lot of people will know client Leash
14, for example, very, very well.
So there's, there's maybe a bit more pressure as an independent
bottler where it's a case of, right, we're going to have to do
offer something different here. Because at the end of the day,
if we just release a client release 14, then what we really
do, you know what I mean? So there's an element where it's
like, no, we're going to have to do something different.
We want to do something different.
It's not a trust factor when it comes to an independent bottler.
And I suppose it comes to every whiskey.
If you're, if you're making a commitment to purchase a bottle
and particularly that the independent bottler side of it
is because it was Mark Thompson talked about it on on the
podcast, saying it's when guys have skin in the game, when it's
like if you're an independent bottler and you know that I need
to sell this cask because sell. And that's what Alex talked
about is the fact that Adelphi still is very lean on on on the
on the independent bottlers. See, there are independent
bottlers, people that we've had on the podcast that have
warehouses full of stock and that can go.
It'll be far more releases than. It and they can say that, you
know, they've got more stock than they need for every out
they they've seen that we can put if we wanted to do an out
turn of 15 bottles this quarter, we could do 15 bottles, but we
know that would be silly to do commercially.
But that's that's what the kind of stock they've got.
Whereas what it seems with Adelphi, which makes it even
more kind of you need to get your hands on a bottle because
it's basically a case of when we've got good cast and we put
them in the glass, they're going to go out the door.
Once they're at the door, they're going to be snapped up.
And if you don't get one, there's not, there's not going
to be much of A life. I do wonder if people think
we're more strategic than we are.
I mean, like Brett Fish, we hardly have any.
Like it's like a like a ploy. I wish it.
Was, I think it's just that the Delphi point of view we're super
picky, yeah, really picky and we're not And the we're not
buying bulk spirit, aging it and then we're stuck with that
spirit. We're hand selecting
predominantly well aged casks for the purpose of bottling them
as soon as possible. So we're really picking stuff
and buying stuff that we think is of a certain quality.
So, you know, people are or do tend to be quite comfortable.
If it's Adelphi bottling, then it's probably going to be pretty
good. It might not be to your tastes,
but but you can see why we picked up.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's an absolute cracker
by the end, I'd say. And if you're getting the Jake
Adkook nod of approval, then you're doing well.
What about the last two drums in what we're saying with the Paul
and wire what we say in favourites part show of hands
for that one verse or I mean, it's up against the it's up
against the Klein leash 9 there. So you guys, Paul, Paul and
Wire, Paul and Wire hands. OK, good split, good split.
And then and then the Klein leash.
I've heard, still don't know what I mean, but there we go.
Well, we're going to take a quick break, get the next drum
port and then see where it takes us.
OK, guys, cheers, right? We've got drums in front of us.
Everyone, you know what to do. Clap us in.
Welcome back to the Risky Story. That was great.
Yeah, it's Friday night. We're all four drums deep.
Absolutely tell brilliant. Like now that kind leash is
fantastic. I've I've still got the taste of
it going on in my mouth. It's tropical fruit, everything
like that. And I think when you go around
the room, that was I was a special drum.
Buttery, buttery. Buttery.
Yeah, very, very nice there. I think it.
Was the last one I got from the cupboard as well.
I literally got this morning from our like bits and bobs
covered. Yeah, I don't.
There's no more of it. So well, that's, that's, that's
the sad reality of it. But and it comes back to things
like we, we've talked about age on bottles and whether it
matters. And we talked a bit with Arden
American. And you know, it's great if
you're a distillery and a brand to have a core range age
statement because we we're, we, there are the whiskey consumer
that you have to push towards. And what we do know is that the
general whiskey consumer we are all being.
Geared up and trained through whatever it was that age is what
matters when you when you start your whiskey journey.
So then you start going, why have a 12 when you get a better
age, whiskey cost more money and because it costs more money,
it's premiumized because it's premiumized, you automatically
think, well, that means it's best and things like that.
But that's what's really cool about independent bottlers when
you can go down. And one of the ones I've used,
an example of it was when we had the guys from the Tampa Bay
Whiskey Club on and I did a tasting for them.
And on the tasting, the last DRAM was Diggers bottling with
Woodrow's of Edinburgh of Highland Park 7, a crack and
crack and whiskey. But one of the guys on the taste
thing was like, why would I drink a 7 year old whiskey?
And I was like, well mate, it's, it's #1 it's a single cask.
It's bottled exclusively for these guys.
It's very rare, very unique. And then he showed me a picture,
went on to show me his whiskey collection.
Now, his whiskey collection in his house over in Florida was
like a shop, right? And then he showed me the
Highland Park shelf that he had. And it went from everything from
12 all the way up through all the special releases up to
Highland Park. And it's 30.
So that's great. But you've got nothing on that
shelf that you can say that you've tried Highland Park under
12 years old and this is an opportunity.
And Angus mentioned the Klein Leash 14 and we've seen very
well aged Klein leashes have actually to get an opportunity
to try a whiskey like Klein Leash.
At that age. And that cash, that cash friend,
single cask and get that flavour from there.
Absolutely fantastic. And I guess one of the other
things we're also when we're talking about perceptions and
we're talking about age and that's some barometer farm, is
it good? Is it not good?
One of the other things, particularly in this country
where we are right now, people say Scotch whiskey if it's if
it's not Scotch whiskey, not interested.
So that maybe leads us quite nicely into what you've got next
in the lineup. Yeah, yeah.
You're not drinking Scottish whiskey, you're drinking
American. This is Westland.
This is what sorry. Westland from Seattle.
Wow. OK, Single malt American
whiskey. Yes.
So this is. 8 year old. Thank you. 8 years old full
maturation in PX. So this is there's a reason why
this comes later in the in the tasting.
So it's a big sticky, kind of. Yeah, the colour, the colour is.
I mean, somebody said when I was pouring it, here comes the
Coca-Cola because the colour, I mean, it's dark.
That's good. And, and I, I, I was boring.
So unfortunately not everything made it into the glass.
And I get sorry, sorry, apologies.
But I I came back and I took one whip of my hands and I just was
like, my hands just smell of raisins.
Yeah, 50.9%, so a little bit lower, but and a nice drinking
strength for calf strength whiskey, yeah.
But yeah, that is that's different.
It's a it's a dessert strand, that's for sure.
It would go well on a dessert. It would, yeah.
Yes. Now obviously not being Scots
whiskey, you said something about the wood that this has
matured in Callum, didn't you? Yeah.
So, so this distillery, does any, does everyone know
Westlands, right. They're quite when it comes to
American whiskey. They're kind of forefront of the
single malt movement in America. So they're owned by Remy Kontro.
So the same guys that own Eliza Bracladi and they're deep diving
into the ingredients, as you would imagine.
So not only the barley that they grow on their own farms in
Seattle, but also the wood that they're using.
There's a local variety of oak. Do you remember the name of?
That Gary. Gary, Gary.
Gary. Gary.
Gary Oak.
You still have 3 doors, don't you?
So they do a lot of these cool things and if you want to geek
out on whiskey, you should really look into them.
It's not necessarily the most typical whiskey that you would
expect from Adelphi because this whiskey is cask dominant.
But what Corey said earlier, it's like either Adelphi is
going to be, you know, more geared towards distillery
character, good quality spirit and letting the cask, you know,
add something. In this case, it's just a really
interesting. And and maybe being very, I mean
you might not know is it, is this American oak even though
it's Sherry or do you know if it's European oak or that's?
A good question, a good question, good question.
I'm not sure I did see the battle though, because the
battle came up to the distillery and to be filled with Arden
Merkin and I've never seen a Sherry butt as big in my life so
I don't know. To my to my mind it looked like
more like a Gorda than than a box.
But this massive cask, beautiful looking cask that weighed a ton.
Even the warehouse team were looking at it thinking, geezo,
how are we going to store that because it's bigger than
anything else. I, I, I must admit I'm, I was
expecting a full on Sherry bomb out of that drama.
Cheeks in and maybe a bit of tannic, you know, just that tree
kind of and you don't get that there's a smoothness to that
There's a really sort of roundness.
Sweet, really sweet. I just.
As soon as you, as soon as the raising things into my head, I
can't get it out of it. I get it on the palate as well.
Grape juice. Grape juice.
Yeah. Really, really, really fruity.
And has anyone, how many people have tried American single malt
before in the room this? One changes every time.
The glass rummy today and it was nutty the last time I tried,
Right, Right. We're saying that earlier that
we both had Westland, OK, nothing this bottle and is
really kind of progressing for us.
I think the first time we had it maybe wasn't our favorite one,
but actually really, it kind of really matures into it now.
I think it's. Really interesting this I.
Think we have maybe had a Westland on the pod I think Ross
came back with. I can't remember I.
Lost came back on American single malt from kind of Seattle
area and I remember it tasting very kind of herbally.
So again, completely different. Yeah, yeah.
Such a big cask though it's it's got a lot to compete with which
is interesting. Right.
So you mentioned that that cask has now since come up to the to
the distillery and you're using that for Arden American.
So when you're working with Adelphi and having that
opportunity, because first of all, Arden Market, you don't
store enough, You store casks up at Arden American, Yeah, but the
majority of this stuff comes down to you're sighting them
firmly and it's bottled there. Is that correct?
It's all bottled. It's all bottled there.
Unless it's a handful that's. In the but what's the story,
what's the what's the storage situation?
Is it all the casks or majority of casks come down or do you
store a majority of casks on site up in North American?
Yeah, some pretty 99.9% of our casks spend their whole
maturation at the distillery right Sex warehouses when it
comes to bottling. They're then taken down to Fife.
They'll not spend more than a month or two in Fife before
being bottled. Fife is predominantly filled
with casts are going to be bottled as the Delphies.
Right. And then so when it comes to
those casts then, because in our last in the bottler spotlight or
in the bottler blinder distiller, it was Morrison's old
Perth Carmore Aberrargie. And what they were saying is
like having that, having an independent bottler and the
distillery now is, you know, if you're we had a talk, I like a
link with talk I release from car more.
But then they were sort of saying, well, this is all done
in the same area. So you know what we're what do
we do with that cask once we've emptied it like that, like
liquid out of that talk I cask. You know, we could use that for
Aberraggie or, or we could use it for another finishing for
another release. Is that what you've said that
that the cast from this has come up to Arden American?
So now what we know is there's Arden American spirits sitting
in the cask. Yep.
That's how done warehouse sets. Got a question in the back
there. You'd like that.
We've got a question in the back there.
Is there a chance there that you.
Could taste a cast that Arden. American.
I think that's great. And then by the time it's been
put in the back of a wagon ribbon across to the wee ferry,
not across the ferry, the ribbon all the way down to them fairly.
But the Shukel in the boot in that cast makes it slightly
different by the time you get into.
The bit no, don't be sorry. I don't know, I guess.
I guess it could be. I mean and I.
Guess part of the question is does spending time in Fife ruin
the whiskey? Because when you had a sentence
there where you said Fife was predominantly filled with and
I'm really worried where that sentence was going.
No, I don't know. The moral to the story is come
to the distillery and buy a handful.
That's the only way you can buy Arden American that's never
touched five, you see. But the coming to the distillery
we're going back to you guys are part of the festival up there.
There's a W What is it? A West Coast festival?
It's West Highland Festival. First ever.
First, everyone. When is that then?
Middle of June. 19th, 19th, 19th, 19th.
So you get to the 19th. So wait, what?
Who's all involved in the West Highland Whiskey Festival?
Is there? So we go starting with nickname.
Am I correct? Yes, and nickname, which is
totally, as crow flies, quite close to us over the.
Other side of that hill. What's can I say that hill?
Right. Have you had to drive it?
How far is it? 2 hours?
2 hours to your. Neighbors 2 hours away just out
of the hill. It looks really close.
He's got a boat. He's fine.
I'm not. I'm not kidding about that
either. And then you come to Arne Merck
the next day where we're doing a couple of fun events, got live
music, got a local brewery involved.
Some of you guys might know this if you've been to the disorder.
But some of these guys are signed up already.
Who's Robert? You sign up.
Are you It's? Difficult.
Oh, that wasn't difficult to get there.
There's a bus. Not for the not for the
vecherous thing. Jenny assure me you will figure
something out. There's also 10 by 10.
How's your? Boat it sleeps, 5I heard.
So is there people in the room here booked up for the for the,
for the going up, not neck of the woods, are you?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
So, yeah, some of you guys might know this, but we've actually
got a kiln and we've got a malt for Aard Merkin.
It is not in use as yet, no. So that's what we're kind of
hosting a few of the events, events on kind of a range of
events. Next day you then hop on the
ferry, go over to Tobumori. Yeah.
And then the next day is open. So you're doing a recircular
route? So for for distilleries and all
nickneen yourselves tobermory and open, yeah.
So, yeah. And is that 1 ticket, 1 ticket
job or do you, can you pick and choose?
You can say, right, I've just got up for Ardenmark.
Is it like that phase situation where there's Arden Mercken day,
there's Tobermory day, nickname day?
We're each taking a day, we're each doing slightly different
things in terms of ticketed events.
We're we're selling tickets to the event that it's free, just
so we get engaging numbers because if anyone's been to the
distillery, you got an understanding of location.
If we can get 100 people to that distillery for an open day, we'd
be like site, I think I'd be, yeah.
Because, for example, Oban is far more accessible than
yourselves. I mean you you'll have.
Hawkins. Yeah, you're getting trained.
So I mean, I mean, are they selling tickets for, for, you
know? I'm not actually sure what Oban
are doing, but we're just we're actually site the opener
involved as. Well, yeah.
Well, I'd say, because I mean obviously in Diageo Distillery,
so having a big company like that involved in the festival,
that must be again. The same as Tobermory like in
terms and. Tobermory as.
Well, in terms of their reach, they're like scratching our
backs in a way. And when it comes to that?
That's great. I mean, and that is what it's
doing is it's back to what we're talked, talked about with Alex
about bringing people to the area and given the area.
I had no idea that place like that existed, you know, until
you heard about Arden American. There's a distillery.
Where is it? No idea what a peninsula,
western peninsula is in Scotland or anything like that, but being
able to go right, Well, I know where mullahs and I know where
open is and I can. And nicknames in that sort of
same demographic as Arden Mark. And as such, yeah, getting an
opportunity to be on that route makes a huge difference.
And having that festival and it's year 1, so hopefully, you
know, it'll grow and grow and grow.
And that's, that's the big part of it.
So that's really, really exciting. 100% So we're going to
have live music, we're going to have local beer, food and just,
I think Connell said it good crack.
And everyone back to everyone back to callums, but after.
Let's not tell anyone or address.
They'll never find it. Right, Well, one of the things
was you actually, I think it was one of you guys said that was a
really, really good idea when I, when we talked about this is
there's a mystery DRAM on the table, ladies and gentlemen.
And I played it out pretty well to make it sound like it was
pretty planned. But basically once we'd left the
shop at the market and went back into the warehouse and I
thought, right, we've just dropped a fair bit of cash in
your place. I've never got Cornell where I
want them. And I said, listen, Cornell,
what do you reckon that we could draw a cash sample from the
warehouse today that we could put in the line up for the
people that are coming along? So the next drama that you've
got this unmarked bottle which has been hiding behind the plant
here is an unmarked, an unnamed bottle.
It's a cast sample that was selected and drawn by Chuck
Curtis, Angus and myself after a very long afternoon.
Well, what I should say is actually, so I don't know how
good this is because I can remember, I remember, I remember
at the time going this is this is good.
Yeah, so, So what we did now how, how, how old is that cask?
Graham? Have you got the detail there?
2015, two, 1015, it's peted. It's fully bourbon cask with a
fire fill refill. Does a first fill of the.
Leaf first fill, first fill. So I think the first cask we
tried in the warehouse, it was a, I think it was a refill
bourbon beated. And then we've tried that.
We said, right, that's really, really good.
That's the benchmark. So we have this idea Graham had.
So it was like we just tried loads and loads of other casts
and we went, it's not, it's not quite as good.
And we said, right, we need to try some of the Sherry stuff
because we really want to try that.
Don't know about that. We need to try some Pete and
Sherry stuff, right? OK, we tried the Paul Noire
stuff. We went not sure.
And then we were like, right, we actually need to pick something
now. And it was like, we can't just
go back and pick the first guy. And we said, well, can we try
another Pitted bourbon Cassie? So well, I've got a first fell.
Let you try that. And the four of us, we all, I
mean, we're exhausted by this. We're knackered.
It's been a long day. 4 glasses, we all tried it.
We all went, yeah, that's the one, that's the one bottle that
Connell. We'll see that in a couple of
weeks time. So that that is what we're
drinking. I don't know.
Is there a strength to this Strong, strong It's.
About it's I'm just just guessing I'll be around about
the kind of 57 ish. 57 Mark And I think what I always get with
are the mercury is that sweetness that comes off and
it's funny walking into the dunnage warehouse the dunnage
warehouse set up at the distillery smells completely
different from any dunnage warehouse I'd ever been in and
it did smell it was like a candy smell inside the warehouse it's.
Like dunnage smell on this glass?
Yeah. I would say, but I just there's
something that really you do built Eric that puts me on to
Rd. Merkin as a just across the
board that sweetness that comes through, but there's also
salinity as a saltiness. Well, I.
Was going to say that because it's interesting you play on the
sweetness, because I do get that salinity.
I get that brininess. Yeah.
And and and, you know, we've talked about the the combination
of sweet and salty, especially in whiskey.
It's just a magic combination and it's an absolute winner.
And with the bourbon and the the peat, you get that that
sweetness that comes through balanced out with the smokiness.
So we've done a good job. Is, is this all right?
Is everyone here? Is that all right?
Is that quite a good drama? Is that?
There we go? Sounds like we know what we're
talking about now. And The thing is, if it were to
show you, we'd have just played Curtis and Chart, certainly.
But. Listen guys, from, from the,
the, the distilleries point of view, what else can people be
looking? We've, we've talked about the,
the festival. What else can other people be
looking forward to? What's coming from Arden Market
this year? Can we tell them?
If this goes out in two weeks, we can tell you.
We is this going out in two weeks?
Is it is. It is going out in two weeks,
yes. We're listening to talk, I
finish. Robert.
No, that's embargo, right? Someone pulled their phone out.
All right, right. OK.
To be to be for a Connell and Graham habit and Limburg
tomorrow. So that's why all right, it's
pretty good. It's pretty.
Good. So there you go.
So yeah, we even, we tried it for the first time today as well
when we're at Nocus doing the shoot for it.
And yeah, it's it's interesting, isn't it?
Yeah, it's kind of more farmy than I thought it would be.
So it's a really, really interesting release.
We've never done a Tokai before, so it's something new to add to
the mezcal ROM blah blah kind of fence.
Does everyone know what Tokai is?
I used to call it Tokaji. The same coins Kaji as a wee bit
the dog, so they spell it. Who's just been called until I
was. Correct.
Tokai Tokai, the new. Tokai the new.
No, I can tell you it is a Hungarian sweet wine.
Yeah, it's delicious stuff. You can buy it in Liddles, by
the way. Pretty.
Good. Do you guys know how they
measure the sweetness? Does anybody?
Know. No, I have no idea.
In baskets. Baskets.
How do you measure sweetness in baskets?
So it says on a if you buy a bottle of Takai it says 5
baskets of sweetness. In a different language in.
Hungarian. In Hungarian I wouldn't ask you
to, although we should say it in Hungarian.
Egg sugar. All I know, all I know about
Hungarian is the word for cheese in Hungarian, right?
Do you know what that is, Graham?
Does anyone know cheese? No, it's shite.
So if you ever meet a Hungarian, say what's what's the Hungarian
for cheese? And they'll laugh because I'm
shite. What is the Hungarian word for
cheese? What is your?
Pattern in Hungarian cheese. Well, wait, let's do the draft.
Let's do the vote in the drums, right.
OK, what are we going? AD 10?
Let's see a show of hands for that for tonight.
In fact, you know what? You get 2 votes.
That's where we go. 2 votes, so we go.
So AD 10, show of hands for AD 10 solids, right?
OK, good. What about the what about the
mid Jay? OK, what about what about the
Paul and what it's a good one there, right.
Let's move on to the Adelphi then.
What about the coin leash? Coin leash is looking good.
What about the American single malt?
The Westland? Westland really, really, really
nice. Really enjoyed that right.
I want to see every hand up here.
OK, what about the cast sample the Whiskey Stories podcast
pulled? Hey, brilliant guys.
Well, look, I hope you've enjoyed yourself tonight.
It's been absolutely fantastic. Let's hear it for Callum and
Connie who've going to have travelled all the way from Arden
American and Leith to be here. Absolutely fantastic.
You have been listening to Whiskey Stories Live in the
Delaware with Arden American. One, there we go.