speaker-0: If you love bourbon, if you love whiskey, you're going to love these conversations. So make sure you subscribe to the bourbon lens starting now. back to another episode of the bourbon lens, but you can actually call this Scotch whiskey lens tonight. So sit back and buckle into the latest episode of the bourbon lens. We are joined by Gary Mills, national global brand ambassador for Locke Lamond group. And we are excited to talk all things Glen Scotia and Locke Lamond and Scotch in general. So sit back and buckle in. ⁓ Gary. Thank you for spending a few minutes on the back end of your Friday as I rev up my Friday here.

speaker-1: Yeah, no, listen, thanks for having me on, Jake. Absolutely delighted to be able to join you, to share some scotch with you. Like you said, it's getting into the weekend for me. You're just kicking it off nice and early.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's, ⁓ you know, this is what you gotta do when you're dealing with your friends from across the pond. You gotta make up the time difference.

speaker-1: Absolutely, and if it means drinking Scotch silly hours, that's fine. I think my best one to date was a tasting with New Zealand, which meant a 7am dram, which was during Covid times anyway, so I wasn't driving anywhere, so that was fine.

speaker-0: Can't say that I've not, not done that. many, many of, uh, bourbon trips have started with a 7 a.m. whiskey. So, you know, it's all good. Excited to talk with you all. Shout out to Sarah for getting us all set up. I love to highlight the PR companies for, for making these things happen. And, you know, you all just partnered with Foley family, wine and spirits to bring your product into America in the last. recent time and there's a lot of cool stuff happening there. You know, for you, just from an American audience perspective, right? That's where most of us are. Tell us a little bit about Lac Le Mans group and the two different distilleries that we'll be tasting from tonight.

speaker-1: Yeah, so the Loch Lomond group was formed around 14 years ago and it comprises of two distilleries so were independently owned which is a wonderful thing still to be able to say and it comprises of the Loch Lomond distillery which is around 35 minutes outside of Glasgow literally at the south shore of Loch Lomond itself ⁓ also has Glen Scotiab in Campbelltown so one of three Campbelltown distilleries remaining We're also very fortunate to then have the last of the Little Mill casks and so we own the last of the Little Mill Lowland Whisky casks. also just reopened ⁓ our new gin distillery. We have New York Distilling Co in New York and we also have Champagne Piaf in France. So nice wonderful broad portfolio. is a great selection of spirits to work with and a real nice gambit and just super good quality spirits across the board.

speaker-0: Yeah, no, it's amazing when these privately owned groups can, can spread their wings a little bit. And then, you know, there's collaborations that kind of bound or, you know, the ability to pull multiple consumers to different products, right? Which is, which is awesome. And that's what you want to do. You want to get people in your ecosystem. And then. For sure. right, Scotland has unique areas, which is very interesting, right? And so these two distilleries sit in two separate, but unique distilling styles, right? If the, or finishing styles.

speaker-1: Yes, so there are the five Scotch whisky regions and these kind of... they go way way back ⁓ and there are arguments to say how relevant they still are. But I would say Campbelltown of the five. So the five are the Lowlands, Highlands and Islands, Speyside which is technically within the Highlands, Island itself whilst an island sits as a category itself and then Campbelltown. ⁓ And I would probably say of the five, Campbelltown and Isla are the only two for me that still have a relevance in terms of they have a fairly clearly identifiable style. Isla obviously is well known for its Pete and Smoke character. Campbelltown has a very distinct character of itself. I think part of it comes down to the ⁓ concentration of distilleries in that time. Previously or historically where the regions came from when it came from taxation as most things do But it became started to become shorthand for the blenders in terms of profile So that's how they knew what to put in but the way I can I sum it up when you use Speyside as the best example because it is quite a Small condensed area, but there's over 50 distilleries in this one area and if you think as the time has evolved as time as it has passed and the region has grown so you start off with a small handful of distilleries that all make whiskey in the same way from materials in that area which define the style as time goes and time passes more distilleries open and they start doing things slightly different from their neighbour to set themselves apart as you would do so you start moving away a wee bit from that core but as you'd get more and more distilleries and you need to alter things so much so they become so far away from that core that if you were to open a Speyside distillery tomorrow and say I make Speyside whiskey Doesn't really actually tell you anything about the actual flavor profile because there's already 50 or 50 plus distilleries made But like said with with Isla obviously there's that clear peak but there's still only 12 distilleries on there and there's only three in Campbelltown so Yeah, that's historic styles have remained

speaker-0: Yeah, so that's really interesting to me. So with only three distilleries in Campbelltown, what makes Campbelltown so unique and why is it not booming like some of the other places are?

speaker-1: So, Campbeltown has had its boom and is probably, I would say, is back in a bit of resurgence to the point where Campbeltown was historically known as the Victorian whiskey capital of the world and a few other names, Whiskeyopolis, Whiskeytown. So we've been making Scotch for over 500 years now but there was a period of, I think around 100 years where essentially Campbeltown dominated to the point that through that 100 year period if you were drinking Scotch anywhere in the world the chances are you were drinking Campbelltown Scotch. So it's a small town very far west coast of Scotland that's on the end of a peninsula so whilst as the crow flies it's 20 miles from Glasgow it's 120 miles and it's a four hour drive it's not the easiest place to go to. Small side note Paul McCartney used to stay down that neck of the woods, loved it. The Long and Winding Road ⁓ is a song that was written about the journey to Campbelltown.

speaker-0: Okay.

speaker-1: And Mullough, Mullough-Kintyre, the Mullough-Kintyre is literally just outside Campbelltown as well. they hear it all based down there. very, very kind of remote, hard to get to a place, but winding back to early 1800s, the kind of reasons why Campbelltown boomed. it was getting from Glasgow, where most of the blending houses were, to the, say a Highland distillery. take you out in the region of around three days as a round trip but because of where we are, we're somewhere in the mouth of the River Clyde as it goes off into the sea you could get from Glasgow to Campbelltown on the water because of the invention of the steam engine in three hours great so that allowed for movement of people movement of casks you then layer in the fact that we had a coal mine nearby plenty of fields to grow barley we had a loch that was made specifically just to give

speaker-0: Okay

speaker-1: fresh clean water to distilleries and then the consumption habits at the time so obviously single malt as we know it has only been a thing for around 60, 70 years or so so everything prior to that was blends but in the early 1800s people were drinking their blends as toddies so kind of spirit, water, a sweetener and for toddies you want big bold robust character flavours and that's what Campbelltown is so it meant that people flocked to this one town, this tiny wee town, like I said, far west coast. it's got a maximum, maximum number of people that lived there at any point was 9,000. But at one point, the kind of one square kilometre of Campbelltown's town centre housed 26 distilleries. In one town, like, you know what mean? Like you go, wow, 50 distilleries in Speysides lot, 26 in one town. There were. anyone over the period there were between 30 and 35 depending on whose and Whose version you listen to but yeah 26 was the maximum open and operating at any one time

speaker-0: That's a small place for 26 distilleries.

speaker-1: Yeah and the thing I love about it is you can still walk around Campbelltown and see, whilst there are only three of them remaining, you can still see remnants of the distilleries literally. You walk past an archway and it's got a distillery name still, you can still see a bit of the carving come in. There are still some pagodas and all that kind of stuff about it. It's wonderful, I love it. It's a great place.

speaker-0: So, Glenskosha, it's kind of known for bold. I was looking at the bottles, like bold flavors, right? It's really simple bottle design. I'm going to pull the 15 because it's just closer here for people to see it. It's beautiful. I love how it plainly says what it wants, right? Like, you know, it is what it is. You know, it's not flash. It's, hey, this is where the whiskey is. This is where it's from. This is how I age. And then just a I like the, this one's rich and smooth. The other one's bold and spicy or bold and fruity. ⁓ So it's, it's, you know, really simple. do like that. So walk me through a little bit of the tin, which I believe is kind of the flagship product out of Glen Scotia.

speaker-1: Yeah absolutely, so I've got some in the glass here. It's such a good representation of that Campbelltown spirit. So I suppose that's that's a kind of nice segue into what I mean by what is Campbelltown spirit? What did Campbelltown whiskeys taste like? I suppose the so things went really well. We boomed those 26, 30 odd distilleries. Things then went not so well to the point where there were only two distilleries. But the reason why there is this spirit or this style that exists for those distilleries. Because the spirit went out of fashion and nobody was really buying it as much towards the end there was no drive for these distilleries to modernise really ramp up production bring in all the new kit to the point where we just replaced our mash tun at Glen Scotiate the previous one was cast iron and it was from the Victorian times like it was over a hundred years old it's the same across ourselves and Springbank it is just old kit there's no nothing is digitised in either of those distilleries that's for sure

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: So it means that because the techniques and the kit hasn't changed, neither is the whiskey. So for me, the main characteristics of, of Campbelltown's whiskey, got a slight sea salt character to it. We're surrounded on three sides by the sea. That kind of imbues a lot of that. Wonderful vanilla notes because we use a lot of first fell bourbons for maturation. So the Gladeskosha 10 is full first fell bourbon maturation. So you've got bags of that vanilla character coming through. Little bit of spice. and a nice oily mouth feel that kind of captures, keeps those flavours in your mouth ⁓ for a real nice long time and then Glade Scotia over and above that's got a character, a fruit character because of long fermentation as well. So because it's full first Phil Burbran for its 10 years this whisky for me embodies all of that.

speaker-0: Yeah, is. The salinity note is really nice, right? I really like the salinity. Old Pulteney has a salinity to it. I like that one as well. So that's salinic note. kind of equate to a lot of the border, you know, parts of Scotland, but the fruitiness here is wild to me.

speaker-1: So, yeah, like I said, long fermentation is the catalyst for that. our average fermentation time at Glen Scotia is 128.8 hours average.

speaker-0: So... four and a half days.

speaker-1: Yeah, that's bearing in mind for folks that the usual Scotch fermentation times between 48 and 60 hours and ultimately after the 60 hours the yeast has died because it's done its job it's converted all those sugars into alcohol but when you go longer when you go past that 70-80 hour mark you get a secondary fermentation kicks in as a bacterial fermentation starts building a lot of esters and congeners which hold flavour and importantly for us it's fruity flavours And it's a theme that will come back to that kind of nicely ties the two distilleries together as well.

speaker-0: And it's the thing that I find, read the back of the bottle, but it's like, it's a tropical fruit. It's not just like orchard fruit, which are a lot of scotch end up in orchard fruit, right? A lot of honey crisp apple or green apple notes. Um, this is, you know, pineapple-y or mango-y, um, there, which is, um, very refreshing, right? So you could see how this bottle at an affordable price is not only just used for sipping neat, it could be used in a lot of cocktails, um, to bring that. citrus tropical vibe forward.

speaker-1: Absolutely, yeah and I think I'm, I ⁓ know you guys are the same, like it's, I've never turned my nose up at folk using Scotch for whiskeys and it's, you hear folk talk about it, when you're cooking and you're adding wine, like why would you add cheap wine to your food, like if you want your food to taste good, put the best wine into it. If you want a good cocktail, use the best spirits you can get for it. And that's, yeah, just use a good Scotch and you're right that, I think the balance of the fruit plus that sea salt. allows it to go into a few different directions.

speaker-0: Yeah. No, no, you can't. it falls well within the purview of, you know, the $10 per year kind of thought process. If you can still live in that in today's world in 2026, you're doing a really good job. And that's half of this, right? You know, from that perspective, the one thing that I find interesting, and I don't know why, but like this has the backend to this gives me some smoky, peaty-ish vibes. And I'm not saying that I don't think there's any peateness, but like, why is that back end so kind of, you know, earthy, I guess, per-

speaker-1: So there is a very very small amount of in it and when I say small I'm talking like less than 5 % Jake it's like probably about 3-5 % max and it's normally what we're using it and it's the same across most of the core range in Glen Scotiab but it's more about that you said it at first, spice it's about more of a mouth feel character than it is a smoke peat which is why we don't really kind of put any of that on the bottle

speaker-0: Okay.

speaker-1: And as very much more mouth feeling texture, because again, it's, part of that historic style. Like Campbell town and don't know lot of people know Campbell town pre 1920s was as well known for peated whiskeys as Islay was. It was a peated region. Um, again, as the demand for Campbell town whiskeys dropped, um, they switched to unpeated because it was cheaper to do it. Like they didn't need to import the peat into all of that. So they, they just kind of whittled away over time.

speaker-0: Well, I feel proud of myself for getting that like small tiny hint of Pete. Like, it does give a nice roundedness to the spirit, right? Because if it was only sharp one way towards the fruit, then it would, it would be missing something, but this kind of brings it back around and gives you that full flavor profile.

speaker-1: Absolutely, no absolutely and then we've just recently launched in the UK till in the last year a 12th. So we've just put out a squish of 12th which again is full first silver, been unpeated and we're bottling that at 92 proof. So that will be coming to the US later on this year and that'll probably, I think probably replace the 10 as a real kind of core and it's part of, it's been something we've been working to for a while. Like I said, the Loch Lomond group has existed for about 14 years. But if you even rewind just two years prior to that, so when our master distillery in McAllister joined us 17 years ago, the production of Glen Scotia were producing 7,500 litres of alcohol in a year. No, sorry, 75 litres of alcohol in a year. We're now up to 850,000. So it's a, we've been ramping that up over the period, but obviously, We didn't go from there to there, it's been a gradual. And obviously we've had to wait for that to age. So tail end of last year was where we really felt we'd unlocked a big enough parcel to start rolling that 12 year old liquid out ⁓ and getting that out into the world. So yeah, you'll hopefully get that your neck of the woods fairly soon.

speaker-0: Let's go. Yeah. And, 12th team seems to be a little bit more of a standard age statement for Scotch, right? So like the, Loch Lomond, like you mentioned is, does have that 12 year age statement on it. ⁓ and so let's transition. We'll come back to Glenn Scotiate here on the backend, but we, we do have this 12 year and this is me being Scotch stupid really in all honesty. So I come back and I'm outside of Gala, go, what? traditionally has that region brought me right from a flavor profile perspective? And then what are you all trying to get to the consumer?

speaker-1: technically still within the Highlands and it goes as far north as Scotland goes. So it's so, so, so broad. ⁓ For us, I mean, we've probably the extreme of the broad flavour spectrum. So Loch Lomond, the distillery of the history has really been shaped by blended Scotch. And I appreciate minus 70 years ago, every distillery was shaped by blended Scotch, but we are probably the the most intense or the most acute version of that to the point that the previous ownership evolved the distillery in such a way with a focus very much on blinded scotch to be able to create, to be a self-sufficient blinded scotch factory ultimately to that point of we're the only distillery in Scotland that can produce both grain and malt whisky under the one roof and we've got the capacity to make where most distilleries can make three spirits so an unpeated, a medium peated and a heavily peated Lachlomund can make 11 different New Make spirits. Each one distinctly different from itself. So it allows us to make lots of different things, they have three main flavour profiles for Lachlomund, which I think are beautifully embodied in this dram that we've got. Our fruit, honey sweetness and soft smoke. That's, if somebody asks you what is Lachlomund whiskeys taste like, that's it. Fruit, honey sweetness and soft smoke. And that's the, this is the dram I would pour them to say this is Lachlomund. ⁓ And there's a very good reason why we call this one the 12 year perfectly balanced because for us it is a perfect balance of those flavour profiles.

speaker-0: So what goes into the 12, right? Does this have Pete in it as well?

speaker-1: does, it's got very small amount of peat in it. We talk about how Michael Henry, our master blender for Loch Lomond uses the, so we can create six peated spirits at Loch Lomond and he uses those peated spirits in the same way that a chef, or if you or I were making dinner, you would use salt and pepper. So when you're adding salt and pepper, you don't want them to be dominant flavors. You want them to essentially bring everything else together and elevate the flavors that are there already. That's how he's using that kind of slight sprinkling. when you hopefully when you so when I taste the the Loco Lumen 12 I get fruit first. I tend to get quite quite flesh fruits, peach, nectarine, a lot of these kind of characters coming through. Then the sweet honey and the smoke that whisper of weed soft smoke just comes in right at the tail end. And that's exactly how Michael wanted it to be. Not overwhelming. It's there. It's undeniably there. There is peat in it. But I wouldn't necessarily call it a peated whiskey if that makes sense.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. My favorite part is the back part of the palette. I get a lot of chocolate like with that Pete. It's really enjoyable and lingers for a long time. And it's like, if you have chocolate covered, we do like this here in Louisville, lot of the tasting rooms will do a citrus enhanced chocolate. This kind of has that type of experience. That's very nice in here. I don't get the... Yeah. Yeah, it's the honey note is definitely there. And then like you said, the peach and I was like, kind of what is that fruity note? Like a lot of times my mind goes to apple and I like then what type of apple? And then I'm like, is it stew? Is that, you know, is a bruise you've read ever, right? Yeah. Is it right? Yeah. All those things. Um, but then when you said peach is kind of like the, the flavor memories kind of like came to my mind.

speaker-1: So again, because of that ability to create the different spirits, can layer flavor in through distillation. So that's been matured exclusively in ex-Burbon American oak. Everything we produce at moment goes into ex-Burbon American oak to start with. Because we're very much focusing on putting flavor in through distillation rather than rel- maturation for the flavour. the American oak obviously it allows, it's just one of these amazing marriages with Scotch and next bourbon casks. It just allows those flavour profiles to blossom without adding massive new big new flavours. The one consistent flavour it will add is that honey sweetness. You'll obviously get some vanilla from the first fill but as you get into refills and recharge casks as we do as well through our cupridge. Sweetness is a consistent note which is just great.

speaker-0: Well, and that's one of my favorite things about Scotch in general is the recouping of barrels, right? Making them work for you all for a long period of time overall. And I know I don't have this, but the Loch Lomond ⁓ also has a older US cast that just came back. Was it the 15 or the 18 just hit the States not too long ago? 18. Okay. I knew I wasn't like missing all the news. I try to keep up with, with everything. ⁓ And so, you know, while we won't taste that today, you know, what can I feel like 18 a lot of times is where you see the biggest jump in scotch, right? 12 and 15 send to sit on shelves. 18 becomes a rare, more exclusive pour, right? Because the price point does jump because you lose so much throughout that process as you create these blends for these. So what would someone expect if they're like, okay, this is a perfectly good representation of Lach-Lohmann and then they were to go get the 18. What could they expect there?

speaker-1: The good news is there's a very similar flavour profile. It's the same kind of spirits and that's again by design. If that's LOKOLOMID 12 then you don't want LOKOLOMID 18 to be entirely different. But it changes the intensity. there's four different spirits in the LOKOLOMID 12. Three of the spirits are the same in the 18. But instead of using some medium peated liquid for the 12, we use some heavily peated in the 18. And that's purely because it's going to be in the cask for six years more. does dissipate over time. it just has a better level, but it's the complexities to it. And it's why 18s are more revered because that extra time in woods allows the complexity. builds that mouth feel.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: But yeah, so you'll get you definitely get more wood on it to start with you can't not because I think so the first two drums have had a 10 and a 12 are they they're that kind of butter zone for me 10 to probably I'd say 14 max is where you fight this wonderful balance between especially when you're using if you're using first fill you get that great balance between the wood character and the distillate character you get both and neither dominates but once you get 15 and above then the wood starts to take over a wee bit more so We're very fortunate to have a full on-site coupe ridge. We're one of only four distilleries to have that. It means we've got some of the best quality casks. We can look after those casks and use them up to nine times. So the 18 year old will have a much higher proportion of refill casks. So casks that have had their fill of bourbon, they've come over to us and we'll have used them at least once for scotch as well. Sometimes possibly twice. And that just allows for a gentler maturation over that long period allows the distillate character to still shine through without over-oking.

speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. And do you all ever use secondary non-American bourbon ⁓ barrels? Do you ever use sherry or anything like that?

speaker-1: Yes, so not for maturation, said, everyone will go into X-Birdman to start with, but we absolutely do some finishing. And Michael, our master blender, and his blending team are brilliant. Like, would never... Their choice of casks is magnificent. The touch with the length of maturation time, or that extra finishing time. Yeah, I've never disagreed with anything they've done, whether it's...

speaker-0: Okay.

speaker-1: So we'll go from heavy charred casks through to wines, ports, cherries, less of the kind ports and cherries on the Loch Lomond side, more on the Glen Scotiab. Yeah, we did some travel retail, ⁓ whiskies, which you'll get like a Columbian Oak, Swedish Oak.

speaker-0: For sure. Yeah. One of my most interesting finishes, I know it's an Irish single malt, but Method and Madness did a chestnut finish one. so like have something, have something interesting, right? Like do something unique. And I think we have so many species of oak in the world. Why not try something a little bit different? In America, we've overdone the Cachaca Umbriana stuff that can go die on a vine. But I'm all for other oaks. Like let's, let's, let's make it happen. Or other woods. Let's, let's try these things. I think the new thing in America will be cherry blossoms.

speaker-1: Nice, okay.

speaker-0: Yeah, so that's that's hitting the shelves in a couple different ways here in America. So you never know what's going to happen. I have not tried it yet. It's like all new. So I'm excited. That'll be something I'm going to learn. Hopefully this year is, is a little bit more of that because I'm all for innovation. mean, I think the best type of, of whiskey is stable whiskey. And then your innovative arm. If you can't innovate, especially in today's consumerism standpoint, you're going to want fewer, bigger, better. Right? Those are the things. So like I'm willing to pay maybe 200. or $300 for a bottle once or twice a year if it's going to be exceptional, right? If it's not exceptional and I don't think it's exceptional because I'm not a fan of the distillery or it's something brand new, then I'm going to go pick up, you know, Glen Scotiatein because I love Glen Scotiatein. It's 50 bucks. It's repeatable. I can drink that. But right, if I'm a Loch Loman fan and like the 18 comes and I'm a big fan of the 12, I'm going to buy the 18, fewer, bigger, better. I may not buy two bottles, but I'll buy one big one.

speaker-1: Well, one of the great things for us, again value wise, I'm not sure, over in the UK the 18 is under £100, so what's that going to be like? 180 bucks for you? 150 bucks for an 18?

speaker-0: I mean, I think that I think the pound and the dollar are pretty similar right now, which is nice Yeah, we're used to be like a dollar thirty.

speaker-1: Yeah was about a dollar thirty five or something like that. But yeah, it's part of, again it's a very distinct choice where we've only really been bottling these whiskeys for six or seven years.

speaker-0: Mm-hmm.

speaker-1: So despite the distillery being there for 60 years as of next week, we're still in a lot of people's eyes a relatively new distillery, relatively new brand. So these are priced so that people, to your point, buy them, drink them and hopefully keep coming back to them because it's whiskey they like and they enjoy.

speaker-0: Well, good news for Americans going to Europe. ⁓ you will be making money on your dollar when you go for the first time in a very long time, a pound is less than a dollar. Yeah. I mean, my whole childhood, like I, I remember we went to England and England is quite a bit more expensive than any other place I feel like in, in that area. And then we, went to Paris, Paris is also expensive, but the Euro was closer than the pound was and. I got really excited because as a, as a bourbon guy, didn't know scotch much at that time. Well, or 12 was sitting on shelves for, um, you know, 12, 12 pounds of poor, which was like, you know, 18 bucks. And I'm like, what's, what's.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but just leave, just leave the bowl.

speaker-0: Yeah, just leave that here for me and me only. So yeah, I've always, that's always been my experience. Every time I've been to Europe, the exchange rate has been, we have been less than, now we are more than, first time ever. So to round this out, we have the 15 year Glen Scotia for our tasting today. This is a beautiful bottle. You know, I showed it earlier, but it's beautiful from a lot of different ways. I think the complexity to this. The, ⁓ this is a whiskey you sit with. You don't just, you know, just have a dram at the end of the night. This is a, can you sit by a fire? Can you sit in silence for 10, 15, 20 minutes alone? Let that open up and then drink it. Right. That is how I describe every time I've had this. I've had it with friends. We've poured it. I said, let this sit. We'll talk. And then I'm like, now it's time to drink because it is a wonderfully complex whiskey.

speaker-1: 100 % and I think this is when I'm pouring this I'll refer to this as Campbelltown in a glass This is everything I want a Campbelltown scotch to be all those flavor profiles that I talked about earlier It's it feels I think even on the nose for me It feels it's like the bigger brother of the 10 and I know that's what it is So this has got a combination of first fill and some refill as well Like I said as you get towards 15 and you don't want that first fill becoming the first fill with dominating too much Um, yeah, again, a very small amount of Pete, which is adding that kind of spice, that background spice to it, which is a bit more pronounced. It's, um, so I get less of the tropical on the 15. Um, I get more kind of orange zest. And I say specifically zest because I think that's, um, it's to do with the citrus character, but it's to do with the oily texture of it. I think it's, it's very much like, as you've just expressed, um, some orange over your, your, your old fashioned. It's that kind of lemon, orange oil. And the spice is more, it's like a stem ginger spice. Rather than epic, too overpowering.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's like that orange rind, right? Like if you were to smell the rind of the orange, I'm all in on that one. ⁓ I think the honey note that kind of comes a little bit more elevates through. The vanilla dissipates. It's more, I think the honey note shines and balances what seems like a heavier peat because it's a more mature whiskey, right? Those three extra years allows that peat to kind of like come through as it ages, right? And feels darker. that Pete feels a little bit darker too, but that's not a bad thing.

speaker-1: There's also a layer of the spice character also comes from a very kind of flash. I would probably call it of Oloroso Sherry. When I say flash, it could be as low as like four weeks. I think it might be eight to 10 weeks. So it's a real flash in the Oloroso and it's not necessary to impart the Sherry character, the Sherry flavors. It's more, I get it very much in the drying, the tannins on the tongue, side of the palate. And yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. And you, you, you say that now and it's like, okay, I can see why there's like a little bit of plum or a little bit of fig, right? Like that note is there. It's subtle. It's after you kind of blow out, like you got to get those notes. ⁓ and I feel like so many times you, you have to, to really sit and not sip multiple times because it's so easy to just to keep drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking. But like, if you can just take a breath in between, then you can get like, you'll feel what comes out of your mouth to your nose and that'll get more flavor profiles.

speaker-1: Yeah and I think that is such a big part of it, of hacking it down to how you want to enjoy your scotch or your bourbon or whatever you're drinking at the time. Is it just a dram that you're sharing with friends to just chill out and just shoot the shit for a while? Or something you actually want to sit and appreciate like you said that you're going to actively say to folk, right, let that sit, let it build and then we'll take our time with it. And that for me is definitely one of the latter for sure.

speaker-0: Yeah. And I think we need to do a better job of that is poor walk away, let the air get to it and then have a jam. So many times, I mean, I'm guilty of it all the time. Poor drink click. Cause it's been a long day or you just want that, you flavor profile or whatever it is. You know, these are, are all, ⁓ these are fun because It can introduce you to Pete in such a light way. It introduces you to Pete in a way that's not Isla all the time. And that's what I think scares so many American whiskey drinkers away from Scotch is they all think it's the Pete monster, know, octomore 18 points.

speaker-1: Yeah. But then I don't know if it's as big a thing in the US, but over here, as you were growing up and coming of age, ⁓ what would happen was your father or your grandfather, whoever was the whiskey drinker in the house, would pour a glass of scotch and they'd be like, right, get that down you son, that'll put hairs on your chest. In a way. And they would either pour you the cheapest thing they had. or would pour you the biggest, dirtiest, peatiest thing they had. Because then you would drink and you'd go, ⁓ God, never drinking that ever again. And they would go, correct, you won't ever touch any my scotch. That's for me. Or vice versa if you're just starting to get into Scotch and you're out with friends and they go, ⁓ I'll get you a whisky and they buy you like a LaFrogger, like you said a big octomore and they just sit off to the side going, hee hee hee, waiting to see your face. And that's why it's in so many people's heads that that's what Scotch is but it's, yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ it's, ⁓ it's not. And I have found that there is a lot of beautiful whiskey in Scotch that you can appreciate with or without Pete. and as you grow older and you grow older in your whiskey journey and whiskey with an E or a Y, however you want to spell it, I don't care. You learn to appreciate that there's styles and nuance and blending techniques that are, which, which makes all of these unique and fun and interesting. And if we were to drink the same thing over and over again, we'd all get bored.

speaker-1: Correct. Correct.

speaker-0: We don't want to be bored. We want to have fun.

speaker-1: And it's when you think about it, thinking about it from the other side of the mirror, from a UK point of view of looking at bourbon specifically, a number of times, like, doing whiskey shows and things like that, you talk to people and they go, have you tried much bourbon? And they go, ⁓ no, I don't like Jack Daniels. And you go, right, okay, that's not bour- I mean, yes, there is bourbon, but there is a much bigger world of bourbon that is not that.

speaker-0: Yeah. Well, the charcoal mellowing process is unique. It's different and it's the world's largest American whiskey for a reason, right? Like

speaker-1: It's easy to shoot at the big boys, they're there but they're big for a reason and it's enjoyed by a lot of people but that's what you need to say to focus but that's not everything. It's very big so it blocks your view but there are other things around it. There are many more satellites that deserve more of your attention.

speaker-0: You just got to peek, got to peek behind the curtain. There's a lot. Yeah. Well, Gary, thank you for walking through that tasting. It's been great to get to know you. Hopefully one day I'll get to Scotland. I haven't been there yet, but hopefully soon. Yeah. Well, thank you for this. Thank you to Sarah and the team for setting this up. And thanks everybody for listening. We really appreciate it. We'll catch you next time on the bourbon lens. Cheers. Thank you for listening to this episode of the bourbon lens. If you want more exclusive content, go over to patreon.com backslash bourbon lens and join our growing community. If you just want to stay friendly with us, you can go over to Instagram X and Facebook and follow us there.

speaker-1: Sláinte váh.

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