Cask to Glass

Welcome to Series 2 of Cask to Glass the Whisky Podcast with John Beattie.

We're back after a break because of illness and then Christmas and New Year. And we're raring to go for 2026!

But where is the Scotch and global whisky industry headed in the next year?

Throughout 2025, John heard from various whisky insiders about their concerns for the immediate future of the industry. But there are more and more warnings about the state of the sector. Last month Jim Beam announced it would suspend production of bourbon at its main site in Kentucky for the whole of 2026. Days later the Financial Times reported that "tariffs and cost of living pressures leave undrunk whisky galore" in Scotland.

"Customers," the FT suggested, "are buying less and choosing cheaper brands, risking jobs in [the] Scotch industry."

So in this episode, John speaks to Scottish investigative journalist Ian Fraser, who's been digging around and speaking to industry insiders.

"I think the industry is in trouble," he tells John. " There was a massive boom in whisky which ended in 2022; which was exaggerated by the Covid pandemic when people were staying home and drinking more expensive bottles of Scotch and other whiskies. And I think there was a bit of a lack of realism within the industry. There was a srot of assumption that this golden period that the whisky industry went through was going to last forever. And it clearly hasn't."

Total exports of Scotch whisky, Ian says, are down from £6.2 billion in 2022 to around £5.4 billion in 2024.

"What has caused this downturn," he asks? "It's difficult to really know. But there's certainly been a lack of consumer confidence, which I think evaporated after Covid. There's inflation. There's war in Ukraine, which has closed the Russian market. There are doubts over the Chinese market, which hasn't performed quite as well as people were hoping."

"All the major Scotch whisky companies," Ian continues, "are suffering falls in sales, falls in profits. And the newer ones I think, which established themselves in the last decade or so are perhaps the most vulnerable to these factors and this downturn in the industry."

And while Ian maintains "the margins are very strong in Scotch" and he doesn't think anyone "is actually loss making yet - certainly among the established player", he cautions that the share prices of the large groups have "been in freefall".

They're down 60 and 70 percent in some cases, he says.

"We haven't seen any massive bad news in the industry in terms of companies going bust or distilleries completely closing, or administrations or whatever," Ian says; people in the industry he's spoken to say, "They're on the way."

Join John and Ian as they discuss what 2026 might hold for the Scotch whisky industry:

Was there an over-exuberance in period to to 2022?
Have too many distilleries and producers chased premium prices?
Is there an oversupply of whisky maturing in warehouses?
Could there be "a race to the bottom" in terms of pricing?
Are there still some markets holding up?
What's the optimum price for a bottle of whisky?
Can the industry pick itself up and move forward?
And who's best placed to suceed?

Pour yourself a dram, and tune in.

Slàinte!
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Socials:
@C2GWhisky
@JohnRossBeattie

Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson

Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland

Special thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unfortunately, John's had a seasonal bug. Nothing serious. But it's taken it's toll on his voice.

We're very sorry we're unable to bring you this week's episode.

John's on the mend, and he hopes to be back next week.

Thanks for listening to Cask to Glass.

Apologies once again.

Catch you next time.

Slàinte!
-------
Socials:
@C2GWhisky
@JohnRossBeattie

Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson

Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"I'm often called an accidental distiller," says Kim Cameron, founder of the Bothy Distillery in Glen Prosen in the Scottish Highlands.

Kim started off running a coffee shop and producing jam. World class jam, which 11 years ago won its category in the World Jam Championships. So she launched her Jam Bothy label.

"In Angus," she says, "we grow the most amazing fruit, arguably in the best in the world: raspberry, rhubarb, blueberry, strawberry... And I was making the full seasonal calendar of jam. Now one of the byproducts of making jam was I had some juice and fruit left over. And rather than waste that, we decided to add it to gin."

Next thing Kim knew, people were beating a path up her glen in the north east of Scotland for her gin. "The jam took a bit of a back seat," she continues, " and we focused on the Gin Bothy as a brand."

"That," she explains, "is how my entry into the world of spirit happened. I didn't ever imagine that we would be in a position where we'd be distilling whisky in the glens."

Well Kim's not quite distilling whisky yet.

Her best selling gin is Gunshot Gin.

"I was selling that into the US market, and one of the things that we were always told on feedback was: 'We love the flavour profiles.' So it was cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, spice. Those really rich warming flavours. But we had distilled it with gin. And the biggest thing that the export market wanted was in a whisky. So we flipped the base and called it Gunshot Whisky."

Gunshot was an eight year old blended whisky created for the Kim's export market. "But," she continues, "our customers here, once it followed our gin journey, have always asked me: 'When are you moving into whisky?'"

Well that move has begun!

Bothy Distillery is well under way. It's being built in old bothy in Glen Prosen in Cairngorm National Park in the eastern Highlands that in the early 1700s had been an old whisky smuggling room.

The stills are on order from Forsyths, Scotland's go-to still manufacturers. They're about to be installed. And Kim hopes the first new spirit, to be distilled under the supervision of Ron Welsh (the master distiller behind Beam Suntory's Laphroaig and Bowmore, and 140 other expressions of Scotch whisky), will begin to flow in December or January.

So join John as he chats to Kim about her journey from jam to dram.

Slàinte!
-------
Socials:
@C2GWhisky
@JohnRossBeattie

Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson

Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland

Special thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As we've heard several times in previous episodes of Cask to Glass, China is one of the great untapped markets for Scotch whisky.

With a populaton of 1.4 billion, China's the second most populous country in the world. And last year Scotland exported 30 million 70cl bottles to China at a value of £161 million, making it the 10th largest market for Scotch both in terms of volume and value. But when you consider that Scotland exported the equivalent of 1.7 billion bottles worth £5.4 billion in 2024, it's a small market compared to the size of its population.

So, how do you expand the market?

Since 2014 Chen Li, founder of Magna World Travel and owner of the newly opened Edinburgh Whisky House Hotel, has been running whisky tours for Chinese tourists. She describes the Chinese market as "a big meaty pizza".

"Everybody wants a piece of it," she says."Everybody wants a slice from the pizza. But to do business with China, it's not easy. It's not that straightforwward. There are many barriers."

"China needs patience," Chen continues. "Working with China or doing any business with China needs patience. Consider for you to send some money abroad. Forty, or fifty thousand, just by a blink? We need a relationship to build first. So that's how you should start: build relationships. Do you send them New Year message during Chinese New Year? Do you send them a message on China's national day."

These things matter.

Called 威士忌酒 in Simplified Chinese and pronounced "wēi shì jì jiǔ", Chen says whisky is synonymous with Scotland - or 蘇格蘭 in Traditional Chinese, 苏格兰 in Simplified Chinese and pronounced Sūgélán.

But there are only about 600,000 serious whisky drinkers in China, Chen suggests, "ones who buy the premium brands."

And she cautions: "To be honest there are a lot of people who don't really know much about Scotland. The know England. They know London. Scotland is not very popular yet."

"So our job," Chen continues, "is to create an itinerary.We influence people of where they go; what they do; what they eat; where to stay."

Join John as he talks to Chen about her understanding of the Chinese whisky market; how she provides whisky tours around Scotland; and how she's trying to turn one of Scotland's most famous, ancient houses - Auchenbowie House, once owned by the descendants of Rober the Bruce - into the first Chinese built distillery in Scotland.

Slàinte!

Or 干杯 - which means "empty cup", and's pronounced: Gānbēi!

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Socials:
@C2GWhisky
@JohnRossBeattie

Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson

Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland

Special thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Eighty five years in the making. One hundred and 25 decanters produced. £125,000 a pop.

Released on the 2 October, and already almost entirely sold out...

"More people will have summited Everest this year alone than will ever get to taste this whisky, never mind own it," declares Stephen Rankin, Director of Prestige at Gordon and MacPhail. "There's something like 600, 700 people - maybe more than that - start off to summit Everest and they tend to all do it in the springtime and about 60 or 70 percent of those people will ever actually reach the top."

It's some statistic that puts into context just how special Gordon and MacPhail's 85 year old single malt from Glenlivet Distillery is.

"You're talking about one of the rarest, most historic, scarcest, not just whiskies in the world, but matured spirits in the world," Stephen continues. "I don't know if there's many other spirits - because spirits are matured in the cask that as soon as you take it ouf the cask that's the age stopped. There will be older bottles in the world bu there won't be older matured spirits in the world so it could be the oldest matured spirit in the world as well."

On 3 February 1940, just five months after the start of the Second World War, Stephen's grandfather George Urquhart and great-grandfather John, filled a sherry cask made from American oak with new make spirit from Glenlivet. The cask, Stephen says, "was selected because it was a big sherry transport cask. These casks were very different. They were, one it was made of an American oak because it's a little bit tougher and tighter. The grain is much tighter and the staves were made much, much thicker.

"It was there to withstand the rigmarole of being rolled around quay sides and platforms before going on boats and trains an the like, and ultimately end up in the far north of Scotland."

The barley had come from the last peace-time harvest. And filling the cask, Stephen says, "was an act of hope and optimism."

In this episode John talks to Stephen about why this whisky is so special; how it survived the war years when whisky was in short supply and was monitored over the intervening years before being bottled and released.

Slàinte!
-------
Socials:
@C2GWhisky
@JohnRossBeattie

Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson

Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland

Special thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.