Cask to Glass

• Apologies: No Episode This Week

  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 HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Jam to Dram: Kim Cameron of Bothy Distillery

  "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 HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• Cracking the Chinese Whisky Market: 威士忌酒 with Chen Li

  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!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• The World's Oldest Single Malt: Gordon & MacPhail's 85 Year Old Whisky from Glenlivet Distillery

  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 HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• The Accidental Bottlists: Phil & Simon Thompson of Dornoch Distillery

  "You have to offer value at every level" declares Simon Thompson, one half of Thompson Brothers distillers, independent bottlers and founders of Dornoch Distillery, in Dornoch in the north of Scotland, deep in the heart of the Highlands.That's why he and brother Phil are always trying to work out what they "can get away with" at the "lower end" of the price spectrum, because Phil says, "You want to sell out and turn over quickly."Phil and Simon also own Dornoch Castle Hotel. The hotel has been in the Thompson family for 25 years, and that's where their whisky journey really began."Back in the day," Simon explains, "we used to run the family hotel whisky bar. That led to us kind of taking on whisky as a bit of a hobby. We would end up taking it a little bit too seriously; start collecting; start falling in love with older styles of whisky; start going to live auctions, picking up bottles for ourselves and for our bar."In this episode, Simon and Phil tell John how their hobby quickly led them to research older styles of whisky "trying ot figure out where certain flavours and intensities of flavours that existed in older bottles" came from. They began "reverse engineering old style whisky which then eventually turned into some practical experimentatation, which turned into building a tiny, baby distillery."At Dornoch Distillery, Phil continues, "we probably have deliberately the most expensive cost of production - even if you're to ignore the small scale."They only use "heritage varieties" of barely that were in use before the 1960s; brewing strains of yeast instead of modern distillers' yeast; extra long fermentation - "seven days as standard"; and manual cut points."We make our cut points based on the sense of smell, sense of taste by whoever's rolling the stills on that particular day," Simon says."It allows them," Phil interjects, "to kind of slow down and speed up where required when it's coming towards the cut point.""Basically everything's geared towards maximising old style quality at great expense of materials, time and lower yield. So yeah, it's one extreme, probably not a scalable model," Simon continues.The brothers are now building a new distillery - Struie Distillery - which aims to be 100 percent electrified and completely fossil fuel free.Where "Dornoch is no holds barred;whatever it takes," Simon says, "Struie is trying to find those sweet spots between old style production and modern production.""We just need to pay for it," Phil concludes.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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