Company:
The Whisky Cellar
Job:
Founder
Website:
whiskycellar.co.uk
How long have you been working in the whisky industry?
I’ve enjoyed 18 great years (and counting) in the Scotch
whisky industry, across a number of commercial and marketing roles. Eleven of
these were spent at Edrington, where as Area Director I helped set up the company’s
Africa and Middle East headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa.
What has been your biggest career highlight to date?
Being enrolled as a Keeper of the Quaich and being awarded
Edrington’s Chairman’s Award in the same year – 2013, was a definite career
highlight, which helped me start to appreciate the positive impact I was
beginning to have within our great industry.
Can you remember your first dram, and indeed what it was?
I actually can’t remember my first whisky but my dad always
had a lot of bottles in the drinks cabinet at home, so it was probably something
from his selection.
What does whisky mean to you?
Scotch whisky is both a hobby and a career for me. Even if I
wasn’t fortunate enough to work in the industry, I’d still spend a lot of my
time thinking and talking about it. For me what’s in the glass is a culmination
of everything that has gone before. The raw materials, the equipment, the
place, the hands that have crafted it, the wood that has helped mature it, the
people who count on the industry for employment – everything. I’m incredibly proud
of our industry, the history of it and the high esteem in which Scotch is held
the world over.
Where would you like to see yourself in five years’ time?
I have big ambitions for my company and I want it to become
one of the most exciting independent bottlers in the next five years. My daughter
will be close to finishing her education in five years so, who knows, it might
be something she gets on board with. We’d make a great team, I’m sure.
What was your last dram?
I sipped a 2008 Linkwood single cask sample last night. It
has been finished in a Chateau Lafite wine barrique and I’m in the process of
buying it for bottling. It’s highly distinctive in colour, aroma and flavour
and I was just double-checking that I still liked it as much as I did the first
time I tasted it.
Do you have a favourite whisky and food pairing combination?
Whisky can be a tough match for food. I normally drink whisky
before or after a meal. However, a sweet sherry aged Speysider can be a great accompaniment
for a cheese board and I often go down that route.
What’s your favourite time and place to enjoy a dram?
So many great times and place for a dram but I’d have to say,
at home, late Autumn, with the wood burner stoked, after a good meal is my
happy place.
What do you think is going to be the next big thing on the
whisky horizon?
I have high hopes for single grain and will deliberately
champion this category because I think it is completely misunderstood and
generally under-rated, especially at the older end of the spectrum. I defy any
whisky drinker to try a well-aged grain, matured in a first fill bourbon barrel
and not enjoy it. It’s a bit like bourbon-on-steriods and I think there’s a big
opportunity to educate and engage here. I’ve included a 1984 Cameronbridge and
a 1996 Invergordon in my first release. Both are absolutely stunning.
What’s the one dram you couldn’t live without?
I embrace the variety on offer within the industry and part
of the enjoyment is finding something that you really like but maybe didn’t
expect to. Equally, I have found myself underwhelmed by whiskies that I thought
I would like. My go-to drams over the years have included The Macallan Fine Oak
15 Year Old, Highland Park 18 Year Old, Glenmorangie Lasanta and The Balvenie Caribbean
Cask. If I was pushed to pick just one it’d be The Macallan 15 Year Old Fine Oak,
but it has been discontinued so I guess I’m going to have to learn to live
without it.
Many thanks to Keith Bonnington. Who will be our next Whisky
Insider? Click back soon to find out!
