00:00I'm joined by Nick Savage who is the Master Distiller at Blagnock Distillery. Hi Nick, how are you?
00:05I'm very well, thank you. Self?
00:08Yeah, good, thank you. So we are here today to chat a little bit about
00:13this, which hopefully everyone can see. It's the wave number one and I have it in
00:18a very snazzy little pouch and you have the actual bottle.
00:20The actual bottle, yeah, there are two versions of it.
00:23So it's nice to see side by side. But yeah, for anyone that doesn't know, could you talk us through
00:29a little bit about, first of all, the pouch because it's made with sugarcane and it's a
00:34bit of a new innovation for you guys. And then we can talk a little bit about the whisky.
00:38Sure. And the pouch is a very, very recent collaboration with Drambach and I guess
00:44Wave is the first time we've ever done anything in a pouch. So, you know, it's made from sustainable
00:51packaging, but I guess the point of Drambach is, I hate the phrase, try before you buy, but it is
00:56that. And, you know, some whiskies do get fairly pricey and punchy. And one of my learnings
01:01throughout the whole industry is trying to, you know, de-risk things and make sure people understand
01:06what they're buying because we do expect quite a lot, you know, £50, £100, £150 a bottle can get
01:11quite punchy sometimes. So I think it's only fair that we start to think of different ways that we
01:15can engage consumers rather than just expect them to join on a journey. But try and wave one as the
01:22first thing that goes into Drambach and into that sustainable packaging. It's pretty exciting.
01:28Nice. And so people can buy this and it's £15 and it's sustainable in the sense that what can I do
01:34with the pouch after? For me, I'm not too sure what you could do with it after. I presume you can reuse
01:41it. Now, the question is obviously, is that alcohol in there? And from my ops background, you know,
01:47alcohol is a solvent. So I guess you have to be careful what you put into it next time. But you
01:53can refill that, you can reuse it. I probably won't be putting any more particularly high strength
01:57alcohol in there. Maybe something lower that you can reuse it time and time again. But essentially,
02:02it's all sustainable and fully recyclable. So reuse it or recycle it.
02:07Nice. And you get money off if you buy a bottle with a QR code at the back. So it's like a nice little
02:14weird initiative for people to try. But on to the thing that they will be wanting to try,
02:17which is the whiskey. So can you tell us about wave one?
02:20Sure. Wave one. Wave one is the start of a new journey as part of what we call the Master Distillers
02:25Collections. The first Master Distillers Collection was called The Waterfall. And it was a five-year
02:31programme. And there was 5,000 bottles and we released 1,000 each year. And we did it as a distillery
02:36exclusive. So that came to a conclusion last year. It was extremely successful. We built a great
02:42following. We built this pilgrimage, so to speak, of people coming to the distillery when the bottle
02:46was launched. And we got a real family culture going on. And that came to a conclusion last year. So
02:54two or three years before that stopped, I kind of thought, well, we need something after this.
02:58And that's where the idea of the wave came. We'll start again. People enjoyed the journey of building a
03:05whiskey, understanding what goes underneath the building of a whiskey. And that's what really
03:09inspires the Master Distillers Collection. So after the waterfall five finished, we start again with
03:16wave one, which we'll talk about and drink today. I guess the first point on the wave as a concept,
03:23it didn't start out as a concept. And a lot of these things don't. As I buy casks and lace stocks down
03:31at Bladnock, I like to think of it as a treasure chest and future-proof it and have things that we can
03:39dip in and out of. And five Amontillado Sherry Tons came across my desk. Would I like to buy them?
03:47And a lot of people go, what are you going to use them for? And I had no idea at the time, but I wanted
03:51these five Spanish Oak Amontillado Sherry Tons. And so they arrived and they were there. And that's
04:00where the idea from, what am I going to use them for? And that's where I had these five tons that are
04:04going to produce five whiskies over five years. And that's where the wave concept started to come.
04:09So I didn't go and buy the tons after coming up with the idea. I had these tools there that I
04:14then worked up, okay, how can we tell some stories? And that's where the wave concept came through as
04:19the next series of Master Distillers editions. Nice. So this is number one, which is available now.
04:24And will we have a little try of it? I've said to you earlier this morning here.
04:31I've been through a cycle this morning, I'm in France. I'll go for another cycle, but
04:35this will help me on my way, I guess. So wave one came out about a couple of weeks after the
04:41finish of Waterfall. So it came out last June. So this has been out for about a year, but we're
04:48starting to revisit wave one in anticipation of wave two coming in June 14th. I think the
04:55distillery is where we launch everything. So wave one, and the wave as a concept, I guess,
05:01is we've got five tons. And about three years ago, I loaded each ton with a combination of casks.
05:08Okay. And that combination of casks will tell different stories and different pillars of whiskey
05:15making at Bladden Oak. Okay. And number one was filled with ex-Burbans. So all American Oak
05:22and through different points in our stocks. So we had some from the teens. So we have some 2019,
05:292020 in there. We had some from the noughties. So we had some from 2007, 2008, and then we had some from
05:36the nineties. So there's a small amount from 1990 that went into this as well. So number one is all about
05:42trying to articulate, and we'll not do it today, but as people buy and explore this series, it goes
05:48into a lot of detail about what time and maturation actually mean as a whiskey making concept. And
05:54you know, when people talk about Bladden Oak and we talk about taste first, you'll notice that I use
05:59the words time and maturation, not age. Because for me and for Bladden Oak, it's very important that we
06:05combine or we pick whiskeys at the right time, depending on their maturation. Everything doesn't
06:13click in when it's 12, depends on the cast, depends on the warehouse, depends on what was laid down. So
06:18we like to pick on time and maturation, not necessarily age. And that was the whole concept
06:23of what people will find when they start to unveil the first wave.
06:30So I'll take you through the tasting notes. And you know, when we look on each Bladden Oak now,
06:37you'll see three words on the tasting notes. So we try to articulate Bladden Oak whiskeys in a very
06:43simple, clear, concise manner. I don't like writing tasting notes about how great,
06:48how much we can articulate things with. Most people just want it punchy. They want to understand
06:53what's in the whiskey. That's what we're trying to do. So for this, very American Oak. And what you
06:58get is quite floral, oaky and sweetness starting to come through at a very high level. When you've
07:05got on your nose, these sort of floral pine needles, it's refreshing. It's very floral. It's got this
07:12fresh cut oak, almost a little bit of vanilla, a little bit of coconut starts to come through.
07:19But when you transfer that to the palate,
07:25that tastes nice after a cycle. You've got this sweet oak, and you've got this toasted coconut.
07:31It's not fresh coconut. It's kind of like it's been roasted or toasted. And you've got this sweet,
07:36warm, but yet refreshing feel to the whole finish. And that's because this is 100% American Oak.
07:42And it's given those different attributes because we're combining different bourbons from different
07:48time periods across our, across our stocks. And that was the principle of wave one. And we want
07:53people to try and understand a little bit more about how we make whiskey. And when we do that,
07:59when we do the master distillers collection, let's try and give a little bit more technical
08:02information about how we actually do these things. And I should note that the small portion of what went
08:09into number one was actually the final remnant of waterfall five. So we've still got this thread that
08:16goes all the way through these collections. And I'll hand over in a second, but the concept of the wave
08:23is that we've calculated how many bottles we get each time, which calculates how much we load in at the
08:29beginning. And they're all mature in a way. So number five will have been in there for probably eight years,
08:34Marion, by the time the whole thing finishes. And we've always calculated that we'll always have a
08:41remnant from number one that then goes into number two. Then we're bottle number two, a remnant from
08:46two that goes into three, three into four, four into five. And that's where the name, this wave of
08:52whiskey sort of came from. That was the inspiration behind everything.
08:57Nice. It's really, it's really nice for this time of year when you're talking about like the floral notes
09:01and the coconut, it's kind of like everything that's in season just now, like the gorse and the
09:05flowers all coming up. So it's a good spring whiskey. It's a good time of year to try it.
09:08And that word refreshing starts to come through. So yeah, there's a lot of sweetness,
09:12there's a lot of American oak, there's a lot of coconut and vanillas, but you also get that
09:17refreshing feel. And Bladknock being lowland is this, I hate the word accessible, it's light and
09:24floral, not lacking flavour, but these light refreshing styles. So fresh cut grass, slightly
09:30perfumed to a certain extent. And that's that lowland style that we get when we've got any
09:35blood knock in there. So it is, you're right, it's a very spring orientated whiskey, I think.
09:40Nice, it's really good. So can you tell us anything about the next one? Or is that sort of under wraps?
09:48Well, what I will do, and I know they're not on the call, otherwise they might have just cut me off now.
09:55We don't normally unveil the name of the next one until it's going to happen. Because you know,
10:01what's the next pillar that they're going to talk about. But we normally stencil it on the end of the
10:08tongue. And we have just stenciled it in on the wall, the wave wall, as we're calling it at the
10:14distillery. So it is out there now, although it's not in the packaging. And in anticipation of June,
10:20I'll say it out loud here first. So the next one is all about the distillery and spirit. So we're
10:26going to talk about how important it is that you've got a robust distillery style. What is
10:31the blood knock floral fruity character that we have? What's that lowland style? And how does that
10:36piece together with all the other pillars of whisky making to drive our our taste first portfolio?
10:42So spirit and distilling spirit is the number two, you heard it here first, so to speak,
10:47unless you went to the distillery last week, in which case you saw.
10:49Well, now you understand. But no, thank you very much. So if anyone wanting to buy this just now,
10:56it's available distillery and other online retailers?
11:00Distillery and so the wave is because the waterfall was very much a distillery exclusive.
11:07However, that was 1000 bottles each year. This is 1817 bottles, which is a weird, which is quite
11:13a cool number being as that's when the distillery is founded. So it's still very limited. And I wanted to be
11:19transparent with it in that if people want to collect these, buy two, drink one, keep one,
11:24that's the idea. And by the end of number five, I wasn't just going to turn around and say,
11:29oh, this is great. There's number six, I found more just to keep more money. This will finish at
11:34number five, as did the last one, there's no sixth coming. And if people want to join us on that journey,
11:39then they can trust us that there won't be a wave six, there'll only be a wave five. So we wanted to
11:44keep it to try and get people to come to the distillery and experience it. So we're still
11:48going to have a wave day, which will be June the 14th, which will be amazing. But it's still
11:54available. The wave, so to say, is available direct to consumers. So it's available through
11:58our e-commerce channels. So if people want to go onto bloodnot.com, if they get the dram that you've
12:04got there, they've got the QR code that'll send them to be able to purchase one. So you can get wave
12:08one online, but we would love everyone to come to the distillery and buy wave one and two on June,
12:13June the 14th with us. Well, thank you very much. It's been great. Lovely to try it. And nice to see
12:20you again. And I hope you enjoy your whiskey-fueled cycle this afternoon.
12:24I was going to say, it might be a bit wavy after that.
12:27Well, that all ties in.
12:28I'm in France, they don't care.
12:32Well, thank you very much, Nick. And yeah, we'll speak to you soon.
12:35Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
12:36Bye-bye.
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