- 2 days ago
Food and drink editor Rosalind Erskine talks to whisky legend Billy Walker about the new releases in GlenAllachie's smoky Meikle Toir range
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00:00I'm now joined by Billy Walker, who is the Glenallochie Distillery Master Blender. Hi, Billy, how are you?
00:07I'm good, thanks. How are you?
00:09Yeah, good, thank you. We're just talking about how warm it is, which is always nice.
00:13Always good to have a whisky in the summer sunshine.
00:17So we are going to chat a little bit about the most recent launches from your Miko tour range,
00:23but do you want to just give us a little introduction to you?
00:27I know you've had a massively long career in history. You're a bit of an icon within the industry.
00:31Do you want to just give us a little potted history of your career to date?
00:36Well, yeah, listen, I've been in the industry for a long time.
00:42I've been in the industry for almost 51 years, maybe 52.
00:46And I'm actually, I studied chemistry at Glasgow University.
00:52So that's been helpful, I have to say. That has been helpful in the journey.
00:57And I joined Ballantyne's, I think it was 1972, and that really was my introduction to whisky.
01:05But I was a native of Dumbarton, so it was almost inevitable that I would end up working with the local whisky company.
01:15But it was, it was an interesting town then, because it was also the, where J&B had their boffling plant.
01:21The Little Mill was close by, Loch Lomond was close by.
01:24There was another, what's a company called the Gavigan's, which was in the Beale of Leaven.
01:29So it was a whisky territory, no great surprise.
01:33Of course, Auchintoshin wasn't so far away either.
01:36But I was there for a while, then surprisingly, I went to ferment penicillin with Beecham's down in Irvine.
01:44That was a bigger challenge, and certainly an interesting challenge.
01:47Then I moved on to Inverhouse as their massive blender, and that was great fun.
01:52It was a fantastic company, it was there for seven years.
01:55Then moved on to Vernon Stewart, which was a much smaller company.
02:00But the challenges for the blender were fantastic, getting the best out of the inventory, which is always changing.
02:09Then we bought the company, and that was interesting, because it opened up a number of avenues.
02:15And Vernon Stewart, of course, wanted to buy Deanston and Tobermory distilleries.
02:22So we had quite a significant input into the evolution of these distilleries.
02:28And then the company changed ownership, and it was a good time for me to exit and start another journey where we, in 2004,
02:39we acquired the Beecham distillery with a couple of shareholding friends.
02:45And it's interesting, at that time, there were something like 16 mall distilleries actually mothballed and closed.
02:54And indeed, Beecham was one of them, so it was not functioning when we acquired it.
03:01So it was fun to get it recommissioned and get a much deeper understanding of how it operated.
03:08In 2008, we got a very interesting call if we wanted to buy Glenbronach, which was, in my opinion, one of the great moments.
03:19It was a terrific distillery.
03:20It had been a sleeping giant, and it should have been exposed to the world, but it hadn't been.
03:27And it was an opportunity to do some creative stuff there.
03:31In 2013, we bought Wenglasov, and that was fun. Great distillery. What a wonderful location.
03:39And I'm pretty sure there's a lot of very interesting inventory there that is begging to be brought to the market.
03:47But anyway, in 2016, an offer to sell the business came up, which we sold to Glenformen.
03:57It wasn't a decision that I was necessarily comfortable with, but it was the right decision for my two partners.
04:04So that happened.
04:06And then, really, in jig time, I got a call from Chivas Pernal asking me if I wanted to acquire the analogy.
04:15And that was a great opportunity because it was a distillery that had never been showcased.
04:21It was a blank sheet. And so there was a lot of really creative things that we knew we could do to generate interest in the Glenarky brand of distillery.
04:34And you've, over the last, just over 50 years, you must have seen so many changes, like from blends being like the big thing, to single malts, to things being a bit of a downward turn, then an upward turn.
04:46Then, you know, kind of petering off just now. It must have been, it's been an interesting journey.
04:51Do you, would you say, just watching whisky develop?
04:55Oh, sure. And, you know, it's still the case. I mean, Glenier whisky has always been a huge player in the Swiss whiskey world.
05:03And it continues to be, probably, when I started in the industry, the single malts business was really controlled by, let's say, Glen Fiddich and Glenlivet.
05:18Glen Mornge would be in there, Macallan would be doing some interesting stuff at that time, although it was in private ownership then.
05:30It was owned by a guy from Trun, who was also a script writer and a film producer.
05:37And, of course, one or two of the islands were quite prominent. So, but a lot of the distilleries weren't showcased.
05:44They were a very important part of the blending process being used in significantly famous blends.
05:53And I would suspect it was something like 93%, 7% these days.
05:58It hasn't moved all that much. It's probably 88%, 12% now, or maybe it's 85%, 15%.
06:04But blended whisky is still a huge player in our whisky world.
06:10Single malt, of course, is being progressively and constantly discovered by different markets all over the world.
06:19And we can talk about that later.
06:22Yeah. And just to go back to Glenelki before we get on to Micho Tor.
06:28You guys were named Best Scotch whisky by the World Whisky Awards earlier this year for your 12-year-old.
06:34How did that feel? And were you celebrating with a wee draft?
06:38Well, listen, we were celebrating for sure. I think the celebration took quite a long time.
06:43But more importantly is the impact it has with the general whisky world.
06:49It's almost the case since that award that the demand for a 12-year-old has probably tripled.
06:57It's actually quite difficult to queue up sometimes in terms of demand and availability and bottling.
07:03It's a terrific award. Great for the team.
07:06Great for the Silly, great for the brand.
07:12But it's the second time. We also won it in 2010 for our 10-year-old.
07:16So we're not sitting on our laurels, but we're very, very happy with that kind of recognition.
07:23And so can you tell us a little bit about the Micho Tor brand, what it is, how it came about?
07:32Yeah, look, producing a Petey Whisky at Glenelki was an unfulfilled itch for me.
07:40I tried some work, I did some work at Glenelki, did some work at Glenelki, but never really had the time to fulfil the kind of ideas that we had.
07:53We also wanted to use a Petey Whisky that was significantly different from Islay Petey Whisky.
08:01And so for that reason, we chose to use Mainland peat as a source of the peating.
08:09Mainland peat is much less and almost non-medicinal compared to Islay peat.
08:15Why? Well, Mainland peat is essentially, if you've ever been to Islay, there are no trees on the island.
08:21So the peat, the evolution, the development of the peat is from the decomposition of grasses, heather,
08:29of course, and trees. So Mainland peat is a sweeter peat.
08:39You don't capture the kind of medicinal notes that you get with Islay peat.
08:45And that's classically represented in the work we've done with Micho Tor.
08:52Nice. And when did you launch it as a brand and what does the name mean?
08:57Well, the name means big pursuit, maybe big challenge, but big pursuit.
09:02Tor is pursuit and Micho is big.
09:05Micho is an old Scots word for big or grand.
09:09And Tor is a Gaelic word for pursuit or challenge.
09:13We launched it, I think, about, you're challenging me a wee bit now, about 18 months ago.
09:19And interestingly, we wanted to showcase it as a five-year-old initially,
09:29because if you want the full peated experience, the best years are between five and ten.
09:35After that, the peat influence begins to change.
09:39It fades a little bit. I mean, the product doesn't get poorer.
09:44Other things are happening, of course, during the maturation process.
09:47But the actual real peat punchy peat is much more present between the age of five and ten.
09:56And so we were comfortable launching it as a five-year-old.
10:01We wanted the kind of peat levels, if you know, to around about 40, 45 ppm.
10:06I think we've achieved that.
10:08The characteristics we were looking for, the things that we're going to replace,
10:13the kind of medicinal iodine notes, where things like cigar smoke, campfire smoke, leather notes, tobacco leaf notes.
10:26These were the kind of notes that we wanted to replace the kind of iodine medicinal notes you get in Islay.
10:35And your most, we've got your most recent, I've got samples of your most recent launches here.
10:40So we've got a distillery exclusive, Pedro Jimenez.
10:44We've got a web exclusive, also Sherry Hogshead.
10:48And I've got the original bourbon, virgin oak and rye.
10:51So do you want to tell us a little bit about these when they're out and what their story behind them?
10:57Yeah, look, the wood plays such an important part in the flavour development of the...
11:09We use rye casks to capture additional spicy notes.
11:14The virgin casks...
11:16The virgin casks that we use would be...
11:19We're trying to induce butterscotch, honey, and vanilla.
11:22But here we're looking at a PX and an Oloroso single cask.
11:27They're both at pretty high strength, 59, 60%.
11:30What we expect from the PX experience is we're looking for things like Christmas cake.
11:38We're looking for things like stewed cherries.
11:41That's the kind of PX influence.
11:44On the Oloroso cask, we're looking for dark chocolate and mocha.
11:51All underpinned by the phenolic notes, the campfire, the tobacco notes, the cigar smoke.
12:00And, of course, full body with dark chocolate.
12:05Yeah, mocha.
12:06Although these are both from sherry experiences, PX and the Oloroso are quite different.
12:13And they showcase the kind of...
12:17The kind of peat experience extremely well.
12:19Sherry and Pete worked extremely well.
12:21Oloroso in particular is the king of sherry casks.
12:24And that plays some wonderful tunes with this particular product.
12:31And the original, is that the one that's been around?
12:37Is that the one you launched initially?
12:38Because I can see here it says five years old.
12:40And then, obviously, these are like an extension of them.
12:42These are single casks.
12:44The original series was...
12:47One was called the original.
12:49And that was a combination of virgin rye casks and other casks.
12:55We did a Chinquapin release, which was...
12:58Chinquapin is a...
12:59It's an unusual virgin oak casks from the Midwest of America.
13:03Characteristics you're particularly looking for are...
13:06Herbal notes.
13:08Herbal notes.
13:10Anise, licorice notes.
13:14Unusual casks.
13:16Some people are nervous to use them.
13:18We're really comfortable.
13:19We think they work particularly with really quite strong flavour.
13:22The products, Chinquapin works extremely well.
13:25We also launched the sherry style, which we're kind of demonstrating here.
13:30We also had a fourth one, which was a turbo release in sherry.
13:34And what we did there was we wanted to up the kind of peated level, the phenol level.
13:40And that's around about 80 to 90 parts per million of phenols.
13:45So the range is very interesting.
13:47It captures quite a lot of interesting flavours.
13:49It uses a lot of very interesting casks.
13:52Yeah.
13:53And you've done some work with Scottish oak as well.
13:56And I know, having spoken to you about this in the past, it's quite challenging.
14:01Do you see it being something that's just quite a rare sort of release because of that reason?
14:07Or do you think it's something that might eventually kind of take off?
14:12The problem of Scottish oak is it's very expensive and that kind of limits the use in certain products.
14:19Scottish oak is fantastic.
14:21It's, of all the virgin oats, it's the spiciest, very full-bodied.
14:27Of course, you're going to get things like butterscotch, vanilla and honey.
14:30But the real characteristics we're trying to capture with Scottish oak is these spicy notes, nutmeg, cinnamon,
14:36orange peel, almonds, that kind of stuff, hazelnuts.
14:42Wonderful casks to work with.
14:43And they don't overcook.
14:45You know, they move from one stage of flavour evolution to another stage.
14:51As a hundred percent Scottish oak, that would be quite a big challenge to put in bottle.
14:56But we're using Scottish oak along with things like PX and all of those.
15:00And they fuse, they interact beautifully.
15:04And the Scottish oak we use comes from Perthshire.
15:07The Coopers hate it.
15:09They're difficult to work with.
15:11Lots of knots.
15:12You don't get a lot of staves out of the tree or short trees.
15:16But great.
15:18The delivery.
15:19The flavour delivery is wonderful.
15:22Yeah.
15:23Do you want to try these whiskies or are you happy just talking about them?
15:27I'm happy to talk about them and gaze at them and try them.
15:31The first one to the cat is the Mikotort PX single cask.
15:39It's 59.9%.
15:44It gets hogsfed so you can't expect to get a lot of sherry from the small cask.
15:52And what we're looking for in the nose, I'm going to pick up cigar smoke, campfire smoke,
16:00leather, tobacco leaves.
16:03And then some spicy, you know, it's a hint of cinnamon.
16:10Maybe some nutmeg.
16:13And then the sherry kicks in, you'll get some Christmas cake, some stewed cherries.
16:24And lots of waves of butterscotch, vanilla, honey, and you would expect that.
16:41And on the taste, the peak experience is the major.
16:45It's the campfire, cigar smoke, but it's mingling really nicely with the sherry influence.
16:56You're getting the kind of Christmas cake notes, the cherries.
17:01And then you've got heather honey and butterscotch and vanilla.
17:05And then levels of spice like nutmeg and cinnamon.
17:08And it's at quite high strength.
17:13This one's at 59.9.
17:15You know, it's comfortable on the palate.
17:17And if you want to add water, it'll open up to a slightly different experience.
17:25But it's not overwhelming the palate.
17:28It's not telling you you want any water.
17:37But the smoke is evolving in your mouth.
17:39It's front, middle and back.
17:42But importantly, and it's what we're trying to achieve.
17:46It's it's non medicinal.
17:48And so it stands alone.
17:50It's not like the Irish style.
17:54It's quite its own mainland style.
17:58Yeah, it's lovely.
18:01It's there's this there's a sweetness there, but it's so it's all dry as well.
18:06It's really nice.
18:07Very Christmassy.
18:08And importantly, it's not an old whisky.
18:11This one's a six or seven year old.
18:14It's comfortable, you know, it's it's not embarrassed to be that age.
18:29It's working really nicely at that age.
18:31And as I said earlier, pediocracies tend to be at the most, the most impactful between five and ten.
18:40Nice.
18:41Lovely.
18:42So then we want to move on to the.
18:47So this is the 2019.
18:51So this is a six year old.
18:53Strength is spot on about 60% alcohol.
18:58Color.
18:59Tell you this is definitely all of some natural color.
19:05The immediate noise is going to pick up the campfire tobacco leaves to get smoke.
19:16Hints of butterscotch and vanilla.
19:25Sort of hints of the spaces and not make cinnamon.
19:29Another palette.
19:30It's a big challenge of, of campfire smoke and the.
19:43And that's more tobacco leaves.
19:48Some wonderful notes of dark chocolate and market in here.
19:49Mingles really well with the, with the peated influence.
19:53The butterscotch vanilla honey and spices.
19:54A lovely orange peel cinnamon.
19:55It's.
19:56Dangerous.
19:57It's.
19:58It's also amazing how different they smell.
19:59I know that's the whole point.
20:00But like just going straight one after the other.
20:01The.
20:02The.
20:03The.
20:04The.
20:05The.
20:06The.
20:07The.
20:08The.
20:09You can smell.
20:10The.
20:11The petted influence.
20:12It's also amazing how different they smell.
20:13And all that's the whole point.
20:14But like just going straight one after the other.
20:15The.
20:16The.
20:17You can smell the peat.
20:18dangerous it's also amazing how different they smell i know that's the whole point but like just
20:25going straight one after the other that you can smell the peat but the difference you can really
20:30tell the difference as well just by smelling it it's how how the peated influence latches onto
20:35the other flavors and then delivers to your palate um yeah it's worked really well um and of course
20:42um these will evolve over a number of years and in the future we'll see some probably 10 year old
20:49probably 15 year old evolving so we've got a lot of things working in the background in the warehouse
20:54um but there's no discipline from my point of view from the lender's point of view no no disappointment
21:00here good um and do you want to try the original five years if you've got that or is it just the
21:08jerry you've got i want to get these two in front of me okay that's fine on the broader on the broader
21:14um kind of picture um these are different we bottle the i think we bottle the the the the other range
21:25is about 48 um and the the most difficult one to get is the turbo that's got a ppm of about 80 85
21:38these two here are operating around about 40 45 ppm and the the conventional range is somewhere between
21:4535 and 40 ppm um but outside of the sherry the chicken and the particular chicken pin is uh
21:56it's a beautiful combination of flavors um of course the original is beautiful as well it's
22:01stored and it's enhanced it's got enhanced spices in it from the rye casks um so yeah look um with this
22:09series the journey has just begun um and we will continue to play some tunes with it and uh and
22:17encourage all kinds of different flavors out of it such a nice way of putting it playing tunes with the
22:23whiskey you know it's how you see it um you know so many you so many different styles of casks
22:31it's really it's like an orchestra don't overplay here but overplay here underplay here bring some
22:39of this in occasionally and that's kind of it's kind of the blender's job um and is there anything
22:47else coming up for the rest of the year or next year that you're particularly excited about
22:51yeah look we what one of one listen one of the great um benefits of being a private independent company
23:00is that we we have a freedom to do things we're not we're not constrained by the power of the
23:07of the positioning the strength of a particular long historical brand we have a freedom to exercise um
23:17the ideas that we are constantly swirling about with um and you know our strand line is that we don't
23:24pursue consistency we pursue perfection so what what's what is happening just now is we're looking at
23:32we're fascinated by the contribution of different styles of oak casks
23:37and you know done a lot of work in european oak um and if i'm honest the one that really really
23:44impresses me is russian oak it unfortunately it's kind of you can't imagine anything russian just
23:53know but the actual oak the company how it behaves with the whiskey and it's terrific we're looking at
23:59mongolian oak we think mongolian oak we've done a lot of work with mongolian you know we think that
24:04will be similar in style to mizunara um amazing characteristics we're looking for in mizunara of
24:12things like umami incense sandalwood notes um
24:19mongolia is in the same latitude as uh hokkaido by and large is the same kind of soil the same and in
24:27fact i think the i think the mizunara oak is actually it is a genus of mongolica um and uh
24:36so it should be similar we're also looking at lots of different oaks from america um garyana um chink
24:43pen ozark um appalachian and we'll get into south america we're looking at some andean oak and these are
24:51very interesting so we're always fascinated by what different things can we do what can different
24:58styles of open and deliver for us um and there's lots of interesting things coming through i promise
25:06well it sounds uh it sounds great i'm looking forward to finding out more as they become
25:10available and is there anything else that you want to add that i've not asked you that you'd like to
25:15mention listen you mentioned earlier that you know the industry goes through various periods of um
25:26ups and downs it has gone through a little bit of some some actually quite considerable headwinds
25:32we personally see um these early roots of recovery now we see some features we think um we think asia
25:41is is really really interesting and we see it recovering we we seem to see it coming quite
25:48quickly i hope i don't have to eat my words but right now we some of the markets they are incredible
25:56china vietnam's an amazing market for us um south korea taiwan um malaysia singapore that territory these
26:08that part of the world is is remarkable at the moment and that's not to say that europe and
26:14scandinavia and america are not good markets of course the markets are traditional markets
26:18they have a good understanding that deep understanding of what scotch whiskey and indeed
26:23single malt is all about um but we're not downhearted we think the recovery has already started
26:31well that's good that's good to hear um well thank you very much um it's been great to chat to you and
26:41try these whiskies and um yeah if anybody wants to buy them they are out now um and they'll be on
26:47your guys website i'm thinking they're in the distillery do you sell them through the distillery
26:53i'm sorry you missed that oh sorry um the amico tor do you sell them through the distillery of course um
26:59yeah and one of these i think it's the one of them is a distillery exclusive and one of them is an
27:04online exclusive but the silly shop some very very interesting releases in the distillery shop um
27:10it's a great by the way when i think this is a wonderful occasion it's great story um once you're
27:16on the site you won't want to leave no i can i can uh i agree with you on that it is it is beautiful and
27:23when you had ed from right to rome with his van with his coffee there during one spirit space i don't
27:28think i did leave i kept showing up every morning yeah um it's always a nice experience to wander up
27:36and do some work in the lab um it's uh look i'm an imposter this isn't a job this is just fun yeah
27:45no it's well you make it sound fun i'm sure it's it's very more um complicated than than that but yeah
27:50it's um and the fruits of your labor are delicious so thank you very much anyway listen thanks for the
27:56opportunity of the chat thank you
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