- 2 days ago
Food and drink editor Rosalind Erskine talks to Tomatin blender and brand ambassador Scott Adamson about the drams of his career, including the Tomatin Double Cask and Tomatin 14 Year Old.
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00:00i'm joined by scott adamson who's the tomato blender and global brand ambassador hi scott how
00:17are you i'm very good thank you how are you yeah really well thank you and we're just enjoying the
00:22sunshine here in glasgow and you've had to shut your blind unfortunately because you were very
00:26backlit but um yeah it's a lovely day lovely day to talk about whiskey yeah i'm glad i actually had to
00:31close that the greenhouse effect was happening here as well so blending closed is helping a lot
00:37um so for anyone that doesn't um know you or your work do you want to just give us a little sort of
00:42potty history of your career today yeah so my role at the moment i'm tomatin's blender and global brand
00:49ambassador which is a great job it means i get to be involved in creating our whiskey then also going
00:53and talking about it and i've been with tomatin since 2012. originally i joined the company as a
01:01research um intern researching the history of the distillery um i i studied scottish history at
01:09university at the time so it was a nice kind of segue into the whiskey industry um and then from there i
01:15moved into a more commercial role which was really interesting because um i had never worked in sales
01:22at all in my life but tomatin was at a time where the team was really really small so
01:26people did lots of different things so as much as i was a sales manager i also worked in an
01:31ambassadorial capacity i worked on new product development slowly became the person that was
01:36writing all the tasting notes for our products and whatnot and performed that role for a number of
01:41years before in 2018 and moving into a global brand ambassador position so traveling more broadly and
01:52focusing on telling people about the the whiskies that i loved but behind the scenes i was working
01:57with our master distiller at the time graham younson in blending and so the first year or so was really
02:04just learning the stock model we've got thousands of casks of whiskey here so learning how that all works
02:09together then he gave me a crack at creating a couple of whiskies of my own so started by creating
02:15the kubok and creation series which is really fun because those are whiskies that were designed to
02:20be experimental they were designed to be a little bit more creative so being able to come to that with
02:25the viewpoint of a whiskey lover rather than a seasoned blender was a lot of fun and after a few releases
02:31under my belt i started getting involved in the core range and that's where the work really gets
02:35difficult because you're trying to recreate products that have been around for um in some cases decades
02:43like the tomato and 12 year old has been around since the 1990s and customers rightly expect every
02:48bottling to taste the same as the previous one so that consistency is really important but on the other
02:54side of it we've got to make sure that we're laying down the right amount of stock into casks today
02:58to achieve our sales forecasts for the next 12 years so there's a lot to that and then in may of this
03:04year graham retired and so all of the blending and stock management responsibility came over to me
03:12wow that's um yeah i take it you felt like did you ever phone him up and say
03:18you know do you ever sort of feel like oh i need to ask you a question is he still very active are you
03:24you'll pop in a couple of times uh maybe once every two months or so uh to see how things are going
03:30most of most of my uh questions with him are how does the spreadsheet work he built this unbelievable
03:37spreadsheet that pulls from all of our different um sources and tells us what stock we've got um and
03:44for the most part it works fine but then every so often one little bit of code will be out and nobody
03:49knows how to solve it except him so um but sometimes as well it's nice if we're working on a new product just
03:54to be able to get his nose in the glass and see what he thinks as well so um you said you started
04:00off you'd studied uh history i would say studied whiskey you studied history and um obviously worked
04:07with tomaton for a number of years were you always into whiskey or what was the the whiskey that kind
04:11of got you into whiskey yeah so i i kind of grew up around whiskey i grew up in a small village called
04:18edmonton about 30 minutes north of inverness and whiskey didn't ever seem something big or special
04:25it was just always there you know there was plenty of people in the village that either worked in
04:29distilleries or they worked in the the kind of wider supply chain to the whiskey industry it was my dad
04:35would drink a hoff and hoff it would probably be white and mackay and a wee pint of tenants and uh you
04:40know on special occasions a bottle of glenmorangie would be pulled out for first footing in the new year and
04:45things like that but um it was really only when i got into the whiskey industry that i was able to
04:50look back at that and realize you know whiskey is something that people were rightly proud of
04:55but they never shouted about it my job today is to shout about it it's to go and celebrate at
05:01tastings and at festivals and things but i think there's still something nice about having a couple
05:06of bottles in the cupboard that don't need much explaining and they just become part of daily life
05:11rather than being the star of the show so that was kind of the the environment i grew up in
05:17i don't really remember the first time i had a whiskey i probably shouldn't have had it it was
05:22probably something out of a grandfather's cabinet or something like that but i do remember the first
05:27time that i had a dram and it kind of sparked an interest and it was i was just in the pub one night
05:33and my pal handed me a glass of dura superstition um which sadly no longer available and at that time i don't
05:40i wouldn't have considered myself a whiskey drinker i don't even know if i really liked whiskey then
05:44i remember trying that dura there's something different about this there's a little bit more
05:50to this than i maybe first thought and that um funnily enough a couple of days later i spoke to a
05:57colleague that i was working with this was before i got into the whiskey industry and he told me that
06:02the whiskey shop in Inverness were doing regular tastings so that's where the exploration really began
06:07and i started going to Balblair, Beaumont, Baldeni tastings we even had a Yamazaki night at that time
06:14and it was just at the same time that i first noticed the um the job opportunity come up at
06:20Tomathen so that was quite fun because i think for a lot of people you have a love of whiskey and then
06:25you get into the whiskey industry or maybe you work in the whiskey industry and then the taste comes over
06:30time for me both things kind of happened at the same time and kind of by accident so it was a really nice
06:35way into the industry where my job was also my hobby yeah no that's that's cool so that was um like
06:44the other kind of start of it and did you sort of where are you now like what what sort of bridge your
06:49gap between now and then like what were the whiskeys that you started drinking after that and and then
06:53what are you drinking now yeah i think that was the great thing was um when i started working at
07:00Tomathen you obviously got exposed to a lot more whiskey and um the Tomathen 12 year old was the
07:05the bottle that you would be given every month so you got to enjoy that but we were also working
07:09on new products at the time so coming into Tomathen as an intern my the ultimate goal of the work that
07:16i was doing was to create a story for a new release that we were working on a new non-age stated release
07:23that was going to come into the core range um and the company were looking for this product to have a
07:29story that was authentic and compelling and so i was looking through all the records and through the
07:34archives and things but most of the stories that i really enjoyed were the stories that were being
07:38told to me by the people that worked at Tomathen um and over time i began to realize that the story
07:44was the people of Tomathen it wasn't the stories they were telling me Tomathen's this great distillery
07:49it's the last distillery in scotland that provides housing to the majority of the workforce so there's 30
07:54cottages on site they're all occupied by men and women that make whiskey here and so we ended up
08:01creating Tomathen legacy to tell the story that not only is the legacy of the distillery that this
08:06community has been established but the legacy of that community is every drop of whiskey that we make
08:12and so that was a nice thing to see come from where the story tied in with the liquid and the
08:19the people that we were talking about ended up being the people that selected the final recipe there so
08:24that was a really nice thing and then my role as i moved into the more commercial role i began traveling
08:30and i got to experience whiskeys from around the world i would be drinking bourbon when i was in
08:35america i would be uh drinking indian whiskey i'd be drinking taiwanese whiskey and starting to see
08:41that the whiskey wasn't just this thing that we make in scotland we do it very very well here but
08:46it's had such a profound impact on the whole world that people all around the place are starting to make
08:51this stuff um then within Tomathen myself as i say started working on the Kubokan creations as the first
08:59thing that i got to work on and began taking over uh the core range products and now starting to
09:06develop core range products so the new uh tomatin double cask that we've just launched is the first
09:12time that i've created a product that will be added into the core range and that's a really nice thing
09:17to see you're you're starting something that will be around for a long long time most of the new products
09:23i've created so far have been limited editions and they're a lot of fun to work on but very much once
09:28they're done they're done and you you don't get to talk about them too much longer with something
09:33like double cask which is now in the uk available in tesco on amazon um it's something that's going
09:40to be around for a very very long time and it's nice to have been able to add that into the range here
09:46yeah it must be interesting as well doing that job of you you know you'll you'll be working with like
09:51the new liquid coming in you're putting into cask and and there'll be a they'll come a point whereby you
09:55you you will have retired by the time some of it you know someone else will have taken on that well
10:00that must be a funny feeling because there's not many jobs that have that kind of like legacy in them
10:04yes that's that's a really really cool thing about whiskey it's all we always talk about it as
10:10custodianship you know you never fully own the the liquids um and it's something that we see quite
10:16a lot into math and because we've got guys in the team who have been working here for 40 50 years
10:21um and some of them are the second third fourth generations of their family to work here so a lot
10:28of the time the guys will be emptying casks that were filled by their fathers or in some cases by
10:33their grandfathers and that's a really nice thing and you get to see that um in in real time and yet
10:39again for me being able to work on projects and little ideas and you know bring a new cask type over
10:46that we've never used before and not know if i'll be here when when that whiskey comes to fruition
10:51there's something quite nice about just kind of tucking that away for the future whilst being able
10:56to work with the things that people have laid down for us from the past yeah it must be fascinating
11:03and and your other side of your job so your global band and brand ambassador role are you
11:08going to all around the world with tomato where are the regions that are sort of enjoying it the most
11:13that you're finding so we're really lucky at timatin that we've got quite a big spread across the world
11:19i think at the moment we are available in over 60 countries worldwide um and that kind of some years
11:26they'll be bigger than others and things like that at the moment big markets for us are uh the uk is
11:32really really popular at the moment but we'll my year will take me to australia to china to america
11:41over to europe it's got a really nice spread over to japan as well tomatin's been japanese owned since
11:471984 so we're really popular there um and that's that's a really nice thing i've been able to travel
11:53the world with this job and and be exposed to things that i wouldn't otherwise have been able to
11:58and i've been able to do that with a bottle and a glass of whiskey all the way it's a lot of fun
12:04and what are the different regions drinking different different tomatins so is there you know a
12:08favorite in america or a favorite in japan or or is it like a good mix there's different trends so
12:15in asia we see a lot of love for sherry matured whiskey so we've got things like the tomatin 12
12:20year old sherry cask that performs really really well in asia over in america the more traditional
12:26style of whiskies like the tomatin 12 year old or even the tomatin legacy which although it's more
12:31modern it tastes a lot like an american whiskey that performs really well there but what's really
12:36interesting as well is the way that people drink whiskey around the world is different so over in
12:40japan you see that the highball culture uh in europe it's far more traditional you know maybe a little
12:47bit vice and things like that so as well as drinking different tomatins drinking them different ways is
12:53quite fun to see nice so we've talked about your the different dramas that you've sort of shaped your
12:59career so far do you want to do a do a quick sort of tasting of the double cask that sorry
13:07the tasting of the double cask yeah absolutely so we've got the double cask here this is as i say it's
13:12a new uh release for us um and it's quite a traditional style of whiskey as well there it's
13:18a non-age dated product but there's a good bit of maturation going on there the whiskey's been in
13:23the cask for around about eight or nine years before we've bottled it there um which is a lot
13:28older than a lot of non-age status whiskeys but what we'll do here half of the whiskey has been
13:33fully matured in ex-bourbon barrels and bourbon barrels are wonderful they're the most commonly
13:39used cask type in scotland now because the law in america is you have to be matured in a fresh charred
13:44oak cask so that word fresh means that once they're used they have to be sold and in scotland we buy them
13:50and it works really really well with our spirit the numic carrot to it to matin is really fruity
13:55it's malty it's got a sweetness and an elegance to it so all of the vanilla and coconut and white
14:01chocolate flavors that you get from an ex-bourbon barrel work really really well there the second
14:07part of the recipe there the second half we've matured in oloroso sherry casks and the sherry casks
14:13are what's responsible for that almost christmas cake character there you get that dried fruit
14:20you get a little bit of dark chocolate you get that syrupy element to the double cask
14:25the two work in harmony and they they allow the distillery character to shine through as well
14:29one thing that we're really keen to do with any product that we make when it comes to blending is
14:35ensure that as well as having the cask character that we've got the character of the numic spirit
14:40coming through if we completely um cover the numic spirit character with the maturation character
14:48this could come from any distillery we want to make sure that people know that this is
14:52definitely from tomatin
14:57so the nose there is wonderful there's lots of that that apple pear orchard fruit up front
15:02that then moves into that drier fruit and some of the spice from the oloroso sherry casks
15:07and it's a really easy drinking whiskey slandra
15:14so it's bottled at 40 percent there and that's all about making sure that this whiskey is really
15:19enjoyable really accessible um all of those kind of malty fruity flavors from those come straight
15:26onto the palette there but it's still even at 40 leaves a nice long lasting finish
15:31yeah no it's lovely it's um classic but um i could see it being something that if you're not quite
15:37sure like having it in a cocktail like trying out sort of being like a gateway whiskey into
15:42no it's really nice
15:43yeah this again i think kind of goes full circle for me a little bit in the sense that
15:48my earliest memories of whiskey are people drinking nips of whiskey with a half pint of lager in the pub and
15:55for me this is almost the perfect whiskey to be doing that with if i was drinking this at home
16:00i probably wouldn't have it in a nosing glass and i wouldn't be writing tasting notes it would just be
16:04in a tumbler and i'd have a half pint of lager sitting next to it and just enjoying them and it's
16:10one of those whiskies again like i said at the beginning there it just becomes an accessory to
16:14daily life it doesn't have to become the star of the show or steal your attention this is about just
16:19having a nice bottle of malt to enjoy with friends what lager would you pair with it do you know it's
16:25i guess all the time i i go back to tenants every single time um i think much like with my kind of
16:32whiskey journey i've gone through years of trying and experimenting loads of different things but then
16:37i just go back to an old faithful reliable kind of traditional single malt i did the same with beer
16:43i went through all of those years of trying the really strong ipas and the hazy beers and all those
16:48things and i still go back to a pint of tenants every time well i think there's a reason that
16:53scotland's best selling beer isn't it everybody else exactly yeah yeah and it works really really well
16:58with a single malt nice so is there anything else you've got coming up for the rest of the year or
17:04into next year that you can tell us about so the rest of the year is mostly about travel and is about
17:09talking about these whiskies that we've launched this year there's been a few new additions to the travel
17:14retail range we've released a 13 year old double cask there um and yeah the rest of the year is just
17:20going to be kind of focusing on that behind the scenes i'm also responsible for the new product
17:25development team here so we're always doing a lot of research and looking at any opportunities that
17:30come through and there's some really nice things longer term on the back burner so we've got some
17:35nice experiments going in from the production point of view i think when i started working at
17:40tomatin the experiments were very much on the maturation side so what type of casks you could
17:44finish in but we've started laying down some longer term spirits trials with different barley varieties
17:50and different yeast strains so we're getting to the point where we're starting to nose and taste those
17:55and decide what direction we want to go in with those sort of things nice well it sounds exciting and
18:01are you off to anywhere nice traveling anywhere nice for this half of the year we just had a meeting
18:06about that today and we're deciding who's getting to go where i'm hoping to get on the australia plane
18:10but we'll wait and see oh that'll be lovely you'll be heading there just as it's getting cold here
18:15i know it works in perfectly yeah uh well thank you very much for your time and for talking us through
18:22um the new double cask and it was lovely to meet you and um cheers cheers
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