Whiskey Shenanigans Exclusive Podcast About Johnnie Walker

From Chemistry Lab to Whiskey Innovation: Inside Johnnie Walker’s Blending Mastery with George Harper.

Transcript

Randy Warren (00:06):
Welcome to Whiskey Shenanigans. I’m your host, Randy Warren. Whiskey Shenanigans, where we help our listeners experience the world of whiskey, every aspect of life as if it was accompanied by a glass of bourbon, sports world on whiskey, basically every part of life on whiskey. Whiskey Shenanigans is about getting exclusive interviews from Bourbon Row in Kentucky where we can learn about the secrets that make our favorite bourbons unique. We will get inside the hearts and minds of many distillers and help you understand what and how they are achieving it. Whiskey Shenanigans is about going beyond boring podcasts featuring just tastings. Heck, what do you get out of that anyway? It’s about bringing on guests and experiencing the entire world through whiskey. But be warned, if you’re diving in and you want to participate in these riveting discussions, you will need to grab a glass or a dram and be prepared to be entertained.

(01:10):
Welcome again, Whiskey Shenanigans fans. We are here and we are very, very excited to have with us today George Harper from Johnny Walker. And welcome, George.

George Harper (01:21):
Thanks, Andy. It’s a pleasure to be here. Really pleased to be here to meet you and talk to your vets some whiskey.

Randy Warren (01:27):
Yeah, absolutely. So fun. So Johnny Walker, it’s known, it’s a big brand, it’s the blending and everything like that. I have noticed, and we’ll get into a little more of the details on some of the new innovations that you guys have done because that’s the fun stuff. But before we do that, how did you get involved with this?

George Harper (01:52):
Yeah, so I’ve been working with Johnny Walker for just over 10 years now. Before that, I actually was a craft brewer in Scotland, so tried my hand at making beer for a number of years. But going even further back, what I did was I went to university and studied chemistry and then that led me to changing courses to studying brewing and distilling. So I got a degree in brewing and distilling. Did a student placement here at Johnny Walker. And then after I kind of hung up my brewing boots, decided to come back to the whiskey side of industry. So yeah, that was a kind of short summary of how I got here.

Randy Warren (02:40):
Yeah, good choice. I think that this industry is a lot of fun and it’s kind of followed the craft. I don’t know about over in Scotland, but in America, the craft brewing industry really exploded 10 or 20 years ago. And it’s just everybody was making beer out of everything. And I mean, there was a place down in Delaware, the tiny little state of Delaware on the East Coast that got bought up by a larger distillery or a larger brewery, but I swear they would put anything in the beer. They tried everything. I mean, they had hundreds of experiments going. I was joking around with a friend, they’d put dirty socks in the beer if it made it have a certain… It just didn’t matter. It’s like, let’s try peanut butter. Let’s try whatever. Let’s try anything. Dogfish Head was the name of that.

George Harper (03:35):
Oh, I know it well. Yeah, I think similar story here. I was lucky that the time I came into brewing was during that kind of, like you said, 10, 15 years ago, that rise of the craft brewery. And I think when I came into the industry, there was maybe a dozen breweries across Scotland. I think by the time I left, it was probably about 50. It had just really exploded. And we weren’t quite as mad as some of those innovations, but we were trying everything from blueberry wheat beers to… I made a non-alcoholic ginger and lemongrass beer at one point, so we were trying everything really.

Randy Warren (04:21):
That’s great. And it is fun to experiment. You have done some really interesting stuff like at Johnny Walker. I mean, I was looking through the website and like, tell me about this Whitewalker innovation that you did.

George Harper (04:43):
Early on in my career of working on Johnny Walker innovation, we got approached by our innovation and marketing teams that work on all those things. And they said they had an interesting collaboration. They wanted to work with HBO and the Game of Thrones TV show to come up with a whiskey that could launch around about whichever season it was that was launching on the TV at the point. And yeah, it was a dream kind of role for me because I was a massive fan of the books even before the TV show started. So yeah, it was fun. It was really looking at how we can tie in some story cues to themes of the show, but also it was a really big opportunity at the time to broaden scotch. That was the kind of push from our side was scotch at times can be a difficult category to get into, particularly for people new to whiskey at all.

(05:50):
And it was how can we make a Johnny Walker that would be a bit more approachable, a bit more friendly to the new consumer and bring them into it? Because we knew there was going to be reach with the success of the TV show and the people that would be attracted to it, they would bring people in. So that was a really fun thought process of, well, we’ve got this wealth of scotch whiskey in our inventory. Wha can we bring that will cue some of those kind of lighter, fresher, more enticing flavors? And so yeah, it was a fun time to be involved with.

Randy Warren (06:34):
Oh yeah, absolutely. So I was a big fan of the books before the show came out as well and way before the show came out. And I read the first book, I don’t even know, probably when it first came out. I don’t even know when that was. 2005 maybe, or maybe even before, maybe in the ’90s. And I was like, “Oh, this is really crazy book. This is wild.” Nobody had ever heard of it. It was some weird kind of Lord of the Rings-ish kind of thing or something or whatever. And I didn’t read the rest of them at that point in time. I don’t think they were even out yet. And then all of a sudden this show many years later comes on HBO and I’m like, “I’ve seen this before. Wait a minute. Now in Winfall, this looks familiar.” Especially the first scene where they throw the kid out the window and all this stuff.

(07:28):
It’s like, “What is happening on this show?” And I’m like, “I’ve seen this before.” Then I went back and I read all the books and got way ahead of the TV series, but it’s fun stuff. But so in your blend, you blended some whiskeys together to make this special release.

George Harper (07:50):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Completely new innovation. So I was looking at, because of some of the themes in the show, it was looking at whiskeys that were kind of distilled in some of the colder parts of Scotland. And then like I said, touching on those kind of more approachable flavors, things like vanilla, things like fresh orchard fruit. And we’re massively lucky at Johnny Walker that we’ve got 30 distilleries that we can pull from to bring those flavors to the forefront. And with Johnny Walker, that’s what’s great about blending is being able to grow while we can bring these whiskeys that have a lovely vanilla flavor to them. We can bring these whiskeys that have lovely kind of freshly cut green apple, pair them together into a blend and really showcase the flavors. So yeah, it’s a fun part of the job.

Randy Warren (08:43):
How many distilleries did you say?

George Harper (08:46):
Currently, we’ve got over 30 distilleries.

Randy Warren (08:52):
Are they all over Scotland or are they all kind of co-located?

George Harper (08:55):
Yeah, all over. We’ve got quite a lot up in Spaceside, a few distilleries out on Isla, which is, as whiskey fans will know, is where a lot of the big smoky whiskeys come from. Right down to the Lowlands roundabout, just outside Edinburgh, we’ve got a lovely single malt distillery to Kinchie. And then just across the breadth of Scotland, an absolute gift of an inventory to be able to play with as well as our green distilleries as well.

Randy Warren (09:25):
That’s amazing. So many years ago before I’d started doing this podcast and before I even went to Scotland for the second time, a Johnny Walker rep came to the country club that I was part of. And he brought in all these test tubes and all this stuff. And we had about 30 people there that night and we had a competition to see who could take all these different blends and these different components and make Johnny Walker black out of it.

George Harper (09:56):
That’s a tough task.

Randy Warren (09:57):
Yeah, great. We tried some Johnny Walker Black and then we’re like, okay, it needs a little more pea, needs a little more of this. Trying to get it just right. We came in second that night.

George Harper (10:08):
Oh, well done. That’s pretty good. That’s pretty good.

Randy Warren (10:12):
Wasn’t too bad, but it was fun to do and you’re like, wow, this is… And I can imagine, is that kind of like what your job is there?

George Harper (10:19):
Yeah, a lot of it is. Yeah. I like to describe as that we’re looking for a balance. It’s like you say, taking all those different, for us, cast samples and mixing them in different quantities and levels to, like you say, get that kind of peat level right or dial up some of the sherry notes or some of the fresh fruit notes or dried fruit notes or whatever it may be. But ultimately you want a balance. You don’t want one single flavor and blended whiskey to dominate the blend. You balance of whatever the flavors are you’re looking for in that particular blend to just be right so that you get almost a spectrum of flavor across the blend. And that’s a big part of our day-to-day looking after things like Johnny Walker Black Label, but also working on new innovations, coming up with new recipes, new kind of expressions of whiskeys that we can put out there.

(11:21):
So yeah, it’s a fun job. Yeah.

Randy Warren (11:25):
There’s something about King George. What’s that one about?

George Harper (11:30):
So King George is a fantastic bit before by time, but that was really more of our high-end Johnny Walker products that was really showcasing some of our rarer whiskeys in inventory. I touched on the fact we’ve got about 30 distilleries at the moment, but we also have some inventory of older clothes distilleries that we can go from as well. And so it was really a showcase of bringing together some of that rarest whiskeys in our inventory together to create something like a really special bottle that would make for a fantastic gift or something.

Randy Warren (12:10):
Right. So you’re like a chemistry guy. So how did you develop your nose and your palate to be able to taste all these different… Because when I did it, it was hard. It was difficult.

George Harper (12:23):
Yeah, it’s difficult. It’s something I like to say to people, it’s like an ongoing thing. You don’t just learn it and then you’re a master. I still feel like I’m developing. It’s funny. It probably goes back beyond my whiskey days. I grew up having a passion for cooking and coming home from school, watching cookery shows, learning how to cook, how to pair flavors together. And then that kind of progressed into my career. Yeah, a lot of it’s about understanding how to describe flavor. You might be able to pick up that it’s fruity, but can you discern whether is it peaches? Is it apples? Is it more tropical fruits? And really building up that vocabulary, that experience. And that grows over time. The more exposure we get to nosing whiskey, to trying new whiskeys, whether it’s whiskeys my colleagues have made, whether it’s competitor whiskeys, whether it’s whiskeys from around the world, we like to have an open mind and be part of the whole whiskey landscape because as you’ll know, there’s fantastic whiskeys in the US, in Canada, in Ireland, even Japan and further afield.

(13:47):
So really just really delving into that world of flavor and pulling out different flavors, seeing what works for you, what you like, what works together well. Yeah.

Randy Warren (14:02):
Yeah. I’ve been trying to learn that over the past 18 months or so. Done a lot of work in that. Is that your flavor wheel behind you there?

George Harper (14:11):
Yeah. Yeah. I’m actually, I’m recording this in our nosing room in the labs in Scotland. So that’s just the scotch whiskey flavor wheel that we have out just there is a little thing to refer to as your nosing whiskey if you’re trying to pinpoint and narrow down exactly what it is you’re nosing.

Randy Warren (14:33):
Right. It’s like, what am I smelling? What is that? And you’re kind of like, okay, was it in any of these categories? And then you can narrow it down a little bit further. That helps a little bit.

George Harper (14:42):
Exactly. Yeah.

Randy Warren (14:44):
It also takes a lot of practice. So you’ve been at it for a long time though.

George Harper (14:49):
Yeah, yeah. As I say, over 10 years. And yeah, it’s just a constant learning, refining, getting better as the days go on. Getting better is the new whiskeys you make as well. Sometimes a new innovation will be an innovation on a previous innovation and it’s you refining it more, taking new learnings in and improving it. So it’s a constant process of just trying to be better, trying to deliver more exciting new things.

Randy Warren (15:25):
What’s the craziest blend you ever put together?

George Harper (15:32):
I think I did an innovation for Johnny Walker a number of years ago. It was actually a blue label innovation. So it was blue label elusive umami. We were tasked with coming up with a blue label that looked at umami flavors and how can we bring that into whiskey? And I think the real exciting challenging part of that was working with, we worked with a Japanese chef who owns a restaurant in Paris, Michelin starred chef. And working with him to understand what umami was and how umami could be shown in a whiskey was really exciting and really thinking out of the box in terms of what inventory we could use in terms of bringing some of those more savory umami flavors into whiskey. That was probably the most challenging and also most rewarding kind of whiskey to work on.

Randy Warren (16:40):
Yeah, because it’s different. I mean umami, it’s not fruit. It’s a very different kind of flavor. So it’s got to be difficult to put that. How do I put that into a whiskey? How do I bring those flavor notes out?

George Harper (16:56):
Yeah, exactly.

Randy Warren (17:00):
What was it?

George Harper (17:01):
It was a combination of things. A lot of it was just thinking about more savory notes that we do have in whiskey. We have some wonderful distilleries that has a meaty character to it. If you think about maybe smoked meats or cured meats. So bringing some of that in, but also bringing some of the smokey notes, the kind of minerality of salinity we get from some of our coastal distilleries, bringing them together. But actually learning from the chef himself and understanding that it’s almost like a deliciousness in umami. It makes you want to take another sip. So it was kind of looking at that and trying to incorporate that into the blend and having balance as well. Sweetness was important. We couldn’t just make a full on umami whiskey. You would need it to be balanced with some of the other flavors. And actually sweetness helped bring out some of that kind of meaty savory notes.

(18:06):
And yeah, really proud of it and went down really well in terms of the feedback we got from consumers and the chef himself. I think there was nothing more validating than having a Japanese chef happy with the blends that I’d created in terms of delivering to that brief of creating something umami.

Randy Warren (18:27):
Yeah. Somebody who really knows and has been working with it for years and years and is really good at it and is going like, yep, that’s it.

George Harper (18:35):
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it was a proud moment.

Randy Warren (18:38):
Yeah, you got it. Yeah, that’s great. So scotch is interesting in the sense that it’s really tied into Scotland’s heritage and the history and everything like that. And here in America, we’re building our own history in the bourbon area and all that kind of stuff. And everybody, you guys, I think in Scotland have done a good job, better job of getting your whiskey out first, maybe not first, but here in America, but also in India and places like that. And there’s something like, I don’t know, half a billion or so scotch drinkers in India, right?

George Harper (19:17):
Yeah, it’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s amazing this small country of less than six million people has got this product that’s just known globally I think. And that’s as well as the heritage and the tradition. Some of the distilleries are over 200 years old here. It’s that idea that it’s this recognizable product around the world. It makes us proud. It makes us, I suppose, enthusiastic and encouraged to keep that tradition going and keep that scotch name up there with some of the best products in the world. So yeah, it’s amazing. And I think we’re lucky that it’s been embraced, like you said, in places like India, the US, of course, Canada, China, all across the world. It’s a wonderful industry to be a part of.

Randy Warren (20:16):
I can imagine in India they make some stuff, but it’s probably not nearly as good as what you guys make. And to have a bole of scotch on your shelf would be like, that’s a big deal.

George Harper (20:29):
Yeah, I think so. But India’s an interesting market as well. They’ve got some really good distilleries themselves that are really uplifting their own industry and they still use a lot of scotch within some of their brands, but they’re beginning likes so much other countries around the world are really, it’s a burgeoning industry in those countries to make their own whiskey and make it unique and part of their own culture. And I think that’s brilliant. I think that’s great for whiskey as a whole, that so many countries are trying their hand at it and making some exceptional whiskeys.

Randy Warren (21:15):
Yeah. How do you see scotch influencing the culture in your country and maybe even influencing the culture in America? Those are probably two different questions.

George Harper (21:26):
Yeah, like I said, I think in terms of here in Scotland, there’s definitely a loving ownership to Scotch. And as you said yourself, you’ve been to a lot of distilleries across Scotland. You can see in the communities how important and how beloved Scotch is, whether it’s simply in the jobs that it brings to local communities, but also the kind of tourism that it brings. There’s nothing better than being… I live in Edinburgh, but meeting people from around the world and they want to talk to you about Scotch because it’s this known thing. So I think it’s really ingrained in our culture. Because we’ve so many distilleries in such a small country spread across all the mainland, all the islands, it’s really integral to Scotland and part of what’s makes Scotland so unique. And in terms of the US, you’re probably better to answer that than me, but I think there’s a wonderful connection with Scotland and Ireland as well in the US with a lot of Irish American and Scottish Americans that have an affinity with Scotland and their ancestors coming from there.

(22:57):
And so I’ve embraced Scotch and that’s this wonderful thing. And it kind of sits alongside American whiskey. You would imagine with such a great industry like you guys have in America that why do you need Scotch whiskey? But you embrace it and you love it and it’s a fantastic market for us. And I think that there’s definitely something tied in with that kind of heritage and that connection that Scotland and America have. So I think that’s wonderful.

Randy Warren (23:29):
Yeah. And Scottish, any whiskey is like I was thinking of TV shows like Yellowstone that are more current and things like that. And so many deals, decisions are made just with a drink of whiskey. Sitting down two people, three people. Let’s hash this out. Let’s have a drink and now let’s go do this. Whatever it is.

George Harper (23:59):
Yeah. I see that as well. There’s a little pride in my Scottish heart when I watch an episode of Suits or Mad Men and a Bottle of Scotch is open. So it’s fantastic.

Randy Warren (24:13):
Absolutely. It’s fun. And that’s part of the culture too. I mean, it’s like, okay, let’s figure this, whatever problem we got, let’s figure it out and let’s work out our differences or our issues or what direction we’re going to go next. And then bam, let’s go bang that glass on the table.

George Harper (24:34):
Exactly. Exactly. And I think that what you said there, the fact that it’s fun is such an important part of it. No matter what whiskey it is, I don’t know if there’s many other drinks where friends, new acquaintances can get together and they’ll sit and have a glass of whiskey and that bottle will be on the table and it will be a conversation topic. It’ll be part of that conversation. It’ll be part of that meeting, that friendly moment together, which is amazing.

Randy Warren (25:09):
So if somebody’s new to Johnny Walker, where would they start?

George Harper (25:15):
Good question. I think touching on, going back to the White Walker conversation, touching on some of the innovations that we’ve done recently, we’ve really broadened the Johnny Walker portfolio in terms of bringing in more lighter approachable blends. So something like that. So Johnny Blonde or Johnny Walker Red Sole, more recent innovations are in that kind of sweet vanilla kind of flavor space are great introduction whiskeys. I think if you’re already a whiskey drinker and are looking to maybe discover more about blends and blended scotch whiskey, I think you can’t go too far wrong than a bottle of black label. I think that’s really the standard for balanced blends, bringing out a range of different flavors together and being perfectly balanced. Perfect as a neat serve, but also works incredibly well, whether it’s in cocktails, high ball serves, any mixer you can imagine. I think you can’t go too long with that.

Randy Warren (26:33):
Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. And after the black then comes the blue?

George Harper (26:40):
Yeah. I suppose it depends. If you’re looking for that kind of refined traditional Scottish blend, yeah, blue’s a great next step. If you’re looking for something maybe a bit more playful, I suppose, something that works really well in cocktails, maybe Johnny Walker Gold label reserves a great kind of next step or something a bit more refined, you might go to 18-year-old. It’s a fantastic brand in terms of the wealth of options that you have and hopefully as well. I always say if you like one Johnny Walker, you’re probably going to like many others. So that getting into Johnny Walker, you’ve got this kind of massive list of whiskeys that you can then go and discover and enjoy.

Randy Warren (27:36):
And you guys have a massive experience in Edinburgh, right?

George Harper (27:42):
We do. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been open a number of years now. We call it our brand home, the Johnny Walker experience in Edinburgh. I suppose Johnny Walker being a blended whiskey brings whiskeys from all across Scotland. So it doesn’t have its own distillery as such as many distilleries. So this was really us being able to build a brand hope like a distillery visitor center where people can come and learn about Johnny Walker, learn about the 200 plus year history of Johnny Walker, learn how to enjoy Johnny Walker in terms of on the tour you can try a range of different Johnny Walker’s knee in cocktails and highball serves and really learn a bit more about the world of Johnny Walker, the world of blending. We take you through an experience where you learned how we bring flavors together, how we go about blending. And then you can enjoy the tour and then go up and enjoy some lovely food and drinks in a rooftop bar right in the center of Edinburgh with amazing views of the castle and the streets around the old town of Edinburgh.

(28:49):
So it’s a beautiful place, wonderful place to come.

Randy Warren (28:53):
Yeah. I was reading about that and I’m like, I was all over Scotland, but I guess I didn’t spend enough time in Edinburgh. I don’t know. But I’m like, “How did I miss the Johnny Walker experience?” I mean the rooftop bar and everything like that with the views of the castle, that’s amazing. And it’s like, “Oh, I got to go back now. I got to go. ” Well,

George Harper (29:13):
That’s a good excuse, Randy, to come back. No problem. I’ll take you around if you want.

Randy Warren (29:20):
Yeah, that’d be great. We go up to the rooftop bar and have a few drams together and watch whatever’s happening down on the streets. That’d be cool. It’s about five stories up or something like that.

George Harper (29:31):
Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. That is cool.

Randy Warren (29:35):
That is cool. Well, listen, we thank you so much for being on the show today and introducing us to Johnny Walker and everything that you guys are busy. You’re doing a lot of cool stuff. And we’re just touching on the world of Johnny Walker here.

George Harper (29:50):
Yeah, no it’s been a pleasure. Absolute pleasure.

Randy Warren (29:53):
Bringing it to our listeners and a lot of our listeners are, probably all of them are American at this Point. And so they’re interested in scotch and they may have started with scotches and then they also tried bourbon or maybe they tried bourbon and went to… I don’t know, but it’s all good.

George Harper (30:15):
Exactly. Yeah.

Randy Warren (30:16):
We’re all learning about it together. So we thank you so much, George, for being on the show. We really appreciate it.

George Harper (30:22):
No, thank you very much, Andy. It’s been a pleasure, as I say, to meet you and to just be part of the show.

Randy Warren (30:27):
Yep. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

George Harper (30:30):
Yeah, same to you, Andy. Goodbye.

Randy Warren (30:35):
Welcome again, Whiskey Shenanigans fans for the shenanigans portion of this episode. So today we’re going to tackle a topic called how to start your at-home whiskey bar for less than say $500. That sounds pretty reasonable. And what should you buy first? And so this is an interesting topic. I mean, I’m sure there’s a million different opinions on what you should buy first and what you should have in your at home bourbon or whiskey bar. But here’s mine. Over the past year, I’ve talked to a lot of these master distillers and I’ve been impressed with some of them. I’ve tried their products, I’ve been impressed with their products, some more than others. But you know what? In a lot of these episodes on the podcast, I ask these distillers, “Hey, you guys have eight different versions of your product.

(31:40):
How’s the regular guy supposed to know when he walks into Total Wine? How’s he supposed to know? Where do I start? You probably don’t want to start with a barrel strength something, something, something.” No, too much. If you’re new and you’re getting started and you’re thinking, “Hey, where’s a good place to start?” So that’s what this is all about. So I thought about a bunch of different brands and there’s so many to choose from, but what I have found is that a lot of the larger brands or the larger distilleries, which is tricky because if you’re new, you don’t know exactly what’s coming from what distillery. So it’s not always clear where is this bourbon coming from? Where is that bourbon coming from? Here’s two bourbons with completely different labels, completely different names that are being made at the exact same place. So it’s kind of like if you ever go out and buy a car, like today it’d be a Kia and a Hyundai 50 years ago would be a Chevy and a Firebird.

(32:53):
Our Chevy and a Pontiac, they’re going down the same manufacturing line over and over and over again. And they’re really virtually the same product, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. And there’s somewhat significant differences between products. So what are the starter products in some fairly large distillery brands? So I thought about this and I’m like, okay, we’re going to start with a complicated one. I think it’s complicated anyway. They probably don’t think it’s complicated because they invented it. But Four Roses is just a fantastic bourbon. You got to have a bottle of Four Roses in your new whiskey bar. Four Roses has 10 different recipes and they have letters for each recipe that uniquely identify that recipe. So I’m going to give you the four letters, but really there’s only two that matter. They all start with O, so that doesn’t really mean anything. The third letter is always an S, meaning straight Kentucky bourbon whiskey.

(34:04):
So really it’s the second and the fourth letter that means something. So you want to go out and buy yourself a bottle of basic four roses, O, B, O. So what does that mean? O, like I said, doesn’t really mean anything. B means it’s got a little more rye in it and a little rye grain is good. So you’re thinking, “Oh, I don’t like rye.” No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You got the wrong… I had that thought too. You got the wrong thought. I had the wrong thought. Rye is really good. Rye is what helps a nice bourbon make a great cocktail because it doesn’t get overwhelmed by all the other flavors that you’re adding to an old-fashioned or a Manhattan or something like that. So a little bit of rye gives it a little body. So you want a little bit of rye.

(34:59):
So you want the B as the second letter. So O-B-S. And the fourth letter really is, you could go with a couple different ones. You could go with an O, you could go with an F, or you could go with a V. I’m going to say go with a V because I really like the single barrel and that’s what that’s all about. So O-B-S-V, you’ll see it on the bottle. You look at the bottle, read the label, you’ll see those four letters on there. That tells you the recipe that they use to create that particular bottle of bourbon. 20 bucks, guys. 20 bucks. I just looked it up. Total wine, 20 bucks. Come on. It’s a really good bourbon for 20 bucks. Are you kidding me? What else is really good for the price? Elijah Craig’s small batch. Elijah Craig, I wrote an article called Punching Above Their Weight Class.

(35:58):
So this is like a boxer who is a middleweight who knocks out a heavyweight. Elijah Craig is fantastic and it’s not expensive. This particular one, because it’s a small batch and there’s a lot of terminology you got to get used to. Small batch is part of that terminology. Doesn’t mean a lot. All it means is they took a bunch of barrels that are supposed to be pretty similar in age and whatnot, and they blended them together to make a small batch of this particular version of the whiskey.

(36:31):
And small batches, because they’re blended together, they should be fairly consistent in their taste. On Elijah Craig’s small batch is 54 bucks. Not bad. The third bottle you may have heard of, especially if you’ve dabbled a little bit in this particular area, the third bottle you should get is definitely Buffalo Trace. Again, huge distillery. Okay, so you might not… Let me back up for a second. Four Roses is big. Elijah Craig is bigger. Elijah Craig comes from Heaven Hill. That’s the name of the umbrella company. Heaven Hill makes Evan Williams, Elijah Craig, Parker’s Heritage, Larceny, and a whole bunch of other products. Elijah Craig is where you should start. Now, if you want to start a little even simpler than Elijah Craig, you go with Evan Williams. It’s just the same thing. It’s only aged less. I don’t know why you’d want it to be aged less.

(37:32):
It’s cheaper, but I’d suggest you go with the Elijah Craig because you’re going to be like, “Wow, that’s hard to beat.” Because you’re going to move on from this starting point where you get a bunch of bottles and you’re going to go, “All right, you know what? I’m looking for something that’s better than this four roses that Randy told me to buy, that’s better than the Elijah Craig that Whiskey Shenanigans told me to buy, that’s better than the Buffalo Trace that Whiskey Shenanigans told me to buy. Bualo Trace is from the Buffalo Trace Distillery. They make, oh my goodness, so many products. There’s a product called Benchmark. There’s a product called Buffalo Trace. There’s a product called Colonel Taylor. There’s a product called George T. Stagg. There’s a product called Blands. There’s a product called Papi. There’s a product called… And I’m missing a bunch.

(38:22):
There’s so many. There’s so many products. Sazerac is the umbrella company that owns this whole thing. But Buffalo Trace is the place to start. It’s like 28 bucks for a bottle of Buffalo Trace and it’s really good bourbon. Listen, the key here is that these big distilleries, they’re putting their entry level bourbon out there, not because it’s the best bourbon in the world, but because it’s really good for the price and that’s supposed to hook you into their distillery. So if you get hooked on the Elijah Craig, you might start thinking, “Gosh, I got to go find me some Parker’s Heritage and pay up for that. ” Or if you get hooked on the Buffalo Trace, you might think, “Oh man, Buffalo Trace is great, but General Stagg and Colonel Taylor and all these other ones, they’re even better. I got to go get these.” So that’s what they’re hoping for.

(39:23):
So they’re putting out really high quality products for cheap prices. So that’s why you start here. That’s why you start here. 28 bucks? Come on, are you kidding me? All right. Fourth bottle. There’s only five or six I think here that I mentioned. Fourth bottle is going to be a bottle of Jefferson’s Ocean. Got to get a bottle of Jefferson’s. Jefferson’s just such a unique story. I mean, people connect with the stories about these brands. Some of the stories have to do with prohibition or bootlegging or whatever. There’s just a million stories about a million different brands. Jeffersons decided when they started making their whiskey that they were going to do what the whiskey makers did a hundred years ago, which is we’re going to take our barrels and we’re not going to put them in a rick house yet, which is where they mature barrels.

(40:20):
So just a storehouse. Rickhouse is another word for storehouse. Special storehouse, but still a storehouse. No going to put it in a rick house. We’re going to put it on a boat. We’re going to float it down the Ohio River to the Mississippi. We’re going to get to the Mississippi. We’re going to float it down the Mississippi into the Gulf. When we get to the Gulf, we’re going to float it around Florida and up the East Coast. And this is what they used to do a long time ago to get their bourbon to the market. What was the market? The market was Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, New York City. This is the market. So you got to get your whiskey to market. This is what they used to do. And by floating it, you’re changing the humidity, you’re changing the temperature. You get down south there, pretty hot.

(41:11):
That changes the whiskey. And you’re also agitating the barrels. So you’re shaking them up as they’re going along and that changes the whiskey. So it’s a pretty interesting story. It’s a pretty interesting product and it’s very good and it’s not that expensive. So I’m going for a $35 to $45 bottle of the Jeffersons as one of these starter positions. All right, now it just wouldn’t be right if all you bought was bourbon. You got to buy a little scotch.

(41:47):
Scotch is the basis of all of this. I mean, let’s face it. They were doing this long before America was here. Long before America is distilling anything Scotland was making scotch. It’s a very good product. It’s different in taste. It tends to have a little bit more smokey peaty. They call it peat, smoke to peat kind of taste to it. Whereas your bourbon is sweeter. And as Americans, we’re probably used to the sweet. So a lot of people who start with scotch end up switching to bourbon because it’s sweeter. It’s friendlier. They call it a little burn. When you drink a little bit of bourbon, that’s called a Kentucky hug. So you could add that to your repertoire of knowledge. All right, so I’m going to recommend you pick between either one of these two bottles. I’m going to recommend to you a Macallan’s 12-year-old or a Johnny Walker Black.

(42:48):
Both scotches, very different. Macallan’s is a single malt. Typically 12. You start with the 12-year-old. You might find you love the fruity floral notes. This is so good. What’s the 18-year-old taste like, Alan? Well, now you’re stepping up from a 50 to $70 bottle at the 12-year-old to a $250 bottle. So you can get up there and price pretty quickly with the ages of some of these things. Start with the 12. Get yourself a bottle of Macallan’s and/or a bottle of Johnny Walker Black. Johnny Walker’s all about blending. So remember I said MacAllan’s is single malt. That means it comes from a single distillery. Johnny Walker Black is blended. They have like 31 different distilleries all over Scotland and they’re bringing bottles together and they’re masters at tasting what they’re creating. And so they got the beakers going, they’re blending this stuff and it’s like, okay, we got barrel number whatever from distillery number whatever, and we’re mixing it with this barrel and that barrel.

(43:57):
And bam, this is good stuff. So they spend their time doing that and they make a great product for a great price. So buy a bottle of scotch. That would be my recommendation. And finally, the last one is your choice. I’m going to give you one, two, three, four, five names, but I could add more to that list. Yu choose and all of these are going to be less than 50 bucks. So they’re all bourbons. They’re all great. You’re not going to go wrong. You’re not going to get something and go, I don’t like that. That’s not going to happen. All right, horse soldier. Great story. You’re going to love the bourbon. Great product, great price. Woodford, you’ve probably seen it if you’re into an all bourbon or whatever and you’ve ever flown on an American Airlines jet. Well, if you ever ask for a bourbon, guess what you get?

(44:57):
Woodford. Very good. And they’ve got a lot of different, they call them expressions, a lot of different products that they’re putting out under the Woodford name. And it’s really good stuff. And the beginning opening level bottles are really good.

(45:16):
The next is going to be Old Forester, which is all about making a consistent product over decades. So these guys are chemical and tasting engineers and they are making this great product over and over and over again. They got five or six different expressions and they’re making a great product. So that’s a choice. Another choice, and I’m going to introduce a new terminology for you here, is NDP, non-distilling producer. And NDP is like, what do you mean non-distilling? How can a bourbon company be a non-distilling bourbon company? Well, there’s a big company just over the border from Kentucky and Indiana called MGP. Monster. I mean just monster distillery. And they make a lot of product and they put a lot of different mash bills out, a lot of different recipes, and then a lot of different age statements. And then other distilleries, like the next one I’m going to talk about called Penelope, they can go there and they can try them all and they can go, “I like this eight-year-old,” or, “I really want this four-year-old.” And they’ll get barrels many as they want.

(46:35):
Lots of barrels. Ship them to me. Label them for me, put my name on them. So they’re white labeling the product. MGP is the producer. Penelope is the non-distilling producer. They didn’t distill the product, but they might do a little something to finish it. So we’ve talked about finishing on this program. Finishing is really cool. Makes the whiskey sometimes go from good to great. So finishing techniques of its second barrels, extra staves, extra wood in the… These are all different things that you can do. Even Jeffersons, which we already talked about, finishing their product by shipping it. So by sailing it down the rivers and into the oceans and going all over the world, they’re finishing their product differently, maturing their product differently than most other people are doing it. So Penelope’s a choice for you. And finally, this is one I really like, Rebel.

(47:36):
So I had never tried Rebel. I was going to do a podcast on them and I’m like, “Stuff is great. It’s really good. It has a really cool story. Listen to the podcast if you want to hear the story. I’m not even going to tell it to you. You got to listen to the Rebel podcast. Great story about rock and roll, urban and whiskey. People love it. So there you have it. If you buy one of each of these things, four roses, Lijah Craig, Buffalo Trace, Jeffersons, a Macallan’s, let’s call it, and let’s say you pick a rebel, about 250 bucks. So I said you could do this for less than 500 bucks. You can definitely do it for less than 500 bucks. No question about it. All of these products are going to be available at Total Wine or at the ABC store. These are easy to find.

(48:27):
They’re high quality and they’re not expensive and you’re going to love it. Enjoy. What’s the one thing that’s on your mind that I really want to get this message out?

Speaker 3 (48:40):
If you’re talking about the family and the brands, obviously we’re family-owned and family runs. We’re very proud of that. World’s most awarded and that’s for Glen Fiddick and for above any family-owned and family run. And we pioneered the finishing process and it’s the world’s most handcrafted single wall. It’s still made the way it was made a hundred years ago. So that’s what we talk about. I would encourage your listeners to experiment, to try a few different whiskeys, to find one they like. Start with the 12 Glynfedick Original or the 12 above any double wood, and then you can work your way up.