Lorne Cousin went from professional bagpipe musician in Los Angeles to U.S. brand ambassador for the world’s best-selling single malt. See how Glenfiddich created the American single malt category — and is now reinventing its audience.
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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. The 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 Shenanigan fans. We are very pleased this morning to have with us Lauren Cousin. Is that the way you say your last name, Lauren?
Lorne Cousin (01:19):
Yeah. Cousin is in French, but cousin in Scottish. Yeah. Cousin
Randy Warren (01:23):
In Scottish. Okay. Cousin in Scottish. All right Lauren, cousin. And Lauren is with Glen Fiddick and we are going to learn a little bit about what Glen Fiddick has been up to. It’s a very, very old and well traveled distillery and a very old name in Scotland. And let’s dive into this and welcome. We want to welcome you Lauren to the show and we’re really just excited to get into this with you. Yeah,
Lorne Cousin (01:48):
It’s great. Thank you for having me. I’m very excited myself. Great. At 8:0 AM in the morning. It’s good to talk whisky at 8:00 in the morning.
Randy Warren (01:55):
Nothing like it, right? I didn’t put any in my coffee.
Lorne Cousin (01:58):
Me neither. No.
Randy Warren (02:01):
Probably should have. So yeah, why don’t we start with Grant? Was it William Grant?
Lorne Cousin (02:10):
Yep. William Grant and Sons. Yep. So it’s actually Glen Finnick and Balvenie actually, so we could talk about both today if you like.
Randy Warren (02:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
Lorne Cousin (02:18):
Yep. A bit of background, William Grant was the founder,
Randy Warren (02:23):
And
Lorne Cousin (02:23):
You maybe talk about this later, but 1887, he had a dream or an ambition to have the best dram. In Scotland, we call it a dram in Scotland. You know that. So we wanted the best dram in the valley and he lived in a valley in Scotland. He actually worked at Mortluk distillery, which a lot of you listeners will know, but he had an ambition to have his own distillery. So he left and along with his seven sons and two daughters, they built Glenfidish by hand, took them two years. So the first whiskey came off the stills, first spirit came off the stills, Christmas day 1887. And then he progressed from there. Now, Balvenie Farm was next door. So we can talk about this later, but Balvenie Farm was right next door and someone was going to buy the farm so he was going to lose his water supply.
(03:07):
So he bought Balveni Farm, knocked down the old house, built another distillery. So he’s now got two distilleries running side by side, Balvenia and Glenfiddich. And to this day, we’re still in the Grant family, so we’re very proud of that. There’s about 150 distilleries in Scotland at any one time, but this is the main one left in family ownership. A couple of smaller ones like Glen Farquist or Springbank, but Glenfiddish is the main one left in family ownership. So that’s where we’ve got to today from the start to the current day. Yeah.
Randy Warren (03:37):
So you guys are Spacyside scotch. So for a lot of our listeners, they’re probably bourbon drinkers or other Tennessee whiskey drinkers or whatever, and they may not know all the ins and outs. If you could just tell them Spayside versus.
Lorne Cousin (03:55):
Yeah, that’s a great question. And people do get confused, which I think you might touch on it later when we’re talking about questions that people ask you about whether Scotch is smoky or peaty. And that really depends generally on the region it’s from. It’s a generalization, but it’s pretty much true. So if you imagine the map of Scotland, the Highlands and Speyside are in the north and the east, and that’s where the majority of the distilleries are. There’s about 50 in the Spey Valley. So the five regions are Lowlands, Highlands, Spayside, Isley and Campbelltown. And the Highlands and Speyside are light, sweet honey vanilla, very approachable characteristic like Balvenie in the Spey Valley. The Lowlands are where all the grain distilleries were for blending traditionally. There’s a few malt distilleries there now. And then the West Coast is Isley and Campbelltown where I’m from, and that’s where all the smokey peaty ones are.
(04:47):
So there are about nine or 10 on Isla and three in Campbelltown. And that’s where the peatied smoky whiskey is. People are under the misconception that Scottish is smoky or peaty, but no, only but 10% of it is. And that’s from the West Coast, generally your island Campbelltown whiskeys. So Spaceide is your unpeated, light, sweet, honey, delicate vanilla flavored whiskeys.
Randy Warren (05:09):
And that’s really important, I think for our listeners to hear in America, they may be looking for something that’s not peated. Some people love the peat and some people don’t. If you love the peat, then you go for something on the other side of Scotland. If you don’t love the peat and you love the sweet and the honey and the great taste that way, you go more space side, right? That’s
Lorne Cousin (05:30):
Right. And you can work your way up to it. It’s great. I mean, it’s beautiful whiskey from the West Coast, lovely whiskey, but it’s not for your beginner, for example. So if someone was going to say, “What would you recommend for your first whiskey?” I would say definitely a Spaceide Quanfit 12 or Balvenie 14, something very approachable for someone’s first scotch.
Randy Warren (05:48):
So William Grant started this out and he got first the one distillery up and running and then the second distillery up and running and that became Balveni.
Lorne Cousin (05:57):
That’s right. Yep. So Galenfinik was the first and then Balveni five years later, 1883, 1893 was the first whiskey at Balveni.
Randy Warren (06:05):
So I read something really interesting as I was going through the history of Ponfitic and William’s grandson, Grant Gordon, when he was with the firm, he actually increased production during prohibition in anticipation, I guess he was hoping or figuring that prohibition was going to end at some point and they were going to be one of the ones left standing with great aged whiskey to sell into the marketplace. And I just thought that was really risky and genius, frankly. Yeah,
Lorne Cousin (06:40):
You’re right. There’s been a lot of that. As I say, the company’s still family-owned and family run by the Grant and the Grant Gordon family. And there’s been numerous examples of foresight down the years, but that was the first one. Even in the 1980s, I can remember there was a whiskey slump when gin and vodka became very popular and a lot of the distilleries closed, including in Campbelltown, they were mothballed. But the Grant family in SpaceX kept producing because that was a legacy for the grandchildren. So when Whiskey came back online again and was popular again, we have a lot of older stock, which other people don’t. So there’s numerous examples of foresight and looking to the future. It’s
Randy Warren (07:19):
Critical for a business because I’ve seen it work the other way during COVID. So COVID is an example where things were shut down, kind of like prohibition shut down distilling or drinking or whatever. COVID shut down a lot of things and a lot of companies, I’ll beat up on Hertz car rental for a minute. They sold all their cars and then it ended and everybody’s like, “I want to rent a car.” And they’re like, “Well, we don’t have any.”
(07:47):
Well, what were you thinking? Are you not a car rental company? That’s what you do. Why would you get rid of your whole. I mean, it’s not like this industry is going to end. I mean, prohibition could have gone on forever, but not likely, but it could have. But a virus isn’t going to go on forever. It’s going to come to an end, whether it’s 18 months, 27 months, 36 months, 48 months, whatever it’s going to be is what it’s going to be, and then things are going to eventually get back to normal. So selling off all your assets during a tough time is really foolish, but you guys were smart in a couple of different areas in the 80s and way back in the 50s, and then that prohibition era in increasing your production and keeping your product fresh and letting it age over time and everything like that.
(08:39):
And that’s genius. That’s good business.
Lorne Cousin (08:41):
Yep. There was one great story I read. This is a very good book, The Life and Times of William Grant. And when he started, as you know, the single malts were sold for blending. So you were also looking for a blender to buy a whiskey. And there was a fire, another distillery who couldn’t then thereafter produce scotch. So he took his blending customer down to Mr. Grant to help him get started. So he got started and the local community were also very good to him in Dufftown and Spaceide when he started. And to this day, the Grant family still employ a lot of people in the Dufftown area to put back into the community.
Randy Warren (09:17):
That’s amazing.
Lorne Cousin (09:20):
Yep.
Randy Warren (09:21):
Yeah. And you guys have done a lot of. Let’s talk a little bit about how you make it. How about that? Yep. You’ve done a lot of special releases and things like that, but in America where they make bourbon, I mean, you’ve got your yeast, you’ve got your mash bill and all these sorts of things. You don’t play with that too much, do you?
Lorne Cousin (09:43):
Not really, no. I mean, some people might argue with you particularly about the yeast. Some brewers or distillers might say you have to look after your yeast. But really for scotch producers, we say, “Well, it’s boiled twice. It’s distilled twice.” So when we talk about the mash, which is barley for us, for single malt, it must legally be barley, which can be grown anywhere. We actually grow our own barley above any, but barley must be for the mash, 100% malted barley. And does it affect the flavor? Some people argue, I would argue no because it is distilled twice, but more importantly for the barley, it’s more about the yield and the much sugar it produces for us. So if it’s a good barley or a good strain of barley that year, because sometimes it’ll jump around between uptake or golden promise, there’s a number of types of barley you can use depending on the yield that it’s giving.
(10:35):
So it’s more about the yield of sugar from the barley that makes it good or better each particular year, I would argue. Is
Randy Warren (10:44):
It 100% barley? Yes,
Lorne Cousin (10:45):
It must be 100% barley. For blended whiskey, it could be any. It could be wheat or barley or corn, for example, it changes. But for single malts, it must be 100% malted barley made in Scotland and bottled in Scotland and aged minimum three years. So that’s the legal definition for single malts.
Randy Warren (11:05):
Right. And then you guys use pot stills.
Lorne Cousin (11:08):
That’s right. Yep. For the single malts, it’s two pot stills. So a wine still and a spirit still, and it’s distilled twice. For example, bourbon, as you guys know, it’s a continuous or half and half column still, that’s right. And for blending whiskeys, green whiskey, it’s a continuous still. But the pot still is very different. And as you know, it’s a different shape and that shape affects the flavor, which you can talk about as well.
Randy Warren (11:36):
Yeah. Why does that shape affect the flavor so much? Yeah,
Lorne Cousin (11:39):
It’s amazing. So it’s fascinating. At Balveni, we have a coppersmith, a gentleman called Dennis McBain, and he’s been there over 60 years. He’s amazing character, Dennis, lovely man. He started, I can tell you this now, when he was 15, he lied about his age to get a job. I’ll tell you this himself. It’s a great character, Dennis. And so Dennis is a coppersmith, resident coppersmith at Balvenie Anglinfitty. And he’ll talk about the shapes of the stills. And actually, the bottle reflects the shape of the still because this part at the top here is called the Balveni Bowl. So when you go to Balveni distillery, the still is kind of like this. It sticks out the platform and you’ll see the top. And this bowl actually affects the flavor because when you make the whiskey, heat is underneath. In the old days, it would’ve been coal, a coal fire, which was highly dangerous, very hard to control.
(12:30):
You to literally dampen it down yourself with water or scrape it back and forth. So hard to control. Then it became either gas or internal steam coils. So it could be a mixture of both depending on the distillery. And
(12:44):
So the liquid starts to heat. It comes up, falls back down, reflux it’s called, until it gets to the top, but it’s evaporating and then it goes down the arm, drips down the neck, and that’s your distillation.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
But
Lorne Cousin (12:58):
If you’ve got a really tall still, we can talk about, don’t mind mentioning other brands, you could talk about Glen Moringe, for example, who have extraordinary tall stills, and their tall stills mean that the liquid has to fight harder to get up. So the oilier, richer notes fall back down and only the lighter notes make it over. Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah. So
Lorne Cousin (13:18):
If you’ve got a tall still, the spirit will be lighter. If you’ve got shorter squatter still, it’d be slightly oilier, slightly richer. Neither’s better, just different character of whiskey. So the shape of the still is amazing how it affects it. And that’s kind of one difference between one distillery and another, other than the use of peat or the barrels. But the shape of the still affects the character of the whiskey from each distillery. It’s amazing.
Randy Warren (13:42):
And you guys have been instrumental in having coppersmiths on site from very early days. That’s
Lorne Cousin (13:50):
Right. Yep. Balvenie, for example, is still made the way it was made a hundred years ago. It’s still the most handcrafted whiskey. So Balvenia, they’ll grow the whiskey themselves to grow the barley at the farm above any farm. We malt it ourselves on the malt floor, which we can talk about. It’s very traditional. And then they have the Coppersmith Dennis McBean, and then we have a Cooperage at Balvenie Anglinf, which is very important because the wood is 80% of the color and flavor comes from the wood. All the color comes from the wood and 80% is the flavor. There’s American oak or European oak. And then the malt master who was David Stewart, MBE, is now Kelsey McKechnie, was there 60 years. So Balvenia is still the most handcrafted whiskey in the world. It’s amazing. It’s made the way it was made a hundred years ago.
(14:35):
Fascinating. Yeah.
Randy Warren (14:37):
Wow. Yeah. That’s really interesting. I’m trying to figure. Wow. So with the stills and then the cooperage, and with the cooperage in America, they make you use new American oak barrels. But a lot of times you guys will take a used new American oak bourbon barrel and bring that to Scotland and use that again for a second time, right?That’s right.
Lorne Cousin (15:06):
That’s right. And it’s fascinating because after prohibition, I’m sure you know this, you don’t need to tell me your bourbon history, but I believe that the government and the cooper’s unions and the logging industry, they all agreed or transpired that bourbon guys had to use new oak, didn’t they? And that’s to start the industry again. So legally the bourbon industry must use new unused virgin oak. But at that point in Scotland, we were using sherry casks from Europe because everyone was drinking sherry or wine or cognac. So there was a huge supply of sherry casks for us in Scotland. And I’m sure you know this, the American oak bourbon cask will give you very light, sweet honey, vanilla flavors, coconut, very light color, almost like Chardonnay. The European oak sherry cask will give you dark chocolate prune tobacco sherry flavors and a dark color. We used to think it was a sherry in the cast that did that, but no, it’s actually the type of oak, American oak versus European oak.
(15:59):
It’s fascinating. So a hundred years ago, the whiskey would be very sheried, very dark. But after prohibition, there became a cheap supply of American oak bourbon casks. So pure economics also meant that the Scotch industry started importing bourbon casks, which are a lot cheaper than sherry casks, and the sherry industry went into decline. So now 80% of scotch is maturing in American oak bourbon casks because of the supply and only about 20% is sherry cask. But also you could argue, for example, for the American palette to the American market, people prefer the lighter, sweeter American oak flavor whiskey as opposed to the sherry. So the wood is very important. It’s the most important thing in making the whiskey. So having the cooperage means you can maintain your cask, repair them, bring them in, expand them, make bigger casks or experiment with them. So it’s fascinating.
(16:52):
I’ve seen at our cooperage, Ian McDonald’s the head cooper. He’s been there 50 years as well, and he passes on this skill to the future generations of coopers. There’s two young apprentices every year, but they can rebore a cask. They’ll rebore the cask and then refire it and then perhaps fill it with sherry or pork or rum or whiskey. And it can be used three or four times, for example, the barrel. So we use both now, American oak and European oak casks.
Randy Warren (17:21):
And when you refire it, are you lighting it on fire with a char, like in America, they use that char level, two, three, four and that sort of – Yep,
Lorne Cousin (17:29):
Because that’s why it’s basically a big burner that goes inside it and it could be char level one, two, three or four because as you know, the char, it filters the whiskey. There was a nice story, you can correct me if I’m wrong on this one again, but it was a nice story that in the old days they used to ship the whiskey down the Mississippi River one way with food in the barrels one way and whiskey in the way back. But in the heat, the food was rotting or the remnants were very unhygienic. So they used to fire the cask to clean them each time. And that was building up this layer of charcoal, which they then realized afterwards was filtering the whiskey and having a good effect. So the accident caused it to be used in common factors. That was how it started.
Randy Warren (18:12):
Right. It’s amazing what we learned by accident. We just do something.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yep.
Randy Warren (18:16):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
This
Randy Warren (18:17):
Worked really, really well. And then it took just what the shape of the pot still, it took people a long time to figure out, well, what effect does that have?
(18:30):
I wrote an article on AI recently and how it affects the industry, and you can certainly chime in on this, but one of the things I was saying was like, okay, the experts will do the tastings. They’ll come out with the notes. It has raisin, cinnamon, it has all these different notes in it. But what AI kind of allows the distiller to do is to say, now I can, how did I get that taste? And if I want to change it a little bit, what tweaks do I need to make? And it can come up with not just a flavor wheel, but almost like a wheel of causation. It’s like, oh, if I do a little bit of this, I’m going to get a little bit more of that. If I do a little bit more over here in the maturation area, I’m going to get a little more of this.
(19:15):
If I change the yeast, if I do the pot still a little bit. It’s so fascinating what we’re learning about this. It
Lorne Cousin (19:23):
Was amazing. The first encounter I had with AI was on a call similar to this, and there was an AI, whatever you call it, which transcribed the call afterwards and we were joking, how could you understand this Cottish accent?
Randy Warren (19:38):
I guess it does, right? And someone trained it on, you train it on all different languages and all different accents. I mean, you’re in Miami, which is technically it’s in the South, but people don’t have a Southern accent. But you go a little bit further north into the middle of Florida or up into South Carolina or something like that, and you’ve got heavy Southern accent or you go over to Louisiana, you’ve got heavy Southern accent. So you’ve got to train the AI on all these different accents and so it can understand.
Lorne Cousin (20:10):
And it’s great. Obviously it will be great going forward for recording. Like you say, instead of having to take notes and go back through them, you could remember how the whiskey was affected. It’ll never replace the Maltmaster’s nose or palette though. As far as I’m concerned, I can’t see that happening, but there’ll always be a human element to that.
Randy Warren (20:27):
Absolutely. But at least it’ll give them information, like I say, to figure out what buttons to push to get a certain flavor, what buttons to push to accent a certain part or flavor profile that they’re looking. One of the things that we like to talk about on whiskey shenanigans is rule breaking. We’re writing a book called Whiskey Rule Breakers. And the idea is to ask, we’ve asked 30 different distillers. It’s a very traditional industry, just like scotch. It’s very old industry, it’s traditional, but people are always innovating and coming up with new things. And so we like to ask, what’s your favorite rule-breaking kind of thing that you guys do?
Lorne Cousin (21:15):
Yeah, it’s a great question. Perhaps one for each Glenfidik and Belveni. I’m sure you know this, but until the 1960s, generally the whole world drank blended scotch. And you know what I’m talking about, blended scotch, Grants, Dewars, Johnny Walker, the big blends, which are 80% green whiskey, 20% malts. You could only really buy a single malt from the distillery doors in the 1920s onwards, occasionally. But as a whole, the product or the category was blended and that was king or queen across the world. But in 1963, the Grant family said, “We’re going to start creating this category, particularly in the US, for single malts.” And the two brothers, Gordons, went over to the States literally with a suitcase going around trying to get this taken on and eventually took on, but the industry was against it at the time. They said, “No, you’ll kill us.” But they persevered and created the category in 1963.
(22:12):
It was called the Glen Fidich Original, and it was 1963. So that was the first single malt arguably across the world was Glen Fiddig. Whereas before that, it was all blended whiskey.
Randy Warren (22:23):
That’s some serious rule breaking.
Lorne Cousin (22:25):
Yep, exactly. Yep.
Randy Warren (22:27):
Are we creating an entirely new category? And now
Lorne Cousin (22:31):
Look at it now. Yeah. So your blended whiskey then was top shelf, but now arguably your single malts are now the top shelf luxury whiskey. And also for Balvenie, David Stewart, the malt master there has been there since 1962, and he’s still with us, David. Kelsey McCachtrey, now the malt master, but David Stewart was the malt master for 60 years and he was awarded an MBE by Hamas the Queen for his services. But in 1983, he also transformed the way we make whiskey because single malts then were usually a marriage of casks. So bourbon and sherry cast together are all bourbon, they’re all sherry. But in 1982 when he started it, David said, “Why don’t we put it in a bourbon cask for 12 years and then transfer it into a sherry cask for one year after?” And that’s how finishing started. It was called the Balvene Classic.
(23:25):
It was released in 1983. And that transformed the industry. Now everyone’s finishing, including bourbon guys, tequila, everyone does finishing in different casks afterwards to add more flavor and color and body. But it was David Stewart pioneered it in 1983. Finishing
Randy Warren (23:42):
Is huge business nowadays. And it really didn’t catch on in the bourbon world until, I don’t know, pretty recently, 20 years maybe at the most to really. Because the thought was there’s very strict rules about how you have to do bourbon and how you have to make it and oh, you couldn’t touch it. I mean, that was what the Bottleman Bond Act was all about from Congress and you couldn’t touch it, couldn’t put anything else in it and all that, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t complete the product and then put in another barrel, not adding anything to it, but finish it in another barrel. That’s right.
Lorne Cousin (24:20):
Started
Randy Warren (24:20):
That in the ’80s. Yeah,
Lorne Cousin (24:22):
That’s right in 1983. And now the whole industry does it. It’s great. And we’re continuing experimenting. Brian Kinsman, the malt master above any told me that they’ve got the Grand Reserve, for example, which is finished in rum casks and beautiful whiskey. Brian said they’ve always got a number of secret casts under experimentation. Sometimes it works, sometimes doesn’t, but always experimenting with different finishes. And probably the most audacious one so far was Yosekura. It was called Grand Yosakura, a 31-year-old, beg your pardon, 29-year-old, very unusual, 29-year-old Glenfidik, finished in Japanese albumare casks. Now, I don’t know if your listeners have ever heard of that. I’d never heard of it until we started. Abomari was a Japanese rice spirit from the 15th century, and it was used by the aristocracy in Japan and the islands. And then the American Navy went out after during the war, obviously.
(25:20):
So there was a supply of bourbon casks. So it was a Japanese rice spirit, which has been in American oak. And then we used it to finish a lenfirik and it was amazing. It was delicious, very unusual flavor. But that was quite pioneering and audacious, if you like, a Japanese rice spirit. So there’s no limit really to what you can do.
Randy Warren (25:39):
Very audacious. That’s incredible. That’s so cool. And it’s so fun to do that. This bottle right up here is my own creation. I had a distiller out in Nebraska distill the product and then use my mash bill. And then what I did was I took it home, got my bottles from them, and then I finished it. Cool.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I
Randy Warren (26:05):
Finished it. I got some additional new oak staves and I finished it. And it is amazing how quick it happened. The first barrel might take seven years, 10 years, 12, 20 years, whatever it takes to get a really nice product, but then the finishing doesn’t take as long. Does it take as long over in Scotland or is it pretty quick? That’s
Lorne Cousin (26:28):
A great question. I believe the Scottis Whiskey Association have defined it. I don’t think it’s a legal definition, but they have defined it as zero to two years. So it could be anywhere in between. So for example, the Grand Reserve is about four months in Romkast, that’s just long enough. They above any double wood is six to nine months. So it’s just a sweet spot. You have to experiment obviously to get it right. It’s just a sweet spot, but generally zero to two years is finishing for us.
Randy Warren (26:54):
Right. It’s surprising that the second barrel goes as quick as it does. But let me ask you about that too. Here, bourbon is traditionally sometimes young as four years, three years, six years, eight years, 10 years, but scotch has always been 12 year kind of minimum almost, 15, 20 years, all this kind of really long. You’ve already mentioned the ones like 29 years and this sort of thing. So is it just the weather or what is it? That’s
Lorne Cousin (27:28):
A great question. So yes, the maturation is very slow in Scotland. In Kentucky, for example, your bourbon will have color after six months. There’s a legal minimum of three years in Scotland, as you know, and that’s generally for blends. When the first single malt came out, we guess it would be about eight years or nine years in the 60s. So even then that was seen as a luxury, that was a long time. But the maturation process is very slow in Scotland because there is a cold, damp atmosphere everywhere, unfortunately, as you know. But the warehouse is amazing. You went to the warehouses, it’s cold and dark and damp, beautiful smells, and there’s a constant pretty cool atmosphere in the warehouses. Whereas your Rick warehouses in Kentucky, the big hot metal ones, they have to rotate them, don’t they, because the barrels get so hot at the top, so the maturation’s very quick.
(28:16):
In Scotland, the alcohol content actually falls as it’s maturing slowly also, which is unusual probably because of the damper atmosphere. So our maturation process is generally a lot slower, to answer your question. So when the first thing – When
Randy Warren (28:32):
It’s cold and damp, the alcohol pulls in from the barrel and doesn’t go into the wood as much, doesn’t seep into the wood. That’s
Lorne Cousin (28:41):
Right. It does. It goes in and out, but it’s a lot slower. And obviously the angel share atmosphere with the atmospheric exchange and atmosphere happens, but not as much as in the States with the heat.
Randy Warren (28:52):
Right.
Lorne Cousin (28:53):
So
Randy Warren (28:53):
Everybody here is talking about ultra aging bourbon now, right? You’ve got that
Lorne Cousin (28:58):
Trend. I think they’ve got to a point where perhaps you only want to go so far. A certain age, it’s a sweet spot for sure.
Randy Warren (29:08):
Yeah. I always thought the sweet spot for bourbon was probably around 10, 12, about 12 years, for me, oh, that’s perfect. That’s going to come out really nice at 12 years. But I mean, if you’re aging it over in Scotland, it’s going to take a lot longer to get that same 12 years. It’s going to take 20 years to get 12 years in.
Lorne Cousin (29:32):
Yes, that’s right. And as you know, every cask is different. Every barrel is different. That’s why your listeners love single cast scotch or bourbon, for example, because they’re excited for the next release to come out. Of any do a lot of great single cast releases in the past, you’d have a 12 or a 15. And every year it might be slightly different because the casts are different and that’s great. People love that. They embrace that of different color, perhaps of a year, different flavor. Every barrel’s different. And it’s only in the last 20 or 30 years that you’ve started to get really ultra aged scotch, like 40 and above. That was unheard of previously, but fortunately above any of the video, we’ve got a lot of age stock. And the malt master, Brian Kinsman says, when it gets to that age 40 and above, for example, it’s almost beyond whiskey.
(30:22):
And there’s something magical happens in the wood that we don’t quite understand yet. It’s beyond scotch. There’s something in the wood that adds so much character and flavor and body to the whiskey at that age. So it’s quite a recent phenomenon of getting whiskey of that age.
Randy Warren (30:37):
And the problem is that it’s probably so expensive that few people ever open their
Lorne Cousin (30:42):
Bottle. That’s right. That’s right. And also, I thought you were going to say that the barrel is generally half empty or half full by that point with the angel share. So generally it’ll be, if it’s a 40 or 50 old cask, it’s probably half the liquid left.
Randy Warren (30:57):
Half gone. Yeah. I always read about people who buy a million dollar bottle of liquid scotch or whatever at auction. And I think they’re going to open and drink that? I mean, are you going to drink a million dollars? I know. Maybe you are. I mean, if you’re own hair and you got a million dollars to say, “Hey, I’m going to get the best.” But I sure would love to try that. But I think I would preciously pour one tiny little drop and just take a little sip and that would be it and don’t touch it.
Lorne Cousin (31:35):
No, we have some collectors who do buy two, one to keep and one to open, which is great.
Randy Warren (31:42):
Yeah, absolutely. But that’s $2 million. One to open. Yeah. So what kind of questions do you get from your customers? Do people ask the difference between Balvini and Glenphydic or what kind of –
Lorne Cousin (31:58):
We touched on this earlier. They’ll say, “Why is Scotch smokey or pity?” And that is generally a misconception because only 10% of scotch is smoky or pity. It probably goes back to the days of blending when most blends had an element of Isla or Campbellton whiskey in it. So even your regular mainstream blends would be slightly smokey, wouldn’t they? And still are to this day. So that probably started the misconception. So that’s probably the main one. They’ll say, “I’m not a fan of scotch because it’s smoky or pity.” And then you can say, “Well, no, you have to try Spaceide or Islands.” That’s probably the main one. People also ask –
Randy Warren (32:38):
That’s good information. I’ve been to Scotland twice and my ancestors are from the Isle of Sky over in Scotland. And that’s close to the west side where it’s going to be a little more smokier and peatier and then that sort of thing. And the space side is on the other side where you’ve got your Glen Fiddick and others. That’s
Lorne Cousin (33:00):
Right. Another question people ask I think is, does the water affect it? Now obviously you need a nice, clean, pure spring water supply. Balvenie Glefi. Balvenie is called the Rabidoo Glenphydik. That’s the water supply. It’s up in the hill with the mountain and the springs for Balvenia are on the farm surrounding. So beautiful clean highland spring water is a must. But does it affect the flavor? Well, that’s arguable again because it’s distilled twice remember, isn’t it? It’s boiled, distilled twice. So as long as it’s pure and clean and from a nice spring, what that does affect perhaps is some water in your whiskey, which I like to do. That’s another question people say, ice or water or neat, which is probably a big one in the US. Arguably, the balk master will tell you, Brian Kitkinsman at Glen Fiddy, he’s a chemist as well. When you put ice in the whiskey, it generally just becomes cold and sweet and it kind of starts to taste the same as others.
(34:04):
Whereas if you have a taste neat and then a splash of nice, pure, clean water, it’s a splash and it’s going to open up and blossom and you’re going to taste a lot more. So I would encourage your listeners to try it, sip it neat and then a tiny splash of water and you’re going to taste a lot more in the whiskey. Whereas ice is lovely in a warm summer’s day, but technically it dulls the flavor of the whiskey.
Randy Warren (34:27):
Yeah. I think in pubs across Scotland, you’ll often see a little pitchers of water. That’s
Lorne Cousin (34:34):
Right. Of course every bar in Scotland was a given, you just turn around and take the jug of water.
Randy Warren (34:38):
Little jug of water, put a little splat in, opens it up, gets the smell and taste and everything like that. Yeah. That’s fantastic. So what is the difference between Balvini and Glenfidic though?
Lorne Cousin (34:50):
So as I mentioned before, they’re literally 500 yards about half a mile apart. Same atmosphere. Yep. Same atmosphere, same mountains, same rain, same water arguably. A lot of the same workers make the whiskey. The shape of the stills is different. So a different shape still. That’s the main thing that matters a lot. That’s number one. The fermentation times vary at each distillery, so that can make a difference to the flavor. But the main difference I would say is, because I knew you were going to ask me this, Glenfidik was a marriage of caste traditionally. So the 12-year-old would be bourbon and cask and sherry cask married together, invited together. That’s your Glenfidik 12, the original. So generally Glenfidik was married, whereas Belveni was finishing. So the first cask and then finished in the second, if that makes second sense.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
Yeah.
Lorne Cousin (35:45):
Traditionally. Glenfidik does some beautiful finished whiskeys now as well, of course. So the 14 bourbon barrel reserve is finished in new American oak. So great for bourbon drinkers. The 21 is finished in rum cask. But as I say, of any pioneered it, so that would be the main difference probably.
Randy Warren (36:03):
What impact does that have on the taste?
Lorne Cousin (36:05):
Well, nothing really. You’re just going to have two different types of whiskey. You’re going to have sherry and bourbon together. So the Glenfire 12 is say two thirds American oak, one third sherry cask. It gives you one type of flavor, which would be honey and pears with the main characteristic for the 12. Whereas the of any 12, you’re going to get honey and vanilla from the first cask and then perhaps cinnamon baking spice flavors from the sherry cask. So it’s just a different way of making it. And if you experimented, you could perhaps try and come to the same, but it’s just a different way of making it.
Randy Warren (36:42):
Right. We would say that with this added spice, that’s like we would add rye to the mash bill to get a little extra cinnamon and a little extra spiciness to it. And it makes a better cocktail because then it doesn’t dull out in a cocktail. It’s character.
Lorne Cousin (37:02):
Some punch. Yep. But the Glenfidi 14 we designed and created particularly for the US market because it’s finished for six months in new American oak. So that gives it a lovely, sweet, almost bourbon, baked apple, baked sugar flavor. Great for old fashioned, great for cocktails as well as being a lovely whiskey with an almost a bourbon nose to it. It’s been very popular.
Randy Warren (37:24):
Yeah. Change gears a little bit. I mean, you guys have, let’s talk about your success. I mean, you guys have been very successful.
Lorne Cousin (37:32):
Yes. Yep. So Glenfidik is still the best selling whiskey in the world globally.
Randy Warren (37:39):
Did you hear that people?
Lorne Cousin (37:41):
Yes.
Randy Warren (37:42):
Selling whiskey in the world. Yep.
Lorne Cousin (37:44):
Based on the 12-year-old, yeah.
Randy Warren (37:46):
Saying something more than Jack Daniels, more than Canadian club, more than whatever. I mean, there’s just so many out there, more than the Japanese. Go ahead, finish.
Lorne Cousin (37:56):
Best selling single malt in the world. And it’s also the most awarded single malt whiskey in the world. So Based on the 12 again, it’s won the most awards. So very proud of that. And then Balveni has won a lot of prizes, i.e. The Balvenie Portwood, the 21, which is amazing whiskey and which David Stewart is one of his favorites. The 21-year-old, it’s just finished for about four months in a pork cask, which gives it a lovely creamy. I feel it’s delicious. It won not just best whiskey, but best spirit in the world about 10 years ago. So they’ve won a lot of prizes at Balveni as well. So yeah, we’re very proud of that and continually striving. Yeah.
Randy Warren (38:34):
Absolutely. That is definitely something to be proud of. That’s phenomenal.
Lorne Cousin (38:38):
That’s
Randy Warren (38:38):
Great. So if 100,000 people are listening to this, what’s kind of the one thing you want to tell those people? What’s the one thing that’s on your mind that I really want to get this message out?
Lorne Cousin (38:50):
If you’re talking about the family and the brands, obviously we’re family owned and family run, so very proud of that. World’s most awarded and that’s for Glen Fiddick and for Balvenie family owned and family run. And we pioneered the finishing process and it’s the world’s most handcrafted single walt. 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 Glynfidic original or the 12 above any double wood, and then you can work your way up. And now you may find you like the 12 better than the 14 or the 15, for example, or the 16, just to experiment. As I say, try it neat, try it with a splash of water. Try it outside in a cold winter’s day and you’ll find it tastes amazing, particularly in Scotland and Hillside, if that.
(39:45):
It’s like food, it always tastes better outside.
Randy Warren (39:49):
A quick story. I was over in Scotland with some friends and my wife and we were touring around and we were visiting distilleries and drinking a lot of scotch and going to places like the ferry pools and all these other sorts of things. And we had an Airbnb booked in Sky and we were at the ferry pools and the skies opened up and it just rained on us. And we weren’t really prepared for that. We were still wearing jeans because it was a nice day in the morning and then our jeans were soaking wet and they get really heavy. And so we come slogging into this Airbnb and we’re all wet and we look like drowned rats. And the guy at the Airbnb pulled out a bottle of scotch from behind the counter and he just lined them up. I mean, it’s so refreshing, so good after an experience like that, you’re like, wow, it was fantastic.
Lorne Cousin (40:48):
Well, that’s great. Yeah. It definitely tastes better, doesn’t it, when you say that?
Randy Warren (40:52):
Definitely, definitely tastes better when you go through all of that. So how did you get into this, Lauren? It’s
Lorne Cousin (40:58):
A funny story actually. I always liked scotch whiskey when I was in Scotland. I would drink it. I wasn’t an expert by any means, but then I was working in Los Angeles in California and I was a musician playing bagpipes, but not making any money. It was fun, but not making any money as many musicians will tell you, particularly in Hollywood. And an opportunity arose. A good friend of mine, Mitch Beshar, who may know who worked with Glen Fiddick also, he told me there was a vacancy for Balvenie and they were looking for an ambassador and I applied for the job and got it. And then the rest is history. But the onboarding process, that’s one thing to say, William Grant is great. It’s amazing. You’re sent to Scotland, you’ll make the whiskey for a week, you’ll meet the people who make it. And this happens perhaps a number of times in your first year and you learn on the job basically.
(41:51):
So it’s a great onboarding process. But that was how it came about. Yeah.
Randy Warren (41:56):
Wow. And you’ve been there how long now?
Lorne Cousin (41:58):
14 years.
Randy Warren (42:00):
Wow.
Lorne Cousin (42:01):
Yep. Yep. So I’m still learning. You’re always learning, but still soaking up information.
Randy Warren (42:06):
Absolutely. What’s your favorite story about Glen Fiddick?
Lorne Cousin (42:15):
Probably when you go to the distillery, you meet the men and the women who make the whiskey. And a lot of them, as I said, been there a long time. It’s amazing to meet them. And I’ve made some great friends, great characters at both Glen Fiddick above any distillery. And they’re still there a lot of these guys. So Dennis is there 60 years now. Ian McDonald’s over 50. David Stewart’s over 60 years. But they’ll tell you stories of perhaps the old days when the whiskey was made and what they used to get up to, that was fun. And they’ll tell you in the warehouse when it happened on the malt floor when it happened, that’s even better. Usually with a drum that you’ve taken from a cask. This is kind of cool. But yeah, there’s just those things that they used to. There was a process called dramming.
(42:56):
So in the old days until the 1970s, the men at the distillery in those days, were given three drums a day. Have you heard this? And it was part of their pay morning, noon, and night. So the guys got a shot of whiskey basically every day, three shots of whiskey every day, morning, noon and night. And Dennis would tell you this when he started, he was very young when he would line up to get this. And then I said, “Well, how was it?”He said, “Well, we used to work it out. You sweat it out over the course of the day, but they got three depending on the distillery. It could be aged whiskey or clear numic cleric depending on the distillery.” So they got that. It was to give the guys a bit of motivation, but it was also to stop stealing because in the old days, a lot of the guys of course would take whiskey home at night.
(43:43):
Why not? So what they used to do, they would have a copper whiskey dog, a copper tube on a chain. And sometimes it would be a shell from the Second World War, a small bullet. And that would go down the trousers. They would go into the warehouse, banging the sides of the casks, fill it up. And then it went down their trousers to go home at night. So that would go on. But they said there was one guy for 20 years, they thought he’d limp. Oh, he was stealing whiskey.
Randy Warren (44:17):
He had a rather large tube down.
Lorne Cousin (44:19):
Yes. Yep. Yep. So please tell your listeners to go to Spaceide and go to Glenvic and Balvenie and get a tour. And you’ll meet a lot of these guys still to this day. They’ll tell you some great stories. Yeah.
Randy Warren (44:32):
Absolutely. I can’t wait to go back. I love Scotland. I’ve been there a few times and it’s one of my favorite places to go. It’s so beautiful. I think people don’t recognize that there’s just a lot of mountains in Scotland. The lakes are gorgeous. Just everywhere you go, it’s a beautiful country. I just love it. But you’ve been here in America for a long time. Yeah.
Lorne Cousin (44:53):
Yep. So 2007, next year. Yep. Yep. I haven’t lost the accent as you can tell.
Randy Warren (44:58):
Right, right. No, that’s good. Keep the accent. It makes you get connection to home. Yep.
Lorne Cousin (45:03):
That’s right.
Randy Warren (45:05):
Yep. Yep. Fantastic. Well, we just really thank you so much for being with us today. Is there anything else you want to tell us? No, it
Lorne Cousin (45:12):
Was great. Very appreciated. I was just thinking of a nice quote for you when we finish up. Charlie Gordon, who was descendant of William Grant and who I was very fortunate to meet when I started, he said, “We’re not selling whiskey, we’re selling dreams.” So that was a good way to finish
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Tonight.
Randy Warren (45:31):
Selling dreams. Yep. And your family, the family, not your family, but the family that started this, it was all about a dream. Yeah,
Lorne Cousin (45:40):
That’s right. Yep.
Randy Warren (45:41):
Started with a dream and that’s the way good businesses start. And being family run today is a big deal. That’s
Lorne Cousin (45:49):
Right. Yep.
Randy Warren (45:50):
It impacts everything that you do. So that was very cool.
Lorne Cousin (45:53):
It does. No, thank you very much. And please tell your listeners to enjoy the whiskey, enjoy the scotch, and come to Scotland.
Randy Warren (45:59):
We definitely will, Lauren. I really appreciate your time today. Not
Lorne Cousin (46:02):
At all. Thank you. Cheers guys. All
Randy Warren (46:04):
Right. Have a great day. Bye.
Lorne Cousin (46:06):
Bye.
Randy Warren (46:09):
Welcome again, Whiskey Shenanigans fans to the shenanigans portion of this episode. And today we’re going to tackle something that’s going on in the industry here, and we’re basically going to address the issue of are rare bourbons becoming more readily available at their manufacturer’s suggested retail price? There’s definitely an upheaval going on in the bourbon marketplace. Much has been written about a glut of bourbon. There’s roughly 16 million barrels, and that’s a lot, of bourbon that’s aging in Kentucky rick houses alone. That’s roughly $22 billion worth of aging whiskey, and they have to pay taxes on that. It’s enough to last a decade. Keep in mind that distillers pay tax on every year on the value of the barrels in their rickhouses. So the holding cost here is significant. During the pandemic, of course, distillers ramped up production to aggressively meet the surging demands. Buffalo Trace, for example, recently completed a $1.2 billion expansion, which doubled their annual production capacity to over 500,000 barrels.
(47:39):
So you might expect prices to collapse with all this additional supply. Demand is a little bit lower because people are back to work, they’re not staying at home, and supply is way up. So you would expect prices to collapse, but distilleries are not new to this boom and bust game and they have a plan. So what is it? Regardless of planning, perhaps the good times are gone for bourbon distillers for a while. The last time bourbon went out of favor, it languished for about 30 years, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s. Perhaps the greatest impact may soon appear in the secondary market. The most sought after bottles of bourbon have always been available at prices on the secondary market that far exceeded their MSRP or manufacturer suggested retail price. The secondary market is overripe for an implosion. Why would an enthusiast pay hundreds of dollars for a Blanton’s gold if you’ve never had a great bourbon that perhaps you’ve had a great wine and you can compare a great wine to ordinary grocery store wine.
(48:51):
A great bourbon is very fine to enjoy slowly with friends at a wedding or when celebrating any occasion. But like a great wine, a great bourbon far exceeds the base level grocery store wine or the base level grocery store bourbon. There’s really no comparison, but still, come on, hundreds of dollars above MSRP?
(49:19):
Interesting. Recently, I found a bottle of old Fitzgerald’s seven year bottled in bond in a local liquor store. This was rare, maybe even a unicorn bottle, there it is right behind me, until pretty recently. Can you hear the ominous music beginning to play for the secondary market? This should not be happening. I should not be finding that in my local liquor store. To make matters worse, all this soft demand comes at a time when costs to distillers are rising. There is a scarcity of new American oak barrels available from Cooperages, which is driving up the price of barrels.
(50:06):
Ingredient costs are also rising, like corn and barley and wheat and everything else that goes on. So are labor costs, but wait a minute. Distilleries like Buffalo Trace utilize careful planning for their production and maturation. Buffalo Trace produces Pappy Van Winkle, which is still carefully rationed off. You’re not going to find a bottle of that just sitting around in your local liquor store. Not yet. The card the distillers have to play is to idle production. Well, that’s one card anyway. Jim Bean did pause operations for all of the rest of 2026 at their flagship campus in Claremont, Kentucky. But this isn’t likely to become a regular thing for major distillers. Another card they can play regularly is to distill new make or white lightning, but then spread out the maturation among their brands. At Heaven Hill, for example, they will typically pull barrels at four to seven years, but they let those same barrels mature for more than eight to 12 years.
(51:13):
It becomes a completely different spirit and they call it Elijah Craig. Further, those long-aged barrels will be tested and when they’re absolutely perfect, they actually may become part of Parker’s heritage brand. The ultra aging statements are naturally gaining popularity. Prior to the 2020s, you rarely ever saw a bourbon over 12 years old. Sure, there were a few. Consumers generally labeled those older bourbons as overoat, tasted like licking a baseball bat. Thus, the vast majority of bourbons were younger and most were significantly younger than 12 years, but times are changing. To quote Nicole Austin, Diagio’s director of American Whiskey Liquid Development and Capabilities, “Just because you can’t create a great bourbon over 12 years old doesn’t mean that no one can create a great bourbon over 12 years old. You couldn’t, but maybe somebody else could. And now to reduce the glut and control prices, distillers are aging their barrels longer.
(52:19):
This may beg the question of where in this python will the bulge grow the biggest? When a python eats a mouse, you can see it in the snake. That part, the aging of the six, the eight, the 10, 15, 20 years, somewhere in the supply chain, we are going to see a bulge and prices will fall the most in that area. Even now, we see core offerings are becoming widely available for around 24 to $40. As an enthusiast eager to get my hands on those rare and even unicorn barrels, I’m also cautious as to how long it may take for the bulge to appear and where it’ll show up first. There is a source named the Bourbon Brown Book that tracks and publishes secondary market prices for rare bottles of bourbon. According to comparisons between 2021 and 2024 edition of the Brown Book, it’s clear that prices are clearly falling in the neighborhood of nine to 11%.
(53:19):
The 2026 version reported a sharper fall in secondary prices. It suggests that the hype is fading and that prices may stabilize or even decline further, although gently. While the future is unclear, it has not fully revealed when the best bottles will drop to MSRP range. That’s what we’d really like to see. So I can pick up great bottles like that one, maybe some Blanton’s Gold, maybe some Pappy, maybe some Stag, whatever. There’s great bottles out there and I’m not going to pay hundreds of dollars over MSRP to get these. But as a consumer, we can be hopeful that we are going to be seeing more and more great bourbons at decent prices. Thus, the topic of this particular shenanigans is rare bourbons now available at MSRP coming to a store near you. Thanks a lot guys.
Speaker 3 (54:21):
I’ve always been fond of saying. We were always under, well, not under pressure, but in the bourbon industry, you’re under pressure to release new stuff all the time and what’s the next hot thing? And we always did a good job of not allowing that to happen, meaning we weren’t pushing something out the door just to meet a number or because the counting says we need more of this or more of that. We would put stuff out there that when it was ready, first of all, second of all, that added to the conversation. You always want to be part of the bourbon conversation. That’s my goal. And we agreed that we’re not going to say anything unless we have something to say, and I promise that there’s a point here. And I felt like that we had more to say after Angel’s Envy. We just weren’t finished.
(55:04):
Same with my dad after Woodford. Dad had more to express and we had more to express and we’re doing that in true story now.