Master Blender Emeritus Sandy Hyslop On Scoring His Whole Career At Chivas To One Queen Song, Why A Single Malt Isn't "Single", & Why He Needed No Permission To Put Whisky In Rum & Sake Casks

“If it would reflect my career in whisky: ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ by Queen. I love it. Love the job, love the evolution, love the brands. It’s been a crazy, amazing ride.”

– Sandy Hyslop, Master Blender Emeritus for Chivas Brothers & Royal Salute

 

Master Blender Emeritus Sandy Hyslop has been, and still is, best known as the Master Blender of Chivas – which at a glance, makes it sound like he’s involved in crafting two or three famous blended Scotch brands. The scope and depth of his job ran much wider and deeper.

For the better part of the last decade, Sandy’s full title had been “Director of Blending and Inventory” of the entire Scotch whisky arm of Pernod Ricard. That covered Chivas Regal, Royal Salute and Ballantine’s, the blends he’s best known for, but also single malts such as Aberlour, The Glenlivet, Longmorn and Strathisla across an inventory of around six-and-a-half million casks. His responsibility was positioned above that of the individual distillery managers – once spirit came off the still, almost everything that happened next was his call: the purchasing casks it went into, where and how long it matured, how it was blended, and how it reached the shelves as a final product. It is hard to think of another person in the Scotch industry who has had as broad a scope of responsibility as Sandy.

Growing up in Carnoustie, on the east coast of Scotland, Sandy did not plan much of this. When it was time to think about university, his father, who ran an antiques business, suggested that Sandy save up the money and answer a newspaper advertisement instead. The ad led to a sample room at Stewart’s of Dundee, a whisky firm of about a hundred people, where he learned the trade under the professional blender Jack Goudy.

 

East Haven beach near Carnoustie, on the east coast of Scotland.

 

More than forty years later, Sandy has recently stepped back into an emeritus role and handed the blending to Kevin Balmforth, who joined Chivas as a sample room assistant in 1999, much as Sandy himself once started.

We caught Sandy when he was in town, after he hosted an afternoon event with FutureGrail, an auction house and museum for antique and luxury watches. On Sandy’s wrist was a Sapphire Blue Czapek Promenade Goutte d’Eau, a 100-piece limited series from an independent Geneva watchmaker with historic links to Patek Philippe.

 

 

The watch’s stunning grand feu enamel dial is made to resemble ripples spreading from a drop of water. It is an apt choice for a master blender. The watch is built around the illusion of simplicity: one clean visual gesture, held together by a great deal of craft and hidden architecture. Much of Sandy’s work has lived in that same experience; making complexity feel seamless.

 

 

Sandy shared with us the values he absorbed his father’s shop and his early days in the whisky business. An antique grandfather clock had to be truly authentic, not over-restored. Great customer relationships ought to last three generations.

Sandy sees whisky the same way, and he is unusually honest about the pressure. He emphasised how one bad batch can undo a reputation built over thirty years. To him, a consistent taste profile in each year’s Royal Salute is something he owes the drinker. He is passionate in conversation, quick to credit his team, and just as quick to share about the less romantic challenges of his own work.

 

Sandy Hyslop with F1 driver Charles Leclerc at the Miami unveiling event of the Chivas Regal 16 Charles Leclerc Limited Edition.

 

Across the conversation Sandy explained how consistency is what makes innovation possible, why the Chivas team always stays one step ahead of Scotch Whisky Association rules (he got sake casks shipped from Japan), why second-fill casks could beat first-fills, and what F1 driver Charles Leclerc was really doing on his phone during his distillery visit at Strathisla Distillery.

Finally, we had Sandy open up about the shape of his next chapter in whisky education and the antiques business.

We start at the beginning with Sandy.

Follow Sandy Hyslop: Instagram | Linkedin

Follow His Work: Royal Salute | Chivas Regal

“During my time at Royal Salute, I have been privileged to create more new expressions than in the whole history of the brand. So I'm hoping that my legacy will be that I have helped Royal Salute move to another level.”

[88B]: We understand you started out at Stewart’s of Dundee, where you got to learn from Jack Goudy, the blender there at the time, who would later become a great mentor to you.

We understand it’s over a thousand samples a week that you had to nose?

[Sandy Hyslop]: Probably between 1,000 and 1,500 samples a week, I’d nose, and I’d taste probably 10 to 12. The power of the nose, it’s incredible.

That's not just me, it’s everybody!

[88B]: In those early days, what did you think of the job, and what was your understanding of what it meant to be a Master Blender? What was the lightbulb moment when you knew you were going down the right career path?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think it was seen as an exalted position, that you were in charge. At the end of the day, you were completely in charge of the quality and the continuity of all the products within your portfolio. You were the guardian of the quality as well; you were somebody who was making sure that you produced good whiskies, but you produced them consistently year after year. So I saw it as a very important position, but I saw it as a position that had lots of responsibility, that at the end of the day the whole reputation of the brand sat with you.

 

Jack Goudy was a legendary Master Blender for Ballantine's Scotch Whisky – famously known in the industry for his exceptional sense of smell and palate, once even managing to track down a rare wild primrose to its exact source when he detected its faint aroma in a blind whisky sample.

 

[88B]: How has your understanding of the role of a Master Blender changed some 40 years later, and have the demands of the role evolved with time?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think when I first started in the whisky industry, and I started working in the sample room, working with Jack Goudy, there was not the same amount of innovation that there is now. We would maybe produce one new product every year, whereas now everyone wants to try lots and lots of different flavours and wants to see new expressions. And really, people want to know much more about the detail of how that whisky has been made: which distilleries are in it, what casks was it maturing in? What did you use to finish it? How long did you finish it? How old were the whiskies that went into it? People want to know much, much more about the detail of how you formulated and shaped the flavour of that whisky. Now that's very different.

So, new product development, making new expressions: during my time at Royal Salute, I have been privileged to create more new expressions than in the whole history of the brand. So I'm hoping that my legacy will be that I have helped Royal Salute move to another level.

“Attention to detail, authenticity, making sure that quality is always at the forefront, was almost instilled in me from a young age. If my father bought [an antique] grandfather clock, it needed to be absolutely authentic. It didn’t need to have been over-restored.”

– Sandy Hyslop on the values he absorbed in his father’s antiques shop

[88B]: And a real full circle for this next chapter: we hear the plan is to buy and sell antiques, the same trade your father ran, with a van already bought. You’ve drawn a line before between authenticity in antiques and authenticity in whisky, how authenticity, long-term relationships and quality are everything in both. Does it feel like you’re carrying the same instinct from your dad’s shop into a second career?

[Sandy Hyslop]: That’s the best homework anybody interviewing me has ever done – thank you, seriously!

At first, I probably did not realise that, but attention to detail, authenticity, making sure that quality is always at the forefront, was almost instilled in me from a young age. If my father bought [an antique] grandfather clock, it needed to be absolutely authentic. It didn’t need to have been over-restored. It doesn't need to have been fixed with other things and put together as a marriage of others.

And I think it's about relationships as well. He was very, very, very keen to enforce in me that, when you're selling and buying and having relationships with customers, you need to have that long-term relationship. In his world, he was saying, if he had something for sale in his shop, he wanted to sell that thing to somebody and have them feel they had got a good deal, because he wanted them to come back. He wanted that relationship to last a long time.

He said sometimes it was very easy, the temptation to sell something for a very high price, and then the person would take it home and later they would say, I paid too much for that.

He wanted to have that relationship where, and he has that now, he's 90 now, he's dealing with the great-grandchildren of people that he originally dealt with in the shop. Some, like jewellery specialists, he would sell jewellery to a young couple that hadn't even got married, then they would get married, and he would sell them jewellery, and then years later, eventually they would pass away, and the family would come and sell the jewellery back to dad.

 

 

And I think that definitely has come with me into my job, that I want to make sure, always in my mind if I'm making a batch of Royal Salute 21 Year Old Signature Blend, always in my mind is, how does it compare with previous batches? Does it fit the profile? When someone pays, because it is not an expensive purchase, when you buy that bottle of Scotch and take it home, will they be happy that it is going to match the flavour that they have drunk before? That is a massive responsibility for me, to make sure that I always keep that flavour as close as humanly possible year to year.

And also, Jack Goudy used to say to me it'll take you 20 to 30 years to build up a brand and to get the reputation of the brand, and it’ll take you one bad batch to lose that reputation. “One bad batch!” He said, “always keep that in your mind, the one bad batch, and it's all gone, it's all gone downhill under your tenure. Don't let it ever happen.”

 

 

But think of it as two things. I have the responsibility of the Royal Salute 21 Year Old Signature Blend, making sure it's the same, first produced in 1953, got to keep that going. I have Royal Salute Stone of Destiny 38 Years Old, that's been on the go for a long time, I've got to make sure it's safe.

But in between that, I get to be creative, to be able to produce a Royal Salute Polo edition. It's really exciting and very different to producing the 21 Year Old, because if I'm making a Polo edition, I only have to make one batch. I don't have to worry about making it next year. I don't have to worry about what inventory do I have.

 

 

How am I going to keep that consistent? So you get the chance to be super creative without the shackles, without the handcuffs of thinking, “Oh God, how are we going to make this the same next year?” You just make a one-off amazing product, then we're going to make another one-off amazing product, to showcase how good we are at blending.

“I went to a plant where they had changeovers, where you might be running rum, then you go on to whisky, then you go into gin, then you come back on to vodka, then you might go back on. And that was a big learning curve for me… The last thing you would want is to make ‘gin-sky’!”

– Sandy Hyslop on the risk of cross-contamination on a bottling line that runs more than one spirit

[88B]: Could you share with us an early challenge you faced on the job that you didn’t expect to encounter? One that’s stuck with you?

[Sandy Hyslop]: [As a blender] I've always been really quite good at describing flavours, and the flavour book inside my head, I'm good at tapping into it, and when you're able to do that, it's good. But what did I find the most difficult? When I first started working, I was working in the small whisky company in Dundee, Stewart’s Cream of the Barley, 100 employees. Great apprenticeship for me, because I got to do lots of different jobs. When somebody went away on maternity leave, I would get put into the job to help out. So when I came down to work with Jack at the big Ballantine’s, Chivas Regal, it was only Ballantine’s at the time, but as time went on, Chivas Regal and Royal Salute joined the portfolio. I was able to look at it from a much broader perspective.

But what we did have was a bottling plant that ran multiple products, and I wasn't used to that. I was used to a bottling plant that ran whisky all the time, whereas I went to a plant where they had changeovers, where you might be running rum, then you go on to whisky, then you go into gin, then you come back on to vodka, then you might go back on. And that was a big learning curve for me.

 

Pernod Ricard's bottling plant at Dumbarton factory (Source: Turkey Red Media)

 

I thought I was really well down the route of being proficient, and I was proficient in Scotch whisky, but these line changeovers are really, really important, that you don't get crossover of spirit. And that was a completely different learning curve for me when I started doing that, to make sure that you could nose the whisky and make sure there hadn't been any accidents, that anything from another previous product had ended up in there.

 

[88B]: In that context, could you give us an example of a potential fault or issue that might show up in a whisky?

[Sandy Hyslop]: The last thing you would want is to make “gin-sky”! *Laughs*

That's the last thing you would want! If you were running gin and someone hadn't cleaned out the lines, because you can't do it all yourself. You're having to rely on someone to change the filters, clean the system down, make sure it's absolutely clean with nothing left to chance. The system was cleaned down, it was flushed, it was washed. Then a sample of the water would come to me for checking before we even put whisky down the line. So I would check the water to see if there was any nuance or flavour from the previous product.

Now, no machine could do that. We have a fabulous technical centre laboratory, and before I retired I was responsible for all our technical centres and laboratories, and they have amazing equipment, probably the best equipment in the Scotch whisky industry, but even it couldn't pick up anything on a changeover. To make sure everything was clean before you started, that's not a very romantic, glamorous story, but it's the truth.

 

[88B]: It’s really not something that’s often shared in a marketing pipeline. Thank you for sharing this with us!

[Sandy Hyslop]: Small independent bottlers, yes, they are always at risk of that, because they don't usually have their own bottling facility, so they need to send it to someone else to bottle for them, so they're at risk of it as well. So it's something that's going on in the background that you need to be really fastidious about, and make sure that there is no risk to your product.

 

[88B]: Stewart’s, well known for its blending, had been part of the Allied Distillers group, which eventually brought you into Chivas Brothers under Pernod Ricard. That began a 20-year stint as Master Blender of Chivas Regal, Royal Salute and Ballantine’s, and you progressively became Director of Blending and Inventory across the entire Chivas stable of whisky distilleries. You’ve said that consistency provides the foundation from which innovation can thrive, and that blended whiskies in fact hold a wider scope for innovation than single malts.

So what’s the creative process like for you when you’ve been given the all-clear that this is a new one-off release, where continuity is not a concern, as you ideate a new expression?

[Sandy Hyslop]: There are a number of things that come into my head when I am sitting down with our marketing team. It's very much push and pull for new product development. I really encouraged, when I was working with my team, I would encourage them to come up with ideas themselves. So sometimes we would go to marketing with an idea and generate it, and sometimes marketing would come to us and say, there is a gap in the market, we want to do this. But my job is to make sure that we make something of a high quality, but also I want it to sit within the flavour, the DNA of the brand.

 

 

If it's Royal Salute, it needs to be rich orchard fruit, luxurious. It needs to have that intensity that Royal Salute has. But maybe, with the 26 Year Old, we could finish it in port casks, and we bring in a bit of that red currant, raspberry jam, that really sweet berry compote coming in there, but it's still got that foundation, it's got that Royal Salute foundation. So it's about creating an amazing whisky, but making sure that it fits in with the style of that brand, because I want people who drink Royal Salute 21 Year Old Signature Blend, when they buy a bottle of 26 Year Old Kingdom Edition, to get the flavours they love in the 21 Year Old, but with a twist.

“I mean, what’s the point in making whisky for 26 years, filling it in a cask, and suddenly you find out the cask is musty or sour, or got something wrong with it, it’s a bit sulphury? You need to make sure that those casks are absolutely perfect.”

– Sandy Hyslop on why every cask is carefully inspected and nosed before it goes near a blend

[88B]: To go slightly deeper into the process: you’ve delved into how much effort it took to create the Royal Salute 29 Year Old PX Sherry Cask Finish, where you didn’t just take already-emptied casks but wanted to control the flavour from the outset, conditioning them with different Sherries and drying them to your spec before they got to Scotland. You carried that same approach through the Royal Salute Kingdom Collection's Colheita Port Cask Finish, the brand’s first ever port cask finish.

What’s the most effort-intensive thing you’ve done to control the process, and what’s something very few people know about what goes on behind the scenes at Chivas Brothers?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think what's worth remembering is, when I produce the Royal Salute 26 Year Old Kingdom Edition, as an example, I was not told 26 years ago that we were going to be making that, so I need to formulate that whisky from the inventory that's been laid down, and make something using whiskies that are already in existence and already maturing. I think not everyone would appreciate how much attention to detail it takes, to sample all the individual casks, to nose every individual cask. We sample all the casks, bring the samples in, and I can make the blend in miniature in the blending room. Then we'll scale it up to do it full scale. We'll bring in all the casks from the warehouses, and then we nose every individual cask again.

It's really worth remembering that once you've put the whiskies together, you can't unpick it; if something's wrong, you can't undo it. Once they're mixed, that's it. So you have to sample every individual cask, make the blend in miniature, then sample every cask.

When you work on the whisky’s finishing, you get freshly emptied port casks into Scotland. You go and nose and check every cask. So I'm not just nosing alcohol, myself and the team will go out and nose every empty cask whenever it comes off the container. Everyone!

 

 

Sandy Hyslop and Kevin Balmforth with the rest of Chivas' original blending team. 

 

I mean, what's the point in making whisky for 26 years, filling it in a cask, and suddenly you find out the cask is musty or sour, or got something wrong with it, it's a bit sulphury? You need to make sure that those casks are absolutely perfect. You bring those casks, then you put your special bespoke blend that you've made into those casks.

Then I want to see a sample every six weeks during that finishing process, because what I don't want is these port casks to completely overpower the blend, because there is a risk of that. You'll get too much oak, too much of that port coming from the casks that it's gone into, so I sample every six weeks, and I'm all about balance. It's about making sure it's complementing the blend, not overpowering it. It's about getting that balance. Now, that's a worry for me, because if it goes over, I need to have the power to stop it quickly if I get a sample.

The Royal Salute 62 has whiskies in it that are nearly 40 years old, so there’s no way I can have that Royal Salute expression with too much oak, and it would be very easy for it to be too much oak at that age.

 

 

I'll give you a secret: the formula for Royal Salute 62 Gun Salute is very, very important. The different malt and grain whiskies that are in the formula are very important, but just as important is the cask recipe. How many barrels, how many hogsheads, how many butts? Are they first fill, are they second fill, are they third fill? Never underestimate the power of a second and third fill cask on a long maturation. It draws the oak back down. A second fill cask will give you much better balance than a first fill on a long maturation.

 

[88B]: There’s so much intricacy to your approach. Did you develop your pursuit for excellence during your time in your father’s antiques shop? Where do you go personally for this endless pool of inspiration, and how do you know you’ve got it right and it’s ready to make it to production?

[Sandy Hyslop]: There's really two questions there. I think I'm very, very, very proud. I feel that it's amazing that I've managed to achieve the job of Royal Salute, so I take the job very, very seriously, and I want to make sure everything is absolutely perfect, because it's my name on the box. So if a bad batch of Royal Salute, which will never happen, if a bad batch of Royal Salute ever went out, and everybody's going, "Oh my God, it's disgusting,” they're not going to return. I would lose my reputation overnight.

I have fully taken that responsibility, that that is my job, to make sure it's absolutely right. You could just be doing the job and taking the money and just not care, it doesn't matter. You can't be a Master Blender and behave like that, because you're going to get tripped up at some point. So you need to make sure that you're really devoted to making sure it's right. I am really, really, genuinely very proud to have got this job, so I need to make sure that everything is great.

 

 

I want, in 20 years’ time, everyone to say, you should think about how Sandy Hyslop would have approached this. How would he have dealt with this? How would he have managed quality here? I want to have set benchmarks everywhere around the business.

Up until Christmas, I was responsible for all the cask purchasing in the business, all of our six-and-a-half million cask inventory, all our technical centres and laboratory, all operational planning and blending and innovation. That is a big remit. That is the biggest remit of any whisky blender in the industry. Nobody, no other whisky blender in the industry, has had as wide a remit as that.

But I've got to add to that, I surrounded myself with amazing people. My team are amazing, my team are amazing. I surrounded myself with people who were as passionate as me, competent, and really good at their jobs, because you can never, never manage all that on your own. You need to have really good people working in your team. You're only as good as your team.

“If I’m making a batch of Royal Salute 21 Year Old Signature Blend, always in my mind is, how does it compare with previous batches? Does it fit the profile? … That is a massive responsibility for me, to make sure that I always keep that flavour as close as humanly possible year to year.”

– Sandy Hyslop on the weight of keeping a flagship blend tasting the same, year after year

[88B]: You’ve worked with blended whiskies across the three iconic brands of Chivas Regal, Royal Salute and Ballantine’s. Could you help us reconcile how you think about keeping these flagship expressions consistent, yet at the same time ensuring they evolve to meet changing consumer preferences, and how you think about leaving your personal mark on something otherwise idealised as consistent through the years?

[Sandy Hyslop]: Yeah, I think I've been very lucky, because under my tenure as Master Blender there's been lots of opportunity to do new products. I have done more than in the history of the brand, not just Royal Salute, but our whole portfolio. When I stepped back from my role at Christmas, there were 42 live new product development projects going on across all the brands. That's a lot of activity, that's a lot of things, but it showed how innovative we were. We were trying, and I always encouraged my team that there was no issue if a project failed, because we would learn from it anyway. If we brought casks in from an exotic place and tried them, and we weren't happy with them, it didn't matter, we would learn something from it. It was all about learning and understanding different ways to manipulate and adjust flavour.

 

[88B]: Is there a need to differentiate the flavour profiles of these flagship expressions as the space becomes more crowded and competitive? And are there ever discussions about frontrunning new flavour profiles that proactively shape consumer sensibilities?

[Sandy Hyslop]: That's a good question, because if you're talking about something like Royal Salute Signature Blend, if everyone came and knocked on my door and said, “Sandy, all the markets, America is looking for everything to be smoky, they want smoky flavour, we're going to have to dial up the smoke in Royal Salute Signature Blend,” I would just be saying no, it's not happening. But what I will do is, we'll make a different expression. We'll introduce a new expression, because I don't want to alienate all these consumers that we have built up over decades. I don't want to alienate them. I want to make sure that they still stay with us.

 

 

But that's why we introduced the Royal Salute 21 Year Old Lost Blend, with a touch of peat in it. The 30 Year Old Keys of the Kingdom had a bit of peat. So it's about being respectful of the foundation brands, but also being innovative at the same time.

 

[88B]: You’ve mentioned repeatedly that blended whiskymaking is all about consistency and quality. With four decades under your belt, if you could add a third goal for the craft, what would it be?

[Sandy Hyslop]: “Team”.

You can't do it all yourself. You need to have a really good team, a passionate team that are going to be involved. I also love working with the younger members of the team and seeing them flourish, seeing how they develop, and encouraging them. I've always loved to share my knowledge. Throughout my career, everybody shared their knowledge with me, and I love sharing my knowledge with everyone else. I want to be remembered as somebody that had very, very high standards, but also was super approachable.

Anyone could come into my office, ask me a question, and not worry about what the answer would be.

“If we didn’t have blended whisky, a bottle of The Glenlivet 12 Year Old would probably cost £1,000, because all the inventory that’s being used in blend is helping reduce the cost of a single malt bottle of whisky. And that’s not very romantic, but it’s the truth.”

– Sandy Hyslop on the unseen economics that keep single malt affordable

[88B]: On the bigger picture, how has the rise of single malts changed how blended malts are thought of inside an illustrious house whose distilleries were originally built largely to support the blends?

[Sandy Hyslop]: Single malts are amazing, and single malts have grown rapidly over the years, but I think we need to keep it in perspective. If I take off my blender’s hat and put on my inventory hat, we need to remember that more than 90% of the whisky that is sold in the world, is blended.

Single malt is a very small part of the industry. Blend is still a very, very important factor, and if we didn't have blended whisky, a bottle of The Glenlivet 12 Year Old would probably cost £1,000, because all the inventory that's being used in blend is helping reduce the cost of a single malt bottle of whisky. And that's not very romantic, but it's the truth, it's the reality of the situation.

 

 

[88B]: Also, how has that role of blends changed along the way for the market what with single malts in recent years being seen as an aspirational product. How has that affected how blends are regarded?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I've got two answers to that question. I think there's the answer that I've noticed recently, and I mean in the past sort of 12 to 18 months, people are much more interested in blends and the craft of blends. There was a stage where people became a bit obsessed with single malt, and I see a bit of a resurgence in blends, and in the craftsmanship, the flavour, the complexity, and the balance that you can get with a blend.

Put that aside. That single malt [in your glass] is not nearly as single as you think it is, because when I'm making The Glenlivet 18 Year Old, I'm using hogsheads, I'm using barrels, I'm using sherry butts. All these whiskies are very, very different in flavour, and the formula is quite complex to put that together, using some at 18, some at 19, some at 20 years old, and they’re all mixed as it comes together.

Some of these barrels are first-fill, some of them are second, some of them are third. It's actually not nearly as “single” as you think. There's a lot of complexity in the background, mixing together to get that continuity of flavour, batch after batch.

 

 

[88B]: We know you’ve been excited about the expanded Scotch Whisky regulations allowing a wider set of cask types, and you’d already gotten your hands into Tequila casks. Before the Scotch Whisky Association’s approved list was published, were there any cask types you were personally hoping to explore?

[Sandy Hyslop]: Yeah, I wanted to do rum. I was desperate to do rum casks. Yeah, I wanted to try that.

I was already experimenting before the regulations changed, before the SWA changed the regulations.

“A really good example is the Chivas Regal Takumi Reserve, where we finished the whisky in sake casks… we’re not frightened to operate outside of the Scotch whisky regulations. We need to be experimenting, we need to be ahead of the curve as a business, we need to be in a position that if the rules change again, we’re on the front foot.”

– Sandy Hyslop on experimenting beyond the Scotch whisky rulebook

[88B]: Now that those rules are confirmed and fully operational, beyond rum casks, could you tell us what’s already sitting in barrel under them that we won’t see on a shelf for another decade? Are there general categories of cask types you’re particularly keen about?

[Sandy Hyslop]: A really good example is the Chivas Regal Takumi Reserve, where we finished the whisky in sake casks. When I first put them in, they were freshly emptied. In fact, we sent casks from Scotland to Japan to make the Link8 Sake, and they finished it in our Chivas Regal whisky casks, and we brought them back to Scotland once they had emptied the sake out.

 

 

Now, that was out with the rules of the Scotch Whisky Association, and we filled them with whisky, and I started sampling them every six to eight weeks with the team, checking to see what they were like, and after about 14 months we saw that lovely sweet creamy flavour coming through, and it was just amazing. We felt so strongly about it that we decided, well, we can't call it Scotch whisky, but we're going to launch it as a spirit drink, because we think it's amazing, and we've launched it as a Japan-only expression, and people love it.

And it's lovely, it has that creaminess. I don't know if you're familiar, in Japan they have these little sweets called wasanbon, which have a really creamy texture. They melt really quickly on the tongue, and that texture brings an amazing texture to the whisky. So in some respects we're not frightened to operate outside of the Scotch whisky regulations. We need to be experimenting, we need to be ahead of the curve as a business, we need to be in a position that if the rules change again, we’re on the front foot.

 

[88B]: And beyond exotic casks, are there areas of the whiskymaking process you think deserve more experimentation or are flying too much under the radar, for example the use of different yeasts or barley varietals?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think, yeah, you can do that. Different yeast, different barley. I think the impact on the whisky is far less than the distillation or the cask influence. When you get to a Royal Salute age of 21 years old, the cask is playing 50 to 60% of the flavour. It's amazing, and I don't think consumers always appreciate that the cask is not just something to hold the whisky in, it's a maturing vessel with a limited lifespan, it won't go on forever.

I think over time people will begin to realise that. We talk about quality, we talk about continuity, we talk about flavour from the distillery and the cask. If you're doing a long maturation, the cask plays a massive role in the end flavour.

 

 

[88B]: Taking a step further out from the making process: you’ve pointed out that consumers today, particularly younger consumers, are more astute, with a greater depth of knowledge. You’ve also emphasised that products can’t just be a story, they also has to be authentic. What does it mean to you to stay authentic, and how do you balance being experimental and crafting a great story whilst making sure the brand and distillery identity stays distinct and intact?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think sometimes I end up being the custodian of the brand, that every single piece of romantic copy, or anything that's written on the label, the tasting notes, are all produced by myself and my team. But any of the story on the box, or any of the story on the bottle, has to be approved by me before it goes to print. There's myself, the company lawyer, the head of marketing; it has to have three signatures on it before it goes. So I need to know that that story is authentic, and if I am sitting with someone like you, I need to be able to explain it clearly, so that everyone understands that that's exactly what we've done, that there's no conning the consumer.

 

[88B]: It’s difficult to quantify, but what do you look out for in deciding whether something is for the lack of a better word - authentic - enough that a consumer would accept it?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I am particularly astute at looking out for things that might be misleading, and I've been very lucky. I've been able to travel to different continents, different countries, and I understand that sometimes, when I read something, I'll say, if English was not your first language, you might misread that, and you need to word it in a clearer way, because I don't want consumers being misled by the story.

“We were finding that people who go out earlier don’t think of having a whisky at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. So, to create Crystalgold, we were thinking this is an opportunity for us to showcase Chivas in a different arena that we’ve never been in before.”

– Sandy Hyslop on the thinking behind Chivas Crystalgold

[88B]: It’s interesting you mentioned the sake-cask whiskies that don’t quite fall into the SWA’s Scotch whisky definition. There’s also Chivas Crystalgold, which, because it’s filtered clear, isn’t called Scotch whisky but a “spirit drink”, and the Chivas Regal Takumi Reserve, where you aged your malt spirit in a Japanese sake cask. What’s your litmus test for making sure the authenticity is still there?

[Sandy Hyslop]: My team spent a lot of time making the Chivas Crystalgold!

Particularly for Crystalgold, When I sat down with my team, I said, we're going to do some experiments, and I said to them, we're going to try and make the most flavourful clear spirit available on the market. That's where I wanted to be. I wanted to make something that would surprise consumers, that they would try Crystalgold, and when they tried it, they were getting all the amazing flavours that you get from Scotch whisky, but a creamy smoothness that was just amazing.

And it was interesting, because there are different drinking times now. People who go out earlier in the day, particularly in the UK, will go out 3 o'clock in the afternoon and come home at seven, eight o'clock. They won't stay out till midnight, one o'clock in the morning. We were finding that people who go out earlier don't think of having a whisky at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

 

 

So, to create Crystalgold, we were thinking this is an opportunity for us to showcase Chivas in a different arena that we've never been in before. And obviously, if it's got the Chivas name on the label, that's a little badge of quality, so we want to make sure that it's a really, really nice, amazing spirit, really flavourful for a clear spirit, but also an amazing cocktail base as well.

I wanted everyone to be able to buy a bottle of Crystalgold, take it to someone's house, and whether you wanted to drink it neat, or with soda, or as a cocktail, amazing. It wasn't a case of coming in with the bottle and everybody going, "I can't drink that, I won't be able to have that.” I wanted something that was super versatile.

 

[88B]: You’ve mentioned being surprised when, during the Covid era, you took to Instagram to post more about your work, only to find that consumers had such a real thirst for technical information about their spirits. To your mind, where does this lead in terms of how brands and distilleries think about marketing and communication, and where would you like whisky marketing and communication to be?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think the more transparency we can give, without giving away all the secrets, the more information we can give away about the casks during maturation, the length of time the whisky has been in that cask, the types of whisky that are in there, how we formulated it, I think it's good. I think transparency, as much transparency as possible, without giving away all your secrets, is a good thing.

I think that's something that we should do more of.

 

 

[88B]: Without revealing your secret recipes, for a brand like Royal Salute that’s backed by deep expertise in blending high-aged whiskies: for more amorphous concepts like expertise, skill, craftsmanship and quality, how could and should these intangible traits be marketed and communicated?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think what has worked very well is consumers being able to see a bit of who's actually doing it in the background. Who is the Master Blender? Who are the team? Who are these people that are dedicated to doing it? To actually see the faces behind the brand, I think, is quite important.

Of my 43-year career, I probably spent 32, 33 years of that never speaking to a consumer or a journalist. Never. And now, when I look back on that, if we had engaged, we would have been able to tell a clearer story.

 

[88B]: Now to some of the more ambitious projects, not just in Scotland. The Chuan distillery in Sichuan, which you visited and advised on, has now put out its first expression, The Chuan Pure Malt Whisky.

[Sandy Hyslop]: A great project. Loved it, loved it. Loved working with the team. We used to get samples every two weeks. I saw every individual batch that they made. I helped them with their casks. When we talk about passion, that is the most passionate team I have ever worked with, outside my own team. Amazing, passionate team. In fact, I would consider them all good friends now, and particularly the distillery manager is a very good friend of mine now.

 

 

[88B]: With all of that on the table, what are you most looking forward to in where the whisky world is headed over the next 10 years? What’s a trend everyone should be keeping a closer eye on, and what’s something happening that everyone is missing?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think world whiskies have certainly developed at a great wave of malts over the past 10 to 15 years. And it's interesting, working for a big international spirits company has been really good for me. I've spent lots of time working with our Indian team, with our team in China. It's been super interesting, and it's great to see these distilleries, these projects, flourish from the start. It's been amazing.

“To use Japanese oak, and to be able to grow it into the fact that we've now got the biggest stocks of Mizunara oak outwith Japan.”

[88B]: Staying with The Chuan for a second: what surprised you most about how whisky gets made in China compared with Scotland?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think the difference in temperature has been really interesting to see, to see the difference in the cask selection. How you select your first, second, third fill casks is really important in how you shape the flavour and don’t allow it to become too much oak, too much influence from the cask, even at a young age, because of that high temperature. It's a completely different trajectory of maturation.

 

[88B]: You created the Chivas Regal 16, the first 16 Year Old in the brand’s history and perhaps one of the last core-range creations of your active tenure, co-created with Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc and anchored by Sherry cask Longmorn. What does it mean to you that one of your final big expressions was a genuinely collaborative project with Charles, who was actively involved in the tasting sessions and in shaping the final flavour profile? Did Charles surprise you with his palate?

[Sandy Hyslop]: Number one, he surprised me with his palate; number two, we're very, very similar, much more similar than people would think. He's working in a completely different arena to me, but his attention to detail was unbelievable, unbelievable.

 

The iconic Strathisla Distillery that is the spiritual home of Chivas.

 

He came to Scotland, and he spent the weekend with his girlfriend and a couple of his friends, and I spent the whole weekend with him, and I took him to Strathisla Distillery, and I took him to Longmorn Distillery, and we walked through the distillery. At one point Charles got his phone out while we were going round Strathisla, and I thought to myself, I'm obviously a bit boring here, he's gone on his phone. And then surprisingly he stopped, and he went, “explain to me again the fermentation”. And what he was actually doing was taking notes, going round the process at the distillery. And I was like, I am super impressed with this man, this man loves the detail. I said, you must be a nightmare for the mechanics in the Formula One! He is an absolute pleasure to work with, and fully involved in how the flavours are coming together. What are we going to make? He loved that we had sherry, sherry-matured Longmorn.

 

 

When I met him in the casino in Monaco, and I set up all the samples, and that was the first time he'd ever got involved. We had new distillate, we had casks matured in bourbon, sherry, we had Glenlivet, we had Aberlour, we had Chivas, we had Royal Salute, we did the whole range with him, all the different ones, and he was really, really into it, and he really liked Scotch whiskies. This is not just a marketing partnership, he loved Scotch whisky.

And along the way, he just loved that Longmorn, first fill sherry, loved the raisin, the liquorice, the real juicy fruitcake flavours. He was like, "I think that is amazing, I love it.” And he loved Chivas 18 Year Old when we did the Chivas 18. He was like, "It's got a bit of that Longmorn sherry,” and he was like, "Oh, that's...” And that's when we decided we're going to make something with that Longmorn-sherry-influenced Chivas Regal. and it was absolutely him,

Then he said, "Could we make it 16?”, “That's my racing number,” “that's my birthday”. And I was like, "Yeah, we could make it 16.”

 

[88B]: Charles, still in his twenties, represents a newer generation of drinkers. From your interactions with people of his generation, what are your thoughts on the way they consume, make decisions and share their experiences? What do you think the industry has done right by younger consumers, and what do you think we’re still figuring out?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I’ll talk about Charles in particular: very, very quickly he had a very good appreciation for the attention to detail that was in whisky, and the craft, and the effort in making it very good. He was able to understand it really quickly, and I think he’s probably a good benchmark of younger consumers.

Sandy and Charles Leclerc taking the opportunity to show off their watches (in Sandy's Watch & Scotch Instagram series) during a Longmorn Distillery visit.  

 

[88B]: Is there anything else you think the industry is still figuring out in engaging younger consumers?

[Sandy Hyslop]: It will always evolve. There's always new trends coming through, there's always different things. So, yeah, we need to be conscious that we have a core consumer who loves our products, but we also have consumers that would be good to engage with as well, so we need to be innovative.

 

[88B]: On legacy and succession: you’ve said previously your biggest ambition was to leave the House in good order for whoever took over, with clear markers of success, great stocks of whisky in the right wood, proper forecasts and plans, and the overall quality and delivery coming out of Chivas. Kevin Balmforth, who you worked alongside for more than 20 years and mentored, has now taken over as Master Blender, and there’s a nice symmetry: he started as a Sample Room Assistant in 1999, much like your own beginning.

What was it in his personality and his approach that gave you the confidence to step away? And when the moment came to hand over the sample room, did it feel like relief, grief, or something in between?

[Sandy Hyslop]: Yeah, Kevin is very, very good. Kevin really understands flavour well, and having worked together for a long time, we're very different personalities, but both very passionate about what we do. He's a quieter person than me, he's more reserved about expressing his passion, but he is super passionate.

 

Kevin Balmforth took over as Master Blender in January of this year (Source: Spirits Business)

 

He will make a very, very good Master Blender. He will do the job slightly differently to how I did it, because he will just be looking after blending, he won't be looking after the inventory and the casks and the technical centres. He's just going to be focused solely on blending and innovation, which is a good thing.

But in my job over 40 years, my job evolved. I didn't instantly become responsible for casks, responsible for inventory; as time went on, somebody retired or somebody left the business, and they said, “Sandy, do you think you could manage the inventory as well?” So it's kind of gone, over 40 years, it kind of grew and grew and grew, and now it's settled back a little bit in the new era, and there'll be different experts doing the different facets of the job. So Kevin will be solely focused on blending, innovation and flavour.

 

 

And let’s not forget what an important role the Head of Inventory plays. Fiona Duff, who is now Head of Inventory and Planning, was a mastermind. It's like three-dimensional chess, managing an inventory of so many different ages, so many different brands, and making sure you've got the right stock, looking at the forecast of what you think you're going to sell from marketing, working it all out. She was amazing. She is an unsung hero of the business!

“It’ll take you 20 to 30 years to build up a brand and to get the reputation of the brand, and it’ll take you one bad batch to lose that reputation.”

– Sandy Hyslop on how fragile a hard-won reputation can be

[88B]: It seems you have great people taking over from you. Looking back now, what’s the legacy you feel you’ve left in the whisky industry?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think I would like to be remembered as somebody who has driven the business forward, with his team, and it's not just me single-handedly. It's me and my team who have elevated the brands to the next level, and left them in a really good place for the future.

We've also left an amazing inventory for the future, because who knows where those trends are going to go, and if these trends go in a different way, we've got to have top quality inventory to match those trends.

 

[88B]: If you could liken your whisky career to any rock song, what would it be?

[Sandy Hyslop]: If it would reflect my career in whisky: “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” by Queen. I love it. Love the job, love the evolution, love the brands. It's been a crazy, amazing ride.

 

 

[88B]: And if you had to pick five whisky expressions that tell the story of Sandy Hyslop, what would they be?

[Sandy Hyslop]: That is really tricky, that is really, really tricky.

To be able to bring Chivas Mizunara to market was amazing, to use Japanese oak, and to be able to grow it into the fact that we've now got the biggest stocks of Mizunara oak outwith Japan. That was amazing.

 

 

To be able to make Ballantine’s 40 Year Old, the oldest expression that's ever been produced from Ballantine's, the brand, that's amazing.

 

 

And the Royal Salute Polo editions: these are not like an innovation challenge for me, they're like a hobby, a hobby and an opportunity to make something. And if I was to pick one out of it, the Royal Salute Polo Estancia, finished in Argentinian Malbec casks, phenomenal. It has no substitute. It’s fantastic.

 

 

Oh, The Glenlivet Caribbean Reserve. Loved doing The Glenlivet selectively finished in rum casks. Great project, loved it from start to finish. I ended up buying tankers of rum from the Caribbean to bring to Scotland to condition my own casks, because I couldn't get the quality of casks I was looking for. So I'm going to buy my own rum, I'm going to bring it to Scotland, I'm going to fill my own casks, and I'm going to make my own rum casks. That was a great project, a great project. Absolutely loved it.

 

 

And if you're looking for your fifth one, you’ve said it: finish on a blend. The first 16 Year Old Chivas ever produced, made with Charles Leclerc! Love it.

 

 

[88B]: Have you left any Easter eggs in the warehouse for Kevin and Fiona to find?

[Sandy Hyslop]: No. Kevin, the past five years has really worked shoulder to shoulder with me, so he knows everything that I know. I'm genuinely not someone that keeps secrets and keeps it all to myself. I love sharing it with the team. In fact, maybe sometimes I overshare, and they're all like, "Oh, Sandy, shut up.”

Kevin's well aware of everything that's been laid down, and Fiona, Fiona knows exactly all the experiments, because she needs to manage it. She is a very, very important person in the business, keeping it right, because I give her the formula, she knows the formula, and she can go and look at the inventory and see what stocks we have to match it with the forecast trajectory.

 

[88B]: Is there anything you would change about the industry in general?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think the industry is going in the right direction. I think it's more inclusive. I think whisky is much more inclusive than it used to be, for everyone. It's much more approachable. Guys and girls love whisky now. I think mixing it in cocktails is not such a big taboo anymore. So I think it's going on the right trajectory.

“I think I’ve found a new niche of speaking to consumers and speaking to whisky enthusiasts and telling the story, and I think my job is going to become a bit of a hybrid of whisky storytelling and my buying and selling antiques.”

– Sandy Hyslop on the shape of his next chapter

[88B]: My final questions are a little more personal. For what comes next, you’ve said you won’t be disappearing and that you’ll keep posting about whisky on Instagram. After 40 years of planning decades ahead, how does it feel to finally have a chapter that’s yours to shape week by week?

[Sandy Hyslop]: I think the chapter at this moment in time is not quite shaped at the moment, because in January 2025 I said to the team that I would like to retire in December, so I gave them 12 months’ notice that I was going to retire.

And they came back to me saying, we would love you to do a bit of storytelling, like what we're doing here. And I signed a contract for 40 days a year. And here we are, just at the beginning of June, and the business has said, well, could we double that to 80 days a year?

 

 

I think I've found a new niche of speaking to consumers and speaking to whisky enthusiasts and telling the story, and I think my job is going to become a bit of a hybrid of whisky storytelling and my buying and selling antiques. So it's quite good, actually, because it's a good evolution from one career to this new hybrid career.

 

[88B]: My next question is about your Nissan Cube. If you had to reimagine your Nissan Cube as a whisky, what would it be?

[Sandy Hyslop]: Ah, I sold it! Oh yeah, it's gone. It's a disaster, I really miss it. But I bought a van and I [already] bought myself a new car. So I had to sell the Nissan Cube. I couldn't have three vehicles.

Well, it's like a big ice cube, isn't it? It'd be like something if you were having some whisky served with a big block of ice. It would be the “Nissan Ice Cube”. *Chuckles*

 

[88B]: And my final question is about watches. We know you’re of course a great watch lover. Please share with us the most recent piece you’ve added to your collection, and the story behind it.

[Sandy Hyslop]: So, that is it. *Hands me his Czapek watch.* That's a Swiss brand. But it's beautiful, the whole micro rotor, it's just outstanding.

There’s a crystal case back, so you can see the full movement, and it has a micro rotor. This is the same quality as Patek; this is very high end, only 100 pieces in the world.

 

 

- - -

88 Bamboo thanks Sandy and the Pernod Ricard team for making this incredibly insightful interview possible! 

@CharsiuCharlie