The Scotch whisky industry is one that is steeped in venerable tradition and dusty cobwebs of history. It’s difficult to overstate how old the big names are: Bowmore Distillery, for instance, began selling whisky before Beethoven was done composing his First Symphony. Lagavulin and The Macallan were well-established operations before the first telegraph message was sent.

Yet something seems to be brewing on the horizon today. Vintage whisky lovers and experts aren’t happy with the direction that Big Whisky has steered the Scotch industry in recent decades. They argue that the industry has become increasingly focused on efficiency and as a result, they say, Scotch whisky of today is a shadow of its former glory in the 1960s – widely accepted as the decade with some of the best vintages of Scotch.

Somewhere in the Scottish Highlands, near a seaside town of Dornoch, a pair of brothers and their team are challenging the status quo in a meaningful way, making waves across the whisky world that have created something of a cult following.  

 

 

The Thompson Bros run a whisky bar in a hotel out of Dornoch Castle in the Highlands, which they also manage. But they are best-known for their indie bottling label which has earned a dedicated following among whisky enthusiasts; their bottlings becoming some of the most sought-after and collectible bottles in the world. Inspired by their experiences with incredibly flavourful old-style Scotch from the 1960s, the brothers also established Dornoch Distillery out of a small stone-wall fire station dating back to the 1800s to create whisky with more character using organic ingredients and old production methods.

 

 

Quality of product aside, the Thompsons are most admired for their commitment to community and support of genuine whisky lovers. Prices of their hottest releases are often kept artificially lower to give genuine fans a chance at purchasing their products. Despite being first-generation whisky bottlers and distillers, the Thompson Bros of Dornoch Distillery have transcended the reach of their small Highlands town to become two of the most respected and sought-after figures in whisky.

Today, we have the rare opportunity to sit down with the Thompson Bros for an in-depth interview. We’ll learn all about the inspirations for their funky, outlandish label art, the counter-intuitive science of blending whisky, the need for independent bottlers to reinvent themselves, and most fascinatingly, how Dornoch Distillery would revive a spirit that would evoke nostalgia of old-world Scotland.

Join us for an entertaining chat with Phil and Simon Thompson, and Euan Christie who manages Dornoch Distillery. The good humoured trio has a wealth of clever, quirky and far-sighted perspectives that we really couldn’t get enough of!

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[88 Bamboo]: You guys have recently released two blends, the Thompson Bros Blended Scotch Whisky “TB BSW”, and the Thompson Bros Station Road Vat 5 “SRV5”. For the SRV5, it’s a solera vatted blend. Could you walk us through how you conceived of, and created this blend?

 

 

"The main components that go into SRV 5, Glen Ord - very good spirit, Clynelish - very good spirit, little bit of Caol Ila. So we cheat because we use very good ingredients."

– Simon on the "secret" to making a good blended Scotch.

 

[Simon]: We are relatively new to blending. So we play it very safe. A fractional blending system is a good way to keep a degree of consistency between batches. There's always a relationship from one batch to the next. It's also very important to have as long a time to integrate the different elements together as possible. For SRV 5, we aimed for two months to integrate. The very first one we ever did, we blended everything together in a big 1200 litre oak vat, which we had recharred, and thereafter we left it for a few months, and then we bottle two thirds leaving one third at the bottom, which acts as the base for the next batch to be blended in on top.

 

 

It’s kind of a fractional blending system that helps us because we are beginner blenders. So in order to “cheat”, we only use very good quality components. So that makes it easy for us. The main components that go into SRV 5, Glen Ord - very good spirit, Clynelish - very good spirit, little bit of Caol Ila. So we cheat because we use very good ingredients. That makes it easy for us. The real skill of a blender is to make a very good blend using very cheap ingredients and then charge a lot of money. That's the big skill for a blender but we're not that skilled yet. So, we have to we have to rely on high quality ingredients.

 

[88B]: *Laughs* I'm not quite sure if I'm catching sarcasm or modesty here.

Are there any technicalities involved in that you could describe the blending process? How do you integrate the different whiskies and what happens when you put them together?

[Simon]: So, we know the spirits very well, that we're using. And so we had a good idea that Clynelish and Glen Ord mix well together, a small amount of Caol Ila just to give that a little background peatiness. The important thing is to do lots of tests blends, to check to test different proportions, to see where those sweet spots are. One, one technicality to consider, if you're blending at home, is that things take time to happen, to integrate, to oxidise, to come together, because you're, you know, the chemistry in one cask – if it's a nine year old cask, it's had nine years for the for the chemistry to happen for that to evolve. But when you mix two different chemistries together, it will take time for that to evolve. You don't get a good idea of what the end is going to look like straightaway. And you know, you could blend two things together in a glass, give it a mix and say "ah, interesting", but you don't get the full picture. Unless you leave those together for a period of time, and also the oxidization affects it. Our vat has quite a big headspace to it as well. So you're increasing the oxidization. So yes, time, if you can afford, time is the most important ingredient in blending. More time, you can give it to integrate to evolve, and you get a more clear picture as to what it is going to look like in the end. You can make a good judgment when you mix on the same day, the next day, but you don't get the full picture without time.

 

"[I]ntroduce a very small proportion of sherry cask, even if it's 1% or less. And the sherry influence can kind of act as a little bit of a flavour carrier... we were surprised how little sherry it takes."

– Simon on how a tiny amount of ex-sherry whisky could drastically improve a blend.

 

We had lots of people who visit us. If someone is a professional blender or has experience in blending, we always want to learn from them. So, something that's common with the Japanese blends is that they always introduce – even if it's an unsherried blend – a very small proportion of sherry cask, even if it's 1% or less. And the sherry influence can kind of act as a little bit of a flavour carrier.

[Euan]: Yeah, it's almost like a binding agent. It helps to marry all the flavours and also carries through the palate.

[Simon]: Yeah, yeah, even the tiniest little bit of extra density can extend the mouthfeel and finish. And we were surprised how little sherry it takes. So it's part of the process. Now, if this is the vat for SRV 5, we take some of the vatting out and put it into sherry casks and leave it separately in our warehouse. And then when we blend in each new batch, we take some SRV 5 bits from sherry cask and add a small proportion back in on top. It's just a little trick just seems to make such a big difference. So surprised how little it took!

[Euan]: I think the smallest volume we did a test with was 0.5% sherry influence or 0.5% of a blend was made up from sherry cask, and it had a huge impact on it. Was really quite surprising. I wasn't expecting that much at all.

 

[88B]: That’s really interesting.

Speaking of Japanese techniques, I've seen that you guys bottled the first UK Kanosuke edition. Congrats on that! Was that a difficult thing to arrange for?

 

"Obviously, Chichibu is Chichibu. But of all the others, Kanosuke I think was the most impressive for me. Although you know, it's interesting to see how Shizuoka is doing now."

– Simon on their favourite Japanese craft distilleries.

 

 

[Simon]: Yes, it was our first import from Asia. And so the logistics were difficult and expensive for us. If we do another, we could do it faster and for a better price. But the first time there was some learning pains with the logistics. Also, the price of international shipping was at a very high rate, shipping goes up and down. So, after we had it bottled, we waited. And we're like, come on shipping prices come on. And then they got a bit higher, we were like, "Screw it. It's expensive, but we'll just we'll just fly over." The project started quite a long time ago when I was in Japan.

 

 

But yeah, I tasted Kanosuke New Born and Kanosuke New Pot at Bar Shamrock [in Kagawa]. And I was very impressed with the quality. So a little bit of time passes, or when I get home, I think in the future, I'd like to bottle one or maybe try and purchase a cask. So I started trying to find a way to speak to people at the distillery. And yeah, I was just very, very persistent. And managed to find that one of my friends had a contact at Kanosuke. Yeah. we just managed to make it happen. I highly respect what they were doing based on the flavours they were producing. They interrogated us on what we were to do with our independent bottling and distilling. So yeah, we were able to talk back and forth and eventually organise a bottling. We're very, very happy with the spirit. It was quite expensive, you know, on the UK retail price for us. But, you know, these Japanese whiskies do sell for quite a bit. And again, the first to be imported into the UK. So yeah, we're happy with it. We're happy with everything except the price. But you know, sometimes it's got to cost what it costs.

[Euan]: Yeah, even the price, I think it could have sold for more. We wanted it to be affordable, we wanted it to be fair. So I think it's still a good price.

[Simon]: Yeah, there was there was a lot of work. And in the end, we're only really making a retail margin on it. And that's excluding all the time we spent on logistics.  

 

[88B]: I think that's really something that the whisky lovers in the UK will appreciate because they just have no access in general to craft Japanese whisky. It's really what I will say is one of our favourite Japanese craft whiskies.

 

 

[Simon]: Yeah, I completely agree. I've tasted all the new Japanese distilleries. For me, it was Kanosuke that that impressed me the most. Obviously, Chichibu is Chichibu. But of all the others, Kanosuke I think was the most impressive for me. Although you know, it's interesting to see how Shizuoka is doing now.

[Euan]: They're always the dark horse.

[Simon]: We'll see. There's a lot of there's a lot of variation in their production. So I'd like to see how they how they develop in time. I had some personal bottle of Shizuoka and I've dropped them at the bar, but I've not tasted them yet. So, some new ones for me to try. I need to remember to do that.

 

[88B]: Phil and Simon have been whisky enthusiasts since you guys were in your teenage years, owners of a fantastic whisky bar, creators of a cult indie bottler label, and now you are whisky blenders and distillers. You guys saw the whisky industry from so many different perspectives.

Could you share with us a couple of pivotal moments in this journey that have shaped your perspectives?

 

"We came up with this concept of basically going to Brora and opening Brora whisky... Everybody brought one bottle of Brora, which ended up being like 30, 40 different bottles of Brora... And we came back to the castle and we drank like everything from like 1910s, Ainslie & Heilbron blend, through to spring cap-bottled Clynelish 12... That was a really great moment for us."

– Phil, on how he and Simon convinced over a dozen whisky collectors to open their incredibly precious bottles of Brora single malt from the closed distillery.

 

[Phil]: I think probably the probably the thing I remember most about getting into whisky was, we had the, when we first started working in the bar, which I would just like maybe 15, 16 years old as polishing glasses, cleaning glasses, waiting tables. We used to have a 25 Macallan on the back bar, and it was the 1975 Vintage Anniversary Malt. And I always remember smelling this tasting this because and realizing there was something different about it compared to like everything else that was on the back bar. So, like normal Bunnahabhain, to normal Glenmorangie and everything in between. And I always remember it being like, “Oh, this is different!” I had no context on saying why it was different or better. I don't think I would say better, I would just say different by recognising that that point had quite a big influence on me. And through kind of necessity, we ended up kind of having to learn a little bit about whisky.

 

 

I was there I was polishing glasses. I was cleaning tables. But the people that you worked with weren't always there in the bar with you, the guys who were meant to be legally selling alcohol. So, you had to talk to people about it, even though you didn't really know anything about it. We had a lot of American customers who'd come in, they'd ask about the local whisky and I was like, I don't know anything about it. So eventually you just through kind of osmosis, I suppose. Just absorbing different information on that.

I think another moment for me that was really a highlight was when I first met Marcel van Gils, who wrote the book Legend of Laphroaig. I always remember tasting for the first time I tasted a Bonfanti Import Laphroaig from mid 70s. But at that time, I already really liked whisky. I was drinking some really nice old bottles in the bar. We had lots of old bottles. We had Killyloch, we had Glenflagler. We had some old lots of old Gordon MacPhail bottles so Glen Grant's Longmorn and Strathisla 50s 60s 70s these sorts of vintages but when I first tasted 60s distilled Laphroaig, it was just like, “Wow!”, you know this for me was, was a really spectacular moment. And I think Marcel, luckily, you know, I was coming into whisky. I always say, “Simon, we came into whisky at the end of the age of innocence.” So the old guys who had been collecting for 10, 15, 20 years were like “All these prices are really high!” We were coming in and that's just kind of where the prices were, you know, these sorts of bottles – Bonfanti was like GBP500, GBP600 a bottle at that time. They thought that was a crazy price. And this is when they're like, what, two GBP3000 per bottle, this sort of stuff, but remember tasting these being like, it's incredible.

 

 

But why? Why does a standard Laphroaig not taste like that? What is it? What is it that you know, what is the reasoning? What is the methodology, the practices that were different? And why does that taste different? And that was kind of one of the real eye-opening moments was trying 1960s Laphroaig from Marcel.

Also another moment that was probably a big highlight for me was back in 2013, we had an event we organised an event called Brora Academy, and it was to celebrate or commemorate 30 years since Brora closed. We were friends with Angus MacRaild who does Whisky Sponge and John Beatrice Fiddler’s Loch Ness [whisky bar]. And we were like, oh, let's do an event, we should organise something. And we came up with this concept of basically going to Brora and opening Brora whisky. And it was pretty basic kind of concept going to Clynelish and Brora and opening some bottles. So we organised this event and it was like, at the time, it was very much friends of friends. Some of our friends from whisky, some of Angus' friends from whisky, so ended up being like me and Simon and Angus and John, along with Marcel van Gils - Laphroaig collector, Serge Valentin and other big whisky collectors in. So, the idea is everybody brought one bottle of Brora, which ended up being like 30, 30 40 different bottles of Brora. We went to the distillery, we opened a lot of the annual releases at the distillery. And we came back to the castle and we drank like everything from like 1910s, Ainslie & Heilbron blend, through to spring cap-bottled Clynelish 12. Lot, lots of 72 Broras, 70 Broras, 71 Broras, old malt cast Douglas Laing these sorts of things. And that was a really great moment for us.

 

 

I think when the prices were beginning to really start coming up, you know, so you can still get these bottles for like quite good price. And basically when everybody was starting to look at their collections going, "Oh, these are worth a lot more than I paid for them." And people start thinking, "Oh, is it really worth opening?" You know, is it really worth the bottle or whatever it happens to be? So we basically made everybody want to open the bottles, but they just needed a reason to open the bottles. And that was the reason we kind of gave everyone was like, “Let's all get together we share the weekend, we share the bottles.” And you know, it's kind of quite egalitarian and just kind of a bit of a leveller on it. So that was kind of another moment that was kind of quite profound in whisky.

And then after that we started doing different events. We did an event called the Pre-War Whisky Tour. And the Tour was basically everybody got together, we toured around Speyside and we opened bottles that were distilled and bottled before the end of the Second World War. And then we did the Islay Odyssey in 2015. Again, it was the same concept. This is when we opened, my friend Patrick opened the Port Ellen Queens Visit 1980. And we had some pretty incredible 40-year-old 1955 Bowmore in a crystal decanter. We have had some pretty amazing experiences. And that's kind of helped shape our kind of love for these older distillates, these older bottles and gave us a bit more of an understanding.

 

[88B]: I like how your philosophy of opening your bottles has led you to convince everyone to open their precious Brora. That’s fantastic.

[Phil]: Well, they’re a lot richer than we were.

[Simon]: It used to be that you can be a collector enthusiast for not so much money. Someone that a fairly average income could do so as their hobby, not that long ago. And so, you know, on these tours, one of the guys a train driver, and he'd be sitting next to another guy who's a multimillionaire financier. And you know, the common factor is their love of whisky. And they both have excellent high-quality collections.

 

[88B]: That’s a romantic story – really kudos to you for coming up with that idea and organising them!

My next question is about your Thompson Bros bottlings and labels.

You guys bottle some fantastic liquid – there’s no doubt about it. But what’s immediately striking to a new fan of the Thompson Bros are the labels you have that we don’t quite see anywhere – they range from the chic and stylish to the fun and quirky, to the downright bizarre (I never knew I’d live to see Jeff Goldblum on a bottle of Scotch).

 

 

Could you talk about how you decide what to bottle and what inspired you guys to choose such a unique style of label?

 

"Independent bottling: I think that it might become a bit of a dying art... I think that bottlers have to kind of reinvent themselves a little bit. They have to look at other spirits. There's nothing wrong with also maybe looking at wine, you know, you could look at beer. I think it's important to kind of diversify."

– Phil, on the need for independent whisky bottlers to reinvent themselves in order to survive in the future.

 

[Phil]: 100% that was plagiarised from going to Japan looking at labels they have in Japan. And yeah, no, I think it's just kind of drawn on from what other people have done in the past. And also looking at the likes of some of the great old Scottish vintage bottles, you know, they were using older Scottish imagery. I'm thinking in particular, the intricate longhorns, you know, older Scottish imagery, but it was still using our own labels. And that was always kind of something that I thought we thought was pretty cool.

I think it's probably my first trip to Japan, when I was sitting in whisky bars is going "these whiskies look amazing!", like, from all the detail to the paper, to the way that the art has been constructed and labelled, the art was as much as important as the whisky that was in the bottle. And for me that was kind of a kind of cool thing to see. And it was something we wanted to do. And yeah, it was just kind of through drawing on influences from other elements. There's nothing original about it. Some of the way that we construct, the artwork can be quite fun. Recently we did the Williamson Blended Malt Scotch which was a kind of nod back to the old Laphroaig with the same sort of text on it.

 

 

We're doing the same with a Balblair that we're bottling but things like the Cameronbridge were a little bit of an outlier. So, we came across this cask of Cameronbridge and it was at the time when Haig Club was really getting promoted heavily.

 

"You know, Haig Club is just Cameronbridge. So we released something with an old age statement for cheaper than a no age statement, young Cameronbridge in the Haig Club."

– Simon, on how the Thompson Bros ironically bottled a 32 YO Cameronbridge and priced it lower than a bottle of Haig Club from Diageo.

 

 

So it was like Diageo, were really focusing on Haig Club and trying to promote it as a big, big brand backing from David Beckham and things like that. So, I had a very strange concept which was broken down like this: I was thinking blue bottle for the Haig Club blue bottle. I went blue bottle to fly, fly to Jeff Goldblum, Jeff Goldblum to reference to David Beckham. So thus, he's wearing Adidas Predators from the 90s with a pair of like Calvin Klein's which is like what David Beckham used to do some modelling for. That so it was kind of like a really weird connection where I went blue bottle to fly (Note: certain species of flies are described as “bluebottles”). Fly to the movie, movie to Jeff Goldblum and Jeff Goldblum wearing Adidas predators with a pair of white Calvin Klein pants on and it was kind of that much of a weird link between them.

 

 

[Simon]: You know Haig Club is just Cameronbridge, so we released something with an old age statement for cheaper than a no age statement, young Cameronbridge in the Haig Club.

We use a lot of different artists now. We've got a couple of main ones. But some of our best results are where the brief we give the artist is very, very loose, and you trust the artist to make good decisions. Sometimes if we're too specific, the results aren't as good. Or they get a bit weird. So yeah, I think sometimes we have to be very specific to get our point across but a lot of the time the best results are when you when you trust the artist.

 

[88B]: Do you have a personal favourite or a particular bottle/label that was particularly memorable for you guys?

[Phil]: I'm not sure, I really love all the artists we work with. I think Andrews’s. Andrew’s amazing. He's understated on and on. He is such an incredible graphic designer – he's brilliant.

 

 

Katie that we work with, she's very much got her own style. And what we're finding with these artists is like, you very much have to work with what they're good at, and let them just do their job. And there's no point in us being like, we want this, we want that. We can say perhaps put some inspiration in front of them. But then it's kind of up to them to come up with a concept and give us a concept because we found that with artists, certainly the artists we've dealt with, you get the best possible artwork by just letting them be artists. Don't tell them exactly what they want to do.

I think my one of my favourites still has to be Hans Dillesse. Cask number one for Dornoch Distillery.

 

 

I think it's, it's kind of Hans is a really good friend of ours. And I love his art. And I love this style. He's a super humble guy. But he's just a really beautiful person. I love with the first release that it kind of encapsulates what we've achieved in that tiny little space, and where it is, there's just like so much kind of emotion in with it as well. This is just a piece of art in the label and conveys everything, all the struggles to get to that point of releasing that bottle in that tiny little building. And that's still probably one of my favourites. But I love a lot of what Andrew does. I love what Katie does. All the other artists who have worked with us have been super, super fun. I think Cask number one for me is it's still a favourite. It just kind of sums up a moment in time for us.

[Simon]: I really like some of the nautical themed ones that Katie has done for us. So, with the underwater scenes on some of the rums like the Caronis.

 

 

The Bunnahabhain with the red label. It's got the Westering Home man. [Note: A famous Scottish folk song "Westering Home" talks about a sailor who is longing to return home after a long voyage at sea.] It’s got the guy at the helm of the ship. He's been dragged down by tentacles from some kind of sea monster. I've always really enjoyed that one as well. And we've done a few variations of the of the Westering Home man. Yeah, those ones are really good. Oh, and of course the Kanosuke for we commissioned special which was wood-cut printed from Hans Dillesse which is based on a picture of the distillery by the ocean at sunset and then we had print number one sent to Japan and is on display at the distillery now at Kanosuke. That's pretty special as well.

 

[88B]: I suppose there’s a lot of emotion conveyed by the label of the Cask Number 1 bottling – which has a picture of small fire station stillhouse of Dornoch Distillery. Are you guys still working in that compound at the moment?

 

 

[Euan]: We're still working there, original distillery and original equipment. There's been a few adaptions and a few changes to kind of make it slightly more efficient, make it slightly less dearth.

I think sometimes people don't understand how small we are and how hands-on we are until they actually see the stills and the building. Because seeing 12,000 litres a year 12,000 LPA a year, we know that’s small, but when you actually see that is producing about 50 litres a day. That's when it hits you how small it is. That's the real difference. But we've since expanded. We've got the warehousing with our goal, bigger warehousing, blending and bottling hall for ourselves. Jack runs that. And we've got the shop at the office now as well. But fundamentally, the old fire station is still the beating heart of the single malt production of the business. And spiritually, I think that's always going to be Dornoch Distillery in the end.

 

 

[Simon]: We're currently in the planning for a larger distillery in Dornoch, very close to Dornoch Distillery. It will be a new distillery with a new name. And we're going to keep the original Dornoch Distillery operating. Yeah, so it's going to be a much larger operation with initially 175,000 litres of alcohol per year. Capable of more, and it's going to be similar styles of productions methods and materials, but bigger, easier to work with and super energy-efficient. We're aiming to have an off-grid capable distillery with all the energy being produced on site, which is ambitious, but all entirely doable.

 

 

[88B]: Any clue when the new compound might be ready?

[Simon]: We're seeking permits from the local council to be able to build. Obviously, it's hard to say because you're dealing with a big government body. I feel fairly positive that we should get a result by May. And then from thereon, if we're breaking ground, maybe September, October. So potentially a 12-month build. So yeah, we could be looking at 2025. Fall ‘25, perhaps.

But that'd be with a fair wind. The main hurdle is we need to get through planning with the local council. It's very positive at the moment, but of course, you're dealing with lots of individual agencies that have an influence on everything from traffic management, to health and safety to flooding. Yeah, just environmental health. There's so many little elements that you have to get approved for before you can go ahead with the build. Once we have that approval, then complicated plans have to be drawn up, which is where you reach your stage called your building warrant. Your planning is basically where they say, "Yes, we are happy with you building on this site." But then you have to get a building warrant. Your building warrant is essentially to say that you are going to meet current building standards and regulations. You know, you've got the right number of toilets in a public space, you've got disabled facilities, you've got you know, your beams are able to support the weight. So basically they'll sign off that the building is satisfactory, that might take around four months and that's a different departments to the planning department. And that's based on in depth technical drawings on the building at that point, see how structurally sound they are. All of these kind of elements need to be adhered to during upstage.

 

[88B]: Just for reference, because at this moment, I don't have a concept of how large the distillery is. Would you compare it to maybe a Springbank some other distillery that is comparable in size?

[Phil]: It'll still be around about 175,000 RLA and Dornoch Distillery. Dornoch Distillery runs at 12,000 RLA. So for context looks Wolfburn is running about 175,000, Lochlea is running about the same. Isle of Raasay is around 200,000. Kingsbarn is around 200,000, Lindores is around 250,000. Nc'Nean is around 100,000, Ballindalloch is around 100,000, Daftmill’s around 65,000. So kind of, between GlenWyvis and Wolfburn. Decent volume, more than enough whisky to keep us busy.

[Simon]: From an equipment size point of view, 175,000 litres of alcohol is based on full “off grid” energy. In order to achieve that we run seasonal production. The equipment with external energy is capable of modern style production and yield numbers, which we won’t do really. The equipment size is more like a distillery that can produce almost 300,000 litres of alcohol. So you're talking Holyroods, Lindores or Arbikie, Raasay, Lochlea, we're talking similar sizes.

 

[88B]: Despite being able to be producing at that capacity, the decision to produce at a smaller capacity is a deliberate one to maintain quality, right?

[Simon]: Yes, it's combination. When you're comparing capacity, you kind of have to look at the equipment size and assume that the efficiency is the same, the yield is the same. So It could produce about 300,000. Initially, we're going to be producing about 175,000. We could produce more in our style, with external energy. But the 175,000 is based on using our own energy we produce from renewables ourself.

 

[88B]: I have another question about your labels. It has to do with your “Error 502 Bad Gateway” series. That's the label that, there's a screenshot your browser when your website thompsonbrosdistillers.com crashes from an army of flippers trying to grab your new releases. We're just wondering, how often does this actually happen? And what sort of bottlings do you actually decide will be appropriate to be released under that series?

 

 

[Simon]: Before we built our custom ballot software, when we put a new release on the website, we would get very heavy traffic straightaway, that would sometimes make your website slow down or a crash out for our customers. It can harkens back to when we put releases online, and our website would crash from the from the heavy traffic, and lots of complaints from customers, because some of these releases would sell out within you know, two or three minutes. And people like, "Oh, it's not fair. I missed it by like, one minute, or I was on there and the website crashed". So the ballot system was the solution to that. And so it's a little memory of the old way of selling, when things would go crazy and crashed the website. And then you have the little browser tab there where the person who's on there hitting refresh, refresh, refresh, also has a tab open for whisky auction house as well, just for fun.

We use those labels when it's a very small release. It also gives us flexibility because we always handwrite the details on the bottle. So sometimes if we're doing some blending, we might take a component say a whole set and we need 180 litres for the for the blends and the cask has 210 litres that we have 30 litres spare. This is good.

Sometimes we make reroute, we rack it into an octave and then do an Error 502. Sometimes we buy small quantities from other companies who do a similar thing, where they might have a set number for a release, and then there's 20, 30 litres left over. Sometimes with blending these things gets, because the recipe calls 180 litres, but there was 210 litres, then the leftovers are set in a drum and set one side, and they'll forget about it. Maybe a year or two or pass and then someone does a stocktake and goes, “We've got all this liquid but 30 litres of this and 20 litres of this, what we do?” We'll go “We can buy that.” And yeah, it makes sense for us to have that flexibility of our handwritten label for small batches, where it's not efficient to pay an artist for a label for only, you know, 20, 30, 40 bottles. It would add too much to the cost to the customer.

 

[88B]: And just a quick question on your adorable unofficial mascot. We’ve seen quite a number of cat labels around us. How many cat labels exactly did Charlie inspire?

 

 

[Phil]: Any excuse to be honest. I don't know how many she's been on. She has definitely made it on a few specifically as the cat Charlie, but then there have been others that are just like generic cats. If I can get away with it, I think that’s the main thing *Laughs*. So yeah, expect many more.

My partner was trying to make me get another Bengal on the weekend, she was finding ones that were looking for new homes, and she was trying to make me get two cats. Yeah, it's just fun. I love that cat and cats on labels are fun. It helps that Andrew is also super obsessed with cats.

 

[88B]: Does Charlie ever disrupt distillery operations?

[Phil]: Despite the strange name, Charlie is actually a she. But she's an indoor cat. She's very particular socially. She absolutely loves me and my partner or mom and dad. But she's quite weird when other people when they come to the house. She's quite difficult. It takes her a while to kind of settle with other people.

I'd love to have her here in the office. Maybe one day we can get distillery cat. One of the goals for the new distillery is to get a distillery cat.

 

[88B]: So far, the Thompson Bros. label has bottled a range of Scotches, French brandies and Trinidad and Jamaican rums.

Are there any other distilleries, specific styles of whisk(e)y or other spirits that you would be keen to bottle?

[Phil]: Well, we've actually got some stuff lined up that firstly, I really want to bottle some Calvados. I want to own some aged Calvados.

But we have two casks coming from Milk & Honey in Israel. We actually have quite a lot of Mezcal coming. So we're doing three different varieties. I think of mezcal, two very, very small quantities of like, stuff that's made in like a family run tiny producer, and then one have a slightly larger volume. I'd also like to long term do some really good bourbon.

We're really open to any good spirits. I got an email today from somebody in South Africa, who has a distillery in South Africa doing single malt and single grain. And they do peated malt, and their stocks are only six years old. And they're wondering, they want us to bottle a cask for of their liquid. We're really open.

The way I see it, I have concerns around independent bottling, I think that it might become a bit of a dying art. I think it's going to become more and more difficult for independent bottlers to survive, as a single entity. I think it's going to become really difficult for people. I think that bottlers have to kind of reinvent themselves a little bit.They have to look at other spirits. There's nothing wrong with also maybe looking at wine, you know, you could look at beer. I think it's important to kind of diversify. I feel that I personally have concerns about the industry.

This is why we're looking at things like mezcal, we've got that lined up Milk & Honey. I'd like to look at more Scottish distilleries. I'd love to bottle something like a Raasay and Nc'Nean, Kingsbarns. I'd love to look at doing something with these guys. Holyrood, I really want to do Holyrood when they've, you know, when they've got liquid available, that they're probably one of the most exciting distilleries in Scotland. I think there're lots of good opportunities. English whisky – the guys at Wire Works are doing a really good job. The guys at Filey Bay, I think they're doing a really good job. We'd love to bottle some of them.

I think bottlers have to diversify a little bit. I think that it's becoming really difficult to get good quality, single malt from Scottish companies that's either named, or at a fair price. So I think they have to diversify to survive.

[Euan]: People are also less focused on one category as consumers, and would cut across categories. People who are into whiskies are now on board rums, and on board mezcal. That’s the way you’re going to have to start thinking.

 

[88B]: Given the wide variety of different spirits you guys bottle, are we seeing a strategy of obtaining casks that could later be used to mature Dornoch’s single malt?

 

"We put so much into generating fermentation flavours, so much complexity there, that I don't want anything that's going to mask it too heavily. So, I have the preference for refill casks."

– Simon, on how traditional refill casks remain ideal for Dornoch Single Malt.  

 

[Phil]: Possible, but we tend to keep it fairly traditional, mainly because of volume. It's more to our palate, we prefer kind of a more refill character, or refill Sherry character.

The volumes are so low, so for us to take 200 litres and put it into a cask that previously held red wine or Calvados, it’s a bit of an unknown for us and is a big commitment for that kind of volume.

We're starting to figure out, we're tasting more and more mature Dornoch so we're starting to see what we think works for it. And I think, yeah, we'll just stick to kind of good quality traditional casks. We have a mix of first fill bourbon, we do some dechar-rechar, do quite a lot of refill. We do refill sherry, we do have some first fill sherry butts. We do have some mizunara as well. They’re mainly kind of traditional, we don't have any Dornoch in wine casks.

[Euan]: No, we don't have any. We have a couple in their proper old school heavy ester rum casks, which is working quite well. It's a big catch. We've got the Caroni cask – it's a lot going on there and it will be sitting for a long time. But yeah, if we want to fill like a red wine cask or something that's all week’s production to fill a 300 litre wine barrique. It's quite a commitment for us to make. And I think also because our spirit is quite flavoursome, it's quite pronounced. It's not something that necessarily lends itself as well to any cask.

[Simon]: In first-fill vat casks, I don't want anything that's going to fight with the spirit quality. We put so much into generating fermentation, flavours, so much complexity there, that I don't want anything that's going to mask it too heavily. So, I have the preference for refill casks.

 

[88B]: The next question is about potentially pairing whisky with food.

The idea of pairing whisky with food doesn’t seem to be common practice in Scotland or the UK, but in Asia, people have whisky with their meals, whether as a highball or  just as often as they do with wine.

Do you guys ever have whisky with your food? And if so, could you share some of your ideal expression and dish pairings?

[Phil]: Think it's quite subjective – I just to revert back to high ball. I think a high ball is good with anything to be honest. Like a good fresh clean high ball from first fill bourbon and a refill bourbon. Nice zesty distillate is really great. And I would quite happily drink that with almost anything. I think the idea for me personally I never have found the same level of joy in drinking a glass of whisky with a nice piece of venison with potatoes than I would find in a good quality red wine. That's my personal opinion.

I do think that some whiskies can work really well with things like cured meats, so if you're having a little snack of some charcuterie or something it can work really well. And desserts is easy, you know it works really well with desserts, it's like you know, can help clean the palate off if you're having something chocolatey. My personal opinions are having a meal, I would have wine or highballs. Like I said highball goes with everything. That's a fact. But like drinking I mean, I'd like a neat measure of a glass of whisky, with a meal I would find I prefer to have a glass of wine or a good quality cider or quality beer. Something that's got a little bit more volume and a little lower alcohol and perhaps kind of blends a little bit better with the food.

[Simon]: Yeah, it takes it takes a lot of skill to make it work. You're very much trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

[Phil]: Also, when you're eating something sometimes you need that extra bit of lubrication in your palate and I'm not sure that like a tiny sip of whisky provides enough saliva lubrication.

[Simon]: Yeah. Wines are evolved perfectly to work with foods and different cuisines. Different areas of Europe’s cuisine and wine have grown up together and adapted to each other. Whereas with whisky I think you have to be very skilled to make it work very well. I think spirits are better suited to after dinner to sipping to tasting you can make it work.

[Euan]: I think it's typically high fat content that works well with spirits. The one we almost did at my last job was applewood smoked cheddar with like Lagavulin 16 and that was kind of the thing. A cultural thing is well maybe it's that whisky is a very much “at the end of the night” drink or it's very much like you're there to taste the whisky kind of thing. Whereas a glass of wine with a meal is far more of a cultural thing that people do.

[Simon]: And with our own distillate at Dornoch Distillery, you know it's the same reason we tend to favour refill casks is because we don't want something to interfere or mask or overwhelm the spirit character and flavour – when so much work goes to generating those spirit flavours. You don't want something that's going to detract and yes, you could find some things which will work in harmony. But that's very difficult so you're for our own spirit. I wouldn't recommend food pairings although the extra density from our spirits and mouth-coating mouth feel might lend itself to some foods. Certainly a lot of the alcohol’s higher strength are camouflaged by the right feel and density. But yeah, I wouldn't appreciate it. I wouldn't be promoting Dornoch Distillery to be doing pairing tastings.

 

[88B]: Absolutely. That's something that I approach the same way, like putting ice in whisky. And I will perhaps get something that I already know how it tastes. That I'm not too fussed about picking out the notes.

I think Euan will be best placed to answer this next question, because we'd like to find out more about the decision of not having a regular desk job and joining distillery to manage it, potentially shovelling malt and making whisky.

 

 

[Euan]: I kind of stumbled into this. I was working in the bar, Phil and Simon and my chalet that I lived on was the staff accommodation right by the warehouse. I used to hear them in and about and I think, just on my days off to start going to help out. And originally it was because I wanted to get off the breakfast shift at the hotel. And the way to do this was that you got onto the bar shift. So, you had to increase your whisky knowledge. The breakthrough moment for me was when I saw it: I knew what Phil and Simon were doing at the distillery was different from the mainstream.

We also had a Cadenhead warehouse tasting that was hosted at the Dornoch Castle. And somebody gave me a sample of a 40-year-old. And it was kind of the moment when I realised that there was something different happening with these older production styles and how that influenced the final flavour. And yeah, that point that just sort of clicked was what Phil and Simon were doing in the distillery was actually quite interesting and quite unique and quite special. Versus you're going to see Glenmorangie Distillery are doing. All these distilleries are doing great jobs, but just that level of character. And that kind of loss of character, I think over time is kind of something that was really special. And so yeah, that was kind of the way I stumbled into it.

 

[88B]: Could you take us through a typical day in your life as a distillery manager so that the readers could live their lives vicariously through you? Making whisky and shovelling malt is just something that's very far out to most people living in cities – I will say even in Scotland.

[Euan]: We're obviously far more hands-on than a lot of people and other distilleries, so it's quite a unique perspective. The day is flanked by the distillation. The first thing you do in the morning is you turn on the stills, you get them running and get them up to speed. And then the last thing we do is we set up the stills for the next day. Typically, the way it will work is kind of from 6 to 12. Those first six hours we are focused on production. That is when we will be mashing and moving spirit for casking. That's when we'll be distilling gin if we're doing gin and most of the time because we make our cuts by sense, you have to monitor that throughout to keep an eye on it.

 

 

A lot of time is in R&D and going into thinking about what we're going to try next. In the end of 2022 we did a short run of getting a lot of different styles, not so much varying yeast or varying malt, but trying like different fermentation times, just to see what works and what we can do based the fact we're seeing more Dornoch coming through a final product. Then sort of arrive at something that works for us, which is quite a high pitch of Plumage Archer barley and go into more fermentation time to try to really concentrate the fruity flavours that works well for us. Trying to considerably have a good quantity of that in the standard time, but also, how do we expand on that? How do we try new things? How do we explore different barley varieties? So, you'll move on and move forward with that. That's kind of the crux of the challenge day to day.

 

 

[88B]: Absolutely. So of course they are other very good distilleries in Scotland. But the different thing about you guys is that you guys are inspired by old style whisky production. So, I would just like to find out from you, from you guys, in your own words, how would you describe the process of making old style Scotch?

 

"With the rules of [Scotch] whisky, we can't choose the bacteria to add to our system, we can only use the bacteria which will naturally take hold in our plant... You have to kind of roll with nature and the biology which adopts you. You could make your conditions conducive to biology, to nature, but ultimately, you have to go with what adopts you."

– Simon, on the fascinating complexity of cultivating microflora in Dornoch Distillery.

 

[Phil]: Difficult and tiring.

[Simon]: And expensive. So, we've generally been very open, but there're some very specific things that we don't like to talk about too much.

The number one thing is, you can't make an older style of whisky without using the appropriate materials. We're talking brewer’s yeast, old varieties of brewer’s yeast, spent brewer’s yeast, which was traditionally used as well. And then in combination with all the other varieties which were in use in the 1960s. We've got way back in time with barley varieties used in the 1700s, 1800s, 1900s. So first off, you need the appropriate materials.

 

 

But there's a lot more to it than that, because you have to leave room for nature, a lot of the chemical complexity, and a lot of the building blocks for certain flavours come from wild yeast and bacteria in your system. So, you have to be very careful not to clean too heavily. You want to ensure that you keep your own cultures within you. Because with the rules of whisky we can't choose the bacteria to add to our system, we can only use the bacteria which will naturally take hold in our plant. And that can be if you go back in time. And still today as well, different distilleries have different microflora. You see that some of the stories from certain time periods, there're flavours which were generated there, which could only have been generated at that threshold, by having the building blocks from certain types of bacteria, undertaking early reactions, which are creating compounds, which are the building blocks for certain flavours. So that you can't control, you have to let that happen.

You have to kind of roll with nature and the biology which adopts you. You could make your conditions conducive to biology, to nature, but ultimately, you have to go with what adopts you. There's been a bit of a terroir argument about whisky. One of the things that you could put into that terroir category is the microflora of each specific distillery, and how much they allow that to accumulate, because the more you allow it to accumulate, it also negatively affects your yield. But it's an exchange of flavour potential for yield. So many distilleries aren't willing to accept too much of that. We're just very happy to have as much as possible.

Of course, you can get detrimental flavours from your microflora as well. So there's a bit of balance, there's a little bit of management also.

[Euan]: So much of it is in the idiosyncrasies as well. You can choose heritage varieties and malt which they have been using way back in 1800s. But is it the heritage varieties? Or is it how difficult they are to match with the effects that follow through. Is it the amount of detrius that come through? If you build like a hyper modern distillery you can specifically create that flavour, but much like the micro flora where we can only optimise the conditions, we can kind of nudge it in the direction. But there's always going to be that degree of uncertainty on either side.

You could think like, modern distilleries operate within this kind of bandwidth, we're operating within a wider bandwidth. Sometimes we will hit that point. But other times there's that swing from side to side. I would love to be able to recreate 1960s Laphroaig, I would love to have that recipe. But we met managers from Laphroaig - a few ones from the late 70s and 80s, and one from late 60s. He was talking about how much yeast to add, and so much of it is experiential. Just a bit of accumulated knowledge.

We make whisky different from each other. I make whisky different from Dan and I make whisky different from Phil.

[Phil jumping in]: That's one of the things that's missing in whisky, is human DNA. The actual production of a difference is showcasing what somebody has made, this is their taste and this is their take.

[Simon]: Yeah, and there's a lot of minutiae, which make a difference as well. And one of the things that's important for us, like with our labels and artists, is that you get the best results by trusting the judgment of the person. So Euan has the freedom to adjust the process to suit what you think is best. I'll mash slightly differently to Euan, Euan will have to adapt to the different materials that we're always changing. And then especially when it comes to the cut point, that's a matter of judgment. And rather than having set rules as to how that should always be done, the best results are by trusting whoever's in charge at that point in time to make the best decision with what's in front of them. And so, but the character that I select in my cut point is a little bit different to what Euan would select, it's a bit different to what Phillip will select when he's on the stills.

I think it's important to have that human touch. I think you'll get the best results from what you're doing, by having the trust in the person who's there to make the best decisions.

[Euan]: There are not just inconsistencies between us, but also the inconsistencies from – there are casks that taste slightly earthier or slightly heavier, versus some other days where we're gonna get super bright fruity casks. I think it's part of the fun and I think it's kind of part of what makes Dornoch quite special and interesting. Very much variation and experimentation, but driven from the bottom up, by very human live experimentation, rather than specifically X, Y, and Z being factors that we're going to change.

 

[88B]: You have mentioned speaking to someone who has word in Laphroaig sometime in the 70s. How exactly do you guys go about finding out what was done in the past? Are there records on production methods?

How much research, investigation and heavy drinking did you have to do?

[Simon]: Yeah, it's a combination, I mean, the best, the best starting point is to have a frame of reference of certain distilleries at certain time periods. You can look at mid 60s Springbank has some very specific styles. And then you can start to piece together what's known about the process at that time period, from old books, people used to work at the distillery. And then sometimes you have to make some logical leaps based on the style, because some flavours that occurred, we can kind of reverse engineer the process now with our understanding. But at the time, they might not have known or fully understood the mechanisms as to why these flavours were occurring, it was just happening as a byproduct of what had to happen on a day to day basis, without the mechanisms being understood.

So, we can kind of reverse-engineer some of that with a little bit of science. It's a combination of applying the science, researching old books, speaking to people who worked in distilleries back in the old days, you'll be lucky enough to speak to people who work to work to distilleries in the 60s 70s 80s. And yeah, there's enough information out there to piece it all together, old books are good, old publications, research papers. And then sometimes modern research into brewing and distilling. We'll throw something up, you're like, "oh, yeah, that could fit as part of the matrix." There's no one going like, "here's the recipe book". You kind of have to piece it all together, and adapt it to your equipment, what materials you can get a hold of. It's kind of chaotic. But it all follows very much a theme.

 

[88B]: Phil once mentioned that there isn’t a typical Dornoch Distillery flavour profile because your team has been running countless experiments, whether it was with yeasts, fermentation time, barley variety and (presumably intentionally) letting one washback receive direct morning sunlight.

 

 

We’ve tasted your single malts and we were ourselves fascinated by how different they come out. The Dornoch Distillery Cask 001 for instance is rich and filled with plums and spice, while the Dornoch Distillery Cask 167 which we recently tasted is fresh, clean, coastal with light crunchy vegetals. The contrast is brilliant!

How do you plan the directions of your various experimentations at Dornoch Distillery?

[Euan]: Deviation in barley varieties. Very fortunate that two of our three main suppliers are super passionate about old style, malting and barley variety. They’re happy to share with us information about their products, which makes it much easier for us to experiment because we don't have to go like massively digging.

Modern science has shown us certain effects, and we’ve gone on to put two and two together [in experiments] and go, “Well that makes sense that they would have maybe done something like this back in the day.”

[Simon]: There's pathways for flavour creation which we can record. We can't replicate the process exactly, but we can create analogues that will have the same effect as well. So sometimes there's a bit of creativity and because you have to work with the very tight rules for Scotch whisky production, and there's certain ways of doing things that aren't really possible anymore. But we can create an analogue by doing well, just by getting a bit creative with that as well.

 

[88B] Could you also talk about a couple of your most memorable failed experimentations perhaps?

[Euan]: We’re the first people to distil with Scotch Annat malt for about 100 years, which is something quite special for us. The one that I’ll always remember – the Chevallier was the most difficult barley I’ve ever had to work with. That’s two and a half hours of just pain at every single morning just working with that – I'll never, never forget that.

Some of the yeast strains, you get yeast that boils over and you have to clean up after the mess.

 

 

[Simon]: Some combinations of yeast variety and mashing conditions can just make a washback overflow with froth which is really sticky and hard to clean up. We've done that quite a few times. And you don't know until you try the new yeast variety as to how easy it is going to be to work with.

 

[88B]: These days, there never seems to be enough good whisky to go around. We love that you guys have always remained so committed to supporting genuine whisky lovers with your reasonable prices and unique tiered balloting system that rewards those who open your bottles. You guys have clearly put a lot of thought and effort into supporting drinkers loyal to you!

Tell us why this is so important to you guys, even though it does not immediately improve your bottom line?

 

 

"The short-term money that's in whisky, you know, the people who are there for the short-term gains – they're not our long term customers, so we shouldn't really support them. Whereas people who want to buy and collect and share and open, they are long term customers, so we should look after them as best we possibly can."

– Phil, on why it is so important to price their bottles at reasonable prices despite the incredible demand for them.

 

[Phil]: Because fundamentally, we're whisky drinkers, and we're not wealthy people. As simple as that. It shouldn't be something that's just accessible only if you have the right connections, and you have the right level of money. There's lots of little things and whisky that have kind of, when the money came in stuff became very investable. It was quite frustrating for us as consumers that the stuff you wanted was becoming way too expensive for the secondary market, because people were not interested in drinking, and interested in getting in. Probably the past couple of auctions with Local Barley Springbank 25, literally just been released, and that's what is already coming up at auction.

I was buying for the bar recently, and I was in a retailer who was selling the Springbank 10. And I had to buy a Springbank 10 on retail, I was only allowed one bottle for our bar! I can't do much with one bottle.

We just try and put systems in play that really encourage the people who actually really want our products and are interested because the liquid, they're interested in and actually drinking it, as opposed to using it as a store of wealth or something to flip. We've just formed something which is kind of like trying to make it as fair as possible. It's not perfect for everyone and it never will be perfect for everyone, but also the way that The Whisky Exchange ballots bottles or have their dram reward scheme, or Nickolls & Perks ballot bottles will not be perfect for everyone. We've got to try and find a little bit of balance and do the best possible job we can given our resources that are available to us.

And I think that's we're just trying to do our best based on the way we see the whisky market going. The short-term money that's in whisky, you know, the people who are there for the short-term gains – they're not our long term customers, so we shouldn't really support them. Whereas people who want to buy and collect and share and open, they are long term customers, so we should look after them as best we possibly can. That's my take on it.

 

[88B]: What exciting new releases can we look forward to from the Thompson Bros and Dornoch Distillery in 2023?

[Phil]: I have concerns about independent bottling and the future of bottling and whether it's just going to become a hobby for wealthy people. But we've shall keep doing the best we possibly can. Given the circumstances and things that we're bottling that are quite exciting, we've got a nice 1997 Glenrothes coming out from refill next couple of weeks. We've got a three-cask vatting of three first-fill bourbon barrels of Balblair 2011 but they’ll be unnamed [on the bottle], but they are Balblair 2011. We're going to do a little small bottling for the Limburg Whisky Fair, which will be a Caol Ila 2014 from sherry. We've got, we're gonna do a Staoisha Bunnahabhain, first-fill bourbon barrel. That will be a web-only. We're doing a vatting of two bourbon barrels of 2011 Longmorn first-fill bourbon. That should be quite exciting. Got a few collaboration bottlings happening, hopefully one with the Highlander Inn this year as a kind of joint bottling with them. We've got Milk & Honey, the mezcal. Besides that, we've got lots of Dornoch as well –

[Simon]: 10 Dornoch octaves lined up for bottling, just waiting for labels to be delivered. Seven of them are private, three of them ones we bought back from original crowdfunders. They’ll have to be direct sales again. Later in the year hopefully we can put out an export release.

 

 

"[W]e feel there's an imbalance in the system. There's never been more whisky available in Scotland, yet the prices have never been higher for casks... The prices being paid both by cask investment firms overpaying, and wealthy hobby bottlers overpaying, drives the prices of everything up."

– Simon, on the contributing factors of high prices in Scotch.

 

[Phil]: But yeah, just going back to what we're saying, some of the prices I'm seeing in independent casks, I'm just really concerned that it just won't be sustainable. The consumer, I'm not sure will be able to keep taking the prices that are being charged.

We've got quite a lot of things that are unnamed, some Dailuaine some Glen Elgin that we're unable to put a name on, but it's really amazing liquids. But the price is quite good. We're just going to do the best we possibly can given the circumstances. And I think the market might soften or it might just continue going the way it's going and prices will keep going crazy.

I think consumer trends will probably shift away from aged named single malt, because it will just become too expensive. But that's my feeling. A good cask will always sell: Bowmore, Springbank, Ben Nevis, aged stock Macallan, Longmorn. Anything that's good quality named will still sell. It's just what's the price threshold for the customer.

[Simon]: It's been a conversation for us recently. But in the cask market and direct from some of the big companies we feel there's an imbalance in the system. There's never been more whisky available in Scotland, yet the prices have never been higher for casks.

I think there're two things driving an imbalance.

(1) Cask investment – where there's lots of companies doing cask investment, and they're charging so much to their customers who don't necessarily know the market, that they can pay more on the front end. It will be a problem, you know, in 5, 10, 15 years when all these people have casks and they haven't really made good returns because the price that at the front was too high.

(2) The other the other issue Phil said as there's lots of wealthy hobby bottlers who don't care so much about the price of the cask, they don't need to make it work as a proper business. Maybe they sell in their own their own high-end bar or they sell to their friends or it's kind of something they do for fun.

The prices being paid both by cask investment firms overpaying, and wealthy hobby bottlers overpaying, drives the prices of everything up.

It's a little bit of a problem for the traditional independent bottlers supplying the consumer, shops, bars and export markets, because it appreciates our costs of the front end. We have to be very careful when choosing stock to purchase.

  

 

[88B]: Do you guys do you see any silver lining in the industry that could signal something positive? Or potentially restore our faith in the future of Scotch?

[Phil]: Yeah, I think there's a lot of new distilleries doing really cool things and have a good philosophy on how they're going to sell.

I always used to say a few years ago, “At least we always have Springbank to fall back on.” But even that’s kind of becoming inaccessible. There is a lot of great new spirits. Single malt is coming through in Scotland, I think there's a lot of people doing good job. Obviously, the guys that are in America, you can't praise them highly enough. I think when Holyrood comes on board, it'll be really interesting. Even the guys in Nc'Nean, and I think they're doing really cool stuff. I think there's a lot of newer distilleries that are coming through with very interesting, quality, single malt. Hopefully their philosophy will be to sell at a really fair price to the consumer. I think the big distillery companies, I think they're making some big mistakes on the pricing that they'll struggle to backtrack on, I think you'll struggle to go back on your pricing once you've set your bench out. The new guys is where I'd see the excitement for sure. As long as they can maintain quality, and stick to kind of good sales philosophies, then I think it's quite an exciting time for Scotch whisky.

 

 

[Euan]: All these new guys are not barrelling headfirst towards becoming this wandering behemoth of environmental damage –

[Phil]: They’re all thinking about the community. They’re thinking sustainably about the community as opposed to just how do we make a business to make as much money as possible. I think that there's a lot of cool fun stuff happening – we're seeing that they're not just making good spirit, but being [environmentally] conscientious.

Within the next 10 years, there's some really cool stuff out there in whisky. Hopefully when we get our new distillery within 10 years, we should sell a good core of 5, 6, 7 year old spirit. It's exciting for sure. As long as everyone sticks their guns in their pricing, and doesn't try and push it too hard. I think that's important. Be sustainable in your pricing.

[Simon]: The ballot system manages demand by controlling who we sell to, to try and avoid the investors and the flippers. The alternative is you can just raise your prices until people, can take it. But our alternative is that we want to be long-term sustainable, and sort of look after the core of whisky enthusiasts. Because if things change in the future, and you lose the sort of collector-investors who are looking for a bit of whisky, but they're buying heavily because they think it's a good investment. If there's a scare, and prices drop, and all these people get shaken up, the people who are still going to be around are the core enthusiasts, the core drinkers and collectors, the people who do it for the love and enjoyment of it. We need to make sure that those are the people that we look after. Those are the people who are going to be there in the bad times. We don't need to pander or make fast cash while things are only on the big up, we need to keep it sustainable. We need to look after the guys who will be with us, who will be there in the future, if times get bad.

 

[88B]: The final question before we let you go: What are your itinerary recommendations for someone who is planning a visit to Dornoch? How long should they spend there and what are the places they must absolutely see?

[Phil]: The North islands of Scotland, we're one of the more sparsely populated areas of Europe. But it's beautiful. It's incredible.

 

 

So, we're on the whisky side of things, Glenmorangie is 10 minutes away, Balbair is 10 minutes away, Dalmore is 20 minutes away. Glen Ord is about 30 minutes away. Old Pulteney and Wolfburn are about an hour and a half away. Clynelish and Brora 25 minutes away. There's lots of good distilleries within a very easy distance from Dornoch.

The west coast from here is amazing. It's about an hour away, you can drive over the mountains into the west coast. It's incredible. Three nights here, you'll get a lot done. Obviously the longer the better. But certainly a minimum of two nights in the area, I think is quite important.

If you ever want to go to Orkney, this is a really great stopping off point as well. If you're going out if you want to walk to Highland Park and see Scapa Flow, then stopping off in Sutherland is a really great place to go. But yeah, three nights is probably a good time. So two full days, but three nights is probably a great time to stay at Dornoch Castle Hotel.

[Simon]: With the distilleries in mind, Glenmorangie is very, very impressive. That's only eight miles away by road. Balblair is only eight miles away. 14 miles North is Clynelish and Brora. Yeah, definitely worth going up to Putleney as well - Putleney is a really cool distillery. There's quite a few and then not that far aside from us. There's Dalmore, Teaninich. Teaninich doesn't do visitors, but then maybe you might be able to speak to the right person at Diageo to organise something given the reach of 88 Bamboo, if you speak to the right person to get around. But yeah, yes, lots of lots of distillery-related stuff.

 

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We at 88 Bamboo have been long-time fans of the Thompson Bros and Dornoch Distillery. We thank Phil, Simon and Euan for putting distillery operations on hold all afternoon just to have this chat with us. Their perspectives on the future of independent bottling and the spirits industry are surprisingly fascinating! 

 

@CharsiuCharlie