BacardiTalks - Dr. Anne Brock, Master Distiller of Bombay & Ms. Stephanie MacLeod, Master Blender for Dewar's

[MUSIC] Welcome to our sixth edition of the CardiTalks. We have two, not one, but two. Great speakers today. We also do something a little bit different and ended off through our CardiTalks and Fordator as well as our activation coordinator. Ava, we'll talk about that. Good afternoon, all I'm Brian Carne, director of CardiTalks. Welcome all. We're the first time joining us. FIU, McCarty, a Pativati Year-in-a-App partnership. We have educational platform. Here we have a experienced management track. We have an online platform called the CardiTalk. We have the award-winning bartenders, Guild, and as I like to say, at any time I have the opportunity to, we are just getting started. So without further ado, a couple housekeeping things. We are live and recording. This will live on on other platforms. If anyone has questions along the way, we will be utilizing the chat function. We're going to do our best to try to get the individual's questions, but we know we have some great questions coming from our students here as well. But without further ado, let me throw it over to our fabulous Dean Michael Chang. Dr. Chang, how are you, sir? >> Wonderful. Thank you, Professor Cohnets. It's a pleasure to be here today and also want to thank a fantastic guest from Ireland and Scotland. It's the first time we've ever done anything like this across the ocean. >> There you go. >> Very impressive, Professor Cohnets. >> Yeah. >> It's a great day and hopefully you guys will enjoy this. And like Professor Cohnets said, it will be really, and so if you want to go back and catch it later, you can too. Thank you so much to all guests today. Appreciate you guys making time. >> Perfect, perfect. Live from the UK, not Ireland, that's good. Close enough. So without further ado, let's go to our speaker view here, Watson, and we'll bring up our two illustrious guests. We have Dr. Ambrock, the master distiller from Bombay, Safar, as well as Stephanie McClure from Doors, and she's a master of the lender. Now, I know we have some questions coming up with that as well, but ladies, welcome. Thank you and thank you again for joining us little late in the evening over across the pond. >> Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you. It's 6 o'clock here, just gone past 6 o'clock in the evening. And it's already dark in Scotland, fully the same and staying there in Laverstokins. >> You didn't wait down behind me at the show, the nice dark nighthouse. >> So it's the appropriate cocktail hour for you both, which is great on that one. But let's start it out here. You both have an amazing story. I know you're going to kind of been prompt to share a little bit, but let's throw it up to Ann first. And let's hear about your story and your journey and how you got to our friends at Bombay. >> Sure, just want to say, it's lovely to be here, lovely to be speaking with you all. My story is probably not the most traditional route into being a master distiller. But it's certainly a story I'm actually quite proud of. When I was younger, the thought of being a distiller didn't really cross my mind. I don't think it crosses the mind of too many children. I certainly had big ambitious plans, but I wanted to be a doctor. Ever since I can remember, I wanted to be a doctor. Desperately wanted to be a doctor, go to med school. And I was really looking to be a plastic surgeon, actually, and work with MedTunson Frontier. So the sort of plastic surgery that would begin with burns in war zones and that kind of plastic surgery rather than cosmetic. I worked very hard at school at science and got a place at Med School, which was really exciting and went to Med School. And after seven months, phone my parents up, told my quit and become a bartender. So they were obviously horrified. They thought it was just terrible, the straight-age student. It suddenly decided she was dropping everything and becoming a bartender. I think it's one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. I spent three and a half years working in various bars around the UK, and in between my contracts working in bars and hotels, I would go back packing and see the world and start to explore the world a bit. And really for me, that's when I grew up a lot. I've come from this very sheltered background. I'd always have this clear pathway of getting my A's and going to Med School. And so it was a real shake-up and a real chance for me to explore the world outside academia. Having said that, I did go back to university, and I decided this time to study a subject I enjoyed rather than go for a vocation. So I studied chemistry, which was always my favourite subject. After doing my undergrads in chemistry, I really couldn't think what else I wanted to do. I was really struggling with careers, and I'd really enjoyed being in the lab. So I really enjoyed that practical aspect to my day-to-day role. And so I decided to continue on to further education, and I got a PhD in organic chemistry, which was amazing. But I knew that I didn't want to stay in academia. I was really enjoying what I was doing in the lab, but I didn't want to continue in the academic world of research. So I was looking around for something to do. And when you've got a science degree, you could go into investment banking, you can go into management consultancy, you can go into the big world of farmer, none of this appealed to me. And it was actually a friend of mine who mentioned that the only other chemistry that met was a distiller. And it was like this light bulb went off. It brought the two sides of my life to date, together, the other science and the bartender. And so I started to look around at opportunities, and I was very, very lucky in the fact that the craft is stilling, well, it was really just starting to boom when I was looking, and particularly in London, which is where I just moved to. And so I had this incredible opportunity to work with someone to essentially build a crafty celery in central London. It's gentleman I worked with had a gym brand. He was working with a contractor still, and he wanted to create a home for his brand and to make the gym himself. So he put me in charge of that, which I think when you are putting in charge of a project like that when you know nothing, you learn a lot very quickly. And I spent my years once I had taken over production and was managing the distillery for him, giving back to crafty stillers who were coming into the industry by teaching them what not to do as well as what to do through various workshops and events. And then one one cold November day, I got a message saying that for Cardi was looking for a master just to look for Bombay and would I be interested in interviewing for the role. And it's the kind of role that when it comes to you, it's almost a bit of a shock and you start to think, "Well, this can't be real." So I started to go through the interview process really just to see how far I'd get. And the more I learned about the role and the more I met the people within Cardi, I desperately wanted the role, which was great. So when I got it, it was super exciting. And I moved out to Hampshire, which is about an hour outside London and to the distillery, the home of Bombay, in September 2017. I've been leading the team of the stillers here since then, making Bombay satire. Good, but thank you very much. And again, thank you very appreciate that. That's a great story. And now Stephanie, it's your turn. What's your story? Yeah, well, first of all, I've never been a bartender in my life. I think I'd be pretty dreadful at it. I think people would get completely their own drinks. So thankfully, Glasgow was saved from my bartending skills. But I started off. I did a food science degree at the University of Strathquide. And my aim was to solve world hunger by creating a special gene that would prevent crops from failing. At least that's why I thought. But then my final year thesis was on quite a natty title, and quantitative structure activity relationships of phenolic compounds using partially squares regression analysis. Now I couldn't really tell you a thing about it now, but what it was looking at was the kind of lock and key between the structure of a compound and how it's perceived by your or factory lobe. And that was really when I became interested in chemical compounds and how they're perceived. And the department that I was in was very interested in whisky research. And they were actually funded partly by Shiva's brothers, known for Shiva's regal. So I hadn't really thought too much of it. I graduated. I then started to work for the soft drinks industry. And I quite liked it. It was okay. But then my old supervisor from Strathclyde Juni phoned me up one day and said, "We're looking for a research assistant, looking at whisky and other foods. Would you like to join us?" And I thought, Yes, I was getting a bit sick fed up of, I don't know, Iron Brew has now become quite famous during COP26, but that's who I was working for. And it was fine, but I thought, yeah, working with whiskey would be quite good. But having said that, I didn't know that I liked whiskey. It didn't seem relevant to me in any way. As I saw it was something that my dad would drink or my uncle would drink, but none of my friends drank it, and it just didn't seem relevant to me at the time. But then I started to work with whiskey, and just all of a sudden, I realized that whiskey came off the still as this clear product. We put it into casks, and during that maturation process, something miraculous happened. And I thought, this is what I want to do, because there was just so many facets to it that I really did feel it was something that I could get involved in and explore all the aspects of it. So for four years, I worked really as an academic, giving lectures when I absolutely had to to students who would touch every time I moved the slides on. And attending scientific conferences all over the world, talking about whiskey, learning about other foods and other beverages. So it was a really exciting time for me. But at the end of four years, I decided I wanted to work for the whiskey industry properly. And that's when a role at dures came up. And at that stage, I'm been honest to me, Bacardi were negotiating to take on the dures brand and to take on four more distilities. So in between having my interview and starting at dures, Bacardi had acquired the dures brand from United Distillers and Vintners. So reading in the newspapers, I thought, I wonder if I've still got a job to actually go to luckily, I did. And I started off basically as the quality technologist looking after the liquid side but also the packaging side. So I was involved in everything, every aspect of whiskey making. And then more about less than a year later, I was put in charge of the lab. And then a few years after that, maybe three years after that, my then boss said to me, would you be interested in perhaps training to be the master blender because the current master blender was planning to retire? And it took me about a nanosecond to say, absolutely, yes, I would love it. But to my shame actually, the first thought that came into my mind was, hmm, there aren't many female blenders. I wonder how that will be received. And it was, you know, when I think about it now, I think I can't believe that I thought that way. But that was in 2003, 2004. And there really weren't many women in the whiskey industry. And even today, there aren't that many women, but there's more than they're where they are. And it's actually still a question that I get asked is what's it like being a woman in the whiskey industry? And the answer that I would love to give is, well, I've never been a man in the whiskey industry so I can compare. But, you know, so I've really spent my life showing people that women can be in the whiskey industry and have an interesting and fulfilling career in the whiskey industry and also trying to bring other women into my team. And, you know, I'm very proud to say that it is mostly women in my team. And we've got one guy who definitely holds his own against all of us girls. And, you know, but it is all about balance. I don't want it to just be about, you know, it's all got to be women. All the women that are in my team are there because they were the best candidates for the role. So I also don't advocate that we, you know, that we have women for the sake of having women, you know, everyone that's there is there because they're good. So that's basically, you know, my story so far, I took over the blender role in 2006 and that's what I've been doing ever since. Fantastic. Now that's a good opener there. So before we throw it over to Christina and Eva, by far, you had both of you have the best accents you've ever had on McCarty Talks yet. It's just you can just listen to it all day. Like this is fantastic. But we also want to do a couple quick shout outs to some of our industry partners that are also joining us. So I'm seeing these great comments. Deborah from the Women of the Vine and Spirits has wonderful things to say. Our good friend and colleague, Jamie's up there. I saw Colleen's name up there too for whistle-fig. So we have some wonderful, wonderful guests as well as our FIU community joining us today. So without further ado, let me throw it over to you, ladies, for some good questions. So Christina, Eva, all yours. - First of all, I just want to thank you so much for being here. I think it's really important for our students to find out see these female industry leaders, especially in the beverage space and action. So my name is Eva and I want to turn it over to my awesome co-host, Christina. - Hello, ladies, who are you? So it's great, Stephanie, you touched base on a little bit of what I was going to go into. So thank you for that. Stephanie, in 2019, you made history by becoming the first woman to be awarded master blender of the year in the International Wistful Competition. Congratulations. And you were recently recognized in 2021, Icons of Jen Awards as the master distiller of the year. So clearly, you are all setting the place for other industry who do plan on venturing in distillation and anything that has to do with this. Beautiful. Thank you so much. I could only imagine that when you were both given the position of master blender and distiller, a lot of people were surprised to find out what it is you do mainly because of what Stephanie mentioned, the general preconception or perception back then that master blender was really a role for a man. Have either of you noticed, if this is still the case, you still get that shock factor, Stephanie, and Anne, when you continue to mention what you're doing, even though these awards are publicized and everything is published now, because I'm curious. And what are your views on the spirits industry for women going into this new 2022 year and in the near future? You did touch on that Stephanie, but I kind of wanted to listen in on some of Anne as well. So Anne, can you also, can you start with this? Yeah, of course, no problem. So I can keep you agree with you that there's a preconception that women certainly aren't necessarily, it's not necessarily assumed that woman would be a distiller or a blender. I mean, suddenly when I started in my craft distillery, I used to get asked if I was the only female gender distiller that existed, which is absolutely clearly not the case in Never World, the case. There's been some very famous, very well-guarded female master distillers of internationally renowned gins. But I think it comes down to this idea that it's a preconception. People don't necessarily see or hear from the master distillers or master blenders of the brands, although that is now starting to change. And certainly the ones they hear are from the history or that they see are men. So the more that women stand up, the more that that preconception will be struck down. But I think that I have seen a change in the fact that I don't get complete abject surprise when I say what I do, but it does really depend on the form I'm in. So if I'm in at an industry event, when I first started going to events back when I joined at the beginning of my career, and most people assumed I would work on the marketing, and they couldn't leave that I was in operations, even to be in operations was quite unusual. I have recently, and I had a non-site meeting here at the distillery somebody asked whether I was a tour guide in the visitor center. So there are still those moments when people just don't see you as a female leader in operations. But I do also see that certainly as a company like the Cardi, it's really not unusual to have a woman leader in operations. And certainly I feel very comfortable and confident in my role and very well supported as well, which I think is great. And the more that companies do that, the lesser neutral level. be in the few, I hope, the few old reactions that we'll get from people. I still get asked, so do you like whiskey? Do you really drink it at home? And I say, well, yeah. So there is, you still get raised eyebrows and people assume that I'm in PR. If the whiskey company that I'm in the marketing team, and you say, no, no, no, actually, I actually make the whiskey and master blender and they're, and you know, but it's a nice surprise. It's not, you know, I think in the past, you know, it was a bit of a novelty. And I think people thought it would blow over companies who'd come to their senses, but no. And it's really, you know, the whiskey industry in Scotland is probably one of the biggest employers actually. And, and, you know, more women are in the workplace now than there ever was before. And so it makes sense in Scotland that there are more women working in the whiskey industry because, you know, it provides great employment because there's all sorts of jobs. There's, there's worked for scientists, engineers, lawyers, you know, clinicians, health and safety experts. There really isn't a university course that can't be used in the whiskey industry in some form. So, you know, and, and we do, we want women to come in. And, you know, we've got a grad scheme now at the UKOC, the UK Operations Centre. And most of our graduates are actually women. And, you know, they are, they're doing so well, you know, we've got, we've got great graduates in general, but, you know, it's just great to see that we've managed to attract so many women into the whiskey industry. And that really, you know, because I, when I was at university, I never considered for a second a career in the whiskey industry. It just did not cross my mind. And so, we really are making great strides in, in getting women aware that the whiskey industry is there for them as a career option. That was brilliant. Thank you for that. We do have a few students here that are definitely taking notes. So, thank you guys. All right. So, the second part was the salary for the loaded question was, what are your views on the spirits industry for women going into this new 2022 year and in the near future? And you, I feel like you did cover a lot of it. I was just curious to know if you've seen more women developing their own spirits, maybe even opening their own distilleries, not just being in that role of master blender or master distiller, but just. Yeah. I've had a number of people actually contact me through Instagram or LinkedIn saying, I know I am looking to start my own brand or I'm looking to start my own distillery. And these are are young women. And at that age, I just would not even have thought about doing that. So, I'm just absolutely full of admiration. And I really do see this as a really exciting time for women coming into the whiskey industry, not just joining the big companies, but also just starting their own brands. And it really is quite incredible. And, you know, I see Deborah Breiner is on the call as well, from women of the wine and spirits. And, you know, she has these amazing conferences every year where women in the wine industry and the spirits industry come together and just talk about all things wine and spirits. And that really is a really energising couple of days. We're just meeting like 90 people. And it would be a great venue as well for women looking to start up their own brand. So, I think that really is going to be an exciting future, I think, for women in the industry. Yeah, completely agree. I think, you know, talking about actually a nice more and more women setting up their own brands or even their own distilleries. I think it's one of the beauties of this sort of huge, sort of, recognition in the spirits industry as a whole and interest in spirits provenance and where your spirits come from and how spirits are made. You know, consumers are really fascinated with it. And you've seen this drive in the sort of growth of smaller brands. And a lot of those are being led by women. I know a lot of women who own their own gender studies or have their own gym brands. And it's, it's awesome to see because, I think, that the more women that stand up, the more women that are seen, then that the lesser news that it's perceived. And also, it's the more comfortable younger women feel getting into the industry, which I think is important. But I think we see it on, on almost two sides of the industry as well. So, going back to my bartender roots, we're starting to see, you know, a much more emphasis on women bartenders and supporting great women in bartending as well. So, for example, the, the new head of the American bar at the Spoy and London is a woman for the first time since Ava Gardner back in 1919, whenever it was, she was the 1919, 1920s. So, I think, I think there's a real recognition across the board in terms of physical women in leadership's roles within the industry. So, Stephanie, as you mentioned, Duro's actually has a grad program for students and most of the graduates are female, which is awesome. And your PhD in organic chemistry kind of gives you a unique perspective in the industry. So, I want to ask, what do you think the importance of higher education is for what you do? I wouldn't be doing the job I'm doing now without it. I really wouldn't, I think, for me, it wasn't just the undergrad degree either, it was post-grad, it was, when you're running at a distillery, it's a very practical, practical job, you know, particularly when I was running my, my small distillery and I didn't have a team beneath me. I was, I was the person who was doing everything from setting the still up to cleaning the distillery down at the end of the day to shipping goods, to receiving goods. And it's, there's a real element of logistics, it's not sexy, it's not fun, but there's a real element of logistics and organisation that's involved. And doing a PhD or research project, you learn so many skills that are just, you know, it's not the pure science, I'm not using the science, I researched into in my PhD, but all the skills I learn running and running a research project, managing my own experiments and my own results and my own analysis really put me in a really strong position to run a distillery and to run an operation. So, and I think it also gave me the confidence as well because you do something like a PhD, you come out with the confidence that you can really face anything. Yeah, I always insist on, you know, tertiary education for, for any rules that I'm requesting for. And I think sometimes as a student and then as a graduate, you sometimes take your education for granted. And I remember, actually when I was at Iron Brew, as my first rule, and I'd handed my notice because I was going to work for the university. And my boss said, you know, we need to get the right person in to replace you. And I've, literally, said, oh, you know, anybody could do this role, it doesn't have to be a graduate. And he said, he said, you are taking your education for granted here. And I thought about it and he was absolutely correct because there, there's a discipline that you learn. Now, you might not think it now, but there is a discipline that you learn at college, at university, where you do have to manage your own time, you do have to prioritize what's important. And also investigative techniques. So actually getting to the root cause of a problem is one of the main things that you're learning at university. And also constantly questioning why, why is this the way it is and debating. And wow, are those skills that you're really going to need when you get into the workplace because that is what you do every day. It's all about why does this happen and negotiating and debating with colleagues over the best way forward to tackle a problem. I mean, that is, that is mostly my role, actually, is problem solved. So we've got too much whiskey, we've got too little whiskey, it's not the right flavor. You know, whatever it might be, I'm constantly, everyday solving problems. And I love it, you know, that's why I'm here, is to solve the problems so that we can take our products more effectively to the markets and to our consumers. So yes, absolutely, you know, a college education, a degree, a PhD is exactly what you need in industry. Thank you very much. So Ann and Stephanie, before we go into the more fun questions, honors wrote them. So I'm just going to, but we wanted to find out a little bit more of what can be expected to see in the general world. What's trending? I mean, rambles and great. It's a hit over here on campus. And with doors, I mean, Caribbean Smooth is amazing. It's my personal favorite. Others have other favorites when it comes to doors. So can you just give us a little bit of insight or scoop. We won't tell anyone we promise. But it's for our own personal knowledge here. Yeah, I mean, certainly I, one of the great things about working for a brand like Bombay Sapphire is it's, you know, we're all about creativity. We've got this beautiful gin Bombay Sapphire, which is almost a canvas that we can play with, you know, got strong DNA running through it. What you're hopefully going to see coming out from us is yes, we're going to explore more in the flavor of flavor world, you know, flavor, jins were really strong in Europe at the moment. I know that the. The flavor of flavor is doing well over in the state. So hopefully you'll, you'll look to see more versions of flavor jins, but also really playing with the idea of a confusion. So a very specific way of distilling and it allows us to get particular flavor notes. That's about botanicals that you wouldn't otherwise get. So we really want to start to showcase that more and start to play with some of the processes involved and the as well as heroing the beautiful botanicals we use really sort of showcasing to the world what very confusion can do for for for a gin. You see the fusion you mean that the actual botanicals never touch the outside right. Yes, so the sort of there's two main ways of making gin steeping boil where you put the botanicals into the pot still with spirit and water and heat them up. It's almost like boiling a mash and whiskey making, but that there's also very confusion and that's what we do we put the spirit and the water into the body of the still and the botanicals are held down the line arm in baskets. So all the alcohol vapor passes through botanicals picking up the flavors. But they don't get boiled up in the liquid during the process. So you get a sort of more natural brighter expression of the of the botanicals that are in the gin. Beautiful, definitely lightness. Well, there's going to be more on the the duer's eight casks series. So we started with Caribbean, we then moved to illegal miss gal casks. Then we had Portuguese smooth Japanese smooth where we use Japanese Mizonara, oh casks and just recently we launched Calvados smooth. So that's where the duer's eight goes into Calvados casks. So there's going to be more on that. I'm definitely not allowed to say what it is. I'll get into trouble from the brand team. But you know, I do the the blends. So a blend is a is malt whiskey and green whiskey blended together. But I also do the single malt. So that's we have five single malt distilities and dotted all over Scotland. And so I'm responsible for bringing out new expressions as well as maintaining the core range for our single malt. So we've got big plans for Aberfeldy as we always do, but we've got quite an exciting, hopefully partnership coming up with that. And and that partnership with a wine producer and I can't say anymore at the moment came about as a result of a chance and discussion with with one of our tour guides at the distillery who had been talking to a guy who is also a follower I've got an Instagram. And I reached out to him and we got talking and and so, you know, hopefully we're going to have a new product out of it. So, so, you know, I can't say enough actually for networking and another point is, you know, try and make your network as broad as you possibly can because you just never know where an opportunity is going to come from. But so we're exploring different types of wood I was talking about, Mizzanara casps and we're also looking at different different oak from different growing regions in the world. And we're also looking at wood that isn't oak. So in Scotch whiskey is got to be oak that we use to mature our whiskey, but we're being little devils and we are trying out other types of wood to see what impact it has on the whiskey. And I suppose we're looking at it to say, well, this is why we use oak because if we put in another type of wood, it doesn't taste like whiskey. But, you know, we might get a real surprise and it might inform, you know, our knowledge of wood and and that is something that is really important to us because, you know, the oak cask is so important to the flavor of of Scotch whiskey. So yeah, there's lots going on. We are incredibly busy at the moment, but I'm, you know, I'm just so glad that we are because it means that people are are loving whiskey and they're loving our Bombay sapphire gin as well. Yes, thank you. I'm still enjoying your double double by the way, but so here goes, are you ready? All right. So and your first, you are a cocktail. What would that cocktail be? So I always find this a terrifying question to answer, but I have gone out to some very dear friends of mine and asked their opinion. And one of them came back with an answer that I can't take credit for what I'm stealing it. She says that I think she thinks that I'm a tuxedo to see the number two in particular because it's a riff on a classic martini, but he uses Sherry and she says that I'm more than classic, but I can be a little nutty and I clean up nicely. There you go. Yeah, I'm terrible at making cocktails actually. And so the one that I'll have to go for is the simplest one that I can manage without messing up. And that's a me me Taylor. And I'm not going to say why I'm like that, but it is only because I can't think of an answer, but it's the cocktail that I've managed to get my my whiskey hating friends to drink whiskey because they're all saying, no, we don't like whiskey. It's too strong. And it's this is it. So I gave them this cocktail one night and it's yours 12 with either ginger ale or ginger beer lots of ice a squeeze of lime juice and then a lime wedge and it's a really refreshing way to enjoy whiskey. And and all of your friends are people, you know, watching that don't like whiskey or say they don't like whiskey. If you try this, you'll you will love it. So that that's the cocktail I would be five, so cocktail. Thank you very much for sharing that if you can have a drink with anyone in the world, would it be and why? And we're starting with you. Awesome. So, you know, this is a this is a kind of question that my answer changes to all the time. You know, if you'd have asked me this question back in February March this year, we're in the middle of one of the longest lockdowns we had here in the UK. So I would probably would have said my sister and my family, you know, if we could have been in the same room and enjoyed a drink definitely. But we're through that that terrible time now and I've been allowed to do that since then. So currently I think I'd have to say I'm undergone. You know, I think I really, being part of Bombay Sapphire, I get to sort of interact with a lot of very creative people. I would see myself as much more scientists than a creative, although I have to be creative. when I'm making my liquids. And I'm also terrible with words. I grew up writing scientific papers. So everything's very factual and everything's very, but lots of formulas everywhere. I'm much better with the page full of numbers than words. And there's something about what she does with words and the way she creates poetry that I would just love to sit and talk to her, understand her creative process, and really just try and, yeah, just try and, learn something from her and the way she uses words and her language. But also on the other side, I do follow her on Instagram and she looks like a lot of fans. So I also think she should be quite cool to have a drink with. Yeah, probably a similar answer. I was asked this during lockdown, and I was like, well, anybody, just another person outside of my family at the moment, because we were in lockdown with my husband and my two children who I loved dearly, but I was just wanting to be in a place where there was people that I didn't know. That was really good enough for me at the time. But yes, I've always wanted to share a duress with our first master blender, actually, Adrian Cameron, because I'd love to get his opinion on what he thinks of dures now, because people always ask me, how do you think dures has changed from when it was first released at the start of the 20th century? And I said, well, I have absolutely no idea because we don't have samples from then. But all I can say is that we definitely stuck to the recipe. So I would love to get his thoughts on what we're doing and what our plans are for the future, and also Tommy Jure, so there's two brothers. John Jure and Tommy Jure and Tommy was the kind of marketing guy, and he was the one that went round the world and opened up new markets for dures. And he was so innovative with, he was one of the first people to have a moving advert that he posted on the side of a building in New York. So I think he would be a tremendous laugh to have a drama with. So that's really who I'd like to share, Dringless. - Awesome, thank you so much for those answers. And thank you for going along with our really fun questions. But now we'd like to open questions up to any students. - Oh, hi, are you? So I just wanted to ask Stephanie, what's a local culinary food that's good with the whiskey, like locally? - Locally, right, well, have you heard of Haggis? - No, I don't think so. - No. Well, Haggis is a traditional Scottish food. And it's kind of a mix of different things. So spices, bits of meat, cuts of the animal, but you can also get it in vegetarian form, which tastes just as nice. In fact, I think if not nicer. So Haggis goes really well with Scotch whiskey. But also surprising things that you might not have thought of. Chocolate. So chocolate goes really well with whiskey. And I often think it's very similar because they both melt in the mouth, very evenly releasing the flavor gradually. And provided you get a good quality chocolate. And a great quality whiskey, then the two are just a match made in heaven. So I would recommend if you haven't tried that, you should try pairing, Aberfeldy with a dark chocolate. And in fact, at our distillery, we do tours. If you, you know, when you get to travel and come to Scotland, come and visit Aberfeldy and do our chocolate and whiskey pairing, it's really, it's amazing. And I had the terrible job of having to choose the chocolate to go with the whiskey. I get all the rotten jobs to do. It was really awful. And obviously, it goes really well with steak and everything really is very bearish to travel whiskey. Thank you. I'll try to make my own Haggis, but it probably won't be good. But thank you. I have a doers right next. Hi, my name is chef Natalie Garcia. It's a pleasure to get to learn so much from you industry leaders. And I want to thank FIU and for Cardi for bringing this opportunity, because it's just an amazing experience being on the forefront of what's going on in the beverage industry. Can you explain a little bit of the differences between what a master blender does, versus what a master distiller does? Yeah, I mean, I guess the main difference is really, you know, whiskey is an age spirit and a gin's non-nage spirit. So a gin has a master distiller because really the magic comes into the distillation process. And we make that the flavors put in by the botanical recipe that we put into the still at the beginning. And I would say and Stephanie might disagree with me, see what she says, but for whiskey, the magic comes in after the aging with the blending. And that's that's why you have the control of the flavor. I don't know whether you agree with me, Phil, Stephanie or. Yeah, I mean, some people actually call me master distiller. And because we do in the whiskey industry, we do have master distillers and master blenders. And master distillers are usually associated with the distilling process. So at our distillities, you know, we're creating different distillates, which after their age, age form the blend. But I'm also interested in the spirit at our distillities because obviously the spirit, the base spirit has a has a really fact on on the blend when it's aged for a minimum three years. So, so yes, I'm mostly to do with the the back end. So I'm like that the last person in the relay race sprinting home with the bat on after everyone has done all the work behind me. I take all the glory at the very end, but whiskey is all about almost generations of people that have distilled the whiskey, build it into cask. And then we take it out of the cast. Maybe three years later, it might be 12 years later, it might be 50 years later. So, so the timescale between my role and an and role can be years apart. So, so that's where there is a big difference between the two rules because we don't tend to use new makes spirit and before it's been matured. But that's a great question. Very insightful. Thank you. Thank you very much. So, go ahead and see the students that have put questions in the chat. I see everyone that's raising their hand as well. Let me go ahead and Martin, can you scroll down? I believe that Jamie mandible had a question. She happens to be one of her favorite. Jamie, you asked, you're both or you commented and asked, you're both highly educated from formal education to on the job. Is there anything that you would do at the level you're at to continue your own education? If so, in which areas are you focusing on growth? And would you like to start off? I think that's one of the things I don't think education is ever finished. I think you're always learning. So, I will always be doing something to either increase my knowledge of the spirit's world outside of gin or increase my knowledge on consumer trends or something that's going on in industry right now or new technologies. So, the sort of main areas that I'm looking at the moment is really understanding sustainability from a technological point of view. There was a big challenge for the world right now is to drive towards net zero production net zero practices. It's not an easy, it's not going to be an easy solution. And so, I'm having to do a lot of sort of try and educate myself about technologies that are out there, technologies that might be coming down the line. What's actually green, what's green washing and really start to understand that so that's that's a big area. And then on the other side of things it's more things like some of the soft skills that I definitely didn't learn, I haven't learned necessarily among the way my in my career. So leadership skills and developing the sort of. that side of things so that I can grow as a leader in the industry and as a leader in the Cardi because I think that's really important and for me because I'm very used to book learning, going out and learning about technologies is easier but the soft skills is actually more of a challenge for me so that's a real area of focus for me. Yeah, it's good to pick up a book and just read either something that has to do with your field or something that's maybe related to it because at the moment I'm reading I've got with whiskey women because I'm always getting asked questions about, you know, is whiskey, is women in whiskey a new thing and I'm like, well, no, it's not, it's been there for a while. But at the moment I'm trying to learn more about wine because we have got a series of whiskeys that are finished in different types of wine casks. So I'm trying to learn how to, first of all, pronounce some of the great varieties and some of the regions and France but also understanding, you know, what it is about wine that makes it work so well with whiskey or indeed are there the wines that maybe I should steer clear of so that's an important part for me. But again, as Anne was saying that the soft skills, I don't think you can ever learn enough of that of how to work with your team and sometimes it can be trial and error and you can try and avoid the error by trying to get some formal education on it. And I both do a lot of presentations, a lot of talking to camera and so, you know, there's been a lot of presentation skills, workshops I've been on. I've been learning a lot about Zoom fun, Lena. I've been learning a lot about teams and lighting. So yeah, I think every, you know, there's never a moment in Bacardi where we just kind of sit back and say, oh, I wonder what's going to happen next because there's always something that is either you can see it coming on the horizon or it just lands on your desk. And so usually that involves trying to desperately learn what it means for your process as Anne was saying sustainability. So that is something that we're trying to reduce the water that we use at our distilities and what I'm wondering is, well, how will that affect our flavor profiles of the spirit coming out of our distilities? And so that is something that as an industry, we're trying to grapple with, you know, what does that mean for us because the quality of our spirit is paramount. But also, so is the survival of the planet. So we're trying to find these these compromises and these amazing new technologies that we're heating about and that we're desperately hoping will be will be coming our race soon. So thank you so much for sharing. It's definitely, you know, never stop learning and there's always something we're to do. And in the interest of time, we are going to take just one more question from Cindy in the Zoom who has her hand raised. She is the current president of our bartender's guild here at FIU. Thank you, Eva and the group of people today. Can you Stephanie for mentioning this part of the quality for men and women in the workplace? I'm personally also a big advocate for that. And also your tip on pairing of chocolate and avocado, the during the virtual tasting last week. And today, I recommend you guys, it's a good combination for sure. My question to you is for Dr. Ambrock. So with adding tuna botanicals to Sapphire, my research said that with it was being curated for the new wave of gen-based cocktails. So being softer and more enlightening. So my question is, what was the research reaction to an introduction of the Sapphire in which way do you enjoy your Sapphire? The best. Industries reaction, that's really interesting where I think he about that. I often talk about how when bomb based Sapphire was launched, it was launched in the flavorful of our phones design just for that reason. But I've never really thought about what the industry's reaction would be to it. I guess the only thing I can do is probably look back at how Bombay Sapphire has done as a product. It's currently the world's number one premium gen. It's the fastest growing gen brand in the world. That growth started back in 1986 when it was launched. It has become, I think this year, it was the best selling gen in the world's best bars. So I think bartenders love it. And I think the reason they love it is because that balance profile, you know, when you're going to make a cocktail and you're you're thinking of a particular flavor profile you want North final drink to be. If you're grappling against something, you know, your base spirit that isn't balanced, you've got to really compensate for that in the way that you build the drink. Whereas if you've got a beautifully balanced base cocktail, then it does the work for you. And really you can just build the cocktail the way you want it to. You're not having to fight against that base spirit. So I think that's what the beauty of Bombay Sapphire really is. And then part of that is obviously down to the very profusion, but part of it's down to the unique recipe that we've got. So, you know, as somebody who's come onto the brand and has led it for the last four years, I just feel super grateful that I've got this incredible recipe to work with and I just have to keep making it and hope that I don't mess it up. In terms of how I best like my gin, you know, again, that's something that changes every day and definitely changes throughout the year. So I'm currently in a bit of a martini mode. So I do love my dry martini, but I was in a bit of a negroni season earlier in the summer and in the summers, I tend to prefer actually much longer drinks. So Tom Collins is a good first favourite of mine. We've just launched Bombay Sapphire Premier Crue in the UK as well. And that's brought the French 75 back to my notice and I'm really enjoying those as well. So I tend to go for the classics because like Stephanie, I am terrible at making cocktails myself. So I have to keep it simple. So thank you so much. Like Eva mentioned, we are pressed for time. So I see that everyone else is still pending questions in the chat as well. So please, lots of them. You can drop the email in, see mogelle, c-m-o-g-u-e-l at f-i-u.edu. Please feel free to go ahead and email us any questions. I'm sure that Anne and Stephanie would confine the time to eventually get back to everybody. But it is a lot of questions and Stephanie and unfortunately, you will not be able to cover everything. So again, Eva, I think this is the time that we have dreaded. I'll let you take over. Yes, on behalf of all the students and faculty here at the f-i-u Chaplain School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, I just want to thank you both for taking the time out. We really appreciate it. And you know, through our new beverage track and the Cardi Center of Excellence and through the bartenders and wine guild, we definitely have a lot of guest speaking opportunities and we'd love to see you both again in the classroom. So again, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you for being enjoyable. Thank you for all for coming and for your great questions as well.