Opening the Case with Justine Hazelhurst - The story behind the infamous Pattison Brothers - Whisky Stories Podcast

Intro So, Brian, yes, you know what to do. Speaker 2 Oh, we we're going straight. Speaker 1 Now we're going straight and clap us in. Welcome to the Whiskey Stories podcast. Speaker 3 What came to light afterwards was maybe the shady dealings that were going on, not just with the padsens, but it was it was across the entire industry. They certainly were criminals. I'm not going to suggest they won't. And a lot of people talk about how they were scapegoats and in to a certain extent, extent they were. Speaker 1 Welcome along to the Whiskey Stories podcast with myself, Kareem Koga. We are back in the athletic arms, back above ground this evening. Absolutely pharma we are. We're not underneath the snug or the toilets or anywhere like out of the Bar as we were last week with Hazy. Speaker 2 Well, when I when I came in, there's a rat behind the bar, he said I could hear you when I was in the toilet. I could hear you boys laughing and I could hear your podcast. And I said, well, we could hear what was going on in the. Speaker 1 Toilet. Yeah, if you do get a chance. We've done 2 recordings I think down the stairs and the what we're calling it. Is it the whiskey bunker? I well under whiskey. Speaker 2 Bunker Digger, Digger. Vault Digger's fault. Yeah. Yeah. Kev's faults. Speaker 1 Anyway, we're underneath, underneath. Kev trusted us in the back, underneath the the pub, in the bar with all this whiskey that isn't made it onto the the back bar yet. We were down. Yeah, Yeah. With Hazel McLeod. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 What a laugh. Great laugh. You get a chance to listen to that podcast or watch it. If you want to see what it does look like in the Digger's vaults then get on the YouTube channel. It was great, no loss this evening. Speaker 2 No. Speaker 1 He's a quiet 1:00 tonight. Speaker 2 It will be a quiet one. He's otherwise engaged. He's at the launch. Should we just say where he is? Speaker 1 I think he's at the. Speaker 2 Launch of the launch of fragrant drops is new brand Elevens is which I think they're targeting bottles at kind of affordable prices, but still single cast cast strength, you know from all the wonderful casks. I'm sure that they have in there well. Speaker 1 If there's anything like some of this you get with fragrance drops, it says it's it's excellent. I'm sure it's all, but we do have to have an expert, Angus says. We don't know what we're talking about. No, we don't have to esteem. I don't. Speaker 2 Know, we know. Speaker 1 Nothing. We've actually got a an esteemed author on the podcast. Published author, published author. We've got Justine Hazlehurst back on the podcast. Justine, welcome back. How are you? I'm. Speaker 3 Very well. Thank you. How are you guys all? Speaker 1 Good. OK, good stuff. You're looking, I have to say, and I mean this, with the best will in the world, you're looking a lot better. And I thought you were going to look considering last week you were it was Fife Whiskey Festival. Fife Whisky Festival Yes, not last weekend, but the weekend. Speaker 1 Before last, right? OK, so you had a little bit of time to relax. Speaker 3 Had a week or so to recover. Speaker 1 How was it? Speaker 3 It was very good, Yeah, it went really well. So this was our biggest 1 yet. Yeah, we had 50 exhibitors. So that's the largest number of exhibitors that we've had since we started in 2018. And obviously we've extended the festival over three days now. So the opening dinner at Lindo's Abbey Distillery was fantastic, some fantastic drams. We had a cheese course this year as well paired with whiskey which was superb. Speaker 2 Did you enjoy the cheese course? Speaker 3 No, because I've got gallstones. Speaker 1 'Cause I wonder. Speaker 2 They didn't say to me you had gallstones, so you're kinda your diet was a bit. I don't know if I should. Speaker 3 Bet No, no, I've told everybody, I've told Granny that I've got gallstones is I was just doing my night in 'cause hopefully I can drink. I can't drink a huge amount but I can still have a couple of drams on a night. But all of the things that I like eating, cheese, crisps, crackers, all of those sort of things, totally, totally off until I get this gallbladder. Speaker 1 And there, there was Angus, sitting there enjoying a cheese and ham. Speaker 3 No, that's working. Speaker 1 Yeah, that's why she mentioned I was sitting enjoying ice, cheese and ham toasting. Just athletic arms, diggers, cheese and ham toasted. Speaker 2 Just Justine was kind of. Speaker 1 Looking long fully. Speaker 2 At it, it's. Speaker 3 Too painful. Too painful So. Speaker 1 Vitamin 5W. I mean, one of the things I would we were gutted. We were. Yeah, last last year Angus and I were. Speaker 2 Last year, when I was not so big and not as big as ever, we were exhibiting. Speaker 3 Oh, you're always playing. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically we were sneaking. Speaker 2 Through the back door. Speaker 1 We had to work for our our supper that day. But yeah, I, I, I, I, I think I said it the last time that you were on the podcast, A whiskey festival that I'd always like, I'd, I'd see it after it had happened. And I'd always kick myself being like, damn right, I need to remember next year. And for whatever reason, every single year, it's because it sells out so quickly, doesn't it? Yeah. Speaker 2 And the tickets go on sale months before the event. Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, we, so we put tickets on sale. It's usually the first weekend of September and it's and, and the reason we do that is because we don't want to clash with any of the other whiskey festivals when they put their tickets on sale. So there's a certain etiquette, I think, where you don't want to, you don't want to annoy people by, you know, setting up a new festival and then and then putting your tickets on sale. So it clashes with the more established ones. So we've always done that since 2018, and we've kind of stuck with that. I think we were saying earlier, people like consistency. Yeah. So they know it's gonna be the first weekend of September when they can get them. Speaker 2 How quickly did they sell out this year? I mean, are you the finish? Speaker 3 Given. Speaker 2 Us a run for their money, yeah. Speaker 3 So session ones hold out in just under 12 minutes. Wow. Session 2 always takes a wee bit longer. I don't know, Maybe. Is it always. Yeah. And I, I, I just think that perhaps perhaps the sort of people, the people who come to the 5W festival, just enjoy day drinking. I don't. Speaker 1 Know well I was going to say like so session 2 what time would session 2 start? Speaker 3 It starts at 5 finishes and we're not talking a late 1/5 until 8:30 but. Speaker 1 I I couldn't think of anything worse then what time does. What time does session one start and finish? Speaker 3 Session one starts at 12:30 and finishes at 4:00. Speaker 1 I couldn't think of anything worse. See now we always say this when it comes to whisky festivals. Uh huh. Please Whisky festival responsibly, right, Because it's well, I think and we've we've spoken to people who we've talked a lot about different and international festivals as well. But the concept isn't the same as it is up in Scotland where it's different. You pay to get in, but you also pay for the drams that you get. So you are very a lot more conscious of what what, what exhibitors you want to go to try etcetera. Whereas there's a naivety where, and it reminds me of the story actually I've told on the podcast before, where Whiskey Festival first actually appeared on my radar years and years and years ago and I was getting a train back. It was one of the last trains back from Edinburgh to Kirkcaldy when I lived in Kirkcaldy in Fife. Speaker 3 Which festival wasn't? Speaker 1 Well, I don't know what festival was, but there was a guy who was worse for wear, should I say? And he was like, all right mate. And we were on the train together. They said you had a good night. I said I have a great day. What about yourself? Oh, let me tell you, I've been at this whiskey fest. I can't remember what it was. He says, but I don't drink whiskey myself like, but he says the Gee, this wee glass and he went in his pocket and pulled out this Glen Cairn. So you get one of them when you when you when you get in and you just go up to all these stalls. You just hand it, hand it over and they fill it with whiskey and then you get it back. And he says, and there's about there's hundreds of them. What a great day. Now I was going. That sounds absolutely bloody brilliant. And from that point on, whiskey festivals are kind of being on my radar. But never managed to go to Antagus and I went to the Edinburgh Whiskey Festival. Yeah, a couple of years ago. We're. Speaker 2 Not as good as a planning. Speaker 1 Thing no, but but I think what I was meaning was see it 4:10 if I've been at a whiskey festival since 12 half 12 and it's 4:10. Speaker 3 You ready for bed? I'm. Speaker 1 Thinking about when am I get a kebab or when am I getting to my bed? Where do you go? What do you do after 4:10 after you've been at a whiskey festival? Try these whiskeys. Wouldn't even. Wouldn't even, you know? Speaker 2 I know I mean. Speaker 3 It's amazing though, how many, well, we, we, we've kind of stopped that to for the most part now, but it's amazing how many people try to come into both sessions. I bet you know change, change their hat, you know, change the jersey, change the glasses, put put glasses on or whatever. And we only had one this year. Speaker 1 Whiskey disguises, Yeah. I mean, you could technically buy 2 tickets. You could buy a session 1 ticket and a session 2 ticket. Couldn't. Speaker 3 You yeah, there's not really much we can do to stop somebody. I mean again, if somebody's buying 2 tickets, they might buy 2 tickets in one name and then the other person might buy 2 tickets for the second session in in their name. So they're different names, but we do have a system whereby if you come in session 1, you have this sort of indelible UV marker pen on your hand. And then session 2, if the little UV torch picks it up, obviously you can't come in. But there was one guy who came in the the main entrance, put the torch on his hand, could see it being in session one, sent in packing. So he just walked around to the side entrance. Speaker 1 Try design I'll. Speaker 3 See these chances now. Speaker 1 I mean, I suppose like, you know, you've, you've mentioned that it's like a three day festival this time and you've also said that, you know, biggest one, biggest 1 yet. The difference this year So talk us through what were the differences this year from the years before that made it so big? And you're saying three days? What was it sort of three days? What did it look like? Speaker 3 So the dinner, we had 76 people at the dinner. We actually had 80 last year. So we had a few fewer this year, but we had more drams and we, we had, we had Lefroy actually. So Suntory Global Spirits asked if they could attend the festival and also attend the dinner. So they poured some fantastic drams. An 8 year old Lefroig to go with the starter, which was a kind of distillery exclusive bottle of your own. So that was quite, that was quite nice. And then a 25 year old Lefroig to pair with the dessert, which again was lovely. And then we had a a special cask selection from Lindo's to pair with the cheese. So that was these nice unique whiskeys that people won't necessarily have, you know, been able to try anywhere else. So that was that was wonderful. And Lindo's, the staff there, they're just amazing. They're just like so supportive of the festival and the hospitality and services just top notch. So amazing stuff. Shout out to them. But then on the Saturday, as I say, 50 exhibitors. So sometimes we're like, oh, we're gonna squeeze them all, you know? But Karen's Karen and I, obviously we both run the festival and we have different remits. And Karen looks after the exhibitors and all the registrations and does the floor plan for the venue. And she's always convinced that we can squeeze in a few more, squeeze in a few more. And she seems to make it work so that, that, that's great. And yeah, super well received this year. And yeah, just, it's just a, it's just a really nice vibe. We never, we never have any issues. I know sometimes you do go to some whiskey festivals. And you know, as you were saying, there were folk who think, oh you know, I've paid my £35, I'm going to drink. Speaker 1 As well you. Speaker 2 Can drink, yeah. Speaker 3 But thankfully at the 5W festival, you know, obviously it's a festival, it's a whiskey festival and people want to enjoy the drams and you know, and they do, but there's never any kind of I've got to keep going. I've got to keep going until I'm absolutely banjax. You know, it's like people are there to appreciate whiskey and a lot of folk ask us if we could make the sessions longer, not because they want to drink for longer, but because they spend so much time chatting. Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I mean, it was, it was something that when we were when we were exhibiting, I guess like, yeah, you suddenly become we. You'll know there'll be people that were exhibiting at Fife Whiskey Festival who literally like brand ambassadors and people that work for distilleries where a large part of their weekend life is whiskey festivals, whiskey shows and exhibits. And there must have, they must have to have a knack to when they know the cut off point of conversation is with somebody, because the more you're speaking to that one individual person, the more people that might be wanting to come in, but they see off, they're engrossed in quite a conversation. So I'll, I'll skip past them. And when you've got, if you're the one exhibitor of of 50, then you know if that person walks past and they've got another 49 W whiskey distilleries to go or whiskey brands to speak to, they could end up not coming back and try and try and whiskey. Speaker 3 So. Speaker 2 But but the thing I liked as well when we were exhibiting was there was so many people of, you know, there were people coming up to you that would kind of probably know more about Glen with us than I did, which wouldn't be very hard if we're being honest. There were people that maybe heard of Glen with us but didn't know much about it. And there were people that just knew nothing at all and weren't maybe even whiskey fans particularly. But we're interested. And I was just fantastic speaking to all these different people when, you know, they were, you know, like, like I said, it was just, it was a nice mix of kind of really, you know, hardcore kind of whiskey fans and also guys just well, you know, local area people that were just, you know, come along for the event. Speaker 1 Well, that was what was quite nice, especially with a brand like Glenn with this is, you know, I, I just didn't know too much. I know I knew a little bit about it. And then we'd had Megan Murdoch on the on the podcast with some samples and stuff. And it's interesting with new distilleries now is that they can manufacture spirit to be absolutely fantastic, that young, younger agent. Speaker 3 Sure. Speaker 1 And that that makes a huge difference because I think there was a lot of people when we were doing it, yeah, 03 year old whiskey or 4 year old whiskey and then trying to be like, that's actually bloody nice. But also where we were positioned, I think it was right beside at the time lag. Speaker 2 That's right, yeah. Speaker 1 Right. And also, what was the IT was. Speaker 2 The opposite us was Mika Tour. Mika Tour yeah Glen Allocate Yeah or opposite us and. Speaker 1 What we were able to say, we sort of got our pitch absolutely spot on. Yeah. We were saying like, you know what, if you're going around that way and you're about to hit lag and Mika tour, this is the perfect starting point. Get you, get you in. It's soft, it's easy to drink. It's nice. I think we were using the term breakfast whiskey. Yeah, it's easygoing, very easy. Or if you've just come the other way and you've had loads of Sherry, you've had a bit of smoke, bit of Pete, this is the perfect palette cleanser. It's going to just get you, get you back on and then you're straight around the corner and and on to the other ones. And I think we, but it was fascinating that you're talking about the the amount of people that we spoke to who, who don't like whiskey, but what it was was like. Speaker 2 Not necessarily. Well then. Well, no, but. Speaker 1 I never tried to class themselves as big because maybe there was 3 or 4 guys that were like you're coming up. I, I was mostly men. I'd say on that front, because a lot of the, the women that were there were whiskey fans, so they were interested in that. Whereas maybe there was a guy who said, look, my 3 mates love whiskey. So all they talk about when they're, when I'm round it, when we're out on a day out or something, they'll get the drags here and I've got nothing to talk about. So they've dragged me along to this and, and, and it was great because then you were speaking to them and saying how you finding it? And there is a, we've always said on the podcast, other people said as well, there is a whiskey for everybody. Absolutely. So when you go, it's the best place to go to try it, isn't it? If you go a whiskey festival, 50 exhibitors. Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, and there's a whiskey festival for everybody. You know, festivals, whiskey festivals are a bit like the whiskeys themselves. You know, they all kind of got their own kind of take on things and attract a different kind of audience, let's put it that way. So I think with the Fife Whiskey Festival, because we pretty much focus on the independent distilleries, the smaller distilleries, smaller companies, let's put it that way, don't really, although this year was an exception and a lot of the independent bottlers. So we tend to attract more of the whiskey enthusiast and people who already know a fair bit about whiskey. But likewise, we still get a, you know, a good few whiskey enthusiasts who are maybe just starting out, They're picking up a few bottles at the supermarket. They're intrigued, they want to try more. And, and so we do tend to have a few, few guys like that coming along. But I think in common, what everybody has is this appreciation of whiskey, this willingness to learn and to listen to what the exhibitors are saying. And and I do think that's it must be quite, you know, disconcerting, I guess, when you go to as a brand ambassador, when you go to a whiskey festival and all you see is this kind of sea of outstretched arms with holding glencairns, you're just pouring the liquid in. You don't get the chance to actually talk about your product and that that enthusiasm and that passion that you have for what you do doesn't come through. So that's why we always keep our festival relatively small so that you know each exhibitors table we aim at least so that they're not like 3-4 deep with. Speaker 1 People. Well, I think you said that the last episode was like here you designed it for. The 5W Festival Short people. Speaker 1 But it's a shame because Ross isn't here to clarify that is is perfect festival, isn't it? But I, I I. Speaker 2 I'm sorry, it's a bit. How long have you been doing the 5W festival now? What year was the one? Speaker 3 The first one was 2018, Yeah, if you ask Karen, she'll say it's 2016, but it was. Speaker 2 2018 I mean what what I would say is another kind of defining characteristic of the 5W fest. Well, it is the low is the five side of it because we've seen almost. Speaker 1 Things of tear glass, eye that rings. Speaker 2 Of tear glass eye but you've seen it now obviously you've people from the fraud coming. You have people for you know it's Falkirk Sterling, but DAF Mill were there when we were there last year. I don't know if they were there this year, I'm sure. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. So they weren't there in 2018, but they've been ever. Speaker 2 Since they've been ever since, so you know, and of course, I remember last year your bottling was the, was it the James Ed? What was your bottling last year? Sorry. Speaker 3 Last year was Fib whiskey. Speaker 2 Yeah. So again, another five. And then this year, well, we were at the Lady of the Glen and Al Getty Bay, Yes. And Gregor was able, Gregor was able to give us a little sample of your. Speaker 3 Of the festival. Speaker 2 Of your festival this year, which we noticed there was a printing error on the bottle. Speaker 3 I think we are manifesting I've. Speaker 2 Been asked because because the region it must have been a terrible printing error when you know down the line at the printers and the guy said what's the region? I said Lowland and he said your line's breaking up. I can't hear you. I'll. Speaker 1 Put it in five bytes of lowland, right? Right. Speaker 2 That something like that must have happened, am I right? Speaker 3 Well, I think, yeah. I mean, I can't comment obviously. No. I think we've been asked quite a lot what we think about Five becoming a Scotch whiskey region in its own right. Speaker 2 Because we have seen it almost in our own lifetime. I mean, in our own lifetime, yes, almost in the lifetime of the, of the festival, the kind of flourish and all these distilleries in Starney, Daft Mill, King's Barns, they've all appeared in Fife in the last, you know, 1520 years. Yeah. And you know, it's a real Fife is just a real centre for whiskey right now. Speaker 1 And not just, not just and we've talked about this, but there'll be people who are going to give our S Graham right here he goes. Now talk about Fife again. I mean, I I'll be the first one as a proud Fife. And, and, and you know, you, you have to look at, you've mentioned that just a few of the, the distilleries in yeah, five there, but also the independent bottlers that we have. I mean, everyone, we'll, we'll talk about it later on. But Leaf is a bit of a hub right now and has been in the past historically for independent bottlers. But you look around and you see like we were at Dalgety Bay where we enjoyed the Lady of the Glen hospitality. Yeah, absolutely fantastic. You've got the single cask guys that are in there, you've got event as well. Yeah, fib, fib. And then you've got even things like, well, you've got the low and bond in Glenrothes, which is where, you know, rare find. Speaker 3 You've got the the new bond next door to Lindo's as well on the farm there, so. Speaker 1 Yeah, the optimacti bond is it? Speaker 3 Well, you've got Optimacti bond and you've also got the I want to see Bree side bond. I'm probably. Speaker 1 Got that and that's the next part is and that you know that's. Speaker 2 The explosion also without mentioning Cameron Bride. Speaker 1 Well, that was what the explosion of of bonded warehouses in warehousing in Fife. You know, it'd be fascinating to know you obviously have space side and you hear about the vast amounts of casks that are stored up in space side with new distilleries up there. But at the same time, you know, you've got to remember that Diageo has two massive bonds in five. You've got the Clooney bond just outside Kirkcaldy between Kirkcaldy and King Lassie, and you also have In Leave in you have their Cameron Bridge and the Massive. Speaker 3 Area huge village that is Diageo. Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. And you see all that there? Speaker 2 You drive, I'd be so. Speaker 1 Fascinating to no, you know what if there was a sort of percentage of whiskey store, if you could work out a percentage of whiskey storage, like where is where is the whiskey being stored and how much of it maybe is in in Fife with all these bonded warehouses. Like I say, you've got Mukti bond and that's that's now part of the. Speaker 3 Scotch whiskey investments. Speaker 1 Scotch whiskey investments. Speaker 3 I don't know if that's still on plan, but they were building a. Speaker 1 Huge 7 bonded more meant on Glenn Rothfest. Speaker 3 There was, there was talk about them building this huge kind of Scotch whisky. I don't know, like a museum, an attraction in Falkland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that's still on the cards, but I haven't heard much since you've got. Speaker 1 So much going on there. And, and then like Angus has said, but the distilleries, now there's a, there's a whiskey festival as well. And you know, surely, surely, you know, plant the flag in the ground egg. We're getting, we're getting ourselves. That's it. We're going for it. Aren't we going? Speaker 2 For the region. Speaker 3 Yes, yes. So Kevin and I have great plans for the future. Speaker 1 For once you cross see when you go over the the the 4th bridge over the Gulf of Fife. Uh huh. Speaker 2 Yeah, golf and get it says welcome to the Kingdom of five. You're you're wanting to see a sign just below it saying Scotland's newest whisky region. Speaker 3 Absolutely a. Speaker 1 Brown sign That's all you need a brown sign on the road I. Speaker 3 Think that's super expensive? Speaker 1 Very expensive, right? So yeah, that's day day 2. The day 3 of the festival So day one, you've had your dinner at Lindo's. Speaker 3 Yeah, the two sessions on Saturday day. Speaker 1 Two sessions there. So what does day three look? Speaker 3 Like so the Sunday, what we always try to do is a smaller event on the Sunday. Well, a couple of smaller events on the Sunday because as we mentioned, like you know, tickets sell out for the Saturday fairly quickly. So it's for those folks who perhaps didn't manage to get tickets on the Saturday, maybe they can pick up a ticket on the Sunday. And also we have people travelling from quite far afield. So when we first started the festival in 2018, you know, a three and a half hour session wasn't really an incentive for somebody to travel particularly far. But if you spread the festival over three days with some like exclusive events, then people will travel. So again, we have people from Japan, we have people from Norway, from Switzerland, from Belgium, they travel from all over to spend the three days in in fight. It is. It's great, yeah. Speaker 1 Well, I, I was, I was going to mention sorry earlier when we were talking. It's just, you've reminded me that we've, we've, we've recently started using a phrase, which I think we're going to have to get rid of on the podcast. Is pink shaming right? Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't, I don't think it's come out of my mind, but basically. Speaker 1 I away from whiskey, I have a fascination, a fixation with them, with stationary. Speaker 3 Right. Speaker 1 Oh, I was. Speaker 3 Like oh geez. Speaker 2 No, no, he does especially see. Speaker 1 And, and The thing is right. And and that's I can remember that. I can't remember the chat. You'll maybe know who I'm talking about here just by description. Speaker 3 OK. Speaker 1 But basically there was a few people and I have to credit Vicki Wicki Elliott, friend of the podcast as well. Yeah, of course. We've been a few whiskey festivals with her and she's. I'm always jealous of the person that writes everything down. Oh, OK, right, right. I know what she does is she'll have a pen and a bit of paper or she'll take the we were at Whiskey Fringe with, with Vicky and she had the the the book. She'd take the book and she was writing in the pen and stuff like that. Yeah, but I remember distinctly this guy and he had this and this is what I love is like he had a leather bound pocket boot, bulging dog eared, worn out, wrapped round like like elastic bands wrapped round there and everything that for for the and and basically this was his, it must be his little whiskey book. And he was going around each stall and he was tracking away, trying stuff and then writing it into this and this thick book that he had. Speaker 3 OK, I. Speaker 1 Can remember it was yellow with a leather front cover. It was it looked fantastic, all these little bits of paper hanging out of it and it was dog eared as anything but that's seen a fair few whiskey festivals. But he he was documenting in his little book OK, the drums that he was having and I think he I can't remember whether he had the direct like I'm trying, you know, categorizing it. I'm trying the new stuff 1st and then I'm going to try the core releases or anything like that. But he just had all this and that for, for me really dictates like you were saying earlier on, Justine is like the the type of people that are coming to the different festivals. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 Because there is, that is somebody who's made a conscious effort and they're not there just to go, there's my glass, fill it up. I'm going to drink that and. Speaker 3 They're there to appreciate the change. Speaker 1 He's there and going right. I'm going to try that and I'm going to write it down and. Speaker 2 Keep a record. Speaker 1 Of what do I don't know what he does with that record. I don't know whether he gets home. Maybe he makes it a day later when he goes right. I'm going to actually look at that and see what I drank or, or whether he he blogs about it or whether he he puts it in a spreadsheet, who knows? Speaker 3 I've no idea. I think I know who you're talking about, Isaac. Speaker 1 Quite a hundred guy maybe in his six days, 56 days, he walked around, they had this, this pocket sized notebook that just was full. And it was fascinating. And I just find that that sort of for me epitomised a lot of the sort of people. And also there was a German. Speaker 2 I was gonna say if he's if he's listening and you know who we are? We almost have a leaf through. Yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah, let me have a let me have a little. Tell me who your stationer. Speaker 2 But people could do that and it's but it's fantastic the distance as folk travel. I mean, we do we we see it in reverse with Chuck Kerr away at the Chichibu Whiskey Festival in Japan. Yeah, These people are the reverse Chuck Kerr. Yeah, they come from Japan over to five, so. Speaker 1 The German lady that came up to us, Yeah, come all the way from Germany. Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I, I remember as well. I mean, maybe not even, you know, you think people up from kind of Lancashire and stuff like that, you know, just. Speaker 1 Incredible. But the train station Angus. Speaker 2 And the train station, Yeah, the train station on the way. So we get the train back to Edinburgh and we were in the second. Well, we're in both sessions, but at the end of the second session, we kind of leisurely, leisurely walk to the train station. And the platform was a central. Speaker 1 Chippy The. Speaker 2 Platform was a party. Speaker 1 Yeah. Speaker 2 It was, it was what happened. The train home, there was drums, Drums go lower. What happened obviously is we, we'd kind of finished when, you know, we're exhibiting and the kind of the, the kind of quarter filled bottles were all being traded around the exhibitors and there was a bit, a lot of kind of bottle swapping going on. So we ended up with a couple of bottles. We weren't the only people that ended up with a couple of bottles. So on the train it was, you know, we, we sat down, had our 2 bottles. There was a table of four, next was the bottles, and there was. Speaker 1 Actually got a nice picture of it maybe? Speaker 2 Yeah, maybe it's a nice picture. Speaker 1 With a chippy and a drum, I. Speaker 2 Think so, yeah. Speaker 3 That's a good question. Speaker 2 But there was a, a tram back to, I mean, the, the, the, the train back to Edinburgh was great fun. Great. Speaker 3 Which which whiskey pairs well with fish and. Speaker 1 Chips. Well, I say exactly. It's a it's a great. Speaker 2 Question good that's a good question. Anyway, if anybody has a good suggestion for a drum that pairs with fish and chips, let us know. Instagram, Facebook group I I want to know what's like what's a fish and chip? Well, I think chips up fish something. Speaker 1 Like the the the Cooper Cooper has out because for me, so Cooper holes are really nice. My so the the boots. Besides, no, that's gone. My mum worked there. Oh. Speaker 3 Right. OK, I was going to. Speaker 2 Say that's why it was our first job before you're going to say that's why you bought your first pack of Johnny. Speaker 1 Johnny Walker, but my mum, she used to work in there as a kid and my family are from Sears just outside. The Westport And latterly my grandparents had a farm. They, they sold the farm and they moved into Cooper. And there's a, there's a great pub called the Westport and in Cooper. And what we used to do was when my grandmother was my grand, well, my grand grand and granddad, they were, they were getting old. They were in their 80s. And my cousin, my brother and I stayed in Edinburgh. So what we would do is everything was like the last Friday the month because we would finish work a wee bit early. We'd jump a train from Edinburgh to Cooper, and at the time you were allowed to, you'd have a few beers on the train all the way through. Yeah. But what we would do is we would, we would take my Gran. We would tell my Gran we were arriving for maybe like 6:30, but we'd be on like the 3:30 train, right? And again at Cooper. And we go to the Westport pub in Cooper, which is right next door to another fish and chip shop we'd get. And then what we would do is that like 20 to 6, I'd phone my Gran that's nearly here. What are you wanting for the from the chippy? Oh, a scampi stuffer. Right. OK, so we'd go, I'd then go into the the chippy, put her order in, go back to the pub, have another quick one, grab the fish and chips. And then we'd walk to our house. All right, have our fish supper. We'd wind her up, my granddad up, have a bit of a laugh. And then we would, she would say now mind to get the train straight back to Edinburgh now. And we'd be right, yes, Gran I, And then we'd be 3 or 4 pubs in Cooper. And then we'd be on the last train from Cooper back-to-back to Edinburgh and we'd have a great time. My granddad then passed away. And so my Gran, there we were. We were always conscious to make sure we'd always do it. And what was really nice is, you know, every month or two months or whatever it was that went 6-7 weeks went past, we'd walk into the Westport and we'd become semi regulars because we'd come in and the woman by the Barrett, these are the boy. You had to see your Gran. No, you didn't see your Gran. I just know us. Yeah, as there's the boys that come from Edinburgh, I see their Gran and they and we and then it wasn't till she got a wee bit older and she wasn't she wasn't keeping great. And just before she started I were chatting away and it was one of the last times we went and she says, you know, she played the game every single time, but she knew fine. Well she went for us at 20 to six. Are you on your way? She and I said yes, Graham, I've just arrived at Cooper. We've been there for about an hour and a half before the pub. But she knew every single time. And she. Speaker 3 Had a fish supper when she. Speaker 1 Yeah, that was it. But I Cooper so I I really enjoyed Yeah, just the fact that like from from a from a point of view for bringing people into Fife and bringing people, it's easy. You could have picked Saint Andrews. Speaker 3 Well, we, we could have, but we dismissed it pretty when we first, when we first looked at how we were gonna organise the festival, we looked at Saint Andrews. I mean, it's not great to get there. So, you know, it's like you get the train to Lucas and then you know what happens after that. But also, there's a lot of money in Saint Andrews already. There's got student population, there's a lot of money with the golf, I mean everything. So we looked around, we looked at Dunfermline and then. Speaker 2 But then you looked elsewhere. Speaker 3 Well, it's, it's a lot to do with the venue, a lot to do with the licensing. And then we saw the Corn Exchange in Cooper and it's just a great building. We, we love the building. And then we looked at the High Street and we thought it, it's the same as every High Street in these small towns across the country. You know, there's, you know, when you think about the rent and the rates that these small businesses have, you know, have to pay. And it's just really, so we thought, let's choose Cooper. It's perfect. It's on the train line. People can come all the way from Aberdeen, they can go up from Bush, you know, Edinburgh, it's perfect. And it'll bring people into the town. And and so the first one, you know, obviously taxi companies made a fortune restaurants. Speaker 1 You've got the Imperial Bar right across the road. Speaker 3 They they were raking in, yeah. Speaker 1 It looks well, they'll be well there. Speaker 3 But then as we've expanded it, we have, you know, sort of spread the visitors, I guess over, over various different places in price. So, so Cooper's still the, the, the hub, you know. But this this year on the Sunday, yeah, sorry, sorry. On the Sunday, we had an event with the guys at Lady of the Glen in Dalgety Bay and then also with the single cask in, in Glenrothes. So they opened the bonded warehouse for warehouse tastings. So we try to do this every Sunday as a Sunday events for for the festival, something that you couldn't do at any other time. And we I guess we've taken inspiration from spirit of space side when they open the doors to distilleries for the festival. Although the bloody pricey this year, I have to say. I don't know if you saw but like. Speaker 2 No, we haven't had a close look. Speaker 3 Some of the, I mean, I don't know, it is, it is what it is. The tickets sell out. So, you know, it's maybe I'm just being a bit of a tight arse like, you know. Speaker 2 I know what you. Speaker 3 Mean, you know people are people are still willing to pay but. Speaker 2 The business are on if they sell for that. Speaker 3 Then exactly, that's what people do. Exactly. But I mean you know it's £103.00 for some of the distillery tours. I don't know what the tastings like afterwards could be phenomenal, but and then some of the Puno Rica, they were like 2 distilleries. So you had Braeval and Glenn Livet I think was one pair that's £186. Well that's pretty. That is a lot of money. Speaker 1 Thank goodness, but let's be saying managed to create our situation where they have people that way but. Speaker 3 People are buying the tickets, so they. Speaker 2 Braeval as well, a distillery you're not gonna get access to for the other 364 days in a year, so. Speaker 3 So so we sort of take we've taken inspiration from that whereby it's quite nice where, you know, you have something A1 off for the festival. So bonded warehouses open the doors and in previous years we've had inch Derny, for example, they opened the the distillery and and so something unique, something a little bit different that you can't do out with the the festival weekend. And so, yeah, great warehouse tastings at Lady of the Glen. Bit windy and the gazebo, but it worked. Speaker 1 You know, like, you know, somebody's sitting in a industrial estate in Glenrothes I. Speaker 3 Know maybe that's where space side, you know, has the trump card. There are beautiful locations. Speaker 1 But you know, but it begs a point like, you know, we're sitting in the athletic arms diggers, you know, a proud home of the whiskey stories podcast with this one of the largest whiskey open whiskey collections in Edinburgh. 850 drams there are in Edinburgh, you can you can picture and they can pinpoint easily 10 whiskey bars, right where you know, pubs, boozers, there's whiskey bars, right, OK, where there are there, you know, there may be dedicated whiskey bars, but then there's also pubs that are established and known for the whiskey's kind of like like here. You've then got knocked guess down and down in leaf and stuff like that as well. But I'm just really trying to think in Fife if there are a sort of. Speaker 2 Well, what I would say, Graham, is the crowning Kinghorn have a really nice whiskey selection and that's, that's a, that's a pub of yes, yeah, again. Speaker 1 Because there's not many even like I keep across it. I keep across it. What, what happens, you know, still have ties and connections in Fife every single day. And you know, you don't see people doing whisky tastings as often in, in, in Fife area in some areas. I mean, I'm pretty sure like, like for example, we mentioned Saint Andrews. Now what people from Fife will say is Saint Andrews has a its own micro economy. Speaker 3 Yeah, it's right. It's like London is to England, like Edinburgh's to. Speaker 1 Scotland, yeah, it's like. Speaker 3 Exactly. Saint Andrews is to Fife. Speaker 1 You know, as a, as a, you know, grow up in Kirkcaldy and stuff like that and you'll say, listen, you'll meet somebody and you'll say, where are you from? Scotland, which part of Scotland? And either say, oh, just very close to Edinburgh or, you know, Fife, which is, you know, where Saint Andrew's is. People forget that Kirkcaldy, the town where linoleum was the highest produced. Oh, absolutely. And the documentary the town, the town that floored the world. But it is when you're talking about putting Fife on the map, if you're talking about becoming an established whiskey region and things like that, yeah, you know, there will be pubs like Highlander, the Highlander in space. Speaker 2 Name Craig Allocate, Yeah. Speaker 1 You know that is that, yeah, that you go to. There will be an equivalent of that and. Speaker 2 So what you're saying really is like, Fife can't really be a whiskey region until it's got a big established whiskey bow. Yeah, but I really. Speaker 1 Say you know. Speaker 2 At the moment that's. Speaker 1 Five the Bowl More hotel in Isla. Speaker 3 Right. Speaker 1 The Highlander in in space site, there will be an equivalent in, you know, and there'll be there's there's all these places up in the hotels that have really famous places that are WW bars and stuff or whiskey hotels and Campbelltown. There will be pubs that you walk in in Campbell. Well, well, I think we've heard about it. Oh yeah. But spring back on spring back 10 on the optics. But do you? Speaker 3 Think those bars have have become established because the whiskey region, the whiskey area has already been established and not and and not the other way round like you were suggesting. So, for example, if Fife were to become its own Scotch whiskey region, and then the more sort of whiskey tourists would arrive, then they would be the market. They would be the, I think the audience. Yeah, a specific. Speaker 2 Well, this is. Speaker 3 I think rather than the other way, it's. Speaker 2 Tail wagging the dog thing, isn't it? But I think also Grahams spotted a wee gap in the market there. Speaker 1 As well. Exactly. You know, if we're seeing, I mean, you know, right. And you look at, I mean if you look at you've got Daft Mill, you've got Lindor's Abbey, you've got Eden Mill not too far along the road there. Then you've also got Kings Barns if you've and and. Speaker 2 Actually, if you go, if you go on TripAdvisor and you look, you put in things to do in five, I think Kings Barn Distillery tour is in the top three. Uh huh. Yeah. So you. Speaker 3 Know I do, I I was just playing devil's advocate because I do think if you've got a really good whisky, but let's take the artisan, right? The Artisan is in the middle of nowhere. Like really not there's no, there's no other reason you would go there and to to go and visit the Artisan and that brings, I mean, that's an amazing whiskey bar. Speaker 1 It's where for people listen who are I'm. Speaker 3 Going to say whishaw? Is that how you say it? Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah, Whishaw is a pleasure, but then it's like in Bareilly Hotel that we've had Simon Smith, you know? You know you. Speaker 2 Win for a whiskey. Speaker 1 Bar no. I mean, it's won awards. And I think this is the thing. It's like you there are awards for these places. Simon Smith curated the whiskey bar at the Ember Area Hotel and then won awards for Whiskey Bar of the Year and things like that. So now people will absolutely go. There's a bar that's if we're visiting Scotland or we're going on a wee trip. I mean, I would do it. You would do it. I would do it. I did that with Highlander Inn. You know, when when I was when we took your current wife up to space eight. Yeah, I made sure like we're going to pop in here and it's twofold. I think when you go to these places, it's got, it's like the diggers. We've said constantly that if it has read upholstery in Edinburgh, you know you're in a, you know you're in a real. Speaker 2 Tradition. You know you're in a safe. Speaker 1 Place. Yeah, right. Speaker 3 I agree it's 6 of 1/2 a dozen of the other. Like it's, it's very difficult for somebody to say, right, I'm going to set up a whiskey bar here when there isn't that sort of kind of whiskey, Scotch whiskey culture, I guess in that area. But then if it's a really good whiskey bar, it will draw people to the area. So it's. Speaker 1 Well, I can sort see both sides told us the stories about like, you know, Tuesday morning at 11:00 when he's coming in to open, he's had a, he's had four or five Asian tourists waiting for him open because they're about to jump on a train. They're on holiday. They're about to jump on a train to go either back down South to visit the rest of the UK or I can't know whether it was to go West and start, start that up. But basically they knew that if someone had told them you need to go to Diggers. And he said that they, I think they, I think it was like 110 LB each on whiskey because they knew the whiskey that he had behind the bar. There were certain whiskeys that they just wanted to try in a pub in Edinburgh. And he said there's 11:00 on a, on a Tuesday morning and they had them there. And so it does drop people and it does, it does clear that. But I mean, with the other side of it though, who was it? We had somebody on the podcast that talked about a trip to over what we're trying to say, Spring Bank area. I am Campbelltown Campbelltown and I can't have had Spring Bank 10 on all. Speaker 2 Tips. Speaker 1 So you're walking in a real old style. Speaker 2 It might have been, yeah, it might have been a different story as well. I can't remember who it was. I do remember the story, but there was also somebody visiting Campbelltown and he was there the night before and he had a, he had a meeting with somebody, Ali. Speaker 1 Was it Ali? Speaker 2 Was it maybe Ali? Actually the meeting was, I think it was Ali Baxter, the meeting the next day, one of the distilleries or an interview and he was there a night before and he went for a Chinese meal and then the next day he went to the interview and the guy said you enjoy your Chinese meal last night then. Speaker 1 Because I mean, like I say, Saint Andrews is at Saint. You can go into Saint Andrews and you can go to plenty of bars in Andrews and there'll be some that have very nice because they're hitting. Speaker 3 I think the keys is at the keys bar in Saint Andrews. Speaker 1 Yeah, may be the case, but they're hitting the target audience like you're going to have tourists coming in from the States, from from abroad that are here. They're playing golf at the, you know, they're playing golf at Saint Andrews. They're big spenders. So they'll have a decent back bar of back, you know, good expensive whiskies and stuff like that. However, you know, a real traditional whiskey bar, whiskey boozer where you can fight in some place like a Cooper or you know, anywhere where, where. And you can say to yourself like, because the catchment area of that, because you you look at your distilleries that are based there, you know, you're not looking, you're looking, you're not looking W Fife. You're looking at the east nook area. Glenrothes further up. I'm trying to think if there's anybody further South Fife that there isn't, is there? Speaker 3 I'm sure there might. Speaker 1 Well, because you've got to say Inch Darnie's Glenrothes. Sure, there's nothing further South or West than Inch Darnie, is there? Speaker 3 Only Cameron Bridge, yeah. Speaker 1 Cameron Bridge, No, but even that's E that's further, that's further north and eastern Glenrothes about Cameron Bridge. So that's up the east nook. So you're going, you've got Cameron Bridge, right? Then you go, then you've got up to the. Speaker 2 What you're really saying is there's a whiskey region within 5? Speaker 1 Well, yeah. And then you're going further then you look and you're saying then you've got. But you're right, Daffy, you're right. Lindor's Abbey. So they're up the sort of Cooper in that. Speaker 3 Area so Lindor's yeah, Newburgh just. Speaker 1 And then you go, then you go further and you've got Eden Mill God. Speaker 3 King's Bar Kingston's on the. Speaker 1 I'm missing anyone out. Speaker 3 So we're there. I'm going to. So I'm going to do the other way round to you. So we've got Kingsbans, Eden Mill, Lindores, Inch, Derny. Speaker 1 Daff Mill. Daff Mill. Speaker 3 Daff Mill just kind of yeah. S Cooper and then and then Cameron. Speaker 1 Bridge, yeah, they're all in one particular area of of Fife in that that area which the right. Speaker 2 Side of Fife. Speaker 1 Well, it's a scenic route. It's a scenic car if I could ever, maybe ever darn it. But but it does show you that, you know, in that sort of area there's sort of right. Speaker 2 Well, I was going to say, I think while we're talking bars and whiskey, because I won't have escaped the YouTube audience. Drums So we've got drums in front of us. Speaker 1 Of course. Well, so. Speaker 2 I think I should ask you what? What have you got there, Graham? You've got three drums in front of you. Speaker 1 I've got 3 drums and all three have a reason behind them. Speaker 2 Oh well. Speaker 1 My what, 3 drums? Speaker 2 What 3 drums in the evening? Speaker 1 I've got a Thompson Brothers 14 year old Altmore and Angus. You and I are very, very excited. I'm giddy. I'm. Speaker 2 Wasn't I'm. Speaker 1 Practical. We we are. When you listen to this, I think it'll be the week of the trip that we are going to do. We're doing our first ever whiskey stories proper trip. We've done a few train trip. We've done a train trip. Speaker 2 We've done a bit. We've been out of the diggers before. Speaker 1 Yes, we've been through the Diggers. Well, we have. We have been asked, we've been invited by the Thompson brothers to head up to Dornoch. Speaker 3 That's a great place, yeah. Speaker 1 Ross yourself and we well we've roped. We needed somebody that could drive a car and hold the camera. Chuck, if you listen to that's you found out what your job is because he just thought he was coming along for a jolly. But we need somebody that can drive and hold the camera. That's it. Speaker 2 Because Ross doesn't have his licence. Speaker 1 It's effectively we're we're calling this Ross not driving. No, no, I think he chooses not to drive. Speaker 2 OK, he chooses to be his. Speaker 1 Current wife drives, which is handy for him, but we are calling this trademark pending, and as long as there's no legal disputes, this will be the Whiskey Story's Grand Tour. Right now, one of the three of us is James May, the other one's Richard Damon and the other one's Clarkson. But I, well, we'll keep our political views to ourselves. We can do that. You can decide for yourselves who do. But but yeah, so I've got that Thompson brothers. Big shout out to the to the Thompson brothers. Thank you for having us. So we're looking forward to a weekend up there. Brace yourself. Donna Lindor's distillery cast exclusive release. A distillery release. I wanted, I wanted the Fife release, which the Fife exclusive. The Fife exclusive. Speaker 3 So I mean that. So that isn't anything to do with the Fife Whiskey Festival per SE, but it was launched on the 1st of March and I think that particular whiskey is exclusive just to the Fife retailers. Speaker 1 So what I want to do is Murray Stephenson shout to Murray, who is the brand ambassador of indoors Abbey. So we're we're we're currently in the process of getting a trying to work out, get a Lindoors Abbey episode out. So watch the space for that. But Murray, it's funny because Murray was like, right, you know, this is a Fife exclusive whiskey. And I was trying to say, oh, come on, get it in the diggers. We've got to be careful because it's it's a Fife exclusive. And I think I've done myself justice. Tonight's episode, I said, well, I'm a FIFA and I always talk on Fife on the podcast. So how about you give me a bottle and we'll put it, we'll put it on the table and have a chat. But Lindos Abbey, a distillery that very close to my heart, I think there's the farm next door is where my grandmother grew up and the farm, one of the farms close by to the if not next door, but close by Lindos Abbey there and. Speaker 3 Lindos eventually just recently released a whiskey for International Woman's Day. So it's the first bottling that has Helen's Helen McKenzie Smith's signature, Oh, brilliant label. It's the first bottling, yeah, very, very. I've got a bottle of that. Haven't opened and tasted it yet, but I'm sure it's phenomenal 'cause we're bringing out some great stuff. Speaker 1 Absolutely, yeah. And a great 'cause it's, well, great sort of incentive as well. And the the the final one I've gone and again, we're going to touch on this, OK, I'm going for a Glenn Farkless 15. However, this is an exclusive bot line for It's a Highland Games Edition. Speaker 3 OK. Is it still 43 percent or? Speaker 1 No, this is cast. Let me double check now. I just said give me AI said to Dom. Speaker 2 Give me a Glenn Barkless. Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I said to Dom, who you'll have recognised from the start of last week's episodes. Speaker 2 I saw you hand him up the ladder, Graham. Speaker 1 But Dom clapped us in last week, if you remember correctly. Yeah, Dom clapped us in, made an absolute mess of it, but he clapped us in last week. So I said to Dom, who is the whiskey guru at the the Athletic Arms. I said Glenn Farkless, but something different, something not 'cause they do have quite a nice Glenn Farkless like. And sometimes we have sometimes we straight away too much from the core, but not the big brands. But why you've got those I? Speaker 2 Think I think I have had a Glenn Farkless at some point in the podcast. Speaker 1 But this is 51.5% fifteen now it says bottled exclusively for Hannan and Carhoo on the front of that. But and it's got a beer and a kilt throwing, not the caber. What's the ball? Speaker 2 Throwing a hammer, throwing a hammer, Throwing at the Highland Games. Speaker 1 It's a Highland Games. Speaker 3 OK. Speaker 1 Some 1 bottle of 348. Speaker 3 Nice, so a single cast. Speaker 1 15 year old single cast exclusive for a Highland games. I don't know what Highland games, but shout out to Hannan and yeah, thanks for coming along. There is a reason for going farthest, which I'm sure we'll come to very shortly I guess. What? Speaker 2 Have you? You've drowned. Well, I've finished one already. I picked 3 drowns. Speaker 1 First day I guess. Speaker 2 Three draft first day, I guess indeed pick three drums for no special reason whatsoever. So I can't I can't reel off any reason. So in a, you know, huge open bottle, you know, you could go into diggers every day and not have the same DRAM twice. I've come in here and had one of the drams I had last week. But I was thinking about it. I was thinking today sometimes in the afternoon at work, you know, when it, you know, your mind wanders sometimes. And I think, what am I going to have when I get to the diggers? Speaker 1 I'm glad that's what you said was your mind was. Speaker 2 Wondering and I just couldn't stop thinking about the IT was the Bonington and it was the It's not Madeira. It's a lot of fortified wine, Muscat, Muscat. And I just yeah, I had it again and it was fantastic. I've got A and again, this is just because they're near behind the bar here. I've got a Bladnik, an 8 year old double matured and bourbon and red wine casks. Nice. It's delicious and I've not tried. It's a new one from Ardene Ho Cherry, ah. Speaker 3 The latest one? Speaker 2 The latest from Ardene Ho. It's the Cherry. Speaker 3 They're doing good stuff at Ardene. Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I've, I've got an Ardene Ho cap at home, so from when they were on the phone with so I feel, yeah. Speaker 1 Well, I have to. I have to also say I'm trying to desperately find it, but today this is there were a lot. Oh yeah, of course it was Cheltenham races today. And so you, you, there was like there was a you've been. Speaker 2 Indoctrinated by the sponsorship. Speaker 3 You, Glenn Farkle sponsor Cheltenham. Speaker 1 And another one. Speaker 2 Race there is there is a particular I. Speaker 1 Think I've got a win on a bit today, so I'll enjoy it going far less. Yeah. Courtesy of Betfair. Please, please bet responsibly. Absolutely. One nil to Graham. Yeah. And and. Speaker 2 Justine, you just have a lemonade because you're driving down the borders. Speaker 3 Yeah. So, yeah, I've been, I mean, I came through to Edinburgh this morning, so delivered some of the books to Hollywood Distillery and delivered books to Port of Leith Distillery. And then I was spent the afternoon hanging about in graveyards. You can ask about that. Yeah, did like and and then and then heard you here. But I do have to drive back. Yeah. Speaker 2 And we'll get onto the books and just the same, but going to the borders, Borderlands, Borderlands. Borderlands Whiskey Festival Borderlands. Speaker 2 Whiskey Festival, Yeah Yeah is your other whiskey festival that you organise. Speaker 1 It is, yeah. Speaker 2 Later in the. Have you got a date for that? Yeah. Speaker 3 Not yet, no. So Karen and I, we always have this huge mega planning day and it's usually will in the past it's been about June, but because we now have Borderlands Whiskey Festival, we've brought it forward. So that'll be the beginning of April and that's when we'll set the date for the next Borderlands Festival and also work on the plans that we have for the 5W festival. And, and we've got quite a lot of plans for that. So we, we just need to sit down and work on a date. But we did decide we wouldn't do it until the Fife Whiskey Festival was over. And we've had a week to recover. And then we can like, you know, because that's, that's, I think sometimes people forget the way sometimes folk talk to us. I think they think there's a, there's a huge team behind the Fife Whiskey Festival. It's just the two of us. It's just the two of us. And I, I say just the two of us, but we have amazing volunteers. We have obviously Louvians, the on site retailer, we have the amazing exhibitors and Lindos do a lot of help, a lot of support with the, with the planning of the opening dinner. But it's just, it's just the two of us that kind of coordinate everything. And, and we are absolutely knackered. We just like in a heap, you know, on the Sunday evening. So we said let's just, let's just give ourselves a week, 10 days, whatever, just to, you know, get back on track And then, and we've already started sort of discussing plans for the future. So so when we get together we'll have a date for the Borderlands, but it will be in the autumn definitely. Speaker 2 In the autumn I'm would. Speaker 1 It be right in saying then you know Fife Whiskey Festival must be one of the first of the year. Speaker 3 It is usually, I think there's one of the the the national whiskey festivals maybe January or something, but apart from that. Speaker 1 It really does like it is it's funny as like kicking off the season. I should just say for anyone listen, it was the 1520 at Cheltenham and Cheers to Stop Down, which is part of the Glen Farmers Cross Country Chase. There you go. There you go. Speaker 3 Who was the jockey? Who was the trainer? I do like the horse racing. Speaker 1 Oh, no idea jockey trainer, but cheers. Speaker 2 Really testing. Speaker 1 I should, from a racing point of view, listen to listen to Russell. Well, we're talking about Fife being a great. Speaker 3 Agent, listen to Russell. Russell apart. Speaker 2 Apart from the horse and the 4:20 that came in about 7. Speaker 1 But I forgot one on Saturday, didn't get whatever. So there we are the the the Horse Racing Stories podcast. You have to pay for that one, but. Speaker 3 Graham's top tips. Speaker 1 Doesn't fall far from the tree there. But anyway, let's let's we are talking about talking about chancers moves us on this because you have mentioned, you know, dropping your books in Now, the last time we had you on the podcast, we talked about African grey parrots. Opening the Case: The Story of the Patterson’s Whiskey Yeah, we talked, we talked about the history of Leaf. We talked about your your walking tours being trains, being commandeered. Yeah, yeah. Loads of great stories and a story that I have to honestly admit to you, Justine, this was one of the incentives that I had when it came to the concept of whiskey stories. And it's the story of the Patterson brothers, right? Yeah. Because I thought whiskey is littered with some fantastic, great stories. And we talked a lot about it because you were at the point of writing your book when you came in the last time. But I have in my hands right now the book finally, hard hardback book as well, Opening the case. Yes. The Story of the Affairs of the Patterson's Whiskey by Justine Hazarst. You have a book? Fantastic. Well done. Wow. Speaker 2 Self published. Speaker 3 It is self published. Speaker 2 Crowdfunded as well, so. Speaker 3 So I'm not sure, like, I mean, this is new territory for me, so I don't know. I didn't know anything about publishing before I started doing this. But I think it's a very niche topic and but it's one that's quite dear to a lot of whisky enthusiasts hearts. They've they've heard about the Pattersons, they've heard about the story. They perhaps want to know a little bit more about it. But it's still a very niche, yeah. Speaker 1 Also the good thing about the liabis laws is just wait till they're dead, whatever you like about them and they can't say wait till they've been dead 100 years and even better. Speaker 3 To be honest, there's a lot that I wanted to include in there but didn't dare because there are still people and companies that and and I. The Pattersons Wouldn't have been able to. Speaker 3 Afford the legal fees. So I kind of left that out. But yeah. But self-publishing was obviously the, the route that I chose to go down And, and nothing, nothing more than money. I mean, traditional publishing, for every book you sell, you probably earn about 10% Commission, you know, So it's a lot of work for, you know, a couple of quid each book. So when you've only got a very, you know, you're only going to sell a limited number. It's a very niche topic. Then for me, self-publishing is is is the path to go down Brian? Speaker 1 Well, yeah, for for people who maybe missed the previous episode that you were on. Uh huh. I'm just trying to find when it was actually but it. Speaker 3 Was a wee while ago, now I'm trying to think. Speaker 2 Yeah, there I think maybe in September or something. Yeah. Speaker 1 11th September, Yeah. Can you remember, can you just quickly before we, before we move off to this, I want you, can you remember your what, 3 drams from back then there? Speaker 3 Was definitely a Glen Ord. Speaker 1 Glen Ord, 12 Yeah. Speaker 3 There was a hanky banister. Speaker 1 Hanky Banister. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 3 Oh, now what was the other one? Oh no, I can't remember the other. Speaker 1 One so Delphia Longmore, 1990. Speaker 3 2:00 but when I hid in the cupboard. Speaker 1 But we, we talked a lot about, I mean, it's something they've they they've appeared a few times on the podcast. The Patterson Brothers Uh huh. Beforehand the the, the sort of legend of the Patterson brothers. Yeah. So for people who maybe haven't listened to that episode, and I suggested do because we talked about was it a Puma in a pub in. Speaker 2 Oh yeah, I mean, that was. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, they were in the cage. Speaker 1 No, but that episode was was African grey Paris and a human a puppet. It's fantastic. Speaker 3 The alliteration there was great, wasn't it? Speaker 2 Back in the second the 60s and 70s. Speaker 1 Yeah, talk us through the Patterson brothers, give us a brief insight into who they are. Speaker 3 Brief. That's the word, right? OK, So the Patterson brothers ran a company, Patterson's Limited. It was originally called Patterson Elder and Co. It was their father's company. They took it over, floated it as a limited company and it became Pattersons Limited. And it was one of the biggest companies, Scotch whiskey companies, not just in Leith, but across the entire country. It was it was huge. It was a huge empire. And then in 1898 it went bust. Essentially what happened was one of the banks called in, called in a debt, and the Pattersons didn't have enough money to pay that debt. And sorry, let me explain that again. Somebody called in a debt, the Pattersons didn't have enough money to pay that debt. The banks wouldn't advance any more money to the Pattersons. So the company then they had to stop-payment. And because it was such a huge enterprise, once the Pattersons have gone bust, the domino effect throughout the whole of the trade is that a lot of smaller companies also failed, but then bigger companies were starting to fail. And then what came to light afterwards was maybe the shady dealings that were going on, not just with the Pattersons, but it was it was across the entire industry. They certainly were criminals. I'm not going to suggest they weren't. And a lot of people talk about how they were scapegoats and, and to a certain extent, extent they were because the Pattersons only got away with what they got away with because somebody somewhere was facilitating this. Right. OK. So there are people who were equally as guilty. Yeah. But. Speaker 1 They were the ones that took. They were the fall guys. Speaker 3 In a sense, in yeah, they were. Speaker 1 Only doing what other people were maybe doing. Speaker 3 So the, the reason the company went bust, I'll say I don't want to give too much away. We explained, I, we were talking about this earlier, 'cause still want people to buy a book and find out. But you know, one of the reasons why they went bust, which because for the most part, the company was operating on credit, but the pretty much the entire industry was operating on credit and there was this huge tangled web of financial transactions between all of the companies. Some people were selling casks, you know, person A was selling casks to person B, but person B was also selling casks to person A Person A will be selling casks to B, but they didn't actually belong to them. They belong to person CC was selling casks to B, but those casks actually didn't even exist. I mean, it was just like this huge. And at the start of the book, I call it huge tangled ball of wool. And it took forever to unpick all of the threads and then lay them. The the the the thread out is one big long piece. And then bend it into a kind of narrative arc. Speaker 1 And you must be one of the only people that have that have done that then. Speaker 3 Well, I think lots of people have. I mean, one of the things that one of the things that I've I discovered was when the story was originally told perhaps in the press and also to a certain extent by other parties. So I'm going to say William Ross from Distillers Company Limited. You know, to kind of to kind of shift any kind of sort of blame, wrongdoing, involvement away from themselves. You know, they put they put across a certain narrative regarding the Pattersons and this was never questioned at the time. And then it was repeated and repeated and repeated to the point now where you can pick up any reference book on whiskey. And if they refer to the Pattersons, it's the same story. Yes, that is is is constant. Nobody actually questions whether the original 1 was true. Speaker 2 Yeah. So I mean, is this, is this, is this an attempt to kind of retell the story and go back to the original sources? Speaker 3 So one of the, one of the things that I obviously loved about researching this was that the Pattersons weren't just a company, they were a family. And we, we often talk about Robert and Walter. Those are the two brothers, but they had, you know, a whole bunch of other siblings. And all of those siblings have their own stories to tell and fascinating stories. Some of them were involved with the company. Some of the sisters were involved to the point, you know, they kind of bailed out the brothers. You know, it's it's kind of it's a fascinating mix. I. Speaker 2 Mean you might not know about the kind of descendants around today of the Patterson brothers. Speaker 3 So Walter Patterson's great grandson is I was actually there just on Thursday returning some of the items. So during COVID, I didn't really have very much to do. No tours, no tastings could take place. And so researched the entire Patterson family tree and met with David, Walter Patterson's great grandson. And he has all the old photo albums. He has like Walter's old wallet. He has a whole bunch of stuff. And it's through those photographs and documents that really brought Walter Patterson's family to life and the whole whole story to life. And that's why when I wrote this and I decided it was the Patterson story and it should be told just as a story. There are so many amazing, brilliant whiskey reference books on the shelves, but I didn't want to write one of those. So this is a genuine again, I wrote, I read a book about how to write a book. The last, the last time I wrote a story, I was probably in primary school. So I thought, geez, how do I do this? So I wrote, I read an amazing book called Story Craft by by Jack Hart and that gave me the the inspiration to form the narrative arc and put all the plot points on. So this reads as a story. Speaker 1 So it's so you so so this isn't like a a whiskey book where or a historic history book where if I, if I was to read it, it would say here's a date and this is what happened. It reads as a story. So you're taking the reader on a story? Speaker 3 And each section is written from the point of view as of of one of the characters. I'm going to call them characters. But everything in the book is non fiction. I think maybe some people have read it and perhaps thought, oh, she's been a bit creative with this bit of artistic licence. But absolutely everything in the book I can substantiate with trial papers, distillery plans, family documents, bankruptcy papers. Speaker 2 Because I'm, I'm thinking of when you're researching the book, it goes back to a degree in history, believe it or not. And yeah, I know. And some of some, some of some of some of the ancient history now, I guess some of my time was spent kind of in a library looking at microfiche and old newspapers. Is that was that? Was there a bit of that as well? I. Speaker 1 Take it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 3 I mean, most of most of the, I mean, documents are everywhere. So as I say, David had lots of the old photographs and on the back of the photographs they were a little scribbling. So that gave me an insight into who, who was sending photos to the Pattersons. I mean, there was a there's one photograph and on the back it said it was, it was from Ada to Eliza. And then it said Kenneth, six weeks and there's a picture of a baby. So made me think, who, who are these people? Well, Ada was Ada Mae Bristow and she married William Mark Sanderson of VAT 69 fame, huge leaf whiskey family. They had a son, Kenneth Sanderson, and he eventually took over the running of the company. William Sanderson and and, and, and this photo was, and I found out when Kenneth Sanderson was born. So this photo was sent after the Patterson Company had gone bust. So these families not only worked together, they, you know, professionally in Leeds dealing with whiskey, but they were also friends. Speaker 1 Friends. Family. Yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah. And they remained friends after after the crash. Whether they remained friends after the trial, I don't know. I mean. Speaker 1 I've got, I've got 2, two or three questions for you on on this front end. The last time you were in, you were talking about the challenges with the book, because there is so much. Speaker 3 Yeah. Speaker 1 Hearsay around what was said about the Patterson brothers, right? There's loads of these great infamous stories that people can talk about. And I think Angus might have alluded to one about trains and stuff like that. Yeah. And the difficulty you had was finding it may have been hearsay at the time and it might have even made it to print, but finding the source to find out whether that was true or not. So that when you're writing this book you didn't get tangled up and the rumour mill. So the, the story we heard and I, I had read was the fact that as a part of a sort of party piece, I think they lived, they were nice and they, they had a nice big town of people's. They had a nice big outhouse, and Peebles are not. Speaker 3 So yeah, Robert lived in Peebles, at Kings Meadows, and then Walter had a big place at Clovenford's. Yeah. So when you look at the again, it's all part of the research. When you look at the Victorian train maps, it's like, geez, how Why haven't we got that now? I mean takes me about 3 days on public transport to get from January the. Speaker 1 Borders. Well, basically. Speaker 3 But like, you know, back in the day you could Peebles and Plumfords, you could jump on the train and be in Edinburgh in less than an hour. Speaker 1 The story was one of the brothers, I don't know which one, and it used to be a sort of they'd be it was it was a party piece where they would be out until they would deliberately miss the last train out of Edinburgh and then charter their own train. Speaker 3 Yeah, so take. Speaker 1 Out the money that they were making at the time and they're they're sort of yeah, this from from the stories I've read this sort of they were trying to portray this we the how big they were in the in that sort of Victorian age. Speaker 3 So that particular story I've read about a lot, but essentially, you know, one was living, Robert was in Peebles, Walter was in Cloven Fords. And what they would do is deliberately miss the train into Edinburgh and then call the journalists so that then when they charted their own private train, the journalists were there. And that's the story I've read quite a lot now. I've scoured the newspaper archives, absolutely gone through, and have not found one single article or mention about this, so I'd like to think that if they did call the journalists that there would have been at least one story somewhere. Speaker 1 So that's where I find it. I mean, you're talking about if you go back 18. Speaker 3 Yeah. Speaker 1 So. Speaker 3 You're like, but I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying that I couldn't find anything in the newspapers to back that up. So because I couldn't find anything to back it up, I didn't put it in the book. So only I think it would be quite confusing for the reader if they didn't know which bits were true and which bits weren't. So everything, everything I've got can be backed up so. Speaker 1 Tell me please, did Africa and Grey Parrots make a reference in the book? Speaker 3 They did, but only because I could find 2 newspaper articles to back it up. But I think, I think I mentioned this on the last podcast, last year's Fife Whiskey Festival. Our guest of honour was for the dinner. Our guest of honour was Doctor Nicholas Morgan. And sitting next to him and I'd literally just written the chapter where I included everything about these these parrots. And the following day or maybe a couple of days later, he had written a, a published an article on the Whiskey Exchange blog basically saying there's absolutely no way that these guys kind of. Speaker 1 Resisting 'cause as soon as I thought, is that why? I mean as 500 African grey parrots, Yeah, were supposedly. Speaker 2 Told taught taught to say bipartisans whiskey. Speaker 3 Is it so basically and and there is a newspaper article to back this up. So I did am an hour about this and I did think it's probably the one of the most famous stories about the Pattersons. I mean, when people talk about it, they always reference that particular element of the Pattersons buying. It was 50 grey parrots and some some people have reported it as 500, but yeah, 50 grey parrots. And what happened was, you know, the boat came into Leith and they got wind that these these parrots were on board. So they sent somebody down there to, I say to the to, to the boat owner, if you can teach them how to say, buy Pattersons whiskey, we'll buy them all off you. And apparently a few days later, you know, the guy went back and sure enough, he was greeted with buy Pattersons whiskey. And so he bought all the parrots, put them in guilt cages and sent them down to Liverpool because that's where the Pattersons were looking to break. Speaker 2 Into Oh yeah, and that because I'm gonna be saying this is my theory that this was in the 1890s and uh huh. Obviously African grey parrots can live until, you know, until kinda 60 year old. Yeah, very possible that one of The Beatles walked into a shop and he said but my Pattersons were skate. Speaker 1 So I, I won't, I won't repeat it, but I think it prompted me to tell a terrible joke. I was a bit started to hear you rescued from a brothel at Liverpool, by the way. You have it now. Now the next thing. So I've got two or three questions right now. Speaker 3 OK, the next thing is. So I'll just quickly say there is a disclaimer in the book about the parrots because I could not bring myself to write a book about the Pattersons. Speaker 1 And not. Speaker 3 In crucial there is a. Speaker 2 Big disclaimer in the back around them, yeah. Speaker 1 So I'm trying to work out which which which question to leave with here. I'll go with this right. So actually this is dated back to 23rd of July 2023. This is my Whiskey Stories book and this is before we started the podcast. I was writing down little stories. And what I like to do is I'm a bit of a romanticist as well and I like to piece things together. And Angus will back this up is sometimes, you know, don't let the truth get in the way. A good story by Ally. Some people would say I've been guilty of embellishing stories every now and then. I'd say that's a load of nonsense. But anyway, but I I I wrote a small theory down about the Patterson. Speaker 3 Brothers, OK, let's go for. Speaker 1 It and the theory I have was that and you'll maybe be able to tell the value and the cost and what have you and if. Speaker 2 There's a load of nonsense just. Speaker 1 From my own like limited research that I'd done on this particular day when I was bored, DCL Distillers Company Limited bought the stock of the Patterson brothers, or a large percentage of the stock of the Patterson brothers. Speaker 3 OK, was. Speaker 1 When you know, it was that the bonded warehouse down in Leith, I think DCL, from my understanding they bought a lot of stock off that at a particular price which was way below the market value because the crash had happened. Speaker 3 OK. So I think, yeah. So I think I know what you mean. So just off Bonnington Rd. after that, so where the biscuit factory is, there's two huge buildings. They're very tall. They're kind of like a red sort of sandstone colour buildings. So those were two bonded warehouses Patterson's constructed. And it was DCL that picked those up for an absolute song at auction after. But there was no stock in there. OK. The stock, all of the stocks that the Patterson's owned was put up for auction, various different auctions, whether it's the wiser spirits, the whiskeys, etcetera. That was a big, big scary moment for the industry because you see, Leith had been built on what we call the three BS. Yeah. So sort of blending, bottling, brokering and brokering at this point actually just ground to a halt because the pads and stocks were so immense that nobody was going to be buying anything. They were waiting to see what appeared on the market and there was this huge fear. Speaker 2 So you almost have, you almost have this flood. Yeah, you almost have this kind of deflationary thing. So instead of people going and you know, people are saying well let's not buy a cast today 'cause it might be cheaper tomorrow. Speaker 1 So just to just to clarify then. Speaker 3 So DC. Speaker 1 Didn't buy the whiskey? Speaker 3 Well, not, not directly from the past, since they may well have 'cause we don't know who the buyers were at auction. So they may have bought a lot of the stocks at auction, but they the, the, the story of them buying, you know, Patterson's premises, you know, I'd say I think it was about 30,000 lbs at the time that. Speaker 1 That's the number that rings. I'm not gonna run down here, but. Speaker 3 It cost the Patterson something like 80 grand to build it and they never actually moved in and. Speaker 1 When you talk about, when you look at what that would be, you're talking about what the 1899 sort of time or 18/19/99 sort of period maybe you're talking about 30 grand versus 80 odd grand back then the equivalent of that would be what that. Speaker 3 That I do a weak calculation in the front just to make it easy for the reader. Because one of the things I did was I ditched shillings and pence. Yeah, because there's no way you can read a story and like it just it just breaks up the flow. So I just ditched and rounded it up, but also did a very easy calculation. I think at the start I think it's 10 lbs = 1000 lbs. Speaker 1 £10 per. So there you go, someone who's got a lot quicker mass. Let me just what, 30 grand? Speaker 2 Well, I I, I, I I I can. Speaker 3 Yeah. So 10 lbs in 1898 would be equivalent to just over 1000 lbs today. So. Speaker 2 That's a very add on two add on 2. Speaker 1 Zeros basically. So if you're saying that Stanworth around about 80, was it, did you say 80 grand? Speaker 3 That's, well, that's what they paid for it. I'm not saying that's what no. Speaker 1 So they paid 80 grands. Speaker 2 8,000,008. Speaker 1 Million and it's all that DCL for 30 or 3 million, right. So, but my, my logic there was at the time with DCL being founded and you're saying, you know, at one point, I think this is from the, I can't remember where I got this from, but it said estimated DCL controlled over 80% of the domestic market and almost 75% of the world market at that at that period of time. And you're saying like DCL for people of Distillers Company Limited went on to then become what we know today is Diageo eventually. So you just wonder, you know, the Patterson crash. Speaker 2 Phoenix from the flames if if. Speaker 1 DCL hadn't taken you know hadn't moved in and grabbed what they got. They had at the steel that they possibly had yesterday might have maybe you know as I said from a man this point of view, could you could you put a straight line or a straight a possible line as possible from the Azure as we know it today to DCL making somebody at DCL making the decision in 1899. Speaker 3 Oh, I think so. I mean, William, William H for us, he was the eventual sort of chairman of DCL and he definitely put the slowest company on a, on a path of sort of acquisition of, of various different distilleries and companies and, and, and building and, and, and just, and that that was his definite sort of goal. But then, you know, you had the Paterson crash at the end of the 1890s, two world wars, prohibition in the states. All of those things were too much for a lot of the smaller companies to kind of navigate and Distillers Company Limited being this, you know, huge mighty company could could, you know, take over and whether those storms are a lot easier than the others. So I do often joke and, you know, refer to DCL and Diarggio as the, you know, the evil empire. But on a on a kind of serious side, if they weren't there, I think personally it's unlikely that we'd have the Scotch whisky industry. Yeah, we have today. Without them, the landscape would have been in so, so much different. Speaker 1 So it's maybe impossible, it's maybe a stretch to try and say that one decision, but at the same time it probably was part of a, you know, because. Speaker 3 Part of a bigger, yeah, bigger. Speaker 1 Because I mean about my. Speaker 3 Decision making process. Speaker 1 Look at that point as you know when things are going bad, it always works out quite well for somebody else. And you know, whilst, whilst everyone at the time in the industry was probably looking going, Oh my God, 'cause I'm not going to be right and saying this is one of the first major whiskey crashes within the, within the industry. Speaker 3 Yeah, I'd say yeah. Speaker 1 Definitely again whilst things are going downwards for somebody, you know somebody else is going well wait a minute, that was they bought that for to report 8 million today's money and we're getting a chance to. Speaker 2 Purchase that well, my my. Speaker 1 Understanding of it was at that point as well, but without knowing what you know and with the facts that you have is the fact that I my understanding was they bought the stock as well as the building. But if it's just the building, maybe it's a bit of a stretch to try and. Speaker 3 Say, yeah, so the liquidators basically, you know, their, their aim, that's what they're they're forced to get as much money out as of everybody as, as you know, as they could. So the stocks were sold at auction. The everything was put on auction, to be honest. And some of the some of the properties were put on auction maybe about three times before they eventually sold the business. Pattersons wasn't profitable, right? I'm not giving away too many spoilers here, but the liquidators arrived at the conclusion that this business should never have existed. There was only one profitable element of of the Pattersons whole enterprise and that was Doddingston Brewery. That was a auction for it was about 3 times I think until it was finally bought by Robert Duca. So he got that for a song as well, you know? Speaker 1 So there's a there's probably a lot to be thank you. There's a lot of people that are thankful for what they didn't. The last question I have on this before I get Angus or read an extract from the book as it does when we do get somebody who's published the book out. Angus’s opinion of the Pattersons When you're when you hear about people that write books and write stories and sometimes it's a fiction, non fiction, but sometimes if it's a fictional character, they kind of they get into the characters, they create these personalities. Sure. Now you are doing that from a non fiction point of view where you're knowing what these guys are like trying to build this profile you've mentioned about the history and speaking to the family. What what's your opinion of them? Were you like these scallywags? Speaker 3 Scoundrel. Speaker 1 Chancer boys, that we can, we can look back with the benefit of hindsight and say, oh you know what he is like or are you? Or did it change whilst you were writing the book? At some point we were like, these assholes nearly killed the industry. Speaker 3 No, I, I so, yeah. So I mean the the two brothers. So Robert was definitely the most sort of flamboyant, outgoing character. Walter not so. I think he just followed his brother and if he didn't, he played a good role during the trial to, to, to give that impression. But Robert, I think somebody asked me this at the book launch and the only way I could explain it is, I mean, as I've just said, the business wasn't profitable at all. So imagine you're telling everybody the business is profitable and you're living this flamboyant lifestyle and you've got, you know, you've got these huge mansions and you've got these, you know, horses and stables and you're jetting. You're, well, not jetting off, but sailing off to the States for, you know, first class accommodation on the ships. I mean, you're just spending money. It's a bit like when somebody tells a lie and then they don't want to admit to telling the lie. So all they do is tell another lie and another lie and another lie and just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And I think that's essentially what Robert was doing. He he was absolutely devoted to his mother, absolutely devoted to his family. But he wasn't married. He didn't have children, and Walter did. And he was absolutely devoted to his wife and daughter. He was absolutely. Yeah. And and so I think that's why he didn't play quite such a big role in the business as Robert, because he had other things going on, but Robert didn't. This was his life. This was what he had to portray. And he just didn't. I just got the impression he just didn't want to admit defeat and so he just told moral lies and moral lies to try and cover the previous ones and it just got to the point. Where do you? Speaker 1 Celebrate them or do you look at them and go they were bad men? Speaker 3 They were certainly criminals. Yeah. I think they were good people who did bad things. A bit cliched, but I think that's what they were. I think as well, the other members of the family are just as intriguing. There's some great stories in there about especially their sister Laura. I thought, I wish I could find out a lot more about her, but she's she's quite a character in the book. And I think she was probably my favorite character. And I so so they were real people, though. And I think sometimes the name Patterson is bandied around because it's talking just about two brothers in the whiskey industry. But they were a real family and they experienced awful tragedy with children dying. They experienced, you know, they, they, you know, they have huge parties for, you know, the kind of social circle they're but they were, they were just, they were a real family doing real family things. And they're very close knit as well. So, yeah, I, I, I liked them all. That's why I was actually very reluctant to write the books. I didn't want to share them with anyone. Here's here's. Speaker 1 Here's a big question, right this, because I, I just picture it now, you know, if they're writers and the directors of the Peaky Blinders were suddenly say we listen to the Whiskey Stories podcast and then we purchase one of your books and we want to create. You know, the Peaky Blinders were these brothers that were horrible, horrible guys based on a gang down in Birmingham, right? About the similar sort of period, maybe a little. Speaker 3 Bit I've never seen it, but my mum loves it. Yeah, but. Speaker 1 You know, and it's funny because you sort, you sit there watching that. Speaker 2 Basically what Graham's asking is, is there a six part DV series in there? Speaker 3 Ever is it's it's amazing because you're that's probably the 4th time somebody said that to me. Speaker 1 So, I mean, I pictured a story because it's such a fantastic, fascinating story based on, you know, based on true history. And like you say, the Peaky Blinders was based on a real gang, Peaky Blinders. But what's fascinating is when you what, I guess what I'm asking you is when you watch that series, you look at them and you go, yeah, you love them, right? But then what you notice is that horrible, horrible men, that there's horrible, horrible things to people. And it's like the craze. Everyone looks back at the Cray Twins and they get celebrated now. But yet there'll be so many people who go I. Speaker 3 Mean you. Speaker 1 My my grandfather was kneecap by Reggie Cray. Why should this guy be celebrated? Or you know, my, my, you know, somebody's great grandfather would have gone missing at some point. And it was they would have been related to the Cray twins. But these brothers. And it's funny when you look at the whiskey in this and it's like you look back and there's certain brands who you look at the Glenn Livett one, What's the guy with the guns Smith is it? Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 And and you say, oh, that's great because we could celebrate these guns that were, these pistols that were getting used. Well, you've got to remember it's like a period of history. That guy had vested guns for his own safety. So we're celebrating it now hundreds of years later. But at the same time, yeah, you know, if he had to use them to kill somebody, he would've. And he's say, is it should it be celebrated or should it not? Should we celebrate the Patterson brothers or should we look at them and go, you are very bad boys? Or should we go they were a bad blight on the on the whiskey industry. Speaker 3 I think no, I think we should. I don't think we should celebrate what they did in as much. I mean, they were criminals. At the end of the day, you can't celebrate no crime, not. Speaker 1 We it was as soon as podcast. Do not celebrate crime. Please commit crime responsibly and crime does not pay. Speaker 3 But you know, there are other members of the family who weren't dishonest and I think they should be celebrated for the way that they kept the family, you know, kept the family together and, and, and kept going. And also, I think the, I think the biggest thing that should be taken from this and, and it hasn't, hasn't been the case is that, you know, there were lots of lessons in what happened during that, that particular period that should have been learnt. And haven't you know when we look further along at 1970s very similar case of overproduction and and the market not being able to absorb it and then we look at the landscape today. Yeah. And especially when we look at say like cask investment companies and the shady goings on there. Speaker 2 And again, not too dissimilar when you're talking about people selling Cascade to person B to person C Zoo actually has a cask. I mean, so this, you know, it couldn't, you know, the Patterson brothers, A lesson from history. Speaker 3 Well, I don't know if this is in the book. I can't remember if I decided to put this in on A10. I did read my own book, yeah, but it's been a while, so. Speaker 2 Put put it typed up in the first draft, maybe later. Speaker 3 There was a lot of stuff. I mean, the book was twice as thick as this. I mean, there's about 120,000 words in its first form. And I had to, yeah. So I've I've taken about sort of sort of 50,000 words out. Speaker 2 No filler in here anyway, no? Speaker 3 And so a magazine that was published, it was called Distillers, Brewers and Spirits Merchants magazine, I think it was called, and or spiritual trade magazine. And one of the articles that they published shortly after the trial actually was that the problem with the industry at the time was that if the the distillery was selling a cask to the blender, great, they sold it for that price and that's what they paid. And therefore you knew the value of that cask. If the distillery was selling it to a broker, let's say 5000 lbs, who then sold it to another broker, 6000 lbs who then sold it to another broker, 7008 thousand. When the final, when the person, the customer bought it off that final broker for 10 grand, then they realised it's actually only worth five. Yeah, but I've paid 10 for it and. Speaker 2 Everybody's added on their their markup. Speaker 3 Yeah. And and how different is that from today? Speaker 1 We had. Speaker 3 Conversation. Speaker 1 Exactly before Angus does. Was it Hugh Mack of any? But he reads an extract from it. I was people can buy this book. How can they get hold of it? Where? Where can they find it? Speaker 3 So this morning I dropped some off at Holy Rood Distillery so you can buy your copy there. Now Holy Rood has supported me ever since I became self-employed. So if you know give them your money that'd be great. Also Port of Leith, I dropped some copies off there so they should be in the shop at Port of Leith. This story Lindor's have got copies. Speaker 2 Can you buy online? Speaker 3 Yes, yes. I'm just gonna say if you remember the Scotch Malt Whiskey Society, you can pick up a copy at the Vaults and also a bothy experience up at Glenprozen. So they've all got copies. If you're nowhere near there any of those places, you can buy it online, but there'll be a small delivery free. So just go on to caskwhiskey.com and it's on the website. Speaker 2 Cask with AK. Speaker 3 Cask with two KS? Yeah, is that? Speaker 1 Right. Two KS, yes. And and finally as well, just for people who maybe listen to the drams I'm drinking. Why am I drinking Glenfarclis? What's the relevance here? Speaker 3 So the person's had a 50% share in Glenfarclis. They they were Glenfarclis's biggest customers for many, many years. And then it made perfect sense for them to to offer, you know, to buy 50% of the of, of the distillery. So that the grand brothers, I suppose they were, they were more used to concentrating on the farming aspect of, of the business. And, and therefore it made perfect sense for these successful brothers down in Leith to take on 50% of the company. And, yeah, huge connections between the Parsons and Glen Farkas. Yeah. Speaker 1 Right, Angus, you've picked a wee. The Same Time Story Extract that section. Give us a little section of. Speaker 2 This I think it's a good section because I think it's. Speaker 1 Hold the mic nice and close. I will. Speaker 2 Hold the mic nice and close. I think. I think it's the same time story, Sir Angus. It's the start of things going wrong. I think. So it's it's Saturday the 25th of July 1896. So it says George, George Hope Malcolm, now 26 year old, had started at Patterson Elder and Company some three years ago and had worked his way up to become the Chief Clark at Patterson's limited correspondence department. It was George's responsibility to open letters when they arrived at the office, but that was all. His employer, Robert Patterson, actually unfold, unfolded and read them all. All George did was sit there open. All George did was slit them open. Speaker 1 Slit them open. Well done, he said. 3 drops. Speaker 2 It was quite a responsibility. Today though, George had been signed a different task. Earlier that morning, Robert, who had drawn 1500 lbs from Parsons Limited by way of two checks, both for £750 each, which he then charged to himself. Soon after he instructed George to head along to the bank to pay them this money in. George took the short walk from the head office on Constitution St. up Leaf Walk before arriving at the National Bank. After George had paid the money into Mr. Roberts his private bank account, he dutifully followed the next set of instructions by immediately withdrawing the money and purchasing a draft for the sum of 1401 lbs payable to Mr. James Ferguson and Company. Payment Payment for the 11,000 gallons of Ardlasa Whiskey Ardlas Ardlas Whiskey, which Ferguson's had invoiced surpasses an elder and company back in December last year, was now due. As George made his way back to the office, he asked himself, what with the bills being paid privately in this way by Mr. Robert, had the entry gone? Had the entry even gone through the company's accounts? Speaker 1 Right, we go away. Speaker 2 But simply, it hadn't Robert's financial move Robert Robert's financial manoeuvres over the course of the last few months had in fact proved to be nothing short of a creative accounting master class. Using a series of carefully orchestrated transactions, he moved money to and from his private bank accounts, just as he had done today, and then funnelled it through various other accounts, ensuring the transactions didn't appear in the company's books. This convoluted process involving multiple banks ensured that the bills relating to the whiskey and Brandy whose purchase price had been omitted from the accounts were Julie met. It also ensured that those debts remain concealed from the accountant size, with the inflated profits they afforded maintaining the appearance of a prosperous and growing company. Speaker 1 Wow, there you go. And of course, audio book is available read by Angus. Speaker 3 I'm actually considering doing an audio book so I'll be in touch. Speaker 2 Small fee. Speaker 1 Well, I mean, yeah. So that was the starting point was it, when people started to realise there's a little bit of accounting, say well. Speaker 3 I think, yeah, there was. I mean, there was definitely an element of people must have known what was going on. But, and again, this was a question I was asked at the book launch, you know, did any of the employees know what was happening? And they had to, they absolutely had to. But this was a time, you know, there was no, you know, whistle blowing. There was no Social Security. There was a. Speaker 2 What you're better? Speaker 3 Yeah, you needed a job, so you just did it and shut up, you know? Speaker 1 It's nice hearing about like the short walk from, you know, if you know Edinburgh, if you know leaf constitution. Speaker 2 On the map. Speaker 1 Yeah, Constitution, the short walk from Constitution St. up the up leaf walk to the bank. You know that, that you, you can picture that if you know the area you're talking about. And of course that that is something that you've, you've done a lot of and we talked a lot about that is, you know, your whiskey tours, whiskey walks, relief. The Whiskey Story Podcast Uh huh, you are still doing them. I mean, it was Peter from Woven. Ironic. Speaker 3 Pete Allison. Yeah, it was. Speaker 1 Pete Allison from Woven that we had on who mentioned you. I called you out on the podcast that night. I'll be back. We want to get Justine on and you, you, you, you duly reached out and then we got you on the podcast. And ironically, last week we had Hazel McLeod, who's now working with Woven on the podcaster. Thanks for your connection. Maybe like whiskey crashes, the Whiskey Story podcast are cyclical. But but yeah, I mean, I mean, that is another part that you do as well, isn't it? You, you've, I don't know how often you're doing them now, but. Speaker 3 Not not as often now that I've moved to the borders, but obviously the book was crowdfunded. So one of the rewards for the crowd funders was to buy the book and then also attend like go on a a leaf whiskey trail. So, so I've set up a few for the for the crowdfunders and then after that I, I will still do them, but maybe not as often as I was doing in the past because you know, it's nice to if you're driving an hour and a half to, to do a tour, it's nice to have a full house. So I just do every few months and then we have. Speaker 1 To do one, we have to, yeah. Speaker 3 Absolutely. There's a lot of people who who have said, Oh yeah, I need to make it. It's just sometimes I put the dates out and, and, and unfortunately they, yeah, they, they're not available. So I'll just keep scheduling the dates and then hopefully everyone, everyone will get shot. Speaker 1 Brilliant. Well, we are leaning to it now. You're getting an extra 3 what? 3 drams? But I think we're said we're gonna keep them to Fife Whiskey Festival. What? 3 Drams. Speaker 3 Oh. Speaker 1 Yeah, or if you want 5. Speaker 2 Drams. Speaker 1 What 5 drams then you go, there you go. We're getting, we are getting that planning. If anyone from the Fife Council is listening, any councillors, Gordon Brown maybe like help us out as well. Speaker 3 Actually had Willie Rennie and Wendy Chamberlain at the dinner and then Jenny Gilworth came to the single cask event at SO. Speaker 1 These councillors like to come. Oh, it's pretty whisky involved. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Speaker 3 Enjoy the drive. Speaker 1 What I'll say is, yeah, so, but what I want to add is if there is, if you, you have a wild card, if there's a Patterson Brother, I'm just bringing on on this now. If there's a Patterson's, what, 3 drams, one of them if you want to Chuck that in as well. So we're looking for Fife Whiskey Festival or anything from the Patterson Brothers yearbook here. If there's a a DRAM that sticks out or you know about or anything like that, please let us know. Speaker 3 So what's your DRAM? So I think the obvious first one is going to be the Fife Whiskey Festival bottling that I think you guys mentioned. Speaker 2 Earlier, yeah. So this was, well, you go ahead. Speaker 3 Yeah, so this was the thing Lassie so distilled the inch Danny six years old when Gregor Hannah, because this was bottled by Lady of the Glen. When when Gregor did his Reel on Instagram, he said when they acquired the spirit, they didn't know what to do with it, so they just put it in tired casks. Speaker 1 I haven't met Gregor. He's a guy that. Speaker 3 So watch the reel. That's exactly what he said. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna say refilled bourbon, but lovely. It's a beautiful whiskey. And actually the fact that it is in refilled bourbon or tired casks, you really get that distillate character coming through. It's not it's not overwhelmed by you know, it's I probably would work in a Sherry casket for a certain amount and and we only bottled half the cask. The other half of the contents has been re racked into. I think there's a Madeira cast, so it'll be interesting to see how that a. Speaker 2 Less a less tired cask. Come on. Yes. Speaker 3 Yeah, not a knackered cask at all, but it's a, it's a, it's got a beautiful texture. So when Kevin and I were trying the samples, we had a a sample of Finglassie and we had a sample of Strath Henry, which is the unpeated inch Derny. And Karen isn't particularly keen on peated whiskey. So I thought I know which one she's gonna go for. And then when we tried, we tried them separately. And then we we did a quick zoom call and she's like, I really like that thing Last year I was like, the texture on it is phenomenal. It's. Speaker 1 Just as a lover of Peach whiskey, as most of the listeners will know, I'm a huge fan of peated whiskey. Speaker 3 But it's super it's it's quite citrusy as well. I. Speaker 1 Think White as well. Yeah, I just remember. Speaker 3 It's all sort of lemon, lemon cake, lemon bonbons with it's beautiful, beautiful so. Speaker 1 And nice that they can tie in a A5 independent bottler that's independently bottled A5. Speaker 3 WW that's exactly what we wanted. So yeah, absolutely. Speaker 2 55. Speaker 3 Ticks all the. Speaker 1 Five boxes. OK, so drum #2 there. Daftil 15 I think I don't, I don't drink at the Fife Whiskey Festival because the license is in my name. But I did taste Dafmil 15, the new Dafmil 15, which was a beautiful DRAM as you have come to expect. And you were talking about whiskey bars earlier. I'd love to I'd love to see a whiskey bar in in Fife with Dafmil 15 on the optics that would be we had them. Speaker 1 I don't know how to get at last I told a great story about the the brother. I was at Francis Cuthbert Acer. It might have been and they were they were chatting. It may have been at scorcher. No, he was at tasting. I think he was at or I can't remember what it. Speaker 2 Was. Speaker 1 But this sums it up. And I love the romantic, like there is something really romantic about the Daff Mill story, the fact that these brothers, the, the, the, the, the family, the farm comes first. It's it's not about the whiskey and stuff like that. And Chuck told the story that he said they were chatting away and they said, so why did you bring out your whiskey? Like what made you start? And he was like, well, we just really needed a malt bin. Speaker 2 We were getting sick of sick of borrowing, but you know, ferrying barrel loads of malt. Speaker 1 From a malt bins with a better start bottling some of this stuff so we can actually start selling it so we can afford a bloody malt bin. And I just love that because that is the fascinating thing about Daft Mill is it's become it's, you know, the cult status. I remember when the Daft Mill 15 came out. That was a first non age statement. It's annoying, but that was a first aid statement whiskey. OK, and they did the you had it was a ballot to buy the bottles and the bottles went for and the secondary sale, which I'm sure they wouldn't be too chuffed about because that they don't get much of that. But the secondary sale had that period. No exactly. Well, The thing is, it's a fine balance because people, it's. Speaker 3 A kind of a knock on effect. Speaker 1 Yeah, if people see Daft Mill selling for four or five times the price of what it was, Oh yeah, retailed, people suddenly started going, hang on a minute, I want to know what that's all about. Yeah, but I mean, it's just fascinating that the story and then you meet them at the, you get to, you know, you meet them at the Fife Festival in their exhibit. Speaker 3 And then the Francis and Hazel are there, and Hazel always makes a cake, and everyone's like, oh, where's Hazel's cake, you know? Yeah, great. They're they're. Yeah, they. Speaker 2 And yet their their bottles go miles around the world and very swanky bars in Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan. And it's like. Speaker 3 I mean, I mean, think they attend the Fife Whiskey Festival because it's 10 minutes up the road from them and it's their local festival. But at the end of the day, you know, and we'll see a lot more of this. I think as whiskey production has ramped up, you'll see a lot of whiskey festivals, a lot more exhibitors. There's a lot of stock out there. And, and so people need to find, you know, buyers, consumers for that stock. Yeah, Daphnell doesn't have that issue. No. So they don't need to attend festival. Speaker 1 No, it's just nice to love it. Yeah. You know, Yeah. Speaker 3 It sells. They don't have to do anything, it just sells. Speaker 1 All that you know, coming through the Fife farm and stock myself like that, that nonchalant attitude of just down the road so right and that that story Chuck told and I'm all men. So we just saw we better bought some of that stuff so we can sell it that. Speaker 3 No, they're grateful. I mean, a few years ago we had it was through Luvians. We didn't do it there. Louvians did the the festival bottling that year and Francis and Louvians bottled a a cask of Dath Mill and set the price. It was quite high. There were two different prices, but the money was going towards our local charity that we support, Age Concern Cooper. So I think that year we actually, because of that bottling donated 5000 lbs to Age Concern Cooper, which was just enough phenomenal amount for them. And that's all thanks to Francis and and Louvians. They, they, they were involved in all of that. So you know, it is life. It's like, you know, it's a local community thing. And even though it's, as you say, the bottles go all around the world, they're still very much invested in what's happening locally. Speaker 1 Now, now, if I'm right now, is it sort of a yellowish bag that the Louvians? Speaker 3 Yes, as. Speaker 1 Angus and I missed a trip that night on the train and well, we actually talked about that on the way back from the Fife Whiskey Festival and we thought, you know something, if we were smart, someone's bound to have had too much to drink Is going to leave a yellow bag on the train. I'm pretty sure somebody, somebody, I shouted to Robert Barr, who left the left his whiskey on the on the bus with a lot of buses. Speaker 3 A lot of people leave their bags actually at the festival. So obviously they come in, it gets and they get a bit warm. So they go and hang their coat up and put it on the rack And then at the end of the festival they've got their purchases and they go, oh, better get my coat. So they put the bag down, put the coat on, walk off and leave the bag on the floor. Speaker 1 Straight back on the shelf is that. Speaker 3 There was one year I think I had about 8 bags. I brought them home and yeah, and people had to. I was living in Leith at the time so people had to make the journey to Leith to come and pick up the bottles. Speaker 1 Well, I, I, I, I from the Ludhian's point of view is Chris Pizarro, who's one of the, the, yeah, one of the sons. I think of the he's about ages of ourselves, Angus. But we would have played rugby against, we played definitely played rugby against 'cause he's he was a, he was a strong, he had a professional career for many years as well and. Speaker 3 So, so Vince, Luigi and Luvians, Andreas, I don't know they, so they're obviously quite old now, so get into sort of 70s and ready for retire, although I don't think Vince will ever retire to be honest. So Emily, Vince's daughter, she's now running one side of the business and Chris is running the other side. So. So yeah. Speaker 1 New real family, yeah. Speaker 3 Real family business. Speaker 1 Family, yeah, well, I think my mum, she was a week, I think she might have been a few years, but they weren't at the same school together and stuff. Yeah, yeah, the belt back stuff. Speaker 3 Just on the road, yeah. Stuff like that, yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. And I've got to have a third drown, yeah. Speaker 1 3rd Drown. Do yeah. Third. Speaker 3 One so I'm going to choose. So I recently had and I can't remember the name of it but it was. That's. Speaker 1 Helpful for me to write it. Speaker 3 I will find the name out for you but it was at the book launch so it was a an SMWS 36 and I'll find out which cast and what the name of it is but it's a Ben Rinas and so Ben Rinas has links to the story as well. Not because the Pattersons owned the distillery or part owned the distillery, but because of the repercussions of of the Pattersons on another big player based in Leith called FW and O Brickman. Nobody speaks about them anymore. They were a huge company. They paid all of their bills on time. Yeah, they, they, they were, they were really nice guys, which is probably why nobody's ever heard of them, because there's no scandal involved. And, and but they, they were, they were, yeah, very well respected whiskey merchants in Leith who went bust as a direct consequence. Oh. Speaker 1 So they were Hanson's good. Speaker 2 Guys, they, they owned Ben Rin. Speaker 3 And they part owned Ben Rin's. Speaker 1 Yeah, there we go. Well, Justine, thank you so much for coming in again. Speaker 3 No, thank you for having me. Speaker 1 Again, we'll get you. We'll get you to sign these as well so I can. Speaker 3 Stick there was real. Speaker 1 Yeah, so I can stick them up on an auction, set them on an auction and. Speaker 3 Still, I haven't got used to it yet. It's. Speaker 1 Great. It's been fantastic. Thank you so much for everybody who's tuning in. Thank you to Justine for coming along. Please, if you get the chance, if you get a chance to visit one of the places where Justin said they're on sale, pick one of these books up. I'm really looking forward to reading this story. I am. Don't forget Angus is available for hire if you want to read your children bedtime stories to sleep. It's a side project. He's got his full Ndas and all. He's got no ideas. He's got all his. He's got all his things, he's got all his documentation. He could do it. He'll read your children a bedtime story after. Speaker 2 Hearing I'll get most of the words right. Speaker 1 Have you heard them? That would be perfect for reading the B1's. A bedtime story at bed. The bedtime stories at [email protected]. Just say, Angus to read my big kids to sleep. Anyway, thanks to everybody for tuning in last night. Outro I have to very quickly make. We stumbled across a little bit more information. Angus, we're actually, we've got more listeners. We actually thought, yeah. Speaker 2 Yes, we might have mentioned download numbers on the pod before. Speaker 1 Turns out we don't know what we're talking. Speaker 2 About no, we're absolutely clueless, absolutely clueless as the answer because I, I mean, you've spoken to me about downloads before and I was just to see him downloads covered everything. And you know, if you, if you stream a podcast, you're downloading a podcast effectively. What did I know? Speaker 1 We've only been, we've only been saying thank you to the people who have downloaded the podcast. However, 12 1/2 thousand people have downloaded the podcast, but 23 1/2 thousand people have streamed or played the podcast. Speaker 2 So so there you go. Speaker 1 Yeah, so, so big thank you to those guys. Basically, basically we weren't aware of 66% of our audience, but now we are. So thank you. Thank you for listening. Thanks very much. And don't forget, please pass it on. It's great. We've got so much coming up. We've got our trip to door and I have to look forward to it. That's going to keep your eyes on the YouTube channel if you want. Speaker 2 To see it going to be a real visual. Speaker 1 Yes, well, that's it. The YouTube channel of us where to go? We're we're we're slowly growing that there's some great content out there. If you want to see what it's like when we're recording one of these podcasts and watch on the YouTube channel, pass it on. Just pass it to everybody. Yeah, keep up to date with what's going on the Facebook. Speaker 2 Join the Facebook group whiskey stories Facebook group if. Speaker 1 You've got a whiskey bar at home and you want to show people what you've managed to create. Then let us know. Watch what the other guys have done and and do that and also keep your eyes peeled for the next sort of indie bottle or spotlights that we're doing and all that kind of stuff. But listen, Justine, thank you so much for coming along, so much for. Speaker 3 Asking me again, yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's great to have you here. It's great to hear from you. And I'm really, really looking forward to to these. Oh yeah. Speaker 2 Opening the case, Justin Hazlehurst, I'm I'm really looking forward to it. Speaker 1 Good stuff. Cheers guys. All the very best.