This month Calum and Duncan head out to Edinburgh Whisky Festival where they get stuck in to the biggest Outturn of the year. Tune in to hear them chat with some familiar Society faces, uncover an entirely new cask type and get into the Christmas spirit with the perfect stocking filler.
In this episode Richard Goslan sits down with Pip Hills, the founder of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. Pip lost contact with the Society in the 1990s, and didn't rekindle his relationship with the SMWS until Richard tracked him down in 2018. Here the pair reflect on Pip's return to the Society, his health at the age of 85 and how the Society became a force for good with more than 40,000 members across the world.
Global Malts Ambassador for Brown-Forman, Stewart Buchanan stepped into Queen Street earlier this year to talk about his whisky adventures with Mads Schmoll. From his early days on the island of Mull to travelling the world to talk all about all things BenRiach today, he’s worked in nearly every part of the industry.
Tune in to hear more and watch as Stewart and Mads try The Vaults Collection, Cask No. 12.80: Heaven in a leather hammock.
This month Calum and Duncan are joined by Mads Schmoll to uncover the Society's eight new flavour profiles. Working their way through each of the new profiles, the trio reveal what members can expect from this evolution and shine a light on a new Winter Series.
This month Calum and Duncan tuck into some unusual cask types, taste whisky from Taiwan and find the perfect introduction to peat. Our latest Creators Collection, Tales of the Worm Tub, transports the duo back in time as they experience a different era of Scotch whisky distillation.
This month Duncan and Calum are joined by Society brand ambassador and member services executive, Francesco Ramella. While finding out what's on offer in the July Outturn, the trio remember their favourite outdoor adventures and discuss Francesco's whisky journey.
This month Calum and Duncan are joined by Logan Shaw, the assistant venue manager at our Queen Street Members’ Room. With hip flasks in hand, the three get stuck into this month’s Outturn with plenty of adventures, stories and drams along the way.
This month Calum and Richard are joined by The Scotch Malt Whisky Society's Anthony Delcros as the trio prepare for this year’s whisky festivals. Anthony reveals his own whisky journey while covering all the adventures he has planned to take the Society’s tastings off the beaten track at the Speyside, Campbeltown and Islay festivals.
This month Calum and Richard get zen as they’re guided through a ‘dramaste’ styled tasting by Lucy Connor. Lucy took a day out from her time behind the bar at The Vaults to chat through this year’s International Women’s Day bottlings, discuss some of her maverick tasting ideas, and share her own whisky journey.
Richard and Calum catch up with Matt Bailey, who recently joined The Scotch Malt Whisky Society’s European team as managing director. The trio discuss Tasmanian whisky, psychotic dram decisions and delve into some of the Society bottlings coming out in the UK and Europe in February.
Scotch Malt Whisky Society ambassador and Tasting Panel chairperson Olaf Meier is a fountain of knowledge, driven by a limitless number of whisky stories and a huge passion for the Society and the wider whisky world. Olaf now finds himself celebrating his 20th year representing the Society. Despite having more than two decades of whisky experience, Olaf started his journey with humble beginnings, as Duncan Gorman finds out.
In this episode we’re going on a special journey across Spain, to tell the story of whisky and sherry and the wonderful synergy between the two worlds when it comes to sherry cask matured whisky.
We travel to the oak forests of Galicia in the far northwest of Spain to take the creation of Spanish oak casks right back to the beginning, in the Cantabrian forest, before heading south to Jerez and the Sherry Triangle, to visit the cooperages and bodegas where the casks are built and then seasoned with different styles of sherry wine.
Regular listeners will know that we are fortunate at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society to welcome representatives from distilleries, who visit us in our Members’ Rooms, share some special samples of their whiskies with our members, and give us their insights and knowledge about their distilleries.
In March we had a visit to the Vaults by Heemanshu Ashar from Paul John, the pioneering Indian distillery based in Goa on the country’s tropical west coast.
Before enjoying the tasting, we took the chance to find out more about Paul John distillery, India’s whisky journey since independence in 1947 and what tropical maturation brings to this spirit.
In this episode, we’re taking a deep dive into the flavour journey that takes place every time we uncork a bottle of whisky and then nose and taste it. It’s a process that the Tasting Panel at The Scotch Malt Whisky Society goes through with every sample that is presented for possible inclusion in a Society bottling. So we caught up with Tasting Panel chair Kami Newton, to find out more about the different steps on this flavour journey and why we should take time to appreciate the complexities of what’s in our glass.
We were fortunate to have a visit from two of the team from Blair Athol distillery to The Vaults in February, for a special tasting of four expressions of Blair Athol whisky, along with a sample of one of the Society’s own single cask offerings. Blair Athol distillery manager Derek Younie was joined by Peter Milne from Diageo’s Whisky Specialist Team to talk members through the samples and provide insight into the history and working of the distillery, what to expect from Blair Athol’s spirit character, and how it works with different casks and forms of maturation.
In February, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society paid host to Melanie Stanger from Springbank distillery in Campbeltown, who visited our Members’ Room at The Vaults in Leith to tell us more about this legendary distillery and share a few special drams.
The vintage Lagonda belonging to Society founder Pip Hills played an instrumental part in our whisky club’s foundation, carrying the first precious cargo of single casks from Speyside back to his Scotland Street home in Edinburgh to share with friends. In 1990, Pip Hills and his brother-in-law Dick Pountain decided to take a road trip to Prague in the Lagonda, to witness Václav Havel’s inauguration as president of the Czech Republic. The magazine The Classic Motoring Review subsequently commissioned Pip and Dick to write a piece about the journey – and how Society whisky helped to make it a success. We asked Pip and Dick to tell us that story in their own words.
A taste of rum at a family gathering led husband-and-wife team Jacine and Paul Rutasikwa on the path to setting up their own distillery in the town of Livingston, near Edinburgh. Mads Schmoll paid a visit to uncover the fascinating story behind Matugga Rum and how it blends elements of African, Caribbean and Scottish cultures and heritage
Crime writer and whisky enthusiast Val has been a fan of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society since its early days, after receiving an educational journey across the whisky regions from a friend’s father who was something of an aficionado. Whisky Talk caught up with Val in an Edinburgh coffee shop to find out more about her whisky passion, her writing career and who would be her fantasy whisky-drinking companion.