You are listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed, we got some world-class scotch right now. But before that, I'm Greg. I do communications at Binny's. Hi, I'm Chris. I do wine. Lexi, I'm on social media. Special guest, Dr. Rachel Barrie. Hi, hi, Greg. Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming. It's great to be here in the Windy City. We have bottles of Glenglassaugh, BenRiach. You have experience at a bunch of different Scotch distilleries, right? I have. I'm pretty old because I've been doing this for 32 years. How do you start working in this industry at four? You're too kind. Well, my dad collected whisky, so that's what we got something to do with it. Just making it a hobby, you know? When I came of age, of course, coming of age. Everybody's favorite hobby when they come of age. When they come of age, of course it is. Then just serendipitously, just spotting a job at the Scotch Whisky Research Institute when I finished my chemistry degree. Never thought about doing it and here I am today. Rest is history. The late great Dr. Jim Swan gave me my first job. It was the best thing in the world because I managed to combine my hobby with my job. That is good. Not many people can say that. Rarely the twin meet. And passion. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. No follow up questions. Do you want to know something about the whiskeys? Obviously, I've worked with most of the distilleries in Scotland at some point, either working for different distilleries or the Scotch Whisky Society where I worked with, obviously, lots of different cast from lots of different distilleries. Spent 17 years with Glenmorge and Arbeg and then moved on to Boulmore, of course, for seven years and then got a tap on the shoulder from Brown Foreman and was very, very lucky to get the job working with my three favourite distilleries from where I was born and bred. Born beside Glendronach, I learned to glide a plane over BenRiach when I was 18 and I learned to surf at Glenglassaugh Distillery when I was just a child. Surfing? Surfing! The surfing! Yes, well, Sandend Bay is the Bondi Beach of Europe. Except what's better about Sandend Bay is that you can have a distillery almost right on the beach since 1875. You can take your glass of whisky down onto the beach and get some sea spray in it. And you're not allowed to do that on Bondi Beach. Can you surf wearing a wool sweater? Is that an okay thing? You can wear a double wet dry suit. It's actually pretty good. Okay. Pretty good. But it's pretty good for you. You just get out, go into the hot tub, and then go into the sea. Yeah, indeed. That wet wool smell, though, gets in the way of nosing your whiskey. No, I'm not advocating for the wool, but you want to invigorate and awaken your senses. That's what Glenglassaugh does. Oh, my. Awaken your senses and is just as invigorating as standing on the beach in Sandend Bay, taking all of that in, getting the sea spray in your face. Was this the Whiskey of the Year last year? This was. Whiskey Advocates, number one. Can you believe this? Small Boutique Distillery. It's been around for a while, since 1875. However, it did have a checkered history. It was closed for 20 years between 1986 and 2008, 22 years to be precise. But it's just been really kind of reawakening, I suppose. Just last year, we relaunched the Glenglassaugh brand in a beautiful new bottle, which looks like the sea. Literally, it's got the waves on the bottle. We call ourselves a Coastal Malt because the distillery itself is almost right on the beach, any closer it would be in the sea. And it's right on the cusp between the Highlands geography and the Speyside geography. But it's not like either. So unlike Glendronach and BenRiach, which obviously I also work with, this is very, very different from any other distillery in Scotland because of its coastal influence. Yeah. We tasted sands and we drooled over it. We have tasted it. I missed that episode and it drove me nuts listening to these guys. Yeah, I have not. Oh, you weren't on that? No, I wasn't on that one. Oh, so delicious. I was trying to exercise. I was taking a walk listening to you gush about it and I was like, what, how did I miss that one? We were gushing. Sometimes we say number one. It's a very gushy whiskey. Yeah. Sometimes we say number one doesn't deserve it, but this year, we're all pretty like. And the fact that it's around and everybody can get it all the time. Yeah, no, it's the best. I mean, for me, it just is Sandend being a glass. It's my childhood memories of being on the beach and the sea spray and then going up to the wee shop on the corner and getting a lovely caramel ice cream with chocolate sauce on it, a little wafer. It's definitely a beach lovers' dram, I think. It's something that people who love kind of tropical fruit, vanilla ice cream are going to love this whiskey. They're going to gravitate towards this. You know, Glenglassaugh, what I love about it most about the liquid and the glass and the distillery character is it's never dry. It 100% converts that barley into a luscious coastal elixir. That cereal has got no chance to remain as a husk. It's going to get lush. Okay? The husk gets to lush. No husk left. It's just so, so luscious. And obviously the distillery has wooden washbacks open to the atmosphere with the rolling waves coming in. The warehouses are also right on the beach. And we have magnificent tall stills that just look like you're at the helm of a ship. When you open the doors, and all you can see is the sea. And you can smell it. And it influences everything. What I love about Glenglassaugh is, dip your nose in and see what you think. This is 50.5%, so take care. This is high strength. I'm sure you know your whiskeys, so I'm sure you've done high, you know, high strength whiskeys before. However, you might be absolutely amazed. It's springtime, it's so lively. The halash and vanilla. Definitely the vanilla, for sure. Springtime here in Chicago, summer in Scotland. But there's that sea breeze lift in the nose too. You know, it's a little sailing, but it has all that richness at the same time. It's super elegant. Beaked pineapple, touch of grapefruit, mango, bit of umbongo. You probably don't know what that is. Tropical fruit drink. We'll have to come back to that. I want to know more about that later. But first, I want to say cream cheese frosting. The vanilla cream cheese frosting. The fruit on the palate is just crazy. It's off the charts. It is off the charts. And it's all that long fermentation. We have at least 70 hours, sometimes up to 100 hours fermentation, exposed to all that sea air. And this magically, mysteriously creates all this really incredible estuary character. I was going to say, the long ferment is developing all those estuaries. But the tropical fruit is the holy grail of whiskey, you know? So many people say this. How do you get tropical fruit in whiskey? Because what other whiskeys have it? You know, the Japanese tried it, but failed. Tried to identify it, couldn't, you know, using gas chromatography, mass spectrometry. Because tropical fruit is like parts per trillion. You have, you know, the best detector in your nose. No instrument can replicate this. You can pick up parts per trillion of tropical fruit on your nose and on your palate. It doesn't need to be anything there. So it's one of these things that it's always going to keep me in a job because no machine can replicate it. So on the nose, beautiful. And it's, you know, what I love as well as the tropical fruit, the salinity, the minerality. We have the most high mineral content of any water in Scotland. So this is something we haven't really shouted about, but Glenglassaugh, as it sounds, glacier. You know, it was carved out by the Ice Age, glaciers. And we have the highest level of minerals in our rock structures, our geology of our landscape, and also in our spring water, which is a little bit up the hill from the sea, the durn hill, but it's got the highest levels of calcium and magnesium. That's really interesting. Yeah, it's like double what you find in one of the distilleries that I used to work in about 17 years ago. For those who know, they know. It was another distillery that said it had minerals, but Glenglassaugh has about twice the level of the minerals. And that makes the yeast love to make flavor. And it also creates almost this shabby-like character in the whiskey as well. Right. And what I love about Glenglassaugh is it does the savory sweet things so well. So back in the 1980s, when the distillery was closed in 1986, the blenders of the time, what were they thinking? Oh my God, they were thinking, this is such an individual whiskey. There's no other whiskey like it. We better close it because we can't blend with it. Because we couldn't substitute it for anything else. Back in the 1980s, that's obviously when Blender Scotch was the biggest, and only a couple of malts really started to grow. So it was the blenders then who had to mix 20, 30 distilleries together, molten grain, etc. Glenglassaugh was just too good. You're too distinctive. Too distinctive. You have too much character. Too much character. What is going on? What's going on? And they tried to change it and it wasn't for changing, you know. Which shows you why the geography of the landscape is so important. The location of that distillery, you know, we're only 20 miles from Glendronach and, you know, just along the coast from BenRiach, but they're all so different in character and style. And it is absolutely to do with that spot on the coast that gives you the tropical, gives you the salinity and gives you that lovely umami and luscious rolling waves of flavor that when you taste Sandend, it's almost like there is no beginning or end. Let's see if you find that. Don't let her just drop it on that sales pitch. Oh, that was great. That was great. So even though the distillery was mothballed for so long, the fans of the style seeked it out. I know that our Whiskey Hotline team has found, you know, the forgotten handpicked casks of Glenglassaugh at various independent warehouses. And we've had a handful of them. Those guys were absolutely thrilled when you came back to the market. Oh, gorgeous. I know. I mean, it's just like, if you knew, you knew, but it was such a hidden gem and such a boutique distillery even to this day. You know, we've only got the two stills. They're quite large stills, but still one Washedill and one Spirit Still to make this very, very uniquely different whisky. And, you know, back in the 80s, yeah, I really don't know what they were doing because, you know, it's so good to day. And we're very fortunate to still have a small number of casks from the 1960s and the 1970s. Unfortunately, we don't have any left from the 1980s, so the gap is even bigger than it was. So, you know, and these won't last forever. So, and that's just a serendipitous, is this luck that the distillery closed, that you have such old expressions? Would they have been used had it stayed open and or bottled at younger ages? Yeah, I mean, in the 1980s at the time, obviously it was blended scotch. The industry as a whole as well took a dip. There were quite a few distilleries mothballed at that time. Seventies, there was, relatively speaking, across the industry quite a lot of production, which then obviously went into blends. Some 60s, 70s left. But of course, the owners at the time had their own distilleries to focus on. They decided it was too good for blending, and therefore, the hidden gem, the treasures lying in warehouse one were just left to, obviously, with warehouse men checking on them every so often. But it wasn't until when the distillery was reawakened at the end of 2008, with only a very small volume distilled, and then 2009, 2010, things started to come out of the distillery. But at that point, it took, obviously, at least three years to release a whisky that didn't have the 22-year age gap. So the first whiskeys at that point that were released was Revival and then Evolution and Torfa, which were the Glenglassaugh and their previous guys prior to last year. And then this year, 2023, we launched Sandend World Whiskey of the Year 2023, Port Soy, which is our smoky version, and the 12-year old Glenglassaugh as well, which is just like the Aurora Borealis in Sandend Bay with all its richness of fruit and different flavors. So it's a very special whisky. Because we see the Aurora Borealis in Sandend Bay. Do you see it here? Yeah, we do see it here a lot more recently. Yeah, only when there's sun flares. Yeah. We have the most amazing colors and it's like that combination of the beauty of all that fruitiness with the sea and the light. Because it's awakening like Glenglassaugh. There's a lightness to it and there's also this wonderful rolling waves of flavor. So it's like swimming through the sea for your skin, how that's really silky and feels quite weighty but silky at the same time. And then there's the surf on top of that. So you've got all of that. So when you taste Glenglassaugh, you're always going to get that lovely like the depths of the sea, that kind of beautiful luscious character that's a little bit oily. But on top of that, you've got that surf and that tropical as well. You know, sometimes it amazes me that this wasn't made in the Caribbean. All right, cool. All right, well, we've tasted the Sandend, which is delicious. Truly singular. It's remarkable. Yeah. And of course, I haven't even mentioned the casks, you know? Oh, yeah. So that always comes next. And you know, the beauty of single malt scotch whiskey to me is bringing out its true nature. You know, nature is much bigger than all of us. You know, there's a bit of philosophy for you. And Glenglassaugh really shows that. You know, its character is there. It's there. It won't be changed. But I can shape it. So I can shape it. It's shaped by the sea. It's also shaped a little bit by me. That's in using the bourbon barrels, first of all bourbon barrels in Sandend. But also manthonia sherry casks. So you're really doubling down on that sea breeze character. You are. And the salted caramel. Salted caramel, the sea breeze, the first of all bourbon dials up the fruit, the vanilla, the creaminess, the top note complexity that's almost a little bit like eucalyptus. And then the manthonia just gives you that oomph, that salted caramel, that base, that thickness that's just like swimming through the sea. And manthonia casks hadn't been used for Glenglassaugh until, well, I filled these back in 2018 and had a vision for this whisky back then. So it's wonderful that it got world whisky of the year 2023. I'm very happy indeed. It seems like such a natural idea to use manthonia with a whisky like this. Totally. And because obviously that is your coastal sherry from San Luca de Baramida in the sherry cask triangle, still the palomino grape. But the influence of the sea is so much that you get the caramel, as you do with oloroso, for example. But manthonia is so salted in its caramelization, whereas something like an oloroso is much drier and nuttier, and it's got more citric acidity. A Pedro Heminiath is obviously a lot sweeter and darker. But manthonia with that beautiful balance of sweet and salty was absolutely perfect because that's what Glenglassaugh is. It's sweet and salty. Sounds a bit like popcorn, doesn't it? It's one of my favorite snacks. Back in the day in 1980s, when you're too young. But yeah, I never could get hold of any sweet and salty. It was never sweet and salty popcorn. It was never salted caramel. These things are all almost like a 21st century phenomenon and how they have grown. Well, you're in Chicago. We blend cheese popcorn and caramel popcorn together here. Which is irritating if you only want the caramel popcorn because you have to get all that orange cheese powder on your fingers. I have never, ever tried cheese popcorn. Is it like having cheese on your tacos? We should get some carrots in here. Yeah, we should get some carrots. Good to try that. So yeah. Yeah, this is a very famous Chicago company. You should definitely have it. It pairs well with Glenglassaugh Sandend, some sweet and savory popcorn. I think that would be the perfect pairing. You need a bit of salted caramel on top. I think we're going to blow your mind when you try this. I think you are too. Well, this is a first. First time for trying anything. I love it when there's a first time for trying new things at my age. Yeah, I can't wait to try this. Now, do you like this whisky in the context of food, generally, and what would that be? Oh my god, Glenglassaugh is just so amazing. Do you know, I've been traveling a lot in the past couple of years, mainly because Glenglassaugh was relaunched last year. I've got some news coming up for other whiskeys. So it's my time to travel basically. And I've been to France, to Germany, to Asia, obviously here in the US, to Chicago, New York, LA, San Francisco, and it just amazes me how well it goes with seafood. So sushi, sashimi, for example, in Asia, perfect. I also quite like to make myself an ice cream float in the summer month. The one day of summer that we get in Scotland, I will basically take the Sandend, add just a wee drop of pineapple juice, some soda water, and then put a big lump of ice cream on top, a little sprinkle of salt and some caramel. You know what's a real pity is our colleague Roger is not here. Huge float guy with alcohol. Oh my gosh. To try Glenglassaugh Sandend. Oh my goodness. It's just like having that ice cream sundae on the beach as it is in a glass. So make your own with the whiskey is so good, or even just mixed in with tropical fruit as well. Some syrup because it's quite syrupy as well. Goes really well. So you can go saline, you can go definitely fresh fish or sushi or langoustine or different seafood, but you can also go sweet with the ice cream float and tropical fruit. Of course. Where are we going next? I don't know. I think we should mix it up. Okay. Let's do that. Because we'll go up in age. Obviously, Sandend doesn't have an age statement, but it's up at the 50.5 percent. What I love about Glenglassaugh again is even off the still, it's luscious, so always tastes delicious for that reason. So this is a blend of many ages. There are a few ages in here. So I just go in and pick the casks and make it taste that wonderful, luscious, rolling waves of flavor every time. Fantastic. I like on the back or I think it's on the front, maybe it says just a crack of sea salt. Just a crack of sea salt. Just like you've just got out your grinder and just put a crack of sea salt on top of your salted caramel and vanilla ice cream with your tropical fruit melba. So we'll go along the coast from Glenglassaugh, go a little bit inland, go towards Speyside and into Northern Speyside where we have BenRiach, which is a whisky that is a whisky maker's dream, because this is the one where you can be the most innovative, the most creative, experiment with so many different cast types. And of course, here in Binny's, you have two or three or more, even, single casks that are for sale. And I think we should try these today, because this is what gives the connoisseur, the aficionado or people who are just getting into maybe cast strength whisky, the opportunity to try different cast types and to discover for themselves what they like. BenRiach is a beautiful introduction, because I described BenRiach as the sweet side of Speyside, or the delicacy of Speyside. It's a little bit like a pâtisserie, Speyside pâtisserie, and you'll see what I mean when we try it. Wonderful with desserts, with a little bit of filo pastry, you know? So we should have gotten some Napoleans or something. So we'll start with 2009. This is Tennessee Whiskey Barrel. Since we're here in the US, I think, you know, BenRiach absolutely loves a whiskey barrel, loves a bourbon barrel because it's the best type of cask to bring out that beautiful, delicious fruit orchard for which BenRiach is renowned. Let's just pop this cork. Perfect. That was flawless. Yeah, beautiful. Much like the whiskey, flawless. That's a good word. Flawless is the best word for BenRiach. It is just absolutely flawless and could be to do with our underground water lake which bubbles up into the distillery like a fountain. It could be to do with our four-water mash. Normally, it's three waters at increasing temperatures that extract the sugars and convert the starch into sugars in the mashing. We've got four waters which creates a softer spirit character, more delicate, more balanced, more complex. And then we have pure shaped stills as well, which just add to that beautiful rainbow of fruit that we create in BenRiach that makes it not only the sweet side of Speyside, but the delicacy of Speyside. So, distinctions between the waters in these two areas. You were saying how minerally it was in Glenglassaugh. Yeah, it's also quite minerally, but not as minerally. So, it's from an underground aquifer. So, this means it's mostly red sandstone. There is some limestone, but not as much limestone as there is around Glenglassaugh. So, does that mean that the pH is a little lower at BenRiach in the water? Does that limestone make it a little... It's fairly neutral. It's fairly neutral, the pH. The pH at Glenglassaugh is a little bit more alkaline, I must admit. Well, that's what I was saying. Very slightly. The water isn't acidic as such, because it's really when you go to Islay, you get really acidic water because of all that rotting peat. Right, right. Yeah, but with limestone, you expect a little more alkaline, right? Absolutely. But this is mostly red sandstone. It's an underground aquifer, so not quite as much calcium, still some magnesium in there, a bit of different compounds and some chemistry in there. But just the right amount that when the yeast gets going in that syrupy wort that has been basically made the barley completely open up with former water mash, it means again, with Glenglassaugh, the husk because of its coastal location gets 100 percent into coastal elixir. With BenRiach, with the forewater mash, it basically converts the husk during the mashing process into this wonderful soft barley carrot. So it's almost like filo pastry. So that's part of the reason why I call it the patisserie of space. This forewater mash, you're raising the temperature gradually. Gradually. It's like if you make a cup of tea and you kind of steep it for longer, and you don't blast it as quickly with hot water. So if you ever do a tea ceremony in Japan, which I did just a month ago, you know what I meant. The bitterness is more there when it's just like hot water straight away, steep it just for a time. Whereas if you do it slowly and more gently, it just makes for a much more lovely, soft- Yeah, more nuanced, gentle extraction. Nuanced extraction, yeah. Americans, cold brew coffee. Yeah. The intensity without the bitterness. Absolutely. And that's why I say it's like the sweet side, the space side, because some distilleries, just a little bit further down the hill, you might find a little bit more cereal bite or more yeasty or whatever, a bit more like beer, I suppose. But BenRiach is just that beautiful delicacy, as I say. It's such a complex, big sprinkling of spice. Your pumpkin pie spice, but not just that. It's like a ginger snap. It's like a blast of cinnamon. Yeah. And that's partly in distillation. You get that even from the barley again, from the husk. You get more of the spice, you get more of the fruit, etc. And during distillation, we get everything from the pears and the apples to the oranges, a little bit of lemon, and then into this filo pastry and a little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of ginger, and then the beautiful almond note, which for me, this is why perfect pairing, especially with this one. So this cast we've got in front of us is the Tennessee Whiskey Barrel from 2009. First Phil, so no guess what Tennessee Whiskey it is. Jack Daniels Barrel. It says the Brown Forman Company. Cast number 6247. This is a whiskey drinker's whiskey. It is. Is this a bourbon drinker's whiskey? This was distilled exactly 15 years ago today. There you go. 57.9 percent alcohol. So not too high. Some of the spice is probably coming from that, and the fact that it's a little higher. I bet it's natural cast strength as well. Remember, we're not changing anything here. We're just keeping it as it gets, a moment in time. But I think especially now, I've been noticing people really, really in single malt going back to the roots of what makes the first full bourbon barrel or Jack Daniel's barrel so good for whiskey. I think it's a combination of the subtlety, the complexity, the creaminess, the softness, and the fruit that leaps out from the glass. Let's see if you find that. This is an incredible color, which you can see it. We can see it here, but it's incredible, just like the deepest summer gold you could imagine. Yeah, well said. I have a Japanese summer gold shrub that goes this color, and it's just so intense summer gold colors. Incredible. Makes me feel fine. There's a song, isn't there? Summer Breeze. Summer Breeze, that's it. Summer Breeze makes me feel fine. This is like a summer breeze. Summer Breeze in an orchard, in a meadow of sweet barley. You are truly a Scotch-inspired poet. The sweetness. Oh my gosh. I know how many people love, I've got sweet cheese as well. Love candy. Well, we're getting close to Halloween. We might be passing Halloween by the time this goes live, but this has that sweet candy. The vanilla, the pears. Absolutely. That little bit of spice. I get the candied orange peel. I get a little bit of the light bright red cherry. And with the whiskey spiciness on top of it, it tastes like an old-fashioned on its own. Like it has the sweetness. Perhaps a Rob Roy. Well, it doesn't have that much smoke, but yeah. I have learned something today. What's up? It is, I'm stealing that from you. That's what it tastes like. I'm stealing that from you. I hope you don't mind. You're welcome. I'll accept my residual checks. This is the old-fashioned. Yeah, it is. Neat. You don't need to add anything to it to get your old-fashioned in a glass. And why do you think that is? What do you find that? Well, I also prefer Fee Brother's old-fashioned aromatic bitters, and they tease me because it just tastes like cinnamon, but it has like every layer of that perfect drink that I like to drink. Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree with this idea of cinnamon and ginger notes in here. I think those are really prominent, and I get a lot of pear. A lot of pear? Yeah. Yeah, I get the pear. A little bit of apple strudel. Yeah. You know? Indeed. Got that sugar on top. Yeah. It's like it's got like the crystals. That you can crack with a spoon. The crystals on top. And that crunchy, flaky pastry. Yes. Why do we always do this when I'm hungry? Always. I was out to dinner last night and I had a apple crème brûlée. Nice. This has got that reminiscent of that little crack on the top. I believe that. Crack on the top. I love it. Yeah, that's great. I love it. I think this would be fancy with a French financier, the almond cake or a pithivier with almond paste inside. Almond croissant. Almond croissant. Almond croissant with this for breakfast. Pour it up for breakfast. Just with a little bit of custard in there as well. Just put some creamy vanilla custard in there with that. Love it. Another thing, another delicacy I love that reminds me of BenRiach always is macarons. French macarons with the almond and the icing. How it melts on your palate and quite often, again, BenRiach is so soft and it's so delicious. It's almost like meringue melting on your tongue as well. You get that beautiful melting meringue along with the creaminess, along with the pear and apple tart. This sounds amazing. I mean, this is a whisky for pastry. It's a whisky for pastry and it's also a very, very fine single malt for, it's almost gourmet, it's like a way of discovering all these lovely sweet flavors. It's a great way for people from Bourbon, I think, to enjoy single malt scotch because the sweetness is like candy. You say the candied fruit. So, you've tried the Tennessee Whiskey Barrel. What's next? Now, we're gonna try something that is very familiar to the bourbon drinker. Yeah. I don't think I've ever had a Scotch. Wouldn't this be pricing prohibitive to do Virgin Oak Barrel? Not for the Brown Forum Incorporation. I don't understand your question. Can you explain it a bit more, please? Money is no object, Greg. Okay. No. Well, no. Explain it to me. You mean the cost of the wood, do you mean? Is that what you're talking about? I think the premise would be that since most Scotch distilleries don't have like a cooperage tied to them, and the American market of bourbon barrels, they have to sell them. They can't use them again. So there's this glut of excess bourbon barrels, which is a really economical way for Scotch to age. And so it seems to define a lot of like entry level, how people just assume Scotch is. And then a lot of the Scotch that we see is finished in an additional wine cast or something else. This is real one-on-one stuff. Thanks for listening to Barrel, The Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. But to see them use actually a fresh barrel for the first time, that seems like a much larger investment, right? Well, yes, of course, when you buy Virgin Oak, or indeed Sherrywood, that's probably something completely different, but they are the most expensive cast that you can buy, tend to be a Virgin Oak cask or a Sherry cask at the end of the day. Virgin Oak obviously is getting more expensive as well as time goes on. But this one in particular, this is the same specification as used for Jack Daniel's. So, very interesting in that way. So, medium toast, medium char. Can I just say this because I feel smarter every time I say it? Quercis Alba. It's definitely Quercus. Quercus. His Latin has always been terrible. Worst Latin in the world. No, dude, I went to the Morton Arboretum this weekend. I went to the Morton Arboretum and I said that word the wrong way 4,000 times to my in-laws. I walked around the exhibit. I kept saying it to my daughter. She's five. She's learning. She's gonna mispronounce that forever. Everyone was really impressed with your misinformation. Yeah, okay, settle about this. Latin, it's from the Latin. Quince or quince? Quince. Quince. Where do you get quince? That one guy, Jim, who was that? Some guy from a distillery came and told us. From where? I don't remember. He didn't know what he was talking about. Definitely quince. He got it in my head. I'm sorry. Use them before in bartending. People who pronounce it quince have to eat it raw. I think so. I think so. Quince and Quercus. Quercus. Quercus Alba. Do you wait? Anyway, let's move on. Okay. BenRiach has been matured in this American Virgin Oak Quercus Alba, cask, medium toast, medium char from the Jack Daniels Cuparidge. It gives that wonderful sweetness that is a caramelization. It's the vanilla, it candies the fruit. But the beauty with BenRiach is that it's never dry. I've experimented with Virgin Oak in some distilleries and it can just be a bit like a, you know, a pencil sharpening or sawdust. But with BenRiach, it's never like that. It brings out the sweetness because it's the sweet side of Speyside. This is, this is nuts. I thought the last one was a bourbon drinker. Definitely some nuts in there. Definitely some nuts. I'm getting some Reese's Pieces. It tastes like s'mores. It's graham cracker. It has cocoa and it tastes like toasted marshmallows. Not just marshmallows out of a bag, but toasted marshmallows. The brown ones, not the black ones. Are you getting the Reese's Pieces yet? I'll go back and look for the peanuts. I definitely am. In the retro-nasal, I get a lot of that kind of peanut buttery. Peanut butter, yeah. Reese's Pieces thing. You're probably more used to finding that in a bar pen. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. These are glorious. How much do these cost? This is ridiculous. I'm going to have to spend a bunch of money again because of this thing. I feel like sometimes Virgin Wood is just way too much for malt whiskey, but the whiskey itself is so sweet and rich, like you say. Exactly. It just folds right in. Absolutely. This is basically like taking your patisserie, your croissant, and just making a little bit sweeter, putting a bit more brown sugar in there in the recipe. Add a little bit of fudge on top, maybe some peanut butter. So you're taking that luscious patisserie and you are just amplifying the sweetness, brown sugar, caramelization, you know, that creme brulee on top. You might be getting more with this one. This rings in at $89.99 at Binny's. That's under a saw buck a year, which passes the sniff test there. And it's in a $750. Thank you for putting it in a 750 ml bottle. Okay. You're welcome. This is fabulous. I could drink it all day. I could drink it every day. It's so good. I mean, you know, it's real dessert type whiskey. For all of you who love a bourbon and have a sweet tooth, please try this whiskey, the BenRiach in a Virgin Oak. Yeah. Barrel from Jack Daniels. It will give you that wonderful sweetness that you love in a bourbon, but with the delicacy of malt. Yeah. That's absolutely true. It's straddling a line so beautifully. This could be an entry into Scotch for bourbon drinkers, but I think every Scotch drinker is going to appreciate the plushness that it has too. Plushness. Plush. I'm going to steal that word too, plushness. It's a good word. It's a very good word. I don't have the best palate for a single malt. She says this, but she loves mezcal, another weird agave. I do, I do. I think we're maybe just proving her wrong here. I think she's saying maybe not usually for malt. However, BenRiach. What comes after the but? What are we going to say? I think it's a lot more approachable. You're going to look at this, if you're me, on the shelf, and you're, oh, I don't know about that. But after trying it, it's got that nice sweetness to it, kind of like a dessert, and it's not so scary. It's fairly approachable to start getting into these, you know, this whole new world of, you know, not Mezcal's. Not Mezcal's. Finesse. Finesse. She grew up listening to one very specific kind of drum and bass, like aggressive, angry, industrial drum and bass, but then can't handle any, like, punk or heavy metal. That's right. Just only this one kind of... You got to crank up that 808. Yeah. Start bartending when you're 18, you never know. Yeah. But it's, as you say, it's the, I always, you know, I've said so many different things about BenRiach, but it does open your mind to the possibilities of maturing in different types of casks because of its versatility, because of its accessibility, because of its balance, because of its delicacy. And for me, you know, that's what makes it, you know, the perfect perfectly balanced piece I've mulled for people who are new to whiskey, just coming in, just coming into it. And I urge everyone to give it a try. These show these two barrels so well, but they're also like fundamental building block barrels instead of the, I don't know, the Umberana barrel or the Oloroso barrel or the PX barrel that's going to make it so sickly sweet, you know? Yeah. I mean, this is a way of letting the distillery character shine. Yeah. Even with the Virgin Oak, and again, very few distilleries can do Virgin Oak as well. Yeah. If any, I've not experienced any distillery do Virgin Oak as well as this. I'm more extreme barrels also. Sorry? I said I'm on your side with that. It's very rare. I was expecting you to challenge me there. No, it's very rare that Virgin Oak is this well integrated in this. Yeah. Beautiful. It is. I get that feeling even at the distillery. There's the sweet side of space side. It's all the pine forests around. It's the open plains midway between the Cairngorm Mountains and the sea, the sweetness of the mall. And again, it's quite dry, 40 days more sunshine. I don't know whether there's elements there that just bring out that beautiful sweetness and that balance more than any other location. Can I ask a question about this? You mentioned the pear-shaped stills here and really tall. Glenglassaugh stills have a very broad base as well, and a boil ball, and they are big. They're big stills. They're very tall. Yeah, and they're very big as well. They're quite broad and tall. And these are smaller. With a boil ball. Where these are smaller and there's no boil ball, and it's just a beautiful, smooth, upward, like a Williams pear or something. Yeah. And then the line arm just beautifully, slightly up. So with the taller still, you get more reflux, more delicate aromas making it with heavier. It depends, I think. I think it depends a lot on your distillery. Even what's created in the wash, what's created in the beer. Remember, we've got different mashing, different water, et cetera. And then we've got short, four shots, but it's not as short as some other. So it's 13 minutes, which is short, but it's not as if it's like 10 minutes or eight or nine minutes. So it's 13 minutes, which is perfect. And then we go down to 61% alcohol as well. So we do get this spectrum. So we're not just taking a thin slice. Yeah. So you're getting a little bit into the tails. We're getting a beautiful balance. And that's why, you know, as I say, it's like filo pastry. You would be amazed when you have to take the next time. The new make spirit at how much like, how do I describe this? Pear and peach with whipped cream, a little bit of filo pastry in there before it's even gone in an oak cask. In talking about your production also, you're putting more emphasis than I think I've ever heard anyone put on the grain itself, the place and the water. Often we talk about the barrels, every time we talk about the barrels, and often we talk about the stills, but we rarely talk about, I mean, we talk about amylase and stuff when it comes to converting during, for process sake, but the, you're putting Like terroir. I mean, terroir in wine is totally different, obviously, because of the grapes, you know, the raw material, etc. Whereas, I think with single malt scotch whiskey, it's so complex and there are so many different compounds formed from malted barley. It's the most complex ingredient in the world. Yeah. I'm sure you agree. Yeah. I'm not going to disagree with you. One minute lesson. Because there's so many proteins and amino acids in there as well as the starch. So the amino acids and the proteins can give you all this lovely rainbow of fruit. And obviously, the mashing and the water has a part to play. It's very elusive. It's a bit like Glenglassaugh. It's very elusive. And of course, as human beings, if we can't quantify things and it's things we cannot see, we question whether it has an influence. But actually, nature is much bigger than us all. And that's me saying that as a scientist. So, you know, it has a part to play. And you hear of distilleries moving, you know, a mile or whatever up the road or whatever. And undoubtedly, the character will change. The influences in wine, like in wine, I suppose the things you cannot see, which is the microflora and the atmosphere, which influences the fermentation and also the maturation. So just like us, if we imagine ourselves that we are the whiskey for one minute. That's not that hard. That's not the part of a stretch. Greg's 90% whiskey most of the time. Okay. I am the whiskey and I am at BenRiach. And I can smell the sweetness of the barley, the clarity of the air, the pine forest, all these things that the cherry blossom on the tree outside the distillery. I can smell all these things. I can feel all these things. I am soaking the whiskey. I got goose bumps. Indeed. Wow. And of course, you know, it's difficult to quantify, but then so is nature. Yeah. We don't understand much at all. I love that you're saying that. Like outside of the context of this podcast, we really don't. When I get this way, you know what helps? Whiskey. Whiskey. It does. Of course, it does. Because you smell it, it goes through your olfactory system, it intertwines with your thoughts, your feelings, your memories, your emotions, your imagination, everything that takes you to a place that makes you realize you want to just stop and smell Yes. Sounds like a T-shirt. Let the water of life wash over your existential crisis. Stop and smell the whiskey, be fully present. Whiskey is the best thing for mindfulness because as soon as you smell it, I've got a really serious job. I have to spend millions of the company's money on wood, and have to make really important strategic decisions. But when I'm getting a bit of a sore head with all of that, without looking at spreadsheets and all the rest of it, I'll go straight into the warehouse or into the lab, and I'll just stop and smell the whiskey. Suddenly, you're just fully present in that moment. You just let your senses. So next time you're enjoying a nice glass of whiskey, please tell Mrs. Versh. I'm sorry, this is for mindfulness. Mindfulness, yeah. Mindfulness is all about the senses. It's all about breathing and the beautiful aromatics you get with single malt. It's incredible. The hundreds of aromatics that mysteriously, magically take you to such a diverse range of places. Sometimes I'm nosing a whiskey and I'm in Andalusia, you know, in the warehouses picking sherry casks, or I'm, you know, on Bondi Beach, or I'm, you know, wherever I am in the world. And it's just like, it's just incredible, the richness of the sensory experience, I think. And single malt does that to me, for me, more than any other spirit or wine or beer, anything in the world. It does it, every time. It is the cosmos in a tiny glass. It is, it is. This is, what is the meaning of life? This is it. In water form. Well, that's why they call it the water of life, you know? Yeah, but the whisky that gets closest to being the water of life is Glenglassaugh. Because Glenglassaugh means valley of the water of life, valley of the sea. If you want to now think about this whisky on a paradise island, where you want to take in the most exquisite, the most epitome of the coalescence of the coastline, creating your desert island dram. My desert island dram is this whisky, which if it was the last whisky I was ever to have on this planet, this would be it. We're about to try it. I'm about to share it with you right now. I really set the stage for that. I was going to say, is the whisky going to be better than the setup? Because I am floating. I'm talking about this comedically tiny pour of whisky that I had in front of me for 45 minutes. Well, that's because this is like 50-year-old Glenglassaugh. So it is from those, you know, cast going back to the 1970s. So this is from 1972. I accidentally smelled it. It's blowing my mind. 22nd, you really need to pause. Yeah, yeah, sorry. So let's just all imagine ourselves. We're doing more guided meditation right now. Yes, I love this. Let's imagine ourselves on our own perfect desert island, paradise, and take a sniff of this whisky. 50 years old, 1972. I've just let it flow over your senses, the aroma, breathe in, breathe out. Taking all the beauty of all the most luscious aromatics of wonderful fruits, exquisite fruits, tropical and dark, perfectly woven in with rolling waves of flavor. There's a sweetness there, but it never dominates because the sea has the strongest voice. It is the most powerful element affecting this whiskey. As you know, you can almost hear the waves, hear the echoes, hear the sound of the sea, even just on nosing. Glenglassaugh is a beautiful whiskey that begs you to just pause, trust your senses, take in the atmosphere around you, connect your senses to the here and now. And as you taste, let it transport you to the taste of paradise. Take your time. Enjoy. Do you feel the waves of flavor gush into your mouth? Gush with the different fruits, with tropical, with blackcurrant, little bit of salinity, little bit of umami, just the right amount, silky. What do you think? I was going to say that the one thing that's really layered into all of that is that savory sense, the umami that's developed over time, kind of rancio type of flavors. Beautiful. I love that you say that. It's so unusual, unless you're in Cognac, the world of Cognac, to find rancio in a single malt that is really, really, really good, that doesn't go too far. It's refined and it's buried under layers of fruit flavors until the very finish, when you realize it's been there the whole time. This was a roller coaster of acid. I feel like I went on this very peaceful kiddie ride, and then you have this little fruit moment, and then you end just, this is an adventure, really. Exactly. Exactly. It's an adventure surfing on your tongue to the pace of the waves. Yeah. Absolutely a whiskey of contemplation. This is where you take your quiet time. This is, this is, this is, this whiskey, I would choose as my final whiskey on earth. The final drink. If I had to sit there looking at the horizon. And she's like, I'm gonna be around for a while, so I'm gonna need a lot of it. But you know what I mean. It's like, ah, this is the taste of heaven. Okay. It's also the taste of that kind of, what's that? What's the, what's the tea with the orange in it? Earl Grey. Bergamot. Bergamot. Bergamot that has the Luxardo Cherry Liqueur, the one that kind of tastes kind of minty and herbal at the same time. Lovely. I love that you said that. Well, that's like, it's in the nose. It's very, it's writing on top of the cherry fruit, too. It is. So it's these well-developed fruits, incredibly well-developed fruits, along with that surf that comes to almost that minty top note. Yeah. That is ethereal, that is refined, that's like the C, that's elegant. And you're making this waving motion, this C motion, but there's also like a linear, structured tea leaf, tannin, wood, almond kind of floor underneath. Absolutely. Yeah. You're definitely left with the impression that it has been in wood for a long time, but it does not go overboard. The tannins are certainly there. It's textural. Well, this is actually a Virgin Oak. Yeah. Remarkably for Glenglassaugh. This is 50 years of Virgin Oak? It's not actually 50 years. So this is, I think it was Bourbon and then I think it was 2012, before my time with the distillery transferred into Virgin Oak. Oh, finished on Virgin Oak. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. But it was bottled from the single cask. So it's a cask bottling. So eight bottles exist. Well, you know, it's not very high strength, this one, the alcohol strength. Oh, they took it. I'm going to try and remember, it's quite low because the angels have taken more than their fair share from this cask, as you've rightly observed, because it's very humid there. So we do lose alcohol strength more. So this is down at 42% alcohol, which, you know, it's still above 40%. That's cask strength. That is cask strength, but it is after 50 years. So it's down at 42%. But what I love about Glenglassaugh and the fact that there is more humidity, there's more influence of the sea, is that you get more, here's the science bit, hydroalcoholicis, where the influence of the alcohol, but also the humidity and the hydro Yeah. It is, it's like ethereal. Ethereal. Exactly. That is the benefit of the hydroalcoholicis in a very elemental location right on the beach where there's surf. Not going to happen anywhere else. It's not going to happen anywhere else. I love that you said that. So for every single distillery, it's not going to happen anywhere else. And obviously, this is bottled from a single cask. So you're not, this is a moment in time. So you're only going to have this moment in time. You've just tasted in one bottle and then it's gone. So there's more than one bottle. You can't step in the same river twice, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's why, what a journey we're on. What a journey we're on of whiskey, that we get to experience so much. It's just so remarkably elegant for being that old and would that long. I love that you say that because so many people say, oh, but when the whiskey gets older, it gets a bit like me, gets a bit tired. Well, we've seen that. We've definitely seen that. Yeah, it gets a bit dry. Yeah. But no, Glenglassaugh is always luscious, and it just keeps getting better with the age. It's just unfortunate that we do lose a bit to the angels, but the results speak for themselves. You know, happy angels, but we have delicious whisky that I hope you get to try. We've tried it here today, and for me, it's rare, it's old, but going forward, there is nothing like this. So just like, I suppose, a work of art that you can look at and admire from every angle, and your life is so enriched from the sensory, from the viewing things, from just feeling that work of art. This is like a work of art for me. You know how it's like the most exquisite work of art that you, for your senses, for your senses, for your nose, for your palate, for the experience, for the, obviously, the taste, the finish, and how it feels and what it makes you feel. I'm going to have Jim make a loop of this so that I can just listen to her talk about it, right? As I'm mindfully sipping whiskey and not falling asleep at night. Daily meditation. You'll fall asleep to what I'm saying. It would be offensive if I asked if I could have some sandwich. Of course. After that, please do. So offended. Let's do it. Let's do it. I'm going to have a wee drop first, so before I hand over the bottle, I hope you don't mind. Oh, how dare you. This is such fun. I love it. That was elegant and fantastic and profound and life-affirming if you're into whiskey. And if anybody gets an opportunity to taste this at World of Whiskeys next year or one of our events. But are you ready to step on that with cheddar popcorn? I mean, it's going to have some umami, isn't it? It's going to have some umami going. Oh, the cheddar will for sure. I think the caramel one is probably the closest to this whiskey. I think the caramel one would be the best for me to try with Sandend. I would recommend trying one piece of each together. With Sandend? Or is that just for the whole popcorn experience? There it is. And then try them separate. I've got to do the full sensory experience of popcorn. Yes, both one piece of each first. Well, I must admit, this is a new sensory experience for me. I'm glad I'm having new sensory experiences in my life. This is wonderful. So together first. And then try them individually. Chicago. Oh, wow. Chicago. I love this. Can we do the poetic ASMR about the popcorn mix too? Caramel. That wonderful umami that you get. You know, the texture of the cheese and the popcorn. Delish. It's so good. I'm going to try this with the two of them. Buttery, Frenchy, salty. It's perfect. Yeah. Oh, my God. That is the best thing I've ever tasted with Glenglassaugh. Hey, guys, all of you, you need to get your bottle of Glenglassaugh and get your... I need to buy this popcorn and also buy a suitcase so I can take it all home. You would not be the first person to do that. And have it on the beach at Glenglassaugh as I raise my glass of Glenglassaugh and have the most delicious caramel and cheese popcorn I've ever tried. Oh, that's amazing. A little taste of Chicago and Scotland. I was with a winemaker from JJ Prume, very famous German recently maker yesterday, and she had Chicago's own Italian beef for lunch yesterday. Wow. So, everybody who comes to town. I don't think this whiskey would be that good with the beef. I think it's better with the popcorn. Definitely not. Okay. Wow. This is amazing. This is amazing. I don't think any whiskey can beat this. Go on. Tell me. Do you agree? Do you agree? The whiskey with this popcorn makes? The whiskey with the caramel and cheese popcorn with Sandend. Yeah. That's an epic pairing right there. This is an epic pairing. I love that you said that. I'm like, I cannot believe I've never tasted anything like this. You know when your taste buds come alive and you're like, whoa, what just happened? That's just amazing. How come it's taking me this long? But it's wonderful to discover it. It is fantastic to cover. All right. You are welcome. Look at that. All right. For those of you listening at home, we're going to keep doing this for a while, so thanks for hanging out with us for the first part of it. If you enjoyed it, leave us a review. Send us your questions at commentsofbinnys.com. Hit us up on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X. Threads. YouTube. Threads. Threads? We're at Binny's Bev on those things. Until next time, I'm Greg. I'm Chris. I'm Lexi. And I'm Rachel Barrie. Keep tasting.