Jake Lewellen (00:00.888) Welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Lens, but you can actually call this Scotch Whiskey Lens tonight. So sit back and buckle into the latest episode of the Bourbon Lens. We are joined by Gary Mills, National Global Brand Ambassador for Lac Lamond Group. And we are excited to talk all things Glen Scotia and Lac Lamond and Scotch in general. So sit back and buckle in. Gary, thank you for spending a few minutes on the back end of your Friday as I rev up my Friday here. Gary Mills (00:29.159) Yeah, no, listen, thanks for having me on, Jake. I’m absolutely delighted to be able to join you, to share some scotch with you. Like you said, it’s getting into the weekend for me. You’re just kicking it off nice and early. Jake Lewellen (00:31.83) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (00:40.246) Yeah, it’s, you know, this is what you gotta do when you’re dealing with your friends from across the pond. You gotta make up the time difference. Yeah. Gary Mills (00:47.879) Absolutely, and if it means drinking scotch silly hours, that’s fine. I think my my best one today was a tasting with New Zealand which meant a 7 a.m. dram which During covid times anyway, so I wasn’t driving anywhere. So that was fine Jake Lewellen (01:02.776) can’t say that I’ve not done that. Many of bourbon trips have started with a 7 a.m. whiskey, so it’s all good. Excited to talk with you all. Shout out to Sarah for getting us all set up. Love to highlight the PR companies for making these things happen. You all just partnered with Foley Family. Gary Mills (01:05.499) No. Jake Lewellen (01:29.614) Wine and Spirits to bring your product into America in the last recent time and there’s a lot of cool stuff happening there. you know for you just from an American audience perspective, right? That’s where most of us are. Tell us a little bit about Lac Lomond group and the two different distilleries that we’ll be tasting from tonight. Gary Mills (01:50.427) Yeah, so the Loch Lomond Group was formed around 14 years ago and it comprises of two distilleries so we’re independently owned which is a wonderful thing still to be able to say and it comprises of the Loch Lomond Distillery which is around 35 minutes outside of Glasgow literally at the south… shore of Loch Lomond itself. It also has Glen Scotia in Campbelltown, so one of three Campbelltown distilleries remaining. We’re also very fortunate to then have the last of the Little Mill casks. So we own the last of the Little Mill Lowland Whisky casks. We’ve also just reopened our new gin distillery. We have New York Distilling Co. in New York. Jake Lewellen (02:35.15) Very nice. Gary Mills (02:39.366) and we also have Champagne Piaf in France. So, nice, wonderful broad portfolio. is a great selection of spirits to work with and a real nice gambit and just super good quality spirits across the board. Jake Lewellen (02:53.922) Yeah, no, it’s amazing when these privately owned groups can spread their wings a little bit and then, you know, there’s collaborations that can abound or, you know, the ability to pool multiple consumers to different products, right? Which is awesome. And that’s what you wanna do. You wanna get people in your ecosystem. And then… Jake Lewellen (03:21.4) For sure. So, right, Scotland has unique areas, which is very interesting, right? And so these two distilleries sit in two separate but unique distilling styles, right? If the or finishing styles. Gary Mills (03:34.929) They do, they do. Yes, so there are the five Scotch whisky regions and these kind of, they go way, way back and there are arguments to say how relevant they still are. But I would say Campbelltown of the five, so the five are the Lowlands, Highlands and Islands, Space Side, which is technically within the Highlands, Islay, Jake Lewellen (03:50.19) Mmm. Gary Mills (04:03.736) itself, whilst an island sits as a category itself, and then Campbelltown. And I would probably say of the five, Campbelltown and Isla are the only two for me that still have a relevance in terms of they have a fairly clearly identifiable style. So Isla obviously is well known for its Pete and Smoke character. Jake Lewellen (04:20.706) Mm-hmm. Gary Mills (04:26.086) Campbelltown has a very distinct character in and of itself and think part of it comes down to the concentration of distilleries in that time. think previously or historically where the regions came from, one it came from taxation as most things do, but it started to become shorthand for the blenders in terms of flavour profile so that’s how they knew what to put in. Jake Lewellen (04:44.728) Mmm. Jake Lewellen (04:50.572) Mmm. Gary Mills (04:54.704) But the way I sum it up, you use Speyside as the best example, because it is quite a smaller condensed area, but there’s over 50 distilleries in this one area. And if you think, as the time has evolved, as time has passed and the region has grown, so you start off with a… small handful of distilleries that all make whiskey in the same way from materials in that area which define the style as time goes and time passes more distilleries open and they start doing things slightly different from their neighbour to set themselves apart as you would do so you start moving away a wee bit from that core but as you get more and more distilleries and you need to alter things so much so they become so far away from that core Jake Lewellen (05:27.502) Mm-hmm. Gary Mills (05:39.271) that if you were to open a Speyside distillery tomorrow and say I make Speyside whiskey doesn’t really actually tell you anything about the actual flavour profile because there’s already 50 plus distilleries making it. But like said with Isla obviously there’s that clear peat but there’s still only 12 distilleries on there and there’s only three in Campbelltown so yeah those historic styles have remained. Jake Lewellen (06:04.226) Yeah, so that’s really interesting to me. So with only three distilleries in Campbelltown, what makes Campbelltown so unique and why is it not booming like some of the other places are? Gary Mills (06:18.022) So, Campbeltown has had its boom and is probably, I would say, is back in a bit of resurgence to the point where Campbeltown was historically known as the Victorian whiskey capital of the world and a few other names, Whiskeyopolis, Whiskeytown. So we’ve been making Scotch for over 500 years now. but there was a period of, I think around a hundred years where essentially, Campbelltown dominated to the point that through that hundred year period, if you were drinking Scotch anywhere in the world, the chances are you were drinking Campbelltown Scotch. So it’s a small town very far west coast of Scotland that’s on the end of a peninsula. So whilst as the crow flies it’s 20 miles from Glasgow. It’s 120 miles and it’s a four hour drive. It’s not the easiest place to go to. Small side note, Paul McCartney used to stay down that neck of the woods, loved it. The Long and Winding Road is a song that was written about the journey to Campbeltown. Jake Lewellen (07:26.563) Okay. Gary Mills (07:27.75) and Mull of Kintyre, the Mull of Kintyre is literally just outside Campbeltown as well so the hero is based down there. So very kind of remote, hard to get to a place but winding back to early 1800s the kind of reasons why Campbeltown boomed so it was getting from Glasgow where most of the blending houses were to say a Highland distillery Jake Lewellen (07:32.512) wow. Gary Mills (07:55.597) speak in the region of around three days as a round trip. But because of where we are, it’s sort the mouth of the River Clyde as it goes off into the sea. You could get from Glasgow to Campbelltown on the water because of the invention of the steam engine in three hours. So that’s great. So that allowed for movement of people, movement of casks. You then layer on the fact that we had a coal mine nearby, plenty of fields to grow barley. We had a loch. Jake Lewellen (07:59.12) wow. Jake Lewellen (08:13.314) Okay. Gary Mills (08:25.254) that was made specifically just to give fresh clean water to distilleries. And then the consumption habits at the time. So obviously single malt, as we know it, has only been a thing for around 60, 70 years or so. So everything prior to that was blends. But in the early 1800s, people would drink their blends as toddies. So kind of spirit, water, a sweetener. And for toddies, want big, robust character flavors. And that’s what Campbelltown is. So it meant that… People flocked to this one town, this tiny wee town, like I said, far west coast. it’s got a maximum number of people that lived there at any point was 9,000. But at one point, the kind of one square kilometre of Campbelltown’s town centre housed 26 distilleries. In one town, like, do know what mean? You go, wow, 50 distilleries in Speysides lot, 26 in one town. There were… Jake Lewellen (09:06.988) wow. Jake Lewellen (09:23.801) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (09:34.681) That’s a small place for 26 distilleries. Gary Mills (09:36.87) Yeah, and the thing I love about it is you can still walk around Campbelltown and see, whilst there are only three of them remaining, you can still see remnants of the distilleries literally. You walk past an archway and it’s got the distillery name still, you can still see a bit of the carving kinda come in. There are still some pagodas and all that kinda stuff about it. It’s wonderful, I love it, it’s a great place. Jake Lewellen (09:58.04) Yeah. So Glenskosha, it’s kind of known for bold. I was looking at the bottles like bold flavors, right? It’s a really simple bottle design. I’m going to pull the 15 because it’s just closer here for people to see it. It’s beautiful. I love how it plainly says what it wants, right? Like, you know, it is is what it is. You know, it’s not flash. It’s hey, this is where the whiskey is, this is where it’s from, this is how I’m age, and then just a, like the, this one’s rich and smooth, the other one’s bold and spicy, or bold and fruity. So it’s really simple, I do like that. So walk me through a little bit of the tin, which I believe is kind of the flagship product out of Glen Scotia. Gary Mills (10:47.312) Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve got some in the glass here. It’s such a good representation of that Campbelltown spirit. So I suppose that’s a nice segue into what I mean by what is Campbelltown spirit? What did Campbelltown whiskeys taste like? I suppose the… So things went really well. We boomed. It was 26. 30 odd distilleries. Things then went not so well to the point where there were only two distilleries. But the reason why there is this spirit or this style that exists within those distilleries, because the spirit went out of fashion and nobody was really buying it as much towards the end. There was no drive for these distilleries to modernize, really ramp up production, bring in all the new kit to the point where we just replaced our mash tun at Glen Scotia. The previous one was cast iron and it was from the Victorian times like it was over a hundred years old And it’s the same across ourselves and springbank. It is just old kit. There’s nothing is nothing is digitized in either of those distilleries. That’s for sure So it means that because the techniques and the kit hasn’t changed neither is the whiskey so for me the main characteristics of of Campbell towns whiskey Jake Lewellen (11:50.051) Yeah. Gary Mills (12:01.863) It’s got a slight sea salt character to it. We’re surrounded on three sides by the sea. That of imbues a lot of that. Wonderful vanilla notes because we use lot of first-fell bourbons for maturation. So the Glenskosha 10 is full first-fell bourbon maturation. you’ve got bags of that vanilla character coming through. Little bit of spice and a nice oily mouth feel that kind of captures, keeps those flavours in your mouth for a real nice long time. Jake Lewellen (12:07.854) Yeah. Gary Mills (12:29.477) and then Glene Scotiab over and above that’s got a character, a fruit character because of long fermentation as well. So because it’s full first Phil Burburn for it’s 10 years this whisky for me embodies all of that. Jake Lewellen (12:34.991) Mm. Jake Lewellen (12:42.175) Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is The salinity note is really nice, right? I Really like the salinity Old Pulteney has a salinity to it. I like that one as well So that that’s salinic note. I kind of equate to a lot of the the border You know parts of Scotland But the the fruitiness here is is wild to me Gary Mills (13:04.763) Yeah, it’s… Yeah. So, yeah, like I said, long fermentations, the catalyst for that. So our average fermentation time at Glen Scotia is 128.8 hours. Jake Lewellen (13:21.369) So, four and a half days. Gary Mills (13:24.751) Yeah, that’s bearing in mind for folks that the usual Scotch fermentation time is between 48 and 60 hours. And ultimately after the 60 hours the yeast has died because it’s done its job, it’s converted all those sugars into alcohol. But when you go longer, when you go past that 70-80 hour mark you get a secondary fermentation, kicks in as a bacterial fermentation, starts building a lot of esters and congeners which hold flavour and importantly for us it’s fruity flavour. And it’s a theme that will come back to it, that of nicely ties the two distilleries together as well. Jake Lewellen (14:00.047) And it’s the thing that I find I read the back of the bottle, but it’s like it’s a tropical fruit. It’s not just like orchard fruit, which are a lot of scotch end up in orchard fruit, right? A lot of honey crisp apple or green apple notes. This is, you know, pineapple or mango we there, which is very refreshing, right? So you can see how this bottle at an affordable price is not only just used for sipping meat, it could be used in a lot of cocktails to bring that. citrus tropical vibe forward. Gary Mills (14:33.799) Absolutely, yeah and I think I’m I know you guys are the same like it’s I’ll never turn my nose up at folk using Scotch for whiskeys and it’s the you hear folk talk about it if when you when you’re cooking and you’re adding wine like why would you add cheap wine to your food if you like if you want your food to taste good put the best wine into if you want a good cocktail use the best spirits you can get for it and that’s yeah just use a good Scotch and you’re right that I think the balance of the fruit Jake Lewellen (14:53.71) percent. Jake Lewellen (14:57.134) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (15:07.681) Mm-hmm. Jake Lewellen (15:13.678) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (15:18.159) No, no you can’t and it falls well within the purview of you know the $10 per year kind of thought process if you can still live in that in today’s world in 2026 you’re doing a really good job and that’s half of this right you know from that perspective the one thing that I find interesting and I don’t know why but like this has the back end to this gives me some Smoky peaty ish vibes and I’m not saying that I don’t think there’s any peateness but like why is that back in so kind of You know earthy I guess per se Gary Mills (15:58.738) So there’s a very very small amount of P in it and when I say small I’m talking like less than 5 % Jake it’s like probably about 3-5 % max and it’s normally we’re using it Jake Lewellen (16:08.93) Okay. Gary Mills (16:11.655) And it’s the same across most of the core range in Glen Scotia But it’s more about that, you said it, first spice It’s more of a mouth feel character than is a smoke peep Which is why we don’t really put any of that on the bottle It’s very much more mouth feeling texture Cause again, it’s part of that historic style Like, Campbelltown, not a lot of people know Campbelltown, pre-1920s? Jake Lewellen (16:19.674) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (16:23.344) Mmm. Jake Lewellen (16:26.81) Got it. Gary Mills (16:37.767) was as well known for peated whiskeys as Islay was. It was a peated region. Historically. But again, as the demand for Campbeltown whiskeys dropped, they switched to unpeated because it was cheaper to do it. They didn’t need to import the peat into all of that, so they just whittled away over time. Jake Lewellen (16:42.969) Okay. Jake Lewellen (16:56.718) Well, I feel proud of myself for getting that like small tiny hint of peat. Like, and it does give a nice roundedness to the spirit, right? Because if it was only sharp one way towards the fruit, then it would be missing something. But this kind of brings it back around and gives you that full flavor profile. Gary Mills (17:16.263) Absolutely, no absolutely. And then we’ve just recently launched in the UK, till the of last year, a 12th. So we’ve just put out a squish of 12th, which again is full first filbert bin unpeated. And we’re bottling that at 92 proof. Jake Lewellen (17:23.268) Okay. Gary Mills (17:31.944) So that will be coming to the US later on this year. That will probably replace the tin as a real core. And it’s something we’ve been working to for a while. Like I said, the Loch Lomond group has existed for about 14 years. But if you even rewind just two years prior to that, so when our master distillery in McAllister joined us 17 years ago. Jake Lewellen (17:32.144) Okay. Gary Mills (17:58.888) The production of Glen Scotia were producing 7500 litres of alcohol in a year No sorry 75000 litres of alcohol in a year We’re now up to 850000 So it’s a… We’ve been ramping that up over the period But obviously we didn’t go from there to there It’s been a gradual lift And obviously we’ve had to wait for that to age So the end of last year was where we really felt we’d unlocked a big enough parcel Jake Lewellen (18:04.816) Mmm. Jake Lewellen (18:17.518) Yeah, yeah. Jake Lewellen (18:34.862) Yeah, and 12th team seems to be a little bit more of a standard age statement for Scotch. Right, so like the Loch Lomond, like you mentioned, does have that 12 year age statement on it. And so let’s transition, we’ll come back to Glenn Scotiah here on the back end. But we do have this 12 year, and this is me being Scotch stupid, really, in all honesty. So I come back and I’m outside of Galeasco. What traditionally has that region brought me, right, from a flavor profile perspective? And then what are you all trying to get to the consumer? Jake Lewellen (19:43.952) Mmm. Gary Mills (19:48.872) technically still within the Highlands and it goes as far north as Scotland goes so it’s so so broad. For us, mean we’ve probably the extreme of the broad flavour spectrum so Loch Lomond, the distillery of the history has really been shaped by blended Scotch and I appreciate, minus 70 years ago Jake Lewellen (19:51.023) Yeah. Gary Mills (20:13.093) Every distillery was shaped by blended scotch but we are probably the most intense or the most acute version of that to the point that the previous ownership evolved the distillery in such a way with a focus very much on blended scotch to be able to create, to be a self-sufficient blended scotch factory ultimately to that point of we’re the only distillery in Scotland that can produce both grain and malt whisky under the one roof and we’ve got the capacity to make where most distilleries can make three spirits, so an unpeated, a medium-peated and a heavily-peated. L’Occlomande can make 11 different new-make spirits, each one distinctly different from itself. So it allows us to make lots of different things, but they have three main flavour profiles for L’Occlomande, which I think are beautifully embodied in this dram that we’ve got. Our fruit, honey sweetness and soft smoke. That’s… Jake Lewellen (20:52.613) Wow. Gary Mills (21:10.407) If somebody asks you what do Loch Lomond whiskeys taste like? That’s it. Fruit, honey, sweetness and soft smoke. And this is the drama I would pour them to say this is Loch Lomond. And there’s a very good reason why we call this one the 12 year perfectly balanced. Because for us it is a perfect balance of those flavour profiles. Jake Lewellen (21:30.416) So what goes into the 12, right? Does this have Pete in it as well? Gary Mills (21:39.58) does, it’s got very small amount of peat in it. We talk about how Michael Henry, our master blender for Loch Lomond, uses the, so we can create six peated spirits at Loch Lomond. And he uses those peated spirits in the same way that a chef, or if you’re making dinner, you would use salt and pepper. So when you’re adding salt and pepper, you don’t want them to be dominant flavours. You want them to essentially bring everything else together. Jake Lewellen (22:44.43) Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. My favorite part is the back part of the palate. I get a lot of chocolate with that peat. It’s really enjoyable. It lingers for a long time. And it’s like if you have chocolate covered, we do like this here in Louisville, a of the tasting rooms will do a… a citrus enhanced chocolate this kind of has that type of experience that’s very nice in here. don’t get the yeah, yeah, it’s The honey note is definitely there. And then like you said the peach and I was like, kind of what is that fruity note? Like a lot of times my mind goes to apple and I like then what type of apple? And then I’m like, is it stew? it, you know, is it bruised? Right, ever, right? Yeah, is it red, green? Yeah, all those things. But then when you said peach, it kind of like, the flavor memories kind of like came to my mind. It. Gary Mills (23:47.944) So again, because of that ability to create the different spirits, we can layer flavour in through distillation. So that’s been matured exclusively in ex-Burbon American oak. Everything we produce at Flowman goes into ex-Burbon American oak to start with. Because we’re very much focusing on putting flavour in through distillation rather than relaxing. Jake Lewellen (24:00.923) Mm-hmm. Jake Lewellen (24:04.676) Okay. Jake Lewellen (24:09.647) Yeah. Gary Mills (24:10.503) maturation for the flavour. So the American oak obviously it allows, it’s just one of these amazing marriages with Scotch and Nex bourbon casks. It just allows those flavour profiles to blossom without adding massive new big new flavours. The one consistent flavour it will add is that honey sweetness. You’ll obviously get some vanilla from the first fill but as you get into refills and re-charred casks as we do as well through our cupridge. Jake Lewellen (24:27.898) Mm-hmm. Jake Lewellen (24:32.176) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (24:39.375) Mm-hmm. Jake Lewellen (24:43.119) Well, and that’s one of my favorite things about Scotch in general is the recouping of barrels, right? Making them work for you all for a long period of time overall. And I know I don’t have this, but the Loch Lomond also has a older… U.S. cast just came back, was it the 15 or the 18 just hit the states not too long ago? 18, okay. I knew I wasn’t missing all the news. I try to keep up with everything. And so, while we won’t taste that today, I feel like 18 a lot of times is where… you see the biggest jump in scotch, right? 12 and 15 sit on shelves, 18 becomes a rare, more exclusive pour, right? Because the price point does jump because you lose so much throughout that process as you create these blends for these. So what would someone expect if they’re like, okay, this is a perfectly good representation of Loch Lomond, and then they were to go get the 18, what could they expect there? Gary Mills (25:44.328) The good news is there’s very similar flavour profile, it’s the same kind of spirits and that’s again by design. If that’s LOKOLOMIN 12 then you don’t want LOKOLOMIN 18 to be entirely different. But it changes the intensity. So it’s very similar, there’s four different spirits in the LOKOLOMIN 12. Jake Lewellen (26:00.282) Yeah. Gary Mills (26:09.191) Three the spirits are the same in the 18 but instead of using some medium peated liquid for the 12 we’ll use some heavily peated in the 18 and that’s purely because it’s going to be in the cask for six years more and does dissipate over time so it just has a better level but it’s the complexities to it and it’s why 18s are more revered because that extra time in woods allows the complexity, it builds that mouth feel Jake Lewellen (26:13.553) Mm-hmm. Jake Lewellen (26:18.587) Mm. Jake Lewellen (26:22.437) Yeah. For sure. Gary Mills (26:38.343) But yeah, so you definitely get more wood on it to start with, you can’t not. So the first two drums have had a 10 and a 12, they’re that kind butter zone for me. 10 to probably I’d say 14 max. It’s where you find this wonderful balance between, especially if you’re using first fill, you get that great balance between the wood character and the distillate character. You get both and neither dominates. But once you get 15 and above, Jake Lewellen (26:38.513) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (26:43.281) Mm. Jake Lewellen (26:53.646) Yeah. Gary Mills (27:07.751) But then the wood starts to take over a wee bit more. So we’re very fortunate to have a full on-site cooperage. We’re one of only four distilleries to have that. It means we’ve got some of the best quality casks. We can look after those casks and use them up to nine times. So the 18-year-old will have a much higher proportion of refilled casks. So casks that have had their fill of bourbon have come over to us and we’ll have used them at least once for scotch as well. Sometimes possibly twice. Jake Lewellen (27:11.899) Mm-hmm. Jake Lewellen (27:16.89) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (27:23.649) wow. Gary Mills (27:37.615) and that just allows for a gentler maturation over that long period allows the distillate character to still shine through without over-oking. So, yeah. Jake Lewellen (27:44.194) Mm-hmm. Yeah for sure and do you all ever Use Secondary non-american bourbon barrels do you ever use sherry or anything like that? Gary Mills (27:59.942) Yes, so not for maturation, I said, everyone will go into bourbon, ex bourbon to start with, but we absolutely do some finishing. And Michael, our master blender, and his blending team are brilliant. Like I would never… Jake Lewellen (28:05.349) Yep. Okay. Gary Mills (28:16.903) choice of casks is magnificent. The touch with the length of maturation time or that extra finishing time. Yeah, I’ve never disagreed with anything they’ve done. Whether it’s, so we’ll go from heavy charred casks through to wines, ports, cherries, less of the kind of ports and cherries on the Lough Lomond side, more on the Glen Scotiab. Yeah, we did some travel retail whiskies, which have got like a Columbian Oak. Jake Lewellen (28:19.472) Mmm. Jake Lewellen (28:31.441) Mmm. Jake Lewellen (28:37.381) Okay. Jake Lewellen (28:43.441) cool. Yeah. For sure. Jake Lewellen (28:59.897) Yeah, one of my most interesting finishes, I know it’s an Irish single malt, but Method and Madness did a chestnut finish one. so like, have something. Have something interesting, right? Like do something unique. And I think we have so many species of oak in the world. Why not try something a little bit different? In America, we’ve overdone the cachaça, Umbriano stuff that can go die on a vine. But I’m all for other oaks. Like let’s make it happen or other woods. Let’s try these things. I think the new thing in America will be cherry blossoms. Gary Mills (29:34.872) nice, okay. Jake Lewellen (29:36.079) Yeah, so that’s hitting the shelves in a couple different ways here in America. So you never know what’s going to happen. Jake Lewellen (29:45.494) I have not tried it yet. It’s like all new. So I’m excited. That’ll be something I’m gonna learn. Hopefully this year is a little bit more of that because I’m all for innovation. I mean, I think the best type of whiskey is stable whiskey and then your innovative arm. If you can’t innovate, especially in today’s consumerism standpoint, you’re gonna want fewer, bigger, better, right? Those are the things. So like I’m willing to pay maybe 200 or $300 for a bottle once or twice a year if it’s going to be exceptional, right? If it’s not exceptional and I don’t think it’s exceptional because I’m not a fan of the distillery or it’s something brand new then I’m going to go pick up, you know, Glenskosha tin because I love Glenskosha tin. It’s 50 bucks. It’s repeatable. I can drink that. But, right, if I’m a Loch Loman fan and like the 18 comes and I’m a big fan of the 12, I’m gonna buy the 18, fewer, bigger, better. I may not buy two bottles, but I’ll buy one big one. Gary Mills (30:47.495) Well, one of the great things for us, again value wise, I’m not sure, over in the UK the 18 is under £100. So what’s that going to be like? 180 bucks for you? 150 bucks for an 18? Jake Lewellen (31:00.899) No, I mean I think the pound and the dollar are pretty similar right now, which is nice. Yeah, it used to be like $1.30. Gary Mills (31:10.139) Yeah was about $1.35 or something like that. But yeah, it’s part of, again it’s a very distinct choice where we’ve only really been bottling these whiskeys for six or seven years. So despite the distillery being there for 60 years as of next week, we’re still in a lot of people’s eyes a relatively new distillery, a relatively new brand. So these are priced so that people Jake Lewellen (31:12.954) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (31:23.365) Mm-hmm. Jake Lewellen (31:47.997) Well, good news for Americans going to Europe. You will be making money on your dollar when you go for the first time in a very long time, a pound is less than a dollar. Yeah, I mean, my whole childhood, like I remember we went to England. And England is quite a bit more expensive than any other place I feel like in that area. And then we went to Paris. Paris is also expensive. But the euro was closer than the pound was. And I got really excited because as a bourbon guy, didn’t know scotch much at that time. Weller 12 was sitting on shelves for 12 pounds of poor, which was like 18 bucks. And I’m like, let’s do it. Gary Mills (32:35.685) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just leave the bowl. Jake Lewellen (32:36.838) But yeah, just leave that here for me and me only. So yeah, that’s always been my experience. Every time I’ve been to Europe, the exchange rate has been, we have been less than. Now we are more than. First time ever. So to round this out, we have the 15-year Glenskosha for our tasting today. This is a beautiful bottle. You know, I showed it earlier, but it’s beautiful from a lot of different ways. I think the complexity to this, this is a whiskey you sit with. You don’t just have a dram at the end of the night. This is a… Can you sit by a fire? Can you sit in silence for 10, 15, 20 minutes alone? Let that open up and then drink it, right? That is how I describe every time I’ve had this. I’ve had it with friends. We’ve poured it and I said, let this sit. We’ll talk. And then I’m like, now it’s time to drink. Because it is a wonderfully complex whiskey. Gary Mills (33:45.48) 100 % and I think this is, when I’m pouring this I’ll refer to this as Campbelltown in a glass. This is everything I want a Campbelltown Scotch to be. All those flavour profiles that I talked about earlier, it feels, I think even on the nose for me it feels like the bigger brother of the 10 and I know that’s. Jake Lewellen (33:52.006) Yeah. Gary Mills (34:05.447) what it is. So this has got a combination of first fill and some refill as well. Like I said, you get towards 15, you don’t want that first fill becoming the first fill with dominating too much. Yeah, again, a very small amount of peat, which is adding that kind of spice, that background spice to it, which is a bit more pronounced. So I get less of the tropical on the 15. I get more kind of orange zest. Jake Lewellen (34:12.015) Mm-hmm. Gary Mills (34:34.075) And I say specifically zest because I think that’s… It’s to do with the citrus character but it’s to do with the oily texture of the skin I think it’s very much like as you’ve just expressed some orange over your old fashioned It’s that kind of lemon, orange oil And the spice is more like a stem ginger spice rather than ever, too overpowering Jake Lewellen (34:34.214) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (34:41.648) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (34:49.179) Yeah. Yeah. Jake Lewellen (34:59.92) Yeah, it’s like that orange rind, right? Like if you were to smell the rind of the orange, I’m all in on that one. I think the honey note that kinda comes a little bit more elevates through. The vanilla dissipates some. I think the honey note shines and balances what seems like a heavier peat because it’s a more mature whiskey, right? Those three extra years allows that peat to kind of like come through as it ages, right, and feels darker. The peat feels a little bit darker too, but that’s not a bad thing. Gary Mills (35:38.888) There’s also a layer of the spice character also comes from a very kind of flash I would probably call it of Oloroso sherry When I say flash it could be as low as like four weeks I think it maybe goes up to eight to ten weeks So it’s a real flash in the Oloroso and it’s not necessary to impart the sherry character the sherry flavors It’s more I get it very much in the drying the tannins on the tongue that the side of the palate and Jake Lewellen (35:52.187) Okay. Jake Lewellen (36:08.615) Yeah. Yeah, and you say that now and it’s like, okay, I can see why there’s like a little bit of plum or a little bit of fig, right? Like that note is there, it’s subtle. It’s after you kind of blow out, like, you gotta get those notes. And I feel like so many times you… You have to really sit and not sip multiple times because it’s so easy to just to keep drinking and drinking and drinking and drinking. But like if you can just take a breath in between, then you can get like, you’ll feel what comes out of your mouth to your nose and that’ll get more flavor profiles. Gary Mills (36:47.963) Yeah and I think that is such a big part of it, how you want to enjoy your scotch or your bourbon or whatever you’re drinking at the time. Is it just a dram that you’re sharing with friends to just chill out and just shoot the shit for a while? Or something you actually want to sit and appreciate like you said that you’re going to actively say to folk, right, let that sit, let it build and then we’ll take our time with it. And that for me is definitely one of the latter for Jake Lewellen (37:04.976) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (37:11.665) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (37:17.894) Yeah, and I think we need to do a better job of that is pour, walk away, let the air get to it, and then have a drink. So many times, I mean, I’m guilty of it all the time. Pour, drink. Because it’s been a long day, or you just want that flavor profile, or whatever it is. You know, these are all, these are fun because it can introduce you to Pete in such a light way. It introduces you to Pete in a way that’s not Isla all the time. And that’s what I think scares so many American whiskey drinkers away from Scotch is they all think it’s the Pete monster, you know, Octomore 18.6. Like, it’s not. Gary Mills (38:04.103) Yeah, but then I don’t know if it’s as big a thing in the US but over here, as you were growing up and coming of age, what would happen was like your father or your grandfather, whoever was the whiskey drinker in the house would pour a glass of scotch and they’d be like, right, get that down you son, that’ll put hairs on your chest, kind of way. And they would either pour you the cheapest thing they had. Jake Lewellen (38:28.272) Ha ha! Gary Mills (38:33.863) or they would pour you the biggest, dirtiest, peatiest thing they had. Because then you would drink it and you’d go, oh god, never drinking that ever again. And they would go, correct, you won’t ever touch any of my scotch, that’s for me. Or vice versa, if you’re just starting to get into scotch and you’re out with friends and they go, ah, I’ll get you a whiskey. And they buy you like a LaFrogger, like you said, a big octomore. And they just sit off to the side going, hee hee hee, waiting to see your face. Jake Lewellen (38:38.535) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (38:45.861) You Jake Lewellen (39:07.248) Yeah, it’s not. And I have found that there is a lot of beautiful whiskey in Scotch that you can appreciate with or without Pete. And as you grow older, and you grow older in your whiskey journey, and whiskey with an E-O-R-O-Y, however you want to spell it, I don’t care, you learn to appreciate that there’s styles and nuance and blending techniques that are… which makes all of these unique and fun and interesting. And if we were to drink the same thing over and over again, we’d all get bored, right? We don’t wanna be bored, we wanna have fun. Gary Mills (39:43.592) Correct, correct, exactly. And it’s when you think about it, thinking about it from the other side of the mirror, from a UK point of view of looking at bourbon specifically, a number of times, like doing whiskey shows and things like that, you talk to people and you go, have you tried much bourbon? And they go, no, I don’t like Jack Daniels. And you go. Jake Lewellen (39:57.467) Yeah. Jake Lewellen (40:13.331) Yeah, well, the charcoal mellowing process is unique. It’s different and it’s the world’s largest American whiskey for a reason, right? Gary Mills (40:22.875) That’s it, it’s easy to shoot at the big boys, they’re there but they’re big for a reason. it’s enjoyed by a lot of people, that’s what you need to say to focus, but that’s not everything. Yes, it’s very big so it blocks your view, but there are other things around it. There are many more satellites that deserve more of your attention. Jake Lewellen (40:36.827) Yeah, 100%. Jake Lewellen (40:44.189) You just gotta peek, gotta peek behind the curtain. There’s a lot. Jake Lewellen (41:12.965) Yeah. Yeah. Jake Lewellen (41:18.822) No. For sure, well Gary, thank you for walking through that tasting. It’s been great to get to know you. Hopefully one day I’ll get to Scotland. I haven’t been there yet, but hopefully soon. Jake Lewellen (41:41.765) Yeah, well, thank you for this. Thank you to Sarah and the team for setting this up. And thanks, everybody, for listening. We really appreciate it. We’ll catch you next time on the Burbans Lens. Cheers. Gary Mills (41:51.548) Yes, sludge them up.