Ian Buxton looks back at the career of one of the whisky world's titans - Tom Aitken.
After nearly 40 years experience in the drinks industry, and with a career that has embraced gin, cachaça and coffee liqueurs as well as Scotch whisky, it might be expected that Tom Aitken has some interesting views.
It proved so when I met with him at Whisky Live Glasgow to reflect on his career a...
By Ian Buxton
from Issue 68 published on 07/12/2007
Ian Wisniewski talks to Dr Gordon Steele,director of The Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI),located near Edinburgh.
IAN
How would you describe the role of the research institute?
GORDON
We go all the way through from raw materials to bottling problems, it’s very comprehensive.
We have a core of projects that we have to deliver on, some short term, some long term.
We have a membership that covers about 98 per...
By Ian Wisniewski
from Issue 68 published on 07/12/2007
We chat to two of Beam Global’s top men, CEO and President TomFlocco and seventh generation master distiller Fred Noe
How did you get involved in the business?
Tom: I became involved through Fortune Brands and worked with mergers and acquisitions getting to know how brands are built and grown. An opportunity came up to move across to the spirits side and its been as terrific ride since then. I have been Beam CEO s...
By Rob Allanson
from Issue 67 published on 01/11/2007
Ian Wisniewski talks to Ranald Macdonald of Boisdale Restaurants,London
IAN: Running a Scottish restaurant with a specialist selection of Scotch whisky seems like a reward rather than a job?
RANALD: I think a lot of people would assume the way I spend my life is one constant reward.
Making a restaurant work is simply providing excellent produce and a lovely atmosphere...
By Ian Wisniewski
from Issue 67 published on 01/11/2007
Ian Wisniewski talks to Campbell Evans,The Scotch Whisky Association’s director of government and
consumer affairs
Ian (IW): How would you describe your role, it sounds like multi-tasking on a global scale ?
Campbell (CE): Our primary focus is to protect Scotch whisky. When you’re selling in 200 countries you also have to monitor advertising regulations, import regulations, taxes, tariffs, labelling requirement...
By Ian Wisniewski
from Issue 65 published on 20/07/2007
Gavin D Smithmeets the man behind the classic Highland malt
Dalmore distillery is the jewel in Whyte & Mackay’s crown. Located 20 miles north of Inverness, on the shores of the Cromarty Firth, Dalmore dates back to 1839 and has belonged to the Glasgow-based company since 1960.
It produces what is arguably one of the finest Highland malts on the market and h...
By Gavin D. Smith
from Issue 65 published on 20/07/2007
Ian Wisniewski interviews the man behind The Whisky Exchange
Ian (IW): How do you acquire such an extensive range of stock?
Sukhinder (SS): Every day we get phone calls and emails, and we have a lot of customers who decide to retire, and we ask if they’d consider selling something. It started off with auctions, I’ve been going since 1988.
IW:Would you alway...
By Ian Wisniewski
from Issue 64 published on 01/06/2007
Caroline Dewar meets the latest in the line of Dewar’s master blenders
The master blender at Dewar’s in Glasgow is a calm and collected presence as she welcomes you to the premises. Following Tom Aitken’s retirement in summer 2006, Stephanie McLeod is now one of only a small number of senior women on the production side of Scotch whisky.
Her role is quality and consis...
By Caroline Dewar
from Issue 63 published on 20/04/2007
Roddy Martine shares a dram with Ian Rankin as he celebrates 20 years of his most famous creation,Inspector Rebus
Having to date immersed myself in 12 of his 17 crime scene investigations, I reckon I recognise the role model for the fictional Inspector John Rebus of Edinburgh’s Oxford Bar. In fact, I know him well. Having lived in the central belt of Scotland for most of my life, I should do by now. I see him e...
By Roddy Martine
from Issue 62 published on 01/03/2007
On his last day as Editor of Whisky Magazine,we sat Dominic Roskrow with a special whisky and let him speak to one of his sporting heroes, All Blacks legend Sean Fitzpatrick
As one of the greatest rugby union players of all time, former Auckland and All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick has faced some intimidating situations.
But nothing – not the South African front row, the powerhouse that is Martin Johnson, or the baying of 80,000 passionate rugby fans – has scared him...
By Dominic Roskrow
from Issue 58 published on 30/08/2006
In the first of a new series in which we talk to leading business figures, Richard Woodard talks to Sir Iain Noble
Maverick. Iconoclast. Rebel, even.
Not words you readily associate with a Knight of the Realm and holder of the Order of the British Empire, but then Sir Iain Noble OBE doesn’t fit into conventional pigeon-holes.
The owner of the Isle of Skye’s Pràban na Línne (The Gaelic Whisky Collection to Angl...
By Richard Woodard
from Issue 57 published on 21/07/2006
The basic process of making whisky is similar throughout the world. But there are always some who have to be different. Dave Broom meets the misfits
There is something about the misfit which attracts me. Iconoclasts, outsiders, people who challenge the norm, look at it from an original, if skewed, perspective and who by doing so, make the field wider.
This questioning nature is at the heart of distillation. It’s part of a whisky distiller’s job...
By Dave Broom
from Issue 46 published on 10/3/2005
Top author Iain Banks couldn’t believe his luck when he was asked to write a book on Scotland’s distilleries. He tells Dominic Roskrow about his year drinking whisky
When Iain Banks was approached about writing his new book, it was, to coin a phrase, an offer he simply couldn’t refuse.
His agent wanted to know if the author of such landmark novels as The Wasp Factory and The Crow Road was interested in touring Scotland by a number of different modes of transpor...
By Dominic Roskrow
from Issue 35 published on 17/11/2003
Brian Cox appears in two of the summer’s biggest blockbuster films. He spoke to Vivien Devlin about his love of Scotland and Scotch
By 1995, with his 50th birthday approaching like a grey cloud over the horizon, Brian Cox had quickly come to realise that he had reached the
pinnacle of his acting career in Britain.
By then he already had the distinction of achieving landmark stage performances such as his Olivier-award-winning r...
By Vivien Devlin
from Issue 32 published on 13/7/2003
What do professional tasters drink for pleasure? Richard Jones finds out what the whisky makers’ whiskies are
They have some of the most finelytuned palates in the business. Distillery manager, master blender, production or operations director; their titles might be different, but they all have one thing in common – the ability not only to recognise a great malt whisky when they find one, but to appreciate ...
By Richard Jones
from Issue 31 published on 9/6/2003
Dave Broom talks to John Glaser, the man exploring the boundaries of whisky
There's three things I look for when I make my whiskies," John Glaser is saying to me. "Flavour, creativity and pleasure: by which I mean moreishness and drinkability." There's 10 glasses in a circle between us precariously balanced on a table consisting of two boxes of Asyla and the end of an old c...
By Dave Broom
from Issue 25 published on 16/8/2002
Stuart Maclean Ramsay meets Heaven Hill Distillery President Max L Shapira to find out how they keep it in the family and preserve tradition at one of America's premier bourbon producers
The sharpest tack in the box”. That is how a fellow blueblood bourbon distiller describes Max L. Shapira, President of Heaven Hill Distilleries. Founded in 1935 by Gary, Ed, George, Mose and David Shapira, the company operates today under the direction of second
generation family member Max Shapira...
By Stuart MacLean Ramsay
from Issue 24 published on 16/7/2002
After 38 years in whisky, Brian Morrison, managing director of Morrison Bowmore Distillers, is retiring from his executie position to become Joint Chairman. He reminisces with Charles Maclean
Brian Morrison joined the Scotch whisky brokerage firm founded by his father at a crucial juncture in its history. The year before, in 1963, Stanley P. Morrison Ltd had bought Bowmore Distillery on the island of Islay, thereby joining the ranks of Scotch whisky distillers. “At that time Bowmore Dist...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 21 published on 16/2/2002
Dave Broom follows JBB’s Richard Paterson on a typical working day and learns much about blending, showbiz and living life at full pelt
It’s 7.30am and I’m heading into the centre of Glasgow, towards JBB’s offices which are close enough to my old school to cause a nervy shudder. The modern building sits on the cusp between old and new Glasgow, sandwiched between the motorway and Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson’s finest church. Glasgow’s a...
By Dave Broom
from Issue 17 published on 16/7/2001
Charles Maclean talks to Dr Nicholas Morgan who, as UDV's Marketing Direcotr (Malts), is responsibel for the largest portfolio of malt whiskies in the world.
CM Is it unusual for a professional historian to take up a senior marketing job?
NM Not if you take your heritage seriously and want to use it to support brands and marketing activity. Several of UDV’s marketing people have history degrees. What is perhaps unusual is for a
professional historian...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 16 published on 16/6/2001
Marcin Miller talks to author Ian Rankin, 'the hottest name in British crime fiction', a whisky enthusiast with a gift for finding good bars
Two years ago Ian Rankin’s Black and Blue won The Macallan Gold Dagger, the annual international crime writing award. “That is when things really took off, sales quadrupled. Everything clicked.” He is now the hottest name in British crime fiction.
Ian Rankin is bright, welcoming and affable. Three...
By Marcin Miller
from Issue 15 published on 16/4/2001
Charles Maclean talks to Barry Crockett, Master Distiller at Midleton Distillery
CM I believe distilling is in your blood?
BC Yes. My father worked as a distiller all his life. He started out in the Cork City Distillery, which made Cork Dry Gin and then moved to become Head Distiller at the ‘Old’ Midleton Distillery. Only when this distillery closed in 1975 did he retire. As y...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 15 published on 16/4/2001
Charles Maclean talks to 'The Perfect Collector', Norman Shelley
CM When did you become involved with whisky?
NS Although I was educated in England, I have lived abroad all my life. My father worked for Shell Petroleum and during my first 21 years on this planet we lived in 18 countries. My mother is part Italian, part Swiss. The only constant connection with ...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 14 published on 16/2/2001
Dave Broom catches up with Jim Mcewan, the country-hopping Brand Ambassador whose life is dedicated to whisky and telling the world about the people who spent their working lives making it.
It all began in 1990 on the back of a banana. There was an altogether weird malt whisky seminar at Bowmore in which retailers, writers and producers attempted to thrash out a workable plan for communicating about whisky. After a few drams, the option of being towed around the loch on the back of an ...
By Dave Broom
from Issue 13 published on 16/12/2000
With Burns Night fast approaching Martin Betts examines the short, but eventful, life of Robert Burns and the role whisky played within it.
An cut you up wi’ ready slight,” recites the chairman as his knife slices through the haggis with all the precision of a surgical scalpel. There is much applause before the guests toast the Burns Night meal with a fine malt that glides over their taste buds, leaving them all with a satisfying sensat...
By Martin Betts
from Issue 13 published on 16/12/2000
Uncut, unfiltered and straight from the barrel Stuart Maclean Ramsay visits the house that Jim Beam built and has dinner with boubon legen, Booker Noe.
Mighty fine,” seems an apt description for Booker Noe, the Kentucky bourbon making legend, and for his namesake whiskey, Booker’s. It also happens to be an expression that peppers his conversation on a frequent basis if you have the good fortune to meet up with him.
I had the fortunate pleasure to...
By Stuart MacLean Ramsay
from Issue 13 published on 16/12/2000
Charles Maclean talks to Andrew Symington of Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky
CM How did you get into the whisky trade?
AS There was a family connection, my grandfather worked for VAT 69 for forty-odd years, but I discovered the pleasure of single malt and single cask single malt when I was Assistant Manager at Prestonfield House Hotel in Edinburgh during the 1980s. In t...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 13 published on 16/12/2000
Jane Slade traces the Prince of Wales' legendary love of Scotch
Prince Charles’ was introduced to alcohol at a rather young age and quite by accident. He was a sea cadet with the naval equivalent of the Territorial Army at Gordonstoun School. It was 1964. He was just 16 years old and on Stornaway Island with some fellow cadets on an exercise. He suddenly became ...
By Jane Slade
from Issue 12 published on 16/11/2000
Charles Maclean talks to the General Manger of America's oldest (and youngest) distillery.
CM What was the background to the idea?
BC Well, we felt that American distillers had not done all they could to develop connoisseurship amongst their consumers. You only have to look at what Robert Mondavi has done for Californian wines, or the Scotch malt distillers - and we have been closely inte...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 12 published on 16/11/2000
The leader of the Liberal Democrats Charles Kennedy, shares a dram with Jane Slade.
Charles Kennedy does not have the mantle of a future Prime Minister. He has not the cold stare of Margaret Thatcher, nor the disingenuous smile of Tony Blair. In fact he seems so disarmingly warm and friendly it is hard to believe he is a fiercely-focussed politician at all. It is only his red hair ...
By Jane Slade
from Issue 11 published on 16/9/2000
Maturation expert, Dr Jim Veveridge, demonstrates the virtues of the refill cask to Charles Maclean.
CM Is it not something of a contradiction for a ‘back-room boy’ to become a ‘communicator’?
JB When I started with DCL it would have been unthinkable.
Even distillery managers within the company were forbidden to speak to each other. But everything has changed. Knowledge is shared, and, most importa...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 11 published on 16/9/2000
Charles Maclean talks to Sheila Burties, the highly espected sensory chemist.
CM Can everyone nose?
SB Physiologically we are all the same, and whatever stimulates our senses is the same. But just as with sight or hearing, the senses of taste and smell vary from person to person: you may see the colour orange and smell the fruit, but I have no way of knowing that you are s...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 10 published on 16/6/2000
Jane Slade talks to Lord Thurso, a Patron of the Qaich, about his family, his castle and his long love affair with Scotch.
It seems a contradiction that the chief executive of one of the smartest health farms in Britain should be a whisky lover. Not only that but when he makes his three-minute trek home from his office at the carrot juice and lettuce emporium of Champneys in deepest Hertfordshire to his cottage in the g...
By Jane Slade
from Issue 9 published on 16/4/2000
Charles Maclean talks to Robert Hicks, the master blender at Allied Distillers.
CM Are whisky blenders born or trained?
RH A bit of both. You have to have the right temperament to be a blender. You have to be a perfectionist, passionate about fine detail – like a watchmaker, say, or one of those guys who makes model ships to put into bottles. You have to have a well-trained nos...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 9 published on 16/4/2000
As well known for his international travelogues as his insane antics in Monty Python, Michael Palin, a New Year’s honours list CBE, is one of Britain’s most popular stars. Here he tells Damian Riley-Smith about the good times he has shared with a glass of whisky.
Michael Palin’s first memorable whisky experience happened at the Edinburgh Festival. 1964 was the first time he had done any performing in front of a big public audience. He was part of the Oxford City Group and quartered at a Masonic lodge just on the approach to Edinburgh Castle, from where he co...
By Damian Riley-Smith
from Issue 8 published on 16/2/2000
Champion driver Jackie Stewart OBE tells Jane Slade why motor racing and whisky make a classic blend.
He could hardly bear to lift his gaze from the track. It may be a good few years since he has seen it from behind the wheel, but former Formula One champion Jackie Stewart is still transfixed by the sight of rubber revolving on tarmac.
We are at Silverstone, the home of British Grand Prix racing, ...
By Jane Slade
from Issue 7 published on 16/12/1999
In this issue we begin a series of interviews with celebrated whisky people. Here Charlie Maclean gives the last-frank- word ot broker and blender Peter Russell.
CM How did you come to work in the whisky trade, Peter?
PR My father came up from Kent in the 1920s to sell advertising space in Harper’s Wine & Spirit Gazette – his aunt was a Harper, and it was a family business. He soon began to do a bit of broking on the side and set up his own broking busin...
By Charles MacLean
from Issue 7 published on 16/12/1999
The artist and former wild man Ralph Steadman enjoyed a 30 year old love affair with whisky. It was brilliant fun, and so good that it had to stop, he told Jane Slade
Like the best affairs, Steadman's relationship with whisky has been turbulent, immensely pleasurable but dangerously addictive. So much so that two years ago, he turned his back on the seductive charms of the single malts that had come to rule his life.
"I am now saving my old age to drink whisky ...
By Jane Slade
from Issue 6 published on 16/10/1999
Sports commentator Jimmy Hill loves Glenlivet, Laphroaig and Scotland generally; so why don't the Scots like him more?
Jimmy Hill is a controversial figure in Scotland, especially to that country’s fanatical band of football supporters. Hill’s relationship with the tartan army has never been the same since he accused David Narey of opening the scoring with a ‘toe poke’ in a match against Brazil during the 1982 World...
By Tim Atkin
from Issue 2 published on 16/3/1999
Damian Riley-Smith talks to Scottish rugby star Rob Wainwright about winning matches, losing salmon and the contents of his hip flask, Photographs by Will Boxall.
Rob Wainwright sounds much more Scottish than he used to. The soft Scottish lilt he had during his time in England (six years studying medicine at Cambridge University) became staunchly Scottish overnight when he moved back north. ‘If you ask the Scots I’ve got an English accent, and if you ask the ...
By Damian Riley-Smith
from Issue 1 published on 12/1/1999
