28th August 2020

“This job would be so much easier if it wasn’t for customers” is a line heard in offices and work places all around the world everyday, but as a new business about to launch our first products we are acutely aware how important our future customers are, and we hope to embrace and interact with you as much as possible.

By being just Kate and myself in the company, there are no barriers for people to get in touch with the people in the company that make things happen and we feel that it is important for all of you to be able to connect to us.

Let’s face it whisky is alcohol, alcohol is good, I mean alcohol is a social enhancer! The more we can enjoy sharing drams with other people the better, that is why we are looking forward to getting out on the road and seeing people to share a dram, chew the fat and put the world to rights. Obviously at the minute we can’t do that physically (although we are doing a wee instore sampling in Halls of Campbeltown on the 10th & 11th of September) but we are delighted to have signed up for The Whisky Show virtual event and I am sure we can set up a few other things on social media etc in the coming months.

Having our own company does allow me to get back to what I love most about whisky, drinking it - but drinking it with other people, seeing peoples reactions and discussing the ins and outs of everything over a dram.

I have been very fortunate to have held some very well respected positions in the whisky industry but at many times I sometimes feel I did my best work when I was behind the bar at the Craigellachie Hotel. What I mean is I can’t really remember the last time I converted a non whisky drinker to be a whisky convert. Everyone I know drinks whisky, either that or there is no hope for converting them by now! When I worked behind the famous Quaich bar, often non whisky drinkers would come and stay at the hotel and by the end of their weeks stay I would often have people leaving well on the path to a life time of chasing drams.

The feedback was instant, you pour someone a dram, and you can see their reaction immediately, I love that - that is why I love whisky shows and tastings!

I then moved onto the shop floor at Royal Mile Whiskies, where you could give the odd sample (we certainly had a healthy staff tasting policy) but generally you would sell a bottle and rarely would you get any feedback on what the customer thought of your recommendation.

As time went on and the higher up in companies I got the further away I became from the customer, the final drinker of the whisky. It had gotten in some cases to the stage where I sold the whisky to the importer, they sold it to a retailer/ wholesaler, they sold it to a bar and that bar sold it by the dram to the drinker.

That is why we want to be as open and approachable as we can be with our customers, got a question then ask us! We hope to be as transparent as possible, there will be times when legally we can’t tell you things, for example if we buy say a cask of Clynelish, Caol Ila, Macallan etc with the stipulation we can’t tell anyone what it is then we won’t tell you - but pretty much we are an open book.

Not sure I will be saying that when someone doesn’t like one of our whiskies or gives us a bad score - but that is why Kate is so important to the company to keep me from blowing my top! (Only joking bad scores and reviews I can handle as long as the good scores and reviews out number them!)

Again as it is only Kate and I in the company you won’t get any marketing nonsense or have us having to toe the party line, well in fact we will toe the party line because it is our party and you are all invited!