Recorded in the historic Vaults in Leith, Mitch Bechard is joined by SMWS “chief storyteller” Richard Goslan and Kask Whisky founder Justine Hazlehurst for a deep dive into one of Scotch whisky’s most overlooked powerhouses.
Leith was never just a port. It was a whisky engine room: bonding, brokering, blending, bottling and shipping enormous volumes of Scotch around the world. At one point, the area was home to around 90–100 bonded warehouses, yet its role in shaping the modern industry is often pushed into the background.
Richard brings The Vaults to life, from its ancient origins and long links with the drinks trade to the birth of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society in 1983. He shares how the Society’s single-cask ethos developed, why bottle 1.1 became legendary, how the tasting panel works, and how SMWS bottle names manage to be both brilliant and completely unhinged.
Justine guides us through Leith’s boom-and-bust whisky past, from Pattison’s infamous 1898 crash, to wars, consolidation, the whisky loch, and the stories still hiding in plain sight on the Leith Whisky Trail. There are disputed parrots, a very real pub puma attack, independent bottling chat, festival stories, and a reminder that whisky history is always better when it hasn’t been polished to death.
A proper sense-of-place episode from one of Scotland’s most important whisky rooms.
00:00 Welcome to The Vaults in Leith
00:48 Meet Richard Goslan and Justine Hazlehurst
02:46 Inside the history of The Vaults
05:57 Why Leith matters to Scotch whisky
08:46 The origins of the Leith Whisky Trail
11:06 Wild stories from Leith’s past
12:46 SMWS founding story and bottle labels
16:30 Whisky as a shared community
19:54 Leith’s boom-and-bust whisky timeline
26:02 The whisky loch and SMWS’s first cask
28:11 SMWS codes, flavour profiles and tasting culture
29:42 How the SMWS tasting panel works
30:47 The joy of flamboyant bottle names
31:25 Creators Collection and whisky artwork
32:28 Desert island dram: SMWS 1.1
34:54 Glenfarclas and Leith connections
35:50 The independent bottling boom
38:26 Fife Whisky Festival and modern whisky culture
40:39 Justine’s Pattison crash book
45:19 The Pattison parrots myth
48:01 Finding Pip Hills again
52:07 Vaults legends and wild old days
54:35 Where to find Richard and Justine
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