Cask to Glass

What if there was Skyscanner for whisky and distillery tours? A one-stop-shop where you could find, compare and book your next whisky or other alcohol tourism experience?That's the concept behind Sip Seekers, the brain child of Victoria Miller, aka Scottish Whisky Girl on Instagram."I was up north probably nearly two years ago now," Victoria explains, "and I was sat at breakfast and I thought: 'I want to see a distillery today.' And I started loading different tabs on my phone for different tours even at the same distillery, assessing different kind of tour options; whether I wanted to do the VIP one or the normal..."And I realised that we're definitely overcomplicating that search process and that booking process. And I thought if it could all be pulled together on one kind of search platform, it would be much more simple and likely get far more bookings fo the distilleries And so many brands and distilleries have invested a lot in their visitor centres and then they were not actually reaching."So I was actually horrified to learn 79 percent of overnight visitors don't make it to a distillery tour when they visit Scotland. So my kind of goal is to allow people to come on the platform. They can search by availability, location, rating. We're adding kind of accessibility, child-friendly tours and assess the best options for them."Sip Seekers launched in the beginning of December and Victoria has signed up 50 distilleries and other alcohol tourism experiences including three distilleries previously featured on Cask to Glass: Raasay, Nc'Nean and Lindores.Her target customers are those 79 percent of overnight visitors who don't visit a distillery during their visit, and locals - "people who are based in Scotland, who when it's on their doorstep, don't take advantage.""We want to raise awareness to those people," Victoria continues, "and get them visiting and engaging with distilleries, because the real advantage - and there's talk at the moment of tough times in the industry and things - the real advantage of getting people into distilleries is, you know, they engage with brands and they learn abou the stories and they then go home and tell their friends as well, and often buy a bottle."Victoria really got into whisky in 2014 when her father Paul, the founder of Eden Mill Distillery near St Andrews in Fife, took the team to Islay. It was her first serious whisky tasting experience and fuelled a love of peaty whiskies.So what distilleries does Victoria believe are must visit before the summer of 2026?Raasay!It's on her bucket list. "I'm ashamed to say I've not been to Raasay and I need to go over. It looks absolutely stunning and it's on our platform. So I'll need to get over there and hopefully on a night that they've got space."Other distilleries?In Edinburgh there's Holyrood Distillery and Summerhall "that does Pickering's gin". In Glasgow there's Clydeside. "And then if you want to do a wee road trip, you've got Galloway Distillery, Sam Heughan's new distillery."And what whisky should you try before the summer?Ledaig... "It's got a kind of lighter peat; grassier notes. But I had that in a port finish, which was really interesting because you've got that kind of soft peat notes and then you've also got the kind of juicy port finish. And I think it's good for this time of year, for the kind of colder winter night."So pour yourself a dram and tune in.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland

Welcome to Series 2 of Cask to Glass the Whisky Podcast with John Beattie.We're back after a break because of illness and then Christmas and New Year. And we're raring to go for 2026!But where is the Scotch and global whisky industry headed in the next year?Throughout 2025, John heard from various whisky insiders about their concerns for the immediate future of the industry. But there are more and more warnings about the state of the sector. Last month Jim Beam announced it would suspend production of bourbon at its main site in Kentucky for the whole of 2026. Days later the Financial Times reported that "tariffs and cost of living pressures leave undrunk whisky galore" in Scotland."Customers," the FT suggested, "are buying less and choosing cheaper brands, risking jobs in [the] Scotch industry."So in this episode, John speaks to Scottish investigative journalist Ian Fraser, who's been digging around and speaking to industry insiders."I think the industry is in trouble," he tells John. " There was a massive boom in whisky which ended in 2022; which was exaggerated by the Covid pandemic when people were staying home and drinking more expensive bottles of Scotch and other whiskies. And I think there was a bit of a lack of realism within the industry. There was a srot of assumption that this golden period that the whisky industry went through was going to last forever. And it clearly hasn't."Total exports of Scotch whisky, Ian says, are down from £6.2 billion in 2022 to around £5.4 billion in 2024."What has caused this downturn," he asks? "It's difficult to really know. But there's certainly been a lack of consumer confidence, which I think evaporated after Covid. There's inflation. There's war in Ukraine, which has closed the Russian market. There are doubts over the Chinese market, which hasn't performed quite as well as people were hoping.""All the major Scotch whisky companies," Ian continues, "are suffering falls in sales, falls in profits. And the newer ones I think, which established themselves in the last decade or so are perhaps the most vulnerable to these factors and this downturn in the industry."And while Ian maintains "the margins are very strong in Scotch" and he doesn't think anyone "is actually loss making yet - certainly among the established player", he cautions that the share prices of the large groups have "been in freefall".They're down 60 and 70 percent in some cases, he says."We haven't seen any massive bad news in the industry in terms of companies going bust or distilleries completely closing, or administrations or whatever," Ian says; people in the industry he's spoken to say, "They're on the way."Join John and Ian as they discuss what 2026 might hold for the Scotch whisky industry:Was there an over-exuberance in period to to 2022?Have too many distilleries and producers chased premium prices?Is there an oversupply of whisky maturing in warehouses?Could there be "a race to the bottom" in terms of pricing?Are there still some markets holding up?What's the optimum price for a bottle of whisky?Can the industry pick itself up and move forward?And who's best placed to suceed?Pour yourself a dram, and tune in.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland

Unfortunately, John's had a seasonal bug. Nothing serious. But it's taken it's toll on his voice.We're very sorry we're unable to bring you this week's episode.John's on the mend, and he hopes to be back next week.Thanks for listening to Cask to Glass.Apologies once again.Catch you next time.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland

"I'm often called an accidental distiller," says Kim Cameron, founder of the Bothy Distillery in Glen Prosen in the Scottish Highlands.Kim started off running a coffee shop and producing jam. World class jam, which 11 years ago won its category in the World Jam Championships. So she launched her Jam Bothy label."In Angus," she says, "we grow the most amazing fruit, arguably in the best in the world: raspberry, rhubarb, blueberry, strawberry... And I was making the full seasonal calendar of jam. Now one of the byproducts of making jam was I had some juice and fruit left over. And rather than waste that, we decided to add it to gin."Next thing Kim knew, people were beating a path up her glen in the north east of Scotland for her gin. "The jam took a bit of a back seat," she continues, " and we focused on the Gin Bothy as a brand.""That," she explains, "is how my entry into the world of spirit happened. I didn't ever imagine that we would be in a position where we'd be distilling whisky in the glens."Well Kim's not quite distilling whisky yet.Her best selling gin is Gunshot Gin."I was selling that into the US market, and one of the things that we were always told on feedback was: 'We love the flavour profiles.' So it was cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, spice. Those really rich warming flavours. But we had distilled it with gin. And the biggest thing that the export market wanted was in a whisky. So we flipped the base and called it Gunshot Whisky."Gunshot was an eight year old blended whisky created for the Kim's export market. "But," she continues, "our customers here, once it followed our gin journey, have always asked me: 'When are you moving into whisky?'"Well that move has begun!Bothy Distillery is well under way. It's being built in old bothy in Glen Prosen in Cairngorm National Park in the eastern Highlands that in the early 1700s had been an old whisky smuggling room.The stills are on order from Forsyths, Scotland's go-to still manufacturers. They're about to be installed. And Kim hopes the first new spirit, to be distilled under the supervision of Ron Welsh (the master distiller behind Beam Suntory's Laphroaig and Bowmore, and 140 other expressions of Scotch whisky), will begin to flow in December or January.So join John as he chats to Kim about her journey from jam to dram.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland

As we've heard several times in previous episodes of Cask to Glass, China is one of the great untapped markets for Scotch whisky.With a populaton of 1.4 billion, China's the second most populous country in the world. And last year Scotland exported 30 million 70cl bottles to China at a value of £161 million, making it the 10th largest market for Scotch both in terms of volume and value. But when you consider that Scotland exported the equivalent of 1.7 billion bottles worth £5.4 billion in 2024, it's a small market compared to the size of its population.So, how do you expand the market?Since 2014 Chen Li, founder of Magna World Travel and owner of the newly opened Edinburgh Whisky House Hotel, has been running whisky tours for Chinese tourists. She describes the Chinese market as "a big meaty pizza"."Everybody wants a piece of it," she says."Everybody wants a slice from the pizza. But to do business with China, it's not easy. It's not that straightforwward. There are many barriers.""China needs patience," Chen continues. "Working with China or doing any business with China needs patience. Consider for you to send some money abroad. Forty, or fifty thousand, just by a blink? We need a relationship to build first. So that's how you should start: build relationships. Do you send them New Year message during Chinese New Year? Do you send them a message on China's national day."These things matter.Called 威士忌酒 in Simplified Chinese and pronounced "wēi shì jì jiǔ", Chen says whisky is synonymous with Scotland - or 蘇格蘭 in Traditional Chinese, 苏格兰 in Simplified Chinese and pronounced Sūgélán.But there are only about 600,000 serious whisky drinkers in China, Chen suggests, "ones who buy the premium brands."And she cautions: "To be honest there are a lot of people who don't really know much about Scotland. The know England. They know London. Scotland is not very popular yet.""So our job," Chen continues, "is to create an itinerary.We influence people of where they go; what they do; what they eat; where to stay."Join John as he talks to Chen about her understanding of the Chinese whisky market; how she provides whisky tours around Scotland; and how she's trying to turn one of Scotland's most famous, ancient houses - Auchenbowie House, once owned by the descendants of Rober the Bruce - into the first Chinese built distillery in Scotland.Slàinte!Or 干杯 - which means "empty cup", and's pronounced: Gānbēi!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland

Eighty five years in the making. One hundred and 25 decanters produced. £125,000 a pop.Released on the 2 October, and already almost entirely sold out..."More people will have summited Everest this year alone than will ever get to taste this whisky, never mind own it," declares Stephen Rankin, Director of Prestige at Gordon and MacPhail. "There's something like 600, 700 people - maybe more than that - start off to summit Everest and they tend to all do it in the springtime and about 60 or 70 percent of those people will ever actually reach the top."It's some statistic that puts into context just how special Gordon and MacPhail's 85 year old single malt from Glenlivet Distillery is."You're talking about one of the rarest, most historic, scarcest, not just whiskies in the world, but matured spirits in the world," Stephen continues. "I don't know if there's many other spirits - because spirits are matured in the cask that as soon as you take it ouf the cask that's the age stopped. There will be older bottles in the world bu there won't be older matured spirits in the world so it could be the oldest matured spirit in the world as well."On 3 February 1940, just five months after the start of the Second World War, Stephen's grandfather George Urquhart and great-grandfather John, filled a sherry cask made from American oak with new make spirit from Glenlivet. The cask, Stephen says, "was selected because it was a big sherry transport cask. These casks were very different. They were, one it was made of an American oak because it's a little bit tougher and tighter. The grain is much tighter and the staves were made much, much thicker."It was there to withstand the rigmarole of being rolled around quay sides and platforms before going on boats and trains an the like, and ultimately end up in the far north of Scotland."The barley had come from the last peace-time harvest. And filling the cask, Stephen says, "was an act of hope and optimism."In this episode John talks to Stephen about why this whisky is so special; how it survived the war years when whisky was in short supply and was monitored over the intervening years before being bottled and released.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland

"You have to offer value at every level" declares Simon Thompson, one half of Thompson Brothers distillers, independent bottlers and founders of Dornoch Distillery, in Dornoch in the north of Scotland, deep in the heart of the Highlands.That's why he and brother Phil are always trying to work out what they "can get away with" at the "lower end" of the price spectrum, because Phil says, "You want to sell out and turn over quickly."Phil and Simon also own Dornoch Castle Hotel. The hotel has been in the Thompson family for 25 years, and that's where their whisky journey really began."Back in the day," Simon explains, "we used to run the family hotel whisky bar. That led to us kind of taking on whisky as a bit of a hobby. We would end up taking it a little bit too seriously; start collecting; start falling in love with older styles of whisky; start going to live auctions, picking up bottles for ourselves and for our bar."In this episode, Simon and Phil tell John how their hobby quickly led them to research older styles of whisky "trying ot figure out where certain flavours and intensities of flavours that existed in older bottles" came from. They began "reverse engineering old style whisky which then eventually turned into some practical experimentatation, which turned into building a tiny, baby distillery."At Dornoch Distillery, Phil continues, "we probably have deliberately the most expensive cost of production - even if you're to ignore the small scale."They only use "heritage varieties" of barely that were in use before the 1960s; brewing strains of yeast instead of modern distillers' yeast; extra long fermentation - "seven days as standard"; and manual cut points."We make our cut points based on the sense of smell, sense of taste by whoever's rolling the stills on that particular day," Simon says."It allows them," Phil interjects, "to kind of slow down and speed up where required when it's coming towards the cut point.""Basically everything's geared towards maximising old style quality at great expense of materials, time and lower yield. So yeah, it's one extreme, probably not a scalable model," Simon continues.The brothers are now building a new distillery - Struie Distillery - which aims to be 100 percent electrified and completely fossil fuel free.Where "Dornoch is no holds barred;whatever it takes," Simon says, "Struie is trying to find those sweet spots between old style production and modern production.""We just need to pay for it," Phil concludes.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland

"I'm very fluid with how I take my whisky," admits Scott Sneddon, the Managing Director of InchDairnie Distillery in Fife in this episode of Cask to Glass. So neat; a little bit of water; some ice; or even as a cocktail.But, Scott also continues, "I'm very very old fashioned. I like a hauf an' a hauf. So I always like to have a beer and whisky at the same time. So it really depends on what beer I've got in my other hand in how I take my whisky."A beer and a whisky. A half and a half. Or in Scott's Scots venacular, a hauf an' a hauf. It's a traditional way of drinking whisky in many parts of Scotland: a wee dram and half a pint of beer; but perhaps out of fashion now.Yet, Scott says, InchDairnie isn't an entirely traditional Scotch whisky distillery. Yes they malt the grain. Yes they double distill And yes they mature their spirit in oak barrels.But they deviate too."We don't have a traditional mash tun that all the industry have.," Scott explains. "We're one of only two in Scotland that has a mash filter. And that's important becaus a mash filter enables you to process grains that would otherwise be quite difficult to process in a traditional distillery."Grain like rye for example; malted of course; matured for five years in virgin American oak barrels sourced from forests in Orzak or the Appalachians. "But," Scott adds, "for the second distillation, we used a Lomond still. And a Lomond still is a pot still with a column still in the neck. And what that gave is a very very light spirit, very flavourful as well."This is InchDairnie's Ryelaw."To look forward, sometimes you have to look backwards," Scott explains. "So there's records from the 1908 Royal Commission and within those records it details what grains were being used in distilling at the the time, and one of them was rye. But there is no definition of rye whisky in Scotland. The regs don't allow it."Perhaps Ryelaw epitomises InchDairnie's vision. As Scott explains: "The company is basically built on tradition but it's been powered by innovation."Join John as he chats to Scott about the synergy between the old and the new; InchDairnie's other labels (including KinGlassie Raw and KinGlassie Double Matured); the company's 3Ms philosophy (material, method and maturation); and how Fife's five modern distilleries are putting a the region on the whisky map.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland

"Whisky is distilled and matured to be enjoyed," declares Russell Bradley, Head of Brand Development at newly launched independent bottlers One Cask at a Time."But," he adds, "people buy with their eyes."So the look and the packaging is his starting point. Then it's down to great whisky to follow through on the image."I originally came from graphic design. That's what I studied," he tells John in this episode. "I then got into the design world; into print and packaging, which in central Scotland essentially leads you into the spirits and whisky world."But, Russell continues, "for me, the most important thing is the liquid.""We only bottle single casks," Russell says. "We bottle everything at cask strength, natural colour, exactly as it should be."So he seeks out great casks with great whiskies to make up One Cask at a Time's three series: Chronograph, Pendulum and Grandfather, named after time pieces "because time is arguably the most important ingredient in Scotch whisky.""As an independent bottler," Russell explains, "we can select from any distillery from any region within Scotland."But, he says, he's looking for is that one cask which will "showcase our brand as well as the distillery." Distilleries like Ben Nevis, Glentauchers, Auchentoshan, Ledaig, Aultmore and Highland Park.Each bottle contains a "digital passport" embedded in the neck that allows owners to track their bottle's provenance, cask history and tasting notes on their smartphones It's a way of "bridging tradition with technology."So tune in to John's conversation with Russell, recorded on the eve of company's launch at the start of September.Slàinte!-------Socials:@C2GWhisky@JohnRossBeattie Creator & producer: David HolmesArt work & design: Jess Robertson Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)Vocals: Andrea CunninghamGuitars: John BeattieBass: Alasdair VannDrums: Alan HamiltonBagpipes: Calum McCollAccordion: Gary InnesMusic & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John BeattieRecorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, ScotlandSpecial thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland