Whisky Magazine Feb/Mar 2021

the importance of family

Like many people, my partner and I have had almost zero ‘in person’ contact with our siblings, parents and grandparents (or anyone else, for that matter) for most of the past year. There has been a fair bit of waving through windows, a few socially distanced front-garden conversations, a great many video calls (though probably not as many as there should have been) and a lot of grumbling about a Christmas spent apart. Perhaps this enforced separation from my own nearest and dearest is the reason why my mind has turned of late to the importance of family ties in the world of whisky. Ask any group of whisky drinkers about their first experience of the spirit and one is most likely to hear a story or two about how a…

light on the horizon

With restrictions still making it challenging to hold live events, some of our Whisky Live organisers have begun to look at alternative options and the UK show, Whisky Live London, will run once again in 2021 as Whisky Live At Home. Following the resounding success of the 2020 ‘at home’ show, the UK team have been delighted by ticket holders’ excellent engagement with the online content, which was composed of more than 15 hours of video interviews, and the outpouring of positive feedback on social media. The team will continue to work with our partners around the world and explore whether it may be possible to deliver a similar experience outside of the UK. Furthermore, with restrictions easing in some countries and a path to post-pandemic life beginning to become…

what’s in a name?

It always amazes me when people maintain that a distillery can’t be family owned because it’s so big, or the family is wealthy, or the product is so popular, or [insert caveat here]. In Kentucky, there are a lot of family-owned distilleries. When you look at the quintessential distilling family in Kentucky, you look at the Beams. There are Beams at distilleries not just in Kentucky, but dotted throughout history in various distilleries. The Beams owned a distilling company up until Prohibition. Some of the Beams stayed in the distilling business, though. Joseph Beam went to Juarez, Mexico during Prohibition with Mary Dowling, owner of Waterfill & Frazier, to set up the distilling shop outside the borders of Prohibition-era America and make Bourbon. In Kentucky during Prohibition, one of the six distilleries that…

recognise the goal

On the morning of 12 December, 2020, Simon Sinek’s TED Talk How Great Leaders Inspire Action had 52,852,152 views on YouTube. At the end of the day, it had two more because I watched it twice. I actually watch it every few months. I crave it like I crave watching a favourite movie or listening to a song I love. In the clever 18-minute talk, he explains how companies, brands or people inspire loyalty by simply inspiring in a way that has nothing to do specifically with the company, brand or person. He presents his theory of the Golden Circle: three concentric circles representing the questions why, how and what, starting from the centre and moving outwards. He sums it up as, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why…

under the radar

Sorghum is the fifth most cultivated cereal in the world and the most popular grain in spirit distillation. The reason for this is because China has more than 40,000 distilleries using sorghum to produce their national spirit, Baijiu. Centuries before Germany and later Britain began distilling beer, in the 14th century, China distilled proto-whiskies from mashes of sorghum, barley and rice. More than 1.2 billion cases of Baijiu sold last year, exceeding the total worldwide sales of whisky and rum combined. Due to its rapidly rising popularity sorghum is touted as the grain of the 21st century. Sorghum is a grass grain, native to North Africa and Australia. As a member of the Poaceae taxonomy, this means only cereal mashes from this grass genus can be classified as whisky by Western…

family matters

I’ve been thinking a lot about family recently. It’s probably the distance from them (I recently emigrated from the UK to Sweden), the difficulty seeing them (thanks, Covid) and the passing festive period spent apart. This turned my thinking to family business and, specifically, what makes a family-owned whisky business different from any other kind. When you think of family businesses there are certain tropes of fealty, scrimping and perhaps striving and strife that come to mind. There are also more romantic connotations of legacy, duty and upholding a family name to consider. However, for every good tradition there is perhaps a figurehead who is ‘stuck in their ways’ and, for every family bond, the danger of valuing loyalty over skill. Of course, the term ‘family business’ is far too broad; many…