Scotsman Whisky Club tasting

The Scotsman

Scotsman Whisky Club tasting Food and drink editor Rosalind Erskine chats to Bladnoch master distiller Nick Savage about the new Wave collection, their dram back pouches and tastes Bladnoch Wave I: Time & Maturation. Plus there's an exclusive reveal of the Bladnoch Wave II whisky, coming this summer.

Transcript

00:00I'm joined by Nick Savage who is the Master Distiller at Blagnock Distillery. Hi Nick, how are you?

00:05I'm very well, thank you. Self?

00:08Yeah, good, thank you. So we are here today to chat a little bit about

00:13this, which hopefully everyone can see. It's the wave number one and I have it in

00:18a very snazzy little pouch and you have the actual bottle.

00:20The actual bottle, yeah, there are two versions of it.

00:23So it's nice to see side by side. But yeah, for anyone that doesn't know, could you talk us through

00:29a little bit about, first of all, the pouch because it's made with sugarcane and it's a

00:34bit of a new innovation for you guys. And then we can talk a little bit about the whisky.

00:38Sure. And the pouch is a very, very recent collaboration with Drambach and I guess

00:44Wave is the first time we've ever done anything in a pouch. So, you know, it's made from sustainable

00:51packaging, but I guess the point of Drambach is, I hate the phrase, try before you buy, but it is

00:56that. And, you know, some whiskies do get fairly pricey and punchy. And one of my learnings

01:01throughout the whole industry is trying to, you know, de-risk things and make sure people understand

01:06what they're buying because we do expect quite a lot, you know, £50, £100, £150 a bottle can get

01:11quite punchy sometimes. So I think it's only fair that we start to think of different ways that we

01:15can engage consumers rather than just expect them to join on a journey. But try and wave one as the

01:22first thing that goes into Drambach and into that sustainable packaging. It's pretty exciting.

01:28Nice. And so people can buy this and it's £15 and it's sustainable in the sense that what can I do

01:34with the pouch after? For me, I'm not too sure what you could do with it after. I presume you can reuse

01:41it. Now, the question is obviously, is that alcohol in there? And from my ops background, you know,

01:47alcohol is a solvent. So I guess you have to be careful what you put into it next time. But you

01:53can refill that, you can reuse it. I probably won't be putting any more particularly high strength

01:57alcohol in there. Maybe something lower that you can reuse it time and time again. But essentially,

02:02it's all sustainable and fully recyclable. So reuse it or recycle it.

02:07Nice. And you get money off if you buy a bottle with a QR code at the back. So it's like a nice little

02:14weird initiative for people to try. But on to the thing that they will be wanting to try,

02:17which is the whiskey. So can you tell us about wave one?

02:20Sure. Wave one. Wave one is the start of a new journey as part of what we call the Master Distillers

02:25Collections. The first Master Distillers Collection was called The Waterfall. And it was a five-year

02:31programme. And there was 5,000 bottles and we released 1,000 each year. And we did it as a distillery

02:36exclusive. So that came to a conclusion last year. It was extremely successful. We built a great

02:42following. We built this pilgrimage, so to speak, of people coming to the distillery when the bottle

02:46was launched. And we got a real family culture going on. And that came to a conclusion last year. So

02:54two or three years before that stopped, I kind of thought, well, we need something after this.

02:58And that's where the idea of the wave came. We'll start again. People enjoyed the journey of building a

03:05whiskey, understanding what goes underneath the building of a whiskey. And that's what really

03:09inspires the Master Distillers Collection. So after the waterfall five finished, we start again with

03:16wave one, which we'll talk about and drink today. I guess the first point on the wave as a concept,

03:23it didn't start out as a concept. And a lot of these things don't. As I buy casks and lace stocks down

03:31at Bladnock, I like to think of it as a treasure chest and future-proof it and have things that we can

03:39dip in and out of. And five Amontillado Sherry Tons came across my desk. Would I like to buy them?

03:47And a lot of people go, what are you going to use them for? And I had no idea at the time, but I wanted

03:51these five Spanish Oak Amontillado Sherry Tons. And so they arrived and they were there. And that's

04:00where the idea from, what am I going to use them for? And that's where I had these five tons that are

04:04going to produce five whiskies over five years. And that's where the wave concept started to come.

04:09So I didn't go and buy the tons after coming up with the idea. I had these tools there that I

04:14then worked up, okay, how can we tell some stories? And that's where the wave concept came through as

04:19the next series of Master Distillers editions. Nice. So this is number one, which is available now.

04:24And will we have a little try of it? I've said to you earlier this morning here.

04:31I've been through a cycle this morning, I'm in France. I'll go for another cycle, but

04:35this will help me on my way, I guess. So wave one came out about a couple of weeks after the

04:41finish of Waterfall. So it came out last June. So this has been out for about a year, but we're

04:48starting to revisit wave one in anticipation of wave two coming in June 14th. I think the

04:55distillery is where we launch everything. So wave one, and the wave as a concept, I guess,

05:01is we've got five tons. And about three years ago, I loaded each ton with a combination of casks.

05:08Okay. And that combination of casks will tell different stories and different pillars of whiskey

05:15making at Bladden Oak. Okay. And number one was filled with ex-Burbans. So all American Oak

05:22and through different points in our stocks. So we had some from the teens. So we have some 2019,

05:292020 in there. We had some from the noughties. So we had some from 2007, 2008, and then we had some from

05:36the nineties. So there's a small amount from 1990 that went into this as well. So number one is all about

05:42trying to articulate, and we'll not do it today, but as people buy and explore this series, it goes

05:48into a lot of detail about what time and maturation actually mean as a whiskey making concept. And

05:54you know, when people talk about Bladden Oak and we talk about taste first, you'll notice that I use

05:59the words time and maturation, not age. Because for me and for Bladden Oak, it's very important that we

06:05combine or we pick whiskeys at the right time, depending on their maturation. Everything doesn't

06:13click in when it's 12, depends on the cast, depends on the warehouse, depends on what was laid down. So

06:18we like to pick on time and maturation, not necessarily age. And that was the whole concept

06:23of what people will find when they start to unveil the first wave.

06:30So I'll take you through the tasting notes. And you know, when we look on each Bladden Oak now,

06:37you'll see three words on the tasting notes. So we try to articulate Bladden Oak whiskeys in a very

06:43simple, clear, concise manner. I don't like writing tasting notes about how great,

06:48how much we can articulate things with. Most people just want it punchy. They want to understand

06:53what's in the whiskey. That's what we're trying to do. So for this, very American Oak. And what you

06:58get is quite floral, oaky and sweetness starting to come through at a very high level. When you've

07:05got on your nose, these sort of floral pine needles, it's refreshing. It's very floral. It's got this

07:12fresh cut oak, almost a little bit of vanilla, a little bit of coconut starts to come through.

07:19But when you transfer that to the palate,

07:25that tastes nice after a cycle. You've got this sweet oak, and you've got this toasted coconut.

07:31It's not fresh coconut. It's kind of like it's been roasted or toasted. And you've got this sweet,

07:36warm, but yet refreshing feel to the whole finish. And that's because this is 100% American Oak.

07:42And it's given those different attributes because we're combining different bourbons from different

07:48time periods across our, across our stocks. And that was the principle of wave one. And we want

07:53people to try and understand a little bit more about how we make whiskey. And when we do that,

07:59when we do the master distillers collection, let's try and give a little bit more technical

08:02information about how we actually do these things. And I should note that the small portion of what went

08:09into number one was actually the final remnant of waterfall five. So we've still got this thread that

08:16goes all the way through these collections. And I'll hand over in a second, but the concept of the wave

08:23is that we've calculated how many bottles we get each time, which calculates how much we load in at the

08:29beginning. And they're all mature in a way. So number five will have been in there for probably eight years,

08:34Marion, by the time the whole thing finishes. And we've always calculated that we'll always have a

08:41remnant from number one that then goes into number two. Then we're bottle number two, a remnant from

08:46two that goes into three, three into four, four into five. And that's where the name, this wave of

08:52whiskey sort of came from. That was the inspiration behind everything.

08:57Nice. It's really, it's really nice for this time of year when you're talking about like the floral notes

09:01and the coconut, it's kind of like everything that's in season just now, like the gorse and the

09:05flowers all coming up. So it's a good spring whiskey. It's a good time of year to try it.

09:08And that word refreshing starts to come through. So yeah, there's a lot of sweetness,

09:12there's a lot of American oak, there's a lot of coconut and vanillas, but you also get that

09:17refreshing feel. And Bladknock being lowland is this, I hate the word accessible, it's light and

09:24floral, not lacking flavour, but these light refreshing styles. So fresh cut grass, slightly

09:30perfumed to a certain extent. And that's that lowland style that we get when we've got any

09:35blood knock in there. So it is, you're right, it's a very spring orientated whiskey, I think.

09:40Nice, it's really good. So can you tell us anything about the next one? Or is that sort of under wraps?

09:48Well, what I will do, and I know they're not on the call, otherwise they might have just cut me off now.

09:55We don't normally unveil the name of the next one until it's going to happen. Because you know,

10:01what's the next pillar that they're going to talk about. But we normally stencil it on the end of the

10:08tongue. And we have just stenciled it in on the wall, the wave wall, as we're calling it at the

10:14distillery. So it is out there now, although it's not in the packaging. And in anticipation of June,

10:20I'll say it out loud here first. So the next one is all about the distillery and spirit. So we're

10:26going to talk about how important it is that you've got a robust distillery style. What is

10:31the blood knock floral fruity character that we have? What's that lowland style? And how does that

10:36piece together with all the other pillars of whisky making to drive our our taste first portfolio?

10:42So spirit and distilling spirit is the number two, you heard it here first, so to speak,

10:47unless you went to the distillery last week, in which case you saw.

10:49Well, now you understand. But no, thank you very much. So if anyone wanting to buy this just now,

10:56it's available distillery and other online retailers?

11:00Distillery and so the wave is because the waterfall was very much a distillery exclusive.

11:07However, that was 1000 bottles each year. This is 1817 bottles, which is a weird, which is quite

11:13a cool number being as that's when the distillery is founded. So it's still very limited. And I wanted to be

11:19transparent with it in that if people want to collect these, buy two, drink one, keep one,

11:24that's the idea. And by the end of number five, I wasn't just going to turn around and say,

11:29oh, this is great. There's number six, I found more just to keep more money. This will finish at

11:34number five, as did the last one, there's no sixth coming. And if people want to join us on that journey,

11:39then they can trust us that there won't be a wave six, there'll only be a wave five. So we wanted to

11:44keep it to try and get people to come to the distillery and experience it. So we're still

11:48going to have a wave day, which will be June the 14th, which will be amazing. But it's still

11:54available. The wave, so to say, is available direct to consumers. So it's available through

11:58our e-commerce channels. So if people want to go onto bloodnot.com, if they get the dram that you've

12:04got there, they've got the QR code that'll send them to be able to purchase one. So you can get wave

12:08one online, but we would love everyone to come to the distillery and buy wave one and two on June,

12:13June the 14th with us. Well, thank you very much. It's been great. Lovely to try it. And nice to see

12:20you again. And I hope you enjoy your whiskey-fueled cycle this afternoon.

12:24I was going to say, it might be a bit wavy after that.

12:27Well, that all ties in.

12:28I'm in France, they don't care.

12:32Well, thank you very much, Nick. And yeah, we'll speak to you soon.

12:35Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

12:36Bye-bye.

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