Ep. 126 - The History of Fettercairn Distillery

Transcript

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:00.799)
Welcome to Whiskey Lore, The Interviews. I'm your host, Drew Hannush, the bestselling author of Whiskey Lore's travel guide to experience in Kentucky, Bourbon, the lost history of Tennessee whiskey, and the book that busts 24 of whiskey's biggest myths, Whiskey Lore volume one. And today I am excited to be headed back to Scotland, not in person, unfortunately, but more over our, uh, streaming services, which do bring us a nice benefit of being able to see people while we're talking to them.

and today I am headed to an area that I had traveled through, unfortunately didn't get a chance to stop at the distillery. think it was a Saturday or something when I was driving through or maybe a Sunday, but I, I went to the Angus coast and walked along the pink sand beaches there, which are, which are amazing. And, along the way I passed by Federer Karen, which is a distillery that, I had heard of actually.

Sometime back when I was going to interview Richard Patterson at, white McKay's offices in Glasgow. And actually, one of the people that works there at Fetter Karen, Greg glass was there and I got a chance to meet him and we talked about whiskies. And I actually asked him when we were out later in the evening, what kind of whiskey I should, try from the white McKay portfolio that he was.

most proud of, and he gave me a feather Karen to try. so this, this has been hiding in the back of my mind for a long time. I got, the distillery reached out to me and actually said, Hey, would you like to taste some of our longer aged expressions? And, I said, sure, that would be, that would be fine. And if you'd like to do an interview, said, well, that'd be great too. I'd love to talk about the history of Federer Karen. And so today I have as my guest.

distillery manager, Stewart Walker. Stewart, welcome to the podcast.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (02:05.262)
How you doing Drew? It's nice to be here. How are you?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (02:08.739)
I'm, I'm doing great. I understand when we'll talk a little bit about Fettercairn and the background and some history, and we're going to wander through and taste some of these spirits, but I want to kind of get a little background on you. It seems you've been associated with better Karen for a long time and actually are from around that area.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (02:30.23)
Yeah, so I grew up on the street where the distillery is and I've always lived in the shadow, if like, of the distillery itself. when I was growing up, the friends that I had at school and all their parents, their fathers would work at the distillery and everything. And I used to see them, their fathers making their way home after the shift, know, and I got to know them all.

And then in 1990, January 1990, I was lucky enough to land a role at the distillery. came as a warehouse operator initially. And then, you know, fantastic, you know, got in and started working through the production side, doing the mashing and then the distillation. And then we got into the brewing. And then in 2015, I was lucky enough to become manager. So I have a huge, you know, passion for the place, if you like, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (03:05.759)
Hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (03:25.486)
I understand what the distillery means to the area and I understand how important it is to the village. So it's a great honour to be manager of such a lovely distillery to be honest with you Drew.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (03:39.678)
Yeah. Well, to most people who have not been to Scotland, you'll hear that this is a Highland distillery. You are on the edge of, of the mountains. I always thought when I heard Highlands that you, you were up, you know, that you were in. Yeah. so kind of describe the area around you.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (03:53.826)
No. No.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (03:59.214)
Yeah, so the area we're in is, as you alluded to earlier Drew, it's on the east coast of Scotland, just at the foot of the Grampian Mountains. It's in a place called the Howe of the Merrens. Now Howe of the Merrens is this beautiful, fertile land, so it's ideal for growing various different crops, you know, and the farmers, the farmers that actually live in this area have been farmers for many, many generations.

many generations. you know, it made the distillery itself, know, to establish a distillery in this area just made sense because everything was there. You've got the lovely crystal clear water that comes down from the Grand Pins itself. You've then got huge amounts of barley. You know, we're lucky enough to, a few years ago, we created a club, you like, Drew, and it's called the Fetter Cairn 200 Club.

So basically what it means is we've established a group of farmers within a 50 mile radius of the distillery itself and they supply all the malt barley that we need to the distillery. And I think it's a fantastic thing because to me that's going back to what it would have been 200 years ago. You can imagine the distillery would have used local farmers would have supplied the distillery with it. And it's such a great thing to be involved in, know, to take it back to how it would have been 200 years ago.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (05:10.974)
Yes.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (05:21.442)
And from a sustainability angle, to be using barley that is grown within sight of the distillery, it's so, so good, I think, to be involved in. And what it does for us as well, it gives us, the farmers that are involved with us, there's a sense of ownership. So they've got a sense of ownership to the distillery. And it goes back to what I said earlier. The distillery, to me, is a mirror, if you like, of the area.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (05:39.327)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (05:51.118)
It tells the story of the area that the distillery comes from. The product is telling the story of how the mearns, the lovely fertile soil, the beautiful golden barley we have, the lovely clear crystal water we've got. That all comes from this area. So the product we make is telling the story of the area that we live in.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (06:11.331)
It surprised me actually, when I talked to somebody a while back and they said, you know, actually France sends a lot of their barley up to Scotland. So distilleries will use French barley rather than using because we just assume that, you know, all of this is coming from, but, yeah. So when we get to this idea of terroir and, know, tasting the land that, that you're around, how long ago was it that they, started,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (06:25.068)
Yeah, I know, I know.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (06:39.918)
We've been doing it now for about, I think it's about four or five years we've been doing it. obviously we're part of the White Macay Group doing it. And it's a thing that White Macay is passionate about is using Scottish grown wheat, Scottish grown barley. We're really passionate about it. And we've narrowed it down at Fetter Cairn in particular to be what we call the Fetter. It was established too because in 1824 we celebrated our 200th anniversary.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (06:59.167)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (07:09.326)
So we talked about it like two or three years before that. What a great idea it would be to take it back to what it would have been 200 years ago. And you know the great thing about it Drew is that some of the farmers are coming back to us and telling us that their forefathers were involved in dealing with the distillery all that many years ago. And it's just such a great, it's like a full circle.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:32.061)
Yeah, that's amazing. the idea here that,

thought and I just let it slide right away.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:46.675)
Yeah, I'm not gonna bring it back. That's okay. I'll edit this part down.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (07:50.819)
you

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:54.448)
what would be interesting to know is that, I mean, your distillery has such a unique character in the flavor. Did you sense when you made the shift that the, the spirit may evolve in some way in using more local barley.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (08:13.91)
I mean, personally, and maybe I'm just romanticizing a bit, but personally, I think it did. But the way I saw it from a practical point of view, Drew, was that, as I said, we've got some of the most fertile soil in the whole of Scotland. We've got farmers that have farmed that land for many, many years and grow amazing crops. The barley that we're taking in is as good as any barley you'll find at any place. And it just made sense. just thought, why haven't...

Why wouldn't we do this? know, just make sense.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:44.659)
Yeah. So usually the name of a distillery kind of tells a story of place. So what does feather Karen mean?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (08:50.03)
Hmm.

So Fetter Cairn actually means foot of the mountains, you like, or foot of the hills. That's what it means. So we lie, as I said earlier, we lie at the foot of the Grampian hills, you like, Grampian mountains. But we're also sitting at the gateway to D-side. So from here, there's only like one route through to D-side, to like Bromar and Ballachs and other places. And you go over a road called the Cairn of Mount. So it's like a gateway to D-side as well.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:57.682)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (09:21.183)
Yeah. So what is the story behind the unicorn in the logo?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (09:26.35)
The unicorn, so our founder was a gentleman called Sir Alexander Ramsey. So Alexander Ramsey, I'll tell you a bit about him. He was one of the guys that campaigned hard to bring in the Excites Act in 1823. Now the Excites Act, as we all know, was like, it's like a, you set a fee of 10 pounds for licences still, and then you set duty levels. So it kind of made the whole whiskey legal, if you like, from a legal perspective. Before that,

And definitely in this area Drew, there was quite a vast amount of illicit stills on the hills behind the distillery. And very skilled craftsmen at that time. There's an area just to the west of here called Glen Esk and as I said before, you've got the gateway to the site. So the customers that they were dealing with and why there was so much illicit stills here was there was a lot of people coming down from the Highlands driving their, driving their cattle away, like to the lowlands of Scotland.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:25.086)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (10:25.166)
So they would come over to Cairn and Mount, which was just been a track at that time, and obviously buy the distiller's ware. They would have bought some of the whisky from them and taken it with them. So in 1824, the distillery was established by Alexander Ramsay. The unicorn is actually, it's on his family crest. But it's also, if you want to take it a step further, it's also the national animal of Scotland. I don't know if you know that or not, but it is.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:45.159)
okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:52.765)
Really?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (10:53.134)
It's a mythical creature, we know that, but it's the national animal of Scotland.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:55.613)
Yeah. I always thought the lion was.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (11:00.022)
No, no, the lion's actually England, you know, so that's yeah. So I think being a Scotsman, I think they all thought, how do we create something that's gonna challenge a lion? I know, we'll go with a mythical creature.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:02.94)
that's, that's right. Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:10.025)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:15.806)
I like that. like that. So, you know, since we're talking about 1824, it's an interesting time period because, um, you'll see a lot of the origin dates for Scottish distilleries. 1823 runs, runs a lot. Um, in terms of your whiskies that we have here to sample, uh, one of them is a 24, which is our youngest expression. So why don't we dive into this and we'll, um,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (11:26.434)
Yeah. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (11:39.438)
24, yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (11:43.917)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:44.596)
kind of get an idea of that distillery character that we're talking about. So what's interesting to me is that in nosing and tasting this, I have had some 21 year old whiskeys and older that seem to disappear. It's almost like the cask has kind of muted all the flavors in a spirit.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (12:03.384)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (12:10.274)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (12:11.857)
One thing that I'm going to note about all of these, except for the 46, which I haven't nosed or tried yet, is that these are really remarkable in how they carry through a very robust, flavor and sense throughout. So what is the trick to being able to not let the barrel overdo it in terms of muting it down to a point?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (12:23.544)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (12:28.003)
Yep.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (12:42.213)
We create a beautiful new make spirit. And the secret then is to marry it with the proper casks for the right period of time. So as you know, like me, you're a 24 year old. So you're going to get this lovely. I mean, we talk heavily about tropical fruits at Vetterkern because it's so prominent. That nosey like it's coming from.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:01.759)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (13:10.99)
The new makes better we create so when you know is the new makes better for him already It's it's got a characteristic of its own. You know some some new makes parents can be Heavy and that's that's that's their characteristics Ours is already has definitely got that lovely even at that early point drew It's got tropical fruit notes within it. You know you get you get like a lovely sort of just an element of that like and we talk about when you go into the tongue room for example in the map with the

the fermentation is taking place. You can almost just smell like, it's almost like ripe bananas within that area. It's such an interesting spirit. So the casks are selected with that in mind. know, so we predominantly most of the casks are now we're using as American first-fellow bourbon casks. Well, because they enhance that tropical fruit note we've got and take it to another level. So this 24-year-old you've got, for example, it's like,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:47.604)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:00.074)
Okay.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (14:09.612)
To me it's just like, it is, it's like going into a fruit shop. In my opinion, this is like just going into a fruit shop and all that lovely aromas that's coming to you. It's just, you know, if you close your eyes, you just like think you're somewhere else, yeah?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:20.605)
Yeah, there's actually today I'm now nosing this almost herbally kind of note. It's almost like a, I want to say like a cross between a pine note and a, it sort of reminds me of a gin type note a little bit that stands out there.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (14:37.548)
Yeah, what I love about Fetter Cairn Whisky though is that, you know, we're going to be nosing older whisky as we go forward, but it always smells quite vibrant, quite fresh. It's always, that fruity note always comes to the fore for me. It's such a lovely whisky.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:56.296)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (15:00.152)
Sláinte.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (15:00.467)
such a nice body to the whiskey too. And it's like, you get some of that, maybe like apple parish kind of note, all this other fruit surrounding it, it's almost, well, and, it evolves as it goes in. get like banana and melon out of it.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (15:11.438)
Mmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (15:21.548)
Yeah, you get banana melon, you know, we talked banana melon guava, all this sort of comes through, you know, what I also like about it though, Drew, is that it's such an unoffensive whiskey. So when you taste it, it's such it's just it's one of these whiskies that just makes you better.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (15:43.282)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's well, it's, I'm getting some of the bourbon cask in there too. mean, it's got a little bit of a nutty toffee kind of note, but it's just kind of just along with the mouthfeel to me, that kind of enhances that part of the taste. I, if it were a thinner whiskey, I might not necessarily, get that.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (15:49.472)
Yeah, you always say that. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (16:02.976)
No, I mean, it's not, it's not, there is a bit of body about it, you know, there is body about this, but the finish for me, you talked about Toffee, I'm getting like nutmeg, I'm getting like, you know, that coming through and it seems to go on for a long, long time, you know, but it's a lovely, it's a lovely finish.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (16:21.479)
Yeah. It's interesting how, I mean, I have to shift myself. I've been tasting a lot of American whiskeys and then I jumped back in and I start tasting Scotches again and I go, man. Sometimes it overwhelms the senses because you have so many flavors that you're pulling out.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (16:41.582)
That's how I feel about Fetter Kerm. I just feel that as a whisky, it's such a complex whisky. There's so much going on. And I know we'll touch on that later on in the interview, but there's so much going on and it's all coming from the new makespirit that we keep.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (16:57.565)
Yeah. Almost a little buttery note on the palette at the finish too. That's really interesting. It does. Yeah. There's a little, little pepper note there too. It's like I say, just very dimensional. And as I say, I've had 20 plus year old whiskeys that I'm just kind of, I feel like I'm on an Easter egg hunt trying to find a flavor here or there. And then I finally do. And I'm like, there's one.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (17:00.63)
Yeah, but the finish keeps just going on and on, doesn't it? It doesn't finish, know, it's fantastic.

Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (17:27.139)
You

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:27.275)
but that it's so, so muted that it's very hard to get at. And this is not muted. Everything is, is coming out. I'm getting grain notes now. So it's like, you know, buttered bread almost kind of a thing going at the end. So.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (17:30.754)
Yeah. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (17:40.162)
Yeah, we talk about it and there's a note to it as well, but is really, really, that's a nice whiskey, that 24 year old's really nice whiskey.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:52.39)
It is so what 500 bottles I see in the U S and this one is probably the closest to the, my pocket book. I think it's like six, $600, a bottle. So yeah, we're gonna, those prices are gonna jump up here in a minute. so continuing on with the history, I've been doing a lot of research. First of all, it was really interesting to see the ties to the excise act because as I was,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (18:02.444)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:21.019)
researching Irish history, I was finding that Anais coffee actually had, some to do on the Irish side with the excise act. and so a lot changed in the industry at, at that time, kind of the, the birth of the modern age. Another, another big thing that changed was the, 1860 spirit act, which, which was, which was when.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (18:27.938)
Yeah, OK, yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (18:38.456)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (18:44.31)
Yep. Let's talk.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:49.171)
Basically before that you couldn't blend malt whiskey with grain spirit. so the concept of blended whiskeys really was born at that time. And the guy I was researching, of course, that was the, the Gladstone government that, that brought that into being. And he was a big proponent of, of whiskey, or he was big, at least in pushing whiskey forward. And now I find out through learning about Federer-Karren.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (18:52.462)
That's right.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (18:58.21)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (19:05.282)
Yes.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (19:14.339)
Mm-hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (19:18.375)
There's probably a reason why he was so focused on. So tell the story.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (19:20.878)
Yeah, So the story is that obviously Alexander Ramsey, he founded the distillery in 1824. Alexander Ramsey himself, was a bit of a guy that enjoyed the lavishes of life. He spent a lot of money on, he built this beautiful gothic mansion at Fasca Seat itself. But it all caught up with him in 1829, sadly, when he basically went bankrupt. So he had to sell

the estate to, he sold it for 80,000 pounds I think to John Gladstone. So John Gladstone was the father of William Gladstone who was a very successful businessman from Liverpool, originally from Scotland but based in Liverpool, who was looking for some place to retire. So this is, he come back to Fettercare to retire with his wife and daughter. The William Gladstone was then a successful prime minister, multiple times prime minister of Great Britain.

And as you rightly said, one of the things he did was he created the Spirits Act in 1860, which allowed us to grain whiskey and malt whiskey together, which really was the, essentially, it's where the industry is today. Without that act, who knows what would have happened with the industry. It kind of opened so many doors, if you like, by passing that act in 1860. The Gladstone's themselves had a...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (20:39.145)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (20:48.238)
tied to the distillery for over 100 years. So from 1830 to 1930 there was a link if you like between the Gladstone family and the distillery itself and up until the mid I think it was 2000, I'm going to say 2014, 2015 they still owned Faske Estate but it's all been sold since that time. So the Gladstone name has been around Fettercairn for many many years.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:17.021)
Yeah. Interesting being at the distillery and I, you know, I wonder sometimes how many records were kept from that time period. the first thing I think of is this idea of blending coming along and the idea that before then people called Highland whiskeys as being, you know, rough and untamed. And it, and it would be interesting to note kind of what the feeling was because

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (21:40.163)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:45.519)
I taste this and I go, no, this is not rough or untamed.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (21:48.119)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (21:51.48)
think certainly in this area, in 1824 when Alexander Ramsay established the distillery, the first employee in the distillery was a gentleman called James Stewart. James Stewart was certainly famous in this area for being an illicit stillman. He was regarded very highly as being quite skilled at his task. So it made sense for Alexander Ramsay to employ him.

Even at that early point he was creating some lovely whiskies, some nice whiskies. It was called a delicately flavoured soft malt. So he was, even at that point, was creating some nice whiskies.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:36.767)
Okay. All right. Yeah. mean, again, we could go back to that time period and maybe, you know, if we could try one of those whiskies, it would be interesting to see whether we, yeah, whether we think it's a untamed or not. So

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (22:46.188)
Yeah, would be amazing wouldn't it?

It depends what you're comparing it against, I suppose, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:54.175)
Yeah. Well nowadays everybody's drinking this, what they call hazmat whiskey at high proof. you know, the modern palette might actually be able to stand to up to it a lot more than who knows who knows. So, but originally the distillery is not known as Federer Cairn, as I understand it wasn't till like the late 1800s that it picked up that name.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (23:01.421)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (23:05.218)
laughter

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (23:21.707)
Alright, I'll be honest with I've always known it as fetter care and distillery but... Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:24.571)
Okay. Okay. I don't know where I read that, but, interesting to, to see that, you know, I probably read it in Wikipedia. So we'll take that for what it will take that for what it is. that that's interesting to know though, but, you know, the Scotch whiskey industry, once it got to the 20th century with the Patterson crash that happened. And, then all of a sudden distillers.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (23:32.994)
Right,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (23:49.622)
Yes, yes.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:52.34)
Company Limited was going, buying up all of the distilleries and shutting distilleries down. how did the distillery survive through these, these early years?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (23:54.264)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (24:06.425)
It's had a choppy or a colourful history, including it's got to be said there was actually a fire at the distillery itself in 1888 where a lot of stock was lost and then the distillery was closed at that time for a couple of years and it reopened in 1890. And in the early part of the 20th century, like all other distilleries, it did go through difficult times.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (24:15.967)
Mmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (24:32.366)
And on a couple of occasions, was actually, you know, it closed down, know, the distillery itself closed down to the point that when it closed down, one of the years that it closed down, that they actually started to remove the roofs from the buildings and, you know, take out some of the plant itself, you know. But thankfully it was saved and, you know, it continued on through the 1930s and beyond that. you know, it's, I'd like to say it's a bit...

To be honest with you, part of it's luck. Some decilaries didn't make it through that period. Fair hair did. Part of that was maybe because it was seen as such a good blend in whiskey, as part of that. Who knows? But it made it through that choppy period in life.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:22.565)
It's, it's, one of those things that when you tour around Scotland and you go to canc castles and you see these castles are, in such a ruinous shape and that roof tax that they had, that was basically the reason they became ruins was because they took the roof off so they didn't have to pay the tax. So was that what better Karen went through with some of the buildings?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (25:30.371)
Hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (25:34.915)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (25:39.618)
Enjoy.

Yeah, that would have been what they would have been doing. They would have been taking the ruse off just for that reason, as you said. But thankfully, everything was reinstated and we managed to just keep going. And since that time, it's been a huge success.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:48.094)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:00.094)
Yeah. So when it was being built back up, was it being built up back up before white McKay took it over? And when did they come in?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (26:07.382)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so it was all good, but it wasn't, I mean, we're talking a minimal amount of years that the buildings were actually, I think it was something like five years drew and then it was all back together again. It wasn't a long period of time. And the distillery was going again in the fourth days, the fifth days, the sixth days. mean, MacKay didn't get involved with Fetter Care until 1973, to be honest with that's when White MacKay took over.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:21.182)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (26:37.278)
and have driven Vettergerm to quite a high standard now. In 1973, when it took over, you talked about Richard Patterson earlier on. It's one of the stories Richard told me that he remembers coming here in that early 1970s, driving up to Vettergerm to meet the manager of the distillery for the first time.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:52.126)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (27:04.686)
And a story always told me was a manager at a distillery called John Livy who Richard was coming up to meet, think, correct me if wrong, but think it was night, know, it wasn't long after White MacKay had taken over. John, Livy that day was actually away on holiday and he met the brewer at the distillery, was a guy called Douglas Cooper. Douglas Cooper and Richard then become lifelong friends, you know, they knew each other and Richard had a huge respect for Douglas.

as did Douglas for Richard. Douglas was 47 years at Fettercare, so he was really the backbone of Fettercare, he oh, have you asked me? even when I lived where I live now, Douglas had retired at this point, and he lived in the house next door to me. Douglas by this time was like 93 years old. He'd been retired for 28 years.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:42.847)
Hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:56.113)
wow.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (27:59.118)
But I always remember, know, the reason I remember is because he had such a passion for the distillery. That's what distilleries, I think, do to you. They kind of just, they get into your blood, they become part of you, if you like, for want of a better word. And Douglas used to always ask, you know, how's the distillery going? Is everything going all right? And then he would, he would ask you, you know, what's the yield? What badly are you using it? What you doing? know, he was advising you at 93 years of age, he was still advising you.

how to run the distillery 28 years later. That was amazing. The friendship between Douglas and Richard remained until sadly Douglas passed away a few years ago to the point that one of the whiskeys that was in the Patterson collection, one of the bottles is actually Douglas Cooper.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (28:30.301)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (28:49.329)
Is it really okay? All right. Did you ever get a chance to like, get some fun stories out of, out of him about the, times of your at the distillery?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (28:59.118)
There was a few, you know what mean? He started working here in the early 1940s. 1941 was when he started. And he started, believe it or not, Douglas started as a chauffeur. He was the manager's chauffeur. It's incredible to think that they had a chauffeur then. I've just got to add at this moment, I don't have a chauffeur. It was so different in them days, you

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:17.794)
okay. All right. You need to requisition one of those if, you get a chance.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (29:27.822)
He started working here, then obviously the war broke out. He had to go to war because it was a time of war and then he come back and he started working for the rest of his life. Like me, he worked through the whole process of the distillery, so knew everything. And he had lot of nice stories to tell. A lot of stories about how he saw the distillery double in size, so it went from two stills to four stills in 1966. And how big a thing that was at that time, because you were obviously doubling the capacity of the distillery. That was a huge thing.

and both in volume, but also what people don't realize. When you create another set of stills, for example, it's trying to keep that quality of spirit. to keep the... And Douglas, you you're explaining all these things. He was a really nice shoulder to go to, someone to go to who understood what you were asking him. And because of his history with Fetterke, and he was a guy that would advise you, I think you maybe need to...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:09.663)
Hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:21.341)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (30:27.058)
Little tweaks, know, that the industry knows about. fact, every distillery's got their own little tweaks. All distilleries do. And Douglas knew about them tweaks. To speak to someone like that and understand why we had the tweaks and what effect it was having on the spirit was such a, know, it was amazing really to have someone with that knowledge on your doorstep.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:48.263)
Yeah. There is such a, it distilling has become such a transient thing. Now distillers going from one distillery to the next.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (30:55.021)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (30:58.958)
I love the knowledge. What I love about distilling is that the knowledge getting handed down from one generation to another. I like to think that if someone who worked at Fettercairn 60, 70 years ago come back now, they would probably be able to quite quickly work it out and be able to go back to work.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:06.75)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:19.241)
Yeah, that's, that is the fun of the, the distilling industry is that, you know, especially in Scotland, evolution hasn't really, I mean, yes, there are computer systems in there now and other things that you wouldn't have seen way back when, but at its core, it's still the same thing. You know, so whereas in America we've gone through many different still types. And so, you know, evolution is all over the place and.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (31:31.363)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (31:36.822)
Yeah. Yeah, Charlie.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (31:47.314)
I like the fact that people that I started working, I started working in 1990 as I earlier, and the people that I, some of the guys that I worked with had done 35 years at that point too. You're now going back to the, you know, the fifties, you know, to have worked with people who, you know, grew it up. It was, it's amazing how the history kind of just all evolves together. you know, I could say that I worked with someone who worked at the distillery in 1955 and he learned me things that I still use now, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:00.692)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:16.659)
Yeah. One of the things that, I wanted to kind of get into is, and this is probably going to be more around once we're into the 40 and 46 year old spirits, but, the idea that during the sixties, during the fifties and sixties, blending was really the thing. There weren't people drinking single malts really, at that time.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (32:28.525)
Hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (32:41.24)
Yeah. No.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:45.649)
And so it makes me wonder about what his process would have been versus what your process is because his is going to have to poke out or become a component within a blend. And it seems like that would be a different thought process as to how your whiskey is made versus if you, if you are trying to create it for, to be consumed on its own or to be consumed as a long, longer age whiskey. I had an interesting.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (33:03.278)
Hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (33:15.187)
conversation, not too long ago with a distiller who was talking about the fact that back in that time period, they were actually using barrels that were, not trying to add a lot of character to the, to the spirit and that they wanted them to age for longer period of periods of time without, which created almost more of a,

How best to say this? mean, it was basically it was, it was meant to just be a blend characteristic. was not meant to be something that you would enjoy on its own. So, you know, are you sensing with these older barrels that you're going through that maybe the, they were produced with this idea of being a blend whiskey rather than being something and, that that's why they've survived so long in the barrel.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (33:54.818)
that.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (34:15.295)
This way.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (34:17.725)
I think it's a good point Drew, to be honest. It's a fair point. And I think, if I was being honest, I think the...

that they would have been making whiskey at that time, obviously, for blended whiskey. So it would have been a totally different concept because as you say, it was part of a blend. It was an important part of the blends of whiskey. I spoke about before how Fetter Cairn was looked upon as a delicate, it was like a delicately flavored soft malt, that's how it was described. So, but it was part of that blend, you know, and it could, you know, was used in blends for that reason. I think what I'd like to say is that

the importance of wood and the influence of wood has come so far in the last, I would say 40, 50 years. Understanding how wood creates all these different characteristics within a whisky is something I think has just been developing for the last 50 years. And the whiskeys that we're enjoying now is because of people like Richard Patterson, for example, who started to understand the...

importance of the cast, the influence the cast had on the spirit character and how to create all these wonderful flavors that we have now. I don't think we, I don't think if you go back to the 1950s and 60s, I'm not sure we actually understood just how important the wood was, you know, and how it could establish the flavors, the notes, the characteristics we get in our whiskey now. And it's only by time and putting it in some lovely woods, some lovely sherry, some lovely bourbon cast.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (35:37.599)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (35:50.872)
that we now at the point where the rewards are that we've got all these lovely whiskeys at our disposal now from very, very, you know, all over Scotland. There's so many different whiskeys. you haven't found a whisky for you, it's because you haven't looked hard enough.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (36:07.039)
Yeah, very true. Do you walk through the warehouse looking at these different barrels and, sometimes have this thought in your head of, I wonder what the distiller was thinking when he put the whiskey into this or, know,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (36:23.761)
I often say, right, so if I drink, you know, I've been lucky enough to drink a 60 year old Fetter Gherm, you know, so it was 1964 was when the spirit was actually created. And when I drink a whiskey of that age, I go back to when I started in 1998 and I see the faces of the guys that I knew would have been part of the making of this whiskey, maybe rolled the barrels, maybe were on the stills, whatever. So when I'm drinking that whiskey, I just see the faces of the guys and you know, it always kind of...

just takes you right back to what they would have been thinking at that time. And in the stories they told me, the advice they gave me, they just so, you know, and it just, yeah, I find it difficult to say, Drew, but it just, it's just seeing the faces and the memories of the people who I know created that whiskey. And as I said earlier, I grew up with their family, so I knew them. So it almost brings a lump to your throat every time I do that, but that's what I see.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (37:18.228)
Mmm.

And then to think that someone 30 years from now will be going through a barrel that you filled and...

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (37:25.154)
Yeah, that's what I love about whisky is that, you know, I've stood and drunk a whisky from 1970s with the son of the guy that made the whisky, you know. That is an experience. To enjoy a whisky with a gentleman whose father you know was involved in the creating of that whisky, it's nice. That to me is what it's all about.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (37:37.919)
Hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (37:46.749)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (37:50.432)
Very nice. So we are now getting back into whiskeys where we'll do the 28 year now. We're now getting into a time period when whiskey was just about to start coming out of its slumber and people were again getting interested. Um, when did feather Karen actually, um, start releasing single malts again?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (38:13.422)
As far as I know, they were releasing single malts to a point, they certainly weren't releasing them in the 70s, but it was never really, it was just a single malt. So was only like a one age, know, it be a 10 year old or an eight year old or a 12 year There was no line of single malts to it, you know? And even right through to, they released a couple of single malts around 2009, was a Fettachin Fjord and a Fettachin Fjord, FASC, sorry.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (38:19.454)
Were they?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (38:32.596)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (38:42.926)
which were nice malts, but there was no range. And it wasn't really until 2018 that they released the range that we know now. they released, there was a 12 year old, and the 28 year old is actually one of the first of that released. There a 12 year old, a 28 year old, a 40 and a 50. That was the range at that time. And it's come so far now. We've got such a huge range of whiskeys within the Fetter Cairn portfolio. It's amazing where we've come in the last seven, eight years.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (38:45.503)
Mmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:07.038)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:11.017)
What is the oldest barrel you have in the warehouse right now?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (39:14.574)
The oldest barrel we have set in the warehouse is from 1965. It's amazing. It's in warehouse number two and if you ever come over I'll show you,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:18.505)
Wow. Okay, yeah. This is the joy. You get to go in and sample, but you don't want to...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:28.927)
Nice. Nice. Do you just knock on it every once in a while to make sure there's something still in it or,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (39:38.562)
think warehouse two is the warehouse in it, Fetter K and it's old fashioned, it's typical, know, really old fashioned, done as warehousing. And the warehouse to me is like a place to go just to, I love going in a warehouse, you shut the door, especially number two, because it's one of the raised warehouses, you shut the door and all, you're just at peace with one, know, everything just, you start smelling all the lovely aromas in the warehouse, there's no noise, it's just like, you could just, know, just everything just.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:46.878)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (40:07.852)
doesn't matter anymore, you know. And one of my favorite things is just to walk, you you just walk through the, as you alluded to earlier, you walk through the warehouse and you see casks, you smell, you know, it's just so peaceful to do that, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (40:25.225)
Do you find your, your warehouses have a different personality? Yeah. Okay.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (40:30.038)
Yeah, 100%. We've got number two warehouses, as I said, and number one and number two is old-fashioned. So there's thick sandstone walls, low slate roofs, the typical dun-outs with the earth and flora. And then you go to some of the other ones. We've got 14 warehouses in total. If you go to number 14, for example, because it faces the north, it's a totally different atmosphere within that.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (40:40.061)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (40:54.668)
warehouse itself, you know, it's colder, it's like a dry area, it's got a totally different personality as you say to number two which is so romanticised, it's just typical what you'd expect a Dunwich warehouse to be. If you wanted to find a Dunwich warehouse, number two warehouse, Fetter Kerm is just the one to go to for me.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (41:14.495)
Nice. So this one, how do you go about picking out a barrel and saying, okay, yeah, this one, we're going to stop this one at 28 and the next one we're going to go, or we're going to let it go a little bit longer.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (41:28.334)
It's exactly as you say, so you know the cask. You'll say, know, like this 28 for example, when you know it's a 28, think, no, think that's, you know, we'd be nosing this cask earlier than 28, you know, and you know there's a point where you think, I don't know if this, you know, if we can get this to another level, if you like, for want of a better word, we should take this now. And was, I think it was a nice age to take 28.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (41:31.358)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (41:51.615)
Yeah

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (41:56.398)
This, by the way, this to me and the whole the Fettercare range, I love this whiskey. This is so, to me this is just, yeah. And it always has been. Since we released it in 2018, I've always loved this whiskey.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (42:00.915)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (42:04.223)
This

Drew | Whiskey Lore (42:09.063)
It's, this one's a little more grassy on the nose to me. It's interesting. It's a, doesn't poke its head out with the fruit quite as, aggressively as, as the 24.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (42:11.608)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (42:18.454)
No, got to, the thing about this as well, it's always going to be mellower because it's slightly lower in strength. So it's going be mellower. But you get, you still get, you talked about the dried grass here, but I still get on the nose, you get, you know, the bananas coming through, I think the bananas, and get more like pineapple, melons, guava, all that's there.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (42:38.931)
Yes, big time.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (42:42.532)
What I like is when you taste it.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (42:49.654)
I always taste it, it's like a citrus peel, like a, you know when you peel an orange, Drew, you know, and that is what I get with this one.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (42:55.069)
Yeah.

Yes. it's again, really nice mouthfeel to it. What hit me on the nose was that I was getting a lot more like a vanilla frosting kind of a thing going on. it's like, again, is this just bourbon barrel?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (43:02.38)
Yep.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (43:08.012)
Yep. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (43:12.674)
So this one has been fully matured in a bourbon barrel for 28 years.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (43:18.053)
Okay. Yeah. I mean, it's, that, that hits me on the nose where, and I was getting like a cherry note on the, on the nose too. was pulling out really interesting notes with all of these. have to sometimes sit on the couch and, pay attention to something else and then it'll let my mind go free to actually try to, and then I try to pick little things out of the air. And so sometimes I look at my notes and I'm like, really? I, know, I'll never probably taste or nose that again, but.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (43:24.055)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (43:36.172)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (43:44.718)
you

I am, the finish on this, you know, it's like that, I get an apricot finish that just goes on and on.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (43:56.128)
Hmm. Yeah. And, and again, I get a little bit of that, uh, buttered bread note, that a little bit of grain that lays on the palette, which is really interesting. Yeah. Huh. That's, that's very good. Yes. I see. I like, it seems like the 24 year is a good, if you are wanting something that's just going to dance out at you. And this one, a little bit more investigation into it to, uh, uh, to get it, but it's, it's.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (44:01.262)
Yeah. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (44:19.672)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think so. I think so.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (44:26.449)
Not as sweet, I think as the, as the 24. Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (44:30.004)
No, I would say more complex, so there's more complexity of flavors within it, you know?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (44:36.649)
So let's talk a little bit about the process of making this. this, there's a concept at this distillery that I don't know that I've heard anywhere else, which is the idea of waterfall cooling coils. So where did this come from and what does this do?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (44:39.427)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (44:49.698)
Yeah. So it's what it is, is we call it the cooling ring, right? So on the second distillation, so on the spirit still, when we, when the still, so the still will initially, you know, and then when it comes into the four shots, what we do is we'll put a cooling ring on. So the top of the head of the still, let's say about three quarters of the way up the head of the still, just prior to the swan neck.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (45:12.895)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (45:19.118)
We've got this cooling room, right? That just basically sprays cold spring water onto the head of the still. So in 1952, there was a gentleman who was the manager of the distillery at that time, and his name was Alastair Menzies. He was looking to create a more refined whiskey, you know, a better whiskey than he was creating in his eyes. How can I refine the spirit of better care? Excuse me.

The obvious thing to do would have been to change the shape of your still. Referring back to a Glenn Marangi still, which is tall and so tall. It's the same concept, so only the lightest flavors pass over. But where the clever part comes from, as I mentioned, was to do that, would have had to obviously redesign his still. And when you do that and it doesn't, what he did was, if you do that and it doesn't work, you've nothing to go back to.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (46:16.669)
Right.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (46:16.846)
What he did was he's I think, two or three of his workers, you know, he's looked at the head of cell and he's asked them, basically, with hoses, to spray cold water on the cell. He would have been nosing that spirit as it come through the sample safe and realized that actually the water is having an influence on the spirit as it comes through. He trusted it that much that he asked the guy, the engineer at the distillery at that time was a guy called John Twyfe. He asked John Twyfe to create what is the cooling ring. And it's just...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (46:35.485)
Hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (46:45.742)
like an inch copper pipe that goes right around the head of the still with a series of small holes on the still that sprays the water onto, literally onto the head of the still and then the water then cascades down the floor lens of the head of the still.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (46:56.638)
Yeah.

And it, and is probably steaming up as it's coming down. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (47:04.106)
Yeah, if you're lucky enough to see it at a certain, so in the summertime when the sun sets behind the distillery and as you said, and you see all the steam rising off, sometimes you're lucky enough with a light that you actually see a rainbow coming through the steam, know, all these colors, it's a fantastic thing to see, it's really amazing thing to see. But what it's creating there is a reflux. So it's creating a reflux within the style, which means obviously that

Drew | Whiskey Lore (47:18.816)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (47:30.754)
you know, there's more copper contact, so you get that smoother spirit. To me, this is where the whole DNA of fetter germ comes from, is because of this cooling ring. You know, it's a massive, huge influence in the spirit we make in fetter germ. To my knowledge, no one else does it. There's no one else got a cooling ring. But it's got, it's such a simple thing, but yet it's had such a massive influence in the spirit of fetter germ.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (47:48.318)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (47:54.601)
Ha

Drew | Whiskey Lore (47:59.742)
Yeah. Well, I mean, the, main thing that I could think of is that as that is going up and the, the, vapor is trying to escape because all of a sudden it's hitting a cooler spot of the, of the still. This, this is the reflux. It's kick. It's kicking that back down.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (48:13.315)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (48:17.229)
That's That's exactly what I used to do.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (48:20.733)
with the idea that you are making it that much harder for it to get through the top, which an extended neck would also do. But, but you're also probably creating a slightly different effect. like Glamorange is very, I don't want to call it thin, but I mean, it's a, it is a lighter weight whiskey and this has a heavier weight to it. So it's almost like it's doing the same thing, but still maybe.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (48:29.74)
Yeah, that's exactly what...

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (48:45.059)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (48:48.701)
The oils are still able to get through.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (48:50.956)
Yes, so a certain percentage of them are still able to pass over and because it's being controlled by the spirit, the spring water, sorry, you know, it depends on the temperature the spring water is coming out of the still because it's only, we don't touch the water as it comes in, it's the ambient temperatures of the still that know, it sprays on. So you can imagine in the wintertime, it's got a heavier effect on the still than it would.

possibly in the summertime, just because of the ambient temperatures of the water that's coming in. So, you know, to see it in action, to see the complexity of it, and as you say, what it does, it allows a higher percentage of the lighter, fruitier, floral notes that we want in our final product, but it also allows us, you know, a certain percentage of the meatier notes to come through as well. So you end up with a complex spirit, with a slight, slight, a bit of...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (49:21.94)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (49:47.822)
Better meat on the bones to be wanting a better word.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (49:50.1)
Yeah. Do you find because of the differences between winter and summer that when you're putting them together, and vatting them that you need to that kind of equal amounts of each or.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (50:02.254)
You've got to understand that whole process that we talked about, you have to understand that, that it's going to have a different effect in the seasons. And just marry it to suit, yeah, you're right.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (50:14.815)
Okay. One of the things that we talked about just a few minutes ago was this idea of understanding wood. And so I know one of the things Greg is involved in is this Scottish oak project. can you talk a little bit about that and what that is and,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (50:26.711)
Yes, yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (50:30.51)
So Greg Glass is someone who's for many years now has been working on the Scottish Oak Programme and he come to Fettercare and I think it was about, it must be about maybe 10 years ago now and we started talking about it there. And it all kind of, because of the people who owned Faske Estate, as I said earlier, the Gladstons had moved on at that point. There was a new family called the Dunnets who bought Faske Estate and the relationship we had with them.

allowed us to do various things, know. It gave Greg access to some naturally fallen oak trees within the estate itself, but they also allowed us, we've planted 13,000 oak saplings within about half a mile of the distillery itself, you know. So these are obviously going to be something that hopefully 200 years down the line will be part of fetter gear in some form or other, looking at casts or something, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (51:11.604)
Mm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (51:27.342)
And what it is, is he's basically creating casks from natural fallen trees, or oak trees in Scotland, to create different flavours. And he is creating different flavours. It's a whole different flavour structure with a Scottish oak cask. To the point that one of the things we did in 2024, we celebrated 200 years of Hector Cairn Distillery. And we created this collection group.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (51:37.289)
Mm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (51:54.958)
where we had various ages of whiskeys dating, the oldest one was 1964 and the youngest one was three years of age. It was 2021. And we put it at a Scottish Oak cask in 2021. And we actually waited in that cask to reach three years of age to allow us to use that in the collection. Now, it would have been wrong not to have used it in the collection because it's such a complex, a pure of a whisky, it's very complex.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (52:09.865)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (52:24.93)
But what you get with the Scottish oak is a totally different fruit ball. you think, we've talked about tropical fruits with the bourbon casks. This is like almost like red fruits. So suddenly you've got different red fruits coming in, like, you know, like all that, almost like strawberries sometimes. But we talk about brioche bread, you talk about cinnamon, heavily influenced with cinnamon. All this is what's come in the Scottish oak. When you put your spirit in a Scottish oak cask, initially it gets totally engulfed with the tannins from the wood.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (52:35.134)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (52:54.382)
to the point that it's like, oh my God, this is, it was almost like chewing a cask for want of a better word. But you see over the next two years, that so mellows out. The whole complexity of the cask comes through and it's mellowed out. As I said, you've got, you've still got, the tannins are still there, it's, they've mellowed out so much, it's a different flavor, it's a different experience entirely when you, if you drink a whiskey from a Scottish oak cask.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (53:03.999)
Hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (53:24.054)
One of the things we did at Fetter Cairn was we took it a step further. three years ago, we created casks from a tree that had fell within about a mile of the distillery itself. We created it, the 18 casks in total, and we filled it with whiskey where the barley was actually growing within a mile of the distillery as well. So everything that's in that cask, including the cask itself,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (53:48.114)
wow.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (53:53.066)
is from within the eye line of the distillery. And I think that's an amazing thing to be able to say that.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (54:00.991)
Yeah. I think the thing that just stuck stuck out to me and what you said is this idea of growing trees for 200 years so that they future edition of Federer Karen. And after you've been like so hyper focused on craft distilleries in the United States, like I have been here recently where distilleries are no more than 10 to 15 years old and they're going, are we going to survive, you know, through this generation to the, and where you guys.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (54:09.868)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (54:27.768)
Yep.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (54:30.097)
In Scotland, they're like, yeah, well, 200 years from now. we're, I love that. It's just a, it's a different mindset and it's great.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (54:39.374)
Yeah, I mean, we talked about, you talked about the oldest cask in the warehouse is 1965. There's every possibility, you could go back to probably the 1700s when that tree was, that tree probably grew the whole lifetime of the distillery itself. It's amazing that when you talk about 200 years like that.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (54:44.883)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (54:53.641)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (54:59.593)
That's.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (55:03.899)
It is a whiskey time capsule for sure. So let's, let's start diving into these older ones and we'll do the 40 year. and so, again, you have this, this barrel and you, are you trying to purposefully get it to 40 years or, cause I often wonder.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (55:06.19)
Hahaha

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (55:12.11)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (55:30.847)
You know, if a whiskey is right at 39 years, you know, are you scared to let it go to 40 years?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (55:38.961)
To be honest, what we did with this one, we were nosing it, you know, 35 to 38 years of age. At 38 years of age, we made the decision to take it out of the existing barrel, the existing barrels, which was an Ernie White Oak ex-Burman barrel. We put it into a, we finished it, we decided to finish it for two years in a first full bourbon. So we took it out of a bourbon and put it into, for whatever matter, a fresh bourbon, to just lift up.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (55:54.43)
Uh-huh.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (56:05.897)
Okay.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (56:08.078)
tropical fruit notes, that vanilla notes that come through. What I love about this and the 46 when we get there is that I talk about, quite often when you know it's an older whiskey, and you'll probably know this better than me, you often get an influence of the cask, a heavy influence of the cask, almost to the, like an ageing effect. So when you know it's a whiskey, know it. I'll often say when you know it's an old whiskey, sometimes you know it's an old whiskey.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (56:11.581)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (56:33.117)
Yes.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (56:34.53)
You don't know this is an old whiskey. This is very vibrant. This is very fresh. This is almost like, we go back to 24 year olds, it's almost like that, like a 20, 25 year old, so fresh and vibrant and just, there's no way nosing that whiskey you would think that's a 40 year old.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (56:44.724)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (56:48.681)
This is the same thing I was talking about at the very beginning, this idea that there's a consistency in these in that they don't lose their personality. They, they are still vibrant whiskies. Even it. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (57:01.358)
Yeah, that's what I love about these. That's what I love about Fetter Cairns. So the DNA in Fetter Cairns we talked about earlier has created the point of the coolant ring. When you know it's the new mixed spirit coming out, already you've got this lovely tropical fruit notes coming through. They're already there, you know? And all we're doing now is marrying them and maturing them in the right cast to create these wonderful aromas that we're nosing. This is almost perfumesque. To me, this is, you know...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (57:31.795)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (57:31.948)
This is such a lovely whiskey for a 40 year old.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (57:34.931)
This was the first one that when I knows this one, was that where I picked up like honeydew melon and I, I went back to the others and I said, it's there too. I hadn't really noticed it before, but it stood out on this one. and there's a nice little toasted, note to this that maybe that's coming from that, newer barrel.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (57:40.632)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (57:45.069)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (57:48.717)
Yes.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (57:58.656)
Just top line kind of.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (57:59.502)
I get like a spiciness to it, you know, like an exotic spiciness. You're right about the honey. I do get that honey coming, know, the honeydew melon coming through. But there's an apple note, there's like a red apple note to it as well.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (58:03.645)
Yeah. Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (58:11.571)
Yeah, it's really interesting.

Yeah, and I got a berry note out of it as well.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (58:19.797)
Mmm. Yep.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (58:25.491)
Hmm. And great on the palette. All the fruits come through again. Ooh. And some really nice, like baking spice notes on the finish and,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (58:35.874)
Yes.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (58:40.151)
So on the finish I get like, it's like a soft patisserie but there's spices there, you know? It's a spicier whisky than the last one we had at the finish. But it's a nice finish.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (58:46.141)
Yes.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (58:51.443)
Yeah. And, and then the fruit shows itself again. It's like a jam of some form. mean, it's just, it's like a orange marmalade almost. I feel like I'm getting on that. That's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It does.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (58:56.823)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep, you're right. And it keeps coming. something. It keeps, you know, it doesn't finish. It keeps giving you something else, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (59:12.851)
I have to say that, you know, I have for a long time dismissed. Whiskeys at over 30 years of age, because I just haven't really sensed I've had some, not many, but the ones that I've had, I've, I've just thought there's, there's just not enough here for me. If I have to struggle to taste this or to smell this, yes, I can have the reverence for the fact that it's been sitting in a cask for, you know,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (59:26.871)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (59:34.732)
Hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (59:42.376)
almost half a century, but if you really don't get anything out of it, then it's start, you start hearing about these, you know, bottles selling for a million dollars and you go, why would anybody spend a million dollars on a bottle of whiskey that they're probably never going to taste. And maybe it only just tastes like wood. And so who cares anyway, what it tastes like it's, it's, it's what's in the bottle. But what you're showing me is that, not all 40 year old whiskies are the same.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (59:43.339)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (59:57.152)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:00:08.738)
No.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:00:11.912)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:00:12.478)
I allude back to the 60 year old we spoke about earlier and it's similar Drew, you know, it's a 60 year old whiskey but again it's so vibrant and fresh it's like a whiskey of like 20 years old, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:00:25.459)
Yeah. And that peppery note is still on my palette. It's really interesting.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:00:28.991)
Yeah, it's the same with me, it still goes on and on, doesn't it? There's a spicy pepper note that's just on your palate.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:00:32.689)
Yeah, absolutely.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:00:37.417)
So that's a, that's a 60 or that's a $6,000 bottle of whiskey. So my audience is going to, yeah, well I ever taste that 35 bottles in the U S so it is somewhat, somewhat rare.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:00:50.625)
Yeah, yeah I know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:00:53.629)
This is your advantage though. This is why you get to, you you take this job. That's definitely a perk that, you will occasionally get the dip into one of those barrels.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:01:02.157)
One of the greatest parts of my job, if you like, is when Bruce, who's the distillery, the distillery and I, and often some other members of the staff as well, we'll just go and look at casts. You see when you find a cast that you think that's a really nice cast. That's the reward for me, you know? That's the reward.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:01:26.877)
Yeah. Yeah.

So in the 46, did you, cause this is my first time working with this and I'm working without a net here. yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:01:32.054)
Yep.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:01:37.166)
So the maturation story of this, Drew, is that it's, about 42, 43 years in America of white oak ex-Burban barrels. Then we finished it in first Philburban. And again, we've lifted it. We've enhanced it. So the color is, for being fully matured in bourbon, the color gets me first. So it's almost like a dark bronze color. It's a beautiful color.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:01:51.366)
Okay.

Yes.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:02:00.234)
Yes.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:02:05.535)
Yes, and that's what's interesting is between the 24 to the 46, the color variation isn't a huge jump, but it, but it is, uh, yeah. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:02:15.021)
No, there is a job there. all the, they're all, apart from the two, the 40 and the 406 is non-chill filtered natural color. I can even tell you that this was distilled on the 23rd of December, 1977.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:02:39.197)
Wow. Okay. What was I doing on the 23rd of December? Wow. Okay. Yes. I was a young lad then I was not thinking about whiskey.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:02:40.877)
Two days before Christmas in 1977, there you go.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:02:50.451)
Hahaha

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:02:52.063)
well this one, this one is actually I'm getting like peppery notes and kind of that that toasted wood note again on this.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:03:02.509)
So I get, yeah, so you get like a dark chocolate.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:03:06.173)
Yeah, there you go.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:03:06.989)
But you see behind it, I get dark chocolate, I go back to the citrus note that we had in the 28s, so it's like an orange citrus note to it. And it's like a brioche. Dark chocolate comes through. You talk about the spiciness, that's what I get as well.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:03:14.035)
Yeah. Kind of kind of baked in there.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:03:26.406)
Okay.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:03:29.804)
Hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:03:31.452)
Mmm. I get berry on the, again. Wow, that is really expressive.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:03:35.671)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:03:39.473)
Very fresh red berries for me. You hear that red berries coming through? I know that sounds crazy but you get like an element of like a taste of like a dark plums, you know dark plums coming through like overripe plums just coming through.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:03:43.773)
Yes. And that toffee note.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:03:52.83)
Yeah. Yeah. That is so rich for, for eight. When I say rich, I'm not necessarily saying sweet, but it is, it is, it's just flavorful.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:03:57.349)
I can't believe you.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:04:05.185)
But for 46 years, such an amazing whiskey. I think it's an amazing whiskey.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:04:07.087)
It is amazing. Yes.

And you're basically what you're saying with this is that, when you tasted it before you put it into a newer, first fill, maybe the life was, was starting to,

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:04:19.475)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:04:26.101)
Yeah, we were aware that the wood was it so that the cask, for want of a word, we knew the cask wasn't having an influence on the spirit anymore. did. So we knew that by putting it in a fresh bourbon, the influence that it would have on that spirit would have been there to be seen. And that's what's happened. So the influence of the second cask has just, for want of word, it's just brought it back to life. The flavors were there, but they were kind of sleeping like, know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:04:33.31)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:04:38.473)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:04:53.992)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:04:55.721)
So by putting it to new cars, suddenly these flavors are bursting to life. I yeah, I wanna be here now. I wanna want people to taste what we've got in here. Imagine that, you you've been lying sleeping for about the last 10 years. Here we go, you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:05:05.407)
Where, where did you kind of learn that, that technique? Because I've heard of the opposite technique, which is you get to a whiskey to a certain age, you like it, and then you put it into a, a third fill barrel. So it doesn't really evolve anymore.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:05:21.229)
It's it's it's I would say rather than learning it's about trying things, you know So let's be honest with you know, the only way you'll ever learn something is trying it Sometimes it works something doesn't but I think the fair care and we know the fair care and spirit There's a such a massive tropical fruit notes. We talk about it an early stage. We know it's there We know how big an influence the cast will have in it. It's just a case of marina

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:05:26.399)
Mm-hmm.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:05:48.846)
with the right cask for the right period of time. So we know that we've got a cask here that's 43 years of age, but it's kind of sleeping on us. We know it's there, everything's there, we want it to be there. You know it's there, it's not really where I wanted it. It's sleeping for want of a better word. So let's bring it back to life. Let's waken that cask up. So we'll put it into another cask. And all these flavors suddenly just burst into life.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:06:07.825)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:06:14.461)
Yeah. I would swear that this was aged in the Sherry cask at some point. I mean, it just has a, like an Oloroso cask. just has such a, like dark berry kind of, flavor on it and it's lingering and lingering. Really interesting. Yeah. Well, thank you for changing my mind on older whiskeys because, you know, again, we talk about older whiskeys in the U S we can't age them that long because they'll, they'll just.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:06:18.871)
Hello?

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:06:28.973)
Yep, probably at the corner.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:06:35.469)
Thank

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:06:43.667)
bake, of course, depending on where you're at, if you're in Alaska, it'll survive, yeah, absolutely. But, you know, cask management and the rest, and really this, this concept of, refreshing a whiskey in a way, trying to wake it back up is, is fascinating. so.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:06:46.433)
Yeah, yeah. It'll survive braille, actually, yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:07:07.181)
One of the things we have at Fettercare, hopefully someday we'll see you at Fettercare, we've got an area where we just try all things, just try different casks. I'm sure other distilleries do as well, but we're trying different, to create experiences. I always think that when you're drinking a whisky, it's an experience. It should be an experience, especially a whisky of an older age. It shouldn't just be, let's drink it for the sake of drinking it.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:07:35.39)
Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:07:35.981)
I always think to drink a whisky of that age, it's creating a memory. Sometimes a good memory, sometimes a bad memory. Sometimes you're celebrating something, sometimes you're not. But it's creating a memory. It's something that you'll remember many years from now. And that's what I think a good whisky should be. It's part of that memory.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:07:52.735)
Well, Stuart, thank you so much for spending time today and going through these and letting me taste that last one is a $19,000 a US dollars. That's, um, yeah, it's a little beyond my budget, but, um, just a, an amazing thing to be able to get to taste that and, see what it's like. And I don't know where those 35 bottles are, but I'm sure somebody, whoever buys it needs to open it because it is definitely worth drinking. Yeah.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:08:15.767)
Ha!

Yeah, 100%. I think whiskeys should be enjoyed. I did do. I do. Listen, it's been a pleasure, Drew. Thank you very much. It's been such a nice experience. Thank you.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:08:25.705)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you, Stuart.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:08:34.059)
Sláins. Slá.

STEWART MALCOLM WALKER (01:08:39.704)
Mm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:08:40.32)
X