Whisky Stories Podcast

Fraser is based in India and represents The Glenlivet, Aberlour, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute and Ballantine’s. However, he is not on the podcast in an “official capacity”, therefore this was not a recording about his brands. This was a recording about him personally.We talked about his journey into whisky, starting on the familiar path from behind the bar, to then working as a tour guide at The Glenlivet Distillery (we can talk and did talk about this), moving up to Speyside to live and breathe whisky, and then eventually moving out to India to become an International Brand Ambassador.We recorded this episode in Tycoons Bar in Bangalore. Fraser is based in Delhi but flew to Bangalore to catch up, have some drams and record this episode.He spoke about his experiences out in India, the differences that he’s noticed in the whisky world out in India versus in Scotland, and the Indian whisky market.Fraser has visited 17 cities and 15 states in the 18 months that he’s been working as a brand ambassador out in India.He also told a great story about trying some “whisky” made from replica illicit stills made from Glenfarclas stills blueprints, but a third of the size.

While I’m out in India, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to dive deep into Indian whisky and, the good folks at Paul John Distillery were more than happy to help.After a flying visit into Goa to meet Master Distiller Michael D’Souza and get a full tour of the distillery (check out the vlog for this), I was invited to the Paul Hotel back in Bangalore for a chat and some drams with the Paul John Global Brand Ambassador Heemanshu Ashar.Heemanshu talked me through his own beginnings and journey into whisky, and then talked about how Paul John started out.Despite Paul John Distillery only being open from 2012, the whisky gets itself all over the world. But I wanted to know how it all started, and who is Paul John?Heemanshu talked us through the origins of the business and explained about Mr Paul P John and the overall business John Distilleries. Blended Indian whisky, Indian wine and now Indian single malt.Heemanshu was also kind enough to let me try the new 2025 Christmas Edition which is finished in a Cream Sherry Cask.

We’ve talked about getting Cody Reynolds back on the podcast for a long time. But the Angus Dundee Global Brand Ambassador is a busy man travelling the world spreading the good word of Glencadam and Tomintoul. Cody was our 5th episode when he first came on the podcast on the 9th of November 2023. He was our first Brand Ambassador to come onto the pod as well. One of the things that I remember most about that episdoe was Cody explaining the cycle of the whisky drinker. What makes that even more impressive is that even now, after 113 episode we are still referencing it. There was a good amount of whisky consumed before, during and after the podcast and Cody was kind enough to bring in a Swedish drink that I can still taste now. Cody has also birthed one of our next Games for the Pod with Cody Reynolds One Star Reviews!Loads of fun on this one and lots of Glencadam, Tomintoul and general whisky chat. 

What better way to end the year than to sit down in the Diggers cellar with the owner, tuck into some drams and go through some of the best whiskies we've had this year. We look back at what's been an amazing year for the podcast. We've had some great guests, had access to distilleries and hosted some really fun events. We also look ahead to an exciting 2026 for Kev with the soon to be launched 'Diggers 2' down in Leith (name pending). Thanks to everyone who's been part of the podcast for the last 12 months. Happy New Year and here's to 2026 and plenty more drams and shenanigans.

Merry Christmas! We had a quick Christmas catch-up in Diggers for a couple of drams (Ross had already had a few before he got there...) to lead into our North British Distillery Podcast recording. We were given a very special gift from the guys at Royal Mile Whiskies which is something to look forward to in the new year and Ross gave us his top whiskies of 2025. Hope you're having or had a great Christmas and Happy New Year. Thanks for listening. Cheers!

This week we have Pal of the Pod Cameron Ewen in for a chat about his now job, Christmas drams and whiskies of 2025. We were back in the Dug Oot at Diggers for this one enjoying some drams, and festive whisky chat with Cam. Cam talked us through his new role at Diageo and some of the amazing whiskies he gets to work with. Including old Brora and Port Ellon bottlings. We also discuss what whiskies we'll be drinking over the Christmas festivities. Enjoy

Raymond is the man behind the iconic Glencairn whisky glass and changed the way we drink whisky.He isn't just Whisky Royalty, he's an absolute gentleman as well. Spending time with Raymond and hearing his whisky stories was amazing. In this episode we hear about how he started out, what made him decide to design a glass for drinking whisky, and the journey it's taken him on. We also enjoyed a good few drams while we were at it!Enjoy

This one was a lot of fun to record. Sam Simmons was one of the first online whisky bloggers with his blog Dr Whisky starting back in the early 2000s. That took him from writing about whisky to selling it, becoming the Global Brand Ambassador for Balvennie to becoming Head of Whisky for Atom Brands. He's responsible for putting out releases to over 1 million people around the world. Looking for cool whisky concepts, bottling it and selling it. Sam brought in some of his own projects with him for us to try including Wormtub 10 and the famous Dalry Milk North British bottling. There's some great whisky chat in this podcast as well as plenty of laughs and good drams. Enjoy

We were all back in the Diggers Vaults for a recording and a catch up with Chuck, Angus, myself Ross and Scott Moore. Ross had literally just jumped off the plane returning from his trip across the pond to see his current mother and father-in-law and our USA Brand Ambassador was about to leave from his epic whisky trip to Scotland. There were loads of drams on the barrel for this one. With plenty of whisky chat from Scott's trip, we had whisky samples sent over and lots of catching up to do. We chatted about our trip to Glencadam Distillery as well as our epic Edinburgh Whisky Pub Crawl. Loads of fun and nonsense on this one. Enjoy!

How do you start a distillery on tiny island off the coast of Scotland?We sat down with Isle of Raasay Co-founder and Master Distiller Alasdair Day and UK Sales Manager Gregor Hunter to hear the story. Alasdair talks us through how he got into whisky through his family history connections and how things sparked from blending to distilling. We also talked about life on the island and what the distillery is doing for the local economy and growing the island population. The lads also brought in some fantastic drams for us to try including Isle of Raasay newmake and the first ever peated single grain whisky to be bottled. Enjoy!

It's our birthday and to celebrate we put on a BIG Birthday Bash last Friday night at Uno Mas. And what a night it was! We had 55 guests, 6 brands and 7 whiskies on the lineup. There were party games and Ali Baxter Whisky Stories Bingo. And we even had our own cask of whisky which was rolled in and hand filled on the night in the bar. A huge thanks to everyone for coming along and being part of the special occasion and to our brands. Woven InchDairnie Holyrood Tri-Carragh Glengoyne Woodrow's of Edinburgh This is a wild one. Enjoy

We were invited along to have a look around at the Woodrow's of Edinburgh warehouse with Pals of the Pod Woody and Megan. It's always nice to get an invited into a bonded warehouse and last night we were treated to some great drams straight from the cask. We were also sampling some whisky which will be our next Exclusive Whisky Stories Bottling!!Woody and Megan were great hosts and as always gave us great chat and quality drams.

Arthur has been in the whisky industry for over 20 years. He's been the buyer of Scotch Malt Whisky Society and then worked his way up to Managing Director of Royal Mile Whiskies. There's not a cask that Arthur has bought that he doesn't remember. He's been involved in buying and selling some incredible whiskies throughout his career. Being part of the growth of the SMWS and Royal Mile Whiskies has made him one of the most influential people within the Scotch Whisky Industry. He was responsible for what RMW would buy and how they would sell it. He also loves talking about the history of whisky and some of the myths that surround it. He has a YouTube Channel with Dave Broom called The Liquid Antiquarian. There's a lot of good whisky industry chat in this one. Enjoy!

Dougal Gordon is the Brand Ambassador to Scotland for one of the best selling brands in the world, Glenfiddich. But he's also the 6th generation of the Grant Family to work in the business. This is an episode I've been trying to make happen, and it was worth the wait. In this episode, we get the full family history, stories of how Glenfiddich moved into becoming the top selling single malt all over the world, building distilleries against time lines and sponsoring F1 teams. Plus Dougal was very kind not to come along empty handed as well! Pour a dram and enjoy this cracker!

We’ve never had a wrestler on the podcast before. I didn’t think there were many connections between whisky and wrestling. Until I met Sam Barbour a few weeks ago who explained that he is a sales exec for La Martiniquaise who own Glen Moray and Cutty Sark. We’re HUGE fans of Glen Moray on the podcast.And have talked a lot about the distillery, the variety of different cask releases and the quality of whisky and price. So when we got Sam on, we thought it would be a great opportunity to talk about Cutty Sark as well as his alter wrestling ego - SBX. He flogs whisky through the day and wrestles in the evening. Sam is a wrestler who takes part in special wrestling events throughout Scotland. And he’s invited us along to his up coming charity wrestling night ‘WrestleMonia!’ Which is rising money for Movember. Angus might even put his favourite leotard on for this one! The fact that we can seamlessly talk about wrestling and whisky shows just how far this podcast has come over the last 100 episodes. Sam also brought in snacks and we got a sneak peak and taste of the soon to be released Glen Moray Forbidden Fruit Calvados Cask. A lot of fun recording this one.

This was the big one for us. Episode 100!It's crazy to think that we've been doing this for so long already, but we made it to a century of podcast episodes. Angus, Ross and I were back in Diggers in the cellar drinking drams and chatting nonsense. We had some cracking whisky on this weeks episode which included some American Single Cask Single Malt as well as sampled of the new 2025 Ardnamerica Release. Ross brought some goodies as well to celebrate the big occasion. We answered listener questions as well which ranged from what whisky we would use to fight off a bear to our best and worst whisky we've had since starting the pod. Another cracking night chatting about whisky and enjoying some good drams.

This was a cracking night. We were joined by Pal of the Pod Fraser Souness who was taking us through a 6 dram G&M lineup. Recorded in front of a 'live studio audience' in Diggers, we had special guest appearances from listener Launce Morgan and his 'current wife' Sandra. Big Cameron Ewen was also in the audience with his whisky lad Ross Barr. Drams on the night:🥃 Distillery Label Glenburgie 25🥃 CC Craigellachie 2009 - UK exclusive🥃 CC Benriach 1999🥃 Upcoming CC Glenturret 2007 cask sample🥃 Distillery Label Ardmore 2000🥃 CC Upper Balblair 1993Well done to Fraser for putting on a great lineup and giving us some great whisky chat and stories. Thanks to everyone who came along. Enjoy

This week, we were back out and about and heading west! We haven't ventured too far west in the two years of the podcast, so we decided to jump on a train to Helensburgh for the Lomond and Clyde Whisky Festival.But instead of just rocking up with a lanyard and enjoying some drams, we decided to team up with the Collector Club Competitions lads, John and Scott, to do some giveaways of our own.So, we packed our dartboard and wheel of fortune and came up with some challenges for people to try and win some whisky!The good news is that nothing got broken and no one got injured! This episode has a bit of everything: we recorded our first-ever podcast on the train through and back, we caught up with Glen from Whyte and Mackay who chatted about Dalmore and Fettercairn, and we got a sit-down dram with Marcos from Brave New Spirits.A lot was going on in this episode, but it's well worth a listen and was a load of fun to record.

We were back out and about for this episode on our Ian Macleod big day out. Not only were we given full access to the distillery and taken on our own tour with Gordon Dundas, we were also treated to The Malt Master Experience and hosted by good Pal of the Pod Jake Adcook. Jake is part of the blending team for Ian Macleod Distillers, which means he knows a thing or two about how to blend Glengoyne. He talked us through his processes of blending whisky while we had a go at blending our very own versions of Glengoyne. We put our efforts to the test had to select our own favourites blind. Who do you think would be the best Master Blender of the Whisky Stories Podcast?

Hoose Drams with Mark Thomson!This is the first time we've ever recorded in someone's house before!When Angus and I saw Mark Thomson had put his house on the market, we were desperate to get in for a wee look around. So we turned up with a camera, a couple of mics, and some drams.This one was a lot of fun. Mark reflected on his career, which has taken him from working in female fashion, Cafe Mambo in Ibiza (didn't know that about him), working as a Brand Ambassador for Glenfiddich, and an Independent Bottler.Mark's got some great stories, but he also gave us a great insight into the whisky industry and the challenges that brands are facing. We spoke about the importance of a Brand Ambassador and what's involved in working for a major brand like Glenfiddich.The episode covers it all, including:Delivering training sessions in NigeriaWhisky industry trendsComparing the value of new distilleries and the older originalsHow to break into the Glenfiddich Blending RoomIt's just three people sitting in a kitchen, enjoying drams and having some whisky chat. We brought along the Tomatin 6 year old virgin oak distillery hand-fill, the Glen Moray House Distillery Exclusive, and my bottle of Lindores Abbey. Mark, in turn, opened up his new bottle of Tomatin 18.There's so much in this episode to enjoy. Sit back, pour a dram, and enjoy!