Whisky Stories Podcast

Brian Kinsman is the Master Blender for William Grant & Sons. That means he is responsible for overseeing some of the biggest whisky brands in the world. Glenfiddich, The Balvenie, Grants, Monkey Shoulder, and now The Famous Grouse. He's only the 6th Glenfiddich Malt Master in nearly 140 years. He's worked within the William Grant & Sons Business for over 25 years, and his name is...

Mike McGinty is the Brand Home Manager for John Dewars & Sons. That means a big part of his job is to take people to the distilleries owned by Dewars and tell them the amazing stories about them. Aberfeldy, Aultmore, Craigallachie, Macduff, and Royal Brackla all fall under his remit. And in this episode he told us the stories behind them all. Why is Dewars so popular in America? Mike explained...

We've all seen the labels on bottles and seen brands promoting that they are finalists or winners of whisky awards. But what does that actually mean? And what goes into winning a whisky award? John Boyle is the man who's job it is to start putting the Scottish Whisky Awards together each year. Getting brands to submit entries, bringing in sponsors, and putting on a MASSIVE tasting session...

What is it that makes Tamnavulin so popular? To celebrate 60 years of the distillery, we held a birthday party for Tamnavulin and got to try some incredible whisky. Whisky Maker Kirsty Hodge and Distillery Manager Trevor Milne came down to Diggers Leith for the party and brought along some whisky goodies. It's not every day you get to try 50. year old whisky, so the final dram of the night was...

What does working in an Edinburgh City Centre whisky shop teach you about whisky? David Agnew is the Manager of The Whisky Shop on Multrees Walk in Edinburgh City Centre. He's also the man who first started teaching Ross Barr about whisky. This turned into one of my favourite nights recording. David has his own unique way when it comes to talking about whisky. He's seen the trends of new d...

I love listening to Alex Thomson talking about history, whisky, and Scottish Hospitality. And there's plenty of that on this episode. Since the last time Alex was on the podcast he's since left his role at Glenturret and has set up his own business with a focus on delivering authentic Scottish experiences with a focus on the Perthshire area. Alex has plenty of amazing whisky stories and is...

This is the second time we've interviewed Gregor Hannah from Lady of the Glen Independent Bottlers. And if there's one thing I know about him, he just says it as it is. This episode is one of the best insights I've ever had on Independent Bottling. How he started the business, growing the business to the point of bringing in a Brand Ambassador Paul McKendrick, and searching for markets...

It was just the boys in for some drams and a catch up for this week. We haven't had an episode with just the 4 of us this year! So it was good to get us all in the back room at Diggers, get some drams and answer some listener questions. There's a lot to unpack in this, there's questions ranging from our dream distillery visit to who would win in a whisky triathlon. Turns out Chuck'...

This is the second time we've had Finn Thomson on the podcast. The first time was for our second Indy Bottler Spotlight. But we wanted to sit down with Finn and dive into his fascinating whisky family history which dates all the way back to 1772. Illicit stills, blending, buying casks, and carrying on the family business. We hear all about how Finn decided to set up his very own whisky busines...

It was a big night at Mother Superior for our Whisky Stories LIVE event with Adelphi and Ardnamurchan. After our trip to the distillery, it was great to sit down with a group on a Friday night and go through a great lineup which included our very own hand picked cask sample we drew on our trip to the distillery. We had Calum Rafferty and Connie MacDonald in representing Adelphi and Ardnamurchan an...

This is the big one. Dr. Emma Walker is the Master Blender for Johnnie Walker. That's got to be the biggest job in whisky. She is responsible for blending and signing off on all Johnnie Walker products and she talked us through the whole process. Getting to sit down and have some drams with Emma has been one of the best experiences I've had since starting the podcast. Hearing her explain t...

This week's episode is with Andrew Lennie who is the Global Whisky Specialist for Whyte & Mackay. This episode is actually part of our collaboration with Whyte & Mackay to celebrate the 60th anniversary for Tamnavulin Distillery. In this episode we hear about how Andrew got into whisky and worked his way to becoming the Global Whisky Specialist for Whyte & Mackay. We talked about t...

Anyone who knows the pod will know that we never ignore barley chat. However, we've had Master Blenders, Distillers, Distillery Owners and Founders on the pod, but never had a Maltster. David Hannah is Head of Distillery Sales - Global for Muntons Malt. Basically, it's his job to travel around the world talking to Distillery Managers and selling them malted barley. David said that it might...

We're BIG fans of Old Pulteney on the pod. But we don't know enough about it. So we had Flora Outram who is a Brand Ambassador for International Beverage. She covers everything in their portfolio from New Zealand whisky and vodka, Thai Single Malt and all of their Scotch brands. Thankfully for us, Old Pulteney is one of the brands she covers. We tried some great drams and heard about the a...

We're HUGE fans of Ardnamurchan on the podcast. So it made sense for us to find out the story of how it started. Alex Bruce is the Managing Director of Ardnamurchan and Adelphi. In this episode he talks us through how he started out at Adelphi in 2004 with nothing more than a black book of contacts, a filing cabinet, fax machine and 3 casks. From there he grew Adelphi into a premium highly sou...

We met Howard a year ago up in Dornoch and when he contacted us to let us know he was coming back, we had to meet up for a couple of drams. We managed to sneak a recording in on Saturday morning in Diggers before the Independent Whisky Festival in Leith. It was an early start, but we still managed some 'breakfast drams'. Howard talked us through how he started out as a Whisky Importer in t...

The first Whisky Stories Spotlight event of 2026 was a special one! Not only were we christening the new Diggers Leith with the first tasting in the pub, we were also getting to try a BRAND NEW Single Malt from Aberargie Distillery. Morrison Scotch Whisky Distillers are Blenders, Bottlers and Distillers. And Good Pal of the Pod Tam Cuthbert came along to share some great drams with us and tell the...

This week it's a luxury podcast. Tim Walker has been a keen listener of the pod since the early days, and we've been trying to get him on for a long time. Thankfully, he finally agreed. And he brought drams with him!! Tim is the National Account Manager in Scotland for the Luxury On Trade. What that means is that he sells very expensive whisky to people like Ross who sells it on to other people. A...

This week we have good Pal of the Pod back on for some good old whisky chat. Where is the whisky industry right now? We reacted to the big news coming out of Diageo and tried to work out if this is good news for the consumer. The art of blending and can we do it in the cellar at Diggers? We put Greg's consultancy skills to the test. And a real treat with some Dram Jam sent in for us to sample.

This week we were back in the Diggers Cellar joined by Shona Gillespie aka Shona Sips from Loch Lomond Group. We chatted about Glenscotia, re-branding, Loch Lomond's 11 different spirit types and what's going on in the Scotch Whisky Industry right now. Shona was kind enough to bring drams and samples along with her and we really enjoyed the new Glenscotia 12 release.

This week we were recording our first ever episoed in the NEW Digger Leith which only opened a few days ago. The first half of this episode was recorded during a power cut. But we had plenty of drams to get through, so we lit some candles, poured some drams and got chatting. This week we had really good 'Pal of the Pod' Fraser Souness on to talk us through what's happening at Gordon &a...

When Scotland got a last minute call up to the T20 Cricket World Cup in India, and I realised they'd be in Bangalore while I was here, it was too good an opportunity to pass up. So after watching Scotland in their warm-up game against Afghanistan from outside the ground (check out the vlog) I was invited to the team hotel the next day. You might hear from my voice in this episode that even tho...

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 Gl...

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...

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...