Company:
The Balvenie


Job:
UK Brand Ambassador


Website:
thebalvenie.com

How
long have you been working in the whisky industry?
About 8
years. I spent the first three years with Jon, Mark and Robbo’s Easy Drinking
Whisky Company. I was the ‘and’ in Jon, Mark and Robbo (a.k.a. brand ambassador).
After a year out of the industry and spending the winter working as a ski guide
in France I came back to the UK and found my dream job as The Balvenie Ambassador.
I have been with The Balvenie for 4 years now.

What
has been your biggest career highlight to date?
Being
invited by the astronomer Sir Patrick Moore to do a whisky tasting for him and
his friends! I pulled out some very special bottles of Balvenie out of my
collection for that one as you can imagine. After the tasting we looked at
Jupiter through his telescope in his garden. I will never forget that.

Can
you remember your first dram, and indeed what it was?
No, but
I remember drinking whisky with my Dad when I was a young adult, it was
probably a cheap blended whisky but I don’t remember the brand. My first real
memory of drinking single malt whisky was on a camping trip in with a friend.
He took me to a pub and we tried a different whisky from each region.

The
first bottle of single malt that I bought was believe it or not The Balvenie
Single Barrel. Eddie Ludlow, founder of The Whisky Lounge and then manager of
Oddbins in York, recommended and sold it to me. I have a very vivid memory of
going home with it, sitting in a big green arm chair, tasting it for the first
time and thinking wow!

What
does whisky mean to you?
Fun,
flavour and friendship!

Where
would you like to see yourself in five years time?
Doing scientific
research on and developing new whisky, whilst still retaining an ambassadorial
remit. I love learning about whisky but equally I love talking about it and
sharing my knowledge with others.

What
was your last dram?
A Balvenie
Port Wood 21 Year Old, at the tasting event I was running last night. Does that
count, something not Balvenie? Well the last dram other that really impressed
me and gave me that wow Moment again was the Glenglassaugh 26 Year Old. This is
definitely a distillery to watch out for!

Do you
have a favourite whisky and food pairing combination?
Balvenie
Single Barrel and Serrano Ham. The saltiness of the ham brings out the vibrant
juicy fruit character of the whisky.

What’s
your favourite time and place to enjoy a dram?
On the
river banks of The River Spey when I am out paddling with my friend Dave Craig
who runs SpiritoftheSpey.com and runs amazing paddling trips along the Spey
taking in distillery visits on the way.

What
do you think is going to be the next big thing on the whisky horizon?
A
distillery on Mars? No, I’m, joking of course. Lots of new distillery openings
and probably the growth in the number of small craft distilleries. More
distilleries opening/re-opening floor maltings, growing their own barley,
coopering on-site etc.

What’s
the one dram you couldn’t live without?
The
Balvenie of course. It has genuinely always been my favourite whisky, now
it pays the bills too! If I have to choose one expression it would be Signature
12 Year Old, a truly great whisky.

Many thanks to Dr Andrew Forrester. Who will be the next
Whisky Insider? Click back soon to find out!