Whisky's about time and place and company for Gordon Dundas, Brand Development and Advocacy Director of Ian Macleod Distillers.One of Gordon's best whisky experiences was at an awards dinner in Edinburgh.He was sitting beside a colleague from Ian Macleod and his good friend Julian Van Winkle of Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery -- "before Van Winkle had gone really silly pricewise and rarity and scarcity". There was, he says, a bottle of Balblair 38 on the table....
Whisky's about time and place and company for Gordon Dundas, Brand Development and Advocacy Director of Ian Macleod Distillers.
One of Gordon's best whisky experiences was at an awards dinner in Edinburgh.
He was sitting beside a colleague from Ian Macleod and his good friend Julian Van Winkle of Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery -- "before Van Winkle had gone really silly pricewise and rarity and scarcity". There was, he says, a bottle of Balblair 38 on the table. "So we poured this Balblair 38. And at that moment in time, prbabaly an hour or so, and the chat, the everything, and that Balblair 38 did not last very long."
A year on, Gordon continues, he was visiting the Van Winkles at their home in Louisville, Kentucky. "I'm sitting on their porch," he recalls, "and out comes a Balblair 38. I think it's the only distillery he'd ever been to in Scotland. It's the only single malt he's really ever drunk and enjoyed... and we go: 'Do you remember that night?'"
"Whisky for me, that's what it's about."
Time. Place. And company.
Beyond that Gordon has no rules when it comes to whisky: "I'm an advocate of cocktails. I'm an advocate of straight. I'm an advocate of ice. I'm an advocate of anything."
"As long as people are drinking whisky in whatever way they want to, I'm very happy."
Single malt or blend... it doesn't matter. "Whisky is just whisky now," Gordon insists.
"Twenty years ago," he says, "a blend was an old man's drink, in a general sense. Single malts were still a discovery for people."
But he reminds us, the diversity in Scotch whisky and the range of single malts exist because of the blended market, which is why he likes to go on the auctions to by blended whisky from the 1970s and 80s.
Listen in as Gordon talks to John about his 20-plus years in the whisky industry, eight of them at Ian Macleod's, a family owned drinks company, famous for its Glengoyne, Tamdhu and Rosebank distileries, and -- dare we say it? -- its gins. And there's a fourth Scottish distillery on its way: Laggan Bay on the Isle of Islay, opening in three months' time.
Ian Macleod also owns Una Distillery in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas, which, Gordon says, will be releasing its first single malt in two years' time.
So settle down, pour yourself a dram -- or with Gordon's permission and encouragement, a highball with with some ginger ale or tonic as its summer in the UK and we need something cold and refreshting -- and tune in.
Slàinte!
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Creator & producer: David Holmes
Art work & design: Jess Robertson
Music: Water of Life (Never Going Home)
Vocals: Andrea Cunningham
Guitars: John Beattie
Bass: Alasdair Vann
Drums: Alan Hamilton
Bagpipes: Calum McColl
Accordion: Gary Innes
Music & Lyrics: Andrea Cunningham & John Beattie
Recorded & mixed by Murray Collier at La Chunky Studios, Glasgow, Scotland
Special thanks: The Piper Whisky Bar, 57 Cochrane Street, Glasgow, Scotland
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