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 the whole Whyte & Mackay portfolio which includes The Dalmore, Jura, Fettercairn and Tamnavulin. We talked about the incredible stat that Jura and Tamnavulin are number 1 and number 2 best seeling single malt whisky in the UK for off-trade in volume and value which is mental.

Jura being number 1 and Tamnavulin being number 2.

We also spoke about the unique still cooling system at Fettercairn as well as their use of Scottish oak which is really interesting. Ross had the Fettercairn 18 which is 100% finished in Scottish oak.

We also got a chance to try the 2 NEW and EXCLUSIVE Tamnavulin Special releases. One being the 25 year old celebration single cask for the 60th anniversary which was actually distilled and put into the cask in 2000 when the distillery was mothballed and we also tried their single cask release for Spirit of Speyside Festival which will only be available at the distillery for the 1 week that it is open to the public during the festival.

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 not be the sexiest part of the process, but it's definitely the most important. And we deep dive into the world of malting in this episode.

This was a lot of fun to record, David is a keen listener of the pod and we had a few more drams after recording.

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 amazing history of the distillery which is turning 200 years old this year.

Prohibition in Scotland, salinity tasting notes and loads of laughs. This was a lot of fun to record.

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 sought after Independent Bottler and then made the decision it was time to build a distillery.

This was a lot of fun and there were some amazing drams he was kind enough to bring in with him.

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 the U.S, the challenges of getting whisky into America, how he selects the brands he works with, and why he decided to look at Independent Distilleries and Bottlers rather than going main stream.

This is a fascinating insight and the drams were fantastic too.

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 their story.

We enjoyed a Carn Mor Linkwood, Aberargie Inaugural Release, Old Perth and Mac-Talla.

Another cracking night with a room full of people enjoying the great drams.

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.

And speaking of Ross, it was great to have him back on the pod for this one. He was also able to give his own thoughts and insight into the wonderful world of luxury whisky.

Enjoy!

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 & Macpahil, the latest chat on the new Cairn Distillerly inaugural release AND I had brought back some Indian goodies. We tried some 'whisky cartons' which ended up with very mixed reviews as well as some proper Indian single malt from Pujl John and Indrie. Enhjoy