"I'm a whisky nerd," admits Andrew Symington the owner of Edradour Distillery. "That's how I got involved in the business. I love the different flavours."

Edradour, near Pitlochry in Highland Perthshire, is one of Scotland's smallest distilleries and, Andrew says, Scotland's "last traditional farm distillery".

Andrew's been in the whisky business for almost 40 years, both as the owner of Edradour and as an independent bottler with his Signatory Vintage Scotch Whisky company bottling “single, single, single malt". That's malts produced by a single distillery, from a single distillation and a single cask.

And in this episode he tells John how Edradour, established 200 years ago in 1825, had "illegal origins", when local farmers would create a literal smoke screen by lighting fires to throw off the Government's excisemen looking for for the plume from illicit stills; how the distillery's "very small, short dumpy stills" make a "heavy oily spirit" which goes into Edradour's range of non-peated and heavily peated malt whiskies; how he uses traditional sherry and bourbon casks as well as red wine barrels from Bordeaux, Burgundy and Amarone; and how the Scotch whisky industry is facing "headwinds": the cost of living crisis, the effects of Brexit, over-production and over-pricing, global supply chain issues, the threat of US tariffs, and increasingly international competition.

But he says: "As long as we're not greedy; as long as we keep the heritage there, Scotch whisky still has a good future."

So pour yourself a wee dram and tune in as John and Andrew talk whisky.

Slàinte!

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Socials:

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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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