Episode 3 Scotch! The Story of Whisky

This is the story of whisky

and I start it right here in the heart of Tokyo.

Around these streets are bars crammed with people

imbibing the amber liquid.

It will be a fascinating journey,

so come with me as I tell the story of Scotland's gift to the world.

I'm going on a pilgrimage to find out why such a simple drink

has come to mean so much.

Hi. My name's Jim. I'm from Scotland.

From the makers, to the marketeers,

and the chemists to the cocktail makers,

and from the Highlands, to Hobart in Tasmania...

..I'll be meeting the people and travelling to the places

immersed in Scottish whisky's world story.

This is the tale of an ancient craft that became a global colossus.

It is the tale of Scotch.

Isn't it grand that this stuff's made in Scotland?

Aye, true.

Today, we treat Scotch whisky with reverence.

Yet, as recently as the late 1970s,

it was viewed altogether differently.

When people thought of Scotch,

they thought of old-fashioned, untrendy, blended whiskies.

It was something of a safe, boring choice.

Here - what your granda drank at Hogmanay,

and abroad - ignored in favour of domestic spirits.

By the early 1980s, too much was being made for not enough drinkers,

creating a whisky loch of untouched liquid.

Many distilleries closed.

Then the industry recovered on the back of an unlikely source -

single malts.

Marketing was once more at the forefront

via a bottle label vision of Scotland sold to the world.

Now malts are booming, desirable and collectable,

and provoke global interest in Scotland.

On Edinburgh's Royal Mile stands the building symbolic of this intrigue.

The Scotch Whisky Experience

is funded by a cluster of drinks companies.

Among its greatest attractions is a breathtaking hoard of bottles.

This marble and glass shrine to whisky

contains 3,348 bottles,

and it is a magnificent collection.

It was collected by one man -

Claive Vidiz, a Brazilian from Sao Paulo.

It took him 35 years to collect,

and then he came to a financial arrangement with Diageo,

and Diageo brought the collection here to Scotland.

And as Mr Vidiz himself says...

"We have an expression in Brazil -

"a good son returns home, and, in my view,

"the collection is back with its family now."

And here is Mr Vidiz.

This is where it all began.

He was well-known as being a real lover of Scotch whisky.

And business associates would always

pick up a bottle in duty-free for him.

But finally a business associate went to visit him from Scotland,

and said, "This is real stuff.

"This is the stuff you'll never have heard of.

"It's called single malt Scotch whisky.

"And this is the stuff to keep and enjoy

"with only your very best friends."

-What date was this?

-So this was in the 1970s.

And really only blended Scotch whisky

was exported at the time.

It was very, very hard to find anything else.

So these six bottles here were given to Claive then,

and, rather than sharing them with his very best friends,

he was so overwhelmed and so passionate about them

that he never opened them.

And this began the Scotch Whisky collection.

Now, people come from all over the world to view this, don't they?

That's right.

About 80% of the visitors that come here are from overseas.

So it just reflects the huge pull that Scotch whisky has,

and the kudos that it has from an international point of view.

So they come because they love whisky in the first place?

-Well...

-They don't just pop in on a rainy day and think,

-"Where should we go in Edinburgh?"

-Well, you know,

they don't come because they already know and love Scotch whisky.

Most of our visitors are from overseas,

have heard of Scotch whisky, know what it is,

but aren't already Scotch whisky drinkers.

So a small proportion of them love it, are enthusiasts,

and know about this collection and have made a bit of a pilgrimage,

but the majority of them have come to Scotland,

and there is no way that they could visit Scotland

without finding out more about Scotch whisky

because the two are so intrinsically linked.

You've got a Black Bowmore from 1964.

What on earth is that worth?

You've focused in on one of those bottles that is completely unique,

really rare...

Only sold at auction.

But, equally, we have the opposite end of the spectrum.

We even have whisky and cola in a can.

So there's nothing too precious about this.

It's a snapshot of every single bottle of whisky that was different,

that was individual, that was unique,

and that was collected over that period.

So, if you were to put a figure on the Black Bowmore, what would it be?

Tens of thousands now.

-Seriously?

-Yeah. Yeah.

One of those ones that goes very well at auction.

The Scotch Whisky experience is, in itself,

a giant display cabinet for an industry and, in turn, a country.

Yet the rise of Scotch as a tourist magnet

is a recent phenomenon.

In the 1980s, there were very few distillery visitor centres,

and now there's round about 50 distilleries

that you can visit as a tourist to Scotland.

That has been a huge change in the whisky landscape.

It is reckoned that, in 2015 alone,

1.5 million people visited Scotland's distilleries,

spending £50 million.

It is not only large established distilleries that they visit...

Places that have been making whisky for centuries

now face a challenge from dynamic small-scale upstarts

like Strathearn Distillery in Perthshire.

Over the last few years, there's been a quiet revolution

happening in the whisky industry in Scotland.

And that is the fact that we currently have

about 20 small craft distilleries,

with another 10 waiting to be operational.

They make whisky in the old style,

when whisky was made in a small room,

or a little but and ben, a croft,

or a barn somewhere in a Highland glen.

And it's a bit like the craft beer revolution

that's really exploded over the United Kingdom

in the last few years,

and it's really going to make a radical difference

to whisky and our choices.

I'm standing in front

of what is probably the smallest craft distillery in Scotland.

Welcome, David, to the smallest distillery in Scotland.

This is a dinky little thing, Tony.

It's a miniature whisky distillery.

It's also a bit like an adult's Meccano kit.

This is a prime example of a small craft distillery, isn't it?

There's currently 16 producing.

We were the first.

We had a meeting here because

so many people were asking me questions,

and I said, "Well, let's get together."

And we had 50 people turn up.

And it's not just whisky.

There's whisky, there's gin, there's vodka,

there is a rum distillery in the heart of Speyside.

LAUGHING: I love it!

Just because a distillery is small,

it doesn't necessarily make it well crafted.

But some of the small distillers

are producing products of astonishing interest,

astonishing versatility.

Not all will survive. There will be a shake-out of that sector.

But craft is certainly adding a lot of interest,

it's adding a lot of vivacity,

and it's adding a lot of choice for the consumer,

so, on balance, it can only be good.

Craft is a tricky word.

What is craft?

Is it doing 20,000 litres a year

and not more than that?

Is it using old equipment?

Old methods?

It's a tricky definition,

but if we're talking about the kind of impact they can have

on the industry then I think the biggest impact

doesn't come from volumes, obviously, because they are small.

I think it comes from the way they try to innovate.

I love that because some of the big companies are too busy,

too concerned to produce large volumes

to keep their stockholders satisfied.

I think that the emergence of craft distilleries

has built this new layer into the industry, which is great.

It's driving a lot of innovation.

Sometimes that can be at odds with the tradition of Scotch, which is,

you know, rightly protected.

We've been making great whisky here for hundreds of years.

We'll carry on making great whisky,

but if we can all operate under one banner more,

if companies can work together more from opposite ends of the spectrum,

then I think that can only be of benefit to the rest of the industry.

Tony, are you a threat to the big boys?

-Not at all.

-You're creating very, very special whisky.

Probably the best way to sum up this distillery is...

if you drive up the A9, and you overtake a single whisky tanker,

that's our year's production.

In one tanker.

What we do supply to the big industry

is a comparable quality product,

and quality is the link between both of us.

So the big distilleries produce millions of litres a year,

but you couldn't lean against the stills like this

-and have a conversation.

-No, you couldn't.

You couldn't turn the steam up slightly while we're doing it.

People can come here and spend a week making their own whisky.

They can come in on the Monday morning,

and put the grist into the grist hopper,

and, on the Friday, after two distillations,

they can make their own whisky.

There is clearly excitement about the craft movement,

and it bristles with possibility.

Whether, in the long term,

each new distillery is financially viable, though,

remains open to debate.

You need to have very deep pockets,

and a very understanding bank manager

if you want to open a distillery.

You know, it's got to be three years old

before you can even call it whisky,

and, while people might want to buy

your whisky when it's three years old,

because it's exciting and it's new,

when that whisky is seven years old,

people are going, "I've tried that.

"I'm going to wait until it's better."

It might be perfectly good at seven years old,

but, you know, received wisdom is that it only really matures

when it's 10 or 12 years old. But it's really, really tough.

The big multinationals

are going to watch the ones that float to the top,

that are producing very high quality product.

They might then suddenly try and snap them up.

There might be some that are very adamant and stick to their ways,

and say they'll be fiercely independent until the day they die.

But then if somebody's offering you a huge sum of money,

it's very hard for some people to turn that down.

So I think that may be what happens.

Those producing very high quality product will get snapped up.

Craft distilleries are just one thread

among many to the traditional and dominant Scotch whisky industry.

Whisky is now made in almost 30 countries.

Old Scottish methods are making for a vibrant scene

biting at the heels of Scotch whisky.

Everywhere whisky's enjoyed, it seems, it is now being made.

Despite the refined nature of this exquisite drink,

Scotch is in a fierce global competition for hearts and drams.

There are pretenders to Scotland's throne across the world.

Even here.

Cheeky bastards.

Andrew Nelstrop comes from a Norfolk farming dynasty

who have put their abundant barley to good use.

Farming sets you up well for having a distillery.

They are both long-term businesses.

Everything you do on the land, if you like,

is designed for generations in the future.

The same goes for whisky.

-Do you know what the Greek definition of wisdom is?

-Go on.

Wisdom is old men planting trees

under whose shade they will never sit.

That's the same with whisky.

-Beautiful.

-You're making whisky that you'll probably never taste.

You don't have the hills,

you don't have the glens,

you don't have the peat,

you don't have the wonderful soft rain

that comes off the Atlantic and falls on Scotland,

and yet here we are, in the heart of England,

and you're making bloody whisky! Now that's a damn cheek.

-But we do have...

-Where do you get your...?

We have all the barley.

We have the largest peat digs in the whole of the UK,

-which is the Norfolk Broads.

-Uh-huh.

-We've got the water.

We've got the cleanest, largest, freshest source of water

underneath your feet. You don't really need anything else, do we?

Apart from rain. We don't need rain.

-You can have some of ours if you want.

-Yeah.

We've got plenty of it!

My father had always wanted to make whisky,

purely because of one conversation he had back when he was a lad.

It was... My grandfather, the story goes, said,

"It's such a shame. We've got all this barley

"and it has to go to Scotland to be turned into something useful."

And it just stuck.

You know, my father, he farmed in Russia, Australia,

he went all over the place doing different things.

But, every year, he went, "I just need to build a distillery."

-So it was his dream?

-Absolutely.

A lifelong dream. So, when he turned 60,

and he was going, "Oh, we need to build a distillery",

I think the rest of the family just went, "Ugh, do what you like!"

THEY LAUGH

Upstarts like yourself,

do you think you're any serious threat

to the Scotch whisky industry?

-Are you nibbling away...?

-I think it's going to be a while

before we buy Diageo! But...

THEY LAUGH

Another generation, maybe.

There's ambition for you!

I think, in terms of quality, we can equal them.

I don't think that's an issue. I think...

And I don't think that's me going, "Our whisky can."

I think any nation's whisky can equal anybody else's,

because each distillery is unique.

So, if the owners want to do it properly,

they can make blooming good whisky.

In terms of volume, we are never going to compete.

Andrew, every distillery I go to,

and certainly this is much more true now

than it was maybe 10, 15 years ago...

Every distillery has a visitor centre,

and it seems to be an important point of revenue for them.

Yes. It is.

It's not just spreading the word.

-It's about bringing in hard-earned cash.

-It is.

It's incredibly useful in terms of spreading the word,

getting a loyal following...

"Come and see it. See the distillery. Meet the people."

It's a great story.

For new distilleries opening, like ourselves,

the gin boys and vodka boys have got it easy.

You can make the stuff yesterday, sell it today.

There's no cash flow issues there.

Whereas, the world of whisky -

make it today, sell it in three, five, ten years' time.

There is a slight need for another source of income,

which brings you down to having a shop

and selling everything from bottles of your own whisky,

to tea, coffee and cake.

And, yeah, it's a good source of income

and I think it's a nice day out for people.

Scotland's biggest whisky rival, however, is much further east.

Over the last few years, the world of whisky

has been rocked by a number of Japanese whiskies

winning critical acclaim and awards worldwide.

Whisky's story has taken us halfway around the world.

I'm now in the far north of Japan.

If you fly that way, you hit Russia.

We're probably on the same latitude as Vladivostok.

Now, it's been a lovely, sunny day, but, from November till March,

this place is blanketed in snow and well below freezing.

And, in the distance,

you can see the scarlet chimneys that cap the Yoichi distillery,

the home of Nikka Whisky.

And it seems very remote from a Highland glen, but this place -

the story of this place - is firmly rooted in a true Scottish romance.

In 1918, 24-year-old Masataka Taketsuru

left Japan for Scotland.

He was to study the chemistry and production of Scotch whisky

with the aim of replicating it in Japan.

Masataka served apprenticeships

at a number of Scottish distilleries,

learning every craft of the trade.

He fell in love with whisky,

but also with a Scottish girl - Rita Cowan from Kirkintilloch.

Rita and Masataka toured Scotland

picking up more secrets of the Scotch trade.

When they arrived here in Japan in 1920,

it was to set up home as man and wife.

Together, in 1934,

they put their expertise into practice

and founded this place, Yoichi distillery,

choosing these surroundings

for their echoes of the Scottish Highlands.

They were married for 41 years

until Rita's death in 1961.

Masataka was to become known as the father of Japanese whisky.

'Author Dave Broom is here at Yoichi

'researching a book on Japanese whisky.'

Dave, how does Japanese whisky differ from Scotch?

Well, it's made in exactly the same way.

So, if you go round the distillery,

you'll see essentially the same kit.

But there's a whole number of different factors

that make it Japanese.

One of them is to do with the production.

They run very clear wort, rather than cloudy wort,

so they don't get any cereal characters coming through.

So it's not as dry as Scotch whisky.

And there's more of a, kind of, delicate intensity,

which seems paradoxical, but there's...

I describe it as a transparency of character.

If you think of a Scotch single malt,

it's like a bit of a Scottish burn.

You know, all the flavours are, kind of, moving around.

It's hard to work out exactly what's going on.

It's complex. Whereas, with Japanese whisky,

it's like a clear pool.

You can see all the flavours.

Everything's just laid out in a very stately and ordered way.

So it's got this...

That's very symptomatic of Japanese culture.

I think that's the point.

From the word go, Japanese whisky was made to go with Japanese food.

If you think of the way the Japanese approach food,

it's all about texture, and it's also delicacy.

If you're making a whisky to go with that food,

you're almost automatically going to be in that world.

And there's a real cultural resonance

to Japanese whisky that ties in

with the approach to ceramics, to artwork, or to papermaking.

I think it's all part of this Japanese culture.

It's a very powerful and very, very deep whisky.

And it's significantly different to Scotch, you know?

If I gave you two glasses blind,

and gave you one of Scotch, one of Japanese, you would say,

"Well, that's different."

So they make the best Japanese whisky in the world.

My mother is in a walking group, and I was listening

to this conversation with one of the walkers.

And she was about 80 years old.

And she doesn't drink whisky. She drinks gin.

And someone was telling her about the fact that Japanese whisky

had just won a prize for being the best whisky in the world,

and she was ABSOLUTELY outraged.

"How would they know how to make whisky?

"How would they know what they were doing?

"That's just ridiculous!

"I mean, they don't have the water! How can they be making whisky?"

And I just thought, "But you don't even drink whisky, Doreen!

"You drink gin. You don't like whisky!"

But, for her, it was like a personal insult

that the Japanese were making what she thinks is her drink...

that she doesn't like.

Japanese public broadcaster HNK

recently broadcast a 60-part drama

about Yoichi's founding sweethearts.

It has led to the distillery becoming besieged by visitors.

This is a living link between the two countries

and this drink.

-You are the chief blender here.

-Mm-hm.

How important is the influence of Scotch whisky

and how it's made to how you make whisky here?

The production of whisky may be similar in Scotland and Japan,

but here it is enjoyed rather differently.

The market went into serious decline

and companies were trying everything.

They were flavouring whiskies, they were lightening them up,

they were doing this, they were doing that,

and the young generation just turned their back on it,

and, eventually, they went,

"Oh, hang on a minute, there's this old drink

"called whisky soda."

Or the highball, as it's known over here.

And they began promoting the highball,

and, all of a sudden, everybody began drinking it.

You can get it on tap. I'm a big, big fan of the highball.

-It's gone right back...

-I think I will take some convincing.

Ach, well, you see, it's going right back to the origins

of people drinking whisky in the mass market.

The reason that Scotch blends took off

at the end of the 19th century

was because people were drinking them as whisky and soda.

You know? And the reason why Japanese whisky took off

in the 1960s was because they were drinking it diluted,

just whisky and water.

We're actually just going right back to the beginning again.

Before leaving Sapporo,

I'm joining Dave Broom on a pilgrimage to the shared grave

of Masataka Taketsuru and Rita Cowan,

and leaving a traditional liquid offering.

800 miles south in Tokyo, there is another little corner of Scotland -

a wee backstreet bar called the Helmsdale.

-Masaki.

-Yes.

We are sitting here in the most beautiful bar

I've ever been in in my life.

I think it is now my favourite bar. And we're in the heart of Tokyo.

A Scotch whisky bar.

How did this happen?

But how did you meet Scottish people?

How did you first drink whisky?

Now, your bar is called the Helmsdale.

How did that happen? Why?

What are the most popular whiskies?

Very popular.

Do you think Scottish whisky, Scotch whisky,

is under threat from Japanese whisky,

Indian whisky, Tasmanian whisky?

We will never beat you, but we have the same heart.

We will try our best, but, you know....

-we will keep trying.

-A very poetic answer.

I love it.

Leaving Japan behind, I'm heading south to another whisky hotbed.

Australia, and specifically, Tasmania.

With sprawling hills, thick clouds and crashing sea,

this could easily be Scotland.

Across the bay from me is the charming city of Hobart,

nestling at the foot of Mount Wellington.

And on this captivating island, it cradles 14 distilleries,

with more on the way.

In fact, it's the heartbeat of the Australian whisky industry.

A growing power to behold.

This is Lark Distillery.

The cherished creation of

Bill Lark, godfather of Australian whisky.

Chris, in many ways, we couldn't be further from Scotland.

We are at the other side of the world, in the beautiful island of

Tasmania, and here, you have something like

14 distilleries in production and

you're developing at least another half dozen.

Are you the cheeky young upstarts of the whisky industry?

I think you could call us a bit of a larrikin bunch.

We love our whisky and we discovered

that Tasmania's a great place to make

it and so we're doing our utmost to produce a good drop for the world.

Well, you've been very successful.

A few of them have been winning world awards, haven't they?

Yes. We've been very fortunate,

both in England and also in the US we've won a number of awards.

And that's really encouraged us to

keep doing what we're doing and focus

on the quality. We are trying to make really quality whisky

and our volumes are not great, so it's about quality, not quantity.

When Bill Lark wanted to start a whisky distillery,

there'd been no commercial whisky distillery in Australia

for 153 years.

Federal law had made it impossible for small distilleries to operate.

So before he could even start,

he had to change government federal law to get his licence and so we are

actually the first licensed commercial distillery in Australia.

Lark operates on a far smaller scale than most distilleries in Scotland.

It's so titchy in size.

If you compare this to something like The Macallan.

I love the size, it's whisky in miniature.

And they're taking over the world, the bastards.

Craig, a Scotsman, and Chris, a native, are distillers here.

I'll be honest, I got here 18 months ago and I walked into the place and

I thought, "Where's the rest of the distillery?"

It's tiny. The scale is crazy.

I mean, we talk about hand-crafted back in Scotland,

and you're talking 250-300,000 litres.

Here, we make 120 litres a day,

so we can actually handcraft everything at the distillery.

We ferment different to back in Scotland,

we make all of our cuts here by how the spirit tastes.

We've got a longer fermentation than you have in most places back home.

We've got seven days.

But really, the big one for us is

coming to the end of the fermentation.

Based on how it tastes, we'll actually open the lid and let the

natural bacteria from the vineyard up the road into the ferments and

that sours up the...

Of course, you have the bacteria in the air already!

-So...

-Because this is vineyard country, isn't it?

Absolutely. So Frogmore, our pals up the road,

make some of the best wine here. Some of the best pinots in Tasmania.

And we get all the benefit from that

culture, from those yeasts and bacteria.

So the whisky that you guys have created,

when will it be ready for sale?

We are looking at about six to seven year maturation in quarter cask.

So something Tasmania has,

we have this really unique climate where we have a huge temperature

variation from 2-3 degrees to about 40 degrees.

What happens, that fluctuates every

day and the pressure fluctuates every day.

That really drives the spirit in and out of the wood and drives

that angel's share so

we've got a really quite high angel's share here, seven degrees.

Our strength usually goes up, so we might get a spirit coming...

So what percentage will you lose every year?

-About 7%.

-7%? A year?

7%, every year.

Guys, I've said that Tasmanian whisky...

You're winning the awards, the whisky awards around the world,

you're the cheeky young upstarts.

How much debt do you owe to the Scotch whisky industry?

So much, so much.

I don't think the industry here would be...

..in any strength without the year on year, on year, on year help from

the Scottish industry. We've been so lucky with their generosity.

We talked before about that sense of community.

It is not a community, in Tasmania,

or Hobart, or Australia, or Scotland,

or Japan, it truly is this global,

global community and really you feel that.

Like, you go to Scotland and you ask a question and you get a

genuine, passionate answer.

Yeah, we are indebted to the Scottish industry.

This place wouldn't be what it is without Scotland.

We are essentially living in

the Australian version of what Glenlivet was in 1850.

And I think if you said to any distiller back in Scotland, you

know, if you could go back to 1850 and work in Glenlivet and see

how things started, would you take that choice?

Every single one of them would.

We are still mashing by hand with a paddle here.

We've essentially brought whisky forward into the 1800s at Lark!

So to be in this position, but then also to be able to call on

the history and the mistakes that have been

made by the Japanese and the Scots and the Americans in their

whisky-making process, puts us in a unique position.

We've got hundreds of years of experience to call upon and then we

can create our own story from that.

There are stories that people expect to see when they buy

into a whisky.

So in Scotland,

we can sometimes be a little bit trapped by that and that's how

people get to love this stuff.

On the other, you've got countries

in the rest of the world that are now

making whiskies and can almost be a bit more creative in how they come

about that and the sort of offering they can present.

The competition element I think is brilliant,

because any good athlete or performer is going to say,

your best performances come when you're under the most pressure.

So, you know, we are kept on our toes by the growth around the world,

but I think that's a pretty good thing.

We've talked for a long time about what is whisky.

It's an experience. It only becomes whisky once someone puts it in their

glass and they drink it, they experience it with their mates.

It's on the most important days of your life that you drink whisky.

Some people, it really is on the most important days and they choose

to share that with you as distillers.

It's people that get to be the caretaker of a distillery or

process, and that's what it's about.

It's about understanding that if you're not spot on your game every

day, then you're not doing justice to that person that got that bottle

for their wedding, or maybe for their divorce or to commiserate over

a loved one's death. That's what drives

that get better, get better, get better.

And that's what whisky's about, you're right.

It's about people. It's always been about people.

It's about community and people and you can't help but love the spirit,

because the people are wonderful.

Wow, Chris! That's the most beautiful,

poetic description I've ever heard.

Sullivans Cove is another of Tasmania's flourishing distilleries.

Its architecture and design is somewhat more functional than that

of a Scottish distillery.

The idea of making whisky came along, at first,

I thought it was a bit of a crazy idea, to make whisky here in

-Tasmania.

-Where did it come from?

-Well, Bill Lark.

Bill and Lyn Lark, actually.

But I can remember him trying to sell the idea to us up

at the pub one night.

And how him and his father had been up in the lakes here fishing

and they were drinking a bottle of

whisky and wondering why we don't make

whisky in Tasmania, we've got the climate, we've got the water,

we've got the barley. Everything's here.

-You've got the peat.

-Got the peat.

We've got everything we need. Why don't we do it?

And so he came, and one night up at the pub he told us

this idea and what

a marvellous idea it was and I can remember thinking, "No, Bill,

"this is not a good idea. This is not one of your better ideas."

But I was wrong.

It's one of these things where, to be honest,

we didn't know we'd ever survive or

even get our product out of Tasmania.

It was a struggle for a long time to get anybody here to even try it.

In the early days, you know, people thought,

"Oh, look, isn't that a nice idea? They're having a go,

"trying to make a bit of whisky."

But you've got to earn your stripes.

It's not a matter of just making a product and everybody will buy

it just because you make it.

You have to prove that it's worth buying in the first place, or in our

case, worth drinking. And it took us a while to get it right and some of

the earlier whiskies that were made, I have to say, weren't the best.

But once we got the theory right, we got the practice right,

we started making good whisky.

We found that we could sell it.

But mostly overseas.

So it was France that first took us on.

Once we'd won

the world's best single malt

whisky out at the UK, the World Whiskies Awards,

everything changed. From that morning on,

it hasn't stopped. I mean,

I can remember standing in our bond

store a few years ago and we had over

1,000 barrels, thinking, "What have we done?

"We've made too much whisky, we'll never sell this.

"What are we going to do?"

And now, I look at our whisky and I think,

"God, I wish we had ten times more."

The extent of the Tasmanian whisky revolution is startling.

It is a surprise.

Yet, when you're here, it makes perfect sense.

In some ways, this place is a mirror image of Scotland.

Closer to home and yet aesthetically different to Scotland,

there is another surprisingly vibrant whisky country.

Sweden.

Ingvar Ronde from Malmo compiles the Malt Whisky Yearbook,

seen by many as the bible of Scotch.

Ingvar is leading the way to the small island of Hven,

visiting its distillery and spirit laboratory.

I think the interest in whisky started probably in the...

I would say '60s and '70s,

when we started to watch all of

these fantastic TV series from England,

where every two minutes, they were drinking whisky.

Coming home after work, they were sipping a whisky.

And we always, in Sweden, and in Scandinavia in particular,

have been influenced by British culture.

So that's when I think we started to embrace whisky.

Then it took off fantastically in the '90s where it wasn't just about

drinking whisky, it was about going to the distillery to see how it's

produced, about learning about whisky.

I know some Scotch whisky brand

ambassadors who come to whisky shows in

Sweden, they are absolutely amazed

about the knowledge that Swedish whisky drinkers have.

Hven distillery was founded in 2007 and is one of eight in Sweden.

As well as making whisky,

it houses a state-of-the-art laboratory,

providing services for drinks companies across the world.

What we do here is, it is our Swedish whisky, it's our whisky,

not definitely just Swedish or Scottish.

Still, most of the Scottish people are just Vikings

not travelling back,

so you have the heritage from us anyway.

But at the end of the day,

there is so many different whiskies and one doesn't kill off the others.

There's a whisky for all.

What we're doing here is, we're very particular about our oak maturation,

but also how we create the cut.

Obviously, being small,

we need to have our unique selling points and we need to make something

that really tastes, really scents.

Because volume can't be our sale thing.

So we go into special varieties of fermentation, special yeast strains,

special varieties of wood, for example.

But also, with the laboratory,

where we have the unique possibility of actually seeing what's happening

during maturation,

we do analyses for a wide variety of distillers around the world.

Well, a lot of people say that now,

the Scotch whisky industry is in big trouble,

because they are being chased by so many

producers around the world.

Yes, there is more competition now, but, at the same time,

we have at least 100 distilleries in Scotland.

We have 400 or 500 years of tradition in Scotland.

You can't just wipe that away just because our new distilleries started

10, 15, 20 years ago producing in Tasmania or Sweden.

They make beautiful whisky, but for the next 20 or 30 years,

I don't see them as a huge competitor to Scotch whisky.

Back on the mainland in Malmo is The Bishops Arms,

a cosy British themed pub specialising

in single malts and run by Croatian whisky fanatic, Maja Kozul.

I'm very curious about everything, to be honest,

and I think whisky is very good

to have, enjoy.

It's very much about people.

There is a difference between driving a Ferrari and there is

difference between riding a bicycle.

And obviously if you compare a whisky with something else.

Every Bishops Arms staff member is

trained to become a whisky specialist and advocate.

Service is very important.

People come in our bar and they look on the shelves and say,

what is all that? And you start there.

And you start there and, "Can I have a double whisky?"

And we start off often saying,

"Well, would you like to have three smaller ones, same amount,

"same money and just discover something new?"

So you kind of have to educate your

guests as you are educating your staff at the same time.

The Bishops Arms has won two prestigious awards.

Maja is spending the prize money on a celebratory staff trip.

We are going to spend that money with a trip to Scotland, of course!

We're visiting Glenkinchie Distillery and we're just going to

have an inspiration trip with my staff so we can keep it alive.

Glenkinchie is a Lowland distillery

outside of Edinburgh, founded in 1837.

That's a pleasant smell.

And you finish with the distilling?

By the old port of Leith, it's time for a trip to Teuchters Landing,

a pub whose assets include a high-stakes game of hoopla.

We were just checking if they have any whisky we don't.

So we'll try that one.

It's very good to see how other people work with the whisky,

not just us.

It's a living product, not just

something you pour into a bottle and pour

colour into. It's a living product that goes into casks and is made of

barley. It makes it a lot more real to see a distillery and see why you

should appreciate whisky.

Our guide, Clive, was very good.

I thought he was really good.

He showed us a picture up from about 100 years ago with

about 50 people who used to work

there and it was really interesting just

seeing that that must have been the whole village

worked at the distillery.

And now, you told us that it's two

people work 12 hours and two people do the late

shift and the whole thing runs off that and how the whisky making has

changed over 100 years, but they can still get the same product.

I get a bucket of ice!

-Shall we have a hoop?

-We should?

-We should have a hoop.

-We'll have to hide away all the single cask

Ardbeg though.

I'm not sure how that's going to work out with the Swedish alcohol

law, because selling alcohol in Sweden's not allowed to be fun.

It has to be quite straight and direct.

There's no such thing as happy hour in Sweden.

Spending time with this impassioned, knowledgeable Bishops Arms team,

I wonder whether we in Scotland train our own

bar staff enough and even if we take Scotch for granted?

Very often, you can walk into a bar in Scotland, anywhere, and say,

"Oh, can I have an Islay whisky, please?"

"Oh, I don't know, you'll need to

"come behind the bar and have a look."

15 years ago, if somebody came to our bar and said,

"Could you tell me a good whisky?"

Then they came straight to me,

because the lassie didn't have a clue behind the bar, so we thought,

right, we'll sort this out. So we'll get some of the distilleries in,

we'll get some proper staff training.

Because there's no point having the stuff if you can't sell it.

So the guys all came in and we'd go up to the Whisky Experience.

-No, so it's good.

-We kept meeting

people who worked in bars and sometimes,

they worked in the very best hotel

bars in Edinburgh,

where we knew all the international visitors were coming,

some really high-end visitors were coming and staying,

in those beautiful five-star hotels that we have and at that time,

they weren't necessarily getting great information

about Scotch whisky,

and I have to say, that's changed massively in the last 15 years.

Both in terms of the number of

whiskies available, the number of

specialist whisky bars that there are.

But there's still much, much more to do and I would

completely agree that across a very broad portfolio in Edinburgh,

if you look at lots of places that you can taste whisky,

you aren't necessarily going to find

everybody serving you that really knows

about Scotch whisky and is passionate about it.

If you talk to whisky drinkers around the world,

"How did you find out about Scotch whisky?"

They were introduced to it by a

bartender, by a brand ambassador.

They came on holiday to Scotland,

they visited a distillery.

And it's so important.

So, even it goes back to the starting of whisky and you know,

what happened there, the introduction.

The personal contact remains absolutely key.

This is the great city of London.

A city that has quaffed whisky for hundreds of years.

It's also a city that has begun to distil its own whisky yet again.

And it's also the city that has stoked a debate about how exactly

this drink should best be devoured,

and that includes - and this is heretical -

a mutiny against tradition for some, including myself,

drinking whisky in cocktails.

Now, I'm about to go into this hotel to talk to the

2015 World Barman of the Year

and if he mixes me a cocktail, he's going straight to the Tower.

Ryan, on a daily basis, you commit sacrilege in this bar.

Because you take some really,

really decent whiskies that take years to mature

into all the richness of

flavours, and then you throw in all

sorts of other liquids and you throw in

strawberry crushes and botanicals and you make dreadful cocktails out

-of them.

-I'm guilty of that.

-Why?

-To me, it's been the beauty of whisky.

It does have big, bold flavours,

it's got all of these interesting characteristics and to me,

a cocktail is just a new way of experiencing that.

To me, it's not about masking any of the flavours and hiding it away as a

bland alcohol, the beauty of using Scotch in these things is it has all

-these characteristics.

-Whisky should be drunk any way you want it to be.

I am a big fan of not being prescriptive about drinking whisky

and I think we are seeing that more and more nowadays.

I love whisky cocktails, whisky highballs, whisky neat,

whisky on the rocks... In a nosing glass, being more professional,

or literally out of a flask when I'm walking up a big hill and it's

-freezing cold.

-I think the industry

need to find a way of keeping their older

consumer happy, by doing what they love and what

they're going to keep buying,

but also not being scared to innovate and

not being scared to talk about

putting in mixers and talk about putting in ice and water and getting

more people to experiment with it and find out what they like,

rather than using the old method,

where it was preached and you were told you must drink it neat,

you mustn't do this, you mustn't do

that, and that image has turned a lot of people off.

So, however you want to drink your Scotch,

you drink your Scotch however you like it.

And don't let anybody tell you you can't.

But, there are limits.

So, I got my father for one Christmas

a really expensive bottle of Highland Park.

Highland Park is a beautiful Scotch,

and I took it around and we were celebrating Christmas and the first

thing he did was he opened it,

and there was a bottle of dry ginger at one side and this really amazing

bottle of Highland Park at the other.

And they both went in the same glass.

So that is where you draw the limit.

If you want to get somebody to experience a new spirit,

something different, a new flavour,

it can be a bit much just giving them a neat dram,

especially when you've got something cask strength or smoky and all of a

sudden they are put off by it. Everybody's got that story of

drinking whisky, stealing it from their dad's cabinet and going,

"I don't like the stuff," and they stick with that idea.

Whereas, whisky runs this amazing gauntlet of flavour and you've got

light, delicate, Lowland drams, through to big, smoky, rich Islays.

And you want people to go, "Right, actually,

"there's a new way of experiencing this."

And using a cocktail, if you do it delicately,

is a way of introducing new flavours to them.

Actually, this drink's been on our menu since the beginning.

And I've always tried to involve whisky cocktails.

It's my favourite spirit. It's one I have loved.

I lived in Scotland for a long time. It's very close to my heart.

So, this is essentially a twist on a whisky sour.

But it is a bit of an unusual one.

So, I'm going to warn you of that before I get started.

If people want to enjoy their whisky with a lot

of nosing and sniffing and looking at the colour, well good for them.

It's their whisky, they've bought it.

If they want to slam a glass full of ice and stick a branded cola on top

of it, well, I might wince.

It might not be for me, but it's their whisky.

It's a free world.

On they should go. As long as they enjoy it.

This idea that, "Thou shalt not touch,"

really only is about 30 years old.

And I think it's done irreparable

damage to the Scotch whisky industry

because people... It's a strong drink.

And people take a sip of it because you're not allowed to add water to

it and it's... Come on.

It's about pleasure, guys. It's not about pain.

So, you know, I would add anything you want to Scotch whisky.

Just enjoy it because it might be a great, complex drink,

but it's just a drink.

Ryan, the more I explore whisky,

the more I realise it is a form of alchemy.

Mm-hmm.

And you're taking it a stage further, aren't you?

Well, to me, you know, your whisky blenders, be that blended whisky,

be that single malts, they are essentially making cocktails.

They're bringing all these different elements together.

Creating a harmony that tastes greater than the sum of its parts.

Hopefully, this is going to be a new side of this whisky that you won't

-have tried.

-This will be a first time for me.

OK. I'm hoping this works.

Slainte.

That's surprisingly refreshing.

Dare I admit it.

THEY LAUGH

I'll probably lose half my friends.

So, what does the future hold in store for Scotch?

Not only is there an explosion of small-scale craft distilleries,

some of the older, established producers

are investing big money, too.

This is Strathspey in the north-east of Scotland.

It's an area that contains the

greatest density of whisky distilleries

anywhere in the world.

It is also home to The Macallan,

one of the best loved and most revered whiskies in the world.

Macallan have been here for over 200 years.

But currently, the demand for Macallan is outstripping supply.

So, the company are investing the

small sum of £100 million in creating a

cathedral of whisky, due to open in 2017.

This beautiful new distillery on the Island of Harris is proof, too,

that there is confidence in the future of Scotch.

It's a very exciting time, I think, for distilling.

Especially here in Scotland,

we've got a lot of new distilleries appearing.

There's a lot of gin distilleries which are going to be leading into

making whisky. But the same thing's

happening all across mainland Europe, all throughout Asia.

And there's a lot of new distilleries appearing.

But I think it's very important that Scotland doesn't lose focus,

so that they keep creating very high quality spirit.

But I think that we're lucky in a

way because we have the heritage that

all of these mainland European distilleries and Asian distilleries

will never have the same heritage as Scotland has.

The big challenge in whisky is trying to balance innovation and

tradition. I think it's very possible to do that.

And to produce something amazing.

I don't know if it's going to turn out just as fine as everyone in the

industry thinks and hopes and believes.

And there are going to be some casualties along the way.

Maybe some of those small craft distilleries

are going to fall by the wayside

in a kind of creative destruction of the marketplace.

But overall, I think we probably will take the right turn.

I think we will go on to the sunlit

uplands and I think there is a bonnie future for Scotch.

We've made Scotch whisky for hundreds of years.

It has proved the test of time.

It is revered as the pinnacle of the distiller's art worldwide

because of its character, its quality,

its soul. And it will continue to do well.

I see it actually as a moment of opportunity for Scotch

whisky because the more the

Scotch whisky industry is looking over

its shoulder, sort of going, "Oh, well, bourbon's becoming popular.

"Maybe we should be like bourbon.

"Or Japanese is becoming popular.

"Can we be like Japanese?"

Then you've lost it. You've lost the battle completely.

But not everyone is as confident about the future.

I actually think that if you look at whisky, the historic whisky graph,

it goes up and down. If you remember

in the '80s with the whisky lake and

shut half of Scotland's distilleries. It's coming.

What have Scotland done? Doubled production in the last four years.

The moment that whisky is live and ready for sale...

..we haven't suddenly got twice as many whisky drinkers in the world.

Therefore, this is just going to...

There has to be a mountain of whisky building.

And at some point, it will all go down and we'll all have a bit of a

downturn. And then we'll...

-Yeah.

-So, what do you...?

What's your opinion on say the

Macallan spending 100 million on this new facility?

Brilliant. Really cool.

But you know, they've doubled production.

Do they think they can sell twice as much whisky?

If they can, brilliant.

But that means someone else isn't selling any.

We haven't suddenly got everybody buying twice as many bottles.

So, the industry has to do a bit of a dip.

And those that have got their

houses in order will be fine and those that have borrowed to the hilt

and are expecting it to continue willy-nilly probably

will wake up with a headache.

But we'll see. That's the joy of whisky.

I mean, you design a business to work over generations,

not over a decade cycle.

As I have seen, Scotch whisky sprung from Caledonian terrain and

bewitched the world.

Its ascendancy has been driven by

pioneers, from early innovators and

the entrepreneurs who first exported our wares, to today's scientists,

blenders and craft distillers.

Yet what strikes me most is, despite all that, the drink itself remains

a charming enigma.

The causes of its sumptuous taste,

impossible to agree upon and even opaque and mysterious.

There will be peaks and troughs and pretenders to the throne.

But because of that sorcery,

Scotland's tipple of genius will always prevail.

The future's bright. The future's amber.

We're getting very near last orders, folks.

And the end of my journey.

A wonderful journey through the magical world of whisky.

I hope you've enjoyed it.

From Highland crofter to Hobart visionary,

there's an amber thread that embroiders the globe.

When a cunning alchemist distils a spirit,

a liquid drops forth into a cask and there something truly,

truly colossal happens.

Scotch whisky affects history and defines identity.

It embraces science and big business and the land, and yet...

And yet, at its heart, this mixture of water,

barley and yeast is just a simple,

beautiful taste of heaven in a glass.

Slainte.