G'day cobbers. Loved this guy. Ryan's knowledge and enthusiasm is intoxicating in itself. I'm sure he has a great future ahead of him. Keep them coming fellas.
absolutely agree - I went in unsure of Aussie whiskies and feel that they've converted me into a spokesperson for the category! now I just need to brush up on my facts so I can speak about it with a fraction of the knowledge Ryan has!
I remember visiting the Morris winery the day before they were moving the still. In theory, no distillery in the world should have better access to fortified wine casks than one that is attached to a winery that has been operating for 160 odd years and is known for it's fortified production. On tawny, Australian tawny tends to be a little sweeter with a little more dried fruit profile than the Portuguese equivalent and I think that profile lends itself quite well to whiskey finishing.
Fantastic episode, guys! Ryan's knowledge is top tier, and you can tell he's been there. As an Aussie living over in Sweden, I've been pretty keen on getting more of the Australian whisky over to this side of the globe. The expansion in recent years has been insane, and as Ryan says, heaps more experimentation and variation. Morris is one I'm keen on, having been buying Rutherglen Muscat for years to soak my fruit in for the yearly Christmas Pudding 😋 Starward Left-Field for a 40% ABV whisky and its price point is a fairly solid and tasty daily sipper. Fangin' to try Cape Byron now (one Jim McEwan had a helping hand in). Hearing good things! Cheers.
Absolutely loved having Ryan join us for this one - couldn't have done it without them! Morris is one that's got my attention now for sure and hopefully with Ryan's help we'll see more Aussie drams the world over!
We have some decent whisky over here in Oz, Tasmania being the biggest scene and the original first legal distillery for single malt Lark whisky and its great juice and Bill Lark is a aussie whisky legend. I live on the west coast of Australia in little old Perth and we have a couple of decent local distilleries and one single malt distillery called Limeburners and they have some peated expressions using ancient peat beds peat and its good juice. Starward make really fruity jammy drams, I have a really nice Cognac Starward. We have an abundance of casks and resources so its got a bright future. Morris are really smart because they sell wine and fortified wines and now they are distilling they have a huge amount of casks to experiment with and its a good malt. Slainte lads!!!
was it you that's mentioned that Limeburners in the comments before Dan? I've definitely heard about it a couple of times now and my interest is definitely peeked. very interested to see more from Morris as well now that we've done this episode. sláinte bud
Thanks for the highlight on Australian Whisky... I live in Melbourne still haven't been to Starward yet but it's on my to do list... I do like a place in Brunswick called Gospel their Rye is really good... fell in love with Cask Strength when I went to Tasmania for the first time 7yr ago and went to Lark distillery had their Cask Strength it's freaking delicious but my favourite was meeting the guys from Old Kempton at the Sunday street market in Hobart and trying the bottles they had for samples 🤯🤯🤯 Old Kempton is my once a year birthday bottle I buy myself.... Dram on guys Dram on 🥃👊🥃
there's no excuse for you to have no visited Starboard Matt! get yourself over there my guy and let us know your thoughts! thanks for tuning in and great to hear you've enjoyed some of these drams before. sláinte my friend
I really didn't think this episode would hold my attention but you proved me wrong. Ryan was super engaging and passionate about AU Whisky and he gave an interesting perspective when discussing the climate, evaporation rate and the logic behind a young NAS. Well done Ryan. I also really enjoyed the explanation of the international Cadbury chocolate recipes. It explains why I always load up my carry-on when returning to Canada from the UK. TOTALLY makes sense now. Thanks gents!
Ryan's an absolute legend isn't he Jan! I've felt exactly the same way about Australian whiskies and was almost dreading the episode before we met them as I wasn't sure we'd be able to find much to be positive about. Ryan really opened my eyes though and so glad that we managed to get them on to spread the word of Aussie drams
@@brendandavies-theredone1816 Lovely. I absolutely love what Peter has done with the Nant casks after the "thing" that happened. The black spot releases are top notch.
Really enjoyed Ryan's passion and knowledge. Great episode. As an Aussie I can confess to having very little local whiskies in my collection. Mainly due to price and I prefer spirit led whiskies as opposed to cask forward profiles. However I have visited many distilleries, mainly in Tasmania and the people that work these distilleries are amazing. Hard working, passionate and so genuine.
thanks for tuning in Liam and glad you enjoyed it! I'm hunting down the Morris stocks myself - accessible in the UK and potentially my new favourite from Australia
This is so amazing, and another absolute top tier episode. Thanks so much for putting this together. Ryan's knowledge is out of this world 😁 Honetly think this will need a part two; there's just sooooo many Aussie distilleries pumping out good stuff (probably better than the distilleries featured here).
PS, I've got all the money to buy em 😉 Maybe not the Old Kempton though. Probably my least favourite Aussie distillery, not keen on their fruit oak juice.
glad you enjoyed it JJ! we're already discussing a part two as Ryan has converted me from a skeptic into a believer. you'll have to let us know what you think should be in the next lineup!
@@TheWhiskyBaron Glad to hear it mate, I'd love a part two (but no rush though haha 😆). Some of my favourite Australian distilleries are: Tria Prima (a local to me and helmed by a one man army named Paul - he moved to Aussie land from Scotland) Fleurieu Distillery (another local to me, and making some absolutely delicious whisky). Overeem (great Tassie distillery) Furneaux (distillery on a little island off the coast of Tasmania) Manly Spirits (making some excellent whisky at a affordable price. Their standard entry whisky is a 500 ml bottle at around AUD 99 which is 46 pounds, and it's excellent quality). Kinglake (creating some top tier spirit forward drams. Their distillery is very boutique and micro in scale. They creat their whisky with all of their doors open which lets in the surrounding air come in and infuse with the product. It's cool). Just a few suggestions haha! Yeah, not the biggest fan of Old Kempton to be honest. It was probably good having a bottle to taste as a point of reference, but I feel like they miss the mark a lot of the times. As you said, the cask and the spirit isn't really a marriage, and more like a disjointed mess. However, I do love Archie Rose, Morris & Belgrove. The guy who runs Belgrove (Peter), also has a side IB business called Remnant. It's a play on words as he's bottling a lot of the casks from the now defunk distillery called Nant. Massive investment fraud scheme that happened a few years ago, and he basically bought out a lot of the casks to give a least some kind of return to the investors who got fucked. Bitter sweet story, and if you want some more information about it, just google "Nant Investment Scheme" or something. However, Peter's bottling some absolutely fucking delicious shit through his Remnant brand, and I would wholeheartedly say that you could buy any of his bottles and be happy with it.
nice episode enjoyed it. interesting whisky's maybe not for a bottle. but if i see australian whisky at an event i'm sure gone try some. and what a knowledge shared.
@@TheWhiskyBaron yesterday we did a world whisky tasting with a starward 2019 muscat cask it was nice but not special. not australian but new zealand dunedin 18 year double cask nice to have tasted. but kavalan and indri and nikka make great whisky's
Tasmania has an interesting scenario where its very cold but also extremely dry. It is also currently going through a drought but remains green as the flora/plants are used to it. This causes an interesting phenomena where the water is the first thing to evaporate from the barrel so you find alcohol % goes up in the barrel. I.e. I have a 17 year Hellyers Road at 67% alcohol. This is to the point where there are explosion risks in some Tasmanian warehouses as it hits 80%.
the climate is such an interesting factor with maturation in this part of the world - I'd love to tour around and get a feel for the warehouses myself!
This was fun to watch as an Aussie. I would like to try more Australian whisky but the prices are ridiculous. It's also quite hit or miss, in my opinion - even bottlings from the same distillery and under the same brand name can be very batchy. To add to insult, it's becoming more common for bottles to be 500ml (50cl) but still at full price. I almost always buy Scotch because I can get something nice, consistent, and well-aged for the same price (or even less) than Aus whisky. A frustrating situation. EDIT: Further on in the episode and the guys are talking more about the price issue. It's too much to pay for things that are just "interesting".
I completely agree with all comments here, however, now that Ryan has talked us through everything I'm open to giving Aussie drams a bit more of a punt. I also have a feel for the brands that I'll look out for
Loved the episode! It was fascinating. I'm becoming increasingly interested in whisky from "unconventional" production countries, and I'm proud to say that Italy, my country, is one of them. I recently wrote an article about Italian whisky makers for Whisky Magazine, which was published in the March/April issue. It would be fantastic to see an episode featuring you guys tasting Italian whisky in the future! 🥃🔥
Basically all my issues with world whisky summed up in one video: really interesting and different, but fuvking expensive and really inconsistent in terms of quality/flavor. I tend to pay the extra money to try something I’ve never experienced before, but I couldn’t fault any one who baulks at paying the prices being charged. I live in Taiwan and love Kavalan, but fuck me the mark ups as soon as it gets exported are insane, I wouldn’t pay those prices and I’ve bought more or less every single expression they’ve made. Really informative and interesting episode though, loved it.
yep, I definitely agree with this. it can be the same for Scotch/Irish being shipped internationally though so I feel the global stage is tough to compete on. thanks for tuning in and getting involved HW, appreciate the support as always!
@@TheWhiskyBaron country to country things are so different it’s almost, in terms of price/ratio, incomparable. Like I can get a Kavalan Soloist Vinho Barrique for like 80quid and at that price it’s great quality - but soon as it leaves Taiwan you’re lucky if it’s only doubled in price, which puts it firmly in the don’t but category. Speaking of fucked up prices any chance you’s would ever consider an episode on Kavalan? It’s got an interesting history and a ton of expressions from entry level to eye watering.
@@hoodwiser7652 Kavalan is one I'd love to do but as you've highlighted, it's not the most approachable from a price POV over here. very keen though and we'll be sure to get round to it eventually!
I think that you guys need to add another category for the buy/don’t buy. I think that a category “try a tram at the bar” or “try before you buy” is a good, added category to help differentiate some of these borderline bottles that may be the price point is getting in the way.
Another category could be “split a bottle with friends”. I’ve done this actually in real life with some friends where the bottles were north of 300 pounds that way we could try some exceptional liquid, but not hurt in our wallets.
Haha you men are interesting. I'm Aussie and whiskey/whisky is expensive here. I don't support Australian whiskey that much less than 5% of the time. It's a shame as it tastes great..our government makes billions of dollars on alcohol tax
G'day cobbers. Loved this guy. Ryan's knowledge and enthusiasm is intoxicating in itself. I'm sure he has a great future ahead of him. Keep them coming fellas.
glad you enjoyed it; Ryan's one of my favourite guests so far! you can bet on it - we'll see you on the next one 🥃🥃
Exciting as an Aussie living in Scotland 🇦🇺❤️🏴
glad to have you over with us Jacob! which side of the pond do you find better for liquid gold?
Ryan’s passion is infectious , urinal cake is a belting tasting note 😂 amazing how the pine wood comes through In the peat so heavily .
absolutely agree - I went in unsure of Aussie whiskies and feel that they've converted me into a spokesperson for the category! now I just need to brush up on my facts so I can speak about it with a fraction of the knowledge Ryan has!
I remember visiting the Morris winery the day before they were moving the still. In theory, no distillery in the world should have better access to fortified wine casks than one that is attached to a winery that has been operating for 160 odd years and is known for it's fortified production. On tawny, Australian tawny tends to be a little sweeter with a little more dried fruit profile than the Portuguese equivalent and I think that profile lends itself quite well to whiskey finishing.
there must have been quite the buzz in the air! interesting notes on the Aussie Tawny
Fantastic episode, guys! Ryan's knowledge is top tier, and you can tell he's been there. As an Aussie living over in Sweden, I've been pretty keen on getting more of the Australian whisky over to this side of the globe. The expansion in recent years has been insane, and as Ryan says, heaps more experimentation and variation. Morris is one I'm keen on, having been buying Rutherglen Muscat for years to soak my fruit in for the yearly Christmas Pudding 😋 Starward Left-Field for a 40% ABV whisky and its price point is a fairly solid and tasty daily sipper. Fangin' to try Cape Byron now (one Jim McEwan had a helping hand in). Hearing good things!
Cheers.
Absolutely loved having Ryan join us for this one - couldn't have done it without them! Morris is one that's got my attention now for sure and hopefully with Ryan's help we'll see more Aussie drams the world over!
Very Interesting! Never thought they have this kind of selection in AU. Thanks Ryan for sharing all this! I can see the Czarface hoodie haha 👀
We have some decent whisky over here in Oz, Tasmania being the biggest scene and the original first legal distillery for single malt Lark whisky and its great juice and Bill Lark is a aussie whisky legend. I live on the west coast of Australia in little old Perth and we have a couple of decent local distilleries and one single malt distillery called Limeburners and they have some peated expressions using ancient peat beds peat and its good juice. Starward make really fruity jammy drams, I have a really nice Cognac Starward. We have an abundance of casks and resources so its got a bright future. Morris are really smart because they sell wine and fortified wines and now they are distilling they have a huge amount of casks to experiment with and its a good malt. Slainte lads!!!
was it you that's mentioned that Limeburners in the comments before Dan? I've definitely heard about it a couple of times now and my interest is definitely peeked. very interested to see more from Morris as well now that we've done this episode. sláinte bud
Yeah Im always shouting them out because there a craft distillery and supoorting local distilleries@@TheWhiskyBaron
@@Dan-hn1lx good man, that's what we like to hear!
Thanks for the highlight on Australian Whisky... I live in Melbourne still haven't been to Starward yet but it's on my to do list... I do like a place in Brunswick called Gospel their Rye is really good... fell in love with Cask Strength when I went to Tasmania for the first time 7yr ago and went to Lark distillery had their Cask Strength it's freaking delicious but my favourite was meeting the guys from Old Kempton at the Sunday street market in Hobart and trying the bottles they had for samples 🤯🤯🤯 Old Kempton is my once a year birthday bottle I buy myself.... Dram on guys Dram on 🥃👊🥃
there's no excuse for you to have no visited Starboard Matt! get yourself over there my guy and let us know your thoughts! thanks for tuning in and great to hear you've enjoyed some of these drams before. sláinte my friend
Love Australian whisky!!
I have to say, I wasn't a massive fan of it before this episode Christine. Ryan has converted me though!
I really didn't think this episode would hold my attention but you proved me wrong. Ryan was super engaging and passionate about AU Whisky and he gave an interesting perspective when discussing the climate, evaporation rate and the logic behind a young NAS. Well done Ryan. I also really enjoyed the explanation of the international Cadbury chocolate recipes. It explains why I always load up my carry-on when returning to Canada from the UK. TOTALLY makes sense now. Thanks gents!
Ryan's an absolute legend isn't he Jan! I've felt exactly the same way about Australian whiskies and was almost dreading the episode before we met them as I wasn't sure we'd be able to find much to be positive about. Ryan really opened my eyes though and so glad that we managed to get them on to spread the word of Aussie drams
Ahhh Ryan is such a legend, certainly knows their stuff when it comes to Oz whisky.
a fountain of knowledge!
Knocked the tamdhu back and poured a remnant to watch the rest of this. Aus apera whisky = amazing!!
What Remnant? 😮
@@jimmyjazz4605 fly by night was last nights dram
@@brendandavies-theredone1816 Lovely. I absolutely love what Peter has done with the Nant casks after the "thing" that happened. The black spot releases are top notch.
sláinte my friend!
Really enjoyed Ryan's passion and knowledge. Great episode. As an Aussie I can confess to having very little local whiskies in my collection. Mainly due to price and I prefer spirit led whiskies as opposed to cask forward profiles. However I have visited many distilleries, mainly in Tasmania and the people that work these distilleries are amazing. Hard working, passionate and so genuine.
Great whisky chat everyone again, he knows his oz whisky will try and get few of your picks, sullivans cove is only one I hurd of q
thanks for tuning in Liam and glad you enjoyed it! I'm hunting down the Morris stocks myself - accessible in the UK and potentially my new favourite from Australia
I hope some of this Australian whisky shows up in the US, I’d love to dive in. These bottles sound super interesting.
definitely worth exploring if you can get your hands on it!
Stevie doesn't need a pay rise, I've seen all the whisky he posts on Instagram!
agreed!
This is so amazing, and another absolute top tier episode. Thanks so much for putting this together. Ryan's knowledge is out of this world 😁 Honetly think this will need a part two; there's just sooooo many Aussie distilleries pumping out good stuff (probably better than the distilleries featured here).
PS, I've got all the money to buy em 😉 Maybe not the Old Kempton though. Probably my least favourite Aussie distillery, not keen on their fruit oak juice.
glad you enjoyed it JJ! we're already discussing a part two as Ryan has converted me from a skeptic into a believer. you'll have to let us know what you think should be in the next lineup!
@@jimmyjazz4605 if I remember correctly, that was my least favourite from this lineup
@@TheWhiskyBaron Glad to hear it mate, I'd love a part two (but no rush though haha 😆). Some of my favourite Australian distilleries are:
Tria Prima (a local to me and helmed by a one man army named Paul - he moved to Aussie land from Scotland)
Fleurieu Distillery (another local to me, and making some absolutely delicious whisky).
Overeem (great Tassie distillery)
Furneaux (distillery on a little island off the coast of Tasmania)
Manly Spirits (making some excellent whisky at a affordable price. Their standard entry whisky is a 500 ml bottle at around AUD 99 which is 46 pounds, and it's excellent quality).
Kinglake (creating some top tier spirit forward drams. Their distillery is very boutique and micro in scale. They creat their whisky with all of their doors open which lets in the surrounding air come in and infuse with the product. It's cool).
Just a few suggestions haha!
Yeah, not the biggest fan of Old Kempton to be honest. It was probably good having a bottle to taste as a point of reference, but I feel like they miss the mark a lot of the times. As you said, the cask and the spirit isn't really a marriage, and more like a disjointed mess. However, I do love Archie Rose, Morris & Belgrove. The guy who runs Belgrove (Peter), also has a side IB business called Remnant. It's a play on words as he's bottling a lot of the casks from the now defunk distillery called Nant. Massive investment fraud scheme that happened a few years ago, and he basically bought out a lot of the casks to give a least some kind of return to the investors who got fucked. Bitter sweet story, and if you want some more information about it, just google "Nant Investment Scheme" or something. However, Peter's bottling some absolutely fucking delicious shit through his Remnant brand, and I would wholeheartedly say that you could buy any of his bottles and be happy with it.
@@jimmyjazz4605 thanks for all the recommendations JJ - we'll be sure to pass these over to Ryan for the follow up! sláinte
nice episode enjoyed it.
interesting whisky's maybe not for a bottle. but if i see australian whisky at an event i'm sure gone try some.
and what a knowledge shared.
thanks for tuning in Erwin! definitely worth more of an exploration - I was unsure myself but Ryan has really opened my eyes
@@TheWhiskyBaron yesterday we did a world whisky tasting with a starward 2019 muscat cask it was nice but not special.
not australian but new zealand dunedin 18 year double cask nice to have tasted.
but kavalan and indri and nikka make great whisky's
@@erwinweening709 it sounds like you might not be 100% sold on Aussie stocks then?
Tasmania has an interesting scenario where its very cold but also extremely dry. It is also currently going through a drought but remains green as the flora/plants are used to it.
This causes an interesting phenomena where the water is the first thing to evaporate from the barrel so you find alcohol % goes up in the barrel. I.e. I have a 17 year Hellyers Road at 67% alcohol. This is to the point where there are explosion risks in some Tasmanian warehouses as it hits 80%.
the climate is such an interesting factor with maturation in this part of the world - I'd love to tour around and get a feel for the warehouses myself!
This was fun to watch as an Aussie. I would like to try more Australian whisky but the prices are ridiculous. It's also quite hit or miss, in my opinion - even bottlings from the same distillery and under the same brand name can be very batchy. To add to insult, it's becoming more common for bottles to be 500ml (50cl) but still at full price. I almost always buy Scotch because I can get something nice, consistent, and well-aged for the same price (or even less) than Aus whisky. A frustrating situation. EDIT: Further on in the episode and the guys are talking more about the price issue. It's too much to pay for things that are just "interesting".
I completely agree with all comments here, however, now that Ryan has talked us through everything I'm open to giving Aussie drams a bit more of a punt. I also have a feel for the brands that I'll look out for
Loved the episode! It was fascinating. I'm becoming increasingly interested in whisky from "unconventional" production countries, and I'm proud to say that Italy, my country, is one of them. I recently wrote an article about Italian whisky makers for Whisky Magazine, which was published in the March/April issue. It would be fantastic to see an episode featuring you guys tasting Italian whisky in the future! 🥃🔥
Aussie whiskies 💜 thank you guys, cool video
Absolutely love Starward Ginger Beer cask whisky.
Doesn't look like there is any in this episode.
unfortunately not but that sounds very interesting..
Basically all my issues with world whisky summed up in one video: really interesting and different, but fuvking expensive and really inconsistent in terms of quality/flavor. I tend to pay the extra money to try something I’ve never experienced before, but I couldn’t fault any one who baulks at paying the prices being charged. I live in Taiwan and love Kavalan, but fuck me the mark ups as soon as it gets exported are insane, I wouldn’t pay those prices and I’ve bought more or less every single expression they’ve made.
Really informative and interesting episode though, loved it.
yep, I definitely agree with this. it can be the same for Scotch/Irish being shipped internationally though so I feel the global stage is tough to compete on. thanks for tuning in and getting involved HW, appreciate the support as always!
@@TheWhiskyBaron country to country things are so different it’s almost, in terms of price/ratio, incomparable. Like I can get a Kavalan Soloist Vinho Barrique for like 80quid and at that price it’s great quality - but soon as it leaves Taiwan you’re lucky if it’s only doubled in price, which puts it firmly in the don’t but category. Speaking of fucked up prices any chance you’s would ever consider an episode on Kavalan? It’s got an interesting history and a ton of expressions from entry level to eye watering.
@@hoodwiser7652 Kavalan is one I'd love to do but as you've highlighted, it's not the most approachable from a price POV over here. very keen though and we'll be sure to get round to it eventually!
Campaign for a pay rise for Stevie!
and so it begins! I'll probably be reported for employee cruelty next!
I think that you guys need to add another category for the buy/don’t buy. I think that a category “try a tram at the bar” or “try before you buy” is a good, added category to help differentiate some of these borderline bottles that may be the price point is getting in the way.
Another category could be “split a bottle with friends”. I’ve done this actually in real life with some friends where the bottles were north of 300 pounds that way we could try some exceptional liquid, but not hurt in our wallets.
Haha you men are interesting.
I'm Aussie and whiskey/whisky is expensive here. I don't support Australian whiskey that much less than 5% of the time. It's a shame as it tastes great..our government makes billions of dollars on alcohol tax