He asked for some specialty Ardbeg releases which there were none available and he mentioned that he noticed that he had a bottle of Laphroaig in his bar. She then went into great detail about Islay and peated whisky, and recommended a few Kilchoman releases. She also went into great detail of the history of the distillery, their whisky making process and explained how they are unique and are a wonderful peated whisky. The customer’s jaw pretty much dropped with the level of information he was getting which is sad since he didn’t seem to expect that from woman who worked at this shop, but yet from me - a man, and just another customer, visiting the store that seem to look like he might know more about whisky. After he purchased two bottles of recommended whisky and left the store with his wife and son, I asked her if this hap- pened a lot which she replied more than you can imagine. Many customers question her knowledge and think a man would know more. This brought me back to a whisky show I was working at when I was the Canadian Bunnahabhain brand ambas- sador and we had the master blender in town, Dr. Kirstie McCallum. A group of men were asking technical questions about the distillery and even though I am a huge whisky geek and love sharing information, I stated the best person to answer these questions was the master blender, which I pointed to on my left – now let me put this in perspective for you. Dr. Kirsty and a male sales rep were both on my left, and you guessed it – everyone assumed he was the master blender, she stood her ground (which she should not have to) and listed out her qualifications as a blender and how she created the whisky that they were tasting. I also remember the men in the room challenging her by stating whisky was never to be mixed as well as the tired and out dated dinosaur speech about how blended whisky is inferior to single malt. She went into great detail and promoted a fantastic discussion about the importance of mixing whisky basically stating that she loved drinking a whisky and ginger ale, or adding an ice cube to her whisky sometimes. She also set them straight on why blended whiskies were indeed just as good if not superior to some single malts on the market. I loved her for that.
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the whisky explorer magazine
WINTER 2024
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