This episode is sponsored by Atom Brands and That Boutique-y Whisky Company, which you can get your hands on through Proof & Company here in Australia.

That Boutique-y Whisky Company is an award-winning independent bottler of distilleries from around the world. Simply put, they bottle distilleries’ whisky and slap their funky labels on the bottle. But if only it was that simple… it’s not any old whisky that makes it into our bottles - it’s often a once in a lifetime tipple from some of the world’s greatest distilleries. And while it’s always been about bottling the best whiskies we can find, Boutique-y has always sought to do so with a serious dollop of fun. Each bottle is adorned with a graphic novel style artwork from Glasgow-based artist Emily Chappell.

One of the most distinctive bars in Australia is The Elysian Whisky Bar in Fitzroy — it’s one of my favourites because there’s no other bar like it. And there’s no other bar like it, in part, because of what they sell.

The Elysian is stocked exclusively with whiskies from independent bottlers, not the better known brands from big producers. Some of the drams they stock are so rare, you won’t find them anywhere else. That creates a pretty compelling reason to visit the bar.

It’s those kind of whiskies — small scale, small batch, one-off editions, and independently bottled — that my guest on this week’s episode of Drinks At Work, Simon McGoram, spends most of his time with. He’s the Asia Pacific regional sales manager for Atom Brands, which owns That Boutique-y Whisky Company, an independent bottler of whisky from around the world.

Simon has had a rich and fascinating career in and around the world of drinks. He began his career in his native New Zealand, where he was named Bartender of the Year and began writing for NZ Bartender magazine, before moving to Australia and becoming the editor here. He has been a bar owner, of Neighbourhood in Bondi and the now closed late night and somewhat infamous Henrietta Supper Club in Darlinghurst. He’s also been a brand ambassador, working as the Diageo national whisky ambassador for a number of years.

And Simon is the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to spirits and cocktails, someone I am quite happy to talk to for hours about booze — which is exactly what we did when he brought along some Boutique-y whiskies and rums for me to taste whilst we talked for this episode at Burrow Bar in Sydney.

So this one is for the spirits geeks and bartending nerds out there. In this episode, we talk about unnamed whiskies, independent bottlings and how the whole system works; we talk about That Boutique-y Whisky Company and Atom Brands, defunct rum distilleries, teaspooning, blended whisky, age statements, floating rum distilleries in Queensland — the lot. We cover a lot of ground. I’ve got a few of my favourite moments from the interview below, but as always, do give the full podcast a listen — if you do, you’ll even hear a story about the SS Walrus.

You can listen to the latest episode above, in the Apple Podcasts app, on Spotify, or your podcast player of preference.

The Quotable Simon McGoram

“A peated German single malt that’s been aged in a Japanese mizunara cask.”

Now, there’s a lot to unpack in that quote. But that’s Simon talking about what he thinks of as the most impressive whisky in a new series coming from That Boutique-y Whisky Company that explores how whiskies are smoked around the world. He talks about this whisky — from the producers of Elsburn in Germany, whose whiskies are so in demand (and small scale) that you’ve got people lining up around the block to purchase them when they’re released at the distillery) — because, as he says, some of the most exciting stuff happening in whisky is happening outside of Scotland, in places like Germany.

“Think about it: they make incredible beer there, they’ve got a lot of barley, they’re great brewers, they’ve actually got a long tradition of distilling through making schnapps and the making of various eau de vie and liqueurs, so it was only a logical step that they would get into whisky at some point.”

“The colour of a whisky has got nothing to do with flavour a lot of the time.”

We also spoke about the colour and appearance of whisky — and spirits in general — and how these are judged at spirits competitions. There is usually a section and marks for appearance on most spirits judging formats I’ve seen and been involved with — it’s something that has always bothered me because it’s wholly subjective. Who is to say which hue is more attractive and deserving of more points? And whilst, yes, looking at the appearance of a spirit will let you see if there’s any particulate matter in the glass, as McGoram says here, sometimes a little haze in your bottle of whisky isn’t a bad thing; rather, it can indicate that the spirit hasn't been filtered within an inch of its life and the flavour stripped from it.

He says that colour is an unreliable indicator in general. “You can extract the colour from a cask in about 90 days,” he says. “That’s it. Colour doesn’t mean something is more mature. And it might mean it’s a more active cask, but something can be really dark and be tannic as anything or it can not — colour is not a good indicator of flavour. You don’t know what size of cask they used. Colour is very misleading.”

“But one thing we do know, obviously we’ve got a lot of insight from the Master of Malt into what consumers like — darker whisky sells, for better or worse.”

“If we’re not allowed to name the distillery, we won’t.”

When is the product of a distillery no longer the product of that distillery? When it comes to rum, this can be a tricky question. As Simon points out, most of the rums they bottle under the That Boutique-y Rum Company stamp do undergo some period of ageing in Europe, because — like they do with their whiskies — they’re often sourcing the barrels through brokers and often they are based in Europe. “We are very transparent about that,” he says. “More and more, the Caribbean distilleries are standing up for themselves and say that you can’t use the name of their distillery unless it’s been aged in country. And we wholly support that.”

This episode is sponsored by Atom Brands and That Boutique-y Whisky Company, which you can get your hands on through Proof & Company here in Australia.

That Boutique-y Whisky Company is an award-winning independent bottler of distilleries from around the world. Simply put, they bottle distilleries’ whisky and slap their funky labels on the bottle. But if only it was that simple… it’s not any old whisky that makes it into our bottles - it’s often a once in a lifetime tipple from some of the world’s greatest distilleries. And while it’s always been about bottling the best whiskies we can find, Boutique-y has always sought to do so with a serious dollop of fun. Each bottle is adorned with a graphic novel style artwork from Glasgow-based artist Emily Chappell.