Yes, yes, I can.

But wait, what's the secret thing?

And they're like, Well, we have this thing called blenders Batch, small runs of stuffed, a little bit experimental working one on Roberto.

Release it and it's called Joint Walker Blend.

Dispatch Espresso roast.

Now I confess, at this moment I'm slightly skeptical because espresso roast isn't a term that, you know, in this industry we've come to see is being particularly appetizing.

So I'm a little bit skeptical, but I talk some more, and it's clear that this is an opportunity for me to learn a lot.

Next week, a jump in flight. 00:00:56.300 --> 00:01:1.030 I go to Edinburgh the next morning, I meet up with everyone else there, and it's quite a big crew. 00:01:1.280 --> 00:01:2.260 It's not just me. 00:01:2.270 --> 00:01:5.340 There's a team of eight or nine bartenders from around the world. 00:01:5.700 --> 00:01:8.680 There's a chef is the blending team from Johnny Walker. 00:01:8.910 --> 00:01:15.740 So It's kind of big group, and the first thing they do is that they take us to a small distillery called Glen Kimchi.

Now this is my first distillery visit.

To be honest, it kind of blows my mind.

I hadn't realized just how much whiskey has in common with coffee beard preparation off your raw materials through heat grinding.

It imports grand profile in extraction.

Obviously, things change.

Want to start to ferment?

Staff?

Distill it.

But I'm kind of fascinated by the crossover between the two industries.

It blew my mind to see the kind of grind, and they have to see the road taps is there to measure grind distribution.

So we see how that fermented liquid then gets stilled against barrel aging.

And this, to me, is incredibly exciting. 00:01:57.430 --> 00:02:1.540 It's new, and I feel like I've got so much I could take away from this. 00:02:2.250 --> 00:02:9.940 Plus, the facility is kind of amazing, and then we jump on a bus and we drive for a long way to a big facility. 00:02:9.940 --> 00:02:11.050 They have called 11.

Now it's a huge facility, and right in the middle of it is a secret distillery, and this is where they do experimental work, and they've got some super cool stuff, some kind of crazy toys to make delicious things they can do.

Tiny experiments would push the boundaries there.

We get to taste some interesting stuff.

One of the experiments, the experiment that I'm interested in, has involved taking Bali and I usually mold barley, which is starting a germination process, because when I see germinates, it converts its complex sugars.

Two simple sugars.

Those are great because we can tell most simple sugars into alcohol later.

But here they haven't bolted the body.

They roasted barley quite a long way to quite a deep, dark color.

Now this isn't totally knew. 00:02:57.030 --> 00:03:1.600 This is something you might do for drinks like Guinness or porters or dark beers. 00:03:2.220 --> 00:03:9.410 And you can't use all of this because there's no more simple sugar left because it's over roasted away so it can only make up a percentage of what you're brewing.

But here I got to take something super interesting, which is the UN aged, frankly distilled, make off this deeply roasted barley.

Then that evening we go to dinner, But before we get a dinner, we do a little tasting them on for me if this was a tasting around blending, which for me was fascinating because blending isn't fashionable and coffee anymore.

It's very necessary and whiskey and has a long, long tradition.

And it's kind of interesting to see someone else's approach to blending a whisker.

The next morning, everyone goes to a restaurant on quite early in the day we sit down and we get to taste these two whiskeys. 00:03:51.930 --> 00:04:1.050 One of them, he's actually a whiskey aged rum cask, and it's a chef there who specializes in Caribbean food, prepared some super delicious things to inspire bartenders. 00:04:1.540 --> 00:04:3.150 I do something a little different. 00:04:3.610 --> 00:04:6.880 I'm kind of there to talk about the development of flavor through roasting. 00:04:6.880 --> 00:04:22.930 And so we do a pretty simple capping from green to roast it, talking about the development of flavor, sweetness, acidity of bitterness and see how they can maybe take that information and apply it back to what they're doing and also maybe triggered some ideas for the bartenders.

But I'll be honest.

These were incredibly talented bartenders from around the world On the best of my day was that the afternoon was them let loose with these spirits on a ton of ingredients just to create some drinks.

And I got to stand around and watch this happen on, then taste the drinks and I couldn't really talk about this whole experience.

You know, I flew home that night unable to bring a bottle back with me.

It's been a secret little project up until now.

So now it's available.

It's out.

I could talk about. 00:04:59.320 --> 00:05:1.060 I can talk about this experience that I had. 00:05:1.070 --> 00:05:2.170 That kind of blew my mind. 00:05:2.690 --> 00:05:7.570 You can go on by this whiskey and drink it, and you might ask, How does it taste? 00:05:8.040 --> 00:05:10.550 Well, one more quick confession.

I don't drink a ton of Scotch whisky.

I like it off Petey whiskies.

I just can't get down with smoke.

I tend to drink a little whisky of mixed drinks, and so I end up drinking alone American whiskey.

This, however, I found particularly delicious.

I was kind of relieved how much I liked this whiskey.

It has this really interesting kind of May Audi nos on.

I know why people would reach for coffee as a descriptive for it, and it's gonna cut this kind of creamy rich sweetness to it.

It's a very approachable whiskey It's very delicious.

In the next couple of months, I look forward thio, creating some recipes without having some fun with it.

If you want to taste it well, I'm gonna give away a bottle.

If you want to know what it's like to leave a comment below be subscribed on. 00:05:57.420 --> 00:06:1.290 I pick one of you in a couple of weeks and I'll ship your bottle of whiskey and I hope you enjoy it. 00:06:1.500 --> 00:06:4.960 And if you get the chance to taste this, let me know what you think. 00:06:4.970 --> 00:06:6.300 Leave a comment down below. 00:06:6.520 --> 00:06:18.030 This kind of blew my mind, and I think from the conversations I had was the beginning of a little journey at Johnny Walker for that blending team to experiment Maur with flavor development through roast.

So I'm super interested to see what happens anyway.

I have to meet a little whiskey.