Ep. 194: The London Distillery Company with Matt McKay

Heritage, Grain, and Grit: Matt McKay Revives the London Distillery Company

The London Distillery Company - TLDC - has, TLDR, had a rather rough two centuries. Two failed ventures, one in the early 1800s and one in the 2010s, the last ending in 2020 with a few dozen casks remaining, sitting in a warehouse for several years unloved. 

Enter Matt McKay, a Whiskey Ring Podcast guest way back in Episode 70. Having recently departed Bimber and Dunphail Distilleries, Matt was looking for a project, something that would expand his already extensive whisky knowledge and give him a new challenge in the production space where he felt most at home. Those few dozen casks held some rye, a lot of single malt, and, more than anything, opportunities. 

In his "distillery without walls," Matt is slowly and methodically rebuilding TLDC into a respectable company known for its own product (which remains quite limited but also nicely aged) and for blending. The Renascence was a release of their own stock, while the just-released Golden Union blends and celebrates English whisky from multiple distilleries into a harmonious expression. 

Matt is unabashedly nerdy (seriously, listen to our previous episode, we got deep in the weeds), and he loves what he does. I can't wait to taste these releases and see what he does. Let's check back in a few years when they're farther down the runway....

Thank you to Matt for entering the whiskey ring! 

_________________________________________________________

If you haven’t joined the Patreon community yet, please consider doing so at patreon.com/whiskeyinmyweddingring

The Bottle Share Club - the $25/month Patreon level - is SOLD OUT! You can still support the podcast for as little as $1/month, and $5/month patrons will have first dibs if a $25/month member retires. 

If you haven’t yet, please follow Whiskey in my Wedding Ring and the Whiskey Ring Podcast on Instagram and Facebook.

The London Distillery Company

• • The London Distillery Company Website
  • The London Distillery Company on Instagram
  • The London Distillery Company on Facebook

 

Episode Transcript

David Levine (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of the whiskey

(00:02):
ring Podcast. Today, I'mbringing back a familiar face,
someone who has been on thepodcast before, or I should say,
a familiar voice since, youknow, video going out. But
anyway, familiar voice on thepodcast. He was on with us back
on episode 70. This was inDecember of 2022 if you can
believe it, almost two and ahalf years ago, it was kind of
insane when he was with Emberdistillery, and also just about

(00:25):
to start work on dunfail up inScotland. Today, he's joining us
to talk about the Londondistillery company, and that is
to bring back Mr. Matt McKay,Matt, welcome on.

Matt McKay (00:37):
Hi, David. Great to talk to you again,

David Levine (00:40):
absolutely. And I had that right, right? It's the
London distillery company, notdistilling company.

Matt McKay (00:46):
The London distillery company. Yeah, that's
correct. Okay,

David Levine (00:50):
I've been mixing that up once in a while now with
the distillery and distillingwith the name, so just gotta be
sure. But anyway, thank you forjoining us again. It's gonna be
a pretty unique podcast, Ithink, a unique time on. So,
Matt, you've been on before. Youknow, I try to do a lot of
research beforehand and ask somenew questions. In this case,
there was some research to do,but not nearly as much as we did

(01:15):
in previous ones that we havewith other episodes, just
because it's a, in some ways, anew venture, and in

Matt McKay (01:21):
some ways, in some ways it's new, in other ways,
it's old. It's it's a bit of aunique one.

David Levine (01:27):
Yeah, exactly. So we've got, you know, new, we've
got revival, we've got this thethird time's a charm, as one
article put it. So with allthat, I'm going to give you a
little bit more time that Iwould normally spend to talk
about the history of where weare at London distillery
company,

Matt McKay (01:45):
sure. Thanks. David so London distillery company, if
you go way back when has areally potted history, its
origins go back to 1807 where aLondon engineer called Ralph
DODDS envisaged crafting spiritsin London that were a cut above
what was being made in the thecapital over here at that time,

(02:07):
he felt that the spirits thatwere being made in London around
the sort of early 19th centurywere poor quality, often
imitations, not using the bestingredients, and and he had a
vision for what he called theLondon distillery company, to do
it differently and to do itbetter. So at the time, he got a
group of investors together andwas ready to build the brand new

(02:31):
distillery, and he fell foul ofwhat was known as the bubble
Act, which was a piece of lawwhereby if you had over a
certain number of investors, youyou had to get permission from
the state to form your company,and he didn't. He didn't have
permission. So effectively, hehad this dream and vision, and
it never happened. Fast Forwardalmost 200 years, and then some

(02:56):
Londoners who've been workingaround the bar and the the
whiskey trade, decided that theywanted to form a craft
distillery. This was back in2011 and they took that sort of
that ethos of wanting to dothings differently, wanting to
do higher quality stuff. Theytook that from Ralph Dodds and

(03:16):
the name and the Londondistillery Company was formed in
2011 it was the first newdistillery in London for over
100 years. The last distillery,effectively, in England, was
over in Lee Valley, which is onthe east side of London, in
Stratford, kind of near where wehosted the Olympics a few years
ago, and that had closed in theearly 20th century. So no

(03:37):
distilling in London of whiskey,of malt had occurred for quite
some time, and so the Londondistillery company were, in some
ways, a bit of a darling.Everyone was quite excited about
them. They were using heritagegrain, old style brewer's yeast,
doing things to my mind in areally interesting way that sort

(03:58):
of was looking into the past,but looking into the future.
However, they failed. So thesecond venture for London
distillery company failed for acombination of poor financial
planning, of poor pricing, therelease that they brought out
their four year old rye wasultra, ultra expensive, even
back in 2014 so that companyagain failed. The site was

(04:22):
redeveloped their initial sitein Battersea, just south of the
river. It was demolished so itdoesn't exist anymore. Fast
forward to the end of last year.I'd left Bimber and dumbfeld
distilleries was looking forwhat my next venture would be,
and I was approached by Glenmorespirits. So they're based in
Edinburgh. They do a number ofdifferent things, including

(04:45):
bottling a well known Scotchbrand over here called rare find
an independent bottler, and theyasked me to come on board,
indicating that they hadpurchased both the company
rights and all of the remainingcasks that were distilled back
when the the. The Londondistillery company was
operational, so from 2011 to2020 and would I like to come on

(05:06):
board and lead? I don't thinkthey used the word a revival. I
think that might be my word, butbasically to bring it back. And
I thought that was a superexciting project. Fast forward
to now. Here we are. It's onlybeen just over five months. And
yeah, we had our first release,the revival release Renaissance,

(05:26):
which is sitting just behind methere, that came out and was
launched a week and a half ago,and seemed to have gone quite
well. So, yeah, you said ityourself, David, Third time's a
charm. I'm hoping so. But yeah,quite a potted history to London
distillery company. And it's myjob to make sure that we move in
a bold new direction, not repeatthat past

David Levine (05:49):
for sure. So you said the the like, it's not
original, the Battersea locationthat had taken place, that had
been built in 2011 was gone. Sowe're in the London area. US
based now, so

Matt McKay (06:04):
there is no distillery now. We are currently
a distillery without walls. Sowhat that means is we have that
liquid as I described. I'mcalling it the legacy casks. So
they're the ones that I amworking with, blending,
manipulating, but I didn'tdistill them. We're going to
bring those to market alongsidecoming in a few weeks time, our

(06:27):
first English blended malt. Sotaking whiskeys from other
single malt distilleries aroundthe country, and then, yeah,
touch wood. If all goes well,later this year, we will start
to look at new sites around theLondon area with a view to
getting back to our roots, and Irestarting production and
distilling. We're not We're notthere yet. We're just deliver

(06:49):
without walls. But rest assuredthat that is the vision. It's
not just a flash in the pan,bottle, bottle, the stuff that
we've got, and when it runs out,it runs out. No, we're using
that stuff as effectively aplatform to to reintroduce the
brand, to get it back intopeople's consciousness, to honor
what came before us. Becausethere is whiskey, and you know,

(07:10):
it's some of it's over 10 yearsold now. So that's the oldest in
London that there is to use it,as I said, as a springboard into
restarting distilling, wherethat will be in London. Everyone
asked me, this is, where's itgoing to be in London? Honestly,
don't have any idea. I don'twant it on the other side of the
other side of the city. Thatmight be difficult for me to get

(07:33):
in and out. But other than that,yeah, one thing at a time, we're
only just back in the market.But rest assured, once we get
through the summer, if all goeswell and the reception continues
to be, you know, very positivefor us, then it very much is on
the menu to start looking atwhere, where that new distillery
might be, and to pick up, yeah,to pick up fully where things

(07:53):
left off.

David Levine (07:55):
Wonderful. As you said, you you inherited about
about 70 casks or so,

Matt McKay (07:59):
correct? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There was around 70 casks
of the original distillate thatI've inherited alongside a
larger, more diverse number ofEnglish whiskey casks. So that's
what got me thinking about.Okay, well, here's what, here's
what London's got. That's,that's kind of limited. I'm
going to have to be very carefuland thoughtful with what I do

(08:19):
there. What do I do with Englishsingle malts that they're not
doing? And that's what leads onto the idea of effectively using
them as as different texturesand different colors to create
new pictures and new images inEnglish blended malt, which
there's been a couple that havebeen released earlier this year
from Compass box and woven but Ithink, I think, I think there's

(08:41):
an absolutely ripe market therethat's that's ready for people
to to explore and to experience.What happens when you start to
put together some of thesedifferent ingredients, some of
these different components

David Levine (08:53):
say they're, they're, as you said, the comps
box and woven releases beforethat. I don't really remember
there being a a blended Englishwhiskey,

Matt McKay (09:02):
no woven, wove. Woven was, was the first,
literally, the first, to dothat,

David Levine (09:08):
right? So, I mean, I agree with you. This is really
a an inflection point for forthe industry, for what you're
doing, right? Where you are,you've got 50 plus English
distilleries now we've gotenough, some of them, with
enough age where you can haveand stock where you can blend
things correct, and even more.So you guys are throwing your

(09:33):
weight around a little bit moreand sticking together with some
of the stuff earlier this year,with the Swa coming in and
saying, what's, what's theEnglish whiskey designation?
Like, what's that going to be?What does it mean? And you know,
giving you trouble for it, whichin some ways, I think, is died
down, at least in the newscycle. But also, I think,
elevated you guys, in many ways,it brought it to a wider

(09:56):
consciousness that this wassomething that should be taking
a. Uh, should be aware of andalso, kind of, why was the Swa
picking on this?

Matt McKay (10:05):
Yeah, no, I think that's pretty astute. David
English, whiskey has been reallybubbling along for a while. And
I would say in the last sort ofeight years, it's almost
exploded, a mini explosion, notquite as big as the wider sort
of whiskey boom that we sawacross the world, you know,
scotch, Irish, Japan, America.But nevertheless, England has

(10:27):
also ridden that wave and gonefrom not all that long ago, you
know, sort of 14 years ago, onedistillery, one distillery, the
English whiskey company formerlyknown as St George's, and now up
to 50. So that implies, thatimplies some confidence and some
momentum. But yeah, Swa, Ihaven't been on the board of the

(10:49):
English whiskey guild for alittle time. But yeah, on the
one hand, yeah, it's a bitdifficult to see, to see people
bickering about what I would sayis not necessarily super
important things, particularlywhen a Welsh gi has been already
granted, which includes thething that Swa are getting upset

(11:12):
with. So you know, what's goodfor the Welsh isn't good for the
English. I don't reallyunderstand it. But as I don't
sit on the English whiskey guildat the minute, I can't speak for
them, but likewise, I thinkyou're spot on when you say that
the whole who haha has hasbroadened the conversation.
English whiskey has been growingin its in its reach and people,

(11:34):
certainly, when I'm out andabout events, the dialog has
moved on from English whiskey.Are you joking to oh, oh, oh,
what new English whiskey isthere? And, yeah, you're totally
right. The conversation verypublicly, with the Swa
disagreeing with certain clausesof that proposed gi has only
broadened the reach further.

David Levine (11:54):
To your point about the explosion, I think
that's a good word of Englishwhiskey just a couple of years
ago, let's say, you know, preCOVID, around COVID, when you
have English whiskey firststarting to come to the US in
notable quantities, let's sayyou're still looking at just the
major markets, you know, NewYork, Miami, Texas, maybe

(12:15):
California. And so it, even ifpeople became aware of it at
that point, it wasn't availableto them, for sure, for sure.
Yeah, and I was thinking aboutthis because just a couple weeks
ago, I was in Denver for a guy'strip, and we were, you know, we
were touring a course factory,actually, and started to walk
around the town afterwards,walked into a liquor store, and

(12:37):
up on the top shelf there is abottle of Cotswolds. I'm like,
that's fantastic. We're not in,like, Denver proper, we're not
in the heart of the city. We'remaybe, I don't know how far out,
but the point being that it'ssomewhere where I wouldn't have
thought to see it. Yeah, and,you know, yes, Cotswolds. And

(12:59):
Dan has been doing a fantasticjob. There you was on the pod
last year. Some brands are doingmore in the US than others. Some
are more focused on the UK andEuropean market. But this
explosion is giving people anopportunity to see an article on
the Swa I'm going to use, stilluse the phrase picking on

(13:19):
English whiskey Guild, and say,you know, maybe I should try
some of this stuff and see like.Is is this worth fighting about
like, or is it something thatdeserves to be protected?

Matt McKay (13:33):
And, yeah, no, totally, totally agree with
that. And you know already, andmaybe we'll talk about this, but
already, I'm seeing an Englishwhiskey sector, the as a as a
whiskey maker, I think it hasenough scope for blending. It's
why I'm, you know about tolaunch a blend under the London
whiskey company. It's why othershave already done so in the last

(13:53):
few months. But, but equally, itallows us, as you've identified,
for the large players in themarket, the likes of Cotswolds
and lakes, to really start toget their product out into the
world, which, okay, it superbenefits them. But there is that
knock on effect that in themhaving the scale and the
capability to get out intodowntown Denver or or other

(14:15):
places that people then go, oh,English whiskey. And then for
smaller players, you know, thesmaller producers that that has
to have a benefit for for them.I mean, I certainly feel that in
virtually any industry, havinghaving your friends, you know,
who are your competitors, theyare your competitors, but having
your friends close everyone,everyone benefits together,

David Levine (14:38):
for sure. And this is a an episode of Battle and
distillery company, of course.But you know, this is just a lot
of context this that's reallyimportant. And the last piece I
want to add to this is that whenI was having a conversation with
a Tasmanian, i. Producer a fewweeks ago, and the question came

(15:04):
up, you know, that they also areworking towards their own Gi,
their own guild, the same thingsthat you're working towards and
and just having an internationalpresence that says, which has
meaning, whiskey, we havesomething ends there. And they
have, just as you have inEngland, a couple of brands that

(15:24):
have been kind of ahead of themarket. They've got more volume.
They've got more presence in theinternational space. So in many
ways, they are English whiskeyto the wider audience around the
world. So you know, for youguys, I think of like the
Cotswolds and the lakes and, Iguess English whiskey company to
an extent. But I always got thefeeling they kind of stayed more

(15:47):
looking in England and to theeast as opposed to looking
across. But the point being thatI asked the question, you know,
what would happen if you hadthese companies who, in some
ways it's good, they're openingthe market for you. They're
presenting themselves as, thisis English whiskey. But you had

(16:09):
an English whiskey group, agroup of distillers, who were
like, yeah, they're opening themarket for us, but they don't
represent us as taster astastemakers. You know, sure,
sure, that doesn't seem to havehappened here, but was curious
what, what your thoughts mightbe.

Matt McKay (16:25):
Yeah, I think that's, I think that's very
fair, um, equally taking allsort of hats off and just just
thinking about that as myself, Ithink you need to be in a
position, both within a marketand within the sort of
cognizance of a whiskey drinkerthat that people are able and

(16:47):
prepared to explore your style,once they are then I think you
can start to get down to a levelof granularity of, well, this
distillery does it this way, andthat produces that, and this
distillery has this mentality.But if you don't have any
presence in the market, or youdo, and the people in the market
are just like, No, we're notwe're not ready. We're not ready

(17:09):
for what you're offering, thosestylistic differences are
completely irrelevant, becauseyou're never going to get liquid
to lips anyway. So yeah, for me,one thing comes after another,
and certainly when it comes toLondon distillery company,
because of the use of heritagegrain, what we make doesn't
taste like any other Englishwhiskey out there at all. I

(17:31):
think the closest comparisonwould be one release from the
Cotswolds, their high Groverelease, which uses heritage
grain. But that's just onerelease, whereas all our
releases of single mole usethat. So yeah, I think you're
right that one particular thingabsolutely doesn't represent the
multitude of different profiles.Certainly doesn't, from my point

(17:55):
of view as a maker, because Iwant lots of different stylistic
differences to play with. Butnevertheless, someone's, as you
say, someone's got to open thatdoor. And then once the door is
open, once you've got somethingin the market, and people are
prepared and they have the rightmentality to want to explore it,
that's when the smaller playerscan say, Hey, are you interested

(18:16):
in us? But, but, but if youdon't have the first thing, you
can't have to second thing

David Levine (18:23):
with those 70 casks, roughly, yeah, we're even
accounting for for differentsizes, you know, as thunder
barrels, all at Sherry bots andthings like that. Yeah, that's
really not a ton of volume.There might have, as you said,
great variances within thatliquid, but it's not a huge

(18:44):
volume, no. So when you wereapproached to join this product,
to head this product project,excuse me, I should say and
create this product, there wego. You've said you've tasted
all 70 casks multiple times.You've figured out, what are the
good ones? What are the funkyones? What are the things like
that? What was I'd love to knowmore about your thought process

(19:09):
as to, you know is, why is thisthe project that I want to
approach after leaving bemberand done fell, and your initial
thoughts as to okay, what am Igoing to do with this? Sure,

Matt McKay (19:24):
so that's a really broad question. I rather like
it. So what I was looking for,what I was looking for after
leaving Bimber and dunfale was arole that really played to the
sides of whiskey that Iparticularly enjoy. And I
particularly enjoy productcreation, blending, making

(19:49):
things and then telling peopleand discussing things, you know.
And I've always done the latterpart, and I was doing some of
the former part, but I've endedup. Up because of the weird
route that I've been. I've comeinto whiskey, being a bit of a
generalist, you know, I've donea bit of everything. I've often
focused on, you know, marketingcommunication, because that's,

(20:12):
that's the background I comefrom. My science background has
fed into that in I am quite atechnical communicator. That's
fine. I'm happy to do that.That's that's been my bread and
butter for approaching 30 years.But the bit that I really get a
buzz about is creating things.And so this opportunity was very

(20:33):
much it was an interestingproposition, because I was asked
to create things using someoneelse's vision, and that's what
appealed to me, that, you know,I could have come in and I could
have tasted all the cast anddecided, You know what? This
this sort of heritage grainflavor. I'm not really into this
at all. I'm just going to tryand smother it with as much wood

(20:57):
as possible. I'm going to tryand bury that right down below
and just make something that Ithink is tasty to me, but that's
absolutely not what I'm about.What I'm about is creating
things and honoring what camebefore me. So I actually find
that that part of you know, alegacy that came before me, and

(21:17):
I'm the guardian of this, andthe fact that it had failed
several times before. That'swhat really appealed to me, that
I have, I have a sort of matrixto work to, and that matrix is
pretty solid in the middle, butonce you start moving out, the
world's your oyster. I can takeit in any way, but the way I'm
treating it as a creator is justto keep that central core, that

(21:39):
sort of, that character, theheritage grain flavor to keep
that amongst everything, andthen you can play however you
want. And so in some ways, it'sat the minute, it's quite
refreshing in that I don't haveto craft spirit yet. I've just
got this pool of you know, andif this doesn't work, those will

(21:59):
be the very last cast of Londondistillery company, and I feel
that weight upon my shoulders.So, you know, if we don't have
another distillery, what I dohere is, yeah, it's the sort of
last chance to really show offwhat was made before me. It
doesn't look like it's going togo that way, touch wood, but I'm
treating it as, yeah, as as asort of a guardian of a history

(22:23):
that wasn't mine, but a historythat I can reforge anew and use
my particular skill set, whichis, yeah, it's really broad in
terms of all the things we justspoke about, doing all those
things to bring it together andto see if we can breathe new
life into it. So yeah, it'ssuper appealed to me from that
point of view of, take somethingthat several people have failed

(22:48):
at, make it work. And I love achallenge. You know, it's, it's
not quite Martin McFly level of,don't call me chicken, but it's
certainly, it's a bit of a comeon to me. It's like, go on. Do
it then. And, yeah, here I amdoing it. Yeah, I never take on
things that are easy. I like tobe challenged in terms of how I
approached it. I mean,literally, on the sort of first,

(23:11):
the first week I took the job,it was very much, those are the
casks, you know, what to do. Offyou go. And I was sort of, Wow,
okay. Okay. That's, that's whatit means. You know, there's, I'm
sort of on my own effectively,and it took a little while for
that to settle in and sort of,okay, that's quite responsible,

(23:32):
right? Let's get the thoughtstogether and recognize that
that's actually a wonderfulposition to be in, as long as
you do it, right? You know,effectively, you're coming up
with all of the vision, all ofall of the ideas based on the
past and then taking it forward.But it did, in all honesty,
David, it did. It took me back abit, and I had to take a few
breaths away to realize so thatthat's that's quite responsible,

(23:55):
you know, to sort of becompletely hands off with me and
say, Matt, off you go do it. Soonce I'd sort of calmed down and
come up with a right, okay, yep,let's do this. My first job was
to get in and see, see, like achef, what, what ingredients Am
I playing with? Am I workingwith? Can I draw on? And also a
little bit of a historian, what,what was done in the past? What

(24:18):
can I find out about both thecompany and the process is used
to make this whiskey. And sothose things went hand in hand,
finding out as much as I couldabout what the original vision
was, how it all worked, and thenwhat have I got in front of me?
As is always the case when yougo through a sort of big pile of
casks that you don't really knowabout, you You dream that

(24:41):
everyone is, you know, worldclass, you pray that they're not
all terrible, and you end upsomewhere down the middle. And
in no surprise to anyone,including myself, it came
exactly down the middle. So someof it is absolutely fantastic,
and that's what I'm bottlingnow. So the first release, the
releases you're going to see inthe autumn. One of London's
delivery company, single malt,although I have blended them

(25:04):
together, blended the casks,they're un manipulated. I
haven't really done much withthem. There are other casks
where they just hadn't beenlooked after. They'd just been
left in a warehouse in someknackered wood, no one had
looked at them. They're a littlebit unloved, and so I'm giving
those some love. I've got somenew wood coming over. It's came
over from Spain. There's beensome re racking into some

(25:26):
interesting different styles ofwood. There'll be more of that
to come. So, yeah, partly it'staking what is fantastic now and
just showing off. Hey, do youremember London's delivery
company? Oh, you do? Oh, youtried it at three years old.
Here it is at 10. What have youdone with it? Not that much. So
that's just the passage of time,and then with the rest of it,

(25:46):
okay, that's where I can play.That's where I can really put my
stamp on things and say, youknow, I'm being honest here. Not
all of it was fantastic. Itwould just be ridiculous to
here's a random pile of cast,Matt, they're all amazing.
That's never going to happen. SoI'm very open about that, but at
the same time, that's where Ican say, hey, yeah, this, this
was not a particularly, youknow, world class cask, but the

(26:08):
core spirit was, was solidenough. Here's how I have shaped
it, and what I've done to it tobring you what you're now going
to be tasting next year and theyear after, the final thing that
I've had to do is really thinkabout the runway. I'm going to
call it, and that's the runwayworking two ways. So it's

(26:28):
effectively like an airport.You've got your flights going
out and your flights coming in,except the difference here is
the casks being used forbottling, and then the notion of
building a new distillery at thesame time, and one has this sort
of timescale on it, in thatthere'll be no more flights
going out at some point. So, youknow, I'm very wary of what you

(26:53):
know, will you call it the burnrate, the burn rate of of your
cast, of your liquid, vis a visgetting new liquid, a new
distillery, new productionunderway, and in an ideal world,
you know, you followed theyellow brick road. You've built
up a nice army of fans who lovewhat you're doing, and you've

(27:16):
planned it so nicely that youeffectively just sort of merge
between the legacy stock into,you know, early but mature stock
of a new distillery. That's sortof threading a needle, but
that's effectively the task Ihave to do. It's to to build up
to a position whereby you'rebottling all of the old stuff.

(27:37):
But there isn't some sort of sixmonth, one year gap where you
have to sort of go to the marketand say, well, actually, sorry,
there's none. Hold on. And thatmight happen, because the world
is a funny place, and you can,you know, the strangest of
setbacks can mean you have to dothis, and you have to do that,
and there's always thingsunexpected, but the idea is to
thread the needle. And so thatdoesn't happen, and you just

(27:58):
move from one to the next. Sothat's, that's absolutely part
of the planning in terms of whatI'm looking at the casts, what
the lead time is for themanipulations I want to do with
those casts that I deem to havebeen a bit unloved, and how does
that factor into this idea ofrestarting production again? And
what does that timeline look at?So loads of variables,

David Levine (28:18):
absolutely, there's and there's, there's so
much to go into here. For, Ithink of it as as for, we're
talking about 70 casks, and yet,there's so much to ask and
explore about this. So the, thefirst one I wanted to go into is
this one that there's none ofthat rye left.

Matt McKay (28:38):
I mean, mate, yeah, maybe this, maybe there's some
out there. I've not heard ofany. If there is, I don't think
there's very much. Maybe a caskor two from, you know, people
who worked at the originaldistillery that they're still
holding somewhere. But yeah, inthe sort of the remaining pile
of the inventory, yeah, there's,there's, there's no, there's no
rye left. There is one cask inthe back, someone at the older

(29:02):
London distillery company wrotel bastard on it, and I can see
why, because it is a combinationof malt and rye, but there's no
100% rye left, and there's justone cask l bastard. I don't I
don't think I'm going to releaseit under that name. I don't
really know what I'm going to dowith it. It's just it's just,

(29:23):
it's a funky one. Yeah, there'snone of that rye left, which is
interesting in in terms of the,you know, the 2011 to 2020
company, that's what they cameout the door with. They came out
the door with this four year oldrye. And it was 234 pounds. And
even, even nowadays, I thinkpeople would balk at it, but in

(29:43):
2014 it was ludicrous. In myopinion, you can still buy their
original release, whereas, yeah,blowing my own trumpet a bit
here, but yeah, we did our firstrelease a week and a half ago,
and that was gone in 24 hours.But because, you know, the
world's. Moved on, and it waspriced at 89 pounds, not at 234

(30:04):
pounds. So, you know, read intothat, what you made? Yeah,

David Levine (30:08):
I mean, when I saw the price in one of the
articles, I think jokingly therewas, there's a three year old
single malt, not even rise athree year old American single
malt that came out maybe twoyears ago, up here at 175 bucks.
And, you know, personally, Ididn't particularly like it as

(30:31):
as a profile, but putting thatto the side, even if I loved it,
that's insane for for pricing.And you can like, I know you are
very much a whiskey nerd andjust nerd demand general. We
nerded out a lot last time youwere on the

Matt McKay (30:47):
podcast, did? We? Did? It was a full nerd session
last time, yeah. So

David Levine (30:51):
you know, I know you can appreciate this, that
you can tell me all you wantabout the heritage grains, the
heritage yeast, that you'vecaptured yourself somewhere, and
that you coopered your ownbarrels in the backyard, like
you can do all those things. Butat a certain point, for a three
or four year old rye in 2014like 234 pounds, is ridiculous.

Matt McKay (31:12):
It's ridiculous. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So when I
was looking at it, there's,there's a few hats at play here.
So number one is the market'smoved on. If I was doing this in
2019, or even during COVID,people were buying anything and
everything. Now, it's prettytough. It's pretty tough. It's

(31:33):
pretty tough out there foreverybody. I've got a great
story. You know, there'sheritage, there's a revival. The
ingredients are good, thewhiskey is good. I'm happy with
it, but the market's tough outthere, so coming out there with
some type of fanciful price now,super risky. Number two, there's
there's a perception of whowould London distillery company,

(31:55):
and there's a few people aroundwho remember it, but frankly,
there's loads of people who arenew to the market since it sort
of died of death. I've neverheard of it, so it's not like
reviving brora. Oh, oh,everyone's heard this legendary
the London distillery companywasn't round long enough. It
hadn't forged that reputation.So So again, I don't think you

(32:17):
can, you can be fanciful withyour pricing, because there's
just not enough people that knowit. Then, then there's the idea
of, well, what do I think isfair and, and that's an
interesting one in that, youknow, and I've said this before
when I've written about whiskey.Generally, whiskey is business.
It is business. We all love it.We're all friends, and we enjoy

(32:39):
a dram. And either that's, youknow, being dissected as a nerd
or or just as a laugh with goodcompany. But it, but it has to
be a business at the end, so ithas to make economical sense.
But for me, that that price of89 pounds, it allows me to
achieve all those things. Itallows me to go to market and
say, you should buy this andopen it and not be afraid of

(33:00):
opening it, rather than metrying my best, is to persuade
you, when times are hard, to buysomething that's quite
expensive, knowing that becauseI'd priced it so expensive, it's
going to become a snow globe,and then no one's going to taste
that whiskey, even if I'vepersuaded you as a marketeer to
buy it, you're never going toopen it. How does that then
serve me with this vision of, asI said, before the runway of,

(33:22):
you know, taking off again if noone can get liquid to lips. So,
yeah, this, this, this wasn't along, you know, internal turmoil
in my head. It was no, no, what?What do I think is the right
price for this whiskey, eventhough it's, you know, coming on
for a third of the price of thethe original, the original rye
bottling, despite being prettymuch three times the age of it.
I just think that that price isin my head. I feel, I feel it's

(33:46):
right, and having seen it sellquickly, in some ways, I feel
vindicated by that. It didn'tstick around. It didn't fly off
the shelves like a collector'sitem. It lasted 24 hours. So if
you really wanted one, you gotone perfect. And I'm just hoping
that, yeah, the last part of theequation, that, because it was

(34:07):
positioned and priced at thatway, that the people who bought
it will open it, will try it,and that will allow them to have
some actual thoughts about, youknow, the things that I've put
my effort into the bottle,rather than the prettiness on
the outside, which I also putsome effort into, but, but not
quite as much as what was insidethe bottle, because that's the
important

David Levine (34:29):
bit. Again, there's, there's a lot of things
you can go into it that we bothhave seen can increase the
price. So we generally think ofit's really more of Scotch rule.
But in Scotch rule, it's about$10 a year. Ish, it's kind of a
guideline. Maybe you go up to 12to $15 or pounds a year, if

(34:50):
you've got the heritage, ifyou've got the limited release,
if it's, I mean, you doublethat, if it's McAllen or an
electric 10 products, and it'sbut so for you. Having something
that's, you know, at minimum,between, you know, seven to 11
years old, yeah, within thatrange, yeah, right at just above

(35:11):
10, it's about 13, you know, ayear that, to me, feels very
reasonable again on paper,seeing you got the heritage
here, the heritage there, andthe more broad heritage of
reviving this, this brand. So Ihaven't tasted it yet, so I
can't give my concurring opinionon that as to whether the taste

(35:32):
meets up with that. But youknow, once, once it's available,
of course I will grab one.Something else you said that I
hadn't thought about whilereading some of the articles,
but it made me think about itwas so, as you said, the the
last iteration closes in 2020,the casks are just there.

(35:55):
They're purchased by anothercompany, and before being
purchased by Glenn Moore and youcoming on late last year, early
this year, then they're justkind of sitting there.

Matt McKay (36:06):
Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

David Levine (36:08):
So how much time? I guess now, you know it's
better way to ask that, insteadof how much time let me think
of. I know you weren't with thecompany at this point, so I'm
asking you to maybe hypothesizehere, but sure, what do you
think the folks at Glenmore werethinking, looking at this group

(36:29):
of casks, saying, Okay, there's70 odd casks available here.
They are not necessarily beentaken care of super well over
the last four or five years. Whytake a gamble on them.

Matt McKay (36:42):
It's a good question. I mean, effectively,
I'll answer it. I think I cananswer this. So Glenmore is,
it's a pretty big companynowadays, not enormous, not not
edging to not Diageo, but interms of the worlds of
producers, it's sizable.There's, you know, 1000s of cars

(37:03):
up at the car storage that arefeeding into various projects
such as rare find. Andeffectively, the way to make,
you know, the way to make thisbusiness work at some scale, is
not buying one cask and sellingone cask, you know. And I think
actually nowadays even thatmight be quite tricky, depending
on what you've bought, what youpaid, and the market. The way to

(37:26):
make this market work has alwaysbeen and the likes particularly
from independent bottle aside,the likes of Gordon and McPhail
and SMWS understand this is topurchase in bulk, so you buy
more for a lower price, and thenyou you manage what you're doing
with that. You you put intoplace systems in terms of how

(37:48):
you're managing those casts,what you're doing with them, to
ensure that you haven't justbought loads of stuff and
there's no idea what to do withit. So in a sense of London
distillery company, it's very onmode for Glenn Moore to look at
that and go, right, okay, I haveno idea where they got the cast
from and what they paid from itin terms of the actual process,
but they would have seen amarket there in terms of, right?

(38:08):
We're buying this as one lot.Not I will have one. We'll have
one. We'll have, you know, thiswas all one purchase, and then
once they'd effectively got thewarehousing in England so that
these casks are, even thoughthey don't necessarily need to
be, they will be gi compliant,because they they have spent

(38:28):
their life maturing in Englandand still mature in England. And
then the last part of theequation is to bring me on board
as as as the check and thebalance. Say, right, let's do
something proper with these.Let's, let's realize the sort of
concept that we've bought intohere. Equally, all of that has
to come back to some faith inthe Spirit. They weren't bought

(38:49):
blind. They had sampled some ofthe casks. I dare say they tried
a few of the good ones.Otherwise, otherwise they
wouldn't have purchased it. Youknow, my owners and backers are
sensible whiskey people in thatsense. But I know for a fact
that, like me, that story, thatsort of the idea of unfinished
business that really appeals tothem, the idea of people have

(39:11):
had a crack at this and failed.Let's see if we can succeed. And
that certainly appeals to oursort of sense of adventure with
whiskey that we do want to. Wedo want to push the boundaries
and do things that that otherpeople, yeah, might not
necessarily take on, andcertainly London distillery as
Hey Matt, can you, how quicklycan you get this all up and

(39:33):
running? And yeah, five monthslater, here I am, yeah, they've
really pushed me, and I'm thesort of person that responds
well to the sort of instructionof, off you go. So, yeah, for
me, that sort of idea, and Ithink it's why it's all at the
minute, again, touch woodworking really well is that the
sort of the whole Glenmore teamand myself all have that similar

(39:55):
mentality around, you know,looking at something in terms
of. Of what came before, butthen also thinking about what
could come after, rather than,okay, that seems like a good
deal. We'll buy that without aplan or okay, this is amazing,
but it actually doesn't haveanywhere to go. So it's yeah,
it's sensible business decisionswith hopefully sensible outcomes

(40:20):
in terms of where you got them,what you paid for them, and then
your vision in terms of what youwant to achieve afterwards. And
certainly, Glenmore distillsvarious spirits, but doesn't
distill any whiskey. They're aproducer and bottler, not a
distiller. So the idea that thecompany could have a distillery
behind them, albeit in London,that still has some romantic

(40:43):
appeal to all the members of thecompany.

David Levine (40:46):
You can see that. I mean, we could see that in
just there's several examplesrecently of independent
bottlers, producers, NDPs,eventually bringing on a still.
You know, I look at Adelphi orplaces like that, who have done
exactly that, yep, yeah, thatalso made me think so. The

(41:09):
Battersea site is gone, as wesaid before. I'm assuming with
it, the still was gone as

Matt McKay (41:15):
well. Yeah, the only thing remaining is the name, the
fact that it occurred, thehistory and and those, those
legacy casts, that's it.

David Levine (41:25):
So, you know, you've said, you you haven't,
you never got a chance tooperate the original stills. No
still, I should say it was a 650liter copper pot still named
Matilda, the I'm thinking ofthis from a standpoint of the
eventual, I guess, the eventual,as you say, runway portion. But

(41:47):
also looking backward the groupthat closed in 2020, that
iteration, as I understand it,was not necessarily a great
closure,

Matt McKay (41:59):
as I understand it as well? Yeah, yes.

David Levine (42:02):
So I'm I'm curious if there was a thought to or has
there been any communicationwith that group about what was
made, what was used, or is itreally as much of a fresh start
while using those casts as

Matt McKay (42:20):
possible? The former. I have certainly spoken
to some of the original membersof the team, just to get their
thoughts on the vision, whatthey were doing, how they're
approaching it, as part of, as Isaid, you know, the early stages
of taking on this project werewhat's in front of me, and then

(42:40):
what went in to make it so,yeah, I've spoken to a number of
original tltc employees just toget their different takes on the
production and particularly themindset that went into making
that, that single Mold backthen. Yeah,

David Levine (42:59):
if you were to have your way going forward. Do
you think you would want toreplicate the same style? Still?

Matt McKay (43:07):
No. So I think there's a number of projects out
there where, and yeah, bro andpoor Ellen are good examples
here where you've got suchimmense historical resource and
finances, frankly, behind you,that you can say, right, we're

(43:30):
going to make a direct one toone replica of absolutely
everything that was done, or atleast the stills. I don't know
if anything else will be directreplica, but at least the
stills, equally the originalstills were a partial design by
the original founder, Darrenrook. They're a custom design of
still. I have different views,as my background is in craft

(43:54):
production and heritage methods.I have different different views
on plant setup and use ofequipment. So I'll, I'll say
already we won't be replicatingthe stills. I think that's
that's not making a good use oftime and money. We can do other
things that would be better, andthat the fans of London

(44:16):
distillery will approve morethan spending all the effort
trying to just replicateparticular set of apparatus,
what I can handle on heart sayis that we will be replicating
the original vision as much aswe can. So that means sticking
to heritage grain. I can't see afuture London distillery that

(44:37):
doesn't have that at its verycore. And it means sticking with
breweries yeast, whether it'sthe exact same yeasts and
grains, I really can't answerthat. Some of those grains are
hellishly expensive, even morethan they used to be. And
equally, it has to work as aspirit. I don't think there's

(44:58):
any point in trying to offer. Ofthe past, and then you put it
all together, and you don't likethe result, but you push ahead
with it anyway, because thoseare exactly what they did. I
think that where the New Londonstory company can honor the past
is by taking that concept ofusing those traditional methods

(45:18):
that was used to make whiskeyover 100 years ago, and using
the basis of that rather thanthe identical matrix of it, just
to continue forward, but to makesure that whatever we're doing
in terms of that combination ofgrain mash, mash apparatus, mash
parameters, the ferment style,length, all that stuff actually

(45:42):
produces really quality spirit.So that's the way I'm going to
approach it. So yeah, if andwhen we move on to the
distillery stage touch wood,hopefully won't be too long, you
can expect that vision tocontinue. But equally, you know,
when you looked at the originalLondon distillery company, they
weren't just about, you know,diving into the past. They were

(46:02):
about diving into the past toinnovate for the future. And so
I can do that again bycontinuing those elements of the
past, but my innovation for thefuture is literally not to not
to copy them. You know, there'smany things about iterations of
London distillery company that Idon't want to copy. One of those

(46:23):
is failing. So I think, I thinkthere's a, I'm not going to call
it cherry picking, but I thinkthere's, there's, there's a
little bit of a sense checkaround what elements one should
think of as historicallyimportant to preserve and useful
for a future tldc, and thenactually what innovations I can

(46:44):
bring in terms of my experiencein various parts of craft
distilling, and the apparatusthat I have used, and the sort
of influences that those typesof regimes and types of
equipment bring to making smallbatch whiskey. And I think what
you'll see, if we make a successof it, is effectively some sort
of merger, some coalescence ofall of that into one.

David Levine (47:11):
So part of having this revival and Renaissance, as
the bottle will say to me,there's also this sense of
place, the idea that you aredistilling in London. Clearly,
the original, original iterationdidn't quite work, but it was in

(47:31):
London. The second iterationkind of worked for a little bit,
and then didn't also in inLondon. Now, London, before 2011
it had been over a century, asyou said, before since the last
distillery had been active, letalone founded in London, when

(47:52):
you were at your previouslocations. This was also kind of
a thought that you had to do, ofthe sense of place, of where,
Bimber was, where dunfail was tobe at the time we spoke, in
London, there's, there are now anumber of distilleries. We're
not talking, you know, 50, all50 of the English distilleries
in London, of course, but thereare several. And so do you feel

(48:16):
like there has been anestablishment of, what a a
London style whiskey is?

Matt McKay (48:24):
No, I don't think there's even an establishment of
what an English whiskey reallyis, in terms of trying to coop
it all up into a bottle and say,this is, this is what an English
whiskey is. And that's differentto a scotch whiskey in that way,
I think you can make a number ofassertions when it comes to

(48:47):
English whiskey in terms of whatdefines it independence. We
haven't yet had the big boysstep in and buy out all the
distilleries. But stylistically,I think what makes English
whiskey exciting right now, andtherefore London whiskey, no, I
do not believe you can say, ifyou look at my previous
employers, vest style, supergood, super clean, super fruity,

(49:11):
amazing whiskey. Compare thatover to distillery East London
liquor making completelydifferent styles. They're
playing with different grainsstylistically. There's, there's,
there's no difference there.There's no similarity there.
Rather, then then look atLondon's proposition, which is
is more on the traditional side,but with a focus on old school

(49:33):
barley and old school yeast thatbears no semblance to what's
happening at bimbo or EastLondon liquor. So I think one of
the reasons why English whiskey,at the beginning, we spoke about
this explosion, this sort ofrecognition, that, wow, English
whiskey was not really a bigthing, if it ever was a little

(49:54):
bit now, it's now it's a thing.There's lots of different
there's lots of different thingsto explore. And I think part of.
What's driven that is, is thatvariance all the distilleries,
certainly the ones that I knowwell, they're all full of
passion, and they take makingtheir whiskey really seriously.
And they've all got their ownunique twists on what makes

(50:15):
their whiskey in the same waythat you find in Scotland, you
know that's that's a sort ofdeveloping maturing industry.
But equally, the fact thatthey're also diverse means it's
really an exciting playground toexplore from a single point
single malt point of view. Andfor me, looking at launching a
blended whiskey shortly fromfrom a components point of view.
You know, all these differentstyles, if they if they were all

(50:37):
the same, and you could justsimply stick a name tag on it
and say, Well, this is Londonwhiskey. That would make me a
bit sad, because then it wouldall be a bit similar, and you'd
have less crayons in your box topaint pretty pictures. So now
I'm going to push back on thatone entirely. I don't believe, I
don't believe there's anythingyou could say other than around

(50:58):
quality, around passion, aroundindependence and yeah, around
almost literally the opposite, Iwould say, as a benefit, the
diversity is what makes Englishrisky strong right now. This is

David Levine (51:13):
also looking into the crystal ball a bit, but as
you're establishing yourself asthe linen distillery, silly,
excuse me, the London distillerycompany, tldc. Just gonna say
tldc. It's easier in my brainright now. Yep, that's fine. So
you're envisioning a having aphysical location at some point,

(51:33):
you said, right now, yourdistillery without walls, which
fits the situation right now.Yep, I'm curious as being part
of the of the city. When I thinkof distilleries that are in
cities, this is a very broadstatement, but I think they're
usually more in the industrialareas. They're alongside the
river or not in the central citybecause there's just one is too

(51:54):
expensive, but there's not rightzoning, space, all that kind of
thing. So as you're looking intoyour crystal ball as to the next
path on the runway. Are therecertain areas that you would
kind of love to be in that makethe most sense for you?

Matt McKay (52:13):
Good question. Yeah. I mean, everyone would love to
have a distillery right smackbang in the city. You've
identified a couple of theproblems. There's a lack of
space and it's bloody expensive.Equally, licensing, it varies
from where you are, and ifyou're in areas of heavy

(52:34):
residential build upconcentration, yeah, good luck.
I think the chances of, youknow, getting a distillery in
one of those areas is, is quitesmall. There are examples, but,
yeah, you're really up againstit to do that outside of that. I
honestly don't have any ideasyet. David, I'm trying not, you

(52:54):
know, I'm trying not to. I heardthe expression the other day. I
think it's a German translation.I'm trying not to move to church
out of the village. I'm tryingto do one, one thing at a time.
Yeah, we know where we want tobe heading, but until we sort of
pull the trigger that, yeah,we're going to be, we're going
to be pushing ahead with this.It's almost real crystal balling

(53:14):
to say, oh, wouldn't it be niceto, I don't know, to have a
distillery, and who knows, letme think of something stupid,
yeah, on the grounds of thetower London. Wouldn't that be
amazing? Of course it would.But, you know, it's not going to
happen. And there's going to bemany other examples where that
are sort of less fanciful intheir nature, but still, for

(53:35):
reason X or reason why, are justnot, you know, just very
difficult or impossible tohappen. I live northwest London,
so a distillery in northwestLondon would be great for me. A
distillery was somewhere topark, would, would, would
certainly be much easier than mylast operation in London.
Outside of that, though, Idon't, I don't really want to be

(53:55):
drawn on something that Ihaven't actually thought about.
So watch this space, yeah,fingers crossed. Hopefully it
continues to go well, and thennext time I come on, I can say,
hey, yeah, we chose that site,and it's actually X. That would
be nice, sir. It's kind

David Levine (54:13):
of funny to think about having a distillery on the
Tower of London grounds, becauseof course, it would never
happen. I don't think so, no,but you, in some ways, like
you're right on the river,you've got plenty of traffic
stone. I know a lot. I know someof it is when we were there two
years ago or so. Plenty of it iswoodwork, but a lot of it is

(54:34):
stone, which, you know,generally, explosion proof,
fireproof, all the things youneed for a distillery, and
probably good for aging somecasks too. So just putting it

Matt McKay (54:44):
you go, David, you heard it here first, the
Campaign for tldc to be locatedat the tower London. Here we go.
Started with you. I think it'llbe, I think it'll be super easy.
I can't imagine what the problemwill be. I'm sure the king will
be well up for

David Levine (54:58):
it, absolutely. Well, we know. It well, he loves
his whiskey, but I think heloves his Scotch more so well,

Matt McKay (55:05):
he's la Foy drinker. Yes,

David Levine (55:07):
yeah, although I take it back the high grove with
cottold is one of his estates.So

Matt McKay (55:14):
exactly

David Levine (55:18):
looking again just in the last couple of minutes. I
do want to touch on one of thenerdier side, which was the
yeast, you said, and the barleythat you're gonna be using. Is
it the barley and the yeastthat? Well, let's just stick
with the bar. The barley thatwas being used in the last
iteration is now very expensive,more expensive than it was back
then, and would lead to whatsounds like a prohibitive cost

(55:41):
for the consumer at the end ofthings, you know, gaming,

Matt McKay (55:45):
like, yeah. I mean, I haven't explored this yet. I
will, but my gut instinct is,you know, yes, Cotswolds, yeah,
they've done some, some from thesame, same estate. The high
grave estate is where tldc gotits original heritage barley.
They do one release. I just haveEngland. I just don't think

(56:08):
economically, for a business, adistillery, that when you're
looking at drawing all of all,not just some, all of your
barley from that particularsource. I just don't know if
that's going to work. So, yeah,off the cuff, where I'm thinking
at the minute is effectively notlooking at plumage Archer, and
it's looking at the the son ordaughter thereof, which is

(56:32):
Marisol, to which is still oldstyle. Old Style. Barley got a
real character. Again, sort ofbrewers. Barley had had position
in the industry before it wasreplaced by the likes of Diablo
concerto and now Laurier. Andthat might be again, when we're
talking about what I may or maynot do and honoring the past.

(56:52):
That might be one of thosechanges that you're still
sticking to. You know, heritagestyle grain. It's just not the
exact same one that was used inthe previous iteration of tldc,
because otherwise, yeah, I thinkyou're right. You end up doing
it. And yeah, the cost perbottle will absolutely rock it
up nowadays.

David Levine (57:11):
And I don't know how the agricultural business is
going in England for this, Ionly have the comparison of rye
being grown or different strainsof corn being grown here in the
US, it took a long time, adecade plus, for many of these
variants to be grown at at scaleand at a reasonable scale, price
wise. Then you add in the extratime past post that to distill

(57:34):
and age it. So we're talking along time out in the future for
that. So without, you know,asking you to put a number on
that's the number looking for,or distance, how, how open are
you willing to be? You think, inin like, how far you're looking
out into the field. No punintended for where the, you

(57:54):
know, where the barley hasgrown, where you can get this,

Matt McKay (57:58):
sure. So, I mean, obviously it goes without saying
it will be English barley. Imean, to some people, that might
seem obvious. To others, theymight not have even thought
about it. There are many, manysources of barley. England,
particularly southern England,is a huge supplier, even if
barley used to make scotch,which some people might be

(58:20):
surprised by but it's true,where would I be looking? I
mean, I would start, I wouldstart by talking to the monsters
that I've worked with before atboth dumb fail and at Bimba. And
I'd start talking to them about,you know, the styles of heritage
barley that they do have accessto. And we'd look at costs, we'd

(58:41):
look at crops, we'd look atnitrate levels, and then we'd
start to go to meet some farmersand to talk about what they're
doing. Certainly, a relationshiplike that is crucial for me.
Your crucial relationships, youknow, they're not just your
staff and your customers,they're your your component,
your ingredient suppliers, soyour monster your farmers, your

(59:06):
yeast suppliers, that they'reall absolutely vital to have a
great relationship with, and soyou want to work with people
that you just feel that you knowyou have a rapport With, in my
opinion, equally, that have theright credentials. But also in
terms of farming, the have thecredentials that their crops are

(59:31):
consistent, and I don't meanconsistent in terms of the yield
that you're getting for yourwhiskey. When you're looking at
Heritage barley, you're alreadylooking at a type of, a type of
strain that is not particularlyhigh yielding compared to the
likes of modern day concerto andLaurier. But you're looking at
the fact that you know, Doesthat, does that farmer who's

(59:52):
growing grain X, do they have aconsistent enough crop every
single year, pretty much, tosupply you with your maltney?
It's already a bit up and down,and you might find that every
three years there's, there's nobarley, and well, what you're
going to do then? So it's thosetype of relationships to work
on. Then there's a little bit oftrial and error, you know,

(01:00:14):
you've got to start, you've gotto start to make some
assumptions about what you wantto do and what you're going to
achieve in the quality ofbarley. But then you've got to
do some test runs on the stillsand see how it comes out,
recognizing that, until you'vedone it, everything is, you
know, there is some sciencethere. There is but there's also
a little bit of guesswork and alittle bit of magic, let's be

(01:00:35):
honest. So you do as muchscience as you can. You do as
much level headed thinking asyou can, and then you wait to
see the proof is in the pudding.Yeah. So that's absolutely that
approach is the approach I'vealways worked around, and I have
no intention of changing thatapproach at all,

David Levine (01:00:51):
and wouldn't be the show without asking too. You
mentioned earlier, this is athey were using. The previous
iteration was using whip breadB, classic brewery strain of
yeast, and then Young's 1920sdistillers yeast. Yep, you know
most, most distillers now,they're going for yield. They're
using either an mm or MX, yeah.So as there's, there's art here,

(01:01:16):
you got to see what you can getwith the barley and what yeast
might work with that. But itsounds to me, and just knowing
you that you have a couple yeastvarieties in mind that you might
want to work with,

Matt McKay (01:01:29):
yeah, certainly I won't be pegged on telling
exactly what I'm hoping to do,because then I might end up
doing something completelydifferent. And then someone will
say, Oh, well, you were talkingto David and you said this. And
I say, Yeah, but so I'm notgoing to do that, but yeah,
certainly looking at combinationyeasts, so looking at getting

(01:01:50):
different aspects from onestyle. You know, that's why a
combination of brewers yeast anddistillers lead yeast, although
fundamentally, you're achievingthe same thing, you're achieving
conversion into alcohol esters,CO two release, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah. The fact thatyou're using two strains in
combination does achievedifferent things in terms of
flavor production, and I mindedto look at it the same way. So

(01:02:14):
to look at old school styleyeasts, which, in my opinion,
are perhaps they don't curve outquite as predictably as some of
the super stable, super highperforming M based strains, but
they do give us. They do give alot of character. And so yeah,
I'm not planning on tldcbecoming some type of yeast

(01:02:35):
experimentation factory. I wastalking about this at a festival
not that long ago. And I do feelstrongly that if you have a
distillery and you want toexperiment with absolutely every
variable, you will invariably bethe master of none. I think
every distillery, if you'regoing to experiment, pick the
one thing that you're interestedand do that. So when it comes to

(01:02:57):
yeast, rich retributiondistilling really, really is the
in terms of English whiskey,he's the man. He's the guy doing
all sorts of different excitingthings with it. So I think what
you can see from me is somethoughtful yeast selection in
terms of sticking to heritageand crafting quality spirit. But
you're not going to see mechopping and changing it all the

(01:03:17):
time and doing this and that andthe other and now it's this
strain and this strain, I think,I think TDL sees strength is in
sticking to those roots in, youknow, we're doing something that
no one else is doing, and it'sthe combination of heritage with
with 1920s and old style brewersthat that's for uniqueness. It's
not necessarily Well, we weredoing that last week, but this

(01:03:39):
week, yeah, we're going to playaround with Creek Creek yeast,
and we can be bumping thetemperatures up to 30 degrees
just to see what happens. That'sthat's the sort of thing I do in
my garden, with my with my mashkit. That's not the sort of
thing I'm going to do

David Levine (01:03:52):
professionally. Often I might ask you for an
intro to richer distribution,because that sounds exactly like
the nerdy

Matt McKay (01:03:58):
stuff. Absolutely. Rich is wonderful, and I dare
say, even more geeky than me. SoSo you, you would love it. And
yeah, he can give a differentperspective on what he's doing
with English whiskey. He's abrilliant guy. I'd happily give
you an introduction. He'd bereally good on your podcast.
Really good.

David Levine (01:04:16):
Fantastic. Alright, so I got a last
question for you, and then Iwill let you go, which is, given
the volume we've talked about,given the casks, the the runway,
yeah, what are your initialmarkets that you're looking at?

Matt McKay (01:04:28):
Sure, so at the minute, it's UK, and it's purely
UK right now, and that's goingto be the case for a few months
time. There isn't the volumeinitially or even the ability of
myself and the team to take thiswhiskey and say, Hey, we're

(01:04:49):
introducing tldc to the world.And indeed, I think that would
be, that would be repeatingmistakes of the past. I think
you need to. You need. To buildslowly. You need to get a fan
base going. You need people inthe community to understand what
you're doing and appreciate it.So at the minute, yeah, it's
certainly UK, and that's myinitial focus. Then as we ramp

(01:05:14):
up a bit, and you will seelarger releases from us next
year and broader releases as wemove forward, then I'm prepared
to, you know, talk to friends,be that in the US or in certain
European countries, but therehas to be a recognition right
now that with well less than 70casts, because I've just put a
release out with that amount ofspirit volume, yeah, world

(01:05:39):
domination couldn't seem furtheraway. But equally, that's not my
goal either. So my goal, when itwould come to expanding the
market would would would be toensure that we are whoever we
work with. We're targeting theright people, and the right
people for this particularwhiskey is the whiskey geeks.
This is not a release you'regoing to see on, you know, your

(01:06:03):
random liquor store when you sawthe Cotswolds release, it's,
it's, perhaps, I don't know thequality of that store. Maybe
that store is full of, full ofwhiskey geeks, but, and if it is
great, but, yeah, in the UK,this isn't going to be on the
shelf of a random alcohol storeor in a pub or anything like
that. We don't have the volumeand equally and when, when we do
get you over a sample to tryDavid, you'll see the heritage

(01:06:26):
grain that the it's, it's got areally dense, discernible,
spicy, almost rye like characterto it. So it is with the best
will in the world. It's, it'snot a beginner whiskey, and I'm
not minded to blend it, to makeit a beginner whiskey, because
it never was. So I'd be tryingto push it into a shape that it

(01:06:49):
wouldn't naturally sit in. Soyeah, however we expand, and
it's, you know, it's only beenfive months. It's been 20 weeks,
so let's keep this quite awhile. Yeah, 20 weeks I've been
at this project, so I've notdone too badly. But yeah,
there's a there's a bit more tocome. Yeah, with the best will
in the world, it will be awhiskey that will appeal to a

(01:07:12):
certain type of person, acertain type of drinker and
that, and that's the sort of themore people who like higher
strength, deeper flavor,exploratory whiskeys, rather
than your sort of easy sippers.That said, part of the blending
project to introduce theupcoming golden union is the
strength is lower. Those aregoing to be 50% the flavor

(01:07:32):
profiles are a little bit moreaccessible. So, you know, I'm
not, I'm not an idiot in thatsense that I'm ruling out the
whole of the market by makingone thing that doesn't appeal,
but I have to recognize that theoriginal London stock without
absolutely sort of bastardizingit into a frankincense thing
that it never was meant to be inthat it's, it's sort of its

(01:07:54):
target market and audienceactually already exist, and it
doesn't really require me to tryand force it anywhere. And it's
partly why the company, I think,failed at the time. You know,
price aside at the time, thestyle of whiskey that they were
making, people weren'tinterested in craft whiskey. You
know, it was too early. Butcraft whiskey, what's, what's

(01:08:16):
this? What? Why are you makingthings that are different and
taste different? And whereasnowadays that's, that's plat du
jour, people actively lookingfor that. So I'm not trying to
force the spirit anywhere itdoesn't want to go. And I'm not
trying to force the whiskey, theactual bottle product, into
markets where, you know, thepeople aren't there who are
going to appreciate that type ofthing. But there's a long way to

(01:08:38):
go. You know, this is a the nexttime you have me on, be that in
a year or five years, or 10years, or whatever, I'll have a
completely different perspectiveon things. It's just where we're
at right now in terms of whatI've got, what we've been able
to achieve in half a year, andwhere we think the future lies.
It's just a good question toalways keep coming back to and
like, were you right? And onsome things I will be on, and

(01:08:59):
some things I won't

David Levine (01:09:00):
be I'm pretty confident I'll be here in a
year. If I don't know if I'll behere on in five years or 10
years, but we will be sure tocame up. Matt, thank you so much
for taking the time talked aboutthe new venture. I'm really
excited to try it and talk moreabout it. Hang on for just 30
seconds, and then I'll let yougo once again. It's been the
London distillery company, abrand new but old venture now

(01:09:25):
headed by, I think I'll say thevenerable Matt McKay, who. What
can I say? I trust his palette,so I'm looking forward to
tasting it, and I hope you allwill do the same if you get the
opportunity. Thanks everyone forlistening. I'll see you all next
week. You.