Ep. 201: Holyrood Distillery with Co-Founder Rob Carpenter & Distillery Manager Calum Rae

Episode Transcript
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David Levine (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of The

(00:03):
whiskering Podcast. Today we'regoing over to Scotland. It's
actually to a city we have notbeen to in Scotland before, one
of the ones that I've gotten tovisit, one of my favorites,
going to Edinburgh and talkabout a distiller. It's a new
distillery. It's the first onein Edinburgh in the modern era.
And we're talking about Holyrooddistillery. We've got Caleb on

(00:25):
Caleb Ray, we've got Robcarpenter. And we're going to
just dive right in, becausewe've got a lot of questions. No
way in hell I'm getting to allof them. So we're going to try
as best we can to get to them.So just throwing up to both you
Holyrood was sorry. Hollywoodwas publicly announced in 2015
and open to the public in Julyof 19. As you know, the first

(00:46):
distillery in Edinburgh in inthe modern era, let's say the
first new one in the modern era.In just four years, you were up
to winning distillery of theYear from icons of whiskey in
2024 another sort of the year in2025 briefly, you know what?
What's the origin story for howthis got started?

Calum Rae (01:05):
I'll let you take this one. Bob

Rob Carpenter (01:07):
fair Fair enough. Origin story really was about
trying to build something inEdinburgh and and bringing
whiskey distillery back toEdinburgh. And, you know, there
was a there was a goal there, totry to do something as centrally
as possible in Edinburgh, sothat we could connect with as

(01:30):
many people as we possiblycould. That meant, you know, it
was going to be a very urbandistillery. So very different in
that sense. But David Robertson,my co founder, and I really from
the get go, wanted to challengethe current thinking of scotch

(01:52):
whisky. We wanted to giveconsumers a choice. We wanted to
create bold, provocative,interesting whiskeys that people
would talk about, not what wesaw in the industry at the time,
and frankly, still do, which isa bit safe, predictable, you
know, the age statements,regions, etc. So Hollywood was

(02:17):
created with quite a differentmindset.

And I want mention that David Robertson is a former
McAllen master distiller, which,in a way, is an interesting
flip, because it's McAllen youthink of as this flagship of
what Scotch is considered. It'sthe flagship of a lot of single
malt thought, and, of course,some of the most expensive in
the world. So for him to go fromthat to the outline you just

(02:44):
described must have been quite aI don't know if it's a challenge
for him, but was there a shiftthat he had to undertake to have
the mindset that came to beHolly rude?

Well, David is a very, very interesting guy, and
he's very much His own, His ownthinker. He grew up in the
whiskey industry. His dad was adistillery manager. You know
David last about his first jobbeing parking attendant in the
McAllen when he was 14 or 15 orsomething. And he's always been

(03:19):
in the industry. So yes, he wasmaster distiller at the McAllen,
and I think you know that, andhe was the youngest master
distiller at the McKellen. But,you know, and most people in the
industry would have said, Oh,that's the dream job. And you
stay with that, and, you know,be become one of the great icons

(03:40):
of the industry. And I think alot of people were surprised
when David said, Yeah, I've donethat. You know, interesting, but
you know, there's more things Iwant to do in the industry and
in my life, frankly. And youknow, he's one of the people who
likes learning new things,trying new things, challenging

(04:03):
himself. And so he, he moved onand again, no, I think a lot of
people were surprised by that.So he had done some other
interesting things betweenMichael and and Holyrood. But
you know, he, he is one of thosepeople who loves learning new
stuff, and he likes thinkingabout things and challenging. He

(04:27):
certainly challenges me. So,yeah, it's not that big a
stretch in terms of, you know,if you know David, it's not that
big a stretch for him to justsort of take a fairly strong
stance in terms of what he seesin the in the industry, and what
he, you know, wants to try to doto sort of challenge that a bit,

as you mentioned, this is the first new distillery
in the city in Edinburgh since.Is, it says modern era that's
usually referred to as likesince prohibition ish in the US,
but there was a tradition ofdistilling in the city prior to
them, in the 19 or 1800s andearly 1900s What if you know,

(05:17):
you know what caused this breakthat nothing else was built, or
no new distillers were built inthe city until you guys came
along.

Callum, do you want to tackle that?

Calum Rae (05:32):
Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's, there's probably a
mixture of things. I mean, youknow, the as the city, you know,
got bigger and bigger as citiestend to do as they exist. I
think the challenges of, youknow, the boring stuff, like
your logistics of having adistillery in the middle of a
city, you know, we're flyingvery much in the face of that
now, but I think those pressuresthat were around at the time,

(05:55):
certainly, you know, you know,historical things like kind of
post, post post wars, both ofthem definitely contributed to
that. You know, a lot of thekind of distilleries that were
based there moved into otherthings, you know, like arms
match manufacture and stuff atthe time, and there's all those
kind of pressures. But also, Ithink a primary thing to think

(06:18):
of is that Edinburgh was verymuch its history is very much
rooted in beer. It's actuallysort of, as far as Scotland is
concerned, it's much more wellknown. It's brewing side of
things. And I think thatdefinitely had a part to play. A

(06:40):
lot of the distilleries that wekind of know now that were
around off, they actually turneda lot and turned into breweries
originally, and kept going forsome time as well. The thing
that's quite interesting withEdinburgh was actually it was a
whiskey hot spot. It did haveits distilleries there, but it
was more so in terms of bringingwhiskey from other parts of

(07:02):
Scotland, and then kind of beingthat gateway to the rest of the
world. You know, all thedistilleries that were kind of
going in the Highlands andIslands and a lot of those kind
of only came to the fore ofpeople's minds because there was
a lot of great independentbottlers in Edinburgh who were,
you know, finding thesedistilleries, some of them

(07:22):
legal, some of them maybe notquite so legal back then, and
finding a way to take that andbring it to the rest of the UK,
and then further on, Europe andthe rest of the world following
on from that. So I think if youkind of really dig into it's
probably something reallyboring, like just some sort of
change in tax probably, youknow, but it's kind of perfect
storm of a cultural change and alove for brewing and beer, and,

(07:45):
like I say, a kind of shift intonot being producers of whiskey
so much, but definitely beingstrong advocates for it. And you
know, as much as we're new, youknow, there's still, there's a
old grain distillery NorthBritish and Edinburgh that's
been there for a long time. It'sa staple of the city. So there
has always been a, you know, avery small flame still burning

(08:06):
for distillation in Edinburgh,but we're delighted to be, you
know, stoking the fire back upto be a proper beacon of
whiskey. Again,

I think it's fair to say, when I, when I say new
distillery, I should have editedthat to be single malt, because
you're right, North British isthere? That's, it's slightly
more than a small flamecontinuing to burn. So, you
know, Rob, you mentionedregionality. Can we reach you're

(08:35):
talking about beer also, I'msorry, Kalem or Callum. I want
to make sure I'm saying this,right?

Calum Rae (08:41):
So, all right, it's a Callum, but okay, it's been
mispronounced much worse thanthat in the past. So don't worry
too much. No, I

make it a point. I want to get as close I can say
Callum. Okay, that's what Ithought. And I was like, All
right, anyway, so you bothmentioned topics we're going to
come back to for sure in thisinterview, I wanted to dive in
first with this idea of being anurban distillery, and your your
proximity to city center, thatyou are a half hour walk from

(09:09):
from the Old City. You're in abuilding that was built in the
mid 1800s for a railway. Got afun fact on that one. And you
know you're you're close enoughto civilian structures that you
can only operate between 8am and8pm so no 24/7 shifts. I'm
curious about this aspect ofcalling an urban distillery.

(09:30):
Clearly, I don't, I don't knowif it is of a definition for
urban distillery that you guyswould not fulfill. So no
question about that. But itfeels like maybe in comparing
the UK standards to what we havein in New York City, for
example, like we havedistilleries within city limits,
but they're mostly like on theedges. They're in industrial

(09:53):
zones. They're in buildings thathave been zoned for this for a
long time. You would never havesomething without. Of stills and
maturation, you know, in city.And I know you guys don't do
maturation in city, but youknow, point being the same. Do
you feel like there's a littlemore allowance for having a
distillery in properly in a cityin the UK? I

Calum Rae (10:18):
think that's an interesting question. I think,
you know, the precedent is verysimilar to what you've outlined
there. Of it's much more commonto find it on, you know, an
industrial estate on theoutskirts of town. You know, the
classic, obviouslyquintessential, Scottish
distillery, sort of ideal, ismiddle of a glen somewhere, and

(10:39):
there's sheep cutting aboutinside, outside and stuff like
that. So, I mean, yeah, I thinkwe are a bit of an outlier. I
mean, I guess the answer wouldbe yes, there is more of a
provision, because we exist, butit's not something that I was
aware of before I came toHolyrood, for example. It's not
something that I'd really comeacross in the UK myself, but you

(11:02):
tend to kind of hear, there's aquite a few places, you know,
maybe not just in Scotland, butthe rest of the UK where it's
maybe now becoming more commonto have it, you know, in the
heart of the city. But I thinkthat's also what helps make us a
little bit special as well. Youknow, it's, it's a unique thing
that we could be, you know,literally working away on the
stills. And you look out thewindow and, you know, you can

(11:24):
see somebody cutting the grassoutside in their garden. It's
quite a unique, interestingthing, and I think actually
helps us build a bit of acommunity as well. But that's my
rambling Rob would want

to turn Yeah, I'm not sure I've ever thought about
it in quite the same way, interms of comparing what's maybe
allowable in Scotland or the UKwith what might be allowable
elsewhere, but, but I guessyou're right. You know, there
are a lot of distilleries inNorth America are on the edges

(12:01):
of commercial zones orindustrial zones, or light
industrial or or something, andthey're in old warehouses. And I
guess we're in an old warehouseas well, but a very, very old
warehouse, and not somethingfrom the 50s or 60s. But I think
Scotland is probably just moreopen minded as well. You know,

(12:26):
with all the distilleries and soon in the country, it's just
part of the culture, in a way.And so I just there wasn't a lot
of opposition, to be honest,from the community, or certainly
from planners, we didn't haveany, any real challenge with the

(12:47):
planners. They went, look,you've done the engineering. You
guys know what you're doing.It's safe. You know, we'll apply
the right fire requirements toit. It's all good. So here we
are.

And like I said, the building itself, it's a
former warehouse railroadTerminus. I know it's
questionable whether any trainsactually ever sat in the
building was likely more likecoal storage and hay storage for
when the when horses stillpulled the carriages, but in
that way, I think was probablyalready built. You know, pretty,

(13:27):
pretty strongly that's the rightword. Well, you know, a lot of
stone, it's not going to go onfire easily. It's not going to
fall down with some shaking oranything. So might as well throw
in the fun fact about thatbuilding, now that it was the
terminus for the terminus forthe innocent Railroad, which was
called the innocent railroadlisteners, because nobody died

(13:49):
during the building of it, and Iheard that, I was like, wow,
what was the standards have beenand it's remembered for when
someone didn't die during thebuilding of a railroad versus so
anyway, so calend to your point.You know you're in a place where

(14:09):
you can look outside the windowand you see someone cutting
their lawn the the originalbusiness plan and countless
would have been before youjoined in 21 right? So, you
know, Rob, this is really to youas well. The original business
plan relied heavily on tourists,and it said it opened in July of
2019 not auspicious timing, butyou didn't know that at the

(14:33):
time. So, you know that plan wasdashed due to covid, and you did
a great pivot. You now speak ofwanting Hollywood to be
Edinburgh's local distillery, topull in those locals, to be
somewhere where locals want togo. And then the tourism will
come naturally, as it just picksup again post covid, you're
getting 2.5 million visitors ayear to the city, so you're

(14:53):
going to get at least partialfoot traffic to the distiller,
just from that you. Speaking tothat local reception, both in
the iterative phase of buildingthe distillery, building it out,
and now having tourists comingand all of that, what has that
local reception in both hyperlocally and city wide?

Well, during the development of the project, we
we were very careful to try toinvolve, you know, locals,
people in the community. Invitethem along for Q and A sessions,
sort of, you know, what youmight call, you know,
neighborhood consultation and,you know, trying to answer

(15:43):
questions and concerns. I thinkthat led to the fact that we had
only eight comments on ourplanning application. And so,
you know, that is, is a prettygood result. We had a couple of
people who were, you know,pretty opposed to it, but you
know, that's fair enough. Andyou know, now we've, we are very

(16:09):
much part of of the community,and we get all kinds of people
coming by who, you know, we'rejust, we're just a business in
the area, we hold locals nights,not so much in the summer, but,
you know, in the quieter partsof the year where, you know,
locals can come free, we've gotmusic, and they get free tours,

(16:34):
etc. And I mean, that's justpart of a thanks to the
community for, you know,including us, and it all goes
both ways. So, yeah, I mean, we,I do think that local community
piece that was always part ofthe plan from the beginning,

(16:55):
covid, as you said, kind ofnixed that for a couple of
years, and it's taken a while torebuild, but we've always wanted
to be a bit of a hub for thecommunity as much as we could
calm. I don't know if you haveanything to add to that,

Calum Rae (17:14):
yeah. I mean, it's, it's definitely one of those
things that I've found reallyfascinating in my time at
Holyrood. As you know, we'vegone from being a very well kept
secret to all of a sudden, a lotmore people know us, and we'll,
you know, local businesses willsend people to us in the same
way we do them. And even justthe kind of interactions you can

(17:35):
have on a really small level.You know, quite often, if we're
drafting out and taking thegrain out the mashed Hun, you'll
get some guy walking past withthe dog who's maybe never walked
that that path before, and hesort of looks at you and goes,
What are you doing? And you'relike, whiskey distillery, and
he's like, Oh, the way he goesin the shop, has a chat with
somebody, and walks out with thedog and a bottle of escalator.

(17:56):
And there's that lovely kind ofsome people don't know we're
here and are delighted to findit. Some people can't wait to
drag more people to us and andwe really, you know, we'd like
to support that as well. I mean,covid was actually quite a good
example of, although we weren'topen for business in the
traditional sense, you know, wehad a courtyard bar when it was
socially distance, so peoplecould still go and have a beer

(18:19):
locally. And the amount ofpeople that you know are right
next to celery, and they'relike, you guys, you saved my
life. I could still have myFriday night pint after work,
you know, even though I've beenstuck inside the whole week. So
there was something quite niceabout that. And you know, like,
we are just, we're so close to alot of the tourists, but we also
are lucky that we've had manyrepeat visitors as well. And I

(18:41):
think that's testament to us nottrying to, you know, stake too
strong a claim, but just be partof a really vibrant community.
And it's, yeah, it's great tosee.

And just noting If people hear a difference in in
accents. So Callum is a nativeEdinburgh and Edinburgh, and
I've seen a couple of differentpronunciations of that too. And
Rob is a transplant from Canada,correct. He and his wife Kelly
founded SMWS Canada in 2011 soif you're wondering why someone

(19:17):
sounds like they're really inEdinburgh and someone sounds
like they're not. That's why.But, but Calum, you know, just
to that point, I mean, being anative of the city you're now
working at this distillery thathas several historic features
attached to it, do you feel anextra sense of of pride working

(19:38):
at a distillery and havingsomeone walk by and say, Oh, I
should try out what you're doingover here. Does that feel very
natural to you?

Calum Rae (19:45):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I'm a pretty
stereotypical Scottish guy ofginger hair, the beard, and I
make whiskey and stuff, so I'malready very proud of to be
Scottish. And what's quite funnyfor me is, you know, the pride
of the. Edinburgh part. So I wasactually born in Edinburgh and
lived there for the early partof my life, but then I actually
went over to Fife, which is justover the water. But my kind of

(20:09):
Homecoming to Edinburgh is kindof coincided with whiskey having
a bit of a homecoming as well.So there's definitely a real
point of pride. And you know,it's that funny thing of we're
the capital city of Scotland,but for so long, people just
kind of had Edinburgh as a bitof a stop gap before they
launched off to Campbelltown orover to Isla and something so
the real point of pride for meis that, you know now Edinburgh

(20:32):
so often the first city thatpeople experience when they come
to Scotland. And what I love isquite often now we'll be the
first single malt distillerythat people experience as well.
And it's great to be reallyflying the flag for, you know,
Scotland and whiskey, but beingable to do it, you know, on
proper home turf. And, yeah,absolutely, it fills me with

(20:53):
pride that, you know, we have atagline of made by Edinburgh,
and I think our team and ourdistillery sums that up,
because, you know, Edinburgh isa very diverse city as well. You
know, it's not just superScottish guys like myself that
make up Edinburgh. You know,people from all over the world
come in and contributing to thecity, and likewise, you know,

(21:13):
contributing to the distilleryas well. You know, we've got all
kinds of different backgroundsin the distillery. And I think
the thing that unites us all isreal bloody love Scottish
whiskey. So I think that's kindof easy to be proud of

love it. And this is not really a question. We're
just a statement. But you know,as of your appearance on whiskey
stories podcast back in February24 about a year and a half ago,
a little over that holy I keepwant to say Holyrood. Holyrood,
excuse me, was one of the mostvisited visitor centers in
Scotland, which is an amazingachievement in and of itself,

(21:49):
but it's also an amazingachievement considering, like I
said, You guys had to shut downfor six months during covid and
re pivot to how you're going toapproach this whole local versus
tourism. So it's really anamazing achievement. I just want
to to mention that moving rightalong, because, like I said,
I've got more questions that wecould possibly get to. But let's
jump into the couple ofquestions about the malt, which

(22:12):
is, you know, telling me saidthis earlier, you guys play with
different malts, and you'reinspired by the beer industry.
Edinburgh, even if you lost thedistilling side of things
remained a beer city, perhapsthe beer city of Scotland for
many from an interview in 2023with Elizabeth matchen. At that
time, in 23 you'd already used28 different barley varieties

(22:36):
and 47 yeasts Calum, you said ina separate interview in that
year, you'd reference trying 99recipes in that year. How
curious? First, how has thebrewing industry responded to
the new cropping up of newdistilleries, Hollywood
included,

Calum Rae (22:57):
to be honest, it's great. They're big supporters.
It's, I think a lot of usvicarious living. You know, they
get to all those brewers. Youknow, I used to make beer myself
for a short time as well. Andyou kind of sit there being
like, wonder what this would belike if you put it through the
stills. And we get to, kind ofanswer that question. You know,
we've, we've got loads of closefriends in the brewing industry.

(23:17):
You know, we've donecollaborations with some of them
as well where, you know, we'lltake one of their classic beer
recipes, retrofit it for singlemalt, and then kind of do a
little bit of a knowledgeexchange. That's been really
fun. We We did a festival for acouple years, which was the mash
up, which was essentially like acelebrating the Hoff in half, as

(23:40):
we call it in Scotland, a halfpint of beer and a dram. Perfect
way to enjoy a good, goodafternoon, I must say. So we're,
you know, we like to championthat side of things in terms of
brewing, but it's so inspiring,you know, it's, I liken it kind
of to, if you're a painter,painting, all of a sudden,
you've not just got, you know,red and green. You've got six

(24:03):
new colors coming in, and all ofa sudden you can go crazy, like,
ah, purple, okay, yeah, right.And you know, there's so much to
be found in the different maltedbarley varieties, flavor, you
know, the texture, how theyinteract with each other, as
well as how they are inisolation. And it's, you know,
if you're a whiskey geek and youwant to explore, again, coming

(24:25):
from, you know, the early DNA ofof Rob and David, sort of
thinking, well, what could wedo? David, being like, let's ask
the question. Even though, youknow, he's very used to a
specific style of whiskeymaking, always wanted to ask
that question of, well, whatcould we do with whiskey. And I
think that's the thing that weget to ask ourselves, you know,
our whiskey is, it's, it's what,what whiskey could be, it's,

(24:47):
it's all these added features.And you know, the 99 different
recipes that was, don't get mewrong, it was a bit of a crazy
year. The spreadsheets a bit ofa brain melter when you look at
it. But what's really. Tool is,you know, we've captured all
these data points as we as wego. So everything that we've
done has been very, you know,meticulous in terms of charting.

(25:10):
How does this malt work? Youknow, by itself, how does it
work alongside other maltedbarleys? You then add your yeast
in. How does that, you know,either make the party great, or,
how does it spoil the party?Sometimes all these great
questions that we can ask, youknow? And then you get to the
things like the process, how youdo your mash, how you do
distillation, your cut points.And then we can get to the

(25:33):
maturation side. So there's allthese things that I think, you
know, I think there's atendency, certainly in Scotland
for a long time, has been thatyour cask does absolutely
everything, and we see it assuch an important part of what
makes our whiskey, but it's notthe be all, end all. You know,
our kind of mantra for myselfand my distillery team is we

(25:53):
need to make sure that thespirit that comes over the tap
from the stills is incredibleand you want to drink it right
there and then, because if ittastes really good as numeric
spirit, it's only going to bebetter when it's a whiskey. So
yeah, it's a big thing. I don'tthink we've gone any higher on
the malt count from that number.I think by that point, we'd
already pretty new, pretty muchused everything we were allowed

(26:16):
to the east counter. I'm prettysure has gone up quite a bit
from there. And I have to say,

after listening to interviews, I would not doubt
that the, you know, the greens,the malts being used, and the
yeast, we could do an entireepisode on each of those alone,
because we can get really nerdyon here, and I love going into
that. But just for this episode,you guys do so much with
specialty malls. Let's just saythat 28 number as the top number

(26:47):
for now, and we'll go into acouple of the specific ones that
you tend to use more thanothers. You are as transparent
as I've ever seen about what youguys use on both the malt and
the east side. If you go to thewebsite, you look at a product,
whether it's Ember, ambir pitch,you can see percentages of

(27:07):
malts. You can see percentagesof yeast down to the decimal
point, which I love, becauseit's still no one's going to
exactly replicate what you'redoing, so why not share it? Now,
I'm a nerd, so I look at thatand I love it. Has there ever
been any concern on, uh, eitherthe production side or the

(27:29):
marketing side, whichever wayyou want to look at it, that
having so much of thatinformation out there could be
intimidating to consumers?

Calum Rae (27:37):
Yeah, I mean, certainly it's a consideration.
Um, for sure, you know, youdon't just throw that out
someday and let them read on andkind of blow their mind. But I
think, you know, I I've spent mylife probably not being
surrounded by whiskey geeks thatmuch. I'm quite a layman's terms
kind of guy myself, so I thinkit's all about how you

(28:00):
communicate. It to be honest.You know, there's certainly
stuff that I've had meetingswith the marketing manager, and
they sit scratching their headssometimes, being like, how are
we going to wrap our headsaround this? But we found that
honesty is the best approach,and that, you know, all that
information is there if you wantto seek it out, but we're also
not going to beat you over thehead with it as well. You know,
the kind of starting point isalways just, does it taste good?

(28:24):
You know, that's, that's the beall, end all, really. So when I
find we're communicating thatkind of thing, you know,
sometimes you kind of gage howsomebody is. If they come in and
go, you know, what's the angleof your line arm? You're like,
right? Okay, they're going towant to know some of the really
geeky stuff here. Whereassomebody just goes, I'm looking
for a really tasty whiskey, thenit's quite easy to be like,

(28:46):
well, you know, what do you liketo drink? What do you like to
eat? And it's a flavor led kindof approach that we have, you
know, our newest one pitch isthe perfect example of, you
know, I'll say it someday.What's your kind of thing you
like? You know, quite sweetwhiskey, spicy, you know, and
for that, it's reallyinteresting. We have a strong
kind of, like, fruity note.There's a lot of hazelnuts going

(29:07):
on. So I just kind of say, Doyou like fruit and nut chocolate
bars? And if somebody's like,Yeah, it sounds great. Then I'm
like, well, try, try a glass ofthis. I'm sure you're going to
enjoy. So I think it's about notbeing, you know, elitist or
being too sort of guarded aboutthings, you've got to be ready
to speak to somebody on theirlevel and not, you know, try not

(29:29):
be come across as arrogant orpretentious or any of that,
because at the end of the day,you just want people to kind of
feel the same level of joy forwhiskey that we have. But also
I'm aware that sometimes we can,you know, as you know yourself
being a geek, can get tooexcited about something, and
someday kind of stops and goes,Well, wait, so how is that made?
You know, you've kind of goneoff into the weeds of it a

(29:51):
little bit. Rob, I don't know ifyou have anything

to add that. The only thing I'd I'd add is. Yes,
it is. You're right. David, abit of a challenge in terms of
explaining and Callum. Callum'sright. I mean, people, if people
don't want to geek out and orthey're not geeks, then that's
fine. I mean, they're we're notfor geeks only, by any means.

(30:20):
But you know, it is a bit of achallenge when you're talking to
distributors, and you know, theyhave a consumer that has been
very well trained by theindustry to expect a distillery
to have a flavor profile and toexpect age statements and to you

(30:43):
know, expect this progressionfrom youthful to whatever. And
that's not us. And so we thateducation process is going to be
an ongoing one, with people whocome to the distillery with
people we meet at Whiskey showsand so on, with our distributors

(31:05):
and consumers in othercountries. And, you know, but
fundamentally, we're just tryingto get across the point that it
we're just making, we want tomake delicious whiskey. That's
really what it's about. And, youknow, if, if you, if you love
your standard age statement,fine, you know, all perfectly

(31:28):
lovely whiskey. We're, you know,but we want to give people a
choice with some some thingsthat are really different and
interesting. And I think that'sa valuable, you know, sort of
state to put in the ground inthe industry. And

Rob, we're going to come back to the none of the
concept of regionality, but alsothat concept of kind of a core
range, core profile as well, forthe yeast component of things. I
won't even ask how many you'reup to now, because I don't even
know what number I would beexpecting. But you know, to ask

(32:12):
my first question that I had wassomething that kept coming up in
interviews, was that champagneyeast, for you guys, had
produced some of the mostdelicious spirit you ever made,
but it was basically unusablebecause it also, instead of
eating the sugars, ate the otheryeast that it was pitched with.
So, you know, in looking at someof these yeast bills, if you

(32:35):
will, on the website, I'mthinking to myself, you know,
using 567, different yeasts in amash. You know, are you pitching
together? You pitching atdifferent times depending on
gravity or temperature? Youknow, how do you how do you deal
with using that many strains ina single wash or single mash?

(32:58):
That's

Calum Rae (32:59):
a great question. So, quite honestly, there's a few
kind of ways we can split it. Sothe first is that, you know, the
final whiskey that we have,obviously, it's vatting of a
bunch of different casks. So itcould mean that some casts have
three or four strands of thisyeast, and some have a couple of
this one over here. Coldpitching is something that we've

(33:21):
done lots of work with. We'recontinuing to do as we speak
this week, myself and the troopsare doing a slightly reduced
production so that we canbasically track our
fermentations over a length oftime in isolation. Particular.
Right now it's gorgeous andreally hot and sunny, which is
not usual for Scotland, I'll behonest. So it's important for us

(33:43):
to factor in ambient temperaturethat's going on. But we've just,
we've done the kind of iterativeapproach. So, you know, we've
tried. How does you know thisbrewing ale yeast work by
itself? How does it work withour distilling yeast, and then
when we pitch it. How does thatwork? So sometimes, you know,

(34:04):
we'll usually trial somethingdropped in together, as you've
kind of said, with champagne, itcan turn into Mortal Kombat a
little bit, and they start kindof having a gladiatorial fight
to see who gets the the food,whereas other times, some of
them will work in tandemperfectly. Because, you know,
we've used things like rumyeast, which on paper we

(34:25):
shouldn't really be gettinganything, you know, by adding
it, if you're, if you're goingon a purely scientific kind of
view, but we know that there aresome sugars present there that
that rum yeast is going to goafter. So what's quite
interesting is they kind of tendto kind of form layers. You
know, you've got the distilleryyeast doing the kind of brunt of
the work, but you could havesomething like a sake yeast or

(34:48):
wine yeast that's going afterthese more kind of fructose
adjacent things that we have,and then that essentially means
that it's working on its ownlittle pile over here. You know,
if you think your family mealwith a big brother. Takes the
big scoop first, and he startschowing down. And you're kind of
coming in and picking up what'sleft. And that can kind of
happen in our fermenters aswell. So, and certainly you

(35:10):
learn from them, you know, anexample I would use is we've
worked with Keva keast, which islike a Norwegian farmhouse
strain, and it loves it superhot. You're talking, you know,
first time we used it, we wentin too cold. It was only when we
had a Norwegian guy come throughon the tour, and he was like,
you're using that how hot? Andhe's like, No, cook it. Get it

(35:30):
hotter. Obviously, that's thetemperature range that's
working. And, you know, mid 30sto high 30s, you've absolutely
roasted your filling yeast bythat point. So that's where we
can go. Okay, we'll start with apatch of the distilling yeast.
You know, as the time increases,the temperature increases with
the activity of this distillingyeast. Once that kind of hits

(35:52):
its peak, we know that we canadd the kuvai in there. It'll
take it even hotter. It'llbasically finish the job off for
us. And you've got those lovelyblends of flavors happening. So
it's all really, you know, trialand experimentation, you know,
with scientific purpose behindit. But you know, we're really
lucky, myself and the team thatwe're really experienced using
these things now. So we knowthat some stuff works better in

(36:16):
the winter months, in thesummer, and some stuff needs a
real long head start, wherethere are stuff you can just
drop it in, and they'll gocrazy.

And Rob, I have to ask, as you were starting this,
just thinking about thisfacility, let alone having it in
practice, I know heritagegrains, heritage malt were not
originally part of the the planthat came on. It came on early,
but it wasn't an original plan.How? How early Did you realize
that you might be looking intokind of this level of detail and

(36:49):
science in this distillery?

Yeah, I'm not sure we talked a lot about
heritage malts at the verybeginning, but I mean, David and
I already always knew that wewere interested in them. You
know, David's got a realinterest in how whiskeys used to
be made and some of the Heritagemalts. He's been fortunate
enough to try many, many olderwhiskies that were made with

(37:16):
some of these heritage malts andand was of the opinion, you
know, it's a it's his personalopinion. Granted that, you know,
they had a different flavorprofile than some of the more
modern spirits with with moremodern malts do. And so he's

(37:36):
always been interested in tryingsome of those, those heritage
malts. And not necessarily tomake old time whiskey, you know,
as it might have been made inthe 50s and 60s or 70s, but to
really add just another layer offlavor potential, and probably

(37:57):
mouth feel potential, becausesome of the Heritage malts are
really interesting from thatperspective.

Sure, I know Chevalier is a favorite for
Hollywood, a green grain, and astrain that's popular in the
1850s and 60s and through maybethe 1920s fell out of favor as
higher yield strains were bred,things like golden promise. And
now you get all the way throughto Diablo concerto laureate,

(38:25):
which is, I think laureate isnow the an optic, or the strains
of choice right now if you'regoing for yield, Rob, you just
mentioned this and Callum, youmentioned this on when you were
on Scotch in the bayou lastyear, that Chevalier doesn't
really provide flavor, per se,it's more about texture, Mouth
feel, and it carries otherflavors forward. Now I was

(38:50):
trying to suss this out a littlebit, because I'm thinking
usually, when I think ofsomething like that in maybe a
cooking context, I think likethat's usually the fat doesn't
have to have a ton of flavor onits own, but without it, you're
not going to carry forwardflavors of what you're actually
cooking. So in the context ofdistilling and the work you're
doing, have you been able todetermine like is, is the

(39:15):
chevaliers work of carryingthose other flavors through
without giving much flavor onits own? From? Is it from Is it
from proteins? Is it from fatcontent? What's what's doing
that? To put it bluntly, what'sdoing that?

Calum Rae (39:29):
Yeah. So, again, really good question. So I
think, you know, a lot of itcomes from, there's a slightly
different protein makeup inthere. That's where, really
what's helping with the kind oftextures that we're having. So
the way that it's broken down inthe mash is very different to
what you see with likelaureates, laureates, you know,
it's very much by design thesedays, designed to go into a mash

(39:53):
tun and break down, whereas whenyou see chevalley, you know,
we've made a joke in thedistillery that it's like, you
know, it's like wet cake. It'slike, got this real easy, I
don't know, it's much stickiergelatinous form than you would
normally

see. Use the word claggy at one point. I think

Calum Rae (40:11):
absolutely, yeah, it's a strong Scottish word I
like to use, but I it's reallyfascinating, you know. And it's,
you know, I don't downplay theimportance of the flavor that
chevalley brings, but it's verydifferent to laureate. Laureate
is very sweet and and biscuity,whereas we find that chevalley
is more bready, you know, you'realmost approaching like, you

(40:34):
know, if you left a baguette anda glass of water for a long
time, and then you kind of comeback, and it's all kind of
falling apart. It's got a lotmore of those qualities to it.
But, yeah, it's, you know, Ithink it's, we found, it's the
way that it breaks down in themash. One is quite different,
and then that therefore carriesthrough into fermentation.

(40:55):
There's different stuff for theyeast to work on there. And
then, you know, by design,again, when it goes into the
wash still. It means that it canbe a bit more of a tricky
customer. You'll see it fobbingup a little bit more than you
maybe would a laureate strain.But again, the way that works in
the stills, and the way thatit's kind of cooking off some of
those extra, extra proteins andstuff that are in there, means

(41:16):
that it really just gives itthis thickness and this really
rich, oily character that wehaven't seen from laureate, you
know, whether that's chevalleyall by itself, or, you know, the
kind of magic of distilleriesthat could be chevalley with our
ambient, you know, kind of yeastthat's in the air and stuff and
and all that added in. But,yeah, it's definitely the way it

(41:39):
breaks down. We found is whatgives it this kind of acting as
a vehicle for other flavors, youknow, be it a specialty malt,
like our chocolate malt, orsomething, or one of the more
delicate flavors that we getfrom the yeast, it seems to give
it bit more of a, I guess, aplatform to land on and then be
shown off. In a final spiritthat we don't tend to see in the

(42:03):
same way with laureate.Laureate, it feels like it's all
cut into very neat segments offlavor, where chevalley has this
wonderful kind of cascadingblend that happens. Um, if I've
articulated that, well, I'm notsure.

Very, very much so, very much. So, so just like
two, two and a half morequestions on on the the malts
and yeast, because, like I said,we'd go on for literally hours
about these. I'll ask the halfquestion first, which was, I
heard you guys got a sourdoughstarter from the time of the
plague, and got to play aroundwith that a little bit. Why And

(42:47):
What did that look like?

Calum Rae (42:50):
So that was our former distillery manager who
loved a wild, wacky idea. Ithink that's where I very much
got my thinking from as well.But that was one of those, ones
of, I think it was a discussionthat we kind of had around, no,
I think it very much came fromthe Heritage malt, to be honest.
We looked at that and thought,well, you know, these are kind

(43:11):
of this living history ofwhiskeys past. And we thought,
Well, what about the yeast? Whatthe hell do they been really
using? You know, way, way backin, in time. So, you know, it's
one of those weird ones wemanaged to get. I'll be honest,
we got it online so as to itsauthenticity. We're really
trusted, I think, over in thestates actually, that sent it.

(43:35):
So who knows it was? It was thestates, or there was a guy in
Germany that had it as well. Idon't know which one we actually
went for eventually, but it's,it's one of those cool things
that we have is, you know,experimentation is really a part
of our DNA since, since day onewith with Rob and David, and we
just get to keep that going. Andthat was one of those ones where

(43:57):
we thought, well, let's do it ona small one. You know, we're not
going crazy and doing like 15mashes of it or anything, but
you have a little go and again,you know it was to see we're so
accustomed and distant, like indistilling now to use these sort
of Super hot rodded yeasts thatare designed specifically for

(44:22):
the function they have. Whereas,you know, to kind of tip your
hat to the people that camebefore us, you know, 40, 5060,
hundreds of years ago, they werekind of working with, you know,
bread yeast and things that wereleft over from a bakery or, you
know, a lot of the distillationcame was farmers that had too
much time on their hands andloads of grain line about so

(44:43):
it's that cool thing of, youknow, what does it do? It's that
curiosity. It's that questionthat you know, what would
happen? And it was reallyinteresting. It's like if you
took sourdough bread and justlaunched it in a blender,
basically, and then drank it wasthe kind of vibes we. Had the
really interesting experimentfor us. And, you know, will it

(45:04):
become something we do again? Wedon't know. It's a question to
be asked when we, you know, getfired in the finished whiskey,
but it's something that we canreally draw upon. And to be
frank, it was quite a funny daydoing that. You know, you're
like, is this going to doanything? Is this going to be
one of those ones where you lookat the LPA at the end and you
go, Oh, gonna have to fill inthe gaffer and tell them this

(45:28):
one's not really going to plan.But surprisingly, the yield was
quite good, all thingsconsidered. So, yeah, it's
really just that exploration.You know, we want to try things,
and as long as it makes sensefor us to do it, then we'll give
it a go. You know, we've, we'vetried all kinds of things like,
I say, using yeast strains thaton paper, you maybe wouldn't

(45:49):
normally put in there, but wefind with a small inclusion, you
know, you're not betting thehouse on it, but you're having
it in there as a, you know, onechip down on the table. It's
just interesting to see whatthey bring to the party. You
know, we have a very much, whatI would call it a house style,
which is our kind of standardoperating recipe. That's our

(46:10):
kind of main thing that we workoff of. But it's all about
putting those variations inthere and those spins. And, you
know, what if we add this piecein and what if we take that
piece away? And that's reallywhat drives what we do in the
distillery. So we're delightedthat we're getting to the point
where that's feedback loopsgetting bigger and bigger with
the cask side of things involvednow. But yeah, yeah, the idea

(46:32):
behind it was just, let's seewhat happens, really, which is a
great thing for us to be able todo, is distillers,

if you remember, do you remember what the strain
was named? If it was a cerevisiaor something

Calum Rae (46:44):
like that? That's a good question. I will look that
up, and I will send it over toyour email, because I don't have
at the hand just now. We justcalled it black death in the
distillery. I mean, you know,we're heavy metal fans, so we
thought that was pretty cool.That makes it

look I it was more fascinating than anything else
as well. But you're right. Imean, that would have, I was
surprised when you said that ithad a fairly good yield, yeah,
like that long ago. It'sbrewing. It's ambient, you know,
it's, it wasn't, what am Ilooking for? It wasn't
necessarily domesticated backthen.

Calum Rae (47:16):
Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong, I doubt Diageo is
going to be using it anytimesoon, much like ourselves. You
know, it's not going to be thenew Swift super thing, but

the money to,

Calum Rae (47:27):
I mean, yeah, but also it's, you know, it had no
business giving us as much as itdid, I think, which was a lovely
surprise when you're doing a bitof a gamble, you know.

So last question, at least for now, on, yeast is
on not another whiskey podcastinterview as almost exactly a
year ago, in September of 242025 is going to be the year of
the yeast. After a couple ofyears of focusing more on the
malt side of things, we're twothirds of the way through the
year now, at the end of August,has that been the case?

Calum Rae (48:04):
Yeah. So as I say, we've been doing a lot of trials
on our fermentation times. Sowe've done a lot more long
fermentations this year, to seehow that affects our spirit, you
know. So we can see we have akind of average of 10s to work
between sort of 52 to 72 hourfermentations on on the way we
operate, being Monday to Friday,but we've been playing around

(48:27):
with slightly longer to see whatthat does for us. But also some
of those strains that we used inthe past, we've kind of brought
them back, put them in isolationand see, really, you know, so we
can have a a strong idea of whatexactly they bring to the table,
you know. So something like us,oh, five classic brewing yeast

(48:49):
that you know, you got all thesedescriptions on a brewing
website, being like, here's whatit's going to give you. And
we're like, we don't have hops,so I don't know how much that's
going to really, you know, lineup with what they're telling us.
But what we found is reallyfascinating, is brewing yeast
are great. They're like maltboosters. So all those flavors
that we get from not just ourstandard, you know, pot, still

(49:11):
malt, but the specialty malt,they kind of get super charged.
And they get fired up by theinclusion of something like a
brewing yeast that is normallydoing that in a beer anyway, but
it's not being picked up on bymaybe the manufacturer or
somebody, because they're usedto those flavors boosting the
hops or the other notes thatthey have in there. So very
much. It's been an interestingone for us. It's also, you know,

(49:34):
one of the hottest summers we'vehad for a really long time,
which, if you're a fermentationnerd, is the kind of thing that
gets you super excited, youknow. But one of my distillers,
Chris waymark, has got a greatquote, and he says that
fermentation is the engine roomof your whiskey, and that's
really been the kind of mantrafor this year is, you know,
we've done a lot of work on themalt side in terms of the

(49:56):
flavors they give us and how wecan really get the most out of
them. So. It's just about kindof switching that focus now and
looking at, well, we know thismalt works with this type of
yeast. How does it work withthis so this year has been very
much a bit of a laser focus. Youknow, we're definitely not doing
99 recipes this year. I thinkI'm delighted to say the

(50:18):
management, management of thatis not the easiest sometimes. So
we got it down to, you know, akind of five to 10 strained
range that we're working on forthis year that really helps us,
like, I say, laser focus in on,on what that really brings to
the party for us. So, yeah, it'sbeen nice to have that, that
kind of breathing space toreally look at what's happening

(50:41):
in the old fermenters. And wehave no temperature control at
Hollywood as well for the geeks.So we are really kind of working
out our distillery as well. Youknow, literally, looking at the
weather report to work out howyour whiskey is going to be made
is not something I thought Iwould do, but it's really
interesting thing to factor in

as well. Has to be a very fun element. Like, just
as soon as you said that, I kindof automatically put myself in
that situation was like, that'sgoing to be really exciting to
be able to do that on day by daybasis. And, yep, so just super
exciting. And I want to pause onthe production side for a second

(51:21):
to jump over, because Calum, youuse this phrase, and I
immediately looked at Rob to seewhat his reaction was going to
be. And that was the term housestyle. So, you know, Rob, in
various interviews over theyears, you've said variations of
you will not have a house style.You've been resisting a core
range profile because it tiesyou to a profile all with a what

(51:47):
came off to me as like a growingresignation to the fact that
likely, at some point you'llhave a house style and a core
range, even if the majority ofwhat you're known for is
experimentation and playingaround with these things. As of
again, August 2025 Where do youboth feel like you stand on the
idea of a core range and a housestyle?

But I think you know, when Callum mentions a
house style, he's, he's, he'sfocusing on a style that we have
found really works well in termsof production, and it's not
necessarily the same as a corerange or a core flavor profile.

(52:30):
And you know, it may that hoststyle may form the the body of,
you know, a batting where we'readding other pieces from, you
know, that that have specialtymalt in them, to add other
through lines of flavor in thatbatting. So it's, it's, it's not

(52:56):
indicative of a resignation thatwe will ultimately go with one
flavor profile. But you know,we, part of this is, is being
open minded. And we've gotdistillers and a team and

(53:17):
myself, I think, you know, we'reall very open minded. We are. We
love different products. We lovedifferent we're very equal
opportunity drinkers. And if youknow, we do want to release
something that you know is asort of a house style that will

(53:39):
have its own personality. Itwon't, you know, it may have a
house style in terms of itsorigin, but it, you know, we're
not going to try to create aconsistent product. You know,
with every single release ofthat, we will always have a
personality to Holyrood whiskeythat makes it stand out, sort of

(54:02):
on its own.

Calum Rae (54:05):
Yeah? I would like it to, you know, you listen to Wu
Tang Clan, they've got prettymuch the same beat on every
song, yeah, what they're kind ofsprinkling over the top is
different from track to track,and that's kind of how I would
look at it, as when I say housestyle, it's like a, it's a kind
of way of working that we've gotdown. It's probably more of an
internal house style than aexternal, external customer

(54:28):
facing house style. Um, but,yeah, it's very much a kind of
back, back line for us that justsits there and we can add stuff
and take it off, you know? Imean, that's how we look at it.
So the house style is the sortof like, here's our kind of
default settings, but we'reHollywood. We don't really like

(54:49):
to just stick with the defaultsetting. We like to kind of, you
know, twist some knobs and turnthings up to 11 a little bit,
and that's going to kind of whatwe do. So you'll always see a
bit of variation through ourstuff. And. Um, you know, but
it's about refinement. As Robsaid, it's an open mind, you
know. We've never, I thinkwhat's been great about
Hollywood is we've never startedthe distillery and went we're

(55:09):
going to have this type ofwhiskey, you know? I think it's
a trap you can fall into. It's anew distillery as you kind of
start with a bit of an end pointin terms of being like, we must
get here, and sometimes you'llnever get there, or you'll spend
years and years, whereas what'sbeen really beautiful about the
approach of Hollywood, and it's,you know, what enticed me to
jump aboard was that we've kindof very much let our distillery

(55:32):
tell us what it does. You know,on paper, you look at our
stills, you assume a certainspirit profile, you know, you
look at our Master, you look atall these things that again on
paper. You go, Okay, I think Iknow you guys are working with
and we love challenging thatnotion. You know, like we we
love these whiskeys that havebeen around for hundreds of

(55:54):
years and do exactly the samething, day in, day out, and
they're great. But we're notthose distilleries, and we're
not going to pretend to be thoseeither. We're very much proud of
the fact that we get to, youknow, put different hats on
every day. When we come in andthink like, oh, today we're in
Campbelltown. What could we do?Cool? Okay, we're in Isla today.
As a whiskey fan, there's nobetter thing as when you're

(56:17):
making whiskey to really be ableto, you know, go to the shelf
and take any, any tool you want,off of there.

And, you know, this really good lead into a
question that I had to ask. Wealso spoke about this when we
had on Sebastian bunford Jonesover Glasgow distilling company,
also at lowland region, I won'tsay a lowland whiskey, but
lowland region that you know, aclear challenge, if you will, of
being in Edinburgh. Speakinggeographically only, is the

(56:47):
tendency towards regionality.People can assume that, because
you are located in the lowlands,that you're a lowland
distillery, that you're going tohave lowland style whiskies. On
one hand, a couple of storiesand interviews, you kind of
embrace the geographicregionality that, yes, we're

(57:09):
lowland, we are clearly verymuch of the city of Edinburgh,
while also saying, but we're notgoing to taste like your idea of
lowland. We're going tochallenge it. So when you're
speaking to I guess we canapproach it both ways, like when
you're talking internally, maybeto what you're creating and to

(57:30):
the marketing folks, then whenthey're speaking externally to
consumers, are you approachingit? The question of regionality,
more as a yes, but in that, yes,we're in the lowlands, but or
are you more trying to broadenpeople's perceptions about what
lowland whiskey can be?

I would say the former. Factually, if you look
at what the whiskey industry hasdefined as regions. Factually,
we are a lowland distillery. Ihad a person very early days

(58:15):
before we were even producingsay, Oh, well, you're going to
produce a light fruity whiskey.And as if there is a rule that
if you're in the lowlands, youmust do this, and there is no
other option for you. And I, youknow, I just laughed. Said,

(58:35):
Well, I mean, we are, if you, ifyou buy into regions, we are a
lowland distillery. We will notproduce as a lowland distillery.
I have no intention of doingthat, and we never will. We will
produce light fruited whiskey.You know, we absolutely can, and
our stills allow for that prettyeasily. But that's, yeah, it's

(59:00):
not our thing. We don't, wedon't buy the whole regionality
thing, and we'll never bepigeonholed by that.

Calum Rae (59:08):
It's really interesting as well. I think
that that old region map isdefinitely bursting at the seams
a little bit. Now, I would say,you know, if you look at, you
know, Dave Broom's latest Atlasof whiskey, Fife region there
now on its own. That wasn'treally the case before. So

(59:29):
there's nothing to say thatcouldn't happen in Edinburgh.
You know, there's three singlemalt distilleries in Edinburgh
now. So watch this space thatcould all change. You know,
could get a nice line down thelowlands, and all of a sudden,
Glasgow is off on its own.Edinburgh is off on its own. You
know, the borders becomes itsown thing. And, you know, it's
quite an interesting thing towatch, and sort of you're
waiting to see, like, Issomebody going to make the first

(59:50):
move and just draw a line on themap and go, ah, you know what?
Forget it. So it's a great thingto have. But yeah, we're not
tied down to it either. And itcertainly doesn't, you know, I,
I don't have to sit and thinkwhen I'm coming up recipes. Oh,
this must be a lowland style,but that's never entered the
equation. You know, we do one byaccident, great, but it's never

(01:00:13):
really part of the, you know,the end destination

David Levine (01:00:17):
column you said earlier, the the the challenge,
potentially, of being caught inby looking at the endpoint and
trying to get to the endpointrather than what you're doing at
the beginning. I want to justreference something Nick Raven
Hall said. This is back in 2021he was managing director for you
guys up until 23 He's alsoworked now at wolven and door

(01:00:40):
knock, I believe. And you know,he said at the time that
Hollywood is behaving more likea new world whiskey, rather than
a Scottish distillery, orspecifically, a lowland
distillery. Now this was a yearbefore your first cast was ready
to be called Whiskey. So verymuch in the production stage, in

(01:01:00):
the iterative phase, you know,it's four years later now, do
you guys still kind of agreewith that mindset as well?

Calum Rae (01:01:09):
Yeah, it's, you know, we're very much inspired, I
would say, by New World whiskeyin terms of, you know, I mean
the yeast work that we do,heavily inspired by, you know,
Japanese whiskey and all thework that they did, you know,
the analogy I probably used todeath as I'll kind of look at it
like, you know, theTransatlantic exchange of music,
you know, you have, like bluesthat comes over, becomes rock

(01:01:30):
and roll, and it goes back theway it's heavy metal and all
these kind of things. That's howI look at it, you know, like we,
we don't want, or certainly formyself, I don't want everyone in
Scotland to start making whiskeythe way that we do, because I
really love some old Scottishwhiskeys that have been around
for a while. But I think for along time, we were kind of
resting on our Laurel inScotland. You know, we're very

(01:01:51):
proud of our whiskey, but Ithink we maybe got a little bit
too complacent. I would say, yousee some of the whiskey coming
out from around the world, andit's spectacular, and it's, it's
a nice throwing down of thegauntlet to you know, for
Scotland to try and go, Well,we're going to make sure we're
still near the top of this pile.And for us, it's we can add,

(01:02:12):
like a new strength to the bowl.So we're still Scotch whiskey,
loud and proud, but we're notyour granddad's Scotch whiskey.
We're giving you somethingthat's very much different. So I
guess, yeah, we definitely sharea kinship with them. But as I
say, I'm a proud Scotsman, sowe're still 100% Scottish. But

(01:02:34):
yes, definitely there is ashared kind of love for what the
rest of the world is doing. Yougotta look at your neighbors.
You know, if, if you're lost inyour own silo, then you know,
you're not really got an idea ofwhat else is happening out
there. And whiskey is such amassive worldwide community
that, you know, and the same waythat we're really, really open
and share, you know, recipes,all the stuff that we do, we

(01:02:57):
love that when we see it fromelsewhere, because that can
inspire us. And, you know, it's,we're tossing the ball back and
forth. So that's my view on it.Anyway,

Rob Carpenter (01:03:07):
yeah, yeah, I largely agree with that. I mean,
it's, it's, I think there's a,there's a danger, because of,
you know, the long success of ofthe scotch whiskey industry that
you know it, it has, up untilthose over the last 10 years,
been able to kind of look downon the rest of the world and go,
Well, we're Scotch whiskey. And,you know, we're the leading

(01:03:29):
whiskey style and in the world.And, and, and, and I come from
outside. I wasn't. I come fromoutside the whiskey industry in
many ways, and certainly outsidethe scotch whiskey industry. And
I'm, you know, there's a lot offantastic Canadians, there is a
lot a great us distilleries.There's, there's terrific

(01:03:52):
Australian distilleries. And, Imean, I don't want to single
anyone out, because there's,there's great ideas all over the
world. And I think you know, forour Holyrood. I mean, I'm quite
proud if we get compared to someof those in terms of their open
mindedness to experimentationand taking whiskey in their own

(01:04:14):
direction. I think that's quiteflattering. And I don't look on
down on any of these, these,these guys in different parts of
the world. I think they're doingterrific stuff.

I'll hit you with the question later. Of you know
who we should be looking to,because not only does that
question usually inform you knowwho else we're going to talk to
for this podcast, but with youguys in particular, because
you've been so open abouttalking about calendars, you
just said, looking at yourneighbors, but also Rob, as you
said, looking at who's inAustralia, doing great stuff in

(01:04:49):
Japan. So we'll ask you thatlater. But I wanted to, I think
it's a good point to circle backto this. I. Idea of the the
region, so, well, that was aterrible transition. I'll edit

(01:05:12):
that one out so it's a goodtransition back into the
production. So you have thiscall it the house style of how
you do things internally,process wise, not flavor process
wise. And something that alsomade Hollywood so unique in

(01:05:34):
researching was you guys havewon numerous awards for your new
make. It's something we justdon't talk about frequently.
Once in a while we'll have adistillery say, you know, we
focus a lot on what goes intothe cask. Much respect to those
who do you know Long Islandspirits being some of them,
Glasgow was one of them as well,more than I can name off the top

(01:05:55):
of my head. But it's still rare.You know, it's rare to have
people not only able to tastethe new make, but it's even rare
to have people be able to buy itand have it entered into
competitions as something thatyou're that proud of, you know,
and it seems like it's, it'sit's not just for the

(01:06:16):
recognition that an award couldgive you. It really is to say,
look, we're making some reallygood new make here that could be
drunk on its own. And I knowpart of this focus is on making
stellar new make is challenging.That idea, you said earlier of
the 7080, 90% of flavor comingfrom a cask, and the cask being
this magical fix it alltransition point that you know,

(01:06:41):
you could put something meh intothe cask, and it'll come out
beautifully, maybe, maybe forsome people, but, but not you
guys. Was there, and I guess robthis questions to you to start
off with, which is, was theresomething that inspired that
challenge that you're layingdown. And I ask that also

(01:07:04):
particularly because I know yousaid David is very much a an
independent thinker, and justbecause he worked in McAllen
doesn't really mean anything interms of how he thinks about
other whiskies. But McAllen isknown for its use of sherry
casks, and it's, I would bewilling to say, masterful use of
shared casks. So for them, a lotof what makes them the Callen

(01:07:27):
comes from the sherry casks. Sogoing back to the question, Was
there something for you thatinspired that challenge to say,
we need to create something thatis fantastic before it hits the
wood.

It's really about it all goes back to flavor. And
I you know you're going to hearthat time and time again today.
It's and a lot of that is Scotchbot, whiskey society influence.
And I mean, as the more we'veprogressed with Holyrood, the

(01:08:01):
more I realize there is a lot ofsort of SMWS. And I don't mean
that in the sense of anindependent baller, but I mean
in terms of the focus on flavor.And you know, the focus on it
doesn't matter where it's from,it doesn't matter how old it is,
it matters what it tastes like,and that just drives a desire

(01:08:26):
to, how do we make things asdelicious, flavorful, you know,
as possible, and you know, Youcan do lots of wonderful things
with casks. You know that isn'ta very important part of of
creating whiskey, but whathappens prior to putting things

(01:08:50):
into Cask is a forgotten elementin in many places, I think
certainly in most of the scotchwhiskey industry, you know, you
used to have different jobs in adistillery. Used to have the
brewer, and then you had theStillman, and they, they had
different jobs. Now everybody isgot a button to press, and

(01:09:14):
that's, that's what they do. Andfor us, you know, we love
brewers in our distillery,because they bring that focus on
flavor. And what can you createbefore a spirit goes into cask,
and that's what leads todelicious new make that frankly,
I thought we would stop sellingnew make when we had whiskey,

(01:09:34):
but we still sell it. Peoplestill are interested in it,
which I surprises the heck outof me. But Callum, I'll let you
take on that one too.

Calum Rae (01:09:45):
Yeah, I mean, it's, I think, for us as well, it's
really important, you know, it'swhen you're a new distillery,
you know, you've got yearsbefore you've got whiskey, so
you need to do something to kindof show you're working almost.
So that was a great way for usto. Of, you know, building a fan
base and let people know whatwe're about right out the gate.
Instead of, you know, teasingthem for three years and then

(01:10:07):
being like, Okay, here's whatwe're about. It was a great way
to sort of, yeah, just showthat. Like, you know, this stuff
tastes really good, and it's,it's clear as day, and it's not
been near any wood yet. Sowhat's been really interesting
for me is that it's, it's openedup new make as as this kind of
whole new avenue. You know, wehave quite a few partners in the

(01:10:28):
city here who love it forcocktails. You know, you go to
some of the cool cocktail barsin Edinburgh, and they're using
new make in a cocktail. That'slike the idea of that to me, you
know, go maybe, you know, sixyears ago, I'd have been like,
Are you mental? What are youdoing? That's crazy. Whereas
now, you know, we've got peoplethat come in to order, like,

(01:10:48):
quite a lot of new make purelyto use and cocktails. I've used
it myself, same way you'd usewhiskey, you know, like whiskey
sours old fashions like, and itworks in the mall really well.
And it's, it really does justhelp us to fly that flag of
flavor, so that, you know, bythe time we got to having our
single malt for people to try,you know, we have people going,

(01:11:10):
well, I've drank like, threebottles of that chocolate new
make, so I can't wait to have awhiskey that's got chocolate
malt in it. And, you know, andit really helps people sort of
come on the journey with us fromday one. So if you've been aware
of us since we opened and sincethe start, you're on the same
journey that we're on, of like,oh, this is really cool. I can't
wait to see what it's like onceit's, you know, done its time in

(01:11:32):
the cask, and then they get totry it. And, you know, we have
our little community share thatand be like, Yeah, who knew it
was going to do that? Not me.But it's, gone in this
wonderful, cool direction, youknow. And they get to share the
excitement, you know, it's allabout the excitement of whiskey
is it shouldn't be predictable.You shouldn't be able to look at
a bottle and go, oh yeah. Well,they're from that region.

(01:11:52):
They've used that type of cask.I have a pretty rough idea of
what that's going to be, youknow, don't get me wrong, I'm
sure that would help ourmarketing department massively,
but I think it's great for us.You know, our consumers kind of
can expect the unexpected. Youknow, we're consistently
inconsistent sometimes, andthat's quite a cool niche to
have people can, you know,people look for like an age

(01:12:15):
statement, or they look at acast type to be their kind of
way to hook in, whereas for us,we can build this kind of
specific language around thingslike a type of yeast or a type
of malt, so that, although wedon't have a core range, people
know they go well and you knowwhat? Every time I've tried
someone with chocolate malt init, I've absolutely loved it. So

(01:12:36):
they can look out for that, orif they go, you know, for
example, the champagne yeast.Yeah, that was great stuff. They
know that when we have that in awhiskey, we've got a rough idea
of kind of what they're gettingthemselves into. So, you know,
we're not, people aren't goingcompletely blind into our
whiskeys, but it's just, it'salmost like a new a new book, a

(01:12:56):
new language for people to kindof learn and plug into our
distillery web.

This is one of those, one of those areas where
I get both really nerdy and alsosomewhat sad, because I wish
that you know distributionchannels were easier and such as
this. This is this kind of thingwhere not even for for podcast
purposes or for reviewingpurposes. Well, partially for
reviewing purposes. But I lovebeing able to do things like

(01:13:27):
that, like try the new make,compare it to other new makes,
and then compare it to, okay,this is what went into the
barrel. This is what it is now.Similarly to if I get to try a
product that is finished in aspecific wine cask, and they're
able to tell me, okay, it's thisvineyard that wine cask, because
then I can go out and buy abottle of that wine, and I can

(01:13:51):
also maybe taste what theoriginal whiskey was before it
was finished, and say, Allright, this is how they got
there, and this is what ittastes like. And to me, that's
one of the most exciting thingsin this industry, is being able
to taste the process and reallygo from what was it like at the
beginning, what was their aim?Especially, I think, especially

(01:14:12):
when you guys are putting in somuch work to make this great new
make. And like, I want to notethis that you have eight new
makes on the shelf of thedistillery that's unheard of at
most, you're probably havingone, you know, for at most
distillers, if they sell theirnew make at all. So to have

(01:14:34):
eight and all available, notjust to taste, but to buy them,
and then potentially having thewhiskey, whether it's, you know,
Ready or not, is a differentstory. But different story, but
that that's just a matter oftime taste the whiskey down the
line. So you have that guy thatyou said, for example, Callum
about, oh, I've had threebottles of the chocolate malt
new make. I can try this now inthe cask. Maybe they like the

(01:14:57):
new make more. Maybe like theCAS more. But either way,
they're going. Have a hell of anexperience. And again, that's
just one of those things thatmakes me so excited about this
industry and distillers andproducers like you guys doing
this. But also, like I said, I Ican't fly back and forth to
Edinburgh. Unfortunately, I wishI could, because I'd be, I'd be
buying things like that all thetime. It did bring up an

(01:15:20):
interesting question for me,though, which was, you know,
you're not producing you're notproducing massive amounts.
You're you hit about 240,000liters last year. Not small
necessarily. You know, it's notgarage style or garage size
scale, but you know, it's alsoyou're limited by where you are,
by the eight to eight schedulethat you can do is that 240

(01:15:42):
about your max capacity at thispoint?

Calum Rae (01:15:46):
Yeah. I mean, you're always pushing it in a
distillery. If we're, you know,100% you could probably have
about 250,000 so it's always theaim, you know, aim for
perfection and get as close asyou can. But yeah, I mean,
that's also the fun part for usas well, is that, you know, if
we want to make more, it's agreat challenge as a distillery,

(01:16:07):
because we can't just add a newbit to the building, because
then we've knocked somebody'shouse down, you know. So what we
have to do is distillers, is goin there and meticulously work
on our efficiencies so we cankeep maintaining what makes us
Hollywood, which is, you know,unique interest and flavors from
different raw materials thanyou've maybe seen, but also make

(01:16:28):
sure we're really gooddistillers, and that we're a
good distillery that gets themost out of it. So, yeah, it's a
fun, fun spot for us to be in.Of, you know, we're kind of, you
know, we've always been seriousabout what we do, but we always
have fun doing it. And I thinkfor us, this is now the thing
that we're dead serious on is wewant to make sure we're getting
every last available drop out ofwhat we can in the building.

(01:16:51):
But, you know, we're notchanging the essence of the
distillery, which is a reallycool spot to be in. And

I mean, you're also, it's a listed building
too. So even if you were able toget that neighbor's land, you
can't just throw an additiononto the distillery, onto the
building

Calum Rae (01:17:05):
itself. Yeah, the council might have a few words
about that one. I'd say, yeah.

They might not be as receptive as they were to the
original idea, but it so that240 Max, 250 ish liters of
alcohol, 1000 liters per alcoholyear. I've never really asked
this question, I don't think,but in a case where you are
selling a good volume of newmake and encouraging people to

(01:17:31):
taste it and to buy it and tryit, plus having so many
different variants of the newmake, this is, in my mind, I'm
kind of visualizing like you'redividing the pie further and
further down the line. At acertain point you have to have
enough that you're filling thecask so you have aged whiskey,
even with non age statements,still got to be three years,

(01:17:52):
just by regulation to call itwhiskey. I know I'm preaching to
the choir on this, but that'sjust, you know, setting the
context for the question, whatis that sustainable balance
between selling new make havingenough to mature it, and making
sure you're bringing in enoughfunds to do both?

Calum Rae (01:18:12):
I mean, yeah, you gotta be smart. You can't just
empty the coffers straight away,absolutely. But it's one of
those things of, you know, we'vealways, I think we've struck a
balance of making sure thatwe've always got what we need in
a lay down for, you know, for toeventually become whiskey. And,
you know, the amount of new makethat we produce for selling as
new make has decreased everyyear. Because, you know, we

(01:18:34):
don't need that to do quite theamount of heavy lifting that we
needed it to in the early days,perhaps, but it's always going
to be part of our story. Sothere's certainly a balance. It
is a very fine one as well. Youknow, I always joke about
whiskey. You have to think solong term. There's a little bit
of rolling the bones andconsulting the gods sometimes as
well. But there is also planningthat goes into these things. So,

(01:18:57):
you know, we just have to, it'sabout looking at the balance for
for the market. The time when wefirst did it and did all those
skews of new make it was, itmade sense for us because it was
something you could sell now, asopposed to waiting three years
to sell. But also, as I say,more importantly for us, it was
doing that heavy lifting interms of what we're about, what
our story is, what our kind offlavor principles are. So that's

(01:19:21):
gradually decreased. And youknow, as we can kind of relax on
that a bit more and let ourwhiskey do the talking more as
we go. But as for the fine,nitty gritty business ones,
that's probably above my head atthe time, I have to say,

fair enough with the I mean, there's so many more
like I said, we, we're gonna, Ido want to say for listeners,
these gents have been very kindwith their time. We're going to
go a little bit longer on thisepisode with respect to their
time, of course. So thank youguys for for letting me do this.

(01:19:57):
In another comparison that canbe made. You guys, are you?
Distilling both cloudy andclear. Wart going so far as to
do side by side sales of theproducts so people could try
both and see what they werelike. I think I read the cloudy
was like, it wasn't the sameprice. The cloudy was a little
more expensive. What are the Toput it simply, I guess, a simple

(01:20:21):
question, you know what? Whatare the significant differences
between a cloudy and a clearwart when you're at a final
product, calling the finalproduct, let's say a new make
off the still. And were peopleexcited to

Calum Rae (01:20:40):
try them? Yeah, I mean, the, I'll jump in and say
the price difference was alsofactoring in the malt and the
cask that we had as well. Itwasn't just a straight side by
side of the recipe, just in caseanyone felt hard done by there.
Um, but the main thing for usis, is, really, it's a textural
thing, you know. So it's, it'san interesting thing of, you
know, again, it comes back tobrewing for us, you know, for

(01:21:04):
whiskey and beer, for a longtime, your clarity was your kind
of, some guy in marketing many,many, many moons ago thought,
well, I'll be able to sell morebecause I'll be like, Look how
clear and and clean my my beerand my whiskey is. And, you
know, we're borrowing from thecraft brewing scene a little bit
in that of, you know, how manybeers now do you see that are
like hazy IPAs and things likethat, because you're not

(01:21:26):
stripping back and filtering outsome of these things that you've
built in during your brewingprocess that normally would get
taken out for, you know, inorder to make something you
could make for a massive marketand things. So for us, it's a
textural thing. Is the kind ofkey one that we found under the
production team. It gives youjust a little bit more of a kind

(01:21:49):
of similar to what we talkedabout the chevalley Actually, it
gives you a little bit more ofthat stickiness that has a
little bit more of a stayingpower in terms of your you know,
I don't like to use mouth feel,because people hate that term,
but I'm going to use it so sorrypeople, but the mouth feel that
it gives you the kind oftextural quality was very
different. It also provides aslightly better vehicle for your

(01:22:12):
yeast to do its work in, becauseyou've got, like I say, a little
bit more for it to work inthere, and you can have, you
know, some of the kind ofbreakdown that happens in the
mash tun continues to happen infermentation. Whereas, if you're
going with clear water, you'rekind of stripping a lot of that
out during that process. Andwhat it means is you've got a

(01:22:34):
very clear, defined kind of basefor your fermentation to occur.
So in the final kind of productwe found, yeah, it's, it's, it's
a textural thing. It changes howthe whiskey feels when you drink
it, more, I would say, than thetaste. But it does also, as I
say, unlock a few more kind ofthings. So, you know, our new

(01:22:56):
make has a really, really strongfruity element. You know, been
doing a lot of work onidentifying what that fruit is
in our sensory panel. And it'shilarious. It's like, name a
fruit in the world. Somebody'sused that to describe our
spirit, which is quitefascinating. Whereas I think,
you know, breaking up, you know,having a cloudier war, you've

(01:23:16):
got just that slightly more maltheavy character coming through.
So those serially biscuity notesjust get that little bit of kind
of boost coming through there aswell. But yeah, you know, we've,
we actually use some of ourcloudy work and our second
release, embra, repeated releasethat we had, there's, there's

(01:23:37):
one of our when a black filledwith cloudy work in there. And
it's one of those ones. You'relike, Does this do anything? And
then, you know, I didn't make itback then, but I get to try the
whiskey, and go, Holy crap. Whatwas that? And you go and look at
the production records, and it'slike, massive capital letters,
cloudy word. And you're like,ah, that's what that was. Okay?
So we can go away, andinstantly, you know, start

(01:23:58):
coming up with cool ideas. So,yeah, it's, it's very much,
again, a textural thing we foundmore than anything. But it's
another string we're going tocontinue to pull and see where
it takes us.

I love that, the the so jumping to the the next
phase of the stills you guyshave, you know, tall, slender
stills. Hell, I'll ask thelinear question, of course, as
well. But you know, Rob, whenyou were iterating and building

(01:24:33):
the distillery, everyone's gotto choose, you know, what stills
they're going to have, whatstyle they're going to have,
height, width, linear and potcolumn. Well, I guess, no, you
had to use pot as opposed to acolumn, I guess. But how did you
go about deciding with you andDavid and your wife as well,
Kelly on what stills you'regoing to have?

Well, I. Is not going to sound very romantic,
but very much driven by thebuilding that we're in. The
building is, I mean, we love ourbuilding, but it is long and it
is narrow, it is 18 feet fromfront to back, and we we we have

(01:25:21):
essentially nine feet to workin, from a production
perspective, in terms of fittingour equipment into half of that
width. The other half is sort oftourism circulation space. So
that meant, you know, we had,and we had, you know, what?
Needed to have all our equipmentat sort of viewing level, you

(01:25:47):
know, so that, you know, peoplecoming through could look into
things and see what's happening.And so it, just in part, drove
us to a law a tall still to liftup over top of a walkway on the
top floor. And, you know, inretrospect, I'm, I think it was

(01:26:10):
serendipitous that thathappened, because I'm quite
happy with our tall stills.Callum will give you a whole lot
more detail about this, but I, Ithink it gives us a lot more
flexibility. We can do all kindsof different things, you know,
if you got short, dumpy stills,you're really quite limited, you

(01:26:35):
know, and you can make greatspirit, but you're, you're
limited in what you can do. Ithink with some with tall
stills, you get a little moreflexibility with with the style
of spirit, how you run thestills, etc. So, you know,
Callum, I'll let you, you takethat further. But yeah, really,

(01:26:55):
it was the building

that doesn't need to be romantic. It makes total
sense. That's you got to workwith. What you What do you got?
Call them off to you?

Calum Rae (01:27:06):
Yeah. I mean, to be honest, it's quite stunning when
you see it in the building. Youkind of sit there and go, How
did we even get this in here?You know, that's the question
you ask yourself a lot of thetime. And I'm sure, you know,
Rob will answer with muchdifficulty in trials and
tribulations. But yeah, I thinkwhat's really cool is the stills
that we have there. They're, youknow, I describe them as a bit

(01:27:27):
of a Swiss army knife, in termsof, like, they let us play in a
couple of different fields. Youknow, as Rob's going to said,
you know, short dumpy stillsgive you that really heavy,
dirty, oily character on paper,your tall stills are very light,
delicate, you know, fruity,floral. But what's cool is, you
know, we can play around withthat. We've got, you know, not

(01:27:51):
just the size of the stills inthe shape of them, but, you
know, we've got the way that wekind of use them. So you'll
often see, you know, spiritslowly trickling off the tap.
But a lot of distilleries atours, you'll see that comes out
at a fair pace. That's becausewe like to kind of hit them
quite, you know, hard and fast,and give them a lot of heat to

(01:28:14):
really give it quite anaggressive boil, particularly in
the wash still. And that's helpsus almost fight against some of
that, you know, more delicatecharacter you would expect. So
we've still got this reallystrong fruity note and a hint of
floral, but we can build in alittle bit more of a kind of
robustness to them and a littlebit of kind of heaviness, but

(01:28:35):
conversely as well. You know,like I said this week, we're
kind of doing things slightlylonger firms, slightly longer
distillations. All of a suddenwe're giving it that, you know,
classic, slowly trickling overthe tap thing. And we can
produce that really light,delicate spirit that has this
complexity built in from, youknow, day dog. So that's

(01:28:56):
something. And then we've alsogot a purifier on our spirit
still as well. So that thenallows us, you know, it's
basically extra copper, soyou've got more reflux happening
in terms of, you know, coppercontact and stuff going back
into the stills. But also, wecan whack a cooling jacket on it
there, really cool it down, dialup that reflux. And again, just

(01:29:17):
those kind of inherent fruityflavors there. You know, a funny
question, especially for us toask, is people's like, what's
your distillery character, whichis kind of mental, and we have
so many different recipes andstyles, but you do start to see
that DNA kind of coming throughand everything that you make.
And for us, there's afruitiness. There's a lovely
kind of creaminess that comesthrough as well. You know, I

(01:29:39):
always think like strawberry orapricot yogurt is a really key
thing you see coming throughinner new make doesn't always
translate once you get to theend point, but that's the cool
part as well. As you know, muchlike the raw materials, how we
use our stills, you know, isvery much we can kind of key
into what we were doing in themash tun. On, you know,

(01:30:00):
fermentation, and carry thatthrough. And go, Okay, what's
going to really work for this?You know, we'll try the wash
when it's done, and go, Okay,that's that's rocking, you know,
hops in there, and you've gotthe best pint you've ever had in
your life. But what do we do toreally give that what it needs
in the stills? Okay, let's crankup the reflux. Let's run it real
slow, boost those flavors. Or wego, do you know what this is? A

(01:30:22):
bit safe. This needs a bit of abit of dirt, a bit of, you know,
bit of edge to it. Let's driveit real hard and get a little
bit more that character comingthrough as well. And then also
your cut points, you know, weplay around with the cut points.
You know, it varies recipe torecipe. It's not the same for
everything. And again, that's bydesign. You know, we've done a

(01:30:43):
lot of work with Heriot Watt,the university that's in
Edinburgh, has, you know,renowned for its Brewing and
Distilling course, and we cofunded a PhD with them on
specially malt. And what it toldus was, your cut points are key.
So, you know, if you want to getcertain flavors, need to cut
lower. If you want to get otherones, you can cut high. And then
the other cool thing that wehave is we can split our hearts

(01:31:05):
run as well. So that's anotherthing that we're only just
scratching the surface on. Butwe can essentially, you know,
get two very distinct differentspirits from a single run. We
can take the really high alcoholstuff, put that off to the side,
and take the lowers and put themaway. And we can, you know, put
them in the same cask and maybemarry them again later. We can

(01:31:28):
put them in different casks,marry them later, or we can have
them completely separate for therest of their life. And, you
know, they go off in their owndirection. And versatility and
flexibility in terms of the kithas been so key to what we do
because of the same sort ofparameters that we have on the
raw material side. So again,it's just all these layers and

(01:31:48):
these levers that we can pull totry and bone in on a particular
flavor or style

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