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Around The World With Darren Peck - Distiller at Morris Whisky
24 Plays16 days ago
On this weeks episode of Non Chill Filtered, I was lucky enough to have Darren Peck, the distiller from Morris Whisky. Darren is one of only a handful of distillers that have distilled in *almost* every continent (anyone need a distiller in Antarctica?).
Darren takes the wheel as he guides us through his distilling journeys all over the globe, shares some tales to which our final stop is at Morris Whisky, where he calls home. We touch on the upcoming projects from Morris and how they used a platform like Sydney Whisky Month to get a group of whisky nuts together to select their FIRST SINGLE BARREL.
Its quite the hang so pour yourself a glass of Morris, pop those feet up and treat yourself! Huge thanks to Darren for jumping on with me and thank yall for listening.
Check out their website and socials below for all the happenings at Rutherglen VIC.
The place to find Morris Whisky
All Morris events are here! - Make sure you drop in this weekend if you are in Rutherglen, the event sounds amazing :)
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:18
Jez
What's up guys, Jez here from Non-Chill Filtered, where I interview the movers and the shakers in the whiskey industries.
00:00:27
Darren Peck
right.
00:00:28
Jez
um We're very blessed today to have the wonderful Darren Peck from Morris Whiskey. ah He's taken time out of his busy afternoon, the poor thing. He's tucked up at home, as you guys can see on video here.
00:00:43
Jez
He's moving house. That's why he said he's got a blank background. Darren, welcome. Thank you for jumping on this afternoon.
00:00:51
Darren Peck
i Thank you very much for having me this afternoon. Yes, as you can tell, I'm halfway through moving out. So that's why all the bookshelves have nothing on them. um Yes, no, it's a pleasure to talk to you this afternoon.
00:01:05
Jez
ah thank you. Thank you. ah So, you are an absolute beast in the whiskey world.
Early Career in Cider and Brewing
00:01:12
Jez
i remember being at the event for your first single barrel pick and what, I don't even know how long, but you were running through all the different distilleries and...
00:01:29
Jez
different places you'd worked at and it blew my mind like how young you are and how many distilleries and I'd even say breweries you worked at it like it was mind-blowing so Darren do you mind taking us through your comic book 01 origin story
00:01:44
Darren Peck
Yes, certainly. So I've been a very lucky man. i I was born in New Yorkshire many years ago. um
00:01:51
Jez
couldn't pick the accent
00:01:52
Darren Peck
and So yeah, I was born in Yorkshire. I went to university in York. I did a wonderful degree back in 1991 in environmental science and applied biology.
00:02:05
Darren Peck
And upon graduating in 94, I suddenly realised that in the 90s, nobody really needed an environmental scientist. It might be a different matter now, but back then, there wasn't that much demand.
00:02:18
Darren Peck
So I actually went to Scotland and I did a postgraduate in brewing and distilling. So there I am, ah now qualified in brewing and distilling with my postgrad.
00:02:29
Darren Peck
And I picked the year to leave university, they they shut down about 10 breweries England. Now, when you're a young man, you're more into the beer than the whiskey, and I had my art set working on the beer side.
00:02:43
Darren Peck
So I was very fortunate. I got a job just outside Wales in a town called Ereford, and I was making cider. So my first ever job after studying brewing and distilling was to make cider.
00:02:55
Darren Peck
ah Very luckily for the world's largest cider maker.
00:02:57
Jez
Thank you.
00:02:59
Darren Peck
um At the time they make strongbo and those sort of brands. So I was based there for five years. I cut my teeth doing pumps, pipes, and eventually got moved into their research and development department.
00:03:12
Darren Peck
It was while working at the research and development park department that I actually got poached by another brewer. um This one based in Dublin. They make a black beer.
00:03:23
Darren Peck
So I'm sure I don't really need to name them, but if you think of a name as black beer,
00:03:27
Jez
Take a guess.
00:03:29
Darren Peck
That's the one. So I moved over to Ireland in about 2001. I'd graduated post-grad 96. I'd done five years at cider, moved over into the brewing industry.
00:03:42
Darren Peck
And yeah, that's where everything so started off. Got my feet under the table there, started doing some of their brewing trials and got asked to do some brewing trials in Africa.
00:03:55
Darren Peck
So I ended up nipping down to Africa because they own quite a lot of breweries in Africa, do that business. And I did brewing in Nigeria, Kenya, to name two.
International Brewing Projects
00:04:06
Darren Peck
From there, I was very lucky I was doing these projects. I got asked to do the project over in Russia. I did the project in Russia in a different brewery, but for the same beer.
00:04:17
Darren Peck
And then I got work over in Belgium. ah again working for the same company doing a certain project. After that project finished, because it seemed to have gone quite well, they asked me to move to the States.
00:04:31
Darren Peck
And so I moved over to Chicago. I loved Chicago. I love the US. I spent two two years, two three years there. um The best of it is I started off with beer, but then I started working on RTDs.
00:04:46
Darren Peck
So I was doing the ready to drinks, which were massive in America. especially the flavoured malt beverages. So they have tax system where if you can do it by half beer, half spirit, you don't pay spirit tax, you pay beer tax.
00:05:00
Darren Peck
So I was working on those. But as part of that, they then started to ask me to work on some of their spirit brands. And of course, they're famous over there for things such as Crown and Royal, Captain Morgan, George Dickel, you'll name it.
00:05:15
Darren Peck
I started working on some of those.
00:05:15
Jez
The big ones.
00:05:17
Darren Peck
And then an opportunity came up just by pure chance. And that opportunity was to work on a room. So um what happened was there was a project happening in ah in Venezuela of all countries. um Caracas is not the safest place on earth, but it's really interesting to work there.
00:05:37
Darren Peck
And the reason I ended up working there is at the time, the guy in charge of Venezuela was Chavez and he did not really get on with the Americans and he would not give the US visas.
00:05:48
Darren Peck
So I was approached being the Brit in the US and the said, will they give you a visa? And I went on the FCO, which is the Foreign Commonwealth Office, and said, well, actually, it turns out I don't even need a visa. I just need a passport.
00:06:03
Darren Peck
ah Welcome to being in British in South America. So I ended up in South America. i did that job, went move back to the US and then from the US, I moved back to Ireland. I carried on troubleshooting breweries.
00:06:15
Darren Peck
But by that time, i'd been in that business About eight years, so I knew all the problems. So no longer did I have to get on a plane to troubleshoot the problem. I knew the problem, you could do it over the phone and don't get me wrong, it was still interesting, but I wanted more of a challenge.
00:06:32
Darren Peck
So I joined a Dutch company that actually specialised not so much in brewing, but in brewing ingredients. And the deal was that if they bought their brewing ingredients, they got me to solve their problems.
00:06:47
Darren Peck
Hence the craziest three years of my life. I literally did a million air miles in one year.
00:06:53
Jez
Whoa.
00:06:54
Darren Peck
I was commuting between Eastern Europe, Russia and Asia one week, coming back on the Friday, landing into Manchester airport, going home, washing my stuff and then commuting out to Africa the following week.
00:07:12
Darren Peck
And I literally did that for three years. So by the time I'd done that, I'd worked all over the world. So I'd done Malaysia, I'd done other countries in Asia, I'd done all of Russia, I'd done Asian Russia, I'd done the European Russia, I'd done most countries in Eastern Europe, every country in Western Europe, most countries sub-Saharan.
00:07:34
Darren Peck
So the only two I never really got to was obviously Zimbabwe, because as a Brit, I wasn't allowed there. It was the opposite of Venezuela. And the Democratic Republic of Congo, I never got there.
00:07:46
Darren Peck
um But somebody once told me if they have to use democratic in their name, they're probably not.
00:07:50
Jez
No, no. That's... um who else Who else has that? um
00:07:55
Darren Peck
The Democratic Republic of North Korea is one thing called for
00:07:57
Jez
That's the one. Yep, yep. Because you've got make sure you tick the right box when you're ah you circling through. It's like Korea and then the Democratic Party of Korea and you're like, ah not that one.
00:08:09
Jez
Right, right, right.
00:08:09
Darren Peck
no So yes, ah that was it. i'd I'd gone all over the world. I'd made near enough every alcohol barring wine, tequila, and the last continent I'd never worked in was Australia, at last um inhabited continent anyway.
00:08:24
Jez
Mm-hmm.
Transition to Morris Wines
00:08:25
Darren Peck
Still got to find a way to get to Antarctica. I was really fortunate in 2012
00:08:31
Darren Peck
Casella family brands, Casella Wines as it was then, were looking for somebody to help them do some new product development. And they were looking for somebody who'd worked on whiskey, cider, beer, and RTDs. Now, at that time, there were probably about three of us in the world, and I was one of them.
00:08:51
Darren Peck
And I thought, well, it's a great reason to get to Australia. so And it was a great company to work for, so I took the job. I landed from a British um summer into a Griffith winter and nobody tells us that it gets cold in Australia.
00:09:06
Jez
o
00:09:10
Jez
Would remind you of home.
00:09:11
Darren Peck
also do a lot of t-shirts.
00:09:13
Jez
Yeah, that's crazy.
00:09:16
Darren Peck
And so, yes, I spent some time up there. And then John has always been passionate about Australian products, Australian beer, Australian wine. Always wondered why we drank everybody else's whiskey, but never Australian whiskey.
00:09:30
Darren Peck
And so I embarked in around 2016, late 15, early 16, going back to Scotland, looking at equipment, looking at things we could do to get Australian whiskey off the floor.
00:09:44
Darren Peck
And it was at that time that they actually purchased Morris Wines to save it from shutting. So Morris Wines was going to be closed by its previous owner. um We got down there, we found the most fabulous library of fortified wines we can use for seasoning and but getting barrels ready.
00:10:03
Darren Peck
And we also found Aurora. And now Aurora is the 1933 copper pot still re-restored. But that sort brings us up to my history and outcome. I'm making Australian whiskey in Rutherglen.
00:10:18
Jez
That is it such an incredible story. Like, as you said, there's probably only three people in the world that have a similar resume to you. And just sitting there and taking that in, it was like, oh, fuck, you've been around.
00:10:27
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:10:33
Jez
ah Definitely jumped around it and tried some things and just done some crazy work.
00:10:33
Darren Peck
Yep.
00:10:37
Darren Peck
Being shot at in one country because my driver wouldn't stop to pay the bribe and went through the roadblock.
00:10:38
Jez
Yeah.
00:10:45
Darren Peck
So that was no that was Africa.
00:10:46
Jez
I take it, I guess that's Venezuela. Oh, Africa.
00:10:51
Darren Peck
yeah ah
00:10:52
Jez
It was like, was 50, 50. Okay.
00:10:54
Darren Peck
No, that was Africa. That was an African one. He wouldn't pay the bribe if he was in a bad mood.
00:10:59
Jez
Yeah. I, so what was that? What was that like being in Africa? I've got like so many, so many questions. What was it like working Yeah.
00:11:09
Darren Peck
I loved Africa. The people I worked with were so friendly.
00:11:11
Jez
Yeah.
00:11:13
Darren Peck
I've still got some great friends in Nigeria, great friends in Kenya. But the way I'd sum it up is Kenya is that little bit dirty. No, sorry. Nigeria is that little bit dirtier, more dangerous side.
00:11:26
Jez
No, no, no.
00:11:26
Darren Peck
You never go walking in Lagos. If you go to Lagos, you will get robbed.
00:11:28
Jez
Mm.
00:11:30
Darren Peck
Kenya is more, you can walk around a little bit on the nighttime. Ethiopia, you can walk anywhere in the nighttime. Ghana prides itself on being the friendliest country in Africa and you can go anywhere.
00:11:45
Darren Peck
But Nigeria, I would say, the way to think about it is think of Italy. So think of Naples and Florence. If you like Florence, You're Kenya.
00:11:56
Darren Peck
You can walk around. It's that really relaxed atmosphere. If you like something that little bit more edgy, like Naples, which I do, you like Nigeria. And so Nigeria was all my always my favourite. It was always the most dangerous, but it was my favourite.
00:12:12
Jez
It's wild that like you the clear comparison between like say Italy and like that you just take Italy and then you go oh well if you look at Nigeria or it's similar to like it's like huh okay but I see what you mean like we ducked over to yeah
00:12:29
Darren Peck
it that so if you've ever been in Naples it's hilarious it I remember being there God years ago and this girl decided that I had to move from her scooter and I was stubborn and I wasn't going to move and it got very close to being yeah being quite bad actually but yeah that's an Naples for you but I love Naples as well I like that edginess
00:12:54
Jez
Yeah, I see what you mean. Like, we were there last year and it's like, oh, no, yeah, we ended up going down some pretty dodgy looking streets and we're like, oh, we're not in Kansas anymore. Yeah, love, we're just back roads, middle of nowhere. Yeah.
00:13:10
Darren Peck
yeah But Nigeria, the funny story from Nigeria is I once flew to Benin City. So Benin City is not in Benin. It's actually in Nigeria. And I flew over there and the plane broke down the next day and it had only just been repaired. And you're never quite sure what repair job they've done.
00:13:27
Darren Peck
So a lovely guy called Tony Egby rang me and he's still going. He's a lovely, lovely man, lovely Nigerian guy. And he said, Darren, you've got a choice. You can be one of the first passengers on the plane that's just been fixed.
00:13:40
Darren Peck
Or we can send you a driver, but the drivers, it's a 12 hour driver, eight to 12 hour drive, but it's through what they call bandit country. for They used to have oil and they used to have a lot of kidnappings in the oil region.
00:13:53
Darren Peck
And I said, well, I've got to have a think about this. I'm not sure what I want to do.
00:13:56
Jez
Option two.
00:13:57
Darren Peck
ah So, yeah, so I ran him back about an hour later and said, right, yeah, send the car. They said, are sure? I said, yeah, because I figured out that if the plane crashes, I'm in bandit country without a car.
00:14:09
Jez
Exactly. that ah That was my first thought. I was like, yeah, you don't want to be the first person on that plane just after they fixed it because they're not 747s, right? They're like our...
00:14:19
Darren Peck
little
00:14:20
Jez
ah
00:14:21
Darren Peck
but They're not even as good as the Rex's.
00:14:26
Jez
Oh, it's like, what do we what do we have? the yeah that's...
00:14:29
Darren Peck
I suppose a Cessna.
00:14:31
Jez
ah Yeah, okay. we Struggle Street.
00:14:36
Darren Peck
But yeah, but they were the old days. Some of the airlines down there are amazing now. If you ever get the chance, fly Ethiopian Airways, they're a brilliant airline now.
00:14:47
Jez
Yeah, it's... What's the food like on Ethiopian Airways? As long as you're not starving, you should be right.
00:14:52
Darren Peck
It's great food.
00:14:53
Jez
Yeah.
00:14:55
Darren Peck
But that's the difference again between Kenya and Nigeria. So if you look at East and West Africa,
00:14:59
Jez
Perfect.
Innovation in Cider and RTDs
00:15:00
Darren Peck
west africa is more traditional so you have gizzards and you have the dipping pepper and they have something called fish pepper soup which is amazing it's just water with chilies and a fish in it and that's fish pepper soup and literally the dish will come with the head out of one outside the tail out the other and just chillies floating around this fish and yet kenya their real national dish is the chicken pie you could tell the british were there
00:15:14
Jez
perfect
00:15:27
Jez
You can't go wrong.
00:15:30
Jez
ah All right. So we'll start from the top. So what would ah day in your R&D role for CIDR? Like, were you just playing with ABVs here or were you like seeing what you could turn into CIDR?
00:15:43
Darren Peck
But I'm sure it's long enough to talk about some of the projects. I'm sure it's long enough.
00:15:48
Jez
Yeah, I'm,
00:15:48
Darren Peck
But with ah we looked at five litre kegs. I looked at, there was a little product called Sidekick. You'd never get away with it in Australia because Britain doesn't really have RSA.
00:16:01
Jez
No, not like us.
00:16:03
Darren Peck
Not like yours. And they had this, it was a little pot of 24% alcohol, apple or berry flavoured, which you bought at the same time as your bottle of beer or pint of beer and it sat on the edge.
00:16:19
Darren Peck
And it was known it was known as a sidekick.
00:16:19
Jez
Okay.
00:16:22
Jez
Yeah.
00:16:22
Darren Peck
So it was literally designed to sit on top of a bottle. So it's like doubling up with a shot and boiler made.
00:16:27
Jez
Yeah. A Boilermaker, if you will, but yeah, okay.
00:16:31
Darren Peck
So i worked on those and I worked on some other things which I can't talk about.
00:16:35
Jez
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:16:36
Darren Peck
But yeah.
00:16:36
Jez
Probably either in production or...
00:16:39
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:16:39
Jez
za Yeah, okay, okay. And the beer factory you worked at that you are not allowed to talk about, well, you probably don't want to talk about it. um Were you any good at at splitting the G?
00:16:51
Jez
Yep, yep.
00:16:52
Darren Peck
ah Pretty damn good.
00:16:55
Jez
yeah
00:16:55
Darren Peck
Yeah. ah i was i was quite ah I was quite good at that. um I'm not as good anymore. can't drink as much anymore. But um I was quite young. I was in my 20s and it was Ireland. And yeah, and the the the beer over there so fresh.
00:17:10
Darren Peck
So a keg would last three days, four days in market and be back empty. And that was it.
00:17:16
Jez
Yeah, considering it'd be like, oh, unless we're brewing it locally here, it's like, what, at least 30 days or something on a shipping container to get it here?
00:17:25
Darren Peck
Yeah, and even if you brew it there, just the difference between an Adara over there is they drink it once a day, and Adara in Australia will drink it once a month, and it the Adara in the UK is only once a week.
00:17:36
Jez
Yeah.
00:17:38
Darren Peck
So it's just... Yeah. But yeah, I've got some to start with, so brewing that in Nigeria.
00:17:42
Jez
Yeah, something else.
00:17:46
Darren Peck
um Some great stories about American pilots coming up and hearing in my accent. knowing who I worked for and instantly assuming I was Irish and telling me all the wonderful stories about how their family had fought for Irish freedom and you just have to stand there and nod and be very polite.
00:18:05
Jez
There you go. Yeah. Can't pick the accent. Yeah. All right. It's fine.
00:18:08
Darren Peck
Except for one day when I was actually with a lovely Irish fella and he eventually waited until this guy finished and just turned around and said, you do realise he was on the other side, don't you?
00:18:18
Darren Peck
LAUGHTER
00:18:20
Jez
Oh shit. Nope.
00:18:21
Darren Peck
Hold it.
00:18:22
Jez
Put my foot in it.
00:18:23
Darren Peck
Yeah. What do we do?
00:18:26
Jez
ah Do you have any other crazy stories coming out of Africa? Like I want to know if you, if anything did happen on that 12 hour car ride that you were, you're going through that abandoned planes.
00:18:37
Darren Peck
No, that one was actually one of the quieter ones. But the worst thing is, is in Africa, there's some lovely, there's some amazing scenery. So I used to land in a place called Kampala in Uganda, drive up onto Mtebe,
00:18:49
Darren Peck
stay the night in Entebbe and then drive up to a place called Ginger. Now, Ginger is the source of the Nile. And you're used to staying in this safari-type park with the huts and the houses, but you couldn't actually go swimming because there were crocodiles in the Nile.
00:19:06
Darren Peck
so all right, they're only freshies. They're not your i amazing salt waters.
00:19:08
Jez
Yeah, yeah,
00:19:10
Darren Peck
But I'm a Brit, right? the most the most vicious thing I'd ever seen in my life before was a wasp, right? So...
00:19:17
Jez
Pretty dangerous. That's...
00:19:19
Darren Peck
But any crocodile is a crocodile to a Brit. But we used to drive up there and I used to joke you could actually make a cup of tea on the way because you'd pass cattle and then you'd pass sugar plantations and then you'd pass tea plantations.
00:19:34
Darren Peck
And it's beautiful country. the The long drive through Nigeria is rainforest. But the problem is you're working, you're a little bit tired, but you go, I'm going to watch a rainforest, which is great for about the first 12 minutes.
00:19:50
Darren Peck
And then the one thing about a rainforest after 12 minutes is the next 12 minutes looks very similar to the last 12 minutes. And when you get to three hours, you're not interested anymore.
00:20:02
Jez
You're so off it.
00:20:04
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:20:05
Jez
Like, ah, when will this rainforest end? You don't even know if you're going the right way at that point because you're like, have I seen that tree before? i don't know.
00:20:13
Darren Peck
And course, the driver's just driving and we have rains over there. So the roads are mud, so they wash out. So then he'll slam on the brakes and then you're going in up this little thing to try to get past the massive pothole.
00:20:24
Darren Peck
And when I say a pothole, it's a pothole. It's not.
00:20:26
Jez
yeah it's...
00:20:27
Darren Peck
Yeah. So the rains wash roads away, very similar to the Dauia, but much deeper and much more dangerous.
00:20:35
Jez
what How did you go working with the US and RTDs? Because obviously, Australia has a massive RTD demand. like That's where majority of our whiskey consumption comes from for, like say, American whiskey.
00:20:47
Darren Peck
Yes.
00:20:47
Jez
It's all RTDs.
00:20:49
Jez
And you're starting to see that more happen in the US now. I don't know the the timeline of when you were there exactly, but are we seeing like the same kind of demand and then it dropped off and now it's coming back up? Or...
00:21:04
Darren Peck
There was, but their RTDs were slightly different as well.
00:21:07
Jez
Yeah. Yes.
00:21:08
Darren Peck
um So what they'd be looking at is at that time, there was two big ones, which was the competitor, which was Mike's Hard Tea, and Smyrna had something out called Twisted. So it was like flavoured vodka RTD. From that, we went into tea RTDs. So one of my first ones was actually a green tea RTD, which was about 5% ABV and tasted of nothing but green tea.
00:21:32
Darren Peck
um It was actually very, very dangerous. It was like drinking ice cream tea, but with 5% AV in it.
00:21:34
Jez
yeah
00:21:39
Jez
Sunday Sippers.
00:21:40
Darren Peck
Exactly. And what was happening is that actually got eventually stopped because of responsible drinking, because people didn't realise what they were drinking. But it would barbecues on a, so the Americans live for the weekend, they live for tailgating, they live for the barbecue.
00:21:56
Darren Peck
And a case of that was going down very easily.
00:21:59
Jez
Good for numbers.
00:22:00
Darren Peck
And then we did really weird things, which I was there when we did the first ever alcoholic water. And we're talking, God, 12, 15, 15, 16 years ago, we took off.
00:22:14
Jez
Wow. Yeah.
00:22:16
Darren Peck
And now if you look at seltzers, seltzers in the US are taking off more than the ready to drink whiskeys are. so people are looking for that. Think what makes them think health.
00:22:29
Darren Peck
And you can say it is healthy because it's got ethanol there.
00:22:29
Jez
yeah
00:22:32
Darren Peck
So it its you can't say it's an health claim, but people are looking for that sort of thing. And they'll see seltzer. Oh, it's mainly water with some alcohol and flavor. And it's zero sugar. And it's that well-being piece what's coming through a lot more in the US.
00:22:47
Jez
That's what the girls are drinking at the clubs is just vodka, lime and sodas. So the fact that the attention is there now, so they're kind like, all right, well, are you seeing any of that translate into what Morris wants to do with their product? Obviously, it's like predominantly whiskey based, but it's like, would they go into like an RTD or even like a wine RTD category?
00:23:10
Darren Peck
I don't believe we would ever do that under the Morris brand, but we actually, because we're part of such a big company, we also own other brands as well. So if you look at the Ampersand brand we own, which is the Vodka Rand, yeah.
00:23:22
Jez
Yes.
00:23:23
Darren Peck
So we have got other brands there, which are great brands, Zero Sugar, Low Calorie, damn good flavors. And yeah, so I might get to play in that area a little bit more. But i can't see us taking out whiskies there yet.
00:23:40
Jez
ye Which is good because it's um like kind of take us back to Morris for a second. It's such a prestige brand. It's like the amount of distilling history behind it.
00:23:53
Darren Peck
Yes.
00:23:54
Jez
It's, well, it's good to see.
Preservation and Production at Morris Wines
00:23:57
Darren Peck
Yeah, so like I said, we bought it 2016, or John did, to actually save it because it was going to be shut down.
00:23:57
Jez
Yeah.
00:24:04
Darren Peck
When you think there's 160 years of fortified winemaking there. So they've got this library of fortified wines, which is just unbelievable. And we put something together like Madden works on the, say, the rare...
00:24:20
Darren Peck
musket and it's got wines from the 1940s and the 1950s to draw on to give it the flavour and then it's got fresher newer wines which you can top up that more aromatic side of it so it gives you the perfect product every time it's amazing you can do
00:24:36
Jez
Well, it's an interesting spot to kind of touch on there. Did you want to take us through what your first single barrel event looked like and and how the consumers landed on that? Because that's just, I think that's out at market now.
00:24:52
Darren Peck
It is. It just um got launched on last Tuesday.
00:24:56
Jez
few days ago. Yeah.
00:24:57
Darren Peck
It's filled out. So I think it's...
00:24:59
Jez
Yes, which is exciting. Like, first single barrel, like, you guys have been punching out whiskeys. Like, my, yeah oh, where is it? like One of my favorite releases from you guys was the smoked musket. Like, I'm a big, sweet guy.
00:25:14
Jez
Oh, sorry, smoked sherry. Yeah, the kind of run... Was it the, no, because the musket one was also banging. Smoke Sherry, I'm such a, like a sweet forward guy. So was like being able to taste through those casks with you guys was incredible for this single barrel experience.
00:25:34
Darren Peck
And yeah, so what we did is I looked through things we had in single barrel. um I think I said on the night that we had a lovely sherry barrel there.
00:25:45
Darren Peck
We had an American oak barrel there. We had a pure French oak barrel there where all of those had shown the greatness of that characteristic. And I think we're going to launch the French as well eventually because it shows the true characteristics of French oak.
00:25:56
Jez
Beautiful.
00:26:02
Darren Peck
But we've gone through them all and I'm, I've never been shy to say I'm not a great fan of red wine influencing my whiskies.
00:26:13
Darren Peck
i Actually, our Coopers shave our barrels back, we re-toast them, we make them into whiskey casts. They all come out of Lehman's and Ranslava, which we also own, so we get those wine barrels, we turn them into whiskey barrels and I fill them for maturation, and then the whiskey then goes into barrels which have held the fortified wine to finish but back then and we're talking right at the start i i wasn't convinced on red wine and especially gerif because gerif is such a bold wine it's they call it shiraz on steroids so but we laid three or four barrels down and that one barrel was just it it proved me wrong
00:27:01
Darren Peck
So no matter how long I've been in this business, it shows I can be wrong. I can be proved wrong. And that battle proved me wrong. And that's why we that to put forward as that single battle.
00:27:12
Darren Peck
So that night in Sydney, I think you tested through the four variants and the Jirif... Outshone everything and so was launched last Tuesday.
00:27:23
Darren Peck
And everything is done in-house on the single barrel. So we empty it, goes through a very coarse filter just to remove bits of wood more than anything. But all whiskey has to, otherwise you'll get bits of chow in the bottom the barrel.
00:27:38
Darren Peck
And then actually hand fill it and hand label it.
00:27:41
Jez
Which is like a true testament of like the labor of love that you guys go through to make your bottles so pretty.
00:27:49
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:27:50
Jez
Because the labels on them are spectacular. it Like it stands out from the other side of the room. Like it's a I don't know if you guys have seen these labels before, but the yeah The single barrel label is very exciting, obviously, because the I'd say the cask is on there, the cask details, bottled at cask strength, which is always a good time.
00:28:13
Jez
Yeah.
00:28:14
Darren Peck
Yes, and it's there at the 58%, but those labels are there and applied, they never go down the production line there. Everyone is hand stuck, it goes into an hand gift box, a little card is put by hand, because it's something precious, it's something we hadn't done before, and it's something we wanted to take our time with.
00:28:33
Darren Peck
The one thing that was the same always though, is i did I tell you the story of the Morris emblem, which you'll see on all the labels, which
00:28:41
Jez
You did, but if you'd like to share it with guests at home.
00:28:45
Darren Peck
Yeah, so if you ever look at our label, we've got a barrel with a horse. um And that horse is actually called Fairfield.
00:28:52
Jez
and get them ah
00:28:54
Darren Peck
It was a real horse. Obviously, it didn't look like that. That's a stylized representation. But um it was a real steeplechaser. And what happened back in time is that horse was actually sold...
00:29:07
Darren Peck
to get money to plant the first vineyards and that's why it's so integral to our story because 160 years ago that money paid for the vineyards which is giving us the wine and of course the barrels are there because in our region the barrels are what really help mature both the whiskey and the fortified wines
00:29:30
Jez
So we'll touch on the barrels themselves. Do you guys reduce the size of them at all? I know you you shave them down a little bit just to re-expose that wood so then you can, once again, fill it with whiskey, get out that remnants of red wine, which you don't enjoy in your your whiskey because there are some terrible, terrible brands that are putting in like whiskey in red wine casts and they really need to strip those out.
00:29:49
Darren Peck
of the g
00:29:57
Darren Peck
yeah
00:29:58
Jez
um Yeah, are you reducing the size of them at all? Because obviously the best practice is using those larger style barrels.
00:30:05
Darren Peck
Yeah, I try not to reduce the size of them. So what they'll do is they'll shave out the inside, they'll rechar it and we'll fill it, but you're still looking at about a 280 to 300 litre fill.
00:30:17
Jez
Which is perfect.
00:30:19
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:30:20
Jez
And how do you determine...
00:30:22
Darren Peck
I don't believe all ones.
00:30:24
Jez
How do you determine your picking time for your barrels? Is there like a particular season you like to pick them in or is it like just gone through with a thief and just like a straw sucking them out of barrels?
00:30:40
Darren Peck
We taste. So we taste in batches as well.
00:30:41
Jez
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:44
Darren Peck
We know when they're going to be right for coming together, to be married together, to put the next... um batch together in a marriage but we will taste them and some of them while we're tasting that will be pulled to one side and they'll end up being in the cellar reserves and then you'll taste another one and that's what ended up as the french oak barrel because i went that's just too don't use that one we want to put that one over there for that one's just done something unique
00:31:13
Jez
Yeah. And the French oak is truly unique. Uh, I think my, I think it was stuck between the American oak and the French oak, like the, and like coming from a bourbon field, like the American oak is just my sweet levels of like the caramels and vanillas that two worlds I like to play in. And then the French oak stood out and I'm like, okay, okay.
00:31:37
Jez
yeah.
00:31:38
Darren Peck
yeah
00:31:40
Jez
But will the American oak kind of make its way out onto the market? I know the whiskey list we're talking about. Buying it off you.
00:31:47
Darren Peck
i think I think the American oak may actually be going to market, but it may be going through a different channel.
00:31:56
Jez
Ooh, okay.
00:31:58
Darren Peck
I'm not sure can and cannot say there.
00:31:58
Jez
I like it.
00:32:01
Darren Peck
ah
00:32:01
Jez
Yeah, that's all right.
00:32:01
Darren Peck
yeah It was a beautiful American oak. It's typically that vanillin, eyes of vanillin. You've got that sweetness, you've got that bourbon-esque, but you don't have the sweetness from the mash.
00:32:14
Jez
Yeah.
00:32:14
Darren Peck
It just came out beautiful. But I think that will be coming out for a duty-free.
00:32:16
Jez
And...
00:32:20
Jez
Ooh. That's... Well, it's allegedly on the record.
00:32:23
Darren Peck
But like and I said, I don't know i'm much I'm allowed to
00:32:27
Jez
That's fine. It's fine. It's exciting though. It means everyone will have to travel internationally. Like that has my personal recommendation. But it'd be great for you guys to also release that that French oak.
00:32:38
Darren Peck
Yeah, and we will be looking at that later in the year, I am sure. It's too good not to release.
00:32:46
Jez
How are you guys housing your barrels in there as well? Are they like obviously warehouse, but are we talking like how high up are we?
00:32:55
Darren Peck
Okay, so we've built special maturation sheds because obviously our climate going down to minus six and up to 40, we wanted to be able to make sure that we got the best out of that climate.
00:33:08
Darren Peck
So we've built very large maturation sheds. And we we rack rather than pallet because I find racks are easier to move around and to bring down to thief out of.
00:33:20
Darren Peck
And we'll stack six eye. But I do also have a way of moving the air within those sheds so that I'm not getting cooking at the top and no cooking at the bottom. You can actually...
00:33:31
Darren Peck
circulate the temperature as well so one of the problems you'll find especially in the us and especially when i work down in about places alabama now you talk about weird places to make whiskey alabama was one of the weirdest lovely place though lovely guy i worked with down there but their problem is the top of the rick houses will get so hot compared to the bottom yes
00:33:43
Jez
Yeah.
00:33:52
Jez
They'd be cooking. What were you doing in Alabama? i like I know you said you went to the US, s but I'm trying to remember what distilleries are in Alabama.
00:34:03
Jez
There's one, actually.
00:34:05
Darren Peck
So I was learning, i was still learning a little bit about um the bourbons and I wanted to just fine tune it.
00:34:13
Jez
Yep.
00:34:15
Darren Peck
And obviously I'd work on Dickel, which was Tennessee whiskey.
00:34:18
Jez
Yep.
00:34:18
Darren Peck
A guy runs a small distillery called Detling.
00:34:23
Jez
I do know, Ettling, they're actually relatively big now.
00:34:24
Darren Peck
Detling. Yeah, so Detling, Bourbon, and Seth, lovely, lovely guy. And I went down there to learn from him. And, yeah, just very, very much the Alabama experience. It was amazing.
00:34:43
Jez
Any highlights from Alabama?
00:34:46
Darren Peck
um Yeah, um some of them... So the seafood gumboil was just unbelievable. They have something like a crayfish, but they use this spicy powder in it. And that was just unbelievable one night.
00:35:02
Darren Peck
um One of my highlights, I... don't personally like guns, but I have shot a few in my life. And of course, this is Alabama.
00:35:14
Darren Peck
And this gentleman had everything you could think of to but play with, and including a fully automatic submachine gun.
00:35:18
Jez
what
00:35:24
Jez
For like no reason at all, but I love it.
00:35:27
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:35:27
Jez
It's just like gun ownership. I'm like, okay, I get it.
00:35:31
Darren Peck
Yeah, this was the same as the police and army use over here, but had the little key in it, which could make it fully auto.
00:35:41
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:35:42
Jez
Diabolical.
00:35:43
Darren Peck
But it was great fun. And you know he never used it. You know what I mean? you can
00:35:47
Jez
Yeah.
00:35:47
Darren Peck
But why you need it, you don't.
00:35:49
Jez
No, it's...
00:35:49
Darren Peck
that's really I much prefer the British idea of guns, which is the police have them, the baddies have them, so the police know who to shoot. There's no confusion.
00:35:58
Jez
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:36:01
Darren Peck
And I think the Australians are the same. We don't need that many firearms, to be honest.
00:36:05
Jez
No. Like you've got the guys that do it recreationally and the guys that hunt, but other than that, it's like, yeah, the the cops have them and the ah bad guys have them and that's play ball.
00:36:10
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:36:14
Darren Peck
You don't need a silenced, fully automatic submachine gun.
00:36:19
Jez
no Not, they go, far for hunting.
00:36:20
Darren Peck
No.
00:36:22
Jez
You go, really? That's, the deer won't hear the the bullet coming. You go, I don't know if that works, but sure.
00:36:28
Darren Peck
not
00:36:30
Jez
so But you sound like you're a bit of a foodie. Was there any cool spots you kind of hit up and were like, the food here is next level? Because there's only a few spots you actually haven't been.
00:36:42
Darren Peck
Yeah, I'll be honest. I still think some of the best food in the world is French. And some of it isn't politically correct anymore. But in the old days, Fargoire was just...
00:36:57
Darren Peck
amazing you go through the champagne region i was up in the venice region where langoustines were just being pulled out of the or like a big crevette like a um like a small lobster i suppose and they were being pulled out of this um the sea up there and with the prosecco and the beautiful white wines and So I like European food.
00:37:22
Darren Peck
I like those. But to that said, you go over and some of my best meals have been the cheap meals in Ochi Min City where you're eating noodles with the locals at one o'clock in the morning sat on a beer crate.
00:37:40
Jez
Because there's something special about street food, like just being in the heart of it and and just watching them cook it.
00:37:43
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:37:46
Jez
And like there is, don't know, throw on cash out your wallet and you're like, it's cheap, it's easy.
00:37:54
Darren Peck
as It is. In Nigeria, we used to love it. On a Friday, the guy would come in with his big hot plate and he'd start cooking up the gizzards. So it's the little bits of the inside of the chicken and he'd get them all cooked up and then you got them in a piece of paper and you dip them into this powder and eat them.
00:38:14
Darren Peck
And i am ah lovely lady called Buki took me down to the beach because obviously it's Nigeria. I can't go anywhere by myself. So she took me down with a driver because she wanted me to see the beach.
00:38:26
Darren Peck
And she said, what would you love to eat? And there was all these locals cooking gizzards. And I said, I'd love gizzards. So because he saw was Caucasian, he just piled it up and piled it up. And so we're there and eating. I could only eat about a quarter of it.
00:38:42
Darren Peck
And As it was, there was this little lad watching me and he'd actually hung on my arm walking up the beach because obviously it's um somebody they've never seen me before and he's hanging on my feet.
00:38:54
Darren Peck
And I stopped and he looked at me and Boki said, have you finished? I said, yeah. And she said to this kid, you can have it. And he wrapped it up, he put it under his arm and he ran like hell.
00:39:07
Darren Peck
And I looked at Boki and said, oh, is that to get away from the other kids? And she said, no, that's to take it home to his family so they can have it as well.
00:39:15
Jez
Oh.
00:39:16
Darren Peck
And you suddenly realise how privileged you are.
00:39:19
Jez
Yeah. It's... like reassuring that we live in the best country in the world.
00:39:27
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:39:28
Jez
It's like, you know, we have access to everything and it's like, this kid is going to run home to his family, drop it off and share it. Cause it's like, it's not often you get this.
00:39:37
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:39:38
Jez
so I'm sure would have been a real treat for him.
00:39:40
Darren Peck
Yeah, and it's so sad, though, because you just realise that, yeah, you're just so privileged.
00:39:47
Jez
Yeah. It's. such a weird note to end it on. I got to, I got to switch it up a little bit. i gotta got to change pace. so I'm going to us back to Morris. So, cause I like, I, um, oh like I feel sorry for these kids, but, um, they're not enjoying this delicious whiskey I got here.
00:39:55
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:40:02
Jez
So there's, uh, you know, there's a little bit of upside here.
00:40:06
Darren Peck
There it
Whiskey Production Techniques
00:40:07
Jez
Um, so is there a particular, I'd say style of grain you like to use at, at Morris?
00:40:07
Darren Peck
So, yeah, so...
00:40:17
Jez
Cause obviously you guys are predominantly making the, uh, ah barley form of of whiskey, not but the corn base that you used to back over in the US or...
00:40:29
Darren Peck
Yeah, I do like using. I actually use a pale malt. It all comes from the Riverina. um It's all malted in a small local malsters. ah It's all fermented in our own family-owned brewery. So we're a little bit of a control freak as well. We control everything from the brewing industry all the way through to the maturation and finishing of the whiskies.
00:40:50
Darren Peck
But um I actually think Pale Malt gives you that lovely starting spirit that you can then expand on in the barrel.
00:41:01
Darren Peck
And they all say that 70% the flavour will come from the barrel, and that's very true. But it's how do you start that? What cuts have you taken? What esters have you used? What yeast have you put in with that pale ale malt?
00:41:14
Darren Peck
So everybody can say, oh, well, it's just a neutral malt base. But it is, but it's how you ferment it and how you cut it will also change it. That said, I have been playing with some other grains as well.
00:41:23
Jez
Hi.
00:41:26
Darren Peck
So there are other things in barrel at the moment, some grain-based, some not grain-based. um But yeah, we have been looking at other grains. But at the moment, there's still so much to do with barrels and expressions and our different yeast types.
00:41:44
Darren Peck
And there's a fabulous firm out there now making different yeast, what can actually tailor make the esters you want that will give you a certain whiskey maturation which is a new place to explore
00:41:57
Jez
Is there so much to unpack there? ah From the, I'd say, from the start, is there a particular flavor profile you're looking for when you're ah you're doing your cuts and before it enters the barrel? I know there's like a good distiller mate of mine.
00:42:15
Jez
um He likes to look for the note where there's original, like this.
00:42:20
Darren Peck
So ours is a sweetness. It's a sweetness there. I'm not going to fully describe it.
00:42:24
Jez
no, that's...
00:42:25
Darren Peck
I'm looking for something sweet, very estuary.
00:42:28
Jez
Mm-hmm.
00:42:28
Darren Peck
Because you've got to remember our climate, three years is doing about an eight-year job. So four years is doing a 10-year job because of the massive swings of temperature.
00:42:40
Darren Peck
The problem with that is that you'll get a lot of wood extraction. So unless you've got the esters there in the first place to mellow out and round off the whiskey, then you will end up with something that tastes quite woody and unbalanced.
00:42:57
Darren Peck
And that's what we don't want. so I'm looking for that ester profile, what matches my barrels. And we actually had an expert down from Scotland to work on the barrels with me to match those barrels to the climate as well.
00:43:12
Darren Peck
So everything's matched. to our maturation climate because there's no point taking a Scottish barrel and putting it in the middle of the desert. It's not going to do the same job.
00:43:22
Jez
No, it's an entirely different ballgame.
00:43:24
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:43:24
Jez
ah What was your loss rate yeah every year
00:43:27
Darren Peck
and Anywhere between on one, 15 on bad one, 23. Yep. Yes.
00:43:35
Jez
It's like Texas level, which is insane.
00:43:35
Darren Peck
yep
00:43:38
Darren Peck
yes
00:43:40
Darren Peck
But remember last last year around yeah val Australia Day, we got five days of 41 plus.
00:43:50
Jez
Yeah, that would have cooked some your barrels.
00:43:52
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:43:52
Jez
So you find like, I wouldn't say heat cycling, but more, I guess, chill cycling your barrels where you're temperature controlling your ah maturation warehouse.
00:44:03
Jez
Do you find that assists your...
00:44:05
Darren Peck
No, we actually just stir the air so that you've got equal air.
00:44:08
Jez
Yeah. Oh, so it's not even... i thought you wered trying to bring that temperature down a little bit so you didn't cook them like at 41.
00:44:14
Darren Peck
No, because i I like the temperature because temperature is speed.
00:44:16
Jez
Yeah.
00:44:19
Jez
Yeah.
00:44:19
Darren Peck
But it's just making sure that the spirit is balanced to that speed.
00:44:23
Jez
yeah i was Yeah, that's the the trade-off because you have these, I'd say, brands that are putting their whiskey in these 20-liter casks, pushing it out at two years and going, here you go.
00:44:35
Darren Peck
yeah And I don't always a like 20 litre cast for the same reason, as I said, that the esters have to be strong enough to carry a 300 litre barrel. Once you've got that liquid to oak ratio in a 20 litre, yes, you're going to mature it in two years, but it's going to be more wood than whiskey.
00:44:55
Jez
Absolutely. Well, obviously purely contact-based as opposed to like going 300.
00:44:59
Darren Peck
yeah exactly. like Yeah.
00:45:03
Jez
Do you use a smaller cask for, say, finishing your barrels or like full maturation in?
00:45:08
Darren Peck
full maturation in 300s and then even the finishing casts are normally seasoned And
00:45:16
Jez
Yeah, that's next level. ah yeah
00:45:20
Darren Peck
and if you saw the double pot which we launched last year with um the Whiskey Club, that had actually been three years in 300 litre barrel maturation.
00:45:21
Jez
just don't.
00:45:34
Darren Peck
went through a small finishing in a pork barrel, came out of that, went back into a different 300 litre pork barrel and spent a year in there.
00:45:44
Jez
Do you find it it takes a lot more, I'd say, resources to move your spirit in and out of barrels, but you get a better product?
00:45:55
Darren Peck
Yes. Yeah, we we want that finishing.
00:45:56
Jez
Yeah.
00:45:58
Darren Peck
We want to be able to finish them properly. We want to be able to mature them properly.
00:46:03
Jez
Which what sets you apart with other distilleries in the market?
00:46:07
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:46:08
Jez
which is ah which is nice. Do you guys have a an ample supply, obviously being, say, a winery base? You guys are cooking with all different kinds of barrels down there. That obviously plays into your hand a little bit.
00:46:22
Darren Peck
It does. We've got every single fortified wine you can name to finish our season barrels with. So we have a full fortified winery. So Madame makes everything from a pair, which used to all the way through to Muscat.
00:46:37
Darren Peck
So we are the full range, the full gamut of fortified wines. We've got about 1,400 barrels on site full of wine. We've got wine from... um I learnt on Saturday I was doing a wine show with Madden and I learnt that one of our wines at the moment has actually got a portion of it from 1947. Yeah. Yeah. Excuse me.
00:46:58
Jez
What?
00:46:59
Darren Peck
yeah
00:47:01
Jez
It's incredible.
00:47:01
Darren Peck
um yeah
00:47:04
Jez
I actually saw i saw Glendon posting photos of um of the wine show and he was –
00:47:11
Darren Peck
a
00:47:13
Jez
it was I don't even know which release it was, but it just looks so dark, it looks so syrupy. I was like, there's a reason why I i love your ah your musket releases.
00:47:28
Darren Peck
The rare musket is average of 20 years old.
00:47:28
Jez
It's just...
00:47:32
Darren Peck
Just before Christmas, Madden was putting a special blend together for John and he said, oh, would you like like to taste this? said, course I would. said, what is it? He said, oh, that's from 1942. LAUGHTER
00:47:48
Jez
It's mind-blowing to see you guys just have those stocks lying around.
00:47:51
Darren Peck
eighteen
00:47:51
Jez
It's not...
00:47:52
Darren Peck
85 year old sugar, because you're never allowed to add sugar. So all that sugar grew in a grape in 1942, which means the sugar I was drinking 85 years Yeah.
00:48:02
Jez
It's incredible. It's crazy to drink stuff that's distilled before you were born.
00:48:08
Darren Peck
yeah
00:48:10
Jez
Like, I don't understand it, but it's great to actually see those products, I'd say, come to life and be able to try him and share them with people. Makes it all worth it.
00:48:21
Darren Peck
And being a fortified wine, of course, it's made from the grapes, it's fermented, and then we're adding spirit, which they'd made back in the day as well.
00:48:28
Jez
Yeah. Will you guys actually bring any of those products to market?
00:48:34
Darren Peck
that They're all used in some of the wines. So what will happen is if you think of the musket wine, it's an average age. So what you'll do is you'll use some of those very old wines to give you those, what they call rancio, deeper, darker, raisin type flavors.
00:48:51
Darren Peck
But then you'll use fresher wines to top up the more aromatic side. So it's always an average in wine. Whereas whiskey, we always have to declare the youngest. Fortified wines is always an average.
00:49:02
Darren Peck
So some of these bottles of fortified wine you drinking, I've got nineteen forty s nineteen fifty s nineteen sixty s wine in them.
00:49:09
Jez
But it's interesting that they work off the the average base as opposed to, do you find consumers get confused when, I know it's more of a wine-based question, but do you find consumers get confused with, they think it's like a minimum age of 20?
Educating Consumers and Personal Reflections
00:49:25
Darren Peck
um I'm not sure, really. I think most people who are drinking fortified wines know that. I think where we're having to have a little bit more education is fortunately the whiskeys, these fortified wines are amazing, but fortunately the whiskey is bringing in a younger demographic to drinking fortifieds again because they're realising how good they are. Because when we do the tasting of the musket whiskey with the musket, all sudden they realise there's two damn good products.
00:49:54
Darren Peck
Excuse me. So happening is younger people are coming into that.
00:49:55
Jez
You're right.
00:49:58
Darren Peck
And by younger, I mean mid-30s, not the traditional fortified wine drinkers.
00:50:04
Jez
It's me at 28, yeah.
00:50:05
Darren Peck
Yeah, and that's explaining that to them. Because the whiskey drinking now, let's be honest, is aged between, what, 23 and 45, really? Is that really graphic?
00:50:14
Jez
That's, yeah. I got into it at 23, yeah.
00:50:17
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:50:19
Jez
It's, yeah, once again, it's just ah getting the attention of those younger audiences and then obviously tapping into the ah cocktail side as well and I guess just flowing more traffic into the ethos.
00:50:32
Darren Peck
Exactly.
00:50:33
Jez
I love it. Well, Darren, thank you so much for your time. I hit the 50-minute mark. You mind if we run through a couple of quickfire questions for you? Just so the...
00:50:43
Darren Peck
Yep, not enough.
00:50:43
Jez
Consumers can get a bit of an idea or about a little bit more of a idea about you.
00:50:49
Darren Peck
Yep, certainly.
00:50:50
Jez
right. From the top, where is the weirdest place you've tried whiskey or any spirits in general?
00:51:00
Darren Peck
Probably the weirdest place I tried too much vodka was on a sleeper train leaving Saransk to Moscow with two Russian policemen.
00:51:14
Jez
Is there a story there? It was just like it
00:51:17
Darren Peck
There's a slight story. um We used to fly to a place called Saransk to fix a brewery, but you used to have to fly on an airline called Saransk Air, and... They weren't the safest, but we were in an area, so we had to get there. So we used Saransk air.
00:51:32
Darren Peck
On the way home, you would never fly if you could help it. So used to book sleeper trains. But I used to book both compartments in a first class because it was like 50 bucks for both seats.
00:51:43
Jez
Nothing.
00:51:44
Darren Peck
This time it was full. And I ended up sharing with a policeman who said, can I invent my invite my friend for dinner? Dinner turned out to be Russian sausage, so salted fish and a bottle of vodka.
00:51:57
Darren Peck
And I was pretending not to notice and read my book, which had to be Agatha Christie, because it was going to be murder on the Orient Express, wasn't it? I'm on a sleeper train. And I'm reading that. And then he said, would you like to join me for dinner?
00:52:12
Darren Peck
I said, I'd love to. He said, OK, here's some sausage. And I put it in my mouth. And it was just like grease and chili and nothing else. was I was on fire. well Excuse me.
00:52:24
Darren Peck
But then, so, of course, this policeman's now laughing at me. And I go, it says, it's okay. Salt fish, get rid of taste of sausage. And it did. It literally desiccated my head.
00:52:36
Darren Peck
There was nothing left. It was just salt. And it sucked every bit of moisture, mopped up the chili. But I was just gasping. It says, it's okay, it's okay. Vodka. And I took the shot of vodka and it was like castor oil, but on fire.
00:52:53
Darren Peck
I know my eyes are watering. i'm i'm
00:52:55
Jez
It's incredible.
00:52:56
Darren Peck
I'm now crying in front of a Russian policeman. I don't want to be crying in front of a Russian policeman.
00:53:01
Jez
No.
00:53:02
Darren Peck
And he smiles at me with the biggest grin you've ever seen. And he always said to me, each sausage, get rid of tasted vodka.
00:53:07
Jez
What?
00:53:12
Darren Peck
And we go around again. eventually go out of vodka.
00:53:17
Jez
It's incredible. Like they curated this dish to like,
00:53:25
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:53:26
Jez
Never ending cycle. I don't but have words. It's insane. And you're like, ah I guess I'm stuck in this infinite loop of like sausage, fish, vodka.
00:53:31
Darren Peck
Yeah. But yeah.
00:53:38
Darren Peck
Sausage fish vodka. He sent his mate out to get another bottle of vodka.
00:53:45
Jez
Oh my God. That is amazing.
00:53:47
Darren Peck
ah yeah That's the weirdest place. I've probably got too much vodka in me.
00:53:51
Jez
I laughed so hard. I hurt my jaw. Jesus. Okay. During a whiskey apocalypse, all the bottles disappear, but one.
00:54:03
Jez
What bottle would you have? It's a bit of a thinker.
00:54:10
Darren Peck
It is. I'll be honest, probably my smoked musket.
00:54:15
Darren Peck
Because as the world burns and you can smell the ashes from the apocalypse, nice and smoky.
00:54:15
Jez
Okay.
00:54:19
Jez
Yeah.
00:54:21
Darren Peck
It's one of my favourite whiskies I've put together is the smoked musket.
00:54:25
Jez
Hence why I confused my my sherry with the the musket. It was... ah The smoked musket is delicious. It's like... I guess it hits all those boxes for me because, once again, it's sweet. So it's like a little bit sweet, a little bit smoky.
00:54:41
Jez
Chef's kiss.
00:54:42
Darren Peck
And that's quite cheeky of me to pick one of mine if I had to pick somebody else's.
00:54:48
Darren Peck
I've got a distiller special edition Irish whiskey in my cupboard back home, which, yeah, i I would still keep mine, but I wouldn't want to. I'll try to hide that one somewhere.
00:55:00
Darren Peck
Yeah.
00:55:02
Jez
No, it's ah no harm in picking your own. Like if you built a whiskey for your flavor profile and that's what you wanted forever, like I wish I could do that. I'm like at least my budget on whiskey would go down significantly. I'd just use a company's purchasing card.
00:55:17
Darren Peck
But my favourite thing about whisky is that I believe if you pull this face, it's not a good whisky. My whiskies are all about being smooth and drinkable. And I think you'll notice that across the entire range, including the single barrel, that they are actually drinkable.
00:55:33
Jez
Oh, yeah. it's It's definitely something you can sit on. You're like, all right. A good whiskey is something you can go, do you know what? I'm actually going to have multiple pours of that. Like, I understand that whiskey is you want one pour and you're like, do you know what? I can't ah can't do a second one because it's an experience and it's either something you finish the night on or you're just doing it as a once-off and you go, okay, no worries. Yeah.
00:55:57
Jez
But yeah, the whiskeys that are great are typically ones you can just go multiple rounds with and just sit, enjoy.
00:56:08
Darren Peck
It's about flavour, it's about enjoyment, and I'm a great believer in mixing your whisky. If you want to mix your whisky with Coca-Cola, mix it with Coca-Cola, because once you've paid money for whisky, it's your whisky.
00:56:21
Darren Peck
And once it's your whisky, you can do whatever the hell you want to do your whisky to make sure you enjoy it.
00:56:26
Jez
i couldn't agree more. my i I love taking bottles down for my grandfather and he essentially has the same premise. It's just like he wants to mix all these whiskeys with Coke and I'm like, here you Here's some bottles you can mix with Coke.
00:56:39
Jez
And I'm like, go nuts. I'll drink a whiskey with you if you want to mix it with Coke.
00:56:44
Darren Peck
As long as you enjoy it.
00:56:44
Jez
It's fine. Yeah, spot on. All right, my ah my final question for you. If you could share pour with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
00:56:56
Jez
Anyone in the timeline could be dead, could be alive.
00:57:00
Darren Peck
That's a damn good question.
00:57:03
Jez
Yeah, there's so many. And it could be like distilling based.
00:57:04
Darren Peck
and
00:57:06
Jez
It could be truly someone that is even memorable to your timeline while you've been alive. Yeah.
00:57:16
Darren Peck
Yeah, just, that is a really hard question. Who would I drink one drink with? Do you know what? This sounds really weird, but just because I want to know if his c sense of humour was as good as they say it was, I would probably go Oscar Wilde.
00:57:34
Jez
Interesting pick. Okay.
00:57:37
Darren Peck
And it was...
00:57:37
Jez
Any reason?
00:57:37
Darren Peck
up
00:57:38
Jez
Or is it purely just like...
00:57:39
Darren Peck
He loved whiskey. He was one of the greatest wits and greatest writers we've ever known. He's got that Irish connection.
00:57:50
Darren Peck
There's some fabulous stories about he was a boxer when he boxed for Trinity. And when he got moved from Trinity, he actually got sent to Oxford to study at Oxford. And there's a fabulous story of him traveling the US.
00:58:03
Darren Peck
And he was doing this tour where he was speaking and doing evening speeches, should I say. And these two miners challenged him to lunch and took him down the basket into the mine.
00:58:17
Darren Peck
And they had two bottles of whiskey. And by the time the three of them had finished the two bottles of whiskey, there was only actually Oscar Wilde, who could still operate the winch. He created the winch, dragged them out, went back to his hotel.
00:58:27
Jez
Oh,
00:58:30
Darren Peck
The next morning he was leaving in an Australian cart and there's these two miners looking quite sorry for themselves at the side of the road. And the story goes that Oscar Wilde opened the curtain, lent out and said, gentlemen, when you take an Irishman to dinner, we expect three courses.
00:58:51
Jez
oh it's such a great story to it on.
00:58:53
Darren Peck
you So yeah, Oscar Wilde.
00:58:57
Jez
I love it. I love it. Well, Darren, thank you so much for jumping on this afternoon. and I appreciate it. i know you're a busy man.
00:59:03
Darren Peck
Thank you very much for having me on to this afternoon. It's been lovely talking to you.
00:59:07
Jez
no absolute pleasure. All right, guys. ah If you guys have any questions for Darren as well, feel free to flick them to me and I will send them over. darren is there anything you want to plug? Do you have any upcoming events?
00:59:18
Jez
Obviously, you want this single barrel to completely sell out. So I'm going to drop those details in the end.
00:59:24
Darren Peck
I think the second barrel has sold out already, believe it or not.
00:59:27
Jez
Perfect.
00:59:27
Darren Peck
However, coming up, will be we will get that French out there.
00:59:28
Jez
Perfect.
00:59:32
Darren Peck
And over the next couple of weekends, we have something called Dark Side of Wine. And we're doing some special cocktails and come to the cellar door. We've just refurbished it.
00:59:44
Darren Peck
It's an amazing space. And I've got my operations manager who will be showing you our char barrels. So if you are in the region over the next ah like Saturday, it will be a spectacular night.
00:59:56
Jez
Amazing. I'll get this up in the next few days. So I will, there's event details on your website.
01:00:03
Darren Peck
ah Yes, they are.
01:00:04
Jez
Yeah. Awesome. I will plug those in at the bottom there. And anything else you'd like to plug? Cause that's obviously in ah the Rutherglen area.
01:00:16
Darren Peck
um No, just keep drinking the whiskey really and um yeah keep enjoying it.
01:00:21
Jez
Amazing. Well, ah yeah, cheers to that. And thank you guys for listening. You guys have a great rest of your afternoon. And yeah, cheers, legends.