A Tale of Tokyo and the Filmmaker (BRC S3 E12)

# AI Transcript: BRC S3 E12 Tokyo and the filmmaker

Kerry Moynahan:
It is 5 o'clock somewhere and you've tuned in to Season 3, Episode 12 of BRC. For those of you who'd like to watch this episode, I highly recommend it. You can view Season 3 on our website, YouTube, Spotify, WhiskeyNetwork.net, and Zencastr. I'm Keri Moynihan, and in today's Tales from the Still, I speak with David Blackmore about a tale of Tokyo. Then later in the show, documentary film director Greg Schwartz joins me in Whiskey Whereabouts to tell us about his latest spirited projects. So kick off your shoes, pour yourself a dram, and join me for this episode of Barrel Room Chronicles.

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Kerry Moynahan:
Today's Tales from the Still is brought to you by Manscaped.com. No more juggling multiple tools or dealing with subpar results. Just efficient, effective grooming whenever he needs it. Get 20% off plus free shipping when you use code BARRELROOM at the checkout. David, how are you?

David Blackmore:
I'm great, thank you. It's great to be here.

Kerry Moynahan:
It's great to have you. Haven't had you on the show since we were on Spirits of Whiskey, I think, and that was audio only back then.

David Blackmore:
Yes, absolutely. I had to make myself look vaguely presentable today.

Kerry Moynahan:
No, I loved it. I got your text. Oh, is this going to be filmed? I said, yes, do your hair.

David Blackmore:
And then I put on my favorite ugly shirt that's got cocktails all over it, which my wife absolutely hates.

Kerry Moynahan:
I love it. It's adorable. Yeah. So I remember when I was doing the podcast originally during the pandemic, I would just roll out of bed, sit in front of the computer in my pajamas, hair's a mess, didn't matter. And now I went video and I'm like, Oh, I have to get hair. I have to do my makeup. I have to do the whole thing. So, but you know, it's well worth it because I love being able to see my guests and talk live and it's fantastic. Yeah. So, David, for those of you who didn't know the old show or who hasn't haven't listened to the old show, give us a little bit background on you and what you do over at Glenmore Angie.

David Blackmore:
Yes, so my name is David Plattmore. I am born and raised originally in Edinburgh, Scotland. But for the last 18 years, I've been based in the US, initially as East Coast Regional Ambassador for Glamoranje. And that kind of morphed into now I'm, for several years now, I've been Global Brand Ambassador for Glamoranje and Ardbeg. In addition to that, I run a small team of ambassadors in the US across the country who represent both Glamoranje and Ardbeg. It's all Glamorangino at Baker all the time.

Kerry Moynahan:
I love it. It's a good thing that you've got some good whiskeys to be dealing with. So last time we had you on, we talked about the Tale of Cake, and we've had many tales since, I believe.

David Blackmore:
We've had a couple, yeah.

Kerry Moynahan:
So how many were in between Tales of Cake and one we're talking about today?

David Blackmore:
The Tale of Tokyo is the fourth now and since, so we had Tale of Cake to kick it off, we've had Tale of Winter, and last year we had Tale of Forest, and this year Tokyo. And the idea is that just to be a bit more outgoing in terms of the storytelling behind how these whiskeys were created. Our master distiller, Bill Lumsden, is a really creative guy. He takes inspiration from all sorts of places, things, foods, experiences, and just about anything could spark an idea for a new whiskey. So we thought it would be better, you know, we ran the private edition range for 10 years. We kind of put that to bed and thought we'd we'd like to do something that really kind of gives a bit more of an essence of the kind of zany world of Dr. Bill and his whiskey creations, I guess.

Kerry Moynahan:
I love it. So can you tell us, I know we're here to talk about Tale of Tokyo, but can you tell us a little bit about forest and winter real quick?

David Blackmore:
Yeah, absolutely. Winter was, I guess, just that kind of inspiration and that feeling of the weather right now in Scotland, where there's actually quite a lot of snow and it's been quite cold quite early. Dr. Bill lives outside of Edinburgh in the countryside. and loves going for long walks and the idea of coming back from that walk and sitting fireside with a warming glass of single malt scotch whiskey. So we wanted to make a single malt, a Glemorangi, that kind of reminded him of that, that tasted almost like a fireside chat and kind of festive, spicy, but delicious, rich things, kind of smells of rofting in from the kitchen, I guess. Something like that. Yeah, and then Tale of Forest, combined again, you know, I think particularly spurred by the years of lockdown, where Bill, who always loves to walk, really, you know, kind of for his mental health, like a lot of us, got out and did quite a lot of walking in the countryside near where he lives, lives outside of Edinburgh, and a lot of that is through the forests there, and that kind of smell, that sort of sense of walking through a forest, the kind of piney notes, all those different sort of herbaceous notes that you'd get walking through a forest in Scotland. And this is Tale of Forest right here, a bit of an experiment here using um botanicals uh that may be growing on the top of the peat and just including everything including when we cut the peat um everything that's on top of it um so historically we've got some evidence that it was done in the past and that's kind of how we managed to get get away with it i guess um but really something different you know a lightly peated and influenced by the botanicals, Glenmore and Taylor Forest.

Kerry Moynahan:
So they don't usually keep the top layer when they make the peat?

David Blackmore:
Not usually, no. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So this one actually just in the last couple of days, even though it's last year's release, just came in in the top 20 top 20 whiskeys of the year from Whiskey Advocates, so. Oh wow, that's awesome. We're excited by that. I think it came in at number nine. I apologize if I got that wrong and you were number nine, but I think it was eight or nine. I think it was nine for Taylor Forrest.

Kerry Moynahan:
I love the label on it too. It's gorgeous.

David Blackmore:
Yeah, so really beautiful labels and kind of the artwork now moving forward, trying to really tell the story and working with artists to do that. So really, really beautiful gifting opportunity as well.

Kerry Moynahan:
So basically, these are all pretty much one-offs, right? So if you see it, you should grab it, because you might not see it ever again.

David Blackmore:
Yeah, I mean, it's not like we're only producing one cask worth of it. But yes, it's a one production run. And once it's gone, it's gone. Everything, all the Tale of Forest that we've made is out there, either in people's homes or maybe in retail outlets or bars still. But yeah, we are certainly well and truly done with Tale of Forest. And we're on to Tale of Tokyo now. And actually, Taylor Turkey has been out a little while, and myself and Bill and the team in Scotland, we're already focusing quite heavily on next year, which I can't tell you.

Kerry Moynahan:
Well, you can tell me when it comes out. So you'll have to be back on when that happens.

David Blackmore:
Absolutely, I'd love to. So that'll be the fifth. There's definitely going to be at least a fifth, certainly, I think, a few more.

Kerry Moynahan:
Well, I love the box that this comes in.

David Blackmore:
I'm glad you have that because I only managed to grab my hands on today the mini bottles, which don't come in a box and don't really have any of that beautiful artwork.

Kerry Moynahan:
Do you have any minis in the forest in winter?

David Blackmore:
I think there was minis of forest, whether or not I can, I probably have some around here somewhere, but yeah, they were never for sale. These were really for like press samples and such. A full-sized bottle. There's Tokyo, beautiful. Yeah, it's gorgeous too. The artwork, you see more of it on the box as well, was hand-drawn and it's kind of trying to represent Bill's thoughts about Tokyo. In fact, Dr. Bill himself features five times in the artwork. So it's a bit like Where's Waldo? What? You need to find the dots.

Kerry Moynahan:
Oh yeah, there are little people over here. I see them.

David Blackmore:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you've got to find the dots.

Kerry Moynahan:
I'm going to have to get my magnifying glass here. Oh, I love it. I loved Where's Waldo. I always thought that was really fun.

David Blackmore:
Yeah, I loved it too. Good fun, right?

Kerry Moynahan:
So how do you make a flavor of a city?

David Blackmore:
That's what I would like to know. Yeah, well, exactly. I mean, it's more about the inspiration from the city. So Bill has spent at least 20 years of his career doing a lot of travel. And a lot of that necessarily has been going out to Japan, which is probably the country he loves the most. and of that a lot of time spent in Tokyo. And his inspiration really came from observing that Tokyo, and I've only been twice, but I would totally agree with this, Tokyo is an absolute city of contrasts. One second you're in the most ultra-modern place you've ever experienced in your life, you're literally expecting to see a flying car go past or something. But then the next second you'll turn a corner or your guests will take you after a lunch where you're served by robots. you might end up in a peaceful garden that's 500 years old and you can't hear anything. You hear a pin drop in there. Very zen, you know, almost. And so the contrast of the very, very hectic, ultra modern and the incredibly peaceful traditional side of Tokyo is where the kind of thought process started. And then, you know, more matter of fact, in terms of the the makeup of the of the whiskey itself, You know, Bill managed to get his hands on Mizunara Japanese oak.

Kerry Moynahan:
Nice.

David Blackmore:
Great, right? I mean, everybody's clamoring for it. But, you know, I think it's fair to say that Mizunara oak gives a very intense influence. It's not shy in retiring. It can give a lot of influence to any spirit that it's introduced to. And Glenmorangie being really quite a soft, subtle, you know, complex, laid-back, single malt, especially with our 10-year-olds. These two things just may not, should not, work very well. And so Bill was very, very cautious about his approach, but inspired by this idea of Tokyo. Tokyo is absolutely mad, bedlam, ultra-modern, loud and noisy, and peaceful and ancient and tranquil all at the same time. So that's what he's trying to kind of bring out here. Just enough bright spots of the influence, big punchy bursts of the influence of the misanara. But underneath it all, this contrast of the absolutely soft, rounded, comforting Glemorangi original kind of house style. in there as well. And I think he's nailed it.

Kerry Moynahan:
For this entire series, is he using the same mash bill or is it different mash bills for each one?

David Blackmore:
Well, good question. Yes and no. Mash, you know, mash bill and fermentation experiments may or may not play a part in it. The one where some things are clearly different is Taylor Forest, where the barley has been smoked with you know, the absolute top surface layer of peat. So that's clearly a difference. The other three, there's no difference at all. It's it's been classic Glenmorangie new make. And then it's it's to do with the combination of barrel types more than anything with those. So with Tale of Cake, it was the Hungarian oak with with winter. It was influenced from sherry casks. Forest was obviously the one where we are messing with the elements of flavor coming from the new spirit and distillation. And now we're back to Tokyo, where absolutely it's the classic lemon orangey spirit. A lot of it's classic lemon orangey spirit right through, including aging in American white oak, ex-bourbon, ex-tennessee whiskey casks. it's this component that's been in the in the in the mizunari casks that is bringing the difference. There is a little bit of spirit also in sherry casks, I believe, probably lethal sherry casks, and that's just to kind of bring the balance back a bit.

Kerry Moynahan:
Yeah, that's what it says here. Can you tell us how long it sat in the masonry?

David Blackmore:
I can't, I'm afraid. These are the things that everybody asks, including me, to Bill. I could give you my guesstimate, but I would get myself in trouble and it's meaningless because I have no idea if I'm right. It's an educated guess. I don't think it would be incredibly short. I think it's been a good number of years, but it's more about the component parts, the percentages that he's working on there, I guess.

Kerry Moynahan:
So we talked a little bit prior to getting on air about this wonderful cabinetry that you have behind you, and I'm just still in awe. And for those of you at home, this is not some shop. He is actually at home. This is his home bar there.

David Blackmore:
It is. Don't let anyone know where I live exactly.

Kerry Moynahan:
He lives in Utah. No, I'm just kidding. Is that like your whole collection? Is it all scotch? Is it all kinds of spirits? What do you have back there?

David Blackmore:
What I've done is that just one wall of the room has been done so far, just based on available funds. In these, the best cabinets, the rest, the other side, it's just Ikea block shelving. I've tended to put my collection of Glenmorangie and Ardbeg on this side. I've run out of space already. It's kind of piling around the floor and everything. And then I have plans for the next two walls down this way and behind the camera as well. But the other two walls right now have a much more eclectic selection of, obviously, our sister brand, Woodinville is well represented over here. But what am I looking at? You know, I can see some teeglings, I can see a lot of High West. I can see some single cast nation bottles. There's a corner there that seems to be very Diageo heavy with Lagavulin and all sorts. So yeah, I'm employed by Glenmorangie and Ardbeg. They're definitely close to my heart and I love them. I wouldn't work for a company I didn't absolutely believe in the products, but I am a whiskey fan first and foremost. There are a few other things. There's a couple of bottles of I can't see much else. There's some Amaro and even a bottle of vodka over there.

Kerry Moynahan:
Is there any vodka, wine, beer, anything else in there?

David Blackmore:
There's some wine in here. There is some beer that I probably should have drunk, but I've fallen into the trap of not opening them because they're signed by the... Brewmaster or whatever you would, is that Brewmaster? Is that the right term? I think so, I think so. I probably have left them too long, so now they're kind of trophy bottles, sadly. Yeah, a bit of some bobs. Mostly whiskey, but from all over the world. I'm very into my single malt scotch, though, I have to say. I'm biased.

Kerry Moynahan:
And you do reside in the US, so we will give the audience a little bit of that. I know we talked about this when you were on Spirits of Whiskey, but how long have you been in the States and the state that you are currently in, how long have you been in that particular state?

David Blackmore:
I arrived in the States with a one-way ticket from Edinburgh on the 16th of September 2005. Two suitcases, and it was going to be a three-year stint. About two years into that, I was at an event representing Glenmorangie and Arbig in San Francisco and met this young lady and moved forward all these years later, married to her two kids and living very far away from New Jersey because of her work, basically.

Kerry Moynahan:
Yeah. Did you stay in San Francisco for a while or she was just visiting San Francisco?

David Blackmore:
She lived there and we did a long distance relationship for about a year. Then she just decided she was moving east and moving in.

None:
That was that.

David Blackmore:
That's fantastic. She's probably regretting that move ever since. Although she did surprise me with getting this built whilst I was on a trip to Australia.

Kerry Moynahan:
She must love you then. Most women are like, oh, you get your man cave out of here.

David Blackmore:
She actually doesn't really drink anything very much. But when we have people around to the house, more than me, because you know what it's like when you work in the booze industry, sometimes you just want to just not have to talk shop. But if we have friends over at the weekend or whatever, she's the one who's like, let's go use the whiskey room. I love it. I'd quite like a glass of red wine, actually.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's great. That's fantastic. So I see you have another bit of range on the left of you. So tell me about those. That looks like the 10-year, the 12, the 15, and the 14.

David Blackmore:
I just wanted to point out how obviously, if you're a fan of Lemondi or even just see it in passing, you missed the fact that our packaging and label has fairly drastically changed. Very much. The liquid is still the liquid everyone knows and loves. But the packaging was just, we realized we needed to stand out a bit more on the shelf. And that's really what it's partly about, and about just trying to be a bit more inclusive and open to a diverse audience who may not have considered Glenmorangie in the past, put off by preconceived ideas of Scotch whisky and Glenmorangie, and that we're just trying to move the needle a bit there. So Glenmorangie Original, our 10-year-old, now looks like this. Still the same beautiful liquid. Bottle is changed in shape, a little bit more curvaceous. This I just put in for fun. This was, gosh, yeah, this is the Pallicatado finish. This is a limited edition. What's Pallicatado? Pallicatado sherry. Okay. But limited edition. Here's another one. This is the third in the Cadwell Estate range. So taking barley just from our own fields, in Cadbull, just by Glenmorangie House, and just using that barley, which is harvested once a year, can only make about two weeks worth of spirit. The first two editions have just been an ex-bourbon cast. This one also includes a partial finish in a Montiado cherry cask, so that one's an interesting one. And then, of course, the Kinta Ruban, which for most of its life our port cask finish has been a 12-year-old, a few years back went to a 14. Staying as a 14, but now with the new label as well. It's always had that green and black color scheme over the years pretty much, so that's the Kinta right now.

Kerry Moynahan:
What's the retail on that one-ish?

David Blackmore:
Oh, gosh, I'm so bad with numbers. What are we at? We're probably about $65 to $69, I believe. Oh, that's not too bad. OK.

Kerry Moynahan:
And is that widely available?

David Blackmore:
Yeah, very much so. Yeah, in fact, the Quinta Ruban, and I'll probably get shot by some of the real whiskey nerds here for even suggesting this. But back to my wife, my wedding day cocktail was a blood and sand, which I know. Well, you know, I know certain fairly high-profile bartenders and writers have had a bit of an axe to grind. They've had it out for the blood and sand, but I'm here to defend it. Joking aside, I think the blood and sand can be awful if it's not made really well, but if you make it really well, it's a really good cocktail, and it's about getting the good ingredients. For me, kinta ruban and blood orange juice are absolute essentials to make a good blood and sand. My old buddy Ben Scora, who some people may know, he was based in New York, I think he's now West Coast based. He got me into Blood and Sands when he was bartending at Manju bars in New York. And to this day, I think he makes the best ones. There you go.

Kerry Moynahan:
Wonderful. That's awesome. I know if anyone out there watches the Cocktail Guru, we just did a tipple time segment on the blood and sand. So if you don't know how to make one, you can go ahead and catch that on the Cocktail Guru.

David Blackmore:
I'm going to do that, actually, because I'm the tourist. Again, you only have to ask my wife. I'm getting better. COVID helped me, but I'm terrible at making cocktails.

Kerry Moynahan:
No.

David Blackmore:
It's true. I have got better. I have got better, but I've still got a long way to go. I understand the whiskeys. I help with the whiskey creation team at Glenmorangie, but cocktails sometimes, I try too hard with the balance.

Kerry Moynahan:
So the past year or so, I've been really getting into the port finishes. So I'm going to have to get them.

David Blackmore:
We'll make that happen.

Kerry Moynahan:
Well, I think it's time we taste the Tokyo. Are we going to taste? You got a pour there? You got a dram?

David Blackmore:
I've got a pour here of the Tale of Tokyo. And I'm very jealous that you've got the full bottle.

Kerry Moynahan:
Well, you sent it to me. I don't know. Send one to yourself next time.

David Blackmore:
I may have to actually go out and check a few stores around here.

Kerry Moynahan:
There we go. That's a good cork pop. Yeah. All right, I can't have too much of this because we need it for a tipple time, actually, with Jonathan. All right, well, it's got a good color. It looks very similar to the regular 10-year color.

David Blackmore:
It's slightly darker, but yeah. And a lot of notes that you'd expect. There's lots of that soft, blend orangey, kind of coconut, vanilla note. But already, there's something that kind of every now and then leaps out of the glass.

Kerry Moynahan:
peppery or... Yeah, it's got a little spice hint of pop on there. Oh, that smells lovely. And it's got some seriously nice legs, I can see. I'm not using my Glencairn today because I have a branded Glenmorangie. The old label, though, so when you come out with a new brand of glasses, I'll need another one.

David Blackmore:
Yeah, I'm not sure if they're going to... I don't know if we're allowed to use this on the glassware. I don't know.

Kerry Moynahan:
It'll go all the way down. It'll fit on the Glencairn because it'll just start at the top and make your way to the base.

David Blackmore:
I should do it. Ask for forgiveness afterwards.

Kerry Moynahan:
Call Marty and ask him.

David Blackmore:
Yeah, well, exactly. I actually already spoke to him about a project I want to do, so I didn't need to follow up on that already.

Kerry Moynahan:
Oh, that's lovely. Yeah, it's good. I do taste the mizunara. That's very nice. But as you said, it's not like a huge. I mean, I feel like it. I don't know. I feel like maybe it was a six month pass in the barrel.

David Blackmore:
That's what I'm getting. I would I'd be surprised if it was anything that that infrequent bill is on record as saying he's not into these super short finishes usually. My guess would be it would be a few years. Really? Okay. Well, I don't know how potent the Mizunara is on the cask, so I guess... Yeah, I heard him say that Mizunara tends to be actually also quite a slow... It ends up influencing a lot, but it kind of goes through waves of lots of influence and then a bit less. So I would say he's likely to have a few years on there, but then it's about the percentage of that component part that he's using in conjunction with classic Glenn Moranji that's not H.D. Musonar, that's bringing the balance back, I would guess.

Kerry Moynahan:
That is absolutely wonderful. I'm going to have to get that.

David Blackmore:
Bright spots of almost like bitter cherry, I get, from time to time.

Kerry Moynahan:
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm, you know, I'm so bad at like, I taste things. And then until somebody says what it is, I'm like, that's what it is. I'm very bad. In fact, I just got back from Thanksgiving. I took a whirlwind trip for two weeks. So I don't think I'm going to do Christmas with the family. But I did my mom, my brother and then my sister's family. Then I went up to Washington to my cousin's family. And while I was there, my cousin had gotten for the kids this thing at Trader Joe's, which was like this long box of different chocolates. And they were all filled with different types of filling. And I was like, I wish I was going to be good at this, but I'm not because I'm so bad at naming flavors. And the kids all beat me. There was one that was like it had a pear or something in it. And I'm like, this tastes like soap. We played the game and I and I was the one who got the least things and I thought for sure I was gonna win but no.

David Blackmore:
I think clearly, it sounds like you are able to detect them, you're just not able to put a name to them. That's just practice. That's practice makes perfect. All right, I'll keep drinking. Twist my arm. Keep drinking, but also, one of the, well, I was going to say the weirdest thing to do with Dr. Bill, but if you know him, that's not true. Lots of weird things with him. One of the strange things, if you go to, when I've been in New York with him, He loves Italy, for example, and we'll walk around Italy or a supermarket if we're somewhere else. He loves just picking up things and sniffing them. He's constantly thinking about aroma and flavor. That's training his vocabulary. It's also genuinely giving him inspiration potentially for another whiskey down the road.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's awesome. I'm going to have to start doing that. You know what I should do is I should walk around with a little notepad and then just sniff things and go, that's what this is.

David Blackmore:
You don't have to get funny looks when you walk around Whole Foods with a notebook squeezing and sniffing every single fruit.

Kerry Moynahan:
I love it. This has been fantastic. I love the tale of Tokyo. I love your home bookcase bar set up. That's fantastic. So the next time I'm in your state, I may have to come by. I do have cousins in that state as well. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Thanks for highlighting The Tale of Tokyo for everybody out there. This was absolutely fantastic. I've had a lot of Mizunera cask finishes lately. This one I'm going to say is my favorite. This is very good. Very good. So thank you so much and we will talk to you soon.

David Blackmore:
Great. Thanks for having me. Bye.

Kerry Moynahan:
Don't touch that device. We'll be right back with Whiskey Whereabouts. Sizzle Alert. This summer, let the only thing smoking at your barbecue be the grill and not your man's grooming game. Get ready for the ultimate cookout season with Manscaped.com. Whether he's flipping burgers or cannonballing into the pool, make sure he looks neat with the Performance Package 5.0 Ultra. The star of the show is the Lawn Mower 5.0 below the waist trimmer. It's got wireless charging, it's waterproof, and thanks to their advanced SkinSafe technology, it's really smooth. The kit also includes the Crop Preserver deodorant and the Crop Reviver toner spray. Another popular item is the Weed Whacker Hair Trimmer. Gentlemen, keep your ears and nose hairs in check, and the women will love you for it. Whether you need grooming tools for your face or body, or just need the best in men's body care products, Manscaped.com has everything you need. Go to Manscaped.com and use code BARRELROOM to get 20% off your order today. That's B-A-R-R-E-L-R-O-O-M for 20% off. In today's Whiskey Whereabouts, we have Greg Schwartz, director of documentary films, The Water of Life, which most of you have probably seen by now. And he's working on a couple of other features. And I hear one of these features now may have turned into a limited series. So Greg, welcome to the show. Welcome back. So let's figure out what you've been doing since last we spoke here.

Greg Swartz:
Hi, well, thanks for having me. It's good to be back. Yeah, no, I'm made the sort of foolish decision to be making three documentaries at the same time, and then to let one of them become a doc series. Wow. Which is why I now dream about these things, dream about time codes and proxies and upload files and all kinds of stuff. Yeah. Uh, but it's good. Everything's going well. And, um, yeah, the, we decided a while ago to make a companion film to the water of life about Scotland's independent bottlers. And, uh, then we decided while we were editing that, that it was so much good stuff. And so interesting that we were going to sort of spin that out into four episodes instead of one feature doc.

Kerry Moynahan:
And are they our length or?

Greg Swartz:
They're about 40 minutes. They're all a little different in length, but they're, they're about 40 minutes.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay, so ready for commercial television then?

Greg Swartz:
Yep.

Kerry Moynahan:
Good. You've got a beer film you're working on, right?

Greg Swartz:
Yep. We're well into post. We've finished shooting a film about Franconian beer. We decided we were going to make a film about German beer. Then we decided, well, the heart of German beer is Bavaria. But then within Bavaria is a region called Upper Franconia. And in Upper Franconia, it's the highest concentration of beer breweries per capita in the world. Wow. And what was really interesting to me wasn't just that, and it wasn't just that the beer is really good. 99% of that beer doesn't get exported. You can't even get it in Frankfurt or Berlin or Hamburg. What? They just do not export it. These breweries make beer and they sell it at the brewery. Some of them don't even sell it at shops in the same town. They just sell it at their own brewery. ancient business model that has just never changed. And, uh, so it's this unique whole new, like beer landscape that you can go explore, but you have to go there.

Kerry Moynahan:
How far is it from like Frankfurt?

Greg Swartz:
Uh, probably about three hour train ride from Frankfurt. It's about a, it's about two hours North, North, Northeast of Munich, about an hour from Nuremberg.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay. That's not too bad. I've been to Munich. In fact, I had beer in Munich, um, when I was 18, when I was on my, my high school graduation trip, we went and, um, My mother, of course, decided to be a chaperone and that was, you know, it was fine, but you know, we were able to drink and she's like, you can't drink. And I said, but I can, and I will. So I did.

Greg Swartz:
I had a similar experience my senior year of high school. We went to Britain. It was my first time ever in Scotland. And, uh, the last minute the school told our, it was our school drama club. And it was, and the, the, the teacher who ran the drama club was, was the chaperone, the only chaperone. And there was like eight of And he said, the school has decided that even though the drinking age in the UK is 18, uh, you guys still can't drink cause you're not 21. But he actually then added, however, I'm the only chaperone on this trip. And as long as you behave yourselves, I'm going to need some breaks every night. And so are you.

Kerry Moynahan:
Nice. That's cool. Um, yeah, so no, I tried a few things when I was over there when I was 18. I mean, I obviously couldn't get sloshed cause I was with my mom, but, uh, um, and my sister and you know, the other people from school. But, um, anyway, so, okay, so you have the beer, you have the bottling and you said there's three projects you've got going on. What's the third project?

Greg Swartz:
Well, we're still shooting a film that's all about sustainable agriculture. Um, that's built around the grain, the world of grain and how human beings grow, trade, buy and eat grain. And actually whiskey was my way into that film was, we were just hanging out at Westland Distillery and they were talking about some of their grain projects.

Kerry Moynahan:
I was going to say this sounds like a very Westland skewed.

Greg Swartz:
Absolutely. Yeah. And it's been a fascinating thing. It's very different than these other films. It's much more, you know, has a sort of a call to action about sustainable agriculture, regenerative agriculture, the way we consume these things and how that dictates the industry and how the industry dictates to the farmers, but also The chefs and by chefs, in that case, I mean distillers and brewers as well, like people who use the grain to make a product.

Kerry Moynahan:
So where do you plan to, where do you want, okay. If you ideally could put all three of these projects anywhere you wanted and somebody came and said, where do you want it? Let's do it. Where would you put each one of them?

Greg Swartz:
Well, the only one that I don't necessarily think we're probably do a run with PBS with, um, is, is the independent bottling series. Uh, the reason being is it, it is made by and for whiskey nerds. Um, it requires a sort of commitment to, to whiskey and curiosity about whiskey that may not be for a good general audience. You know, I think it's a deep audience, but it's not a wide audience. Um, the water of life, we kind of designed to sort of be, understandable or relatable to to new complete newbies. But this is not that I mean, it's not technical. It's not like we're not talking about, you know, the fermentation process or distillation would impact and stuff on a technical standpoint. It's just it's very much in line with stylistically with the water of life. It's just that You know, Water of Life is kind of built around six distilleries. This is built around 43 and counting independent bottling.

Kerry Moynahan:
Wow. That's, that's a lot. And those are all in Scotland or are you doing any anywhere else?

Greg Swartz:
The overwhelming majority are in Scotland. We've done a couple in Germany, uh, one in Japan, one here, uh, two here, sorry. And one in Ireland.

Kerry Moynahan:
Wow. That's pretty cool. So how, what, which product do you think is going to be ready for consumption by the public first?

Greg Swartz:
Uh, the beer film. The beer film's going to be done in November. The independent bottling film will be right around the same time, but we will probably roll it out in the new year because we can't get it done in time sort of for holiday season, you know, because it'll be late, late November kind of thing. It's just too much work and too many moving parts. So I think we'll do that in the new year and then Against the Grain in spring of next year. Great. That's the grain film. It's called Against the Grain.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's a perfect title, I think. So Against the Grain, is that, what do you think, an hour, hour and a half, 40 minutes, two hours?

Greg Swartz:
It's going to be about an 80 minute, 85 minute film. Okay. My passions lead me and they lead me into the world of scope creep. And so I keep getting new opportunities to interview people that are just fascinating and I can't resist. But as long as I'm trusting my instincts on the story more than anything else.

Kerry Moynahan:
Great, that's fantastic. And these are all Blacksmith and Jones productions, I'm assuming.

Greg Swartz:
Yeah, yeah, they are. And, you know, it's funny, the independent bottling film is actually going to be branded as part of the Water of Life. It's going to be a Water of Life series, you know. And it grew out of the Water of Life quite organically. Like we were joking one day while editing that we had enough footage about independent bottling that we could make a separate film. And then we sort of had, you know, The editor and I had a sort of mutual light bulb moment where we sort of turned to each other and like, wait a minute, what if we really did do that? It'd be a shame to waste eight days of shooting at Gordon McPhail.

Kerry Moynahan:
Eight days, my goodness. Yeah. That's definitely, I mean, you put it, you subconsciously put it in for your next project while you were doing the other.

Greg Swartz:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and they were just very generous with their time. Um, you know, not that other places weren't, it's just other places are smaller or busier, you know, sometimes it's a one person operation and they just don't have time to let a bunch of fools follow them around for a week.

Kerry Moynahan:
Thank you so much for joining us. And I'm excited to watch the, the limited series, the beer show and the, the against the green. So thanks. Yeah. Let me know when they're out and we'll go ahead and we will tell the public where they can find these shows.

Greg Swartz:
We'll scream it from the rooftops. I promise.

Kerry Moynahan:
That does it for today's show. To read notes on this episode or learn more about our guests, please visit barrelroomchronicles.com. Want to interact with the show or have questions for our guests? Then ask them on our socials or send us an email. Or better yet, leave us a voicemail on our website. If you like what you heard, please rate and subscribe to the podcast. If you really liked it and you want to show your support, buy us a whiskey through our Ko-fi site at ko-fi.com slash BRC, or become an exclusive member of the Barrel Room Parlor. If you work in the whiskey or spirits industry or just have a deep passion for whiskey and want to share your spirits journey, register to be a guest through our website. Last but not least, please enjoy your spirits responsibly. Thanks for joining me. Until next time, so long.

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