S2 E9 The Re-Birth of Belfast Whiskey & The Titanic Pump House

Transcription

00:00:00
            

It is 05:00 somewhere and you've tuned into season two, episode nine of BRC. For those of you who like to watch this episode, I highly recommend it. We're live in person on the emerald aisle. You can view season two on our website, YouTube and spotify. Today, in our Tales from the still segment, I speak with lottery winner turned distillery owner Peter Lavery.        

00:00:18
            

Plus, I get a private tour of the newly opened Titanic distillery at Thompson's Dry Dock in Belfast. Upon arriving to the Titanic distillery, we took a few moments to do some browsing at their gift shop before meeting up with Peter for our interview. Not only did they have a fine selection of shirts and spirits, but on the far wall sits three barrels which are set up to fill your own bottles. I have a feeling people will be lining up to pour their own once the alcohol starts running through the brand new stills. Now, as a Titanic fan, my favorite item on display was a beautiful model of the Titanic in the shop's window.         

00:00:48
            

Too bad that wasn't for sale. Up next? My chat with Peter Lavery. Stay with us.        

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Today's. Tales from the still is brought to you by Bwjamesjewelers.com. Show your love for bourbon everywhere you go. Bourbonbarrelrings.com by Bwjames has some of the most unique bourbon barrel wedding bands, rings and bracelets that you'll ever find. BW James has an exclusive offer for our audience.        

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Use promo code Barrel Room for $30 off your order of $199 or more. Peter, it is so lovely to meet you. How are you today? I'm great, Carrie, and thank you for calling. Thank you for having me.        

00:01:25
            

So we drove by here yesterday because I heard once I got here, that you just opened last week and I said, I've been waiting for this distillery to open since I heard about it a couple of years ago. I heard about it online somewhere and I was very excited. I was a big Titanic fan. Well, I spent five and a half years the making between getting the lease of the building and it's a herd each site, it's a monument site, and made the plan applications which were difficult and was right thing to do to serve the building as much as we possibly could. And we achieved that moving or natum from 19 seven.        

00:02:04
            

So that's awesome. We've actually built this whiskey distillery around all of the old history of the pontos, but we class it as a floating distillery and when we dilute the brew tanks, you're actually beneath water and anybody of the military seen it. I think there are beers of the design, but the nature. But the building still was 19 seven. It looks great.        

00:02:27
            

It's fantastic. The stills are so beautiful and shiny and the spirit safe was so pretty. I'm like, I don't know how long it's going to stay this pretty once it starts being used. Hopefully the Distiller and his assistants will try and keep it. But our Distiller, Damien, he's more excited as to sell in Iowa.        

00:02:49
            

I think he's going to be part of the history of bringing whiskey back to Belfast and he's so excited and he just can't wait till we turn on the stools. That's awesome. So usually when I start off a podcast interview, I ask what your whiskey journey was or is. So when you were we little lad, did you ever think, I'm going to one day build a distillery at the Titanic spot? Never did.        

00:03:12
            

And again, the whiskey by default. How so? Because a couple of people many, many years ago were in Hong Kong looking at a World Cup of rugby and they were coming back to Ireland and the plane was delayed by about 70 hours. So was Irishman due, but in the pub in Japan airport and they started one of the biggest parties and everybody broke into Song of Daly Boy. Oh, nice.        

00:03:47
            

And everybody's amused. By the middle of Hong Kong, everybody was singing Danny Boy. And the two fellows come back to Ireland and they registered a name donny Boy Irish whiskey. Nice. And they tried to make a COVID.        

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At the time, whiskey just wasn't as sexy as it is today. 22 and 23, 24 years ago, and just separate walls. And they asked me to invest in it. And then we looked at it, I realized what squad lead a lot more money put into it and put the money into me, myself with three sleeping partners, and they said, no thanks. And they come back about three months later because it was actually put them on their financial stream and they actually would buy the brand off them.        

00:04:31
            

And FUMA Madness, I bought it and it didn't affect the journey it would take so long to do, but here you are. But I nonstully boy whiskey in New York and Boston around the year maybe the year 2000. And that's where the journey started. Very cool. So I was reading up on you yesterday and I hear you won the lottery and you used to be a bus driver.        

00:05:00
            

As a bus driver in Belfast for eleven years. That's fantastic. As a bus driver in Belfast for eleven years. And on the 18th of the fifth waver, you go fifth to the 18th, which is the end of next week. At the end of two weeks time, it'll be 27 years since that lucky day happened.        

00:05:21
            

And I had the rate ticket at the bus ticket, I had the six one numbers. And were they numbers you picked or were they automatic numbers? All birthdays and things they got there, but everybody plays the lottery to try ginger late, but you never think it's going to happen to you. But the Nate in particular, I played it. There was 33 and a half million people in England play it.        

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Wow. And I was a woman of six, which is unbelievable. That is unbelievable. Were you, like, in complete disbelief when you saw that you had the six numbers? It's just you never believe it's going to happen.        

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But what does happen? I think I never slept for a. Month, because how do you even know who to call? Oh, my gosh, I won. What do you do?        

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You go back to the store where you bought it or? No, we don't go to the store yet. The failure. It was a funny story. I had Nathan Quayson, that Wallet was in the bar, the Bus Drivers Club, Hobbin, the few drinks, whether you do optimize the shift.        

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And I got a phone call to say at Wallet, and I didn't believe it. And I kept drinking. So the next morning, before the Pammy dropped or the Descent dropped, and went downstairs and got an old ticket there to six numbers across the lane. Unbelievable. So how long did it take from when you won to when they gave you your money?        

00:06:34
            

Well, the run on ticket was Saturday night, and Monday launch came. Wow. I had the 10 million pound number bank account, which is unbelievable. And on the Tuesday or the Wednesday of the same week was middle of St Lucia. I just got out of city, had to get out of town.        

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It was a big, big news 27 years ago, 20. And had to get out of town. So you think of it on Sunday morning as trading the boss room in Belfast and 72 hours later landing a top resort in St Lucia. And was it a dream or was it you go to sleep, you wake it up. It's not a dream.        

00:07:13
            

It's just hard to believe. Did you give them a two week notice or you just said, no, sorry, guys, I'm out? I said, I asked them for a bank holiday for Monday and said, on your forum, but you have to ask for a form, why do you want the day off? And I wrote, Personal reasons and one day only. So when I come back into work that day, the news had got all around the place what had won the money.        

00:07:35
            

And I said to Inspector, you must realize I'm not coming back.         

00:07:41
            

That's crazy. So you went from being a bus driver to now owning a distillery, and 20 years passed. And you've been in this process for this one, what, five years? Five and a half years. Five and a half years.        

00:07:54
             

I was also reading yesterday that you had something to do with the jail.        

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It was May Apple keys, but then get the plumbing prison for the jail. And obviously had a few brick walls in it. Plenty of brick walls in the field, you know, and thick, too, and they're thick. And it didn't work great with the investors he had with me. And I sold my shares of Crominal jail, never believing that the building we're in today was available.        

00:08:25
            

That he knows available. I'm an east Belfast, man. And three months later, I was talking about getting this building here. At that stage, I had saved a two year break, but I wouldn't have built a whiskey study for two years. And they thought they had been built before me, which I also thought, too.        

00:08:42
            

And one thing led the otherwat. I've opened the doors before from a New Deal, which is just unbelievable. It's a fairy tale. What I love about it is both of the locations are super iconic and they're very historic buildings and now they're going to be made into historic whiskeys. And I think that's fascinating.        

00:09:01
            

It's unbelievable when you think that the teacher of Ireland was a prisoner in criminal jail, when you think of our current governments. We had mark McGinnis, who's his deputy first minister, northern Ireland. David Irving. Yet all the top people. So the people who were in prison, I had run in the country, as somebody had told you 20 years ago, they thought you were crazy.        

00:09:24
            

But it's all for good. And at least the GEOS out there is going to be a very successful visitor attraction. Sea wing that shows you the hanging sale and stuff like that. So when a wing does open up, I see it as an advantage to us having it here, because there's no way of a competition. There are two different types of absolutely, yeah.        

00:09:47
             

And I believe we will help and build balls, which I'm still very good friends. That one of the owners of America in Belfast last week, they came and seen the distillery. I think his eyes nearly dropped over his head and the chief executive was going to come and see it on Saturday. So I can see it's becoming a very close working relationship with each other, because we can help each other, we compliment each other and as you know, in Scotland, there's hundreds of stories and people go and all they do is travel and visit whiskey. And it'd be nice to bring four or five small histories from Belfast, Northern Ireland and then Republic of Ireland.        

00:10:25
            

There's always my week on that. Create the biggest whiskey tree all of Ireland. Yeah, that'd be great. When I first, in 2015, I did a Scotch tour of Scotland and that's all I did, was go from distillery to distillery on a tour bus and it was fantastic. And then I came back here in October and we shot all the way from Dingle up to here at all these different distilleries.        

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And then now I'm creating a tourist trip for about 20 people and we're going to recreate it. And now I get to add this destination to that, which is great. So hopefully in October might be April, depends, but we'll be back here with 20 people. Well, I hope you do come back. Be fully in swing and the smell of a ski be flam through the building.        

00:11:14
            

And more importantly, make sure you put them on the signature tour and bring them right down to the pumps. And you'll be able to get a sex tour with the distiller himself and he'll have a treat for you for a weed drink underneath water. Nice. That's so cool. The pumps, they could still work, right?        

00:11:32
            

It wouldn't be too hard to get them open on the game. We got smaller pumps at the minute because the only water comes in the dock. The minute is real water because the dock itself is nice sealed. The gate was starting to corrode and had to protect it or it would have been gone. So it also makes it a safer venue so we can bring tours to him with confidence, but they're not going to drown.        

00:11:55
            

And we're doing tours of the dock at the minute, which are going very well also. Yeah. So what is your five year plan with the distillery retire? I'm 62 common to get no younger and I just wanted to become a real destination. We've got Titanic on our doorstep.        

00:12:17
            

They're destined to get 800,000 visitors this year. Wow. And if I get 20% of our visitors, we're over capacity. We can't take them. Our maximum visitors, about 4000 people a week.        

00:12:30
            

That's our maximum max. Or 3000 people a week, which is 150,000. So you only see the growth in our own market here is nighttime corporate and hopefully we can get ourselves that within a short space of time. And right now you have a whiskey, a gin and a vodka. And we're going to have a pachin also.        

00:12:51
            

Pachin, that's awesome. And now I tried your whiskey the other night at the hotel and it had a very distinct and unique kind of peat flavor. But also I felt salt, watery. Are you guys making it near the ocean? No, it's not bad ocean, but you hit the knee on the head.        

00:13:12
            

There is 10% peatant, there's also 3% cherry. Okay. And there's 15% for a blend of whiskey. There's a 20% malt content. Why did we go for a peat of whiskey?        

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Because Belfast was known for the peatiness and the smokiness of the city. You had all the big industries, you had the aircraft factory, you had the shipyard, you had the ropeworks, you had all the all the different types of industry. And then when people at home, their house at night after days worked, came home to the cold fire. Nice. So people lived.        

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But I think there's enough peat in it and I enjoy it. Don't drink no more. Basalt personally, but I love the real pettiness of whiskey. But it's not everybody's palate, but I think it 10% and then the charity gives it a bit of sweetness back into his feet. But we've done well and people are really embraced it.        

00:14:00
            

So you don't drink anymore? Does that mean you haven't even tasted your own stuff? Well, as of once, me and the art director, Richard we went down to made the blend for our particular blend and forced them on rest in peace, brand WAP. This night dead. And it was a gentleman.        

00:14:17
            

And I probably tasted 30 whiskeys that day. Wow. And my partner said, May I hope the hell is, you know, on the drink again. So on your let's go with your lottery journey, when you started your life anew obviously the first thing you did was go on vacation. Then what did you do when you came back?        

00:14:37
            

Did you say, what am I going to do with my money? What am I going to invest in? How did you go from on vacation to deciding that a whiskey distillery would be your project? I thought the first day of the come back after holidays and I bought a new home down in Craig of Arts, which is about six minutes, I'd say, Belfast, where I never had the ability to buy something like that. So some of the year old to go and just buy there and then where something I wanted to do.        

00:15:06
            

My pause as a post driver, you had a seafood so I was a strange feeling, but two, three months here, start banning a few houses. I worked in the building game before I wanted to be a boss driver and I'm a plumber by trade and start bamba's a piece of property. And the first thing that after six months was bought an old nurse's home on the grounds of a city hospital, Belfast, and transformed it into Nadia departments. Oh, nice. So was me at that stage.        

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I've been talking to people who knew and got people who expertise and architects and structural engineers and once we got the contract ready, we'll put it to tender and develop it. So six months earlier, you got all me I got on this burn rule, you get all my boss. I had taken 50 pounds of you for the fur and six months later, building 88 apartments probably had contract worthy at 9 million pounds. That's crazy. That is crazy.        

00:16:03
            

It's crazy. And here's another question I've always wondered when somebody all of a sudden strikes it rich, did people come out from, like childhood that said, hey, how you doing? I need a little money, Peter. Did you get any of those kind of people? Well, in the first few weeks I'm back to Belfast, the post office came to me and the manager of the head mount in Belfast came, said, we've got a problem here with nine and a half thousand letters.        

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What what won't we do to them? I said return to Sander. Oh, my God. Because 8000, nearly 9000 letters. I've had some letters.        

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Even today, you still get people. And some of the quests of people looking money and people do think they're probably in desperation also, which is, did. You even know these 8000 people? Never knew one of them. But then read the letters you wanted to tell you.        

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Do not do don't do a B, and C, because you put your head around the band by seeing so many this that north. I done a lot of charity work before I won the money and I created a trust called the Reader Charge Trust which was after my Moon Fire and Fiat Trust. I put around 1.5 million foot give to different communities even though where I came from in Belfast I put 100,000 pound towards the community center to make sure it happened and I've probably raised the cost of another half a million pound fematurity work. That's great. You can do so much, but you can only do so much.        

00:17:36
            

And as long as I'm happy enough to know what I'm doing, I'll never keep everybody happy. And if I give somebody a charity a thousand pound, I think you're miserable, you give them 2000 pound. You have to be happy upon yourself and don't worry what other people think. Yeah, that's cool. Okay, let's get back to the distillery here.        

00:17:52
            

So when we came in we saw the stills. We saw there was this big yellow beam across the top. I heard it was still functional until you had to put more beams and. How does that still functional at this point in time but doesn't have the full length of the building? No longer.        

00:18:09
            

But we got the Korean recertified and that Korean looked at every better steel brew, tanks, moiston and stills into the building. Wow. Now the man who's building our distillery is a Frenchman and he goes, Peter, what about a Korean? He says there's a Korean here. He says, Will you give me the controls?        

00:18:30
            

That Korean? He says, certainly Fred. But says, Peter, where's the bolt control for the Korean? I said, Fred, you are goes with two wheels, one forgot across and one forgot down. And that tell you what he said back to me in English.        

00:18:41
            

But you just didn't tell me that, Peter. But it worked and done the business. So it's hard to believe that the Korean set nerve for 100 and 114 years is still in work in order and still work in order, still has about a six foot spawn, but we can still stuff from the top right down into the well we need to. That's great. It's unbelievable.        

00:19:01
            

That is, it's unbelievable. Right now everything is going to be distilled right in here, over here and then where are you guys going to send your stuff to Mature? We've got two places developed for Mature. We got place in Dundalk because obviously the site is too small and the mature here and there's another place to say cooler and so we're using both facilities where we'll use both facilities. So every week, twice a week we'll take all the new liquid, new fill on distillery into ABCs and move it to 1st Reel Entertainment.        

00:19:33
            

Too much from usuries. And are you going to have tours of those locations too or no? Well, it depends. Obviously they're big working states and it's not as easy sometimes to bring people in, but people do buy into that after they created the 401 Club, you heard of well, the 401 Club is we're going to sell off 401 barrels, whiskey yearlic ship number was 40 one, I was number 401st ship they build. Okay.        

00:20:03
            

And they didn't name ships in Belfast then because man or some man couldn't read. So always numbered ship. That's why ships were always numbered. So we've ever made a part for any ship to put the number of the ship on the part, that's how they got delivered to the crack part of the yard. That's cool.        

00:20:19
             

So we're creating a 401 club and people have bought for this year. People want to buy for the next four to five years. So we will do like twice a year maybe to do nights where we'll bring them down by bus loads and let them go and see their whiskey open, their barrel opened up and let them taste. That's awesome. Yes.        

00:20:38
            

And how long do they get to pick how long the maturation is? And they can come back and decide that's good. The daily what we have done is what we'll pay for the first four years of maturation as part and parcel of the price. And anybody wants to do a doctor out there, then they just pay for the rental space. Yes, rental space.        

00:20:57
            

That's awesome. That's so cool. So when this opened last Friday, did you guys have a big party and did you have the press come? We had the press there on the press day before Thursday. Before it, we had bloggers and everybody else in it.        

00:21:13
            

And then on the Friday, we had our own PR company or taking images of people coming, the first two visitors coming through the door. And I think it was when the first walk through the door, I think it was shot, actually. And she wanted to shock thinking this is happening. And I couldn't really get the buz, but shocked and delayed it. But I didn't get the real out of it.        

00:21:40
            

But I think I'll wait until the first bird comes out of it. But even walking through today, again, this is four days later and tell you the feeling, the buz and the atmosphere. So the rest of my directors myself, I think we've pulled off the newest attraction in Belfast and it was the only way to go for the last four days. It should be become part and partial, the tourist trail, which is more important. Yeah, I love that because when we did our thing here, we came all the way up and there was like one or two distilleries out on the West Coast that I really wanted to go to, but I'm like, there's nothing else on the way there, so we skipped it.         

00:22:27
            

And so I think it's good to have more near each other for the visitors because they're going to want to go and taste everybody's stuff. People come, even tourist ships come in and only have maybe cruise ships come in. They've only got $70. If they go down to the north coast, they can do boys mills or maybe get quick wallet, jazz, cosby. But their day is over.        

00:22:52
            

We're going to come here to my distillery, our distillery, and Titanic Belfast, and a bit of shopping in Belfast. Him to do also. Hopefully, it'll bring Belfast into your busier and hold it, pull some more tourists and more importantly, maybe people stay home to Belfast for one day, come for two days, three days. That's awesome. That's great.         

00:23:15
            

And then for the spirits, what kind of spirits are you guys going to be going? Is it just going to be those three expressions? Are you going to have different whiskeys, different gins? We've left that up to the distiller. And obviously he's working around and thank for me, and that 100% art, not 100% expert on it, and Damien is, and we'll give him the freedom.        

00:23:38
            

Obviously he'll come and he'll work and do something and common shows and hopefully we buy into it. But I'm under no illusion he will come up with some good bread ideas and hopefully something special and something will be representative to your distillery. That's great, Peter. Thank you so much. This has been thank you.        

00:24:00
             

After my interview with Peter, my cameraman and I were given an in depth tour of the distillery. Our tour guide started the tour in the lobby by showing us these huge keel blocks that were placed under ships while in the dry dock.        

00:24:14
            

We then moved on to the introductory area, where he told us what a dry dock was and how it was used. He explained that the giant vessels could enter the dry dock to have their holes clean and repair any damage they might find. In addition, this is where the ships could be fitted for the propellers. He went on to tell us how Thompson's dry dock was designed to be the world's biggest dry dock for the world's biggest ships. However, by the time the construction of the dry dock was complete, the ships were actually bigger than the dock and the front end of the ship rose out above the dock wall.        

00:24:45
            

As he continued, he showed us the various stages of where the boats were made and what pieces were fitted where, by showing us a huge rendering of the entire area. From there, he took us into what he called Mission Control, where he explained how coal was scarce at the time, so they needed another way to power the operation. All the working machines that made the dry dock work, the capstone, the thousand ton steel gear, it was the first in its kind in the world to be able to be retracted. The caesar gear was made from the same steel and rivets as Titanic herself. It weighed a thousand tons.        

00:25:19
            

It's a vessel in its own right. Normally it would be floated out and then put back in and sunk to form the gate to close the dock off. But this one was able to be retracted via the hydraulic pressure, and it was done with this device. The hydraulic accumulator, the huge water reservoir above you on this side would feed water via gravity down into these compressor pumps. They would then pump water into the hydraulic accumulator, rising up this huge 78 ton block.        

00:25:54
            

Anytime they wanted to utilize the power of the water, they would release the block and by the means of gravity, they would force the water out through tight valves and pipes, create water pressure that would turn the caps. Into when shifts into the dock. Open the PETstock valves to flood the dock, close the gate, withdraw the gate and also to drain the dock all by means of water power. Imagine it's like a giant syringe. You squirt water out of a syringe, comes out in great pressure.        

00:26:26
             

That's exactly what this is like. They were using green energy here before even green energy was a term. So if you'd like to follow me this way. And here you can see we're all meats new. This is our brand new distillery, nestled in amongst the heritage artifacts of a bygone age.        

00:26:47
            

The yellow cream you see above you, the seven tongue andrew Barkley and sons from Kilmornate from Scotland. That cream was installed 1911 purely to do one job to install the Gwynn's Company pumps at the bottom of the pump well, which we will see in one moment. It stopped finishing and work at that stage. That cream has seen more work in the last six months than it ever did in the last 112 years. Because it lifted all of the speed and all of the vessels into place that created our new distillery.        

00:27:21
            

The distillery itself is on a floating methanine floor. It might be the first floating distillery in the world still. We have no confirmation, but it's supported on 50 tons of steam beans. And when all vessels are pulled, it comes to a total value of 250 tons. As we entered the still house, we were shown three pumps that are still on the ground floor today.        

00:27:43
            

Each of them operated at 850 HP, but they only ever used two at a time. One of them was always kept in reserve. As a backup, these powerful machines could clear the dock of 23 million gallons of water in 100 minutes. That's the equivalent of four Olympic sized swimming pools every minute. And if you want to put that in terms of whiskey, it's about 150,000,000 bottles of Titanic whiskey.        

00:28:10
            

After taking a good look at the pumps, we moved to the control desk that was installed in 1957. Steam to generate electricity, to run everything. In 1957, it was modernized and began automation. At that point, they converted to electric. The Alexandra pump house switched over to become the substation for the electrics.        

00:28:31
            

In this building. A lot of the actual pumps were fitted with electrical motors so men no longer had to manually turn the valves. The motors did it for them. These small pumps used to prime the main company Gwynn's pumps. You couldn't run the Gwynn's pumps on water to start because they'd seize and run dry because of the boiling of the water they need.        

00:28:53
            

So these little pumps would prime them kind of like a two stroke engine where you have to put a little bit of fuel in with the bubble first, and then you pull the cord and it starts. But this device, the control desk, it's Docmaster's control desk was put in place to automate things. We love the nickname Everything in Belfast. So this is called the Piano. I love it.        

00:29:16
            

It's like a piece out of a 1957 Sci-Fi movie. I just keep waiting for the robot to come out saying, exterminate. Yeah, you can just imagine it. But you can see here, Thompson Dock was controlled. And Alexandra Dock was controlled by Thompson Pompos.        

00:29:35
            

So as I said, the distillery was built in mind with the heritage items being preserved. So we had Ineck compromises on space, and we actually ended up having to put some items outside of the distillery, which would normally be inside. And so there's a whole length of pipe that run back and forth through the building to maintain that. But we were able to build a cooling tower there where the old chimney sat with retrospective planning. And that way we had a little bit more room.        

00:30:05
            

But it also meant that we could create this floating mezzanine to preserve the artifacts inside the building. We're trying to honor the great tradition of craft and engineering here. And with that, we're going to make great whiskey once again, pertaining to old meet new demi and our head distiller, just to show you how much the technology has moved on. He can control 135 separate data points, all on his mobile phone. Wow.        

00:30:36
            

He doesn't even have to be in the building. Not that he wouldn't be. He's a hardworking guy. So we're using the best of the best. We're celebrating hard work and hard graft we'll be using forsyce pot stills.        

00:30:52
            

These are renowned as the best stills in the world. Foresights have been making still since 1890. We're very lucky to have three of them in place. They're copper pot stills and they're all handmade in the old tradition. If you look very closely, you can see what they call the turtle shell patterning.        

00:31:12
            

And you can maybe see individual hammer marks on the actual stills themselves. It can be very hard to discern the hammer marks under certain light because they make them such a smooth finish. It really takes a keen eye to notice it. So in Scotland, they like to double distill their whiskey. Here in Ireland, we like to triple distill.        

00:31:33
            

I like to think of it as an honoring to the goddess. But to be truthful, it's because we believe it makes a much clearer, cleaner, lighter spirit. It also can impact it with a lot more fruity type flavors. It makes it real crisp, so hence why we have three stills. After leaving the still house, we met up with our second guide, who took us on the exterior tour of the.        

00:31:54
            

Dry dock for 900 ships docked here between 1911 and 2001 operations. Absolutely huge. So this is called Caisson, which watertight gate, which seals the dock, and you can see it's got two different positions. This is the inner position, and you can see where the permanent sea defense wall knows is the outer position. So with the Caisson in the inner position, the dock is 850 foot long.        

00:32:23
            

We floated further back to the outer position, making it 887 and a half feet long, so it increases the length of 37 and a half feet. It doesn't sound like much, but this is crucial for the Olympic class signers, because panic measured 882 and a half feet long. So without that outer position, tannic wouldn't have fitted into this dock. It would have been the same smaller or built out smaller. Finally, it was time to try their products.        

00:32:51
            

We started with the vodka, which was made with sugar beets. And as far as I know, I've never had a vodka that was made with sugar beets. That's really nice. That's a vodka I could just drink. My, I must say I was pretty impressed, to say the least.        

00:33:04
            

After the vodka was on to the whiskey. The makeup of this DRAM is quite unique. It's made up of 72% grain whiskey, 3% malt from Ex Sherry casks, 10% triple distilled Peeded malt, and 15% is double distilled malt in Ex Bourbon casks. I for one, appreciated that the peat wasn't too overpowering, which made it a very approachable DRAM. As we finished the tasting, I noticed the company logo included two sets of numbers.        

00:33:33
            

On one side, the date 1911 for the year Thompson's Docks opened, and on the other was the number 401, the Titanic ship number. The last thing I noticed about the logo was that the T and the D for Titanic distillery were made to look like a boat. Pretty clever.        

00:33:52
            

For more information about Titanic distillers, or to see the various different tours they offer, visit Barrelroomcronicles.com for today's Show notes 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 through our website. Or better yet, leave us a voicemail on our website and your recording might be played in our new Speakeasy segment.        

00:34:19
            

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00:34:45
            

Until next time, on the Barrel Room Chronicles is a production of 1st Reel Entertainment and is distributed by Spotify for podcasters and is available on Spotify, Apple, Google, iHeartRadio, YouTube, Amazon and wherever you enjoy your favorite podcasts.