E110 Rose Fernando

This week's guest on the show is Rose Ferdendo, who joins us from London, England. A whiskey aficionado and a former Johnny Walker Experience Ambassador, Rose has an extensive knowledge of all things whiskey. Rose developed an interest in whiskey when she entered a cocktail contest and decided to use Johnny Walker as her main spirit, especially this led to a deep admiration of the Johnny Walker brand. Rose discusses the many differences between all the different varieties of Johnny Walker Whiskey.

We talk about the blending process and we also talk about the Johnny Walker Experience on Prince and Street in Edinburgh, Scotland, the equivalent of Disneyland for Whiskey drinkers. Rose is a terrific guest. Enjoy the show. Okay, we're back with another episode of the industry podcast.

I'm your host Kip. The super producer of the show is Dan. Am I right? How are you doing?

It's still awesome. No point to that. It's a good excuse to keep my friend. What about yourself?

Things are good. Pickin' up at the bars. We should always mention, if you're in the Kitchener War Loo area, Babylon Sisters, Uptown Waterloo is the wine bar. Shoulder run, downtown Kitchener is a speakeasy.

You should be checking these places out. Things are picking up for business-wise. People are starting to be less afraid to go out, so that's always a good thing. The warm weather help?

It would be good. Yeah, it did. It doesn't help should run because it's in a basement. But it does help Babylon.

We were very busy. So it's good. So yeah, people are out again. Come check out the bars if you can.

Also, we should mention that our new third member of the team, Yelena, and with Cocktail Vision, you should be checking out her stuff. Her and I will be interviewing people at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans July 27th to July 29th. So if you are going to be there, you should DM us at the industry podcast and let us know so we can meet up and do a quick interview. And that puts people who have been on the show before as well.

That's also a great way to be on the show. If you are interested in being on the show and you're in the service industry, DM us at the industry podcast on Instagram or you can email us directly at info at the industrypodcast.club. We like all the five star reviews that you should be leaving, subscribe, rate, that helps us out a lot. And as always, a big shout out to zakana at zakana.co who does all our artwork for the Instagram page.

And you can always find all those links in the show notes as well for anything we talk about. Right. I'm super excited for today's guest because we have Rose Fernando joining us in just a second here. And she is the ambassador for Johnny Walker.

And I have a bit of a scotch boner for Johnny Walker. So I'm excited to have her on the show and talk all things Johnny Walker. So let's just get right to it. Perfect.

Rose, how are you? Thanks for joining us. I'm very good. Thank you guys.

How are you doing this evening? Well, we're all right. It's a little earlier for us than you. Rose is joining us from London, England.

So thanks for saying up to do the show. I am being serious. So when I got into scotch as a younger man, I was like a single malt nerd. And I didn't, I was like, as a result, kind of a, I don't know, I almost looked at his nose at Blended scotch until I started to get into some Blended scotch as and realize how good Johnny Walker actually is.

So let's talk first about how you got into scotch. And, and then specifically, we'll get into some Johnny Walker conversation. So I was a rebellious dean. It started off as a lot of teens do J.D.

and Whiskey, Jack Daniels, J.D. and Koch. It started off like that. Didn't really like it, but it was cheap enough.

And then as I got older, I started branching off into different types of alcohol, experimenting, doing different cocktails. I think my real passion for Whiskey grew when I actually became a cocktail waitress in Shortage. And I won my first cocktail competition with, that was my very first competition I entered and then I ended up winning it. I've always said it was completely by fluke because I'd forgotten I'd entered.

And then the deadline email came and I was like, oh shit, I've got nothing to submit. But I literally, the only alcohol I had was an unopened bottle of red label whiskey. And threw that into Boston shaker. I did whatever was in my cupboard.

It was allowed six ingredients. I did five other things on top with it into fancy glass submitted it ended up winning the competition. So I was like, okay. Do you remember what the other ingredients were?

I do now. I wanted to recreate it to actually taste it because when I submitted it, I had it tasted it. Yeah. So I tasted it after.

And I was like, okay, I can get into this kind of whiskey. So I started experimenting more with the Johnny Walker call line. And then the passion for collecting got serious when I got gifted my first bottle of blue label. And I kept it kept for years, unopened.

And then there was one down thought, ah, I'm going to open it, open it, tasted it, loved it. The next day, just started collecting the Johnny Walker whiskey range. That day or a good day? Depends on which day you asked the question.

No, I mean, like the day that you cracked the Johnny Walker blue. Did you crack it? Depends on which day you asked the question. Okay, I got it.

It's amazing. On other days, it's a bad day because it's a very expensive habit. Yeah. Oh, I see what you mean.

Yeah. Well, we're actually, I mean, this is an audio show so you can't see, but we are actually drinking it right now. And it is talking to my, I figured since we were going to have you one, we should drink some high level Johnny Walker. Although I will say, so again, talking earlier, I was a bit of a snob, a single malt snob, and I wasn't sure about the blends.

And Johnny Walker, generally, and this is no select to Johnny Walker red, but it's like your, your bar rail level blended scotch in the Johnny Walker brand. And that was mostly what I had drank. And there's nothing wrong with now going back. I'm like, that's, there's nothing wrong with Johnny Walker, but it was always sort of the stuff you got on the airplane if you want to scotch.

Yeah. Right. And then I got it into Johnny Black and Green and Platinum. And like, there's so many good designations of this whiskey and they're all uniquely different.

So maybe you can just sort of describe the different designations and how you view them. So the way that I've always thought about it is red label is, is it is done all because red is simply the color of spice. So that really descends the red label. It's got a nice chili background to it.

It's got a nice spice. It's not too sweet. There's no smoke added to it with Pete. So that's a really nice one to use as a foundation type of whiskey against other type of blends that you may encounter.

So it's really good foundation whiskey to build your palette on for one of a different term. Black label is a really good foundation palette for smoky whiskeys. So it's a good introduction to be it's not too petered where when you have a jammer, but you instantly get part of whiskey. It's a nice introduction to a petered whiskey, especially to a petered blend.

So where it's not too hot on the throat, it's got a nice finish to it. And it's also very nice introduction to the double black, which obviously is double the smoke. It's double the tatiness of the smoke in it. But that one again is a good foundation for smoky whiskeys for more up and all Scotland that you can bring into comparison.

So there some of the main call lines. The gold, the gold is my favorite. Every gold loves gold. But the best way I say to serve gold straight from the freezer.

I haven't tried it. Thank me in my DMs. So I never would have, I'll stop here. I don't know what keep going with the different designations, but I never would have considered putting any scotch in the freezer.

So tell me why. It just, I don't know what it is about the chill effect on it. It just opens up an explosion with the taste, with the flavors of the whiskey. When you drive it cold, it's almost like a completely different expression.

So if you're at room temperature, you get a lot of the honey, the caramel, the toffee fudge stick. But if you jam it chilled, you get more of a rum and raisin type of flavor. It's more silky like a fine cognac. It just goes down amazingly.

Wow, that's crazy. That's a good tip. I'm a, we'll definitely try it for the next podcast. If we can find it, actually, I went to the, so we're in Ontario in Canada.

And so we had to buy everything through the liquor control board of Ontario. They bring in everything. And I was shy. Johnny Walker is hard to find here, now.

Like all we could get, all they had was at the first door. I went to his bread in black. And then I searched for somewhere to find blue, which is what we're drinking now, but like no green, no platinum, no gold. So I don't know what's going on here, but we're in the Johnny Walker shortage.

It's been very hard to find since it's now discontinued. Oh, granted it as the 18. Okay, that makes sense. Well, I can find that either.

But okay, so let's talk about the platinum. Tell me a little bit about that one. What is now the 18? Yeah.

Yes, it's now the 18. Some people, well, the whiskey community as a whole is quite divided in terms of the rebrand of the platinum. One, it sold very, very well as a platinum label blend of Johnny Walker whiskey. It was very elusive.

It was very exclusive to have a bottle of platinum. Then when the rebrand came and it got released as an 18, even though the platinum was an 18 year aged whiskey, a lot of people were divided because some thought that it didn't taste the same as platinum. Others thought that the differentiation in taste was so big that they could have kept platinum and 18. Me personally, I love both.

I don't think that there is that much differential in taste. There is, obviously, if you're going to drink two bottles of black, one from last year, one from this year, you may taste a slight differentiation because it is a blended whiskey. They do aging cars. Some cars might not mature the whiskey inside quite as far as some might mature too fast.

It all depends that sort of science. It's nothing that's completely completely nailed and stung for one of a different down. But I love the 18 bottle. I've actually got one.

Yes, very one second. I would be surprised if you didn't. I wish this is one of the times where I wish that this was a video show so you can see the beautiful Canada Rose has behind her. It's crazy.

She's got a shit out of scotch back there. Again, I also wish it was a video show, but this is the old platinum. This one you can't really buy anymore in shops. You're more likely to find it online.

Definitely, you can find them at auction. But this is no more in season, again, for one of a better word. So this one got rebranded with the 18. Gotcha.

Okay. So I haven't even seen the 18 in Ontario yet. I really hope you get it soon because again, this is an exquisite whiskey. That's interesting.

So one thing I want to talk about since you brought it up is because Scott's are bloody Marcus, for instance, the Blender Scott's in general, they're blending a bunch of whisks together and then aging them, the flavor can be different with each time that they release a bottling. Are they correct? Yes. Yeah.

So how do you, how does a company like Johnny Walker, like I guess I'm trying to figure out how to ask this question properly, but you just kind of roll into the knowledge of that. It's not always going to taste the same, but you try and make it taste as similar as possible with every bottler. So what it is, is in Scotland, approximately, there's roughly 20 million casks of aging whiskey. I think that's phenomenal, considering that mean there's 3.5 casks maturing for every one person in Scotland.

Great. And they probably want to drink it. I know I do. Me too.

Three of us answers to the right. Yeah. So Johnny Walker is obviously run by their parent company, Diageo, and Diageo in its banks has approximately 10 million casks anytime. So half of the whiskey casks are currently maturing in Scotland belong to Diageo.

So through that, they've got access to an unlimited library of different age whiskeys, different blends, different blenders that blend them, the master blenders of Johnny Walker, they're fabulous. And I'm so happy that I want to be that controlled. I love Emma Walker's and bits. But yeah, so because they've got access to so many casks, they can always release black label, red label, blue label, scientifically, they can get the blend.

So that's how they always managed to get out. I'll confidently say 98% of the time the blend on point. Right. Okay.

So yeah, so people can expect it. Like, and I mean, if you've tried the product, like, if you are, for instance, because I've known that like when I was younger, I knew people who were like definitive Johnny Red drinkers, definitive Johnny Black drinkers, and I became sort of like more as like my at home sipping scotch was a Johnny Black because it's just like, like you mentioned earlier, I like sort of the pettiness of it. It reminded me more of a single mold, but you know, it's not crazy expensive. And it's also like a great just like on a couple of cubes of ice, just like a nice easy sipping scotch.

So it's good to know that people who are familiar with those expressions are basically going to be getting the same shit all the time. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about green label because I love green label and I'm pretty fascinated by it. So green label, I did, um, the take that you do like your single molds.

So I'm not surprised that you do that green label considering that it's a blend of only single molds, whiskies, right? Not a blend of mixed molds. It's not a blend of other blended scotch. It's just a blend of only single-moreski.

So a lot of people that normally look down their nose or frown on a blended whiskey because they're bonafide single-mores drinkers, I was like, introduce them to the range with a green label. Then it surprises them sometimes that it's actually a blended whiskey. Some people kind of detect that it is a blended whiskey, but most of all the overall comparison is for a blended single maw, it stands up quite well to just a single maw. I really like it.

I like the Christmas Christmas, the Christmas of the green label. I love to join on a summer evening. Well, it makes a few of it, but I have drank a lot of it at Christmas time. So, but no, it is delicious.

So, and then am I missing anything before blue? There's quite a lot of different ranges now in the expression lineup, but the core lineup, you have the red, the black, the gold, the green, and then you have the blue. The king of all things. So, yeah, the blue is, and again, this is only my younger snobby days where I was basically an idiot.

I was like, oh, Johnny Blue, it's overrated. I would rather just have Highland Park 18 year, which is way cheaper, blah, blah, blah. But then we're drinking it right now. I mean, it's absolutely stunning.

It's so much flavor, so much expression. There's sweetness to it, but it's still good. A little pettiness to it, just like a touch. And this was the one that you sort of got you into it.

Yeah, definitely. Let's talk about you a little bit. So, you started as a bartender doing craft cocktail and competitions, by the C-theor fans, apparently. But, and then you got into Johnny Walker, so, and you start collecting.

So, how did you transition into actually becoming an ambassador for the brand? So, through my Instagram account, I was connecting with high executives of Diagio, they were getting to know me through my collection, through my post. And I was conversing with one of them who told me about the Johnny Walker experience opening. So, instantly I was fascinated.

For me, that was like the Disneyland of Whiskey was opening in Scotland. Somehow, I had to be a part of this move, had to be a part of it. I wasn't going to take an over and answer. So, he recommended me for one of the positions I applied for it.

That's how I became an experienced ambassador for Johnny Walker. And then, over the course of the next year and half, they were still building the building. There was a few delays due to COVID, to be expected. And then they opened on the 6th of September.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to actually work at Johnny Walker Princess Street. I had some health issues that kept forcing me to return back to London. And then, at the beginning of this year, I had to resign from my position as an experienced ambassador for them because of certain health reasons and whatnot. Still very much in contact with high levels, ex-sextiors, in contact with some of the executives here down in London, got a few projects that are getting lined up in terms of with Johnny Walker and certain other establishments and bars and a few hotspots in London in terms of doing tastings, introducing Johnny Walker's to different bars, things like that.

So, yeah, I really do love the brand. I'm always kind of representing the brand wherever I go. Kind of difficult not to when you've actually got a permanent Johnny Walker tattoo and people see it and then they get started like, your female wide drink whiskey. And for me, that is one of the best questions in the world.

Because then that means I can talk to it is off about women drinking whiskey for the next four hours. Right. I mean, it seems like a crazy question to be game of because like, why the fuck with women not drink whiskey? But I...

Yeah. On the men's gallery, one hand gentleman smoking room, whiskey in a tunnel, and the other hand. Right. So, let's talk a little bit about it.

So, what you want to see sometimes in Scotland as well? Can we talk a little bit about the difference in the scene, say, in like, I know London's very, like, world-renowned for essentially inventing the craft cocktail scene, craft cocktail in general. What, how is the scene different in say, London proper to like, areas of Scotland? In Scotland, you definitely get a lot more whiskey-based cocktails.

In London, you get the general old fashions, you get the general whiskey sours. It's very rare that you'll ever find a whiskey highball, let alone a Johnny Walker highball being served in London. Whereas in Scotland, especially in Edinburgh, every other bar is serving Johnny Walker highballs, specifically Johnny Walker highballs. Oh, okay.

So, in London, you'll generally see a bottle of black or gold behind the bar, very rare to see a bottle of... I'm sorry, a bottle of red and black behind the bar, very rare to see a bottle of gold. Some more established bars, you might see a blue label on the top shelf. But the way that they market Johnny Walker in London isn't quiet.

Known about, there's more adverts nowadays since Johnny Walker Prince of Street and Edinburgh opened. But apart from that, there's hardly any marketing towards whiskey in general. Whereas, obviously in Scotland, whether you drink or not, you know that it's a whiskey area, it's a whiskey country, there's literally whiskey everywhere, even at the moment at the bar that I'm working at that currently cocktail, they don't have any Johnny Walker behind the bar. And it's not unknown, because areas won't stop Johnny Walker because it's not what they're used to selling.

So, that's something that I'm looking to break down, especially my local area, do a lot more whiskey tastings, introduce people more to Johnny Walker, let them start to stop ordering Jack Daniels because it's a waste of water. You're not wrong. You're not there that I'm thirsty and you're wasting water on Jack Daniels. Come on.

That's amazing. So, and a lot of like gin-based cocktails as well in London, I'm sure, right? Oh, yes, gin is definitely on trend in London, especially Pink then. Now, even alcohol-free, gin now is a fight everywhere.

People called it, it's even released a pink 0.0 now that's making the rounds and it's like, you don't want to drink, so don't drink. Yeah, that's right. I know. I go by for that too, because at some point I'm like, okay, I get like, if you're a designated driver or maybe you're pregnant or there's other reasons where maybe you gave up drinking or whatever, but you still want to go out and experience cocktails with your friends, I kind of get it.

But it's also like, do you find this becoming more and more prevalent? Like the people wanting mocktails or like alcohol-free cocktails? It's almost taking over. It is taking over.

It is very prevalent, especially with children that will come to the pub and the bar before six o'clock when they're allowed in. And they just want an orange juice and they want to fill a part of the crowd. So we'll make them mocktail neither a champagne glass or a martini glass. And with that, it's becoming more untrendful, little kids now to order mocktails.

And they actually get to sell mocktails. They sell freezable mocktails. So that is very becoming untrend. Because I'm fascinated by the whole cocktail scene in London, because again, it's where it started.

Where do you see it going right now? What are the new trends in craft cocktail in London? It's definitely going more gastronomical, more sustainable. They're more looking at different avenues of less wastage in cocktails.

Like if you're using the strawberry, use the whole strawberry, don't take the head of the strawberry kind of thing. It's definitely more geared towards zero wastage these days. That's more what the publicity is about cocktails, more about using sustainable ingredients, more about using more local ingredients. You see a lot more local inspired cocktails that are coming out, where especially more on the fringes on the countryside, where you're actually using local produce to make your cocktails.

Like some of them that are now starting to come out are just crazy smart. And also tasty yet. They don't want them to be tasty by the name of them. Or when you see what is actually in them, and then you taste them, and it's like, wow.

And, okay, so let's go back a little bit. When you were talking about when you first started, when you made your first craft cocktail, you didn't even fucking taste it, you submitted it, you won the competition. How long were you doing? Do you continue to do competitions after that?

Or were you? That was only one that I did. Well, yeah, when you're at home running your first event, why? That's when you hang the cleats up.

That's funny. So how long have you been bartending then? So I started seriously, I would say, when I was about 26, 27, and then I left bartending for a while and got into a more mainstream hotel hospitality, and I was a supervisor of a private lounge, where in there drinks were free for the guests. So I was allowed to go wild on the cocktails.

Right. So if a guest wanted to say, for instance, a gin and tonic, I would give them something that had gin in it, that had tonic in it, but they weren't the only ingredients in it. Like they'll be getting bright blue drinks or bright yellow drinks, and they wouldn't know what's in it, but they would always love it. So I never continued doing cocktail competitions.

I'm all the time a person that once I meet you, and then I start talking to you and engaging in conversation, I start to know a little bit more about you, and I would more like to cross the clock till based on someone's personality, or what they're saying then just a regular Long Island I see, or a kuberly break, or a majito. Where was this resort? And like, describe it a little bit more. That's interesting to me.

Oh, so this was the St. Christopher Nason's Hotel Linkings Cross in the private members club. Oh, okay. So you essentially pay for a membership, and then you can come to the club.

Yeah. Are you staying in certain rooms or the hotel, and you have access? Yeah. Gotcha.

Yeah. That's a certain type of room. You get access. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. And so how was the experience by tank? Because I imagine you get some pretty pretentious motherfuckers out of places like that.

You do, but if you know how to swish to be, or you can keep them in trouble. Fair enough. Fair enough. We can't remember that.

You know who's going to be cleaning their rooms. Just always remind them in a very nice and polite way. You know who's cleaning your room. Amazing.

Amazing. Okay. So the other thing I'm sort of interested in asking about is like talking about like the Johnny Walker experience in Scotland, like obviously Johnny Walker is a massive brand. But again, going back to like how I got it disguised, there's a lot of probably pretty pretentious single malt drinkers in Scotland because of all the distilleries there as well.

So how was Johnny Walker looked at in Scotland? So it still is very much loved. It still is very widely accepted. Again, especially in Edinburgh, I haven't really traveled out a lot out of Edinburgh when I was up there.

So I'm mainly on the January talking about Edinburgh. You always get on any whiskey menu. You'll always see Johnny Walker up there. You'll always see Johnny Walker cocktails.

You'll see they're always arranged there up against McCallons, up against Highland Park, up against Glenaliki, up against all of the other whiskey distilleries. And you do still hear people ordering them. It's very, it's very, very often that you get them. And the best thing I think about the Johnny Walker experience in Princess Street is their journeys are flavour.

It really breaks down the whiskey. It's really breaks down the flavour profiles. Like even before you go onto the tour, you have to take this questionnaire that through the questions that is answered in the questionnaire, you're given the colour wristband. Now when you go on the journey of flavour, that colour wristband will determine your first cocktail that will be made for the options that you've chosen, whether you like single moths, whether you're just a neat whiskey drinker.

It introduces you to different ways of enjoying whiskey. And it's telling you that there isn't a right or a wrong way to drink whiskey. If you want to drink it, if I drink it, if I drink it, if you want to drink it in a high ball drink it in a high ball, there's no right or wrong way to drink whiskey. Then it gets more into the four corners of Johnny Walker, the four main distilleries that they work with.

And then so on that tour, you get three different drinks to experience Johnny Walker whiskey in different ways. If for whatever reason you don't like the colour wristband that you've got, you can always change your drink options. There's always a different way that you can enjoy Johnny Walker whiskey. They've got the rooftop bars, which house other whiskeys as well from our distilleries.

They do fantastic cocktails up there. It really opens up your mind that sometimes you can drink a cocktail and not actually know it's a whiskey based cocktail. So it really is fucking whiskey Disney World. It really truly is.

How about it? Get yourself to Scotland to go. It is absolutely phenomenal. I think that's amazing because I think like a lot of people, we've had a bunch of whiskey ambassadors on the show before and I think most people think, oh, if I'm going to go with Skylin, I'm going to go to the major single multi-stilaries along there.

So this is good for people listening to it because I mean, I think I even would have done that now. But if I went, sorry, when I go to Scotland, I'm definitely going to hit that up. That sounds amazing. It's phenomenal downstairs.

They've got a whiskey maker seller. It's the largest seller in Europe in a city of whiskey. There is no other whiskey that are bigger than that. And down there, they can create your own blends.

And there's a specific tour that's just for that. Then there's you've got the bothy, you've got the 1820 bar, you've got the rooftop terrace, you've got venues inside where they do artistic performances, singing, all different kinds of things. It literally is eight stories of what you want to talk about for whiskey. Amazing.

Well, if you're not spending money on your house down, we're going to go. I should have bought a fucking condo. Fucking all homes. It's just a goddamn money pit.

Do they have anything that? Joining all Christmas Street is literally missing is a massive slide. Do they have a mascot? Kind of.

They've got the Striding Man. Oh yeah. Like is there a guy walking around the Striding Man suit? No, but there's massive statues of the Striding Man.

Oh yeah, okay. That works. That's a fucking Disney world. So with your health issues and having to give up on that job, you must have been massively disappointed.

I was absolutely gutted. Yeah. I'll move back to London, but then on the same thread, I've always got to do what is best on myself before I can do what's necessary someone else. So I knew that I had made the right decision for me.

I know the door's always open if and when I want to go back. So for the meantime, I'll just remain in London, build up my health back up again. And if I do want to then pursue a career with Johnny Walker, then I fully will throw myself into it. If not, I still will trampus your career with DiGio, still do my projects alongside them, and then just see where life takes me.

Right. And that seems like obviously it's a good company to work for because they've got your back as well to bring you back at any point, right? And it's still working alongside them doing what you're doing. Like you're clearly still repping the brands, even though you're not actually working for the company anymore.

Oh, definitely. It's literally is my favorite whiskey. Right. Yeah.

If I worked for them or not, I would still work the brand. I had the tattoo before I even got the job. And when I knew your manager actually saw it, he was like, before I asked you got the job. I was like before.

Like directly before the interview, still bleeding. This is not your show. I'm not asking you to show to people where is the tattoo. Oh, it's right there on there.

Yeah. That's awesome. Cool. Yeah.

Amazing. Have you gotten to meet anyone like sort of high up at the distillery? At the experience, yes. I've also managed to meet some of their brand ambassadors, their global brand ambassador.

I met a few of them before I even got the job at Johnny Walker because I've been interacting with them through Instagram, seeing them at the whiskey show, and seeing them at various other events, various launches. So, yeah, and they're absolutely phenomenal guys. They're, yeah, they're not drunk all the time, which is a common misbelief about whiskey ambassador, but when they are, they're a lot of fun. Yeah.

And it's funny. The first bar we had one of the ambassadors, I don't know what level come to, but he wore a kilter. I know that he come to do a sort of food pairing Johnny Walker dinner at my bar. And, but he was exactly what you expect from the classic whiskey ambassador.

He was like big beard, runny faced from a lot of drinking, but like, but thick sky jacks, but like definitely soul dish fuck out of it, right? Like by the end of the presentation, you were like, yes, Johnny Walker. I think that's kind of where I got my love for it a little bit. And, you know, doing a lot of flying in my life.

You can always get Johnny Walker on a plane. Do you actually, that's an interesting question. Do you have any idea how they get those contracts with these airlines? No.

No, I do want some of them. Yeah, but it's I mean, that's got to be a huge amount of business for them. Definitely. Like just to be the brand that they serve on the airplanes.

Good advertising. Yeah. Yeah, they do have a good advertising campaign, but you don't the weird thing about it is they do a classic like you don't see a lot of Johnny Walker commercials on TV. But you'll see the ads in like print magazines and shit like that is where you more often see it.

How much do you think that that sort of branding has helped them as a company? I think it's helped them massively, especially when it must be about just over 10 years now when the Johnny Walker brand actually left your mana. That really, really hurt the brand. So now they've done a lot to build it back up in public reputation, public response.

So yeah, I think they're doing really, really well. Sometimes around Christmas time, they do release a televised advert this year. Well, no, not this year last year now. It was praised on the way that it was done.

It was very classy. It wasn't mainly about the whiskey itself. It was mainly about family enjoying time with loved ones. It was more homey than some going to bar ordering a red label or a black label and just drinking it by themselves and Christmas night.

They've done a lot for public perception of the brand. They've done a lot with new blends that they've introduced into the different markets around the world. So they're really branching out into different flavor profiles now. Last year, they launched the Johnny Walker Blondes, which was the first whiskey on the market that was made to be mixed.

It wasn't made to be or done with ice. It was literally made to be mixed with lemonade. So they first do that. Then I think it was Glenn Marenji, followed shortly after with their one.

Not bad in what it is, but it will never reach the levels of Johnny Walker Blond. Then they've now released another XR. They've released XR 19, XR 22. They've got a black label, a sherry cask and a black label, sherry finish.

So they're coming out now with a lot of different blends to hit on market. One of my most favorite blends, I think that's outside of the core range would be Sweet Peat. Oh, tell me about this one. I don't even know about it.

So Sweet Peat is definitely a peated whiskey, but it doesn't have that sharpness of the peat to it. It's more a caramelized almond type of finish, both down really nice with ice. I love the drink it with ice. I would say the best way to enjoy Sweet Peat though would be with a really good cloudy apple juice.

That really enhances the flavor of it. It's one of my favorite Johnny Walker mixers if I was to mix a Johnny Walker. Yeah. What do you think?

So it's interesting because back in the day, the major sky's facilities, Johnny Walker obviously being one of them, we're very like tight with their product. It's like, this will be two, these are our brands. And now, distillities in all forms of liquor, I started to branch out into these different extra brands, right? Like you were talking about the Sweet Pea or one that's only right with lemonade.

Is the cost for this just straight competition? I think the cause of this is, I would say for me, I really like it because sometimes I tend to get bored with drinks that's always on the market. There's only so much that you can drink of one flavor. I think it's also more trying to captivate people away from the gin competition, away from vodka's now that they're now introducing infusion spirits.

Yeah, because everyone's doing so much shit now. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just the trying capitalized on marketplaces and market trends.

Because right now, the spirit industry, I think is going through a major change in terms of flavors. And I think they're all just trying to branch out into something new. It's like, I wouldn't be surprised if a distillery was to come out with a tequila-class finish for whiskey. Yeah.

Yeah. Just like the next thing that's going to happen. Oh, I'll hit it. That's definitely going to happen.

Yeah. So you as a bartender, putting on your bartender half for a second, how do you feel about all these new designations of flavored spirits and infused spirits? Like, isn't that what we're kind of supposed to be doing? It is.

Sometimes it can make a bartender's job easier if it's an infusion that you would have needed to readily mix behind the bar. If it's pre-made, that can make your job really easier on the flip side because now there's so much on the market. There's only so much space that you have behind the bar. So you can't get what everybody wants.

And then you also run the risk of buying infusions that you then start with because nobody wants it. Right. Right. There's certain infusions that I won't really name the brand because I don't really like to slam a brand like that.

But there's different infusions now that are coming out with pink drinks. Right. That tastes absolutely disgusting when we mix it with don't. But they're trying to cap the, and these are vodka's, but they're trying to cap the size on the pink gin market, which is done really, really well.

Right. You can't just make a drink, a certain color to try and cap the size on the market if it tastes like crap. It doesn't work. So.

Okay. After all this time and all this experience and all this collection of Johnny Waka-Riwski, if you were to land on a desert island tomorrow, which bottle would you take with you? Are you only going to allow me one bottle? You got to make a choice.

Oh, you can see the paint going through her face right now. Can it be a box? Okay. The box of bottle inside.

Yeah. Okay. I know exactly what I'm going to take. Okay.

I think I've just broken your trip. I would have to take the Johnny Walker 12 days of discovery. Oh, what the fuck is this? I don't even know about this.

So this was released last year just before the Christmas season. So it's basically like the Johnny Walker advent calendar. Oh my God. There's a Johnny Walker advent calendar.

Yeah, but they don't want you to get a two-drunken it. So they only give you 12 bottles, which I can't actually seem to get out of the box. We can see the one side. Just tell us what's inside it.

So inside you get two bottles of red, two bottles of black, two bottles of double black, two bottles of gold, two bottles of 18, and two bottles of blue label. All right. Well, you totally cheated that game, but that's a very good answer. That's awesome.

That's what you know what to get me for Christmas. And also the one thing going back to what you were saying earlier, like, you know, like I'm drinking sugar, but like one thing I do know about getting together with family at Christmas, it's very ricky to have a bottle of scotch. Yes. Rose, tell us how all of our listeners can get in touch with you over Instagram or social media or any other way.

So mainly it's Instagram at roses.Johnny Walker. That's the best place. If you need to know any more information, if you want to know more cocktail ideas with whiskeys in general or particularly Johnny Walker whiskeys, give me a DM, yeah, come check out the collection. Any questions about it, any questions at all, just feel free to send me a DM at roses.Johnny Walker.

Well, I really enjoyed this. Thanks so much for doing the show, Rose. That was super entertaining and informative. So everybody should follow Rose on Instagram and everybody should start drinking more Johnny Walker.

Let's be honest. Just don't think I'm glad that's what Johnny always kept walking. Perfect. Thanks, Rose.

Thanks very much. No worries. Have a great evening, guys.