John McDougall ex-Balvenie, Laphroaig, Springbank & more

Master distiller John McDougall is one of very few people who has made whisky in every one of Scotland’s distilling regions – that’s Campbeltown, Islay, Highland, Speyside and Lowland — for iconic brands like Laphroaig, Balvenie and Springbank. More recently, he’s had a hand in the Australian whisky industry, helping winemaker John Casella set up the production of Morris Whisky in Victoria, which we talked about on the podcast in 2021 with John Casella, Michael Sergeant and Darren Peck of Morris. The Morris project brought John McDougall back to Australia recently and I managed to get some time with him to record this interview about his distinguished 60-year career. This episode coincides with the launch of a third whisky in Morris’s core range, Morris Sherry Cask. I conducted a separate interview with Michael Sergeant about the new product, and I’ve linked to that article from the show notes. We’ll come to Morris a bit later on in this interview, a front-row account of the renaissance of single malt, as seen by one man from literally every corner of Scotland.