JAKE SHARPE MODERN WHISKY BARON

THE INTERVIEW SHARING A LOVE OF SPIRIT IN THE WORLD TODAY OF CASK INVESTORS PUSHING UP WHISKY PRICES, IS THERE ROOM FOR AN INDEPENDENT WHISKY BOTTLER? VELO MITROVICH REPORTS

While the history of Scottish whisky dates to over 1,000 years ago, the success and refinement of what the world calls Scotch, is more recent when a select group of whisky merchants took the business by storm in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, who are referred to as the whisky barons. John Dewar, James Buchanan, Alexander Walker, Arthur Bell, Peter Mackie and pioneer rum runner Captain William ‘Bill’ McCoy established their brands and kickstarted the industry. The men had much in common: they were all Scots from humble beginnings, served long apprenticeships and ultimately set out on their own to build their companies. Whisky writer David Broom says the whisky barons didn’t just sell whisky, they sold an idea, and in doing so created this new concept called ‘branding’. By being seen in the right theatres, race meetings, sporting events, hotels, clubs and restaurants, they built whisky’s credibility as an acceptable drink for gentlemen. With whisky’s popularity firmly entrenched around the world, however, is there a need for a whisky baron today? Jake Sharpe is not who you’re expecting when you meet The Whisky Baron. To be fair, that’s not what he calls himself, it’s the name of his whisky bottling company. But when you look at The Whisky Baron’s label, back at Sharpe, then back at the bottle and it is hard not to think there is a more than passing resemblance. Still, Sharpe seems too young at 27 and not

serious enough to even be thought of as a distant great-great nephew of one of the original Whisky Barons. For example, he has some crazy ideas regarding whisky. Get this, Sharpe believes whisky is for drinking and enjoying, not investing. That if you drink your whisky neat or with the smallest amount of water, that’s fine. Just like it’s fine to drink whisky with ice, with Coke or in a cocktail. Just like it’s fine if your favourite whisky is Haig Club or even Sainsbury’s Blended. And, perhaps his most insane idea of all, whisky enjoyment should be for all, not the self-appointed few. ALL PHOTOS: SPRINGBANK The original Scottish whisky barons didn’t necessarily create whiskey as we know it today, but they certainly modernised it and turned it from what was considered quite a sort of rough rugged northerners drink to the drink of the modern-day gentlemen. Prior to the whisky barons’ transformation of whisky, gin, sherry, port and other fortified wines would have been the choice of the gentry. It you drank whisky it was something you hid. “The whiskey barons started creating blended consistent products that were able to be mass marketed the world over, some of which we still know and love today, creating brands that have really lasted,” says Sharpe. “I didn’t really decide to call myself the whiskey baron. The idea was to create a brand that sort of paid homage to the whiskey barons. And as a result of me, apparently looking a bit like the guy on the label, I have been since dubbed the 52 | AUTUMN 2021 DISTILLERS JOURNAL

PHOTO CREDIT: STEPH FORROW

Whiskey Baron, which is quite a privilege but comes with a lot of responsibility.”

While we are all familiar with whisky distillers, we’re not as much with the concept of being an independent bottler.

According to Sharpe, unlike the distilleries who produce their own whiskies, independent bottlers purchase casks or barrels of whiskey from different distilleries and bottle it under their own brand.

‘Our brand is The Whisky Baron. We have currently seven different whiskies from six different distilleries as part of our range,” he says. “The point of being an independent bottler is that you get to put forward different expressions from different distilleries and sing their praises.

“You also get to find expressions from distilleries that haven’t been watered down to 40% ABV for the mass market and allow real whisky enthusiasts to dive in and get an idea of what the whiskey is like, straight out of the cask, untouched and unadulterated.” Independent bottlers can buy new whiskies and leave them exactly as they are to age, or they can take young stock and age it in a series of different casks to manipulate the flavour and get to a different end goal that would the distillery was doing. This is, in essence, creating their own brand. But, just like what distilleries face in planning their spirits, independent bottlers need to be able to guess what coming tastes and trends will be.

One problem the public has in getting their heads around independent bottlers is if they are being offered something from Distillery X, why not just buy it from Distillery X? What can an independent bottler offer that a distillery can’t?

According to Sharpe, an independent bottler can offer you a different view of the distillery as far as offering cask strengths which the distillery might not do. Other distilleries – relatively unknown – make fantastic whisky but only sell it in casks, primarily to the big brands like Johnny Walker, which then use it as an ingredient in their blended whisky. An independent can come in, buy a cask and then bottle it under their own brand, allowing whisky drinkers to try something that wouldn’t be on the market otherwise.

STUMPING SHARPE

If you want to watch Sharpe start to sputter, ask him what is the perfect whisky and what makes it so. If you have a sibling or more, it would be easier to ask your mother who is her favourite child.

“How do I know there is such a thing, I suppose it’s also subjective,” he finally says.

With The Whisky Baron’s Founders Collection Range, it’s to get a vast array of different flavours and different terminology out there for people to try.

“A big part of our brand is trying to get non-whiskey drinkers or novice whiskey drinkers who maybe don’t feel so comfortable or confident in their whiskey knowledge to learn a bit more. With our first three releases, what we’re trying to do is to be present in as many different

PHOTO CREDIT: STEVIE JAMES

PHOTO CREDIT: STEPH FORROW

styles as possible to cater to as many different palettes as possible.”

A feature The Whisky Baron has is an app which allows the consumer to select their dram, scan the label through their phone/tablet, and then the Whisky Baron character appears to jump off the label and starts explaining about the whisky, how it could be drunk, used in cocktails or paired with foods.

If you have seen the first ‘Jurassic Park’, it looks a bit like when John Hammond’s animated character explains the science behind the dinosaurs.

“I think it’s all about welcoming new people into the category. Typically, it has been the drink of an old man next to the fire with a cigar, wearing his slippers, drinking it neat or with a cube of ice and that’s it. We try and break those ridiculous premises by, providing a cocktail recipe with each of our whiskeys. If you enjoy cocktails, why shouldn’t you drink whiskey cocktails?” says Sharpe.

“What we first have to do is break down those ridiculous notions that whiskey has to be a certain thing. Whiskey is for everybody. We have found a lot of women coming into the category are and really interested. We found a lot of younger people, too. When I set up The Whisky Baron, I was 23 years old. Arguably, I didn’t belong in the whisky industry. But I think it’s all about conversation, breaking down those barriers and welcoming new people in.”

One of the ways The Whisky Baron is doing this is with its Infinite bottles.

“Each bottle comes with a unique code that when logged into our website, it gives you your own unique database. The first 35 whiskies that we’ve put in the blend are listed there with the exact amount that is in your bottle,” says Sharpe. As the bottle gets drunk, the person adds whisky to it before it is finished, leaving a very, very small amount of the first whisky in the blend. Notes are kept online as to which new whiskies are added to the blend.

CASK INVESTING PROBLEMS

If you use any social media platform that has ads and if you’ve ever clicked on any whisky site, you can be almost guaranteed that you’ll be receiving ads for investing in whisky casks. The returns, however, that they imply strongly are possible, never seem to be copacetic. When The Whisky Baron first started, on its website it mentioned investing in casks. But the company has now walked away for that idea – despite it becoming common and popular.

Sharpe says when he first started in the industry working it was for a company that sold casks as an investment: “It made perfect sense to me at the time, it was my first foray into the whisky industry.”

But as time when on, Sharpe began to realise that there were people in the industry mis-selling casks, giving misinformation and promising returns that were not possible. He finally decided there were too many issues in this part of the industry which made him feel uncomfortable.

“We do work with a small number of private individuals that allow us to sort of lock up stock for future bottlings, we stopped publicizing it, because we didn’t want the average whiskey investor coming to us.

“I think what the average whiskey investor is now, generally, people who aren’t even interested in drinking whiskey, they’ve seen it in the media as being something that can produce amazing returns. One

figure that’s bandied around is 582 percent because there was one bottle that achieved this, according to a report Knight Frank did in collaboration with Rare Whisky 101 on the top performing bottles at the time.”

A return that will probably never to be repeated.

Sharpe says that he is finding it now harder and harder to source casks at a reasonable price. People are buying casks with the promise of returns, but there is no exit strategy except trying to find someone who will buy your cask at even a higher price.

The novices that are getting involved in whisky cask investment do not really understand the industry and are ignorant of duties, bottling costs, and the cost of building a brand.

“It’s ruining the whiskey industry, in my opinion. We took a big step back from that, because I didn’t want to be sort of lumped in with that crowd. Our aim really is to get great whiskey in front of people and to sing the praises of all the wonderful distilleries that we work with.”

One of the knock-on effects of cask investing is that is becoming harder for independent bottlers to source casks at a reasonable price – despite independent bottlers becoming more popular. If a bottler is going to put a bottle on a shelf at a price that is close to what the distillery would charge, bottlers need to be buying casks at true trade prices, not the overly inflated prices caused by investors.

“The distilleries are getting frustrated, because they’re putting all the hard work into making this spirit. They’re selling it to individuals on the basis that it’s going into a b0ttle. But then it’s not, it’s being traded around being flipped to auctions, three, four or five times a year, with the distillery getting nothing from that after they’ve sold it to somebody at a fair-trade value.

“They’re the one who put all the hard work in, and then you get these cowboys that are selling it for five times the price. That’s not fair. And so ultimately distilleries are pulling back their stock, they’re not allowing new entrants to buy from them. The casks that are already in the open market continue to rise in value, which means it’s harder and harder to buy them at a price that you can then bottle and sell.”

The end result of this, believes Sharpe, will be independent bottlers dying out due to them not being able to get the product they need.

“I’m very lucky in that despite having started in the industry with a less than honest company, I managed to make a swift exit. I’ve managed to make a good name for myself. I think that people in the industry know that we are bottling these casks, that we do care about the industry and that we’re not just looking to make a quick buck. We’re here for the long run.”

What would the original whisky barons think of Jake Sharpe? They were trying to elevate whisky, to make it a better product and one fit for gentlemen. And, PHOTO CREDIT: STEVIE JAMES

let’s not forget, make a tidy profit in the process. You would say, too, they had considerable pride in their product.

During US Prohibition, Captain Bill McCoy came into his own, bringing whisky to the three-mile limit of US coastal waters for small boats to then smuggle ashore. For US drinkers at the time, pretty much anything with alcohol in it would do, and despite the fancy label on the bottle, very few believed it was anything but cheap rot gut. Not however with what Captain McCoy sold. How good was his whisky? Well, that’s where the expression the ‘real McCoy’ came from.

Sharpe is similar in many ways except he’s interested in making whisky for everyone. For people who say they don’t like whisky, Sharpe answers: “You just haven’t met the right one yet.” As he pointed out, making it as an independent bottler is getting harder to do. But there is something of the old whisky barons about him. If anyone will succeed, it is going to be Jake Sharpe, the modern whisky baron.

LIFE IN MINIATURE

WITH ITS LATEST PACKAGING LINE INVESTMENT, LOCH LOMOND GROUP HAS IMPROVED ITS CAPABILITIES ACROSS THE BOARD, WHICH ALSO INCLUDES THE ABILITY TO PACKAGE 100ML, 200ML AND 350ML BOTTLES.

PACKAGING

Loch Lomond Group has a family of old established distilleries: Loch Lomond, Glen Scotia and Littlemill. The Loch Lomond Group markets a portfolio of highest quality brands including: finest malt expressions; quality whisky blends; and the second most popular vodka brand in the UK in the form of Glen’s Vodka. They also produce Ben Lomond Gin which encompasses flavoured infused gins such as Blackberry & Gooseberry Gin and Raspberry & Elderflower Gin. Since 1814, the Loch Lomond Distillery has been producing the finest single malt whisky. Situated on the banks of Loch Lomond it takes its name from this most picturesque and famous of all Scotland’s lochs. Campbeltown was, reportedly, the ancient seat of the Scottish Parliament set up here by King Fergus in 503AD. Indeed the first site of the Scotia distillery in Parliament Street is said to be on the site from where the Stone of Destiny came, the stone on which all Scottish Monarchs were crowned.

Founded in 1832 as Scotia, this distillery survived a decline in the industry in the early part of the 20th century. The ‘Glen’ was added to the name in 1939 and Glen Scotia changed hands again With their own modern bottling plant Loch Lomond Group are able to control all aspects of the production and packaging of their products. It was into this illustrious history that in 2004 Enterprise Tondelli first started supplying equipment to the bottling plant to enhance the performance. The latest installation in a long line of projects is the replacement of line 5, historically used for miniatures and small bottles.

The new line can handle miniatures, 100ml, 200ml and 350ml in a variety of shapes and designs with either ROPP or “T” shaped corks all on the same line, filling brown and white spirits along with flavoured gins.

A special depalletising area allows the combining of both the miniatures arriving in trays along with the larger bottles on pallets. A pressure less combiner from Eurosistemi, a wholly owned subsidiary of Enterprise, ensures they are all single filed correctly and the new area now only requires one operator compared to the multiple operators required before for this task. The rotary blower/filler/capper is mounted on a common base frame with star wheel transfer between the blower and filler for improved bottle handling. The gravity or low vacuum filler can handle all of the above formats with a very ease change over for the filling valves using a quick release button.

The filer block base frame has a stainless steel underframe for reduced maintenance and direct gearing between the filler and blower. The range of rotary spirit fillers from Enterprise start at just 20 bottles per minute to 600 bottles per minute with multiple closing turrets and valve solutions. A low level bulk closure hopper and elevator was provided for operator safety and machine autonomy. The BRB Globus rotary self-adhesive

The range of spirit fillers from Enterprise vary from 20 to 600 bottles per minute

labeller supplied by Enterprise Tondelli can handle all of the bottle range as above and has the facility for base notch spotting device for label orientation. The two station 9 platform labeller can also handle transparent labels as well. Full bottle conveyor and also the conveyor control system housed in a stainless steel panel and field wiring were part of the system integration supplied from Eurosistemi from Enterprise Tondelli to give a turn key project. Andrew Macpherson, technical team leader at the bottling plant said: “I started with the company in 2001 and have seen Enterprise Tondelli give very consistent results over the years and especially for the project management aspect.

“These have included single machines to the complete high speed flask line. Of course we have used other contractors over the years but Enterprise Tondelli are among the very best” Craig Wilson, managing director of Enterprise UK added: “That it has been a very long lasting relationship based on mutual understanding and appreciation of strengths. We look forwards to working with Loch Lomond for another 20 years.”