In this podcast interview, Mighty Craft head of distilling operations George Campbell discusses his incredible journey from Islay, Scotland to Kangaroo Island, Australia.
George shares his wealth of experience working for renowned Scotch whisky distillers Diageo and William Grant & Sons, and we explore the unique flavours and heritage of both Australian and Scotch whisky.
We hear about the process of designing the house style of Kangaroo Island whisky, including the potential for flavour innovation using indigenous yeast and local barley.
George shares his plans for cask management and maturing the whisky optimally in Australia, as well as the timeline for the release of the Kangaroo Island whiskies.
Grab a dram and journey through the world of whisky with George Campbell.
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George Campbell of Mighty Craft: Full interview transcript
JAMES ATKINSON: George Campbell, thanks so much for joining us on the Drinks Adventures podcast.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Good to be here, mate. Good to be here.
JAMES ATKINSON: Tell me about how you found your way into the whisky industry. I know you’re from Islay, so is it almost a case of having to avoid getting into the whisky industry? It just probably happens naturally, doesn’t it?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. I think it’s kinda found me in a way because I was surrounded by it from the age of four. So I went to Bowmore Primary School, Bowmore High School, and Bowmore Distillery; it’s just down the road. And in fact, it depends on what way the wind went, you could get the smoke from the kiln coming up into the playground. So I’ve been around it since I was a kid. I never actually got properly into it in a job sense, until I was 19. I always thought about it. I’d always looked at it. I’ve got family members I look up to that have worked in the industry for years. For example, my Uncle Kevin was a stillman at Lagavulin for 30 years. My dad worked in the maltings at Port Ellen when he was a young man, and my grandpa, he had a short spell in the warehouse at Bowmore. Yeah, I was always thinking at some point, I’ll get into it and I dipped my toe in the bath when I was 19 as a tour guide at Laphroaig. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I left school. I was pretty good at maths, so I thought I’ll study that at Uni and see where it goes. But when I came back and started being a tour guide at Laphroaig, I realised, yeah, I don’t wanna be an accountant, I don’t wanna be a maths teacher anymore. I wanna, yeah, I wanna get into whisky. And that’s where my love really grew for it. I was getting paid to pour drams, share whisky, share stories with people that just… it was almost like a pilgrimage for them to come to my home. And I just loved that. Like, people just love my home and all the flavours that Islay could offer with whisky and general other… with regards to seafood and such like as well. I just love that. I love chatting to… some of the conversations and stories you have with people over whisky are just fantastic, endless. You know?
JAMES ATKINSON: So you started your career at Diageo, and then you ended up at William Grant’s, maybe just give us a bit of an overview of your career path over those years in Scotland?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah, so I left Islay, moved up to Speyside. Big changes up there, weather and whisky mainly. Unpeated was a new journey up there. I was used to this smoke, smoke, smoke! So I had to get a palette for what my friends at home would call ‘diet whisky’, because there’s no smoke in it. So that was interesting, but from a from a career point of view, it was a super steep learning curve because I had very limited experience in the production… no experience in the production of whisky, just really drinking it, and sharing it, and taking people around distilleries as a tour guide. So I had a lot to learn, and it was a three and a half year traineeship at Diageo that I was on. It was excellent experience, they just threw you into the deep end and I was working with some amazing people, some of the best in the industry. So at Cardhu I was assistant manager there for a good nine, ten months working under the wings of Peter Campbell and Andy Cant. Great guys, I still talk to them today. And then had a spell over at Skye as assistant manager there, which was great, at Talisker. A lovely place, beautiful scenery, equally frustrating midges in the summer as Islay. And my last job with Diageo was as site operations manager at Mannochmore distillery, a really, really nice place. It makes a light, grassy, fruity type of new make as part of Johnnie Walker. Yeah. That’s great for the experience, but at that point in time, this once in a lifetime opportunity popped up at Balvenie. And I’ve always loved what Balvenie do. They make fantastic whisky and they still have their own maltings onsite. That’s always been a nice touch for me, like, starting off at Laphroaig, always loved that. And I put my name in the hat and went for it, and then I got the job. So I was still quite wet behind the ears, I was 25 at the time and I was the production manager for Balvenie and Kininvie. So bigger team, nown having to learn a bit about malting, the expansion projects on the way. So, yeah, it was exciting, but a daunting opportunity too. So, again, the learning curve was still steep. And that’s when my journey with Grant’s started, and I really loved working with Grant’s. So I was there at Balvenie and Kininvie for a good year and a half. At that point, Glenfiddich was kicking off on a pretty big expansion, and the way things fell I got a tap on the shoulder to lead the production team through that. And, yeah, that was probably the quickest four years of my life, to say the least, it was just a dream job, great folk I was working with and got experience expanding a distillery up to almost 22 million litres of alcohol a year.
JAMES ATKINSON: And did you, you know, Islay whisky, smoky whisky is in your blood… Did you develop a real palate for the Speyside whiskies?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah I certainly started to grow an appreciation for it. It certainly helps when you’ve got access to so much of it up there and being in the industry you’ve got staff prices too so you can really broaden your palate. I was really taken by Cardhu when I first arrived. It’s got such a lovely light pear drop note you get with it. And I actually quite enjoyed the combination. One week a year at Balvenie and one week a year at Glenfiddich, they call it peat week. So they would let me loose with peated barley for a week and see how it comes out at the end, and it was just delicious. It was really nice to see how you can have the same sort of PPM of your malt going through different distilleries and get a different result. Yeah, so that was probably my favourite part of it.
JAMES ATKINSON: Well, so, you know, your career is blossoming. You’re at Glenfiddich. And somehow, you end up finding a way down to Australia to work for Mighty Craft on Australian whisky. Now tell us how that all transpired.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Well, apart from my family saying, ‘George, you’re leaving a good job in Scotland and you’re traveling around the world during a pandemic, are you mad?’ So it all came about initially from a call from a recruitment agency, about the job and they’ve been speaking to Chris Malcolm, who’s well known in the industry down and Mighty Craft about some work they were going to be doing together. And after a few conversations back and forth with them, something just clicked. It just felt right and it felt incredibly exciting and it reminded me about the shift when I moved from Diageo to Balvenie. Obviously, it’s a much bigger shift, but that initial, like, flood of excitement that I had for the opportunity was there. And this time it was really around the itch that I’d never scratched with travel. I didn’t do as much travel with work as I wanted to. And the opportunity to be so creative and start from a black slate. I’ve always loved working in the whisky industry, but I’ve always kind of felt that I’m following someone else’s recipe that’s been there for like 150 years. And while I’ve had a couple of opportunities to do a bit of NPD here and there, the dream for me was always to be involved with something at the start and build a distillery. That’s what I’ve always thought of as being the pinnacle from a career and basically, with what Chris Malcolm and Mighty Craft were looking at and the ambition they were setting, I thought, yeah, I can I can really get involved with this. And yeah, it was pretty tough, deciding to leave Glenfiddich, I really enjoyed it there. I was having a great time, and the expansion had just come to an end, so the timing was actually perfect to make this move. So it wasn’t like I was leaving midway, and my fiance, Josephine, she was up for it too, which is always very helpful, always very helpful, you know. And so, yeah, we decided to have a go and we flew downunder during COVID, a couple of weeks in quarantine over in Melbourne, and then we landed on Kangaroo Island, and we were there for a good eight months or so. The experience over there was just so alien compared to what I’m used to. I’m used to living on an island, but not one with kangaroos bouncing all over the place and koalas apparently jumping out of trees to try and get you. I’ve been hit with the whole drop bear thing two or three times a week, you know.
JAMES ATKINSON: What were the differences with Islay apart from, you know, you’ve mentioned some of the, I suppose, the flora and fauna, but also the climate would be a pretty big one, but I think what’s the population of Islay; 4000 people or something, I’m assuming Kangaroo Island was probably smaller than that?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Kangaroo Island’s got more, believe it or not. And Kangaroo Island’s about four or five times the size. It was funny because I’ve moved to Kangaroo Island and everyone said to me, oh, you must be really struggling with how quiet it is? And I’m like, it’s actually busier than where I grew up, so I’m alright, mate. But the biggest difference is the culture. There’s real energy around Aussie Rules football there, which I got consumed in. I never played much rugby, or… I did a bit of five-a-side football when I was up in Elgin. But, yeah, the football then there’s massive sport. It’s huge. So I got involved with playing Aussie Rules when I was down there, which is a good fun. And they threw me in as ruckman a couple of times and came out all battered and bruised. I would say, Kingscote Football Club. Great guys. And then what else? Just the fishing is good. Fishing is really good. The wildlife is incredible, and the beaches are fantastic. I mean, I’ll always say the beaches on Islay are the best. I can’t say anything else, otherwise I’ll not be allowed home, but the beaches on Kangaroo Island are just ridiculously good. Stokes Bay is beautiful. So all in all, the folk were so welcoming. I mean, that’s the same as Islay I guess, but It’s just how welcoming and how how far people went to make sure we feel welcome and looked after us. It was just a great experience altogether.
JAMES ATKINSON: Now tell me about the Kangaroo Island distillery project… Where was it at, you know, when you got there? Because obviously the business had been trading for a few years previously, but making mostly gin, I believe. And then there was sort of a link with the Lark family as well, obviously, with Kangaroo Island, but then Mighty Craft became involved and really decided to focus on whisky as being a key category for Kangaroo Island.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah, so my involvement started a little bit before I arrived in Australia. So once I’d finished up at Glenfiddich, I was put in touch with Charlie Schmidt, who’s the head distiller for Kangaroo Island. At that point, the Lark family weren’t involved, so John Lark had moved on at that point, but me and Charlie started talking about the design of the still and the mash tun and just agreeing on an initial recipe for the whiskey. But at that point, Charlie was still in, it’s effectively like a shipping container. So they were distilling on a super small scale in a shipping container. And distillery expansion of the actual building structure was well underway and the gin still, the upgraded gin still, who’s nicely known as Olivia Newton-Gin, she was already in place and good to go. So when I arrived, Charlie was going through the process of upgrading from the smaller gin still, Mary, leading up to the larger one, Olivia. And so whilst I was there, it was really just getting built, so I mean the mash tun and washbacks and the still. I was there whilst that was happening, so they were really just moving from the shipping container over to bigger distillery for the gin side.
JAMES ATKINSON: What about designing, you know, the house style for the whiskies that you’re gonna be making? What went into that process?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: We were aiming for something on the light side, and I’ve worked with a few different light whiskies in in my career. So really, we decided we wanted to go for clear worts and longer fermentations and plenty of reflux to give us a chance to create some really nice light fruity esters and give us a chance to strip out a lot of heavier sulphur compounds that we get during the fermentation. Really, it was a bit of a trade off between how much reflux I wanted and how much Charlie wanted and we arrived at a horizontal line pipe. And nice long fermentations, clear worts. And the result we’ve got so far, I’m super happy with. It’s quite unique spirit compared to what I’ve worked with in my career so far. I mean, the ones I’ve worked out in the past, like Knockando for example, it’s quite a nutty, grain-led new make spirit. And then you’ve got the lighter stuff like Cardhu, which is more like pear drops, and Kinivie is quite fruity. The spirit that we’ve got at Kangaroo Island just now, it’s combined the two in such a way that I’ve never experience before. It’s really sweet, luscious, full bodied malt, but at the same time, it’s equally as fruity. So we’re happy with it. We’ve got it to a place now, Charlie has tuned it in nicely. It’s coming out consistently. And I guess that only solves one part of the problem, doesn’t it, that’s the new make spirit. But the rest of the house style will be decided upon as to how our cask management goes. So we’re laying down a nice varied selection of bourbon, tawny, apera, of varying different sizes as well. And a few other specialty tasks that we’ll release later on as a surprise. So, yeah, it’s exciting because we’ve managed the first part, the new make, we’re happy with that. But the rest of it, as it comes, it’s maturing and maturing quickly in Australia. I can’t believe that how quickly it matures down here. It’s coming down the line, so we’re deep in the weeds for that one.
JAMES ATKINSON: What about specifically on Kangaroo Island? What is the unique local climate there where the distillery is, as compared with the mainland and I suppose back home in Scotland as well?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. It’s in between. So it’s like South Australia is super hot. It’s very, very hot. And Scotland’s obviously very cold. But the main difference is that Kangaroo Islands has got the heat of South Australia. There’s a bit more rainfall, and it’s about five or six degrees cooler. So It’s not got quite as intense a maturation edition as South Australia, for example, but it’s definitely a level up from Scotland. So in that respect, a cask that’s been maturing… three identical casks, one in Scotland, one in South Australia, one in Kangaroo Island, they’re gonna be unique and different from each other. And that’s what excites me about it. Because I see, being a islander myself, I see the most incredible potential with Kangaroo Island whisky, in fact, just selling the story and flavours of what can come from the island in the unique atmosphere that’s there. So every single drop, every single litre of our whisky will be from Kangaroo Island barley. And we’re partnering with our local farmers to see what’s possible there. So different varieties, different soils, generally exploring all sorts of grain-lead opportunities. And I’m also excited about doing the same with yeast as well. I love the idea of flavour innovation with yeast and I think with the unique local ecosystem that’s still in Kangaroo Island and the differeny species of animals that are unique just to Kangaroo Island – even their own species of kangaroo – and I daresay there’s gonna be yeasts out there on the island that are unique today on this well, and I would love to explore the flavour differential of yeast as well.
JAMES ATKINSON: And the local barley, so is that malted on Kangaroo Island or does that go to the mainland to be malted for you?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah, afraid not. So we can’t malt it by ourselves at the moment. It’s just, the kind of scale that we’ve gone to here, is just a lot quicker than there’s been demand for malting on the island in the past. So at the moment, no, we get it malted on the mainland with one of our partners and then taken back over the island. But, yeah, it’s a great call out. To be more sustainable, we want to be able to shorten the road miles for our our raw materials and yeah, in the future, as we scale up, I can’t make any promises, but I would love to explore the idea of floor malting at some point in the future.
JAMES ATKINSON: So how far off of the Kangaroo Island whiskies then?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Oh, right. So, yeah I know, I can’t wait. I think we’ll definitely have some liquid to share with you guys in 2024. Our standard release, I’d be looking to get something kinda consistent, some sort of vatted malt, will possibly be 2025. But I’d love to get some liquid out there for you guys to try in 2024, potentially some sort of single cask just to share with you guys and see what you think.
JAMES ATKINSON: And you were talking about how you’d been struck by how quickly the maturation is happening there. Have you really had to kind of adapt your maturation regime to sort of make sure that you’re not getting too much extraction and those types of things?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah, that’s the battle. It’s extraction versus oxidation. It’s the never-ending battle for maturation in Australia. And I think that the way I’m trying to tackle that is just making sure we’ve got nice, diverse specs of smaller barrels with larger barrels as well, and just keeping a real keen eye on how it’s maturing, and doing the tasting, of course, which is very difficult, but it’s a part of the job that we all have to do. So, diversity and good checking and making sure that we’re tagging barrels as they go if we think they’re gonna get over-extracted, then we have to move them earlier. And I guess just choosing the correct filling strength as well. So we don’t wanna go too high on the filling strength. Obviously, with the climate here, the strength can go up, which is something I’m not used to in Scotland. So for trying to prevent extracting any of the more alcohol solvent flavours from the wood, we need to fill it at a lower strength So there’s also a lot of variables in it that have really stretched me and it’s been a big learning curve again coming downunder to deal with completely different parameters like that. But I see as an opportunity, rather than a hindrance.
JAMES ATKINSON: You spent nine months on Kangaroo Island, and I gather, you know, you’re probably still back and forth there a little bit but then the role sort of evolved to move on to the mainland and also have some oversight with some of Mighty Craft’s other whisky projects. Is that correct?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Working on a really exciting project with Seven Seasons Spirits. So we’ve a brand in our portfolio called Seven Seasons Spirits, which is looking to explore all the flavours that can be offered from indigenous flavours from the Larrakia tribe, which Daniel Motlop is a part of.
JAMES ATKINSON: We’ve had Daniel on the podcast before, so my listeners should be familiar with the project and actually when we had him on, which would have been probably a couple of years ago, I’m not exactly sure, but he did talk about the fact that there was a whisky in the pipeline. But he wasn’t at liberty to sort of tell us too much more than that at that stage, so I don’t know whether that project’s evolved any further.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: So he didn’t spill the beans then?
JAMES ATKINSON: No, not back then, but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then, George.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Well, I can’t go full on it for you, but me and Daniel are working on something super exciting. There’s limited ways of getting flavouring into whiskey, so I don’t want to insult anyone’s intelligence, but we are working on a really exciting collaboration where we’re using smoke and a variety of different casks to get a flavour that really reminds Daniel of his childhood and there’s a key component to… basically cooking in the Northern Territory around Darwin. So, yeah, I’m really happy with it, and it really struck a chord with me as well because obviously I love smoke, and I love exploring flavour with smoke, even different parts of Scotland with different peat gives different flavour, so exploring that downunder has been really fun so far. We’ve been laying down casks now for five or six months of this liquid. I actually tasted it this week, so I tasted a variety of different barrels with this liquid and, yeah, I’m really excited for it. But again, I’m not gonna have anything for you guys to taste for another a couple of years.
JAMES ATKINSON: It must be a pretty mind-blowing project for you to be able to work on having come from Scotland. It’s just so different to Scottish whisky, right?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. Yeah. It’s so, so different. The great thing about Scotland is we’ve got these recipes that have been established for so long and procedures and distillation regimes and it’s been proven a success. But you can only kind of step out of your lane with the Scotch whisky regulations so much. But downunder, it’s really unleashed, you know. Most ideas you’ve got down here, you can probably do it and have a product that you can can sell as Australian whisky.
JAMES ATKINSON: Speaking of innovative distilleries, 78 Degrees is obviously another one that you’re involved with working with. And Sasha, who we’ve also had on the show before, he’s really doing some interesting stuff up there as well. Right? Yeah, sure is. That’s where I am just now and I had the fortune of getting to spend some time with Sasha before he became a bit less operational. And, yeah, what a story, what they started off with up here compared to what they’ve got now. The process they’ve got is just fascinating; the all grains in approach is quite something, so we mash all grains in, ferment all grains in and distill all grains in and it results in the most incredibly balanced but super grainy spirit. It’s wonderful.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: What I’m used to with nutty or grainy in Scotland, is level one, what we’ve got here is a level three, level four, it’s quite something. And they’ve really pushed the boundaries not just with flavour, but with sustainability here as well. So for example, we’ve got a copper still which is like a pot straight into a column, and it’s just one distillation, then we’re already at cask strength at that point. So we don’t have to do the second distillation. So half the water, half the energy, and it seems to be double the grain flavour too. So, yeah, it’s great stuff the guys are doing up here, and I would love to make more and more of it. It’d be great to share more with Australia and the world.
JAMES ATKINSON: Tell us about some of the, you know, innovative projects that 78 Degrees has been working on because there’s a smoky whisky that’s just come out recently. I think in collaboration with Corsair out of the US.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah, I’m afraid the timing of me getting over here, but I wasn’t involved with that. But full credit to the guys here, I’m super intrigued. Again, it’s exploring flavour through smoke. And it’s interesting because we’ve almost actually created an Australian, American, Scottish blend with this release, but it’s a blend of smoke, not liquid, you know. So we’ve got a peat smoke malt from Scotland, we’ve got unmalted barley smoked with American cherry wood, and another type with red gum. So three completely different sources of smoke that creates completely different flavours and combines it. Yeah, it’s a very balanced and slightly medicinal, but slightly eucalypt, but at the same quite chocolatey. It’s nice. It’s good. Massively up for that in the future, I’d love to explore more smoke related innovation at 78 Degrees in the future.
JAMES ATKINSON: It’s not sort of a real punch you in the face Islay smoke, is it, it’s more of a delicate style, I would say.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah, it’s not heavily smoked by any means, but it’s accessible. Which I think is good to release in the case. And then if we get an uptake for it and people are more intrigued, then, yeah, I would love to ramp that up a bit and see what more we can get. I think the process itself here lends itself to peated whiskies. Because we’re all grains in, the whole process is in touch with the husks a bit longer, so I do see the efficiency of getting these phenols off of the husks has been pretty darn high because it’s there during the distillation.
JAMES ATKINSON: Maybe explain for people who aren’t aware what the ‘all grains in’ methodology is.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. Sure. So if, for example, typical mashing, you would mash in with your grists, your broken down, grounded malt, and you would mix it with varying degrees of hot water to extract all the soluble extract and sugars that’s in the malt. Normally, in that situation, you would leave behind all the skins and the husks within the mash tun that sits on what’s effectively like a metal sieve or mesh. And then you’re just left with the cloudy or clear sugary liquid called wort, that you then ferment with. The main difference that we’ve got here at 78 Degrees is we don’t filter them out at all, so the solids or the skins of the malt or whatever cereal we’re using, or husks, it stays with the liquid the whole way through the process. So the skins and husks are there during the fermentation, and they’re there whilst it’s being distilled as well. So one of the main ways of getting your phenols into your liquid is by imparting smoke onto the cereal, which it picks up from the husks, and then the liquid picks it up in the mashing process, and that’s its only chance to do it. But by being all grains in, the grain of the husk is in the process the whole way, so there’s a lot more time in order to try and get these these smoke phenols onto the husks. Obviously, I’m biased because I love smoky whisky, and I’m from Islay, but I would love to explore how much we can get off of off the husks if we really ramp up the smoke.
JAMES ATKINSON: What about Hidden Lake whisky, Chris Malcolm’s Tasmania whisky project? Is that something you’ve been involved in as well?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. Just latterly, just really with helping out with the liquid quality as we go to disgorge and bottling and get a taste for how the casks are developing. Yeah, so the last bottling, for example, I was down in Tasmania, supporting with that. And it’s a really interesting project. I love the idea of single malt, single cask releases, especially casks with stories. I’m sure everyone’s aware of the story with our barrels, and I think, yeah, just focusing on the quality of the liquid because there’s some fantastic liquid there that needs to be showcased and highlighted. So that’s what we’re there to do.
JAMES ATKINSON: You know, it’s a pretty unique job that you have, isn’t it when you look back on the way your career could have gone in Scotland, just in the sense that I think probably working for Mighty Craft is pretty unique even in Australia because, you know, you’re not just working on one distillery, you’re working on several distilleries and several whisky brands. Yeah. It’s really unique and that’s why I’ve loved it so much because I’ve been able to step out my lane a bit and be more involved with the brand side and be more involved with basically, cask management and liquid blending and sensory. It’s been a real eye opener to what you can do in distilling and be involved in. But for the future really, I’m I’m just really excited about where Australian whisky is going and I want to be part of that journey with the rest of the team in Mighty Craft to really capitalise and help lead where we can as well. I think that there’s a lot of really good liquid here in Australia that the world just hasn’t had the opportunity to properly taste yet and get an appreciation for it. But once they do, there’s gonna be a powerful force downunder, I think.
JAMES ATKINSON: Have you had much of an opportunity to really get around and taste, you know, spirit from other distilleries as well?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. I’ve been fortunate enough to do a couple of events. So I was doing a tasting with Bill Lark and Darren Langhe at Tasting Australia. So it was world whisky versus Australia and talking about the comparisons and such like. I’ve tried some Overeem, Lark, Sullivans Cove… There was one that was called Bogan Burnout? By Peter Bignell.
JAMES ATKINSON: Oh, the Belgrove.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. It was super smoky. It was the smokiest thing I’ve ever tried in my life! So, yeah, I’ve tried a few. The diversity out there in the Australian whisky industry is just incredible. There’s rye out there, there’s a lot more grain-led whiskies that I’ve tried compared to when I was in Scotland. It’s the maturation that’s the big difference too, there’s a lot of heavily flavoured extracted whiskies out there that I’m now getting a taste for. It was quite a new thing for me, but I’m now getting a taste for it.
JAMES ATKINSON: When you say grain-led whiskies, you mean spirit-led whiskies rather than cask-lead? I’m a little bit surprised to hear so that just because I probably would have thought that in general – while it’s starting to change a little bit – that a lot of Australian whisky has been pretty cask driven, you know, because of the very active Australian fortified casks that have underpinned a lot of a lot of our whisky production today.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. For sure. I think, yeah, you can’t deny that. It’s a massive part of the flavour profile for a typical Australian whisky, but for me, just thinking about the amount of rye that’s out there and also, seeing how Archie Rose are exploring rye, that’s really interesting. And also 78 Degrees… I mean, grain-led for me is, can I still taste the DNA of the distillery? And 78 Degrees, for example, it’s there. It’s really intense, it’s chocolatey. And for some of the rye ones I’ve tried so far in Australia, it’s there. it’s really strong. But you’re right, for the majority it’s mainly cask driven. I think there’s a lot of opportunity out there to try and find that unique balance in between the two.
JAMES ATKINSON: You touched on just then about how it was quite new to you, some of these fortified-driven whiskies that you were tasting. Tell me about that, you know, they are quite unique, some of the fortified casks that we have in this country, aren’t they?
GEORGE CAMPBELL: I’ve had to go on a bit of a journey in general when it comes to fortifieds and sherry and wine, in general, to be honest. Being in South Australia, it’s just an untapped mine of potential knowledge down here for wine, we’re just surrounded by some incredible wine regions and some really delicious fortifieds coming out. So to be honest, I don’t think I had a full appreciation for what the fortified flavour was about until I moved to South Australia. So like sherry was always this flavour that we spoke about at the distilleries I was at Scotland, and port, but I never had a full appreciation for what that flavour is and what it’s all about and how well-balanced it can be depending on what spirit you put in with it. Being here and tasting muscat, for example, and tasting various different tawnys and sherrys and really trying to understand and unpack the flavours that I’m getting when I’m doing spirits awards and such like, all more cask-led whiskies that I’m tasting. Getting a flavour for sherry and understanding it and getting a flavour for tawny and understanding it has really helped king of unpack what it’s about. I mean, there’s just so much flavour there. It’s a lot of oak. It’s quite dry. It’s dry, sweet heat that we tend to get with a lot of these ones. Spending time to taste fortifieds and sherries has really helped me unpack what it’s about.
JAMES ATKINSON: Well, George, thanks heaps for taking the time to have a chat and I know that my listeners and I are really looking forward to seeing what you’re coming up with.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah, I’m just really excited for what we’ve got coming down the road. Seven Seasons, Kangaroo Island, Hidden Lake and 78 Degrees, we’ve got a lot to come. And unfortunately, we have to wait a couple of years to show you some of the fruits of our labour, but it’s better than ten years as I’m used to at home. So it is coming!
JAMES ATKINSON: And yourself and your partner are sort of committed to Australia for the foreseeable future, I gather.
GEORGE CAMPBELL: Yeah. Yeah we are. We’re absolutely loving it downunder and obviously, it’s not the easiest being so far away from family, but I’ve been lucky enough to have been visited by my mum recently. She was here, she flew back to Scotland on Sunday. But no, we’re loving life here and I’m loving working for Mighty Craft, and, yeah, it’d be a shame to leave now whilst it’s maturing, wouldn’t it?
More:
Chris Malcolm, founder Hidden Lake Whisky: S13E12
Kangaroo Island Spirits opens new distillery and cellar door
Laphroaig distillery manager Barry MacAffer: S14E22
