COCKTAILS & SPIRITS met ISAAC DrankCast
THE SUNTORY SPECIAL PART 2(with LAURA BRADY)
What happens when Hollywood meets the timeless world of spirits? You get an unforgettable encounter with Keanu Reeves and Sofia Coppola at the 100-year celebration of Centauri. Our guest Laura spills the beans on this star-studded meet and even takes us through the brilliant videos by Sofia and Roman Coppola that beautifully encapsulate Centauri’s rich history and culture.
As we visit the Hakushu distillery, we uncover the secrets that makes this distillery stand out from the rest. We also explore the essence of Japanese hospitality and craftsmanship in bartending, where even a small bar in Japan outshines a swanky five-star bar in London.
LINKS:
LIKE US , LOVE US
#cocktails #spirits #drank #bartender #educatie #horeca #sterkeverhalen #ISAAC #COLLINS
VOLG ONS OP INSTA:
COCKTAILS&SPIRITS MET ISAAC
ISAAC ACADEMY
COLLINS BARSYSTEMS
MISJA VORSTERMANS
What happens when Hollywood meets the timeless world of spirits? You get an unforgettable encounter with Keanu Reeves and Sofia Coppola at the 100-year celebration of Centauri. Our guest Laura spills the beans on this star-studded meet and even takes us through the brilliant videos by Sofia and Roman Coppola that beautifully encapsulate Centauri’s rich history and culture.
As we visit the Hakushu distillery, we uncover the secrets that makes this distillery stand out from the rest. We also explore the essence of Japanese hospitality and craftsmanship in bartending, where even a small bar in Japan outshines a swanky five-star bar in London.
LINKS:
LIKE US , LOVE US
#cocktails #spirits #drank #bartender #educatie #horeca #sterkeverhalen #ISAAC #COLLINS
VOLG ONS OP INSTA:
COCKTAILS&SPIRITS MET ISAAC
ISAAC ACADEMY
COLLINS BARSYSTEMS
MISJA VORSTERMANS
Come to the weekly podcast about spirits, cocktails and cocktail culture. This week, part 2 of the Centauri special. If you haven't listened to part 1, I would strongly suggest you listen to that first. We pick it up again when Laura tells us about her lunch date with Keanu Reeves. The tasting glasses are filled with the Hakushu 12 and the Hakushu 18. We talk about Japanese bars and Japanese bartending and the connection between whiskey and art. Next week, we will have an end of the year special where Misha and Viola look back upon 2023. And they will do the big espresso martini test. Follow up, sign up if you don't want to miss that. And yes, next week we'll be in Dutch again. For now, pour yourself a nice Yamazuka or Hakushu and relax. This is season 3, episode 115 of cocktails and spirits with Isaac.
Speaker 2:And I just thought that was of course. It's beautiful and it really shows that connection that Japanese people have to their culture and it really encapsulates House of Centauri for me they're trying to achieve that.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's nice to mention, because you have an amazing advocate for Centauri with Keanu Reeves and he made for.
Speaker 4:NEO.
Speaker 1:Dude, but he made for brilliant episodes about the making of Japanese whiskey with Centauri and talking about poetry. I mean, these were I really. It was really almost like a movie, but very romantic, and he's diving into the art and the and especially the delicacy and all the finesse you know you have to have and with all these different art forms and that, bringing that back to whiskey, and especially liked the third episode where he talks with the master blender and they have a sort of connection with each other and they try to blend whiskeys and it was really cool to see how he explains it. So I will put a link in the show notes to those movies and they're worth looking definitely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Encourage you to see these. Did you meet him? So I was very lucky to meet him. Really yes, and this year I got to travel a lot for our 100 year celebrations. It was called Centauri Time.
Speaker 2:We were celebrating this collaboration that we also have with Keanu and Sofia Coppola so the director from Lost in Translation and she sort of made a tribute film that archives a bit of the history of Centauri whiskey, her experience with Centauri growing up and having this time in Japan, especially through her father and his connection to Centauri. And we luckily had them at two of our dinners, new York and in London, and in London I was able to have Sofia in my section. She's wonderfully calm and relaxed and extremely friendly, and to be in close sight of Keanu, who was just to my right hand side.
Speaker 4:My girlfriend is so jealous unbelievable. That was a crush from day one. Almost it's wonderful.
Speaker 2:I have a really funny story about this, actually.
Speaker 2:Do it do it, it's maybe to make you laugh. So I'm British, I'm from the UK and my family are Irish. So telling my dad that I work for a Japanese spirits brand is very fun for me, and occasionally we talk about whiskeys a little bit. And when we had the 100 year celebration, I said to him so it's really exciting, we have this sort of partnership and I'm actually going to get to go to these markets and Sofia Coppola and Keanu Reeves will be there. And he's like oh, that was amazing.
Speaker 2:I said, yeah, and before our launch in London, it was my birthday. So he called me and I said oh, pops, I'm really sorry it's so busy. I'm just about to do this launch with Keanu. I said but I'm going to call you in the next couple of days, when everything has calmed down and we can chat. He's like OK, great. So I call him a couple of days later and he was like oh, so everything's good at home. The weather is like this, there's daffodils now and he does this thing where he just take me on a tangent and I was like oh, lovely, very nice. He said, yeah, and we went for lunch at the neighbors the other day and I said oh, that's really nice, dad. And he's like yeah, and I was telling them how you went for lunch with Keanu Reeves, I was like what do?
Speaker 2:you mean, I haven't been for a lunch with Keanu Reeves. He said you called me and you said you're going for lunch and I said no, dad. I said we have a launch. So now all the neighbors in mid Wales think that I that. I lunch with celebrities, which I don't, but if I ever had the privilege to he's. He's really a wonderfully calm and very genuine person, so it was really special.
Speaker 4:Yeah, to do that partnership. And he said definitely because I like motorcycles. He has a company called Arch motorcycle. Yeah, I love the guy, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool.
Speaker 4:All right, let's move on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're already almost at an hour. Oh, really oh no, it's a podcast. People can live.
Speaker 4:There was only two whiskeys. We need an extra two and actually a fifth.
Speaker 2:And you can cut out the story about me and lunch. Oh no, that's the fun part.
Speaker 1:So we talked about lost in translation, which is an amazing movie which, of course, Bill. Murray became the spokesperson for Centauri and but I saw the movie that Francis Coppola made.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And you see, at the end you see all these celebrities, also some Japanese celebrities that I don't know, and then suddenly you see semi David Jr and I thought it was. I mean, I thought I saw it all and then you see semi David Jr Also drinking Satoria. This is amazing. I mean.
Speaker 2:So this was the. This was the video actually by Sophia.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this was one Sophia made and Roman, her brother, he did the docuseries with Keanu and yeah. So this is like that kind of really archival footage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it goes a little bit through the history of Centauri and it was sort of for her, one of the questions that she was, of course, asked a lot, but one of the things that we sort of asked, as well as Centauri, was what does Centauri time mean to you? Because this was a phrase that was coined in that film and she sort of thought about it and she was like, well, I suppose it's about the people that you meet along the way. So it's that sort of like impact of history, of culture, of tradition, and she wanted to sort of reflect that in this tribute film to Centauri. So it is some archival footage, but it's also some new footage that she's taken and it kind of yeah, it gives you this sort of sense of what Centauri represented and still represents today.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about it in terms of 100 years, we really go through these sort of eras. So we have that awakening era that takes us up to the sort of end of the 40s, should we say, and this is that finding story, so Yamazaki being the birthplace and how we really connected to that sort of culture, that nature of Japan and what we wanted to represent as a spirits company, which was being truly Japanese, this idea of wa. It's one of the pillars of Suntory and it's about this relationship between Japanese people and nature. So that was like our awakening, that was where we started, and then we move into this second era, which is the boom, and that's like the 50s and 60s and that's where you see this like highball culture come alive. Suntory really pushed this sort of celebration of a new wave of cocktail culture, of whiskey culture, by introducing that highball and by opening Tori's bars, which were across the whole of Japan. So at their peak there was more than 2000 of these across the entirety of Japan.
Speaker 1:And so that's interesting, because we talk a lot about whiskey and we try to sample it and we try to analyze it. But how is it drunk? Well, I don't need, but especially in an highball, which is nothing else than with soda water, like a lot of sparkling water, which gives all these flavors and aromas to be released. But I think Japan put the highball on the map.
Speaker 4:I mean, we're drinking highball so we love the world now and also being like a vehicle for volume almost.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I mean still to this day. So Suntory whiskey, which is its nickname, is Kaka-bin in square bottle. This was the first successful whiskey that we released into the market and it's because it really captured more of that Japanese profile. It has a bit more sweetness than toki, for example, a bit more richness, but this was the whiskey that we sort of launched that highball drinking culture with, and still to this day that is the number one best selling whiskey in Japan. We sell loads of this whiskey and it's because it really ties into that, like Isekaya, food and drinks culture.
Speaker 3:It's easygoing.
Speaker 2:It's really approachable for everyone and that's what.
Speaker 1:But to think that the whiskey highball is an easy drink to make, it's not. I mean, there are a lot of things you can do wrong with just adding whiskey and water. It's not just that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Can you tell us a?
Speaker 4:little bit. How much did I do wrong just now?
Speaker 1:No, but it's about how much water to the whiskey, how long you stir, what kind of ice you're using. I mean all these things. The carbonation, sorry there, particious, yeah, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:I mean, this is something that can be extremely ritualistic, almost, but there are elements that are important to have a perfect highball and it's really, in Japan, very much about mastering those elements. So of course, you can also go around and see that you have Centauri, whiskey, kakubin on draft systems.
Speaker 3:And it's really.
Speaker 2:It's more easygoing, it's more like any time of the day, but then you can also have what is really that amazing highball experience. And this is where you see this very beautiful thin glass where you see crystal clear ice, and it's most often hand carved. It can come in different shapes and sizes, but it's going to fit very nicely within that glass. Temperature is everything, so temperature is massively important for a highball, because temperature ultimately affects your carbonation, and there's one thing that will make a terrible highball and it says if your carbonation doesn't last or it disappears very quickly, then it's not enjoyable.
Speaker 2:So, mastering all of these different elements and then, of course, selecting the perfect whiskey to create that highball, having a ratio that is great and having a water that is very, very carbonated, they all come into play. But it depends also for style. I mean, for me I actually like a highball when it sits around 7% ABV, which is almost like a one to four ratio. So it's quite low, but for me that's really great. That's where it's just super refreshing, where the aroma is really really bright.
Speaker 4:If somebody would like to make this at home, what would you recommend for, let's say, a soda water? What kind of brand would you like? Do you need to go a spa road sparkling water? What would you do for this drink?
Speaker 2:So, honestly, this also really depends, because you could have a soda water that is really, really carbonated, but if you haven't done any of the other steps of this process, it won't make a difference which one would you? Choose. So you really have to have it at a perfectly cold temperature. Then you need to make sure that whatever you already have in that glass so your ice and your whiskey- already cold your whiskey is already cold, because that's another big mistake.
Speaker 2:Because if you don't bring your whiskey down to a cooler temperature, then when you add this cold soda, there's still a shock. And it's still that's what you lose Exactly.
Speaker 1:So to add your whiskey and your ice, first stir it a few times to make sure it's cold and then add your soda water Exactly right, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is the best way to sort of maintain as much as possible and then when you sort of do that binding, so when you want to do a very small mix between your soda and your whiskey, it should be really small. Very gentle, You're more just kind of lifting that ice gently to agitate that.
Speaker 3:I wanted to say, Laura, you did a Toki Heibull tour not so long ago in Amsterdam and you discovered who or which bartender in Amsterdam makes the best Toki Heibull Delby.
Speaker 1:You can elaborate on that. This is a lot of fun.
Speaker 3:This is something that the listeners would like to hear.
Speaker 2:This is a lot of fun. So a lot of my ice education comes from Zoran. Zoran is our international brand advocate for Heis of Centauri and he is really the person that sort of brought over this mentality of ice carving, and that was originally to the UK and he's been working with Heis of Centauri for, let's say, over 10 years on a loot his age here. So he's really sort of mastered this craft of ice carving and it was something that I really wanted to bring over to the Netherlands. So we've done a series of different workshops where we look at these styles of ice and creating different ice shapes.
Speaker 2:But the last time he was here, I'm constantly running him around, getting him to do loads of different things. It's very busy and I don't often get to show him loads of the hospitality scene. So this time I said, zoran, I really want to be able to take you around and to really show you the culture that we have here and introduce you to some of these bars and these bartenders, because I get to work with amazing people. So we did a Toki Haibou tour. So it was a sort of open call for people to sign up and the rules were that you had to make a Haibou with Centauri Whiskey, toki, and that it had to be a classic Haibou. So we didn't want any modifications or any alternative ingredients.
Speaker 4:Twists on yes exactly.
Speaker 2:So, very straightforward Toki, haibou, and we did a tour of about 15 different locations and afterwards we split it between a few days, so Zoran didn't have to try 15 in one day. And then after each of them we sort of ran through a series of notes and did some kind of feedback. But it was completely judged by him, so my opinion was not valid. Although of course I did try.
Speaker 4:That's difficult judging actually. Because, it's quite a simple drink.
Speaker 2:It's true, it's true and that's really like. This is something that, for me, showcases that Japanese craft. So when you want to become a bartender in Japan, you're given one. Well, you don't, you're not given. You can choose one classic that you were going to focus on for the whole time of your training, and we're talking years. So there's that one classic that you're really going to work on mastering and that is the drink that usually you'll find other bartenders will sit in front of you and they'll order that drink. So if we talk about Ueno-san from bar high five, his is the white lady. So if you can ever get a white lady in your life, it should be from him, because they judge me in one of the competitions.
Speaker 4:Oh man. I was nervous as hell.
Speaker 2:I can imagine.
Speaker 4:Yeah, but that's actually called in Japanese Is that. Is that the Kodawari principle. So the search of perfection in whatever you do, but try to do it in the best way possible.
Speaker 2:Yes, and there's lots of expressions for this as well. So we also have one for Centauri. Specifically it's Yate Minahare, and this is all about sort of trying to reach for those goals. So we believe that we won't ever achieve perfection, but it's that sort of pursuit of perfection that really drives change.
Speaker 1:And yeah, yeah it's funny in the in the video with Keanu Reeves, one of the questions he asked the guy who makes the pottery. He says how do you know when to stop? Because when it's perfect, it is the hardest thing you don't know. I can imagine with making whiskey or aging. You know, when do you take it out of the barrel, what do you blend? When do you when it's perfect? And the idea of never reaching perfection is sort of yeah, it's a very romantic idea as well.
Speaker 4:Just just bring it back to you.
Speaker 1:No, no, bring it back to who was the best bartender.
Speaker 2:So actually, the bartender that Zaryn decided was the best was Angelos, who's working at Sonora at the moment.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So what he did that was was different. He actually carbonated his own water and he kept everything at a very, very cold temperature, so he just really kept the carbonation very, very well.
Speaker 4:And the siphon of he.
Speaker 2:So they actually used a carbonation rig.
Speaker 2:So he had it in a pet bottle, so that was the that was the way it carbonated, Exactly yeah yeah, but it was great and we also had lots of very wonderful things to say about lots of different venues. So some, the ice really shone as the key sort of yeah, key component that they'd sort of mastered. Others were that the glassware was, you know, really beautiful. It gave you that elegance, that delicateness, and other people, the technique was impressive. So it was really hard to decide actually, and I remember John was asking me Laura, who do you think it is? Because I said to Zaryn, I'm going to let you sleep on it, I'm going to come back tomorrow and film you, and he said, okay, that's fine, I already know.
Speaker 2:I was like you already knows, John was like come on, you must know, who it is. I was like, really I don't know. I said I think I have like a top four.
Speaker 4:But, between those four was he in your top four as well?
Speaker 2:He was. He was in my top four as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see, all right Cool.
Speaker 4:All right, maybe our thinking we can, we can also just split it up in in two?
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we have this one and we have one more, but just we need to.
Speaker 4:But I am enjoying this one. I think we're now at the 12 year old Exactly. Exactly. Can you talk us through this? Because this is, oh man, this is amazing stuff. Yeah really it's a mouth filling yeah.
Speaker 2:I think this is, this is the distillery that me and John will geek out about. So I bring, I bring John here to honestly, just so that he can smile. So Haxxu was our second malt distillery. That we find it with Heiser Centauri, and the pursuit of this distillery is quite a beautiful story, but what's really important for us with whisky making is water. So we're not making modifications to our water, we're using natural water sources and when during fermentation.
Speaker 2:Yes, precisely, yeah. So when we had Yamazaki, this was with Shinjiro Tori, the founder, and as part of this he was was training also his son, kaizo Saji, to take over the job as master blender. So the way that it works, the Heiser Centauri you always have a master blender, which is our family line, and beneath them you have our chief blender. So at the moment, the chief blender, shinji Fukuyu this is the one who I gave you the quote from, but we also have our master blender from our family line that sits above him. So they sign off on all the blends and they really have a very, very long amount of time training and, in those distilleries, really understanding these liquids.
Speaker 2:When Shinji Rotori trained Kaizo Sarji, one of the whiskeys that they worked on together it was Suntory Royal, which was this step into luxury. Before this we were working on these blends that were more everyday, affordable Kakabin still it's affordable Now. Suntory Royal was something that was a little more step into luxury and when they released this whisky it was really successful. It did very, very well in the market and it was sort of with that release that Shinji Rotori handed over House of Suntory to his son and he said Kaizo, it is yours now Take the presidency.
Speaker 2:It was really a big moment. And a year later Shinji Rotori actually passed away. So this was quite momentous to Kaizo Sarji and he was somebody that really had a very deep connection to culture in Japan. So himself he was a train calligrapher, he was a musician and he really wanted to drive these quality improvements, so that little sort of taste of luxury. He knew that one day Suntory would be able to compete with the Western world.
Speaker 2:He really felt that this was something that they could achieve. So one of the things that he wanted to do was sort of a founding of these other distilleries where, again, we focus this art of Sukira Wake, this diversity of production, but for some different styles. So 50 years after we found a Yamazaki, we found a Hakshu, and it was a pursuit of water. It was really we found this water source that they deem to be the best. It's the softest, it's very, very pure water source, and it's because the distillery Hakshu it's in the Japanese Southern Alps, so you have this huge amount of snow on the mountains in the winter and then as you come in towards those spring, summer seasons, it starts to melt and it filters down through this granite rock, so it's a very, very soft water source.
Speaker 2:So they bought this area of Hakshu and they took 200 acres around where they were planning to make the distillery and that's so that they could keep it also as a nature reserve, so to maintain it as a forest and as a bird sanctuary and to really encapsulate the forest. So this is what we're trying to achieve with Hakshu. It's a malt distillery, but it's really a different expression to Yamazaki. At Yamazaki you see more of those tropical notes. But at Hakshu we're really trying to sort of capture that element of the forest. So one of the reasons we chose to go for green on this bottle is that it gives you those sort of herbaceous or greener kind of notes. But this is also the distillery.
Speaker 4:It's a bit bolder, or maybe even.
Speaker 2:Yes, because this is where we also focus on our use of peat. So this is the distillery where you'll see, peat plays a much more prominent role in those whiskies. And still, when I talk about peat, in terms of prominence, it's nowhere near.
Speaker 1:No, it's not overpowering at all. Not at all.
Speaker 2:So it's more about being embedded. Yeah, it's about being embedded in that whisky. So the whisky has its profile and it has its place of Hakshu, with those greener herbaceous notes. But that smoke plays through as part of that profile. So it's not about only tasting. I say smoke, but I'm talking about that peatid note. It's not about only tasting peat. You should also sort of taste that whisky and that should play into part of the profile Should be in balance with all the other flavorings that are in the whisky.
Speaker 4:Exactly how would you describe?
Speaker 3:by the way, the taste. Oh, man drank a few.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm constantly going back to it, that's one and indeed it's very balanced, first of all between the peatiness, but also some honey notes and there's some fruitiness in there, very ripe fruit For me it's green apples.
Speaker 4:Green apples.
Speaker 3:That's how I define it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's really completely different than we tasted before as well, what I was reading a little bit, because the two distilleries are being renovated and one of the things that are happening as well is you guys are installing, I think, a couple of fire pot stills as well.
Speaker 4:fire pot stills direct fire, but also molting floors as well, because legislation changed a couple of years ago and so now also the molting process and fermentation process. Everything needs to be done in Japan as well, and I think if that's going to be done in Japan, you want to do it yourself probably.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so actually this is not something that's new. It's something that we had previously. We used to have molting floors, and when we built our Yamazaki distillery we had our own molting floors there. So this is really going to tie in now to this era of what we call, at Santori, the bubble. So this is more the sort of end of the 70s into the 80s, and what happened in the 80s and in the 90s is there was a huge sort of global decrease in the interest of whiskey. It was something that people just really weren't drinking anymore. It was viewed as the spirit that your grandfather drinks. So I like to tie this in a fun way to kind of popular culture. If you think about the 80s, we're going into this sort of like disco era, white spirits were booming and it's because you had that sort of like club music and these club style drinks.
Speaker 2:It was easy, it was affordable. And then you go into the 90s. You saw this rising kind of like rap, r&b culture and you saw this rising cognac and this sort of interest in these styles of spirits. And whiskey just got sort of less and less and less popular. Now at Hausa Santori at that point we hadn't achieved any global recognition. Some of these bottles were available. You could find certain liquids, but we hadn't achieved any global recognition.
Speaker 2:So when we went through this sort of whiskey crisis we had to make a lot of changes and we made those changes because we were supplying for Japan and Japan sort of lost that interest. Two things happened we had to reconstruct a few things. So we took out those molting floors. We no longer use those. It was easier to outsource already malted Barley's. But it also meant that it sort of gave us that freedom in the supply chain to focus on these really luxurious styles of whiskeys.
Speaker 2:So that sort of taste that Kaizo Saaji got back in the 60s. It was sort of reignited and what we then achieved was the release of our first Yamazaki. It was called the Yamazaki Pure Malt, and that was in 1984. Ten years later we released our first Hakshu 1994. And the biggest release, the most sort of iconic, was the Hibiki, which we released in 1989. And if it hadn't have been for that sort of whiskey crisis, we might not have had that freedom in the supply chain, that sort of demand that you had to maintain to really focus then on these really sort of new luxurious styles of whiskey. And it was with the success of these whiskeys that we hit that sort of international stage. And it was in the sort of, let's say, to the wards, the end of the 2000s and the early 2010s, that finally we were really put on a stage of Suntory Whiskey being amongst the best whiskeys in the world. So still to this day we have many awards that we're hugely proud of but that played a huge part.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to sort of look to the future of Suntory the next 100 years now and as part of that we're really building facilities at these distilleries Exactly. So the multi-floor is something now that, yeah, we're bringing back and also working on these other sort of modifications that we find through the test labs. So there will be a lot of sort of exciting changes, but it's still really just for that pursuit of perfection.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because I think one of the things that you're mentioning was also the recognitions of the competitions that you guys were in. And then you had actually in your history you had two Murrays that played an important part. You had obviously the guy from Bill Murray in the Lost in Translation movie, but then later in I think it was 2015, he had Jim Murray, who was the well, he was like the connoisseur at that time, writing about whisky, and he gave you just one of the highest thumbs up yeah.
Speaker 4:And then everything took off it was already growing, but then everybody wanted to have the whisky.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right, and that was for the Yamazaki 2013 Sherry cast.
Speaker 1:Sherry cast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he said it was the best in the world and it was really that that sort of yeah, it created a huge demand for Centauri whisky. So this is one of the things that we talk about when we're asked the question which comes up. A lot is about the price points and it's really because that sort of whisky crisis it happened globally, it didn't just happen for Japan, it happened around the world and you saw that Scotland lost a lot of distilleries and you saw that other international distilleries really had to reduce their production. But it's not at the time that you see the effect of that. It's the 10, 15, 20 years later that you see those shortages, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And still today we see that Now Centauri kind of faced this struggle of like a double boom, because we went through that same crisis and then we achieved success post crisis. But we achieved not just that interest rise back in Japan but also globally. So it was as if we had to sort of facilitate this double boom of Japan's excited again. But also so is the rest of the world now and of course with that the demand it doesn't reach the supply.
Speaker 2:So, one of the biggest things that happened is the prices go up, it spikes, of course.
Speaker 1:Are there any recommendations for good bars where you can drink these kinds of whiskey? I mean, are there typically Japanese whiskey bars, for example?
Speaker 4:In Amsterdam yeah in Amsterdam or in the Netherlands? Yeah, there's one in Utrecht, I know.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is. Yeah, of course, of course, and the great thing about my role is that I get to work with this and hopefully secure as many exciting bottles as possible. So one of the biggest sort of groups that I work with, one of the biggest place I work with, is Taiko now in Amsterdam, and that's a really beautiful collaboration with.
Speaker 4:Shiloh Kuforda.
Speaker 2:Yes, and he. The reason that I love so much to work with Shiloh is because his connection, his interest in Japan is very genuine and you can just see him light up when he gets to talk about these things Like he very much enjoys that sort of culture and the respect that they have and he tries to put that as much as possible into what he does at Taiko and that really filters into the team, the whole kitchen team are super strong, very passionate, but also very relaxed and very patient, and the bar team are just wonderful.
Speaker 2:So it's really never an ego match. It's that everybody is there to supply you with any information that you could possibly want. And the biggest thing that I have with Taiko is Omatenashi. It's this idea of wholehearted hospitality. So first and foremost, they're just trying to meet your needs and that's really something that is representative. It's another pillar of Centauri is this idea of Omatenashi and going above and beyond to sort of reach that expectation of your guest. So that's something that they achieve very well and they do have a huge selection of Centauri whiskeys now, which I hope we will continue to build in the future.
Speaker 4:It's really good to go there sometimes. What's also, sometimes chefs are listening as well. It's really good to go to a food tube and Chilo is doing some master classes about some Japanese dishes he's doing as well. Really cool, relaxed guy to watch and you can learn a lot of him. So a really cool guy.
Speaker 3:I think there are some more places besides Taiko, because Taiko is not for everybody.
Speaker 4:No, it's a bit expensive.
Speaker 3:Expensive, yeah, but I think Laura has done a beautiful collaboration with more than just Taiko and please, I would say, give them a shout as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, there's so many. This would be such a.
Speaker 1:Just a few.
Speaker 4:One we know is behind bars in Utrecht. He has a huge collection of Japanese whiskeys. He does. He does have a huge collection.
Speaker 2:I would say, if you really want to go to other places and experience that idea of omatenashi, but also have the offering of Centauri whiskeys, I'd highly recommend that you try Fuku Ramen. So this is actually a small little restaurant of two people Yakub, who is the chef, and Alex, who does the whole front of house and everything else above and beyond. Yeah, they have a wonderful venue and they work with Centauri whiskeys, but their food offering is fantastic and it's the closest thing that I've experienced to what I experienced in Japan here in Amsterdam. So throughout the week they usually do a five course tasting menu and the last dish will always be Yakub's Ramen. It changes all the time.
Speaker 2:I'm there almost every Sunday and it's because he keeps changing it. I've told him he has to stop doing this to me.
Speaker 3:I was trying to get a reservation.
Speaker 4:Yeah, impossible.
Speaker 3:I had to contact Laura.
Speaker 4:How many weeks before do you need to?
Speaker 3:reserve. I'm going tomorrow there, by the way. Oh nice, Nice.
Speaker 2:But I really highly recommend what they do. It pays so much respect to the traditions of Japan. But it's not just about that. They really have an affinity for flavour, so they will make modifications. They will do these funky little changes, but it's always about flavour and pursuing that sort of Cool.
Speaker 4:Well, if we are talking about flavour and a little bit of funkiness, maybe let's talk about this whiskey that we have in the class.
Speaker 2:Yes, great, ok, so we've done now the actually 12 year old. Now, talking about Tsukidawake, that idea of diversity in production, a little bit like how I explained with Yamazaki. We have that sort of core component and then we'll still build around that component Now with our Haksu core range whiskeys. So, whether it's the Distillers Reserve, the 12 year old, the core 18 year old, we'll always use in that sort of blend from that distillery whiskies that are also non-peated. So we'll have some that are peated heavily, some that are peated lightly and some that are unpeated, and these all come into play in those single malt bottleings. Now we wanted to celebrate our Haksu Distillery and celebrate Pete, because this is really something that we specialise in at Haksu. So the offering that we have now the 18 year old, the peated malt this is using exclusively peated whiskies. So all of the barrels, all of the casks that have gone into this single malt are peated.
Speaker 2:So it's really sort of showcasing that element of Pete at Haksu, but how it's very much still embedded into the whisky. I mean, you can tell me how you feel about this for something that is only a peated whisky yeah, it's still again it's still balanced.
Speaker 1:You still get all the other notes there and normally for me, if it gets older it doesn't automatically means better and sometimes even like the younger whiskies, like 12, 14 years better. But this is really a step up and even though it's smoky and peatiness, you still have ripe fruit. I get the apples more now, yeah, and some of the warm notes and the sort of honey notes in there as well. Yeah, so it's really a step up. And that was already amazing the 12 years.
Speaker 3:So it's, yeah, what I find interesting about this whisky by the way, just on the taste, it's quite different than what they were used to. Really playing with that peat, diving more into that peat, because the Hakushu 12, it's peat, but it's very, very mellow. Yeah, this really, they're trying to get out a little bit of the comfort zone but still they managed to keep it in balance. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, you get more of these.
Speaker 2:It's like almost John is getting excited. He didn't say anything until now, poor whiskeys later.
Speaker 1:yes, poor whiskeys later.
Speaker 3:No, but that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:It plays into that sort of like herbal smoked style. It's still very fresh and very also light.
Speaker 1:I mean, although it's peated, it's still light and refreshing on the palate, exactly, and it keeps lingering, yeah, yeah, so, oh, this is good.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is this was really the celebration for the 18 year old was this sort of pita smokier style but still, yes, very much embedded in the sort of signature of Hakshu. So also, what's quite different about Hakshu? It's the sister distillery of Yamazaki, but Yamazaki is the name that everybody recognizes and Hakshu often takes that sort of backseat where you know your connoisseurs, they know it but not everybody is aware, and for me this whisky it's really a true celebration of that connection to nature. So if you look at this distillery you can Google it, the Hakshu distillery. It's really beautiful, the location and what you sort of see in the bottleings with Hakshu is that they're a little bit closer in terms of their style than the Yamazakis, which are really quite individual. They'll usually feature some tropical note but it's quite different between each of the bottleings and that's because of that. Sukirawake. At Hakshu we still employ Sukirawake but it's not as broad as at Yamazaki.
Speaker 2:It's a little bit well it's less broad and if you try, for example, the Distillers Reserve and then you try the 12-year-old and you try the 18-year-old from our core range, all next to each other, it's as if you start with this green apple that is really so crisp, so fresh, really bright and light, and then you go to the 12, and it's as if you've baked that apple and it's gone more towards that red and you get a little bit more baking spices and then you go up to the 18, and it's like you've turned that apple into an apple pie and you've spiced it and more of that smokiness comes through. It really sort of captures for me that kind of forest in terms of those herbal notes and really playing around those green profiles and the way they exhibit between the years are really great. But also it's important to note that I love that you said it was balanced. Balance is something that we really blend to achieve at House of Centauri. So, unlike classically speaking in the Scotch industry, if you have a 12-year-old to maintain consistency, you usually only blend about two years above that 12-years-old Just to maintain that is your 12-year-old signature style.
Speaker 2:At House of Centauri we're creating these single malts to really capture this idea of complexity and to give you something that we feel sits in balance. So the 12-year-old will always represent whatever is the youngest age, if it's the 12, if it's the 18. But we blend way above this age statement. Like, really, it'll be very small amounts perhaps when they're much older, but we'll use whiskeys that have been aged for much, much longer time and it's really to get that sort of complexity. So it's one thing that I always say at House of Centauri with our non-age statement specifically it's not about giving you an age. You have to understand that in Japan that age isn't representative. There's not even currently a regulation around you saying 12-year-old, meaning it has to be 12-year-old. So for us it's about blending to create balance. But we do still follow those Scottish rules of if it says 12, that is the youngest whisky in there, yeah, and I think that that I mean.
Speaker 1:I said balance, but it's especially what you said. Now it's also the blending that's done very well, so it also blends amazingly and balance.
Speaker 4:So hold on. So all the whiskeys that we had, now we had four, they're all single malts and now we have, because you're mentioning, blends there is a different bottle appearing on the bar.
Speaker 2:Misha's giving you a look now. Like I already told you, we're over time, I just have to point one thing what happened with the timekeeping?
Speaker 4:I decided it's going to be a two-parter, so we can taste this as well, right?
Speaker 1:We can do, but let's first have some other questions then about whisky, okay.
Speaker 3:But maybe you can.
Speaker 2:I'm really scared for every question that you ask, that would be good, we can spend more time on that one. Yeah, let's know.
Speaker 1:Can you get some more glasses? If you want, Then because I want to talk with you, Laura, about let's do a bumper, Then I can cut it in production. So you've been to Japan, and I mean the whole bar in the world. We love Japan, the Japanese style, the Japanese techniques, the Japanese bars. What are some of the biggest differences that you see between Amsterdam bars or Dutch bars or European bars and the Japanese bars? What are some of the main differences?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, of course, that's huge. That's huge everywhere you go in the world, but in Japan you really see it. So this word that I used before, omete nashi Omete it means mask and nashi it means without, so it's about serving without a mask. So being genuine in your approach. Now there's a really wonderful example of omete nashi. That, again, it came from James Bowker, one of our global brand advocate, and he was explaining how, in he lives in London, he did. He's currently moved to New York. He was at a very, very famous five-star bar. It's within a hotel and they make a fantastic martini and how he went on a really terrible, wet, windy London day. So pick whichever day that could be, any day of the year in London.
Speaker 2:And by the time he arrived he was soaking wet and luckily he went and he had his martini and it was fantastic and he was very happy and they gave him his coat and he remembered again that London sucks and it's raining and he's cold. And after that experience he flew a few days later over to Japan and when he arrived in Japan it was snowing and he went to meet a friend of his that lived very close by. They went to this small little bar Not five star, not within a hotel, nothing significantly spectacular, but a nice little space and he gave them his coat and he sat down and he had a lovely drink and then, as he came to leave, they handed him back his coat and because it had been snowing, not only did they hang it for him but they dried the coat for him. So that's an example of London five star Really.
Speaker 2:I'm talking a bar that has won world's best multiple times and a small space in Japan where they're just thinking about the omatonashi. So it's really something that you see in the culture there, like service is. It's almost as if it's it's not a job at all, it's, it's an honor and you're just very proud to get to do that. So that's really something that I experienced in Japan, because it's one thing hearing about it, but it's another thing actually seeing it and realizing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're also very proud. It doesn't matter if they sell apples, they make sure the apples are all polished and now stacked in a perfect way, because they're pride. They're pride involved. Yes, the honor, yeah, and pride is very important as well.
Speaker 2:And pride. Pride is very important as well. For example, you might find it tough being if, if you are like I, am English speaking and you go to Japan, that occasionally, if you're at a bar, the Japanese person that is working behind that bar might not want to speak to you in English, and that's actually he doesn't want to or he can't. He doesn't want to. And it's not because they're being rude, it's actually more because they're afraid to make a mistake in.
Speaker 2:English and it's not because it puts shame on them, but it puts shame on their venue and their managers and the people that they represent in that space. So it's about sort of honoring those people and it's that sort of like not wanting to to dishonor anyone. So for us it can seem sometimes like maybe that would come off as cold, but actually it's just this really deep rooted respect and this, yeah, this, this care for sort of for tradition.
Speaker 1:So one of the things that I really liked because I was lucky enough to also go to Tokyo, if it's some of the bars One of the bars I went into, mean, I used to work in clubs and you know high volume, so the, the barters, were always always placed on a sort of higher level, on a stage almost, so you couldn't see the second and a third row of people, so you were actually sort of looking down on people, where in Japan the bartenders are positioned lower, so the behind the bar is actually lower, so you can sit at the bar at low seats, but they still they don't look down on you. So that's also sort of respect, things like that. That that I thought was very, completely different than the European bars that I know, where there is always ego involved and it's not, and I try to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I try to give a tip and and I didn't want to accept any tip, so I'll come back tomorrow that's the biggest compliment you can give and I thought yeah, it's true. I mean.
Speaker 4:What I also like about the way how they tend bar is most of the time. If you see a bartender tending the bar in Japan, you can already see this is going to be okay drink instead of sometimes here in the Netherlands.
Speaker 3:Just by the skills and the yeah, because they they try to master everything.
Speaker 4:So sometimes here it's just you have no clue on how they pick up their shakers or whatever. But yeah, that's a way of how they do things, which is beautiful.
Speaker 2:It's true. So this is all about that sort of craftsmanship and having to learn from the masters first. So also in Japan, you will have worked a very long time before you're even allowed to serve a drink to a guest. So what you see a lot in the bartending community is, for example, if you wanted to go and do an internship with Waino San at bar high five, it is possible.
Speaker 2:These things they do happen, but it is most likely that you are going to spend the first six months of that role polishing glassware and it's so that you're watching the entire time but you're not ready to do service. It's really very small, small steps, and they're very serious about the way that they master their craft. So this idea of Monazakuri, which is craftsmanship, and that's something that you definitely see in the techniques, in how they create.
Speaker 4:Did you? By the way? I'm just curious did you already master the heart shake?
Speaker 2:I can answer that question, absolutely not.
Speaker 4:I am not a master.
Speaker 2:I am not a master have I tried it several times. Would I be on a podium in Japan? I wouldn't even come close. They might not even let me in the stadium.
Speaker 1:I would also really like about some of the classic bars Is that you see a lot of older bartenders. I mean, you don't see that in Amsterdam bars all young guys and girls doing their thing, but in Japan, I mean, it's a career and you have to respect and it also reflects how serious they are about the craft and also the respect you get from the people around you. If you are a bartender, you're somebody. It's such a different approach to the whole professionalism of bartending, which we've always been trying for years to get it to a more professional level. But we're so far away if you compare it to Japan. So that was one of the things that really stuck out for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's very true, and culture always plays a big part in these things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the Stani Slav was one of the guys that went around. He had a do. You know him. If you see him, yeah, he was one of the like early guys that adapted the heart shake and trying to teach that through the whole bart community in the Netherlands, but also in the United States as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he talked a lot about fishing. I think it was like is he go something? So, like it's, in this moment, I want to do the best because this moment will disappear, so that's absolutely right. And when you come in the next guest will get the same attention and I try my utmost again. You know that mindset. That was really refreshing for us.
Speaker 2:This is yeah, this is another very, very beautiful Japanese philosophy, and it's really this approach to sort of enjoying and living in that moment, because it won't ever happen again.
Speaker 1:So yeah, for us it can be drink 105. But for the guests it's the first drink, or the evening, or maybe of the week, or the only one. Yeah, so to have that saved up for us, yeah but, I kind of miss that in a lot of the bars in Europe or the Netherlands or wherever, that they really appreciate the fact that you're there at the bar trying something out and spend your money on that.
Speaker 2:And I think this is something that that occasionally is overlooked. But there's really a beauty in being able to go back to a place and know that, no matter who is behind the bar that evening, if you have a drink, that is your drink, the one that you love and you like the way that they make it, that it is made the same way every single time. And I do feel like we see this, this interest in these twists or these modifications or I bet I make it my way or I'll change this spirit but there's something really refreshing in knowing that you can go to a place and, for example, every time that I order, what do I? What do I order?
Speaker 4:What's your favorite drink? I know this is giving too much away.
Speaker 2:I'm going to show up places now and oh do you know, I terrible because I love a highball, but I was thinking of something maybe more replicable, like a whiskey sour, for example. It's nice to know that you could go back and no matter what bartender would make that you get exactly the same way it's something.
Speaker 1:Sorry, it's something that in Belgium they mastered. They're much more about the consistency and getting the same every time.
Speaker 4:But they're terribly slow.
Speaker 1:But that you know it's a trade off. And where we are quite fast behind the bar. But the drinks are fairly unbalanced most of the time, or the consistency is. Depends on where you go, of course, but in general so just curious.
Speaker 4:So we have no time keeping. What's your take on if you have one of these beautiful whiskies, like, let's say, the 12 years old? Can you make that into a Manhattan or an old fashion? What is your take on that? Can you use it in a cocktail?
Speaker 2:Honestly so. Part of that omettanashi is that we have certain, let's say, serve strategies or recommendations that we make with certain whiskies, but at the same time, it's important that you find a way that you enjoy whiskey, and that is really that omettanashi. It's that you find the way that you enjoy it With Haxu.
Speaker 2:What I actually really love about this whiskey is this is a whiskey that we talk about in our bottle keep era for the history of Centauri, and the bottle keep era was a very sort of fun cultural moment where we created this idea of a bottle keep. That was, if you go to your favorite bar, restaurant, izakaya, you could buy a full bottle of Centauri whiskey and they would keep this for you in a special designated place, usually somewhere close to their back bar, and every time that you return they would bring that full bottle to you with ice and with mixers and you would serve yourself and it's about that bottle is yours, it's kept for you in that space. That is that omettanashi, but also that service of it. How you enjoy to drink it, you're deciding. This was a great sort of era of whiskey and it was something that made it really fun, a social sort of moment Also great to pair with food and for Hakshu.
Speaker 2:What we recommend is that this is an incredible whiskey to enjoy as a Mizuari. So that's like whiskey and water. And a lot of the time there's that when you say you want to add water to whiskey, people sort of have that oh no, you cannot. But I think it's really great for you to, for you to add water to your whiskey because it really opens up a lot of the expressions. And especially with Hakshu, where you have those sort of smoky components, what you find is, when you serve it over ice and you dilute it with that bit of water, more of this like smokiness, it evolves, but also this really rich fruity body comes out.
Speaker 1:It's the ultimate test, because if you add water, the great whiskeys will become better.
Speaker 4:Yes, they stay alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the the whiskeys that are not of the same quality, they will dilute and they will lose.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so that's that's with Hakshu for me, as honestly I'm, I really have a lot of love for this distillery. I think it's a very special style of whiskey.
Speaker 1:We didn't notice it.
Speaker 2:And the distillers reserve. It's really unique. It has a lot of very like citrus notes and for me if I could tell you to take toki, which is our wonderful blended whiskey it's this sort of like juxtaposition of old Japan meets new Japan. So it's a reimagining of what Kaka Bin was and it makes a fantastic highball for lots of reasons. But for me, if you can try the Hakshu distillers reserve in a highball, it's fantastic because the nose is just like full of these bright citrus, fresh aromas and I massively would encourage that if you, if you feel like giving that a go. It's a different way of enjoying whiskey, but for me it's. It's really exciting to trial some new sort of ways. I would find myself most of the time drinking Yamazaki neat, but with Hakshu, with this sort of smokier profile that comes to play, I think it's a fun one to play around with Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have one one left Amazing beautiful bottle.
Speaker 4:Yes, what's inside?
Speaker 2:So the final bottle that we have now and this is our Hibiki Japanese Harmony, but it's our 100 year anniversary bottling. So the, the Hibiki is really the pinnacle of Santori. This is the whiskey that very much represents House of Santori and all of the sort of philosophies, the history, the traditions. It shows what we stand for. So this bottle was released in 1989 originally and it was called the Hibiki, and that was a very pinnacle moment. So the the story behind this. Kaizo Saaji was leading House of Santori and he tasked his chief blender, koichi and Atomi, to create a whiskey that brought together everything that Santori stood for. So they'd successfully launched two new distilleries Chita in 1972 and Hakshu in 1973. Chita is where we make our grain whiskey.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:Hakshu was, of course, that different style of malt whiskey, but he wanted a whiskey that brought together all of these, that still fit that sort of luxury profile and that symbolize that connection between Santori and Japan as a culture and Koichi and Atomi, and with Tsukidawake, with the amount of whiskies that we create at these distilleries. This was really a mammoth task because he thought, well, I've got to bring together so many components here into one blend that represents Santori. So how do I start with something like this? Now, much like our Kaiser Saaji, much like our second generation master blender, he also had a deep connection to culture and he was a trained Viola player. So the story goes, and this a lot of the time when you have these stories, you kind of give a wink to oh, that was a very good marketing.
Speaker 2:But this one, I really have a lot of faith is very true, because the way that they tell it in Japan it's very genuine and it's that he was listening to Brahms 1st Symphony in C minor and he was sort of hit with this revelation of I'm going to think about blending a whiskey the way that a composer thinks about composing an orchestra. So I'm going to categorize these sort of whiskies into those same sort of spaces. So, for example, he would think about creating a blend that sort of represents what those string instruments bring into play, so maybe more of those lighter, more delicate tones, and he's still taking from multiple distilleries.
Speaker 4:But he's going for that sort of style and it's so funny that you're mentioning this, because our last episode we touched on the comparison with complexity and flavors in music and having just one note or having a whole orchestra or a chord.
Speaker 2:And I think it's very true. And the same way it easily sort of runs into this idea of a chef and how a chef works. You start with these ingredients that are often raw materials and then you process them in terms of how you apply that sort of cooking method, but then ultimately you have to bring everything onto the plate and have that harmony or have that beautiful sort of balance in the actual finished product. So he took that idea from Brahms for Symphony in C minor and thought about composing hibiki like that sort of way of an orchestra. So the kanji, which is the calligraphy on the hibiki bottle, it directly sort of means harmony, but if you read into it on a deeper meaning, it means resonance and it's really sort of connecting back to that idea of music and that philosophy of how hibiki was blended.
Speaker 2:So the actual whisky itself, hibiki, brings together our three distilleries. It has components from Yamazaki, from Chita and from Hakshu, but it's a really complex blend. There's about 30 different component whiskies that go into that bottle and the way that we sort of think about them in terms of maintaining the harmony. If we give hibiki a color, it would be purple. So every year we produce multiple styles of red and we produce multiple styles of blue and to create that sort of final version of hibiki. It means that we always can select from multiple barrels to get that overall balance, that complexity. And what hibiki wanted to symbolize was that Japanese palette so subtle and refined, yet complex, and this is one very fun sort of philosophy. That is the most beautiful thing to talk about with hibiki. So if I asked you guys, can you give me an example of something that you've experienced ever in your life that you think was really, really beautiful? It was a moment where you would just really like, wow, that was really special.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I got two. Obviously I'm a dad, so those two.
Speaker 2:You have to pick something else, Naimeesh.
Speaker 4:He doesn't have kids.
Speaker 1:No, well, you don't know.
Speaker 1:That's true, that is true. But the beautiful moments for me is always when sound and vision and feeling comes together, you know when it all hits the right note. A lot of time I have that in either with concerts or with movies, where the music and what you see and the feeling it gives you when it comes together. For me that's sort of beauty and hot girls, japanese girls or it doesn't matter, no, but it's when all the things align and add up to something amazing that apart are beautiful but together they're creating something amazing.
Speaker 2:What about you, John?
Speaker 3:Hot girls? No, I have a girlfriend.
Speaker 1:We've cut it out.
Speaker 3:You could just say it. I have a deep connection with nature as well and I'm from Colombia, and for me, every time I think of Colombia, I remember the time that I was in the Amazon. I don't know if you have ever been in Latin America, but the Amazon the connection with the nature is just very pure, very unique. So every sunrise, the elements, the atmosphere, the river flowing, everything, for me it's more like a moment in general than, rather than just, a particular space in time.
Speaker 2:So I hope, if you're listening, you're sort of thinking about your own very beautiful moment, and this ties into a philosophy in Japan which is called Yu-gen, and it's the philosophy of beauty. So all of these things that you have described, now, none of these are envisionable in terms of. I couldn't imagine how it must feel to be a father for the first time, because I have not been a father for the first time.
Speaker 3:You need a lot of nether, you will.
Speaker 2:These are things that you can express, but you can't explain to someone in a way that they can say oh, yes, then I feel it and I understand.
Speaker 4:I got it.
Speaker 2:Exactly so, this idea of Yu-gen, this translation of beauty.
Speaker 2:If I take, for example, art as a form in Japan, the way that they translated this idea of Yu-gen was creating these sort of paintings that had a lot of empty space.
Speaker 2:So you might see these very beautiful landscape depictions, but usually you'll see there's a mountain, or you'll see there's a sun and you might see that there's a bit of forest on the mountain, but there'll also be clouds that abstract some of the vision and there's lots of empty space. So the idea with that and this idea of Yu-gen is that you are able to impart your own sense of beauty into that picture. So you can look at that picture and you can say I can see that there would be a sunset. For me this feels like it would be at dawn, Behind the clouds. That's the mountain scape. The mountain scape would lead me to a forest, the forest within the forest. I have that connection to nature, to the land, to the animals or to the trees, and it's all about you deciding what that idea of beauty is for you, and it can be different for every single person. So if they gave you a painting that was really like hyper detailed, you couldn't have that sense of beauty because you're told exactly what to see Already filled in.
Speaker 2:So when we talk about hibiki this was one of the things that we wanted to translate was this idea, this philosophy of beauty, and that plays into this idea of balance, harmony and all of these components. So if you taste a whiskey and you say it's giving me chocolate, creme brulee and biscuit, and you go back to it and you say I'm still getting biscuit and maybe some vanilla, well that whiskey is giving you everything in one go. There's no evolution of that whiskey. So for us we would say that's not a good whiskey. A whiskey should give you something new every time that you go back to it. So every time you explore that dram, that glass, something else should sort of come to the surface, something else should play on the palette.
Speaker 2:That's what we wanted to achieve with hibiki. Is that that complexity? It comes into play the longer that you spend with that whiskey. And that was a lot of why we also have that signature serve for hibiki, which is that backer at glass and a hand carved ice ball that you pour the hibiki over this ice ball. So in Japan and I would say hopefully around the world they believe that ice melts from its corners, so it's edges, so by having an ice ball. You take away those areas where you can have that faster dilution. So it's not to dilute the whiskey or to enjoy it sort of chilled or very cold. It's just so that little by little, those sort of expressions they'll play with how that ice plays and you get something new every time that you go back to that whiskey. So that was the omatashii the idea with that serve.
Speaker 4:Just wondering how long do you work now for Centauri, because you're mastering this shit really good.
Speaker 3:I think it's the whiskey talk.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're doing a fabulous job, really really good, and I think this is on this high note we should end this podcast now Because it's two hours, two hours.
Speaker 3:But again, we'll make it a two-part. I agree, laura does a fantastic job Fantastic.
Speaker 4:Really doing, really good.
Speaker 1:Laura, if we want to see you somewhere soon. Is there something where you are doing a demonstration or promoting some of these amazing whiskeys? Is there something coming up soon?
Speaker 2:Yes, well, actually I am going to be going home for Christmas this year, which is exciting for me, yeah, amazing. So towards the end of the year. Obviously it's a very, very period for hospitality, but we are going to be launching something very exciting next year.
Speaker 4:Dude yeah you can say it oh yes, something exciting.
Speaker 3:Keep it like that.
Speaker 2:So we're going to be launching something very exciting next year, which is Centauri Time Off. So the initiative with Centauri Time Off, the idea is that we have a lot of partners that we work very closely with in hospitality, and this was an idea that actually sprung from another one of our brand ambassadors, from the Beams Centauri team, which is Lewis Thompson. He looks after LaFroy Bowmore and our sort of whiskeys of the world, and we were talking about how else we can support our trade. How else can we support bartenders other than education or exciting sort of new programs? What else could we do? That is something different. That would be really good.
Speaker 2:And he said well, why don't we take over a bar?
Speaker 2:Why don't we give a bar team the night off and they can go, they can have a staff party or they can just have a day where maybe they explore one of the distilleries that we work closely with.
Speaker 2:For example, we work through Dekaiper, so we have Ruta. Of course, we have our facilities in Skidam. And he said so we'll give a team the night off and, as our brand ambassador team and our wider team, john, who we have today, mark van Klaven, who also is one of our managers, we could run the bar. So we sort of built this program and we pitched it to a few places and this year we're going to be launching Santori times off, so you'll be able to see Louis James, who is our new brand ambassador for Kvocea. We've all come from hospitality, so we're all bartenders, we've all worked here in the scene in Amsterdam for a while and we're going to be taking over some venues and we're going to be running them as their venues, but obviously with a menu that we've created together. And it's really just for us a way to say thank you for being such fantastic partners for the people we work with and try to give back to the community.
Speaker 4:Nice. Well, looking forward to it, let us know when it's so far I want to say a big thank you for being here bringing these amazing spirits and John you as well.
Speaker 1:You are also amazing. Yeah thank you, have a happy holidays at home, and you as well, john, of course I don't know if you got a.
Speaker 3:I'll stay here, but I'll have a happy time at home.
Speaker 1:Do you?
Speaker 4:have maybe like a cool ending, like a cool toast or something.
Speaker 1:A Japanese quote.
Speaker 2:A scene or a Santori time, obviously Exactly, I was going to say for relaxing times.
Speaker 4:Santori times. Santori times Cheers. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Hey, that was long, it wasn't short, it was delicious, it's delicious.
Speaker 4:Long and delicious.
Speaker 3:We'll take that Lovely Bye.