The MHW Mark Podcast
Welcome to the MHW podcast, bringing you conversations with experts and leaders in the alcoholic beverage industry. Covering topics ranging from selling alcohol online, creating a new brand from scratch, and what you need to know when you start doing business internationally. Hosted by Jimmy Moreland and a rotating cast of cohosts from the folks at MHW.
The MHW Mark Podcast
Bringing Irish whiskey to the world though stories and experiences - with Barry Chandler
We're thrilled to share our recent chat with 2024 Global Icon of Whiskey and founder of Stories & Sips and Irish Whiskey Experiences Barry Chandler.
Special guest cohosts Brigid McCabe and Ian Perez join host Jimmy Moreland for a freewheeling chat about Barry's journey to Irish whiskey stardom, with some great discussion about the state of the whiskey category, and what brands can do to stand out in a crowded market.
Follow Barry Chandler: Instagram
Stories & Sips: Website | Instagram
Irish Whiskey Experiences: Website | Instagram
More info about MHW at https://www.mhwltd.com/
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Welcome to the MHW Mark podcast where we take deep dives into various aspects of the alcohol industry. My name is Jimmy Moreland. Mhw is a US and EU beverage alcohol importer, distributor and service provider. On the show I am pleased to welcome back Ian Perez and to welcome for the first time Bridget McCabe. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Jimmy. It's wonderful to be on. I am a big fan of the podcast. I listen to every episode, so I'm very, very excited to have my first episode here.
Speaker 1:We finally got you. Your name has been a name that has been sort of circulating through the air, both on the podcast and behind the scenes, and we finally got you on the podcast.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So Cassidy, who is on my team, really has driven the podcast and she's done an excellent job with it, in concert with you, jimmy, and with Ian, and typically, as is for a marketing and PR person, I enjoy being in the background, I enjoy promoting the team and, you know, making sure that we constantly have spotlight on everyone else, so it's it's fun to kind of be in this seat for the day.
Speaker 1:I'm imagining Cassidy, you know, roaming the halls of MHW with a blow dart gun just trying to bag the next podcast host dart gun just trying to bag the next podcast host.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I don't know if you've seen those Instagram reels of companies talking about, oh man, the marketing team is coming and they're always like on their phones recording things and I have to say that that's pretty true to form.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I just got an email and Jimmy is CC'd on it. Oh God. Well, ian, welcome back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's always a pleasure and we're going to be talking with Irish Whiskey Barry, which I'm super excited about, so always happy to do the podcast, especially when there's some Irish folks on it.
Speaker 1:Tell us how did we get to where we are today, to where we're having this conversation with our guest. It's a great conversation, but how did this relationship sort of start?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Barry Chandler is a longtime friend of mine.
Speaker 2:I've known him since he was in Columbus Ohio and on the cover really of Columbus Magazine.
Speaker 2:He's really a part of the fabric of the community there and I would say a lot of former Columbus residents actually know him and at the time he was doing bar blogger kits and helping bars and restaurants with SEO and so that was really educational tool for me at the time and to sort of see this collaboration and journey to bring a lot of American and global consumers into the fold of his stories and sips and Irish whiskey experiences. I really thought that Brand's listening could benefit from hearing his insights on a very evolved and interested whiskey consumer in the US as well as ways that they can really get in the hands of these evangelists Because they really are. When I joined the whiskey live streams that Barry has done, they are asking questions, they're engaged. It's some of the most engaged conversation that I've seen around, like a beverage alcohol consumer group. So I'm really excited to have him on and Ian has worked closely with him on some board BIA opportunities, so I think we're going to get some really great conversation here today.
Speaker 1:Well, all right, let's get to it. Let's get down to work here. Our guest today is an Irish whiskey evangelist, founder of both the interactive community Stories and Sips and the global tourism company Irish Whiskey Experiences. He was recently named Global Icon of Whiskey, winner 2024 by the World Whiskey Awards. Welcome to the show, barry Chandler. Thank you very much. Delighted to be here. It's amazing to have you on here. I'm going to have loads and loads of questions that we won't be able to get to on the podcast, because this is an industry podcast, not an Irish Whiskey Fanboy podcast. Let's jump right in, shall we? I know, bridget, we've got some actual productive questions to get to, so I'll let you take the floor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, absolutely. Thank you, Barry, for joining us today. We're really happy to have you. I think the last time the MHW connected with you you actually had our former president, john Beaudet, on your Stories and Sips webinar to talk about how a whiskey actually gets to the US in the three-tier system, what that sometimes clunky process looks like, and I know he had so much fun. So we're so excited that we have this podcast now and we can have you in the other seat and really get to pick your brain.
Speaker 2:And you've led some really, really important roles and have a pretty storied career. So when I met you I don't even know how long ago this was, but at this point, probably maybe 12, 13 years ago you were very the bar blogger and you know. Very quickly after that you were on Columbus Magazine's cover for all the contributions that you made to the city, which was very cool. If you you know, live or have known about Columbus Ohio, it's a really really interesting and culturally diverse city and there's a ton to do. I think Columbus doesn't get enough credit, by the way. We'll put that out there.
Speaker 2:And then you transferred on to be Chief Marketing Officer of NTN BuzzTime. You've had lifetimes of hospitality experience prior to that, I think at one point I remember you telling me you were even in cruise operations and planning. So I just would love to hear a little bit about your background from your perspective and how you became the Irish Whiskey Blogger, how you created Stories and Sips and your own Irish Whiskey and now you have a tourism company, irish Whiskey Experiences. So sort of what led you on the journey to get to where you are today.
Speaker 4:That's quite the eulogy that you've read out there. It sounds like a lot when you read it out, but yeah.
Speaker 4:I've been interested in whiskey for a while, but it was only in the last eight years that I've turned my hand to it in a more professional capacity. So, living in Columbus, ohio, where we met many, many years ago, I was taking part in an annual bike ride called Pelotonia to raise money for cancer research in Ohio, in the James Cancer Research Center in Columbus, and I was really drawn to the community approach to this bike ride and raising funds where 100% of the funds would go directly to fighting cancer. I thought I'm in, and by the third year, fourth year, there were thousands and thousands of people riding in this bike ride, this 180 mile ride one weekend, and everybody was asking everybody in the city for donations to their ride. And by the time it was year four, year five maybe, I was tapping out all of my contacts. Nobody had any money left to give for donations and I needed to reach a certain target.
Speaker 4:And somebody suggested to me that I host an Irish whiskey tasting to raise money and my first response was well, I don't know anything about Irish whiskey. And they said well, you have an Irish accent, don't you? And I said good enough for me. And so I went to the local supermarket and just bought whatever labels looked the prettiest on Irish whiskey and to tell you, I knew nothing about Irish whiskey. I mean, I was grabbing whiskey from distilleries like Jameson Distillery. I grew up 12 miles from the Jameson Distillery but I remember looking at the label and saying, oh wow, jameson's made in Cork. You know, I didn't know anything. So I just took these lovely labels home and I Googled them and figured out okay, I can probably tell some stories around these things invited some friends to join, charge them $50 a head, I paid for the whiskey and all the money went to cancer research and it was so much fun. None of us knew anything about the whiskey but we started talking about them. They had loads of questions. I wrote down the questions, I went home and I researched and I called them next day and say, okay, you asked, you asked me this question, here's the answer. And then I did another tasting the next day and invited more friends and there was more questions and I thought this is actually really interesting. There's lots that I didn't know about my own country and I felt quite proud actually of the whiskeys that were being produced and the stories that I was discovering. So I just took my phone at the time and I remember recording some answers to the questions into the phone and then just messaging them to my friends. And then somebody said you should put those up on YouTube. And so I put them up on YouTube and then I thought, okay, this is really interesting, let's do more of these. Then somebody asked me if I do another tasting and then a corporate tasting, come into my company and do a tasting. And I remember about two weeks after doing these, I got this Instagram message.
Speaker 4:A company slid into my DMs and said whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing with our Irish whiskeys? I got very worried. Like, am I not supposed to be doing things with Irish whiskeys? I know it's a very legal minefield. And it turns out it was a distributor for Irish whiskeys and they said look, we want to talk to you. And I was very worried. I said, okay, that's the end of the fundraising now. So they asked me to come to their office and I went to their office and they said we noticed that you're using our whiskeys for your fundraising. We notice you're telling stories about those whiskeys and we noticing you're gathering people around for kind of a community events around them. I said I am. And they said well, we have three goals this year. One is to use our whiskeys for fundraising. The second is to educate people more in Irish whis. And the third is to gather communities around the whiskeys to chat how can we support you? And I didn't know what to say. And they said look, can we give you all the whiskeys you need for your tastings? I said yes, you can. And it started like that. They gave me the whiskeys, they educated me on the whiskeys, I learned more about them and I just started going on social media and talking about them and became really interested in it. So it started as a fundraising effort. It remained that way for probably three or four years.
Speaker 4:When COVID struck and we were all relegated to our homes, I really doubled down on Whiskey Talk and Whiskey Communication and created a Facebook group where people could join and I could answer questions, and that just blew up to like 10,000 people over COVID.
Speaker 4:I started doing a live stream on a Friday night during COVID just to talk to people who were stuck at home about Irish whiskey, about what I'd learned. And the first night we went live. 3,000 people tuned in and I don't know where they came from, but everyone was at home and nobody had anything to do. And I did it again the next Friday night and the next Friday night, and so for 63 Fridays in a row I did a live stream and that's what really created this Stories and Sips community and a following of Irish whiskey that I was happy to be the flag waver of to begin with, and ultimately that's led into things like a whiskey club online community and now a tour company as well. But it was all you know. I have no qualifications of any sort to be talking about this, but what I lack in that area, I definitely make up for in curiosity and just really passionate about sharing the story of Irish whiskey.
Speaker 2:I love that so much because I think sometimes people think about the beverage alcohol industry as being a little bit gatekeepy. That's feedback that I've heard in the past and I think part of it is like the bar for entry. You know, a lot of times you can't work within a bar in the US until you're 21 plus. So a lot of students, as they're going through college experiences, can actually, you know, access these internships and, as a result, what they're interning in they tend to kind of go in that direction. And so that has been some feedback I've heard and I really love that.
Speaker 2:You've sort of opened the community for people that are curious like yourself and, you know, may not know a lot, I think you know, having the ability to ask questions and not be shamed for it and to kind of exploring and trying different types of Irish whiskey, and knowing that you know you have a community that embraces you, I think is really really cool. And you know, and you've sort of kept that through every initiative that you've done, you've kind of taken that fabric now over from Stories and Sips and the Whiskey Lock and Livestream and brought that over to Irish whiskey experiences and I think that makes people so interested to travel and to experience and to try all the fantastic liquid that Ireland has to offer, firm in their beliefs and refuse to allow people to have a different opinion in certain corners of the world of whiskey.
Speaker 4:And it frustrates me no end and I would fight that and I'll die on the hill of fighting that that this is not that important a topic that we need to get stressed over or have heart attacks about. It's whiskey. And I think there's a great opportunity for us to open the door, widen, really enlarge the tent and say everyone is welcome to enjoy this, because there's great people, great places, great stories behind the pours. If we'd only just stopped telling people how they should drink it, how they should enjoy it, what you must do, you mustn't do anything, just enjoy it Like it's that simple. You could drink it out of a boot or a bucket, I wouldn't care, as long as you enjoy it. So I think that's yeah, that's very important to me.
Speaker 2:And you really built this loyal and passionate whiskey community globally, but first starting on that really like that local level of Columbus and then building it out from there. I know when I've joined some of your lock and live streams there have been folks from Atlanta, from Los Angeles, I mean really all over the US but really starting with the US market. So, having spoken and been in person with the folks that are really, you know, evangelists of whiskey and are the people that you really want behind your brand, what kind of advice do you give to whiskey brands who are looking to succeed in the US market, knowing how crowded it can be?
Speaker 4:It's very challenging. And when we think about the Irish whiskey market in the US, we're really talking about the Jameson market predominantly because it makes up such a large percentage of Irish whiskey and there's no getting around that whether it's 80, 90 percent, I don't know what the statistics are in the US, which leaves this smaller percentage that's divided up among hundreds of other brands. I mean, last year in Ireland there were a thousand whiskey labels approved by the Irish government. Some of those will go. Many of those will go to the US and go to Europe. They'll go off to Asia, but that means that all of these brands are competing against the dominant player that has been in place since 1780. And for a new brand to enter into the market it can be quite challenging and the US being, for all intents and purposes, 50 different countries to figure out from a federal and state level and local level, it's really really challenging. Where I've seen brands succeed is where they've focused on a number of key markets, whether they're small markets to begin with or markets where they feel like they can address them both physically and digitally, through boots on the ground and making connections online and building as personal a relationship and connections they can with that market.
Speaker 4:The challenge, with so many brands all pitching for both shelf space and for consumer attention, is that everybody says the same thing my whiskey is made from the finest barley, aged in the finest hand-selected oak casks. Well, they can't all be the finest barrels and they can't all be the best barley. Somebody got the not best barley. But what we must, I think, lean into is that behind the finest barley and the finest hand-selected barrels are individuals who have great passion, especially when we talk about brands that are not these big, large multinationals but are family-run, owner-operoperated, where they have committed their time, their talent, their treasury, their families, investment. Everybody. You know they're, they're, they're all in and they have amazing stories to tell about why they get into that business.
Speaker 4:And the brands have succeeded the most, from my perspective, are those that have managed to stay personal while offering a great product. So we can't have great stories and really heartwarming stories about the individuals, but there's horrible whiskey in the bottle. But if you've got good whiskey and you've got a good product, it's worth talking about how you got there. And my advice to brands often is to take your phone, walk to where your whiskey is aging and just start talking to us about what's happening or where you're distilling it and just record it into your phone and don't be afraid about running it through 16 filters of marketing agencies and approvals to get that out there. Just start talking to us. And I think that's the biggest opportunity for smaller brands is to not be afraid to lean into the highs and lows of the personal challenges of running a whiskey brand. That's what we connect to and people buy from people in any industry in the world.
Speaker 3:Ari, you kind of answered one of my questions just in that in terms of like bridging the gap between like the Jamesons and newer entrants into the United States. But from my experience in the US, because of like Jameson's dominance, irish whiskey tends to kind of come across as kind of affordable, more cost effective compared to the likes of Scotch. So how do you think brands can start to kind of change mindsets of consumers to kind of more higher end products? So when it is like Thanksgivings and Christmases and holiday seasons that people are thinking about Irish products versus like an aged Scotch or a 12 year old as an example?
Speaker 4:I think it's a great question and I will preface it by saying that we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to James and Pernod Ricard for building the marketplace for other brands to stand on the shoulders of them. There's no doubt about it and they're tremendously supportive of the category and the industry, helping others get into it. But it is unique because if we look at the scotch whiskey market we can't really point to one single scotch whiskey brand and say that is the scotch whiskey industry, whereas in the irish whiskey industry we can. For many people jameson is irish whiskey and irish whiskey is jameson. It's like in ireland every we call every vacuum cleaner a hoover. For some reason ho Hoover became the dominant brand right, and that was just the thing. And in Ireland every SUV is a Jeep, even though they're Toyotas. So I think in Irish whiskey it is a bigger challenge.
Speaker 4:I think we need more outspoken voices from the craft whiskey industry and them to be given a platform to be able to talk about the complexities, the range of flavour profiles, to move away from entrenched viewpoints that were needed in the 1960s and 70s, to establish Ireland as a kind of a, to re-compete with the Scots and the Americans and using phrases like unlike the Scots, our whis whiskey is smoother. You know, and you've got these phrases about smooth Irish whiskey. If I want something that's smooth, I'll grab a glass of water, but if I want something that's complex and full of flavor, I'll reach for a whiskey, and probably an Irish whiskey. And I think we've lost that confidence of leaning into. No, actually, don't be afraid of people saying that's quite harsh, like, whiskey is not supposed to be a glass of water, it is supposed to be complex. And that's what we're actually seeking if we really want a whiskey.
Speaker 4:But Jameson, I think, has succeeded in cornering the market of approachable and easy, and that's fine too. So smaller brands are going to have to step up and say in addition to how you've perceived whiskey in the past, did you know we also have this approach, this style, this flavor profile? And that's going to be the biggest challenge, I think, is changing viewpoints on that, because every time I talk about Irish whiskey to an American audience, they'll either talk about their first ever experience with Jameson, which was probably three o'clock in the morning on the floor of a bar, or they'll talk about proper number 12 and what's my viewpoints on that.
Speaker 3:And so like these seem to be the two dominant brands that are getting the attention in the US at the moment.
Speaker 3:No, it's interesting because in terms of like non-alcoholic products, like Ireland always seems to be like top of the list in terms of like high quality, high production methods, so like in terms of like all of the beef and dairy. So I really hope that kind of the whiskey space can kind of bridge that gap and kind of be seen as a premium, like go-to for high-end products versus something that's kind of, like you said, more affordable. Yeah, one of my favorite videos that you posted relatively recently was the JJ Corey Cliffs of Mower whiskey collaboration that you guys did and seeing like new brands like Waterford doing something interesting with all of the different terroir in terms of all of their different grains that they're getting from different farms and putting that on it. How important is that? And can you see more brands doing that, especially since Ireland's such a small island? But even though there is vast differences from like one coast to the next, even though it's like a relatively short geographical distance?
Speaker 4:so what you're referring to there is the sense of place really that has been adopted or embraced by a number of brands. You talk about JJ Corrie, the independent whiskey bonder in the west of Ireland, and we collaborated and we took some of their whiskey barrels from their family farm and we moved them 20 miles to the top of the Cliffs of Moher and locked them in a tower for a couple of months and just used the atmospheric changes in pressure to affect the whiskey. And it was not a scientific experiment and it was a fun experiment to see what would happen in climatic conditions like that, while being the first to age a whiskey on top of the cliffs of Moher. Now, whether something like that is important is an individual decision, because I can't say does that make the whiskey better or worse? Well, that's not for me to say. Does that make the whiskey better or worse? Well, that's not for me to say. I enjoyed the whiskey I drank, but what we discovered that we only had it was a very small release 210 bottles came out of three casks and they were snapped up in an hour. But to the people who bought it, they wanted something that connected them to that place and they thought it was a great story and they wanted to taste what whiskey tasted like, that aged on top of the cliffs of Moher, with With Waterford Whiskey, who are doing incredible things by taking the focus which is a really interesting idea that for the last 50 years, maybe 100 years, whiskey making has been considered an industrial process full of copper and chrome and pipes and certainly wood.
Speaker 4:But there was one key element almost forgotten the poor man or woman who grew the barley in the first place. And the farmers were overlooked. Because we moved in the past century to a more commercial approach to farming Bigger tractors and combine harvesters and the soil started to be compressed more with heavy machinery and we used more chemicals in order to get better yields and we developed disease resistant crops, and so this moved us away from how we grew grain. Historically, had the idea, the hypothesis, that if we could go back to how whiskey or barley primarily barley used to be grown 100, 200 years ago, we could access flavor profiles that have been lost through commercial industrial methods. And they took it even further by saying let's plant barley in individual farms and let us track that farm's yield all the way through to the whiskey in our glass. Keep that barley separate through malting, through brewing, through distillation, through maturation and bottling, so that we can have five bottles in our hands and each one could have the same barley, be produced the same way but come from different farms and we should be able to taste the difference.
Speaker 4:And they were able to prove scientifically through gas spectrometry and chromatography, that there were taste and profile differences on each of those farms, which is fascinating because it allows us to say well, to learn over time through all these data points. If we want to create a certain flavour profile, we might need John's Farm at this elevation age for this period of time, and we now have all these levers to push and pull. Whether that's important to people, only the market will determine. And whether it makes better or worse whiskey, again only the market will determine. But what we're seeing for the first time is choice and vision and risk taking by people who recognize that there's a big enough market to take risks, whereas 20, 30 years ago we definitely didn't have that luxury.
Speaker 3:No, it's so interesting because, to your point like if it's better or worse, it's so subjective. But just being different, I think, is really important. And we talk to new brands all the time and that's one thing we kind of preach about just trying to do something different, to stand out either on shelf or in their marketing campaigns or whatever they're doing. And in terms of like MHW, like we're very fortunate, we tend to be one of the first places that new brands reach out to in terms of like learning about the united states, so we kind of get the first kind of um. Look at some new emerging irish whiskey brands. Are there any ones in particular that you're super excited about in terms of like innovation or anything interesting that they're doing that we might not be aware of?
Speaker 4:we're at a all-time high of volume being produced in terms of whisky. Now in Ireland we just crossed the 50 distillery mark in Ireland for the first time in more than 100 years, which is amazing. More than half of those distilleries have whisky out in the market now at this stage, and the rest of them are just waiting for their barrels to come out of their slumber. A couple of brands that stand out to me as doing really interesting things and may not get the attention they deserve. One is Short Cross Whiskey, which comes from Redem in a state. There in County Down in the town of Crossgar, Husband and wife team set up a distillery and he's a former rocket, a rocket engineer, and he has applied his engineering skills to the distillery and they're making amazing whiskeys engineering skills to the distillery and they're making amazing whiskeys peated single malt, single pot, still whiskeys. They're doing really interesting distillations. He's technically obsessed and so constantly playing around at really long fermentation times to develop extra flavor early on in the whiskey making process and then really investing in high-end barrels that haven't been used historically instead of going for a regular, just regular Virgin American white oak, choosing things like chinkapin oak and leaning into examples that he's come across in both the craft American whiskey industry and the craft American beer industry and applying those to Shorecross Whiskey Really big fan of Shorecross. Fiona and David Boyd Armstrong are the founders.
Speaker 4:And then another distillery and whiskey brand is Killowen Distillery. Probably I think it's the second smallest Irish whiskey distillery on the island and if you compare their size give you some sense of the size. The Middleton distillery that produces Jameson rolls out about 3000 barrels of whiskey a day. Killohan Distillery rolls out about two barrels a week and it is a highly economically challenging environment, no doubt to be producing that little spirit, but they have very small stills. But they are making maybe some of the most flavorful whiskeys on the island and they're showing us that with a very slow, economically disadvantageous process we as consumers get to taste very flavorful whiskeys at three years of age where other distilleries with their bulk mass approach may require a lot longer in the wood because early on they weren't able to afford the time at fermentation and at distillation in the small quantities. So I would put a three-year-old whiskey from Cullowen up there with a 15-year-old whiskey from another distillery. So those are two brands that really get me excited.
Speaker 2:That's amazing and I think that just touches on what you were saying before about. You know there are some consumers that will really reach for the story. They want to know that there's that rich story behind it and then some that are really going for these complex flavor profiles, and I think the one that you just highlighted really has both and really presents an opportunity for consumers to try something different at a younger age. So that's really cool. I'm going to have to pick up a bottle of that, so I appreciate that recommendation.
Speaker 4:And we at Stories and Sips, our whiskey club, we collaborate with brands to bring single casks of whiskey to our audience and both of those brands we worked with in the past and the whiskeys we released from them were massively voted, some of the favorite whiskeys that people had. And it's not due to what we did, but rather we were able to just bring small, small batch releases to the market so that people who love whiskey got to try something that would not typically be available. From a flavor perspective, certainly up until the last three or four years you couldn't have tasted these kind of flavor profiles and, yeah, it's testament to the work they're putting in and I hope that they stay around long enough for us to be drinking those whiskeys for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I think providing that level of access, I mean, that's what really what we strive for at MHW is to provide the smaller entrepreneurial brands this platform of growth, and I think you are very similar in that way, in that you are taking a lot of brands that maybe wouldn't look at certain US marketplaces, as you know, the next place to go but you are introducing to the consumer that is really really ripe for that opportunity and that flavor profile.
Speaker 2:And I think you know, just being able to almost match those two together is really important.
Speaker 2:And you know, I hope that you continue this for many years, even as your you know next ventures carry on, because I do think consumers, they need someone that is willing to kind of open them up and give them access to new opportunities within.
Speaker 2:I mean, you can go to the shelf, for example, and there's hundreds of options, but to have someone sort of guide and show you what your taste is and I like going back to what you had mentioned previously about it doesn't matter what your taste is.
Speaker 2:You could like, you know, the one that might be $12 on the shelf, but if you like it, then you like it and that's what it is. So I think you know that's what makes your your experiences really special and, that said, I'd love to really segue into um all of these new incredible distilleries, as well as historical ones that are really heritage distilleries, um some that are, you know, more tourism, uh showcases. But I would love to understand more about your Irish whiskey experiences, how that company started, what you offer to consumers who go abroad to Ireland and what they can experience. And then I'd love to hear more about your partners and what they bring to the company and really just give the opportunity for, hopefully, some brands listening to get involved as well, as with this Irish Whiskey Cruise that you have coming up.
Speaker 4:I would love to. So the Irish Whiskey Experiences Company came out of a conversation over a few glasses of whiskey as all the best conversations come out of and myself and a friend we were live streaming Anthony Sheehy, who's the founder of Irish Whiskey Auctions. We were hosting a live stream one night and talking about auctions and sourcing rare old whiskeys and trying to how we could help you get those, and this mad idea came out. Wouldn't it be amazing if we did a tour of distilleries in Ireland over a two week period? We just got a bus, jumped on the bus and the bus brought us around all these distilleries and we had dinners and hotels all included and we didn't have to worry about a thing. And with the audience that was on at the time, everyone was saying that's a great idea. I would do that if you organized it. And we just kept spitballing this over the course of an hour and then we went to bed and the next morning we woke up and there were quite a few messages in our inbox, each of us people asking when are you doing this Irish whiskey tour? And we got back on the phone with each other and we said this seems like there's interest and our significant others talked us out of a 14-day jaunt around Ireland, claiming on medical grounds it would be not recommended, and so we thought why don't we put together a seven-day trip around Ireland and get a bus? We'll call it the Whiskey Bus and we will reach out in their lives. Well, the whiskey industry rose to meet us and laid on amazing experiences opening casks of whiskey in warehouses, having dinners beside the copper pot stills, going underground to where whiskeys used to be stored, and underneath the cities.
Speaker 4:An unbelievable trip was planned and executed back in 2022. Was planned and executed back in 2022. 30 Americans joined us, one Irishman and we had an amazing time and we hit. Let me see what was it Nine distilleries, 16 pubs, we had 63 pours of whiskey over the seven days and we got everybody home safely. And the first question we got was when are we doing it again?
Speaker 4:So in 2023, we put some manners to this thing and we created a company called Irish Whiskey Experiences and we planned two whiskey buses in 2023. And we hired a friend of ours, lauren McMullen, who spent 10 years working at Bushmills and she had welcomed us on our first whiskey bus to Bushmills and she joined us and really put a level of professionalism that either me or Anthony couldn't provide, and she polished this up and we had two more sold out whiskey buses. And then 2024 came along two more sold out whiskey buses. And then, this time, we asked Lauren if she'd become a co-founder and a director and owner with us. So Lauren now is the co-owner of Irish Whiskey Experiences, together with me and Anthony, and we're just about to welcome our fifth bus full of guests in the next week to Belfast for seven days in the north, hitting Antrim and down.
Speaker 4:And next year we just launched our two whiskey buses for 2025. We're doing one from Dublin across the country to Galway and then one from Dingle in the southwest of Ireland, up to Cork. And they've all been just amazing, amazing experiences, and I'm a big believer that whiskey is more than the liquid in the glass. It is a chance to connect, it's a chance for a community to be built, it's a chance for amazing conversations to be had, for great friendships to be made, and that's what these whiskey buses have done.
Speaker 4:Now we've had a lot of repeat business on these buses. In some cases, some of the buses have had 60% repeat business and the guests a couple of guests said to us like what's next? You know, we've done a few of your buses, what's next? And I threw around the idea of, well, you know why don't we get in a boat? And we'll sail around the Caribbean. And people laughed and I didn't and I thought, no, no, I'm serious. And so this idea again became the next thing. So we had this idea to create the Irish Whiskey Cruise and that's what we've done and we have chartered a portion of a ship and in 2025, we are going to Puerto Rico in November 2nd November 2nd to 9th for seven days around the Caribbean, seven different islands, and we're bringing whiskey brands with us and they're going to be on board talking about whiskey, sampling whiskey, and every island we go to, we're going to have an Irish whiskey experience ashore in those islands and there'll be a whiskey menu that we're developing with lots of Irish whiskey brands.
Speaker 2:You're bringing Irish whiskey to all these Caribbean islands. There's going to be a new surge of interest everywhere you go.
Speaker 4:Why not? They gave us Rome for many years, so we're bringing whiskey back to them and we're uh, we're about 80 sold out or already with our, with our cabins, so, which is great. So I think we've got 12 cabins left to sell between now and november 2025. So that's irish whiskey. Experience is really, in a nutshell, is about experiences that you wouldn't normally have around irish whiskey. You have with us and you have them with the people who you normally don't get access to, who make the whiskey, who own the brands, who own the distilleries, who are the masters of their craft. You get access to them to do fun things, whether it's sitting by the pool on the cruise sipping on a Irish whiskey cocktail, talking about triple distillation, or whether it's coming to Ireland and special 30 year old barrels being opened up just for you and even bottled up for you to take home bottles because you're part of our whiskey bus. That's what we're all about Just a lot of fun around Irish whiskey.
Speaker 2:Does it feel a little bit full circle for you, since you used to work in cruise ship operations? People know that, barry, am I allowed to say that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, it's fine. In fact, we're going to the same ship I worked on. Oh wow.
Speaker 2:I love that. That is full circle, then that's incredible.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I was in charge of purchasing food and beverage purchasing for three ships, and one of the ships is the ship that we're going to now use for our whiskey crew, so it was fun visiting it recently and sitting in the same chair I sat in, but now I'm the customer this time and I can make demands and I can ask for things.
Speaker 1:Can I jump in here and ask on the, since we're talking about whiskey tourism? I visited Scotland a couple of years ago myself and sort of whiskey tourism was a big part of my personal itinerary and I made sure to hit some of these distilleries that we found on the map. But when we pulled up to the gate we found that they didn't have it set up for any kind of tourism type activities. They didn't have a tasting room, they didn't have it set up to where you could even tour the grounds. How important do you think it is from your perspective for a brand to capture some of these tourists as they come over mostly from America?
Speaker 4:It's a great question and I think it is an individual decision on behalf of the brand in terms of what is their goal? What are they trying to do? There are whiskey brands that have large contracts to supply whiskey to supermarkets that really don't need anyone to ever come visit them. They just need to keep sending containers to Asia and America and, as long as they sell it and the check clears, everyone's happy and everyone got what they wanted. There are other brands that are looking to maybe it's to establish a sense of place and have a brand home and feel that that's part of their marketing story, and that is a huge part for a lot of brands who are very proud to talk about it. Now, it's an expensive undertaking and it's a lot of work for the initial return on it, but some brands do feel like they're not. They're not at the races until they have a destination to point to and say this is where we're made, or this is where we blend, or this is where we want you to come and join us.
Speaker 4:I think it is important for some, especially if you're going down the road of trying to build a legacy brand over a long period of time and build deep in some cases generational connections. The place is so important to the person who, if their father drank or their mother drank a certain whiskey and then as a child you're like you see this and when you're old enough you want to drink it. Then you think I want to go to where that whiskey was made and we do see so many people coming to Ireland and wanting to visit. I want to go to to Middleton distillery. That's where my dad always drank Middleton very rare. Or I want to go to Bushmills.
Speaker 4:I always remember my grandfather having a little bottle of Bushmills in the corner of the house. It is important, that sense of place, and it's about just, yeah, it's emotional and that it is a marketing tool. I remember listening to Fawn Weaver talk about building their distillery in Kentucky and their place for Uncle Nearest and their whiskey and how she insisted to her investors that we needed millions and millions and millions, because the greatest marketing we can ever do is build a place that we can come and point to and say this is where the whiskey is from right here, and it's an important part of our marketing and the best spend they could ever make. And I think some brands are thinking exactly the same way in Ireland.
Speaker 1:Barry, I know I mentioned sort of like spending some time in Scotland myself doing some whiskey tourism. Let's talk about the Irish versus Scotch. What's your take on the difference or the merits of one versus the other? Let's go, let's make some controversy.
Speaker 4:I've been doing this far too long to be baited into an answer like that.
Speaker 2:And I respect the hustle here and the quest for soundbites.
Speaker 4:I knew you were going to go around this question. Let me give you both a diplomatic and a proud answer. If you're trying to get me to do the whole Irish versus Scotland thing, I won't. But what I will say is this anytime I have produced any videos that have talked about the first mention of Aquavitae or the Water of Life, which, incidentally, was in Ireland in 1324 and will be another 150 years before it's in Scotland, I get hate mail. I get Scottish people who are so upset like they take it so personally. They don't like facts. But what I will say is that there are great whiskeys in both countries and I'll leave it at that. We don't need to go any further, whatever, you like, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean the more that we can grow the whiskey category as a whole, and I think you've even said this too about Asian whiskeys. You're like it's interesting, but I'm glad that they're growing the category.
Speaker 4:A hundred percent and I will say this the Scotch whiskey industry has done a remarkable job of establishing an interest in brown spirits globally. But if you think about, there was a time when Ireland far outpaced the Scots in terms of volume production. Today that's not even close. The Scots produce I think it's about a billion bottles of whiskey a year. Ireland is about 140, 150 million. We don't have the capacity from either a distilling or a maturation or a bottling capacity, to get anywhere near the Scots, and we won't in our lifetimes. And it's not a competition. Whatever you like, enjoy it and buy more of it.
Speaker 2:Yes, I love that and I will say too. I'll add and Ian is probably the best suited to add to this, having been with Warbia for a number of years but you know, the agricultural output that Ireland has is I mean, it's for the size of the country it's incredible. So that's something that there's a lot of pride. There's a lot of agricultural and farming pride in Ireland that I think carries over to the bottle.
Speaker 4:That's right. All you need is a plate of Irish soda bread and Kerrygold butter and a glass of whiskey, and you're sorted.
Speaker 2:And do you mind if I ask you what the single best sip of Irish whiskey you've ever had is?
Speaker 4:It'd be like choosing your favorite child and I it depends. I often liken favorite whiskey to music. Every day I'll listen to different tunes, depending on the mood and the weather and whether I'm happy or sad, and I think it's the same with whiskey. It's what appeals today, and I will say that the best experiences around whiskey have been with people that make you smile and laugh, and at that stage it could be a $20 bottle in your glass, it doesn't matter. It's just about the experience and the people that you're having it with. So I've yet to have a truly awful Irish whiskey, and long may that continue.
Speaker 2:Well said, Sanja.
Speaker 1:To move away from the Scotch-Irish whiskey politics, if you will. We're going to ask a truly, just a straight-ahead, fun question that we always ask our guests on the show here, and that is simply what is your favorite alcoholic beverage or cocktail right now? This doesn't have to be a desert island situation. Just right now, what's on your radar?
Speaker 4:We just released our 11th Irish whiskey at Stories and Sips, collaborating with Dunville's Irish whiskey, and this is my favorite right now and I'm drinking it every night, and it's a 12-year-old single malt that has spent four years in a Palo Cortado sherry cask and it is like you need a knife and fork to drink it. It's so thick and syrupy, it's unbelievable. And that's what I'm drinking a lot of right now. In terms of cocktails and alcoholic beverages, I stick to Irish whiskey predominantly, mostly because there's only so much a liver can take, and I'd like to keep it with Irish whiskey. And then, in terms of cocktails, I like to use a rich, heavy, heavily sherry Irish whiskey and an old fashioned and a classic old fashioned Angostura, bitters, sugar syrup and Irish whiskey, and then just a little a little piece of orange in there. No, no cherries, no, no garden in there, just a little bit of orange.
Speaker 1:That's my favorite cocktail For listeners who want to check out more and find out more about stories and sips and Irish whiskey experiences. You can check out Barry Chandler himself on Instagram and on TikTok. On Instagram he is IrishWhiskeyBarry. You can also find stories and sips and Irish whiskey experiences on that platform and other places. We'll have links to all of that in the show notes that you can click. It'll be easy to follow on your platform of choice and find out more. So thank you so much, barry Chandler, for stopping by and sharing your expertise and find out more. So thank you so much, barry Chandler, for stopping by and sharing your expertise and stories with us.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for having me. This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:And thank you listeners for joining us on the MHW Mark podcast, and thanks again to Bridget McCabe and Ian Perez for joining me in hosting.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thanks Jimmy, thanks Barry.
Speaker 1:Sláinte, sláinte, this this podcast is produced by me, jimmy Moreland, with booking and planning support by Cassidy Poe. It's presented by MHW. Find out more at mhwltdcom or connect with MHW on LinkedIn. Lend us a hand by subscribing, rating and reviewing this podcast wherever you listen.
Speaker 3:We'll be back in your feed in two weeks. We'll see you then, cheers.