Dramface Podcast

The Dramface Strikes Back. Again.

Covering all the topics we didn’t get to during Podcast Twenty Five.

Gregor asks the teams for some “drams of note” that we’ve encountered since we wrapped season two. From there we wander into The Jura Problem, the delightful surprises of the Dramface Top 40 and the sadness at the loss of Malt Review, before rounding off with another community-sourced IAAD.

See you back in a couple of weeks!

Gregor & The Team

Season finale. Dramface Fantasy Distillery Brackets & More.

Pick your top five, then a reserve five. Think you can keep ‘em?

Look, you’re not gonna hear from us for a while, so we left a lot in this one. More than usual? Yeah. Too much? Probably.

But we enjoyed the topics and thought you might too. We start off on annunciation and pronunciation before discussing what colour we taste in whisky. Gregor digs up some gold form Jen and Rachel on retail trends before there’s some disagreement on opening minds as people explore whisky.

All of this via chats around all whiskies ,whether planted or unpleated, before getting into an intensely fought battle for our five fantasy distilleries. If you want to play along, make your list of five plus five reserves, choose one or two players to go up against and see how many of yours stay intact.

You can see the results of the brackets below; one of the team clearly kicked it out of the park, but we’ll leave you guessing who while you listen along.

Of course, we round out with yet another I Am A Distillery, and it’s another geeky one.

Almost a Podcast.

Gregor wanted to ask us about our Almost a great whisky possibilities. You know, those releases, whiskie sor distilleries that could, with a wee bit of effort, be so much more enjoyed - even if it’s from the perspective of enthusiasts.

On the way there we enjoy Jen’s recipe for Jalapeño syrup, tales form Rachel about how the 1700’s propaganda blighted gin, preparing for festivals and teasing the brackets challenge for our next and final episode (for this season!).

So sit back, pour a dram and listen to us adjust our tighteny bits, brush away our furry things and toggle our floppy stuff.

Of course, we round out with yet another I Am A Distillery, and this one’s for the real geeks.

Strap in for the brackets in the final episode next time, list your own top 5 and play along. Remember to include one world whisky distillery.

The Twenty wan before the cheesy wan.

The prospect of cheese made some of us nervous.

It’s not a secret that these sessions are recorded in twos. This session is the one before the cheese pairing and most of us were already sat in front of cheese boards. Gregor insisted we wait. Therefore, this was recorded with the stench of all sorts of cheeses filling the air, and we couldn’t eat ‘em. That’s our excuse.

Gregor distracted us by discussing bottles that we should be grabbing now, before they’re gone. We then wandered into price versus age, Gordon’s insightful and revealing trip to Campbeltown and Roy’s magical trip up the Ardnamurchan peninsula.

We round out with yet another remarkable I Am A Distillery.

Gregor & The Team

This was released early to Dramface members, thank you for your support!

Music credit: That First Dram by Tom Good

Buyer's Remorse.

What do you regret buying?

What do you regret not buying? Even better, what did you think you might regret buying, only for it to turn out to be a revelation?

Joining Gregor this time are Julie, Roy, Rob and Stuart.

As we share our trials, tribulations and regrets, we also touch upon branding successes and disasters before finishing on a quite remarkable (and impressive!) I Am A Distillery.

We do not manage to keep it under an hour.

Gregor & The Team

“I Can’t Taste What Everyone Else Does!”

Inspired by a Dramophone comment

As usual we have a main topic; nosing, tasting and note-taking.

As per usual, we’re all over the place and it takes us a while to get there. But get there we do. We discuss nosing, tasting and note taking. Via peanut butter, Ruffle bars, chocolate and cheese.

Rob shares another killer auction steal, before breaking his mic, and then going on to break I Am A Distillery.

As usual, we leave it all in.

Gregor & The Team

www.Dramface.com

We're rusty.

In case it isn’t obvious

We forgot how to do things. We have a pre-meeting planning meeting to decide how to refine our intro, which we fumble, but decide just to leave it all in. Then we forget to bring a warm-up “bum” tune, so we leave it all out.

From there we kinda get it together and cover some great auction tips and reflect on a year of Dramface. It gets a little self-indulgent but only for a wee bit before Gordon brings a new word to us. This is therefore the “shunky” one.

We make a few excuses on why there’s not been much in the way of podcasting recently too.

Next release is already in the works!

Gregor & The Team

This was released early to Dramface Members

https://www.dramface.com/dramface-members

A Very Messy Christmas

Our Secret’s Out.

We try to record multiple episodes when we get together. We cue up guests and they appear without any idea of what the subject matter is. They’re asked to bring an optional dram along and that’s it. All good.

However, on nights where we‘ve all opted for the drams and we’re recording back-to-back, things become a little relaxed. Messy even.

Our editor said this was the most difficult to put together. I’ve had a listen through and there are very little clues left of the wheels continually falling off, so good job. Still, it remains our messiest to date, but we think you’ll be fine with that.

We begin with a topic of avoiding ‘dud’ Christmas gifts and it meanders all over the place from there. This was a lot of fun to record. It literally was the Dramface Podcast’s Christmas party.

This episode was released early to Dramface members. Thank you for your support!

We wish one and all a very Merry Christmas!

Gregor & The Team

We had to encourage Wally to ‘have a word’ to get things moving again. Which would’ve been an interesting discussion to witness.

Anyway, something seems to have worked because this October recording is now good-to-go and ready for your ears. There is some more good news too; there are another two episodes to follow in December, so we’re playing catch up to get into your good books once more.

This one is perhaps the deepest dive Gregor has done on any one subject. With a drive to start to build his own whisky community around him locally, he invites Julie Hamilton to join and share everything about whisky clubs, events and festivals and she treats us with a real behind the scenes scenario for it all.

There’s a familiar voice from the Dramophone and of course, a close-out with an accessible “I am a Distillery”.

Links for this episode:

Glasgow’s Whisky Festival - https://glasgowswhiskyfestival.com/

Scotch 4 Dummies “Whiskygasm” 2017 episode - https://youtu.be/YfTyPZJbIfA

Departing Editors, Making Tea, Dream Distilleries, Good Indies and The Devil’s Grain  

Tissues at the ready.* The penultimate session of this first season has some departing words from Jason, even although he’s not actually leaving, he will step down as editor.   

We also meander through our dream distillery locations, helping to choose the perfect indie bottling, our favourite whisky films and, bizarrely, how we prefer to enjoy our perfect cup of tea.  

The Dramophone is put to great use collecting departing wishes and thanks for Mr Mhor. Aye Dallas, no bad.  

*No tissues actually needed  

This was released early to Dramface Members. Thank you for your support!

Jenny, Roy and Rob join host Gregor to discuss a varied range of topics that may occasionally be permitted to depart form whisky, such as what other drinks we enjoy. We also talk about the current state of travel retail with a few recommendations for those travelling this summer.

The odd area of resurrection and renaissance is also a theme. Gregor asks what distilleries are most exciting either because they’re new or enjoying a revival, but he also asks what - and who - might we resurrect for whisky enjoyment in future. It sounds odd, and it is.

We also celebrate our first community Dramophone dial in selection, and the Dramface Store shirt of choice goes to Hellen and Andy!

All four of us manage to keep our excitement in check .

As we look ahead to a work/leisure mesh trip to Campbeltown and Islay we cover batch variation, not for the first - or last - time in malt whisky as well as archiving and documenting the variation along the years.

We also look ahead to expectation from a few days of whisky travel to Scotland’s West Coast, to the whisky magnets that are Campbeltown and Islay.

This was released early to Dramface Members. Thank you for your support!

You know, we do try to keep things positive.

But things are sent to challenge that, constantly. There’s been so much news recently about pricing to demand, rebrands and nonsense that we occasionally just have to tackle it.

Regulars Jason and Roy join host Gregor alongside Gordon and the returning Julie to discuss these topics. Since there’s nothing they can do about any of it they’re really just prodding around in the dark and dreaming. So while they dream, what bottles would they resurrect - if they could?

This was released early to Dramface Members. Thank you for your support!

Gregor is joined by Roy, Phil, Julie and Jenny to cover pilgrimages, PPMs, prohibited items and past bottles. It also ends with a killer I AM A DISTILLERY. Seriously.   

We’re Upgrading things!  

Dramface members access this early. We’re still working on other ways to reward them for their support of what we’re building, inspiration occasionally hits and we work out what could be of interest. How about recording a quick message and we use that in future podcasts?   Give it a try. An Ask-Us-Anything type format.  Or just give us feedback and suggestions. We’ll listen to them all! We're calling it the Dramophone and it's available under the early release posts under the website members section.   

Thank you for your support! We hope you love it! (Tell us what you think - hit the record button! )  Music credit: That First Dram by Tom Good

Faced with a diminished core team, Gregor pulls in Julie, Andy & Ryan to join him and Roy to discuss glassware habits and the friendships whisky can bring. 

Comments Remain Important To Us!

Yes, we had a curated list of community comments ready to respond to, but discussions about the perfect and not so perfect idea of whisky glassware  and where whisky has taken us and our friendships got us all distracted.  In trying to keep these close to or around an hour we forgot to use the prepared comments. Spoiler - we do the same next week too.

Please use the comments section throughout the Dramface site and we will reach in and grab those that catch our attention for future episodes!

As Dramface members you receive early access to our podcast through this members-only blog. Thank you for your support! We hope you love it, despite a somewhat replacement cast!

After our Launch podcast we had a lot of interest in releasing more of the same. We don’t know what we’re doing really, but we’re up for giving it a go.

In this session we talk about the recent craziness around the Springbank releases, the reception of Dramface post-launch and we take some comments from the community. We also finish on a new game called I’m a Distillery.

Please let us know what you think. We’ll shape it with your feedback.

This Podcast was released to Dramface Members a week ahead of public release. 

DRAMFACE.

What’s it all about? — What is it? — Why bother? — How did it happen? — Who’s involved?

Gregor McWee hosted the team for a Q&A.