03/07/2023
Chapter 23
A chat with...Joshua Hatton & Jason Johnston-Yellin (Single Cask Nation) - #19
This time around we leave the UK, as we are going to the US and chat with Joshua Hatton and Jason Johnstone-Yellin co-founders of the Single Cask Nation.
Joshua (pictured on the left) and Jason (pictured on the right) met years ago due to their mutual passion for writing blogs about whisky (and whiskey in this case…) and ended up founding Single Cask Nation in 2011, which started as a social fellowship and membership society that offered access to rare, fine single cask whiskies under their Single Cask Nation label. They were then joined by Jess Lomas, who’s part of the team as Global Sales Manager.
Today SCN is indeed a reputable independent bottler and still remain a unique virtual community with members that share love and affinity for quality whiskies and other spirits of the world. They surely bottle great casks from Scotland, but also from America, and many other countries. All bottlings are bottled as single cask and at full cask strength.
They recently took the time to tell us a bit more about SCN.
Let’s see what they told us…
Hi Joshua and Jason, thank you for taking the time to chat with us. Please introduce yourselves, and tell us a little bit about your whisky journey so far.
Joshua: A pleasure meeting you, too. We appreciate you having us. My whisky journey started in 2005 at my synagogue after a Friday night service (we Jews don’t believe in “the holy spirit” but I’d argue Scotch whisky is a holy spirit, indeed).
Jason’s own started in the mid-90’s and he, with the help of his friend, Pete Piirainen, started the University of Aberdeen whisky society.
Jason and I met back in 2010 when we were whisky bloggers. Back then there’s weren’t many whisky bloggers so the community was very close/tight-knit. Through the sharing of whisky samples Jason and I really hit it off. We were two absolute peas in a pod and when I came up with the idea to start an independent bottling company there wasn’t anyone else who came to mind that I wanted to join me on this journey.
We officially started the company in May of 2011 and started selling whisky in 2012/2013.
When and how did you join this growing industry?
Really, it was with the launch of Single Cask Nation in 2011. We were luckily, however, in that we had the help of our importers, ImpEx Beverages, to get our business off the ground.
They connected us to our first distillery partners and helped us understand and navigate the legal US three-tiered system of selling alcohol in the US.
Now tell us a bit more about Single Cask Nation, what is it that makes it stand out in the whisky industry?
Single Cask Nation is an independent bottler based in the US but we’ve also got fantastic and passionate distributors in Canada, the UK, a number of countries in Europe, Israel, and Japan.
Much like other great independent bottlers, our brand, Single Cask Nation, is a bottled representation of spirits we fall in love with. It’s all very personal. Our aim is to only bottle single casks of whisky (and rum, mezcal, etc…) that knock our socks off; that we would open our wallets for.
It may seem odd but, when we select casks it’s never with the consumer in mind (aside from a pricing perspective). We bottle for our palates. Those who have found our bottings and fell in love with them share a similar palate to us. So long as we stay true to bottling the spirits we love rather than what we think others will love, we feel we’re doing right by the company (and our consumers).
Because we’re bottling from many distilleries, and differing spirit styles, we don’t have the luxury that a distillery has to put forth a specific flavour profile that tells consumers “this is what we taste like”. What we do focus on, however, is texture.
Jason, Jess, and I are all about texture and balance. If you come to an SCN bottling you can always count on our spirits featuring a good, rich, and viscous texture.
We also favour balance and complexity over singularity and aim to shine a light on the distillery’s spirit character at all times. Sherry bombs are great. They’ve got their place and we’ve bottled a few of them but, when we do, we always make sure that the distillery spirit character still shines through.
Can you tell us what your target audience is?
I’m not sure we’ve got a target audience but would argue that those who found us are likely already familiar with what an independent bottler is.
In some cases, like when we bottle casks from Wild Turkey, the folk that hope to gobble those up (pun firmly intended), are less familiar with IBs and more familiar with the distillery itself. It’s those people we hope will continue down the IB path and discover more independently bottled spirits (through SCN or otherwise).
Can you tell us how you select your casks, and anticipate anything about what we can expect to see next?
We’ve got a fairly straight forward process of selecting casks. If the nose on a sample is not interesting we won’t taste that spirit. If we find the nose to be complex and inviting then we go on to the next step which is NOT tasting. It’s a texture test.
We sip on the spirit but ignore flavours altogether. We focus on texture. If the texture is nice and rich then we taste again and focus on the flavour. If it’s got great flavour and a medium (at least) to long finish, and so long as the price is right, we will bottle that cask. If the finish is short or uneventful we pass.
Like a good book with a beginning, middle, and end, the spirit, in the end, needs to tell a nose-to-palate-to-finish story that makes sense. Imagine if Lord of the Rings stopped at the end of The Two Towers — how disappointing would that have been?! You needed Return of the King to resolve it all.
The same goes for a good whisky. It needs a solid beginning, middle, and end.
Ok, geeky rant over.
What advice would you give to a beginner that is approaching this world and perhaps starting his/her own collection?
Our top advice is: if you’re looking to start a collection then you’re getting into whisky/spirits for the wrong reason. As an independent bottler our goal is to bottle spirits to be sold at a fair price so that you can open, share, and enjoy — not collect!
There are plenty of collectable bottlings out there but life is short and made better through sharing the good stuff. If someone is looking to get into independent bottlings I would suggest that person first figure out which distilleries they love and then start exploring that distillery through the lens of independent bottlers (be they SCN or another bottler). If you love Laphroaig’s 10yo, Quarter Cask, etc… check out a Cadenhead’s Laphroaig and see how theirs is different from the distillery’s own bottling. Then grab an SCN Laphroaig and see how theirs is different, too.
It’s our job as an independent bottler to provide flavour journeys to consumers.
Lastly, what is, generally speaking, your favourite whisky style (cask type, ageing, peated/unpeated etc.)? What’s your dram of choice at the moment and/or your go to drams on a Friday evening?
Jason, Jess, and I are all fans of 1st, 2nd, and refill bourbon casks. Ex-bourbon cask matured whisky, more often than not, highlights the spirit character and it’s the spirit character we’re in love with.
While Jason is a Ledaig and Kilchoman fetishist, and Jess loves her Mortlach and Westland, I find myself to be reaching for bottlings of Imperial or Ardnamurchan more often than not.
Official website: https://singlecasknation.com/
Drams
and more...
Today's drams
- Paul John 2016 4yo (247 bottles) – 57.6%
- Ardmore 23yo (262 bottles) – 52.5%
- Dailuaine 2012 8yo (301 bottles) – 53.1%
- Glen Garioch 2011 9yo (269 bottles) – 53.9%
- Port Dundas 2000 20yo (188 bottles) – 61.3%