31/03/2023

Chapter 11

A chat with...Mark & Kate Watt (Watt Whisky) - #7

Independently bottled whiskies as it should (always) be done, with a focus on value and a dedication to quality. These are in fact high quality products, bottled for drinking. All bottled at cask strength, natural colour and non-chill filtered.

Based in Campbeltown they bottle Single Malt, Grain and Blended whiskies and Rum.

At Watt whisky the aim is to offer unedited products at a fair price, that people will want to drink. As the founders, husband and wife, Mark and Kate Watt often say, they only bottle what they like to drink.

They established Campbeltown Whisky Company Ltd in late 2019. Their independent bottling brand ‘Watt Whisky’ was instead launched the following year (yes, during a global pandemic…).

Let’s see what they told us…

Hi Mark and Kate, thank you for taking the time to chat with us. Please introduce yourself, and tell us a little bit about your whisky journey so far.

We’ve both worked in the whisky industry for longer than we care to admit (20+ years each!) but in late 2019 we decided to start our own independent bottling company, Watt Whisky.

Despite Covid, impending Brexit and a new baby we managed to get things up and running relatively quickly and bottled our first cask in August 2020.

We’re now 3 years and 65 casks down the line and things are going really pretty well (and we’ve not killed each other or got a divorce which is a definite bonus!).

We decided to go the traditional route to sell our products so rather than direct to consumer we sell through distributors, retailers and bars that we’ve known and worked with for many years in our previous jobs. We only sell to 5 markets (UK, Belgium, Denmark, Japan and Taiwan) and are in the very happy position that everything we bottle sells out between those 5 so we have no plans to expand to any other markets for the moment.

When and how did you join this growing industry?

KW: I joined the whisky industry completely by accident! It was in 2002 and I’d just graduated Uni with a languages degree. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do work wise but wanted a job that would let me travel and use my languages.

I’m from Campbeltown and Mum heard on the grapevine (as happens in small towns) that the girl that worked at Springbank Distillery was leaving cause there was too much travel. No such thing as too much travel as far as my 23 year old self was concerned so I phoned up to ask if they had any jobs going, got an interview and got a job in the Sales & Marketing Department.

It was based back in Campbeltown, which wasn’t what I’d wanted, but there was indeed loads of travel all over the world and I absolutely loved the job and the industry as a whole.

MW: My route into whisky was much less accidental, I grew up at Macallan Distillery and when I turned 18yo I started working behind the bar of the Craigellachie Hotel (see side mention) one of the worlds best whisky bars at the time and I knew shortly after joining that I wanted to work in the industry.

When studying in Edinburgh I also worked at Royal Mile Whiskies and the SMWS (and occasionally went to Uni) and once I left university I got my first “grown up job” with Duncan Taylor in Huntly.

Now tell us a bit more about Watt Whisky, what is it that makes it stand out in the whisky industry?

MW: To be honest not very much! We’re not re-inventing the wheel – it’s single cask, cask strength, non chill filtered, natural colour – not exactly rocket science but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

One thing that we do that is different is that I have synaesthesia (see Wikipedia) which means that I smell in colour. So the colour that is on the bottom strip of our label is the colour that I smell when I nose the whisky.

We felt this was a much more fun way of getting colour on to our labels than going down the usual route of Green is Speyside, Purple is Islay etc etc.

It is completely unique to us and in our up coming festival we’ll be hosting our first tastings of a range of whiskies from a single colour to see if anyone can pick up any similarities through the whiskies – so far I’ve yet to find a correlation.

Can you tell us what Watt Whisky's target audience is?

Whisky geeks! And drinkers rather than collectors.

Can you tell us how you select your casks, and anticipate anything about what we can expect to see next?

KW: Pretty simple, if we like it and the price is right then we’ll bottle it!

We both sample everything and decide on the releases together. So far we’ve been in agreement on what to bottle, which makes things easy. When we first started the company I said that Mark would have final say/power of veto over what to bottle but don’t know whether I’d stick to that if it actually got put to the test!

Initially we were buying to bottle fairly quickly so any blends/finishes etc that we bottled were bought from brokers ready blended/finished. Now we’ve been going for a wee while though we’re starting to do a bit of re-racking and blending of our own stock.

Our first ‘blended by us’ blend is going to be released in a couple of months as is a 9yo Campbeltown Malt that we’ve finished for 20 months in our ex-Clarendon rum cask which we’re quite excited about.

What advice would you give to a beginner that is approaching this world and perhaps starting his/her own collection?

Go to whisky bars, tastings, festivals and try as many different styles and types of whisky and spirits as you can. Talk to people and share experiences with them. There’s always new things to learn and try.

Buy and drink what you like, not what you think you should like.

And most of all enjoy yourself!

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?

MW: I like everything (it’s an occupational hazard) but I tend to prefer spirit driven whiskies and tend to favour an American oak cask although I am partial to the odd sherry bomb every now and again.

So all time favourites would be things like Caperdonich and Imperial.

Dram of choice at the minute from our range would be the Tormore 12yo Rye cask and from other people I am currently enjoying the Wee Brown Dog Cameronbridge from Little Brown Dog Spirits, Apogee XII from the guys at Bimber and Glen Elgin 13yo from Single Malts of Scotland.

KW: I used to go much more for the peatier, coastal style of whiskies – Caol Ila, Springbank, Highland Park etc – must be my Campbeltown upbringing coming through!

Since meeting Mark and spending time living in Speyside my tastes have become more eclectic though.

Dram of choice at the moment is probably our 10yo North British – I normally go for much older grains but this one proves that the young ones can be great too – and our AFD Dominican Rum if I fancy a rum.

From other people the Port Asking 8yo is always a favourite. Makes a great highball too!

Official website: https://wattwhisky.com

Drams

and more...

Today's drams

The English Whisky Co 12yo (228 bottles) – 57.1%
Glasgow distillery 5yo (216 bottles) – 57.1%
Tomintoul 12yo (282 bottles) – 58.4%
Cameronbridge 30yo (276 bottles) – 45.6%
Tormore 10yo (287 bottles) – 57.1%

The Craigellachie Hotel

The Craigellachie Hotel, on the banks of the River Spey is home to the The Quaich Bar, opened over 125 years ago.

The Quaich is considered one of the best whisky bar in the world, it offers a selection of around 1,000 single malt whisky bottles from all around the world, which are served by the dram or as cocktails.

https://craigellachiehotel.com/quaich-bar/