Laphroaig Live 2011 - Sydney

We know that there are nearly 500,000 Friends of Laphroaig after it started back in 1994, which is an extraordinary number of people. Not all of them are watching tonight I'm sure from around the world but many certainly will be, we know how much this event is looked forward to each year. We've got some food being cooked over there with some special sauces that have been prepared with the addition of these great whiskies and some guests on standby to eat that and tasting some of our expressions through the night. We would love to hear from you wherever you are watching in the world, and you'll see on your website there is a little box on screen on the Laphroaig Live website where you can post a question. We'd love to hear from you throughout the programme and of course if you do send a question in and get it read on air, we'll give you a prize. Some familiar guests first of all, it's my great pleasure to welcome the distillery manager of Laphroaig, that is John Campbell. John, great to have you in Australia. Very well thank you and glad to be down under? Yes, first time, I'm trying to take in as much as I can of the culture and trying to have as much fun as possible - but not too much! Tell us about the job of a distillery manager, what does it entail? The distillery manager, well the master distiller is the most important job in the line - a dig to the man next to you. I'm sure he'll get me back in a second. Basically, I'm from barley in to whisky out and maturing on the island as well, so that's the job I do. I try to help Robert as much as possible in producing the best quality whisky we can. Of course the most important job is the master blender, and that of course is Robert Hicks, a face known to Laphroaig drinkers around the world. Good evening, well I don't know about John getting a dig at me, because unless John produces the right whisky as new spirit, there's not a lot I can do with it. So John's more important in that respect than I am. All I do is make sure the whisky that goes out in the bottle, the quality is constant and the flavour is consistent. Master Blender Robert Hicks we'll be looking forward to your insights into some of these great drams we have before us later through the show. And now along with the Scotsmen we have some bonnie lasses as well, it's my great pleasure to welcome the author of insidecuisine.com and that is Rebecca Varidel. Rebecca great to have you with you, you've been on the outside on the inside of the food industry for many years and recently become quite a whisky lover yourself, but you also have a link back to Scotland. I do though I don't know why it's so late since I discovered whisky in life. Way back when, sent out my great great great grandfather as one of the first 5 teachers that came to Australia from Edinburgh University. 50% of me, even though Varidel doesn't sound it, 50% of me is an Andrews. That's fantastic. Well it's great to have you with us. Now on your left we have a very special guest this evening and John will explain very shortly but really why one of the reasons this roadshow has come to Australia. I would love you to meet the great, great, great, granddaughter of Alexander Johnston who was one of the founders of Laphroaig with his brother Donald, back in 1815. The distillery now has been going for nearly 200 years, Lin Johnston what a pleasure to have you with us tonight and tell us something of that link. Thank you it's lovely to be here but I do have to correct you, its only two greats. Oh excuse me I over shot the runway, whoops! If it were three I'd be 45 which would be really nice but...That's wonderful. Well it's great to have you with us tonight Lin and I'm sure you're very proud to be a part of the evening. Oh absolutely and I'd like to welcome other descendants of Alexander as well. There are some more great, greats - Helen and Graham, and one great grandson was Ian Johnston and his sons Nick and Chris, and Gracie, Tom and Harry are all great, great, greats! There you go, we got the right number of greats. Fantastic we'll met with some of the rest later on, very happy to have them with us. Now. and by the way, we're sitting in Campbell's cove here tonight which is a nice bit of symmetry. Robert Campbell who can out in the late 18th Century, he wasn't a relation though I believe. There's a lot of Campbell's! I'm intrigued to know this is your first time and Robert's first time in Australia why Australia John? Well just that link, it's something we've been looking at for a long time and finding links to where we can take this great whisky around the world. The Johnston family, they obviously made the most important part of Laphroaig as that's what started the whole thing and then when Alexander decided to leave in 1836 to come down here, well we thought we'd try and restore that link and we'll hopefully restore it through the liquid later on as well. Great, so we're going to send that microphone down to the end of the panel and speak with Lin. Just before we get started on the tasting of the whiskies, Lin tell us about when you first found out about this extraordinary link to this wonderful drink. Well I suspected it as soon as I know the Johnston's came from Islay as there weren't very many Johnston's on Islay but I didn't actually find proof until I was contacted by a descendant of Donald Johnston who went to the States, Sheila which was in the 1980s and her father had done a lot of research and had copies of all the birth and death certificates and there was Donald and Alexander and their sister Mary who married another Johnston at and their parents were Alexander Johnston and Mary Graham and that confirmed that my Alexander was actually the Laphroaig Alexander. Then a few years ago Marcel did a book on the history of Laphroaig and he was in touch to find out about the Australian Johnston's and he sent me a copy of the letter acknowledging the sale of Alexanders part of the business for £350 before he came to Australia. Which was really exciting and it'd had been framed somewhere it had a black frame around it and somebody had treasured it for a long time. How amazing, what a great story, so for the best of your knowledge he lived very happily in this country for quite some time? He lived until he was 81, he died 1881 and is buried in Newcastle in Sandwich and his wife died in 1891 also in her 80s and I guess the travel bug didn't leave them because the moved from the south coast to the northern coast which is 100s of miles, it would have involved boats, and trains and a lot of hardship just to get there so they never stopped. That is fantastic, it must be lovely for you as the distillery manager to have this fantastic link. Yes definitely it's always something we're very proud of, we've nearly got 200 years of history. It's always great to celebrate your history and the rich heritage that Laphroaig does have. Really great story, thank you Lin it's really great to have you with us here tonight. Now our executive chef Adam is over there working away at some incredible lip smacking dishes that we're going to present to you a little bit later on and have the panel tasting but we know for the Friends of Laphroaig watching, there's one thing they want to know and that's to do some tasting here right now. So we're going to start John with you at this end and it's the Quarter Cask first off. Quarter Cask Laphroaig, what we basically do here is the normal process for Laphroaig we fill into first fill bourbons so we'll get 5 to 11 year old first fill bourbons we'll then mix that liquid together and we'll double mature them in quarter casks hence the name of the product. Now quarter casks, the bourbon barrel will hold 200 litres, a quarter cask holds 125 and what it does, it gives it a double infusion of American Oak and it balances the peaty power from the distillery. The second maturation is really quick, it's only 7 months because you've got a lot of surface area and a lot less liquid so it really matures it a lot quicker and Quarter Cask here is the result and what it really does is it gives it a much more toffee, caramel vanilla flavour from the bourbon barrel as you'd expect, you get some nice kind of soft fruits in there maybe even some coconut and then a really lovely spicy finish and then it will feel ashy dry in your mouth as well. Shall we? We should! Now Rob, on to you what should we be doing, first up. First up you should enjoy it! Well I'm a blender and when I work I test anything up to 1200 casks a day so the way you test it, or the way I test it I always put water with it. That's when you want to learn about whisky, when you want to learn about the flavours and the smells. When you drink whisky, I don't mind and I'm sure John doesn't mind if you put ice with it or you put water with it as long as you enjoy it. So I'm going to put a little drop of water into the Quarter Cask, just enough to break the bonds of the alcohol and it's only a little drop. When you pick the glass up and give it a swirl as John said You get a lot of the vanilla and soft flavours coming through. The fruit flavours, but its actually designed to give a smell that was different to the taste so if all our guests tonight would like to try and smell the whisky and then taste it because the secret behind Quarter Cask is that the taste is quite different to the smell. It smells soft and gentle and easy and when you taste it, its very very powerful on the peat which you don't get on the nose. Absolutely. Now this is where I might cause a problem. I'm a rookie whisky drinker and Rebecca is fairly recent to whisky as well, tell us what's your first reaction to this. I've only just smelt it on the nose, I haven't had a taste yet but I'm getting a lot of vanilla up front and it's quite round and smooth. Lin before you found out about this family connection were you a whisky drinker or have you suddenly become one now? I've suddenly become one yes! As you would have to. It's very nice though, I get entirely what you're saying about that bite on your tongue and one thing I've found is there's that lingering taste, its like an opera singer holding on to a beautiful note isn't it? It lingers it lasts and lasts. I actually describe it as a wolf in sheep's clothing because the smell is the sheep's clothing on the outside and the wolf is that peat power coming through on the inside when you taste it. There you go, so that's our Quarter Cask, we're going to move along now to the Triple Wood which has it's own fascinating story Robert. Triple Wood, now those of you who've tried Laphroaig before will know that it's quite difficult to do something with a Laphroaig because it's so powerful peat and it's got such a powerful flavour we succeeded with Quarter Cask, we actually produced something that was quite unique and quite different in the industry and when we were asked to produce another one we thought we've got this unique product can we extend it, can we make it a bit bigger, a bit better, a bit different. So we took Quarter Cask whisky and instead of bottling it we actually filled it into Oloroso sherry casks. Now if you pick up the second glass, the first smell you'll get is a little touch of sherry maybe something like raisins, or dried grapes or sultanas. Now added to that you'll also get the soft vanilla toffee flavours and the fruit flavours that come from the quarter casks and then you'll get the flavours that come from the barrels. Now when you taste it you get a lovely balanced taste, when you taste it first of all you get a little bit of the sherry, not too much which goes quickly. You get the fruit flavours and you end up with that part of the Laphroaig coming through. It's not as powerful as a Quarter Cask but it's nice, and it's distinct and it's flavoursome. The sherry, absolutely, I'm all over that. I'm learning a lot here. Very quickly, I'm on a steep learning curve! Now the next one that we have is a Gaelic word which I'm going to tackle here and that's the Cairdeas - close enough? Cairdeas is not bad. It's a 30 year whisky, now explain that to us as well. Well can I explain what Cairdeas is first because one of things we don't do, we don't produce special whiskies every year, or twice a year. The last year that John and I produced a special was in 2007 but we do once a year do a Cairdeas. Now Cairdeas means Friend in Gaelic and we do it for the last full week in May for the Laphroaig, the Islay festival of whisky and music and originally we started it off we would only do a couple of hundred bottles. And over the years it's increased and how many did we bottle this year John? Just about 10,000. So 10,000 cases, so there's quite a lot and the reason for that is because all of the Friends of Laphroaig around the world want to buy this. Now about 18 months, 2 years ago I spoke to Michael and John and said we have some casks, some 30, 32, 33 year old casks - can we do a special once for the Friends of Laphroaig and we produced the 30 Year Old Cairdeas. Now if you pick the glass up I want you to imagine something in your mind - I want you to imagine Christmas cake. I know it's difficult out here because you have Christmas on the beach, in Scotland we have it with 6 foot of snow! But I want you to think of Christmas cake, that spicy, that sweet, the fruits, the sweet fruits that you get and the spices the little bit of vanilla, the little bit of, how can I put it, like thick sugar, a nice dark sugar and that reminds me of Christmas cake and when you taste it tastes like a liqueur whisky. It's not a liqueur whisky, it's a pure whisky but it's got that thickness, that roundness that actually coats the inside of the mouth. Just before we go to our first question from a viewer, Rob I'll just get you to pass the mic down to Lin maybe. Lin are you able to pick up on what Robert and John have said here, and do you have a favourite among these three already? Well, I haven't tasted the last one yet but I'm very keen on the second one. Ok I guess I'm a fan more of the Quarter Cask than the Triple Wood but that's the great thing about whisky as well isn't it, individual flavours. So this is our first question coming in from Mark in the Netherlands, he's asking are Laphroaig planning any new editions? John, we better hand this one back to the manager. The short answer to that is no I guess, the new edition is the Cairdeas every year so we'll do that but the last one is Triple Wood which we've just launching into domestic markets this year so it used to be a travel retail exclusive. It's now going into domestic markets because its been so popular in travel retail and both of these first two have proved very popular and that's really the new editions we've had over the last 7 years. And I guess that's the interesting thing from the great traditions of this whisky that you have this magnificent landscape that you're sort of coaxing and encouraging and gently sort of caressing here and there and that tradition is so much a part of this that you really you don't want to be producing or trying new stuff every couple of years. The one thing I guess, Laphroaig has got such a long history as a single malt compared to a lot of other brands, we don't really have the same scope to do as much innovation as we're known for what we're known for. So that limits the amount of innovation we do. I think with the Friends of Laphroaig they don't want to see us innovating too much they want Laphroaig to be Laphroaig and I think when you're tasting the three of these you'll find Laphroaig DNA in all of them and that's really important. We take a lot of guidance from the Friends of Laphroaig. Speaking of peat, we've got a question from him right here. Pete in Australia does the strength of peat in the Laphroaig means they are difficult to match with subtle flavoured food? Who's going to take that one?No it's actually quite easy. Laphroaig as it is with that powerful peat will go with a lot of the red meat but it goes great with game, with venison, with pheasant, with partridge but you've all tried the Laphroaig tonight and you've got some of the fruit flavours, you've got some of the vanilla flavours and this goes well with sweets. One of the things that was said to me just a few weeks ago that a white chocolate mousse and Laphroaig together is superb. So really what you want to do is to play with it. Look at the Laphroaig, have a smell, have a taste and say what flavours do I get, what can I match them to not what we tell you to match them to. Rebecca we're getting a bit more brave in this country aren't we in terms of experimenting, I mean really we've come such a long way it was only 30 or 35 years ago that it was meat and three veg at night and that was it. And we have the most wonderful cuisine now, influenced from Asia and everywhere around the world but are you noticing that people are would potentially order a lovely Laphroaig with a meal here in a restaurant here in Sydney or Melbourne? I've seen whisky as a part of a disgustation as part of a tasting menu, but I've actually been in to total tasting menus where the menu is matched to a whole lot of whiskies. Which is very, very exciting. On Pete's question about subtle foods, because there is so much complexity in whisky, I think it makes the perfect liquid to actually be, the perfect beverage, spirit, to be matching with food because there is so much nuance and complexity and interest in the flavours. Now we've had these three but John if we had a drum roll I'd do it right now, but we don't have any drums with me because as you mentioned before we're hear for a specific reason and that is to celebrate in many ways Lins connection to this fantastic company. With that in mind you have brought with you, and I hope it's still intact, something on the plane with you from Islay. And that is what? I'm going to have to bend down and get it. Don't look up his kilt everybody, look the other way! So what we've got here is a very special bottling, we're lucky enough we've got a very famous Laphroaig friend, his name is Marcel and what we've asked Marcel for was to get some liquid that was distilled when it was still in the Johnston period. So early 50s, bottled in the 60s and we've got some Laphroaig 10Year Old here, very, very rare so we'll share with Lin now some of her ancestors liquid, well the last produced whisky by her ancestors. How fantastic, now I guess the thing is too, this is a mystery isn't it? We don't know what this is going to taste like. This is live television or live internet television so we don't know what we're going to get here. There are a lot of variables that could cause this whisky to be different. I think that's one of the exciting things, its one of the things I'm looking forward to. It depends how it's stored, it depends - there are a lot of variables here, we might open it up and if it's not been stored correctly well unlucky I guess! But still it's liquid history of Laphroaig and that's the real, the link to the Johnston family so that's the real bit I like. Ok, if you're a betting man do you think it might taste a little bit like a 10 Year Old Laphroaig? Nope! Straight answer! I think we're going to, my assumption would be that this will be a mix of casks, quite a lot of variables, maybe sherry and bourbon casks which 99% of what we do now is first fill bourbons and specialities. Most of Laphroaig are first fill bourbons, so I think I'm going to get quite a variation in flavours in here from different types of casks and maybe re-fill casks as well. If we might say this had it's own business class seat on it's way out from the UK as well by the way so, next to John. This is going to be really interesting. So Lin we're looking at a bottle that has a direct link back to your family, which must be a wonderful feeling for you I'm sure. First impressions, the colour, Robert? Well its actually darker than I would have expected. Back in those days whiskies were usually a little bit paler, because of the mix of casks they had. They would have used what we would call first fill and second fill, and second fill gives a slightly paler colour so it's darker than I would have imagined but the only way to test whether it is right or not is to smell it. Now on the nose, the first thing I'm getting is apricots. Right, John, you agree? Yes, yes. This must be quite an exciting moment for both of you to pop the top of this. Well it is, I mean as John said we had no idea what was in there. I've tried bottles that were bottled back in the 50s and 60s that were actually completely undrinkable because they'd been stored in conditions that were wrong. If it gets too warm or there is too much light on it, you'll actually get a slightly bitter whisky and it won't taste nice. Now on the nose this actually smells beautiful, oh you've tasted it already! She beat you to the punch! Wow. Really? There you go. Let's pass the microphone down to Lin, Lin it must be in some ways quite an emotional evening for you to have all these people, they've come out here for you basically and to have this bottle in front of you that is a direct link back to your ancestors must be a great moment. I think Alexander would be rolling in his grave if he knew what he left behind. Can you imagine him seeing the Opera House behind us here and this beautiful spring evening in Sydney and trying this glorious bottle of Laphroaig. It's something I've never known, whether he was a whisky drinker. There you go, maybe that's why he and Donald split up in the first place. Maybe, my father stuck to brandy so maybe he wasn't a whisky drinker. But it is, yes, it's very exciting. So coming back to Robert and John, we'll pass the microphone - a final word John now you've a little bit of time to absorb this, a final word on this extraordinary whisky. It's always fantastic to taste liquid history in front of you here, there's definitely sherry casks involved in this one, quite a lot of sherry. Great body, great mouth feel on this liquid as well and you do get the, there is a flavour in Laphroaig, it's like a liquorice root and it's not overly peated I'd think compared to some that we do but it's the traditional Laphroaig flavours are still there which is nice because it just stamps what I'm doing today as well so that's nice. We're still doing it the same way. Very good. Now speaking of Friends of Laphroaig I'm sure there are very jealous people watching in at the moment around the world who would love to be part of this tasting right now. Now you've probably heard in the background a few barbecue noises, it wouldn't be a visit to Australia without an Aussie barbecue ok, so we have got executive chef Adam who has been cooking up a storm here if I might run through some of these dishes, we've got barbecue pork ribs with house made smoky barbecue sauce which has been infused with Laphroaig whisky as well. Grilled barramundi fillet which has been cooked with a whisky butter sauce which should be really interesting, some chargrilled kangaroo skewers, notice they're not wallaby skewers, hopefully that's what the springboks are hoping to do to us at the weekend, it's not going to happen let me tell you. We've got some crocodile steaks, we haven't wrestled them ourselves from up north and some wonderful lamb loin chops and some eggplant steaks which is really interesting, so the smells that are coming off there are superb, we're going to cut that up and give everyone a little taste pretty shortly. John just while we're staring at this beautiful food and smelling it as well, it must be interesting for you to come down to the Asia Pacific region, this is an economic powerhouse that we're on the rim of here with China and Japan and Korea. What is the market like for extending into the southern hemisphere and specifically into the Asia Pacific? It's something we have to watch. One of the, the Northern hemisphere countries are teetering on the brink of financial uncertainty I guess - the markets we're in are currently still growing, so it's kind of snowballing the need for Laphroaig so places like China and that we haven't really touched there because for example Australia is still growing, so the markets we're currently in we want to keep growing - we don't want to have to say you can't get it because we're supplying China now, we want to keep the markets we're currently in sweet. Interesting, just keeping our link going with everyone watching at home thank you very much to Richard who's watching from Halifax in Canada, and a call out from Roman in Russia as well. We've had a big hi from Nigel in London as well, and Craig who's watching in Western Australia which is 3 hours behind us here in Sydney as the sun sets over the Indian Ocean and one question we've had from Michael who's in Portland, Oregon, Robert I'll ask this of you, what kind of water, does it matter if it's soda water, if it's tap water, if it's bottled water if it's added to your whisky is that going to impact on the flavour as well? No, as long as it's wet. I'm a bit of a rebel in the master blender stakes, I say you should drink whisky the way you like it and if you want to take it with mineral water or soda water or ice as long as you enjoy it! That's the main thing behind it. Why should John and I spend years of our lives trying to do something in the bottle that we think is superb and then you take it and someone says to you 'oh the only way you can have whisky is to put more whisky in it'. You can't. You can put what you like in it as long as you enjoy it so it really doesn't matter what water you put into it, and even ice. My personal favourite is Quarter Cask with a big lump of ice in. Jolly good, I'll take the microphone off you momentarily thanks Rob. We'll step out into the audience and get a question from the crowd. These poor people have been smelling this amazing barbecue and tasting their whiskies. Tony, you have a question that you'd like to direct to the panel. Yes, will the barbecue sauce be available for purchase? I'll go back to these guys, they're chatting among themselves. Tony, thank you very much indeed. John, the question that has come from Tony is will the barbecue sauce be available for purchase? Well it's a new recipe so it's something we're still working on. I would hope it would be available shortly and we'll probably be launching it through the website or through Friends of Laphroaig,and you should be able to get it on the website. Now can I just point out to our viewers at home that Sydney has not caught fire, this is the smoke that is coming from our barbecue, we disappeared behind a cloud right here. We're still ok everybody! The smells are really spectacular, we're looking forward to hooking into this food here very shortly. Robert your first impressions generally of coming down to Aussie? Well it's my first trip and it's John's first trip and I must admit, I felt at home here because it's one of the few countries out this way that I can actually talk to everyone because they speak the same language that I do. They maybe don't understand my Scottish language because John and I don't speak English, we speak Scottish and it's quite nice that you can walk along the street, John did sessions Monday and Tuesday and yesterday, I did them as well and it was great getting questions from the audience in English that we could understand without a translator so I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Rebecca is there something that you think these two guys should see before they leave these shores? I always think for Sydney a trip onto the harbour is how to showcase our city and I like to do it on a public ferry. I actually think it's a really nice way to go, just the normal public transport, there's many places to you to... or the river, that's my favourite. Lin I'll get John to reach across and get a little bit of food tasting going on, look it's Australia we can just do it anyway we want. I'm just going to stab a little bit of crocodile right there so....tell me what you think. As we've said all of these yummy little treats have been infused with some kind of Laphroaig influence as well, the whisky butter for the barramundi and the barbecue sauce with the whisky as well. Lin, while everyone serves up here any last thoughts from you on this kind of an evening and how you felt about it all? Well I think it's wonderful that Scotland is so far away in our imagination really and to have it linked by something as delicious as Laphroaig whisky is fantastic and maybe it'll send other Australians looking for their Scottish roots to see if there is a whisky connection. How amazing that that story has unfolded and as we were saying before the show its like a layer, like a cake layer, every time you peel something back something new has emerged from this great picture. I was in Islay a couple of years ago and we stayed in Port Ellen in a B&B with a friend and she was quite excited when I said who I was, softly I said it so she rang the Laphroaig people I don't think they believed me! But we had a tour anyway, good Scottish hospitality. We do have a question now which comes back to John and it's not really related much to whisky Mr. Campbell this one. My wife wants to know if John is married! This is from Bill in Brisbane. You're on the spot now Mr. Campbell. Well my wife will be watching too so, definitely married yes. First time trying crocodile as well, it's different but it's good and the Laphroaig sauce is just fantastic. Unfortunately for Bill's wife I am married so. Sorry about that Bill's wife, whoever you are and thanks for the question as well and thanks to everyone who has been writing in throughout the show as well. This one from Robert Fenwick in the US, are changing climate conditions making the malting, really interesting question, making the malting and the production of whisky any different, are there more challenges these days? I would say no, the malting condition you just react to the middle phase, the germination phase anyway so we just cut it back if it's hotter or colder. I wouldn't necessarily say we've seen a difference in global warming on Islay it's still 5 to 25 Celisus all year round so and we certainly haven't noticed a difference in extreme weather conditions in Islay. It's just rain, or rain on it's way. Well very different climatic conditions from Islay are in Thailand and we've just had a lovely message from Chris who says I'm sitting here in Thailand watching the video full of jealousy in the air conditioning, the humidity outside is probably 98% and 35 degrees in Thailand right now but thank you very much indeed Chris for sending in that message as well. John, subtlety, patience, all those words come to mind when you talk about the growing this fantastic drink. Yes, there is a lot of waiting, we do.. a lot of the when we're processing it, or putting it through the distillery, a lot of the quality indicators are done by the guys on site and it ends up with the warehouse men who pour it into the casks ready for the long sleep, so it shouldn't be left to chance. We do a lot of the quality indicators there and we do a lot of experimentation on the site as well just to try and push the boundaries of the liquid, which is one of the really interesting parts of the job that I've got. And thank you to Rajiv who's watching in India and Philip in Sri Lanka as well, we have viewers in the sub-continent as well so thank you very much. The Aussie cricketers have just been to Sri Lanka, now another question this one comes from... in Lithuania, we'll give this one to Rob - is it worth drinking Laphroaig, did you see the rest of the question? This is a question I'm asked all the time. Is it worth buying, not just Laphroaig, but any whisky and keeping it to mature in the bottle. Well that's a complete and utter fallacy, whisky does not mature in bottle. If anything, it gets slightly worse. The best flavour you can get is when you buy the bottle and do what the sailors used to do, you take the cork off the bottle and throw it away. Because I hate, I try to put the best whisky I can in the bottle because John tries to make the best whisky he can and I don't like it when I hear people saying I paid £5,000, £10,000 for a bottle of whisky as an investment. Whisky is made to be drunk and enjoyed, not as investment and you shouldn't keep it for 2 years, 3 years or 4 years. Keep it for... well if you're in Scotland, a couple of weeks but that's enough. I'm going to get a food question in here from Simon, sitting on the panel by the way, what do you think of what you're munching on here? Well I've had a couple of the things but I'm really excited about the sauce so that definitely has to get onto the website and be on the market soon. The barbecue sauce? Yeah the barbecue sauce is delicious as a sauce in itself, but the whisky flavours coming through they're just like make your mouth buds explode. After John patches things up at home, when he gets home with his wife, he'll be straight on to making sure that sauce is available.It is an interesting thing too Lin, we'll direct this one to you, that now you can go onto the Laphroaig website and purchase T-shirts, baseball caps all that kind of stuff but it is interesting to think what Alexander and Donald Johnston might have envisaged about all that sort of thing, nearly 200 years ago. They had a great Scottish reticence actually, Alexander purchased 17 acres of land in... near the south coast. It is actually but that 17 acres of land is still there and it hasn't been developed or built on or farmed or anything. I'm sure he'd be pleased that they're saving it! I can see a holiday home for these two, in their retirement years. Which leads me to an interesting question, the climate in Tasmania is quite similar to Scotland, have you heard anything about Australian whisky production? Yes... there are 8 distilleries in Tasmania...so I know he's been at Laphroaig and his wife and his daughter as well so I know the Australian whisky makers as well. The whole of the whisky industry is very much a big family, so everyone knows everyone and we all keep in touch with each other. One more question, this one comes from Tas in Holland, don't you lose too much alcohol if you mature Laphroaig for 30 years in casks John? Well we do lose a lot of alcohol but happens is, your 30 Year Old you'll probably lose about maybe 60% of the total volume in the cask but what happens is that liquid will get replaced by air and when that happens you get oxidisation and the oxidisation is really important to the development of the flavours as well that's why older whiskies - the peat level doesn't change in Laphroaig actually, so when you taste older whiskies you think the peat levels not the same but it's because of that oxidisation and that change in flavours, they start to over-power the peat flavours, they start to get on top of them a wee bit. Oxidisation is really important for the flavour profile in whisky. Just a rugby question here I know I'm jumping off topic but you're flying into the southern hemispere and your boys are flying home, what's happened? That was so close last week! I'm going to Auckland tomorrow where England are playing Saturday night. We should have won probably both games, if they could go for 80 minutes Scotland would be a decent team but unfortunately it was only really 75 minutes i both games and then last minute tries stumped us, unlucky. Glorious losers. That's life, I had to ask you that. A question now from Michael in Germany, what is the oldest cask which is still laying in a warehouse Robert would you hazard a guess? 28... oh no! The oldest we do is a 25 Year Old which has got whisky going up to 28 Year Old but, as you said, Laphroaig is nearly 200 years old. 2015 is the 200th Birthday and we've got some specials that have been lying in the warehouse that we ring-fenced back in the 90's for the actual birthday. So, I don't want to say any more than that, what I will say is that we've got some specials coming up in 2015. Jolly good, look forward to that. This question for John now, this has come from... in Sydney, do all expressions of Laphroaig use malt that has been peated to the same level, good question? That is a good question because the variation in flavour that is in Laphroaig will come from the cask maturation so we only produce one type of spirit, the same level of peatiness and it's through the casks, and the different ages that will produce the different flavours. Scientifically there is the same amount of peat in the old whisky as the 10 Year Old, it's just changed slightly. Well we've got this audience that is waiting patiently, they have been so good, we've got all these amazing smells and great flavours ahead for them when we wrap things up tonight as well. Just thank you to everyone who is watching on the internet at home and thank you to executive chef Adam, thank you very much, well done mate, great job! Round of applause for Adam! Superb stuff. Cooking some our our great barramundi and our beautiful lamb, some roo as well which we'd like people to taste and a bit of crocodile which John has had hear for the first time as well. Now discussions will continue after the show and in the days and weeks ahead, when of course you can keep questions coming in for John, for Robert. If you're on Facebook you can go to Facebook.com/Laphroaig or if you are on Twitter which I am not but the rest of the world is it seems, including Rebecca these days who's a big tweet and that is @LaphroaigWhisky I should say if you're on Twitter as well. But it has been our great pleasure having you all with us and especially for our special guest Lin Johnston on a very historic evening and lovely to celebrate your link back to this extraordinary whisky company. And I'm sure for John and Robert it's great to be down under as well. Absolutely fantastic and hope it's the first of many visits. Thank you so much for coming sharing some of your wonderful expressions with us, and Rebecca thank you to you as well and you can follow Rebecca on Insidecuisine.com of course, or follow Rebecca on Twitter. There you go, she is on Twitter. I'd just like to say thank you to Laphroaig for having me too. I was going to say it's my pleasure but I don't work for the company, but it is my pleasure, and our pleasure as well. Thanks so much you've contributed greatly to tonight's discussion. And of course, nearly 500,000 fans of Laphroaig, Friends of Laphraoaig around the world we may even tick over 500,000 after tonight, it's been great having your company on the internet as well. What a fantastic thing it is and if I might just say a lot of people will be watching on Apple computers tonight, and what a sad day it is with the passing of Steve Jobs so if you're having a wee dram or two tonight maybe raise your glass to Steve Jobs as well. So thank you very much to the Friends of Laphroaig around the world it's been great having you with us. We look forward to doing this all again next year where who knows where we'll end up but you've travelled a long way to come to us and we're deeply appreciative that you did so John, Robert, Rebecca, Lin thank you. The audience here are about to enjoy the food and the whisky, thanks everyone, big round of applause. Bye bye for now from Australia.