27 August 2010

Drink Factory Interview- John Glaser, Compass Box Whiskies



1.What was the first alcoholic drink you remember having?

Schaefer beer from a can. Ten years-old. Backyard with dad.He was grilling steaks on bbq. Thought it tasted grainy and terrible. Sometimes, when drinking cheap beer, that first taste memory comes back.

2. What are your 3 favourite drinks? With recipes if you have them; old, new and your own? Old

Clynelish mixed with about 20% of Caol Ila.

White Burgundy.

Beer (except Schaefer). More specifically, that super-hoppy American style IPA.

3. Tell us about a new flavour you have discovered recently?

Sumach. Transforms kebabs.

4. If you could pass something onto a bartender, what would it be?

Enlightenment about what great whisky really is. Just give me a call and I’ll come by.

5. What does the future hold for yourself and what do you see happening in the future within the industry?

More and better distilling, not just from me, from people all over the world who have a craft mentality. (To understand what I think “craft” means, read Richard Sennet’s book “The Craftsman” http://www.amazon.co.uk/Craftsman-Richard-Sennett/dp/0141022094/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281091337&sr=1-1 )


6. What has been your biggest satisfaction from applying your work to the drinks industry?

I think everyone should have the satisfaction that comes with doing for a living something you are truly interested in, something you are passionate about.

7. What influences your work from outside the industry?

Winemakers, winemaking. Literature.

8. If you were to break a ...

Back. Step on your mother’s crack. Or something like that.

9. Outside of flavour and the craft of the cocktail what in your opinion effects the appreciation of cocktails the most?

Service- a gracious sense of hospitality that makes you feel, as you sit at the bar, that the staff are sincerely enjoying welcoming you into what is figuratively speaking their “home”.

10. If you were to champion a cocktail which would it be?

Bicicletta. (Fergus is right.) Got to love something that works just as well at 9.30 in the morning as 9.30 at night.


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