Do you have one of the greatest jobs in whisky? This new series on the podcast will feature every few weeks, exploring some of the incredible people and unexpected jobs in the diverse whisky industry. And we start with Seamus Carroll runs the world’s biggest whisky club from a desk in Tasmania with a real flex of a cask sample collection behind him. Six years in as GM of The Whisky Club, I interviewed Seamus just before Tasmanian Whisky Week, home turf for the club, and doubles as a happy-birthday episode — The Whisky Club has just clocked thirteen months operating in New Zealand, on the way to more than 40,000 members across Australia and NZ. If you’ve considered The Whisky Club and really wanted to understand how it works - or how deep the whisky rabbit hole goes - this is a great episode for you. Even if you’re not a whisky fan, but you love marketing and communication! Tash and Seamus get into how a subscription model changes the conversation between distillery and drinker, why “brand-led marketing shorthand” (France likes bourbon casks, Taiwan likes sherry, you’ve heard it all before) undersells what members actually want. Plus Seamus shares some of his remarkable and unbeatable anecdotes from favourite distilleries, distillers and blenders - proving that you don’t have to make whisky to have one of the greatest jobs in the business. Guest Seamus Carroll — GM, The Whisky Club (Australia and New Zealand). Came into the industry working for GlenDronach, BenRiach and Glenglassaugh for Brown-Forman in this part of the world, then went to Tasmania and never left. In this episode * 00:37 — Who Seamus is behind the cask samples: the route in via GlenDronach, BenRiach and Glenglassaugh, and falling for Tasmania on a cellar door visit * 02:10 — What The Whisky Club actually is: 40,000+ members, world’s biggest whisky club, AU and NZ only * 03:52 — Breaking down the job past the glamour — the whisky team, the head of whisky creation in Scotland, ops, and why missing a delivery day is not an option * 08:23 — Why The Whisky Club sits in a unique space between whisky geekery and commercial reality, and what that does that brand-led marketing can’t * 09:52 — The three ways a whisky gets released: the undiscovered distillery, the reintroduction of an old favourite, or letting the maker do exactly what they want * 12:09 — Rachel Barry’s office visit, the GlenDronach/BenRiach/Glenglassaugh five-year pipeline, and why she stopped taking cask-type requests * 13:36 — The GlenGrant counter-example: showing off distillery character with zero dressing up * 15:53 — Pouring Cù Bòcan 15 — heavily sherried, heavily peated, and very much not what you’d expect from the Highlands * 17:55 — How the club actually tracks what members want: the panel, the 5–10 rating scale, virtual tastings, and staying out of a “settled palate” * 20:49 — The 25-year-old whisky trends book, and why cask finishing was the number one trend then and now * 24:06 — Seamus’s pour: BenRiach’s upcoming Golden Promise Whisky of the Month * 26:02 — Golden Promise barley, properly nerded out — the 1950s/60s discovery, the viscosity, the fall from favour, and why BenRiach went looking for it * 32:10 — Tasmania’s third wave, the Australian and New Zealand Scotch-drinking heritage, and the “for our Antipodean brethren” back label * 36:04 — Bill Lark, the 1970s closures, and the founding moment of modern Australian whisky * 37:12 — Pōkeno’s Middle-earth release, Waiheke’s use of native peat and Manuka, and making whisky “of our place” rather than in Scotland’s image * 39:04 — Communal drinking cultures — the bourbon-bottle-on-the-table versus the cellar dram, and why gathering predates the category * 48:01 — NZ versus Australia member behaviour: Irish whisky’s Australian following and the Tamdhu effect in under-served New Zealand * 50:29 — The real distributor conversation right now: allocation and A&P, not advertising budgets * 51:18 — Pōkeno’s reception in Australia, and what’s coming the other way * 52:49 — This week’s favourite moment: four years of GlenDronach, BenRiach and Glenglassaugh cask samples with Rachel Barry * 53:52 — The whisky Seamus can’t stop thinking about: a 1980s-style peated BenRiach cask sample with an “iron bark, metallic barbecue sauce” note * 56:34 — The one thing left on the list: following a whisky from first fill to release, start to finish * 57:29 — Sign-off — catching Get full access to More Good Drinks at www.moregooddrinks.com/subscribe
