Auf der Seite der Lochlea Distillery auf Facebook hat Master Blender und Production Manager John Campbell gestern am späteren Nachmittag eine Botschaft an die Freunde der Brennerei veröffentlicht, in der er auf das abgelaufene Jahr und die Zukunft der Destillerie Bezug nimmt. John räumt ein, dass er vom Erfolg der Brennerei mehr als überrascht war – und dass dieser Erfolg auch eine Herausforderung für die Zukunft ist. Man hat doppelt so viele Flaschen produziert als geplant war. Im nächsten Jahr wird man die Experimente mit dem Floor Malting fortsetzen und John wird vor allem auf die Konsistenz der neuen „Our Balrey“ Releases achten. Zudem kündigt er eine spezielle Abfüllung in der Mitte des nächsten Jahres an.
Nachfolgend der Text, den John Campbell veröffentlichte. Sie können übrigens gemeinsam mit John eine ausführliche Führung durch Lochlea machen – mit unserem Video, das wir mit John Campbell im Oktober dieses Jahres aufgenommen haben.
Hello everyone, John here.
John Campbell
It’s been a quick first year at Lochlea, but a good year. I’ve learned so much and I’m happy about that. The welcome I have received from the Lochlea staff and the local community has been very generous.
This past year I have learned all about Ayrshire; about arable farming and the fluffiness of soil (who knew that was a thing and that it was so important?), about Lochlea’s history, the different personalities of the team members, the Lochlea production techniques, how to store barley and how to do floor malting in Ayrshire conditions. I’ve helped create Lochlea whisky styles and I continue to learn all about you, the Lochlea consumers.
Our biggest problem in the last year has actually been the success we have had, as we’ve produced double the amount of bottles that we were planning to do! This has caused very positive problems which we have all had to adjust to. The whole team has come together to understand the end-to-end process and we’ve been stretched, but I do love the Lochlea team culture as everybody just mucks in.
2023 is about investing in and developing the whole team, as all big changes in production are now done, allowing us to just tweak and refine things to improve and make us more efficient. We have to try to manage and minimise the rising costs associated with producing whisky to stay competitive but we will also have lots of fun too. We’ll also be tackling some more floor malting and we’ll try not to get so many blisters next year!
As for our whiskies in 2023, I will need to fine tune all the seasonal releases and keep the strong consistency of Lochlea ‘Our Barley’. Keep an eye out for something special arriving in the middle of the year…
Again, thanks so much for your support, it really means a lot. I look forward to hopefully seeing you at some point in 2023. Have a safe and Merry Christmas and a happy holiday period when it comes.
