Recorded in the historic Vaults in Leith, Mitch Bechard is joined by SMWS “chief storyteller” Richard Goslan and Kask Whisky founder Justine Hazlehurst for a deep dive into one of Scotch whisky’s most overlooked powerhouses.

Leith was never just a port. It was a whisky engine room: bonding, brokering, blending, bottling and shipping enormous volumes of Scotch around the world. At one point, the area was home to around 90–100 bonded warehouses, yet its role in shaping the modern industry is often pushed into the background.

Richard brings The Vaults to life, from its ancient origins and long links with the drinks trade to the birth of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society in 1983. He shares how the Society’s single-cask ethos developed, why bottle 1.1 became legendary, how the tasting panel works, and how SMWS bottle names manage to be both brilliant and completely unhinged.

Justine guides us through Leith’s boom-and-bust whisky past, from Pattison’s infamous 1898 crash, to wars, consolidation, the whisky loch, and the stories still hiding in plain sight on the Leith Whisky Trail. There are disputed parrots, a very real pub puma attack, independent bottling chat, festival stories, and a reminder that whisky history is always better when it hasn’t been polished to death.

A proper sense-of-place episode from one of Scotland’s most important whisky rooms.

00:00 Welcome to The Vaults in Leith

00:48 Meet Richard Goslan and Justine Hazlehurst

02:46 Inside the history of The Vaults

05:57 Why Leith matters to Scotch whisky

08:46 The origins of the Leith Whisky Trail

11:06 Wild stories from Leith’s past

12:46 SMWS founding story and bottle labels

16:30 Whisky as a shared community

19:54 Leith’s boom-and-bust whisky timeline

26:02 The whisky loch and SMWS’s first cask

28:11 SMWS codes, flavour profiles and tasting culture

29:42 How the SMWS tasting panel works

30:47 The joy of flamboyant bottle names

31:25 Creators Collection and whisky artwork

32:28 Desert island dram: SMWS 1.1

34:54 Glenfarclas and Leith connections

35:50 The independent bottling boom

38:26 Fife Whisky Festival and modern whisky culture

40:39 Justine’s Pattison crash book

45:19 The Pattison parrots myth

48:01 Finding Pip Hills again

52:07 Vaults legends and wild old days

54:35 Where to find Richard and Justine

Hosted by Mitch Bechard and Daz Haldane, this is where the whisky world gets pulled apart properly, with stories, insights, and the occasional bit of chaos along the way.

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