Whisky and Whiskey

I've had two stories out in the past fortnight for Business Leader centred around whisk(e)y - coincidentally.

The difference in spelling is because of the alcohol's origin. American whiskey comes with an 'e'.

More specifically, I've been sampling Scotch and Bourbon.

First up I took a trip to my hometown of Edinburgh to visit a vertical whisky distillery completed last year called The Port of Leith Distillery . It's in a 40-metre tall building which took ￡12m to construct, raised from a global array of investors.

Co-founder Paddy Fletcher showed me around and starred in this video (in which you can also see the building in all its glory):

Location is key. The distillery is right next to the Royal Yacht Britannia and the new tram depot. So it gets steady footfall from tourists.

Paddy and his co-founder Ian Stirling have an interesting challenge. It takes 3 years of maturation before you can label whisky as Scotch. And it fetches a higher price the longer you let it mature. So the distillery for now attracts a huge customer base for future sales, as well as bringing in revenue from the tours and its amazing penthouse bar. Investors will have to be patient.

Much more about this business venture in the podcast which will air in the next few weeks.

While in Edinburgh I also caught up with Fraser Smeaton , co-founder of MorphCostumes , which resulted in this photograph.

The business selling fun costumes was started in 2009, inspired by a stag do in Dublin. It now has a turnover of more than ￡40m and employs more than 65 people. Its HQ is just off the Royal Mile, very near the Scottish parliament.

Lots of interesting things about this business. For example, even though it sells through huge retailers like Target and Walmart, it does the vast majority of its sales direct to consumer through Amazon.

Whiskey

Back to whiskey, with an 'e' this time.

I caught up Fawn Weaver who is the woman behind Uncle Nearest, Inc. whiskey, when she paid a visit to London last week.

I read her book Love & Whiskey next to the pool while on holiday, so I was prepared to meet a remarkable person.

We covered her early life and career in the podcast episode which will air soon, including the influence of her parents, who turned from A-list Motown socialites in LA to strict Southern Baptists. She left home at 15 to strike out on her own, staying in homeless shelters, before finding her feet as an entrepreneur in the worlds of PR, real estate and hospitality.

In recent years, she has built a highly successful 'challenger' whiskey brand with multi-million dollar revenues. She's had to fight hard to achieve that. Not only is it difficult to disrupt the spirits industry with a new product - she is also doing it as a woman of color, which makes her a very rare commodity.

She talks about that in the video we made:

Books

Weaver's book Love & Whiskey is a great read and I recommend it.

Another fantastic book I'm sure is the one my colleague, the editor-in-chief of Business Leader , Graham Ruddick , has just announced. It's called Risk Roulette and is published by Kogan Page Publishing . You can pre-order it here .

It's a deep dive into the concept of risk in business and entrepreneurship. I've only discussed it with him in the office and can't wait to read it myself!

If you want to check out the book I wrote based on my work for the BBC series I devised called CEO Secrets, you can find it here . The code 'CEO25' should get you a 25% discount.

Dougal