What’s it like working in your family’s 140 year old whisky business?
Kirsten Grant Miekle talks House of Hazlewood, and being the fifth generation of the William Grant & Sons family business.
In a time when news is news for just the briefest of moments, before it’s overtaken by the next news moment, just another brief data point in an ever constant torrent of information we’re scrolling through, it can be hard to get a perspective on things. The week often feels like it’s over before it began, and then bang — we’re onto the next one.
So I really enjoyed being able to stop a while, and talk to Kirsten Grant Meikle, a director and fifth-generation member of the William Grant & Sons business. Kirsten was in Australia last month to promote their luxury, House of Hazelwood whisky range, and I caught up with her at their new Australian offices overlooking Sydney Harbour — and I got to try some very delicious, rather old, and genuinely unique whisky.
The House of Hazelwood series of releases pulls from the family’s stock reserves, blending whisky they’ve collected over many decades — the one I tasted with Kirsten in this episode dates back to the 1960s, and — as you’ll hear in this episode — it left me somewhat lost for words.
But I also asked Kirsten about their time horizons — they’re making plans for whiskies 30 years out from today and more — and also what it felt like to work at the company her great-great-grandfather founded back in the 1880s, and whether that legacy was a burden, and how it informs her worldview.
Below, I’ve got a few lightly edited quotes from Kirsten, but do give the full episode a listen.
“It’s a passion project.”
The House of Hazelwood releases are one of a kind whiskies. They often don’t really know how the family came into possession of them, many have been traded to them from other distilleries over the decades. And, as you might expect from distilleries back before widespread computer adoption, the record keeping can be a little difficult to comb through.
“The warehouse management system is a pile of books, with pencil entries,” says Kirsten.
“This is a liquid that you will never be able to recreate legally.”
Kirsten is talking about the Blended At Birth bottling, which saw two new make spirits from different distilleries blended before they were legally Scotch, a process which was outlawed by the Scotch Whisky Association in the 1990s.
That’s why the whiskies in the House of Hazelwood collection, according to Kirsten, are time capsules that tell the story of their company in liquid form; they are a reflection of where the business was at in a certain point in time.
“Look at the bigger picture — think a bit more long term.”
Not many people work in their family business these days — fewer still work in a family business that has been at it for 140 years. So I asked Kirsten what that legacy feels like, and whether it’s a burden.
“Responsibility is the word,” she says. “We’ve got a responsibility, our generation, to pass on the business in a bigger and better place. That’s our burden and we’re very fortunate.
“We’re custodians of the brands for the next generation and that’s our job. It’s as simple as that.”
Boothby Staff