Interviewer:
Today is International Women's Day and along with subscription service, Whiskey Loot, we want to celebrate female distillers. Historically, the spirits' industry has been dominated by men whose contributions are born out by the bottles that bear their names, but slowly more women are standing next to the steel. One such woman is Naomi McIntosh, who distills for the Australian whiskey brand, Chief's Son. We talked to Naomi about breaking through the glass distilling ceiling and the whiskey that she makes.

Interviewer:
Thanks for joining us, Naomi.

Naomi:
It's a pleasure. Thank you.

Interviewer:
So, how did you get into distilling?

Naomi:
Stuart and myself own Chief's Son Distillery, and how we came to get into distilling is a great story, in that 11 years ago, we bought three bottles of whiskey and you could send away to get another sample of whiskey, but it was only one per person. And as the female, I was the organiser and I registered everybody to do that, but there was also a 25 words or less competition as to why you should go to Strathisla Distillery in Scotland.
So I entered Stuart into it, and Stuart's dad entered, and Stuart's dad words actually won. “My grandparents passed the love of whiskey through my parents to me, and I want to make sure my children pass it on to their children.”

Interviewer:
Which is lovely.

Naomi:
So, Stuart and his dad went off to Scotland, whilst I say that I'm the hero of the story, because I got to stay home with our two and a half year old daughter and six month old twin boys.

Interviewer:
Oh, bless.

Naomi:
Yeah. So father and son, they had a great trip, but it quickly turned into a research trip on Stuart's behalf. And when he returned, we imported a still and started experimenting with malts, yeasts, barrels. And after four years we decided to go commercial, bought a property and stepped up from our 40 litre still to our current 4,000 litre still.

Interviewer:
What was it about the trip that made him decide that distilling was something he wanted to explore further?

Naomi:
Yeah. So the trip, they actually got access to all areas. So they got to go to the yeast propagation, the bond storage at Cooperage, obviously the distillery itself, and Stuart's mind ticked over and he was like... his famous words were, "Whiskey is not that hard to make," which big picture, it’s not, it’s just as I say, “beer made better” but the devil's in the detail, of course.

Interviewer:
And what about your interest? What made you keen to get involved?

Naomi:
Well, Stuart and I had always worked in business together and have known each other for years and years. And I do have a science background and I love seeing the progress of the barley, through the wash, being turned into new-make spirit and then ageing it in the barrels and what the barrels do to that spirit to turn it into whiskey. I just love that process and I love the final product as well. So, to be actually making something that is your own is pretty special.

Interviewer:
Distilling is very much a male-dominated industry. Did that factor to you in a any way?

Naomi:
Not at all. As I said, this is a business that Stuart and I started together. And we've always worked together. So, starting a distillery was just another step in our adventure with my best friend and life partner and business partner. Saying that, you are right, there are lots of males and I would say 99% of those males are awesome. It's a great industry to be in. We're all business owners and distillers together, so we have that. Of course there's a small minority of the typical alpha males that want to rule the industry, but you get them in every industry. But of course it goes without saying that 100% of the females in this industry are absolutely awesome.

Interviewer:
Do you get a chance to interact with other female distillers much?

Naomi:
We do actually. There's a few female distillers actually down here on the Mornington Peninsula. So, it's great to be able to connect with them. And you obviously have that connection that you are distillers, you're business owners and you're also female, so we have that great connection. And we often ring each other up and have a chat about whatever's going on, business distilling or otherwise. That was really important to keep that connection going with everybody as well, just to see how everybody was traveling during that year that was.

Interviewer:
What do you think women can bring to distilling?

Naomi:
Distilling is a science and an art. I discover it as being a science to get the whiskey into the barrel and then it's an art to get it out. So, as long as you understand the process and have attention to detail... I like the science part of it. And then the art, which is the tasting of the whiskey, which is pallet driven. And I don't feel that either of those skills are necessarily gender specific, but if women have got those skills, they definitely can excel in this industry.

Interviewer:
Let's talk about the name, where the name Chief's Son comes from.

Naomi:
Definitely. So our surname is McIntosh, which in Gaelic is Mac an Tòisich, which literally means son of chief, and so hence we flipped it around to Chief's Son Distillery.

Interviewer:
Okay.

Naomi:
Yes.

Interviewer:
And the logo that you use, the bird, is it?

Naomi:
Yes. Yes. So, obviously, I'm not a blood McIntosh. Obviously I'm married to Stuart, but I love birds and have always watched birds with my dad. And the logo ties me to the brand and it's actually symbolic of the white bellied seagull that we have, that is a coastal Australian bird and we have here on the Peninsula. So it shows our providence, is actually... He or she is actually drawn in, in such a way that she also is the same kind of shape as our still. Our still is quite short. She has three feathers as well, which denotes the chief, because the chief of the clan wears three feathers in his bonnet. The feathers are also drawn in a trinity ring, so showing that generation through generation as well.
Which goes back to our foundation statement of sharing, passing that love of whiskey from one generation to another.

Interviewer:
Let's talk about your whiskey. Your R2 Imperial Stout has been included in the Whiskey Loot's International Women's Day Whisky Tasting Pack. How did that all come about?

Naomi:
So, we've worked with the Whiskey Loot since we launched in March 2019. So it was an honour when they asked if I would like to be included in his pack. And of course it was a yes, straight up. The choice of whiskey, to include in the pack, was a little bit harder because I'm impartial to all of our whiskeys.
But the cask expression won out because it really does showcase what a barrel and its previous inhabitant can do to a whiskey. I talk about the secrets that the barrel holds, and it's such a cool process that adding the beer to the barrel and then finishing off the whiskey in it can change that flavour profile of the whiskey so dramatically.
When I talk to people like I do just... I say, because I love the barrels so much... and I say it's a really good indication of what a barrel can do to the whiskey. So we can talk about what the barrel does, but when you actually then put something else in it and then compare it, so you drink our 900 Standard and then you drink our imperial stout, our cask expression, you really truly understand what the previous inhabitant of a barrel does to the final product.

Interviewer:
So will you be experimenting with other barrels in the future, or?

Naomi:
So, our cask expression, we actually have a Belgian Tripel that's an amazing cask expression, again. So cask expression is exactly that, it's playing around with the casks to see what kind of expressions of whiskey, different expressions of whiskey, we can get of it. And as I said, that enables us to have a different whiskey. So a cask is... it gives us 170, roughly, bottles of whiskey. So that means that by playing around with the barrels, we can have a different type of whiskey coming out all the time. And I think that's really important for the consumers that are used to, for example, having a new beer every week. I say The Beer Boys are great. One week they've got a coconut beer, then it's a mango beer, a passionfruit beer or whatever they're producing.
And the consumer has come to expect that a little bit. Every time they go to the bar, they want something new. Well, whiskey's not like that, because it's taken us four years or five years to make a whiskey. We can't turn around and make something new next week. But the cask expression does enable us to give the consumer something different every few months.

Interviewer:
Tell us a little bit about how you ended up getting your hands on the stout barrels.

Naomi:
So we work quite closely with Mornington Peninsula Brewery, so our local brewery here on the Peninsula, and it is actually our barrel. So it's one of our French Oak ex Sherry 100 litre barrels that they took, and they aged their imperial stout in the barrel.
And then they emptied the beer, they used the beer. And then we took that barrel back and then we put our 900 Standard into that barrel. So it's that one barrel that's moved from one location to the next, if you like, and then it's come back home to us and finished off our whiskey in it.

Interviewer:
And I assume that the stout has left enough impression in the wood that's come through with the whiskey you've put in later?

Naomi:
Definitely. Definitely. So that, the imperial stout, is a really rich, creamy whiskey. It's got really dark molasses and that has been left behind in the barrel, if you like. And then our 900 Standard, which is a nice creamy whiskey, already has taken on that maltiness, the toffee, from the imperial stout.

Interviewer:
If someone hasn't bought your whiskey before and they taste this one through the pack for the first time, what else can they expect from it?

Naomi:
I describe it to people as a boilermaker in a bottle. It's a creamy whiskey. Our creamy whiskey is being enhanced by those beautiful rich dark stout. And it runs, that dark stout finish runs through the whiskey from the palet, from the very first sip, right to the very end. It smells and looks like a rich old whiskey. In fact, I was sitting on the deck last night having this dram with Stuart, and we summed it up by the word "divine".

Interviewer:
Talk to us a little bit more about the distillation process.

Naomi:
Whiskey is... a lot of people don't realise, is barley, yeast and water. So essentially it's beer. The wash, which is the barley, yeast and water, is then double distilled. So the first distillation is what we call the stripping run and, in fact, we're doing that today. We do two days of stripping and each day takes about 14 hours in our 4,000 litre Australian-made still. That product then is called low wines, and we put that back into the still for what we call our spirit run. And the spirit run then takes about 17 hours, because we run that low and slow. And at the end of that distillation, we have what we call a new make spirit. And that is what we put into the barrels. We let it sit and let the barrels work their magic.

Interviewer:
And how long is the imperial stout, for example, sitting in barrels?

Naomi:
Our whiskey, 900 Standard, is about three and a half years and then it goes into the imperial stout barrel for about four months to pick up those flavours.

Interviewer:
You've won a number of awards for your whiskey. Don't you want to talk us through some of those?

Naomi:
Yes. So we only launched our first whiskey in March 2019. And we won in the World Whiskies Awards for both 2020 and '21. We won Australia's best single malt, single cask, no-age-statement. So that's a huge achievement for us.
And so that actually puts that whiskey in the running for world's best whiskey. So, to be even up there and being considered for that is just super exciting for us.
And that was with our single... so that single casks, so that means whiskey from one barrel. So last year it was with our barrel number one, so the very first barrel that we produced at our distillery. This year it was our barrel 126. So we await for the judging at the end of March to see whether we are world's best, because that would be amazing.
So, last year we took out a silver as well. This year, one of our cask expressions, in fact, won a bronze in that same competition. And we see the World Whiskey Awards as the Olympics of whiskey awards. We've also taken out top honours in the Asia Master Awards. Again, to take out the top honours is pretty amazing.

Interviewer:
Do you think Australians are beginning to appreciate their local whiskeys more than they have in the past?

Naomi:
I would say yes. I think, definitely from what we've seen, like our uptake and the number of visitors that we get, we are now stocked in a number of major chains. And I would say that definitely Australians drink better. They're looking for quality. They want to know the story behind the produce that they're drinking or eating. And so I would say that definitely Australians are taking to Australian spirits and to Australian whiskey.
The statistics might show a little otherwise. I think Australians only drink 1% of Australian spirits, so definitely there is a massive room for improvement. If everybody could buy a bottle of Australian spirits, that 1% would obviously increase. But from a small business, we are seeing a lot of traction and getting a lot of consumers and a lot of repeat consumers as well. People that really are connected to our brand.

Interviewer:
Do you think that the degree of tax that the government imposes is actually hurting Australian distilling?

Naomi:
Definitely. I do. I think that the inequality in the excise tax... So if you make spirit from grapes, your tax is less than if you make it from grain. So brandy, for example, has a much lower tax rate than what we do as a malt whiskey.
So we're paying almost $90 per litre of alcohol in tax, so if the government was to decrease that... so that's equivalent to probably about $28 tax on a 700 mil bottle of 45% whiskey.
It's massive. So if there was some... a drop in that, or at least even out the tax rate, then the price of Australian whiskies would come down. Admittedly, so would Scotch whiskeys or imported alcohol, but it would lower that price point. So people will then would say... It becomes an absolute value. People don't want to spend more than, let's say, $100. And Australian whiskies could get below that if they didn't have that tax. Of course the other whiskies would drop as well, but it would still be below that magic $100 mark.

Interviewer:
Where do you see the future of Australian whiskey going?

Naomi:
Well, since we started, when we first started there were a total of 76 distilleries. So, distilleries being gin and vodka as well as whiskey.
And now there's 300 distilleries of which I think there's about 100 whiskey distilleries. So I think that definitely there are more whiskeys coming into the market, which is great because it gives the consumers a bigger choice. I think that Australia is definitely going to be a major player in the whiskey industry across the world. I think we make great quality whiskey across the board and we've seen that with Sullivans Cove having won world's best. And there are some stunning, stunning whiskeys out there.

Interviewer:
Now, what has the reaction of consumers been to this whiskey so far?

Naomi:
To this whiskey? They love it. So we have a core range of whiskies that we do do, and that core range is built around consistency. So people know when they buy one of our core range, that it's going to be the same time and time again. The cask expression brings an element of change to our whiskeys, of surprise. We do play around with different beer finishing, so this is obviously the imperial stout. So it gives the whiskey just another dimension completely to the whiskey. So it gives the consumer something new to try.

Interviewer:
Are beer barrels the only barrels you would consider, or?

Naomi:
There's a lot of collaboration that goes on all the time. So we would definitely do something with a brandy barrel. We've got JimmyRum. He put some of his rum, new make, into one of our whiskey barrels and called that Cane 'n Grain. So when he finally has some rum ready to go, we'll take one of his rum barrels and put some of our whiskey in it to see what comes out of it.
We're talking to a chocolatier to see what happens if we add a bit of chocolate to a barrel. And so there's some really cool things that we can play around with and see what comes out of it. In fact, we've got a barrel in the warehouse now, in the bond storage area, which is... We've called it the pandemic whiskey and it was... Normally you wouldn't distill hopped beer, because the brewery, obviously with lockdown, they had all this beer left over. So we said, "Well, let's distill it down and see what comes of it." So we've called it the pandemic whiskey and so it's a hopped beer that's in the barrel. So we're just waiting-

Interviewer:
What flavour do you think will come? What do you imagine it will be?

Naomi:
That might not be a success. That one might not get to market, but it's worth playing around with. Yeah.

Interviewer:
What do you think your whole range brings to the whiskey industry?

Naomi:
Our range, like I said, is consistent and we have... What we do at our distillery, we are very malt driven, so our whiskeys are about the different malts. So we do actually four different recipes and then we age in the same barrel type. Other distilleries might generally only have one recipe and then age in different barrels. So we are wanting people to be able to taste the differences in the different malts that we use. For example, we're using a pale malt in one, we use a Vienna malt in another, and that's what's so great about our cask expression. So we've used a pale malt and a peated malt, and then we've put it together with the imperial stout, which uses a dark malt. So it's that combination of all those malts together to produce a beautiful whiskey.

Interviewer:
What is it about malts that interested you so much?

Naomi:
Malt is really important. So every part of your recipe imparts a flavour profile to your whiskey, so the yeast variety that you use is really important. The barley that you use changes the flavour profile of your new make spirit, along with the shape of your still as well, and how you actually distill. So our still is electrically fired, so that brings other characteristics to the malt that we've used in the new make spirit. So it's all interconnected and playing around with the malts does give you that different spirit coming through.

Interviewer:
A lot of people believe that a good whiskey is wasted in a cocktail, but if you were to make one with this particular expression, how do you think it would work best?

Naomi:
I have to say just a good old fashioned highball with good quality soda water. There are so many flavours in this whiskey that it needs to be highlighted. And I think the soda water will help enhance it and make it a more volumous drink and really allow you to delve into all the different characteristics of this whiskey. I mean, of course, if you want to add... We're happy for you to add other things to it. I just think that it's such a big whiskey and it's got lots and lots of flavour that you don't need to add anything else to it to enhance those flavours.

Interviewer:
You and your husband started the distillery in 2013. Has distilling been what you expected?

Naomi:
Yes. I love distilling. I love the process, the smells. Every day the distillery smells different depending on what we're distilling. I love the science. I love the changing the state from barley to wash to new make spirit. I love the barreling. That part of it has been everything I expected. To be honest, what's been much harder and more time consuming and more expensive than expected was actually getting to market. That was something that we didn't necessarily plan on and, I guess, plus the challenges that arise from running a business now with a staff of eight. So that's the unexpected kind of side of it, but the actual distilling has been amazing.

Interviewer:
What was it about the getting to market process that surprised you?

Naomi:
Sourcing bottles, sourcing labels, pulling that all together, and the costs. It was way more expensive to get to market than what we had put in our business plan. So that was something that we just had to get on and do. And I guess it was a whole new skill set as well. Like I said, by the time 2013 had come around, we had been distilling for five years. So we knew what to do and how to do that side of it. It was the marketing and the labels and all of that was quite new to us, so I guess that was a really steep learning curve as well.

Interviewer:
And what does the future hold for Chief's Son? What are you working on at the moment?

Naomi:
Obviously we're distilling, doing a lot of distilling now, laying down a lot of whiskey. COVID was great for supporting local, so that enabled us to get into a number of the big chains, because they were supporting Australian spirits. So we hope that that wave of supporting craft Australian spirits continues. And that helps our brand and our industry rise. And hopefully we get a lot more consumers drinking Australian craft spirits.

Interviewer:
What advice would you give to young women who were thinking of following in your footsteps and going down the distilling route?

Naomi:
Do it. I say to my 11 year old daughter, be confident and be the best you can be. And I also say be nice to everybody. Nothing bad ever came of being nice. And the whiskey distilling world is an awesome industry to work in. And if you are good at what you do, there are absolutely no barriers whatsoever. In fact, our distillery, we have eight staff members of which five are females. So of course they're not all distillers, but it is an industry that is very, very welcoming of women. And I would say if you want to be a distiller, learn the trade and go for it.

Interviewer:
Other than yourself, who is your favourite female distiller? And doesn't need to be whiskey. It could be any spirit and it could be in any country.

Naomi:
Oh, okay. Well, to be honest, I guess it has to be my good friend, Holly Klintworth, at Bass & Flinders. So she's doing brandy and gin. They do it with a grape-based product, so they use grapes. And she is running that business by herself. And yeah, I just admire Holly a lot. We have a lot to do with her, we're great friends and a great support network. So yeah, I think my tip goes to Holly Klintworth of Bass & Flinders Distillery.

Interviewer:
You mentioned that your whiskeys are available through some of the major retailers in Australia. What about overseas? Have you started thinking about export plans, or?

Naomi:
Yeah. So we haven't actually... We've definitely thought about it and this year is the year to start trying to plan and execute some of our export ideas. Some whiskey has gone to China, so definitely that is on our agenda for this year. It was for last year, but, like I said, that all went a bit crazy. Definitely exports on the agenda for this year.

Interviewer:
Okay. Well, Naomi, look, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

Naomi:
Beautiful. Thank you.