Dewar’s unveils double-aged whiskies

SCOTTISH-BORN and London-based Fraser Campbell, the global brand ambassador for Dewar’s blended scotch whisky was on a two-day visit to TT last weekend, to conduct training classes for bartenders and for the launch of the Dewar’s range of double-aged whiskies.

Campbell, who has been in the hospitality and drinks industry for almost 20 years told Newsday it was his first in TT but is planning on coming back when it is not raining, because he wants to see the beauty of the island.

He is currently on a global Latin American tour. Having been to Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, he flew into TT and then it’s on to Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Chile and Brazil before returning to London.

Campbell spoke on his experience as Dewar’s global ambassador. He said two-and-half-years ago he started the job and with that came travelling all over the world, talking about scotch and cocktails, and basically using a lot of his experiences as a bartender to help people understand what scotch and whisky means. “So the job of brand ambassador is to make it more accessible for people to understand the spirit but to also learn more about the history behind the brand as well. I do a lot of storytelling and making a lot of cocktails and really combine together a lot of my passions and experiences.”

Campbell spoke of Dewar’s special double-ageing process that is used to make their whiskies. He said: “When we’ve combined all our single malts and our grain whiskies, we then take that combination and put it back into an oak cask where we marry the whiskies together for about six months and during this time we end up with an extra-smooth, blended scotch whisky because all the whiskies over time would have mingled together and this basically means that we have a real exceptional whisky, which is great for drinking neat or mixing drinks as cocktails as well.”

This is Campbell’s first role working for a brand. Prior to that he was running cocktail bars around the world, in Scotland, Australia, Spain. “But this is the first time I’ve actually stepped into brand room. Why? The roll of a brand ambassador is a very popular one. Once you’ve been a bartender for so long it’s really a great job to take your experiences and everything you’ve learnt about spirits to teach people stuff, but for me, it was more about Dewar’s as a brand, like the stories behind the history and the way they became a global success story really appealed to me and I got very excited about sharing these stories in different countries like Trinidad.”

Maker of the whisky, John Dewar & Sons, was actually owned by Diageo up until the year 2000 when Barcardi bought it over.

Campbell is hoping that drinkers in TT will get a better understanding of scotch whisky and learn a few things about Dewar’s and understanding how to differentiate taste between different whiskies, and also learn a bit about scotch cocktails.

“For me, I just enjoy sharing my experiences to people. This is really a celebration of our premium double-aged whiskies and we are also going to be tasting one of our single malts, Aberfeldy. The double-ageing process is what makes us different from other blended scotches,” concluded Campbell.

Guests were then taken through a tasting session of Dewar’s 12, 15 and 18-year old double aged scotch whiskies and the Aberfeldy single malt scotch.

Earlier guests were served the refreshing Dewar’s Penicillin, a cocktail that combined Dewar’s 12 years with lemon juice, ginger slices, honey syrup and a touch of malt whisky of Islay.

Darren Belmar, from local agent for Dewar’s, AMCO, said the reason for bringing Campbell to TT was to educate different people like bartenders, CEOs, different influencers, as well as the media about Dewar’s Scotch Whisky, the Dewar’s Institute and the Dewar’s ageing scotch process.

He said: “Trinidadians have gotten accustomed to premium alcohol, whether it is a cognac, we are now into Proseccos and champagnes...very different to what it was ten to 15 years ago. So we now have 12, 15, 18 and a 25-year-old Dewar’s we are introducing, each with different tasting notes.

“In the 70s and 80s Dewar’s was the number one scotch whisky in TT. Dewar’s is a strong brand, it is the most awarded scotch whisky in the world, just based on taste and quality and that is what we want to reinforce to the TT public.”