KIRSTIE McCallum sticks her immaculately powdered nose into a glass of amber-coloured single malt whisky and inhales deeply. "Walnutty," she pronounces after a moment. "And great with chocolate."
McCallum should know. At 35 years old, this smart, articulate woman is Scotland's youngest whisky blender and one of only three women to hold the post. In a single day she will use her olfactory skills to test the quality of a wide range of whisky samples, earnestly searching for exactly the right flavour notes (pineapple anyone? Hint of TCP?) that go into making up the blended and single malt whiskies produced by distillers Burn Stewart.
According to McCallum, you can have the best computer, the finest technological equipment and the most expensive test tubes that money can buy, but by far the most important piece of equipment a whisky blender needs is a good nose. That, "and a good palate," she says.
"You also need patience, an understanding of whisky and passion. You've really got to have a passion for it."
McCallum certainly has the latter in spades, bubbling over with enthusiasm as she flutters around a windowless lab at Burn Stewart's East Kilbride headquarters that contains so many bottles it resembles a private bar. She pours out whisky after whisky, expertly swirling it around in the glass before explaining each one's complex base notes and character with a knowledge and wisdom that belies her young age. And indeed, to look at her you'd never guess that as one of the most powerful women in the whisky industry, before she joined the trade, she preferred her whisky with (whisper it) Coke.
The role of a whisky blender is a curious one, combining an extensive understanding of the chemistry behind the distillation process that goes into making the spirit with the same sort of sensory awareness found in top perfumers.
On the wall of her lab is a taste wheel which charts every type of flavour imaginable from vanilla to smoked fish – all of which, it is said, can be found within the casks of Scotland's whiskies.
As part of her job, McCallum must treat her highly trained nose with respect. She never wears perfume, and must ensure there is no scent on her clothes that might interfere with the fumes of the whisky. She also steers clear of spicy foods in an effort to keep her palate clean, so that she can detect even the minutest of changes in taste or character when testing casks of whisky ready to be put out on the market.
"The majority of my job is nose and tasting," she says. In case you were wondering, however, (or perhaps even rushing to apply for a job), she spits the whisky out after tasting, so that she doesn't finish every working day slurring her words and staggering towards the exit.
She agrees that the job is similar to that done in a perfume house. "You're looking at characteristics, tasting notes, there's definitely a correlation. We're searching for base notes, floral notes, you've really got to examine the whole character of the spirit, not just one part of it. Whiskies are so complex that you might get a dominant note in a whisky but find that there are a lot of things playing underneath the surface."
Despite her current job, McCallum, who hails from the east end of Glasgow, did not show a particular aptitude towards chemistry at school, though the subject forms a crucial part of her work today. In fact, she says school didn't particularly suit her.
"I didn't work very hard, shall we say, and I left school with one Higher. Once I left I realised, 'What am I going to do?' So I went to college, got my Highers and it was there that I discovered I loved chemistry. From there I went to Glasgow University and did my degree in chemistry, followed by a chemistry PhD."
Unmarried , and living in leafy Mount Vernon, near Glasgow, close to where she grew up, McCallum is a huge motorsports fan. She often spends her weekends at motor rallies or watching Formula One. Although she drives a company car at the moment she would, she says, like to drive "something special" one day. When she's not at the office or a sporting event, she likes nothing more than meeting up with friends for a leisurely dinner and drinks, or looking after her three-year-old niece and one-year-old nephew, whose photograph looks down at her from the wall above her desk.
After earning her PhD, she was lured by the thought of a career in the pharmaceutical industry. "I wanted to go into cancer research initially, that's what a lot of people who study chemistry want to do. But after my PhD I got a temporary job at Dundas distillery and I've been in the industry ever since."
It is, she says, an industry that still employs relatively few women. "There are more females coming through now though. There are a lot more females behind the scenes on the sensory side. I don't know if it's ever been proven but it's said that women have better noses than men, perhaps that's why."
Her presence can still cause a stir in the more traditional corners of the whisky sector, however. "Particularly on the distilling side it tends to still be very male-dominated," she says. "They get a surprise when I turn up to do a presentation."
Before joining Burn Stewart she worked in a number of different areas, starting out in grain distilling at Port Dundas before joining Chivas Brothers, testing blended whiskies for export, and even getting involved in testing rums.
After that she worked in a distillery near Elgin doing chemical analysis before moving to Allied Distillers, where she worked on, among other things, new product development.
Her current position as a blender at Burn Stewart is the culmination of those previous jobs. As well as the sensorial element, she also runs masterclasses in whisky drinking, encouraging both men and women to try different types of tipple, and explaining exactly what goes into the making of a blended whisky.
"I know it sounds really sad but I love my job," she says. "I particularly enjoy putting together a new blend or looking at different cask samples. There's so much variety that you're always coming across something new. It's amazing to me that I can walk through a warehouse full of casks and find so many different flavours there.
"Different ages, different ways of maturation – all these things make such a difference to the end product. It's really quite exciting sometimes."
Exciting it might be but patience, she admits, is another crucial quality that is necessary to the job. "I look at our master blender, Ian MacMillan, and he'll have a whisky which he started distilling in 1996 that didn't hit the marketplace as a new product until 2006.
"That's quite difficult – you've got to have the vision to be able to see what you're producing in the here and now, and an understanding of how that's going to fit into the future."
One thing she says she would like to see more of is younger people drinking whisky. "You look at countries like Spain and a lot of younger people drink it there, both single (malts] and blends. In Britain I think we're starting to make inroads into the younger market and in particular the female market, which is great. I go to festivals and things and I see more females around drinking whisky, getting involved and taking an interest. But there's still a way to go."
As for her personal future, she has one big ambition. "At the moment I'm a blender and I work for Ian who is the master blender. He's been a great mentor and helped me a lot. Being a blender can be a long apprenticeship, people spend ten or 15 years working their way up, but eventually I would like to be a master blender."
It is no mean feat when you consider that such a job would make her the first female master blender of whisky in Scotland.
But what does a whisky blender drink in the pub? Outside of the lab, her favourite tipple depends nowadays, she says, on her mood. She's particularly partial to a 15-year-old Tobermory, however, ("really special," she says, "out of this world") along with a few squares of dark chocolate, which she says make an ideal accompaniment.
"I do have my personal favourites for drinking outside of work," she confesses. "When I was younger I didn't really like the peated whiskies but now I absolutely love them. It's not a busman's holiday for me to have a whisky in a bar."
And what about her early experiences drinking the amber nectar with a dash of Coke? "To me you drink whisky how you enjoy it," she says. "There's no true way to drink whisky. There used to be a lot of elitism about (that] but I think that's been broken down now. It's more about drinking the whisky you enjoy, and drinking it the way you enjoy it."
For that reason, she believes everyone can find a whisky to suit them. "I suppose they say the palate doesn't develop until you're a bit older, and a lot of people tell me they tried it when they were young and hated it. I've met people who say they don't like the smell of whisky or the taste of it, but there are so many whiskies out there, and such a huge variation in flavour. I really do think there's a whisky out there for everyone."
