Introducing our new Brand Home Ambassador, Fred!

I’ve worked at Isle of Arran Distillers for nearly four years now, having joined the company during (the rather turbulent) 2020! I started at Lagg Distillery as a tour guide and worked my way up to senior tour guide and now I’m delighted to be its Brand Home Ambassador.

I am an Arranach myself and grew up in Corriecravie, which is just a short five minutes from the distillery - close enough that we have a core range expression named after it! I now stay in Kilmory on the other side of the distillery, which coincidentally is the name of the other core range expression. I have spent my entire life surrounded by the peace and tranquillity of Arran - apart from spending five years in Edinburgh and St Andrews for university. Whilst mainland life was a shock to the system at first, I grew to love the vibrance and energy of the city. The beauty and quiet of my home island was calling my name, however, and I returned to Arran with a Masters in Medieval History and a tenuous grasp of Latin. As with many new graduates, it was a challenge to find a role where I could tap into my passions and thirst for knowledge. After a brief stint as a tour guide at Brodick Castle, the pandemic hit and I applied for my first role down the road at Lagg Distillery. 

You might think a chap in my position has been this passionate about whisky since it was legal - that’s not quite the case! I’d always liked whisky, but nothing too serious or particularly knowledgeable. However, one thing about me is that once I feel even a tiny bit interested in something, there’s no stopping me. I will devour all the resources I can to build my knowledge. That’s exactly what happened here and I am now, unapologetically, a massive whisky geek. Don’t ask me about peat chemistry if you’ve not got a few hours to spare. Curious about the smuggling history on Arran? I’m your guy. Learning about whisky is definitely my thing and I love that I’ve found somewhere I can share my knowledge on the daily. 

While my passion for peat wasn’t ignited until I started my journey at Lagg Distillery, I have always had a connection with Isle of Arran Distillers. My father was a bond holder in Lochranza - we still have the paperwork from 1994 somewhere - and I love to remind my colleagues that I was born in 1995, the same year Lochranza Distillery opened! Nowadays, Lagg Distillery is a home-from-home for me. In my time at Lagg I’ve led on the development of some of our most popular experiences, including the Arran Water tour which explores the stories of Arran’s smuggling past. 

Working at Lagg Distillery is truly a joy for me - nothing lights up my eyes as much as seeing Graham Omand, our distillery manager, approach the team with new samples so we can explore how LAGG Single Malt is developing. The opportunity to be here at the beginning of LAGG’s journey, and witnessing all the milestones, is one of a kind. 2023 was an incredible year for us - we released our first core expressions, the Kilmory and Corriecravie single malts, and winning Scottish Distillery of the Year was the cherry on top! 

Now as Brand Home Ambassador, I’m incredibly excited to leverage the momentum we’ve built to share our stories and drams, both at the distillery and at tastings around the world. I love inviting people to learn about LAGG Single Malt at the very start of its journey - something that’s quite rare in the whisky world, where the oldest brands have been around for hundreds of years. To take LAGG on the road with me is to take a little piece of home everywhere I go and I am always blown away by the adoration people express towards our little island and the whiskies we make here. I can’t wait to see where in the globe this role takes me and, when I’m not travelling, I’ll be at the distillery pouring drams and sharing stories with our guests.

You can follow Fred’s journey on Instagram @laggwhiskyfred