Dennis McBain has dedicated his entire career to the ?water of life?. As one of the industries longest serving Coppersmiths having started working in 1958, he has seen the whisky industry evolve immensely over the last 65 years.

His role as Coppersmith and Guardian is one of great importance, overseeing each part of the process, tending and caring for the exceptional whiskies produced by whisky pioneers, Charles and Sandy Gordon, many expressions of which make up the collection that is today known as House of Hazelwood.

For almost one hundred years, generations of the Gordons, the renowned Scottish family of distillers, carefully laid down stocks of whisky for special occasions and personal consumption. Spanning seven decades and every corner of Scotland, the diverse whiskies held in cask tell stories of remarkable places, lost ways of working, first casks, last casks, the ambitions and achievements of several lifetimes ? none of which will be repeated again.
In this Q&A Dennis shares with us his own lessons alongside industry insights, from his lifetime career as a true craftsman in the age-old industry. Read on to discover more.

Read more about House of Hazelwood here

Please tell us how you discovered that this artisan craft was the career for you.

On my way to school each day I would pass the Copperworks where they made the Copper Stills and I used to stop and watch the coppersmiths working on these large sheets of copper and always wondered how...