Glasgow-based drinks producer Necropolis Spirits launch a whisky brand focused on education

Founded in 2020 by friends Jason Haggerty and Anton Peters, Necropolis Spirits began life as a rum brand, drawing on Glasgow’s sprawling East End cemetery for inspiration. Now the brand has released its first small batch whisky - the Merchant’s Select whisky.

Jason said: “I founded Necropolis Spirits along with my pal Anton. About a year and a half ago we started drinking whisky. I always saw it as an old man's drink. My friend does tastings, so I went to his tasting and I really, really enjoyed it.

“I thought it would be quite good to do it from a learning perspective. We bought three single casks. The liquid's finite, so this one has 160 bottles, this one's got 300, and this one's got 330. Once they're done, they're done.”

The brand aims to be different with its whisky, offering consumers a peek behind the scenes and other content thanks to NFC chips on the bottles themselves. It’s an opportunity to show what it’s really like producing spirits.

Jason said: “When you go onto that you can watch the videos from us printing our labels to bottling and all the problems that actually come up when you're doing it. Other things we'll be doing is we talk to the guys who sold us the casks and again we just try to be as honest as possible.

“We're not trying to hide it, we're just trying to show as much of the process. And then from there you can subscribe to YouTube and you can see how the cake's made if you want to put it that way.”

It is also an opportunity to make whisky more accessible to a younger generation that Jason feels is traditionally associated with the drink.

Jason said: “We felt like with whisky we were kind of skipped in our generation. None of our friends drank whisky. So, we tried to make it not more accessible or inclusive, but to show that you don't need to be an old guy to drink it.

“And that's what we hope to do with the videos because we are very down to earth, and we talk about this in the videos, we're always putting a different side on, which, if you kind of watch stuff on whisky, it is quite polished. So, we try to just be as much ourselves as possible.”