Victoria Swan

This website honours and preserves the memory of my father, Dr Jim Swan, whose contributions to the whisky industry touched lives and distilleries across the globe.

Why I Created This Website

When my father died suddenly in February 2017, he left behind five decades of knowledge: photographs from distillery visits, diaries, lab books, academic papers, lectures, presentations, and insights shared with colleagues throughout his career. My father believed that knowledge should be shared, that scientific advances existed to be used, and that understanding and optimising every element of production could help distilleries create whiskies with complex and interesting characters.

His career spanned decades of significant advances in analytical chemistry, statistical methods, and laboratory technology. He applied these developing tools to understand whisky: the chemistry of wood extractives, the variables in cask maturation, the effects of climate on spirit development, and the science behind sensory evaluation. His work, from the STR cask process to studies on hot climate maturation, shows the practical application of scientific methods to whisky production. Through this website, I am piecing together his story from the materials he left behind and from conversations with those who worked alongside him.

A Personal Connection to Natural Processes

I grew up following my father's research with great interest, travelling with him to explore oak forests across France, Spain, the United States, and Eastern Europe, cycling the Speyside Way, and visiting vineyards in California and France as well as the sherry-producing regions of Spain. These formative experiences cultivated a deep appreciation for the craftsmanship and heritage behind fine spirits.

What captivated me most was the respect for history and the unwavering desire to keep the product pure and good. The dedication to nature and to all the natural inputs, water, barley, yeast, and wood, that made whisky so special are values that resonate strongly today. I keep bees and chickens, grow fruit and vegetables, and preserve them through canning, fermenting, and pickling. Through these pursuits, I've come to appreciate the beautiful variability in natural products and how they reflect their environment, their terroir, their specific conditions.

This is precisely what drew me to my father's work. Whisky is a product that captures and expresses the complexities of the real world through its sensory experience. The wood species and forest it came from, the climate during maturation, the water source, the barley varieties, the yeast strains: all of these variables come together to create something unique and remarkable. My father understood this deeply. His work was about understanding these variables scientifically so that distillers could work with nature to create exceptional spirits, enhancing quality and enabling variations while preserving the integrity of tradition. That philosophy resonates with me completely, and it's why I feel compelled to ensure his knowledge isn't lost.

My World

Preserving Knowledge for Future Generations

In creating this website, I wanted to ensure that future generations of whisky makers and enthusiasts could learn from the foundations my father helped establish. His archive contains insights that remain relevant today, solutions to problems distillers still face, and a philosophy of innovation tempered with respect for tradition that the industry needs now more than ever.

This is an ongoing project. As I continue to work through my father's papers, diaries, and photographs, and as I speak with the many people whose lives he touched, new stories and insights emerge. Each one adds another piece to the puzzle of understanding how modern whisky came to be what it is today.

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