The Balvenie

Today the Malt Master at Balvenie is celebrating fifty years in the whisky industry.

In 1962 David Stewart joined the firm of William Grant & Sons as a whisky stocks clerk and has gone on to spend the last half a century nosing whisky for a living.

He went on to become a master blender with the whisky makers and helped develop the finishing techniques seen so commonly in modern malt whisky production, reports stv.tv.

The site quoted him as saying: “When I started at 17 I didn’t know what I was getting into. I thought I was just joining as a clerk and I’d be doing desk work and paperwork.

“I wasn’t really told at the interview that it’d lead on to this particular role, so it came as quite a surprise.”