When you go for a job at Glasgow whisky pub The Pot Still it probably doesn’t hurt if you know your stuff about whisky.
There’s around 1200 bottles on the gantry, so it’s unlikely a new recruit would know them all. But you could pick out one or two, study up on them, and then impress at your interview.
Or, like Sally Law, you could blag it.
The deputy manager, and reigning SLTN Bartender of the Year, now admits she wasn’t entirely truthful when she first interviewed at the famous whisky mecca eight years ago.
Already a seasoned bartender by that point, Sally was experienced at serving customers. But despite hailing originally from Forres, bordering the legendary Speyside whisky region, whisky wasn’t an area of expertise.
“I lied during my interview, which is always a good place to start,” she admitted to SLTN last month.
“I went for the job, got it, and then I was like right, now I need to actually learn.”
Determined to learn as much as she could, Sally got to work reading up on at least five whiskies a week, every week.
She now reckons she could talk about any of the 1200 bottles stocked by the pub.
It’s a skill that comes in more than handy, not only for serving behind the bar, but also when she hosts the pub’s private tastings as well as the more recently-launched ‘drop-in’ events.
Held at quieter times – such as midweek or a Sunday afternoon – the drop-in tastings will see customers able to participate without booking in advance (the private tastings are now booked up at least two weeks in advance) and sample a number of drams selected by Sally or, on occasion, by a member of a distillery team.
Suffice to say, the award-winner is no longer blagging it.
As deputy manager, under GM Julia Fletcher-Smith, as well as a qualified counsellor, Sally is also the pub’s unofficial HR department, responsible for training up new-starts, holding appraisals, scheduling rotas and generally looking out for the team’s morale and mental health.
On training, there has been a long-standing tradition of sending new-starts to study at whisky writer John Lamond’s whisky course. But during lockdown the management team had to adapt.
Sally explained: “One of the things I wanted to do was when people were coming in, make (the whisky training) a little bit more bite-size for them.
“So during lockdown we tried to replicate the John Lamond course the best that we could, but with some topics that we thought were a bit more niche to The Pot Still.
“We did them over Zoom and then when people came back we kept them as a paper hard copy. So we give them to people when they start at the pub as well.”
Sally and Julia also organise regular distillery trips for the staff, where they can learn directly from producers, and the team can also attend the drop-in tastings free of charge to help them broaden their product knowledge.
More generally, Sally is passionate about looking out for the Pot Still team in an industry that can be tough to work in.
“Tuesdays are my office days, so Tuesday is my open-door day,” she said. “So if people do need to talk, that’s when they can come in and chat to me.
“Obviously if it’s serious they can chat to me seven days a week, but Tuesday is my allocated day to come in and sit and chat with me, off the record. I think it’s really important.”
Sally was also part of the conversation several years ago – which also included Julia as well as pub owners the Murphy family – that resulted in The Pot Still offering staff sessions with a therapist.
Team members are free to book an appointment, with the pub then picking up the bill. The service is anonymous, with managers unaware of which staff member has booked a session.
“I think there’s always been a need for it,” said Sally. “I think people are a lot more vocal about it now than they were then. There was always the ‘just get on with it’ attitude. Stiff upper lip. Keep going.
“Now I think there’s been a massive shift, where people are more willing to talk about their mental health a lot more openly than they were.
“Right at the beginning of my career it was just like ‘oh, you’re tired? I’m on my eighth day in a row’.
“I think, especially in the Pot, we’ve made an environment where people feel a lot more open and can talk about things.
“I do think it’s something we definitely need. I think every business should have something in place that’s free.”
It’s become the ideal career for a young woman that, at one time, had aspirations towards becoming a teacher.
“This is sort of the best of both worlds,” she said. “I’ve still got new challenges, new learning, all of the whisky, and that’s all great.
“But I’m still teaching people. And people that have moved on to new things within the industry, I like to think I’ve had a small part to play in that. That might be a little bigheaded of me, but hopefully somewhere someone might say ‘Sally taught me about my first whisky and now I’m a distiller’ or something.
“That would be really cool.”
