Sandy Hyslop to retire as Chivas Brothers master blender
Chivas Brothers master blender Sandy Hyslop will retire at the end of 2025 – he looks back with SB on his storied four-decades-long career in Scotch.
From January 2026, Hyslop will become master blender emeritus for Pernod Ricard’s Scotch whisky business.
Kevin Balmforth, who has been working on the Chivas Brothers blending team for 25 years, will step into Hyslop’s shoes as master blender.
Hyslop’s first gig in the whisky industry was in 1983 as a quality controller at the Stewart & Son whisky plant in Dundee. He became Chivas Brothers master blender in 2005 and is the creative force behind some of the world’s most prestigious Scotch brands – from Royal Salute to Chivas Regal and Ballantine’s.
On the decision to step away after 40 years in the Scotch industry, Hyslop says he made up his mind in January this year.
“I wanted to give the business a bit of time to get everything organised and so that there was a smooth handover,” he tells The Spirits Business.
“I’ve got a very proficient expert team working in the blending area, so I knew I was leaving everything in very safe hands.
As master blender emeritus, Hyslop will be on a consultancy contract with Chivas Brothers where he can be called upon as required over the next two years. “That shows you how serious Chivas Brothers takes it,” he says. “They want that continuity to be absolutely nailed on.”
In the new role, he’ll be representing the brands globally. “That’s something I always want to do,” he asserts, “but I’m also looking forward to dealing with some of our high-net-worth, high-end customers as well – to get a bit of one-on-one time with them, see what they’re looking for and get the opportunity to show them how amazing our high-aged inventory is.
“The options there are an untapped goldmine.”
Hyslop presided over various facets of the Chivas Brothers business, from blending to cask procurement, inventory and laboratories – they all fell under his remit.
“I started at Stewart’s back in 1983, which was one of the first businesses within the Allied Distillers Group. In 2005 I moved down to Dumbarton and started working on Ballantine’s with Jack Goudy, and then after that, also in 2005 was the takeover of Pernod Ricard, and I was incredibly fortunate to become the master blender for the Allied Distillers and all the Chivas brands at that point,” he says.
He calls his time in the industry not just an amazing journey, but also a personal evolution. “Taking all the inventory under my responsibility, technical centres, laboratories, planning casks and operational – it was amazing. I’ve accumulated many areas as my career has developed and I love the challenge of adding to my responsibility,” he notes.
Standout moments and the starring whiskies
With a career spanning four decades, Hyslop is fortunate to say he’s had many defining moments. He pinpoints the biggest as when he was appointed master blender for the whole Chivas Brothers portfolio in 2005.
“It was an absolute dream come true for me,” he recalls. “When I first started, if someone would have told me I would be responsible for brands like Chivas Regal and Ballantine’s, Royal Salute, The Glenlivet, Aberlour – I would have been like, ‘Wow, that’d be absolutely amazing if that would ever come to pass’. I’ve been very, very privileged to look after some real world-class brands.”
He notes there’s now more innovation than there’s ever been in the whisky industry. “When I first started, you were lucky if you did one new product development a year,” he says, “whereas I think I have 38 live at the moment across all the brands.
“Innovation, different expressions, cask finishes, it’s just a massive thing these days. People’s thirst for knowledge about Scotch whisky and to try different flavours is just endless.”
Regarding particular favourites, he lists off more than a few from the highlights reel: “Working across the Royal Salute range, creating the Fashion editions, the Polo editions and being able to do a Coronation Edition for the coronation of King Charles III were all fabulous milestone moments.
“To create the oldest expression of Ballantine’s – the 40-year-old – has been great, as well as The Glenlivet Caribbean Reserve. I could bore someone for a whole afternoon on the things that are really close to my heart and expressions that I’ve been lucky enough to develop under my tenure.”
When asked if he has that one dessert island dram, he eventually concedes Ballantine’s 17 would be his “classic”, showing his penchant for blends over single malts. “I love the complexity, the multi-layers.”
He adds: “It’s really tough. It’s asking who your favourite child is, but having said that (and I don’t care what anybody says), everybody always has a favourite child, even though they don’t say it… there’s always a couple of them that are a nuisance,” he jokes.
Assessing other liquids in the conversation, he gives mention to Chivas Regal 18 Years Old, Royal Salute 21 Years Old, and The Glenlivet 12 Years Old. “These brands have amazing history and they’re perceived as being really high quality all over the world,” he says.
“With Royal Salute, no whisky is less than 21 years old. That’s bonkers, where most of the whisky has matured for a quarter of a century. It’s a massive commitment.
“Glenlivet is a powerhouse in single malt whisky and has a fabulous reputation. I absolutely loved developing Glenlivet Caribbean Reserve, and getting that rum cask finish in there. Not many people had done that before. It was very new.”
Additionally, his proudest moments are not just whiskies; there are also other accomplishments that he holds dear behind the scenes. “Being able to nurture a team across inventory, blending, and technical has been an absolute joy for me,” he shares.
“I am supremely confident I’ve left it in really good hands that I have a real team of passionate experts that work for me, and they are perfectly placed to step up and keep that transition moving smoothly for the future. I love working with the younger members of the team and developing them, and seeing them flourish within the industry. It’s something that I take great pleasure in doing.
“There are so many different facets to Chivas Brothers all the way from three-year-old blended Scotch up to 55 years old. I have very low turnover of staff within my team, and I firmly put that it’s all to do with the portfolio being really wide, and everybody getting the chance to work on different brands.
“It’s a very fulfilling job.”
New era
As he’s already acknowledged, today’s whisky industry is a very different beast to the one Hyslop walked into 40 years ago. However, Hyslop says the biggest change he’s seen over the years in Scotch is how distilleries now operate.
“The way distilleries run now really suits me as a master blender,” he says, explaining: “The fact that we have managed to automate some of the process – and it’s not so much hand control – from a spirit quality point of view, I’ve now seen much more consistent spirit produced at our distilleries than 30 years ago when everything would have been hand operated. For delivering top quality products to consumers, that is a real bonus for me.”
He continues that the quality of casks coming in now is “also superb”.
“That’s an area at Chivas Brothers where we invest a lot of money. One of the biggest capex budgets in the business is our cask programme that we are importing from all over the world now. There’s casks coming in from America, France, Spain, Japan, all over Europe. It’s unbelievable how many different casks come in now for making all our different expressions,” he notes.
In terms of trends, Hyslop believes “we’ve been pretty good in the whisky industry of not going off track. It has been really interesting for me during my career to see single malts grow, and grow in popularity, and spread throughout the world.”
Hyslop was recently behind one of the industry’s most eyebrow-raising innovations, Crystalgold, which marked Chivas Regal’s first clear spirit drink. He says that “opened up lots of horizons of different things you can do with operating outside of the Scotch whisky regulations”.
He adds: “The instance with Crystalgold made us think quite differently about things that we could do in the future, and perhaps develop that side of the business whilst also being mindful that we need to keep the quality and continuity of our long-established existing brands as well, which is really important.”
He also expresses excitement about whisky’s growth in other markets outside its traditional bases, such as Asia, and in Taiwan where he visited last month. “Taiwan’s the only country in the whole world where single malt sells more than blends. The knowledge out there of the products is a huge difference between 20 years ago and now,” he explains.
“Their thirst for knowledge of how we make the product, what casks we use, how we finish it, how we distil it – it’s unbelievable. There is an amazing future for Scotch, over and above where we are at the moment.”
Life after blending
Hyslop describes himself as a “very hands-on blender” and his office is right next door to the blending room. As such, there are a few things from the day to day he’ll have to get adjusted to. “I’ll miss the morning chat when all the samples come in from production, whether it be new distillate or Ballentine’s 30-year-old, or all the aged spirit. I’ll absolutely miss all that,” he says.
What won’t he miss? The commute, apparently, as he laughs: “I won’t miss 40 miles in the car into work and home every day, in the dark in the winter. As the blender you don’t have the luxury of working from home.
“I’ll miss the people. I won’t really miss the brands because I’ll still be talking about them and spreading the gospel, but I won’t miss the journey, I can assure you.”
There also isn’t anything he’d change from his career, noting the fortune of being able move all around Scotland and meet various distillery managers.
“Myself or somebody from a team are in the north every week in Speyside checking all the new distillate that’s getting laid down. I love that. I’m a real people person. I love meeting people and getting out there,” he shares.
“There’s no way I want to be a faceless man in my ivory tower, in the blending room. Every distillery manager who knows me well, knows that I will pick up the phone if there’s anything they’re worried about. I’m always available.”
As for unfinished business, there are couple of things Hyslop has worked on that haven’t come to fruition yet, but this is also the point of Chivas Brothers, he explains. “I was actively encouraged to experiment without the fear of failure, which was excellent in that you could bring in exotic casks from all over the world, run trials, do flavour [trials] and sometimes they seed an idea of where you want to go next for some of your expressions,” he says.
“Some of the experiments will come to pass. I’m pretty sure that some of them will become products long term and ultimately, there is a very robust innovation pipeline at Chivas Brothers for the future.
“All things come to an end, but I’ve got lots of other things that I want to do, so I’m not somebody who is stopping working and does not have a master plan.” he adds.
That master plan could be a second career in the antiques business, which is what his father does. “I’ve already bought myself a van, so I’m all prepped for a bit of buying and selling antiques,” he says. “I’ve always been interested. I would say I’m a collector, but my wife would say I was a hoarder.
“She says that if I hadn’t married her, I’d probably be on one of those programmes on the television like the ‘hoarder next door’, or something like that. She says that I need to be controlled and monitored regularly on all the stuff I keep bringing in.”
Hyslop can also call upon his whisky expertise with the synergy between the two trades. “Like whisky, the antiques business is all about authenticity. It’s about long-term relationships. It’s about quality. There are many times my father’s values in his business have spilled into my thought process when I’m doing things. You’re not doing anything for a one-hit wonder. You’re there for the long game.
“No corners are cut because you build your reputation on what you supply through that antique shop, and we’re exactly the same way. Jack Goudy, who trained me, said it takes you 30 years to build up a brand, but it’ll take you one bad batch to lose it.
“If you work on that principle, you’ll never get caught out.”
Succession plan
Hyslop’s successor, Balmforth, who’s been with the company for 25 years and worked with Hyslop for more than 20, will take over as master blender. “We always laugh about the fact that he’s worked with me longer than he’s been married to his wife,” Hyslop quips.
“He knows his stuff and he knows what’s required of him. I am supremely confident that he’ll be a firm hand on the tiller moving forward.”
If Hyslop has a parting piece of advice for Balmforth, it’s to “put himself very much out there where everybody knows who he is”.
“Lead from the front. Make sure you’re there to support everybody in every facet of what we do in whisky production,” he adds.
All in all, Hyslop is extremely confident that the brand is well-placed for the future.
“One task that I really take seriously, my god, and I don’t want it to go wrong under my tenure, is making sure everything runs perfectly when I decide to hang up my jacket. There are amazing stocks for the next 20 years already laid down,” he teases.
“I’ve left the house in good order, like the previous master blender left the house in good order for me.”
If the news comes as a surprise, he says it really shouldn’t: “I’ve done 42 years, I’m 60 year old, it’s probably time to drop a gear.”
And it’s not that Hyslop will be disappearing either. He’ll still be around in his consultancy role, and he’ll also be posting (frequently) on Instagram, most likely about whisky.
“I’ve got a little bit of an Instagram addiction,” he quips.
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