Han starts his story almost immediately, describing in a quick tempo how he got into whisky. Being asked to do a vitality research on how to market an area, which happened to be the Korenburgerveen, a peat area in the Netherlands. Realising peat and barley might equal whisky, an idea formed in his head. Unfortunately, no barley was produced in that area. But the Idea of whisky stayed with him.

“It happened when I was about 50, and I thought, when I'm 65, I'll always make friends if I have whisky!” Han explains to us, when he mentions a reason to get into his adventure.

He tells us he enjoys these kind of moments, sharing his whisky with fans.

And that is something we can attest to and be thankful for, because on this evening, Han facilitated Martijn and myself, who were both rather busy at work, to travel all the way from the other side of the country to my home. 

Coming over as a true pragmatic and decisive man, he describes how he activated his idea:
“I just got the core range, the entry level bottle, of three distilleries and put them on the table. I proceded to taste them with some friends, making notes. Bruichladdich won with 1/10th of a point difference!”

Booking a trip to Scotland, to Islay, Han travelled to the Bruichladdich Distillery with a friend and booked a tour. During the tour, close to the end, he spotted Jim McEwan with a client going in the warehouse and mentioned he forgot his glass. Jim asked them to join and he ended up on a private tasting. (At this moment, Han became one of my heroes.)

This small enterprise led to the purchase of 5 casks at Bruichladdich, close to the point where the distillery no longer sold casks. Or as Han puts it, he saved 5 casks from Rémy Cointreau.

I’m going to skip the part where Han tells us about the importing, he did have some fun anecdotes in there, but nobody wants to hear about taxes and stuff like that.

But after importing, there's the selling. Most bottles were sold thorugh liquor stores, but Han also found a way to sell them from home.
He actually has a license to sell alcohol from his own liquor store, at home address.
By transforming the shed as a little store, Han has an actual licensed liquor store at home! To me, this sounds as the ultimate mancave.
Fun fact is that people might ring the doorbell and actually buy a whisky.

As I write up this story, I realise everything that I wrote down does not do justice to the adventure Han has embarked on. He shared fun little anecdotes, tells everything from his point of view and shares his doubts and certainties.
I already mention the fact that he is a whisky hero in my eyes.

From deciding to just get some casks based on an afternoon tasting with friends, to actually travelling to the distillery and meeting Jim McEwan on a tour, the whole proces sounds as an adventure to me.
Spicing it up with smaller stories around the labelling, Brexit, one bottle being 1 year older than the others in the series thanks to Brexit, it all creates a great story.

And like every book or movie where you're invested in, you don't want it to end. 
But I had to ask the question:

What if all bottles have been sold?
"If it's done, it's done. It has been fun, but I'm not going to get new casks."