Interviewing Arun & Kelvin - The Swan Song Bar in Singapore
The Swan Song bar is a very cool whisky bar in Singapore dedicated to good whisky and in particular, vintage and rare whisky. It is an excellent place for whisky lovers to explore whisky from all levels and enjoy the spirits with friends. This is my privilege to interview the founders of the Swan Song, Arun and Kelvin, and I hope this article can help us to know more about their stories and insights into the whisky industry.
How did Arun and Kelvin start their whisky journey?
Arun & Kelvin started whisky at different timing independently, although they were classmates back to their school time.
Arun started a little bit early. He got a chance to try the Johnnie Walker with his friends at a party. As he was very curious, then he started to research more information about that bottle, which led him to the Whisky Store (the old name of the Quaich Bar in Singapore) and he started the flight was regions of Scotland. Then Arun wanted to know more and tasted the Bowmore Bicentenary at the Auld Alliance, which opened the door to the old style of whisky for him.
With a hook, Arun was so thirsty to learn more about whisky. Then, he dived into different distilleries in order to explore the difference among them. And then Arun extended trying the official bottlings (OBs) to independent bottlers’ bottling (IBs), which gave him more diverse varieties of whisky profiles. During this progression, Arun realized that he loves peated malt a lot, and he understood that “trying new bottles is essential, just like the sunrise every morning - it is the same, but also not the same”.
For Kelvin, he started whisky in a gathering with friends as well. The first bottle was Johnnie Walker Black Label and a single malt, Glenfiddich. These kicked off his whisky discovery. Then he met his old classmate, who had more experience of whisky at that moment. So meeting Arun again accelerated the speed of his learning process. Then they have formed a group of five members, buying whisky bottles together, tasting session, cross-comparing to get a deeper understanding of the bottles.
With this approach, Arun & Kelvin got more opportunities to try more new bottles. As when each member buys one bottle, they can have a total of five different drams to enjoy and experience, this helped them to buy more and try more. This also allowed them to have discussions with each other when they taste the drams, which let them have a better and more enjoyable experience of learning whisky.
How did they learn about whisky by themselves?
Arun and Kelvin have some part of similar approaches regarding learning whisky.
1) Acquiring information via books or the internet
Researching on the internet or reading some must-read books are good ways to acquire fundamental knowledge. Such as what are the whisky regions in Scotland, what kind of distilleries you can find in each region, what is the history of a certain distillery etc. Also, you can understand those legendary bottles through some whisky bibles, this can be very helpful for you to aim and try those representative drams in a bar in the future.
2) Experience as many bottles as you can - Visit whisky bars
The second part of learning whisky is to visit multiple whisky bars to try flights, the special & legendary bottles. Such as Arun visited the Whisky Store (Quaich Bar) & the Auld Alliance very frequently in his early learning, in order to taste more drams to build the foundations.
3) Meeting new people to get new perspectives
As whisky tasting is a sensory experience, sometimes our understanding of whisky can be limited by our own life experience. So meeting more diverse people and discuss with them while tasting whisky can help us to acquire different perspectives about the same bottle. This can be a good approach to expand our understanding of the whisky profiles.
Arun mentioned that when he visited Japan to explore the whisky bars, he always loved to ask two questions:
a) Which is your favourite whisky?
b) Why do you think this is your favourite whisky?
Then Arun could listen to the stories and reasons from the bar owner and learned a lot of the new perspectives or stories about the specific bottle or the distillery.
4) Having an internal motivation of learning
“Always wanting to know more” is the philosophy of Arun and Kelvin. This gave them the consistent motivation to explore and collect bottles in order to know and learn more about whisky.
Why did they name their bar “the Swan Song”
Arun & Kelvin told me that the bar was a passion project. As they love whisky, especially old and vintage whisky, that’s why they stock more old and vintage whisky in their bar to share with the whisky lovers for enjoyment and experience.
Besides Arun and Kelvin’s preference for old and vintage whisky, they also hope to build the bar as a place that the whisky lovers can experience the legendary bottles that they can find in a book at a reasonable price range.
However, the old and vintage whisky are discontinued already, so it is impossible to find those bottles again when we have consumed all of them in the foreseeable future. That’s why Arun and Kelvin wanted to name the bar “the Swan Song” in order to remind us that those elegant old bottles are hard to re-find in the future.
Note: “The swan song“ is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death since they have been silent (or alternatively not so musical) for most of their lifetime.
What makes the Swan Song bar special?
As the Swan Song bar is a passion project, Arun & Kelvin used their own savings to purchase some old and vintage bottles to share with the whisky lovers to experience the legendary drams. The core philosophy is to create a friendly place for whisky lovers to enjoy and discuss whisky in a comfortable environment at a reasonable & accessible price.
Accessibility, Comfortable & Friendly
The “accessible” in the above has two layers of meaning:
1) Make sure the bottles are physically accessible. - So Arun and Kelvin have to try very hard to acquire those old & vintage whisky.
2) Try their best to make sure the price of the drams are accessible for whisky lovers. - As finding a legendary bottle may not be that difficult if the price tag has a bunch of zeros behind the first digit. But it will be not that accessible for most whisky lovers with a high price.
That’s why Arun & Kelvin would always love to open some legendary bottles and sell by drams, even though this may not make sense from a financial point of view. —> Because if they stock that bottle without opening it and resell it in the future can easily help them make more profit as an investment. But Arun & Kelvin feel sad if a good bottle of whisky is not shared with friends.
What do Arun and Kelvin do when they find a bottle of whisky that they don’t enjoy much?
Arun & Kelvin are similar to most whisky lovers, they also have bought some bottles and felt that they didn’t like the bottle at all. When they have more experience, they develop a methodology and philosophy:
If you like or dislike a bottle of whisky or a distillery, try three different times of the bottle or three different bottles of the distillery. We should give the whisky a second chance.
What do Arun and Kelvin think about today’s whisky market?
1) Modern vs old whisky
The whisky today is not the same as the ones that produced about 30 years ago. This includes the technology improvements, and the change of the materials, like using local barely or wild yeast or the quality of the sherry casks etc. Although the whisky can be produced more efficiently, however that also made the modern whisky lose some characters. That’s why the modern whisky is not as good as the old styles. However, as mentioned above, the old bottles are all discontinued, so it is impossible to find some of them once those bottles are all opened.
2) Hiding the name of the distillery
In recent years, there is a trend that some new bottles from some independent bottlers are hiding the names of the distilleries on the labels because this can lower the cost of the cask. So it is very easy to see “Secret Islay Malt”, “Secret Speyside Malt”, “Secret Irish Whisky” in the market. However, without the name of the distillery, it is very difficult for some of the whisky lovers to learn whisky, because even when they try a bottle of secret malt whisky and they want to try the other bottle from the same distillery, they will not be able to find it. This is one of the barriers for the users to learn and compare the whisky, and it may lower the curiosity of the new whisky lovers. This means that it may be very good from the business perspective, but may not be that sustainable from the educational and enjoyment perspectives.
3) The pointing system of whisky
As the internet is very powerful for people to research and acquire information, some whisky friends love to depend on the whisky pointing system to decide which bottle they will buy or not buy. However, by using this approach, users may lose a lot of valuable experience, because some of the lower-ranked bottles may be also an excellent dram for someone. It may be better to try some of the bottles before you buy in a whisky bar or with friends. The pointing system can be a reference, but it may not be the measurement to decide whether the bottle is good or bad. Enjoying the diverse profiles of whisky is one of the most important parts of the whisky journey.
What is the biggest challenge for Arun and Kelvin to manage the Swan Song bar?
The biggest challenge is to find the bottle at the accessible price range for people to try.
Actually, some of the old bottles are not difficult to find in the market. However, the price of those bottles is not that accessible for the majority of whisky lovers. So Arun & Kelvin put a lot of efforts to find old or vintage bottles for whisky lovers to experience and enjoy. Because Arun & Kelvin believe that it hurts them more if the good whisky cannot be shared and enjoyed.
Endnotes
In the interview with Arun & Kelvin, I personally also learned a lot. Especially they mentioned that they want to experience the unknown zone, which means they want to try the bottles that no one has experienced before. Because that is a fun factor when we are discovering something new. Although the result may be good or bad, it doesn’t matter sometimes, as we have a very memorable and fun process already.
Writer - Aukingfai
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