One Day You Will

Just back from the One Day You Will 'summit' at Glenfiddich, a very different sort of event (for me at least). To celebrate the pioneering aspect of the brand (currently repositioning itself) they laid on speakers who in their own fields are pioneers. Digital interactive artist Marek Bereza was a revelation, which given I was expecting something like videos of sawn up shoes was surprising. Brilliant and beautiful use of computer images, with no little wit thrown in that made his stuff entertaining as well as artistic. And a very humble and shy speaker. Bit of a contrast with polar explorer Pen Hadow (I'm still not sure why taking a deliberately difficult pathway to somewhere reached many times before should be considered exploring) who was  definitely not humble, and for this listener not entertaining either. Given the length of his presentation he didn't share that opinion. Eben Klemm, a molecular biologist turned mixologist, was another I had awaited with some trepidation, but he was fascinating: he has a scientific approach to flavours, isolating them, enhancing, matching, that was genuinely educational and revelatory. And a great guy to chat with. He had deconstructed various Glenfiddichs with a clever cold distillation technique, enabling us to experience specific elements of its make-up. Terrific. Many thanks to the Glenfiddich team at the distillery and in London, and the Future Laboratory guys.