Old-fashioned virtues

摘要

Everything about berry bros. & rudd's showroom in St James's Street, London, suggests tradition. The walls are panelled in dark oak. Leather-bound volumes record "the weights of customers of this establishment" from 1765 onwards, sitting alongside a set of weights from a time when the shop sold coffee rather than alcohol. Simon Berry represents the 7th generation of Berrys to run the company, and he looks the part. Sitting in a small office with a roaring fire (gas, alas) and an old-fashioned rotary-dial phone, he talks about the company's Cutty Sark brand of whisky being blended on the table in front of him.