In this interview, I chat with Matthew from Whisky Games on Instagram. Mathew make Domino sets from old barrel staves.
Q. How did you come up with the idea for whisky games?
A. I had bought some barrel staves for firewood and wondered if there was anything else I could do with them. And then I had the idea of dominoes. I tried a few sizes and shapes and a few different box sizes until I was happy with the results. I like traditional pub games.
Q. Do you have plans for others games in addition to Dominoes?
A. I am trying to find games that fit with using staves but haven’t found any yet. Chess pieces are always suggested by other people. There are some old fashioned games that may suit. I would love to use the stave pieces in a more complicated game such as that which has been launched on Kickstarter as ‘The Whisky Game’.
Q. Is it easy to source barrels?
A. Yes. But as I only use the thin staves I usually select my own rather than buying whole barrels. I hadn’t realised that each barrel is made of staves of 5 or 6 different widths.
Q. I presume there is a lot of work to do in preparing the barrels for use?
A. Each set of dominoes takes about 2 days, however I do each step in multiples. Eg sand a group of staves, then cut them all etc.
Q. You have a really good quiz on your website. Was it fun researching the questions?
A. Thank you, it has been fun creating it. I still have a few hundred more questions to add but I takes a while to type them in to the website. I would love to design an app that could be used by a group of people.
Q. Which is your favourite whisky region to visit?
A. I love the Highland region distilleries
Q. What do you consider to be your favourite distillery and why?
A. I love the Balblair distillery. Firstly because I love their whisky and secondly because it has all the iconic features of a distillery but on a small accessible scale, and lastly the staff are very friendly.