James Millar, a lecturer at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University, recently received a foreign minister’s praise, regarding his work in “promoting mutual understanding between Japan and the United Kingdom”.

How did Millar achieve this? Well, aside from lecturing, Millar is also a bit of a blending genius, apparent from his world-famous, and first of their kind, fusion blends of Japanese and Scotch whiskies, known as The Glover series.

In 2015 Millar also created Fusion Whisky Ltd, to enable him to continue to create his increasingly popular fusion blends.

The Glover whiskies are made from a selection of the very finest Scotch and Japanese whiskies. The flavours all come together wonderfully, with a balance that would make one think these whiskies were all created for the sole purpose of being fused together.

The blends are named after Thomas Blake Glover, also known as the ‘Scottish Samurai’, who played a huge part in Japan’s industrialization in the 19th century. They exhibit Millar’s true devotion to “blending” and so bring these two great cultures together through mutual, superior craft of whisky.

Aside from whisky, Millar has also helped build bridges between Scotland and Japan in other ways. He played a key role in establishing the first Scottish Government cross-party group in Japan, and also created a Japanese language group. Millar has also worked hard to build a strong relationship between Robert Gordon University and Japan.

Millar had this to say after receiving the wonderful commendation: “I am very honoured that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs thought my work was worthy enough to warrant this prestigious commendation.

“I have always been a great admirer of Japan and it has been pleasing to see our two countries come closer together through each of the projects I have worked on.”

I know I’ll be toasting a dram of The Glover to the wonderful work Mr Millar has done and his accomplishments so far. Here’s to a bright future between Scotland and Japan, the two strongest countries on the global whisky stage.