Counter Culture

Blues, whisky, and a room full of willing conspirators — few Fringe shows blend music, storytelling and guided tasting with the swagger and charm of 2 Guys, 3 Drams. Now entering their fourth consecutive Edinburgh run, Felipe and Paul return with a fresh line‑up of whiskies, a new sponsor in InchDairnie, and the same mission as ever: to turn a room of strangers into one merry, whisky‑swigging organism. Counter Culture asked the duo to talk drams, blues, audience alchemy, and why their show title is technically a lie…

You describe the show as “more than a concert and more than a tasting.” What’s the moment where those two worlds collide most perfectly on stage?

Honestly, the moment we start playing the first song of the show, and we bring out the first whisky to serve our audience. It’s an unusual format, so this is the point where I think everyone realises together “oh, they’re DEFINITELY serving whisky too” and is immediately ready to go along with whatever we have planned for them.

Felipe Schrieberg and Paul Archibald

Three whiskies in an hour is a bold structure. How do you choose which drams make the cut each year?

We reach out to different brands or distilleries who have whisky that we really like, and then curate the selection of available whiskies for the show. We prefer to have something lighter to start, spicier and more robust or unusual second, and preferably something quite heavy or peated last. We regularly rotate the selection throughout the run.

Blues and whisky both have deep cultural roots. What’s the connection between them that keeps pulling you back?

In blues, you rarely are playing more than three chords with relatively simple grooves. In Scotch malt whisky, you’ve just got three ingredients to work with. And yet, there’s infinite ways to prepare and combine those elements, meaning that you end up with so much character, flavour, and variety across both. I think this is why they’re such a good pairing.

You’ve had three consecutive sell‑out years. What’s the biggest change you’ve made to the show for 2026?

We don’t actually follow a script. We block the show out in modular segments that encourage audience interaction, provide some kind of educational fact about the world of whisky, or feature tricks on sounding clever whenever you’re drinking whisky. We’re constantly coming up with new segments to add, or swapping different ones in and out with each show. It’ll be the same this year. The whiskies we’re working with are completely different as well.

InchDairnie is sponsoring the run — how does working with a new‑wave distillery influence the tasting experience?

InchDairnie is one of nine sponsors, but the only one involved for a full run, and we’ll be serving their fascinating rye whisky every night. The team really gets what our show is about and what we want to do. In their case, it is truly unusual to try a Scottish rye whisky (under Scottish law, it is technically a “grain whisky”), so this is a chance to showcase some truly unique aromas and flavours to our crowd. Even most hardcore Scotch geeks won’t have tried something like this before.

Felipe, you’ve said audiences will “leave knowing how to sound clever about whisky.” What’s the one whisky fact people always get wrong?

I don’t know about “getting wrong,” but we like to joke that our show title is a lie. In old‑school Scottish bar‑speak, a dram actually refers to a double measure whereas a nip refers to a single measure. Over the years, the word “dram” has become a catch‑all for any measure that everyone uses, even the whisky industry. Since we’re actually serving single measures at the show, a more appropriate title for the show is 2 Guys, 3 Nips…

The show mixes humour, education, and live music. What’s the hardest part of keeping all three elements in balance?

I would say being able to calibrate the performance to the energy of the room. It means meeting the audience where they are, and then seeing where you can go together.

It’s quite special when we can make the audience turn into one merry whisky‑swigging organism over the course of the show. We employ a whole suite of tricks to do it, and blending together music, education and humour actually gives us many useful tools to work with to reach our goal.

Blues is often about storytelling. Whisky is too. What’s the best story behind one of the drams you’re serving this year?

InchDairnie is a really interesting one — they really are a truly groundbreaking distillery with how they produce their whisky, and serving a rye that’s normally associated with the USA and Canada is really fun. It helps break the usual preconceptions people have about whisky and what it should “be.”

We’re also serving a blended whisky called Ardray, which is actually a collaboration between Beam Suntory’s top Scotch whisky master blender and the legendary Japanese whisky blender Shinji Fukuyo. It’s a great argument as to why you should never see blends as inferior.

You’ve played everywhere from tasting rooms to festival stages. What makes the Fringe audience different?

For us, it’s more the nature of doing a theatre show. Performing at the Fringe is a format that makes us tighten up our usual chaos into something more formal and structured. We actually like this — we think it’s vitally important as musicians to be performing in different contexts. It means you stay present, take nothing for granted, and learn how to connect with your audience no matter the situation. Putting together a Fringe show is a different way to explore making meaningful connections through music and whisky.

After years of performing this show, what’s the most surprising reaction you’ve ever had from someone tasting whisky for the first time?

Not too surprising, but we always give ourselves a little pat on the back when we get someone who says they thought they didn’t like whisky until they came to our show and realised that they actually do like whisky after all!