A Buddie is living the dream after upping sticks and running a Barcelona whisky bar.
Kris Cowan opened up his very own bar in sunny Barcelona a few years ago and is fresh from cutting the ribbon on a second venue in the Mediterranean jewel.
Kris left Paisley more than a decade ago, seeking a new direction in his life after losing his job as a plumber and splitting from his then-girlfriend.
His journey took him from Seedhill to Barcelona and then from Barcelona to Colombia, where he was brutally stabbed in a robbery that left him needing 70 stitches and sent him back to Barcelona.
This is where he eventually set up his business, La Whiskeria, just off the famous Las Ramblas.
The former Paisley Grammar School pupil origibnally moved to Paisley from Northumberland when he was a teen and dropped out of school at 16 to become a plumbing apprentice, taking on a bar job at Stones Bar and Grill on the weekends to supplement his salary.
Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
Kris spent the next eight years of his life in Paisley working on getting a promotion at the plumber's merchant.
After years of hard graft he finally landed the job, aged 24, but disaster struck in his very first week in his new role. He was caught speeding in his company car and lost the job. Some weeks later he also split up with his girlfriend, which led him to question exactly where his life was going.
“I thought what's the point of looking for another job in Paisley when I can go look for another job in a warm country. So I decided to move to the sun," said Kris.
He added: “I was looking at places all around the world, trying to plan my future and looking at every country and trying to figure out what it would be like if I moved there and how it would pan out.
“I moved to Barcelona with a clean slate. I tried to give myself an achievable dream and just chase that for the rest of my life.”
That dream, to begin with, was becoming the world’s best bartender. In 2008, Kris began seeking out jobs at Barcelona’s most renowned cocktail bars, hoping to hone his skills.
In 2014, growing somewhat disillusioned with what he described as a lack of professionalism in the bar industry in Spain, Kris was on the move again, this time to Cartagena, Colombia, where he rediscovered his passion for the industry after encountering a pair of guys running a venue that rekindled his fire.
“They were kicking ass there, it was the best bar in pretty much all of Columbia at that moment. It was full every night, it was great vibe and it was great energy.” Said Kris.
He continued: “So they kind of gave me a little bit of inspiration to to get on with it and I thought ‘I could be doing this, I don’t need to be doing bartending anymore’ and this would be the backroute into becoming the best bartender in the world, by creating the best bar in the world.”
However, having realised the direction he wanted to take, his dream was soon cut short after a vicious attack left him hospitalised.
“Columbia soon went south. I got attacked one night. I got stabbed in the chest, I got my phone stolen off me and I've got a big scar all the way down shoulder and chest.
“I was coming home by myself. I was living in the wrong neighbourhood. I was on a bartender salary and you have to take what you can get.
“One night, three guys pulled up on a motorbike behind me and attacked me from behind. I turned around and the first guy got me in the chest and said give me your phone.
"I threw my phone in the other direction... hoping they’d go in that direction. They picked up the phone and ran away and I was left with a huge wound.
“I managed to go up to my apartment and my flatmate was home. She took me to the hospital in a taxi and ended up getting busted through all the arteries on my shoulder and everything. And I've got about 70 stitches on the inside and the outside. And then that was the end of Colombia.”
With his arm incapacitated for the next few months and unable to work, Kris found that his money was dwindling away and decided to move back to Barcelona, where he had more of a support group.
While there he built up his savings so that he could afford to start out on his new bar venture. In 2018, with the help of a friend, he bought his first venue, La Whiskeria, a whisky and cocktail bar a stone's-throw away from Las Ramblas.
And now, after the success of that business he’s just opened a second venue, also called La Whiskeria in the trendy Eixample district of Barcelona.
With his business really taking off, Kris has no plans to come back home anytime soon.
He said: “I love Scotland with all my heart. I love it more than I'm away from it at the moment. But you see a lot of people that I’ve met over the years say ‘Oh, you're so brave. You did this, you moved away, you packed your bags', or whatever. And it was literally one of the easiest things I ever did.
“People don't really realise how easy it is to go off and live the life you want to live. A lot of people get tied up with family issues or work issues, boyfriend and girlfriend issues and they think that they are stuck within the same bubble forever. It's a big world out there.”
Download the FREE Renfrewshire Live app now for all the latest news, features and sport in your area. Available on both Android and Apple. Download here:smarturl.it/RenfrewLiveSocial
