Wine Casks

Although we couldn’t go on a tour of the distillery because of  the maintenance work it was not a complete disaster as we were  offered a visit to the warehouse and the tasting that would have followed a normal tour. This was just fine as we had someone to interact with, who could communicate something of the spirit of the place as well as being able to compare a number of the whiskies in their range. For sure not seeing the Victorian equipment was a miss but there was still a lot to be gained by standing in warehouses, feeling the atmosphere, smelling the escaping alcohol, seeing the old barrels, whilst being told about the process and what was happening.

The casks were interesting, especially seeing those that held wines that make whisky, even in theses days of increasing prices, seem like a serious bargain. It also makes you think about the traditions of different alcoholic drinks. Wine is obviously much older than whisky, stretching back thousands of years to ancient times,  and France has a long, continuous history e.g. Haughty Brion was mentioned by Samuel Pepys. There is something about the gloom of a traditional dunnage warehouse that makes you think about age – you really can’t stop yourself.

For display there is a barrel with a glass head to show how red a whisky would become if it was  solely matured in it. It is  startling. I am not sure I could pick up anything that looked so much like an alcopop.

We were also shown the bottling hall, which has a mural of dolphins leaping in turquoise water viagra super actif. The story is that when the new owners took over in 2001 the water of Loch Indaal was that colour and there were dolphins. The colour is now the colour of Bruichladdich and if I believed in omens and signs, that would seem to me to be most propitious. After all the colour hasn’t done too badly for Bianchi, who call their colour celeste, I wonder if the Bruichladdich shade has a name?