John McDougall is a friend of ours, living in Dublin, yet another whisky lover – here he is at Broochladdie!
I did the Botanist tour at Bruichladdich, it’s only been recently introduced to the tours the last couple of weeks. If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting much, after all how much can you expect to hear about Gin! At the start of the tour we went to visit Ugly Betty (a Lomond still of which there are only a hand full left in Scotland) and then back to the Laddie shop to discuss the 22 local and 7 not so local Botanicals. You get to try Neutral spirit (which Laddie buy in from Birmingham), the gin itself, a load of different tonics and some members of the group attempt to make some cocktails using Gorse (Whin), Nettle cordial and some Horse flowers. From one run, a whopping 250,000 bottles are produced. I asked about the 250,000 bottles and got the same answer from a few people. The more I think about it the less possible it seems. Gin now consists of 60% of everything bottled at the distillery, it could be even more as I was distracted by PG McCuaig and the whisky stills and was only half listening, sorry Heather.
John (Ian) is a grand whisk(e)y lover, has been to many distilleries in Scotland and Ireland, this is his first blog for us, but not the last we hope. Find John on facebook. Paul: my own thoughts … I cannee stand gin, only time I liked it was in a cocktail and it was drowned by tonic. There again is another problem; which tonic is best? I must admit I go to whisky distilleries for a whisky tour and to taste whisky – mostly as John does. Och well, gin seems to be taking over the whole of Europe lately!