We woke at a normal time and enjoyed a relaxed Scottish Breakfast. We had time to hike a mile along the coast from Port Charlette to the Bruichladdich Distillery and we arrived a bit early to confirm our spots on the warehouse tour.
Pro tip: not all tours have strict limits for attendance. The Bruichladdich website only allowed me to book a single ticket. When we arrived at the distillery, they were very accommodating about adding a second person.
Bruichladdich Gift Shop
Arriving early allowed us to browse the merchandise in the shop. We also learned about shop special bottling.
Pro tip; take advantage of shop specials, distillery specials, malt of the month specials, etc. You will not get these tastes in the states. The Bruichladdich Distillery has two casks in their gift shop. These casks are open for tasting and they are not on the tour. When we were there the casks were an unpeated Bruichladdich and a peated Port Charlette. These were spectacular, specifically picked casks for shop.
Pro tip; take advantage of shop specials before your tour begins. We had a tight schedule given our desire to walk 6 miles to Kilchoman before our 3pm tour. Being so early in the morning and considering we were about to take a warehouse tour, we were a bit reluctant to ask about the shop casks. We eventually worked up the nerve to ask Sarah, one of the guides, and were happily rewarded with sample tastes. Without hesitation and despite the fact we would have to carry them, Mark asked for a bottle of each. To our surprise, Mark was allowed to fill his own bottles straight from the cask and I took a video of the occasion. Once filled, he was given labels to label his own bottles as well. That was a pretty cool experience.
We told Sarah that we were headed to Kilkoman next and she told us that her sister, Emma, worked at Kilkoman. It’s a small island. She laughed and asked us to say hello because the only way they communicate is through visitors relaying messages.
Bruichladdich Warehouse Tour
Richard was our warehouse tour guide. Richard began with a walk up to the yellow submarine followed by the story behind the yellow submarine. An interesting side story about a lost British Naval mini-sub which was found by someone at Bruichladdich while out fishing. After a few weeks of military denial, the British Navy admitted to losing the sub and set-up a date to recover it from the distillery. Although the navy wanted it kept quiet, Bruichladdich marketing people had a different plan and a huge celebration with special yellow submarine bottles ensued. The Bruichladdich Distillery continues the opportunity by releasing anniversary bottles and eventually purchased a decommissioned submarine from Ebay. That submarine sits on display in the Bruichladdich yard today.
In the warehouse, we were given samples of Bruichladdich, Port Charlette and the heavily peated Octimore. Mark volunteered to help pour samples using the whisky thief, a large metal ‘straw’ used to extract a small amount of whisky from a cask. This is not a delicate task, and by the end Mark was basically swimming in cask strength whisky.
Pro tip; Always volunteer to help during whisky tours.
As usual, the participants are asked where they are from and we met two new friends from Bavaria, Germany, Christof and Katherine. After the tour everyone went back to the gift shop. We picked up our backpacks for our hike and proceeded to leave. But not without noticing everyone else had lined up at the two shop special casks. We were happy we got our bottles before the tour.
Later that evening, Christof and Katherine were two of the people dining at the Lockindaal Restaurant. They were excited to tell us that they had been the first people in line at the shop casks after the tour. They told us that one of the casks went empty during their bottling. Richard had to lift the backend of the cask to drain out the last amount to fill his bottle. Mark and I looked at each other stunned at the thought that a cask could run dry. We were thankful for how lucky we were to have filled up before the tour and how upset we would have been if we were so close and missed out on the bottling. We celebrated our good fortune with a seafood platter.