Round I

At left, distillers, journalists and hangers-on mill around the stills at the end of the first day's run. Roughly 80 gallons of distillate were produced, with about five gallons considered to be such good product (110 proof and clean as a whistle!) that it is being barreled as a separate "director's cut" and will not need to be distilled a second time. At right, Dave Pickerell and Bill Lumsden confer over the proofing results. Tomorrow we continue the second run on the remainder of the batch.

Comments from the Scots:

Bill Lumsden, "It's quite a thrill to be doing everything by hand."

John Campbell, "It's almost like stepping back in time to produce whisky the way it was done 300 years ago."

Andy Cant, "It's like you've got to unlearn everything you've learned; it's a complete unknown, but I think that's half the fun of it."