In November 2022 I was able to do something I had long wanted to do, a warehouse tasting at Bruichladdich distillery on the Rhinns of Islay. Among other reasons that I was staying in Port Charlotte, allowing me to walk to and from the distillery along the Loch Indaal coastal path (although for the return leg a kind member of the distillery staff gave me a lift by car, for which I was very grateful). At the end of the tasting we were able to fill our sample bottles with a proper valinch directly from the cask. I’m not sure which cask I was filling from here, most likely a Port Charlotte from a wine cask.

After the tasting we went over to the visitor centre where I also filled a valinch bottle.