Bruichladdich

Halifax 1997

I'm giving some training sessions on the accounting system to the sales force of the company I used to work for. It's March and the weather's damn cold. I'm staying across the harbour in Dartmouth and have taken the ferry to downtown Halifax for the evening. A good meal and then it's off to find a place to have a drink. I don't know anybody in town, aside from the co-workers I'm going to see the next day and am cruising the streets solo. I wander into a friendly looking pub playing live music and walk up to the bar. The "live music" is actually a table of patrons who have brought their own instruments and are getting completely hammered while belting out some of the best Maritime music I've ever heard.

I turn to the barmaid, who looks the part a little too perfectly, and ask for my favourite up-'til-this moment Scotch. She makes a face of disgust and looks like she's about to throw me out of the place when she leans over to me and says in that low husky voice used by so many women in her profession:


"Lad, would ya like ta sample a REAL Scots Whiskey?"

"Sure" I say.

Well, what would YOU say?

"But I'll make ya a deal, This first one's on me. If you like it, you'll hafta buy me ma" - she points at a little table next to the local musicians - "a shot of it too, for her Birthday, which was today."

Sounds like a fair deal to me. She pours me a Bruichladdich and I try not to gulp it down. I'm instantly in love. No, not with the barmaid, or her ma - although the possibility did cross my mind - Hey, I was single and desperate!

"Set your ma up," says I, a warm fire spreading through my chest, "and me too."

Two hours later I stagger out of the bar and catch the ferry back to Dartmouth, not giving a damn about the cold. When I awake in the morning, grabbing my computer and handouts as I head out the door, all I can think about is if they stock this stuff in the liquor stores here, and back in Ontario where I was living at the time. At the airport that evening, as I'm heading onto the plane to take me back to Toronto, I debate whether I made the right decision: checking my notebook (sorry, the COMPANY'S notebook) with baggage and taking the five bottles of Bruichladdich with me as carry-on.

In Toronto, the next time I went to the liquor store (down to 3 bottles of Bruichladdich) I can't find it anywhere. Oh well, I say to myself. I know people in Halifax who can get it for me. Then I here that they shut the distillery down in 1994 and that they won't be producing it ever again, meaning that the last bottles should be on sale in 2004 by my reckoning.

Curiously enough, as I digest this little piece of disappointment, I find a supply of Bruichladdich at the huge LCBO for $45 a bottle! The hoarding begins anew, but I have to consume and soon my supply has dwindled again. I begin to realize that I can't rely on my favourite single malt being available forever.

The last bottle is drained in early 2000. I am sad.

But then hope renewed. The distillery is purchased and new owners have taken over.

I start to see the magic bottles in the liquor stores again...WTF?

$74 a BOTTLE!!! $94.50 for the 15-year old?

Damn it. I really am going to have to find a job...