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‘Aye.’ Simon came to stand next to her. ‘He passed ten years back. Worked until the day he died.’
‘That’s quite something,’ Liz remarked. ‘And I’m sorry for your loss,’ she added.
‘Thanks. But he died doin’ what he loved.’ Simon touched the nearest frame to him softly. ‘It’s an art. Not everyone appreciates that.’
‘Oh, I certainly do. I’ve worked in the beverage industry most of my life. Distilleries are like home to me.’ It was more than Liz had intended to say, but it was true. She realised, as she stood among the gleaming copper stills, that she had missed these places. Yes, she loved her Sales job. She was great at presentations and conferences, and great at thinking outside the box when it came to new and better ways to get the brand out there.
But part of the reason she’d applied for the job at Loch Cameron Distillery was that it reminded her of her first job at the distillery in Auchentoshan, the rural village where she had grown up. It had been at that first job, where she worked as a general helper, doing everything from sweeping up in the barn to answering the phone, where she had found some autonomy, and a place to go away from her constantly arguing parents.
Like the Loch Cameron distillery, Auchentoshan was a place full of these copper monsters, and the round mash tuns like huge alien saucers, parked in a barn. This was a place that smelt like home, where she could retreat from the world.
‘Ah. All the more welcome tae ye, then.’ Simon met her eyes, and they shared a look of… what? Fellowship, perhaps, or knowing. ‘No’ like some people, who swan intae the business after university, not knowin’ barley from grass.’
‘Not now, Simon,’ Sally said, in a low voice.
‘Ah, I’m just messin’ with ye. Ye’ll get used tae me, Liz.’ Simon gave her a friendly grin. ‘Anyway, I better get back tae it. See ye anon.’
‘Nice to meet you, Simon.’ Liz nodded. She wasn’t building a great image in her mind of Ben Douglas, the owner: she assumed that was who Simon’s last comment had been aimed at.
‘Well, that was… interesting,’ she said, as they walked out of the other side of the main shed and found themselves outside again. ‘The university comment. I assume that was about Ben?’
‘Hmm. Simon’s very talented, but he’s got a chip on his shoulder,’ Sally said, shortly. ‘He resents Ben because he inherited the business. Probably thinks he could run it better himself.’
‘Could he?’ Liz asked. ‘I mean, I looked at the accounts. I assume that’s why I’m here – to improve sales? Business hasn’t been so great over the past few years.’ She remembered that Sally was Finance Director, and therefore responsible for the accounts she had just mentioned. ‘I’m not saying anything about your side of things, obviously. But you can only do what you can when the income’s so low.’
‘No, I don’t think Simon could do a better job,’ Sally replied, just as shortly as before. ‘And, don’t apologise. I understand, and I agree. Ben loves this place. But, yes, we do need help.’
‘Hmm.’ Liz was noncommittal: until she had the full picture of what was going on at the distillery, she wasn’t going to draw any firm conclusions. ‘So, tell me more about the history of the place.’
‘All right. Well, there are rumours that there was an illegal operation happening on the site before the Douglases started the company as it is now, but that’s hearsay. It received an official license to produce and sell whisky in 1785, making it Scotland’s oldest whisky distillery. Prohibition meant that it was mothballed from 1921 until 1959, though. That was because its main business at that point was making whisky for one of the big imported blends. It always made a single malt, but that wasn’t enough to keep the business going during those years.’
‘I didn’t know that.’ Liz followed Sally around a corner and came upon a huge water wheel attached to the side of one of the buildings and sitting in the low water of a wide stream, leading into the loch in front of them. ‘Ah. The waterwheel! It’s huge. Always find these things a bit forbidding.’ She shivered. ‘I think there must have been a horror film I saw when I was a kid, where a woman was tied to one of them and drowned.’
‘Well, nothing of that nature happened here, as far as I know.’ Sally stopped with her and gazed up at the cast iron wheel: even its spokes were as thick as a tennis player’s thighs.
‘Good. Go on, tell me more about the distillery,’ Liz prompted. ‘It’s good to know the story of the place. Story is important. That’s how you sell something. You tell the story of the brand.’
‘Right. Well, let’s see, what else can I tell you? We’ve got an annual capacity of 1,000,000 litres, but we produce less than half of that. Simon will tell you that we could definitely produce more.’
‘Interesting.’ Liz made a mental note. ‘Why don’t you?’
‘Ask Ben.’ Sally gave her a smile that implied she didn’t agree with whatever the reason was.
‘All right.’ They walked on.
‘Well, I guess another thing to say is that our vault is Scotland’s oldest,’ Sally added.
‘I’d love to see it,’ Liz said. ‘I guess I’m interested in the story of the distillery, though. So, it closed during the Prohibition years, but then it opened again in 1959? Then what? Any stories after that? Any points of interest?’
‘Hmm. I don’t really know,’ Sally mulled as they approached another glossy painted wood door; this one was titled VAULT. ‘Here we are, as if by magic.’
Liz stepped into a hallway with stairs that led down into darkness. It was much cooler in here, and she shivered involuntarily. Sally tapped a switch, and the stairs were bathed in light.
‘I’ll go down first. Watch your step; the treads are a little old,’ she cautioned. Liz rested her hand on a wooden banister as they made their way down, cautiously.
‘I hadn’t realised that monasteries were the ones that really developed alcohol production,’ Sally commented as they reached the bottom of the stairs. ‘I just knew that Ben’s ancestor learnt it from a monk. I just kind of had an idea he was a rogue agent or something.’
‘Oh, no. The first records of people fermenting grain was found in the archaeological digs of Babylon and Mesopotamia. Then, the European Christian monasteries got hold of the idea. They needed to produce several types of alcoholic beverages to be used in ceremony, so, kind of ironically, the Church preserved the process of fermentation and distillation during the Dark and Middle Ages.’ Liz blushed, thankful it was dark in the vault. ‘Sorry. I’m just kind of a nerd about this stuff.’
