“As we drove along, the sea was smooth and calm as an inland lake; but here, after a gale the Atlantic waves break in most magnificent array, and it is a sight never to be forgotten. We next passed Bruichladdich Distillery, which lies on the side of the road. Two miles further on we reached Port Charlotte, a village of little importance and interest except for the large distillery owned by Mr. Sheriff, which employs a number of laboring class, and gives little life to the locality.” – Alfred Benard.

I begin again with a quote from the whisky writer and traveller Alfred Bernard, whose tour through the industry in the 1880s captured a fascinating moment in time. Lochindaal was among the many distilleries he visited which are now lost.

A great deal of what he wrote about the place still fires its spirit today, and you can hear echoes of his description about the role of the distillery in the community in the words of Jim McEwan and the Bruichladdich crew in the early 2000s. They dreamt of creating a place that supplied jobs, housing, and a brighter future to the Ileach community.

One of the projects that never came to fruition was the reopening of Port Charlotte distillery (not to be called Lochindaal as Beam-Suntory own the rights to that name via Bowmore). By 2007 plans were well in motion at Bruichladdich for the reopening of that other distillery which would perhaps take over the namesake peated product lines from Bruichladdich long with more emphasis on organic and green production methods. It is no coincidence that one of the three distillation seasons at Bruichladdich for the spirit known as Lochindaal took place in 2007.

Lochindaal closed in 1929 during the whisky loch of that era, one fueled in part by Prohibition in the United States (and the global temperance movement) and a deepening global economic crisis, which in the United States gave way to the Great Depression. The attempt by Mark Raynier and the rest of the Laddie crew to reopen Lochindaal in the early 2000s suffered in the face of yet another the financial crisis: the Great Recession which began in 2008. While shovels hit the ground on May 27th 2007, with expectations that the distiller would be open in 2009, this did not come to pass.

As late as 2012, the Malt Whisky Yearbook still included a note about plans for the distillery: plans were approved, but finances remained a challenge. The effort to reopen Lochindaal seems to have gone into stasis, at least publicly, since Rémy Cointreau purchased Bruichladdich in July 2012. Instead, Bruichladdich operates something like Springbank, maintaining three different styles of whisky from the unpeated Bruichladdich, Port Charlotte, and Octomore.

The focus this week is on Port Charlotte (with a few bonus Rhinns, another experimental style from the distillery) and the artwork is based on a handful of photos of the Lochindaal distillery as it stood during the early twentieth century. Of course I have added some additional features… like human sized distillery cats.

So how do we feel about Port Charlotte? Does it trigger the same sweet nostalgia for others? Do you have it situated in the same elevated and prime spot as I do?

Artwork this week is my own: I used an handful of old reference photos of Lochindaal and added some wonderful cats to work at the distillery.