The Bottling Hall  Islay’s First “Mise en Bouteille au Chateau”

Bottling Hall
Sunday May 25th 2003 Saw the official Christening of the  Harvey Hall as it is now known, by Sir John MacTaggart.  In attendance all the way from Canada was Faith Muir, the granddaughter of William Harvey the founder of the distillery. As usual at Bruichladdich the sun  was out and a good time was had by all in what was a record attendance, even surpassing the reopening of the distillery in  2001.

Since reopening the distillery in May 2001 it has been our intention to control our own bottling at the distillery, as part of our quality control,  dedication to Islay, and strong belief in  authenticity. Work started in Spring 2002 with our own team of lads doing all the work under the able  leadership of Jonathon Carmichael.

From April 2003 our whole bottling program for both Bruichladdich and Murray McDavid  now takes place here, in the Harvey Bottling Hall,  under the care of Simon Coughlin.

Bruichladdich is the only whisky to be distilled, matured, and bottled on Islay.

This is an historic moment for Islay in maintaining the integrity of Bruichladdich as an authentic Islay Single Malt.  Islay has been exporting whisky for over 200 years in casks, destined for bottling plants on the Scottish mainland. As the casks were exported, so were potential jobs - now for the first time ever an Islay whisky will be distilled, matured and bottled on the island.

There is really only one place where an Islay whisky should be bottled  - and that is on Islay by the Ileachs themselves, using Islay's world-famous water. We are very proud to be the first and only Islay malt doing this. 

Additionally, all shipping, order processing, stock control, Customs & Excise and related work will be carried out at the distillery too.

Dolphins have a certain mysticism, and many old stories and legends are based on the spiritual and human aspects of these animals. After the purchase of the distillery seven dolphins entered Lochindaal for the first time in many years and were seen daily off the shore in front of the distillery. This was seen as a good omen with some folk claiming that they represented the seven souls of the previous distillery managers coming back to celebrate the reopening....