Hughes recalls as a child watching glen garioch's chimneys being demolished brick-by-brick by a Glaswegian steeple jack. He came up the road, bouncing off the walls I had so much to drink,' Fraser recalls.

The manager said to him: "Surely mot going up there drunk?" he replied: i think I'd climb that if I was sober? Thankfully, the steeplejack's services have never been required at Ardmore, where the coal fires have been kept burning.

It is a site, built by Adam Teacher to provide fillings for his blend. 'Teacher got off the train here when he came to visit Colonel Leith-hay at Leith Hall,' says Ronnie .

Ardmore's brewer. 'He wanted to build a distillery and the Colonel pointed out there was water and a rail link here, one presumes the fact that the Colonel owned huge tracts of prime barley-growing country didn't enter into the equation.

:TASTING NOTES

Ardmore 1981 Gordon & Macphail bottling. Robust nose, with smoke, dried fruit and some cream. The palate is richly layered with smoke, malt and a teasingly spicy finish. *'' * For reasons best known to themselves Allied Domecq has yet to bottle Ardmore as a single malt- though rumours of a policy change persist. Thankfully, the independent bottlers have always managed to get their hands on some.