Sounds like the title of a 60s’ pop song?
It’s not about pop songs. It’s about the advances and utilisation of technology.
Remember the bottle of Ardnamurchan that I opened during lockdown?
Ardnamurchan has been an innovative distillery since it began production in 2014. And one of their major innovations has been the adoption of QR codes and blockchains.
At a dinner held in Wellington a while back the Honourable Alex Bruce, MQ, of Adelphi and Ardnamurchan fame talked about blockchain technology that was planning to be put in place around the Ardnamurchan products. The subject meant very little to me – pretty much went right over my head.
Hold that thought, and fast-forward to the opening of my bottle of Ardnamurchan.
On the bottom left hand corner of the label is a QR code.
Coronavirus and social distancing has made the QR code quite familiar – the weird little spotty squares that you scan with your cell phone when you have to register for contact tracing at a café these days.
But I don’t remember ever having seen one on a bottle of whisky before. Especially one that lead to such a fascinating world – the world of the blockchain.
If you thought the production of whisky was a complicated and complex subject, you’ve not met blockchains! I’m pretty sure that, after 70 years of absorbing information ranging from good to totally useless I no longer have enough brain-space left to get my head completely around how blockchaining works.
Coronavirus has made QR codes quite familiar– the weird little spotty squares that you scan with your cell phone when you have to register for contact tracing at a café.
Forging ahead …
To quote Alexander Pope,
“A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep , or taste not the Pieran spring:
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”
Here is a (very) little learning on blockchains.
Blockchain technology was created for the crypto-currency market. Didn’t help me much, knowing that – bitcoin is an area just as obscure as blockchains themselves.
The general idea is that every single little activity (an ‘event’) that goes into something – in this case, the production of a bottle of whisky – is recorded in order to create an unchanging record.
This record is known as a “trust layer” and, according to Ardnamurchan, is “…creating an unbreakable link with the physical product and the digital data that describes its creation.”.
So, when I used my cell phone to scan the QR code on my bottle I got transported into this netherworld of information.
Ardnamurchan
First to the Ardnamurchan Distillery site, and a page encouragingly headed ‘We found your bottle’ – number 871 of 5,000, bottled by Lewis Hamilton on 2 Oct 2018.
Next I am asked for my name, address & bath-night to prove that I am old enough to be reading about whisky.
I am.
We go to a page headed ‘Your spirit’s production’.
And here the rabbit-hole begins in earnest!
You will have to accept my apology now – I have never tried to interpret blockchain data before. So I only hope I am reading the information correctly, and doing it justice.
My bottle seems to be the outcome of three lots of unpeated concerto barley. The first was supplied by Broomhall Farm in the Mid Mills and Gracewells fields on the 01 Jan 2014, the second and third came from Bairds Inverness on 02 Jan 2015.
Mashing for the production run was managed by Gordon MacKenzie. There is detail of how many mashes were included in the unpeated spirit for that week, how many kilograms of Anchor Yeast was added to each batch to aid fermentation and the length of fermentation.
Now the juicy bit:
Batch 1 was filled into 1 American oak Oloroso Butt. Batch 2 went into 17 American oak Pedro Ximenes Octaves, and Batch 3 went into another three PX Octaves. The casks were moved to the upper floor of the Adelphi Warehouse for maturation.
An absolutely amazing level of information and detail! When did you ever know that much about what was in your glass – unless you were on the site actually making the stuff?
“… we look forward to seeing how other brands follow suit …”
Ailsa Bay
Pat discovered that the Lowlands Ailsa Bay Distillery has also adopted blockchain technology for a recently-released Travel Retail Only whisky.
William Grant & Sons own Ailsa Bay. They also own Glenfiddich, Balvenie, Tullamore, Kininvie, and Girvan Grain distilleries. Unsurprisingly, they are the third largest producer of Scotch whisky.
On the Ailsa Bay website, Dominic Parfitt, head of e-commerce at William Grant & Sons, is quoted as saying: “We’re constantly looking to evolve our offering and learn new things in order to push the boundaries within the drinks industry.
“We’re doing something now that we hope will set the bar for the future experience of spirits, and we look forward to seeing how other brands follow suit as innovation within the industry continues to develop in the next few years.”.
As Ardnamurchan say at the end of all my bottle data: “Each step of this journey from barley to bottle has been carefully recorded and written to the blockchain as a guarantee of transparency and authenticity”.
Will William Grants stop at blockchaining Ailsa Bay? I very much doubt it!
So I will be looking forward to seeing more QR codes and blockchain data on my whiskies!
