Alfred Barnard

On my shelves I have a facsimile production of "The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom", written by Alfred Barnard who was born in 1837 into a Baptist family in Thaxted, a rural village in Essex, England. His was one of eight children. His father was a draper and grocer.

In 1859, aged 22 he married Fanny Ruffle, also 22. At this time Alfred is thought to have been a grocer residing in Kensington. He became secretary of Harper's Weekly Gazette, and visited every working whisky distillery in Great Britain and Ireland from 1885-1887. In all, he visited an incredible 162 distilleries; 129 in Scotland, 29 in Ireland and 4 in England.

The background here is one of the illustrations from his book, a picture of Caol Ila distillery in Islay which produces one of the very finest whiskies in the world.

We soon came in sight of the distillery lying directly beneath us, and we wonder for a moment how we are to get down to it. Our driver however, knew the road well, for often had he been here before, and turning sharp to the right, we commenced the descent through a little hamlet of houses. But the way is so steep, and our nerves none of the best, that we insist upon doing the remainder of the descent on foot, much to the disgust of the driver, who muttered strange words in Gaelic. His remarks, however, are lost upon us, that language not having formed part of our education. As we descended the hill we paused now and then to gaze upon the far-stretching view before us, and to rest presently we found ourselves at the object of our search, and within a few yards of the sea.