Scotch whisky and dinosaurs

Anniversaries are always a time for reflection, but when our 30th anniversary at The Scotch Whisky Experience came around this year the practicalities of competitions, press interest, content creation, interviews and special commemorative bottlings took over until today when the dinosaurs arrived.

Today was the final part of the May extravaganza with a visit from The Royal Mile Primary School's primary 1 class to add their contribution to our Time Capsule in recognition of our building being the original Castlehill Primary School which closed in 1951.

As the flock of excited five and six year old treaded the cobbles from the foot to the top of the Royal Mile scroll in hand, I was busy adding our 30th anniversary bottling, photo of the team, newspapers of the day and imagining what the class may have chosen to bring along. I'll be honest, I hadn't expected it to be dinosaurs, much as they had mentioned that this was their topic for the term. So what's the connection? They had been learning about the concept of evidence and how it contributes to us knowing what we do about the prehistoric reptiles. And in that one thought the whole essence of a time capsule is explained. The bones and fossils are time capsules of the dinosaurs, we have created our barrel-full of memorabilia as our time capsule today, but here is the thing that really struck me: every single bottle of Scotch whisky is an unintentional time capsule. When we created our 30th anniversary bottling we thought more about the flavour, character, label and bottle than anything more profound, however each and every drop of single malt and grain whisky that came off the stills over thirty years ago is the essence of the climate, weather and people who created it. Scotch is such a living breathing product morphed and changed by its ingredients, weather, geography and people that it cannot help but become the essence of that year.

Our intention is to leave the time capsule hidden in the attic for the next thirty years, just as whiskies are being laid down today and will go on to mature for just as long. I'm enjoying the thought of the expression on the faces of those who open it when in addition to the more predicable items they come face to face with an excellent drawing of a fierce looking pink Triceritops.