The bottling hall is a manic place to be at this time of year. It's all hands on deck as hundreds of pallets of glass, cartons, tins and whisky all come together to be shipped off all over the world in time for the year end festivities. The logistics are staggering, it's run on military precision, and a little bit of luck with the weather. No gales are forecast (touch wood) over the next few days that could disrupt shipping from Islay.

Despite turmoil in the financial markets, bank collapses, house repossessions, job losses,  two duty increases, and total economic doom and gloom,  our sales budget for 2008 - 17% up on 2007 - has been exceeded. We smugly like to think the success is down to  our exciting range of new Bruichladich bottlings, but it may be folk are just drowning their sorrows.