Last night's third episode of  Oz & James Drink to Britain was a gas.

I didn't enjoy the first episode at all - and nor has anyone else I know  who saw it. The second was better, but this one was smack-on. It really captured the esprit, camaraderie, humour and interest of the presenters that was so desperately missing from the earlier episodes.  It makes you wonder why the director bothered to broadcast episode 1 that had an audience of 3.8 million, as I bet a lot of viewers would not have bothered to continue - I know I wouldn't have bothered if it had not been for our involvement.

It started as a happy coincidence. The programme makers had already decided to visit Bruichladdich for the Scottish episode of  Drink to Britain, and we had already had the idea of  trying to run a Radical racing car on our Scottish ‘biofuel’ - the  rare, quadruple distilled spirit inspired by a 1695 reference to a powerful spirit known as “usquebaugh-baul” (oosh-ker-vah-voll), translated from the Gaelic as ‘perilous whisky’ and known by us as “X4”.  The first distillation of X4 resulted in a 92% alcohol spirit and  hefty criticism from the Scotch Whisky Association and the keen attention of Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.

Though we distilled it out of curiosity from the historical perspective to drink, it is undeniably an  exceptionally pure, floral and fruity spirit. It would have been drunk ‘as is’ by our forefathers back as far as the Viking times - and if straight off the still it would indeed have lived up to its perilous tasting note published in 1703: "…the first taste affects all the members of the body: two spoonfuls of this last liquor is a sufficient dose; and if any man should exceed this, it would presently stop his breath, and endanger his life.”

Certainly as a 'fuel' it is sustainable, but at £120 a gallon it wouldn’t last long. This island ‘s petrol is £1.30 a litre, yet compared to £22.50 a litre in alcohol tax alone - it’s a veritable bargain. And the X4 consumption (the car's that is) is high - double that of petrol - as the calorific value is half.  But it can give 25% more power...

The day had  started off disastrously. We had the use of the Islay runway for the racing car that had arrived up from Peterborough the  evening before. It was a dreich morning and  after hours of camera crew preparation when the filming finally started - the car wouldn't; it just smouldered.  Embarrassingly, there was a wiring problem, a short circuit. Not, though, as short as the circuit we had to perform in trying to repair it - and our honour. In its bumpy journey up  on the back of a trailer, the car's bodywork had chaffed through a starting engine wire. Abandoning the airport, we came to the distillery where in true Hebridean tradition, the high-tech racing car was repaired in our distillery workshop,  engineer Douglas Clyne saving the day when the racing car engineers had been defeated. The rest of the filming took place during this delay.

When we were once again ready to film the car,  the police kindly agreed to shut down the fenced portion of the Uiskentuie strand road for a couple of hours.   We had warned the police a couple of weeks earlier of this possible eventuality and they rapidly - and thankfully -  rose to the occasion. By now quite a crowd had assembled to see the TV presenters and the high performance car including farmer Dugald Mactaggart and his 11 year son. Four months later they would be dead, killed on the same stretch of road in a head-on collision with a cow and a lorry.

Jim then let them taste X4 -  the quadruple-distilled spirit that the car was run on -  but which had been in cask for 2 years:

James' X4 angelic tasting note:

"That's remarkable. Wow! That is exceptional. Exceptionally exciting whisky drink experience.  (to Oz) And you're still an ugly bastard. Incredible. Whisky normally takes me to a very, frankly, dark place ... no, as soon as I smell whisky,  and certainly as soon as I taste it,  and it is the world closing in slightly, and I am in,  I suppose what  in Scotland is like a  a windowless  bothy on a  dark night, with rain outside; it's a last refuge, and  beyond that all hope is lost, that's where whisky is - and it will  either  take you into the abyss or it will release you from it. But with this one,  it's like one of those  moments of great clarity of thought,  when you put it on your tongue  and there is a moment when  you see all the  Jesus lights coming through the sky, and clouds parting, and the rain lifting, and all those things, it's very brief, and then its gone again, but it's all there."

To end the programme, I can't think where the idea came from...um? the idea was hatched that the two of them would set off in a rowing boat, seemingly the worse for ware,  as if to row to Ireland and into the setting sun.  Having squared the Health & Safety, insurance people, filled out risk assessments, got the coastguard on standby it was considered inappropriate on the BBC to have  the two of them appearing to be incapacitated through alcohol on the high seas. Instead we had a jolly good dinner at my place.

A special limited bottling of “X4” straight off the still, then reduced to a more manageable 50% strength is available at www.laddieshop.com <http://www.laddieshop.com>

Watch the episode 3 of Oz & James Drink to Britain again on BBC's excellent Iplayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00h5vtj/Oz_and_James_Drink_to_Britain_Episode_3/

For Oversea’s viewers we have found a link to the episode here (file) or Here (html links)