Walk around Bladnoch near Wigtown on Scotland’s southern coast and there are subtle echoes of Australia dotted around the distillery: a southern cross flying alongside the saltire and the union flag; a video showing conservation work on the Great Barrier Reef; a bottle of blended Pure Scot finished in Australian tawny casks.
Perhaps the most striking Aussie motif is a surfboard hanging on a wall in the visitor centre, built from Bladnoch’s casks. David Prior, the Australian serial entrepreneur who bought the distillery in 2015, took the surfboard’s twin back to Melbourne.
“It’s hanging on the wall in my office,” Prior confesses. “I was going to use it – I had it shaped to match the dimensions of boards I ride in Australia – but then the guy-who-shaped-its workshop burnt down, and I said, ‘I can’t surf this board, it’s too good and too precious to use.’”
While he may not have ridden
