Starting in the summer of 1885, Alfred Barnard (1837–1918) was commissioned by the London wine and spirit journal 'Harper’s Weekly Gazette' to visit every whisky distillery in Great Britain. His historic journey was published in a book in 1887: "The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom", this came to some 500 pages and included historical and technical information about every distillery, and engravings of many of them. This book has been referred to as possibly the most important book written on whisky from a historical perspective. Many of the distilleries Barnard visited have since closed, and in many cases, especially in Ireland, the buildings themselves have disappeared.
He expected his journey to take around two years and he visited 129 distilleries in Scotland, 28 in Ireland and 4 of the 10 then licensed in England. At each one he recorded detailed descriptions of the whisky production, the equipment used, water sources, the size and volume of buildings, machines and vessels, and the general arrangement of the processes in place in each distillery.
Of the original print, only a small number of copies survive to this day, some in leather presentation binding, but most in a green cloth binding shown in the photo.
I hope you enjoy your historical journey with Alfred as you tour each of the distilleries as if it was still 1887.