Benbecula

Cumberland's troops pursued it.

Scott describes shootings, plunder, burned homes and mistreatment of civilians Scotland had become a dangerous place for a defeated Jacobite surgeon Mercer had chosen a side and now he needed a way out Charles escaped with the help of Flora MacDonald, a 24-year-old woman from the Outer Hebrides, who took him from Benbecula to Skye disguised as her Irish maid, Betty Burke.

She was imprisoned, pardoned in 1747, and eventually transformed by songs and stories into a heroine of the lost Jacobite cause.

Mercer left no escape tale quite so romantic.

Mercer had chosen a side, and now he needed a way out.

Charles escaped with the help of Flora MacDonald, a 24-year-old woman from the Outer Hebrides, who took him from Benbecula to Skye disguised as her Irish maid, Betty Burke.

She was imprisoned, pardoned in 1747, and eventually transformed by songs and stories into a heroine of the lost Jacobite cause.

Mercer left no escape tale quite so romantic.

They could pick up a living man off the road, carry him across the sea, drop him in the morning in a strange country.

Carmichael was told of the men found in Benbecula, exhausted and prostrate, who said they'd been with the host all night.

Robert Kirk, a Highland minister, had written the same word down in 1691.

The people of his parish, he said, distinguished between the slua and the saulta and the early host and the slua she, the host of another world.

What tends to happen is most distilleries hire me either before they build the distillery or they've built it, and then they're like, right, we want to work out how to make the right thing.

And then I've noticed over the last three years it's evolved from, I thought I would just do little bespoke projects for people, which I still do, but it tends to be mainly three big projects that I have, which are Benbecula, the Lakes distillery, and Yantai, a distillery in China, where it's kind of... developing the recipe at the beginning, training the team.

All the sensory comes to my house and I nose it every week.

Then, you know, firefighting or course correcting, purchasing the casks, nosing the whiskies.

He was like, I'm really, really glad to hear that.

So off you go.

But fast forward, like, two, three years that I've been doing it now, I've really worked out three projects that I love and two of them are near identical one is Benbecula and one is Yantai in China and by identical what I mean is I was kind of involved just after they bought the equipment so I didn't design them but the equipment came in and then we'd start to sit down and talk about right what kind of spirit do you want to make and I can help you make that and then that kicked off and they kicked off within like a month of each other So they're coming along at the same time and then it's like, wait, what cast do you want to buy? What style of spirit? We're making two different spirits, two different cast programs, but I know how to do that.

Then they send me spirit all the time.