In a serious case of alcohol abuse, a Scottish distillery reportedly poured about $270,000 worth of scotch whisky into the facility’s wastewater treatment system.
According to the Scottish Sun, the Dewar’s & Sons headquarters in Glasgow reportedly sent more than 5,000 bottles of its 12-year-old reserve down the drain. The spill is thought to be the result of a “machinery glitch” that occurred while transferring the spirits to a new location in the facility.
“The potential revenue that has been lost is monumental – and is literally floating off out to sea,” an unnamed source told the publication. The whisky’s imminent ocean voyage could be due to the facility’s drains emptying into the River Clyde, which flows into the Atlantic. That means Dewar’s may not only be facing a major financial loss, but also a potential environmental fallout because of the blunder.
Trade publication the Spirits Business reached out to Dewar’s, which denied discharging any whisky into the Clyde. But a spokesperson for the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) did confirm it’s investigating an incident, although it declined to provide any further details.
Industrial Equipment News reached out to Dewar’s parent company Bacardi but it did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Any environmental impact investigation into a potential whisky spill would likely focus on organisms that live in or rely on the river along with the potential for fire sparked by the flammable liquid.
The BBC also ran a story on the whisky spill and it pointed out that if any whisky did get flushed, it would go through the same wastewater treatment process intended to purify runoff before it enters a waterway.
