Most of the distilleries in Islay have their names very prominently displayed, usually in huge black letters against the whitewashed walls.However, Bruichladdich (pronounced broo-ich-laddie) is different. It's name is spelled out on the ends of old whisky vats.
But as we drove past it for the first time on our way from the airport to our B & B, I realised that even allowing for Gaelic's inexplicably irrational forms of spelling (designed perhaps to discourage most non-Gaels from trying to learn the language) there was something not quite right. But since it was raining very heavily at the time and we were more concerned to find the place we would be staying, we didn't stop.
I was determined, however, that we should go back at the first opportunity and take a closer look. I began wondering if some local youths had decided to play a prank and move some of the barrels so that those who were leaving, having just been on the distillery tour, might turn around to take a last look, and wonder: "Did I have too much of a good thing in there?"
It was when we approached it for the second time that my wife very cleverly realised that the name was simply spelled backwards.
Gaelic spelled backwards!! I mean, what is that all about?
It's enough to drive you to drink...
Ah, so it's a marketing ploy then!!
Of course, the puzzle is very easily solved once you recognise the pattern.
Life itself is like that. As human beings we are always looking for patterns to try and make sense of the world we live in: but often these patterns just do not seem to be there and nothing fits.
Had I looked at the Bruichladdich sign in a mirror, of course, the pattern would have been immediately obvious.
Trouble for us is that much of what we experience in the world seems already to be like mirror-writing, and we need it to be put the right way round before we can make sense of it.
As St. Paul wrote: "What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror, then we shall see face to face." [1 Corinthians 13:12]
And I promise you, I didn't just reverse the photograph in Photoshop!
3 comments:
I can vouch for you that you didn't photoshop the Bruichladdich casks. As far as I know it's been like that since the whisky festival in May.
In case anyone is interested: The huge names on the warehouses aren't for the tourists (well, they are now), they were to make it easier for the puffers to find the right distillery when they were making deliveries or picking up whisky. Don't know why Bruichladdich doesn't have it, as far as I can remember from old pictures I've seen they've never had it.
Thanks for the additional background info, Armin. Somewhere in the back of my fragile memory I think I knew about the reason for the names being so prominent, though I'd forgotten. I didn't know, however, when the Bruichladdich spelling got its makeover. Was it before, during or after the festival? What I mean is, did the company do it deliberately as a publicity thing or did someone do it for them?
I'm not entirely sure who did it. Judging from a recent entry on the Bruichladdich blog it seems they did it themselves. And it took six weeks until someone noticed, they say.
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