More whisky in the tank

Posted on August 12, 2008
Filed Under Islay, Whisky Fun, WhiskyBuzz |

I wrote yesterday about Lagavulin being used as fuel. Well, didn’t take long before I had another strange whisky fuel experiment in my inbox. This time it involved Bruichladdich.

BBC filmed an unusual biofuel experiment on the whisky island of Islay.

The experiment involved TV’s wine expert Oz Clarke and Top Gear’s James May attempting to run a high performance racing car on a special distillation of Bruichladdich single malt whisky.

Bruichladdich’s unique quadruple-distilled X4 Islay Spirit was first tasted by wine & spirit expert Oz Clarke for proof before 3 litres were filled in to the car’s fuel tank.

A 150 mph Radical SR4 racing car from Radical Sportscars, the Peterborough-based manufacturer, was selected for the test. The engine was not modified in anyway at all.

Using an Atlantic shore road closed to traffic by the island’s 5 policemen - cleared of sheep and cattle - the racing car achieved a hair-raising 0-60 in 3.5 seconds over four runs.

“The exhaust smells much better than petrol”, said Duncan MacGillivray, Bruichladdich distillery manager, “sure it’s a sustainable biofuel; but at £26 a litre, the Duty and VAT isn’t! Fuel here is a whopping £1.50 - £1.60 a litre - so it’s not a viable alternative - just yet. The police even tried to breathalyse the car but fortunately they had the wrong type of tester.”

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Comments

One Response to “More whisky in the tank”

Thomas (Whisky-Igel) on August 14th, 2008 7:16 pm

Well, this all sounds like a lot of fun - and I could imagine an excentric Scot doing just that. But the videos do not proof anything… just a racing car starting… Alas, still no smell transmitted via youtube :-)))

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