14 DAY TRIAL // The news that several workers employed by a Chivas Brothers bottling plant accidentally flushed away roughly 22,730 liters (about 5,000 gallons) of perfectly good whiskey instead of getting rid of the waste water is now making headlines.
Information shared with the public says that this terrible mix-up took place this past Tuesday night. By the looks of it, the workers responsible for this blunder wanted nothing more than to clean up the equipment.
However, for one reason or another, they ended up sending a whopping amount of Ballentine's down the drain. According to Daily Mail, the odor released by the spirit was so powerful, that sewage workers felt it almost immediately and alerted the authorities.
Following this incident, the Chivas Brothers issued a statement saying that, “We are currently investigating an accidental loss on the 26th of February at our Dumbarton [a town in the West-Central Lowlands of Scotland] site, where some spirit was released to the local water treatment plant.”
“There has been no release of spirit to the River Leven or any other local water course. We have informed Scottish Water and all other relevant authorities,” the bottling plant wished to emphasize.
What concerns both the management team of the Chivas Brothers bottling plant and Scottish authorities is the fact that having this much whiskey discharged in the local sewer network might impair the processes meant to clean up waste water.
More so given the fact that the weather in Dumbardon is particularly cold and dry, and alcohol is well known to behave differently than water when exposed to lower temperatures.
“Discharging large volumes of alcohol into the sewer network can have an adverse impact on waste water treatment processes, particularly during dry, cold weather,” a spokesperson for Scottish Water told members of the press.
Rumor has it that, in the aftermath of this accidental whiskey spill, several people have gathered around the bottling plant to pay their homage the lost gallons of spirit.