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was asking your friend how you got to be such a cocky bastard,’ said Ash.
    ‘Years of practice,’ Roddy said, then tapped his pocket. ‘And some assistance from good old Uncle Charlie.’
    Ash raised an eyebrow.
    ‘Interested in meeting him?’
    Was he really offering coke to a barmaid he’d known for five minutes?
    Ash smiled. ‘I think we’ll get along famously. Follow me.’
    She walked to the toilets with a well-practised slinky move of her hips. Roddy glanced at Adam and pointed at his pocket.
    ‘Three’s a crowd,’ said Adam.
    Roddy set off behind Ash, bounding like a puppy.

    Adam hated being left alone in the pub, but he wanted to keep his head straight for Molly, didn’t want any of that coke bullshit clouding his thinking. Where the hell were Ethan and Luke? He checked his watch, just gone half seven. He pressed the button – 90 bpm. Actually, that wasn’t bad.
    He leant on the bar and examined the gantry. They really did have an impressive collection of malts, dozens of familiar and rare bottles neatly lined up. Something caught his eye towards the far end, a squat, stunted bottle with ‘X4+1’ in large lettering on a plain black label. He’d never seen it before; it didn’t seem to have a distillery logo.
    ‘Deliverance.’
    Adam turned. It was the old guy with the blood-burst nose who’d been in with his wife at lunchtime. He nodded towards the bottle Adam had been looking at.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Bruichladdich Deliverance, from the Feis Ile.’
    Adam hadn’t been at the most recent whisky festival, that’s why he didn’t recognise it. Must be a special bottling.
    ‘What’s the X4+1 all about?’
    ‘Quadruple distilled, one year old.’
    ‘What? That’s insane.’
    He’d never heard anything like it. What the fuck were Bruichladdich doing selling one-year-old spirit? They couldn’t even call it whisky till it had lived in a barrel for three years. And quadruple distilled? He knew they were doing some experimental shit up there, but that was ridiculous.
    The old man nodded slowly.
    ‘I’m going to have to try some of that,’ said Adam.

    The man sucked his teeth. ‘It’s not cheap. Eight bar a nip.’
    ‘Fuck it.’ Adam waved the barman over. ‘Give me a nip of that Deliverance stuff.’
    He looked apologetically at the old man. ‘I would get you one, but …’
    The old man raised his hand, waved a large dram at him. ‘I’m fine with this.’
    The barman clunked the shot on the table and Adam paid. He nosed it – toffee and candyfloss, very woody. It was powerful stuff. He took a sip and got an explosion of fruit, apricot and peach, liquorice folding into a fizzy sensation like lemonade. The finish was like cheap sweets full of E numbers, somehow spicy too.
    ‘Wow, that’s one weird dram.’
    ‘Aye,’ said the old man.
    Adam examined the glass. ‘You think quadruple distilling will catch on?’
    The old man sighed. ‘Stranger things have happened.’
    Adam looked at him. ‘What do you think of what they’re doing up there?’
    The old man shrugged. ‘Fair play to ’em, they’re bringing the whole thing into the new millennium, aren’t they?’
    ‘I thought you’d be against them pissing about with the island’s tradition.’
    The old man laughed. ‘Tradition? Half these places were mothballed for years, and before that almost every Islay whisky got used for cheap blends anyway.’
    ‘Yeah, but you’ve been making whisky here for centuries.’
    ‘Aye, often undrinkable shite.’ The man broke off with a racking cough, like his lungs were mutinying.

    ‘So you’re in favour of new operations starting up, then?’
    The old man nodded. ‘If they use local expertise and stay as part of the community, where’s the harm? The big guys pump all their money off the island at the moment. What we need are local businesses adding to the economy here on the island. Every new distillery brings the tourists in, no bad thing for the Ileach.’
    Adam took another sip of