Udo Sonntag - A Journeyman's Journey - The Story of Jim McEwan

Right here lay Davy’s hidden gift.

So we went into the shed and I showed him the loose floorboard. It was the fourth. I knew how to open it, pulling the board from the floor. Inside was supposed to be the gift that would always keep a penny in my pocket. What would be waiting for me? I cleared away some more and there it was in front of me. It wasn’t wads of money, it wasn’t whisky. It was something he had put there a long time previously.

He had carefully packed all his tools, all the axes, all the knives, all the things a barrel maker needs, in burlap soaked in linseed oil. Those tools wouldn’t rust for many years, shining as they’d done when new. Davy must have had prepared this gift many years before his death. All the tools were brightly polished and razor sharp. I had been entrusted with his tools, so that I would always have a penny in my pocket. No matter what happened to me in my professional career, as a barrel maker I could have started anywhere. What incredible foresight and even more touching generosity. It was the most poignant gift I have ever received in my life: the tools Davy used to create great things. Those tools are so inextricably linked to the cooperage in Bowmore that I didn’t take them to Bruichladdich when I moved later in life. Davy had nothing to do with Bruichladdich, having lived in Bowmore all his life. It would have been wrong for me to take this gift to the other side of Loch Indaal. If you ever find your way to Islay and visit Bowmore distillery, look out in vault #1 for the inconspicuous tool hanging on the wall … for me the most valuable tool ever.

Davy enjoys a dram from one of his barrels. Sláinte!

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