John Barleycorn is dead

[shewhomust]

Chaz pointed out this piece of sad news: Barley, the official cat of Highland Park distillery, has been killed in a traffic accident, and the management have decided ("due to enviromental regulations") not to replace him.

Highland Park is the most northerly of the whisky distilleries, and one of the few still to malt its own grain on traditional malting floors. Visiting over the years, I have seen Barley and his late sibling Malt patrolling the floors for mice. With age (he was fifteen years old), he had become fond of sitting on the till in the shop.

There's a picture of Barley here.

It's the end of an era.

Comments

[handworn.livejournal.com]

This was the cat, that killed the rat, that ate the malt, that sat in the house that Jack built.

Or at least that's where my mind went with that. :-) Not often you encounter genuine malt-defending cats, after all.