Steve Grant, Ken Livingstone and Sue
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Steve Grant and Ken Livingstone and his partner Sue (owners of the yacht) are members of The Whisky Guild. While sailing the Pacific, they had Black Bottle and other various whiskies delivered to them while on the Islands of the Pacific as people joined them in their travels.
"It was blowing a 45 -50 knot (90-100km/h) southerly off the Kaikoura Coast, and our 13 metre long, 10 ton home was surfing down waves at up to 15 knots. A wee dram wasn't really top of mind at the time, and even when the wind had eased it wasn't until 3 days later when we anchored in a tiny cove in Spirits Bay (between Cape Reinga and North Cape) that the suggestion of a single malt came up.
Steve's immediate observation was that the Guild-bottled cask-strength Benriach would have just the right sweetness to counteract the salt on our faces and the strength to match the hard work we'd done. To his surprise and delight, Ken's response was "It just so happens that we have the very thing on board," and broke the seal. It's a nice dram at any time, but then it was the perfect spirit for Spirits Bay and we toasted the success of our passage and the passage of other spirits to Hawaiki."
Ken Livingstone