And finally…limited edition whisky sale brings road to a hault

A special sale of Macallan whisky at the firm’s Speyside distillery attracted so many people eyeing potential investment opportunity that it caused major traffic local problems and even led to a road being completely closed.

2500 of Macallan’s Genesis Limited Edition bottles priced at £495 have been produced to celebrate the new £140 million Macallan Distillery and visitor centre at Craigellachie which opened earlier this year.

The distillery put 360 of its 2,500 bottles up for sale yesterday – and they sold out within an hour.

Customers, some driving all the way up from the south of England, began arriving at the site at about 2am and the increasing volume of traffic on a section of the B9102 led to police closing it for safety reasons a few hours later. Locals described watching about 100 cars circling round roads in Craigellachie.

Police Scotland said a section of the B9102 had to be closed as a result for safety reasons.

The distillery said it was reviewing procedures.

A distillery spokesperson said: “Whilst every effort was made to communicate to our customers that there would be no access to the site prior to 09:30, a number of people hoping to secure one of these limited bottles gathered at the gates causing a local road to become blocked.

“After we contacted local police to help minimise any disruption, the road was swiftly cleared and sales got under way at the distillery when it opened.

“We are grateful to Moray Police for their assistance and in light of the issues, we are reviewing our procedures.”