Did You Know There’s a Man Who Visited Every single Whisky Distillery in Scotland, Ireland, and England?

Good intentions often start with looking back: learning from the past to better understand the future. For whisky lovers, Alfred Barnard is a name that fits that perfectly. This British writer and historian laid a foundation in the 19th century that connoisseurs still rely on today. Did you know he visited every distillery (and brewery) in the world?

The new year begins with resolutions that, for some, are already forgotten. Work out more, cut bad habits, snack less, be kinder, you know the list. Alfred Barnard once had a resolution too. He decided to write a book about every distillery in the United Kingdom, and to do that, he had to visit them in person.

Between 1885 and 1887, Barnard undertook an extraordinary journey: he visited 162 working whisky distilleries across Great Britain and Ireland. Of those, 129 were in Scotland, 29 in Ireland, and 4 in England. He did this in his role as secretary of Harper’s Weekly Gazette, but his work went far beyond journalism.

The result was the book The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom. Spanning over 500 pages, it’s packed with technical details, descriptions of production processes, engravings, and sketches. Today, it’s regarded as one of the most important whisky books ever written. In fact, original copies are extremely rare and change hands for around £2,500.

After the success of his whisky travels, Barnard was hired by various distilleries. He wrote promotional pamphlets for the likes of Johnnie Walker, Glenfarclas, and Dalmore. Only six of these pamphlets are known to survive today, making them highly prized by collectors.

Barnard didn’t stop at whisky. Between 1889 and 1891, he toured Great Britain and Ireland once again, this time to visit breweries. He covered 110 of them to write The Noted Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland, which eventually became four volumes.

Alfred Barnard died on May 31, 1918, in Croydon, at the age of 81, but his book on distilleries continues to be reissued to this day.