The Balvenie uses dogs to serve whisky

The Balvenie has enlisted the help of dogs to help bartenders serve drams of its whisky to customers looking for something a bit different.

A mockup of The Balvenie Dog, a copper cylinder with a cork stopper

But rather than the barking kind, The Balvenie has handcrafted a set of bespoke copper dogs, which it hopes to give to select bars stocking its single malts.

Food safe and able to hold up to 100ml at a time, The Balvenie’s dogs have been handcrafted by the Speyside brand’s resident copper smith Dennis McBain.

Originally used by distillery workers in the early 1900s to pilfer drams of whisky from ageing barrels, the dog was fashioned from sheets of steel with a coin welded at one end and a cork in the other.

The thieves would dip the cylinder into the barrel, filling it with whisky, before replacing the stopper. They would then hang the long, cylindrical device down the inside of their trouser leg from a rope tied to their belt to avoid being caught – a crime that carried a sentence of immediate dismissal.

As such the device was named ‘a dog’, because “it never leaves your side, and is a man’s best friend”.

Eager to communicate the brand’s heritage, The Balvenie is branding a limited number of copperdogs for use in selected bars.

“We are looking at producing a handful of The Balvenie Dogs and hope to have them in bars within the next three months,” said Dr. Andrew Forrester, brand ambassador for The Balvenie and brains behind the serve.

“We want to deploy them in bars where we’d like to go above and beyond the relationship we already have. We’re in discussions with a bar at a five-star Mayfair hotel and hope The Balvenie Dog will appear there soon.”