WILDFIRE raged through the Galloway Forest Park GROWING BARLEY for whisky is a mainstay of Scottish arable farming – but under lockdown, maltsters and distillers had to put the brakes on production, casting doubt on what harvest market will be waiting for the crops that many growers had just finished establishing. It costs a lot of time and money to completely shutdown and restart a distillery, so many of Scotland’s were still open with a skeleton staff to keep them ticking over, with some producing ethanol for hand sanitiser, but none were going ‘full bore’ at whisky production. Distillery bosses were understood to be keen to resume full production, but were awaiting an indication from the authorities that their business was sufficiently important to justify bringing a full staff back in.