The Water of Life
“The craftsmen, chemists and renegades who saved scotch whisky and ignited a single malt revolution.”
Synopsis
The Water of Life is a feature documentary that focuses on the craftsmen, chemists, and renegades at the heart of the whisky revolution that turned the stagnant scotch whisky industry of the 1980s into the titan it is today. Starting behind the locked gates of an abandoned distillery, Jim McEwan and Mark Reynier share their personal experiences of the risk-taking and wild experimentation they used to turn Bruichladdich into what it is today. The film takes you on the journeys of other early visionaries like Gordon & MacPhail, Billy Walker, Dr. Rachel Barrie and David Stewart, whose mixture of talent, chemistry, hard work, grit, and a little sprinkle of magic paved the way for the next generation of innovators like Adam Hannett, Kelsey McKechnie, Liam Hughes, Iain Croucher, and Eddie Brook.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 18
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Rob ChatlinShot by Brad KenyonScored by James Ingram
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Cast & Crew
18 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Jim Mcewan
as Self - Interviewee
Mark Reynier
as Self - Interviewee
Billy Walker
as Self - Interviewee
Rachel Barrie
as Self - Interviewee
David Stewart
as Self - Interviewee
Kelsey Mckechnie
as Self - Interviewee
Adam Hannett
as Self - Interviewee
Allan Logan
as Self - Interviewee
Liam Hughes
as Self - Interviewee
Stephen Rankin
as Self - Interviewee
Directors
1Producers
4Other crew
4Parents Guide
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