Dumfries whisky fan Haig McCulloch took a tipple at a tasting session and savoured an extraordinary coincidence with a trip back in time.
The 82-year-old discovered that one of the firm’s directors providing samples now lives in the very building where he was born in Glasgow.
Mr McCulloch said: “It is quite a coincidence.
“When Julian was going around and saying he was from Glasgow, I said I was originally from there and asked if that meant I got discount!
“Then we got chatting about the bottle of malt and the name Havelock Street.
“I said I was born there and told him the number. Then Julian said: ‘That’s where I live now!’
“We could hardly believe it.
“I told him that I was born in the kitchen in 1942 and my brother was born there too. The district nurse lived across the road and delivered us.
“The building has changed a bit and made into various flats but still has the same number with variations.”
Mr McCulloch, who used to own a driving school in Dumfries and the former Birkhill Hotel, added: “It was quite a day and it’s a very nice malt whisky too. So I have bought a bottle.”
Mr McCulloch’s daughter, Marie Sinclair, 51, organised the trip for her dad and said: “It was all through TB Watsons in English Street and their Drambusters club.
“We are in the club and I take my dad out once a month to their whisky tasting days and talks.
“They had the most recent at the Dumfries Railway Club where two young lads who had recently started up a company called DamGoodDrams were doing a tasting and there were about 100 people there.
“They brought along eight samples and did their talk.
“And one of them, Julian (Mithoff) was speaking with my dad and chatting away about Glasgow where my dad’s from and asked about one bottle they had in their Glaschu range called Havelock Street.
“Julian said: ‘I’m from that street.’ And my dad said: ‘I was born there.’
“My dad said the number and it turned out to be the same number where the boy stays now. Well, the boy nearly fell over.
“They sat there and chatted and chatted for ages.
“It was the same place where my dad was born in the kitchen and so was his brother.
“What a coincidence and all through that whisky.”
She added: “We could hardly believe it and neither could they, or Brian from TB Watson.
“I used to take my mum, Jessie May, out for wine tasting but now we go out for tea instead.
“But nothing like this has ever happened before. It shows you it was meant to happen.”
Mr Gibson said: “How weird is that? I have never seen anything like that before.
“The label is a bit of a tribute as well to a guy who stayed in the same street who helped the lads get started and a thank you to him as well with a picture of the street with a window and light on.”
DamGoodDrams was founded in 2020 by directors Paul Jamieson and Julian Mithoff, both aged 27, in Glasgow.
