Meet Royal Barkla, the Whisky-Sniffing Robotic Dog

Leaking barrels have been a problem for whisky makers going back generations, and just finding the bad barrels is the biggest part of the problem. Now, a test project involving Royal Barkla, a Boston Robotics robot dog equipped with an ethanol sensor, is underway at the John Dewar & Sons Poniel maturation campus near Glasgow. The robotic dog alerts its human operators when it discovers a leaking barrel, and so far, the test has been a success. We'll talk with Bacardi's Angus Holmes about the project on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, no layoffs are expected from the shutdown of the Jim Beam Distillery in Kentucky for 2026, while Scotch whisky global sales are down for the third straight year.