Master distiller jumps into vat, drowns

DUFFTOWN, Scotland, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- A veteran employee who drowned in a large vat at one of Scotland's best-known whiskey distilleries took his own life, police said Tuesday.

Brian Ettles, 46, was a master blender at Glenfiddich in Dufftown, 108 miles north-northeast of Edinburgh, The Scottish Sun reported. He climbed a 16-foot wooden tank Saturday and jumped into the mix of yeast and water, police said.

The distillery, which produces the world's top-selling brand of single-malt Scotch and is normally a tourist attraction, was closed to outsiders Monday and Tuesday in what a spokesman said was a "mark of respect."

"It's such a horrible way for someone to go," a neighbor in nearby Keith, Eileen MacKenzie, told the Sun.

Ettles, who had worked at Glenfiddich for 23 years, is survived by his wife, Irene, and a son and daughter in their 20s.