then dominated by the US and Britain. Sales peaked and companies cut production. Distilleries – including Port Ellen – were closed and their great gleaming copper stills sold for scrap. The Port Ellen decision has since been scrutinised, because its whisky was one of Islay's most distinctive single malts with a deep smoky taste derived from the peat used to dry its barley. "Port Ellen was then used entirely to make blended whisky and it was thought that our other distilleries – at Lagavulin and Caol Ila – would simply take up the slack," adds Morgan.

Since then there has been an extraordinary transformation in the fortunes of whisky makers. "It has become the drink of aspiration for the spreading middle classes of China, Latin America, Taiwan and otherAn assembly cell for performing automated assembly operations is provided. The assembly cell includes a fixed supporting structure defining an assembly station, a conveying device for feeding a work piece, such as a cylinder head, to the assembly station for the purpose of assembling thereon one or more accessory elements, and for sending the work piece out of the assembly station once the assembly operations are completed. The assembly cell also includes a means for referencing in position and supporting the work piece in the assembly station during execution of the assembly operations and a manipulator means moveably mounted to the supporting structure for execution of the assembly operations on the work piece present within the assembly station. The means for referencing in position and clamping the piece