Inside Dewar's sprawling Scottish whisky warehouses, a four-legged robot is prowling between aging barrels with a mission: sniff out leaks before they waste precious spirits. The distillery has deployed a Boston Dynamics Spot robot dog equipped with ethanol sensors to patrol its cavernous storage facilities, marking one of the more unusual applications of industrial robotics in traditional manufacturing. It's a glimpse at how even centuries-old industries are turning to automation to solve age-old problems.
Boston Dynamics' Spot robot just landed its most Scottish job yet. Inside the cavernous warehouses of Dewar's, the four-legged machine is padding between rows of aging whisky casks with an ethanol sensor mounted where a nose would be, hunting for leaks that could cost the distillery thousands in lost spirits.
The deployment represents a practical application of industrial robotics in an environment humans find tedious and potentially hazardous. Whisky warehouses are massive, dimly lit facilities where thousands of barrels age for years, and leaks can go undetected until significant product is lost. The traditional method involves human workers walking miles of warehouse aisles, visually inspecting barrels and occasionally relying on smell to catch problems.
Enter Spot, the quadruped robot that's become Boston Dynamics' most commercially successful product since the company started selling it to enterprises in 2020. Equipped with an ethanol detection sensor, the robot can autonomously navigate warehouse layouts, systematically checking each barrel row for telltale signs of alcohol vapor that indicate a leak. The sensor acts like a mechanical bloodhound, capable of detecting ethanol concentrations that might escape human notice until a leak becomes obvious.
For Dewar's, owned by spirits giant Bacardi, the economics make sense. Whisky evaporation during aging - known romantically as the 'angel's share' - is expected and factored into production. But unexpected leaks from damaged barrels represent pure loss. A single leaking cask can waste hundreds of liters of aged whisky worth thousands of dollars. Catching these leaks early, before significant product escapes, directly impacts the bottom line.
