Inveralmond Alchemy

I was busy writing a book in The Salutation Hotel, which has been welcoming guests since 1699, and where Prince Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of King James the Seventh, based himself for a while during his Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, and beneath Bonnie Prince Charlie's old room I supped easily on Inveralmond Brewery's Blackfriar beer, brewed in Perth and named after the city's Blackfriars monastery where King James the First was murdered in 1437... then as the bottle neared empty I noticed the alcohol content of the commemorative brew was 7%. Ah... The world of electrons and molecular orbitals began to seem less important, so I went for a walk by the river beside the King James the Sixth golf course, and opposite the site of Oliver Cromwell's army's old barracks, taking care not to fall into the cold water as I thought about all those King Jimmys, and monks, and murders and battles, and the history which the wide River Tay had all flowed past, just as it still flowed past me fast today. Then the chemistry of brewing wore off, gradually, and my mind returned to the chemistry of chemistry.