Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s ‘The Tourist’ brings back Jamie Dornan’s The Man for a turbulent second season, where he finds out more about his origins in Ireland. This journey brings forth many revelations, some of which make the Man wonder who he really was before he lost his memories. With the Man’s search for truth, the season also focuses on a gang war between the McDonnells and the Cassidys, which heavily factors into the Man’s story. In between this, we are introduced to an Irish whiskey brand named Kilgal. It is in the background for some scenes but eventually becomes an important plot point. Does the show incorporate a real whiskey brand in the story? SPOILERS AHEAD
Kilgal is a Fictional Brand of Whiskey
Kilgal in ‘The Tourist’ is not a real brand of Irish whiskey. It is created to serve the plot of the show and becomes instrumental in pushing the plot in the right direction.
In the show, Kilgal is the brand created by the McDonnell family. They are a crime family that has been running illegal operations in Ireland for a very long time. While drugs and smuggling are something they keep in the shadows, away from public scrutiny (even though most locals know what they are up to), their business of alcohol is pretty much above the table. They have a proper distillery, which even has a small exhibition to entertain and perhaps even educate the visitors about the history of the place and how things are done there.
Kilgal enters the picture in the first episode when Elliot Stanley (later revealed to be Eugene Cassidy) is kidnapped by three masked people who throw him in the back of their van with crates of Kilgal whiskey. In trying to escape his captors, Elliot breaks the backdoor of the van and falls down, with a bottle of whiskey falling with him. While the captors catch up with him and eventually get him back, the whiskey bottle is left behind on the road with Elliot’s blood on it.
Later, the whiskey bottle is identified as proof of the connection of the McDonnells in Elliot’s kidnapping. When Elliot’s mother sees the bottle, she immediately knows that the rival gang is behind her son’s disappearance. She doesn’t need to confirm it because the brand “Kilgal” is enough to prove that. Helen also picks up on this detail and later figures out the connection with the McDonnells.
The whiskey bottle also plays a vital role in Elliot’s escape from his captors later in the episode, where he sneakily fashions it into a Molotov cocktail to burn one of his captors and use it as a distraction to run away. Considering all this, it is clear that the show uses this fictional whiskey brand as an important plot device that lends more weight and meaning to the story.
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