Britain’s Last Frontier

by Alistair Moffat

  Around Nairn there is an invisible line. Travellers going west hear a sudden shift from Doric to a version of English once thought to be the purest, least accented and most clearly enunciated in Britain. Around Inverness, Gaelic was still widely spoken until the late 19th century and the supposedly pure English adopted after that time was, at first, a second language for many and, as such, it had no accent.

  Allegiances also shrank back into Highland fastnesses. After King Angus’s defeat in 1130, resistance to MacMalcolm rule persisted for another century. William, the son of Duncan, David I’s half-brother, appeared to be loyal and fought alongside his king at his defeat in the Battle of the Standard in 1138. But his son, Donald MacWilliam, styled himself as a Gaelic magnate and, through his marriage into the ancient Cenel Loairn House of Moray, asserted a fresh claim for the High Kingship of Scotland. Matters came to a head in 1187. Here is the informative entry from the chronicle of Roger of Howden: ‘William, king of Scotland, assembled a great army and set out for Moray to subdue a certain enemy of his, who was named MacWilliam; who also said he was born of royal stock, and by right of his parents, so he affirmed, claimed the kingdom of Scotland, through consent and council of the earls and the barons of the kingdom . . . The king William, therefore, considering that he must either lose the kingdom of Scotland or slay MacWilliam, or else drive him from the confines of his kingdom, set out to go into Moray.’

  To meet the royal host, the MacWilliam, King Donald, had raised an army in the mountains and glens and it must have been formidable. William the Lion did not live up to his soubriquet and chose to stay behind the walls of Inverness Castle while his magnates fought the rebels. Somewhere in the moorland near Garve, in Easter Ross, the MacWilliam was defeated, decapitated and his head brought as a grisly trophy to Inverness. No doubt it was set on a spike for all to bear witness. But still the unrest would not die down and rebellion flared again in the north in the early 13th century. After a battle in 1228 or 1229 when Gillescop, a new leader of the MacWilliam faction, was killed, it was determined to exterminate the line of the Cenel Loairn and Moray utterly. Presumably acting on intelligence, knights were sent to Forfar to capture and kill the last living claimant. This is the entry in the Chronicle of Lanercost in North Cumbria and, over eight centuries later, the disapproval is still palpable: ‘After the enemy had been successfully overcome, a somewhat too cruel vengeance was taken for the blood of the slain, the same [Gillescop] MacWilliam’s daughter who had not long left her mother’s womb, innocent as she was, was put to death in the burgh of Forfar, in view of the market place, after a proclamation by the public crier: her head was struck against the column of the [market] cross, and her brains dashed out.’

  The horrific killing of a baby girl, publicly executed, was the last sad act in the long history of the kingdom of Moray and a brutal testimony to the power of the men who ruled over it. The blood on the cross shaft meant that the coastlands of the firth had passed into the realm of Scotland but the destiny of those who lived in the mountains was less certain.

  4

  The Fire of the Dram

  THE ROLE OF Islington Borough Council in the development of Scotch whisky is sometimes overlooked. In the central matter of definition, it took the lead. For reasons now lost in the mists of local authority bureaucracy, the officials of the north London borough had summonses served on two local landlords for selling whisky ‘not of the nature, quality and substance demanded’. The cases went to court in 1906 and, under the provisions of the Merchandise Marks Act, the judge upheld the complaints.

  There was uproar in Scotland – and a great deal at stake. In effect, the London judge’s ruling defined malt whisky, the sort made by traditional methods in a pot still, usually in a Highland distillery, as the only alcoholic drink that could claim to be Scotch whisky. Nothing else could carry that label. And that was the problem. In 1832, Aeneas Coffey had patented a new type of still that could function continuously to produce vast quantities of whisky made from grain of any kind. Twenty years later, in Edinburgh, Andrew Usher began to blend these new grain whiskies with the malts produced in the Highlands and elsewhere. These blends gave the cheaper spirit character and colour and made Scotch whisky more plentiful and affordable. But it might never have become popular outside of Scotland, in London, or indeed Islington.

  Soon after Usher’s blend went on sale in Edinburgh, a calamity delivered a tremendous opportunity. French vineyards were devastated by a plague of insects known as Phylloxera vastatrix. Between 1858 and 1865, French winemakers had hoped to rejuvenate their rootstock by importing grafts from California but instead they killed them and, all over Bordeaux and other great wine regions of France, row upon row of vines rotted and died. The roots and leaves of the American grafts were immune to Phylloxera but when these deadly but hardy insects arrived, having survived winter journeys across the Atlantic, they fell upon the French vineyards and devoured them. Once the blight had become widespread, around 1865, French wine and brandy production declined steeply and many vineyards were eventually forced to cease production entirely as they realised they would have to replant. In turn, Phylloxera changed English drinking habits. As cellars emptied, wine and brandy and soda were soon replaced by whisky and soda. As the French vines withered, business boomed in Scotland. Having been formed in 1877, the Distillers Company used its scale to increase production and many independent blended brands became famous – John Haig, Johnnie Walker, Whyte & Mackay and James Buchanan. And, as demand from the blenders for malt also rose, new distilleries were built not only in Speyside but all over Scotland. Big business was quickly made out of what had been a cottage industry for centuries.

  The switch from French brandy to Scotch whisky was also driven by fashion. After Walter Scott had woven his wizardry with tales like ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’, Waverley, Rob Roy and other fictional forays into the Highlands, the mists of romance had begun to swirl around the bens and the glens. And, when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert fell in love with all things tartan, bought Balmoral and even declared themselves to be Jacobites at heart, the marketing campaign was complete and London society followed them north. Hunting lodges were built, some on a grand scale, shooting estates created and, as ranks of kilted courtiers and aspiring courtiers jigged, reeled, strathspeyed, puffed and sweated through interminable Highland balls, many gratefully turned to Scotch whisky for relief and refreshment. Scott, Phylloxera and Victoria combined to put the dram on the map.

  Eyeliner for Men

  Alcohol was discovered by a culture that does not allow its adherents to drink it. First distilled in the 10th century by the Persian chemist Al-Razi, ethyl alcohol was used medically in Islamic society. The derivation of the English word is surprising. It is cognate with kohl, a slightly outdated term for eyeliner or eye shadow. In Arabic, kuhl originally referred to a fine powder used as eye makeup for men when mixed with water. It was also used as an antiseptic. Alcohol comes from al-kuhl, literally ‘the kohl’ and, as late as the 16th century, the word meant a fine powder in English. It eventually came to be applied to any fluid obtained by distillation and the term was recently reintroduced to Arabic as al-kuhul.

  The origins of distilling are uncertain but very ancient. It was brought from the Near East to Europe by the Arabs and medieval treatises were written by Albertus Magnus and Ramon Lull, men who were much influenced by the scholars of the Caliphate of Cordoba in particular. At first, it was used to make perfumes and essences for medicine. Alcohol is an Arab word but, for religious reasons, not necessarily an Arab drink. It was certainly made in Ireland in the early Middle Ages and, like many other items of Irish iconography, was traditionally understood to have been introduced by St Patrick. However that may be, the first documentary record of production in Scotland crops up in 1494 when malted barley was sent to ‘Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make acquavitae’. This Latin phrase for ‘water of life’ is directly translated into Gaelic as uisge beatha and whisky is simply an anglicis
ed rendering of uisge, ‘water’. It seems that King James IV enjoyed a dram for, in 1498, his Treasury recorded a payment to ‘the barbour that brocht acqua vite to the King’.

  As in continental monasteries, many of them famous for their wine and recipes for fortifying spirits such as Benedictine and Chartreuse, whisky was probably made by Scottish monks in the Middle Ages. Pluscarden Abbey, near Elgin, had a tremendous reputation for beer that, as David Daiches writes in his book Scotch Whisky: Its Past and Present, ‘made the hearts of all rejoice and filled the abbey with unutterable bliss, raising the devotions to the pitch that the surrounding hills echoed to their hallelujahs’ and, since distillation is only one step beyond brewing, the monks may have made whisky as well. If they did, the hallelujahs will have been redoubled. And as the Treasury entry of 1498 suggests, it was also distilled by the barber-surgeons of Edinburgh who were granted rights of manufacture in 1505. Then as now, whisky was thought to have medicinal qualities. No doubt for those and other reasons, it was popular and quickly attracted the attentions of the taxman. To the eternal chagrin of many Scots, the first government licence to make whisky was granted to the Bushmills Distillery in 1609 – in County Antrim in Northern Ireland.

  Techniques have changed very little since then. In essence, the process of making malt whisky is brewing followed by distilling. First, barley is soaked to encourage the dry seeds to germinate and begin to convert their starch into sugar. Before it becomes too advanced, germination is halted by heating and it is at that point that the barley is said to be malted. Sometimes peat reek is allowed to suffuse the grain and impart its intense aroma. Then the barley is ground into grist and boiled or ‘mashed’ in large copper vessels so that all the sugars are extracted. When allowed to cool, this ‘wort’ is poured into tanks known as ‘wash backs’ where yeast is mixed in and fermentation begins.

  This strong-smelling, beer-like liquid is then transferred to copper stills. All of these are onion-shaped and when the wort is heated, the alcohol distils – that is, it rises as vapour before condensing into a liquid. This process is repeated and what has become raw whisky is decanted into oak barrels. These usually had a previous life for sherry or bourbon and they impart a great deal of a malt whisky’s character. Racked in a secure warehouse, the barrels are stored for a minimum of three years. Most of a distillery’s output goes to the blenders but the mounting popularity of single malt – a malt made in a single distillery – has meant more being stored for longer, at least ten years, sometimes longer. Twenty-one years is the usual maximum.

  Domestic production did not last anything like as long as thousands of stills bubbled in thousands of farmhouses and cottages all over Scotland. It was probably consumed very quickly, like most wine. What made Speyside particularly suitable was geology and weather. The pure, soft water needed for distilling good whisky tumbled down the damp mountainsides of the Highland massif. Peat to heat the stills could be cut from many high moorlands and, down in the Laigh of Moray, the fields of barley needed to make the malt waved in the summer breezes of the firth. Whisky is one of the very few cultural phenomena that crosses the Highland Line and, indeed, it is made possible by the line’s existence. It is a glorious union of Lowland and Highland.

  Water matters. As David Daiches says in his book, Scotch Whisky, ‘soft water flowing through peat over granite’ is said to matter very much in the making of good whisky. It must be pure, clear and soft as well as available in reliable quantities. In reality, most distilleries do not have access to soft water but most of those that do are to be found in Speyside. Running parallel to the Great Glen and the Highland Line faults, the Spey and its tributaries are home to more than 30 distilleries, many of them world-famous names. All malt whisky should be drunk with added water for it releases the full flavour and it is best, if possible, to use water from the same source as the whisky. During the reign of Queen Victoria, Glen Grant used to keep samples near the distillery dam so that discerning customers could taste their drams with the perfect accompaniment. Nowadays bottled still water from the Highlands is a more feasible alternative.

  The Scotch Malt Whisky Society

  Now headquartered at The Vaults in Leith and with branches in Edinburgh and London, the SMWS has become an institution and an international mail order business. It began in a much more humble manner. A small group of malt whisky enthusiasts clubbed together to buy and bottle a modest quantity of Glenfarclas, a lovely Speyside whisky. Thereafter, they kept buying small, uncommercial amounts and, as the joys of Scotland’s national drink in its unblended state waxed ever more popular, membership grew. Bottled from single casks, SMWS whisky has extraordinary character but perhaps its greatest achievement was the purchase of a 31-year-old Springbank some years ago. Very dark, intense and unfathomably complex, its quality has never been bettered. Not that it was possible to tell it was a Springbank. SMWS tradition dictates that all whiskies are numbered and not named. A glossary has to be consulted by those who only buy occasionally. Tremendously flowery and imaginative tasting notes are offered as a substitute for brand names and sometimes drinkers have marvelled at the unlikely comparisons. In the latest list of bottlings, tasting notes have included ‘church pews and hymn books’, ‘ladies’ handbags’ and ‘suede shoes walking through clover’. No matter how inventive, nothing will match the 31-year-old Springbank.

  Wherever rain falls and snow melts in the Highlands and the gathered water begins to trickle and flow, it affects the character of whisky. Granite-based streams run clear but where rain and snow seep through fissures and small fractures to collect underground, it becomes mineralised. This can impart a quite different quality but some distilleries located in the Lowlands in areas of intensive farming have had to cease production because their water supplies had become polluted with nitrates from fertilisers. But these difficulties are recent and the early distillers had other, quite different problems.

  The Westminster governments of the 18th century and early 19th century had no taste for whisky unless it could be taxed. But, in the more remote glens, the excisemen – also known as ‘the gaugers’ (pronounced gougers) – had the impossible endless task of finding and closing down thousands of illicit stills. Often they scanned the horizon for the telltale column of peat reek that would give away the location of an operating still but lookouts usually ensured its rapid dismantling and immediate disappearance. One ingenious crofter hid his illicit still near his cottage and dug an underground flue so that the peat smoke was conducted into his cottage chimney and became impossible to detect. Production of illegal whisky was undertaken on an industrial scale in Speyside and indeed was a vital part of the rural economy. Without regular income from distilling, many upland farmers would have been unable to pay their rents. Landlords knew that and colluded in the trade.

  Distribution is generally a difficulty for small producers, legal or otherwise, but the farmer distillers of Speyside had developed a reliable network. Thomas Guthrie, the founder of the Ragged School network and one of the leaders of the Free Church of Scotland, was born in 1803. Here is a passage from the Autobiography of Thomas Guthrie:

  When a boy in Brechin, I was quite familiar with the appearance and on-goings of the Highland smugglers. They rode on Highland ponies, carrying on each side of their small, shaggy, but brave and hardy steeds, a small cask or ‘keg’ as it was called, of illicit whisky, manufactured amid the wilds of Aberdeenshire or the glens of the Grampians. They took up a position on some commanding eminence during the day, where they could, as from a watchtower, descry the distant approach of the enemy, the exciseman or gauger: then, when night fell, every man to horse, descending the mountains only six miles from Brechin, they scoured the plains, rattled into the villages and towns, disposing of their whisky to agents they had everywhere; and, now safe, returned at their leisure, or often in a triumphal procession. They were often caught, no doubt, with the contraband whisky in their possession. Then they were subjected to heavy fines besides the loss of their goo
ds. But – daring, stout, active fellows – they often broke through the nets, and were not slack, if it offered them a chance of escape, to break the heads of the gaugers. I have seen a troop of thirty of them riding in Indian file, and in broad day, through the streets of Brechin, after they had succeeded in disposing of their whisky, and, as they rode leisurely along, beating time with their formidable codgels on the empty barrels to the great amusement of the public and mortification of the excisemen, who had nothing for it but to bite their nails and stand, as best they could, the raillery of the smugglers and the laughter of the people . . . Everybody, with a few exceptions, drank what was in reality illicit whisky – far superior to that made under the eye of the Excise – lord and lairds, members of Parliament and ministers of the Gospel, and everybody else.

  Against a background of near-universal collusion, the whisky trade was impossible to police. Alexander Gordon, the 4th Duke of Gordon, understood this. As the owner of vast tracts of Inverness-shire, Morayshire and Banffshire, he found himself in the centre of the world of illicit distilling. The core problem was that the rates of duty and the costs of licensing a legal still were far too high and on an inappropriate scale. In 1823, Gordon promoted a new act of parliament that set distilling on a new and sensible footing. Having promised his best efforts to help legalise whisky production amongst the tenantry of his own estates, the Duke helped George Smith, a farmer in Glenlivet, to go into legitimate business in 1824. Glenlivet malt already had a reputation (one that has endured) and, when King George IV arrived in Scotland on a state visit in 1822, the portly monarch demanded to be served nothing but. Doubtless no butler or courtier dared point out to the king that he was consuming contraband his government’s gaugers had pursued around the countryside.