by Sam Heughan
***
Sam’s Top Tipples
SAM
We were by the beach at Fairmount Miramar, Santa Monica, for the BAFTA Los Angeles Burns Night 2020. And we asked a good friend of mine, Tim Robinson of Twist London, a genius medal-winning mixologist, to create some Sassenach cocktails. He came up with these two beauties:
SASSENACH HIGHBALL
60ml Sassenach whisky
60ml lemon verbena tea (brew to taste)
7.5ml honey
Top up with approximately 80ml Fever Tree elderflower tonic (or similar)
Dash of lemon bitters
Garnish with a lemon ‘horse’s neck’
Serve over a single ice block ‘spear’ in a highball glass
THE RABBIE
50ml Sassenach whisky
10ml Tio Pepe sherry
15ml sweet vermouth (Cocchi Torino or similar)
10ml Sangue Morlacco cherry liqueur (or Cherry Heering if not available)
Mezcal mist (use atomiser lightly over top of drink)
Garnish: Luxardo maraschino cherry
Stir and serve in a Nick and Nora glass or a coupette
And here’s a timeless one with minimal fuss:
SASSENACH OLD FASHIONED
50ml Sassenach whisky
1 sugar cube/teaspoon of sugar/sweetener if preferred
4 dashes Angostura bitters
1 orange slice
Garnish: orange peel
Serve over a single ice block in a highball glass
Duncan Lacroix’s Top 10 (make that 11) Tips for a Legendary Night Out
1. Before you leave the flat line your stomach with a loaf of bread and a pint of full-fat milk (none of this ‘trim’ shit).
2. Take a vitamin B12. God knows why.
3. Fill your pockets with stuff that would make ‘Black Jack’ wince, in case you get ‘lucky’.
4. Drink two of anything alcoholic just before you close the door of your flat.
5. Find a mate who’s even more mental than you, e.g. ‘The Irishman’.
6. Get to the bar early. Double up with pints and chasers.
7. Sink ‘depth charges’ in your mate’s pint, and then drink it yourself anyway.
8. Be sure to urinate outside the window of the restaurant in which your director is enjoying dinner with his wife.
9. Break into your own flat because you’ve forgotten your keys.
10. Start a fight with the person you’ve invited back to your flat for ‘more wine’.
11. Threaten to execute your boss.
CHAPTER THREE
The Land That Begat Me
From ‘Scotland the Brave’ by Robert Wilson
High in the misty Highlands,
Out by the purple islands,
Brave are the hearts that beat
Beneath Scottish skies.
SAM
Returning to Scotland to shoot Outlander after living in London for twelve years, I realised I had the opportunity to really learn more about my heritage and the country in which I was born. I’d toured the Highlands and Islands years before, working in Scottish theatre, and loved the language and stories of the past. Yet, I knew very little about my own heritage. Whilst shooting episodes, each week I’d find myself in another terrific location: a castle ruin, an ancient house, a sweeping glen or a pine forest. At the weekends I’d go into the hills, exploring the peaks and walking or cycling the length of the country. I really began to fall in love again with the land and history. I had been working on producing and creating my own TV show and movies, at which point Graham and I discussed our Men In Kilts idea (over a cafe latte in LA). It got me thinking and, after a great deal of work, a few months later I had assembled a crew, cameras, drones, hotels, guests, costumes, locations, the odd stuffed toy and even managed to get the bearded one to jump on a plane from his home in New Zealand. Don’t ask me how I managed to convince him to ride in a camper van, with me driving.
So while Graham is drinking an emergency lady latte in a Glencoe layby in order to restore his sugar and caffeine levels to ‘safe’, I want to go right back to the beginning of Scotland, which started with the glaciers tearing their way across Britain. Scotland was inhospitable until the ice melted around 9600 BC . . . Okay, we don’t need to go quite that far back! But we do need a bit of history as context for our journey and to get our ‘heids’ around the people known as Highlanders, so let’s start with the Roman Invasion in the first century AD. When the Romans reached the modern-day Borders they met the locals – the fearsome Picts and Gaels (known as ‘Scoti’ by the invaders). The Romans didn’t think much of these savages so they built a vast stone wall – Hadrian’s – in 122 AD to keep these brutes away from their designer togas and Gucci sunglasses. The Scoti and Picts behind the wall didn’t think much of these slick-haired Romans with their pasta and newfangled ways, and these ancient tribes weren’t about to give up their lands without a fight, nor would they become slaves or tax monkeys to the Romans, so they kicked their Italian arses. There were many raids and battles until the Romans, fed up with these cranky ‘Caledonians’, pushed the troublesome ones right up above the Central Belt of Scotland between the Firth of Forth and Firth of Clyde and built another wall – the Antonine – in 142 AD.
Graham: That was very good. Did you go to the library?
Sam: No, I mainly got it from Asterix books, Mr Vitalstatistix.
Graham: Right.
GRAHAM
I mean it’s extraordinary to think that the Roman Empire had successfully conquered the length and breadth of Europe but never taken Caledonia (the Romans’ name for Scotland). The Scots laughed at Hadrian’s hurdle and dabbled in border cattle raids and some general violence until the end of Roman Rule (383–410 AD) when the Romans finally buggered off home, battered and bankrupt. And that’s when the Gaels took over Western Scotland and Wales, establishing Dál Riata, whilst various Pictish kings controlled the rest of Scotland.
In the sixth century, missionaries were sent to Scotland from Ireland and Rome (with Augustine in 596 AD) and the Picts converted to Christianity (and shinty). Frictions between the Picts and pagan Gaels increased, with many skirmishes, but the two sides eventually united in the ninth century against one common enemy: the Vikings, who invaded Scotland on and off between the eighth and fifteenth centuries. The Vikings were people who liked a dust-up too and they left much of their culture behind in Scotland.
SAM
Including me. [Graham: I think violating a local peasant girl after burning down her village doesn’t really count as ‘leaving behind your culture’.] Obviously way back there was a fair Heughan wench who had the hots for a Viking raider because I’m proud to reveal I’m 3.7% Norwegian, not enough to claim it as my home but there are certainly many similarities in the landscapes of my two claimed nations. You just need to look at the Great Glen (Loch Ness) and the Fjords of Scandinavia to see that. In fact, the word Firth comes from the Norwegian ‘fjord’, which is an estuary. And, many clans carry the names of their forefathers: MacIvor (son of Ivor), Macaulay (son of Olaf) and MacAskill (son of Asgeir). It’s always fascinated me to hear Scottish words being used that are Norse in origin, such as ‘greet’ (cry), ‘een’ (eye), ‘keek’ (look) and perhaps the most Scottish term of all, which derives from Old Norse: ‘kilt’, meaning ‘to tuck’.
I was obsessed by the Vikings as a child. In the nearby borough of Kirkcudbrightshire, a Viking archaeological dig had been established and I vividly remember being allowed to help slowly brush away at the bones of a Viking settlement. Although I found no buried treasure or ancient magical weapons, I did find pieces of bone that the patient archaeologist assured me had been the supper of a bearded Viking warrior.
GRAHAM
Around the time of the marauding Vikings, Kenneth MacAlpin, the first king of Scotland, united the Kingdom of Scotland in 843 AD. Also at this time, the Highland clans were emerging (although the majority of clans c
annot be authenticated until the twelfth or thirteenth centuries). Early Highland clan life drew its roots from the Druids and Celts with the Gaelic word ‘clann’ meaning children. Built around kinship (blood ties), identity and a sense of belonging, you were essentially part of a huge extended, if sometimes highly dysfunctional, family. Clans had more to do with survival in a harsh land full of tumult rather than race or nationality. Members organised themselves around a ‘chieftain’, a territorial leader ruling over classless free men of equal rights. (There were slaves but these were never from the tribe, just some poor unfortunates they rounded up.)
Most chieftains were elected, and if they didn’t come up to scratch they could be deposed. One such clan chief in the seventeenth century was deposed because while on a cattle raid to the neighbouring clan in freezing winter he had the temerity to make a pillow out of ice to sleep the night on. The rest of the lads were so appalled and disgusted by this weakness, they simply got rid of him. ‘Did you see Willie – an ice pillow?! Probably wants a wee teddy bear too, and for us to tuck him in! SLIT HIS THROAT!!!’
The clans lived in ‘black houses’, many built of turf, not stone. Later medieval castles, like the MacKenzie clan’s Castle Leoch in Outlander, were built on the profits of international trade which, from the thirteenth century onwards, was massive. Cod and salmon were shipped in large barrels from Aberdeen to Hamburg; hides and wool were traded for wine and other luxuries in Flanders and Bruges and cattle were raised to be sold (and exported) and were to become a great source of wealth for many chieftains. But cattle were also the prime cause of inter-clan violence.
Inheritance was through something called ‘Tanistry’, where a cousin or a brother would inherit before a son and, as for marriage, the early Celts believed in free love. There was no marriage and children were raised by the whole clan. No one really knew who anyone’s father was, and they didn’t care. Boys were given independence at fourteen, but were not regarded as men until they’d grown a full beard.
Sam . . . ?!
However, it’s worth mentioning that meanwhile, the Picts on the eastern side of Scotland, also of Celtic origin, were actually big on marriage and were ‘matrilineal’ so lands, goods and titles all passed through the mother’s line.
But the Gaels lived in a big old hippy commune, just with eye-watering violence and slavery thrown in. Land belonged to everyone, not to any individual. However, scraping a living off marginal and harsh terrain, with a constant battle for resources and territory, made for ferocious violence and the opportunity for clan chieftains to assert dominance over local families, who accepted their protection in return for food and money.
Later Scots’ emphasis on physical strength, courage and stamina owes much to these early Celtic tribes. Druids were given terrifying ordeals in order to become ordained. One example was that they had to compose a song, and play it with musical accompaniment, to one of the many complex bardic metres. Sounds simple enough. But oh no, not the Druids. Some wag, somewhere in the mists of time, decided to tell the prospective ordinant the chosen meter, moments before he was immersed up to his nostrils in a tank of cold water for the entire night. The next morning, he was taken from the ball-freezing tank and told to play his chosen song, with his chosen instrument immediately!
Not, ‘Here’s a towel, and a cup of tea. Get your breath back. Take your time.’
No, it was, ‘Play the bloody song or we may sacrifice your gonads to that oak tree over there.’ They revered oak trees and gonads. (I honestly think Sam should attempt this for Season Two of Men In Kilts. In fact, if he’d known about it I’m pretty sure he would’ve volunteered straight away, while trying to get muggins here to do the same.)
However, by the sixteenth century clan life had begun to change. Marriage alliances became a means of strengthening political pacts and consolidating wealth and power. There were no elections to chiefdom, common ownership continued to survive, but now they levied increasing rent and class structures began to appear. ‘Tacksmen’ were those who had smallholdings, working farms held by rent from the chief. They could sublet them to others. Below this class were ‘cottars’ arranged in townships (tiny clusters of homes), each with enough land to sow some oats and have a couple of cows. The chief wasn’t just a landlord, he was way more powerful; with ‘heritable jurisdiction’ he could enforce the law. Along with the charms of ‘pit and gallows’ (to drown women and hang men) he could hang and imprison anyone.
Out of this clan system came warriors quick to attack and savage in close combat. This led men to push themselves as individual champions. Men were encouraged and expected to fight like ferocious animals in battle. They instinctively surged forward, running quickly to fight, trusting to being chancy rather than canny. If there was no combat to hand the Highlanders had no hesitation in triggering one; a cattle raid, or the least excuse seized upon to start a 350-year feud, for instance . . .
SAM
1300–1600 were some of the most violent years in the Highlands during what became known as the Clan Wars – tribal gangs feuding and generally knocking seven bells out of one another in a mafia style, governed by codes of absolute loyalty, respect and honour. And, ‘Thou shalt not steal thy neighbour’s coo, or I’ll cut yer heid off!’
One notable clan feud was between the MacLeods and the MacDonalds. In 1577 there was a terrible massacre on the Isle of Eigg and here’s what happened. Three young MacLeod men were banished from the island after trying out a number of dodgy chat-up lines on a few local ladies. The MacDonalds didn’t mess around and the MacLeod youths had their hands and feet bound and were bunged in a boat and cast adrift until they finally washed up at Dunvegan. The MacLeod chieftain was livid at the MacLeod boys’ treatment and immediately set sail for Eigg with a number of his men to ‘have a word’ with the MacDonalds. Knowing the MacLeods were on their way, like a Mexican cartel out of Narcos, the entire MacDonald clan hid in the Cave of Frances to the south of the island. However, the MacLeods tracked their footprints to the cave. The MacDonalds refused point blank to come out and ‘have a chat’ so the MacLeods lit a bonfire ‘of turf and ferns’ at the entrance and suffocated all 350 MacDonalds inside.
Incidentally, I spent many a summer during childhood on the Isle of Eigg and visited the cave many times. Walking across the Singing Sands (the sand squeaks with every footstep) and past a large rotting whale carcass, the entrance to the cave is hard to spot. Squeeze through the small gap and you find yourself in a large cave. It opens up and goes quite far back. In the darkness it’s hard to see how big the cave is, but some old sheep bones on the floor reveal it’s claimed more than the lives of the MacDonalds.
A year later, in 1578, the MacDonalds’ and MacLeods’ beef continued, this time on the Isle of Skye. Hell-bent on revenge for the Eigg cave massacre, the MacDonalds who had survived landed eight ships at Ardmore Bay, surrounded the local church and torched it. All the worshippers were burned alive, except one young lady who escaped out of a window. Seeing the smoke, the MacLeods rushed to the church and the MacDonalds legged it back to their boats but the tide had gone out! So the boats were on the rocks and the MacLeods had them surrounded and, yet again, all the MacDonalds were slain. (Hey, but they bounced back centuries later with the Golden Arches, right?)
‘Their bodies were range in line alongside a turf dyke . . . and the dyke was tumbled over on the top of them – a quick but unfeeling form of burial.’
Alexander Cameron, The History and Traditions of Skye (1892)
It was properly brutal stuff.
GRAHAM
With such a fearsome reputation for violence it’s no wonder James VI of Scotland (1566–1625) believed the Highlanders were barbarous and there was wicked blood in the isles. He recommended that Highlanders should be ‘treated like wolves or wild boar’. This was a Scottish king and a Stuart, by the way!
Of course, the Highlanders were not complete barbarians, and by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries many had travelled abroad, could speak
French, and often Italian, too. Their children were educated, their homes lavishly furnished and their drink of choice was likely to be claret over whisky. They were apt to boast. MacLeod of Harris bet James V he had finer candlesticks and a bigger table. After the King had shown him his banqueting table, MacLeod invited the King to Harris and had a hundred men stand in a circle around the cloth-covered table carrying flaming pinecones for illumination. MacLeod won the bet.
The perceived ‘romance’ of Scotland simply refuses to fit the reality of a deeply practical race of people who made decisions out of hard-nosed self-interest and loyalty to their kith and kin.
SAM
When William Wallace started a revolt against Edward I in 1297, brilliantly brought to life by Mel Gibson’s epic movie Braveheart, Scotland was ruled by (King) Robert the Bruce, a supporter of the Wallace Uprising. Robert ‘the badass’ Bruce went on to famously defeat the English army at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), securing Scotland as an independent and sovereign kingdom. Get in! But of course we know it wasn’t to last. There’s a memorial erected to Bruce near the dramatic and seriously fortified Stirling Castle.
Whilst running the Stirling marathon in 2018, and in the eighteenth mile as my legs were really starting to burn, I caught sight of the Wallace monument. It marks the site of the Battle of Stirling Bridge where Wallace defeated the English and became a national hero and was given the sobriquet ‘The Guardian of Scotland’. He was purported to hold a Claymore double-handed sword measuring five feet four inches – taller than Dwalin the angry dwarf – and he was a fearsome warrior. His memorial can be visited today and, via a narrow spiral staircase of 246 steps, you can reach the top to receive a dramatic and windy view. It’s a rewarding climb; just don’t do it after running a marathon.
And so we come to the House of Stuart (the same family as Bonnie Prince Charlie) which came to the throne in 1371, ruling Scotland for three centuries with James VI inheriting the English throne as well, becoming James I of England, in 1603. Then there’s the bit in the middle where Charles I (also a Stuart) is beheaded in the midst of the chaos of the English Civil War in 1649. Oliver Cromwell presides as Lord Protector until the Scots proclaim Charles II (a sequel Stuart) King of Scotland, which makes Cromwell raging mad and leads to several bloody battles in the ‘Scottish Campaign’, including the Battle of Worcester, after which Charles II is deposed. However, Charles II leads another Stuart comeback in 1660 and is restored to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland and all is well again. Until it’s James VII’s (James II of England) turn to mess everything up again by converting to Catholicism, which gets the English Protestants’ knickers in a twist, so they depose him in 1688 and install first cousins from the House of Hanover, William and Mary, meaning inbreeding was totally fine just so long as they weren’t Catholics! James VII (II of England) flees to France and tries to return by invading Ireland but loses the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and spends the rest of his life in France, living off Louis XIV. The Stuart Family would be trying to do a David Hasselhoff comeback for the next fifty-six years . . .