Whisky

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Whisky Page 10

by Aeneas MacDonald


  49. BENRINNES GLENLIVET.

  50. CONVALMORE GLENLIVET.†

  51. BALVENIE GLENLIVET.

  52. TOWIEMORE GLENLIVET.†

  53. PARKMORE.†

  54. GLENDULLAN GLENLIVET.

  55. MORTLACH.

  56. GLENFIDDICH.

  57. DUFFTOWN GLENLIVET.

  58. TAMDHU GLENLIVET.

  59. CARDOW.

  60. IMPERIAL GLENLIVET.†

  61. KNOCKANDO.

  62. GLENFARCLAS GLENLIVET.

  63. DAILUAINE GLENLIVET.

  64. CRAGGANMORE GLENLIVET.

  65. BALMENACH GLENLIVET.

  66. GLENLIVET.

  67. STRATHEDEN.†

  68. CAMERON BRIDGE.

  69. AUCHTERTOOL.†

  70. GRANGE.†

  71. GLENOCHIL.†

  72. CAMBUS.†

  73. ROSEBANK.†

  73a. BANKIER.†

  74. LITTLEMILL.†

  75. AUCHENTOSHAN, DUNTOCHER.

  76. GARTLOCH.†

  77. GLENKINCHIE.

  78. KIRKLISTON.†

  79. BLADNOCH, WIGTOWN.

  THE CAMPBELTOWN DISTILLERIES: SPRINGSIDE,† RIECLACHAN,† KINLOCH,† HAZELBURN,† GLENSIDE,† LOCH HEAD,† SPRINGBANK.

  †Distilleries that are now closed

  Inverness shire can scarcely be considered a natural territorial division for whisky. It contains several isolated distilleries or groups of distilleries whose products have no particular resemblance to one another. At each end of the Great Glen through which the Caledonian Canal passes is a small whisky district. Near Inverness are the three distilleries of Glen Albyn, Millburn, and Glen Mhor; at Fort William, at the southern or western end of the Glen, are the distilleries of Glenlochie and Ben Nevis. But the Inverness whiskies18 approach the Banffshire type in character, while the Fort William products belong to a West Highland category, in which the fine Skye whisky, Talisker, is also to be remembered. The other Inverness-shire whiskies are more difficult to classify. Tomatin, made on the Findhorn, has a claim to be included in the inner ring of the Highland whiskies, the core to which reference has already been made. Dalwhinnie, styled a Strathspey whisky, is a native of the Central Highlands, born near the bank of that tributary of the Spey which drains sombre Loch Ericht; it is more than seventy miles from the nearest of its fellow Spey whiskies.

  Argyle contributes to the West Highland group Tobermory from Mull, the last of the insular whiskies, Oban, and Glenfyne19, from Ardrishaig. In Perthshire there is a grouping of distilleries along the valleys of the Tay and its tributaries, the Earn and the Tummel. At Pitlochry the Blair Atholl whisky is made with, close beside it, Edradour of the poetic name; Ballechin is distilled at Ballinluig, Aberfeldy at the charming little town of that name on the upper Tay, Glen Turret at Crieff, and Isla at Perth.20 All are useful, robust whiskies, somewhat below the highest grade in delicacy.

  In Stirlingshire, Glengyle just scrapes into the Highland area (as the best opinion holds), and with Forfarshire we have reached the southern edge of the range of North country malts which extends to Peterhead. The beautiful glens and uplands of the Sidlaws are the cradle of Glencoull, Glencadam, and North Port, the Brechin whisky. Kincardine adds the two Mearns whiskies, Auchenblae and Glenurie, distilled at Stonehaven.

  When the Aberdeenshire border is reached on the return northward journey the north country character of the malt is well-established. There are six distilleries within the county area, Lochnagar Royal at Balmoral (one of the two distilleries entitled to use the regal adjective), Strathdee in Aberdeen city, Glengarioch near Old Meldrum, Ardmore to the south of Huntly, Glenugie at Peterhead, and Glendronach at Huntly. The last-named is probably the most distinguished of this group; Professor Saintsbury mentions it kindly. But it seems doubtful whether a Huntly-distilled whisky should not be numbered with the Banffshire family. The county border-line is, in a case like this, of less significance than natural geographical divisions, and Huntly is situated upon a tributary of the Deveron, which rises among the Cairngorms and flows northward through the rich grain-bearing slopes that come down from the Grampians to dip into the North Sea along the east-and-west running coastline that extends from Nairn to Fraserburgh. There would be a case, then, for considering Huntly as within the same geographical area as nourishes the great Spey whiskies. We shall leave it, like Tomatin and Dalwhinnie, with a question-mark behind it.

  The real heart of this whole matter of whisky lies in a rough quadrilateral of land, about fifty miles by twenty-five in area and corresponding approximately to the three Scottish counties of Nairn, Moray, and Banff. It would be no true or, at least, no very discerning lover of whisky who could enter this almost sacred zone without awe. It would be a most unimaginative man who could pass along its roads and look on its woods and fields, its pleasant hills and beautiful sea-shores without seeking for analogies in the scenery around him with the various perfections in his favourite whiskies. The tract has been very decisively marked off by nature, as if on purpose to contain and guard some hallowed mystery. To the north there is the sea, a magnificent sea, with already something in it of the Arctic chill and the Arctic eeriness. To the west is the river Nairn, to the east the Deveron.21 On the north, enclosing the region with a superb sculptured wall, are the two mountain masses of the Cairngorms and the Monadhliath mountains, between which the powerful Spey thrusts itself like a spear into a closing door. Five rivers water the area, passing northward (more accurately N.N.E.) to the sea: Nairn, Findhorn, Lossie, Spey and Deveron. It is one of the most fortunate areas in all Britain, in its climate, in its scene, in the fertility of its soil and the grandeur of its pine woods, in the physical dignity and mental poise of its people. Here Scandinavian, Celt, and those elder peoples who were before the Celt and seem likely to live as long as he, have met and mingled with the happiest of results. Such is the inner sanctuary, the fountain-head, the Ark of the Covenant of whisky.

  Looked at from the purely quantitative aspect, this compact area has an importance which can easily be measured. Out of the 122 Scottish distilleries, eighty-four are in the Highlands; of these eighty four Highland distilleries forty-five are situated in this single district. Yet it must be noted at once that the names of the whisky districts as they are shown in the registers of the industry do not take cognizance of the unity of this district. Indeed it is impossible to discover any reasonable geographical basis for the district-names assumed by different distilleries, apparently by caprice. No amount of research can determine why some of these are called ‘Strathspey’ whiskies and others ‘Speyside’. Both are equally beside the Spey and in Strathspey. And it is not as if the names were interchangeable; they are jealously guarded. The different trade designations given to the whiskies belonging to this area, the central malt whiskies, are as follows: Speyside, Strathspey, Nairn, Elgin, Forres, Dufftown, Rothes, Knockando, Banffshire, Keith, Glenlivet.

  The simplest and more logical sub-division of the area would be into five districts, roughly corresponding to the courses of its five principal rivers. Thus the Nairn belt would include the two whiskies at present known as Nairn whiskies; the Findhorn belt would take in the three Forres whiskies and one of the whiskies at present grouped under Elgin; the Lossie area would comprise the six remaining Elgin whiskies; the Spey whiskies would number the present Strathspey and Speyside, and in addition the Rothes, Knockando, Dufftown, and Glenlivet brands, twenty-seven in all; while the Deveron area would include those whiskies which now are called Keith and Banffshire, six. But in this matter, as in others more important, the conservatism of the distillers will probably prove unassailable.

  Of the two Nairn whiskies, Royal Brackla and Glencawdor, the former is the more important. It is, in fact, one of the dozen or so best whiskies made in Scotland. In this case the barley used comes from the counties of Moray and Nairn and the water from springs high in the Cawdor Hills. It acquired the epithet ‘Royal’ early in its career. In 1828 an advertisement in the Aber
deen Chronicle announced that Captain Fraser22 ‘has made an arrangement to have this much admired spirit sent up by land, when a regular supply can be had weekly’. But by 1835, as an advertisement in The Morning Chronicle of London informs us, ‘Brackla Highland Whisky’ had become ‘Brackla, or, The King’s Own Whisky’.

  ‘His Majesty, having been pleased to distinguish this “by his Royal Command to supply his Establishment”, has placed this Whisky first on the list of British Spirits, and, when known, should in truth be termed “The Drink Divine”—only to be had of the Importers, Graham and Co., New-road, facing the Mary-labonne workhouse.’

  The whiskies at present classified as Forres brands belong to the Findhorn group I have suggested. They are three in all: Dallas Dhu, Ben Romach, Glenburgie.

  Elgin, on the Lossie, gives its name to seven whiskies of which one, Milton-Duff, seems to belong by geography rather to a Findhorn group. The other six are Glenlossie Glenlivet, Longmorn-Glenlivet, Linkwood Glenlivet, Glenmoray-Glenlivet, Glenelgin-Glenlivet, and Coleburn-Glenlivet.23

  Of the whiskies belonging to the famous Spey basin those classified as members of the Rothes district account for three, Glenspey, Glenrothes-Glenlivet, and Glengrant-Glenlivet. Dufftown includes five notable whiskies, Convalmore, Balvenie, Glendullan-Glenlivet, Mortlach, and Glenfiddich. There are twelve distilleries which own no more exact geographical title than ‘Speyside’. They are Craigellachie-Glenlivet, Glentauchers-Glenlivet, Imperial-Glenlivet, Macallan-Glenlivet, Parkmore, Dufftown-Glenlivet, Daluaine-Glenlivet, Cragganmore-Glenlivet, Benrinnes-Glenlivet, Speyburn-Glenlivet, Towiemore-Glenlivet, and Glen-farclas-Glenlivet. ‘Strathspey’, a designation differing from ‘Speyside’ in some subtle way which no inquiry and no consultation with mere maps can elucidate, is given by three distilleries as their pays d’origine. In addition to Dalwhinnie, situated to the south of the Cairngorms in Badenoch and already noticed, there are Balmenach-Glenlivet and Aberlour-Glenlivet. The three Knockando whiskies are Tamdhu-Glenlivet, Cardow, and Knockando. The last-named, like the Rothes distillery, Glenspey, is owned by Messrs. W. & A. Gilbey Ltd., who use its product for the blending of their proprietary whiskies. The Banffshire malts, which may also be included in the Spey group, are Inchgower, a coastwise whisky distilled at Buckie, Banff, distilled in the county town, and Strathmill, Strathisla-Milton Keith, Knockdhu, all of which are made in or near Keith, which however is recognised as a separate district by only one whisky, Aultmore-Glenlivet.24

  Only one name has still to be mentioned, but it is a name of supreme importance. There is a small glen in Banffshire watered by a stream named the Livet, a tributary of the Avon which is itself a tributary of the splendid Spey. The pure waters of this mountain burn which tumble 1,200 feet down the steep sides of Cairngorms do something more than drain the beautiful glen, they also form an essential ingredient in the whisky for which Glenlivet is renowned. Glenlivet has for long decades been almost a synonym for the finest of Highland whisky:

  Glenlivet it has castles three

  Drumin, Blairfindy, and Deshie,

  And also one distillery

  More famous than the castles three.

  Product of a district of which a century ago it was said, ‘everybody makes whisky and everyone drinks it’, Glenlivet, ‘the real Glenlivet’, won an early place in the literature of whisky. Sir Walter Scott in St. Ronan’s Well, that locus classicus for so much relating to the Scottish kitchen and the Scottish cellar, makes Sir Bingo treat the Captain and the Doctor to a cordial prepared in the wilds of Glenlivet. The Captain’s verdict was as follows: ‘By Cot, it is the only liquor fit for a gentleman to drink in the morning, if he can have the good fortune to come by it, you see.’ ‘Or after dinner either, Captain,’ added the Doctor. ‘It is worth all the wines of France for flavour, and more cordial to the system besides.’ Still more eloquent and enthusiastic is the eulogy which Christopher North25 puts into the mouth of James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, and one of the most discerning of the old Scottish school of gourmets: ‘Gie me the real Glenlivet, and I weel believe I could mak’ drinking toddy oot o’ sea water. The human mind never tires o’ Glenlivet, ony mair than o’ caller air. If a body could just find oot the exac’ proper proportion and quantity that ought to be drunk every day, and keep to that, I verily trow that he might leeve for ever, witout dying at a’, and that doctors and kirkyards would go oot o’ fashion.’

  The famous Glenlivet distillery, ca. 1925

  In a later age, a less august authority, the frivolous but ingenious author of The Massacre of Macpherson, a ditty without which no Scottish students’ revel is (or was) complete, celebrated the malt in a stanza:

  Phairson had a son

  Who married Noah’s daughter,

  And nearly spoilt the flood

  By trinking up ta water.

  Which he would have done—

  I, at least believe it—

  Had ta mixture been

  Only half Glenlivet.26

  But the most striking tribute to Smith’s Glenlivet27 is not a literary one. There are at the present moment no fewer than twenty six distilleries which use the name Glenlivet in a hyphenated form. These distilleries are found over an area of about three hundred square miles. There was some point in the old joke ‘Glenlivet is the longest glen in Scotland’, especially since the hyphenation was not strictly observed at one time. So grave was the inconvenience to the makers of Glenlivet that in 1880 Colonel John Gordon Smith, the proprietor of the distillery, took the question to law, and it was decided that only the Glenlivet Distillery was entitled to style its product ‘Glenlivet’ without qualification.

  The roll of the Highland malt whiskies of Scotland is now complete. It is an invidious as well as difficult task to single out any for special recommendation, yet a list of twelve names can be made up which will probably win all but universal acceptance as representing Highland whisky at its most distinguished. It is as follows:28 Glen Grant, Highland Park, Glenburgie, Cardow, Balmenach, Royal Brackla, Glenlossie, Smith’s Glenlivet, Longmorn, Macallan, Linkwood, and—. But the twelfth place I decline to fill, being unable to decide, even after prolonged spiritual wrestling and debate, whether Talisker or Clyne Lish should be honoured. It is a problem which some of my readers may, in any case, think it desirable to settle for themselves.

  The Lowland malt whiskies of Scotland are, with one exception, distilled in a narrow belt of country bounded on the north by the ‘Highland line’ already mentioned and on the south by a roughly parallel straight line running from Largs on the west to St. Abb’s Head on the east. Within this area are seven distilleries, Stratheden in Fifeshire, Bankier in Stirlingshire, Rosebank at Falkirk, St. Magdalene at Linlithgow, Glenkinchie at Haddington, Littlemill and Auchentoshan, Duntocher, both in Dumbartonshire. There is also the Yoker distillery in Glasgow making both malt and grain spirit. Far removed from this central Scottish plain, well peppered with distilleries, is the Bladnoch distillery at Wigtown, making a whisky which, like its situation, stands somewhat apart from the rest of the Lowland malts.29

  The ten distilleries making a grain spirit are all to be found in the industrial Lowlands of Scotland. They are Carsebridge, Cameron Bridge, Glenochil, Port Dundas, Adelphi, Strathclyde, Yoker, Gartloch, Caledonian and North British. Glasgow and Edinburgh account for six of them. The best of these grain distillations, as established by the experience of the blenders, are Caledonian, Carsebridge, Cameron Bridge, and North British. It is maintained that these four whiskies have each a definite individuality—but this is a heresy that rouses the average malt distiller to passionate rage.30

  Ireland is properly considered as a separate kingdom in the world of whisky—or whiskey as we must now begin to call it. For not only has it a geographical claim to individual treatment, but there are many characteristics which mark it off from its Scottish brothers. For instance, the process of manufacture is more elaborate, there being three distinct distillations before the finished spirit is collected. For the most par
t it is made from a mash of barley and barley malt and not from barley malt alone, though there are some exceptions to this rule, of which old Buskmills whiskey is the most notable. Irish whiskey has somewhat fewer and less delicate varieties of flavour than Scotch (though I have known Scotsmen who preferred it to their native spirit), its range is definitely narrower, and, in the opinion of Professor Saintsbury and other authorities, it is better as a single or ‘self’ whiskey than in blends. But a fine pot-still Irish whiskey is a magnificent thing indeed, even to those who are not prepared to go as far as one expert and affirm that it is possible to mistake Irish whiskey for cognac. It should be noted that the Irish variety needs more keeping than Scotch, being best after ten years or so in the cask.

  There are twenty-one Irish distilleries in operation at the present time. This number, negligible when compared with the Scottish centres of manufacture, suggests strongly that Irish whiskey has failed to hold its place in the world market,31 and possibly that, at home, it has fought a losing battle against ‘poteen’, which today threatens to become a source of supply for American bootleggers. In 1800 there were 124 distilleries in Ireland. It is unfortunately true that the name of Persse of Galway and other distilling firms of equal repute are no longer to be found in the semi official trade lists, but it is still possible to find Irish whiskey in a wide enough range of makes to satisfy most tastes.

  The (legal) distilling of Ireland is confined rather narrowly to a few, mostly urban, districts. Eleven distilleries (more than half of the total) are within the boundaries of Co. Down, Co. Antrim and Co. Derry in the north-east corner of the island. Of the remainder, five are in Dublin, all of them making whiskey in pot-stills. These are John Jameson’s Bow Street Distillery (founded in 1780, curiously enough by a Scotsman, member of an Alloa family, and the sheriff clerk of Clackmannan), the D.W.D. or Jones Road Distillery of the Dublin Distillery company, John Power & Son’s John’s Lane Distillery, the Marrowbone Lane distillery (William Jameson’s) and the Thomas Street distillery (George Roe’s) both of which are now owned by the Dublin Distillery Co. In the very heart of Ireland are John Locke & Co.’s Kilbeggan Distillery (Co. Westmeath) and B. Daly & Co.’s Tullamore Distillery (King’s Co.). At Cork are the two distilleries of the Cork Distilleries Co. Ltd. and at Bandon, Co. Cork, Allman & Co.’s Bandon Distillery.

 

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