Nothing here. This is just to test out my tracking function for Japanese whisky, Japanese whiskey, American whisky, American whiskey, Bourbon, Scotch whisky, Scotch whiskey, Canadian whisky, Canadian whiskey, Irish whisky, Irish whiskey.
Davin
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Whisky Tales
MacLean, Charles. Whisky Tales. London: Little Books Ltd., 2006. 288 pages.
An expanded version of Maclean’s Miscellany of Whisky, to which nine new chapters have been added, Whisky Tales is an eminently readable and fascinating compendium of ruminations and little-known details collected by MacLean in a quarter century of writing about whisky. With historical notes, songs, poetry, pictures, and sidebars interspersing 29 chapters MacLean has achieved what other writers have only tried when mixing diverse whisky material in a single book.
Waymack and Harris, for instance, in their excellent Classic American Whiskeys, proceed neatly through the history, processes and trappings of Bourbon and rye, then clumsily dump a bunch of cocktail recipes at the end, as if to add pages. Andrew Jefford in his brilliant Peat, Smoke and Spirit has written two books then physically combined them into one by alternating chapters on whisky and Islay. It works a lot better, but MacLean, perhaps because he cuts from so many so cloths, has managed, brilliantly, to stitch vastly disparate pieces into a single, cohesive whole.
That said, and despite the chapters being neatly sewn together, Whisky Tales is a book that can be opened at almost any page to start reading, for each chapter stands on it’s own. Reader beware though; the just-one-more-page syndrome kicks in pretty quickly. Some chapters are based on lectures MacLean has given over his career, others are re-writes of articles published in lesser-known journals, and each includes gems that just didn’t fit into other of MacLean’s works.
The story of whisky and its organically evolving production methods lends an authenticity to whisky as a farm product and whisky-making as a craft. So it is surprising to learn in Whisky Tales, that Welsh whisky is a science experiment. In Wales, free from Scottish whisky regulations, two scientists have designed a whisky still and a whisky process that have allowed Penderyn to produce a fine dram that would likely not even be called whisky if made anywhere else.
The only distillery in Wales uses a unique still designed by Dr. David Faraday as a hybrid of the pot and the column, which allows new-make whisky to be ready for the cask after a single run. Quite an energy saving this. With Faraday’s still in place, Dr. Jim Swan had the idea of having Penderyn’s wash prepared off-site at a local brewery, and then suggested introducing lacto-bacillus to generate a range of new flavours during a second, bacterial fermentation. In America, Virginia whiskey, arrives at the distillery as low-wines imported from out of state, and American whiskey in general uses a sour mash process which is the essence of Swan’s lacto-bacillus process. However, for the British Isles this is very unique and it is surprising that the resulting Penderyn whisky is so Scotch malt-like.
Smuggling gets but passing coverage in the popular whisky guides, and usually by way of romanticizing it. MacLean gives the reader a brief history of Scottish smuggling before the Excise Act of 1823 helped bring to an end “an episode in Scottish history which is at once brutal and violent, romantic and heroic.” He then ends the chapter with a detailed description of an illicit distillery, clipped from a March 1823 edition of The Scotsman newspaper.
In a chapter called “Firing the Stills” MacLean talks about the effects of direct firing, now almost completely gone due to health and safety regulations. According to Whisky Tales the naked flame heats the still unevenly creating a heavier spirit. The uneven heat also leads to some burning on hot spots in the still, which imparts unique character called ‘empyreumatic’ to the spirit.
In an attempt to solve a problem that didn’t exist, bureaucrats at the Scotch Whisky Association recently cast aside the 100-year-plus tradition of calling mixed whiskies containing grain and malt whisky together, “blended whisky,” and mixtures of various malt whiskies containing no grain whisky, “vatted malts”. Confusingly, the SWA chose instead to apply the word “blended” to all mixed whiskies of any composition. But for a few new arrivals, however, whisky writers and bloggers have largely cried foul and stuck to the old, and more descriptive, terminology. Whisky Tales is destined to be part of the whisky literature for some time so it is gratifying to read in a book published in 2006, MacLean’s detailed explanation of vatting and blending and his conclusion, in the face of a world crazy for single malts, that blended whisky is a “miraculous creation.”
MacLean likes words and chooses them respectfully, occasionally giving the reader a brief etymology to aid understanding. This is typical of Whisky Tales – taking a different look at a familiar subject. Illustrated with colour plates and etchings, there’s a feeling of age and substance to the book. Some readers may wonder at a publisher’s decision to release an expanded version of MacLean’s Miscellany under a new name, but there really is a lot of new, rarely-found material here recounted in the same engaging style that made Miscellany such a treat to read.
MacLean, Charles. Whisky Tales. London: Little Books Ltd., 2006. 288 pages.
An expanded version of Maclean’s Miscellany of Whisky, to which nine new chapters have been added, Whisky Tales is an eminently readable and fascinating compendium of ruminations and little-known details collected by MacLean in a quarter century of writing about whisky. With historical notes, songs, poetry, pictures, and sidebars interspersing 29 chapters MacLean has achieved what other writers have only tried when mixing diverse whisky material in a single book.
Waymack and Harris, for instance, in their excellent Classic American Whiskeys, proceed neatly through the history, processes and trappings of Bourbon and rye, then clumsily dump a bunch of cocktail recipes at the end, as if to add pages. Andrew Jefford in his brilliant Peat, Smoke and Spirit has written two books then physically combined them into one by alternating chapters on whisky and Islay. It works a lot better, but MacLean, perhaps because he cuts from so many so cloths, has managed, brilliantly, to stitch vastly disparate pieces into a single, cohesive whole.
That said, and despite the chapters being neatly sewn together, Whisky Tales is a book that can be opened at almost any page to start reading, for each chapter stands on it’s own. Reader beware though; the just-one-more-page syndrome kicks in pretty quickly. Some chapters are based on lectures MacLean has given over his career, others are re-writes of articles published in lesser-known journals, and each includes gems that just didn’t fit into other of MacLean’s works.
The story of whisky and its organically evolving production methods lends an authenticity to whisky as a farm product and whisky-making as a craft. So it is surprising to learn in Whisky Tales, that Welsh whisky is a science experiment. In Wales, free from Scottish whisky regulations, two scientists have designed a whisky still and a whisky process that have allowed Penderyn to produce a fine dram that would likely not even be called whisky if made anywhere else.
The only distillery in Wales uses a unique still designed by Dr. David Faraday as a hybrid of the pot and the column, which allows new-make whisky to be ready for the cask after a single run. Quite an energy saving this. With Faraday’s still in place, Dr. Jim Swan had the idea of having Penderyn’s wash prepared off-site at a local brewery, and then suggested introducing lacto-bacillus to generate a range of new flavours during a second, bacterial fermentation. In America, Virginia whiskey, arrives at the distillery as low-wines imported from out of state, and American whiskey in general uses a sour mash process which is the essence of Swan’s lacto-bacillus process. However, for the British Isles this is very unique and it is surprising that the resulting Penderyn whisky is so Scotch malt-like.
Smuggling gets but passing coverage in the popular whisky guides, and usually by way of romanticizing it. MacLean gives the reader a brief history of Scottish smuggling before the Excise Act of 1823 helped bring to an end “an episode in Scottish history which is at once brutal and violent, romantic and heroic.” He then ends the chapter with a detailed description of an illicit distillery, clipped from a March 1823 edition of The Scotsman newspaper.
In a chapter called “Firing the Stills” MacLean talks about the effects of direct firing, now almost completely gone due to health and safety regulations. According to Whisky Tales the naked flame heats the still unevenly creating a heavier spirit. The uneven heat also leads to some burning on hot spots in the still, which imparts unique character called ‘empyreumatic’ to the spirit.
In an attempt to solve a problem that didn’t exist, bureaucrats at the Scotch Whisky Association recently cast aside the 100-year-plus tradition of calling mixed whiskies containing grain and malt whisky together, “blended whisky,” and mixtures of various malt whiskies containing no grain whisky, “vatted malts”. Confusingly, the SWA chose instead to apply the word “blended” to all mixed whiskies of any composition. But for a few new arrivals, however, whisky writers and bloggers have largely cried foul and stuck to the old, and more descriptive, terminology. Whisky Tales is destined to be part of the whisky literature for some time so it is gratifying to read in a book published in 2006, MacLean’s detailed explanation of vatting and blending and his conclusion, in the face of a world crazy for single malts, that blended whisky is a “miraculous creation.”
MacLean likes words and chooses them respectfully, occasionally giving the reader a brief etymology to aid understanding. This is typical of Whisky Tales – taking a different look at a familiar subject. Illustrated with colour plates and etchings, there’s a feeling of age and substance to the book. Some readers may wonder at a publisher’s decision to release an expanded version of MacLean’s Miscellany under a new name, but there really is a lot of new, rarely-found material here recounted in the same engaging style that made Miscellany such a treat to read.
The Social History of Bourbon
Carson, Gerald. The Social History of Bourbon. Lexington Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984. 280 pages. Originally published: New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963.
The Social History of Bourbon relates somewhat chronologically the role played by bourbon in American politics and history, then bogs slightly as it ends with chapters on whiskey tall tales, a look at the pre-Prohibition barroom, and enumerations of great Americans who tippled and then some.
Carson, who died in 1989, was an entertaining writer, a journalist, advertising man and later a social historian, with a knack for exactly the perfect obscure word. He was born and raised in the Illinois Corn Belt and in an earlier volume dealt not with corn whiskey, but with the lowly corn flake. Although sub-titled An Unhurried Account of Our Star-Spangled American Drink, the book fairly rolls along and one can almost hear Carson dictating it to himself in a playful Appalachian-American accent.
The earliest American distillates were rum, made from Caribbean molasses, and apple jack (calvados), from ever-increasing orchards. But with the arrival of Scottish and Irish immigrants, many of whom brought stills, interest shifted to distilling grain alcohol as they had done at home. The stony soils of Maryland and Pennsylvania were most suited to growing rye, a spicy European grain, and here rye whiskey became the staple. But as people headed down the Shenandoah Valley and crossed the Cumberland Gap into what is now Kentucky they grew Indian corn, or maize, which produced much more alcohol per bushel and yielded a sweeter whiskey.
Incidental barrel aging occurred during long months of river transport to southern markets, particularly when whiskey awaited spring flooding before shipping. However, once aged whiskey began to command higher prices the word ‘old’ quickly found its way onto cask heads.
Early bourbon may have left the distillery in good shape, but middlemen at every turn were wont to adulterate it with water, neutral grain alcohol, peppers, tobacco, and even strychnine just to stretch it out and increase their profits. It wasn’t until the invention of the inexpensive bottle that people could count on their purchases actually being bourbon. The difference, once tasted, was so dramatic that bottled whiskey soon commanded a premium price and a large share of the market.
It seems wherever there is great enterprise there is whiskey and a government that wants to tax it. Carson goes to lengths to recount the positive, probably essential role whiskey played in opening up the American West and financing America’s early governments. He also recounts how whiskey taxes led to all manners of protest, revolt and evasion. “The power to tax involves the power to destroy” he quotes Chief Justice John Marshall as saying, but it was legislated Prohibition, not taxation that really did almost destroy bourbon.
Though it touches on Prohibition the book focuses more on the role bourbon whiskey played in the lives and society of America and Americans from the earliest colonial times to the early 1960’s. Alcohol came to America with the Pilgrims he tells us, and many prominent Americans, including the first President were distillers. The temperance movement, he reminds us, promoted moderation, not abstinence.
How temperance hardened into Prohibition is not so much explained, as described and we can almost see Carson shaking his head in disbelief at governments giving up such a goldmine of taxes. Enacting Prohibition was like putting organized crime on steroids but we are led to wonder what the bourbon industry might have become had its manufacture not been dealt such a permanently crippling blow. Canadian and Scotch whisky distillers can smile though, for with bourbon-making outlawed a generation of bootleggers made these lighter potations the American favourites they remain today.
Early American clergy often made and usually partook of ardent spirits. However, Carson questions whether the Baptist Reverend Elijah Craig was really the first person to distil Kentucky bourbon and reminds us that Craig was a Virginian and not from Bourbon County. Dr. James C. Crow, a Scottish physician, gets full credit, however, for inventing the sour mash process.
Visit Jack Daniels distillery and people may talk of an old Daniels family Mint Julep recipe that involves placing mint leaves and sweet syrup into a glass. The whiskey is then poured into a well-frosted container, the rest of the ingredients are thrown away and the whisky is enjoyed neat. Carson knows this story too, only in his telling it originated with Louisville journalist “Marse Henry” Watterson and there is no mention of the Daniels. Ah such is the lore of bourbon.
Carson also introduces several bits of bourbon trivia that have since found their way into many a subsequent book. The “No Chemists Allowed” sign at Old Fitzgerald is one such nugget. So too is the observation that bourbon is as emblematic of America as Scotch is of Scotland and wine of France. Many authors since have found one way or another to make this observation, just as others begin, as Carson did, with the Roman expression abusus non tollit usum; abuse is no argument against proper use.
Fourty-odd years after it was written, and nearly twenty years after author Carson’s death at 90, The Social History of Bourbon remains one of the most enjoyable books in the bourbon literature. Though long out of print, it’s a must read for the bourbon aficionado, but more recent authors should take care to distil rather than recycle its contents.
Carson, Gerald. The Social History of Bourbon. Lexington Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984. 280 pages. Originally published: New York: Dodd, Mead, 1963.
The Social History of Bourbon relates somewhat chronologically the role played by bourbon in American politics and history, then bogs slightly as it ends with chapters on whiskey tall tales, a look at the pre-Prohibition barroom, and enumerations of great Americans who tippled and then some.
Carson, who died in 1989, was an entertaining writer, a journalist, advertising man and later a social historian, with a knack for exactly the perfect obscure word. He was born and raised in the Illinois Corn Belt and in an earlier volume dealt not with corn whiskey, but with the lowly corn flake. Although sub-titled An Unhurried Account of Our Star-Spangled American Drink, the book fairly rolls along and one can almost hear Carson dictating it to himself in a playful Appalachian-American accent.
The earliest American distillates were rum, made from Caribbean molasses, and apple jack (calvados), from ever-increasing orchards. But with the arrival of Scottish and Irish immigrants, many of whom brought stills, interest shifted to distilling grain alcohol as they had done at home. The stony soils of Maryland and Pennsylvania were most suited to growing rye, a spicy European grain, and here rye whiskey became the staple. But as people headed down the Shenandoah Valley and crossed the Cumberland Gap into what is now Kentucky they grew Indian corn, or maize, which produced much more alcohol per bushel and yielded a sweeter whiskey.
Incidental barrel aging occurred during long months of river transport to southern markets, particularly when whiskey awaited spring flooding before shipping. However, once aged whiskey began to command higher prices the word ‘old’ quickly found its way onto cask heads.
Early bourbon may have left the distillery in good shape, but middlemen at every turn were wont to adulterate it with water, neutral grain alcohol, peppers, tobacco, and even strychnine just to stretch it out and increase their profits. It wasn’t until the invention of the inexpensive bottle that people could count on their purchases actually being bourbon. The difference, once tasted, was so dramatic that bottled whiskey soon commanded a premium price and a large share of the market.
It seems wherever there is great enterprise there is whiskey and a government that wants to tax it. Carson goes to lengths to recount the positive, probably essential role whiskey played in opening up the American West and financing America’s early governments. He also recounts how whiskey taxes led to all manners of protest, revolt and evasion. “The power to tax involves the power to destroy” he quotes Chief Justice John Marshall as saying, but it was legislated Prohibition, not taxation that really did almost destroy bourbon.
Though it touches on Prohibition the book focuses more on the role bourbon whiskey played in the lives and society of America and Americans from the earliest colonial times to the early 1960’s. Alcohol came to America with the Pilgrims he tells us, and many prominent Americans, including the first President were distillers. The temperance movement, he reminds us, promoted moderation, not abstinence.
How temperance hardened into Prohibition is not so much explained, as described and we can almost see Carson shaking his head in disbelief at governments giving up such a goldmine of taxes. Enacting Prohibition was like putting organized crime on steroids but we are led to wonder what the bourbon industry might have become had its manufacture not been dealt such a permanently crippling blow. Canadian and Scotch whisky distillers can smile though, for with bourbon-making outlawed a generation of bootleggers made these lighter potations the American favourites they remain today.
Early American clergy often made and usually partook of ardent spirits. However, Carson questions whether the Baptist Reverend Elijah Craig was really the first person to distil Kentucky bourbon and reminds us that Craig was a Virginian and not from Bourbon County. Dr. James C. Crow, a Scottish physician, gets full credit, however, for inventing the sour mash process.
Visit Jack Daniels distillery and people may talk of an old Daniels family Mint Julep recipe that involves placing mint leaves and sweet syrup into a glass. The whiskey is then poured into a well-frosted container, the rest of the ingredients are thrown away and the whisky is enjoyed neat. Carson knows this story too, only in his telling it originated with Louisville journalist “Marse Henry” Watterson and there is no mention of the Daniels. Ah such is the lore of bourbon.
Carson also introduces several bits of bourbon trivia that have since found their way into many a subsequent book. The “No Chemists Allowed” sign at Old Fitzgerald is one such nugget. So too is the observation that bourbon is as emblematic of America as Scotch is of Scotland and wine of France. Many authors since have found one way or another to make this observation, just as others begin, as Carson did, with the Roman expression abusus non tollit usum; abuse is no argument against proper use.
Fourty-odd years after it was written, and nearly twenty years after author Carson’s death at 90, The Social History of Bourbon remains one of the most enjoyable books in the bourbon literature. Though long out of print, it’s a must read for the bourbon aficionado, but more recent authors should take care to distil rather than recycle its contents.
How to Blend Scotch Whisky
Barnard, Alfred. How to Blend Scotch Whisky. Hanau, Germany: Schoebert’s Whisky Watch, 2005. 36 pages. Originally published: London: Sir Joseph Causton & Sons, pre-1905.
When Alfred Barnard, in the employ of Harpers, set out some120-odd years ago to report on the distilleries of Scotland and Ireland for their Weekly Gazette, he knew relatively little of making whisky, and certainly nothing of what made a good one good. As he proceeded to visit each distillery, his knowledge grew, though as Richard Joynson points out in his introduction to the 2003 edition of Barnard’s better-known The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom, which compiles those Weekly Gazette articles, he never mentions the shapes of the stills he sees on his journeys, nor makes any mention of cask management.
However, Barnard’s weekly appearances in Harper’s during the mid-1880’s lent him widespread credibility so it is not surprising that Mackie and Company, distillers, blenders, and bottlers, would engage him to write an account of their blending facilities and three distilleries. The publication year of How to Blend Scotch Whisky is not known, but presumed to be a couple of decades after Barnard began his whisky journey, and certainly his familiarity with the influence of wood had much progressed.
It is a short book, text filling only 25 of its 36 pages but it is loaded with nuggets, apparently directed at those who blend whisky or buy it in bulk.
Judicious use of high quality and well-aged grain whisky is salutary to a blend, but the majority of London merchants, unlike Mackie and Company, used excessive amounts of cheap grain whisky to make inexpensive, barely drinkable concoctions. Barnard prefers well-aged Lowland malts over grain whiskies for blending and includes a recipe for a most popular blend, which combines 5 parts Glenlivet whiskies, 3 part of Islays, 3 parts Lowland malts, 1 part Campbeltown and only 4 parts, or 25% grain whiskies. “The idea,” Barnard tells the reader, “is to produce a blend so perfect that it strikes the consumer as being one liquid, not many.” Could this be the famous Whitehorse blend developed by Peter Mackie?
Of other techniques, he recommends buying only the finest Highland whiskies for blending, using older whiskies – he suggests an average age of 7 to 10 years as ideal, though accepts from 2 to 4 years old for a public house – and “marrying” blended whiskies by returning them to the source casks for 3 to 6 months after blending. He warns against adulteration of the whisky and suggests that only the softest water, such as that of Glasgow, where, by coincidence, Mackie and Company are located, be used for reducing the whisky to bottle strength.
Barnard ranks age over flavour in selecting blending whiskies, but flavour is second on his list of essentials and among the six classes of whisky – Islay, Glenlivet, North Country, Campbeltown, Lowland Malt and Grain, he ranks Islay the best due to its roundness and fatness. He dismisses an earlier prejudice against Islay indicating “it is [now] more carefully made, the flavour being more delicate and less pungent, owing to the use of dry peats instead of damp ones for drying the malt. Wow! Those less delicate Islays must have been staggering. Islays, by the way, he considers as Highland whiskies.
At Lagavulin Peter Mackie himself escorted Barnard on his tour and Barnard’s description quite exceeds that in his Harper’s rendition, detailing the surroundings, less so the works, but more the processes from selecting barley and making good malt, to careful filling into cask. He compares mashing to making tea and is most impressed with the length of service of many of the staff at Lagavulin. Clearly Lagavulin was Mackie’s premiere distillery and they must have been well pleased with the good light in which Barnard cast it.
Mackie and Company did not own Laphroaig, but were virtually sole agents for their whisky and again, Barnard sings its praises. Things were to change a few years after Barnard’s visit when new owners at Laphroaig terminated Mackie’s agency.
Laphroaig’s output at the time was a mere 24,000 gallons annually and, says Barnard, “the distiller will not increase the size of the plant, nor enlarge the vessels, lest he should in any way alter the character of this highly-prized spirit.” Well, philosophies change and Laphroaig now produces more than 20 times what it did at when Barnard visited.
Peter Mackie founded Craigellachie Distillery in 1888, a year after Barnard completed his tour on behalf of Harper’s, so How to Blend Scotch Whisky adds another distillery to Barnard’s written body of work. Modern whisky pilgrims staying at the Craigellachie Hotel can demonstrate their whisky anorakdom by enquiring in which room Barnard slept while visiting the distillery.
Available at the Museum of Islay Life for 12GBP this unfortunately ISBN-less work provides interesting insights into whisky making of a century ago. Clearly written to promote the business of Mackie and Company, it offers the first-known description of Craigellachie Distillery, along with greater details of Lagavulin and Laphroaig than Barnard’s better-know work. A novelty perhaps, but one from which a novice will gain a good overview of how malt whisky is made while the more experienced malt fan gains new insights into its esoterica.
Barnard, Alfred. How to Blend Scotch Whisky. Hanau, Germany: Schoebert’s Whisky Watch, 2005. 36 pages. Originally published: London: Sir Joseph Causton & Sons, pre-1905.
When Alfred Barnard, in the employ of Harpers, set out some120-odd years ago to report on the distilleries of Scotland and Ireland for their Weekly Gazette, he knew relatively little of making whisky, and certainly nothing of what made a good one good. As he proceeded to visit each distillery, his knowledge grew, though as Richard Joynson points out in his introduction to the 2003 edition of Barnard’s better-known The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom, which compiles those Weekly Gazette articles, he never mentions the shapes of the stills he sees on his journeys, nor makes any mention of cask management.
However, Barnard’s weekly appearances in Harper’s during the mid-1880’s lent him widespread credibility so it is not surprising that Mackie and Company, distillers, blenders, and bottlers, would engage him to write an account of their blending facilities and three distilleries. The publication year of How to Blend Scotch Whisky is not known, but presumed to be a couple of decades after Barnard began his whisky journey, and certainly his familiarity with the influence of wood had much progressed.
It is a short book, text filling only 25 of its 36 pages but it is loaded with nuggets, apparently directed at those who blend whisky or buy it in bulk.
Judicious use of high quality and well-aged grain whisky is salutary to a blend, but the majority of London merchants, unlike Mackie and Company, used excessive amounts of cheap grain whisky to make inexpensive, barely drinkable concoctions. Barnard prefers well-aged Lowland malts over grain whiskies for blending and includes a recipe for a most popular blend, which combines 5 parts Glenlivet whiskies, 3 part of Islays, 3 parts Lowland malts, 1 part Campbeltown and only 4 parts, or 25% grain whiskies. “The idea,” Barnard tells the reader, “is to produce a blend so perfect that it strikes the consumer as being one liquid, not many.” Could this be the famous Whitehorse blend developed by Peter Mackie?
Of other techniques, he recommends buying only the finest Highland whiskies for blending, using older whiskies – he suggests an average age of 7 to 10 years as ideal, though accepts from 2 to 4 years old for a public house – and “marrying” blended whiskies by returning them to the source casks for 3 to 6 months after blending. He warns against adulteration of the whisky and suggests that only the softest water, such as that of Glasgow, where, by coincidence, Mackie and Company are located, be used for reducing the whisky to bottle strength.
Barnard ranks age over flavour in selecting blending whiskies, but flavour is second on his list of essentials and among the six classes of whisky – Islay, Glenlivet, North Country, Campbeltown, Lowland Malt and Grain, he ranks Islay the best due to its roundness and fatness. He dismisses an earlier prejudice against Islay indicating “it is [now] more carefully made, the flavour being more delicate and less pungent, owing to the use of dry peats instead of damp ones for drying the malt. Wow! Those less delicate Islays must have been staggering. Islays, by the way, he considers as Highland whiskies.
At Lagavulin Peter Mackie himself escorted Barnard on his tour and Barnard’s description quite exceeds that in his Harper’s rendition, detailing the surroundings, less so the works, but more the processes from selecting barley and making good malt, to careful filling into cask. He compares mashing to making tea and is most impressed with the length of service of many of the staff at Lagavulin. Clearly Lagavulin was Mackie’s premiere distillery and they must have been well pleased with the good light in which Barnard cast it.
Mackie and Company did not own Laphroaig, but were virtually sole agents for their whisky and again, Barnard sings its praises. Things were to change a few years after Barnard’s visit when new owners at Laphroaig terminated Mackie’s agency.
Laphroaig’s output at the time was a mere 24,000 gallons annually and, says Barnard, “the distiller will not increase the size of the plant, nor enlarge the vessels, lest he should in any way alter the character of this highly-prized spirit.” Well, philosophies change and Laphroaig now produces more than 20 times what it did at when Barnard visited.
Peter Mackie founded Craigellachie Distillery in 1888, a year after Barnard completed his tour on behalf of Harper’s, so How to Blend Scotch Whisky adds another distillery to Barnard’s written body of work. Modern whisky pilgrims staying at the Craigellachie Hotel can demonstrate their whisky anorakdom by enquiring in which room Barnard slept while visiting the distillery.
Available at the Museum of Islay Life for 12GBP this unfortunately ISBN-less work provides interesting insights into whisky making of a century ago. Clearly written to promote the business of Mackie and Company, it offers the first-known description of Craigellachie Distillery, along with greater details of Lagavulin and Laphroaig than Barnard’s better-know work. A novelty perhaps, but one from which a novice will gain a good overview of how malt whisky is made while the more experienced malt fan gains new insights into its esoterica.
Wort, Worms & Washbacks
John McDougall & Gavin D. Smith. Wort, Worms & Washbacks. Glasgow. The Angel’s Share, Neil Wilson Publishing Ltd., 1999. 211 pages.
The modern distillery manager is as much publicist as whisky-maker, traveling the world conducting tastings, visiting whisky fairs, entertaining distributors, and generally promoting his brand. Who hasn’t sat in rapt awe as Jim McEwan spun a tale of Bruichladdich, catching each eye in feigned recognition? Gifted storytellers these modern distillery managers are. Who has not heard Stuart Thomson wax on about the wonders that make Ardbeg, Ardbeg with little stops along the way to praise sister distilleries Glens morangie and moray, without wondering how the more taciturn Mickey Heads will fare as his replacement?
But such was not always the case. In John McDougall’s time the distillery manager’s remit included increasing yields, recovering lost flavour profiles and searching out the little ingenuities that send angels’ shares home in workers’ lunch buckets. He did attend Vinexpo on behalf of Springbank, but other than that his work as a distillery manager was much more directed at making whisky.
In his more than thirty-five years in whisky, which began at Aultmore in 1963 as a management trainee, McDougall met and worked with most of the characters and lived most of the situations that find their way into the modern promoter’s script, but perhaps because he was paid to make whisky rather than talk about it, McDougall has recorded these in a book that is at once rather amusing and quite informative. There are no rip-roaring belly laughs here (OK, maybe one or two), but chuckles abound and in the process the reader gets quite an unexpected insight into the whisky life.
Alcoholism, for one thing, seems an industrial hazard, for barely a chapter passes without tales of prodigious consumption by McDougall, his staff or his friends. But McDougall comes across as a man with his head screwed on straight who prefers getting his hands dirty to sitting in an office dictating correspondence.
Whisky anoraks love rules, facts and figures and all the minutia that contribute to the individuality of each distillery. But in Wort, Worms & Washbacks, McDougall shows that often the rules are made up afterwards to suit reality. For example, at Clynelish distillery, a second plant was built on the same site, so to distinguish the output of the two plants the old one was re-named Brora and the new became Clynelish. Meanwhile, at Glendullan a second plant was built then later the original plant was mothballed, but no effort was made to differentiate the output of the two, and the Glendullan in some bottles may come from one plant, the other, or both.
Stories abound of coppersmiths pounding copies of all the little dents and imperfections into replacement stills so not to affect the character of the spirit, but when Laphroaig expanded, it was decided to replace two stills with a single one twice the size, character be damned. So are the neighbouring old Glendullan and new Glendullan different distilleries as contiguous Glenlossie and Mannochmore are, and did the old Laphroaig distillery produce a different whisky than the new expanded Laphroaig? Anoraks can debate ad infinitum and they’ll find many other grey areas to question their precisions in a romp through Wort, Worms & Washbacks.
One gets the distinct impression that life as a distillery manager was far from lucrative but McDougall and wife Kay made do, living is tiny quarters and doing their best to raise a family though Kay was somewhat long-suffering and eventually the marriage collapsed. McDougall is generous when he writes of his wife and family but one wonders in the end what became of Kay after the break-up. Certainly there were many happy times, particularly when McDougall was managing Laphroaig and the family adopted the Islay lifesytle. The Tormore years were also happy ones, but they ended with a promotion to head office in Glasgow where an increased salary still meant a far inferior lifestyle. Here, perhaps, was the beginning of the end, for McDougall eventually chose to take a lower paying job as the hands-on manager at a silent Springbank rather than remain a head-office boy with little real contact with the makings of whisky.
Wort, Worms & Washbacks is a series of anecdotes tracing one man’s career in the whisky business, and primarily in the production end of things. In his early career, McDougall worked for DCL, now Diageo, and moved among many of its distilleries doing stints at Aultmore, Knockdhu, Banff, Teaninich, Balmenach, Imperial, Dailuaine, and so on, before leaving DCL to become manager at Balvenie. He also worked at Ladyburn, Girvan, Laphroaig, Tormore and Springbank. That MacDougall knows his way around a distillery is clear and his insights provide a look behind the scenes at an industry that changed during his tenure and has been transformed since his retirement. Rare is the biography that lacks the soapbox, self-justification or congratulation, but in Wort, Worms & Washbacks the real article appears to shine through.
John McDougall & Gavin D. Smith. Wort, Worms & Washbacks. Glasgow. The Angel’s Share, Neil Wilson Publishing Ltd., 1999. 211 pages.
The modern distillery manager is as much publicist as whisky-maker, traveling the world conducting tastings, visiting whisky fairs, entertaining distributors, and generally promoting his brand. Who hasn’t sat in rapt awe as Jim McEwan spun a tale of Bruichladdich, catching each eye in feigned recognition? Gifted storytellers these modern distillery managers are. Who has not heard Stuart Thomson wax on about the wonders that make Ardbeg, Ardbeg with little stops along the way to praise sister distilleries Glens morangie and moray, without wondering how the more taciturn Mickey Heads will fare as his replacement?
But such was not always the case. In John McDougall’s time the distillery manager’s remit included increasing yields, recovering lost flavour profiles and searching out the little ingenuities that send angels’ shares home in workers’ lunch buckets. He did attend Vinexpo on behalf of Springbank, but other than that his work as a distillery manager was much more directed at making whisky.
In his more than thirty-five years in whisky, which began at Aultmore in 1963 as a management trainee, McDougall met and worked with most of the characters and lived most of the situations that find their way into the modern promoter’s script, but perhaps because he was paid to make whisky rather than talk about it, McDougall has recorded these in a book that is at once rather amusing and quite informative. There are no rip-roaring belly laughs here (OK, maybe one or two), but chuckles abound and in the process the reader gets quite an unexpected insight into the whisky life.
Alcoholism, for one thing, seems an industrial hazard, for barely a chapter passes without tales of prodigious consumption by McDougall, his staff or his friends. But McDougall comes across as a man with his head screwed on straight who prefers getting his hands dirty to sitting in an office dictating correspondence.
Whisky anoraks love rules, facts and figures and all the minutia that contribute to the individuality of each distillery. But in Wort, Worms & Washbacks, McDougall shows that often the rules are made up afterwards to suit reality. For example, at Clynelish distillery, a second plant was built on the same site, so to distinguish the output of the two plants the old one was re-named Brora and the new became Clynelish. Meanwhile, at Glendullan a second plant was built then later the original plant was mothballed, but no effort was made to differentiate the output of the two, and the Glendullan in some bottles may come from one plant, the other, or both.
Stories abound of coppersmiths pounding copies of all the little dents and imperfections into replacement stills so not to affect the character of the spirit, but when Laphroaig expanded, it was decided to replace two stills with a single one twice the size, character be damned. So are the neighbouring old Glendullan and new Glendullan different distilleries as contiguous Glenlossie and Mannochmore are, and did the old Laphroaig distillery produce a different whisky than the new expanded Laphroaig? Anoraks can debate ad infinitum and they’ll find many other grey areas to question their precisions in a romp through Wort, Worms & Washbacks.
One gets the distinct impression that life as a distillery manager was far from lucrative but McDougall and wife Kay made do, living is tiny quarters and doing their best to raise a family though Kay was somewhat long-suffering and eventually the marriage collapsed. McDougall is generous when he writes of his wife and family but one wonders in the end what became of Kay after the break-up. Certainly there were many happy times, particularly when McDougall was managing Laphroaig and the family adopted the Islay lifesytle. The Tormore years were also happy ones, but they ended with a promotion to head office in Glasgow where an increased salary still meant a far inferior lifestyle. Here, perhaps, was the beginning of the end, for McDougall eventually chose to take a lower paying job as the hands-on manager at a silent Springbank rather than remain a head-office boy with little real contact with the makings of whisky.
Wort, Worms & Washbacks is a series of anecdotes tracing one man’s career in the whisky business, and primarily in the production end of things. In his early career, McDougall worked for DCL, now Diageo, and moved among many of its distilleries doing stints at Aultmore, Knockdhu, Banff, Teaninich, Balmenach, Imperial, Dailuaine, and so on, before leaving DCL to become manager at Balvenie. He also worked at Ladyburn, Girvan, Laphroaig, Tormore and Springbank. That MacDougall knows his way around a distillery is clear and his insights provide a look behind the scenes at an industry that changed during his tenure and has been transformed since his retirement. Rare is the biography that lacks the soapbox, self-justification or congratulation, but in Wort, Worms & Washbacks the real article appears to shine through.
Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram
Banks, Iain. Raw Spirit. London: Century, 2003. 368 pages.
Cutting up your passport to protest government policy is like cutting up your welfare cheque to protest poverty. Except, getting a replacement passport is a whole lot easier. But that's how Banks begins his quest for the perfect dram. He and wife, Ann, mail their destroyed passports to Downing Street, protesting the war on Iraq, but thus confining themselves to the country whose policies they so abhor. It's a thread that clumsily weaves its way through the first half of the book, then disappears until suddenly recalled when it comes time to sum up.
Banks' brilliance for evocative images shines through vividly as he recounts a train ride through Faslane and along Loch Long in the three paragraphs beginning middle of page 350. Would that such examples were more common, but there's a lot of hard slogging up to that point. Too bad, because that is where this book could have excelled – as a travelogue of Scotland. The central theme is the search for the perfect dram – and malt lovers, before they invest a lot of time reading, will want to know the search ends early on at Glenfiddich distillery- but that theme is really just a pretext for Banks to indulge his love of cars and his life as a successful writer. So much of the book is about cars, in fact, that a clever editor, with minor cut and paste could probably re-release a renamed Raw Spirit to car aficionados undetected by malt heads who read the original. Except some waggish car buff would probably suggest this could almost be a book about whisky.
Raw Spirit began as a publisher's idea. Get a well-known author to travel all over Scotland tasting malt whisky (it's much in vogue these days) and writing about his adventures. Banks accepted readily, much to the envy of his friends. To avoid post-tasting mishaps, a driver was to be employed, but Banks soon dispensed with that idea. He likes it too much behind the wheel himself. North to Orkney, west to Islay and Jura, through Speyside and many points in between, Banks visits most operating distilleries and samples wares from all. His tasting notes are rarely extensive, but echo the popular books about whisky. He loves the much-promoted notes that members of Malts-L would scoff at.
Banks is known for his ability to make complicated literary constructions work elegantly, but he appears to have taken a break from that discipline in this, his first published work of non-fiction. Though he amply demonstrates his skills at stringing words together, without a plot and not having characters to develop, the book has a tendency to lurch from thought to thought. Many of those thoughts do not involve whisky. For instance, he takes almost a page to debunk the idea that his first novel, The Wasp Factory, was autobiographical, calling on such noted authority as his mother to testify he did not have an abused or troubled childhood. We learn later, though, that he did, and still does enjoy blowing things up. To Banks, and he is the real topic of Raw Spirit, life is an adventure, but a sophomoric one.
Perhaps Banks' knowledge of whisky is not enough to fill 368 pages so must be supplemented with whatever he can find, or perhaps he is trying to construct a book that deliberately reflects the free flowing, rollicking good times he has drinking with his buddies. Core Banks fans and readers who've been known to say "Glenfiddich, now there's a whisky" may enjoy this aspect of Raw Spirit, but the malt connoisseur may wish to heed a signal that appears on page five when Banks sublimates the tastes of single malt to its being "a legal, exclusive, relatively expensive but very pleasant way of getting out of your head."
In short, Raw Spirit is a chronicle of Banks' adolescent idea of fun (jumping from balcony to balcony on tall buildings while drunk, rolling Porches, etc.) The book could be about whisky but it could just as easily be about cars or what it's like to be a successful writer who gets to do pretty much as he pleases whenever he pleases, but is a little short on ideas. The Scotland travelogue which dominates is quite good. Overall it's a workmanlike effort, but self-indulgent with no great inspiration. His interjections about the war on Iraq are tedious and very much dated already. If you must have it, wait for the paperback.
This review was first published at http://www.maltmadness.com/mm10.html#10-07
Eventually I hope to migrate all of these reviews to maltmaniacs.org
Banks, Iain. Raw Spirit. London: Century, 2003. 368 pages.
Cutting up your passport to protest government policy is like cutting up your welfare cheque to protest poverty. Except, getting a replacement passport is a whole lot easier. But that's how Banks begins his quest for the perfect dram. He and wife, Ann, mail their destroyed passports to Downing Street, protesting the war on Iraq, but thus confining themselves to the country whose policies they so abhor. It's a thread that clumsily weaves its way through the first half of the book, then disappears until suddenly recalled when it comes time to sum up.
Banks' brilliance for evocative images shines through vividly as he recounts a train ride through Faslane and along Loch Long in the three paragraphs beginning middle of page 350. Would that such examples were more common, but there's a lot of hard slogging up to that point. Too bad, because that is where this book could have excelled – as a travelogue of Scotland. The central theme is the search for the perfect dram – and malt lovers, before they invest a lot of time reading, will want to know the search ends early on at Glenfiddich distillery- but that theme is really just a pretext for Banks to indulge his love of cars and his life as a successful writer. So much of the book is about cars, in fact, that a clever editor, with minor cut and paste could probably re-release a renamed Raw Spirit to car aficionados undetected by malt heads who read the original. Except some waggish car buff would probably suggest this could almost be a book about whisky.
Raw Spirit began as a publisher's idea. Get a well-known author to travel all over Scotland tasting malt whisky (it's much in vogue these days) and writing about his adventures. Banks accepted readily, much to the envy of his friends. To avoid post-tasting mishaps, a driver was to be employed, but Banks soon dispensed with that idea. He likes it too much behind the wheel himself. North to Orkney, west to Islay and Jura, through Speyside and many points in between, Banks visits most operating distilleries and samples wares from all. His tasting notes are rarely extensive, but echo the popular books about whisky. He loves the much-promoted notes that members of Malts-L would scoff at.
Banks is known for his ability to make complicated literary constructions work elegantly, but he appears to have taken a break from that discipline in this, his first published work of non-fiction. Though he amply demonstrates his skills at stringing words together, without a plot and not having characters to develop, the book has a tendency to lurch from thought to thought. Many of those thoughts do not involve whisky. For instance, he takes almost a page to debunk the idea that his first novel, The Wasp Factory, was autobiographical, calling on such noted authority as his mother to testify he did not have an abused or troubled childhood. We learn later, though, that he did, and still does enjoy blowing things up. To Banks, and he is the real topic of Raw Spirit, life is an adventure, but a sophomoric one.
Perhaps Banks' knowledge of whisky is not enough to fill 368 pages so must be supplemented with whatever he can find, or perhaps he is trying to construct a book that deliberately reflects the free flowing, rollicking good times he has drinking with his buddies. Core Banks fans and readers who've been known to say "Glenfiddich, now there's a whisky" may enjoy this aspect of Raw Spirit, but the malt connoisseur may wish to heed a signal that appears on page five when Banks sublimates the tastes of single malt to its being "a legal, exclusive, relatively expensive but very pleasant way of getting out of your head."
In short, Raw Spirit is a chronicle of Banks' adolescent idea of fun (jumping from balcony to balcony on tall buildings while drunk, rolling Porches, etc.) The book could be about whisky but it could just as easily be about cars or what it's like to be a successful writer who gets to do pretty much as he pleases whenever he pleases, but is a little short on ideas. The Scotland travelogue which dominates is quite good. Overall it's a workmanlike effort, but self-indulgent with no great inspiration. His interjections about the war on Iraq are tedious and very much dated already. If you must have it, wait for the paperback.
This review was first published at http://www.maltmadness.com/mm10.html#10-07
Eventually I hope to migrate all of these reviews to maltmaniacs.org
Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History
MacLean, Charles. A Liquid History. London: Cassell Illustrated, London, 2003. 288 pages.
In a television commercial, a somnolent professor drones to his moribund class. "History," he mumbles, and suddenly a sprightly young thing jumps up shouting "History?? I love history!! First something happens, then something else, so sequential. Thank you First Guy for writing history down. Let's go study."
Charles MacLean did not have the benefit of First Guy's words when he penned Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History. Although MacLean makes reference to scholarly works on distillation from around 850AD the early beginnings of whisky are lost in time, so MacLean focuses on the first 500 years of recorded Scotch whisky history. His enthusiasm matches the young history student and MacLean succeeds in injecting that enthusiasm into a rollicking good read packed with anecdotes and peopled by some rather strange characters.
The average aficionado's knowledge of whisky's history could probably be summarized thusly: The first whisky was likely distilled in Ireland; about 500 years ago Friar John Cor became the first recorded person to make whisky; the word whisky comes from "Usquebaugh" or "uisge beatha," Gaelic for aqua vitae or water of life; Glenlivet was one of the first popular single malts; Glenfiddich brought malts to the world's attention; and somewhere in the 1980's a bunch of distilleries went out of business.
Of other knowledge, most would say that it's not whisky until it has aged at least three years, and there is an 'e' in Irish whiskey, but not in Scotch whisky. Well, MacLean takes nearly 300 pages to fill in the blanks and there's nary a dull moment as smugglers, gaugers, politicians, home distillers, boards of directors, colourful entrepreneurs and a host of others slug it out for their piece of the action. The history of Scotch whisky has been one of constant struggle: the struggle against time and weather, against governments and gaugers, against thieves and competitors and sometimes against logic and reason. It's all there, waiting to be discovered in A Liquid History.
Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History begins, quoting the Exchequer Rolls of 1494-95 which provide the first written reference to distilling in Scotland. "To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt." A boll (like a bushel) is a measure of volume which for malted (bere) barley, would weigh about 240 lbs (almost 110 kg.) and could be expected to produce about 200 litres of raw whisky. Useful details like this, which might interrupt the action, are often found in endnotes. Though scholarly, A Liquid History appears intended to be read rather than used strictly as a reference.
Making whisky began as a way to preserve surplus grain which would otherwise rot in the damp storage conditions that prevailed 500 years ago. Excess grain was mixed with water and fermented naturally into a primitive beer. Although less so, the resulting beer was itself somewhat perishable until Europeans discovered the preservative property of hops. Hops don't grow in Scotland, though, but by distilling these early beers, the alcohol content could be raised to a level where decomposition was prevented. Somewhere along the way, preservation of excess crops as the primary motivator gave way to the pleasures of drinking whisky which in times of crop shortages brought competing pressures.
The pleasures of Scotch whisky were sometimes justified by the supposed salutary effects and for a long period, whisky was viewed as a medicament, if a somewhat pleasant one. The convivial benefits were no doubt the true source of its popularity, but its role as an elixir proved most beneficial to its trade during the US prohibition years when boat-loads of Scotch whisky found their way to ailing Americans. This folk medicine, (or more often 'nudge-nudge- wink-wink' justification), has re-gained some respectability in recent years with the discovery that whisky does indeed have some anti-oxidant properties. The association of Christian churches with the temperance movement is itself tempered by descriptions of early sermons promoting the drinking of whisky rather than the demon tea. My, my, how times do change.
Alcohol was not first distilled as a beverage, and whisky too had other, earlier, uses. Alcohol is an excellent solvent and early Scotch whisky was often flavoured with spices, herbs and berries. Preserving those scents, flavours and medical properties may well have been the original purpose of dissolving them in whisky. Another early use for whisky, we learn, was to improve "incorporation" during the manufacture of gunpowder. The early use of gunpowder, in turn, to determine the "proof" of whisky is well-known. Years later gunpowder was also proved useful in the production of whisky, albeit tangentially, by George Smith who always carried two pistols to protect his lucrative whisky business in Glenlivet. It is the characters, like Smith, who so vividly animate this book.
Since 1644, when the Scottish Parliament first instituted excise duties on it, whisky has been a government cash cow, and much of the folklore and tradition around making whisky derive from the circuitous logic of politicians. Do you prefer Highland whisky to Lowland? Well be advised the line dividing Highlands from Lowlands was established to demarcate and give a break to the distilleries least likely to escape taxation. As circumstances changed, so did the location of the line. While Glengoyne, for example, now calls itself a Highland whisky, it was long located in the Lowlands. A simple re-location of the Highland line allowed Glengoyne to distil in the Highlands, but mature in the Lowlands right across the road. The distillery itself has not moved.
Technical changes in whisky production processes have occurred throughout its history, although not all technical changes were improvements. As often as not change was driven by a desire to beat the tax man, and many of Scotch whisky's conventions are there not because traditional means produced a better spirit, but because laws directed or drove production in certain directions. For example, when duties were based on an assumption that stills could be charged but once a day, distillers found ways to charge them every few minutes. Large, shallow, flat-bottomed, pot stills ran almost continuously. This rapid distillation was great for profits, but not for quality. In the Highlands, meantime, escaping the gauger meant being able to pick up and move on a moment's notice. Highland stills were thus small and portable and the whisky much richer and oilier.
The whisky making process has never been static, but has been constantly evolving as it continues to do. Among many others, one giant step forward came with the development of the patent still allowing continuous distillation of grain whisky which opened the door to the production of blends. Blended whisky now makes up about 95% of all Scotch whisky sold at retail. Also among the significant changes are those of the past twenty-odd years many of which took place in distant boardrooms rather than at the distilleries. The book meticulously describes the closings, openings, mergers and acquisitions that changed the corporate face of malt whisky in the past few decades. It also documents the logarithmic growth in demand for malt whisky in the past two decades, but not before reminding the reader that as far back as 1871 Laphroaig, Aberlour, Glenlivet and Glen Grant were sold in London as 'single whiskies'. Those who lament current production changes would do well to bear whisky's long history in mind.
MacLean gives the nod to Ireland as the first place to distil whisky and notes that most of the whisky sold in Scotland even into the 1860s was Irish whiskey. Interestingly, the Scottish spelled whiskey with an "e" until just less than a hundred years ago. In Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History numerous other well-know facts are explained (or explained away). One comes away from A Liquid History having learned, from a historical perspective, not so much how to make the best-tasting whisky, but why Scotch whisky, both malts and blends, tastes as it does today.
MacLean has divided the first 500 years of known Scotch whisky history into 12 logical, consecutive time periods, which in turn, fall neatly into twelve chapters. Recording the history of Scotch whisky in fewer than 300 pages has certainly left some stones unturned, or less well-turned than the author may have wished. Every first edition has some typographical errors, but few as delightfully entertaining as this truncated sentence on page 270: "Loch Fyne Whiskies was founded in the picturesque and historic town of Inverary in 1992 by Richard Joynson, who until then had been a fish."
An engaging and informative read, A Liquid History is printed on heavy paper and colourfully illustrated. Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History carefully treads a line between text book, headed for the school library and popular work for the whisky buff. Highly recommended to both.
This review first appeared at: http://www.maltmadness.com/mm14.html#14-07
Eventually I would like to migrate all of these reviews to maltmaniacs.org
MacLean, Charles. A Liquid History. London: Cassell Illustrated, London, 2003. 288 pages.
In a television commercial, a somnolent professor drones to his moribund class. "History," he mumbles, and suddenly a sprightly young thing jumps up shouting "History?? I love history!! First something happens, then something else, so sequential. Thank you First Guy for writing history down. Let's go study."
Charles MacLean did not have the benefit of First Guy's words when he penned Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History. Although MacLean makes reference to scholarly works on distillation from around 850AD the early beginnings of whisky are lost in time, so MacLean focuses on the first 500 years of recorded Scotch whisky history. His enthusiasm matches the young history student and MacLean succeeds in injecting that enthusiasm into a rollicking good read packed with anecdotes and peopled by some rather strange characters.
The average aficionado's knowledge of whisky's history could probably be summarized thusly: The first whisky was likely distilled in Ireland; about 500 years ago Friar John Cor became the first recorded person to make whisky; the word whisky comes from "Usquebaugh" or "uisge beatha," Gaelic for aqua vitae or water of life; Glenlivet was one of the first popular single malts; Glenfiddich brought malts to the world's attention; and somewhere in the 1980's a bunch of distilleries went out of business.
Of other knowledge, most would say that it's not whisky until it has aged at least three years, and there is an 'e' in Irish whiskey, but not in Scotch whisky. Well, MacLean takes nearly 300 pages to fill in the blanks and there's nary a dull moment as smugglers, gaugers, politicians, home distillers, boards of directors, colourful entrepreneurs and a host of others slug it out for their piece of the action. The history of Scotch whisky has been one of constant struggle: the struggle against time and weather, against governments and gaugers, against thieves and competitors and sometimes against logic and reason. It's all there, waiting to be discovered in A Liquid History.
Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History begins, quoting the Exchequer Rolls of 1494-95 which provide the first written reference to distilling in Scotland. "To Friar John Cor, by order of the King, to make aqua vitae VIII bolls of malt." A boll (like a bushel) is a measure of volume which for malted (bere) barley, would weigh about 240 lbs (almost 110 kg.) and could be expected to produce about 200 litres of raw whisky. Useful details like this, which might interrupt the action, are often found in endnotes. Though scholarly, A Liquid History appears intended to be read rather than used strictly as a reference.
Making whisky began as a way to preserve surplus grain which would otherwise rot in the damp storage conditions that prevailed 500 years ago. Excess grain was mixed with water and fermented naturally into a primitive beer. Although less so, the resulting beer was itself somewhat perishable until Europeans discovered the preservative property of hops. Hops don't grow in Scotland, though, but by distilling these early beers, the alcohol content could be raised to a level where decomposition was prevented. Somewhere along the way, preservation of excess crops as the primary motivator gave way to the pleasures of drinking whisky which in times of crop shortages brought competing pressures.
The pleasures of Scotch whisky were sometimes justified by the supposed salutary effects and for a long period, whisky was viewed as a medicament, if a somewhat pleasant one. The convivial benefits were no doubt the true source of its popularity, but its role as an elixir proved most beneficial to its trade during the US prohibition years when boat-loads of Scotch whisky found their way to ailing Americans. This folk medicine, (or more often 'nudge-nudge- wink-wink' justification), has re-gained some respectability in recent years with the discovery that whisky does indeed have some anti-oxidant properties. The association of Christian churches with the temperance movement is itself tempered by descriptions of early sermons promoting the drinking of whisky rather than the demon tea. My, my, how times do change.
Alcohol was not first distilled as a beverage, and whisky too had other, earlier, uses. Alcohol is an excellent solvent and early Scotch whisky was often flavoured with spices, herbs and berries. Preserving those scents, flavours and medical properties may well have been the original purpose of dissolving them in whisky. Another early use for whisky, we learn, was to improve "incorporation" during the manufacture of gunpowder. The early use of gunpowder, in turn, to determine the "proof" of whisky is well-known. Years later gunpowder was also proved useful in the production of whisky, albeit tangentially, by George Smith who always carried two pistols to protect his lucrative whisky business in Glenlivet. It is the characters, like Smith, who so vividly animate this book.
Since 1644, when the Scottish Parliament first instituted excise duties on it, whisky has been a government cash cow, and much of the folklore and tradition around making whisky derive from the circuitous logic of politicians. Do you prefer Highland whisky to Lowland? Well be advised the line dividing Highlands from Lowlands was established to demarcate and give a break to the distilleries least likely to escape taxation. As circumstances changed, so did the location of the line. While Glengoyne, for example, now calls itself a Highland whisky, it was long located in the Lowlands. A simple re-location of the Highland line allowed Glengoyne to distil in the Highlands, but mature in the Lowlands right across the road. The distillery itself has not moved.
Technical changes in whisky production processes have occurred throughout its history, although not all technical changes were improvements. As often as not change was driven by a desire to beat the tax man, and many of Scotch whisky's conventions are there not because traditional means produced a better spirit, but because laws directed or drove production in certain directions. For example, when duties were based on an assumption that stills could be charged but once a day, distillers found ways to charge them every few minutes. Large, shallow, flat-bottomed, pot stills ran almost continuously. This rapid distillation was great for profits, but not for quality. In the Highlands, meantime, escaping the gauger meant being able to pick up and move on a moment's notice. Highland stills were thus small and portable and the whisky much richer and oilier.
The whisky making process has never been static, but has been constantly evolving as it continues to do. Among many others, one giant step forward came with the development of the patent still allowing continuous distillation of grain whisky which opened the door to the production of blends. Blended whisky now makes up about 95% of all Scotch whisky sold at retail. Also among the significant changes are those of the past twenty-odd years many of which took place in distant boardrooms rather than at the distilleries. The book meticulously describes the closings, openings, mergers and acquisitions that changed the corporate face of malt whisky in the past few decades. It also documents the logarithmic growth in demand for malt whisky in the past two decades, but not before reminding the reader that as far back as 1871 Laphroaig, Aberlour, Glenlivet and Glen Grant were sold in London as 'single whiskies'. Those who lament current production changes would do well to bear whisky's long history in mind.
MacLean gives the nod to Ireland as the first place to distil whisky and notes that most of the whisky sold in Scotland even into the 1860s was Irish whiskey. Interestingly, the Scottish spelled whiskey with an "e" until just less than a hundred years ago. In Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History numerous other well-know facts are explained (or explained away). One comes away from A Liquid History having learned, from a historical perspective, not so much how to make the best-tasting whisky, but why Scotch whisky, both malts and blends, tastes as it does today.
MacLean has divided the first 500 years of known Scotch whisky history into 12 logical, consecutive time periods, which in turn, fall neatly into twelve chapters. Recording the history of Scotch whisky in fewer than 300 pages has certainly left some stones unturned, or less well-turned than the author may have wished. Every first edition has some typographical errors, but few as delightfully entertaining as this truncated sentence on page 270: "Loch Fyne Whiskies was founded in the picturesque and historic town of Inverary in 1992 by Richard Joynson, who until then had been a fish."
An engaging and informative read, A Liquid History is printed on heavy paper and colourfully illustrated. Scotch Whisky: A Liquid History carefully treads a line between text book, headed for the school library and popular work for the whisky buff. Highly recommended to both.
This review first appeared at: http://www.maltmadness.com/mm14.html#14-07
Eventually I would like to migrate all of these reviews to maltmaniacs.org
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