Wee Scotch Whisky Tales Read Free

shown by the comments of the Revd Archibald Robertson of Kildalton parish in 1777:
    We have not an excise officer in the whole island. The quantity therefore of whisky made here is very great; and the evil, that follows drinking to excess of this liquor, is very visible in this island.
    Initially these were sma’ stills bubbling away for personal or local consumption, with a little smuggling sideline to the Lowlands. The Highland product, made from malted barley was considered to taste much better than Lowland whisky, generally made with other grains, and was in increasing demand. And by 1750 it was this drink that was generally known as whisky, and the term did not any longer apply to the rougher grain spirits flavoured like cordials.
    At the same time another development took place which was of great importance and can be regarded as the first step towards making Islay – arguably – the malt whisky capital of the world. Campbell of Shawfield had died in 1753 and his estate had passed to his grandson, who carried on the process of economic development, most notably with the construction of the planned village of Bowmore in the 1760s. The new laird encouraged one Daniel Simson, a farmer at Bridgend who had done some small-scale distilling, to open a larger enterprise in the town, and – probably some time before 1779 – Bowmore Distillery opened. This was the first of a long and illustrious line which, after the Excise Act of 1823, basically doomed the sma’ stills and paved the way for large-scale distilleries; by the mid-19th century nine such distilleries were operating on the island.
    However, the illicit tradition continued for many years afterwards. ‘Baldy Cladach’ was tenant of a remote croft at Cladach on the east coast of Islay, accessible only by a lengthy track from Ballygrant. A strong man, he was famed for being able to carry his own weight in sacked grain to Cladach from Ballygrant. The suspicious excisemen investigated and he was duly evicted from his holding, emigrating to Canada around 1850. Alhough his still was destroyed, his store of whisky was not and it is rumoured to be out there awaiting discovery yet.
    By a circuitous route, the tax on the malt in beer had contributed to the eventual emergence of malt whisky. The rest, as they say, is history. It is also interesting that until the development of North Sea oil, the present-day opponents of the Union of 1707 were wont to argue that Scotland could be economically viable on the tax revenue – not of black oil but of the golden spirit. The tax receipts from Islay whisky alone are estimated at £500,000,000 annually. And it is further interesting – and reassuring – to note that, while the oil will not last forever, the whisky will.

3 The Whisky Wars in Scotland
    THE PHRASE ‘ILLICIT distilling’ conjures up a picture of a Highland crofter, sitting patiently at his sma’ still, producing a modest drop of
usquebae
for friends and neighbours. And for the last two centuries that has been the basic reality of contraband whisky. But for almost a century before that, illicit whisky production was one of Scotland’s largest industries, and it was based far more in the North-east of Scotland, than in the Highlands. This is the almost forgotten period of the Whisky Wars, which raged from the middle of the 18th century until the 1820s. Ultimately it took the military resources of the British state, and a long, low-level counter-insurgency operation, to bring the Whisky Wars to an end.
    The illicit whisky trade during this period spread like wildfire in the north-eastern upland plateau between the Highlands and the available markets in the Lowlands. By the 1780s it was estimated that 90% of all Scottish whisky sales were illicit, and an observer commented that the trade had ‘spread over the whole face of the country, where the face of an Exciseman is never seen’. There were over 200 active stills in Glenlivet in about 1800, and Tomintoul was