Stillhouse Stories--Tunroom Tales Read online

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  Introduction

  PART ONE: MAKING IT

  Chapter 1Norman Morrison – Distillery Worker, Talisker

  Chapter 2Boyo Norquoy – Distillery Worker, Highland Park

  Chapter 3Jim Cryle – The Glenlivet

  Chapter 4Gordon Dey – Dallas Dhu

  Chapter 5Rodney Burtt – Glen Albyn and Glen Mhor

  Chapter 6Douglas Murray – Whisky Technologist

  Chapter 7John Peterson – Production Director

  PART TWO: INTO THE WOOD

  Chapter 8Douglas Yeats – Cooper, Perth

  Chapter 9Ginger Willie – Warehouseman, Bowmore

  PART THREE: BLENDING IT

  Chapter 10John Ramsay – Master Blender, Edrington Group

  PART FOUR: KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY

  Chapter 11John Grant – Distillery Owner

  Chapter 12Fred and Stewart Laing – Independent Bottlers

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  MY THANKS GO TO THE SUBJECTS of this book, namely Norman Morrison, Boyo Norquoy, Jim Cryle, Gordon Dey, Rodney Burtt, Douglas Murray, John Peterson, Douglas Yeats, Ginger Willie, John Ramsay, John Grant and Stewart and Fred Laing. Furthermore quite a few pictures landed on my publisher’s desk from a number of sources, some of which appear in the plate section herein.

  For numerous images from the glory days of Glen Albyn and Glen Mhor, thanks to Rodney Burtt. I am also indebted to Gordon Bannerman, DK Cheung, Susie Davidson of The Edrington Group, Eddie McAffer of Morrison Bowmore Distillers Ltd, Christine McCafferty of The Diageo Archive, Dr Nicholas Morgan of Diageo, Robert Ransom of Glenfarclas Distillery, Pat Retson of The Edrington Group, Pat Roberts of Cognis PR, Jacqui Seargeant of John Dewar & Sons Ltd, Alan Sutton and Yvonne Thackeray of Chivas Brothers Ltd.

  Finally, I want to thank anyone who has spent their working lives in the whisky industry as they have, knowingly or unknowingly, managed to help sustain one of Scotland’s greatest products and are all part of Scotch whisky’s remarkable history and heritage.

  PREFACE

  THESE DAYS THE WORLD OF Scotch whisky often seems to escape from its familiar confines within the ‘Business’ sections of newspapers and websites. Sometimes it makes mainstream headlines, usually as a result of yet another massive financial investment on behalf of one of the industry’s major players, or a similarly positive statement from one of Scotland’s smaller distillers.

  Ongoing and hopefully long-term success across a diverse range of emerging markets, with Latin America as the crowning jewel, has given a rich impetus to all aspects of what is a source of national pride, status and employment.

  However, the prosperous and optimistic Scotch whisky industry of today owes a huge debt to the skill, craftsmanship and enterprise of a great number of often unsung men and women. When we open a bottle of 12, 21 or 40-year-old whisky, it is their legacy we are drinking. But such a legacy is ephemeral, as ‘their’ spirit evaporates as it matures or is consumed as time passes. Happily, their successors are equally diligent in providing whisky for us to drink in years to come. But what of the stories of those figures who have made a contribution to whisky history at various levels, often through times of dramatically changing fortunes?

  Surely the tales they have to tell are worth preserving as a series of still points in the moving heritage of the Scotch whisky industry? So here is my modest attempt to collect, interpret and present a representative selection of them. The intention is to embrace a wide sweep of Scotland’s geography and culture, as well as a broad diversity of roles, from maltman and mashman to scientific guru and distillery owner.

  As JM Barrie wrote, ‘God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.’

  Gavin D. Smith

  Denholm Hall

  Roxburghshire

  March 2013

  INTRODUCTION

  AS WE SHALL SEE IN the pages ahead, the Scotch whisky industry never stands still. Like all realms of commercial activity it is subject to external pressures, both economic and social, and is therefore prone to periods of ‘boom’ and of ‘bust,’ as key markets suffer recessions and growth or drinking fashions change.

  What makes the production and selling of Scotch whisky a particularly challenging enterprise is the lengthy period between those two activities. Process cheese or tin baked beans and your product may be on the shelves of retailers in a matter of days, but distil whisky and by law it must sit in a warehouse somewhere in Scotland for a minimum of three years before it can be converted into cash. In many cases, of course, it sits there for many more years, all the time losing volume due to evaporation – the fabled ‘angels’ share.’ So not only do you get no return on the result of your investment and labour for several years, but at the end there will be less of it than you started with!

  Given the lengthy lead times between distillation and consumption, it takes an exceptional crystal ball to predict what economic and social factors will prevail three, five, 10, 12 or more years down the line. Consequently, matching output to demand has always been fraught with difficulty, and periods of plenty when sales have been strong have always been followed by a glut of spirit, as demand wanes. So, historically, spurts of new distillery construction and the expansion of existing plants have been followed by distillery closures, both temporary and permanent.

  This boom-and-bust cycle was most clearly seen during the late-Victorian period, when spectacular growth, which came on the back of the development of blended whisky and its global success, ended in dramatic recession, with personal fortunes and entire companies being lost in the process.

  But this is no mere historical phenomenon. In the lifetimes of all the figures featured in this book, the Scotch whisky industry has seen postwar boom followed by bust in the early 1980s, as international demand for Scotch fell and the level of what the press dubbed the ‘whisky loch’ rose to a concerning level. Although most of the people interviewed in these pages were focused on life and work in quite a localised way, the product they were making has been strongly influenced by export sales for well over a century.

  Cutbacks in production and distillery closures were the order of the day in the early 1980s, as the Scotch whisky industry sought to balance future demand with stock holdings. Most eye-catchingly, the mighty Distillers Company Ltd closed no fewer than 21 of its malt distilleries during 1983 and 1985 and in total 55 Scotch whisky distilleries shut down between 1980 and 2002.

  Part of the problem was that although Scotch whisky was an important export commodity, there was great reliance on a small number of key markets, principally North America and several European countries, led by France and Italy. When the US economy began to falter during the second half of the 1970s and drinkers also began to favour wine and white spirits, the effect on the Scotch whisky industry was severe.

  Today, we are unquestionably in the middle of another period of boom, with the Distillers’ Company Ltd’s successor organisation Diageo plc pouring large sums of money into its Scotch whisky infrastructure. Having spent some £40 million creating the vast Roseisle Distillery on Speyside during 2008/9, Diageo is now investing a further £1bn over five years in Scotch whisky production, with plans to build one or even two new 10 million litre-capacity distilleries, expand existing plants and warehousing complexes, and develop more renewable energy facilities. Such expansion would increase total production capacity by as much as 40%, and comes in response to sustained global growth across several key brands, most notably the Johnnie Walker ‘family’ of blends.

  Meanwhile, Pernod Ricard subsidiary Chivas Brothers – Diageo’s chief rival in many blended Scotch export markets �
� is also investing heavily in increasing capacity at existing malt distilleries and intends to build an entirely new one on the site of the old Imperial Distillery at Carron, beside the River Spey.

  Most other Scotch whisky distillers have also increased malt spirit capacity where possible, and supplies of grain spirit for blending have been augmented too. Diageo has expanded the capacity of its Cameronbridge grain distillery in Fife from 66 million litres of spirit per annum during 1997, to around 105 million litres in 2013.

  The principal reason for so much long-term confidence and such large-scale investment is that the major players in the Scotch whisky industry believe that this time around, the good times really will last. Boom will not fall prey to bust anytime soon. Some of this confidence comes from the sheer diversity of global markets for Scotch today.

  Scotch sells in more than 200 countries, and emerging middle-class consumers across Africa, Asia and South America mean that these continents now vie with traditional North American and European territories in terms of importance. The USA and France remain the largest export markets, but in 2011 the ‘top 10’ also included South Africa, Taiwan, South Korea and Venezuela, and in Brazil Scotch whisky imports rose by 48% in one year.

  Overall, according to the Scotch Whisky Association, the total impact of Scotch whisky on Scotland’s economy is £4.2 billion – £2.9 billion from the industry itself and £1.3 billion through the industry’s supply chain. It supports around 36,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly, and productivity has accelerated to £275,000 per annum for each industry employee. In fact, Scotch whisky outperforms most other industries, with employees adding 57% more value per head than workers in the City of London. Scotch represents almost 4% of the Scottish economy – approximately a quarter of Scotland’s exports and also a quarter of the UK’s food and drink exports.

  Despite the amount of media coverage they generate, single malts still only account for some 10% of all Scotch whisky sales, though in terms of value that figure can be virtually doubled. It is in relation to single malts that a burgeoning micro-distilling movement has begun to emerge, to a more modest extent copying that which now prevails in the USA.

  At the time of writing, a new distillery by the name of Wolfburn came on stream in January 2013 at Thurso in Caithness, while the old Annandale Distillery in south-west Scotland is in the process of being rebuilt and re-commissioned after more than nine decades of silence.

  Work on creating Kingsbarns Distillery in Fife around an old farm steading is expected to begin later this year while the proprietors of the independent bottlers Adelphi have advanced plans in place for a distillery on the Ardnamurchan peninsula.

  All of these ventures are predicated upon sales of a high quality, boutique single malt brand, and provide a real contrast with ‘super distilleries’ like Diageo’s Roseisle. In an industry where so much activity has become concentrated in so few hands, this modest flowering of diversity and independence is surely a welcome development. In 2012, 98 malt whisky distilleries and seven grain distilleries were operational, with Diageo owning 28 of those malt distilleries, while Pernod Ricard held another dozen.

  As I wrote at the beginning of this introduction, the Scotch whisky industry never stands still. Since conducting the interviews which form the basis of this book during 2011 and 2012, there have inevitably been some relevant changes, notably the impending sale of Loch Lomond Distillery to a business consortium in the spring of 2013, and the decision by Fred and Stewart Laing to split their bottling business and operate independently of each other.

  No doubt by the time you read this, the world of Scotch whisky will have moved on some more, but that is partly what makes it so endlessly fascinating.

  PART ONE

  Making It

  CHAPTER 1

  Norman Morrison – Distillery Worker, Talisker

  THE ISLE OF SKYE IS ONE of the most dramatically beautiful islands of the Hebrides, with its rugged mountain ranges and plethora of sea lochs slicing into the landscape. It is the largest and most northerly of the Inner Hebrides, with a population of just over 9,000, though this stood at over 23,000 in 1841, before depopulation took its toll during the rest of that century and more.

  In Scotch whisky circles Skye is forever associated with Talisker single malt, made in the island’s only (legal) distillery. Since the opening of the Skye Bridge in 1995 it has no longer been necessary to travel ‘over the sea to Skye,’ as the old song puts it, but the island still has a remote feel to it, and while much of the commercial and social life of the island focuses on the ‘capital’ of Portree, Talisker Distillery is situated some 20 miles to the south-west, and its location is truly remote.

  Arguably boasting one of the most striking settings of any Scottish distillery, Talisker stands at the end of the main – and only – street in the small village of Carbost, at the head of Loch Harport, close to the southern end of the Trotternish peninsula, and in the shadow of the famous Cuillin Hills. The placenames of Skye reflect the island’s rich, Gaelic heritage, with Portree translating as ‘the king’s port,’ while Carbost is derived from the Gaelic for copse. Talisker itself means ‘sloping rock.’

  Talisker Distillery dates back to 1830 when brothers Hugh and Kenneth MacAskill leased a site and constructed the distillery. Ultimately, Talisker passed into the hands of the Distillers Company Ltd (DCL) in 1925, and today it is owned by DCL’s successor company Diageo, the world’s largest distiller. In addition to Talisker, Diageo owns no fewer than 28 operational malt distilleries in Scotland, though the Skye Distillery produces a very distinctive style of whisky, which is highly prized both for blending purposes and by connoisseurs of single malt. After Cardhu, Talisker is Diageo’s bestselling single malt.

  The powerful, peppery and peaty Talisker is sometimes referred to as ‘The lava of the Cuillins,’ and the author Robert Louis Stevenson was a fan, writing in 1880 ‘The king o’drinks as I conceive it, Talisker, Isla or Glenlivet’ (The Scotsman’s Return from Abroad).

  One man who has spent much of his life living in close proximity to Talisker Distillery is Norman Morrison, who was born at Portnalong, three miles away. He worked for 28 years after a period of exile, so common to Scottish islanders.

  ‘Most of the people in Portnalong came from Lewis and Harris, in the Outer Hebrides,’ he explains. ‘Crofts were allocated in the Portnalong area to alleviate overcrowding in Lewis and Harris, and people came over in 1928. Before that there were only two families at Portnalong. When I was a lad, Carbost had two shops, and walking the three miles to Carbost from Portnalong was like going into town. The shops had sweets in after the war!’

  Just as the railway network played a major part in supplying many mainland distilleries with the raw materials of whisky-making and transporting away casks of spirit, so island distilleries such as Talisker relied on the sea for the same purpose. Central to the sea-borne servicing of island communities was the ‘puffer’ – a small cargo ship, often operating out of the River Clyde. Today, Talisker’s needs are serviced by road transport, but Norman remembers that when he was a youngster ‘There would be as many as five puffers at the Carbost pier at any one time – bringing in coke, empty barrels, barley, one maybe loading up with full casks – there were lots of local people getting employment from that.

  ‘Dutch ships brought in barley from King’s Lynn in Norfolk, and I can remember almost all of the names of the puffers that used to come in even now. A company from Glasgow had boats which were all named after African tribes, so you had Zulu and such like. Ross and Marshall boats all had ‘Light’ in their names, Raylight and Starlight and Moonlight.’

  With the sea providing most of the distillery’s transport needs, the roads around Talisker were decidedly primitive. ‘Cinders from the coal-fired stills and the boiler were spread onto the unmade roads all around the distillery area,’ he says. ‘There was no Tarmac on them, and the council took the ash in a lorry and spread it on the roads. ‘Many distillery workers supplemente
d their incomes by farming a croft, and Norman recalls that, ‘Most crofts had two head of cattle for the milk. Bags of draff [the spent grist left in the mashtun after mashing is completed] from the distillery would be delivered to the crofts. It was good feed for bringing cattle on for milk. Some went to the farms too, and some went away for animal feed. The rest was dumped in the river, and there were always lots of ducks around it.

  ‘There were sixty-eight crofts in Portnalong when I was a boy, and only very few now. The people who worked in the distillery each had some cattle. They had a steady wage, which meant you could run a croft well. You could build sheds and have decent fencing, and so on. You could tell who was working in the distillery by the state of the crofts!’

  Inevitably, entertainment tended to be of the make-your-own variety, though Norman explains that, ‘Every second Friday the Highlands and Islands Development Board’s mobile cinema came to the old school in Carbost. Ten o’clock at night, after the pictures, we would call into the distillery as lads, and if the man, who was also called Morrison, like me, was away from the malting floor we would play among the bed of malt, we would just run around all over the place. We would go jumping into the barley pits – it’s a wonder we weren’t suffocated. There would be all these beautiful couches [layers of grain] on the floor, all ploughed and looking lovely, and we would make a right mess of them.

  ‘When I was doing the job years later I recalled what we had done as lads – we had made double the work for the poor man. I used to think if it had been me I’d have murdered the kids! Also, there were two railway lines down to the pier, and they had bogies on them – flat one for barrels and ones with sides for coal. There was a slight incline, and as boys we would ride them down to the pier.’

  If the sea served as a vital means of communication for island communities, it also often provided a means of employment for islanders, for whom there was usually little prospect of work at home. ‘When you left school you headed for the mainland,’ declares Norman, ‘and the Merchant Navy was booming when I was young, and lots of the lads from Skye joined that. Every ship had half-a-dozen crew members from the Western Isles on it.’