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SCOTS HERITAGE ARCHIVES

  • Scots Whisky

 
Tullibardine

Tullibardine

02/12/2008

The village of Blackford is famous for its water. It was from here that King James IV ordered a barrel of beer for his coronation in 1488. He granted the brewery a Royal Charter in 1503. Alfred Barnard, the tireless distillery and brewery visitor, came here in 1889 and found brewery buildings that had been in use since the 17th century. Then, in 1947, along came William Delmé Evans, a Welsh land surveyor with a keen interest in distilling and brewing. “When I saw the results of the water tests,” he said, “I knew it was perfect for distilling. By the end of the week I had purchased the [brewery] building”. Delmé Evans had contracted tuberculosis during the war, and, while recuperating, designed what he called “an up-to-date gravity-flow distillery”.

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The Campbeltown Courier Craigellachie Hotel on Speyside
 

Ladybank

07/08/2008

Although James Thomson is unashamedly passionate about the history and the infi nite subtleties of scotch whisky, he is far from being a starry-eyed romantic when it comes to the business end of whisky.

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The Arran Banner National Trust for Scotland
 
Glenburgie Distillery

Ballantyne's Blasted Heath

06/08/2008

In October last year visitors were welcomed at Glenburgie Distillery, near Forres, for the fi rst time. The reason for such historic secrecy was simply that the distillery was considered by its owners to be a ‘production site’, a manufactory.

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The Oban Times Sillycat Media
 
Glen Grant

Glen Grant

24/07/2008

Running up for half a mile behind Glen Grant Distillery, towards the ‘heath-covered hills’ of Speyside, is a lovely Victorian woodland garden. When I fi rst visited the place in the 1970s it was a shadow of its former glory – paths and parterres overgrown, patches of grass rank and swampy; the lichen-covered trees looked somehow Jurassic.

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The Town House Company Eilean Iarmain Hotel on Skye.
 
Easter Elchies

Easter Elchies

23/07/2008

Captain John Grant of Elchies is credited with having built Easter Elchies House in 1700. This is based on a carved date-stone above the door, but the original house on the site– 'beautifully situated, elevated on the left bank of the Spey' - may be a century older.

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The Argyllshire Advertiser Old Postcards from Fort William.
 
SCOTS Whisky writer Charles MacLean reports from Edinburgh on the extraordinary success of the world’s premier whisky club.

The Scottish Malt Whisky Society

22/07/2008

Today, the Scotch Malt Whisky Society is the world’s premier whisky club, but like all good institutions, its beginnings were small and its early days fraught. It might be said to have its origins in the stonefl agged hall-way of a genteel ground-fl oor fl at on Scotland Street, at the heart of Edinburgh’s New Town – a street since made famous by the writings of Alexander McCall Smith.

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Scottish Field Magazine
 
Charles MacLean charts the extraordinary renaissance undergone by Ardbeg, one of Scotland’s greatest single malt whiskies.

Ardbeg - The Phoenix Rises

21/07/2008

“The road mostly followed the coast line, but frequently a turn brought us almost to the water’s edge. The shore is mostly rocky and dangerous, in many places huge masses of rock rise from the surface of the sea, forming tiny islets round and over which the swell rises and falls in impressive grandeur…Ascending a gentle hill some inland view of green slopes and heather covered hills would reveal itself, which lent a happy contrast to the wild sea-girt shore…As we reached the top of another hill, a sudden view of beautiful Ardbeg presented itself…”

 

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Charles MacLean looks at whisky distilling on Jura, “the Isle of Deer”.

Isle of Jura

17/07/2008

It would be safe to suppose that whisky distilling has taken place on Jura since time immemorial, although there is no written evidence. I say this because Jura’s was a pastoral economy. Highland cattle were the staple items of trade and wealth until the mid-19th century, when sheep came to dominate. As happened elsewhere in the Highlands, ‘the beasts’ were brought indoors during the hard winter months and kept alive with the residues of brewing and distilling, the husks and spent grains, known as ‘draff’.

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