Wee Scotch Whisky Tales

by Ian R Mitchell

  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 described 15 years later as ‘a wild mountain village, where drinking, dancing and swearing went on all the time’. The Cabrach, to the east of Glenlivet, was another lawless area, again with a couple of hundred active stills. There was no comparable mass production in the Highland areas proper.

  Suppressing the trade was especially difficult because many landlords connived with it, since the money it brought in ensured that their tenants could pay their rents, otherwise a difficulty due to the low crop yields of these marginal lands. Barley made into whisky was estimated to produce between five to ten times its economic yield as a food crop. In some kirks of the North-east at this time a portion of the gallery was known as the ‘smugglers’ loft’, where they would sit holding their heads high because they could easily pay their pew rent – and their farms rents as well.

  THE BACKGROUND

  Whisky has been distilled in Scotland from probably the 15th century, but by the middle of the 18th it had become the national drink. Distilleries had to be licensed by the state, and most of these legal distilleries were fairly large-scale. By law they had to have a minimum still capacity of 500 gallons. The problem was that after the Union, as a price for access to English colonial markets, Scots had to accept a share of England’s tax burden – a bargain which the Scots found unreasonable. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the imposition of malt tax caused the most resentment.

  The malt tax, along with the high excise duty (which it was suspected was to protect English gin producers) on the spirit itself, meant that large distilleries which were open to excise inspection were at a major disadvantage, compared with small law-breaking distillers in remote areas who avoided all taxation. John Stein, a Lowland distiller, stated in 1797 that ‘owing to the interference of Highland spirits, we have been unable to find sales’. Stein and other large-scale distillers like the Haig family were paying seven shillings a gallon excise on their product and could not compete with the sma’ stills that were paying nothing.

  For Robert Burns and many other Scots, whisky went not only with freedom, but with good health. One exciseman agreed with Burns, noting in 1786 that ‘the ruddy complexion and strength of these people is not owing to water-drinking, but to the aqua vitae.’ It should also be mentioned that until well into the 19th century, and even afterwards in country districts, whisky was the only painkiller available to most of the common people, who could ill-afford the legal but expensive opiates at the time. One doctor is recorded as asking a countryman what happened if any of his family were ill.

  ‘We drink fusky’ was the reply.

  ‘And if you don’t get better?’

  ‘We drink mair fusky.’

  ‘And if you still don’t get better?’

  ‘We dee.’

  ORGANISATION OF THE TRADE

  The illicit whisky smuggling trade was highly organised, and often ingenious methods were used. Women walking with their wares to market in neighbouring towns would acquire miraculous pregnancies – inflated bladders full of the whisky which they would deliver or sell to customers. Innocent-looking parties on coffin tracks, walking to the cemetery and resting awhile from the labour of carrying their burden, might well be over-refreshed – not from drowning their sorrows at the loss of the supposed deceased, but because the coffin held supplies of whisky for delivery to consumers.

  But the main method of delivery of illicit whisky was a well-organised armed convoy. Once the amber dew had been distilled, it was poured into barrels (called ‘akers’) and these were set on panniers over a pony, which generally carried four five-gallon barrels. A long string of ponies was tied together, and the animals proceeded to walk, accompanied by 20 or 30 men, on the outward journey to their destination – then the men would ride back home on the empty animals. Accounts speak of how heavily armed the smugglers were, carrying cudgels, swords and pistols. The whisky convoy was accompanied by dogs, which would have been excellent as lookouts, picking up the sound and scent of any unwelcome persons along the way. The journey from the Cabrach or Glenlivet to the Mearns, Strathmore or the Laigh o’ Moray, was one that occupied two or three days’ or (as often as not) nights’ walking for the smugglers. Stealth was at least as important for the smugglers as speed, and they utilised the little-frequented whisky roads through and over the mountains.

  One ‘Whisky Road’ started in the Braes o’ Glenlivet and went over the Ladder Hills by Ladderfoot, thence descending to Bellabeg on Donside. From Bellabeg the convoy would then have moved, by night, through the populated district of Cromar, before arriving at Aboyne and starting the next stage of their journey over the Fungle Road the following day. Formerly called the Cattrin Road, named from its reiver (catteran) days, this was an established drove road which the smugglers followed over the hill to Tarfside in Glenesk.

  Thereafter, the law-abiding drovers followed the North Esk to Fettercairn and then to market. But the smugglers walked their ponies another route south, through the less-frequented Clash of Wirren to Glen Lethnot, and then south by Bridgend to the track which went between the Brown and White Caterthuns (Iron Age hill-forts), from which vantage point (and splendid camp) they waited for night to fall, to descend upon Brechin. A place thereabouts is called ‘Donald’s Bed’, where a murdered exciseman lay for 20 years before discovery – showing that at least one of the law-enforcers number had been, regrettably, wise to the smugglers’ secret route.

  THE DE’IL TAK THE EXCISEMAN

  Whatever problems they encountered on the ‘Whisky Roads’, the smugglers knew none that compared with the terrors of the gauger, or exciseman. After the ’45, soldiers were stationed at places like Braemar and Corgarff castles, as a counter-insurgency measure against an expected further Jacobite rising. However, once the residual Jacobites were hunted down the soldiery became primarily involved in excise dut
ies, aiding the excisemen in their thankless struggles. The gauger’s was an unpopular and dangerous job, and it is not surprising that many excisemen took the easy option and turned a blind eye to smuggling. However, professional pride and the bounties attendant upon seizure of contraband, provoked many into actions of incredible heroism.

  But the battles were not always won by the gaugers, as is recorded in the ballad The Battle of Corrymuckloch, which describes an encounter that took place around 1820 between some smugglers and excisemen supported by soldiers of the Royal Scots Greys. The contraband had come to Glen Quoich in Perthshire when the smugglers were accosted by the armed soldiery. Using sticks – and stones from a dyke for missiles – they put the soldiers (‘the beardies’) to flight and captured the exciseman. The poem makes clear that the soldiers were equipped with firearms, but also that they declined to use them when faced with resolute opposition, indicating perhaps a certain lack of enthusiasm for their task.

  Then Donald and his men drew up and Donald gied command And aa the arms poor Donald had was a stick in ilka hand An when poor Donald’s men drew up a guid stane dyke was at their back Sae when their sticks tae prunach went, wi stanes they made attack. 2

  But Donald and his men stuck fast an garr’d the beardies quit the field The gauger he was thumped weel afore his pride would lat him yield Then Donald’s men they aa cried oot, ‘Ye nasty filthy gauger loon If ye come back ye’ll ne’er win haim, tae see yer Ouchterarder Toon.’

  Sometimes the gaugers simply, and wisely, declined combat. The Revd Thomas Guthrie wrote that as a boy in Brechin in the early years of the 19th century, the sight of men ‘come down from the wilds of Aberdeenshire or the glens of the Grampians’ to sell their whisky was a common sight, carrying it on ‘small, shaggy but brave and hardy steeds’. He confirms that they watched ‘on some commanding eminence’ (probably one of the Caterthuns) during the day, and only moved onto the plains at night, distributing their whisky ‘to agents they had everywhere’. And for the smugglers, there was nothing like rubbing the outnumbered and defeated enemy’s nose in the dirt, as Guthrie noted:

  I have seen a troop of thirty of them riding in Indian file, and in broad day, though the streets of Brechin, after they had succeeded in disposing of their whisky, and they rode leisurely along, beating time with their formidable cudgels on the empty barrels to the great amusement of the public and the mortification of the excisemen, who had nothing for it but to bite their nails and stand, as best they could, the raillery of the smugglers and the laughter of the people.

  THE END OF THE TRADE

  The local lairds’ connivance with smuggling was shown by the low penalties imposed in areas where illicit distilling was endemic: while the fine in Fife or Ayr was the statutory £20, at Aberdeen (where the legal officials were often also local landowners) capture and conviction would cost you on average 11s 3d. One JP in a north-east court was embarrassed when the accused said to him, ‘I havnae made a drap since yon wee keg I sent tae yersel.’ Fines were often paid by the smuggling community through a levy, and thus did not drive the illicit distiller out of business.

  Eventually the government was compelled to deal rigorously with a trade which resulted in so much lost revenue. By 1822 agents for the excise were assisting at all civil trials, ensuring that the minimum penalty of a £20 fine or six months in prison was imposed, with transportation to Van Diemen’s Land for those who violently resisted arrest. The increased success of the militarily-backed seizures (the end of the Napoleonic War in 1815 had released large numbers of soldiers for this duty) prove the point. In 1822 alone there were almost 10,000 people prosecuted for breaking the excise laws in the Aberdeen and Elgin courts alone, amounting to over two-thirds of total Scottish prosecutions – emphasising again the key role of the North-east in the history of illicit distilling. But increased repression would not have worked without economic measures to back it up.

  The duty on whisky was massively reduced to 2s 3d per gallon, giving the advantage back to licensed distillers with their economies of scale. In addition, tenants found guilty of illicit distilling were evicted by local landowners, some of whom turned to distilling themselves – or more commonly they leased or sold land to legal distilling operations. By 1832 less than 200 cases concerning illicit distilling were heard in Scottish courts. ‘Poachers’, like John Begg on Deeside and George Smith in Glenlivet, had by then turned ‘gamekeepers’ and set up commercial production. They did this in the face of local hostility; for many years Smith went around armed and in fear of attack. The new status of whisky was demonstrated by the presentation of a bottle of Glenlivet (albeit illicit) by Sir Walter Scott to King George IV on his visit to Edinburgh in 1822. The beginning of the end of the illicit distilling industry in 1823 contributed, however, to massive depopulation on upper Donside, the Cabrach and in Glenlivet, a little recorded exodus as it was mostly voluntary rather than enforced. The ‘Whisky Wars’ were over.

  The trade thereafter survived only in really remote Highland locations. James Mitchell records that as he was taking a drive up Glen Moriston in the 1840s, ‘I saw before me at some little distance about twenty five Highland horses tied to each other, and carrying two kegs of whisky each’. The men walking with the ponies were in bonnets and plaids, carrying bludgeons. They recognised Mitchell and, instead of beating him, offered him a dram. Such folkloric relics were, however, small beer to the days when large areas of north-east Scotland in particular were in a state of armed conflict between the distillers and gaugers in the scarceremembered ‘Whisky Wars’.

  4 The Strathdon Dram: The One That Got Away

  SPEYSIDE WHISKY IS world-renowned. And few have not heard of the Royal Lochnagar Distillery on Deeside. But between the Spey and the Dee, those two major rivers of north-east Scotland lies a more modest watercourse, the River Don. Donside attracts little tourism, which is a pity as it is a beautiful and fascinating area of castles, rolling hills, and legends. Especially whisky legends.

  The Don no longer produces whisky, but it once did. The fertile reaches of Upper Donside (Strathdon) were for many years bandit country, where hundreds of sma’ stills were concealed in the surrounding hillsides. The pot still, fondly named the ‘Yowie wi the crookit horn’ (Anglice ‘ewe with the crooked horn’) brought a brief prosperity to Strathdon in the 75 years following the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745.

  Upper Donside had been Jacobite territory and Corgarff Castle was garrisoned by Hanoverian troops after the ’45. These troops were very successful in stamping out the last relics of Jacobitism. But they were much less successful in stamping out the ensuing phenomenon that lengthened their stay, illicit whisky distilling.

  In the years following the Jacobite defeat, the sma’ stills spread across the land. Looking back on this period in 1845, the Minister of the Kirk of Scotland at Strathdon stated:

  This parish was one of the strongholds of smuggling. The inhabitants of Corgarff, the glens, and not a few of the lower part of the parish were professed smugglers. The Revenue officers were set at defiance. To be engaged in illicit distillation was neither looked upon as a crime, nor considered a disgrace.

  His comment makes it clear that this period was well over by 1845. The Kirk itself was an opponent of whisky smuggling, though religious opposition was not the cause of the trade’s ultimate demise.

  Defiance was indeed the watchword. And in the upper reaches of lonely Glen Noughty (or Nochty), a side-glen off Strathdon, stands today, and is marked on the OS map, a ruin called Duffdefiance. A man had been evicted from Glenlivet for illicit distilling. Unabashed, he crossed the Ladder Hills to Donside, and established a new distilling site in Glen Nochty. Here he also gained squatter’s rights by having a house built with its ‘lum reeking’ before being challenged by the local laird, one Duff – aka the Earl of Fife. Hence, Duffdefiance. In my opinion the building marked as being Duffdefiance on the map is a later construction; nearer the burn lies the remains of a cruder building which is more likely to hav
e provided the distiller’s abode.

  In Glen Nochty also took place a conflict, the Battle of Glen Nochty, between distillers and excisemen that led to a popular ballad being written about it. Interestingly this ballad is written to the tune of the Jacobite song, Johnny Cope. A Glenlivet man, John Milne, wrote the song, Noughty Glens, and gave the honours to his compatriots against the reputedly cowardly Donside men. The ballad has 64 verses and was published in 1826, shortly after the events it describes. The song launched Milne as an itinerant poet and songsheet seller, which was just as well, since his wife’s whisky business was soon closed down. The poem starts with the excise officer, one McBain, leading his men into the glen:

  We’ll make them submit unto our will

  We’ll burn their bothies in the hill

  We’ll seize their whisky, every gill

  Among Noughty glens in the morning

  Glen Noughty lads they staid at hame

  For fear that they should get the blame

  But Glenlivet men they thought no shame

  For to keep their ground in the morning.

  So they gave him a dreadful fire

  Which made his troops almost retire

  Said he, Their courage I admire

  Among Noughty glens in the morning

  The Preventive commander said, ‘We’ll retire 3

  We cannot longer stand their fire

  Though it be sore against my desire

  To leave their glens in the morning.’