Glasgow, in the west, vied with Edinburgh’s Port of Leith, in the east, as a centre for the Scotch whisky industry’s warehousing, blending, bottling and administration facilities, and this trade on the Clyde owed much to the fact that in the early 19th century the river was dredged, enabling large ships to dock relatively close to the city centre. During the 1830s, Glasgow became an important centre for the importation of tobacco and tea, and of the 80 warehouses listed in an 1830s edition of the Glasgow Post Office Directory, ten offered bonding facilities for spirits.
‘Lots of the Glasgow companies have gone now,’ says Fred. ‘We were in Robertson Street and Cheapside, and that whole area close to the Clyde was a centre for the whisky trade in Glasgow, because historically lots of malt whisky came into Glasgow by boat from distant distilleries and was landed at the Broomielaw. William Whiteley, who owned the House of Lords blend and James Buchanan, who produced Black and White, were both in that area. Buchanan’s had cart horses which pulled big drays around Glasgow when we were boys.’
Today, only Chivas Brothers’ Strathclyde grain distillery, situated next to the Clyde in the Gorbals district, links Glasgow directly with whisky-making, though Whyte & Mackay Ltd continues to have its headquarters in the city, and several major bottling and warehousing establishments are located within the area.
Glasgow’s second grain distillery, Port Dundas, closed in 2010, and with its demolition, Fred was forced to find a new ‘parlour game’ for visitors to his firm’s offices in a stylish crescent in the Park area of the city, which dates from the 1860s. There, a comfortable and unpretentious room on the top floor of the building serves as an unofficial tasting area, in what Stewart Laing says ‘ … used to be the servants’ quarters.’
He has long had a habit of asking visitors which distillery it is that they can see from the window, and very few have ever answered correctly. However, with the site being cleared for future redevelopment, the distinctive distillery structures and chimney will soon be lost to the Glasgow skyline. The heritage of Scotch whisky is constantly shifting, and what was current one day may become historic the next, after a few hours’ work with a wrecking ball.
Whatever physical changes may occur, however, the stories remain. Fred recalls that the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and in the mid-1970s became a general in his native Uganda, going on to command the Ugandan army before seizing power in a military coup during 1971.
‘He declared that, “Scots do not need a visa to visit our country,” proclaiming himself “King of Scots” in his kilt in the sweltering heat of Kampala,’ says Fred. ‘We saw this as a golden opportunity and wrote to him, saying that he should be drinking King of Scots whisky, and after a while we got a letter with a cheque enclosed from Amin, and this was the start of quite a big trade in our King of Scots blend, which Amin dished out to the troops and to members of the police force.’
Fred describes himself as ‘A huge Rolling Stones fan, and I love rock from the 1960s, but I also enjoy modern American Indy rock bands like the Killers.’ The perils of being ‘frontman’ for the company, to use a rock analogy, have included being involved in a brawl in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, ‘ … in a bar where customers were required to leave their guns in a shoebox at the door. On another occasion I was arrested in Moscow’s Red Square for looking like a Chechen rebel. Well, I did have a beard at the time. I was also once mistaken for Mick Jagger in Taipei, Taiwan, when I was doing karaoke because I was word perfect in Satisfaction and did all the moves as well!’
Away from work, the Laing brothers have contrasting approaches to leisure, with Stewart saying, ‘I enjoy watching football and walking my dogs in the countryside. It’s a great way of clearing my head away from the phone and emails of work.’
Fred declares that, ‘Like my brother, I also watch football and rugby, but in terms of sport, I prefer to participate rather than watch. My aim is to gain an international over-sixties squash cap for Scotland. I have beaten the captain, so it may happen. I also play racket ball, ski and go to the gym regularly. I have a personal trainer who comes to the house sometimes, and in order to go through the pain barrier I need good rock music as I’m exercising.’
When it comes to a relaxing dram, Stewart notes that, ‘The first single malt I ever really liked and got into was a sherry cask North Port, distilled in Brechin,’ proving the point that even a distillery not usually considered in the first rank can turn out memorable whisky.
Fred says that, ‘I love honey and sherry flavours, but the emotional tie with Port Ellen, my father’s favourite whisky, makes it mine too. My “desert-island dram” would be from an early sherry cask of Port Ellen. Ex-sherry wood brings fruit and raisins, beyond the usual soft smack of chewed leather.’
Recalling the lengthy lunches that characterised the whisky industry in Glasgow during less pressured times, he adds that, ‘After “the lunch” had finished late in the afternoon my father would go back to the office to sign some letters and carry on the party, as it were, with a few drams of Port Ellen. By the time he got home I was usually in bed, and he would wake me up to ask about my day at school and I would smell this wonderful alcoholic breath!
‘It was probably forty years later, twenty years after his death in 1984, when I was conducting a whisky tasting one day and I got a whiff of Port Ellen with its leathery sweep of saline, beaches and dry ropes. It took me straight back to those days when I was a child and it was a very emotional moment.’
Talisker Distillery as Norman Morrison would once have remembered it in the 1960s.
A pensive Norman Morrison.
Boyo Norquoy at the spirit safe in Highland Park Distillery.
Jim Cryle with his infamous sma’ still at Glenlivet Distillery.
Gordon Dey, Aultmore Distillery.
Gordon, back row, third from left, with the distillery staff in 1987.
William Birnie (right) talking to Sir Ben Barnett, chairman of Mackinlays & Birnie Ltd, in September 1956.
The laborious job of ‘tapping’ the casks for ‘leakers’. The tone reveals leaking casks. Note the 1949 vintage of Glen Albyn in the hogsheads.
Glen Mhor and Glen Albyn distilleries immediately on the right of the Caledonian Canal as it enters Muirtown Basin in Inverness.
Rodney Burtt.
The Saladin Boxes were 60-feet long, eight-feet wide and held 22 tons of barley, couched up to three feet deep.
The worm-screw mechanism travels along the length of the Saladin Box lifting the barley from bottom to top.
Russell McGregor, later the works manager at Glen Mhor, turning the piece in the 1950s. Saladin Boxes ended this practice.
A mash commences with hot water entering from the sluice pipe at top left and the strirrers travelling through the mash.
A sample of wash is extracted in a dipping tin to be measured in a saccharometer for the level of gravity.
Douglas Murray.
John Peterson at Loch Lomond Distillery.
Stills bound for Benrinnes Distillery leave Abercrombie’s in Alloa, c1955.
Loch Lomond Distillery: Possibly the most intriguing stillhouse in Scotland ... but there’s something here of which the Scotch Whisky Association does not approve.
Douglas Yeats (in apron) stowing barrels with fellow coopers at Dewar’s, Perth, c1974.
Douglas (7th from left at the rear) with Dewar’s staff, c1978.
Ginger Willie, Bowmore warehouseman, showing off one of his tattoos.
His workplace. One of the dunnage warehouses at the distillery.
Bowmore Distillery in the gloaming.
John Ramsay in the Sample Room at the Edrington Group’s HQ in Drumchapel.
Glenrothes Distillery.
Glenfarclas Distillery staff, c1891.
John Grant in the Ship’s Room at Glenfarclas Distillery.
The stillhouse at Glenfarclas.
Fred Laing shows off the Laing Brothers successful Big Peat range of blended 46
%abv Islay malt whiskies. Port Ellen was Fred’s father’s favourite malt whisky and Big Peat contains malts down to 5-6 years of age.
Fred with his father in 1952.
Stewart and Fred Laing in their Glasgow office.
The inspiration for the family business: Port Ellen Distillery, Islay, prior to its partial demolition.
is an imprint of
Neil Wilson Publishing
www.nwp.co.uk
© Gavin D. Smith, 2013
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The author has asserted his moral right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, as amended, to be identified as the Author of this Work
Print edition ISBN: 978-1-906000-15-8
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-906000-16-5
Stillhouse Stories--Tunroom Tales Page 14
