To understand the story of Edradour you need to appreciate the history of whisky itself, which for hundreds of years had a larger illegal industry than legitimate one.
The making whisky or aqua vitae or uisge beatha wasn’t a full time occupation for most distillers. Distillation largely revolved around harvest time when there was grain about and plenty of landowners happy to sell what they didn’t need, although farmers tended to group together and use their own. These groups would become formal partnerships and co-operatives years later.
The crop most commonly used was called Bere, a type of barley, which had the advantage of growing well in poor soil and a relatively short growing season of 10-15 weeks.
The process of making whisky was very much the same as today but with more primitive apparatus and the constant threat of being caught.
The grain first needed to be immersed in water, known as steeping. This was achieved by filling sacks that were then placed in the water of a river or stream, or dropped into water-logged holes in peat fields. Once steeped, the grain was allowed to dry in caves, woodlands, a bothy or on the hillside. As soon as the grain started to sprout then it was dried out in batches over a low peat fire. The result is called ‘Malt’.
The malted barley, or malt, was then ground with a quern, which was a small hand-operated mill. Or if there was a proper mill nearby and a miller willing to accept some whisky for his services, it would be ground at the mill which had the added advantage of being quicker and capable of processing greater quantities of grain. The ground mixture was then roughly measured out into kegs where hot water was added in order to dissolve the sugars in the grain.
The grain and sweet liquid now needed to be separated and with primitive equipment this meant pouring the liquid through a heather sieve that would catch the grain. The liquid was then left to cool, yeast was added to start the fermentation process and the vessel, probably another keg or earthenware jar, would have been covered to prevent air getting to it.
After the fermentation period, the result was a liquid called wash and it was this that was distilled.
A basic distillery consisted of a copper still, which varied in size but would have held several gallons of the wash. Under the still there would be a peat fire burning. At the top of the still would be a tube-like arm, which the gaseous alcoholic vapour would rise to and then run along. Attached to the tube-like arm would be a coil immersed in cold water, probably within a keg. This is where the vapour was cooled and converted back into a liquid, which emerged from the bottom of the coil into a spirit receiver, which was probably a smaller keg or jar. Once cooled the spirit was ready to drink and hearten the soul.
Making whisky from their own crops made economic sense to groups of farmers. It not only provided the farmer with enough drink to dull the senses for many months, it also provided him with a product that he could sell or trade for other goods. Even the draff, the grain leftover after malting, could be used to feed his cattle during the winter.
Illicit stills varied in size and shape but the basic apparatus were the same. A copper still with the means for alcohol gases to escape and then be cooled back into liquid, before being collected as spirit into a receiver.
Although these stills were portable they were often hidden in the hills, forests and moors to avoid detection from Excise Officers.
Whisky was a popular refreshment and by the mid 18th century spirit made from the distillation of malted barley, started to emerge as a preferred drink among ordinary folk. If you wanted to sell your spirit for resale in a bar or hotel you would need to obtain a licence and pay the appropriate taxes on your spirit. ‘Duty paid’ production of whisky increased ten-fold from the early to mid 1700s and it’s anyone’s guess how much more was produced without the taxes being paid.
About this time the middle and upper classes were experimenting with and enjoying the new wines and spirits coming ashore from foreign lands. Bordeaux and brandy held no interest for the masses who remained loyal to their ales and whiskies.
Demand for illicit whisky was driven up during the 18th century by several factors including the introduction of the malt tax. This meant that licensed distilleries started to use unmalted barley, which wasn’t nearly as popular with the drinking public. John Stewart, an innkeeper near Atholl claimed in 1798 that his customers would pay double the price for illicit spirit rather than imbibe the increasingly unpalatable legal product, which did not agree with their stomachs.
It is important to remember that in the main the illicit distillers were not hardened criminals, they were family men who, for generations, had made ‘aqua vitae’ for family and friends to drink and enjoy. Distilling malted barley was just part of farming culture throughout Scotland but parliament wasn’t happy about the increasing quantity of whisky that was being traded without the due taxes being paid.
About two hundred years earlier in 1579 the first steps to restrict the making of aqua vitae were imposed when measures were taken to prevent commoners from distilling because of a shortage of grain. At the same time an Act was passed that imposed penalties on those who entered taverns on Sundays. By 1643 whisky distilling and excessive drinking were clearly becoming national pass times and good business for the Scots. At this time Charles I was King of Scots and England but he was in the middle of a civil war with his parliamentarians who, under Oliver Cromwell, were creating Ordinances to raise money to pay for the war. The Scots were on both sides.
In 1644 the Scottish Excise Act came into force with the sobering imposition of a duty of two shillings and eightpence per Scottish pint of aqua vitae. However, rather than raising funds for Cromwell’s war chest, the Scots simply ignored the Act and continued as before, albeit illegally.
For the next 180 hundred years, the politicians and do-gooders would try and stem the flow of whisky through a succession of Acts but the Highlanders’ determination and sheer indignation meant that the small peat fires kept burning and the spirit never stopped flowing.
Relations between the Scottish Highlanders and their rulers in England were quite tense throughout the 1700s. In 1745 the Jacobite uprising that attempted to put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne was not only quashed at Culloden but led to several Acts of repression that today would probably constitute a breach of human rights. First there were the Highland Clearances designed to break up the clan system, then followed an Act that forbade the wearing of traditional dress and then the clan chiefs were stripped of their parliamentary rights. You will appreciate that by the late 1700s the average Scottish Highlander had just about had enough of the English and their rules so when Excise Officers were sent to collect taxes due on whisky they were met with a certain degree of hostility.
Increasing numbers of Excise Officers were sent to villages and towns to collect what was owed. Tax on spirit was not new but attempts at enforcement by Excise Officers knocking on doors and demanding payment or seizing equipment was. This drove the distillers from their villages and into the hills.
Being driven into the hillside was probably the starting point for Edradour. With the harvest yield collected and the autumn nights drawing-in the local men from the parish of Moulin discretely headed for the trees, uncovered their illicit stills and started-up production. The cunning and inventiveness used to create these makeshift distilleries never ceased to amaze the Excise Officers who spent day and night scouring the hills in the hope of discovering them.
Despite the fact that Excise Officers did catch individuals distilling illegally, records show that most offenders received leniency in the local courts. According to one record of events the problem stemmed from a conflict of interests. The lairds who owned the land on which the distillers were carrying out their illegal activities, were, in many cases, also Justices of the Peace (JP). Therefore, when one of their tenants was brought before them in court they were faced with a dilemma. To impose a custodial sentence would certainly mean a loss of rent for the landowner/JP and in some cases they might also be aware that the accused was a buyer of grain from their own estate. Most offenders were given a stiff warning, a small fine and were free to walk away from court.
The Excise Officers who had the job of collecting the taxes due were universally despised. When Samuel Johnson toured the Western Isles in 1773, he was moved to describe Excise as ‘a hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom Excise is paid’.
As the presence of the Excise Officers grew, fists, bribes, seduction and even death threats were used against them. Increasingly elaborate ways were found to conceal the illicit spirit; a funeral cortege often contained nothing more than a few jars of whisky and women concealed quantities of whisky under their voluminous dresses.
Many an Excise Officer was left embarrassed by the cunning and deceit of the smugglers and their accomplices. One such story describes how two officers who had seized a couple of barrels of whisky were kindly offered safe sanctuary in the first floor bedroom of a local inn. It was claimed that behind the locked door of the room they would be able to keep an all-night vigil. During the night the smugglers drilled into the barrels from the floor below and by morning they were totally empty of whisky, the smugglers long gone and the Excise Officers left with nothing more than two empty casks.
It seemed that every bush, tree and mound was hiding a makeshift distillery and each time the Excise Officers made a find, the more ingenious the Highlanders became. Hollowed-out trees, cliff-face ledges and under-ground tunnels were all employed to prevent detection. The tell tale signs of peat smoke might have provided the Highlander with problems but these were soon resolved by instructing their accomplices to start small fires in other locations to distract the Officers away from the distilling area.
In his Statistical Account of 1799 the Rev Alexander Stewart noted that there were two licensed distilleries in the parish of Moulin generating a total of 60 gallons each. The Rev Duncan Campbell noted in his own account in 1839 that prior to the Excise Act of 1823 ‘illicit distillation was carried on to a great extent’.
The 1823 Excise Act was the result of sound reasoning put forward in the House of Lords by the Duke of Gordon in 1820.
It was clear to the Duke that Excise Officers were fighting a losing battle and that apart from the conflicted interests of some local magistrates, the government had created a system of pay and reward for Excise Officers that meant it was not in their best interests to catch the culprits.
The Excise Officers’ job was not without risk therefore the incentive to clamber over the hills and apprehend burly, drunken highlanders was based on a bonus scheme. Excise Officers received a bonus for finding and recovering distilling instruments, casks and spirit. It was expected that the Officers would also catch the distillers and bring them to justice. However the Excise men weren’t paid any extra for convictions and quickly realised that their bonuses for finding the instruments of distilling would dry up if there was nobody to distil. Therefore, it was financially beneficial for the Officers to seize equipment, claim the bonus and then turn a blind eye allowing the distiller to escape and to start-up production again.
The Duke of Gordon was the laird of Glenlivet and he knew that illicit distilling was rife in his community. Although he wanted something done about it he recognised that the solution required genuine and fair incentives for the distillers if they were going to be encouraged to obtain licences and pay the required duty.
His words struck a chord and a three-pronged attack was mounted against the illicit distillers. Firstly, harsher punishments were introduced in 1822. These meant hefty fines and possible prison sentences for distillers, accomplices, and landowners who turned a blind eye to the practice. Secondly, the Excise Act of 1823 reduced the required duty to be paid for each gallon of proof spirit. The cost of a licence for stills was also reduced but the sting in the tail was the introduction of a minimum sized still.
Henceforth forty gallons would be the smallest capacity still allowed by law. This latter clause reasoned that it would be difficult to hide a forty gallon still and anything smaller would immediately be recognised as illegal. It was by imposing the minimum size for stills that led to the many distilling co-operatives that emerged in the following years.
The Act was a success, the illicit industry dwindled and applications for licences flooded the Excise offices. It was the end of an era and one more aspect of Highland culture that soon became folklore.
