John McIntosh and Company 1885 – 1933

McIntosh took over at a particularly prosperous time for the whisky industry but he was also prepared to invest money that would build capacity and enable the distillery to do more than just distilling. I’ve no doubt that McIntosh saved Edradour from going the same way as most other small distilleries and instead took it from strength to strength.

Until the late 1800s the preferred tipple of the English was wine followed by brandy. However, during the 1880s an American aphid was wreaking havoc in Europe’s vineyards by attacking the vines and spreading the disease phyloxera. The disease was untreatable and it swept across Europe destroying millions of vines and devastated the wine industry.

Fears of a wine drought spread and prices for wine and brandy started to rise in anticipation of a shortage. Forever the hosts and not liking to see an empty glass, the Scots immediately ventured south of border laden with clinking bottles and began the process of educating the English to the finer qualities of whisky, particularly the new and mellower blended whiskies.

For many years the perception was that whisky produced in the highlands was fiery, strong and therefore unpalatable, whereas whisky produced in the lowlands was said to be lighter. The reason for the difference was largely down to how the malted barley was dried. Peat was in plentiful supply in the highlands and had long been used as a fuel and as any lover of Laphroaig or Ardbeg will tell you, the peat adds plenty of flavour. In the lowlands peat wouldn’t haven’t be so readily available and so they probably relied more on wood or coal for fuel, which wouldn’t have influenced the flavour to the same degree.

The original kiln was discovered during the refurbishment of the malt barn.

Usher, Buchanan, Bells, Dewar and Walker were among the first to realise that these two different whiskies could be blended together to create a spirit that wasn’t too heavy but had good flavour. As the rising cost of brandy and wine were leaving a bad taste in the mouths of the English, the Scottish whisky blenders found them very receptive to their new products and reaped the rewards as they watched the market grow.

Blended whisky also travelled well. Since the infamous Highland Clearances a steady stream of Scots had been leaving their homeland for a better life in Canada, America, Australia and elsewhere. Whisky was a welcome reminder of back home, which was no doubt shared with the neighbours who understandably took to it and subsequently became new customers, driving up international demand.

Closer to home the English middle classes weren’t just enjoying blended whisky, they were also experiencing the Scottish mountains and heather for the first time. It had become the fashion to take sporting holidays in Scotland and sample certain aspects of local culture, including a wee dram of course.

The Duke of Atholl himself was one of the first to let his forests and moors for sport and there were numerous disputes with neighbours about the lucrative rights to deer stalking and grouse shooting.

John McIntosh was already 56 when he took over at Edradour, he managed a farm in the next village of Kinnaird and as the son of one of the farmers that formed the original co-operative, we can be certain that he was familiar with the basics of distilling as he grew up.

From the moment McIntosh took over production leapt and within a few years he was already expanding. In 1888 he built a spirit store, in 1889 he was granted permission to reduce the alcohol by volume (ABV) of spirit with water, and in 1897 he had built an additional warehouse for storing casks.

On the OS map of 1867 there are five distillery buildings that we can assume are; the Excise Officer’s office, two racking stores for duty paid and bonded spirit, the still house, the filling store and a general storage area. By 1900 and under McIntosh’s stewardship the distillery had changed dramatically, it was bigger, there was a dedicated malting barn and much more warehousing space.

McIntosh was transforming Edradour from a community distillery that primarily produced whisky to be sold at local outlets into a thriving commercial venture. The product he made was called John McIntosh Whisky, which must have been good because the Duke of Atholl chose it for his own Atholl Brose and Toddy drinks.

McIntosh was a well respected individual in the community. He had learned his craft, which was farming and taken over the farm in Kinnard from his father. Even after taking on Edradour he remained a hands-on farmer that looked after cattle and horses. He was generous with his time and advice, which was clearly worth listening to because in 1898 he won first prize at the Atholl and Weem Cattle Show in the Heifer Cross Breed category.

With regard to the success of the distillery it was said that he had very good connections with many of the larger hotels ‘particularly in the West’. Presumably this was because these hotels also bought his meat products but it might also have been industrial espionage.

William McIntosh, was John’s brother and he was the Excise Officer at the Ord distillery in Ross-shire. Ord was a far larger distillery with an annual output of 80,000 gallons compared to Edradour’s 6,500 gallons, but as the Excise Officer based on-site you can be sure that William learned a few tricks of the trade and shared this knowledge with his brother. This display of cooperation and help from the Excise Officer wasn’t without personal interest, after all, it was William’s son, Peter, who was heir apparent to Edradour.

In 1886 Alfred Barnard, a writer for Harper’s Weekly Gazette, toured the country visiting every distillery and writing notes describing how each functioned, the type of vessels and plant used, and generally painted an interesting picture of distillery life. Barnard’s observations are, to the whisky lover, what Gilbert White’s, A Natural History of Selborne, is to the modern day naturalist. It is thanks to Barnard that we have a snapshot, often with detailed descriptions and illustrations, into the whisky industry at the time. Alas, it was the bigger distilleries that seem to have enjoyed the most detailed observations and analysis.

Whilst Edradour is featured in the book, Barnard seems to have written more about his stay at Fisher’s hotel in Pitlochry than the distillery itself.

What he does describe, though, we can still see today, ‘The Distillery, which was built in 1837, is situated at the foot of a steep hill on the road side, and consists of a few ancient buildings not unlike a farmstead, past which flows one of the most rampant and brawling streams in the district. On either side of this river, heather in rich abundance hangs from the banks and jutting corners of the rocks and there is water power sufficient to drive several water wheels’.

For those that have visited the distillery on a clear, bright day, and allowed the atmosphere to wash over them, they will appreciate the overwhelming feeling of warmth and the lasting impression that the tiny distillery had on Mr Barnard and all those who have visited since.

John McIntosh never married and had no children so it would be his nephew Peter that would take over Edradour. In 1907 Peter became a partner of the business and when his uncle died, at the age of 78, the distillery and the good reputation of John McIntosh Whisky passed onto Peter.

Peter was just 25 years old when he took control of the business but he was no stranger to Edradour. When he was 19 Peter started living with John in Kinnaird. He no doubt helped around the farm and the distillery, learning the ropes and being trained as the future manager.

Peter learnt from his uncle that a modern distillery required investment of time, energy and money and no sooner had he taken over Peter set about making some significant improvements.

Trust was still a missing ingredient in whisky making and the government found it hard to forget the days of illicit distilling and tax avoidance. In order to stamp their authority and make their presence felt, every distillery had an Excise Officer assigned to them. The Officer, who would live on-site, oversaw production, checked the figures and had to approve every modification to the distillery, however small or insignificant.

We complain of bureaucracy today but it was just as rife in 1907. A particular bone of contention for Peter was the Officer’s living accommodation. Being a small distillery situated on land owned by the Duke of Atholl meant that the Excise Officer was offered accommodation just a few hundred yards away owned by the neighbouring farmer. Without a toilet, cramped, dark, damp and opposite a pigsty it couldn’t be described as luxurious and there were many letters of complaint and subsequent investigations, which no doubt detracted from the real work of distilling. The matter was later resolved when the Excise Supervisor agreed to Edradour being supervised by the local Officer based in Pitlochry rather than having one based at the distillery, which suggests that Peter had a trusting face.

A copy of this old photograph was found in a box of archive material after Andrew Symington took over the distillery. It isn’t clear when the photo was taken or who is in it but from the clothes and the cask in the foreground we can assume it was during the period when Peter McIntosh was running the distillery.

In 1911 Peter married Annie Jamieson and moved from his Uncle John’s property in Kinnaird to the farm across the road from the distillery called Colivoulin, which was easier for work and a better prospect for bringing up a family.

Peter also took on a partner, John Henderson Stewart, and they were both named as licence holders with the Excise office.

Peter approached the job of distillery owner with renewed vigour and between 1911 and 1919 set about raising the roof height of the spirit store, replacing the worm tank with a concrete housed worm tank, replacing the spirit safe and building a new distillery warehouse.

Just as Peter and Annie were getting settled and adjusting to their new home the whisky industry entered a period of turmoil and it appeared that it was being relentlessly attacked from all sides.

Britain was at war with Germany and the British Temperance Party were putting pressure on Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to close down the distilleries and introduce a complete ban on the production and consumption of alcohol. Lloyd George expressed his support for the Party’s campaign by declaring that ‘Drink is doing more damage in the war than all the German submarines put together’.

Concerned that politicians were apt to making hasty decisions in order to appease the whims of their constituents, it was clear that some careful lobbying was required by the industry and it was the mighty Distillers Company Ltd that led the way and thankfully negotiated a compromise in 1915.

It was made clear that barley was needed for food, first and foremost, and that the production of whisky would have to be curtailed. The increasing intolerance to drunkenness also meant that steps needed to be taken to limit the supply of whisky and the solution to this problem was to embargo all new spirit with immediate effect. It was decided to introduce the Immature Spirits Act, which decreed that all whisky should be kept in a warehouse for a minimum of two years. When in the following year it seemed the end of the war was no nearer the Act was amended to extend the period of warehousing to three years, which is still the case today.

The government didn’t just pick on the whisky industry and it wasn’t just British politicians who were concerned about alcoholism during the war. Russia banned the production and sale of their national drink, vodka, whilst in Britain the ‘No Treating Order’ was introduced that meant it was illegal to buy anyone but yourself a drink at the pub.

Immediately after the war had ended the situation hadn’t improved, a large number of distilleries had closed down and of those that hadn’t, many were either part of a larger group of companies or willing to merge, thereby reducing their own risk.

Robert Burns, the famous Scots poet once wrote ‘Though fickle Fortune has deceived me, She promised fair and performed but ill’. So far the small distillery at Edradour had been hard work for Peter, he had invested heavily and must have thought that having survived the war he would soon see the rewards for his efforts, but alas it wasn’t to be, the American’s were about to call ‘last orders’.

Records show that ‘John McIntosh Whisky’ was sold to other distillers and merchants, such as Bells, for blending. Blended whisky had a big export market, particularly America so when Prohibition was introduced in 1920 it was another major setback for the whisky industry. Peter’s partner, John Henderson Stewart, had experienced enough of the downturn and decided to extricate himself from the partnership leaving Peter as sole licence holder and owner.

Although ways were found to get whisky and other spirits into America the size of the market wasn’t nearly as large during Prohibition.

With each ‘dry’ year in America more and more spirit stills were left to go cold and never fired-up again. In Campbeltown alone, once described as Whisky City, ten distilleries closed in the space of eight years.

Edradour’s small size helped and it seemed to cope with the problems at first but as the ‘dry’ years wore on sales declined.

Hidden in an attic room of the distillery, protected by lock and key is a large brown leather bound journal with the words ‘John McIntosh and Company’ embossed in gold lettering on the cover. Inside are pages of beautifully written records listing the sales of casks for each year. It is the ink on these pages that tell the story of Edradour’s decline from 1927 until 1932. Sales in the early 1920s had been around 80-90 casks per year but by 1932 they had dropped to just 21 casks, and bear in mind the spirit within was produced three years earlier.

The industry as a whole was suffering. Between 1921 and 1929, 42 distilleries closed in Scotland, overall production fell by almost 25%. Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, along came the economic depression of the 1930s.

For Peter McIntosh the last straw was the sudden death of his wife in 1928. Annie was just 46 years old and died from a heart attack. According to his daughter, Peter took her death very badly, found it difficult to adjust and ended up spending time in a nursing home. Whether he suffered a breakdown or had some other illness we don’t know but production at the Edradour Distillery ceased in 1929, the distillery was sold shortly after and it was in a nursing home that Peter died, aged 58, in 1940.

With the General Strike of 1929 followed by the economic slump in the 1930s, it is no surprise that by the time Prohibition was eventually repealed in 1933 the whisky industry was on its knees. Consolidation meant that a few large companies were now in control of many distilleries, fewer and fewer managed to stay within the control of the families and co-operatives that had set them up and Edradour was no exception. By 1933 it had a new owner and it was about to become part of one man’s empire, William Whiteley.

We know this photograph was taken when William Whiteley owned the distillery and it is highly likely that one of the men in the photo is Whiteley. He would have been about 75 years old at the time.