By 1938 Whiteley decided it was time to retire, he had created a complex structure of businesses that were all ultimately owned and controlled by the holding company J. G. Turney & Son Ltd of which Whiteley and his wife were the major shareholders.
Rather than actually sell his shares in J. G. Turney & Son he voluntarily ‘wound-up’ the business shortly after making his decision to retire. This was probably done in order to personally receive all the reserved capital that was held in the business.
However, permission was granted for the name to be adopted by a business in exactly the same line of work which had only been incorporated a few months earlier, this business was called Turneys Distillers Ltd and it was owned by an American called Irving Haim.
It’s likely that discussions about the sale of Whiteley’s business had started at the end of 1937 because for some reason in December 1937 Irving Haim is quoted in the press as being in the UK ‘to buy New Year supplies of whisky for the United States’. According to the article, that was essentially about the amount of alcohol consumed in the US, he was staying at The Savoy Hotel, London and at that time Whiteley lived just a few miles away in Golders Green.
Having officially wound-up J. G. Turney & Sons Ltd, Whiteley appears to have sold his shares in his other businesses; W. Whiteley & Company Ltd, Henderson & Turnbull Ltd and Glenforres Glenlivet Distillery Ltd to Irving Haim.
We don’t know what price he obtained but three years later when he died, his estate was valued at £25,000, the equivalent of about £1.1 million today.
By the end of 1938 Irving Haim was the major shareholder of the business called J. G. Turney & Son Ltd, which was again the major shareholder of a number of businesses including W. Whiteley & Company Ltd, Henderson & Turnbull Ltd and Glenforres Glenlivet Distillery Ltd.
Glenforres Glenlivet Distillery Ltd was the name of a company Whiteley incorporated in 1922. No doubt this was to create illusion that Whiteley’s whiskies came from his own distillery but at that point he didn’t own one.
Once he had acquired Edradour he immediately registered the offices of Glenforres Glenlivet Distillery at Edradour. It is worth remembering that Edradour had never been marketed or bottled under its own name and Whiteley knew that Glenforres Glenlivet would have greater appeal to his customers.
‘The Glenlivet’ was the very first distillery in its area to obtain a licence for distilling and it was a constant source of irritation that other distilleries used the word ‘Glenlivet’ in the name of their own whisky, knowing full well that the confusion would lead to extra sales. Whiteley was one of those that took advantage.
The question is why would Irving Haim be interested in a modest whisky business that had several core brands and the smallest distillery in Scotland?
Well, Irving Haim wasn’t just any American; Irving Haim was connected to Frank Costello who was now at the very top of the Mafia.
In 1950 the US Senate established a special committee to investigate crime in interstate commerce. Understandably Frank Costello was called to the Senate hearings regarding his business activities. At the hearings he said that he had tried to purchase the Whiteley companies without success and that his reason for wanting to buy them was so that his ‘liquor distribution business’, Alliance Distributors, would have exclusive rights to distribute the Whiteley brands throughout the USA. The brands he was referring to were King’s Ransom and House of Lords.
Costello stated that the deal wasn’t done, but Irving Haim was a known associate of Costello’s and Alliance Distributors were the sole distributors of Whiteley’s brands. Co-incidence? I don’t think so.
Furthermore, at the hearings it was revealed that Costello’s phones had been tapped and the Chairman of the committee read out a transcript of a conversation that Costello had with his wife. The gist of the conversation was to warn his wife that she needed to be at home to receive a package, later described as an envelope, that was being delivered by Irving Haim and that she knew ‘where to put it’. The committee were convinced that Haim was delivering Costello’s share of the profits from the Whiteley business but apparently Costello couldn’t remember what Haim was delivering.
Were the Whiteley businesses, including Edradour, bought with Mafia money? There were plenty of prosecutors in New York and Washington that thought so and if the most powerful Mafia figure in America wanted something, as he admitted to the Senate hearings, do we really think he didn’t get it?
Certainly Haim and Costello shared Whiteley’s disregard for regulations as was evident in 1939 when J. G. Turney & Sons Ltd were investigated and fined by the Sheriff of Glasgow for contravention of the Merchandise Marks Act. The company was found guilty of labelling whisky as being Scotch whisky when in fact over 60% of the contents was Irish whiskey.
However devious Haim and Costello were they wouldn’t have been too pleased with the captain of the SS Politician, which ran aground in the Sea of Hebrides prompting the crew to abandon ship. The story is known by millions around the world as ‘Whisky Galore’, the novel by Compton MacKenzie. En route to Africa and America in 1941, the SS Politician was loaded with all manner of cargo including at least 20,000 cases of whisky, some of which were King’s Ransom.
On a cold February morning the ship’s captain made a valiant attempt to manoeuvre the vessel through the obstacle course of the Western Isles. The ship was passing through a narrow passage between the islands of Eriskay and South Uist when he realised that the rocky coastline of the Eriskay was dangerously close. Having given the order to alter course, the ship ran aground on a sandbank, immediately rupturing the hull and taking on water. The crew fled thinking that the ship would sink but she didn’t.
News of the precious cargo quickly made its way around the small island of Eriskay and the normally quiet, God fearing population were soon possessed with desire for free whisky. They say that the islanders looted 24,000 bottles and their cunning at hiding them meant that many thousands were never found. Police and Customs officials did their best to bring the looters to justice but many cases were dismissed for ‘lack of proof’. A salvage operation was launched and then quickly abandoned when the stricken ship became too unsafe. The decision was made to use to break-up the ship with explosives and the last diver to leave before the detonators were triggered estimated that over 2000 cases of whisky were still on-board.
At the time, King’s Ransom was the most expensive bottle of blended whisky in the world, so for the people of Eriskay it really was like finding gold. Although they probably never appreciated that they were stealing from the Mafia.
The biggest change at Edradour under Haim’s ownership was the installation of electricity in 1947. The sturdy wooden paddles of the water mill were finally given a well deserved rest and eventually dismantled and removed.
There are numerous American magazine adverts for King’s Ransom and House of Lords from the 1950s and 1960s that Haim must have been responsible for. It is in these full-page ads that we learn that William Whiteley was known as the ‘Dean of Distillers’ and stated as the Chairman of the company, despite being dead since 1941. There is also reference to the SS Politician incident, the Potsdam Conference and the need for more distillery workers to cope with the demand for King’s Ransom and House of Lords. All of these ads have the same Latin text under an illustration of the two blends: Qui Uti Scit Ei Bona, which means: Let those that know how to use wealth, have wealth. What Haim obviously meant to convey was that if you wanted to be rich then you needed to behave like you are rich and buy his premium brand whiskies.
Not much else changed over the years, the markets in America grew and the tiny distillery kept working to meet the demand. As in Whiteley’s day the main board of directors were based in London making infrequent visits and probably bemused by the whole production process. During the war years London was being regularly bombed so the directors evacuated their plush offices and relocated to a hotel in Pitlochry.
Peter Swan visits Edradour twice a day, once to collect the ‘pot ale’ and spray it on his fields and once to collect the ‘draff’, which he feeds to his cattle. Peter has done this every day for 25 years, in snow, rain or sunshine.
It was on an overcast day in March that Peter and I stood outside the distillery, trying be heard over the roar of his tractor engine. He recalled the board of directors moving into Pitlochry during the war and his parents becoming friends with the company accountant ‘Dickie Dixon’. When they returned to London his father would send a dozen eggs each week to Dixon and at Christmas send a turkey. In return his father received a bottle of House of Lords whisky. The Dixons and the Swans became firm friends and no doubt Dixon spent more time in Pitlochry on holiday than he did visiting the workers at the distillery.
With the war over and America drinking once more sales continued to increase and by the time Haim died in 1976, J. G. Turney & Son Ltd was making a profit before tax of £1.2 million and had a cash surplus of nearly £3 million, roughly equivalent to £14 million today.
Frank Costello had died in 1973 and Haim’s wife, who inherited the business from her husband, died in 1977 so it wasn’t long before the business was sold on.