STILL GAME
Heriot-Watt University to carry out research,’ explains Nicol, who also owns the Feathery, Pig’s Nose and Sheep Dip whisky brands. Nicol cut his teeth in the drinks industry with
Beefeater and went on to launch the ‘fi nishes’ range for Glenmorangie using whiskies aged in madeira, sherry and port barrels. He brought in master blender Richard Paterson to create the recipe for Edinburgh Gin, which features nine botanicals – juniper berries, heather, milk thistle and pine, among others – and is served in bars including the Waldorf Astoria and Death & Company in New York. Producers like Pickering’s and Spencerfi eld
are benefi ting from the renewed popularity of gin, which has gone from being the preserve of G&T-wielding parents to the drink of choice for their offspring in cocktail bars. William Grant & Sons, the whisky-maker behind Glenfi ddich and The Balvenie, breathed fresh life into the gin market in 1999 with the launch of Hendrick’s, with its cucumber and rose fl avours. Hendrick’s popularity triggered a wave of
new gins, such as Bruichladdich’s The Botanist on Islay, Caorunn from Balmenach on Speyside, and Blackwoods, distilled on the mainland using botanicals collected on Shetland. Not to be left out, the big boys got in on the act too, with Diageo (which makes Gordon’s at its Cameronbridge distillery in Fife) promoting its Tanqueray brand, and French spirits giant Pernod Ricard, which owns whisky-maker Chivas Brothers, introducing premium versions of its fl agship Beefeater Gin. The resurgence of gin distilleries is also
continuing outside Scotland’s cities. Last year, Steve and Viv Muir began making NB Gin at North Berwick, while Martin and Claire Murray are preparing to launch Rock Rose Gin at Dunnet Bay Distillers in Caithness this year. It’s not just gin distilleries that are returning
to urban areas, with whisky-makers getting in on the act as well. The closure of the Port Dundas grain distillery in 2009 – which came alongside the axing of the historic Johnnie Walker bottling plant in Kilmarnock – left the North British Distillery in Edinburgh as the main city-centre whisky producer. The North British is jointly owned by Famous Grouse maker Edrington and Diageo, Scotland’s largest whisky producer and the owner of brands including Bell’s, J&B and Johnnie Walker. Smells from the North British still pervade
Edinburgh’s streets, especially for travellers from the west as they approach Haymarket Station. Such odours could soon return to Glasgow too, after Tim Morrison – owner of whisky bottler AD Rattray – unveiled plans to build a boutique whisky distillery and visitor centre at the Queen’s Dock, the fi rst to be
WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 179
opened in Glasgow for more than 100 years. Morrison – whose great-grandfather, Andrew
Dewar Rattray, founded the business in 1837 – is a veteran of the Scotch industry, having sold Morrison Bowmore Distillers to Japanese drinks giant Suntory in 1996. ‘We could look at making gin at the
distillery too,’ says Morrison, who has applied for planning permission for the £10 million project. ‘The advantage of gin is that you can make it one day and sell it the next. Whisky has to be aged for at least three years.’ Making gin and whisky in cities is reviving
a tradition that goes back hundreds of years before the spirits sector became industrialised. ‘The over-production of grain whisky by
the Stein and the Haig families drove out local producers in urban areas,’ explains Michael Moss, a professor at Northumbria University and a former archivist at the University of Glasgow. ‘They just went bust because they couldn’t compete. But the ones in the Highlands continued because, if they couldn’t compete, they became illicit.’ Even after the Act of Union in 1707, there
were still different duty regimes on spirits for Scotland and England. ‘In 1788, the Stein and the Haig families
went spec tacularly bust,’ says Moss. ‘They ran the really big distilleries on an industrial scale, producing harsh liquor, much of which was sent down south and turned into gin. The gin producers ganged up against them and campaigned to increase the duty on spirits imported to England from Scotland to give London distillers an advantage. The Stein and Haig distilleries collapsed and this made pot stills in the Highlands more popular. ‘Producers in the Highlands were selling
almost exclusively to their local market. It’s not until the 1850s that they started marketing their whiskies nationally.’
‘The advantage of gin is that you can make it one day and sell it the next. Whisky has to be aged for at least three years’
Left: Marcus Pickering and Matthew Gammell. Below: Edinburgh Gin plans to open a distillery beneath the Rutland Hotel.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270