A wild alchemy: Riots, Robert Burns and the beetle that saved Scotch
The Invention of Whisky (Part 2)
Hello, it’s Gordon from Whisky Rocks. Thank you for reading our new guide for everyone curious to discover more about whisky and its many thrilling variations and qualities, written by me and the Barley magazine team.
For now, we’re going to be posting new stories twice a week, with a focus on a different slice of whisky knowledge every time.
If you like what you read, why not subscribe and help us spread the word to a new generation of whisky lovers across the world. Thank you.
This is the second part of our romp through the history of whisky and how it went from a furious and often lethal spirit distilled by monks for medieval maladies to a much more refined affair, albeit via some tumultuous adventures. I’ll post the final part, bringing us up to the present time, later in the week. Let’s dive in…
The Taxman Cometh….
You’ll recall that by the 1600s the knowledge of distillation had trickled down to the general population in Scotland and Ireland, and as such whisky production was a burgeoning cottage industry. We left our intrepid whisky makers fanning out to the American colonies (more on that in the final part of this tale) but about to be ambushed back home by the hated taxman.
Politics, as it has a tendency to do, was lurking on the sidelines waiting to spoil the party. In 1707, the Acts of Union merged the nations of England and Scotland into Great Britain and the government immediately sought to control the production of whisky by applying a series of punitive legislation.
The most devastating edict was the malt tax, a levy charged on the making or sale of malted grain. Malt in England was first taxed by the Crown in 1644 to pay for the English Civil War but an understanding written in to the Act of Union exempted the whole of Scotland from that tax and subsequent taxes on malt, rolled out soon after 1707, to pay for a war in France. However, by 1725 the English parliament decided that their northern neighbours would have to cough up after all. 45 Scottish MPs objected. No matter, the bill was pushed through.
Scots were unused to this tax, which increased the price of beer, never a popular move north of the border. Rather predictably, it all kicked off.
Scots were unaccustomed to this tax, which increased the price of beer (never a popular move north of the border) as well as being a punch in the guts to a vital aspect of whisky making. Rather predictably, it all kicked off. In Edinburgh, brewers went on strike, and there were riots in Hamilton and Shawfield in Glasgow. Unrest spread west to Ayr and north to Elgin. Enraged citizens in Glasgow drove out the military and destroyed the home of Daniel Campbell, their representative in parliament, who had voted for the tax.
In Ireland, the introduction of a tax on whiskey* production crippled its legal industry. Licenced distillers of ‘parliament whiskey’ (whisky legally produced under licence) plummeted from 1,228 in 1779, to 246 in 1780.
This, then, is the era of the great romantic illicit hooch-maker.
As a result of the taxes on malt, smuggling became standard practice for the next 150 years. The excisemen, or gaugers, as they were known, and the illicit distillers began a game of cat and mouse, with savvy Scots coming up with increasingly ingenious ways of shielding the spirit from taxation.
Scotch whisky was hidden under altars, in coffins, and in any available space to avoid the governmental excisemen or revenuers. Scottish distillers, operating out of homemade stills, took to distilling whisky at night when the darkness hid the smoke from the stills (hence ‘moonshine’). At one point, it was estimated that over half of Scotland's whisky output was illegal.
In truth, there was a large degree of public acceptance towards illegal whisky production. Illicit stills were mostly small scale and provided an important product to local communities, at a low cost.
Highland lairds often turned a blind eye to illicit stills on their land as the money this produced for their tenants was likely the only way they could pay rent. However, there were still the ‘revenue officials’ to be avoided.
By 1882 there were a mere 40 legal distilleries in the whole of Ireland, whereas it is believed that in the Donegal region alone, there were 800 illicit stills producing whisky.
Robert Burns - the poet who worked for HRMC
When he wasn’t penning swirling odes to lovers, mice, haggis and - yes - whisky, Robert Burns, the great Scots poet and lyricist, was an Exciseman, collecting tax on malt from the parishioners of Dumfriesshire in the borders of Scotland. Less poacher turned gamekeeper, more drinker turned drink-snatcher.
Burns was terrifically fond of whisky, and there’s a woozy and boozy conviviality coursing through many of his poems. These lines from one of his best, Tam O’Shanter, are a virtual love letter to the stuff:
‘Inspiring bold John Barleycorn [whisky]!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippeny [tuppenny ale], we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquabae [whisky], we’ll face the devil!’
But how did this son of a self-educated Alloway farmer end up working for The Man? Let’s put it down to pragmatism and the rather unpoetic fact that he needed to earn a living, and knew a gilt-edged chance when he saw one.
Following the publication of his first collection in 1786 (Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect) Burns was an overnight star, celebrated as the ‘Ploughman Poet’ by Edinburgh’s high society. He was also broke. And a prodigious charmer. Understanding the power of nepotism, Burns got to networking, sweet-talking these friends in high places into securing him a job as an Exciseman, a well-paid if unpopular position that could pull him out of penury.
Burns was an overnight star, celebrated as the ‘Ploughman Poet’ by Edinburgh’s high society. He was also broke. And a charmer. He understood the power of nepotism
His literary connections helped him move up the ranks, but this was no cushy desk job – Burns was expected to sweat for his money. His diary from 1794-5 survives and attests to the hard graft. He regularly worked fourteen-hour days, rising before first light, spending all day in the saddle, and often not returning home until eight at night. Moreover, the job demanded a very high level of concentration, numeracy and accuracy – not easy after a full day’s riding through rain and snow.
In his biography of the poet, James Mackay argues that the arduousness of the work coupled with the shockingly bad weather during this spell may have been a catalyst for Burns’ subsequent decline in health. From May 1795 onwards, successive ailments and illness plagued him until his death in July 1796, aged just 37.
The paradox of the people’s poet doing the bidding of the loathed English Customs man wasn’t lost on Burns. He felt keenly a sense of betrayal, and alluded to his torn loyalties in these lines:
The De'il [devil] cam fiddling thro' the town,
And danced awa wi' the Exciseman;
And ilka wife cried, ‘Auld Mahoun,
We wish you luck o' your prize, man.’
We'll mak our maut, and brew our drink,
We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man;
And mony thanks to the muckle black De'il
That danced awa wi' the Exciseman.
There's threesome reels, and foursome reels,
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man;
But the ae best dance e'er came to our Ian',
Was-the De'il's awa' wi' the Exciseman.(Robert Burns, The De'il's awa' wi' the Exciseman, 1792)
Whisky wizards transform taste
A few decades after Burns, the law, for so long a stick to whack the whisky maker, finally gave them a much needed shot in the arm, in the guise of the 1823 Excise Act. In effect, this legalised the industry, sanctioning the making of whisky for a license fee of £10 and a rate per gallon of pure alcohol was established. Smuggling died out but the underground distilleries remained (many of today’s distilleries are located on the site of the old ‘illegal’ sites).
Early Scotch distillation was all batch process, raw malt whisky, drunk straight off the still, with very variable quality and consistency. Production needed refining and it was dramatically modernised by the invention of the continuous still in the 1820s. Soon after that, in 1831, an Irish inventor and distiller Aeneas Coffey created his own ‘Coffey’ still. With this new revolutionary bit of kit in play it became much easier to produce a consistent and lighter quality spirit, using a continuous distillation process rather than a batch process. It ushered in the age of grain whisky. Manufacturers could also now produce whisky more efficiently, and at a lower cost. This was a serious game-changer. Modern day stills are not so far removed from the Coffey’s original design.
The beetle that saved Scotch
Along with the invention of a modern still, the discovery of maturation brought much needed sophistication. Rolling out the barrels and pouring the liquid into them helped cool things down immeasurably when it came to producing something more pleasant and less dangerous to drink. Back in the first couple centuries of distilling, barrel ageing wasn’t something that was done for flavour. Up until the 1800s, Scottish distillers had no desire to age their whisky, preferring to drink it relatively fresh off the still. Barrels were just a means to store large volumes of liquid, and used barrels were easy to come by. Unfortunately they had a distinctly unsavoury character, being routinely used to store fish, hog-knuckles, or just about anything pungent that could be crammed into them. They reeked. They weren’t the obvious source of the refined taste creative whisky makers were looking for.
This beetle single-handedly laid to waste the French wine industry. It also hammered brandy, including Cognac. Exports to England fell off a cliff
A major turning point came from an unexpected place — that arguably did more to transform the global fortunes of whisky than any other single factor.
In the mid 19th-century the buoyant French wine industry suffered a devastating blight, caused by the phylloxera beetle, an aphid that originated in North America and was carried across the Atlantic. The beetle secreted a poison that damaged and then destroyed the root system of the vines, single-handedly obliterating the French wine industry. It also hammered brandy, including Cognac. Exports to England fell off a cliff, so with availability low and prices astronomical, the upper classes started looking for alternatives…
While this was the perfect opportunity for Scotch to stride in and save the day, many English were suspicious of the Scots and ignorant of the whisky produced there.
Brandy drinkers found the rough taste of whisky hard to swallow, and opted for sherry instead. This was imported from Spain in large oak casks, which were impractical to be shipped back to their country of origin. Scottish whisky makers jumped in enthusiastically and begun ageing their whiskies in these ex-sherry casks. One such pioneer was a whisky distiller from Edinburgh named Andrew Usher, who’ll we’ll run into again when we get to talking about blending.
Whisky matured in this way was silkier and softer on the palate and could just about pass for brandy. It became a popular substitute. Many brandy drinkers who were initially reluctant to drink Scotch were convinced by this new approach to maturation and remained dedicated whisky drinkers even when brandy returned to the market a few years later. Although it did not happen overnight, whisky was in vogue and the industry was set for extraordinary times.
*whiskey with an 'e' refers to grain spirits distilled in Ireland and the United States. Whisky (with no 'e') refers to Scottish, Canadian, or Japanese grain spirits.
Thank you for reading. If you’re enjoying this newsletter, why not consider subscribing? It costs 50% less than an average glass of good whisky, and will bring us great cheer.
Sources, references and further reading1
https://whiskystories.com
http://scotch-whisky.org.uk
https://www.theoxfordartisandistillery.com
https://universityofglasgowlibrary.wordpress.com
https://scotchwhisky.com