The origins of Scotch whisky?

By the time Fergus and Donald have finished making their whisky, they’ve given themselves another problem, because they have more than they can drink, the customers have yet to be found and the gaugers would be delighted to discover where they’ve put it. I introduce these two imaginary men to guests on the Kildonan hillside, where we can think about what they might do next. Hiding the whisky seems the sensible course, but before they can bury it somewhere out of sight, they need a container, which gives us a reason to look down the strath towards Helmsdale and its growing herring industry.

The government is encouraging that industry with bounties, while inspection and the crown brand give buyers confidence in the cured fish being sent abroad. Getting the herring ready for shipment requires barrels in considerable numbers, so coopers become essential to the business, working at places such as the estate-built curing yard at Helmsdale. The work reaches into families farther up the strath too, with one former Kildonan farmer describing a son who fishes, another who makes barrels and a third who helps on the land. Fergus and Donald could hardly ask for a more useful acquaintance than a cooper, so let’s give them a friendly one who supplies a new oak barrel, which they fill and conceal in the peat until they’re ready to sell.

When they go back some months later, they find that the wood has been contributing something of its own, giving colour and flavour to the clear spirit they put away. They had only meant to keep it safe from the taxman, but now they have a reason to wonder what might happen if they leave it a little longer. Our imaginary pair can’t claim to have invented maturation, although their discovery helps explain why a whisky maker might begin to value a barrel for more than its usefulness as a container. The herring trade has helped bring barrel-making skills to the coast, and those same skills offer the men making whisky inland somewhere to keep their spirit while the oak gets to work.

There are customers for the illicit drink in some quite respectable households, including the minister’s at Kildonan, whose whisky is made by a man known as a smuggler, while the Duke of Sutherland is said to enjoy it at Dunrobin. A licensed distillery is operating at Helmsdale by 1825, but permission to make whisky on the estate doesn’t give its owners quite the future they might have hoped for. In the blogcast, we’ll follow what becomes of that business and return to Fergus and Donald’s barrel, because the closure of licensed premises leaves an interesting question about what might still be happening farther up the strath.

To learn more, listen to the blogcast or book one of our North Coast Explorer private tours.