Scotch: A Golden Dream

The Scotch whisky is, of course, the country's greatest ambassador.

Many people who don't even know where Scotland is

know of it through Scotch whisky.

You look at any old American movie...

Your guys from America, any time there was trouble,

what did the guy ask for? He asked for Scotch.

It's 18-year-old Scotch. You don't really expect me

to pour it back into the bottle, do you?

1962 Dalmore. It'd be a sin to spill any.

It's a waste of good Scotch.

It's only six-year-old Scotch.

I got some Scotch.

Uh, Scotch. Rocks.

Scotch.Scotch.

Scotch.Scotch.

Scotch.Scotch.

Scotch.Scotch.

Scotchy, Scotch, Scotch.

There's something about Scotch that gives...

It brings power to you, it gives you confidence.

It brings you alive. It's got that kind of thing.

My name is Jim McEwan, and I am the Production Director

here at Bruichladdich distillery

on the island of Islay, Scotland.

Most of my family would have been associated with whisky

because whisky is the main game on this island.

I was about 1000 yards away from Bowmore distillery.

So it was every kid's dream to work in a distillery.

On my way to school, some days I didn't get to school

because I had to get past the distillery to go to school.

Sometimes I'd look through the window in the malt barns.

I would smell the malt. The men would be turning it.

One of the old guys would say, "Jim, don't bother going to school today.

"Come on in and sweep the floors." So I left school at the age of 15.

And I asked them for a job.

And, I mean, I was like a Twiglet.

I was so small and skinny it was unbelievable.

He said, "Well...

"I can give you six weeks' work."

Which was the summer holidays from the school.

"But that's all I can give you."

So I said, "That would be great." And I remember him closing the door

and walking away after being told that I had a job for six weeks.

It was like, ah!

That six weeks turned into 52 years.

So here I am, still in the whisky business.

You know, Jim is... He's a legend within the industry.

Jim is one of these iconic characters.

People come from around the world just to spend 20 minutes with him.

Jim, I mean, devoted his life to whisky.

He knows what he's talking about and he is a guy that you've got to listen to.

Wherever I go, it's always, "Do you know James McEwan? Have you met James McEwan?"

Jim McEwan is one of these legendary distillers,

and we sometimes use this phrase,

"He's forgotten more about whisky distilling than I'll ever know."

And it's very true in his case.

He is the sort of, the whisky man of Islay.

He is living, breathing Scotch whisky. He personifies what it is.

There will never be another Jim McEwan.

Oh, Jesus. Oh, my goodness.

Within the first month of me working for the Distillers Company,

as part of my experience,

I was taken to a grain distillery,

a maltings, and a malt distillery.

The distillery manager there at that time

was a very, very old, wizened, died-in-the-wool distillery manager,

who basically didn't suffer fools gladly at all,

and when this young, fresh-faced graduate appeared,

he obviously decided he wanted to do something to show me who was boss.

And so we wandered round the distillery,

and the gentleman was smoking,

which, of course, absolutely, you couldn't do now,

and when he finished his cigarette,

he flicked the cigarette butt into one of the fermentation vats,

and turned round to see the look of shock on my face.

And he was just doing it to let me know he was the boss,

and he could do whatever he wanted.

When I first started in the job...

Well, I was... When a student then, obviously.

My first experience in a whisky distillery.

I was quite amazed that it started at eight o'clock in the morning,

and the first thing you done was to line up in a queue

to receive a large whisky.

Now, I had never, ever even thought about whisky at eight o'clock in the morning.

At that time, I never even drank whisky.

But when you are 18 years old

you want to try and prove that you are a man, as such.

And I remember watching all the other guys, the older men

taking their whisky, putting a little water into it

and then swallowing it over really quickly.

And I thought, "That must be how it's done."

So I carefully got my glass that I was given,

poured in some water, and swallowed it back.

And it just about knocked me over.

I didn't realize it was cask-strength whisky.

These guys had built up a tolerance to it.

They half knew what to expect,

I was gonna almost pass out with it.

And they took me away and laid me down.

And I slept it off for about three hours,

before it was lunchtime, and they lined up again and got another dram,

which I refused to take that time.

What makes this barley extremely special

is the fact that it is grown in Islay,

and the soil in Islay is full of salt.

Because next door we have the Atlantic Ocean.

So you can imagine the amount of salt we get in our rain.

So the soil is super impregnated,

and the root of the plant is going into that soil.

And it has to hold on tight,

because we get ferocious winds here.

How does that salty flavor manifest itself in a whisky?

Barley grown in Islay has a fantastic, fresh, citrus, lemon and honey flavor.

The smell is just fantastic.

Just evocative of Islay. It's the smell of the sea,

the smell of the peat smoke. It's all there.

The Scottish farmers are very important to me,

because, as a person that demands only Scottish-grown barley,

I have a great reliance on these farmers.

We've been pretty poor at recognizing what a key cornerstone they are.

And that is why I buy directly from a lot of farmers.

I work with a grain-growing cooperative up north, called the Black Isle Growers

of which Kenny MacKenzie is part.

I think if the whisky industry had a serious downturn

it would be a major impact on the farming in the North.

Not just locally, but throughout the Highlands,

and Scotland generally.

We are a major producer of malting barley

for a huge number of malt distillers.

Without the farmers, there obviously could not be any Scotch whisky.

I approached the distillery manager, whose name was Duncan McGillivray.

We were at school together. And I said to him,

"We've got really good spring water here, Duncan.

"When they're selling a bottle of whisky,

"why don't they sell a bottle of spring water with it,

"so there's no chemicals involved?"

Duncan thought, "Good idea."

And he sniffed it, and licked it, and drank it.

And next thing, he was wanting barrels of it.

We also grow 50 acres of Concerto barley

for the very famous Octomore.

And the name goes all over the world now.

It's the heaviest-peated whisky in the world.

And here you have it. This is Octomore barley,

which is grown at a farm close by.

What we want to get is access to the starch inside.

How do we find that out? Well, we use this amazing contraption.

And inside is a little sieve which separates it.

Whether you make good whisky or bad whisky, it's all done here.

We have separated the husk in the mash tun.

So that's your husk.

Here it is the middle.

And then you have the pure flour there.

This is incredible.

Wow.

People in Scotland are proud of being Scottish,

of anything that we do.

So Scotch whisky is part of that.

And, as I say, in Speyside it's a massive part of the history that we have here.

It's one of the main industries other than farming,

and both work hand in hand. Like, most of them started as farmers.

I do enjoy whisky, but we often use whisky for reviving lambs.

It's an old cure in the Highlands.

A lot of whisky drinkers. If you didn't have any milk for the lamb,

a cold lamb, you give him whisky,

and nine times out of ten, that cold lamb would come round.

The Scotch whisky industry covers the length and breadth

of the country of Scotland.

And as a consequence of that, the vast majority of distilleries,

particularly malt distilleries,

are situated in small rural communities.

I think it's very true to say

that the distilleries didn't fit into the rural communities.

The rural communities grew up round about the distilleries.

The distilleries themselves established many of these communities.

If you say to any Scotsman, "Are you linked to the whisky industry?"

the answer is yes. Going back to the days of illicit stills and everything else.

You know, we all made whisky, whether it was legal or illegal.

With the agricultural revolution,

you could produce more grain, therefore you could produce more whisky.

So the actual distilling was permissible,

but the transportation and sale was not legal.

Illicit distillation really gets going in the middle of the 18th century.

And it's partly a reflection of the high taxation

and the industrialization of the big industries.

The way they were taxing low wines or taxing wash, or taxing malt and so on,

was ineffectual, and it had the effect of making it impossible,

ultimately, for licensed distilleries to make good spirit.

In the 1780s, when the Steins and the Haigs collapsed,

it got really big, because they had flooded the Scottish market.

And that meant that the only way you could get a decent whisky

is if it was illicitly distilled.

It was packed up into little barrels called ankers.

And these were carried to market.

And even the Royal infirmary in Glasgow

had an illicit still inside it.

And it's very easy. All you need is a pot still

made of copper, and it doesn't have to be very big.

It can only hold 20 gallons, or even less than that.

And if you've got the equipment, you can make it.