Home to some of Scotland’s most beautiful scenery, and more than half of the country’s distilleries, this rugged region is renowned for its warming, golden malt whisky
WHISKY PRODUCTION AND the remote Scottish landscape go hand in hand. Driving along the winding roads of Speyside – abandoning the bustle of towns, such as Aberlour or Dufftown, and passing the heather-clad Ben Rinnes – leads into striking, sublime hilly terrain. Fir trees grow on the hills, and pheasants surprise visitors, with reckless marches onto the road. In winter, as the snows falls, this region becomes even more beautifully remote. A white blanket covers the land, and temperatures plummet as icicles form, and rivers ice over. Tucked in the shelter, flanked by the stark ruins of Blairfindy Castle, and cradled by the braes and hills of the Cairngorms, is one of Speyside’s most renowned and historic distilleries: The Glenlivet.
‘Glenlivet’ in Gaelic translates as ‘Valley of the Smooth Flowing One’ – no doubt referencing the pure water of the River Livet. While the snow muffles and cocoons this land, and animals slow their pace to reserve energy, in the stills of Glenlivet, the chemistry of distillation continues in the same time-honoured fashion that it has for centuries. The distillery’s rugged remoteness and isolation is a key part of Glenlivet’s history and heritage.
But this is a terrain that can also hide secrets. Early whisky was produced illicitly, due to extortionate taxes introduced by the Government in 1644. Distilled in tucked-away valleys and glens, avoiding the excise men was key, and creating a pure spirit mattered more than legalities. Hunting down basic stills – that nobody wanted to be found and went to great lengths to conceal – in such a raw landscape seems an unforgiving task, and in winter, in heavy snow, it was a potentially deadly escapade.
Most early whisky producers were like the Glenlivet founder, George Smith; an everyday farmer, growing barley and tending cattle, with a healthy sideline of illegal whisky distilling to bring in additional income. Despite being illicit, whisky had such renown that when King George IV visited Edinburgh in 1822, he drank Glenlivet. To have the monarch openly endorse an illegal distillery, and indirectly an entire industry that the Government had little control over, was simply embarrassing for the London powerbrokers. The Excise Law of 1823 followed, significantly reducing taxes to encourage distillers to come back into the fold and become legal entities. But in a region where lawlessness and evasion had become everyday life, and paying no taxes whatsoever was the norm, this was not going to be an easy conversion.
First legal whisky
When modern visitors leave the crisp, frosty air and step into the notably plush warmth of the Glenlivet Dist
