THERE’S a long, proud tradition of illicit distillation in Scotland and it gave birth to pot still whisky. Once the authorities took a more enlightened approach to tax in the 1820s, the old bootleggers came in from the cold and went legit. This was the start of an industry that now sends 38 bottles a second overseas and pumps about £1 billion into the Treasury coffers every year.
Scotch is big business and a little corporate at times, which made a recent tasting at an Edinburgh pub rather refreshing. Members of the fledgling Scottish Craft Distillers Association had piled into The Queen’s Arms to pour their drinks, and while I’m sure they pay their taxes there was something subversive in the air.
Among the attendees was distiller Cory Mason who makes the gloriously intense Dark Matter’s spiced rum (£35 Drinkmonger/Good Spirits Co.). Distilled in Banchory, it was launched a year ago as Scotland’s first rum.
Mason, a lanky Californian with a hefty handlebar moustache, did a brewing and distilling MA at Heriot Watt after a spot of bootlegging in the States. His dad owned a small vineyard and one night, aged 19, he decided to boil up some of the wine with his brother.
“That’s when I had my Eureka moment,” he says. “We used the simplest still, just a big pot with a cup in the middle and a lid to condense the vapour.” After an hour the cup held an inch of clear spirit, which they tested with a flame and then tasted, apparently it wasn’t bad. From moonshine brandy, he progressed to distilling absinthe for a New York barman before going straight and working in various US craft distilleries.
While craft brewers can hone their skills through home brewing, distillers can’t really do that. Not that it stopped my American friend who reckons there are probably more wee stills gurgling away in people’s kitchens and garages than you’d think. For years a big barrier to operating a licensed still was its minimum size, but that rule has lapsed and you can now distil in much smaller vessels.
The explosion of craft gins may have almost peaked, but there is a whole drinks cupboard to explore including whisky where an injection of creativity and fun wouldn’t go amiss.
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