WHISKY RUMOUR MILL - 09 JANUARY 2009
A Happy New Year to one and all.
We hope that you spent a very merry Christmas and a splendid Hogmanay, whilst enjoying all the products responsibly. We know that we did!
Now to the critical question of the moment, on the lips of the entire nation: what would Rabbie Burns drink if he walked amongst us today? Being a hard-living, hard-loving and hard-drinking working class boy from Scotland’s West coast the honest answer is probably ‘vodka’, but we’ll gloss over that.
Such a question is not merely idle speculation. 2009 is the 250th anniversary of the Bard’s birth and, with Burns Night the next highlight of the social calendar it’s important to address this issue if auld acquaintance is to be drunk with due ceremony.
Presumably, in the late eighteenth century, Rabbie would have been familiar with various Lowland whiskies and there was a distillery in Dumfries where he was appointed an Excise Officer in early 1792. His favourite seems to have been Ferintosh however, the subject of his widely-quoted poem Scotch Drink.
But Ferintosh is indeed “sadly lost” so not available to us to review without access to the TARDIS. However, today’s distillers have not been slow to exploit Burns to promote their wares.
What would he make, do you think, of a whisky cocktail? Those irrepressible scamps at The Famous Grouse are promoting no less than five different Burns Night themed cocktails, with titles such as The Bard and the Bird, Aye Fond Kiss and, our favourite (if only for the allusion in the title), To a Grouse. As you’ll probably have guessed, all of them require quantities of The Famous Grouse.
And Grouse haven’t stopped there. Also available this year is a special Limited Edition bottle of The Famous Grouse Blended Malt at a remarkable 37 years old (Burns being 37 when he died). You can win one of just 250 bottles in a competition at their special website www.burnssupper2009.com - this is all part of The Famous Grouse’s attempt to create the world’s biggest ever Burns Supper.
Quite what they make of this at Arran we don’t know but we rather imagine it’s all viewed with a certain rigidly fixed smile (or grimace). After all, Isle of Arran Distillers have arranged with the Robert Burns World Federation, presumably having crossed their palm with silver, to issue “The Official Robert Burns Single Malt Whisky” (£50). If you can’t run to that, Arran also produces the Robert Burns Blend & Malt which are available at £14.99 and £22.99, respectively.
Note that these are “official”. It would never do to drink unofficial whisky on such an occasion.
The Official Robert Burns malt comes as a 1998 vintage in a handsomely packaged limited edition of 6,000 bottles. Arran have been backing the Burns World Federation for the last 8 years so can’t be looking on Grouse’s efforts to crash the party with very much amusement. Still, God loves a tryer – and that brings us to an old friend of this column, Caroline Whitfield and her efforts to establish a distillery on Shetland.
Most of this column could be taken up in recapping events thus far but, in true TV soap opera style, here’s a summary. Previously on “Let’s Build a Distillery” Caroline has tried for seven years to raise funds to build a new single malt distillery on Shetland. Due to various complications the proposed site has moved round the island, but is now back where it started, though work is far from advanced. A gin brand was launched to raise cash but this had to be sold as the company failed after losses of £2.4m and the brand rights were sold off. The company’s first effort to launch a whisky was foiled when dastardly crooks stole all stocks of their “Muckle Flugga” blend. Caroline, whose hates are “cheating, arrogance, shoddiness, excuses”, was divorced and the parent company Blackwood Distillers Holdings plc went into liquidation. Now read on....
The latest news is that a phoenix has emerged: Catfirth Ltd will acquire the site for the distillery and aims to raise new funds to get this project back on track.
According to Companies House no accounts have yet been filed for Catfirth Ltd, which was registered in July 2008. Ms Whitfield is not listed as a Director though recently she told The Shetland Times that: “This is not something which can be turned around in a year. The point is I am still here, this is not going to go away, we have a new company and I am going to keep it going.”
Good for her. We’re all delighted that Caroline is still here and not going to go away. We all need our spirits raised in these trying times, though how investment will be found in the current financial climate when it wasn’t there in the biggest economic boom known to mankind remains to be seen. No doubt an explanation follows, along with a firm date for construction work to begin. We’ll keep you posted.
In the words of the poet:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
*views expressed in the Rumour Mill are not the opinion of Scottish Field Magazine
We hope that you spent a very merry Christmas and a splendid Hogmanay, whilst enjoying all the products responsibly. We know that we did!
Now to the critical question of the moment, on the lips of the entire nation: what would Rabbie Burns drink if he walked amongst us today? Being a hard-living, hard-loving and hard-drinking working class boy from Scotland’s West coast the honest answer is probably ‘vodka’, but we’ll gloss over that.
Such a question is not merely idle speculation. 2009 is the 250th anniversary of the Bard’s birth and, with Burns Night the next highlight of the social calendar it’s important to address this issue if auld acquaintance is to be drunk with due ceremony.
Presumably, in the late eighteenth century, Rabbie would have been familiar with various Lowland whiskies and there was a distillery in Dumfries where he was appointed an Excise Officer in early 1792. His favourite seems to have been Ferintosh however, the subject of his widely-quoted poem Scotch Drink.
But Ferintosh is indeed “sadly lost” so not available to us to review without access to the TARDIS. However, today’s distillers have not been slow to exploit Burns to promote their wares.
What would he make, do you think, of a whisky cocktail? Those irrepressible scamps at The Famous Grouse are promoting no less than five different Burns Night themed cocktails, with titles such as The Bard and the Bird, Aye Fond Kiss and, our favourite (if only for the allusion in the title), To a Grouse. As you’ll probably have guessed, all of them require quantities of The Famous Grouse.
And Grouse haven’t stopped there. Also available this year is a special Limited Edition bottle of The Famous Grouse Blended Malt at a remarkable 37 years old (Burns being 37 when he died). You can win one of just 250 bottles in a competition at their special website www.burnssupper2009.com - this is all part of The Famous Grouse’s attempt to create the world’s biggest ever Burns Supper.
Quite what they make of this at Arran we don’t know but we rather imagine it’s all viewed with a certain rigidly fixed smile (or grimace). After all, Isle of Arran Distillers have arranged with the Robert Burns World Federation, presumably having crossed their palm with silver, to issue “The Official Robert Burns Single Malt Whisky” (£50). If you can’t run to that, Arran also produces the Robert Burns Blend & Malt which are available at £14.99 and £22.99, respectively.
Note that these are “official”. It would never do to drink unofficial whisky on such an occasion.
The Official Robert Burns malt comes as a 1998 vintage in a handsomely packaged limited edition of 6,000 bottles. Arran have been backing the Burns World Federation for the last 8 years so can’t be looking on Grouse’s efforts to crash the party with very much amusement. Still, God loves a tryer – and that brings us to an old friend of this column, Caroline Whitfield and her efforts to establish a distillery on Shetland.
Most of this column could be taken up in recapping events thus far but, in true TV soap opera style, here’s a summary. Previously on “Let’s Build a Distillery” Caroline has tried for seven years to raise funds to build a new single malt distillery on Shetland. Due to various complications the proposed site has moved round the island, but is now back where it started, though work is far from advanced. A gin brand was launched to raise cash but this had to be sold as the company failed after losses of £2.4m and the brand rights were sold off. The company’s first effort to launch a whisky was foiled when dastardly crooks stole all stocks of their “Muckle Flugga” blend. Caroline, whose hates are “cheating, arrogance, shoddiness, excuses”, was divorced and the parent company Blackwood Distillers Holdings plc went into liquidation. Now read on....
The latest news is that a phoenix has emerged: Catfirth Ltd will acquire the site for the distillery and aims to raise new funds to get this project back on track.
According to Companies House no accounts have yet been filed for Catfirth Ltd, which was registered in July 2008. Ms Whitfield is not listed as a Director though recently she told The Shetland Times that: “This is not something which can be turned around in a year. The point is I am still here, this is not going to go away, we have a new company and I am going to keep it going.”
Good for her. We’re all delighted that Caroline is still here and not going to go away. We all need our spirits raised in these trying times, though how investment will be found in the current financial climate when it wasn’t there in the biggest economic boom known to mankind remains to be seen. No doubt an explanation follows, along with a firm date for construction work to begin. We’ll keep you posted.
In the words of the poet:
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
*views expressed in the Rumour Mill are not the opinion of Scottish Field Magazine
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