Loch Fyne Whiskies - Scotch Whisky Review

George Urquhart has worked for the business of Gordon & MacPhail for 62 years and continues as executive Chairman of what is now, indisputably, the world’s leading malt whisky specialist.
The company, which is also managed by his three sons and one daughter, celebrates its centenary this year (1995), and Loch Fyne Whiskies caught a glimpse of the industry over the years through Mr Urquhart’s eyes.

LFW: Have you ever worked any where else?

I started full time at the age of 14; my father thought that I would learn more working here than staying on at school. Even before that, I used to dodge down from school to help with the whisky bottling.

LFW: How many worked for Gordon & MacPhail at that time?

About 35, we were significant local employers. We were large importers of foodstuffs as well as the whisky and grocery business.

LFW: How important was whisky to the business of G&M?

It was always very important. James Gordon was deeply involved with the local distillers and he concentrated on the whisky broking as well as wines and other spirits rather than the grocery which was dealt with by John MacPhail.

Elgin was an important centre for the whisky industry. Many of the distillery owners lived in some of the most prestigious houses and a few descendants of those owners are in the town today. There is even a church in Elgin called the ‘whisky Kirk’ because quite a number of the congregation were involved in the distilling.

Many local distillers rented office space from us and when we repainted some years ago, under all the layers of paint, we found the names of the distilleries stencilled on the doors. All the offices had two rooms—a manager’s office and a room to the side housing a sink with a black marble surround with a fitment for upside down tasting glasses over the sink.

LFW: Were there many whisky brokers in Elgin?

No, most in Elgin were involved in distilling. With the exception of James Gordon, most brokers were based either in Glasgow or Edinburgh.

My father, who started working for Gordon & MacPhail from the earliest days, worked mainly in the broking and wholesale side and when James Gordon died in 1915 he carried on the broking side of the business on his own. I then looked after it for my father. Like James Gordon, father also had share holdings in several local distilleries including Longmorn, Strathisla and Glen Grant.

LFW: And presumably Mortlach.

No, the close association with Mortlach Distillery arose because my father was a close personal friend of the owner, Dr Cowie. Many distillers used to seek father’s advice, particularly on marketing matters and occasionally, if stuck for a filling order, Dr Cowie would approach my father.

This was in the time when a private individual could go to a distillery and have a ten gallon cask filled. I can remember the local golf club used to fill casks with Glen Grant and water it down themselves, but they couldn’t filter it and it was a murky looking whisky! Once it was in the glass it didn’t look so bad and was enjoyed nonetheless.

LFW: So you started on the bottling line; any recollections?

At that time we used to have lovely spring water in Elgin. It came from Kellas and the Black Hills . Lovely water, untreated and pure. These days we have to purify the water before use but back then we could use it straight for reducing the whisky to normal strength without any further treatment.

I particularly recall we had a water-powered lift to move casks throughout the four-storey building which was driven by the available mains water pressure, no pumps at all. It was amazing, this rickety old thing, but it worked! They had them in Glasgow stores and I was amazed with the speed of those lifts, they were so fast! We still had to move 1/2 ton casks down some stone steps to the cellar—that was hard work—and dangerous! Wearing a jute sack as an apron to protect our clothes, we stood in front of the barrel and carefully slid it down a pair of skids. Beer casks we could bounce onto a mat but not whisky!

Filtration was done by gravity using a big round filter on which you had to make a porridge-like filter bed, mixing the filter pulp with the whisky and letting it settle before turning on the flow of whisky. Once you had started you couldn’t stop otherwise the filter bed would lift and you would have to run the whole lot through again. Done correctly you could get the whisky really sparkling!

LFW: Was everything bottled?

No, we sold a lot of whisky in bulk in stoneware jars of up to six gallons. These were made for us by Buchan’s in Portobello and the Blind Asylum in Aberdeen made and maintained the wickerwork that protected them. The jars had a cork, then a red wax seal and then our seal so it would show if it was tampered with. The publican filled his glass counter jar, which often had the name of the whisky gold-leafed onto it, from the stoneware jar.
Customs controls were strict. Whenever whisky left the warehouse it always had to be accompanied by a Customs permit. If a Customs Officer stopped a wagon carrying spirits without a permit he would assume it was smuggled.

LFW: Did you bottle for the distillers or only for yourselves?

Ourselves. Distillers were just making malt whisky—they had no interest in marketing and bottling themselves. Printers in Aberdeen would print bottle labels in bulk and then a local printer would overprint our name. We would be issued with so many labels from the distiller when we were paying duty for the casks at the distillery.

LFW: Was this issue of labels to protect the integrity of their whisky?

That wasn’t necessary; people in those days trusted each other. Business dealings were based on gentlemen’s agreements. Any unscrupulous person coming on the scene was identified fairly quickly.

LFW: For how long was a malt matured in those days?

Distillers thought that if it was over eight years old then it was too old. In 1945 we started bottling Glen Grant at eight years old. It was my job to write the age on each label, by hand with an ordinary pen in red ink.

LFW: Now it’s difficult to find a Glen Grant over five years old!

Glen Grant has got quite a good bouquet and it matures quite quickly; it was actually a nice whisky at five years old. Before 1939 we sold quite a bit of ‘clear’ Glen Grant, especially in Inverness where it was popular amongst the carters who worked with big Clydesdale horses from the railway station. ‘Clear Glen Grant’ was their dram!

After the war I remember we took a few butts from the distillery with no colour in them at all, the whisky was very pale. I looked at these casks and decided to re-introduce clear Glen Grant whisky at 8 years old and that certainly took off! When our competitors followed our lead but sold at five years old and cut the price, eventually we were forced into doing the same because people were asking for five year old Glen Grant.

For the distiller to get the money in five years rather than eight or ten was a great advantage.

In the 1950’s we were the biggest bottlers of Macallan and I think it would be fair to say we helped that distillery to establish its malt market. They had their own labels, but they were late on the scene. The man controlling it was a Dr Shiach who was a G.P. in England. A nice man, he often came into the office and spoke to my father. He was keen that we should keep the price down on a par with blend whisky like Johnnie Walker. In those days blend might have been ten shillings a bottle, Macallan malt maybe twelve and sixpence—there was not much of a price difference. As a result it became quite popular locally.

In fact most of the malt whiskies that are popular today got into the market because they almost ‘gave it away’ to start with.

LFW: Do you still buy mature whisky?

Whisky is produced by the distillery under contract to us and it is filled into our own casks. We mature it, either in our own warehouses in Elgin or at the distillery where it was produced.

LFW: Was a cask expensive or cheap?

A cask that now costs £200 was then maybe the equivalent of £20.
We bottled quite a lot of sherry and port in those days and kept the suitable casks for maturing our whisky. We also bought in, particularly from a firm in Aberdeen who had good connections with the big sherry firms. We got lovely old casks of Gonzalez, Williams & Humbert and especially Harvey’s; all were excellent—we’ve still got a lot of them in the bond even now. I also went to Spain quite a number of times and bought a lot of casks myself. We are prepared to pay a premium for good quality casks because it is well worth it for the whisky.

With the whisky boom in the 1960’s, we went onto using bourbon casks as well, importing them either as full barrels or in ‘shook form’, that is that they had the staves numbered, the head removed, knocked down and strapped so they took up less shipping space. Then you had to sort out the numbers and remake them, like a jigsaw.

If we were having new casks made we bought new white Orleans oak which is just perfect for maturing whisky, very close grained. We imported the wood and gave it to the cooper and he made hogsheads. We were never keen on the smaller barrels because they’re not an economic size.

LFW: You must be a leading expert on casks.

The suitability of oak for making strong casks varies from country to country. The best oak for whisky was memel oak from Poland but that wood was all cut down during the First World War. You could use those casks for 100 years, they were so strong with great thick staves. If they are too thin you get a whole lot of staves just cracking.

I remember I once bought a big batch of casks that came from Algiers that had been used by the French people producing wine in north Africa and those staves were very strong! They didn’t crack, they were great thick staves, wonderful. We used them to mature grain whisky.

Mediterranean oak is not very straight grained wood, and the staves are inclined to crack. French oak is not too bad, you can get some quite good cognac casks but that’s not really used. I kept some malt whisky in good quality oak cognac casks as an experiment, with excellent results.

You can produce good whisky out of Portuguese oak but most of the port that comes into the country is in chestnut and only occasionally oak. We also matured some whisky in oak Port Pipes with very good results. They’re an unwieldy cask! They’re long with quite a curvature on them and can hold 120 gallons!
Nowadays we have casks made and seasoned for us in Spain. We’re able to specify stave length, thickness of wood, everything.

LFW: For how long are they seasoned?

About three or four years. It’s quite expensive; we’re paying for casks in June this year so that they can be made and filled with sherry. The ones we’ve just got in from 1991 are excellent.

LFW: How do you avoid conflict with distillery owners of the whiskies that you market?

We’ve been in the bottled malt whisky business longer than most of the distillers, with perhaps a couple of exceptions. Our relationships with a number of the distillers go back many years and we work hard to maintain these good relationships. It is appreciated that there is room for all of us in the market place, particularly as we are able to do some of the things that large companies are unable to do. We are able to offer much older vintages, for example. Way back in the fifties and sixties, far less the forties, no distiller had an interest in keeping back whiskies.

LFW: How’s progress on the re-furbishment of Benromach Distillery?

We are working slowly; its always been a long term project. We’ve got some equipment in and the contractors are working there now. Production will start probably next year. We’re putting in small stills with a view to producing a typical, classic, Speyside whisky. We want a Speyside whisky because that is where we came from originally. That is the Gordon & MacPhail style.

LFW: How do you view the whisky industry of today?

We’re quite lucky that at the moment malt whisky seems to be well received. There’s a lot of interest all around the world. The demand for malt whisky has never been greater and it’s good that many companies bottle at varying ages and strengths. I am concerned that some of these companies are bottling whiskies at very young ages and often these whiskies are not at their best.

It is sad to see so much control of the industry being exercised by companies who have head offices outside Scotland. This means fewer jobs in Scotland and less of a Scottish influence on Scotch whisky.

LFW: And the whisky business of the future?

Bottled malt whisky represents less than 10% of the total Scotch whisky industry and I hope that sales will reach 10% by the year 2000. Sales of blended whisky have been under pressure but it’s pleasing that export sales at least are improving.

But you will really have to talk to the next generation about the future.

LFW: Thank you, we will.