SWR: So when did you become a distiller?
GC: The way I was built I always looked at distilleries and would say ‘one day I’m going to build one of these’. Which I did in 1957. I set up the North of Scotland Distilling Company in the former Knox Brewery at Cambus near Alloa. I put
in patent stills and made grain whisky, which was in very short supply at that time. I got three other directors and we all put our money into it.
I ended up making about three million gallons of whisky per year. But by the mid-’60s everybody was building extensions to their grain distilleries. North British were and DCL were, and grain works on the basis that it is relatively cheap to produce, which means that your costs are based roughly on your output. Next door to us was Carsebridge grain distillery, which could make 12 million gallons and North British was up to 15 million. So grain became tremendously competitive. I ended up selling the distillery to DCL in the early 1980s, and they closed it down. Carsebridge is also gone now, of course.
In the meantime I’d been building warehouses in Bonhill, by the Clyde. I got a 40 acre site by the river and I just tanked the spirit through from Cambus and filled it into casks there and stored it. I eventually ended up with around 200,000 casks, covering about 25 acres. If you’re going to build warehouses you might as well build big ones, and with 30- to 40,000 square feet, you could get somewhere in the region of 2,000-odd casks in there. If you were getting £4 or £5 a year in rental for a cask you were doing quite well. It was a safe business.
Alexander McGavin & Co Ltd was the parent company of the Bonhill operation and the Speyside Distillery & Bonding Company, which I set up around 1955, was quite a separate concern. We were blenders and bottlers, with Speyside being our main brand as both a blend and a vatted malt and we did contract bottling.
SWR: How did you become a malt whisky distiller?
GC: In 1955/56 I bought Old Milton House, near Kingussie, with the intention of building a distillery the way I wanted to and that’s what I did. I wanted something that was a size I could handle and not have to bother with banks and partners, and do what I wanted to do with it.
I got the house, which was a bit of a ruin, and 640 acres, including a let farm. I think they asked for £5,000, I offered £4,500, and we eventually settled on £4,250! I wanted to build my distillery where the River Tromie ran into the Spey.
The original Speyside distillery had been built in Kingussie in 1895, by the MacPherson-Grants and the eldest son of the family lived in this house. The distillery only lasted until about 1911. When we moved in, the telephone wires across to the distillery were still here. I didn’t know about the house’s connection with the old distillery when we bought it, I only found out later.
The size of the distillery was really determined by the amount of space I had. Alex Fairlie, the dry-stone dyker, began to construct the building and it was a sleeping project for a long time. It took almost 20 years from start to finish because I had other things to do—and they were making money! The first Speyside spirit flowed in December 1990.
We have one pair of stills, and probably make on average between 400,000 and 500,000 litres of spirit a year at the distillery, which is pretty close to capacity. It’s tankered away down to Speyside Distillers’ Duchess Road site in Glasgow to be filled.
SWR: Would you build a new distillery from scratch in 2004?
GC: At the moment I’d probably do what the others have been doing – look around for a distillery that has got a decent situation and is for sale fairly cheap. There is a certain amount of cache to buying an existing name, like Bruichladdich, for example. But to start from scratch and build one all you need is a lot of guts and a bit of money. I think if you were going to do it you’d be best doing it in the north, doing it on Speyside somewhere. I reckon you could probably build the place quite cheaply. All you need is four walls and a roof, and you put everything inside it. It costs money when you start buying malt and all the rest of it and it takes a big heart purely and simply because you start off not being able to sell anything.
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SWR: Who owns what?
RC: A group of friends and I acquired and changed the name of the Speyside Distillery & Bonding Company Ltd to the Speyside Distillers Company Ltd, and this company owns the site at Duchess Road in Rutherglen, Glasgow along with the brands. Duchess Road consists of cask warehousing, a bottling plant and blending operation. I’m a shareholder in the company.
GC: We own the distillery and we have a contract with the Speyside Distillers Company Ltd to continue distilling for them for another three or four years. We don’t sell to anyone else.
SWR: What are your principal products and markets?
RC: Our principal brands are: The Speyside, at ten and 12 years old; Drumguish, which is also from the distillery and is a younger single malt; and we own a variety of blends, including Scottish Prince, which is probably our best known. We also do independent bottling under the banner of Scott’s Selection and Private Cellar. These are a selection of other distillers’ makes, done at cask strength in the case of Scott’s Selection. Those are our core brands.
Our main markets for The Speyside are the USA, Europe, which is growing, and the Far East, but by far and away at this stage, North America.
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SWR: Speyside Distillers Ltd was involved a decade ago with Stephen Jupe and his Marshall Wineries company, which sold casks of whisky to investors at grossly inflated prices. Jupe was convicted earlier this year of defrauding investors and creditors. What part did Speyside play in all of this?
RC: We were approached by a filling customer, Jupe and his associates, and we treat such customers very seriously. What we don’t do is sell to people we think might end up bottling Speyside as a single malt. We said we were not allowing them the use of our trademark and they came up with the name Grandtully, which comes from an old distillery near Aberfeldy which ceased production in 1910.
We didn’t know that wild claims of financial growth from investing in casks of Grandtully were being made. Claims were made that distillers would buy back casks from investors. Why would they buy back casks they had sold unless they had a shortage? We were a new distillery and in our case there was a possibility, and we did underline only a possibility, that if our venture was successful there may be a time when we could have an interest in those casks that had been purchased.
Several other distillers also supplied them and really what they did with the casks having bought them from us was beyond our control.
As far as individuals buying casks as investments, I say to anyone who asks ‘well I’ve been in business for a long time and I haven’t been able to gallop off to the South of France and buy a boat.’ You have to be pretty close to what’s happening to do at all well.
I think people were paying about £900 a hogshead and if you took all the costs into account, they were probably worth about £500. If you were going to play devil’s advocate you could say if you want to buy 100,000 Fords from the factory at Dagenham, or you want to buy a Ford from a garage forecourt to your own specifications, would you expect to pay the same price?
If they were trying to sell a cask of Grandtully to somebody else it would be sold as ‘a single malt’. That would probably equate to the market price for somebody that’s buying it for blending. Whereas we would look at it and say ‘we call it Speyside single malt, because that’s what it is.’ I think the bottom line is that individuals should not invest in things they don’t know about.
SWR: What does the future hold for Speyside Distillers Ltd?
RC: Most immediately we have the new 12 year old expression of The Speyside, and we’re very fortunate that there is tremendous interest in single malts. It’s a growing sector in the marketplace as opposed to the relatively stagnant sector of blended Scotch whisky. We’re well placed to capitalise on that, but last year was a record one for us in Korea, it was fantastic, and the market – for everybody – is down 40 per cent this year. But then another market which has been going steadily suddenly explodes. We have explosions and we have impacts. One market will be up 11 per cent and another down 13 per cent, so it’s very difficult to plan ahead.
GC: Scotch whisky has been going on for a hell of a long time, and at the end of the day all you can do is push the product. Persuade your customer either that he’s getting the best damn whisky in the world, or you’re giving him a better price and a better back up. In our trade, who you know makes a hell of a difference too. If your agent likes you and you like him, things go remarkably smoothly. With a smaller distillery, there’s a very good living to be made and a very good reputation to be made. In my case I can honestly say it’s been a hell of a lot of fun!
SWR: What is your desert island dram?
GC: My own personal 17 year old blend. I’m basically a blender and I know about putting a good dram together. Above about 12 or 14 years old, whisky can change a lot, depending on the wood and when you get really old whiskies they are sometimes delicious and sometimes bloody awful.
RC: The Speyside. It’s easy for me to sell, because I genuinely like it. It’s a very easy single malt, it’s a malt for any time of day.
SWR: Thank you both.
