All language subtitles for Scotch The Story of Whisky BBC 1of3 1080p_ENG_Subtitles01

This is the story of whisky,

and I start it right here,
in the heart of Tokyo.

Around these streets are bars
crammed with people

imbibing the amber liquid.

It will be a fascinating journey,

so come with me as I tell the story
of Scotland's gift to the world.

I'm going on a pilgrimage to
find out why such a simple drink

has come to mean so much.

Hi, my name is Jim,
I'm from Scotland.

From the makers to the marketeers,

and the chemists
to the cocktail makers,

and from the Highlands
to Hobart in Tasmania.

I'll be meeting the people and
travelling to the places immersed

in Scottish whisky's world story.

This is the tale of an ancient craft
that became a global colossus.

It is the tale of Scotch.

Isn't it grand that
this stuff's made in Scotland?

Aye, but that's gey true.

The one country that has given its
name unchallengeably to a product

that is known and accepted in every
corner of the world, Scotch -

enjoyed by all peoples
on all occasions.

For half a millennium,

Scotch whisky has been made by
the fermenting and distilling

of water and barley.

The spirit these ingredients conjure
up is then filtered into oak casks

and left to mature.

It is a raw, simple recipe,

and yet the result is a drink
loved by millions of people

across the planet.

The nature of distillation is that
distillers use what grow around
them.

If you're in France,
you use grapes to make brandy.

If you're in Mexico, you use agave
to make mescal or tequila.

If you're in the Caribbean,
you use cane to make rum.

In Scotland, Scotland's geology
means we grow barley.

So immediately you're talking about
distillers having a sense of place

and a sense of location.

And their spirits are embedded
within the ground and soil,

and I would also argue
the culture of that place.

In simple terms
it is distilled beer.

And, you know, made from good
Scottish barley, normally,

and nice, good water.

This is Scotland
as seen through whisky.

Each light represents one of
Scotland's 118 working distilleries.

Each twinkle is where the alchemy
happens and whisky is born.

By tradition, there are
five main whisky regions -

Highland, Speyside,

Islay, Campbeltown and Lowland.

Most of these distilleries produce
malt whisky made from barley.

Some of it is drunk
as single Scotch,

but most of it goes
into blended whisky.

And just as vital for blends
is grain whisky,

produced in seven distilleries
across Scotland.

And when you view
all of it together,

from this perspective
it is truly breathtaking.

A tiny country on the fringes
of north-western Europe

produces an amber liquid
that spreads around the world.

No wonder Scotland regards itself
as the home of whisky.

It can feel as if
that status is under threat

from a number of
pretenders to the throne.

Fellow whisky giants
like Japan and America are chasing

Scotland's crown. Scottish
distilleries are being bought up

by multinational companies.

And there is an energetic
craft whisky movement,

with fresh methods of production.

Scotch is at a crossroads.

No pretender, though, will ever have
Scotch whisky's greatest advantage -

the way it is interlaced with
the identity of an entire nation.

The production of whisky is sort of
woven into the texture and fabric

of the nation,
from Lowlands to Highlands.

You don't go too far
without being touched by whisky

in one respect or another.
Its footprint covers the nation.

It's a bit like in Canada people
talk about the Mounties are, you
know,

part of Canadian fabric, and the
maple leaf and things like that.

You have these symbols that
represent a country,

and I have to say if ever there was
a symbol that represented a country,

Scotch whisky has got to take
the top honours.

Passion, I think, is the one word,

if somebody said, "How would you
describe, define Scotch?"

Passion. And that's from the people
who create it to the people

who drink it, to the people
who market it and package it.

Passion is always
at the heart of Scotch.

The writer Charlie MacLean described
it as the blood of one small nation.

This is a drink
of heartfelt sentiment,

and a character trait
of Scotland itself.

Yet the dram reaches our lips
via a colossal global industry.

In whisky there is money,
vast amounts of it.

And down the years,
multinational companies,

some from outside
of Scotland and the UK,

have bought up Scotland's
whisky distilleries.

The largest is Diageo,
a British company, which owns 28.

Chivas Brothers,
a French company, own 15,

largely concentrated
around Speyside.

And in fact, France is still the
largest consumer of Scotch whisky

in the world.

Bacardi has another five.

Beam Suntory, a Japanese company,
has five,

as do Thai and
Philippine corporations.

Large-scale Scottish ownership
is sadly rare.

William Grant has five distilleries,
Edrington four.

And right across Scotland you have
the independents like Springbank

and Campbeltown,
or the new craft distilleries

which are part of
a burgeoning scene.

But there's also a sadness in the
fact that whisky has moved so far

from its homely origins, and that
only a fraction of the vast wealth

it creates stays
within these shores.

This is so much more than a drink -

it's an industry, it's a brand.

This is Stirling,
the ancient capital of Scotland,

and looking east from here
towards Alloa,

lying between us
is another capital.

It is the capital of the biggest
manufacturer of spirits in the
world.

And it's also the biggest
manufacturer of Scotch whisky,

and it's owned by Diageo,
and it is, in effect, an empire.

Diageo's Blackgrange warehouse site
stretches out over 250 acres,

and has the capacity to store
over 3 million casks of whisky.

There are ten miles of roadway here,

and Blackgrange even has
its own fire brigade.

It is just one portion of
this £50 billion drinks company.

When you think about the whisky
industry, it's something

that had very humble origins,

in a little croft somewhere in a
misty glen in the Highlands

or the islands of Scotland,
hundreds of years ago.

When you cut to today,
there is a massive,

multi-billion pound enterprise
that spans the world.

And, even here in Diageo's
warehouse and cooperage,

it's like a small town
in its own right.

And Diageo is running an empire.

Well, I think empire
is probably a key word,

because the growth of Scotch
really went in parallel

with two or three things.

The first was the growth
of the British Empire,

the colonial economy,

Scotsmen travelling all over the
world taking a thirst and a love

for whisky with them,

which is really what promoted
the earliest exports

in the 1850s and 1860s.

And then from the Empire you have
the growth of global economies,

and Scotch whisky, whether people
like it or not, is a global drink.

It's Scotland's gift of the world.

And it was...

That's a lovely way of putting it.
It is, isn't it? It is our gift of
the world, yes.

It's absolutely true. And along with
that went, I think, another gift

from Scotland, which was in the
late 19th and early 20th century,

astonishing visionary
entrepreneurship.

You know, the people like the
Ballantines and the Chivas brothers,

and the Johnnie Walkers
and the Dewars,

these guys who took this crofting
thing, this wonderful drink,

and had the vision to turn it
into something on an absolutely

global scale. Which meant
inventing things like...

What you're seeing today was
invented about 100 years ago -

the logistics on a huge scale
that people never thought of doing.

The fundamentals are still the same.

Absolutely the same.
And the process has been refined.

Yeah. The process has been refined,

but the thing about
these early entrepreneurs,

which actually is what you've
been seeing as well today -

they were obsessed by quality.

They were obsessed by quality
and obsessed by consistency.

So how you make your stills,
how you make your barrels,

how you put your blends together,

is what's going to give you the
drink that will conquer the world.

And that's what they wanted to do
then, and that's what we do now,

we just do it at this huge scale.

I think that the big companies
actually drive a lot of quality,

and I've got a lot of respect
for that, actually.

I think it is a really good,
powerful thing.

I mean, ultimately, these smaller
distilleries wouldn't be starting up

here in Scotland if it wasn't for
all the efforts that the big boys

have put into creating great
products that go around the world

telling everybody about
what we do in Scotland.

Working with smaller companies,
family-owned companies,

the few that are left, they can
typically make faster decisions,

they can make
more decisive decisions.

They're not as committee-bound.

But they don't have the depth
of resources that perhaps

the multinationals do, they don't
have the global distribution reach,

they don't have the power of a
bigger portfolio of spirits

that helps those multinationals
in trade negotiations

with the trade
right round the world.

Whether small distillery
or industrial titan,

whisky is underpinned
by traditional craft skills.

Whisky production will
always need human hands.

Despite its own size, Diageo
seem to know this homely truth,

as I found in visits to their
coppersmiths and then cooperage.

Charlie, where are we going now?

So this is the copper shop where we
fabricate all the copper stills.

We obviously have to keep it
separate from the other metals

that we are fabricating in, so we
don't get cross-contamination

of the different materials.

They're beautiful beasts,
aren't they?

I love them. I love the way the
light catches them,

you know, the burnished copper.

They actually look like
sculptures in copper.

They do. They are like works of art.

There are different shapes,
different shapes for different
distilleries.

Yes.

So these are made to order?

Yes, these are for Mannochmore.

And if we went back, I'll have the
original engineering drawings for
these.

So we don't have to
design ourselves,

we just replicate exactly what
they've got in the distillery.

You have to touch it, don't you?

It feels alive, it really does,
and hear the echo.

Most of this is done by hand?

All of the important parts
are done by hand, yes.

The shape of the still is
probably the most critical part

in the whisky-making process.

What happens is,

as the spirit vapours run up,

more and more of them will condense
on the side of the still.

They'll run back down into liquid,
and be re-distilled.

And the more times that happens,

the lighter the character
of the whisky you will get.

And that will ultimately affect
the final flavour of the whisky?

The character of the whisky, yes.

Fittingly, for a drink
steeped in mythology,

there seems to be little
agreement about what exactly

makes whisky's flavour.

You cannot make whisky
unless you use copper.

You would say that.
No, no, the scientists,

the clever people
have tried, not me.

They have tried in the past -
it's got to be copper.

Tell me, how much do you think the
copper influences the final taste of
the whisky?

Absolutely. You can put it in
barrels to get flavour
enhancement...

What do you mean you CAN put it
in barrels? You have to put it in
barrels.

You can do it in different types of
barrels to get flavour enhancements.

But copper's the most important part
of the whisky-making process.

That determines the character
of your whisky.

You're a hard man
to argue with, Charlie.

By law, all Scotch whiskies for
the home market have to mature

for at least three years,

and the casks in which they are
stored are all-important.

Used sherry casks made of stout
Spanish oak have a special place

in the Scotch whisky industry.

Tom, what are these guys doing?

Well, what they are doing here,
David... These are actually

ex-wine casks that have been
broken down and palletised.

So basically they've been used
in the wine industry.

What the guys are doing is taking
them off the pallets and putting

them onto the barrows there. And
typically we'll rise that cask.

So you can see from
that stave there,

that's actually been
a red wine cask.

So what we'll do with that is,
through the process,

we will re-fire that cask
and put a nice char on that cask.

That's exactly what
we are looking for.

The cask is the most important thing
for the whisky industry.

That's where the whisky is matured,

that's where it gets its flavour
and its colour from.

It's very important
to the whisky industry.

Now, you see, the copper workers
where they make the stills

would disagree with you.
I agree with you -

I think it's the cask that gives you
the predominant taste in the whisky.

Yeah. I mean, the coppersmiths play
a very important part, you know,

for distinctive distilleries
in getting the flavour as well.

But, for me, the important part is
really the cask and how it goes
through

the maturation process in the
warehouses, so it's very important
for us.

What puts the flavour into whisky
are a lot of things, sometimes you

easily say that it's around
60%, 70% of the flavour

comes from the barrel,
from the maturation, from the oak.

It could very well be that the thing
with producing malt whisky

is that we really don't know exactly
where the flavour comes from.

It probably comes from
the barley as well.

Least of all it comes from the
water, I can probably say that.

We used to notice,
when we were nosing the whisky,

that if a man came on shift

and he had a fight with his wife
before he came on shift,

his attitude to distilling was very
different if he'd just come out

having given her a
nice kiss before he left.

It was a completely
different approach -

a loving approach on the one hand,
and a hateful approach on the other.

And the whisky definitely,

you know, reflected
that kind of attitude.

You know, people who
know their craft,

they know when the spirit is right.

They know when those casks are able
to be reused or if they should

have a stave changed.

There's these little bits
that are, you know...

Science is hugely important
to it and we can't deny that,

but humans and our impact on it and
how each person makes their whisky

in their own way,
or each distillery does,

is still very important, I think.

And that adds the slight magic
to it as well.

I'm an advocate of the magicry.

But behind all the magicry,
there is a logic and a science.

But it is more about feeling
and understanding the whisky,

and understanding the DNA
of the whisky.

We actually... For almost
every cask we have,

we have got a fingerprint
of how it's been developing

over the last...whatever -

eight, nine, ten years.

Casks... Typically, a cask will
last in excess of 100 years.

So casks will come in here,
we'll rejuvenate the cask,

and we might not see it again
for 25 or 30 years.

Then it will come back again
and we can rejuvenate it again.

And it goes on like that.

OK, David, so this, as you can see,

this is a cask that's been
through the charring process.

You can see the nice char
we've got inside the cask -

that's exactly what
we're looking for,

a good uniformed char.

The edge is really blackened,
isn't it?

Yes, it's really black.
Do you scrape that?

That's it finished,
that's it ready for filling now,

that's exactly what
we're looking for.

So you'll put the liquor
straight into that barrel now?

Yes, absolutely, yes.

Since this has been in the furnace
there, the internal flames,

it hasn't been touched?

It's only been sprayed with water
to cool it down, and that's it?

Yes, that's it.

What we'll do now is we'll put
the cask ends back in the cask,

retighten the hoops and off
it'll go and that will be filled

in the filling store today,

and be back in the warehouses,
if not tonight, tomorrow.

And it will lie there for another
five, six, whatever years.

And this all ends up
in my single malt whisky?

That's it, yeah. That's how you
can sit back and enjoy it.

No wonder I like burnt toast!

This is Paul.

Paul's a third year apprentice.

And this is John, John's his tutor.

This is David.

Coopering isn't for everyone.

Obviously, a laddie who's got a good
bit of strength about him helps.

If you're a good build
laddie it helps,

but when I started I was
tiny, I was a wee skinny thing.

That's what your apprenticeship's
all about, for the four years it
helps build up your core,

your body strength to become...
The end result is a cooper.

It's not something that happens
overnight, as I say, four years.

That's it been cut back, it used
to be a lot longer, five years,
seven years.

When my grandfather was a cooper
it was seven, sometimes nine.

So...

Surely that was just an excuse
not to pay them a full wage?

Maybe! Rather than taking seven
or eight years to train.

A lot of the system
was changed by machines,

so a lot of the hand work
was taken out of it.

What we're left with now
is just the core.

This is something that
they really need to learn.

Basically, if they were wanting
to go anywhere in the world

they would be
employable anywhere.

They could make a barrel
anywhere, not just in Diageo.

Like many whisky companies,
Diageo is a member of

the Scotch Whisky Association,
or SWA.

Based in Edinburgh, the SWA seeks
to give the industry a unified,

global voice.

We do lots of things, but we do
two things in particular.

First of all we try
and chase down fake,

fraudulent Scotch whisky
round the world,

we have a team of legal advisers
who help us do that.

And second we help get Scotch
whisky into markets overseas,

we work to influence other
governments to take down barriers

so that there is fair competition
for our product around the world.

According to the SWA,

each year the Scotch whisky industry
adds £5 billion of value

to the UK economy.

Vital to Scotch whisky
is the export market -

this drink now reaches
175 countries.

Over 1 billion bottles of Scotch
whisky are exported annually,

at a value of around £4 billion.

It also contributes £1 billion
to the UK Exchequer,

with an average bottle taxed at a
rate of 76% in VAT and excise duty.

Whisky and tax have
long gang thegither.

The mother of parliaments, its
tentacles spread across the land,

ensnaring all in their wake.

They always have.

And in the century after the
Act Of Union, this place

grappled hard with
the whisky industry.

What Westminster wanted to
do was to curb excessive drinking,

while at the same time
reap the revenues from whisky sales.

Throughout the 18th century,
Westminster churned out legislation

that entangled distilleries
large and small.

Therefore, Islay, Campbeltown
and Speyside...

The whisky making went underground

so the amber nectar became
moonshine,

and Scotland's
illicit stills flourished.

While the taxed industry ploughed
on, the moonshiners thrived.

Hidden from view and hard to reach
for the dreaded excise man,

illicit distillers
perfected their craft.

Theirs became the whisky
drunk not only by crofters,

peasants and the urban poor,
but by the aristocracy too.

The illicit whisky was seen
as the true quality.

So it was asked for

on King George IV's
visit of Scotland,

1822.

Sir Walter Scott very
carefully stage-managed,

the King asked for a drop of the
real Glenlivet, long in the wood,

and long in uncorked bottles.

So, you know, street cred
was pretty good -

he was asking for Glenlivet.

And from that, the reform of the
distilling acts were speeded up

by the landed gentry who wanted to
see an end to the illicit
distilling,

but saw that there was a way of
improving their estates, etc.

And controlling it, of course.

In the 1820s, law changes eased
conditions and taxation

and turned the old centres of
illicit distilling into booming,

legitimate whisky areas.

Among them, Campbeltown flourished.

This is Campbeltown.
It was once Whisky Mecca,

for in its heyday
it had 34 distilleries.

Sadly, today, there are only three.

Up every alleyway was a portal
to another distillery.

The air must have hung
like a strange perfume,

heady, intoxicating,
delightful.

You can almost sense the ghosts
of distilleries past.

"Campbeltown Loch,
I wish you were whisky,"

were the words of an old
music hall song,

and it might just as well have been,

because this bay would have
swarmed with ships ready to take

the liquid delights from Campbeltown
out across the oceans

to the rest of the world.

Campbeltown thrived thanks to its
deep natural harbour,

rich raw materials and
ready access to the ocean

and, therefore, export markets.

In Victorian times it was nicknamed
the Whisky Metropolis.

Then after World War I, a dreadful
combination of factors

all but ended whisky making here.

This is the shell of one of the 34
distilleries that used to exist

in Campbeltown.

The ghosts of whisky past.

The only spirits that are here now
are the spirits of the whisky makers

of bygone days.

God, I bet these stones
could tell a tale or two.

Campbeltown had produced too much
whisky, much of it low in quality,

at a time when consumption levels
were falling.

What's more, natural resources
were running low,

and the railways that helped roll
Highland and Speyside whisky

out to the markets
never arrived here.

It's time to find an antidote to
that tale of woe, a place where

the best of Campbeltown remains
well and truly alive.

This is Springbank distillery
in the heart of Campbeltown

and it's a very unique place
I've always wanted to visit.

For a start it's been owned
by the same whisky family

for over 200 years.
And also, every single part

of the whisky making process,

from the malting, the distilling,

the maturing and the bottling
is all done on site,

and I'm going to witness
the whole process.

Springbank is at the centre
of the community here

and employs more than 70 locals.

Today I'm joining them,
having enrolled in one of

their whisky schools under
the capable guidance of Kerry,

who has worked her way up
from shop floor to distiller.

Kerry, how long has this been
soaking?

This has been soaking for two days,

12 hours at a time.

So the first time
we'll soak it for 12 hours,

we'll leave it to dry
for 12 hours.

Leave it to dry in here in the tank?

Yeah. And then we'll re-fill it
with water for 12 hours,

and then again dry for 12 before
it's laid out onto the floor.

Tip it up.

Starch in the barley
has been modified

so that later in the process,
it will become sugar.

The new barley is wet and warm.

In three days,
some whiskery roots appear.

After seven days it's almost
ready for the drying.

As the barley dries, it is regularly
turned to help its germination.

You'll see it actually lifting from
the bottom and throwing it over,

so it's turning.

We've been making whiskies,
most of us, for a long time.

So, yeah,

it's part of our rhythm of life.

The year goes round, a distilling
year, very much like a farming year,

which we are connected to. The crops
are being put in just now,

we'll be watching the progress
of the barley throughout Scotland

for the next few months,
we'll watch the harvest, etc,

and, yes, it's just...

I live in a village where there are
ten distilleries so I can't help

but bump into folk that are
involved in distilleries.

Being a student of whisky made me
realise the amount of hard toil

that goes into distilling when
it's undertaken traditionally,

as it is here at Springbank.

You earn your dram.

This is quite steep.

Oh! You can smell it,
you can smell the peat,

the smell of smoke.

So this is the first half
we put away this morning.

This is the second half
just dropping in now.

So what you've seen from above,
this is where it's dropping into.

That's coming off
the conveyor belt upstairs?

Exactly. And dropping in, yeah.

A conveyor belts transports
the barley into a kiln,

where it is either dried
or smoked with peat,

depending on the type
of whisky being made.

I'm very biased, I have to say,
I would like to see, as there are,

more individual distilleries opening
up because each individual
distillery

has to find a market
for its whisky,

as in its single malt whisky.

If the majority of what you make
is going off to be blended,

which is a very big market,

it's something which means
you're making more and more,

rather than you're watching
what you're making.

So small, independent distilleries,

like ourselves and a few others...

The quality of what they're
going to put their label on

is very important to them.

If they become too big
then it starts to become

the quantity they can sell,

and I think that's something which
makes the difference between

a corporate with lots of
shareholders to fund

and something like Springbank.

As we're making a batch of peaty
whisky, it's time to light the fire.

I'm just about to set Springbank
distillery on fire.

It's this peat reek,
an essential part of the process

which helps to give the
malt whiskies their individuality.

The dried malt is stored
ready for use. A grinding mill,

the first of many modern machines
in today's process,

replaces the two flat stones
used by our great-grandfathers.

The malt is reduced to grist -

coarse, medium and fine.

Next, Springbank veteran Gavin takes
me to the Porteous rolling mill,

where the peat smoked barley
is ground down to become grist.

It's easier for the water...

Then a process called
mashing takes place.

In a mash tun, the grist is mixed
with hot water to change its starch

into fermentable sugars.

Oh, there's life going on
in there, isn't there?

The sugary liquid produced, called
wort, is then put into wash bags.

Yeast is added
and fermentation begins,

resulting in a beer-like
liquid known as wash,

of around 8% to 10% ABV.

It'll go around, eating up all the
sugars, converting it into alcohol.

You know, the whole thing's live,
that's an organic process going on,

gurgling and bubbling.

It's quite ferocious,
more powerful than I thought.

Get the vapours from that, eh?
I'm really getting the vapour.

Clears the sinuses.

This wash is transferred
into copper stills,

heated and then distilled twice
to create clear, new make spirit.

There must be some heat in there.

Springbank has a wonderful
old-fashioned atmosphere,

and traditional way of doing things,

even down to the warning bell
that tells the workers

that everything is running to plan.

Hazelburn's one, two, three.

But the Springbank's
at one, two and a half.

The distiller must be able to judge
exactly which part of the spirit

from the second distillation
is to be retained as new make,

checking on its progress as it
runs through the spirit safe.

Now, do you do it...

When you know when the middle part
is ready, do you do it by taste,

or by smell, or by sight?

It's all done by temperature...

as well, when it's coming in.

You'll know as well -
it will be cloudy to start

when they're checking the glasses.

And then when you go on to clear
spirits, the first 45 minutes

is bad, as you call it,
that's all your bad spirit.

We don't take that.
Will you recycle that?

Yeah, that goes back
in to the pipes.

As we're Scottish,
we don't waste anything.

Everything gets reused
right down to 1%.

It's very simple, it had to be
simple for our great-grandfathers,

being distillers etc, or being
involved in distilling.

My family, they were farmers, and
the distilling was the other bit.

It was simple - they brewed a beer,
they distilled it.

Quality was simple.

Does it smell OK?

Does it taste OK?

Do we shake the bubbles?

Is the bubbles OK?

That was their early
quality control.

We're getting near the end
of the process, Gavin.

The cask will sit here, you lift
this up, it's like a petrol pump.

When the spirit hits the bottom
of the nozzle, it cuts out,

and it records on the meter there

how many litres
is going in the cask.

And then from here it is
taken to the warehouse

and stored for maturation.

We had a man who always was
responsible, in the filling store,

of emptying down all the pipes
once we'd filled all the casks.

There was always a remnant,

and he had to take this remnant
and put it into a remnant cask.

And he had to take it into a bucket
and then fill it in a funnel,

into the cask.

And one day, the customs
and excise officer,

who was permanently present,

came in to the filling store to
check that everything was OK

and this man,
I won't mention his name,

was taking a sip from a bucket...

..of the new spirit.

And the handle of the bucket
went over his head,

and when the customs man came in,
he was like this,

trying to shake it off, you know.

So these stories happened.

Yeah, we had excisemen who knew
where the good whisky was,

and helped themselves
from time to time.

It was all very...

It was just accepted
as part and parcel of the job.

Once the new make has
been filtered into oak casks,

it is left to mature
for three years and a day,

only after which can it
legally be called whisky.

Single malts like Springbank though,

are usually matured
for at least a decade

and often much longer.

I never knew it was that easy
to break open a cask of whisky.

Slainte.

A lovely drop to sample.

But drinking in any distillery's
working area is now a rarity.

For many years though, distillery
workers regularly drank on the job.

It felt like they needed to.

They might well be on shift, if they
were working in the maltings,

at four or five in the morning.

And the brewer, the number two
manager in the distillery,

would pour new make, or white,
or cleric, as it's known,

and the boys would take off
a good measure of that

and then they'd have some
later in the day.

But you've got to remember,
this was very hard, physical work.

Changing a malting floor,
rolling a barrel,

moving casks of whisky
into a warehouse

is hard, dirty, physical work.

I wouldn't care to do it.

If I had to do it,
I'm sure a dram or three

would definitely be called for.

I think the alcoholism
was almost deliberate,

because it kept people
from asking for proper wages

and it kept people tied to a place.

I think they're very strict about
people drinking now,

in the distillery, but I think
also they pay them better.

If you look at a lot of these jobs,

they were not necessarily jobs that
required highly educated workers.

Although they needed a good skill,
they weren't necessarily highly
educated,

so if you didn't have to
pay them very much,

if you paid them in alcohol...
Because in the '50s and '60s

alcohol was very expensive -
people couldn't afford...

Normal people couldn't afford
whisky every couple of weeks

or every month, so it was
a way of keeping them.

So although I'm sure the stories
are, "It was really fun,"

I do think it was really fun

cos that was how you got
through those circumstances.

Whereas now it's a job
that you get paid a good wage for.

If you can't afford to buy the
single malt that you're making,

then you're going to
help yourself to it a wee bit,

you know.

They were doing it for sport,

for a bit of fun, but also because
it is that natural, innate rebellion

that we all have.

A distillery worker that I knew
who's since retired,

he told me that when he started
in the distillery in question

he had gone to listen to the radio,
and the radio wasn't working

so he got another radio
and it wasn't working.

And he went around the entire site
and he couldn't get any

radios working, and he realised
that none of them had an aerial.

And he found out the reason none of
them have an aerial was cos

they'd all been broken off cos
they were getting used as straws

for dramming from the casks.

These days, on-site drinking
is usually confined

to visits and open days,

a core part of many a
distillery's business model.

Springbank's open day
takes place once a year,

and is attended by people
from across the world.

I am attending Springbank
whisky school, which is great.

And have you learned much from it?

Yes, I thought there was not too
much they could tell me, but, yes,

I've learned a lot from it.

Coming to Scotland in 1992,
I was just over the age

where I was allowed to drink, and I
didn't have much money so I visited

four distilleries, because
at this time it was free.

Today, it's a big business, but at
this time it was free, it was
marketing.

So I visited four distilleries,
got four great drams,

so every time was saying,
"Why are these drams different?"

And that got me into wanting
to know more about whisky.

It's my 18th time
coming to Scotland now.

18th? Yes.

I'm also coming for other reasons,
for the people, for the landscape,

for everything, but whisky is still
the main reason for me to come here.

The distillery's family-owned, and
has been since it opened in 1828.

The present chairman
is of the impression

he now should be putting that
back to Campbeltown,

because his family have had
this distillery for so long.

And it's the people of Campbeltown
that did the work, made the whisky,

which made the place famous.

So he now decides,

or wants to have a company which
puts money back to the community,
provides jobs.

It would be so much easier
to bring barley in ready-malted,

but then that would lose people
jobs, so we still do all that

by hand, by ourselves.
We bottle the stuff here -

if we did it by sending it out to
Glasgow, that's another 17 jobs.

It's very labour-intensive, but then
it's also what makes us Springbank.

And I think that's why there's a
feeling of pride in what we do,

cos everybody employed is a
custodian for the next generation

that is going to come along.
And if we expand, it's more jobs.

We're certainly not going to
modernise and mechanise things.

Springbank is special -

it is as close as Scottish
distilleries get to the original
model.

The place is rooted
in the local community,

something that shows in the merry
band of workers who get the whisky

into bottles and finally to market.

That's you, you've bottled
four Springbank bottles.

Even if you hold it up that way,
even if there was a blemish

on the back,
you can see it right through.

Did I put two labels on?

Did anyone notice?

Don't tell anybody, will you?

My secret's safe with you.

Thank you.

That's the best birthday present
I've ever had, honest.

The Highland malt whiskies used in
any Scotch blend of real consequence

must each be aged in oak.

Scotch in the bottle
will never improve.

There is another magic secret
in the creation

of an outstanding Scotch blend,
and that is that there must be

a combination of many individual
distillates if there is to be

a well-rounded, tasteful,
distinctive Scotch of best quality.

While Springbank thrives
on its single malts alone,

the strength of the whiskies
industry has, in fact,

long been built on the back
of blended whiskies.

A blended whisky contains many
single malts and, just as crucially,

grain whisky.

It was a technological development
in the distilling of grain

that changed Scotch whisky for ever.

Though makers had long
blended their wares,

mass production of blends
became possible after 1830.

That year an Irishman,
Aeneas Coffey,

refined a Scottish invention,
the continuous still.

His development, creating what is
now known as the Coffey still,

meant grain whisky could be made on
an enormous scale, and at low cost.

From the 1850s it was mixed with
single malts to create blends

and trailblazing Scots
peddled them across the world.

So you had a generation of Scots
entrepreneurs who grabbed these

technological changes, who looked at
the evolution in the marketplace,

who looked at the legislative
changes and said,

"We can come up with a product that
fits better in the marketplace."

And so the DNA of the great blends
goes back to those days.

So there was a Mr Buchanan,
there was a Mr Hague,

there was a Mr Walker,
there was a Mr Dewar.

And so a Dewar's blend today,
a Walker's blend today,

has its roots in what Mr Dewar
or Mr Walker did, historically,

in the mid and late 19th century.

So Walker, for example, always had
at its heart west coast whiskies.

Dewar's blend always had
Perthshire whiskies at its heart.

Going from the background of having
licensed grocers that blended tea,

so had this ability to take
different flavours

and characteristics
and blend them together

and then started blending whisky,

and then you begin getting these
individuals that start, really,

travelling the world extensively
and selling our wares

and going out there as pioneers.

You know, there's a number
of well-known brands, nowadays,

which are blends that
all carry people's names.

And to be able to tell to
international visitors when they
come in,

"This is not a name that we made
up," that some marketing agency

10 or 20 years ago thought, "That
sounds like a great Scottish name.

"That sounds like a nice picture,
let's put that."

It's true. It's genuine,
authentic heritage,

and these are the people
that made the blends,

these and their families and their
ancestors were the people that took

them to market, that were these
pioneers that in some cases

where these eccentric characters.

That, I think, is one of the
cornerstones of Scotch whisky

which makes it so successful
in terms of its competition,

is that it has this real
authenticity behind it

in these huge international brands.

The ingenuity of these blend
pioneers met with a vital piece

of good fortune for
Scottish whisky when, in 1871,

the phylloxera virus
destroyed French vineyards.

With the vineyards destroyed, little
or no brandy could be produced,

and so whisky, which up until then

had been the drink very much
more of the working man,

was allowed to move into that space
in the market that had hitherto

been taken by brandy

which was the drink of the middle
and upper classes,

who would not have touched whisky.

But along came branding
to make it more acceptable,

blending to make the product
more palatable,

patriotism to make it
an acceptable thing to drink,

and a shortage of supply of brandy.

The most popular middle-class drink
in London at the time

is brandy and soda.

All of a sudden you've got Scots
and the Irish going,

"Hello, we can actually
do that as well, you know."

And they reformulate the blends to
make sure it does go

with soda or ginger ale or whatever.

All of a sudden
you've got popularity,

you've got middle-class
respectability.

That's the way any drink is built -

as long as you've got a middle-class
behind you, you're going to be fine.

With the vineyards barren
for another 25 years,

Scotch whisky now only had
one rival competitor - Ireland.

Prohibition in the USA
became a victory for Scotland.

Various bootleggers head across to
Ireland and knock on the door

of Mr Jamieson, Mr Roe,
Mr Power and they go,

"Listen guys, ship the stuff to
Canada or to Bermuda or wherever.

"My friend Mr Capone here,
you can trust him,

"he will ship it in for you.

"You will have done nothing illegal.

"All you'll have done is shipping
to somewhere where booze is legal."

The Irish distillers, to a man,
said, "Be gone with you."

They then moved from Ireland across
to London, and up to Glasgow,

to all the blending houses
and said exactly the same spiel.

"So how much exactly do you want?"

Increasingly, Scottish blends
were made for American tastes,

lighter and suited
to being drunk with a mixer.

One such blend was Cutty Sark,

created in 1923 and now made
alongside Famous Grouse

by Edrington
in Glasgow's Drumchapel.

This is Drumchapel, where I spent
ten years growing up as a boy,

and in contrast to the tenements
of the East End of Glasgow,

it was a paradise, but now it is
home to Famous Grouse whisky,

and it's changed a lot
in those years.

Now, I often think that the magic
and the mystery of whisky is in

the soil, in the barley and in the
water and in the hands that make it,

but actually there is a very
profound science behind

the making of the drams
we know and love,

and when I tell you that 90% of the
whiskies we export around the world

are blended whiskies, then you'll
understand the need for that
science.

And I'm about to look into it.

Kirsteen Campbell is master blender
for Famous Grouse and Cutty Sark.

Kirsteen, you're a noser
and a spitter -

what a hell of a way
to make a living.

Well, yeah, I guess it is.

We are referred to
as nosers within the industry,

and the majority of my work
is done by nosing.

But you're quite right, we do on
occasion have to taste the whiskies,

but when you're looking at
up to 600 samples a day,

you couldn't possibly
taste them all, so that's where

the elegant spitting comes in.

600 a day!
So you spit into a bucket?

Yes, we do, we do, but it's really
just at the final stage

where I tend to taste the whiskies,
or if I'm developing new ones.

Otherwise it's all done by nose.

So the nose is really important?

Absolutely, yes, yes.

So tell me the process you go
through, because I'm a single malt
man,

I live and die by single malts,

and I think blended whisky's
for boiling your tatties in.

I know, you see,
that's sacrilege to you.

So convince me
of the beauty of blends.

You know, you need to be open about
blending, rejoice in blending.

It's a creative process,

it's not just a matter of taking
this distillery and that distillery

and some grain whisky, bunging it
together and you're going to get

the same end result,
because distilleries open,

distilleries close, and companies
fall out and stock supplies are...

You might have a surplus,
you might have a scarcity.

And each cask is
going to be different,

so what a master blender does
is actually look at all

of the possibilities that they have
in front of them,

and tweak that recipe.

So they might have a recipe, but it
will be tweaked every single time

a vatting is going to be made.

There might be a little bit more
grain, there might be a little less
of that first fill sherry,

there might be a different
distillery coming in or combinations

of different distilleries, to
produce the same overall effect.

And when you go into a blending lab
and you get that explained to you

by a blender, you kind of...
Your head kind of explodes.

How do you keep all
this information,

you know, within your brain?

How do you learn all of that?

How do you know that this whisky
and this whisky and this whisky,

when combined,
will give that result?

I mean, that's just mental.

I hesitate to compare it with
a box of Kellogg's Cornflakes,

but when you buy a box of
Kellogg's Cornflakes,

you want it to be exactly like the
last box of Kellogg's Cornflakes

you bought, and you want the one
after that to be the same again.

So you want your bottle of
Bells or Dewars or Walker,

or whatever it may be, to be
consistent to what you as a drinker
have come to expect.

What I've got for you, David,
is really the process

from new make spirit, because my job
begins right back at the distillery
stage

where we look at the quality of the
spirit before it goes into cask.

Then we move on to the cask types
and the importance of the flavour

that develops during that important
time period during the whisky,

and then how we bring all these
complex flavours together

to produce the same flavour
of blend time in, time out.

Had you not have had blenders,
you would have had a fairly rustic,

cottage industry which would
probably have never got

to the stage it was, because a lot
of the products that were being made

in the 19th and early 20th century

were very difficult
for people to drink.

Blenders sort of democratised whisky
by making it more accessible

from a flavour point of view.

How many whiskies
would be involved in each blend?

Well, it can vary, actually,

because for our blends
we have core whiskies that we use

each and every time
we put the blend together.

Then there are other whiskies
we put into flavour categories,

and we can pick within
those flavour categories,

perhaps one or several within those.

That's why it can vary from
blend to blend, but ultimately,

the flavour of the whisky must be
the same, every bottle we put out.

That must be really
difficult to sustain.

That's part of the training
and the experience.

That's the challenge. Yes.

I am astounded by the fact that 90%
of all Scotch exports are blends.

Absolutely. I seriously am.

I mean, 90%, all over,
at home and abroad.

The numbers are huge,
and personally speaking, for me,

within Edrington and our blends,
I'm responsible for over

50 million bottles, so yeah, it's
huge numbers we're talking. Wow.

I'm a massive
blended whisky fan.

I just think that, going forward,

blended whisky is going to have to
keep up with the expectations

that consumers have, that are
being set by other products.

It hasn't quite caught up yet,

but from a production perspective
it's so enormously creative

that it absolutely will do,
it's just waiting for people

to sort of do it.

'While Kirsteen guided me through
some of the whiskies which go into

'her blends, the full list remained
tantalisingly confidential.'

So that's us covered
five new make spirits,

everything from a light grain
through to heavily peated malt.

Those are your basic ingredients.

These are some of the basic
ingredients. Some of them?

There are much more?
Yes, top secret.

These are the ones I'm
going to share with you today.

You're not going to show me
the ultimate secret?

Not all of them, I can't possibly.
Oh, away you go, come on.

Your secret is safe with me,
Kirsteen, honest.

I'm an incurable romantic and I
like to think that the production

of whisky is an organic, creative,
mystical kind of process,

but it's got a sound base
in science, hasn't it?

Especially if you're trying to
achieve the consistency of quality
and flavour in a blend.

You have to have both.

We do a lot of research, and there
is a lot of background science

into how maturation performs
and that type of thing.

But ultimately,
at the end of the day,

there isn't an instrument that's
as sensitive as the human nose,

so it requires us as blenders to be
there at that critical point

of blending the product,
to know how the flavour...

And it's a lot about how
flavours combine, as well -

a machine can't tell us that.

A master blender is the person
who sort of

marries these two positions
together, and creates the whisky.

So I think master blenders
are essential,

because they're sort of this meeting
point, they gather up everybody,

they gather up these opposing,
sometimes opposing ideas,

that are actually part of the same
process that tend to get a bit lost,

and bring them together.

I have always been
a snob in terms of whisky,

and I've always
dismissed blended whisky.

You're the first person in my life
that's convinced me otherwise.

Stop, Hayman, being a goddamn snob
in terms of the whisky you drink.

Thank you.
I'm delighted you've said that.

Across the world,

millions of us hold dear the romance
that surrounds Scotch whisky,

but as Kirsteen's work demonstrates,

this drink has long been
underpinned by science.

The making of alcohol
was first studied

at Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt
University during the early 1900s.

OK, so now for the second stage...

'I'm joining today's students
in what is now known

'as the International Centre For
Brewing And Distilling, or ICBD.'

Welcome, first year
brewers and distillers.

This is your
first kind of congregual meeting
together in one room,

and to have you make
your first whisky.

We're going to do
two distillations today -

we're going to be doing
a stripping run,

and all we're doing in the stripping
run is stripping all the alcohol
out.

So we're going to take our
raw material, our 8% ABV wash

and we're going to take
all the alcohol out

and turn it into yet
another raw material.

Have a smell and pass it around.

It's an interesting blend of
science, as well as craft,

because there are still many
mysteries in the whisky industry
we don't know about.

So there's things going on
in the still, chemical reactions,

interactions between different
chemicals inside the still,

as well as in the maturation
process in the cask.

So, I've always been a bit of a
science kind of geek, if you will.

Basically it's an interesting
combination of science,

then combined with that slight
element of mystery and craft,

that the whisky brings those two
elements, or many elements,
together.

So what's the end product of all
your work and your research?

It's to increase
the consistency of the product

without losing any of the romance.

We recently had a meeting of minds
at Holyrood, of all places,

at the Scottish Parliament, and the
SWA, the Scotch Whisky Association,

the people who look after
what is Scotch whisky.

And one of the key takeaway points
that struck a chord with me

was the fact that
there is an ageing demographic

in the distilling industry.

Here at the ICBD we specialise in
providing the young blood
for the industry.

Note that in my notebook,
fill out all the relevant,

truly exciting paperwork.

It's time to make your mind up time.

I'm going to offer you...
You've got four different options.

You've got European oak,

which is going to be
your sherry cask-alike...

'Just as a distiller must choose
which type of oak barrel to use

'for maturation,
the students are offered a selection
of wood samples.'

..all the exciting things
that help to add the other notes

around the distillate...into the
distillate we're making today.

So of all of the tools in
the distiller's armoury,

it's the distiller's nose that is
one of the most powerful tools

at their disposal.

Think about what you're
actually smelling.

'Putting the new spirit into a
makeshift glass and oak barrel

'was left to a refined,
more senior student.'

Well, a historic moment has been
had. Thank you very much for doing
the honours.

All we need to do
is put this on here,

and then commence some very fiddly,

fiddlesome screwing-on techniques,

and we have our first-ever
freshers' whisky,

ready to be opened
in three years and one day.

So thank you very much for coming
and spending the time with me,

and it's taken a little bit of work
to get everything together

all at the same time.

Thank you for sharing the
experience and I hope to be around

when you guys crack her open
and we can toast the dram together.

I'm probably too young to remember
my first whiskies,

because I think it was used for
my first teeth.

The honest answer is no, I can't.

It's lost in the mysteries of time.

The whisky was Ballantine's.

I was quite young, because my dad
used to make me hot toddies,

but he used make me hot toddies
with Macallan whisky

cos that was his favourite drink.

It's one of those weird things, to
me that was what whisky tasted like,

and I remember being at a friend's
house when I must have been

about 11 or 12, and her grandfather
deciding that I could play

with his grandchild because
my father drank good whisky.

My first taste of whisky was with
my grandmother in Inverurie,

when she gave me a little thimbleful
of Glengarry, eight years old.

This would have been in 1977

and I was only eight years old.

I think it must have been
at New Year,

because that's the only time
we ever had whisky in the house,

and I think probably my grandfather
insisted when I was 15 or 16

that I should have a wee dram
and not be put off with a sherry.

'When my journey continues,

'I'll be visiting Islay to find out
how landscape affects Scotch,

'taking the water of life
on Speyside,

'Scotland's whisky republic,

'examining the booming markets of
investment and collection,

'learning inside tales
of wealthy connoisseurs

'and revealing the marketing magic
which sells Scotch, and Scotland,

'to the world.'