All language subtitles for Scotch The Story of Whisky BBC 2of3 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'll 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's 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.

I can't shake the feeling that
so much of what makes this drink

is what surrounds us
here in Scotland.

There is something about the
landscape, about the air itself,

some unquantifiable atmosphere that
adds its personality to our whisky.

Now, it might sound overly romantic,
but if the idea of terroir -

the effect on a product
of its place of origin -

can be applied to wine,
then why not to Scotch?

Some places in Scotland feel, to me,
like the living embodiment of this.

What a majestic welcome this
epic sweep of landscapes offers.

Over here, we have rugged, vast
Jura, with its distinctive Paps.

And over here, we have bountiful
Islay - the Queen of the Hebrides.

Below us, the waters swirling and
birling like a witch's cauldron.

Islay casts a spell on you, and
perhaps that sorcery imbues whisky.

I love the place names on Islay.
They are all rooted in fact.

You know, you're looking at the sea,
the land, nature, topography,

and all of these names that are
derived from Norse, from Gaelic,

from Islay's history, really.

Bunnahabhain is
"at the foot of the river".

Bunnahabhain.
Um, Port Askaig is "ash tree bay".

"Ask-vik" in Norse was, um...
means ash, ash tree,

and, remember,
the Lords of the Isles,

in the 12th, 13th century, would
come in, sail into Port Askaig

and use the ash for repairs, which
is lovely, a lovely part of history.

Um, Ardbeg in Gaelic
means "small headland".

Islay means "island bent like a
bow", so wonderful words and names

that are so evocative of the land
and the island of Islay, really.

150 years ago on Islay,
there were 23 licensed distilleries.

A couple of hundred years ago,

there were many, many more
illicit distilleries and, you know,

the people who made whisky at
that time were using the landscape,

they were using nature,
the topography, hiding in caves,

they were very cunning about
where they would actually make

their whisky, so the sense
of that in Islay's landscape

absolutely prevails, for sure -
we feel it on a daily basis.

In many ways,
this is seen as the home of whisky.

It's the Whisky Island, isn't it?

Do you have a sense of community?
Yes, of course, absolutely.

You know, there are so many people
who work at distilleries, but people

who have lived at distilleries,
generations and generations,

so that sense of history within a
distillery is very, very strong and,

sometimes, when we talk about it,
you know, the distilleries are here,

but the villages and communities
almost pre-date the distilleries,

so, when people now come back to
Ardbeg or Lagavulin or Laphroaig,

you know, they talk about the...

They talk about the community
that they lived in, the school,

the shop, the post office. It's not
just talking about the distillery.

The distillery was part of it,

but you have a much broader
sense of community.

If you stepped back today and looked
at a map of Scotland and said,

"Right, we'll ostensibly build
120 factories to make a spirit,

"um, economically, what's
the most sensible thing to do?

"Where will we build them?
How big will they be?

"How much will we produce?",

you wouldn't end up with
a map of what you have today.

You know, these distilleries are
far-flung, they're difficult

to travel to, you're reliant
on a rural population of staffing.

There's lots of things
that, economically,

wouldn't be the thing
that would necessarily be

a suitable and significant
driver for investment,

but the history
of how they've developed,

and the fact that you have this
really fantastic rural diaspora,

is not only great for Scotch
whisky, but is obviously,

you know, great for making it
intrinsically part of the country.

This is a cultural product.

You know, this comes from us.
It comes from Scotland.

It's part of our psyche.
It's part of our history.

And once you begin to factor
that in, the importance of whisky

to a community, whether you go
up to the Highlands, to Islay

or whatever, the importance
of whisky to families,

to communities,
to farming communities,

to ancillary industries,
to transport, farmers, etc, etc,

suddenly, it becomes
more than just a product.

As soon as whisky becomes a product,
or a brand, it loses...

It's not magic, cos magic is kind of
ephemeral, magic is kind of made up.

It's a real link to place
and a real link to culture.

The whisky industry is strong,
it's forceful and it's built

an economy on Islay in this
landscape in the 21st century,

which is so important
for islanders and for locals.

Then, it is said,
the secret is in the water.

And there's plenty of it
about in Scotland.

Little springs that become
clear, clean streams.

This island has to be visited
to be understood or even believed.

The land gives itself to the whisky,

and the whisky keeps Islay
alive and vibrant.

It produces joyous,
ebullient characters

who know they have
something special going.

'Jim McEwan is one Scotland's great
distillers and an old pal of mine.'

You live in paradise, Jim.
Thank you.

I realise that. I know you do.

But listen, all these years
I've known you, right,

and I've interviewed you, there's
one question I've never asked you.

That's the source of your nickname

within the world of whisky -
The Cask Whisperer.

Now, how did that come about?
HE SIGHS: I think...

I used to talk to casks.

That might sound kind of bizarre,
but when I was sampling casks,

I would, um, put a little bit
of whisky in the glass

and I'd look at it and evaluate
the colour and the nose and think...

"..You're just not ready yet.
I'll see you in three months' time."

And back to the cask
and you'd try another one

and you'd say, "Oh, my God!

"You are ready to go!
You're ready! You can fly!"

So, once or twice, people are
going past me in the warehouse

and said, "That guy is drunk!
He's talking to himself!"

"He's talking to the casks!"
I was actually talking to the casks.

Well, each of these barrels is
one of your children... Yeah?

..cos you created it.
Not myself, personally,

but myself with a team,
you understand? Yes. It's not me.

But you've created many,
many fine whiskies. I know.

But I mean, there's a whole bunch
of us - the mashman, stillman,

all that, these sort of guys -
so it's a team effort, but you...

David, let me tell you something.

It's really, really very simple.

If the spirit is the child,
then the cask is the mother.

If the child, when born, goes
into a good cask, you're guaranteed

to have a good whisky at
the end of it, or a good adult.

I think it is ultimately, um,

a combination of nature and nurture.

The nature of our landscape,
er, the atmosphere, the humidity,

um, the environment and the nurture,
which is in people's minds.

At all three of our distilleries
now, we produce a peated style.

A limited volume,
but a peated style.

And if you compare
our peated style with Islay,

they are actually totally different.

The Islay one is drier and saltier,
whereas the one in the mainland,

up at BenRiach, and at
Glendronach and Glenglassaugh,

they're actually quite sweet peat.

So, you know,
the land does play a part.

Where the peat comes from
plays a part.

The environment plays a part.

Glenglassaugh's on the coast.
It'll have a...

It'll have a much different
microclimate in the warehouse

than at, say,
in the valley at Glendronach,

or indeed near Elgin, at BenRiach.

If landscape does indeed influence
taste, then Islay's has been

tinting its whisky for longer
than is the case elsewhere.

It is here, go legends,

that some of Scotland's earliest
"water of life" was made.

Here we are at the rather
elegant tip of Islay.

Sail that way through the mist
and you reach Ireland.

In the most romantic telling
of how whisky came to Scotland,

this whole stretch of coastline
was a portal through which

the instant Celts arrived
to preach the art of distilling.

Now, depending on who you ask,
we have the Irish, the Romans,

the Persians and even the Chinese
to thank for its invention.

Whisky's origins are
as complex as a fine blend.

This is Finlaggan,
in the centre of Islay,

once home to the MacDonald Clan,
Lords of the Isles,

and to what is the most likely truth
of how distilling reached Scotland.

When Angus MacDonald married

Princess Aine O Cathain
of Ulster, in 1300,

Aine's entourage brought the art of
distilling from Ireland with them.

We don't know exactly
where or when, but soon,

these distilling techniques
were being employed to make

a raw form of whisky here in
Scotland for the very first time.

DOG BARKS

Then, in the 15th century, a first
recorded mention of whisky emerged.

The art of distilling first
made it into print in Britain

in The Canterbury Tales.

A century later, in 1494, came
Scotland's first recorded mention

and, in it, Friar John Cor,
a Fife monk,

is listed in King James IV's
Exchequer Rolls as having received

"eight balls of malt for aqua vita".

Now, that's enough barley to make
over 1,000 bottles of whisky!

But it's unlikely that Friar John

was either Scotland's first
or only whisky producer.

Whisky was now trickling its way
across Scotland and into the

country's customs and identity.

The first real record I think
you get of whisky becoming Scottish,

and kind of part
of a Scottish psyche,

the first record of that is

Martin Martin's account of whisky
drinking on the Isle of Lewis,

at the beginning of the
18th century, where he says -

and I'll paraphrase here - but he
says something along the lines of...

when the community, that their
manner of drinking was called

"a streah" or "a round", because
they would sit in a circle

and the cup would be passed
from one to the other

and all would drink
until it all became drunk.

Now, there's kind of two ways
to look at that.

You know, one is, that's just
people sitting around in a circle

in a big ceilidh and getting
drunk, but I think the...

When you begin to look deeply
into that, you see here is whisky

being used as a social lubricant, or
as a way for a community to cohere,

er, and here is whisky
being used to sort out,

to loosen people's tongues,
for a community to come together,

to say,
"Right, who's getting married?

"Who's going to be ploughing
that particular field?"

"Who's going to go fishing?"

And, suddenly, I think, from
that record, you say that whisky

isn't just this alien spirit
that's used in certain occasions,

whisky's now part of us, it's now
part of a Scottish culture.

From fuzzy origins,

this simple drink seeped its way
into everyday life.

Nowhere came to embody the spread
of whisky into an area's soul more

than Speyside or, to some of us,

Strathspey in
north-eastern Scotland.

The peaty water of life.

This is Speyside,
the capital of whisky.

It's a place of wonder
and pilgrimage,

a secret zone where the sweet smell
of malt seems to hang in the air.

And it's almost as if, every corner
you turn, there's a distillery,

and in every nook and cranny,

you'll find evidence of the making
and the worship of whisky.

You know, within a 20-mile radius
of where I'm standing now,

there are about 60 distilleries.

I mean, that's almost half
the total number in Scotland!

But you see, it's more than a whisky
region. It's a whisky republic!

And I think they should
rename it the Amber Republic!

It is truly a place of wonder!

If you talk about The Glenlivet
to the average Scotsman

or the man on the street, his mind
goes straight to the Highlands

and he thinks of an old distillery
producing the finest whisky

distilled in the Highlands -
The Glenlivet.

Glenlivet is a Speyside whisky,

with a foot in both the past
and the present.

Two centuries ago, one of countless
illicit distilleries on Speyside,

it now produces the highest-selling

single malt in the world.

Master distiller Alan Winchester

took me for a walk in the hills

overlooking this amber realm.

What would this place be like
without...? You've got - what? -

something like 50-60 distilleries
round here? Well, absolutely, um...

I mean, it's the heart and soul
of this country, isn't it? Yes.

Er, it's been very important.
It's very important.

It goes along with
all the traditional...

You can see it.
..farming, forestry, landed estates,

where you can go fishing and
shooting. The whisky distillation

really took off here after
the 1824 Distilleries Act,

getting the push with the railways.

It's got all the things
correct here.

It's got bags of peat,
if you want to make peaty whisky.

Lots of water,
a fairly dry climate at the coast,

which is ideal for growing barley,

so all the...
all the magic comes together

and then, as Sir Walter Scott said,

the cunning alchemists
were based at Glenlivet.

DAVID LAUGHS
And that's an important part

in making whisky as well.
Cunning alchemists? Yes.

Aha! I like that title.

If you travel round the world,
you find local spirits

and you'll say, "Why's that spirit
not bigger in the world?"

You go to Calvados, you get
that apple brandy. Mm-hm.

You do see it round about.

Whisky was this local drink,
it was used by my great-grandfathers

and that to turn a little barley
into a bit of cash, you know,

add value to it
and it would keep better.

It was one of the few agricultural
products that improves with keeping,

with age,
you can't keep milk for years.

You make cheese
to preserve your milk, etc.

So it was part of that, and then it
was very much woven into the fabric

of the country from
the early days of distillation.

One of the founders of Cragganmore
distillery speaks

about 200 illicit stills here.

Now, that seems a lot
of little stills working away,

so there was crofts
all around here, er...

Small production,
so, to fill a few ankers,

you needed a few of these working.

So, all these communities were
working their little stills,

very remote, and also,
some of the estates

would take whisky as the rent.
It would be part of that cash trade.

Just for consumption?
For their own personal consumption?

Personal or sell on.

Because many of the local distillers
here were the distillers and

then they handed it onto
the smuggler, the other...

A distiller was called a smuggler,

but the smuggler was the guy that
took it to the market, and they were

the hard men that would take on
the Customs and Excise, etc.

A lot of the ladies did the
distilling in the area round here,

in these 200 illicit stills.

When they smuggled them on land,
were they actually carrying casks?

They would strap the casks
to the ponies.

Two ankers onto the side of
a Highland pony and away they went.

It was maturing all the way
to the market.

THEY LAUGH

The smuggling of whisky
was a way of life.

Scallywag, brazen stories are
still proudly told on Speyside.

One of my favourite spots here is

the Fiddichside Inn,
in Craigellachie.

Joe Brandie married into a family
that had been running the pub

since 1919 and were shifting whisky
less legitimately before that.

Joe, there's a wonderful
photograph up there

of an interesting character.
Who's he?

That was my wife's grandfather and
he was a gamekeeper over in Glass,

you know, between Dufftown
and Huntly... Uh-huh.

..er, in a very remote croft there.

And he used to make his own whisky
and the Customs and Excise

used to go and try to catch him.

They would go dressed as tramps
and knock at the door and

he would say, "Oh, come on in!"

and they thought,
"Oh, well, this is it now."

They were asking for something to
warm them up and they thought he'd

produce the whisky, but he didn't,
he gave them a bowl of soup instead.

THEY LAUGH
But he was finally caught.

His boss was the laird
over at where he worked.

It was in a dinner down in London
and, unknown to him,

sitting next to him was the head
of Customs and Excise and, er,

he said to the head of Customs -
he didn't know that was him -

he said, "I would get
a better dram from a gamekeeper."

So they came up and caught him
and confiscated some of his gear

and he was fined £10.

Just because of an overheard
conversation in London? Yes.

Dear me, oh, that's a shame
that he was caught out.

Yeah, he was caught out.

So, Joe, when you were a boy,

you must have been aware of
illegal stills all round this area?

Oh, there was a lot, but I don't
remember much about them at all.

But I know there was a lot,

there was a lot in Glenlivet

and they used go to Inverness
with the whisky,

but they got word that
they were going to be waylaid

on the way
by the Customs and Excise,

so they hired a hearse -
and it was horse in these days -

put a coffin in it and put
all the whisky into the coffin

and when they passed,

the Customs and Excise,
they took off their bonnets

and let them go through.

And you can get a hell of a lot of
whisky into a coffin, couldn't you?

A good lot, yeah.

In this region, it feels like
whisky is in the soil.

While history's more clandestine
traditions are gone,

some roots remain firm.

There are entire
whisky generations here,

some connected by association,
and some by family.

Glenfarclas,
one of the many distilleries

scattered throughout Speyside.

Like many places, this seems
to inspire an old-fashioned

devotion and dedication
from the workforce.

I've found that's true right across
the whisky industry in Scotland.

Because everyone I talk to
seems to have a passion

and a commitment to their work
and the craft,

and in a cynical 21st century,
that's pretty rare.

But I guess it helps that very often
the distilleries are family owned,

and none more so than this one,
because this is owned by one of

the first great whisky families,
the Grants,

who are now in their sixth
generation of custody.

George,
Glenfarclas is a family affair.

It is indeed.
Is that important to you?

It's the most important thing
that we have.

It gives us our most exclusive
selling point,

our most exclusive, advantageous...
over other brands.

In the world today,

so many brands are being overtaken
by big conglomerates.

We're still family owned,
still family run,

still very much family hands on.

And you're determined to keep it
that way. Very much so.

Very much so. So, you must be
the sixth generation.

I'm the sixth generation
of my family to work here.

And you can trace them all back
to the very origins.

We do, so it was my
great-great-great-grandfather

that bought Glenfarclas in 1865

for the princely sum
of £511 19s.

Away you go!

So we hope it's worth
a little bit more now. I bet it is.

I mean, I'm able to drink whisky,
taste whisky,

sell whisky that was made
by my grandfather,

made by my father, you know,
it gives you so much passion to it.

And it's not even just the fact that
we're family owned, family ran,

so many people that have worked here

have worked here
for generations as well.

So it really is
a totally family affair.

But also that means the whisky
you're producing today will be

enjoyed by your children or your
grandchildren in years to come.

That's the beauty of it.

So any mistakes I make, nobody will
find out for a few generations.

You'll be well gone.
That's very good.

That's what you call
passing the buck. That's it.

How many people do you employ here?
We've got about 35, 36 people here.

Some of them have been here
for a very long time.

We have a gentleman
in the still house who's been here

for over 42 years.

42 years?
Yes, he's been here for a while.

So will he get a special bottle
or a cask when he retires?

Well, he's one of these people
that I don't think ever will retire.

But for his 40th anniversary,

we gave him a gallon bottle
of 40-year-old...

Ohh! ..which apparently
didn't last very long.

THEY LAUGH

It wasn't always as easy to move
whisky around as it is now

for Glenfarclas and Speyside's
many other distilleries.

The coming of the railways
was momentous for this area.

I'm about to jump aboard
the Whisky Train. I can't wait.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

I love train journeys,

but this has got to be the slowest
train journey I've never taken.

Good afternoon, sir. Can I
interest you in a wee dram?

Peter, what are you offering me?

I'm offering you
Chivas Regal 18-year-old.

I think that'll do me very nicely,
thank you.

OK? Slainte! Thank you.
Your very good health.

This railway shunts along
as a tourist attraction.

It takes day-trippers
from Dufftown to Keith...

through beautiful Speyside.

But it also has a deep meaning
to the whisky industry

and the flowering of this area
as the centre of whisky,

because, historically, it was very
difficult to get anything in or out

of this remote pocket of Scotland.

And then suddenly,
at the tail end of the 19th century,

they opened the railway
and it became much, much easier

to get coal into the area and the
best of Strathspey out to the world.

And just as Islay and Campbeltown
had used water as their motorway

to create their own eras
as being the centre of

whisky excellence,
the railway shifted it here,

so these very tracks helped
change this area

and this industry for ever.

Here's to the Whisky Railway.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

Tourism founded upon history and
a vibrant, modern whisky industry

brings thousands of people
to Speyside

from every corner
of the globe.

Some of them never leave.

Like Tatsuya Minagawa,

owner of the Highlander Inn
in Craigellachie.

How long have you been here?
17, 18 years. 17, 18 years.

Stopped counting.

Wow! So what was your passion?
Did you come because of the whisky?

Purely, yeah.

So initially it was the whisky,
then you fell in love with

the country and the people
and you decided to stay.

Absolutely, yes,
it's not only whisky,

I'm living totally your life -

whisky, scenery and the people,
all mixed together.

You're in the heart of
Scotch whisky country... Mm-hm.

..and you're selling Japanese
whisky. Yes.

Do many people buy it?

Surprisingly yes. Really?

It's not cheap stuff,
it's quite pricey, some of them,

but ten years ago, people say,

"Oh, Japanese whisky, rubbish!"
I'm not doing Scotch.

But nowadays, people come here only
for Japanese whisky, some people.

Do you appreciate the differences

between Japanese whisky
and Scotch whisky?

Japanese whisky industry inspired by
Scottish whisky industry.

Basically, we learn how to make
whisky from this country.

So, ingredients we use
and the method -

exactly this same
as the Scottish way.

So I'm always telling people,
you know,

Champagne comes from France,
you know, Cava from Spain.

All the same ingredients,
same principle, right?

Both good product.

So Japanese whisky and whisky from
Scotland, pretty much like that.

You're in a very unique position.

You're a man from Japan,
from the other side of the world,

you grew up in whisky, you come here
and you're surrounded by whisky

at the heart of whisky country,

so you see it from
an outsider's perspective.

Do we do enough, do we appreciate
our own whisky enough?

Or does it take someone like you
to come from another culture,

another language,
to come and say to us,

"Hey, look what you have
on your doorstep"?

I think the same happens back home,
you know?

Young people don't drink sake,
you know, drink beer,

wine or a cocktail,
it's exactly the same as here.

Say some weekend
a number of young people,

they pretty much drink vodka and...

..Jack Daniel's or maybe
a pint of lager,

so whisky is, I don't know...

You have to be like some sort of a
certain age to appreciate... Mm-hm.

Yeah. So, I don't know, those
young people when they grow up,

a little older, maybe they will
start drinking whisky.

When they reach the age of wisdom...
Oh, that's a good one, aye, yeah.

..they will start to drink whisky.
Yeah. Yes.

There remains a Speyside institution
built upon such wisdom of age,

a Victorian grocer, blender
of whisky and curator of fine malts

that continues to thrive.

In 1895, a family opened
a grocery store here

on a street corner
in the heart of Elgin...

It was Gordon & MacPhail's,

and like the other great whisky
families, like the Buchanans and

the Walkers, they created a great
whisky brand from a corner shop,

and as the whisky side
of the business expanded,

they had the foresight to do deals
with the Spanish for their oak,

and with fellow Scots
for their best whisky.

So, Gordon & MacPhail soon became
a byword for quality whisky.

It's a business rooted in the family
and it still is.

SHOP BELL JINGLES

Stephen, this shrine to whisky
started off as a wee grocer's shop

on a street corner in the heart
of Elgin, didn't it?

Yes, back in 1895, David.
Yeah, so a long...

Just coming up to our
121st birthday, in fact.

It was James Gordon and John
MacPhail who started the business

with a young apprentice
by the name of John Urquhart,

and John,
who was my great-grandfather,

worked his way up through
the business very quickly

to become a partner by 1911

and in 1915 he was sole owner.

So, the Urquharts have been involved
since day one.

We've passed the knowledge
of whisky down through, now,

four generations.

Gordon & MacPhail was built
on two strands of whisky selling -

they made blended whiskies,
as befitted a grocery store,

and bought casks to be matured
in their own warehouses,

then bottled and sold on.

That second strand thrives today.

LIGHT SWITCHES CLICK

Wow!

Look at this!

It's a liquid museum of whisky.

It's owned by Gordon & MacPhail.

There are over 7,000 oak casks here,
slowly maturing the whisky inside,

and each barrel is stamped with
the name of a different distillery,

and the idea is that they're
brought here for further maturation,

so that the aspects of climate
and place

can add unique flavours
to the whisky.

Gordon & MacPhail's believe
it's the wood that makes the whisky

and I think I tend to agree
with them

cos, you see, these casks
are a portal into another world.

It's quite something to imagine
that, once bottled or blended,

so much of the liquid gold here

will reach markets
way beyond these shores.

Over 90% of Scotland's whisky is
sold outside of the United Kingdom.

When Scotland sells its whisky,
it sells casks,

but also places like Speyside...

The marketing of Scotch

has long promoted
an image of Scotland to the world

with triumphant success,

no matter how far from reality
that image stretches.

BAGPIPES PLAY

A land of beauty and poetry...

A land of violence and colour...

A part of the world
unlike any other in its people,

its exciting history
and even its products...

..probably the most famous
of which is...Scotch.

Fusing a sense of the romantic with
arresting visuals and novel methods,

advertising put this product
on the path

to global success.

In 1898, Dewar's produced

the world's earliest filmed
advertisement for any product.

It was the first major strike
by an industry

which knew that sales
rested on image and communication.

The story of Johnnie Walker
represents Scotland's success

in marrying tradition and innovation
to take a drink to the world.

This is the life-sized figure of
the very handsome Striding Man...

Johnnie Walker's Red Label,

which is the largest-selling
Scotch whisky in the world,

and it's owned by Diageo.

Now, Diageo have enough resources
to employee six archivists,

which is extraordinary in itself,

and they take great pride in being
custodians of the history

of some of the major whisky brands
over the last 100 years,

but more than that, they also
contain the image of Scotland

as it has changed throughout the
world over those hundreds of years.

Oh, these wonderful old tomes, look
at the size of them, great ledgers!

All written by hand.

'The Diageo Archive also includes
a temple of bottles.'

Cor, wow!

Christine, this is amazing.

We use this space to show
the evolution of our brands from

the very earliest bottle, and also
to look at brands that have come

and gone over the years.

This is actually our oldest bottle
of Johnnie Walker.

It dates from the 1880s.

We don't really know
why it has a snake in it...

Um, we think it left Scotland
without a snake

and probably went somewhere
in the Far East,

but it's not unusual for things
that end up in whisky bottles.

That is truly bizarre!

We're not sure how it ended up
back in Scotland,

but we actually found it

when we were clearing out a space
at one of our packaging plants

about 12, 13 years ago.

So it's amazing what you can still
find around in the industry

and in the business.

So, we're always adding to
the archive with historical items,

but actually, we always collect
everything that we create today

to build the archive of the future.
So what I love...

One of the things that I love
about our archive,

it's never going to be complete
cos we're always going to be

adding to it
and always telling the story.

Yeah, it's a living, working,
growing archive. Absolutely, yeah.

So, this side really shows some
of our Johnnie Walker collection,

our Gold Label, Blue Label
and Green Label, but actually,

around the other side
we have Red Label and Black Label,

and they were introduced in 1909
and the display really shows

the evolution from our earliest
right through to present day.

Christine, one of the most
famous logos and brand marks

in the world of whisky
is the Johnnie Walker walking man.

Yeah, the Striding Man, yeah, yeah.
The Striding Man.

Yep. So, yeah, he's really famous,

so wherever you travel around
the world, everybody recognises

the Striding Man and associates it
with Johnnie Walker.

Um, we've got some bottles where
you can see how the Striding Man

first appears...

So, he was actually drawn in 1908
and... 1908?!

Yeah, so the story goes that we...
The Walkers invited Tom Browne,

who was the cartoonist
for Punch magazine to lunch

and he drew the figure
on the back of a menu card.

But even though it was drawn
in 1908,

it didn't actually appear
on the pack until the 1950s.

So, here we can see how the
Striding Man looked in the 1950s.

Did he change over the years?
He has evolved.

Yeah, so right from when Tom drew
him in 1908, through to the '50s,

individual artists
drew the figure,

and then, in more recent times,
they've actually modified him,

made him a bit more contemporary,
and in 1999 we switched

the direction in which he was
walking. Why did you do that?

That coincided with the launch of
our Keep Walking campaign,

which was the first truly global
advertising campaign for

Johnnie Walker, but it was also
the advent of the Millennium,

so it was all about the brand
moving into the next century.

'In 2009, Diageo and London agency
Bartle Bogle Hegarty produced

'this enchanting commercial
in which Robert Carlyle delivers

'the history of Johnnie Walker
blended whisky

'in just six minutes.'

John actually grew up on a farm
on the west coast of Scotland

and when he was 14 years old,
in 1819, his father died

and the decision was taken
to sell the farm

and the money that they raised,
they used to buy a grocery shop

and that's where he started selling

and eventually blending
his own whiskies.

But young John was smart enough
to be lucky.

His father's farm,
where he was born and raised,

was sold and the proceeds used
to open a grocer's...

'The Johnnie Walker described
so vividly by Carlyle

'was just one of many individual
entrepreneurial whisky blenders

'whose names became brands.'

And they bought
this lovely grocery shop.

You know, in the early days,
in John's time,

it would have sold
household products,

but also wines and spirits,

and we are lucky enough to have
this inventory from 1825,

which actually tells us
what John was selling

in the shop at that time.

Back then, all grocers stocked
a range of local single malts,

but they could be...

..a wee bit inconsistent.

For John, that wasn't good enough.

He began blending
different malts together

as a way of offering his customers
a consistent, unique product.

So, if we think about it,
in John's time,

he didn't have a brand,

so customers would just
come into the shop and say,

"I like this type of whisky,"
or, "This type of flavour,"

and he would make something to suit
them, and that's how the whisky...

Wow, like bespoke whisky, really.
Yeah, that's how...

They're tailor-made
for the individual.

..Walker's whiskies started
and it was his son, Alexander,

that created the first brand.

Young Alexander wasn't content with
being Scotland's biggest blender,

not ambitious enough for him,
no, no.

He convinced the ships' captains
of Glasgow to act as agents for him

and drove the whisky bearing
his father's name across the globe.

By 1860, he had developed
the square bottle.

They started exporting their whisky
overseas, and it was all about

getting more in a crate, less
damages, ease of transportation.

200 years later...

'Striding among the midges of Loch
Doine in the Scottish Highlands,

'Carlyle nailed this one-take wonder
at 8pm on the last day of filming.'

So, how long did the company stay
in the family's hands? Um, so...

Until when?

John Walker & Sons became part of
the Distillers Company in the 1920s.

Johnnie Walker and other blending
companies like Buchanan's and

White Horse all became part

of the Distillers Company
around the same time.

But they kept their autonomy,
didn't they?

They certainly did and at that time
we had moved on to the third

generation of Walker's and they
still ran the company, even though

it was part of this bigger
parent company, I guess.

One of the things that I love
about the archive is we actually

have advertising and photographs
from most of those export markets,

so we can not only tell, you know,

the great back story
for Johnnie Walker,

but we then can show how it appears,
you know, in Latin America and Asia

and out there in the world, and what
a huge global success it's become.

From modern-era films
to ornate printed sketches of old,

advertising has been crucial
to the expansion of Scotch,

whether aficionados like it or not.

The malt whisky snobs
seem to see marketing somehow

as the demon
in the world of whisky.

Well, frankly, again,
reality check -

no marketing,
no Scotch whisky industry.

And in the late 19th
and early 20th century,

the big blending houses pioneered
marketing and they brought in

expertise from America in terms of
this new science of advertising,

they used the very best copywriters,
they used the very best artists

and if you visit our archive
and look at some of that material -

you really need to look at it hard
and think about it

to understand
how brilliantly executed it is -

and I think people who do
whisky marketing today

have a lot to learn from the way it
was done 100 years ago, you know.

I mean, if you just think, you know,

of the number of bottles of
Johnnie Walker that are sold

around the world and they've got...

on the bottom of each bottle,
it's got "product of Scotland".

It's in houses almost everywhere
in the world, you know,

and that's what people are going
to think - Scotland, Scotch.

During the bad days of the '70s,
'80s, into the 1990s,

marketing was running whisky
rather than production,

and marketing and production
did not talk to each other.

So, if you think, like,
back in the 1980s,

where, you know,
sales are going like that,

but if you are a marketing director,
are you going to turn around to your

boss and say, "You know, next year,
boss, I'm going to be selling less"?

You'd be out the door.

So everybody was saying,
"Oh, no, we're going to sell more,
things will turn round."

So you suddenly get production
going like that and sales going

like that, which you end up with
Whisky Loch as a result of that.

Marketing is a very easy thing
to have a,

"Ooh, it's bad,
they're doing evil things..."

My job is to get really nice,
amazing whiskies out there

for people to drink,
so I don't think that's a bad thing.

Graphic designer Jules Akel

relocated to Dalwhinnie in
the north of Scotland from London.

He became captivated
by the influence of marketing

upon Scotch whisky
and turned his fascination

into a number of beautifully crafted
distillery books.

In it is to be found
the sunshine and shadow

that chased each other over
the billowy cornfield,

the hum of the bee,
the hope of spring,

the breath of May,
the carol of the lark,

the distant purple heather
in the mountain mist

and the wealth
of autumn's rich content,

all golden with imprisoned light.

Absolutely beautiful, Jules,
isn't it?

It is. And that was Tommy Dewar.

Can you imagine drinking the whisky
after reading that?
DAVID CHUCKLES

But that really creates
an impression about a place

and the story of a...

whisky...

..is not sold without those stories,

those fantastically evocative purple
pastures of prose, aren't they?

Mm-hm.

Cos if we just drink whisky
from a label-less bottle,

without a brand,
it's going to be nice,

but if you know the story behind it,
the characters who built

the distillery and the brand
and its location

on top of a moor or somewhere,

then you go back to the spirit,
don't you?

You do, and it's a much richer
experience, yeah.

Yeah, and you enjoy it
so much more.

Great brands will have
a people story, a place story

and a production story and Scotch is
the best in the world at doing that.

So you'll always have either...

you know, a distillery founder,
do you know what I mean?

There's always...
So you can think of it,

you can name every Scotch brand
and you can tell me

there's distillery founders
or there's, you know,

blender founders,
there's a place, there's a...

this beautiful iconic distillery
or this area of Scotland

full of glens and nooks and crannies
and smugglers and harlots,

and you'll have a production story
and everybody will say, "Well...

"There's up to 40 different
whiskies in this blend!" Or...

"Well, we make it with the widest
copper pot stills in the world."

You know,
so there's always those things.

Those are the bits that actually
make it really interesting,

because every brand
I've ever worked on,

once you find those stories,
you love it.

Sometimes you'll see the message

being very much about heritage,

about the Auld Alliance,

about the clans, about the piper,

about whatever it is,

and sometimes you'll purely
see it as the brand,

and the brand values and what they
stand for in terms of character,

and the kind of markets they go to

and how they're served
as long drinks,

and you're a million miles away
from tartan and heather

and pipes and bagpipes,
and sometimes it's not even

necessarily known
as being Scotch whisky.

It's known as being "that brand".

Brands are personalities,

so if you're a pretentious person,
you might like a pretentious brand.

We feel affinities to certain brands

because they work with us
as persons, don't we? Yes, true.

So here we are in Dalwhinnie,

and the whisky has
a very appealing story.

We're right up in the heather moors,

top of the Grampian mountains,

with all those glorious peaks
of snowy tops,

but if you stop and think
about the Dalwhinnie distillery

and its product, how much of it
actually is of Dalwhinnie?

It gets the water
from down the burn,

the grain is grown miles away,
it's malted miles away,

the wood that the cask...
the whisky's put in the cask,

But it's manufactured here,
put in the casks and then,

well, many of those casks are
left down in the Central Belt,

so what is it of Dalwhinnie, you
see? It's interesting, isn't it?

Mm-hm. But the story is very
powerful and very romantic. It is.

You compare that to, say, a chateau

which makes glorious wine
and cognacs,

they'll have their own land,
their vineyards

and they'll make the wines
there in the chateau,

and then they'll put it
in the casks in their cellars,

and then they'll bottle it there
in the chateau,

so it's much more of
a provenance story, isn't it?

But here, it's more like
an assemblage, isn't it?

Mm-hm. It's interesting, isn't it?

It's a really interesting way
of looking at it, yes.

So... But it's been
a very successful campaign,

the branding with Dalwhinnie.
Yes. Extremely successful.

Well, that's where
design comes along, you see,

and creates this story out of what
it's got and makes it so appealing,

and gives it a provenance.

Scotland is...
It's a tiny, tiny place.

To have such presence from something

that we produce is just phenomenal,

so I think it's grown
beyond being just a drink.

It is something that is about
passion, about love,

about friendship, about family

and everything else
that encompasses that.

Like any image, it's rooted in
some sort of a reality,

but of course it ignores

some of the industrialisation

that's necessary to the industry.

It ignores some of the scale,
and the picture-postcard image

that we might have of the little
distillery nestled in the glens

doesn't necessarily accord with

the reality of a mega warehouse
somewhere in the Lowlands,

but there's enough there for us
to hang onto and believe in.

My marketing director
came in and said,

"I'd like to replace the capsule...

"I'd like to replace the ROPP...

"..with a cork and capsule."
ROPP is a screw-top.

"I'd like to replace that
with a cork and capsule."

And I said, "Why?"

He said, "Because it just...
It's not classy the way it is."

And I had a phone call
from my brother, and he said,

"Why on earth did you change the
screw-top to a cork and capsule?"

And I thought, "Oh, my..."
All my fears are coming.

I said, "Why? What's wrong?"

He said, "Well,
when it was a screw-top,

"I could open one at night, pour
myself a dram before I went to bed.

"Now, when I pull the cork,
it goes..."

HE IMITATES A CORK COMING OUT

And my wife says, "Jack!
Is that you at the Macallan again?"

As advertisers know,
whisky creates desire.

One modern expression of this
is the exponential growth

in people buying Scotch for
collection and investment.

This is McTear's Auction House
in Glasgow

and I've come to bid for
a piece of the action

with two men who make a living
from doing just that.

So, Andy, what is this? Apart from
a display case of gorgeous whiskies.

Well, what we've got here
is some of the...

I guess the oldest
and rarest in the auction,

so there's some
absolutely fantastic...

what we call
the three types of whisky,

so the drinker,
the collector and the investor,

so I'm a drinker, a collector and
investor, but as a collector,

I'll buy kind of weird old stuff
that I just think is cool,

that I just have never seen
or the label's a bit odd.

It might cost £20 at auction. I know
it's never going to go up in value.

I might drink it one day

but it's a collectable, so it's just
a kind of different, weird thing.

What makes a difference?
Is it the rarity of a whisky

or is it the taste
that gives it its premium value?

So, quality is paramount.
Rarity, scarcity,

we're looking for all these things.
Let's take this, age and vintage,

so we're looking at this Macallan

and I'm going to pick
this one out specifically.

My colleague to my left here,
David, actually was responsible

for the liquid and the bottling
of this specific bottle,

so David's signature is on every
single one

of just over 3,000 bottles.

But, David, you weren't
alive in 1946!

I obviously didn't distil
the whisky but I was lucky enough

to work at Macallan during the 1990s

and I was given the kind of task,
I suppose, to select the barrels

that went into the 1946 vintage,
which was a terrific responsibility,

great, great fun doing it,

but the one downside was
having to sign 3,036 certificates.

It took me a whole week to sign...

to sign all the certificates
for these bottles,

but it's a wonderful old smoky
style of Macallan, very unusual...

Because Macallan's not
a smoky whisky.

It typically is not,
but when you look at Macallan

pre and post the Second World War,
it actually was a smoky whisky

when coal was in short supply

and they used peat to actually
dry the malted barley back then.

So why did they change?
Why did they stop using the peat?

Coal became available again
after the Second World War,

so they went back to something
that was much more fuel efficient.

Interesting.
So what would that be worth now?

Anything, £7,000, maybe even £8,000
a bottle. When it first came out...

You're joking! ..in 1998,

I think it was retailing
for about £1,575 a bottle.

Shall we head off and
spend some money? Let's do that.

As long as it's yours. No way, Andy.

That lot is going now,
are you all done at 80?

At £80 on that lot there,
£80 and it's away to...

Buyer number for that is 656.

280, 300 bid. (Is it just
one bottle?) Any advance at £300?

320 at the back there. Any advance
on that 320, can I see 40?

We're at 320 standing.

Any advance at 320? 340 seated.

360 bid, any advance at 360?

380? 360 here standing.

Any advance at 360 again?

Are you all done at 360?
Last chance at 360...

GAVEL STRIKES
360, that is 36606.

Thank you. That's away at 360...

So will you drink that
or hold on to it?

I don't know.
Let's find out afterwards.

Depends how thirsty we get.

We open at 100...

'After Andy's success,
it was my turn to bid.

'Competition comes
not just from those in the room, but

'from remote online and telephone
bidders across the planet.'

Can I see 90 again? We're at £80 in
the book here. Any advance at 80?

Are you all done now? Any advance
at £80 on that lot there?

90 with you, sir.
Any advance at 90 way at the back?

Any advance at 90? Are you all done?

At £90 for that lot, that is going
at 90. Are you all done at 90?

GAVEL STRIKES
£90, thank you. Yay!

Result. Well done.

After a morning's hard bidding,

Andy, David and I went for lunch
to discuss the finer details of

whisky valuation,
collection and investment.

Now, do you buy and sell
these whiskies for yourselves

or for other people? Well, we act
as the catalyst in the middle,

so we've got a number of buyers
that are looking for specific

bottles or collections, and we have
a number of sellers at any one time,

so we're really just a matchmaker,
so we bring the two parties together

so certain people might be looking
for a collection of rare Macallan

or a collection of
the rare malts from Diageo,

or maybe they're peat freaks
and they love Ardbeg

and want every single bottle
of Ardbeg on the planet,

so we help kind of plug
those gaps that they might have
in their own collection,

and sometimes, which is really
interesting from our point of view,

in recent times, people have come
to us as professional investors

rather than just kind of
amateur collectors,

and that something
that's really changed,

probably in the last two,
three, four years maximum,

where people can see value,

they've maybe done a little bit
of tracking of their own

and they understand that we've got
this incredible database, 146...

Thousand. ..pieces of data now,
covering 22,000 different bottles,

that give us a really powerful...
That's phenomenal.

..piece of insight that
obviously people use for
a number of different reasons.

Now, David, who are these
individuals that you work

on behalf of? I know that you can't
be indiscreet... Of course.

But obviously,
A - they have money. Yes.

They have money to spend
and money to burn.

Yes, and most people might expect
that it's all Asian money or

Chinese money. That's not the case.

We've got clients from
North America, from Canada,

from Europe, from the UK, Hong Kong,

Taiwan, Singapore, I mean,
it really is quite global

and we're kind of surprised
at where we get calls from.

What percentage of your clients
buy whisky purely for investment

and which of them buy it purely
because they just love whisky?

The vast majority of the...

kind of the big old bottles
that we are moving at the moment

are for collecting and investing.

However, we recently sold
a collection for

just under half a million pounds

to somebody who opened it

and is probably drinking it
as we are sat here now.

They opened and are drinking
a half-million-pound collection

of whisky? Absolutely. How many
bottles would be involved? 50, 50...

50 bottles exactly.
Now, this is the interesting thing.

We did this, we did a similar
collection or the same collection

three or four years ago
to a different buyer

and we sold it
for slightly less than that,

and this buyer again opened
this collection of 50 bottles

and drank it with his mates
playing snooker,

so the answer to the question,
does everybody buy for collecting
and investing? Absolutely not.

That is really good news, gents,

because I think whisky is for
drinking and for enjoying.

We couldn't agree more. It's one of
the most delicious nectars available

in the history of humankind.
Couldn't agree with you more.

And to buy a bottle,
or a collection of bottles,

purely for investment purposes,
to me, is immoral.

Yeah, do you know what...
I know it must be, you know...

You're both on a cleft stick because
you make a living from it. Indeed.

Yeah. It's kind of half-and-half,
and we've grown up, both of us,

drinking whisky as well as
both of us collect whisky, and both

of us invest in whisky at the same
time, so three distinct areas

that we focus on, which is
drinking, collecting and investing.

The one thing that I guess worries
me particularly is this idea

that's taken hold recently
that you can "invest" in whisky,

that whisky is some kind of

an alternative to the stock market,

some kind of an alternative

to pork belly futures
or whatever it might be.

Now, I have a very firm
view on this.

Whisky was made to be drunk
and to be enjoyed.

Whisky has no meaning until
the moment of its consumption.

It is just a glass bottle of
cold tea until its destruction,

and only in its consumption does it
achieve meaning and worth and value.

So, chaps, this is
the bottle of Rosebank 12-year-old

that I bid so successfully for.
Well done. Congratulations.

But, Andy, you've got a treat
for me in that glass, haven't you?

Oh, this is... Because you've popped
your cherry at auction,

at a whisky auction,

we thought we'd celebrate
with something special,

so we brought you
some Mortlach from 1936... Mortlach!

..to celebrate with.
Please accept that on Davy and I.

Oh, it's got a wonderful nose!

Slainte. Slainte mhath.

'The pursuit of Scotch
is full of surprises.

'I never expected to
be drinking a 1936 Mortlach
in a Glasgow car park.'

How much would this cost a bottle?

£3,500 at the moment
if you buy it retail.

Three-and-a-half grand? Yeah, yeah.

You haven't poured me
a big enough dram.

THEY LAUGH

You've got the last.
That's it. Run out!

The first whisky experience
that I - vaguely - remember

was in Studland Beach in England.

I was over working in a pub
for the summer

and I decided to join some of
my new friends for a night out.

I was about 18 and let's just say

I decided after that night that
I would never drink whisky again.

I remember the first one
that I tasted and hated

when I was very young was
on a camping trip with my dad.

I think we were in Jedburgh and
he had brought a hip flask of

Highland Park, which is one of his
favourite whiskies, along with him,

and I took a sip of it and
just thought it was disgusting.

It was a Lagavulin

and I assumed that all whisky
was really smoky and peaty,

and I absolutely loved it.
I completely fell in love with it.

It was actually the point
that changed my life.

Next time, I'll be visiting
a spellbinding whisky collection,

then assessing the rise
of craft distilleries

and the future of Scotch,
but most importantly,

I'm heading to Norfolk, Sweden,
Japan and Australia

to meet our whisky rivals.