Distilling in the Cabrach, c. 1800–1850: The Illicit Origins of the Scotch Whisky Industry

Abstract

This article challenges Devine's assumptions that clandestine whisky-making developed into a legitimate industry. The article argues that the 1820s distilling laws marked a key transition in the whisky industry. The illicit manufacture and trade of whisky in Highland Scotland was deliberately sundered to be supplanted by entrepreneurs and landowners, many of whom had supported or shaped the legislative developments, to legitimise their endeavour. In so doing, the direction of the whisky industry was changed with uneven social and economic consequences across the region, including consequential and coercive Highland depopulation, but which undoubtedly prompted a significant step forward in the quality, scale and reach of Scotch whisky. The article poses a series of key questions: was there continuity between smugglers and legal distilleries? How were legal distilleries founded and developed as businesses following 1823? What were the social and economic impacts of the 1822–3 legislation and the subsequent distilling industry on the Highland communities which distilled prior to 1822?