I've just finished reading my copy of the memoirs, and I thought it would be of interest to list members to read some vignettes from the memoirs (actually, my copy of the book has an interesting association with it. It does not concern whisky, so I'll add it as a post script for the bibliophiles on the list). It was a heroic time for malt whisky; the period from when the small stills of smugglers reigned supreme, to a time when legal whisky was gaining ascendancy, but George Smith of the real Glenlivet still packed pistols at his side.
I'll start with the most famous reference from the memoirs, which most of you have probably come across. Each page has its own heading with a date and title. Hidden behind this reference is the fact that her father was an incompetent lawyer and politician and near bankrupt at the time.
One incident connected with this time made me very cross. Lord Conyngham, the Chamberlain, was looking everywhere for pure Glenlivet whisky; the King drank nothing else. It was not to be had out of the Highlands. My father sent word to me--I was the cellarer--to empty my pet bin, where was whisky long in wood, long in uncorked bottles, mild as milk, and the true contraband goût in it. Much as I grudged this treasure it made our fortunes afterwards, showing on what trifles great events depend. The whisky, and fifty brace of ptarmigan all shot by one man, went up to Holyrood House, and were graciously received and made much of, and a reminder of this attention at a proper moment by the gentlemanly Chamberlain ensured to my father the Indian judgeship.
The memoirs were edited by Eliza's niece who had married one General Sir Richard Strachey, hence the spine carries the words "Edited by LADY STRACHEY" beneath the title. The blank page inside the inner cover was virtually stuck to the cover, but I carefully parted them and found a pasted-in small pen-and-ink scroll with the words LYTTON STRACHEY, and a pencil signature G.L.Strachey. Giles Lytton Strachey, was a member of the famous Bloomsbury Group of artists and writers, and as it turns out, the great-nephew of the Highland Lady herself. His biography says he spent many happy youthful days at Rothiemurchus. I presume I have acquired the copy of the Memoirs once owned by Lytton, and no doubt given to him by his mother, Lady Strachey. I wonder if I'd have got the book for $18 had the bookseller seen the inscription and known its significance!
At the time when Eliza Grant lived at Rothiemurchus, the native pine forests were in the process of being harvested (read "raped and pillaged" if your environmental inclinations bend that way). The felled trees were transported down the Spey by lumberjacks known as Floaters. Her comments on the floaters' lives are fascinating; here are two whisky-related paragraphs.
A large bothy was built for them at the mouth of the Druie in a fashion that suited themselves ; a fire on a stone heath in the middle of the floor, a hole in the very centre of the roof just over it where some of the smoke got out, heather spread on the ground, no window, and there, after their hard day's work, they lay down for the night, in their wet clothes--for they had been perhaps hours in the river--each man's feet to the fire, each man's plaid round his chest, a circle of weary bodies half stupefied with whisky, enveloped in a cloud of steam and smoke, and sleeping soundly till the morning.
When the men met in the morning they were supposed to have breakfasted at home, and perhaps had had their private dram, it being cold work in a dark wintry dawn, to start over the moor for a walk of some miles to end in standing up to the knees in water ; yet on collecting, whisky was always handed round ; a lad with a small cask--a quarter anker--on his back, and a horn cup in his hand that held a gill, appeared three times a day among them. They all took their "morning" raw, undiluted and without accompaniment, so they did the gill at parting when the work was done ; but the noontide dram was part of a meal. There was a twenty minutes' rest from labour, and a bannock and a bit of cheese taken out of every pocket to be eaten leisurely with the whisky. When we were there the horn cup was offered first to us, and each of us took a sip to the health of our friends around us, who all stood up. Sometimes a floater's wife or bairn would come with a message ; such messenger was always offered whisky. Aunt Mary had a story that one day a woman with a child in her arms, and another bit thing at her knee, came up among them ; the horn cup was duly handed to her, she took a "gey guid drap" herself, and then gave a little to each of the babies. "My goodness, child," said my mother to the wee thing that was trotting by the mother's side, "doesn't it bite you?" "Ay, but I like the bite," replied the creature.
"Mr. Macintosh then came up, carried her into a saw-miller's house close by--it was Sandy Colley's--had her undressed, rubbed, laid in the bed wrapped in warm blankets, and when she opened her eyes gave her a glass of whisky....As soon as it was known that the "bonny burd" was living, grand cheering rent the air, and a dram all round, an extra, was given in honour of her rescuers. That dram was the Highland prayer, it began, accompanied, and ended all things."
But whisky in the mountains can work bad magic too, as anyone familiar with hypothermia will know, and here is a cautionary tale!
"A quantity of timber being wanted at Druie mouth for the Spey floaters who had come up to make their rafts, a run was determined on, and this lad was sent up to the Glen to open the sluice. It was a wild night, wind and hail changing to snow, and he had eleven or twelve miles to go through the forest, full of tracks, and across the heath that was trackless. Poor old Christy! She gave him a hot supper, put up a bannock and a little whisky for him, and wrapped his plaid well round him. She looked after him as he left the house in the driving sleet ; such risks were common, no one thought about them. Early in the morning down came the water, the weather had taken up, and the floating went merrily on, but Allan did not return. He had reached the loch, that was plain ; where then had he wandered? Not far. When evening came on and no word of him, a party set out in search, and they found him at his post, asleep seemingly, a bit of a bannock and the empty flask beside him. He had done his duty, opened the water-gate, and then sat down to rest. The whisky and the storm told the remainder. He was quite dead."
"There was always broth, mutton boiled and roasted, fowls, muir-fowl--three or four pairs on a dish--apple pie and rice pudding, such jugs upon jugs of cream, cheese, oatcakes and butter ; thick bannocks of flour instead of wheaten bread, a bottle of port, a bottle of sherry, and after dinner no end to the whisky punch. In the kitchen was all the remains of the sheep, more broth, haggis, head and feet singed, puddings black and white, a pile of oaten cakes, a kit of butter, two whole cheeses, one tub of sowans, another of curd, whey, and whisky in plenty."
So here are my thoughts after a quick but lingering kiss of 50ml. (God, these scientists can be tediously precise, can't they?).
Tasting:
The light in her eyes: burnished gold with glints of copper.
The Foreplay: Malt and toffee, rich fruitcake with a faint pungency and a
whiff of Speyside aniseed.
The Climax: A sherried malty sweetness with just a wee touch of the sulfur
that sherry butts often impart, and the mildest of peaty notes.
And After: The sweetness on the tongue evaporates to dryness and a flash of
astringency, then long, lingering, tongue-tingling oaky tannins go on for
ever.
Memoirs: What can I say? I am a born again Spey floater; I know where she lives and one day I'll hunt her down and claim a whole bottle of her for myself.
pw and ir, Autumn 1998