0:00:04 > 0:00:07'This is the River Clyde in Glasgow.'
0:00:10 > 0:00:16'250 years ago, this was one of Britain's great trading centres.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20'It was the hub of a huge empire that stretched
0:00:20 > 0:00:24'from the Caribbean to China.
0:00:24 > 0:00:26'An empire founded on trade,
0:00:26 > 0:00:29'in which simple plants were transformed by human labour
0:00:29 > 0:00:33'to become hugely profitable global commodities.'
0:00:38 > 0:00:40'The trade in sugar,
0:00:40 > 0:00:42'tobacco,
0:00:42 > 0:00:45'opium
0:00:45 > 0:00:51'and whisky transformed our society, our bodies and our minds.'
0:00:53 > 0:00:56Over the centuries, we've learned to love these products.
0:00:56 > 0:01:00Their smell, their taste, the effect they've had on us.
0:01:00 > 0:01:02They've become increasingly guilty pleasures,
0:01:02 > 0:01:08which are still with us, still part of us.
0:01:08 > 0:01:13Today, millions of us can't do without at least some of them,
0:01:13 > 0:01:17so how did we become so hooked?
0:01:19 > 0:01:22'The answer will take me on a journey across the world.'
0:01:22 > 0:01:26Oh, my God! That's powerful.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29'And inside our minds and bodies too.'
0:01:29 > 0:01:30Bye.
0:01:34 > 0:01:38Gosh, that's good, isn't it?
0:01:38 > 0:01:40'In the pursuit of pleasure.'
0:01:57 > 0:01:59Here's to the next time, then.
0:01:59 > 0:02:02'Yes, Scotch whisky is the true product of Scotland.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05'It cannot be made anywhere else.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08'Bottled, wrapped and packed into cases, the final article,
0:02:08 > 0:02:12'as perfect as care and consistency at every stage can make it,
0:02:12 > 0:02:14'is ready for the consumer,
0:02:14 > 0:02:17'but it all starts up in the Scottish Highlands.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21'Up in the clear air of the peat-covered moors,
0:02:21 > 0:02:25'where the waters of some crystal stream tumble quietly over its ancient rocks
0:02:25 > 0:02:28'and the hereditary skill of the Scottish distilleryman
0:02:28 > 0:02:33'is applied with conscientious efficiency to his superb craft.'
0:02:37 > 0:02:42'Oh, yes. It was carefully made. It still is,
0:02:42 > 0:02:46'but was it and is it carefully drunk?'
0:02:54 > 0:02:55When I was growing up,
0:02:55 > 0:02:59people weren't over-strict about kids in pubs.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04In fact, you'd get sent down to get your dad
0:03:04 > 0:03:09or your Uncle Joe and tell them to get up for dinner.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13You'd find them there propping up the bar, a half and a half,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16which is a half-pint of heavy and whisky chaser.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19That's what all the working men drank.
0:03:19 > 0:03:21The men who weren't working too.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24Drunk in the Dundee pubs, and around closing time,
0:03:24 > 0:03:26nine o'clock in my day.
0:03:26 > 0:03:30Nine o'clock, they'd come out, stagger a wee bit
0:03:30 > 0:03:34and probably, more likely, fall over.
0:03:34 > 0:03:36A regular occurrence.
0:03:38 > 0:03:43'These days, whisky is without doubt a source of national pride.
0:03:43 > 0:03:47'An almost unique phenomenon.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51'One of the few growth industries in the entire United Kingdom.'
0:03:54 > 0:03:58'Its reputation abroad has never been higher.
0:03:58 > 0:04:04'Last year, it generated £4.2 billion in foreign sales alone.'
0:04:08 > 0:04:10'But its past was more troubled
0:04:10 > 0:04:13'and Scotland's history tangled up in it.
0:04:13 > 0:04:18'It's like he kind of double vision. They come as a pair.
0:04:18 > 0:04:23'The proud Highlander and the drunken Scot.'
0:04:23 > 0:04:26That's how we're seen, that's how we sell ourselves.
0:04:26 > 0:04:31Bonnie Scotland, the nation that's 80% alcohol by volume.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43'Nobody knows when whisky was first made in Scotland.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46'When it first appears in our written history,
0:04:46 > 0:04:49'it's already well-established.
0:04:49 > 0:04:53'In 1494, King James IV of Scotland
0:04:53 > 0:04:57'orders a large quantity of aqua vitae from a monastery.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01'Aqua vitae, the Latin name for a kind of alcohol
0:05:01 > 0:05:08'appearing in other European countries about the same time.
0:05:08 > 0:05:13'Each country translated from the Latin to name their drink.'
0:05:13 > 0:05:19The French called it eau de vie, the Scandinavians called it aqvavit,
0:05:19 > 0:05:25and the Gaelic-speaking Scots called it uisge-beatha.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29Uisge-beatha - water of life.
0:05:30 > 0:05:35'Every country faced botanical reality when it set out to make
0:05:35 > 0:05:36'its water of life.
0:05:36 > 0:05:41'The basic ingredient had to grow nearby.
0:05:41 > 0:05:43'The French used grapes or fruit,
0:05:43 > 0:05:48'the Scandinavians and the Scots used grain.
0:05:48 > 0:05:53'Barley. It was Scotland's staple food crop.
0:05:53 > 0:05:56'The people who first-term barley into strong alcohol
0:05:56 > 0:06:01'weren't distillers.
0:06:01 > 0:06:05'There was no whisky industry.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10'There were simply farmers with some surplus barley after harvest home.'
0:06:13 > 0:06:17'On the island of Lewis, the Abhainn Dearg distillery
0:06:17 > 0:06:23'occasionally runs a small old still in honour of whisky's history.'
0:06:23 > 0:06:27I suppose this was how it started.
0:06:27 > 0:06:28This is how it began?
0:06:28 > 0:06:31Most distilleries in Scotland, or round the Highlands,
0:06:31 > 0:06:35they just started off as a small still.
0:06:35 > 0:06:39If you've got a reasonable harvest, you probably setting aside
0:06:39 > 0:06:42whatever your crop for food,
0:06:42 > 0:06:46your crop for next year's crop,
0:06:46 > 0:06:48and then if there was a surplus, maybe of grain,
0:06:48 > 0:06:53you would maybe say to yourself, let's turn it into alcohol.
0:06:53 > 0:06:54It's almost vermin-proof.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58That was one of the other reasons they might have turned
0:06:58 > 0:07:02a surplus stock of grain, to stop the rats and all the mice eating it.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06Sometimes, we'll sit down and you get some of the older boys
0:07:06 > 0:07:09coming in and they'll just reminisce about days gone by.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12The great times, the good times.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15They would say, "We'd go to a small house
0:07:15 > 0:07:21and they would have a still running maybe for a week.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23They wouldn't be seen for almost a month.
0:07:23 > 0:07:26These men would disappear for a month!
0:07:26 > 0:07:29What would happen to their farms during that time?
0:07:29 > 0:07:32- You had your crops so... - They timed it well?
0:07:32 > 0:07:33It was always timed well.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36Think of it, you had to work with the seasons.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39You only had the grain coming in in September, October
0:07:39 > 0:07:41and she used to have to leave it.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44You would have a drink season as well? That seems very sensible.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47That seems to be the best way to have alcohol.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49There's a time for it.
0:07:49 > 0:07:53When you have it all the time, it ruins the joy of it in a way.
0:07:53 > 0:07:54When you earn it, it seems...
0:07:54 > 0:07:57When you've earned it. You've done your year's graft.
0:08:03 > 0:08:08'The method of distillation these farmers used was itself ancient.'
0:08:11 > 0:08:14'Practised by the Egyptians, the Chinese,
0:08:14 > 0:08:18'eventually the Arabs of the eight and ninth century,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21'it is exotic like the kind of alchemy.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25'It magically makes weak drinks strong.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28'An enclosed vessel is filled with liquid
0:08:28 > 0:08:32'containing alcohol in low concentration, and heated.
0:08:38 > 0:08:43'Eventually, the alcohol becomes a vapour which flows through
0:08:43 > 0:08:48'a spout at the top of the vessel into a coil cooled with water.'
0:08:52 > 0:08:54'What slowly drips from the other end
0:08:54 > 0:08:56'is alcohol in a more concentrated form.'
0:09:00 > 0:09:05- Is something happening here now? - She should be smoking!
0:09:05 > 0:09:08I think there is some smoke coming out of there.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13- Here she goes! - That was brilliantly timed.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16I can't believe it, did you press something with your foot?
0:09:19 > 0:09:25'Like alchemy and all those other als - algebra, algorithm, alambic,
0:09:25 > 0:09:31'the word itself is Arab. Al-kohl - alcohol.
0:09:31 > 0:09:35'The purified.'
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Right, Brian, I think you're ready for a wee taste.
0:09:47 > 0:09:49I'll maybe try a little taste now.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52Uisge-beatha, the water of life.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57- As we say, gle mhath.- Gle mhath.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59- Slainte mhaith.- Slainte mhaith.
0:10:09 > 0:10:14Oh, my gosh. I didn't expect it to be so syrupy.
0:10:14 > 0:10:17It's got a sort of oily...
0:10:17 > 0:10:21It's got an oily thing about it. I never expected that.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29- Enjoy that?- Tell you in a minute.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33- Don't go all away down to Dundee drinking.- I won't, I won't.
0:10:33 > 0:10:35I'll savour it.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37There's a real taste of the land in it though.
0:10:37 > 0:10:41Traditionally, we'd be taking that jug away, as they say in America,
0:10:41 > 0:10:44and we'd be just passing it round.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53'So this was how whisky started - as a white spirit
0:10:53 > 0:10:58'ready to drink as it poured or dripped from the still.
0:10:58 > 0:11:02'Made by farmers for themselves, or for barter,
0:11:02 > 0:11:04'or in tiny quantities for sale.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08'It was never likely to be more than a year old before it was drunk,
0:11:08 > 0:11:12'and if people wanted to flavour it, they added herbs.'
0:11:19 > 0:11:23There's something fundamentally honest about whisky.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26It was a drink that rhymed with hospitality,
0:11:26 > 0:11:31very much part of the rhythm of an agricultural society.
0:11:31 > 0:11:32A token of welcome,
0:11:32 > 0:11:36made as a gift as much as a store for energy for the winter months.
0:11:36 > 0:11:40The Scots made whisky like the bees made honey.
0:11:49 > 0:11:53'Some say that the first Scottish stills were set up
0:11:53 > 0:11:59'on the west coast island of Isla, brought there by Irish monks.
0:11:59 > 0:12:03'It might even be true.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07'But with its eight distilleries, Isla remains an excellent place
0:12:07 > 0:12:12'to go for a sense of whisky's central place in Scottish tradition.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14'A nip in the morning, a nip at night,
0:12:14 > 0:12:18a hospitable nip for visiting friends or neighbours.
0:12:18 > 0:12:21'A drink to bring the harvest home,
0:12:21 > 0:12:26'to mark the passing of time or the passing of people.'
0:12:26 > 0:12:30Most people reach for a Scotch in a time of trial or retribution
0:12:30 > 0:12:35or trouble. You reach for a dram. There's something a bit magical
0:12:35 > 0:12:39about this spirit, that gives you courage and strength to go on.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42I think that's why it's so useful at funerals
0:12:42 > 0:12:44because on an island, you know everybody.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47When somebody dies, you know them quite well.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50It could be your best friend sort of thing.
0:12:50 > 0:12:55- Some people get whisky buried with them.- That's right.- Do they?
0:12:55 > 0:12:59- A few bottles in a coffin.- To carry them over to the other side.
0:12:59 > 0:13:02- Yeah.- Better than taking the phone with you.
0:13:05 > 0:13:09I used to play the pipes at funerals and weddings.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12I used to always tell people that funerals were much better
0:13:12 > 0:13:16than weddings because there's much more drink at funerals.
0:13:16 > 0:13:17They're always better.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20There's nothing better than a good funeral as long
0:13:20 > 0:13:22as it's an older person.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25It was a good send-off. They always had a good send-off.
0:13:25 > 0:13:27No-one was ever rushed to their grave.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30We still have it.
0:13:30 > 0:13:34- A drink at the grave site. - As soon as the body's down.
0:13:34 > 0:13:36It's the old tradition.
0:13:36 > 0:13:39We have oatcakes, cheese, whisky.
0:13:39 > 0:13:41It also wets the baby's head as well.
0:13:41 > 0:13:44It's almost the currency in the community.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46Even I can remember when I was younger as well,
0:13:46 > 0:13:50when your teeth are coming through, you'd get whisky put in your gums
0:13:50 > 0:13:52to try and soothe the pain and stuff like that.
0:13:52 > 0:13:56It used in all sorts of medicinal and currency and everything.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59Integrated right into everything in the community.
0:13:59 > 0:14:02This always seems to me that any excuse just to drink some whisky.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05There's always a wee excuse.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11'A good malt whisky goes down very easily indeed,
0:14:11 > 0:14:14'but what happens in the brain as we drink?'
0:14:18 > 0:14:22'Answering that question has occupied a large part
0:14:22 > 0:14:26'of Professor David Nutt's current research.'
0:14:26 > 0:14:29I took a drink of whisky, how does it affect me?
0:14:29 > 0:14:33So, you take your wee dram, hopefully it's only a wee one.
0:14:33 > 0:14:36Into the blood and then it gets in the brain.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40Alcohol goes throughout the brain.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44The way the brain works is that we have a chemical to keep us awake,
0:14:44 > 0:14:48that's called glutamate, and we have a chemical neurotransmitter
0:14:48 > 0:14:51that calms us down, and that's called GABA.
0:14:51 > 0:14:53The first thing that alcohol does
0:14:53 > 0:14:56is to turn on the effects of GABA to calm us down.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59If it dampens down activity in this part of the brain,
0:14:59 > 0:15:01it takes away worry
0:15:01 > 0:15:04and that's usually what people are looking for alcohol to do.
0:15:04 > 0:15:06They want to calm down and what to relax.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10Then it starts to dampen down activity here which leads to
0:15:10 > 0:15:15sometimes a feeling of energy and of being quite animated
0:15:15 > 0:15:17and people start to talk more.
0:15:17 > 0:15:19It also releases an increase in GABA
0:15:19 > 0:15:23which allows chemicals called endorphins to release here
0:15:23 > 0:15:27and that's associated with feeling good on alcohol.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31Then as you increase your dose, ifs you take too much,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33then you begin to disrupt the function
0:15:33 > 0:15:36of this part of the brain which is called the prefrontal cortex.
0:15:36 > 0:15:41This is the seat of self-control, self-regulation.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44If you dampen down this too much,
0:15:44 > 0:15:47people switch into that very disinhibited state,
0:15:47 > 0:15:50you see in people who are sometimes very drunk.
0:15:50 > 0:15:53That's often associated with violence.
0:15:53 > 0:15:55Often people become very different.
0:15:55 > 0:15:59Their personality changes, sometimes they just start breaking into tears.
0:15:59 > 0:16:01They would seem normally quite self-controlled.
0:16:01 > 0:16:06Then if you carry on drinking, as some people do,
0:16:06 > 0:16:09what happens there is this part of the brain here
0:16:09 > 0:16:12which keeps you breathing, eventually that gets shut off
0:16:12 > 0:16:15and you stop breathing and die.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18It's a pretty awful scenario.
0:16:18 > 0:16:21That's why you shouldn't drink too much.
0:16:24 > 0:16:26'In the early days, there were safeguards,
0:16:26 > 0:16:29'limits to the amount of whisky.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33'How much of your barley crop could you sensibly make into alcohol?
0:16:33 > 0:16:40'Whisky was only made at harvest home and had to last a year.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44'People drank constantly but slowly.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47'This was whisky's dream time.
0:16:47 > 0:16:51'It lasted several hundred years. Whisky changed very little.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55'Sometimes in years of famine, the King or Parliament might pass
0:16:55 > 0:17:00'a law against distillation, but the laws never lasted.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05'People noticed new possibilities.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09'Jim McEwan of Bruichladdich thinks whisky was first deliberately casked
0:17:09 > 0:17:14'on Isla. It might even be true.
0:17:14 > 0:17:19'Some time in the 18th century, someone noticed that whisky
0:17:19 > 0:17:24'left in an oaken cask had changed in two ways.
0:17:24 > 0:17:29'It tasted better, smoother and it had taken colour.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32'It was a mild amber, a pale honey.
0:17:32 > 0:17:37'The colour of a memory of a Scottish autumn afternoon.'
0:17:49 > 0:17:50Somebody said to me,
0:17:50 > 0:17:54"When do you start putting the flavour in the whisky?
0:17:54 > 0:17:58I said the flavour started going in 100 years ago
0:17:58 > 0:18:01when the acorn fell from the tree
0:18:01 > 0:18:04and then the tree grows for 95 years.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07At 95 years, the tree is cut down.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10That's the age of the oak when they use it for barrels.
0:18:10 > 0:18:13- It's 100 years ago.- These are oak?
0:18:13 > 0:18:18These are oak. Whisky can only be matured in oak casks.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Isn't that colour gorgeous? That's a natural colour.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24We do not add any artificial colouring
0:18:24 > 0:18:27or any other additives to our spirit. It's all pure.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31What is the idea of you keeping this? This is 20 years.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35- What are you going for on this? - It's going to be released this year.
0:18:35 > 0:18:41You're the first person in the world to try it. Yeah.
0:18:41 > 0:18:45- Apart from myself.- You don't count really?
0:18:45 > 0:18:48I'm the guinea pig.
0:18:48 > 0:18:51Here goes. Slainte.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53That's about 50 per cent strength natural.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00- Straight from the barrel. - Oh, My goodness.
0:19:00 > 0:19:03- It's good, isn't it? - Oh, my goodness.
0:19:03 > 0:19:05So elegant and sophisticated.
0:19:05 > 0:19:11About April, starts to get warm in Isla and the heat builds up.
0:19:11 > 0:19:16The alcohol expands inside the cask in the spirit drives into the oak.
0:19:16 > 0:19:20The oak says, "Come in, come in. I really love you."
0:19:20 > 0:19:25In goes the spirit and takes the flavour from the oak cask.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30'Whisky aged in oak did taste better
0:19:30 > 0:19:34'and it tasted better the longer it stayed in the wood,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38'but nobody did much with this common knowledge.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43'Who wanted to wait 10 years or 20 for a drink?
0:19:43 > 0:19:46'For most people, 10 minutes was long enough.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49'They drank their whisky white.'
0:20:03 > 0:20:06'By the later years of the 18th century,
0:20:06 > 0:20:10'whisky's long dream time was coming to an end.
0:20:10 > 0:20:16'Slowly but surely, some people were becoming full-time distillers.
0:20:16 > 0:20:20'Their whisky was for sale.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25'Some of it was good
0:20:25 > 0:20:28'and some of it was not.'
0:20:38 > 0:20:41'Highland whisky, for instance, mostly made by small distillers
0:20:41 > 0:20:44'tended to be well made and a pleasure to drink,
0:20:44 > 0:20:47'but at the other end of the market,
0:20:47 > 0:20:50'large-scale distilleries in the lowlands were engaged
0:20:50 > 0:20:55'in the production of whisky of a rather different character.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58'Two families led the lowland market -
0:20:58 > 0:21:01'the Haigs and the Steins.
0:21:01 > 0:21:07'Neither family cared much for quality but the Steins cared least.'
0:21:07 > 0:21:09One of their distilleries
0:21:09 > 0:21:13famously produced the worst whisky in Scotland,
0:21:13 > 0:21:16but their contribution was genuine and twofold.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19On the one hand, the Steins were ingenious and on the other hand,
0:21:19 > 0:21:23they worked on a very grand scale.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29'The Steins were industrial. In at the beginning of the process
0:21:29 > 0:21:33'that would turn Scotland's central belt from something like this
0:21:33 > 0:21:37'into something like this.
0:21:37 > 0:21:41'Stein family distilleries were scattered all over southern Fife
0:21:41 > 0:21:44'and Clackmannanshire near Stirling,
0:21:44 > 0:21:47'connected by their own canals and railway lines.
0:21:47 > 0:21:51'The Steins installed the first steam engines in Scotland.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54'They constructed a harbour in the Forth to handle distribution
0:21:54 > 0:21:57'and look for markets far afield.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00'They were the first to export whisky,
0:22:00 > 0:22:05'sending it to London where it was turned into gin.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10'There's nothing left of their largest plant, Kilbagie.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13'Kennetpans, the second largest, barely survives.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16'It was certainly active in the 1730s,
0:22:16 > 0:22:19'one of Scotland's earliest industrial locations
0:22:19 > 0:22:22'and it's going to rack and ruin.'
0:22:22 > 0:22:26Kilbagie alone had over 300 staff employed on site.
0:22:26 > 0:22:30- Do you know how many people were employed here?- I don't.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32We have no record of that at all.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36Any records state Kennetpans was two-thirds of the size of Kilbagie
0:22:36 > 0:22:39so if you work it out that way,
0:22:39 > 0:22:43you'd be talking maybe a couple of hundred, I would imagine.
0:22:43 > 0:22:45- That's quite a big scale. - It's massive.
0:22:45 > 0:22:49For that time, it was absolutely huge.
0:22:49 > 0:22:51'In this photograph from 1925,
0:22:51 > 0:22:57'we get some sense of the original layout and scale of Kennetpans.
0:22:57 > 0:23:02'The maltings and warehouses are 100 yards away, now hidden by trees.'
0:23:04 > 0:23:07This is us now going into the warehouse complex.
0:23:07 > 0:23:10My God, it's huge! Look at the size of it.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13I've never worked out the square footage
0:23:13 > 0:23:16- but an absolutely incredible size. - It's incredible.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21This place was built to last, wasn't it?
0:23:21 > 0:23:25These Steins, they were serious about this place.
0:23:25 > 0:23:30They had drive, innovation, and totally ruthless.
0:23:30 > 0:23:35There was a distillery in Inverkeithing that upset the Steins.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38All they did, they bought the mill upstream of it
0:23:38 > 0:23:42and cut his water supply off, forced him out of business overnight.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45See what I mean? They're like the Mafia. The Clackmannan Mafia.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49They had no scruples at all.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52They're quite a family.
0:23:52 > 0:23:57MUSIC: The Godfather Waltz by Nino Rota
0:23:57 > 0:24:00'The Steins weren't quite so ruthless as the Corleones,
0:24:00 > 0:24:05'but they certainly enjoyed making the competition unrefusable offers.
0:24:05 > 0:24:09'They certainly didn't enjoy paying tax.
0:24:09 > 0:24:12'Not many whisky-makers did.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17'In Edinburgh alone, in 1777, there were 408 distillers,
0:24:17 > 0:24:20'God knows where they put them all,
0:24:20 > 0:24:26'but only eight paid tax.'
0:24:26 > 0:24:31'Most Scottish parishes were just as full of tax-dodging distillers.
0:24:31 > 0:24:37'In 1783, a man of principle became Prime Minister.
0:24:39 > 0:24:40'William Pitt the Younger.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45'Think Eliot Ness, Al Capone's worst nightmare.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48'Untouchable, incorruptible.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51'Pitt looked upon the world of Scottish whisky
0:24:51 > 0:24:53'and saw that it was full of corruption.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57'He set about rewriting the rulebook on whisky tax,
0:24:57 > 0:24:59but he made a mistake.'
0:25:00 > 0:25:03He sought the advice of the Clackmannan Mafia
0:25:03 > 0:25:05and the Steins told him
0:25:05 > 0:25:09that small Highland distillers had unfair advantages
0:25:09 > 0:25:12over big Lowland distillers like themselves.
0:25:14 > 0:25:16William Pitt the gullible agreed
0:25:16 > 0:25:19and drew the famous Highland Line,
0:25:19 > 0:25:22declaring that whisky made in the Highlands
0:25:22 > 0:25:25could not be sold in the Lowlands.
0:25:25 > 0:25:27It took a Lowlander from Ayrshire
0:25:27 > 0:25:30to plead the Highland cause,
0:25:30 > 0:25:34a Lowlander who cared and wrote more about whisky
0:25:34 > 0:25:36than anyone before or since.
0:25:38 > 0:25:39From Burns' point of view,
0:25:39 > 0:25:45it wasn't only a massive government abuse on behalf of the public purse,
0:25:45 > 0:25:47it was also something that changed
0:25:47 > 0:25:50a crucial and beautiful element of Scottish culture to him,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53the small still, the quality product.
0:25:53 > 0:25:56You see it in his poem The Author's Earnest Cry And Prayer,
0:25:56 > 0:25:58where he actually points to Pitt.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01Pitt is the "Premier youth" he refers to.
0:26:01 > 0:26:05"Stand forth an' tell yon Premier youth
0:26:05 > 0:26:08"the honest, open, naked truth
0:26:08 > 0:26:11"Tell him o'mine and Scotland's drouth,
0:26:11 > 0:26:13"His servants humble,
0:26:13 > 0:26:17"The muckle deevil blaw you south if ye dissemble."
0:26:17 > 0:26:19- Yeah.- So it was a cultural change for Burns.
0:26:19 > 0:26:22Everywhere, in the Ayrshire fields around him,
0:26:22 > 0:26:26and then in the fields of Dumfries and Galloway,
0:26:26 > 0:26:30there was evidence that the world of his father, of the plough...
0:26:30 > 0:26:32- Right.- ..was coming to an end.
0:26:32 > 0:26:34He saw that coming.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36The pipes were starting to go up,
0:26:36 > 0:26:39the machinery was starting to come onto the farm.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42Burns was, in a sense, right there at that moment
0:26:42 > 0:26:44where history just turned a corner.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48Charles, what is the effect on the whisky industry after all this?
0:26:48 > 0:26:51Well, I think that although William Pitt...
0:26:52 > 0:26:54His agenda was to raise money,
0:26:54 > 0:26:56but unfortunately,
0:26:56 > 0:27:01in trying to straighten out the taxing of Scotch whisky,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04he produced a system
0:27:04 > 0:27:10which ultimately encouraged the production of rotgut.
0:27:10 > 0:27:11Yeah, so the whisky,
0:27:11 > 0:27:15it really did affect the quality of the whisky?
0:27:15 > 0:27:19Absolutely, because the tax was based upon the capacity of the still
0:27:19 > 0:27:23and the canny distillers, the bigger distillers, overcame that
0:27:23 > 0:27:25by running the stills very, very fast
0:27:25 > 0:27:29so as to produce much more, which was a filthy, horrible,
0:27:29 > 0:27:32even sometimes poisonous spirit.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35- Like toxic.- Yeah.- Burns described it
0:27:35 > 0:27:40as, you know, "rascally liquor for the rascally sort of individual."
0:27:40 > 0:27:43- It was low-grade stuff for the marauders.- It was.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46- And there was still a market for this?- Oh, yeah.- Absolutely.
0:27:50 > 0:27:52And of course, it was the Steins
0:27:52 > 0:27:56who produced toxic whisky in the largest quantities.
0:27:56 > 0:27:59Whilst obeying the letter of the law, they made a hooch
0:27:59 > 0:28:04that could, at its worst, make the consumer permanently blind.
0:28:04 > 0:28:09If the public wanted whisky that was safe, let alone pleasant,
0:28:09 > 0:28:11their only option was to break the law
0:28:11 > 0:28:15and buy the smuggled product of the Highland stills.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18William Pitt, the interfering busybody,
0:28:18 > 0:28:22had turned Scotland's whisky industry upside down.
0:28:25 > 0:28:30One eyewitness recorded the regular visits made to the town of Brechin
0:28:30 > 0:28:31by Highland smugglers.
0:28:33 > 0:28:35Having sold their whisky,
0:28:35 > 0:28:3930 highlanders on horseback, proudly displaying their empty barrels,
0:28:39 > 0:28:41would ride through the streets.
0:28:42 > 0:28:46All the excisemen could do was watch.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49All classes drank illicit whisky.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52It tasted better and did less harm
0:28:52 > 0:28:55than the legal booze of the Lowlands.
0:28:55 > 0:28:59Even ministers of the gospel drank it on a daily basis,
0:28:59 > 0:29:03like a cordial or a tonic.
0:29:03 > 0:29:04Amen.
0:29:04 > 0:29:07It was an absurd situation,
0:29:07 > 0:29:11a fact that was underlined by the Royal Tour of Scotland
0:29:11 > 0:29:15undertaken by King George IV in 1822.
0:29:15 > 0:29:17George wanted the best of everything
0:29:17 > 0:29:19and lots of it.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22The whisky he wanted came from here.
0:29:24 > 0:29:29The Glenlivet was a Highland whisky and therefore illegal,
0:29:29 > 0:29:31but the King got his Glenlivet
0:29:31 > 0:29:33and no-one tried to arrest him.
0:29:33 > 0:29:36In the year after George's visit,
0:29:36 > 0:29:4014,000 illicit stills were found in Scotland.
0:29:40 > 0:29:42George's favourite whisky
0:29:42 > 0:29:46was distilled by George Smith in just one of them,
0:29:46 > 0:29:49in a glen best described as busy.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54Apart from Mr Smith, how many other distillers,
0:29:54 > 0:29:56illicit distillers were there?
0:29:56 > 0:29:59Well, documentary evidence says
0:29:59 > 0:30:03- there was over 200 stills in operation.- 200!
0:30:03 > 0:30:05Now, 200, did they share the stills?
0:30:05 > 0:30:07Did they do things like that?
0:30:07 > 0:30:11But there was a lot of stills hidden up here. The population in the area
0:30:11 > 0:30:15was a lot larger because the farming units were smaller in those days,
0:30:15 > 0:30:17but perfect, remote area,
0:30:17 > 0:30:20and then smuggle it out over the hills, over the coast to Elgin,
0:30:20 > 0:30:24down to Lossiemouth, over the hills to Aberdeen there,
0:30:24 > 0:30:26or take it down to Perthshire, the other way.
0:30:30 > 0:30:34Clearly, the King's favourite booze couldn't go on being illegal.
0:30:35 > 0:30:40In 1823, the government at last introduced sane whisky taxes.
0:30:41 > 0:30:43No more Highland Line.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46A flat tax per gallon of finished spirit,
0:30:46 > 0:30:49a simple licence fee to have a still
0:30:49 > 0:30:52and no stills smaller than 40 gallons.
0:30:53 > 0:30:58George Smith was the first Glenlivet distiller to go legit.
0:30:58 > 0:31:01Almost 200 years later,
0:31:01 > 0:31:04the Glenlivet stills are rather larger
0:31:04 > 0:31:08but in Smith's day, a 40-gallon still was already too big
0:31:08 > 0:31:11for any part-timer with a barley surplus.
0:31:13 > 0:31:15The truth is, 1823 signalled
0:31:15 > 0:31:18the beginning of the end of Scottish honey.
0:31:18 > 0:31:23Henceforth, whisky was a commodity to be bought and sold.
0:31:27 > 0:31:31All over Scotland, the proprietors of illicit stills
0:31:31 > 0:31:35saw precisely the same commercial opportunity as Smith had.
0:31:35 > 0:31:40Within two years, the number of licensed whisky distillers
0:31:40 > 0:31:44increased from 125 to 329.
0:31:44 > 0:31:47That was a lot of legal whisky.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52And there was about to be lots more.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57This new world of sensible whisky tax
0:31:57 > 0:32:01was too much for the Steins to resist.
0:32:01 > 0:32:02In 1826,
0:32:02 > 0:32:08Robert Stein secured a patent for an altogether new kind of still.
0:32:08 > 0:32:13It made spirit from any kind of grain, and it was huge.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18But what mattered most about the continuous still
0:32:18 > 0:32:22was the fact that it worked continuously.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25What have we got here?
0:32:25 > 0:32:29Well, this, we're standing in the Girvan distillery
0:32:29 > 0:32:32and what we're looking at here in particular
0:32:32 > 0:32:35is the continuous distillation apparatus
0:32:35 > 0:32:37for producing grain whisky spirit.
0:32:37 > 0:32:38So this is still a still?
0:32:38 > 0:32:41It's a still. Not as you'd have seen before, I imagine.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43No! It's pretty big.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45Yeah, if you think of, obviously,
0:32:45 > 0:32:47the image of distillation, proper pot stills,
0:32:47 > 0:32:51and this is really doing exactly the same on a continuous basis,
0:32:51 > 0:32:54so instead of producing batches,
0:32:54 > 0:32:55we start this still up
0:32:55 > 0:32:58and in essence, it can run for days or weeks at a time.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04The original design for Stein's continuous still
0:33:04 > 0:33:08called for two linked copper columns 40 to 50 feet high.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14It was improved on almost instantly
0:33:14 > 0:33:17but the basics have never really changed.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20Steam passes through at a high pressure.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23Seams have to be perfect to prevent explosions.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26This is applied science -
0:33:26 > 0:33:29industry, pure and simple.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34It produces thousands of litres of spirit an hour.
0:33:40 > 0:33:41What this new still produced
0:33:41 > 0:33:44was certainly immeasurably superior to the toxic rotgut
0:33:44 > 0:33:47that the previous tax-dodging generation of Steins
0:33:47 > 0:33:52had pumped as fast as possible down English and Scottish throats.
0:33:52 > 0:33:54within limits of sensible consumption,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57it was perfectly safe to drink.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03Pleasant, in fact.
0:34:03 > 0:34:07The grain whisky it made had a pleasing sweetness
0:34:07 > 0:34:10and the new still made it in huge quantities.
0:34:11 > 0:34:15It was nobody's plan or fault,
0:34:15 > 0:34:18but the new grain whisky hit the market at the same time
0:34:18 > 0:34:22as the vastly increased output of the new legalised stills.
0:34:25 > 0:34:27More whisky than had ever been made before
0:34:27 > 0:34:30flooded a newly urban Scotland.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33People from the Highlands and Islands
0:34:33 > 0:34:35who would have once made their own whisky
0:34:35 > 0:34:37were moving into towns and cities,
0:34:37 > 0:34:40becoming wage labourers.
0:34:43 > 0:34:48Glasgow, first five years of the 1820s,
0:34:48 > 0:34:52is boomtown. The population is going to go up by a quarter,
0:34:52 > 0:34:57almost like one of these instant cities of the American West.
0:34:57 > 0:35:00Drunkenness, I think, booms at the same time.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03What do you think the prime reason for that was?
0:35:03 > 0:35:04People were moving.
0:35:04 > 0:35:07They were moving into towns at a rate they'd never moved before.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10You had awful living conditions,
0:35:10 > 0:35:14you had infant mortality all over the place.
0:35:14 > 0:35:18You had to have, you know, some means of releasing what you felt,
0:35:18 > 0:35:25so the dram is there as the drink of choice
0:35:25 > 0:35:29and there's a marvellous quote from Hugh Miller, the geologist,
0:35:29 > 0:35:33who was then a mason coming down from Cromartie
0:35:33 > 0:35:37and saying that this was "happiness sold by the gill."
0:35:37 > 0:35:40And if you were a mason working out in the wet,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43or you were carting slabs of stone from the Clyde,
0:35:43 > 0:35:46this was where you could sit down, just a place like this,
0:35:46 > 0:35:49and get a holiday in half an hour.
0:35:54 > 0:35:55Some holiday.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00A holiday from rent, debt,
0:36:00 > 0:36:04responsibility, hard labour,
0:36:04 > 0:36:06life.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10Men were often paid in pubs
0:36:10 > 0:36:14and all their money ended up behind the bar.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26The amount of damage done was truly horrendous.
0:36:26 > 0:36:28The old days were long gone.
0:36:28 > 0:36:31What the men were drinking in the bars and the shebeens
0:36:31 > 0:36:33wasn't something that they'd grown themselves
0:36:33 > 0:36:38and the decision to keep drinking was made while still drunk.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41In other words, it wasn't a decision at all.
0:36:47 > 0:36:54The 1820s and '30s are rich with the statistics of misery.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56In 1822, it's estimated
0:36:56 > 0:37:02that the Scots consumed just over 2 million gallons of whisky.
0:37:02 > 0:37:06By 1829, that figure was nearly 6 million.
0:37:09 > 0:37:14In Edinburgh and Glasgow, there was a bar for every 130 people.
0:37:19 > 0:37:23The first temperance societies were formed in the 1830s,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27struggling to deal with this perfect storm.
0:37:31 > 0:37:35It was a huge, huge social problem
0:37:35 > 0:37:39with which the temperance societies tried to wrestle,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43from the kind of houses they were visiting,
0:37:43 > 0:37:46where every stick of furniture had been sold to buy drink
0:37:46 > 0:37:49and the people were in utter misery,
0:37:49 > 0:37:51wearing rags
0:37:51 > 0:37:53and the children starving
0:37:53 > 0:37:56and that was attributed to drink,
0:37:56 > 0:38:02where the husband on payday had just gone down the pub and blown the lot
0:38:02 > 0:38:05and there's story after story.
0:38:05 > 0:38:09The city missionary goes into different houses, and every house,
0:38:09 > 0:38:14there is a woman with either a black eye or two black eyes
0:38:14 > 0:38:20or broken limbs because her husband has been enraged in drink
0:38:20 > 0:38:26and there's women thinking they'd do anything to get out of this.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29- It's like a mass drink hysteria, in some way.- It is.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32You know, it must have been like
0:38:32 > 0:38:38damming up this huge kind of flowing river, you know, of alcohol.
0:38:38 > 0:38:41They had to go evangelical on it,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44you know, "Go for a better life, sign the pledge now,
0:38:44 > 0:38:48"forsake the drink, see how your life will change,
0:38:48 > 0:38:52"Let's have concerts
0:38:52 > 0:38:55"and different events without any drink,
0:38:55 > 0:39:00"let's have enjoyable festive fun without the drink,
0:39:00 > 0:39:03"let's build up the counter attractions."
0:39:06 > 0:39:10The various temperance movements pulled in thousands of members,
0:39:10 > 0:39:11but not enough.
0:39:11 > 0:39:16They were trying to argue that poverty was caused by booze.
0:39:18 > 0:39:22But for most working-class Scots, whisky wasn't the cause.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25It was the anaesthetic.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28They drank grain whisky, malt whisky, any kind of whisky,
0:39:28 > 0:39:34to escape the often unbearable conditions of their urban existence.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39Whether Scotland's whisky makers liked it or not,
0:39:39 > 0:39:41this was their strongest market.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51There were no significant exports.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55If the English thought about whisky at all, it was as an outdoor drink
0:39:55 > 0:40:00offered by a gamekeeper to sportsmen halfway up a Scottish hill.
0:40:02 > 0:40:05Scotland's whiskies came from two kinds of still.
0:40:05 > 0:40:10From the continuous stills, grain whisky flowed almost constantly,
0:40:10 > 0:40:13sweet, light, lacking in character.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16From the traditional pot stills flowed malt whisky,
0:40:16 > 0:40:19often peaty and fiery, hugely varied.
0:40:19 > 0:40:24One man's malt was another man's poison.
0:40:24 > 0:40:29Cue the so-called whisky barons
0:40:29 > 0:40:32who would mix the fiery malts and the sweet grain whiskies
0:40:32 > 0:40:34to produce a new kind of product -
0:40:34 > 0:40:40a whisky that would sell not just in England but around the world.
0:40:41 > 0:40:42OK.
0:40:44 > 0:40:45So...
0:40:47 > 0:40:50This is grain. I'll just let you have a little sniff of it
0:40:50 > 0:40:51before I put it in.
0:40:52 > 0:40:54It's lovely. Smells good.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57Yes, and you might be getting some vanilla coming through.
0:40:57 > 0:41:00That's right, that what is. There's a wee bit of vanilla in it.
0:41:00 > 0:41:02Now, I'm going to add some malt
0:41:02 > 0:41:05so obviously this is a top secret,
0:41:05 > 0:41:09- so you can't look at the labels.- OK.
0:41:09 > 0:41:13'The whisky barons were looking for a blend that was sweeter,
0:41:13 > 0:41:19'blander and more consistent to open the door to mass-market sales.
0:41:19 > 0:41:22'Then, and now, the recipes are secret.
0:41:22 > 0:41:27'Dewar's most expensive blend contains around 40 different whiskies.
0:41:27 > 0:41:32'My personal blend contains one grain whisky and two malts.
0:41:32 > 0:41:36'Stephanie refused to tell me which ones.'
0:41:36 > 0:41:39- OK.- So I'm going to try this. - There you go.
0:41:39 > 0:41:41- The Cox blend.- The Cox blend.
0:41:43 > 0:41:48- So from this, you're getting a sweetness coming through.- Oh.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51- Gosh. That's... - Well, that's a cask strength.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55- Wow!- So I'd give you a little bit of water.
0:41:55 > 0:41:58- Wow!- Save the head.- Ah, God.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01My ancestors would be re-emerging if I took much of this stuff!
0:42:04 > 0:42:09So you see that when you add water to whisky, the whisky almost squirms.
0:42:09 > 0:42:13- Oh, my God!- And it then releases different compounds.
0:42:13 > 0:42:15Now, that would last me a year
0:42:15 > 0:42:18because you just want to drink that
0:42:18 > 0:42:21- and you don't want to drink it... - Savour it.- Savour it. It's just...
0:42:21 > 0:42:24It's lovely. Would you like to try?
0:42:27 > 0:42:33Dewar's was only one of several companies offering blended whisky
0:42:33 > 0:42:37but they had a secret weapon - the younger son.
0:42:37 > 0:42:40Tommy Dewar was the sort of salesmen
0:42:40 > 0:42:43whose foot stayed firmly jammed in any open door
0:42:43 > 0:42:46and in 1892, he took his foot,
0:42:46 > 0:42:49address book and sample case on tour
0:42:49 > 0:42:51of almost the entire world.
0:42:53 > 0:42:55Two years and 26 countries later,
0:42:55 > 0:43:00he was back with 32 established export agencies.
0:43:00 > 0:43:05The profits of Dewar's and Sons more than doubled within a year
0:43:05 > 0:43:08and thanks to the effort of Tommy Dewar
0:43:08 > 0:43:13and those of other travellers with perhaps only slightly smaller feet,
0:43:13 > 0:43:16Scottish blended whisky went international.
0:43:20 > 0:43:22Afternoon, sir. How are you?
0:43:22 > 0:43:25I'd like a blended whisky, Scottish, please.
0:43:30 > 0:43:31It conquered bars...
0:43:33 > 0:43:35saloons,
0:43:35 > 0:43:37hotels...
0:43:38 > 0:43:42..in territory after territory.
0:43:45 > 0:43:47By the late 1890s,
0:43:47 > 0:43:53Scots blended whisky was available pretty much anywhere you went.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57The export business boomed
0:43:57 > 0:44:01and the English upper classes took to whisky too.
0:44:01 > 0:44:04Dewar's and Buchanan both gained royal warrants
0:44:04 > 0:44:07and contracts to supply the Houses of Parliament.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13All the blenders dipped the same well for sales purposes -
0:44:13 > 0:44:15kilts and whisky.
0:44:15 > 0:44:17The Scots and their booze were inseparable,
0:44:17 > 0:44:19married in the public mind.
0:44:20 > 0:44:22In 1897,
0:44:22 > 0:44:27Dewar's made the first ever filmed advertisement for an alcoholic drink
0:44:27 > 0:44:29and here it is.
0:44:29 > 0:44:32The message is, I think you'll agree, comically clear.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35But how else would you sell it?
0:44:35 > 0:44:38Scots and whisky go together.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54Yes, but that message was for export only.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57On Scotland's city streets and in its slums,
0:44:57 > 0:45:01the relationship between the poor and whisky drinking
0:45:01 > 0:45:03continued to be grimly close.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10Temperance campaigners pressed for new laws.
0:45:10 > 0:45:14They wanted alcohol banned, but the new laws they got fell short.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19In 1903, the Licensing Act For Scotland
0:45:19 > 0:45:22merely closed pubs early, at 10pm.
0:45:23 > 0:45:28In 1909, the tax on domestic whisky was increased by 30%.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33The Chancellor responsible was Lloyd George.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40Lloyd George was far from unsympathetic to the temperance campaigners
0:45:40 > 0:45:45and by 1915, as Minister for Munitions, he was openly arguing
0:45:45 > 0:45:49that drink was a luxury Britain could no longer afford.
0:45:49 > 0:45:52He called for outright prohibition
0:45:52 > 0:45:55but once again, the laws that followed fell short.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01The Immature Spirits Act of 1915
0:46:01 > 0:46:06argued that spirits straight from the still did most damage,
0:46:06 > 0:46:08decreed that whisky could not be sold
0:46:08 > 0:46:12until it had been matured in cask for three years and a day.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17Unable to sell any whisky for three years and a day,
0:46:17 > 0:46:20many distillers and blenders went bust,
0:46:20 > 0:46:24but it was the making of the whisky industry nevertheless.
0:46:24 > 0:46:29All whisky would now improve in cask for a minimum of three years.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33Scottish whisky became a product of unparalleled excellence
0:46:33 > 0:46:35and smoothness - by accident.
0:46:37 > 0:46:42Because we found ourselves in two minds when we looked at whisky.
0:46:42 > 0:46:44It was our proud history
0:46:44 > 0:46:49but also, it was our national shame.
0:46:56 > 0:46:59In my hometown of Dundee,
0:46:59 > 0:47:01prohibition was a burning issue,
0:47:01 > 0:47:06best expressed by the surprising career of Eddie Scrymgeour.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12Now, Scrymgeour was famous. He was actually almost mythical.
0:47:12 > 0:47:17He'd beaten Winston Churchill in the General Election of 1922
0:47:17 > 0:47:19and Churchill was hardly a pushover,
0:47:19 > 0:47:23but Scrymgeour had beaten him on a single issue.
0:47:23 > 0:47:30Scrymgeour wanted prohibition. He wanted alcohol off Dundee's streets.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35Scrymgeour held his seat on the basis of that single issue
0:47:35 > 0:47:37for another nine years
0:47:37 > 0:47:41and elsewhere in Scotland, other voices were calling for prohibition.
0:47:41 > 0:47:46Some licensing districts actually went as far as banning alcohol.
0:47:46 > 0:47:49The general level of distrust for booze in Scotland was such
0:47:49 > 0:47:53that more districts would certainly have followed, if it hadn't been
0:47:53 > 0:47:57for America's ill-considered experiment with prohibition
0:47:57 > 0:47:59between 1920 and 1933.
0:48:02 > 0:48:03Good news for the criminals,
0:48:03 > 0:48:07who gained control of the entire market for strong drink.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10- Their only competition was each other.- You dirty rat!
0:48:10 > 0:48:12Good news for Hollywood -
0:48:12 > 0:48:14raw material for 1,000 scripts.
0:48:14 > 0:48:16Al Capone, jalopies,
0:48:16 > 0:48:19snap brim hats, massacres,
0:48:19 > 0:48:21G-men, tommy guns,
0:48:21 > 0:48:24films we were still watching when I was a kid,
0:48:24 > 0:48:28which gave us all a script, a lot of things to shout about
0:48:28 > 0:48:31when we played on Dundee's backstreets.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34- (JAMES CAGNEY VOICE) - Top of the world, Ma!
0:48:34 > 0:48:35You dirty rat!
0:48:35 > 0:48:38Oh! Is this the end for Rico?
0:48:40 > 0:48:42Prohibition was a failure.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45In fact, if anything,
0:48:45 > 0:48:48it encouraged the very thing it was trying to exclude.
0:48:52 > 0:48:54A huge amount of the bootleg liquor
0:48:54 > 0:48:58shipped into America during Prohibition was Scotch whisky,
0:48:58 > 0:49:02the most reliable booze Americans could lay their hands on.
0:49:02 > 0:49:07When Prohibition ended, it left a massive American market for Scotch,
0:49:07 > 0:49:09which still exists today.
0:49:12 > 0:49:16Do you think Prohibition worked? Does it work, browbeating anything?
0:49:16 > 0:49:20Well, it depends on what your outcome measure is.
0:49:20 > 0:49:22So if you were a doctor,
0:49:22 > 0:49:24Prohibition actually reduced
0:49:24 > 0:49:26the number of people dying from liver disease
0:49:26 > 0:49:29but of course, the cost of that was this vast increase
0:49:29 > 0:49:32in organised crime - in fact, the invention of organised crime.
0:49:32 > 0:49:37In the end, society said, "The damage done by the crime
0:49:37 > 0:49:41"is so much greater than the benefits, the health benefits,
0:49:41 > 0:49:44"that we've got to get rid of Prohibition."
0:49:44 > 0:49:48Nobel prize-winning economists have looked at this whole issue
0:49:48 > 0:49:53and they have said prohibition maximises the profit for crime.
0:49:56 > 0:50:01In the Dundee of the 1930s, the prohibitionist tide had receded too.
0:50:01 > 0:50:03Eddie Scrymgeour had lost his seat
0:50:03 > 0:50:06and the payday binge was alive and kicking.
0:50:08 > 0:50:12One of Ian Fleming's models for James Bond was a Scottish writer,
0:50:12 > 0:50:14Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart.
0:50:15 > 0:50:18In his youth, officially a diplomat,
0:50:18 > 0:50:21in reality a spy,
0:50:21 > 0:50:26Lockhart was in Russia during the Revolution. He was not a timid soul.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29In 1951, he published a history of whisky
0:50:29 > 0:50:34and its inextricable involvement with Scottish identity.
0:50:34 > 0:50:39He recalls walking down Dock Street in Dundee in the '30s.
0:50:39 > 0:50:41"Every third house was a pub," he wrote,
0:50:41 > 0:50:46"and every pub a vortex in which the week's wages were engulfed.
0:50:46 > 0:50:49"The drinkers had spilled out onto the pavement, men and women,
0:50:49 > 0:50:52"necking whisky from bottles
0:50:52 > 0:50:55"and fighting with bottles in hand."
0:50:55 > 0:50:57Lockhart was terrified.
0:50:57 > 0:51:02And this is a man who's spent time in revolutionary Russia,
0:51:02 > 0:51:06who'd even been locked up in Moscow's notorious Lubyanka Prison
0:51:06 > 0:51:11on suspicion of attempting to assassinate Lenin himself,
0:51:11 > 0:51:14and here he was, scared by Scottish drinkers.
0:51:18 > 0:51:20It wasn't just Dundee, of course.
0:51:20 > 0:51:22Other journalists and novelists
0:51:22 > 0:51:25recorded similar snapshots of alcoholic violence
0:51:25 > 0:51:29in the slums of all Scotland's major cities,
0:51:29 > 0:51:31where people drank to escape
0:51:31 > 0:51:33and the drink fuelled violence,
0:51:33 > 0:51:39where drink and poverty and violence had become somehow traditional.
0:51:41 > 0:51:44From the '30s to the '50s, it was the sort of reality
0:51:44 > 0:51:47that documentary makers try not to capture.
0:51:47 > 0:51:49You just get glimpses...
0:51:52 > 0:51:56..between shots that try to tell a nicer story,
0:51:56 > 0:51:57and fail.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04The late '50s and '60s saw the first focused attempts
0:52:04 > 0:52:10to eradicate both the causes and the consequences of alcohol abuse.
0:52:10 > 0:52:12The eradication of slums,
0:52:12 > 0:52:15the welfare state, the NHS.
0:52:17 > 0:52:22And as for the booze, chancellors raised the domestic tax on whisky
0:52:22 > 0:52:25to almost prohibitive levels.
0:52:25 > 0:52:28Most whisky went abroad.
0:52:28 > 0:52:32Whisky is one of the exports that did very useful war work
0:52:32 > 0:52:34and is still carrying on.
0:52:34 > 0:52:37One thing - we may not get the whisky here at home,
0:52:37 > 0:52:40but, well, we don't get the hangover either.
0:52:44 > 0:52:48The domestic whisky market gradually shrank.
0:52:48 > 0:52:52The industry survived because of those booming foreign sales.
0:52:52 > 0:52:54Successive chancellors kept the pressure on,
0:52:54 > 0:52:58kept increasing the tax on whisky.
0:52:58 > 0:53:02Even the great deregulator, who liked a whisky herself,
0:53:02 > 0:53:04kept the genie firmly bottled up.
0:53:04 > 0:53:09By 1993, a bottle of whisky somewhat smaller than this
0:53:09 > 0:53:12cost almost £11 -
0:53:12 > 0:53:14£7 of which was tax.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20Adding tax to whisky is now traditional,
0:53:20 > 0:53:27an established part of the Chancellor's script come Budget day
0:53:27 > 0:53:30and whisky is simply too expensive for the binge drinker.
0:53:30 > 0:53:32It's a luxury drink.
0:53:32 > 0:53:35If whisky was the only game in town,
0:53:35 > 0:53:37we would have solved the problem
0:53:37 > 0:53:41but it isn't, and we haven't.
0:53:42 > 0:53:45Where are we now in alcoholism?
0:53:45 > 0:53:48Have we risen, has it risen?
0:53:48 > 0:53:49It depends where you are.
0:53:49 > 0:53:50Well, Scotland.
0:53:50 > 0:53:55Scotland has seen the most terrible rise in alcohol-related problems,
0:53:55 > 0:54:00so 20 years ago, Scotland had low levels of deaths from cirrhosis.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03Now Scotland has the highest cirrhosis deaths
0:54:03 > 0:54:06and England and Wales is following on,
0:54:06 > 0:54:08but they're not as high as Scotland.
0:54:09 > 0:54:14Scotland now has one of the highest rates of alcohol consumption per head
0:54:14 > 0:54:17and some of the highest number of deaths from liver cirrhosis
0:54:17 > 0:54:19in Western Europe
0:54:19 > 0:54:21and Professor Nutt thinks he knows why.
0:54:22 > 0:54:27It's completely clear to me that what has happened in the last 20 years
0:54:27 > 0:54:32is that this massive influx of strong lagers, 8% lagers and ciders
0:54:32 > 0:54:34has really fuelled alcohol damage.
0:54:36 > 0:54:38Whisky may not be what they're drinking,
0:54:38 > 0:54:42but we'd be lying to ourselves if we tried to pretend
0:54:42 > 0:54:46that whisky historically hadn't functioned as the gateway drug.
0:54:48 > 0:54:51The strong drink we traditionally abused.
0:54:53 > 0:54:55Now Scotland's urban poor
0:54:55 > 0:54:58have simply found something cheaper than whisky to drink -
0:54:58 > 0:55:01vodkas, superlagers and ciders,
0:55:01 > 0:55:03cheap fortified wine
0:55:03 > 0:55:09and on average, Scots drink 20% more alcohol per head per person
0:55:09 > 0:55:12than any other British population.
0:55:14 > 0:55:19The only truly unchanging feature of this sad landscape,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22the problem we seem unable to solve...
0:55:24 > 0:55:26..is urban poverty.
0:55:29 > 0:55:34When Robert Bruce Lockhart was winding down his book of whisky 1951,
0:55:34 > 0:55:38he knew the notes he had to strike were bittersweet.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41His walk down Dock Street back in Dundee
0:55:41 > 0:55:43had filled him with sorry knowledge.
0:55:43 > 0:55:48"There is no Scot," he wrote, "who does not know whisky's dangers
0:55:48 > 0:55:52"and I myself have been near enough to destruction
0:55:52 > 0:55:55"to respect whisky, to fear it,
0:55:55 > 0:55:57"and to continue to drink it."
0:55:59 > 0:56:02If Bruce Lockhart was writing today,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05perhaps he would feel much less pressure
0:56:05 > 0:56:08to apologise for Scotland's whisky industry.
0:56:08 > 0:56:12After 200 years of the sometimes less than gentle heat
0:56:12 > 0:56:15applied by Prime Ministers, chancellors, excisemen
0:56:15 > 0:56:17and ministers of munitions,
0:56:17 > 0:56:22whisky has become a completely different drink -
0:56:22 > 0:56:27almost certainly made better and more creatively than ever before.
0:56:30 > 0:56:33It's become a drink of international standing,
0:56:33 > 0:56:36not just domestically, in Scotland or Britain,
0:56:36 > 0:56:38but of the entire world.
0:56:40 > 0:56:4490% of Scotland's whisky goes abroad.
0:56:46 > 0:56:49The malt whiskies, for over a century seen
0:56:49 > 0:56:53as mere ingredients for the mass market blends,
0:56:53 > 0:56:56now command the respect of connoisseurs.
0:56:58 > 0:57:04Individual bottles have recently sold for as much as £120,000.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09Whisky is perhaps no longer part of the problem.
0:57:09 > 0:57:13In fact, as one of the very few growth industries
0:57:13 > 0:57:16left in the entire UK,
0:57:16 > 0:57:20maybe it's part of the solution.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25Are you surprised the number of barrels in here?
0:57:25 > 0:57:28Well, we're going to need them all, Brian, because, you know,
0:57:28 > 0:57:32the wealth of demand for Scotch whisky has never been better.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35It's fantastic. It's a golden period
0:57:35 > 0:57:39and it means so much to the economy of Scotland as a nation.
0:57:39 > 0:57:43There's very, very few industries now in Scotland left.
0:57:43 > 0:57:46There's no shipbuilding, there's no car manufacturer,
0:57:46 > 0:57:49- there's no steelworks, no gold mines. - No manufacturers at all.
0:57:49 > 0:57:51So whisky's critical to Scotland.
0:57:53 > 0:57:57Of the total wealth generated by exports from the UK,
0:57:57 > 0:57:59both food and drink,
0:57:59 > 0:58:0125% is generated by whisky.
0:58:01 > 0:58:05- That's a huge amount.- It's massive, it's absolutely massive,
0:58:05 > 0:58:07so it's so important to this country.
0:58:09 > 0:58:12Not bad for an agricultural by-product.
0:58:42 > 0:58:45Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd