A Long Stride - Nicholas Morgan

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the widowed father of a daughter, Mary, and two sons, John and George Paterson Walker, their mother having died from heart disease weeks after George’s birth in October 1864. The family were living in a new residential development of houses with large gardens, Wallacebank, on Wellington Street, not far from Elizabeth Walker’s house.

      In the United Kingdom consumption of spirits, both domestic and foreign, had increased from 0.63 gallons per head in 1820, to 0.93 in 1860, although the consumption of whisky in Scotland had declined, partly due to its increased cost, and also the growing influence of the temperance movement that had its first stirrings in Scotland in 1829. Wine consumption had remained almost static. In Scotland in 1820, around 3.2 million gallons of spirits were distilled; in 1860 the figure stood at 13.3 million. Seven million gallons were grain whisky, 6 million malt whisky. In the same year over 1.5 million gallons of spirits were exported from Scotland to England. There were 125 distilleries in operation in Scotland (compared to 117 in 1820) but the size and scale of these would have made them unrecognisable compared to four decades earlier. Although not entirely absent, illicit distillation and smuggling had been almost wiped out since the changes in the law of 1823. Home consumption of imported spirits in 1860 stood at 5.5 million gallons, of which rum (3.7) and brandy (1.4) comprised the overwhelming quantity. And although per capita consumption had not grown, imports of wines increased from 5 million gallons in 1820 to 12 million in 1860, with Spain being the largest source (5.3) followed by Portugal (2.5) and France (2.4). As with spirits (particularly rum), many of these wines were re-exported from the United Kingdom. Beer production stood at over 20 million barrels in the country as a whole; Scotland produced only 816,000. The consumption of tea, still sourced almost exclusively from China, had more than doubled since 1820 to 2.67 pounds per person.9

      Against this background a number of changes in the law were to be of particular significance to changing patterns of drink consumption, and particularly to the growth in the sale of Scotch whisky both at home and abroad, and to Alexander Walker’s business. In 1860 Gladstone slashed the duties on imported wines, subsequently eased licensing restrictions on restaurants and eating houses, and introduced a ‘Grocers’ Licence’ for the sale of wines. Excise duties on spirits in England and Scotland had been equalised in 1855; a few years before, in 1853, ‘vatting’, or the mixing of whiskies, had been permitted under bond; blending under bond was permitted by the Spirit Act of 1860, then the bottling of spirits under bond for export in 1864, and finally for home consumption in 1867.10 The effect of this was to open up the English and export markets to Scotch whisky, and to allow blenders to operate at scale without the need for the capital that was required whilst restricted to blending duty-paid whiskies.

      Many have suggested that these changes alone were responsible for the development of blending (primacy in which is often attributed to Andrew Usher & Co of Edinburgh) and the growth of blended Scotch in the second half of the nineteenth century. However, as we have already seen, blending and mixing whiskies was a well-established practice as early as the 1820s, and by 1860 blended whisky was already the drink of choice for many. Charles Tovey, veteran of the wine trade and early drinks hack, wrote in 1864: ‘The prevalent notion among whisky drinkers, especially in Scotland, is that several varieties of whisky blended is superior to that of any one kind.’11 Tovey also commented on the pervasive popularity of drinking ‘toddy’:

       You may find it at the after-dinner table of the aristocracy, mingling its fumes with the odours of Lafitte or Romanee Conti [sic], and many a nobleman will leave the choicest wine to indulge in his glass of toddy. The middle classes and tradesmen most prefer it to any other spirit or wine. 12

      Mixed to taste by each drinker at the table – in a ritual that, like tea, was surrounded with a degree of domestic paraphernalia such as toddy kettles, jugs, ladles and spoons – this combination of whisky, hot water and sugar (and sometimes a slice of lemon) ‘aids digestion [and] promotes cheerfulness, sociability and happiness’. It was also perhaps the most common ‘respectable’ form of whisky consumption (as opposed to ‘dram drinking’), and had become increasingly popular in Scotland in the 1840s and 1850s, partly due to the sometimes high duties on rum which had ‘induced the Glasgow citizen to give up his cold rum punch and betake him to hot toddy’.13 Such was its popularity that wine and spirit merchants produced ‘toddy mixtures’, some sweetened, which were possibly some of the earliest blended whiskies. In 1848 an Inverness newspaper advertised ‘old highland whisky for toddy, being a judicious mixture of the manufacture of the most favourite distillers’, while in Glasgow David Chrystal advertised ‘a fine old Toddy mixture free of flavour’, and John and Thomas Prentice in Greenock ‘a superior toddy mixture’ at 9s. 6d. a gallon.14 Few, however, promoted themselves as heavily as David M’Lachlan, from Laurieston in Glasgow, who explained that:

       It has been proved beyond doubt that Highland Whiskies are only in perfection when the produce of several distilleries situated in different localities are blended or mixed together in certain proportions and as each distiller can only sell whisky of his own distillation great difficulty is experienced by gentlemen in selecting whiskies of the proper character to embody or infuse with each other so as to produce a glass of genuine toddy.

      M’Lachlan’s toddy mixture was ‘designed to satisfy the greatest connoisseur as to its age and purity’. Available in gallon jugs or heavily branded bottles (partly to guard against imitation and counterfeit) by the dozen, and protected by registered trademarks, it was sold not only in Scotland but throughout England and Wales by the early 1860s. Notably, however, as the market for blended Scotch quickly developed, M’Lachlan dropped the reference to ‘toddy mixture’ in 1866 and was instead promoting ‘McLachlan’s Scotch Whisky’ in the Morning Advertiser, ‘blended in such proportions as to produce a mixture that no single whisky can ever equal’.15 However, as late as 1891 the Victualling Trades Review reported that ‘“Whisky Toddyology” is how a Glasgow publican intimates his ability to brew the national drink.’16

      Two other factors were critical in shaping the competitive environment that Alexander Walker operated in, both at home and in export markets. The first was the decline in sales of brandy following the impact of the grapevine pest phylloxera, which first appeared in France in 1863. This infestation destroyed almost three-quarters of France’s vineyards by the late 1880s, and the subsequent decline in brandy consumption is often cited as the major reason for Scotch whisky’s success. However, although consumption of brandy peaked at 4.5 million gallons in 1876, falling to just less than 2.5 million in 1887 and ending up at 2.7 million gallons in 1900, the decline in volume was hardly catastrophic. A far greater issue for both the trade press and consumers was the decline in quality and reputation of much of what was sold as ‘brandy’, and the almost institutionalised adulteration of French spirit with German.17 Discussing this matter, the board of W. & J. Gilbey, the darlings of the wine trade establishment, agreed that should they use this spirit they would lay themselves open to have all the prejudices surrounding German Spirit levelled at them.18

      Those who could find the real thing had to dig deep into their pockets to afford almost double what they would pay for a bottle of whisky. Far more dramatic was the decline in the consumption of sherry, a drink which was almost at the peak of its popularity. In 1871 a record 6 million gallons were consumed in the United Kingdom, after which consumption plummeted to a mere 1.5 million in 1900.19 ‘The ordinary sherry of commerce’, wrote the Saturday Review in 1873, which had complained about the way that sherry drinking had infiltrated both the counting house and the drawing room, ‘is about the most unwholesome thing under the sun, and everything should be done to discredit it.’20 A perceived decline in quality, rumours of adulteration and falsification, the loss of favour amongst the medical fraternity, all contributed to this astonishing demise.

       There can be no doubt that the seeds of the popular disfavour were laid at the time when the Sherry Trade seemed as stable as a rock, and extra profits induced the shipment of a class of article which brought a bad name to Jerez products, the goods being tarred with the same brush as the bad. Since the downward career was once started there has been no check, and popular taste has apparently taken up the cudgels against this once highly-esteemed beverage.

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