Iain Banks - Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram

About the Book

Iain Banks is widely acknowledged as one of Britains greatest living writers, and as a Scotsman he knows something about whisky too. In Raw Spirit, Iain combines these two passions with a third, travel. Result: a unique journey around his native land: his goal, to find the perfect dram. And the perfect dram, surely, must be a single malt.

Along with a curious bunch of fellow travellers in a selection of cars, planes, ferries, trains, bikes and shoes, he journeys to remote shores and hidden glens, discovering the breathtaking and often inaccesible distilleries where tiny quantities of malt whisky are produced. He finds people engaged in centuries old tradition where eccentricity is the norm: its a journey of a thousand cheers and subsequent wobbly walks, of unpronounceable place names and daft customs and superstitions. Will Banks prevail? Its a tough job but as he puts it: Someones got to do it, and Im damn sure its going to be me.

About the Author

Iain Banks was born in Scotland in 1954. He came to widespread public notice in 1984 with the publication of his first novel, The Wasp Factory. Since then he has gained enormous popular and critical acclaim with further works of fiction and science fiction. In 1993 he was acknowledged as one of the Best of Young British Writers. He lives in Fife, Scotland.

For Gary and Christiane

And to the memory of James Hale

Acknowledgements

This book really couldnt have been written without the help of a lot of other people. I would like to thank my wife Ann, Oliver Johnson, John Jarrold, Toby and Harriet Roxburgh and everybody else at Ballivicar, Martin Gray, Les, Aileen and Eilidh McFarlane, Jim Brown, Dave McCartney, Ken MacLeod, Tom and Michelle Obasi, Roger Gray and Izabella, Mic Cheetham, Gary and Christiane Lloyd, Ray, Carole and Andrew Redman, Bruce, Yvonne, Ross and Amy Frater, Jenny and James Dewar, Andrew Greig and Lesley Glaister, my uncle Bob, everybody I met and talked to in the distilleries I visited with particular appreciation going to all the managers and the long-suffering though invariably helpful tour guides who were prepared to answer my idiot questions all at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society and, lastly and firstly, my parents.

Everything in here is true. Especially the bits I made up.

Introduction Out of our Heads

BANKSIE, HI. WHAT you up to?

Well, Im going to be writing a book about whisky.

Youre what?

Im going to be writing a book about whisky. Ive been, umm, you know, commissioned. To write a book about it. About whisky. Malt whisky, actually.

Youre writing a book about whisky?

Yeah. It means I have to go all over Scotland, driving mostly, but taking other types of transport ferries, planes, trains, that sort of thing visiting distilleries and tasting malt whisky. With expenses, obviously.

You serious?

Course Im serious!

Really?

Oh yeah.

Do you need any help with this?

Beginning with something ending; in these perverse times this seems somehow appropriate. But first, a sort of mission statement:

This is a book more than nominally about single-malt whisky, about the art of making it and the pleasure to be had in consuming it. It is also, partly, about the business of selling and promoting the stuff, about the whisky industry in general, about drink in general, even about mood- or perception-altering substances in general. Its not just about whisky, because drinking whisky is never about just drinking whisky; were social creatures and we tend to drink in a social context, with family, friends or just accomplices. Even if we resort to drinking alone, we drink with memories and ghosts.

Its a book about the land and country I love, about Scotland and its people, its cities, towns and villages and the landscape around them. It isnt going to be a book of detailed tasting notes frankly I dont have the nose, appearances being deceptive though there will usually be a brief description of a whiskys generally accepted character, and occasional attempts to describe a particularly favoured dram in a more personal manner where I think I can get away with it. Its not a guide book to Scotland, either, though a few restaurants, hotels, cultural sites, scenic areas and tourist traps are bound to be mentioned.

Im going to travel to the far north, to Caithness and Orkney; to Dumfries and Galloway, to Skye and Mull and Islay, to Speyside, Moray, Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, Argyll, Clydeside, Lothian and wherever else I can find distilleries. Im not going to every single one (though I do intend to sample the wares of each, including some that are closed or no longer exist) because frankly theyre not all worth seeing once youve a general idea how distilleries work, and also because theyre not all set up to receive visitors and after a few feet-finding, hand-holding pro-style tours at the start Im not looking for any special favours just because Im writing a book.

It will appropriately, given the subject matter be a staggered tour; Ill be taking in distilleries in clusters and individually over single weeks and day trips, returning to my home in North Queensferry in between (at least partly because Im intending to buy a full bottle of as many single malts as I can, and, with about a hundred distilleries in Scotland, plus the closed ones, Ill need to get back fairly frequently to off-load and free up some boot-space). North Queensferry The Ferry, as we locals tend to call it is where I lived until I was nine, and its been my home for the last thirteen or so years. I have family here, and its home, too, to a lot of memories. Its my hub, my docking station, and I make no excuses for returning here to recharge.

Roads, cars (quite a lot of roads, and quite a lot of cars, come to think of it and one motorbike) are going to feature heavily in the book, as well as ferries, trains and aircraft and any other forms of transport I can find which can be shackled into the narrative if theres the even the least semblance of an excuse for it.

This is a search for the perfect dram, undertaken in the full knowledge that such a thing probably doesnt exist. That doesnt matter; its a quest, and any quest is at least partly its own point. And besides, you never know.

This book will, inevitably, be about me, my family and my friends too, especially those friends who have been persuaded with, you may not be surprised to learn, no great deal of body-part manipulation involved to take part in this project. As a natural result, old adventures several of them involving no illegal activity whatsoever and ancient anecdotes of dubious and disputed authenticity will be ruthlessly exhumed, exposed, exaggerated and exploited. This, lets face it, is a book about one of the hardest of hard liquors and for all this Lets be mature, I just drink it for the taste not the effect, honest, Two units a day only stuff it is, basically, a legal, exclusive, relatively expensive but very pleasant way of getting out of your head.

And, talking about being out of our heads, this book cant help being about the war. You know the one; the Iraq war, Gulf War II, This Time Its Personal. My travels are starting just as the war begins, which makes it kind of hard to ignore, and, anyway, whats happening around me as I make my way across Scotland, visiting distilleries, has to have some bearing on matters; I dont intend to ignore the people or the places or the scenery or the weather around me as I make these journeys and I cant ignore the political environment either, both at home and abroad. This is not as peripheral as it might sound in a book about whisky; the stuff, certainly as we know it, has always been up to its pretty little bottleneck in politics.