By Dr. Dog

No, this isnt a discussion about how The Bands 1969 song (Across the
Great Divide) was really about highland Scottish distilleries. Come wi
me instead to what was once The Highlands of Scotland, and discover
the interesting public relations campaign started sometime in the late
1880s by the Scotch Whisky Industry to quantify the various whisky
areas for the burgeoning consumer population of the United Kingdom and
the world.

When scotch whisky distilleries could become officially licensed in 1822
(re: licensed by the british government under the Illicit Disillation
(Scotland) Act), many refused to do so simply because they felt they
were being taxed against their will. The highlanders at this point were
mostly gaelic speakers who kept out of the way of government agents and
revenue collectors. By 1824, both the distillers and the government in
London came to an arrangement whereby distilleries would agree to be
licensed by the government and taxes would be more reasonable for those
submitting to collection. This is not to say, however, that things went
smoothly.

Many non-tax paying distillers, especially highland scots, resented any
government intervention. At this point, it is important to distinguish
the highland versus the lowland line in Scotland. The term highland
refers to the line of hills, mountains and raised land that runs
approximately from Greenock (just north of Glasgow) in the west to the
Moray Firth (near Elgin, home of the famous Gordon & Macphail company,
long time purveyors of single malt whisky from distilleries whose owners
never bothered to release their own product as a single malt!) This
line is really more north/south than east/west, and in actuality is a
bit of an embarrassment to the whisky industry, since many of the
highland malt whiskies are in reality made in the lowlands. Lets
now fast-forward (for those of us who remember reel to reel tape
players) to the 1880s.

Whisky in the 1800s was not the national drink of Great Britain, only
of Scotland. In the 19th century, the drink of choice for the
terminally hip was cognac. The pylloxera blight that killed off so many
vines in France (late 1800s) was a boon to the Scotch (and Irish)
whisk(e)y industries. People for the most part drank blended whisky at
this time rather than single malts, for the simple reason that aged
single malts were largely unavailable. Young spirit tended to be very
coarse in those days (think white lightning, as sung by George Jones),
forcing drinkers to keep their own barrel in the house and add new
whisky to already aged whiskies, thereby marrying the scotches and
softening the flavor profile.

To make scotch more attractive, the whisky owners came up with a new
name for their most productive area: Speyside. Unfortunately, there is
no such place. The Strathspey is anglicized gaelic for The Spey Valley
(in gaelic, it is Sráthspey, meaning Valley through which the Spey
runs. The reason for the addition of a t to Sráthspey was for the
English-speakers, who had a hard time pronouncing the word.) Locals
living in the Spey valley have long resented this promotional name
applied to the area. And to make matters worse, most of the
distilleries listed as speyside occupants are in actuality in lowland
Scotland (see map.) In the 1880s, this determination of lowland and
highland had become blurred, as the spread of English as a replacement
for the native speakers gaelic was almost complete. Teaching gaelic
had been outlawed in Scottish schools for many years, and the Robert
Burns/Sir Walter Scotts ideal of the Scottish Highlander and his tartan
was mostly a fabrication.

Single malt scotchs image today is based largely on that Robert Burns
tradition: the masculine, bold, rough-hewn Scot, brandishing his
claymore (a large, two-handed sword) in one hand and downing copious
amounts of uisgebeatha (water of life, aka scotch whisky) from a
flask in the other. If you listen to any books on scotch whisky, you
will notice a reference to only two lowland whiskies: Glenkinchie
(owned by Diageo PLC) and Auchentoshan (owned by Suntory, a Japanese
firm.) According to the actual highland/lowland line, almost all of the
Speyside distilleries are really lowland whiskies. Not only are they
east of the highland line of hills and raised land, but they are also in
a valley and only nominally above sea level. The real reason writers
refer to highland whisky is that image of the independent highlander
(take a bow Mel Im from Australia but you can think of me as William
Wallace, Scottish hero Gibson.) There is no real panache to being a
lowlander, anymore than being known as a flatlander.

Next time well delve into this whole lowland/highland, Islay versus
Speyside thing, and see why not being a Glen Something whisky confuses
the American public. Haste ye back!