Badbea Boys Last Browst

Written by Alexander Gunn aka A Native of Badbea. Printed in the Northern Ensign, March 23, 1882. Part C

Children watching the still. Source: Electric Scotland

 Badbea Youths Making Whisky

“Smuggling was very common, too, in these days, and we were grand hands at erecting bothies, and imitating older folks. We used to chose the most secluded spots we could get for the purpose, for while we had no dread of the honest Kenneth M’Lennan, the local gauger, we had a wholesome dread of our father, who was the best gauger of the two, and who was far from being pleased with the quantity of bere we were in the habit of pilfering from the barn, with the view of making into malt, which we could do in a thoroughly scientific manner. We steeped the bere in water for 48 hours, when it was emptied out on the floor, and set up in a heap; and as the quantity we used was but small, we covered it over with a bit of cloth to cause a heat and germination. It was then turned over once a day, and as it developed the sprouting, it was spread out thinner. The sprouting went on until it reached a certain stage, when the growth was stopped by spreading it out thinner still, and keeping it cool, and turning it twice in the twenty-four hours. In this state is was left till it fermented, and contained a quantity of sweet juice. It was next dried on a kiln, erected by ourselves in miniature, and then ground on the hard mill or quern, which almost every house possessed. Then the most important part of the process began. The mash tone was charged and boiling water added, and after an interval the wort  was then run off; and after being boiled the fermentation took place, and was succeeded by the application of the still, which was made in perfect shape from a sort of  light green clay found in the neighbourhood, and dried hard by the action of heat. There were also the head and arm of the still made from the same material, and there was a very ingenious contrivance for the worm. With these rude implements we used to distill a quantity of liquor of a sort”.

 

A quern at Newtonmore

The Quern

 

“I referred to the hand mill with which we ground our malt. I have seen several bolls of real malt ground in the same day. At one time the malt used to be ground at the mill at Berriedale during the night time, but latterly things became so critical that the otherwise obliging miller would not risk it, and then we had recourse to the quern, and it is surprising the quantity we would put through in the course of a long winter night”.

A rotary quern was used to grind grain into flour. Two round flat stones were placed one on top of the other and the grain was poured into a hole in the middle of the top stone. The top stone was then turned, using a wooden handle to grind the grain between the two stones. The flour would trickle out at the sides.

The Last Browst

 

“With the permission of your readers, I will give here an account of the last “browst’ that was made at Badbea, something like 38 or 39 years since, and with which I had some small connection. I need not trouble your readers with an account of the preliminary process in making malt having described it already. We had got everything done quietly and satisfactorily, till we had it on the kiln for the drying when, lo and behold, the news reached us that the gaugers were on their way to Badbea. Well, we had to take the malt off the kiln just as it was, and try to conceal it in the rocks and in the hills, but the enemy was so close upon us that we had no time to conceal it satisfactorily, and the upshot was that they pounced upon the whole quantity”.

 

The rocks and the hills at Badbea

My Comments:

Taxes had been introduced by the Scottish parliament to profit from the popularity of Scotch whisky. So illicit distilling was a way of shielding whisky from taxation. This was known as ‘smuggling’. The laws against smuggling were generally disliked and no-one thought smuggling was a crime. Everybody, from crofters, to the clergy, to the gauger, young or old, made, bought, sold or drank smuggled whisky.

For most crofters illegally making and selling whisky was not just a cat and mouse game they played but it was the only way they could pay the rent and feed their large families. Whisky bothies were set up in all sorts of hiding places in the hills, valleys, and caves.  

The children and young folk at Badbea would have learned a great deal about the survival skills and production processes that were practiced at Badbea. Everyone had to help, whether it was fetching water from the burn or the well, getting in the peats, or helping with the delicate and secret business of making whisky. And from this story, when they had a chance they copied their parents.

As is hinted in this story, the local gauger Kenneth M’Lennan, was not to be overly feared. Gaugers had to do their job and track down illegal whisky operations and destroy them, sending the offenders to court, but they could also be bribed (with product) not to be too efficient in their discoveries.  

This is a good smuggling story involving ingenious youths but regrettably it had an unhappy ending.