Taste Review #75 – Clynelish 14
It gives me great pleasure to write this review. Because contained within this review is the very whisky that actually germinated the seed that was to grow into the blog that you are reading. It was in January 2019 in a hotel in Krakow, totally disillusioned about the current state of affairs in the UK, fed up of hearing political sniping on social media and wondering whether I could do something constructive with my whisky hobby that I decided to start a blog. I had no idea what I really wanted to do and knew I’d probably end up doing what everybody else does, but at least I’d have a creative outlet, something I have lacked ever since I have moved to the Speyside Region. I used to be into photography, but sadly due to personal events and work I have just not been able to make the time to do it and at least I can write a blog offshore.
It has taken far too long to get to this dram, especially given its relevence to the blog, but some good things have to wait. And when I looked into my collection of miniatures and found that I have an older version of this whisky, I just knew that it had to be the first of the drams that I used to compare old and new whisky. For the pre-amble into this series, please click on the link here….
Clynelish is a distillery that was formed out of an absolute tragedy. It was created at a time when landowners in the Highlands wanted to get rid of the tenant crofters that didn’t really make the estates much income and replace them with hill sheep farming. These were known as the Highland Clearances and were a dark stain on Scottish history. Many of the evictions where quite brutal with people getting burned out of their homes, if not to persuade them to leave then to ensure that they wouldn’t come back. Some of the most brutal evictions took place on the land owned by the Duke (and Countess) of Sutherland. It is easy to say that this happened a long time ago, but such is the depth of feeling that for many years there has been a campaign to demolish the statue of the Duke that stands on Ben Bhraggie and overlooks the area around Golspie and Brora. ‘The Mannie’ as it is often is known has had a protest against him a lot longer than Black Lives Matter. I doubt the statue will come down, and I think it should stay as a reminder to the horrific treatment of those who lost their homes, possessions and were separated from friends and family as many were forced to seek new lives in Canada, America and Australia. Just to dig the knife in, some of the land owners even charged those they were evicting for their transport overseas.
The Duke was responsible for building a railway from Golspie, close to his family seat of Dunrobin Castle which eventually terminated in Helmsdale. He also founded a few businesses in Brora; a coal mine, a brick and tile works and lastly a distillery. These were staffed by farmers who had been cleared off the land by the aforementioned clearances. They were paid in a currency that was redeemable in the local shops, also owned by the Duke which meant he received all the profit. It may be easy to understand why he wasn’t popular amongst the locals!
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Scotty’s Drams 