HISTORY OF THE DISTILLERY
1946-1990
Progress has some advantages
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HISTORY OF THE DISTILLERY
1946-1990
Progress has some advantages
Barley was still strictly rationed and production did not begin to reach anything like its pre War levels until about 1948. Many old faces had returned to the distillery after demobilisation while older hands like John Bett, who had come out of retirement to help out during the war, were replaced by younger men. George Ross, now well past retirement age, refused to go and remained in the cooperage side of the operation until his death in 1958. Alice was employed as cleaner at the distillery so that she could live in her father’s cottage and always be on hand.
But it was a new world in which George found himself, for once restrictions on production were lifted the quiet old days at Glenmorangie did not return. Instead, the distillery was geared up to almost full production, fuelled by increasing demand at home as well as abroad, although rationing of whisky was not to be finally lifted until 1959. To help Gordon Smart in these changed days a bright young assistant manager was appointed, Ian McGregor arriving in 1947 on a temporary basis - he ended up staying for forty-three and half years!
The pace of development became increasingly rapid as the distillery adapted and expanded production to meet the demand for whisky. While traditional standards and techniques were maintained as much as possible, capacity was steadily increased. By 1954 the average weekly consumption of malt had risen to 1080 bushels, the level previously attained in the heady days immediately after the First World War, and two years later broke the 1200 bushel barrier, half as much again as had been used in the mash in George’s early days.
The peak of capacity was finally reached in the late 1960s, when nearly 1400 bushels of malt were being used each week to produce well over 3000 gallons of chargeable spirits to outstrip the available supplies and indeed the Company was forced to introduce stock rationing throughout the 1960s and 1970s. The first step towards solving this problem came on 1980, when the number of stills was doubled to four. This expansion took place against a backdrop of crisis in the Scotch Whisky industry, which saw many other distilleries closing or going onto reduced production, but such was Glenmorangie’s hold on its market that output continued undiminished, indeed, expanded rapidly once the new stills had been installed. Even that was insufficient to meet the high demand for Glenmorangie - which was now being sold as a single malt instead of being used in blending - and in 1990 the number of stills was increased again.
The huge increases in malt consumption occasioned by the expansion programme put an increasing strain on the maltbarn staff. By the 1980 the men could no longer realistically produce the quantities needed to maintain the high levels of whisky output which the success of Glenmorangie demanded and the decision was made to stop malting at Tain.
The War had brought many other changes over which the distillery had little control. The barrels used for the maturing of the whisky had formerly been exclusively Spanish oak sherry casks supplied by Speyside Cooperage, which served most of the Highland distillers. In about 1960, Spanish oak barrels became increasingly difficult to obtain and American bourbon barrels began to be introduced. These, unfortunately, were made only to a forty gallon capacity, whereas the traditional whisky hogshead was fifty-four gallons. Rather than change the size of the barrels used and break another tradition of distilling. Speyside Cooperage insert additional staves and end-boards to increase the volume of the barrels used.
The filling of the barrels used to be done by hand in a shed which formerly stood between the Excise Office and the cottage where Alice Ross used to live. The whisky was fed by hose from a three outlet valve and the man filling the barrel would keep his index finger sticking through the bung-hole so he could feel when the level was about right, turning off the flow at the right moment. Occasionally he would be distracted by a workmate and there would be a fountain of whisky surging up before he was able to turn off the valve. The introduction of vacuum-controlled valves and gauges ended all that.
Every opportunity was taken to modernise without jeopardising the character of the distillery. Coal brought in by railway had, by 1947, became the main fuel used at the distillery. This had to be carted up from the sidings to the boilerhouse, where the stillmen still did their stoking by hand until 1960, when automatic screw stokers were installed and the stillmen were left free to focus their attention on the whisky itself. A rail strike in the 1960s had resulted in most of the distillery’s clients switching to road transportation and this was found to be much cheaper and generally more efficient.
In 1970 further efficiency was achieved by a switch to oil fired boilers, which saw the old smoke stack being dismantled and an end to the old tradition of sweeping the soot and ash out of the boiler flues at the end of the production season. The change wasn’t driven solely by commercial decisions, a fire in one of the kilns being used for the drying of draff helped convince the company that improvements were needed if a more disastrous loss was to be achieved.
There were changes too where other elements were involved. Water had actually always been a problem at the distillery, for the springs did not belong to the company and the old production methods sometimes put a strain on the available supply. Rights to the springs rested with the laird of Tarlogie, who rented the right to draw water from them to the old distillery company. The land round about, however, was his to do with as he pleased, a situation which could have jeopardised the quality or quantity of the spring water. When there was a threat of building development around the springs in the 1980s Macdonald and Muir pre-empted the threat to their water supply by buying the land.
Changes in the production system had also had also eased pressure on the water supply. Formerly water was needed in large quantities for both the production of the whisky and for the cooling of the coils during the distillation process. The introduction of a closed system for the cooling ended this extra demand and removed the pressure on the limited water supply available. It also ended one of the more unpleasant tasks of the workers, for Tarlogie water has a very high lime content and before a filtration system was introduced at the same time as the closed cooling system, lime deposits built up everywhere, so each summer, some of the men would spend their time laboriously chipping away the lime from the inside of the boiler chambers. Progress has some advantages.
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