A whisky pilgrimage with Haig Club
First featured in The City Magazine, February 2017 (bonus content in the copy below)
Sitting down for dinner with Lady Haig at Bemersyde House, a stately home an hour from Edinburgh, you’d be forgiven for thinking the set-up was a cunning ploy by Haig Club whisky to create a history. An elegant woman flown in to pose as Scottish aristocracy, the charming and down-to-earth Lancastrian groundsman, the quaint fishing hut down by the picturesque bend in the river, overflowing with salmon – it’s all too good to be true.
Except, it isn’t. Bemersyde, the Haig’s home for more than half a millennium, has helped shape the history of Scotland, the country’s aristocracy having been regular visitors to the home of this revered Scottish family.
Kings and queens came and went, but the family’s main business remained. The first recorded Haig to make whisky was Robert Haig, who was dragged before Church elders in 1655 for the crime of distilling on the Sabbath. The cheeky distiller was undeterred, and founded the beginnings a whisky empire which, along with the Stein family (the families were married together in the 18th century), became the foremost producer of the amber nectar.
My Haig pilgrimage started at Blackgrange, the Diageo drink company’s huge warehouse and distillery operation. Blackgrange comprises ten miles of roads, has a dedicated fire brigade, and houses a third of Diageo’s ten million barrels of maturing whisky. Thirty-six coopers are employed at the on-site Cambus Cooperage to hand-make all barrels – one dud piece of oak, and a cask is ruined. Twelve apprentices are currently being taught the trade secrets. I was given the chance to help make a cask, and, barring one pretty nasty splinter, I survived unscathed and with a new sense of respect for the unsung heroes of the whisky industry.
Our next stop was the Diageo Archives in Menstrie. Alongside a stunning collection room of 10,000 bottles of all shapes and sizes – including a bottle of whisky that a pickled snake calls home – the basement archives include centuries-old ledgers, vintage advertising campaigns, and two larger-than-life Johnnie Walker statues, made for the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles.
Next up was Cameronbridge. The 193-year-old distillery is Scotland’s oldest grain whisky distillery, founded by John Haig in 1824. The entrance is a blend of the quaint and the industrial, the original distilling rooms still visible in grey stone alongside the three leviathanic stills helping produce 120 million litres of spirit every year. The quantities however don’t detract from the passion found throughout the plant, and all final tastings are still carried out by master blender Chris Clark and his team.
Chris also had the odd myth to debunk while we were quaffing away. It turns out the Haig signature blue bottle isn’t just neat marketing: the colour is an homage to the blue glasses master tasters use to remain unaffected by the shade of whisky being tasted – it’s all down to the aroma and taste.
The reason for the whistle-stop tour of Haig’s highlights was ultimately to see what it takes to create the new Haig Club Clubman, which was neatly laid out for us upstairs, back at Bemersyde. Matured in American oak casks, the single grain scotch has taken on the vanilla and sweet toffee of the bourbon barrels to develop a sweet and smooth finish. The sweetness lends itself to being drunk on the rocks, but with ginger ale, too, it’s sublime. Ewan Gunn, Whisky Master for Diageo (and perfect drinking partner as I found out during a long evening waxing lyrical by the fire), prefers his with cola, calling the mix “perfect in its simplicity”. A versatile liquid, then, to be enjoyed however you see fit.
After a couple more Clubmans – or is it Clubmen? – I sleepily settled down into a pristine leather chair in the old laird’s room. I’ll not say whether I woke up in the same position the next day. Turns out that there’s much more to Haig Club than an iconic blue bottle and Mr David Beckham.
Haig Club Clubman 70cl, £24.25, thewhiskyexchange.com
