Remains of illicit whisky still found in Scottish Highland

A piece of an illicit copper still used to distill whisky two centuries ago has been discovered in the Highlands of Scotland. Volunteers and experts from the National Trust for Scotland discovered the copper alloy piece in an excavation of the remains of a stone structure in Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve (NNR). The tapered collar matches an old illustration that identifies it as “An Gearradan,” the part that connects the lyne arm and the head of a still.

The excavation also unearthed a well-constructed hearth with evidence of burning, a stone-capped drain that run under the floor and a roof support timber that was buried when the walls of the structure collapsed. These features confirm that the small stone building was a bothy, a structure made for the purpose of distilling whisky away from the prying eyes of the law. There are five other known bothies on the Ben Lawers NNR, but this is the only one of them where a piece of the copper still has been found.

Invented by medieval monks in Ireland or Scotland, whisky spread out the monasteries and by the 17th century, private distillation was a central feature of the life of tenant farmers in the Highlands. The first taxes on whisky were imposed by the Scottish Parliament in 1644, but it was in the 1780s when laws were passed requiring all distilleries to be licensed that home stills went underground, or rather, upland into bothies where they could be quickly moved around should excise men get a whiff of them.

Derek Alexander, the National Trust for Scotland’s Head of Archaeology, said: “This is a wonderful example of how archaeology can tell a gripping story of spirit smuggling that would otherwise have been lost to time.

“In the early 19th century, illicit whisky distilling in these hills became a real battle of wits between excise officers and distillers. To find the remains of stills in these upland areas, you need to think like an excise officer. Those who distilled spirit in this bothy will have picked the location carefully to make sure they were well hidden.

“This bothy is well concealed along one arm of the Lawers Burn, nestled in a burn gulley where there’s a slight bend in the burn to shield the site from both upstream and downstream. The people who distilled here knew what they were doing and it’s possible the still was never seized by the authorities.

“If the still had been found by the excise officers, the still would’ve been taken away and destroyed. So, the fact that we’ve found this connecting piece here suggests the still was dismantled in a hurry and its components whisked away by the smugglers as they dispersed. The connecting piece may have been forgotten in the rush and left behind.

“Distillers of illicit whisky would’ve travelled light and left little trace of their activity, and so a find like this is especially rare and exciting. It gives us a glimpse into an activity that was once rife in the hills of Ben Lawers and which was seen by many as an act of community resistance.”

To get an idea of what the intact still would have looked like, this a 3D model of a similar copper still from the same period found in Cortachy. It has a flat bottom to sit inside a brick-built oven, so it was likely housed used inside a permanent structure rather than in a bothy.

* This article was originally published here