Cutty Sark

Hello and welcome to this, the 4th episode of whisky ON the water, a look at whiskies you may have available to you when cruising the waves.

My name is James Martin and I am a lover of whisky - so much so that I used to host a weekly whisky podcast many years ago.  On the 15th March 2011 I released episode 33 of that podcast in which I was fortunate enough to interview Ronnie Cox who told me about Cutty Sark Whisky. In case of the unlikely chance that you have listened to it - don’t worry - this will be much shorter, it is, however, still available if you do want a detailed account of a ships history.

In previous episodes I have looked at whiskies with long histories, whiskies that have been instrumental in whisky’s development.  In this episode I could do the same.  I could talk about how the original company began with ‘The Widow Bourne’ and about how it became a wine merchant in 1698.  I could talk about ‘The King’s Ginger’, and I don’t mean his ex sister in law (a joke that I could not have made when I did the original podcast), that was made in 1903.

In whisky terms this story will only go back to the 20th Century.  Cutty Sark falls into that category (as many in this series do) of a successful and important whisky that is still underrated. Travel abroad, especially to hot countries, and it is everywhere.  It’s almost as if it were made for heat, and in a way it is.  The flavour profile is distinctively light, as is its colour.  Most people associate a rich, dark colour with an aged whisky, and many people associate aged whisky as being superior, smoother and more complex.  It might feel foolish then to purposefully craft a whisky that is pale and light, then to put it into a green bottle so that the colour can’t be seen.  On top of that many Scotch whiskies feature aspects of Scotland on the label.  You might see deer, grouse or thistles.  You might even see the occasional bagpipe ore highlander.  But Cutty Sark has none of these, instead it has a ship.  There is a lot to unpack so let’s start with the name -

The whisky has quite a few contradictions or paradoxes.  It is named after a ship, a clipper to be precise, and the clipper is named from a poem. The poem is Tam O’Shanter by none other than Robbie Burns.  It is a tale of a man being chased by a witch that is wearing nothing but a short nightie, a ‘Cutty Sark’.  This is the first paradox because whilst the witch was fast and nimble the belief was that witches could not travel over water - an odd name to be given to a clipper.

The clipper is a beautiful vessel and can still be seen in London.  It is a sailing clipper built in the mid 19th century at a time when steam power was on the uprise. It shipped tea for a while and changed its name when it was sold to a Portuguese company.  Its new name was Ferreira  although the crew nicknamed it ‘pequina camisola’ meaning ‘short nightie’.  It is a clipper that broke records and stood out for its style.  It was eventually brought back by Britain and had the name Cutty Sark restored and now resides in dry dock at the Royal Museums in Greenwich London.

But that is the history of the name and not the whisky itself.  It explains why the clipper is on the label but not about what is inside.  To understand this we need to go back to the Great American Experiment known as prohibition.  Between 1920 and 1933 the manufacture, consumption and import of alcohol was banned throughout America.  Some have argued that there were actually more drinking establishments and more booze consumed during this time than before or after.  Many tales are told of liquor of all types being readily available but there are also tales of awful homemade concoctions being sold.  Prohibition was successful in a couple of areas - firstly it established a strong network of illegal and criminal gangs that many say set the road for a massive cultural shift for which America is still suffering.  Secondly, the roughness of illegally made spirits and the loss of customer rights meant that much of what was available was bad tasting and untrustworthy.  The response to this was a rise in cocktail drinking - after all cocktails meant one could mask the flavour of the base spirit, and the need for trust worthy suppliers.

This is where some disagreement may occur.  Some will argue that there was  an expression ‘The real Mackay’ recorded in a Scottish Poem in 1856, ‘a drape o’ the real MacKay’, and that that was corrupted to ‘The Real McCoy’.  There is also argument that an oil drip cup invention designed by Elijah McCoy was favoured by railroad engineers who would ask if the system had ‘The Real McCoy’, and there is recorded evidence to suggest that one of these might be true.  However, we are not going to let fact get in the way of a good story and so we will ignore such things for now.

In this episode the origin of ‘The Real McCoy’ is as such - During prohibition it was illegal to import alcohol into America.  It was NOT illegal to import into the Bahamas, not was it illegal to put booze onto a boat and sail it just 3 miles from the American coastline.  Now, should other boats were to come and take that booze away…

This enabled a floating market place full of people selling adulterated alcohol, but one person stood out.  William McCoy who was tee total, was known for having good quality and genuine produce - if it was from McCoy you knew it was the real thing - The Real McCoy.

At this time Berry Brothers and Rudd had begun to blend a specific whisky with a specific profile.  It was light in flavour, which meant that it didn’t discolour cocktails it was used in.  It was light and fruity in flavour, a flavour profile that suited cocktail making but also suited the hotter climate of the Caribbean - as much as I like a punchy whisky there are times when it is hot and humid that one wants something lighter and even refreshing.  James McBey signed the label on the back of a napkin.  The clipper was in the news at the time and had many of the qualities they wanted to express.  The drawing was sent to the printers with the instruction to make it look aged - but the printer messed up and it came back looking yellow instead.  To understand the green bottle it is helpful to look back in time.  Long before Cutty Sark was made whisky had gone through many changes.  There was a time when whisky was bought in jugs and other containers.  Bottles were owned by richer customers who would often fill them from their own casks.  Quality control was at the mercy of the vendor and often could not be trusted.  As time progressed blending improved the viability of whisky and glass production and cheaper bottles meant that manufacturers could bottle, seal and label their own whisky - thus assuring quality.  At the time it was cheaper to make coloured glass, clear glass was taxed at a much higher rate.  Coloured glass also had the benefit of hiding what was inside with the added benefit that it helped protect the whisky from UV light.  Moving forward to Cutty Sark and the demands that faced it.  It was going into a land of prohibition and criminal gangs, a land of bootlegging and forgery.  The idea of having a sealed and distinctive bottle that was difficult to copy would have been appealing and cause it to stand out.  The idea that it compensated for its light colour, until people understood it, was a benefit, he fact that it linked with whisky history was a bonus and the fact that it helped protect the contents from the Caribbean sun certainly didn’t hurt. All this plus the fact that it looked vibrant and cool makes one wonder if this was, in fact, the inevitable choice.  Francis Berry had already set up agents around the world and had the foresight to see prohibition was coming.  With this in mind he set up agreements with the British islands of the Bahamas. Cutty Sark is reported to have been one of McCoy’s favourites.

Following Prohibition America had gotten a taste for Cutty and in 1961 it was the first Scotch to sell over 12 million bottles in just the USA in just 1 year.  It is a light blend pulling together around 40 different malts including Highland Park, Macallan, Bunnahabhain and Glenrothes (which the company bought) as well as grain whiskies from North British and Invergordon.  And as I have mentioned in previous episodes how American Presidents like specific Scotch whiskies, I should mention that Lyndon B. Johnson was known to like Cutty Sark.  To understand how much he liked it I should explain something about measures. A fifth doesn’t sound like much.  I am British and was used to seeing measure of a sixth - this refers to a sixth of a gill with equates to about 23.7 mills or a single measure of spirit.  A fifth, however, is an American measure and refers to a fifth of an American Gallon and equates to 757 mills, slightly more than a modern bottle.  So when it is reported that Lynden B. Johnson could handle two fifths of Cutty with water of an evening it gives some idea.

It is one of the underrated whiskies of the world and, like many in this series, deserves consideration from the modern drinker. When you are next sailing the Caribbean raise a glass and give some thought to its history and consider the beauty of its branding and enjoy just how well it fits its surroundings