Smuggling in the Highlands
by Ian MacDonald (1914)
With a new introduction and commentary by Gavin D. Smith
"lawlessness, dishonesty, idleness and drinking"
Ian MacDonald’s Smuggling in the Highlands is a seminal volume of whisky history.
The author was a highly-regarded and long-serving excise officer, who spent much of his career in the Scottish Highlands where he came to know the people and their whisky-related ‘ploys’ very well.
MacDonald had a keen eye for a good story, and many of the enthralling anecdotes recounted in the chapter entitled ‘Smuggling Stories and Detections’ have never subsequently been published.
Despite his ability to tell a good smuggling story, however, there is no doubt that MacDonald had little sympathy with the law breakers whose activities he chronicled. Indeed, it is typical of the man, and his era, that an entire, and wholly fascinating, chapter is devoted to ‘Moral Aspects of Smuggling.’
Much of the material in Smuggling in the Highlands was first read before the Gaelic Society of Inverness during the late 1880s, at a time when whisky smuggling was resurgent in the north of Scotland. It was subsequently printed in the Transactions of the Society and was published as a series of articles in The Highlander and Celtic Magazine. The only version in book form appeared in 1914, and this facsimile edition is an essential and long-overdue edition for anyone truly interested in the heritage of Scotch whisky and Scottish social life a century and more ago.
“There can be no doubt that ‘good, pious men’ engaged in smuggling, and there is less doubt that equally good, pious men - ministers and priests - were grateful recipients of a large share of the smugglers’ produce. Some of the old lairds not only winked at the practice, but actively encouraged it.”
Smuggling in the Highlands was published in 1914. A good, clean copy of the illustrated edition, which our facsimile faithfully reproduces, would cost at least £150. By the way, don't worry about the 'foxing' on the page illustrated above. Our fancy scanning technology cleans that all up - your copy will be good as new. Better, probably.
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Specifications
| Format: | Portrait, 20 x 13cm. |
| Extent: | 144 pages of which 136 are original text and 8 are prelims and Introduction. |
| Other Information: | Text is printed on 80gsm Vancouver cream bookwove, volume 17.5. Each book is case bound in blue Wibalin cloth and gold blocked on the cover and spine. Coloured endpapers. Each book is individually numbered on the title page which includes the Roll of Founding Subscribers. Each book is presented in a blue, Wibalin, foil-blocked slipcase with the free CD-Rom packaged inside the slipcase in a clear plastic sleeve. |
| Limited Edition: | Numbered edition of 300. |
Founding Subscriber - now closed
Published Price : £50 (plus carriage)
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About Gavin D. Smith
Gavin is one of Scotland’s leading whisky writers and editor of the on-line drinks magazine www.whisky-pages.com. He contributes feature material to a wide range of specialist and general interest publications, and is the author of 17 books, eight on the subject of whisky. The Angels’ Share has previously published Gavin’s Whisky, Wit & Wisdom, The A-Z of Whisky, and his collaborative volume (with John MacDougall) Worts, Worms & Washbacks.
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