- 14 hours ago
In this episode of Made In, we explore the craftsmanship behind three of Scotland’s most iconic traditions: cashmere, whisky, and tartan weaving. Follow David Garrow at Johnstons of Elgin, Murdo MacKenzie at Benromach distillery, and Araminta Birse-Stewart, founder of Araminta Campbell, as they reveal how Scotland’s artisans and landscape are keeping centuries-old craft traditions alive.
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00:04Craftsmanship for me means that we're working with processes that can't be replaced just by
00:09machines or automation or any of the advancements that we're looking at at the moment. It's something
00:13that requires knowledge, it requires experience and it requires care. With whisky what we make
00:19today might be something that I may never get to drink. It may be in cask for 50, 60, 70
00:24years.
00:25There's definitely part of history being put down today that will be there for the future.
00:29The landscape is everything, it's where I get my inspiration from. I use the landscape to create
00:34the dye colours that I use in some of my work and there's so much to see in Scotland.
00:39I also think that people make Scotland.
00:48I would say the mill sounds like a train station with all the steam coming out of all the buildings
00:52and all of the running machinery. My name is David Garrow. My role here is Head of Fabric at
00:57Johnson's of Elgin. I've been here for eight years and my role includes taking care of four production
01:02departments at the heart of the mill, warping, weaving, darning and parling. The business has
01:08been here for 229 years. We are a family-owned business and we're specialists in manufacturing
01:13with cashmere and wool. I feel like we're thoroughly embedded in Scottish textile history whilst we work
01:19here and we're the only mill here that's vertically integrated in Scotland now. What that means is
01:23we're taking the fibre in one end and letting the finished product leave the other end all on one
01:28site. So the Cashmere Johnson's is special I think mainly because the people that are working with it
01:32along with the environment that we're working in, the people that work here, the people that care about
01:35the product, that have spent their lifetimes here learning what it takes to actually produce it.
01:40The other side is using Scottish water and being in the Scottish environment, the air, that applies
01:44something that you can't get anywhere else. The interesting thing for me is that my dad worked here,
01:49he's been here for 36 years which was the year that I was born and that was a huge driver
01:52for
01:53me to come and work for this business. So in the mill we've got machines that are both older, made
01:58of
01:58wood potentially, still within production alongside brand new machines that are trying to push the
02:02boundaries of how we manufacture our products in an efficient and consistent way. The process starts
02:07with getting the raw material into the wool store, it then has to be broken up, separated, ready for dyeing.
02:14When the colour comes up from the dye house having been dyed for the first time,
02:17very often it might not be the right colour on the very first dye because of the variation in the
02:22base
02:22fibre that we get. The dyer's job is then to add some form of addition to that dyeing that then
02:28corrects the shade and you want to correct it as quickly as possible with as minimal attempts as
02:32possible to preserve the quality of the fibre. The longer it's in water in dyeing, the more damage
02:37we're applying so it has to be quick and it has to be right in the first few goes. After
02:42it's been dried,
02:43it's then going to move up into the next major stage of production which is yarn manufacturing,
02:47taking the wool and trying to make it into that yarn. The first step of that being teasing and
02:52blending and that's where you've taken quite a compact and dry now bale of wool or cashmere and
02:57you have to separate it so that it's not matted together, it's evenly separated and that's preparation
03:00for the carding phase. Then moves into the carding phase which is where you're trying to separate and
03:08align all of the fibres in one direction ready to be then pulled in into slubbings ready for the
03:13spinning process which is almost the final process before it becomes yarn. The next stage once you have
03:20your yarn is to take it into the warping department. The warping department aligns the yarn in the pattern
03:25that's required in what we call the warp direction which would be the long direction of the product
03:29on the beam. Once that's on the warp beam it's then ready to be presented to the weaving loom.
03:34The part that takes the most patience is the weaving process, specifically the weaver. The weaver's
03:39job is to maintain the quality of the work as it's weaving and also to repair yarn breaks. The loom
03:45will automatically stop and the weaver then has to go in, identify where the break has happened and
03:49then tie a weaver's knot and then pull it through and then start the machine again.
03:55The Raising Operative definitely has a level of instinct that they have to develop themselves.
04:00When they're feeling that cloth or that accessory or anything that's going through that machine
04:03they have to make a judgement when they're saying that that's a match and is that enough and sometimes
04:08they have to work together and get the instinct of two or three people to then say do we agree
04:11collectively that we're feeling the same thing because the feeling is subjective. Over 30 people
04:16can have their hands on the product at any given time throughout that process to make it from raw
04:21fibre into a product that's ready for the customer to receive and that spans over every production
04:25department and they're all hands-on processes. One person is not going to master any part of the
04:30process in their lifetime on their own. I think that without the previous year's experience being
04:35documented and being put into our training programmes and having people with long service that are still
04:39here and able to talk to us about what used to happen and why we made changes that we've made,
04:44it's going to be a collective effort over 200 years and continuing now always trying to make things a little
04:48bit better
04:49every year before you could say that you've mastered it.
04:56So one of the beautiful things about Scotch whisky, there's about 150 distilleries in Scotland.
05:01They all use the same raw materials, they all have malt, they have yeast and they have water.
05:04They all use cass to finish them, bourbon cass, sherry cass, yet they all come out different.
05:09My name is Murdo Mackenzie, I'm the distillery manager at Benro Mac Distillery.
05:14The distillery itself is situated in Forest in Moray, which is on the northeast coast of Scotland,
05:19just on the cusp of the Speyside region. So Benro Mac is one of the smallest distilleries in Scotland.
05:25There is only a handful of people that make the spirit themselves. We have four distillers,
05:30there's myself here as well, and then there's a very small cast team of six.
05:35Benro Mac Distillery was founded in 1898, ran through the years all the way until 1983. Ten years later,
05:42the family of Gordon and McPhail in 1993 purchased the distillery and thereafter from 95 to 98 began
05:50to bring it back to life. In 1998 they started producing their first single malt spirit.
05:57So one of the lovely things about Benro Mac, it has kept that heritage about it,
06:01it has kept the traditional aspects about it. It is a distillery that is run just by hand.
06:06Every aspect of it doesn't start until one of the distillers starts a process.
06:12The barley is grown locally. It has to be grown in Scotland and it has to be malted in Scotland.
06:16That's one of our strongest points for our distillery. So once the malt's arrived and it's
06:21in the malt bin, we'll then put it through the bobby mill, which we'll then roll it down to what
06:25we
06:25need and then it'll be ready for mashing. The bobby mill is special to us because it is a fantastic
06:30piece of equipment. It's over 110 years old. The next step for us is the mashing. This is where we
06:35combine
06:35that now milled malted barley, now called grist, and hot water, the water from the spring. The water
06:41source for us comes from a spring called the Chapelton Springs and that is about a mile and a half
06:45away
06:46from the distillery. Water is really important in all aspects of distillation and in brewing as well,
06:52but for us water has to be soft and Scotland provides the best soft water. From here the distillers
06:59on site by hand will open valves, switch on pumps and start the mashing process and at this point
07:05it's really crucial the temperature is there. They're after 64 and a half degrees and that is
07:09where the starch that's inside the grist will turn into sugar. As they transfer across to the washbacks
07:15you'll see that part of the pipe in the distillery that has been polished by all the hands that have
07:20touched it as they take it across. We will then ferment it for three to five days. This gives us
07:25a rich
07:26fruity character. From there it will then go through the stills where we will get a medium bodied
07:30character finish from the distillation which will then add in the complexity to it. So we have a
07:35lovely hint of smoke, we have cereal notes and we have the fruity characters just coming from the
07:40distillation. There after that we're relying on the casks. The casks will give it that really rich
07:47sherry influence or the ex-bourbon finish. Once the spirit's ready to be filled into the cask what the
07:56will take the casks, they'll weigh them empty, stencil them and then weigh them full. These
08:00casks will then be rolled across to the warehouse where they'll be kept for 10, 15, 21 however long
08:05we want to keep them in the warehouse for. The best part of the job is absolutely making the spirit
08:12and seeing the whole process from start to finish. It takes time, that's really important. We're not in a
08:17rush here to make whiskey. You know whiskey isn't just made in one day, it takes at least a week
08:22before
08:22it's even ready to go into the stills and thereafter it can be multiple years until it comes out of
08:27cask.
08:28We put in our head, heart and our hands because that's what makes the spirit. You have to think
08:32all the time of the process what's going on. You get to feel how the distillery works and how hot
08:37and
08:38cold everything is running. Use your sound and your touch just to see how the process is going on. You
08:43see that from mashing to distillation and even when it comes to fermentations you're using your nose to
08:48make sure that the fermentation process is going well. The distillery itself because it's so small
08:52allows us to keep that handcrafted element because it does become more difficult as processes get
08:57bigger but it also allows you to stay very in tune with what we need.
09:08The craft of weaving is such a core part of Scottish heritage. It's not a craft that you can just
09:14do at
09:14home by yourself easily. It requires equipment skill. I mean you can't just sit and practice at home from
09:20TV. It's an intensely complex craft and so keeping that alive. We've got five hand weavers but people
09:27are surprised at how young they are and it's trying to create space for them to have a place where
09:33they
09:33can come and weave is a huge passion for me. My name is Araminta Burr-Stewart. I'm the founder of
09:39Araminta
09:39Campbell which is a woven textile business based in Scotland. Tweed and tartan is a historic fabric
09:48that's been around for generations and I think part of that is due to the environment that we live
09:53in. It's a harsh environment, it's cold and people were wearing wool fabrics from very early on in
09:59order to keep themselves warm and protect themselves from the environment. Traditionally tweed is a cloth of
10:06the land and tartan is a cloth of the family. Tweed tends to be more informal and tartan more formal.
10:12Tartan the vertical and horizontal are always the same, they match up and they are clear blocks of
10:17colour. Tartan there is more regimental aspects to it in terms of registering a tartan. Generally you
10:23have at most six colours in a tartan but you can also incorporate beautiful numerical references and
10:29story into a tartan which is a key thing that we do within some of our projects.
10:35Tartan the design across the entirety of my work whether it's for my own brand or for a client
10:40like the Five Farms is very much about being out of the landscape and capturing elements of that
10:45landscape in the designs whether it's the colours of the landscape, the motifs and my aspiration is
10:50that when someone looks at the design in the landscape they can see that they are paired together.
10:55The Five Farms is located in Brahmar which is a highland village in the centre of the Cairngorms
11:00National Park and so there's a lot of different flora and fauna around which I've used in the
11:06inspiration for the designs. The Cairngorm forest is green at all times of the year due to Scots
11:11pine trees and that is a core part but the different shades and tones of that so you've got the
11:16dark
11:17green and then the forest green and in the spring when the trees are growing the new growth is this
11:22lime green. It's a lot about trying to capture moments which people don't see and they don't recognise
11:27in the landscape. For me it's really important to create that connection between the design
11:32and the story behind it it's not just where it's made and who's made it but it is the story
11:36is why
11:37it looks the way it is and I think the Five Farm does it beautifully with capturing the heritage of
11:42the place and the traditions and the history rooting it in the craft and the skill of the land but
11:47also executing it in a beautifully contemporary way.
11:52I've worked with natural plant dyes since I was 16. Initially this was just purely from an interest
11:57of creating my own colours but that interest has grown. Tweed and tartan originally the colours will
12:02have come from natural plant dyes so it's almost like I'm going back in history in order to sort of
12:08represent it in a new way. So my own collection of tartans all of the colours I've originally obtained
12:14through natural plant dyes and many of these I've foraged myself. I love going out collecting plants from
12:20nature and seeing what colours they create. It's actually a process I often do with my sons,
12:24they call it mummies, potions, and we go out and we collect whether it's brambles or nettles,
12:30birch bark, anything from the landscape that we can get some colours from and then we use wool to dye
12:36and get a fantastic range of colours which are then represented in my designs. Where possible I use
12:42colours that I can forage but I do also buy in dried dyes as well, whether it's indigo, alkanet,
12:48just in order to get that range of colours that I would like to capture and tartan. And this is
12:53very much part of the history. In the past wealth was shown through having read through cochineal in
12:58your design and I think there's a lovely symbolism in that that I love to work with but yeah you
13:03can
13:03create a fantastic range and I do it in a very experimental way. I'm not sort of prescriptive in
13:09my process at all, it's very organic and just really fun.
13:17I think that my favourite thing about Scotland is the weather, the moderate climate, I like the clouds
13:21and the rain, I don't really mind that that's the majority of our year here. That's why we make
13:25whisky, it warms us up. Scotland is one of these little gems that you can spend one day at a
13:31beach,
13:32you can spend the next day in a hill in the highlands and you can get lost wherever you want
13:35to go, there's
13:36always something to do. There's so much to see in Scotland and people often just scrape the surface.
13:41Every different area has different things to see, the landscape's beautiful, the people,
13:45the craft that you see, it's a beautiful place.