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How Scotland Makes the World’s Finest Whisky, Cashmere & Tartan
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00:05Craftsmanship 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. And what that means
01:23is we're taking the fibre in one end and letting the finished product leave the other end all on
01:27one site. So the Cashmere Johnson's is special I think mainly because the people that are working
01:32with it along with the environment that we're working in, the people that work here, the people
01:35that care about the product, that have spent their lifetimes here learning what it takes to actually
01:39produce it. The other side is using Scottish water and being in the Scottish environment, the air, that
01:44applies something that you can't get anywhere else. The interesting thing for me is that my dad worked here,
01:48still works here. It's been here for 36 years which was the year that I was born and that was
01:52a huge
01:52driver for me to come and work for this business. So in the mill we've got machines that are both
01:57older, made of wood potentially, still within production alongside brand new machines that are
02:02trying to push the boundaries of how we manufacture our products in an efficient and consistent way.
02:06The process starts with getting the raw material into the wool store. It then has to be broken up,
02:11separated, ready for dyeing. When the colour comes up from the dye house having been dyed for the first time,
02:18very often it might not be the right colour on the very first dye because of the variation in the
02:22base
02:23fibre 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. It then moves into the carding phase which is where you're trying to
03:07separate and align all of the fibres in one direction ready to be then pulled in into slubbings
03:13ready for the spinning process which is almost the final process before it becomes yarn.
03:18The next stage once you have your yarn is to take it into the warping department. The warping
03:23department aligns the yarn in the pattern that's required in what we call the warp direction which
03:28would be the long direction of the product on the beam. Once that's on the warp beam it's then ready
03:32to be presented to the weaving loom. The part that takes the most patience is the weaving process,
03:38specifically the weaver. The weaver's job is to maintain the quality of the work as it's weaving and
03:42also to repair yarn breaks. The loom will automatically stop and the weaver then has to go in,
03:47identify where the break has happened and then tie a weaver's knot and then pull it through and then
03:51start the machine again. The raising operative definitely has a level of instinct that they
03:58have to develop themselves when they're feeling that cloth or that accessory or anything that's
04:03going through that machine they have to make a judgment when they're saying that that's a match
04:06and is that enough and sometimes they have to work together and get the instinct of two or three
04:10people to then say do we agree collectively that we're feeling the same thing because the feeling
04:14is subjective. Over 30 people can have their hands on the product at any given time throughout
04:19that process to make it from raw fibre into a product that's ready for the customer to receive
04:23and that spans over every production department and they're all hands-on processes. One person is
04:29not going to master any part of the process in their lifetime on their own. I think that without
04:33the previous year's experience being documented and being put into our training programs and having
04:38people with long service that are still here and able to talk to us about what used to happen and
04:42why we made changes that we've made it's going to be a collective effort over 200 years and continuing
04:46now always trying to make things a little bit better every 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
05:00they all use the same raw materials they all have malt they have yeast and they have water they all
05:05use cass to
05:05finish them bourbon cass, sherry cass yet they all come out different. My name is Murdo Mackenzie
05:10I'm the distillery manager at Benromic Distillery. The distillery itself is situated in Forest in
05:17Murray which is on the northeast coast of Scotland just on the cusp of the Speyside region. So Benromic
05:22is one of the smallest distilleries in Scotland there is only a handful of people that make the spirit
05:28themselves. We have four distillers there's myself here as well and then there's a very small cass team of six.
05:35Benromic 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 to
05:50bring it back to life. In 1998 they started producing their first single malt spirit. So one of the lovely
05:58things about Benromic it has kept that heritage about it has kept the traditional aspects about it. It is a
06:04distillery that is run just by hand. Every aspect of it doesn't start until one of the distillers starts
06:10to process. The barley is grown locally it has to be grown in Scotland and it has to be malted
06:16in
06:16Scotland that's one of our strongest points for our distillery. So once the malt's arrived and it's in
06:21the malt bin we'll then put it through the bobby mill which will then roll it down to what we
06:25need
06:25and then it'll be ready for mashing. The bobby mill is special to us because it is a fantastic piece
06:30of
06:30equipment is over 110 years old. The next step for us is the mashing. This is where we combine that
06:36now
06:36milled malted barley now called grist and hot water the water from the spring. The water source for us
06:42comes from a spring called the Chapleton Springs and that is about a mile and a half away from the
06:46distillery.
06:48Water is really important in all aspects of distillation and in brewing as well but for us water has to
06:54be
06:54soft and Scotland provides the best soft water. From here the distillers on site by hand will open valves
07:01switch on pumps and start the mashing process and at this point it's really crucial the temperature is
07:06there. They're after 64 and a half degrees and that is where the starch that's inside the grist will turn
07:12into sugar. As they transfer across to the washbacks you'll see that part of the pipe in the distillery
07:18that has been polished by all the hands that have touched it as they take it across. We will then
07:22ferment
07:23it for three to five days. This gives us a rich fruity character. From there it will then go through
07:28the
07:28stills where we will get a medium bodied character finish from the distillation which will then add in
07:33the complexity to it. So we have a lovely hint of smoke, we have cereal notes and we have the
07:38fruity
07:38characters just coming from the distillation. There after that we're relying on the casks. The casks will give
07:46it that really rich sherry influence or the ex-bargan finish. Once the spirit's ready to be filled
07:52into casks, what the team at the distillery will do first is they will take the casks, they'll weigh
07:57them empty, stencil them and then weigh them full. These casks will then be rolled across to the
08:02warehouse where they'll be kept for 10, 15, 21, however long we want to keep them in the warehouse for.
08:09The best part of the job is absolutely making the spirit and seeing the whole process from start to
08:14finish. It takes time, that's really important. We're not in a rush here to make whiskey. You know,
08:19whiskey isn't just made in one day, it takes at least a week before it's even ready to go into
08:23the stills and thereafter it can be multiple years until it comes out of cask. We put in our head,
08:29heart and our hands because that's what makes the spirit. You have to think all the time of the
08:34process what's going on. You get to feel how the distillery works and how hot and cold everything is
08:38running. Use your sound and your touch just to see how the process is going on. You see that from
08:44mashing
08:44to distillation and even when it comes to fermentations, you're using your nose to make sure
08:48that the fermentation process is going well. The distillery itself, because it's so small, allows
08:53us to keep that handcrafted element because it does become more difficult as processes get bigger
08:57but 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 home by yourself easily. It requires equipment, skill. I mean you can't just sit and practice at
09:20home from TV. It's an intensely complex craft and so keeping that alive. We've got five hand weavers but
09:27people are surprised at how young they are and it's trying to create space for them to have a place
09:33where
09:33they can come and weave is a huge passion for me. My name is Araminta Burst-Stewart. I'm the founder
09:38of
09:39Araminta Campbell which is a woven textile business based in Scotland.
09:45Tweed and tartan is a historic fabric that's been around for generations and I think part of that
09:51is due to the environment that we live in. It's a harsh environment, it's cold and people were wearing
09:57wool fabrics from very early on in order to keep themselves warm and protect themselves from the
10:03environment. Traditionally tweed is a cloth of the land and tartan is a cloth of the family. Tweed tends
10:09to be more informal and tartan more formal. Tartan, the vertical and horizontal are always the same,
10:15they match up and they are clear blocks of colour. Tartan there is more regimental aspects to it in
10:21terms of registering a tartan. Generally you have at most six colours in a tartan but you can also
10:26incorporate beautiful numerical references and story into a tartan which is a key thing that we do within
10:32some of our projects. The design across the entirety of my work, whether it's for my own brand or for
10:40a client like the Phi Farms, is very much about being out of the landscape and capturing elements
10:44of that landscape in the designs, whether it's the colours of the landscape, the motifs and my
10:49aspiration is that when someone looks at the design in the landscape they can see that they are paired
10:55together. The Phi Farms is located in Bromar 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 as an
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 Phi Farms 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
11:47but also 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 represent
12:08it in a new way. So my own collection of tartans, all of the colours I've originally obtained through
12:14natural plant dyes and many of these I've foraged myself. I love going out collecting plants from nature and
12:20seeing what colours they create. It's actually a process I often do with my sons, they call it
12:24mummies, potions and we go out and we collect whether it's brambles or nettles, birch bark, anything
12:32from the landscape that we can get some colours from and then we use wool to dye and get a
12:37fantastic
12:38range of colours which are then represented in my designs. Where possible I use colours that I can
12:43forage but I do also buy in dried dyes as well, whether it's indigo, alkanet, just in order to get
12:49that
12:49range of colours that I would like to capture in tartan and this is very much part of the history.
12:54In the past wealth was shown through having red through cochineal in your design and I think
13:00there's a lovely symbolism in that that I love to work with but yeah you can create a fantastic range
13:05and I do it in a very experimental way, I'm not sort of prescriptive in my process at all,
13:10it'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
13:21clouds and the rain, I don't really mind that that's the majority of our year here.
13:25That's why we make whisky, it warms us up. Scotland is one of these little gems that you
13:30can spend one day at a beach, you can spend the next day in a hill in the highlands and
13:34you can get
13:34lost wherever you want to go, there's always something to do. There's so much to see in Scotland and people
13:39often just scrape the surface, every different area has different things to see, the landscape's
13:44beautiful, the people, the craft that you see, it's a beautiful place.
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