Since 2020, National Trust for Scotland archaeologists and volunteers have been working with The Glenlivet to uncover sites and stories relating to Scotch whisky-production, exploring the spirit’s place in the nation’s cultural heritage. One phase of the Pioneering Spirit project investigated the remains of the original Glenlivet distillery in Speyside (see CA 416), while the other side of our research has highlighted rather smaller production sites, surveying and excavating the remains of illicit whisky bothies on land belonging to the Trust.
So far, around 40 such sites have been identified, and nine have been excavated, at Mar Lodge, Torridon, Ben Lomond, and Ben Lawers. Unlicensed whisky bothies have only more recently been considered as a type of archaeological site, and their remains are not always easy to find – you have to think like an Excise Officer, and become a real landscape detective. The easiest approach is to walk up the lines of the small burns, which would have provided water sources for these sites, and look for a small, level platform or short lengths of stone footings. If you ever built a hidden ‘den’ as a child, using a lean-to roof against a steep slope or a stone cliff, and covering it with camouflaging grass, bracken, and heather, that is what an illicit whisky bothy would probably have been like.
Mar Lodge Estate: out of sight
Like the area around The Glenlivet – which was itself founded after an illicit whisky-producer obtained the region’s first licence to distil legally in 1824 – the Trust’s property at Mar Lodge Estate, in the centre of the Cairngorms, forms one of the most-remote locations in Scotland. As such, it was ideal for clandestine whisky-production – and, indeed, in the 1990s survey work undertaken in this area by RCAHMS published some of the first drawn plans of bothy sites in archaeological literature. Seven examples were known before our project there started in 2021, but a number of others have since been discovered by Trust staff – the sort of people who know all the hidden spots in these landscapes.
