The Pattison brothers and their Victorian whisky empire feature in one of the most famous stories within Scotch Whisky history. Yet it wasn’t too many weeks ago I was still calling them “Patterson” and indeed assuming they were the only children of their parents (they had 12 kids).
Justine of Kask Whisky has an online documentary or virtual walk around Leith’s past with the Pattison business which answers all the questions you didn’t know you wanted to ask. Normally this is a tour done in person ending in the pub but with the current global pandemic this isn’t possible.
Using the Boon website the documentary is available to watch for only £2.99 which has to be excellent value. There was tasting packs available but I think they must be all gone now. I intended to watching this when it was originally released nearly a month ago but never got around to it. So last night with some free time and nothing slated for this blog post I thought I would start another mini series of non-fiction film/video content and since I have been to some of Justine’s tasting events in the past I wanted to help promote this small business when turning a profit must be mighty difficult just now.
Over 45 minutes we go through the main points of the inception, rise and fall of a mighty company based in Leith. A number of the buildings used by the business are still in existence but now almost always turned into flats.
I would actually like to see the area in real life. Leith itself looks much nicer than I thought it would but the video’s are all we can hope for just now. It is a bit of trek and probably more than 5 miles from where I live though. The camera company Canon have a development centre there actually doing some super interesting work that I am super jealous of. That is probably more than I needed to share here so moving on quickly…
I learnt an awful lot from those 45 minutes on a topic which I thought was little more than business gets over extended and implodes. I also got yet another reminder I need to get a copy of Alfred Barnard’s book “The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom”.
To watch the fantastic work of Justine though try the link below its much cheaper than a dram and you might learn something. I have on purpose not went into any detail on what content Justine has to not spoil anything for you here but please do follow through the link and have a watch.
https://boon.tv/kask-whisky/leith-whisky-trail-the-pattison-crash
Malted 