I used to do book reviews quite regularly and I do enjoy a good read. I am not going to be the next BookTok influencer but you can’t get drunk on paper.

This book was published in 2005 by Gavin D Smith and was actually recommended to me by the tour guide during my visit to Caol Ila distillery. This was an awful long time ago and was a great visit from an excellent guide who had genuine interest and passion for the whisky, the distillery and the island. To read more about that visit when Mrs Malted was Soon-To-Be Mrs Malted then I hoped I would have written about it back in 2018 but it appears not. It was excellent though and being before the Johnnie Walker experience revamp I’m fairly sure it was authentic in a way you can’t get now.

This book is a paperback from Birlinn Books who I have recommended before for their excellent and interesting non-fiction titles especially Scotland related. I don’t think this book is still in publication though and the title isn’t listed on the website URL above.

The book itself is a collection of interviews from men who have worked in the industry from around the post war period and they were mostly all retired when the interviews were recorded. Each one shows the changes in the industry to those own individuals trade as part of the whisky production industry. The transcripts are peppered with period photographs which show the industrial landscape in the early to mid 20th century and are of particular interest to me.

I really enjoy social history and its a lot of what the whisky ecosystem gives me especially when I visit a distillery. The book and its interviews are not all rose-tinted looking at a time when life was simpler, slower and easier. Indeed a lot of pages are taken up with the hardness of life especially on the island and the endemic alcoholism in the workforce exacerbated by the dramming culture of providing drams (up to 3 or 5 a day) to staff during the working day and using additional whisky rations for doing dirty, dangerous or difficult jobs.

You will end up paying maybe a bit more for this book now its out of print and was produced in small numbers. It took my a good few years to find it actually and only now in 2025 have I found the time to sit and read it. Details and links are below but this is a definite recommend buy in my book (pun intended).

Book Details