Skailg: a wee livener... with Tom Morton

A sharp blow to the head. That’s the literal translation of the wonderful Gaelic word Skailg, used more often to refer to the (not exclusively) Hebridean tradition of consuming a dram of whisky in the morning. A wee livener, as more lowland Scots may refer to it.

I was introduced to this procedure - I was going to say habit, but it’s not an indulgence I’ve ever really succumbed to on a regular basis - by an Englishman, and not in the Hebrides, but in the Shetland Isles. The great Simon Nicol, founder member of folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention, was playing at the Shetland Folk Festival, and I was on the bill too, in a more lowly capacity. The festival, which I highly recommend, mounts concerts in every part of our scattered archipelago, and in this case, we were playing in Unst, Scotland’s northernmost inhabited island.

In those days, the artists - and there were perhaps six acts on the bill, the rest of whom I have, alas, forgotten - stayed overnight in the community where the gig took place, and the concert was followed by a dance, which was in turn followed by a party, which led to a few tunes and drams in the house you were staying in (no hotels - certainly not!). This pattern was followed by Simon and I. We were staying in the home of the local and most hospitable headmaster. We got to bed at, oh, around 4.00am. Unfortunately, we had to get up at 6.00am to catch the first of two ferries back to Shetland’s main island.

We gathered, a bleary and wobbly group of musicians, at the Uyeasound Public Hall, where the bus awaited us. It seemed Simon and I had not been alone in carousing into the not-so-early hours. Clearly, we all felt awful. How would we face the long trip back to Lerwick, the Shetland capital, not to mention two sea journeys? But Simon, a veteran of such situations, had the solution.

“I wonder,” he said in the sonorous tones of an officer commanding a motley regiment, “if it may be possible to open the bar?” There was a brief hiatus of, oh, 30 or so seconds, and then the hall door was unlocked, the bar shutters rolled up and Simon, bless him, ordered whiskies for every one of us. Even, as he said, if we didn’t actually drink the stuff.

The effect was magical. After the first impression of being given a quick, if friendly slap around the scalp, life entered our bodies and brains. We were consuming uisge beatha, after all - the water of life. The sun came out, at least metaphorically. Pain vanished, a sense of wellbeing and warmth suffused our beings. Thoughts turned to, you know, perhaps having another one for the road. Te Bheag, as they say in Gaelic. Another wee one. But no, Simon, our saviour, knew our and his limits. We floated onto the bus, and I remember nothing of the journey save waking up in Lerwick and never enjoying a full Scottish breakfast (complete with that Shetlandic delicacy, sassermaet - spiced, rough fried sausagemeat) - quite so much.

Later, I discovered that the phenomenon of the early morning dram, the wee livener, the skalk or skailg, was first described in English by another Englishman, namely Dr Samuel Johnson, during his 1773 tour of the Western Isles in the company of that indefatigable diarist, biographer and Scot, James Boswell. Johnson was 63 at the time.

In his book about the trip, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (Boswell wrote his own account of the 83 day-escapade, A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides) Johnson states:

"A man of the Hebrides, for of the woman's diet I can give no account, as soon as he appears in the morning, swallows a glass of whisky; yet they are not a drunken race, at least I never was present at much intemperance; but no man is so abstemious as to refuse the morning dram, which they call a skalk."

Now, the morning consumption of spirits by hard-working folk facing a day out and about in often bad weather is a worldwide phenomenon. In Normandy, a Calvados with your morning coffee was a common start to the day, and in Italy the caffe corretto may still, in some instances, be necessary to correct the previous night’s indulgences (just add grappa). In Scotland, a concern for health and extremely stringent driving laws mean the skailg is nowadays much rarer. Except during folk festivals.

However, professional whisky writers often face a terribly tiresome day of checking, rating and passing comment on different drams, which inevitably means starting early (your tastebuds and nasal passages are, on the whole, subject to what you’ve been up to the night before, clearer and more sensitive in the mornings). I once found myself with 27 samples of whisky to judge, score (out of 10) and describe before my deadline that same evening. It’s a tough job. Someone’s got to do it. Skailg after skailg after skailg.

It is an accepted myth of the industry that the best spirit masters in Scotch whisky used only their nasal passages to come up with the combinations of single malt and grain which became the world’s top blends. It is true that the sensitive noses of some blenders were heavily (and with much fanfare) insured against damage through, say, accidental collision with a fist, but the truth is that mouthfeel and aftertaste are essential components in ascertaining a drink’s qualities. You don’t have to swallow a lot. But that amber liquid must touch the palate, at least in my opinion. Not so much a sharp blow to the head. More a friendly caress.

What though, would be, in the worst (or best) of all possible situations, a good morning dram? One of my pet hatreds is the promotion of over-priced whisky, aimed only at wealthy collectors. I believe in accessible, high quality Scotch which is affordable and readily available, and that’s what I’ll be concentrating on in this column. No banks will have to be broken to afford what I describe. Besides, my wife wouldn’t stand for it.

So I’m going to recommend, as a morning dram, as your own personal skalk or skailg, the creamy breakfast malt that is Jura 10-year-old, readily found at round £25 in British supermarkets. For 75cl, or around 30 wee skalks or skailgs

For reasons I won’t go into (being in charge of a tombola stall, actually) I once found myself in possession of a case (six bottles) of Jura 10, though this was many years ago and while it was the product of the same distillery, Jura 10 these days is a different beast. In my 1992 book Spirit of Adventure I called that Jura “a dram I dislike.”, which made my visit to the island the following year a little frosty. And in fact didn’t stop the tombola case disappearing, dram by dram. Did I drink it? I fear I must have, or at least some.

But Jura’s bottlings have changed in 27 years - and so have I. Indeed the ‘recipe’ for modern Jura expressions is different now, and there is a new dynamism in the distilling culture on the island.

There was a time when I would order only fierce Islay whiskies reeking of peat and the seashore; I’m happy to say that my tastes have widened. Though there is a time and a place for peat monsters, notably when eating smoked mackerel, barbecued on an open fire by the sea.

There is a lot to say about Jura, the island. It’s a spectacular place. George Orwell wrote 1984 there, at the house called Barnhill. I have a piece of his old motorbike on my desk. The band KLF reputedly burnt a million pounds in cash on Jura, as an act of art terrorism. And there is a splendid ghost story associated with the distillery - one I feel certain will surface in the Strange Tales from Scotland’s Thin Places podcast.

But what I want to say is that the current manifestation of 10-yearold Jura is a very acceptable, good value whisky. And if - when - you open a bottle of a morning, you’ll immediately be taken to Jura’s main village, Craighouse, and the aroma of those tall, slim stills in full production.

The whisky is aged in American oak barrels for a decade but before bottling it’s given what the label calls “a sweet sherry cask finish” presumably by a quick swirl around some Oloroso barrels. As a morning dram, it combines an undemanding ease with enough smoky, sherry character to make it a very friendly skailg indeed. It’s nothing like the drams characteristic of the island’s close neighbour, Islay.

Jura Single Malt Scotch Whisky, aged 10 years. £25-£35 in the UK. The range of Jura whiskies available currently includes rare 21-year-old bottlings in the Time and Tide range, as well as Jura 12, Jura Journey, Seven Wood and Jura 18.

COLOUR: Significantly darker than the straw-coloured Jura 10 of my tombola days. Suspicions of caramel colouring -common and quite legal - but there is evidence of that final whoosh through sherry drenched wood.

NOSE: It’s only 40 per cent alcohol, so no water necessary, at least for me. In the glass it possesses the citrus and vanilla, the airy seaside breeziness of an island distillery actually making spirit. A bit more sniffing will give you oak, though, with the ashy dankness of warehouses creeping in.

IN THE MOUTH: Butterscotch and almond cream cut with lemon and a biscuity, shortbread, oatcakes-off-an-Aga taste. The smoke disappears quickly. The American oak dominates but the far-off hint of sherry cask gives you that slight tang of remembered wedding cake.

SWALLOW and BREATHE: Warming, not abrasive, which is what you want in the forenoon. A sudden sense that this, after all, a Hebridean, island whisky, albeit the smoothest and most disarming. The slightest whiff of ozone. Have a great day! Mind your head…