During the first world war, Distilleries in Scotland were closed to preserve barley stocks for food. In the 1920’s there was a significant temperance movement in Britain, and the government increased the duty on whisky (plus ca change!) and in the USA total prohibition of alcohol was introduced.
Thankfully for the whisky producers, prohibition was somewhat less than effective. So much so that many distilleries exported almost their entire production to the USA through dubious sources. Indeed when I wrote recently about visiting Edradour distillery the tour guide confirmed that this was the case. It is believed that that particular distillery was actually owned by the Mafia for a time.
William McCoy was a Bahamas based bootlegger with a Dumbarton connection. Not because he was born there or had relatives there. McCoy smuggled huge quatities of Cutty Sark blended whisky into America during prohibition. Cutty Sark literally means short shirt and “weel done cutty sark” was a cry from Tam O’ Shanter in one of Burns most celebrated works. Tam had been secretly observing Nannie a young witch wearing nothing but a cutty sark doing an erotic dance amongst a group in a wood.
It was also the name of the fastest sailing ship of its day (built in Dumbarton) and the whisky (also at one time bottled in Dumbarton) took a picture of the ship as its label emblem .
McCoy illegally imported hundreds of thousands of casks of the light premium blend beloved of speakeasy customers of the day. Such was the popularity of it that patrons, unwilling to accept a substitute would ask for……
“The real McCoy”
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