Peter Dawson

PETER DAWSON, Distiller and Whisky Merchant, Dufftown, Glenlivet District. Export Office: 99, Maxwell Street, Glasgow.

    We remember perusing not very long ago an essay by that ever-fertile journalist and litterateur, George Augustus Sala, on the subject of “Dublin Whisky,” and it seems to us not unmeet, in a review of the history, industries, and commerce of the “Second City of the Empire”, that we should devote a page to what our literary friend, Sandie Macnab, would describe as “a moderate eulogy of our national stimulent !” — a beverage, by the way, whose virtues have been declared by novelist, philosopher, and bard ; and not the least of whose services to mankind are depicted by “him of Ayrshire”, when he says :—

    This is how that authoritative work by Alfred Burnard, “The Whisky Distilleries of the United Kingdom”, speaks of the place :—

“Before coming to Glasgow Mr. Dawson owned the “well-known distillery of Auchnagie, Ballinluig, near “Pitlochry. The Whisky is Highland Malt, and there was an annual output of between 50,000 and 60,000 gallons. The whole of this beautiful Strath Tay is one continued scene of the beauty of nature in its simplest, wildest, and most imposing richness ; the fragrant birches, graceful hazels, rolling hills of the greenest verdure, and background of mountains all form some of the richest pictures on which the eye could wish to gaze. At the time of our visit to Auchnagie Distillery the works had ceased operations, as the weather was too hot for malting. The distillery consists of a barley loft, malting still and mash house, and a few other buildings, including spirit store and warehouse accommodation for 100,000  gallons. The water used comes from the Auchnagie hills, and the make is Highland malt. Only peats brought from Loch Broom are used in drying the malt. Two excisemen are employed at the distillery who informed us that they lead quite a pastoral life, and spend their summer days in their gardens and little farmyards.”

    We shall take as our exemplification of all that is perfect in Scotch whisky not the product of any particular locality nor the yield of any special Highland sma’ still, but what we conceive to be the highest embodiment of all the virtues, so far as whisky is concerned, viz., a judicious blend in which the national characteristics of the spirit are maintained in all their integrity, while the “hard idiosyncracies peculiar to locality”, which poor Christopher North in his “Noctes Ambrosiance” so often depreciates, are lost in a “magnificent generalisation” ; or, to be more technically accurate, a discreet mixing of precious fluids, each of which preserves some rare characteristic redolent of its native heath, and suggestive of the care with which every drop has been matured. In treating upon the subject of Scottish whisky blending, our mind is involuntarily attracted by the prestige of one particular name that cannot fail to be dear to every lover of the “wee drapie hot” (or cold for the matter of that) ; we refer, of course, to that megatherian blender of exquisite potations, Mr. Peter Dawson, of No. 99, Maxwell Street, a gentleman whose long connection with the distilling district of Glenlivet gives him a distinct claim to notice in connection with the whisky trade of the country.

    And, first of all, a few words about Mr. P. Dawson personally. He comes of a long line of distillers whose fame yet “rings in rich remembrance” through Dufftown and its environs. In 1802 Mr. P. Dawson’s grandfather laid the foundations of a business which has in later years largely moulded the quality of Scotch whisky throughout the empire. The founder of the concern, ever anxious to maintain a reputation for the purity of its distillations, seems to have handed down his share of solicitude to his son, whose mantle in due course has fallen upon the not unworthy shoulders of the grandson, Mr. Peter Dawson, a gentleman who to-day is assiduously jealous to maintain the high commercial character which his progenitors have bequeathed to him as a valuable legacy and powerful incentive to higher achievements. To comment on the magnitude of Mr. Dawson’s transactions as a whisky blender must seem, to many readers at least, superfluous ; for who in Scotland can have forgotten the excitement caused throughout the City of Glasgow in November, 1890, when it was announced that he had blended at one great in-pouring no fewer than twelve thousand three hundred and seventy gallons of whisky, the component parts of which represented the matured products of twenty-five first-class stills, and the total weight of which realised rather more than sixty tons !

    This mammoth admixture indicates the character and extent of Mr. Peter Dawson’s mercantile transactions, and, on the good old Latin principle of “ab uno disce omnes”, we may confidently infer that his trading connection — extending as it does over a cosmopolitan area — is of the most Titanic proportions. No fewer than six travellers are employed, not so much in the laudation of Mr. Dawson’s whisky blends—for these best recommend themselves—but rather in watching the interests of the voluminous and influential clientele, who are distinctly concerned in keeping up an increasing supply of these deftly amalgamated potations. Few gentlemen engaged in the busy round of Glasgow’s commercial activity are — either consciously or unconsciously — doing more to further the most substantial reforms in the more pernicious of Scotch drinking customs than is Mr. Dawson.

    And herein lies the true answer to the devotees who worship at the shrine of Sir Wilfrid Lawson, and enlist themselves under the argumentatively threadbare banners of the “United Kingdom Alliance”. Let temperance reformers turn their attention from vapid outbursts of intolerant bigotry and uncharitableness to a reforming zeal in the matter of those villainous decoctions which, sold under the honourable designation of Scotch whisky, constitute what Thomas Carlyle has designated the “insiduous brain stealer and soul paralyser !” The influence of purely blended and well-matured Scotch whisky such as Mr. Peter Dawson stands sponsor for at once supplies a valuable adjunct to the best resources of human society, and vindicates the wisdom and moderation of the ancients who regard Bacchus as the preserver of good fellowship and the divine worker of human reconciliation.

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