“A Wee Drappie”
“I am the great-great grandson of James Eadie on my Mother’s side,” says Rupert Patrick. “My grandfather Jim Eadie, was the last Eadie to be directly employed by the business. He retired as Chairman shortly after the Second World War.”
Rupert has vast experience in the whisky trade: “I started my career at Ian Macleod Distillers, 1991-2004, as Export Manager and then Director; I worked at Beam Suntory from 2004 to 2011; I moved to Diageo in January 2012 and stayed there until June 2014 when I left to set up WhiskyInvestDirect and James Eadie Ltd.”
So who was James Eadie and why would a blended Scotch whisky of interest to The Beertonian?
James Eadie was born in the village of Blackford in Perthshire in 1827; his family owned a large posting business and to which they later added a small brewery. Eadie moved to England in search of his fortune and joined his uncle in Fazeley, working in the industry of that great British drink, tea.
After his uncle returned to Scotland due to ill health, James stayed and expanded his skills to a Maltster. He’d sell his malt in Burton and as his business became more successful his monthly visits became more and more frequent until he decided to settle in the town. Realising that Burton Pale Ale was becoming a very popular drink he turned his hand to brewing and leased an area of land on Cross Street where he built a small brewery in 1854. By all accounts he learnt his trade over a number of years, eventually perfecting his own Pale Ale.
To cope with increasing demand the brewery was expanded, including a Maltings on Park Street, until it was decided in 1883 to build a new premises, this was opened on 31 January 1888, by which time Mr Eadie’s sons were helping to run the business.
Along with his brewing interests James Eadie was also famed for his own blend of Scotch whisky, which had been created by his father. It was described by The Wine Trade Review in 1877: “… little Highland whisky is now consumed as distilled. The public find blends so much better balanced and palatable.”
James Eadie’s registered an X as his trade mark in 1877 and this adorned both his ale and whisky. The brand survived after James Eadie’s death in 1903 and the brewery was sold to Bass in 1933. By the mid 1940’s both beer and whisky ceased production, although the company James Eadie dealt in wines and spirits into the 1960’s; and that is where the story might have ended …
“We managed to track down the James Eadie whisky ledgers from the late 19th century,” says Rupert, revealing where the germ of an idea originated. “These are in the National Brewery Centre Archive and contain around twenty years of whisky blending history. They are very well preserved and show in great detail how Mr Eadie was making his whisky. It also shows the cask types he used for maturation and the ages at which he bottled the various malts and grains that were blended together to produce Trade Mark X.”
Following this Rupert was given two bottles that dated back to the 1940’s which once belonged to Jim Eadie, the last Chairman: “My uncle Alastair Eadie has a few bottles left over from the closure of the business. I’m guessing that his father asked for enough whisky to last his lifetime! Alastair, kindly, gave me a couple of bottles when I showed signs of reviving the business.”
The whisky lived up to expectations: “The bottle we tasted from the 1940’s was outstandingly delicious!”
“We have a total of fourteen whiskies in our blend including great names such as Lagavulin, Glendronach, Blair Athol, Glenturret, Talisker and Caol Ila,” these whiskies are also in great demand as Single Malts, making Trade Mark X a unique blend. “Eadie’s also used whiskies from three or four other distilleries which shut down at the turn of 20th century so clearly we had no chance of using these ones!”
Two of the fourteen were to prove a challenge in sourcing, but they were necessary to ensure an authentic recreation: “The hardest to track down were the Cambus grain and Littlemill malt; these distilleries closed down in the early 1990s so stock is old, scarce and expensive! The Littlemill commands a huge premium in the market mainly because independent bottlers are chasing it and the market for such malts is very active,” Rupert had to use all of his connections. “I managed to find some but I don’t divulge where I got the stock! Luckily the quality of the whisky was extremely good.”
“The Cambus is a little easier to track down but still rare and in demand. We were very lucky to get access to Sherry Butt stock and it really is outstanding, so much so that we decided to bottle one butt of it as a single grain. This is a 24 year old Cambus, bottled as a James Eadie single grain; it is selling very well and will be sold out within another few weeks.”
With all the whiskies found it was time to call in an expert: “Norman Mathison was selected to be our Master Blender, he worked for Invergordon/Whyte & Mackay for most of his career and has 50 years blending experience! When he saw the ledgers and the whiskies therein he jumped at the chance to revive it.”
So how does the 2017 version compare to the original: “It’s very much in the same ‘family style’, with quite a richly peated offset by the more fruity Speyside flavours. The 1940’s one was also slightly more sherried in nature, however the balance of the blend is consistent between the two.”
If this has whetted your appetite to try, as Victorian beer and whisky historian Alfred Barnard once said, “a wee drappie” of Trade Mark X, it is stocked by Royal Mile Whiskies, Master of Malt, 86 Waitrose branches, Daylesford shops and many independent retailers.
Not that much is known about Nunneley’s brewery; it was founded at 21 Bridge Street, Burton upon Trent, c.1835 probably by Thomas Newton, by 1843 the business was being run by Joseph Nunneley who rebuilt the brewery on the same site and added a townhouse which still stands today. The company was floated on the stock market in 1888 as J. Nunneley & Co. Ltd, before merging with the Burton Brewery Co. Ltd. in 1896 whom were directly next door.
They were anti-royalists and didn’t want Queen Victoria on their bar. So within ten minutes we’d changed it to the Good Ship Victoria and lo and behold he took the ale and is still selling it to this day.”
the first proper publication of “The Good Beer Guide” in 1974; just over one hundred brewers were listed within, many of which were still selling predominantly keg beer. Descriptions such as ‘nearly all pressurised’, ‘a disaster’, ‘a bad bet’ and most famously ‘avoid like the plague’ (which was quickly changed to ‘avoid at all costs’ after the threat of legal action from Watney) told a sorry tale. Today “The Good Beer Guide” lists over 2,000 breweries, all of them indebted in one way or another to the pressure group that took on pressured beer and won!
