by the early 1900s there were fewer illicit distillers to chase, and the noose was tightening, making it more difficult for Hamish to live off his trade. And he was getting old, and had also heard the wonderful news that Lloyd George had introduced old-age pensions. Captain Stirling prevailed upon Hamish to give the distilling up. But Hamish turned even his retirement to good use. While at a fair in Beauly he approached a couple of excisemen and informed them, that if he could receive the £5 reward, he would show them the location of some illicit stills. He then led the guagers to his own bothies, and pocketed the reward, while they delightedly took away the stills for destruction. The ruins of the bothies are still there on Meall Mor for those who search, but the Macraes’ island home was sadly submerged by the building of the Monar dam in 1959, and the raising of the water level.
Jamie and his sister retired to the old folks’ home at Kilmorack, and on their deaths were also taken back to Kintail for burial beside their parents – though this time they were transported by road, not carried on foot as their parents had been. The Macraes of Monar have passed into history and
The Pait Blend
into folklore, its famed taste a fond memory … unless there is still a bottle lying beneath the waters of Loch Monar?
10 New Zealand Moonshine: The Hokonui Brand
MARY McRAE SAILED for New Zealand on the emigrant ship The
Hydaspes
in 1872. Recently widowed, she took with her her four sons and three daughters, and her memories of her 45 hard years in Kintail, the MacRae heartland. She also took with her a wooden box marked ‘Household Goods’, which contained one of the most essential household items in Kintail at that time. This was a fine copper and brass whisky still, which was to have a colourful history once it was reassembled on her new holding in the Hokonui hills of Southland in New Zealand’s South Island.
She left behind in Kintail a conviction for illegal distilling, which had attracted to her – or rather to her son Duncan – a massive £650 fine, with an additional £150 for non-appearance at court, for operating a still on Kishorn island in Kintail. Mary’s husband had died the year before, and possibly dire economic necessity had driven her to illicit distilling to support her large family, as it did many others. There is no record of the fine being paid before Mary left Scotland, indeed such a sum would have been impossible for a poor Highland crofter to find.
The McRaes settled in the Southland district which was heavily populated by Scots, particularly Scots Highlanders, with many hundreds from Kintail itself. The locals still universally spoke Gaelic, played the classical bagpipe (
piobaireachd
), and had a taste for whisky – which was very expensive if imported. There existed a local hooch produced from the Cabbage Tree, but this deadly brew was more of a rum than a whisky, and Mary soon found a ready demand for her
craitur
when she started distilling again with her sons. At events in the local Celtic Society Hall and as far away as Invercargill at the Caledonian Sports Society’s Games, the Hokonui brand soon found a market.
This was still frontier time in Southland, and the authorities could only make limited efforts to control illicit stills, of which there were many besides Mary’s. On one occasion officers came to her cabin and listened at the window to the conversation for clues – as the talk inside was all in Gaelic, they went away as mystified as when they had come. On another occasion the customs officers might have been more lucky, had Mary (now known as the
cailleach
) not sat down over a whisky barrel, covering it with her skirt and remaining seated while the exciseman made his search.
Mary died in 1911 at the ripe old age of 92, and she attributed her lifelong good health to a daily dose of her own dram. In the years after the First World War, however, the frontier epoch had passed away
Jamie and his sister retired to the old folks’ home at Kilmorack, and on their deaths were also taken back to Kintail for burial beside their parents – though this time they were transported by road, not carried on foot as their parents had been. The Macraes of Monar have passed into history and
The Pait Blend
into folklore, its famed taste a fond memory … unless there is still a bottle lying beneath the waters of Loch Monar?
10 New Zealand Moonshine: The Hokonui Brand
MARY McRAE SAILED for New Zealand on the emigrant ship The
Hydaspes
in 1872. Recently widowed, she took with her her four sons and three daughters, and her memories of her 45 hard years in Kintail, the MacRae heartland. She also took with her a wooden box marked ‘Household Goods’, which contained one of the most essential household items in Kintail at that time. This was a fine copper and brass whisky still, which was to have a colourful history once it was reassembled on her new holding in the Hokonui hills of Southland in New Zealand’s South Island.
She left behind in Kintail a conviction for illegal distilling, which had attracted to her – or rather to her son Duncan – a massive £650 fine, with an additional £150 for non-appearance at court, for operating a still on Kishorn island in Kintail. Mary’s husband had died the year before, and possibly dire economic necessity had driven her to illicit distilling to support her large family, as it did many others. There is no record of the fine being paid before Mary left Scotland, indeed such a sum would have been impossible for a poor Highland crofter to find.
The McRaes settled in the Southland district which was heavily populated by Scots, particularly Scots Highlanders, with many hundreds from Kintail itself. The locals still universally spoke Gaelic, played the classical bagpipe (
piobaireachd
), and had a taste for whisky – which was very expensive if imported. There existed a local hooch produced from the Cabbage Tree, but this deadly brew was more of a rum than a whisky, and Mary soon found a ready demand for her
craitur
when she started distilling again with her sons. At events in the local Celtic Society Hall and as far away as Invercargill at the Caledonian Sports Society’s Games, the Hokonui brand soon found a market.
This was still frontier time in Southland, and the authorities could only make limited efforts to control illicit stills, of which there were many besides Mary’s. On one occasion officers came to her cabin and listened at the window to the conversation for clues – as the talk inside was all in Gaelic, they went away as mystified as when they had come. On another occasion the customs officers might have been more lucky, had Mary (now known as the
cailleach
) not sat down over a whisky barrel, covering it with her skirt and remaining seated while the exciseman made his search.
Mary died in 1911 at the ripe old age of 92, and she attributed her lifelong good health to a daily dose of her own dram. In the years after the First World War, however, the frontier epoch had passed away
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