Still Life with Bottle: Whisky According to Ralph Steadman

Asked to create a book on malt whisky and its ways, Ralph Steadman embraced the subject with characteristic passion and zeal. What resulted from this initial foray was a fascination for an industry rich in folklore, steeped in mysterious tales as dark as peat, and, even more so, for the magical liquid that it produces. And so he embarked on the whisky trail. Traveling the length and breadth of Scotland and its islands, Ralph Steadman looks at the art of blending and the craft of cooperage, at the skill required to choose just the right amount of peat to fire a kiln, and at the cunning needed to smuggle an illicit dram in a pair of wellington boots past a watchman. He also charts the wild days of smuggling and the indelible mark they left on the character of whisky distilling; he considers the element of alchemy involved when the dents in a pot still are so important that they are replicated in each new one that is made; and he explores the origins of distilling in an intriguing jaunt through prehistory.


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