Alistair Cunningham, 84, Scotch whisky expert who was known to many as 'Mr Ballantine's'
Hoodoo
04 August 2010
By PHIL DAVISON
http://news.scotsman.com/obituaries/Obituary-Alistair-Cunningham.6455003.jp
Scotch whisky expert who was known to many as 'Mr Ballantine's'
Born: 3 February, 1926, in Bonhill, Dunbartonshire.
Died: 14 July, 2010, in Paisley, aged 84.
ALISTAIR Cunningham started work at Ballantine's distillery in Dumbarton
as a general apprentice straight out of school on the day before his
16th birthday in 1942.
In his 50-year career, all spent in offices at the same distillery in
the shadow of the historic Dumbarton Castle, he became a Scotch whisky
legend.
He learned everything there was to know about the industry and ended up
running the entire company, Hiram Walker, owners of Ballantine's at the
time.
To his staff and others in the industry, he became known as "Mr
Ballantine's", seen as the custodian of the world famous whisky's unique
blend through multiple changes in ownership.
In his 40s, Cunningham became managing director of Hiram Walker
(Scotland) and, by the time of his retirement in 1992, headed the new
parent company, Allied Distillers (since taken over by Pernod-Ricard and
its Scotch Whisky division, Chivas Brothers).
Despite all the takeovers and changes of company name, Cunningham was
most proud of retaining the constancy of the Ballantine's brand and
blend, which became first choice of anyone from kings, presidents and
Hollywood stars to the other extreme - South American dictators such as
Panama's Manuel Noriega or wealthy Colombian cocaine barons including
Pablo Escobar.
Whether the blend is still as good as it was during Cunningham's day is
a question now debated by Scotch whisky connoisseurs but recent
statistics show it is the best-selling Scotch whisky in Europe and the
third in the world. An astonishing two bottles, on average, are
currently sold worldwide every second of every day.
During his 50-year career, Cunningham was involved at every level of
Ballantine's, first distilled and sold by farmer's son George Ballantine
in an Edinburgh grocery store in 1827 and eventually sold by the
Ballantine family in 1919.
The Canada-based company Hiram Walker bought the brand in 1937 and, on
28 September the following year, opened the new Dumbarton distillery
next to the famous Denny's shipyard on the confluence of the rivers
Clyde and Leven. It was directly behind Dumbarton Rock, the ancient
fortress of the Kingdom of Strathclyde.
During his rise from bottom to top of Hiram Walker, Cunningham, though
not formally a "master blender", won a reputation as one.
But he also monitored every phase of distilling, travelled the world
marketing the product and still kept a keen eye on the company's famous
bonded warehouses - protected by security guards and noisy white Chinese
geese nicknamed "the Scotch Watch" - at Dumbuck on Dumbarton's outskirts.
In his presence, his workers called him Mr Managing Director. In
private, they called him "Big Al", something he was well aware of and
which brought him a quiet smile.
Having gained a degree in chemical engineering as part of the company
training scheme, Cunningham in 1955 invented and, along with Hiram
Walker's draftsman Arthur Warren, designed what became known as the
Lomond Still at the Dumbarton distillery, a major breakthrough in Scotch
whisky production.
Following the war years and a scarcity of whisky, there was a resurgence
in demand, particularly in the US, where Ballantine's had already made
huge - though clandestine - inroads during prohibition in the 1920s and
early 1930s. The new demand required a new ingenuity among distillers.
The traditional Ballantine's blend - once described as "smooth, not too
peaty or oaky, dry but not too dry, not too wersh"* (an old Scottish
word) - required no fewer than 42 different single malts to be mixed
with grain whiskies.
Cunningham came up with the idea of what he called the Lomond Still. It
maintained the traditional bulb-shaped bottom of a standard copper still
but had a wider neck resembling a coffee can with a flat top.
It was dumpy, certainly not as pretty as the traditional swan-neck
stills, but it was easier to assemble and operate and was more flexible
in its uses.
Sales of Ballantine's flourished at home and abroad and Cunningham rose
to be managing director of Hiram Walker (Scotland).
As such, and with demand continuing to rise, he oversaw the opening of a
new complex for Ballantine's and other Hiram Walker brands at Kilmalid,
just off the A82 outside Dumbarton on the way to Loch Lomond, in 1977.
The project, widely seen as "Cunningham's baby", started off as the most
advanced whisky blending plant in Europe and was joined by a
state-of-the-art bottling plant next door in 1982, soon handling more
than 100 million bottles a year.
"As always, Alistair brought that major project in on time, and on
budget," said Jim Lawrie, who was hired by Cunningham, worked by his
side for 32 years and retired as assistant managing director of Allied
Distillers in 1996.
After Hiram Walker merged with Allied Lyons in 1987, Cunningham was
named corporate affairs director, and later, in 1990, managing director
of the firm's spirits' branch Allied Distillers.
But despite the expansion to Kilmalid, he remained based at the old
Dumbarton Ballantine's distillery where he had started his career and
would finish it on retirement in 1992. The old red-brick distillery
which once dominated Dumbarton has since been closed down and largely
redeveloped.
Alistair Archibald Cunningham was born on 3 February, 1926, in Bonhill,
just outside Dumbarton, to local machine printer John Cunningham and his
wife Margaret (née Cowan).
He joined Hiram Walker at Ballantine's distillery immediately after
leaving Dumbarton Academy in 1942, but, towards the end of the Second
World War he served for a time with the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy.
After his retirement, Cunningham spent most of his time travelling,
painting, amusing his friends with his impersonations and what they
called his wicked sense of humour and, more recently, caring for his
ailing wife.
To mark his retirement, and 50 years of involvement with the brand,
Ballantine's issued a commemorative special edition whisky, Alistair
Cunningham's, in 1992, a blend of 50 malt and grain whiskies and now a
rare item sought by collectors worldwide.
Alistair Cunningham died in the Royal Alexandra hospital, Paisley. He is
survived by his wife Ella (née Stenhouse Sheach, originally from the
Hebridean Isle of Lewis) and their only son Iain.
--
Trout Mask Replica
KFJC.org, WFMU.org, WMSE.org, or WUSB.org;
because the pigoenholed programming of music channels
on Sirius Satellite, and its internet radio player, suck