Drink: Monarch of the glen

As one approaches St James’s Street from Pall Mall, there is an enticing window full of whisky bottles. Part of Berry Bros & Rudd’s temple complex, it is devoted to Glenrothes, a Speyside Malt. The bottles do not look as if they were designed by a marketing man and their labels largely consist of tasting notes. I could not recall whether I had sampled Glenrothes (take that as you will) so it was clearly time to concentrate some attention on this rare malt.

Scotland has its pastoral symphonies as well as its bleaker grandeur. From Aberdeen airport, the autumnal road to Rothes eases its way across rich farmland into the Spey country. Apart from salmon, Speyside was always notorious for unlicensed distilling. Everyone was at it — today, it would no doubt be called the illicit-still community — until George IV and Walter Scott reconciled ingenuity and legality. King George visited Scotland, and felt obliged to favour local traditions.