‘Whisky Galore’ the Dutch way – the true

Who doesn’t know the book or movie ‘Whisky Galore’? In heavy weather, a ship runs on the rocks of the coast of a Scottish island. When the local population realises that the ship is loaded with whisky they decide to unload the ship themselves. You might say that these sorts of things only happen in books and movies, but nothing is further from the truth. First of all, ‘Whisky Galore’ was based on a real grounding of a whisky-carrying ship and second, Scotland isn’t the only place where it happened ….

Early in the history of Van Wees, a company specialised in distilled spirits and based in Amersfoort in the Netherlands, a ship carrying whisky was lifted off the bottom of the Nieuwe Waterweg (the ‘New Waterway’, the main shipping route from the North Sea into the port of Rotterdam). The whisky cargo was offered to Van Wees and they brought it onto the Dutch market. The whiskies themselves were blended whiskies, destined for the American market. The quality of the blends appeared to be a lot higher than what people were used to in the Netherlands in those days and they sold out quickly.

Recently I received a phone call from Van Wees, telling me another ship had sunk on the Nieuwe Waterweg, again having whisky on board, and the whisky was again offered to the company. At the time, I didn’t pay it much attention, but when I told the story to friends, the reaction was one of surprise. “A ship sunk on the Nieuwe Waterweg? That should have made it into the newspapers at the very least. The ship that sunk on the Schelde was in the papers.” That all sounded perfectly logical, so I started to investigate. Among others I phoned the ‘Gemeentelijk Havenbedrijf Rotterdam’, the ‘Raad van Scheepvaart’ and the ‘Dienst Kring Nieuwe Waterweg’, all port and shipping authorities. In answer to my question “Do ships regularly sink on the Nieuwe Waterweg?”, I got answers like “no idea”, “ask somewhere else”, or a resounding “no, no ship has sunk in recent years”. My confidence in Van Wees started to wobble a bit. A sunken ship full of whisky, and the second in their history? A stiff story, I started to think. Until I talked to someone who explained to me that ships don’t really sink on the Nieuwe Waterweg. “Whenever a ship is in trouble and threatens to sink, she will be towed to shallow water near the shore immediately. There, provisional repairs are made and she is then towed to a dock. So no real sinking anymore.” Armed with this information I phoned Van Wees

It happened on November 26, 2002: a collision which involved three ships. Probably as a result of a strong undertow, the 111 meter long ‘Hellenic Star’ was pushed off her ruther and glanced off the back of the container ship ‘West Express’. Both ships were heading out to sea. As a result of her going off course, the ‘Hellenic Star’ could not avoid the incoming 166 meter ‘Western Trader’. The ‘Hellenic Star’, carrying 28,000 tons of gasoline, received heavy damage at her bow. Despite the damage, the ship could safely be towed away by the two tugs ‘VS Rotterdam’ and ‘SD Jacoba’ belonging to  salvage company Kotug. The collision damaged the ‘Western Trader’ badly: a hole measuring 4 by 9 meters on her port side. The ship tilted heavily and was very quickly towed to shallow water by three tugs of Kotug, the ‘Stella’, ‘Hamburg’ and ‘Jaco 4’. Subsequently, the ‘Western Trader’ was held in place by the tugs ‘VS Rotterdam’, ‘ZP Montelena’, ‘SD Jacoba’, ‘Stella’ and the ‘Vernebank’, a tug belonging to another salvage company, Smit. Later, assisted by these tugs and the floating crane ‘Marcor 4’, also belonging to Smit, the cargo was secured. After emptying the ‘Western Trader’, she was held in position by the floating dock ‘Asian Hercules II’, again belonging to Smit, for provisional repairs and finally towed to a dock.

The Rotterdam port authority could also tell me that the ‘Western Trader’ was called a ‘Feder’ in good Dutch, a small container ship that travels from port to port shipping containers back and forth. On this particular voyage, she had left Grangemouth, west of Edinburgh on her way to the Waalhaven in Rotterdam with a cargo of cigarette lighters, copper chloride and three containers with alcohol. This alcohol was packed in oak casks with final destination Japan. As a result of the collision, and because the original owners of the casks expressed not being interested anymore, the casks ended up with Van Wees. Using photos and descriptions, the containers were offered for sale to Van Wees: 144 casks of Scottish malt whisky, labelled Burnside and Wardhead, distilled in 1996. The names Burnside and Wardhead were unfamiliar to Van Wees, but after some research it became clear that Burnside was a vatted malt consisting of 99% Balvenie and 1% Glenfiddich whereas Wardhead was 99% Glenfiddich and 1% Balvenie. It was now clear where the whisky was produced: William Grant  & Sons in Dufftown. The reason behind the vatting is to prevent a third party, like an independent bottler, from bringing the whisky on the market as a single malt from a particular distillery.

Without having tasted the whisky, Van Wees decided to buy and traveled to Rotterdam to view their latest acquisition. “The containers were opened and from one emerged an enormous cloud of alcohol vapour. One of the bourbon barrels containing Burnside had been smashed and had lost its contents.

We loaded the containers on a lorry and drove them to a warehouse in Amersfoort. There we unloaded them by hand, which was a tough job as the walls of the containers were badly dented in the collision. So the casks had to be rolled over these dents. When all the casks were unloaded from the containers we removed the bungs with a large type of cork screw we had lying around. From each cask we took a sample and then we started tasting. We decided to keep the refill bourbon barrels with Burnside separate from the refill sherry casks so we had two different whiskies. Both now carry the label ‘Burn of Speyside’, but with the additional qualifiers ‘Speyside Malt Whisky from refill Bourbon barrels’ and ‘Speyside Malt Whisky from refill sherry hogsheads’. We’re leaving the casks with Wardhead to mature for a little while longer; we felt that would be all right.”, said Van Wees.

So, you see, ships carrying whisky can still get into trouble on the Nieuwe Waterweg. Even though they don’t actually sink anymore, maybe the story of this modern-day version of ‘Whisky Galore’ will be made into a movie one day …..

© 2005 Robin Brilleman; translated from Dutch by the editor

Thanks to René Oskam of Van Wees for additional photos and samples.

Editor’s note: So how does Dutch ‘Whisky Galore’ whisky taste? Both 6 y.o. 1996 ‘Burn of Speyside’ are bottled un-chillfiltered at 46%. The ‘refill bourbon barrels’ version is clearly a young whisky, on the light side, medium sweet, and with a buttery nose and spicy notes on the palate. The one from ‘refill sherry hogsheads’ is not as soft as the ‘bourbon’ version, but slightly fuller. A more fruity nose and a very faint sherry echo. The finish is somewhat drier. You would never think these are basically Balvenie malts (with a homeopathic amount of Glenfiddich), as they don’t have any of the typical Balvenie-honey. Very interesting to taste Balvenie at such a young age.