LIQUEUR FROM SCOTLAND

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28658, 7 August 1958, Page 2

LIQUEUR FROM SCOTLAND

Recipe Close Secret One of the most closely hidden recipes in Britain is that of the famous liqueur, Drambuie, and it is a woman who.holds the key to it. She is Mrs Gena Mackinnon, and it was to an ancestor of her husband that Prince Charles Edward Stuart gave the recipe of his own personal liqueur after his defeat at Culloden in 1746, as a reward for helping I him to escape. The family kept it to themselves until Malcolm Mackinnon decided to produce it commercially in 1906. Since then, its fame has gone round the world. “When we married he gave me the formula, and I took on the job of making it up. I keep the recipe secure in the bank, but the day I die my son, Norman, will learn the secret,” Mrs Mackinnon said in Edinburgh recently. Defies Analysis TTie liqueur is made in a way which defies analysis, although there have been eight attempts at imitations, none has quite combined the elusive blend of herbs and honey which produces the real Drambuie. One employee once found out every ingredient that Mrs Mackinnon used, but, although he knew what went in he did not know how much. The result was a failure. Mrs . Mackinnon personally makes every drop. From her home in Edinburgh she sends about 70 phials a week down to the distillery in the city,''otherwise production would stop. She works when she is in the mood, usually in the early morning. Precision is everything—everything, that is, except the secret of ingredients and quantities, Mrs Mackinnon said.