Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 12 on 19/1/2004.

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Searching for Scotland's true spirit

Iain Banks' new book is a personal journey into Scotland's distillery hearland. Paul Schoonenberg reports

Iain Banks, the relentlessly inventive novelist, famous for his speed writing (he penned his last novel Dead Air in just six weeks), is finally taking a more leisurely approach to his work with his first piece of non fiction, Raw Spirit: In search of the perfect dram, a layman’s guide to whisky and Scotland’s distilleries.

The author travels by train, plane and automobile, meeting friends and family and exploring Scotland from the Orkney Islands to Wick on the northern seaboard and back down to his home in Fife. The research for the book took Banks nine months to complete.

You can forgive Banks his indulgence. This was his chance to relax and enjoy all his favourite aspects of Scotland – the landscapes, the empty roads and surprisingly the climate – “I’m not good in high temperatures,” he says with a touch of humour. The subject moves onto whisky rather swiftly.

It was in the mid-60s while still at school that Banks had his first taste of a dram. “I think quite a lot of people of my generation were introduced to whisky at a fairly young age. Once a year, usually around Hogmanay, the tradition was for your dad or uncle to say ‘Have a wee drop.’

“Being a kid, you’d take one taste and go ‘horrible, this is not even remotely sweet. Nothing like Irn Bru’.”

His tastes have since matured. By the end of his Scottish tour, he must have been something of an expert? He laughs. “It got to the stage when I could correct all the tour guides which obviously didn’t go down very well.”

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By Paul Schoonenberg

Section : Scotland Profile

Page number : 28