The last dram in the bottle always makes it a very special dram but it’s made extra specially special when it’s an exceptionally special, and not to mention, fairly rare whisky. Once it’s been poured there’s no more – well, at least not until when/if we get another bottle.
Today’s last dram is The Macphunn , an 18 year old, distilled on Speyside and matured in Sherry Oak. It was one of less than 300 bottles from a single cask selected by Sir Charles Maclean, 16th Keeper of Dunconnel in the Isles of the Sea. His father Lord Fitzroy Maclean (yep, the one that everyone denies was definitely the inspiration for Ian Flemming’s 007) was the first to select The Macphunn to sell in the family hotel.
The Macphunn is named after half hung Archibald Macphunn of Dripp, who, legend has it, was a notorious sheep stealer or murderer (depending on who you talk to!). Tried, convicted and eventually hung, his body was released to his wife who rowed it back across Loch Fyne for burial. Half way across she stopped to nurse her baby and noticed her husband’s corpse twitch. Quickly she mixed a little milk with some whisky she just happened to have handy and forced it between the lips of her husband. Unbelievably, Archie survived and, because under Scottish law he couldn’t be hung for the same offence twice, he went on to live until a ripe old age albeit looking at life on a slight angle. For once this story may actually be true as there are records from the 17th Century of an Archibald Macphunn being hung yet the final date of death recorded several years later.
So next time you’re in Strachur take a look at Archie’s gravestone, or failing that pop down the hill and raise a glass to the lucky old man. Although I’d be quick, it is after all, the last dram.
