The Ferintosh Privilege and Burns's Lament

“Thee Ferintosh! O sadly lost!” Ferintosh was a whisky name famous enough for Robert Burns to mourn in verse. His lament concerned the loss of the Forbes family's exceptional excise privilege, not the disappearance of distilling from the estate. That continued into the 1820s, according to the Highland Archaeological Research Framework.[6][8]

Ferintosh, the place behind the name

Ferintosh became more than a place name. The Dictionary of the Scots Language locates it on the Cromarty Firth near Dingwall, identifies its distillery with Forbes of Culloden and records the spellings Ferrintosh, Ferntosh and Fairntosh. Its telling observation is that the name was “Often used of whisky generally”. Ferintosh belongs to the history of both a particular place and the language people used for whisky.[4]

The privilege belonged to Duncan Forbes of Culloden, whom the Dictionary of National Biography identifies as the eldest son of John Forbes of Culloden. That account connects the concession with damage inflicted on his estates at Culloden and Ferintosh by Jacobite forces under Buchan and Cannon.[2]

Compensation, rather than an unrestricted gift, lies at the heart of the story. Historical accounts describe a right to distil the estate's grain under special excise arrangements. The surviving parliamentary transcription records a fixed annual duty and continuing liability for additional excise. The familiar phrase “tax free whisky” leaves out both obligations.[1][2]

Compensation through a distilling privilege

What the Ferintosh privilege actually allowed

The key document is the act headed Anent the excise of Ferrintosh, dated 16 July 1695. It recites an act of 1690 that had farmed, or “Ferm”, the excise of Ferintosh to Duncan Forbes and his successors as proprietors. This was an arrangement for handling excise, not a declaration that whisky had become lawful for the first time.[1]

Parliament returned to the matter because the tax now fell on the drink rather than the grain measure: “off of the Liquor, and not off of the bowl”. It declared that the change had not altered the grant. The concession thus survived a shift in the basis of taxation, rather than depending on one method of calculating excise.[1]

Its obligations survived too. The lands remained liable for their proper share of any additional excise imposed by law on the kingdom. Together with the annual duty, that express limit makes “entirely tax free” an inadequate description of the arrangement.[1]

How exceptional was Ferintosh?

There were “few if any legal 18th century distilleries other than those in Ferintosh”, according to the Highland Archaeological Research Framework. This is an archaeological assessment rather than an official production census, but it conveys the exceptional position assigned to the estate.[8]

In his trade history for ScotchWhisky.com, Neil Wilson reports that three further distilleries were built on the estate in the 1760s. His account gives a sense of the scale claimed for Ferintosh's expansion.[9]

ScotchWhisky.com also calls Ferintosh Scotland's first legal distillery. The Scotch Whisky Association's 1995 history offers a narrower observation: Ferintosh appears in the earliest reference to a distillery in the Acts of the Scottish Parliament.[7][9] That is a distinction in the surviving parliamentary record, not an established beginning for lawful distilling. An earliest reference in one series of records cannot settle the broader claim.

Verdict: Disputed

The earliest source identified for the narrower parliamentary claim is the Scotch Whisky Association, 1995.[7] See its history alongside Neil Wilson's 2018 account.
Last checked: 7 November 2026.

Why three dates appear at the end

The three accounts describe different stages. SCARF identifies legislation in 1784 taking effect two years later, in 1786. The 1860 Britannica gives withdrawal in 1785; Wilson's trade account dates the compensation decision to 30 December 1785.[3][8][9]

Accounts differ on when the Ferintosh privilege ended.
Verdict: Disputed

The statute itself has not been established from the sources checked. The earliest of these accounts is the 1860 Britannica.[3]

Compare Britannica, 1860, the SCARF case study and Neil Wilson, 2018.
Last checked: 7 November 2026.

Losing the concession did not mean ending production. SCARF states that distilling at Ferintosh continued certainly into the 1820s. It also records compensation, as do the nineteenth-century account and Wilson's trade history.[3][8][9] The distinction matters: the privilege's withdrawal and the estate's distilling history have different endings.

A short chronology

What Burns mourned in “Scotch Drink”

The clearer 1787 Edinburgh printing gives the opening of Burns's stanza:

Thee Ferintosh! O sadly lost!
Scotland lament frae coast to coast![6]

Its ending names the loss:

For loyal Forbes' charter'd boast
Is ta'en awa![6]

Scotch Drink appeared in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, printed by John Wilson at Kilmarnock in 1786. The poem begins on page 22, with the Ferintosh passage on page 28. The Scotch Whisky Association dates its composition to 1785.[5][11]

Burns lamented the loss of the Forbes family's Ferintosh privilege.
Verdict: Documented

The earliest known source is Robert Burns's Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 1786.[5] The Kilmarnock edition, 1786, and Edinburgh edition, 1787, preserve the verse; the SCARF case study records distilling's continuation.[8]
Last checked: 7 November 2026.

The next stanza turns its anger on the Excise, calling its officers “Thae curst horse-leeches o' th' Excise”. The following poem in the 1786 collection, The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer, complains of “that curst restriction On AQUA VITAE”. Together, the passages place Ferintosh within Burns's writing about whisky and restriction, rather than simply nostalgia for a lost name.[5][6]

There is another strand to that relationship with excise. The Scotch Whisky Association records that Burns trained as an exciseman.[11] His fierce verse and his training belong to the same life; the invective should not obscure his own connection with excise work.

The name survived the privilege

Ferintosh lived on in the language of whisky. The Dictionary of the Scots Language traces it beyond Burns through uses by Hogg, Moir, Neil Munro and the Scots Magazine. Its observation that the word could mean whisky generally helps explain the name's usefulness long after the concession had gone.[4]

The reputation also found a later distillery home. Highland Council's Historic Environment Record states that Ben Wyvis Distillery at Dingwall was built in 1879. The Ferrintosh name was subsequently applied to benefit from the older name's reputation.[10]

A later Dingwall distillery used the Ferintosh name for its reputation.
Verdict: Documented

That later use does not establish that the Dingwall works was the original Ferintosh distillery. The record supports the adoption of a celebrated name, not a continuous distillery identity.

The source is Highland Council's Historic Environment Record MHG9092, publication date not stated.[10]
Last checked: 7 November 2026.

Sources

1. Parliament of Scotland. Act of Parliament Anent The excise of Ferrintosh, 16 July 1695. EarlyPrint transcription. https://distantreader.org/stacks/earlyprint/txt/B05201.txt
2. Dictionary of National Biography, volume 19, 1889. “FORBES, DUNCAN (1644? to 1704), genealogist”, page 389. Wikisource transcription. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Dictionary_of_National_Biography_volume_19.djvu/389
3. Encyclopaedia Britannica, eighth edition, volume 9, 1860. “FORBES”. Transcription hosted by Jim Clifford. https://jimclifford.ca/early_encyclopedia_britannica/articles/1860/eb_8th_1860_007991.html
4. Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary. Ferintosh, n., online entry, edition date not stated in the supplied record. https://www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/ferintosh
5. Robert Burns. Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Kilmarnock: John Wilson, 1786, pages 22 to 28 and following poem. Internet Archive scan. https://archive.org/details/bim_eighteenth-century_poems-chiefly-in-the-sc_burns-robert_1786
6. Robert Burns. Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. Edinburgh: printed for the author and sold by William Creech, 1787, page 28. Internet Archive scan. https://archive.org/details/poemschieflyins00burn
7. Scotch Whisky Association. Section 2: The History of Scotch Whisky, copyright 1995. Copy hosted by the University of Edinburgh. https://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jhb/whisky/swa/chap2.html
8. Scottish Archaeological Research Framework, Highland Archaeological Research Framework. Meryl Marshall, Case Study: A possible 18th century distillery site at Mulchaich Farm, Ferintosh, publication date not stated in the supplied record. https://scarf.scot/regional/higharf/highland-archaeological-research-framework-case-studies/mulchaich-farm/
9. ScotchWhisky.com. Neil Wilson, The Forbes family of Ferintosh, 11 July 2018. Trade history. https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/whisky-heroes/19844/the-forbes-family-of-ferintosh/
10. Highland Council, Highland Historic Environment Record. MHG9092: Ferintosh Distillery, online record, revision date not stated in the supplied record. https://her.highland.gov.uk/monument/MHG9092
11. Scotch Whisky Association. Story of Scotch, online history, publication date not stated in the supplied record. https://www.scotch-whisky.org.uk/discover-scotch/story-of-scotch/

This desk-researched article uses the supplied verified fact sheet, distinguishing parliamentary transcription, Burns's printed text and later historical interpretation.

Last checked: November 2026