The Workers' Daily Dram: How Dramming Rose and Disappeared

Dramming was the practice of giving distillery workers measures of spirit during the working day, often poured by the “brewer”, the manager’s second in command. Trade histories trace it to the eighteenth century as a way of discouraging theft. Its disappearance was gradual, not the result of a single recorded ban across the industry.[1][2]

Why the workers’ daily dram began

The daily dram belonged to the organisation of work, not simply to the pleasures of making whisky. In Gavin D Smith’s account, distilleries introduced it “as far back as the 18th century” to deter workers from helping themselves to spirit.[1]

Smith quotes Robert Bruce Lockhart’s Scotch, published in 1951, describing free drams as “instituted for one purpose only”: countering a temptation Lockhart called “apparently irresistible”. That is a historical explanation reported through a later trade article, rather than a founding instruction preserved from an eighteenth-century distillery.[1]

The word itself has a wider history. The Dictionary of the Scots Language defines a dram as a small drink of liquor, especially whisky, and records “dram-house” from 1752. Its quotation “Dinna be always dram-dram-dramming”, dated 1858, concerns drinking generally, not necessarily an organised workplace allowance.[10]

That distinction matters: the history of the word cannot establish when distilleries first adopted the custom. What the accounts describe is a managed distribution of spirit, with its own timetable, dispenser and local expectations.[1][2]

How much workers received

There was no uniform daily ration. Smith reports three daily drams at Balmenach during Lockhart’s childhood, while Bowmore’s Ed McAffer remembered servings at 6am, midday and 6pm around a twelve-hour shift. Elsewhere, workers might receive as many as five drams a day.[1]

At Highland Park, Boyo Norquoy recalled a dram at lunchtime and another at teatime. Glengoyne’s own account describes “three fingers of whisky, three times a day”, a description of the pour rather than a measured volume that can safely be converted into millilitres.[2][3]

The table records recollections and company accounts, not a standard applying across the industry. Even the familiar word “dram” can disguise the scale involved: Smith reports calculations suggesting that some workers consumed the equivalent of more than a bottle of whisky a day.[1]

There were additional allowances, too. “Dirty” or “stourie” drams rewarded unpleasant work, including unloading lorries and cleaning burnt oil from boilers. The daily timetable therefore did not necessarily describe everything a worker might receive.[1]

What was in the glass

The usual pour was not an old single malt drawn from a prized cask. Trade accounts describe most workplace drams as “clearic”, new make spirit, meaning spirit before maturation, served at what those accounts call cask strength. Bowmore’s Jim McEwan remembered that “the shift men loved the white stuff”.[1][2]

There were exceptions. Norquoy said Highland Park’s brewer “always gave us a good mature dram”, while Glengoyne says its workers received whisky from a sherry cask rather than the new make commonly poured elsewhere.[2][3]

Those differences help explain why dramming survives in memory as several customs rather than one. A scheduled serving of new spirit and a mature sherry-cask dram belonged to the same broad practice, but they were not the same drink or experience.[1][2][3]

Story box: The teapot on the windowsill

The teapot story also gives the practice a different emphasis: not every worker wanted the allowance. In the Irish accounts, teetotallers and workers who had taken the pledge passed their servings to colleagues.[6]

Permission, discipline and theft

Giving workers spirit did not eliminate unauthorised drinking or removal. Norquoy believed the excise officers knew about dramming, and the same trade account records concealed bottles and flasks leaving the premises despite the allowance.[2]

The distinction between an authorised dram and stealing product is particularly clear in the Irish evidence. IrishCentral’s report, citing Irish Distillers archivist Carol Quinn, describes Jameson’s handwritten “Punishment Book” from the 1930s.[6]

Its recorded offences included drunkenness and smoking at work. A usual punishment was to have one’s “whiskey stopped” for a day to a fortnight; stealing product meant dismissal.[6]

Claim: Jameson withheld workers’ whiskey as a punishment rather than docking their pay. Verdict: Documented. What the record shows: IrishCentral reports the practice from the company’s Punishment Book, citing archivist Carol Quinn. Evidence gap: The original pages were not supplied for this article. Earliest known source: The Punishment Book records offences in the 1930s. Source: IrishCentral, first published 2020 and updated 1 October 2024. Last checked: November 2026; the day was not recorded.

The Irish material also corrects the idea that dramming was exclusively Scottish. Jameson workers received two daily shots in the 1930s, and brothers Tom and Dennis Savage recalled grog breaks at the Cork distillery at 11am and 4pm.[6]

These accounts establish Irish examples, but they do not provide an Irish end date. Scotland’s better-known recollections should not be made to stand for every distillery or every country.[6]

Why dramming disappeared

Smith identifies the October 1967 introduction of the breathalyser and drink driving law in Great Britain as a development that “probably saw the writing on the wall”. He places it alongside new workplace safety laws and growing awareness of the dangers of drinking.[1]

The Department for Transport dates the introduction of the drink-drive limit to 7 October 1967. Separately, the Health and Safety Executive describes the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 as the primary occupational health and safety legislation in Great Britain. Neither source, as used here, establishes a specific statutory ban on dramming.[8][12]

The recollections themselves also resist a harmless-perk interpretation. Smith’s article records substantial consumption and “a significant number of cases of alcohol dependency”. Those observations are more consequential than the affectionate language in which the custom is sometimes remembered.[1]

Replacement could mean changing the form of the allowance rather than ending it altogether. Smith describes dramming being phased out “gradually” and replaced by a free bottle or two of whisky each month.[1]

There is a contemporary parliamentary reference to that different arrangement. On 16 July 1975, Peter Rees told the House of Commons that distillery workers north of the Tweed “may well be given a free bottle of whisky”. His tentative wording records a possibility, not the date such allowances began.[7]

Claim: A free bottle for distillery workers came up in a Commons tax debate in 1975. Verdict: Documented. What the record shows: Hansard records Rees raising the possibility. Evidence gap: His statement does not establish when the allowance began or how it was taxed. Earliest known source: The Commons debate on 16 July 1975. Source: Historic Hansard, column 1608. Last checked: November 2026; the day was not recorded.

There was no single last dram

Glengoyne dates the end of its own dramming to the 1970s. That local account is useful precisely because it identifies a distillery and a period, rather than claiming to settle the timetable for the whole industry.[3][5]

Other memories are less precise. In a WhiskyCast account of a June 2011 visit, Pulteney manager Malcolm Waring recalled beginning work there during the days of dramming. The report preserves a connection to his early career without supplying a final serving date.[11]

Likewise, Smith’s history of excise officers links the lost custom with an older distillery working world and the move towards greater self-regulation from 1983. It does not establish 1983 as the year dramming ended everywhere.[2]

The defensible picture is a gradual retreat across different workplaces, not an established industry ending date.[1][2][3]

Claim: The date when dramming ended across the industry is established. Verdict: Disputed. What the record shows: Smith describes a gradual decline, while Glengoyne dates its own practice to the 1970s. Evidence gap: A Pulteney recollection does not give a final date, and the association with changes in excise supervision does not establish one. Earliest known source: Not reliably established from the supplied sources. Sources: Smith, 2017, Glengoyne and WhiskyCast. Last checked: November 2026; the day was not recorded.

Where to go next

• The Temperance Movement and Whisky: Wick's Dry Years and Beyond: the wider history of opposition to drinking.
• Lloyd George and the Immature Spirits (Restriction) Act 1915: a separate example of legislation changing whisky.
• The Whisky Loch: Why So Many Distilleries Closed in the 1980s: another transformation of the distillery working world.

Sources

[1] ScotchWhisky.com, Gavin D Smith. The lost practice of dramming, 25 October 2017.
https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/features/16581/the-lost-practice-of-dramming/

[2] ScotchWhisky.com, Gavin D Smith. Remembering the age of the excisemen, 31 August 2017.
https://scotchwhisky.com/magazine/features/15789/remembering-the-age-of-the-excisemen/

[3] Glengoyne. Glengoyne serves up latest teapot dram and Introducing Teapot No. 010, undated producer accounts supplied in the fact sheet.
https://www.glengoyne.com/news/glengoyne-serves-latest-teapot-dram-0
https://www.glengoyne.com/introducing-teapot-10

[4] Scottish Licensed Trade News, Gillian McKenzie. Honouring a whisky tradition, 6 December 2018.
https://sltn.co.uk/2018/12/06/honouring-a-whisky-tradition/

[5] Scottish Daily Express, Richard Elias. Three fingers of whisky, three times a day, 26 November 2025.
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/comment/three-fingers-whisky-three-times-36309326

[6] IrishCentral. Jameson employees used to start and end the day with a shot of whiskey, first published 2020, updated 1 October 2024.
https://www.irishcentral.com/roots/history/jameson-punishment-book-daily-grog

[7] UK Parliament, Historic Hansard. Amendment of s. 193 of Taxes Act 1970, House of Commons, 16 July 1975, column 1608.
https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1975/jul/16/amendment-of-s-193-of-taxes-act-1970

[8] Department for Transport. Life-saving drink drive law turns 50, October 2017.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/life-saving-drink-drive-law-turns-50

[10] Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish National Dictionary. Dram n.1, v.1, online edition, publication date not supplied.
https://dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/dram_n1_v1

[11] WhiskyCast. The Tradition of “Dramming”, account referring to a June 2011 media tour.
https://whiskycast.com/the-tradition-of-dramming/

[12] Health and Safety Executive. Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, online guidance, revision date not supplied.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/legislation/hswa.htm

This desk-researched article uses verified fact sheet TOP-A768, distinguishing trade recollections, the producer’s account, archival reporting and official historical sources.

Last checked: November 2026