Cats and Scotch: The Story of the Mouser

Cat lays on barrel.

Whether you’re a cat person or not, if you are relaxing this evening with a nice dram of Scotch – perhaps with a couple of the finest Davidoff cigars – you’ll have to pay homage and toast to our feline friends. For centuries, cats have kept the whisky production flowing by protecting those precious grains from pesky rodents and birds; working with humans in a mutually-beneficial harmony, trading rodent-catching for a warm bed, food and a good rub on the head.

With fewer mice to catch these days, distillery cats have taken a back seat on the mousing work of yesteryear, trading it for a more public relations or ambassador role. As with all great traditions, the distillery cat won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, as the practice of having a ‘mouser’ has gone on since distillers opened their doors. So, wherever you find a whisky distillery, you will find a cat or ‘mouser’ as they are called in the industry.

The commendable Glenturret distillery has been operating in Scotland since 1775, and General Manager Stuart Cassells says they still run things old-school.

“We have no computers, no machinery. We are the only whisky distillery that hand-mashes the mash, which is the water and the barley in the beginning,” he says. “We stir it to make, like, porridge.”

Keeping that barley in good condition and rodent-free is integral to the production of fine whisky.

If you follow the central path betwixt the buildings at Glenturret, where the air smells beautifully of leaves and fresh grass combined with the aromas of wood, smoke and caramel from the whisky-making process, looking over you is a rather proud statue. It is not the company’s founder or a bottle of the first batch of whisky; it’s a wee cat, the greatest distillery cat in the world and a Guinness World Record holder.

Towser the mouser holds the Guinness World Record for catching the most mice. At an estimate of 28,899, you can see how important having a grain guardian could be.

“They say every time Towser caught a mouse, she brought it back to the still house,” says Neal Cameron, who has been creating the whisky here for nearly 20 years. “Whether it was the whole mouse or it was a headless mouse, I have no idea. But she brought them back to the still man.”

Not a requirement, but still adored.

Cameron explained that to create whisky, you need grain. Grain attracts mice and birds, and that really is the rather short story of the distillery cat’s origin.

Vermin are certainly not a problem anymore like they used to be: “We might get the odd one or two mice throughout the year, but that’s about it,” says Cameron.

So, this begs the question; why do distilleries still keep cats on the premises?

The answer is two parts. Firstly it’s just tradition, and that’s what makes a great whisky, keeping to tradition. So, of course, the line of cats must continue and who knows, maybe the mice have learnt not to head to distilleries now with decades of cats patrolling the grain stores.

Secondly, marketing. Cats are naturally photogenic, no matter if they are tortoise shells, black and white, fluffy, short-haired or bobtailed. Cats always take a great picture. If a distillery’s cat is slumbering on a whisky cask or a rafter, it makes for a great picture that draws in the tourists.

You only have to look at Instagram’s distillery tour photos to see several posts on distillery cats. Once the cat is tagged to the company, voila! Free advertising.

If you have any interesting brewery stories or facts, let us know via our social media channels!

Image credit: Neil Wilkie, available under Creative Commons license.

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