Cowboys and bootleg whisky: the bankrupt boss who saved Scotch

Spanning more than 10,000 acres of rugged land, this was no ordinary cattle station.

And, although the men on horseback looked the part, they were not your typical cowboys.

This was the heart of the Highlands, and the cattle ranch with its 1250 head of beef cattle grazing on what was once bracken, bog and heather, was bringing a distinct flavour of the wide-open prairie to the Great Glen.

Hobbs built cattle shelters on the Great Glen Cattle Ranch (Image: Courtesy of Joseph Peter Hobbs/Tim Smith)

Among the horseback cowboys was the ‘head honcho’: a former First World War pilot who bankrolled Canada’s tallest building and lost a fortune, who became a Prohibition bootlegger and, for good measure, went on to breathe life into Scotland’s struggling whisky sector.

Not only that, but decades before the modern trend for reviving mothballed whisky distilleries and returning their precious spirit to market, Joe Hobbs was doing just that.

The remarkable story of how he transformed hundreds of acres of ‘derelict’ Highland moorland into the Great Glen Cattle Ranch is now being told in a new book.

It tells how the English-born entrepreneur with business interests spanning shipping, property and whisky, adopted farming practices more akin to his adopted Canadian homeland to his Inverlochy Estate.

His innovative post-Second World War idea involved a massive programme of drainage, planting and reforestation, transforming moors dismissed as only good for sheep and shooting into high-quality cattle grazing.

Rancher Hobbs on horseback (Image: Hugh Dan MacLennan/Tim Smith)

With an aim to feed Britain at a time of post-war rationing, Hobbs’s prairie-style methods saw cattle to roam the glen all year round, feeding from silage pits and sheltering in distinctive concrete shelters some of which are still visible today alongside the A82 between Fort William and Spean Bridge.

His Great Glen Cattle Ranch continued for around two decades, growing to more than 1200 acres and offering the bizarre sight of him and his ranchmen on horseback – cowboy style – rounding up more than 1250 beef cattle.

The Great Glen Cattle Ranch shelter, still in use today (Image: Tim Smith)

An astonishing feat of agricultural innovation, Hobbs harboured hopes his cattle ranch inspire others across the Highlands and around Britain, transforming the landscape and agricultural sector.

Despite its success, however, few had quite the same determination as Joe Hobbs to make his ideas work.

While the ranch, meanwhile, would be just one of many astonishing ventures in Hobbs’ incredible life.

Indeed, it was simply another remarkable venture for Hobbs, a serial entrepreneur who made a fortune selling bootleg Scotch to prohibition America, lost it again, and then set about revitalising Scotland’s floundering whisky sector.

“He was an amazing man,” says Tim Smith, who spent four years researching and writing his book, Not Your Average Joe.

“The history of Scotch whisky is full of characters, his extraordinary life story that had never been properly told.

“His personality has been described as ‘unstoppable, like a bulldozer in a low gear’.

“He had massive amounts of energy, he was determined and had an incredible entrepreneurial mindset.

“He constantly took opportunities – so many that it is almost exhausting to think about.”

Rounding up cattle on the Great Glen Cattle Ranch (Image: Contributed/Tim Smith)

He was born in Hampshire in 1891 but left with his family aged nine for Canada when his father fell into bankruptcy. Their new life in British Columbia provided a taste of the prairie-style farming that he would eventually attempt in the wilds of the Great Glen.

But first he’d rack up a string of other achievements…

With the First World War raging in Europe, Hobbs enlisted and became one of Canada’s first military airmen: a perilous position when flight was still in its infancy, planes were made of wood and canvas and making it through training was an achievement.

Despite a crash landing that destroyed his plane Hobbs survived and returned to Canada to run a shipping business. With prohibition in America, he seized the chance to use his vessels to deliver hundreds of thousands of cases of bootleg whisky to the coast of California.

“He had been importing whisky to Vancouver,” explains Tim. “But when prohibition took off, there was massive demand for whisky to the United States.

“Hobbs could buy whisky for $25 and sell it in the US for $60.

“There was no Canadian law to say he couldn’t export whisky during prohibition - it was the ones who were taking it to the US that were breaking the law.”

Having made a small fortune, he bankrolled the construction of the towering art deco Marine Building in Vancouver, only for its completion to coincide with the start of the Great Depression.

Bankrupt, with just £1000 left, he set sights on new ventures in Scotland and a whisky sector floundering in the wake of a slump in demand.

Benromach Distillery in 1930s was among a number bought by Joe Hobbs (Image: Public domain)

Hobbs realised the end of prohibition would send US demand for blended whisky soaring - Scotch was a very attractive proposition for the entrepreneur.

The book tells how Hobbs set about snapping up half a dozen mothballed distilleries at knock-down prices and putting them back into production: moves that saved some from the likelihood of being lost forever.

First on his list was Glenury Royal distillery near Stonehaven, dating from 1825 and which had been mothballed in the 1920s.

Fettercairn distillery in the late 1930s (Image: Joseph Peter Hobbs)

With his business partners, he employed 30 men to refurbish the buildings, build roads and landscape the site, and spent thousands re-equipping the distillery with modern plant.

He then snapped up Benromach, near the town of Forres, on Speyside, Glenlochy distillery, near Fort William and Bruichladdich on Islay which he bought for £8,000, roughly £680,000 in today’s money.

He later ‘flipped’ it and sold it to a business he had shares in, earning a tidy profit of more than £1.25 million in the process.

Sandy Macnab Scotch from Hobbs' distilleries was destined for the US market (Image: Tim Smith)

Before he was done, he also picked up mothballed Fettercairn in the north-east for a rock-bottom price, putting it back into production after 12 years of lying silent.

As well as bringing distillery jobs, his pledge to use Scots barley boosted local agriculture.

Having bought five malt distilleries, he also wanted to secure supplies of grain whisky to create his US market blends under the labels Sandy Macnab's and Old Angus.

Ben Nevis distillery c.1900. (Image: Public domain)

He bought and reopened Hillside in Montrose, which under the banner of Northern Esk was one of Scotland’s largest distilleries before its doors had closed two decades earlier.

“Between 1936 and 1939 he bought seven distilleries and refurbished them all,” says Tim.

“Three of them, he bought with his own money and then flipped to a joint venture company he’d set up. He at least doubled, possibly even tripled, his money and still partly owned them.

“He did very well from it, even though it looks like sharp practice.”

The Second World War disrupted his plans but even then, Hobbs cashed in by selling distilleries yet retaining shares.

With the war ending, he bought Ben Nevis distillery and the nearby Inverlochy Estate, with its impressive castle and sprawling Highland landscape that would become Scotland’s first – and last – prairie-style cattle ranch.

“He figured he needed to make it pay,” adds Tim. “There was rationing of meat at the time, and the government was trying to work out how to produce more.

“He said ‘I’ll show you how to do it’.

“He started to grow arable crops on the better land to produce silage and put cattle to graze on the uplands.

“Everyone said ‘you’re mad, you can’t have a highly productive cattle farm on this massive upland area, it’s too wet, the soil is too poor, it can’t sustain that level of production’.

“He proved everyone wrong.”

He explored innovative ideas such as using locally-sourced fish oil and draff from his distilleries for feed, planted thousands of trees for shelter and built hundreds of homes at his ranch and distilleries for workers.

Joe Hobbs on his horse, Prince (Image: Contributed/Tim Smith)

In October 1961 and with his health failing and the ranch set to be sold, he supervised the final round up of cattle. 

He wasn't entirely done. Although ill, he went on to create Inverlochy Castle Farm, clearing the ground, laying down seed and introducing 50 Irish cattle before his death two years later.

Inverlochy Castle, meanwhile, became one of Scotland’s most prestigious hotels: one night’s stay now costs around £650.

Hobbs had made his mark on agriculture, whisky and property. But his other great love was sailing  his steam yacht, Torlundy, up and down the west coast and later, Ocean Mist. It is now a floating restaurant in Leith.

“In an industry littered with great characters and extraordinary personalities, Joe Hobbs stands out as one of the whisky world’s most colourful and interesting entrepreneurs,” adds Tim.

“He saved distilleries that would otherwise not be here today.

“For anyone who likes a dram, that is probably his biggest lasting legacy.”

Not Your Average Joe by Tim Smith is published by Troubador Publishing on 28 August.