Philip Morrice
Harper Publishing
1987
I can do no better than quote from the publicity blurb produced by the publisher at the time to promote this very limited circulation and highly priced work, which they launched as “The Whisky Book of the Century”. Perhaps an exaggeration and they were referring to the 20th century whereas they, as Harpers Wine and Spirits Gazette, had published the original Barnard book 100 years before mine, which appeared to mark the centenary of Barnard’s work.
Let me paraphrase a little. My book was “a limited leather bound edition – each copy numbered and signed by the author, Philip Morrice, the much acclaimed writer of several whisky books. It is not a book about whiskies but the story of a journey through the distilleries made by the author. It is a follow-on and a tribute to Alfred Barnard, who, together with an artist friend, made this tour in the 1880’s. …….Philip Morrice’s story chronicles his visits to each distillery, his observations and discussions and each chapter is beautifully illustrated with original drawings by Peter Haillay”.
This limited-edition had a pre-publication price of £325. I have no idea how many copies were actually sold but I did sign 1000 signature pages to be inserted into the final publication. Whilst I had a generous travel budget from the publisher, I received no income whatsoever from sales of the book. I was very disappointed that circulation was so limited as I felt it deserved to reach a much wider public. Perhaps it is time to do an up-date, but if, in the meantime, anyone is interested in receiving an e-book version please register your interest at info@mywhiskyjourneys.com. Very few copies of the original ever appear for sale and are priced at least at twice the pre-publication price.
Further details of the background to the creation of this book are revealed in the interview which the author gave to the well-known whisky website malt-review.com on 26 June 2021 at (link).
This product is located in the United Kingdom.