From Outlander to intrepid hiker to whisky distiller, Sarah Tucker meets a warrior spirit in actor and entrepreneur Sam Heughan…
There is something of the poet adventurer in Sam Heughan, the actor best known for his eleven-year tenure as the handsome Jacobite warrior Jamie Fraser in the series Outlander, who meets and falls in love with time-travelling 20th-century nurse Claire Beauchamp, played by Caitriona Balfe.
Meeting him, albeit over a zoom call, I get the feeling this is a man who never sits still, is eternally curious about life, has boundless intellectual as well as physical energy – a doer who enjoys getting his hands dirty.
“I don’t think Fraser would like me,” Heughan commented recently, “He would consider me a stupid actor.” I disagree. When Heughan speaks about his life, and work, he shows a keen sense of purpose, practicality and determination. He shows a wit and versatility which makes him resourceful. All qualities of which Jamie Fraser would approve.
Heughan’s deep-rooted passion for Scotland and all things Scottish is evident in how his face lights up when he describes the mysterious landscapes he has encountered while working on Outlander and Men in Kilts. The images he conjures are visceral.
“My uncle, for a time, lived on the Isle of Eigg, and there’s a group of Islands, Muck, Mull, Rum, really interestingly-named places, lying south of Skye. My family would visit every summer; catch a ferry across to the Isle of Eigg and see the landscape completely differently. Once we hit the North Sea, I would feel like an explorer. The Ferry was the only way to get around before the [English] military built the roads. The clans controlled the ocean.”
From the standing stones of Clanais on the Isle of Lewis, where Outlander was filmed to the Schiehallion, one of Scotland’s most popular munros, he seems bewitched by the legends as much as the energy surrounding these places
Although he admits the final chapter on Outlander left a void in his schedule (the crew became like a family, the wrap party was held outdoors with bagpipes and a ceilidh), in December he will be in Nepal, trekking up Everest to Base Camp (the hard way) with acclaimed mountaineer Jake Norton. He met Norton while preparing for a role in a film about the explorers Stanley Irvine (1902 – 1924) and George Mallory (1886 – 1924), whose ill-fated attempt on Everest has gone down in history. Norton was on the team that found Mallory’s remains in 1999. Irvine’s partial remains were only found earlier this year.
“We will be trekking through a lesser-known valley that no one has ever been to before, which will mean reaching a 19,000-foot ridge and rappelling down into the valley, so that will be quite an experience. I’m terrified, but I have a great respect for that mountain. I am not doing this for television or film – I am just doing this for myself.”
Heughan’s voice is as smooth as his whisky. His latest venture is his multi-award-winning whisky and gin, ‘The Sassenach’, the Gaelic word for ‘outsider’. He feels he is an outsider to the industry, but the idea behind the name seems to have emerged from his mother, who is an English artist and was called ‘Sassenach’ when she arrived in New Galloway, and in Outlander, Jamie Fraser calls his wife Sassenach as s term of endearment. “The name is very special to me,” he tells me.
“Five years back, I travelled a lot, and I remember being in a bar in London. It was a Scottish celebration of some sort – St Andrews Day or perhaps Burns Night. There was a single malt on the bar’s top shelf, and as soon as I tasted it, it reminded me of Scotland. I have an emotional reaction to it, but with other spirits, less so. It made me feel quite homesick. It is Scotland in a bottle…it is personality in a bottle.”
Watching Heughan talk about the whisky, the research which goes into it, the foibles of flavour, which leaving it outdoors, or adding water or ice to it, has on the ABV (alcohol content), it is clear he enjoys learning about the alchemy of the blending possibly even more than he does enjoy drinking the final product. He talks of the influence of the terroir and water, how he likes the taste to weigh heavy on the palate, and the influence of Asian whisky on the final blend with its balance of butterscotch, honey, crab apple, rhubarb, which reminds him of picking the fruit from his mother’s garden.
Something of the ghost of Jamie Fraser has lingered in this entrepreneur. As Heughan admits himself, he has been playing someone else for eleven years, and observing him talk about Scotland and The Sassenach brand, he appears to have captured some of that warrior spirit. Or perhaps, it is the other way round, and he injected his own spirit into the character.
Sam Heughan reached Everest based camp on Friday 20th December. You can follow his experiences on Instagram at @samheughan. For more information about Sassenach whisky, please visit www.sassenachspirits.com.
Outlander returned with Season 7, Part 2 currently airing on Stars. The concluding season has recently finished production and is scheduled to air in 2025.
