Commercial spirit

Evening Standard - Londoner's Diary - Friday 9th February 2001

HOLLYWOOD scriptwriter Man Scott is shamelessly trying to promote a new product, a black vodka called Blavod, which he believes is ideal for Valentine's Day cocktails.

Otherwise known as Allan Shiach, chairman of his family firm the Macallan distillery on Speyside, he has always managed to work a bottle of malt whisky into his scripts. In the love scene between Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland in Don't Look Now, for example, a bottle of Macallan malt whisky lurks alluringly in the background. However, his black vodka venture has put him in a quandary. He has just done a deal to work on the film of Melvyn Bragg's book The Maid of Buttermere.

"Blavod is an incontrovertibly modern drink, whereas the Maid of Buttermere is an elegant period piece," he laments. "I may have to send Lord Bragg a case and ask him to write a contemporary novel about New York."