Juba, South Sudan

After the 43°C heat of the day in Juba, sundown brings a merciful reprieve. My dearest friend Ken pours me a dram of Glen Deveron, without ice or water, and I realise it’s going to be a long evening with the man from Midlothian. In Juba, it turns out, one can find the finest single malt whiskies, thanks to intrepid Eritreans who run the local grog shops. After a couple of glasses, our conversation goes back to the time we were together in the same burning heat some years back, in the border town of Bentiu, planning our logistics for a journey north into the Nuba mountains. I had hired Ken as a fixer on the TV film I was making with a producer named Danny. In Bentiu, Ken explained to us that apart from a single, dangerous track into this rebel-held territory, Nuba was a war zone, entirely cut off from the outside world. We’d be gone for weeks and so Ken said we must be entirely self-sufficient for all the time we were there.

To carry our provisions, we hired two 4×4 pick-ups and I went off to buy a portable generator and a quantity of diesel with which to charge our TV camera batteries, telephones and other kit. I extracted a pile of $100 bills from Danny and handed these over to Ken, who vanished into the bazaar, where he was tasked with buying all our provisions. Danny and I had written a very long shopping list. This included huge quantities of mineral water, so that we wouldn’t have to drink from any dirty wells. We needed lots of protein to keep us going – cans of tuna, beans, spam and so on. I can’t work without coffee, so we must have lots of that, and tea, long-life milk and sugar. Dried fruit always works on safaris – so piles of sticky Arab dates and figs. With some pots and pans and a camping gas cooker, we’d be able to have our carbohydrates. I asked Ken to get a sack of rice, a sack of potatoes, a bag of wheat flour for chapatis, plus onions, garlic and so on. I’m very keen on fresh fruit and I said we must therefore load up with plenty of oranges, green bananas, unripe mangoes and any other fresh stuff he could find in the market.

Ken proudly took me through the single malt whiskies he had been able to source in this remote outpost

‘What about a few beers?’ asked Ken. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘It would be nice to relax after a hard day’s work with a Tusker beer – but don’t overdo it, since the bean counters will be checking all our receipts and these days they frown on expense claims for alcohol.’ Ken said he understood perfectly. Several hours later, Ken had not returned, so I tracked him down in the bazaar. Here I found him loading up the last of the supplies. He had been able to find most of the items on our shopping list, but these occupied about three boxes in the back of one pick-up. To my consternation, I realised he had purchased rather more alcohol than ‘a few beers’. Ken proudly took me through the inventory of single malt whiskies which he had been able to source in this extremely remote outpost of Africa. As a young man he had worked as a tour guide at Glenfiddich and Balvenie, so inevitably we kicked off with the Speysides – Cragganmore, Glenlivet, Tamdhu and his favourite Glenfarclas, 21-year-old. In the heat and dust of Bentiu we moved on to the Lagavulin and Bowmore from Islay, Talisker from Skye, Highland Park from the Orkneys and then – ah, the whiff of Cromarty Firth came to us with the Dalmore and the one I adore, Glen Deveron.

‘We’re in trouble,’ I said. ‘What else have you got?’ Ken breezily went through the rest of the inventory of gin, vodka, rum and, for good measure, there were also ‘a few beers’. In fact the lion’s share of the cargo on our two pick-ups was alcohol. When my poor producer Danny found out, he became very distressed. Today he’s a well-known film director, but in those days he was just starting out and thought he’d get the sack when they heard about this at the TV company.

Of course, wherever we drove in the rebel Nuba Mountains for the next several weeks, we became highly popular. We’d pitch up at a new rebel position to be met by scowling young gunmen, but out came the Glenkinchie and an hour later the guerrilla commanders were inviting us to the frontline or the best foxholes to shelter in during the frequent air raids, when the bombs rained down and fighters strafed the camps. Word quickly spread, and soon we had the top brass out to welcome us wherever we pitched up. Within a fortnight we’d run out of all our booze and had to switch to a local gin made out of dates, but thanks to Ken, we got our film and Danny even won a prize.