HISTORY OF THE SMYTHE-MALLERSON PRIZE

Sir Percival Evelyn Wilberforce Brabazon Smythe-Mallerson, Bart., KBE, CBE, FRS. 1832-1888.

Sir Percy Smythe-Mallerson was the fruit of a liaison between the fifth Earl of Bath and Wells and the daugther of a village publican. After being rejected by his mother's family, he was adopted by his uncle Estevan Malmsbury ("Mamsey"), who was then the T.E. Warburton professor of nephrology at Balliol College, Oxford.

Sir Percy first acquired his love of exploration when he accompanied his uncle on the great 1848 Blue Nile expedition, which led to the discovery of the "Blott'ho" people of Sudan -- a remote tribe that had independently developed its own malt-beverage-making techniques. Sir Percy then and there resolved that he would dedicate his life to broadening the world's understanding of the hidden history of peat and malt. It is perhaps not incidental that Sir Percy developed his noted taste for malt on this expedition. Due to his extreme whiteness (a recessive gene inherited from his father's ancestors) the Blott'ho tribe exalted him to the level of a minor deity and included him in a number of secret rituals that he long refused to discuss in civilized society.

Upon his return to England, Sir Percy was educated at Harrow and Oxford. He soon became a highly noted explorer in his own right: the Congo in 1861-63; Upper Volta in 1865-66; and Bengal in 1872. He unfortunately died in 1888 while on his greatest expedition in New Guinea, while searching for the remains of a long-lost distilling civilization. He was killed and eaten by the natives after remarking that their beverages lacked the ideal degree of "smokiness" and, perhaps, failed to reach full maturity in bamboo casks. The Chief, incensed at this criticism and near-sacrilege, ordered the unfortunate explorer to be immersed in the distillation vats, cooked down to a whitish paste, and consumed at the next "tasting."

But the memory of Sir Percy Smythe-Mallerson lives on in the decennial prize created in his honor by his widow, Lady Millicent Honoria Snodgrass Smythe-Mallerson.

Lady Millicent published her husband's notes, posthumously, as the volume entitled "Gnostic Malts and their True Meanings." As an early convert to the True Spiritualist Movement she held fortnightly seances where she communed with her late husband through the aid of an assortment of single malt beverages. These "spiritual" encounters left her with a burning desire to further her husband's work, whereupon she established the prize with the aid of St. Ardbeg's.

The Smythe-Mallerson Prize is still awarded every ten years, posthumously, to the recently deceased explorer who has made the most significant contribution to the fields of ethnomaltology and geopeatometry. The ten-thousand-pound prize is usually used by the bereaved family to buy a magnificent headstone.