The Water of Life... (Part Two)

[Samohon]

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A Brief History of Scotch Whisky – Part Two.

I have read that Sir Ernest Shackleton, the famous Antarctic explorer, dumped two grates of McKinlay and Co whisky after they were forced to abandon their 1909 attempt on the South Pole. The two crates were discovered under the Cape Royds hut used by a team of explorers in 2006. They had been buried in the ice for nearly a century. Truly Scotch on the Rocks.

Shackleton's, 'Farthest South' expedition came to within 97 nautical miles of the South Pole on January 9 1909 but was forced to turn back due to a lack of food. Personally I would have had a couple of bottles with me. LOL.

But what is remarkable about this story is not the fact that they were lost or found, but they were needed by a famous distiller in Scotland who is still around today, Whyte and MacKay. W&M asked the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, to retrieve the valuable liquid either by bringing an actual bottle, or by taking a syringe full, so that they could recreate the unique flavour of that particular time. Recreate the flavour! How could they possibly get the chemistry, physics and environmental issues associated with that statement correct and more importantly, have a product that is so close to the original that you cannot tell them apart. Well, the truth is. They Can’t.

They can base the new product on a recipe that existed 100 years ago and pass it off as a taste of that time. But what of the, ‘McKinlay and Co’, recipe, taste, blend, ageing, malting, etc, that was performed on that particular bottle? How was that made? For that we must look to how it has always been made. How it was made then and how it is made now. Let’s have a look…

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Ingredients: Barley, Water, Yeast, Oh My…

The Barley:
At the base of this process is the barley. The quality of this ingredient has a great influence on the quality of the end product. Careful selection is made at this stage of the process as to what barley will be used. Sowing, Weather conditions while maturing, (Environmental) and harvesting conditions are all factors that are addressed now in a modern Scotland, but were not practiced 200 or 300 years ago. It is the basic ingredient which will determine the quality of the whisky which will be sold years from now and should be selected with care. Traditionally this job fell to the manager of the distillery. Nowadays they have ways of selecting the best barley or barleys for a particular distiller by chemical and scientific means. Once they achieve the taste they must be able to maintain the same standards that they set well into the future. Yes the taste will change slightly, it changes every day.

There is no legal obligation to use Scottish barley to produce Scotch whisky. Even if some producers would like to go back to the tradition, like some distillers still do, most of the distilleries are not concerned by the origin of their barley. The most important thing is to look for the highest sugar content and the lowest price.

The Water:
Water is as important as barley is in the making process of whisky. Water in Scotland is famous for its great purity and it is this that best lends itself to the quality of the whisky. The water in the Highlands is often peaty, which gives it an amber-ish colour. Substances, deriving from peat, are carried by the rivers into the water used to make the whisky, and contribute often to the original taste of the finished product. Full of nutrients and minerals, no initial boiling off or purification is done, only filtered; it is then fed directly into the distillery.

But water is not the only determining factor in the taste of a whisky. The manufacturing process is also very important in the production line. Water is used in several steps during the distillation process. First of all, it is mixed to the grounded malt in order to produce the wort. It is also used for cooling the alcohol leaving the still and more importantly used to produce the steam that heats the whole process.
And the final stage, water is used to reduce (cut), the alcohol at the bottling stage.

The Yeast:
The yeast is a mixture of brewer's yeast, often mixed with cultured yeast. Used to start the fermentation process, it is still to this day a closely guarded secret. It gives the product its individuality, imparts to the aroma and various other compounds within the strain lend themselves to achieve a flavour that is unique to all the other brands. The yeasts role is capital and the choice of strain is certainly paramount.
My Aunt told me that when my Uncle, who worked for the Springbank Distillery in Campbeltown, now the oldest surviving company to still produce the product under one roof, came home from the malting, he would smell as though he had fallen into one of the vats. A peaty smell that I think was ingrained into his skin. Nice, but after a while overpowering.

The Manufacturing:
The process that turns all this into whisky takes at least 3 years. If a grain spirit (malted or not), did not stay for at least 3 years in an oak cask, it is said to not deserve the name of whisky. Even worse, it does not have legally the right to be marketed under the name of whisky. To deserve the name of Scotch, the whisky must stay on Scottish soil for a minimum of three years. Generally, the whiskies marked as single malt age for a minimum of 8 to 10 years on various flavoured wooden casks.

The Water of Life, just like any other alcohol, is the result of naturally produced chemical alterations to sugar. With all due respect to Experts and Members alike here on HD, to produce alcohol, we first need to make sugar. Sugar is potentially present in barley, which grows easily under a Scottish climate. Many alcohols are made from grapes, and other fruits or pulses, but the climate of Scotland is not suited for this kind of culture. The manufacturing process remains to this day very similar to the way alcohol is produced and based on other raw materials.

The Malting:
The malting process is very dear to me. My uncle, as I have pointed out, was a malter and as such the smells, the colours and taste of malt all help to make up a memory for me that I grew up with as a child. On cold winter mornings, on my way to school, my mother would stand at the door to the house. A spoon in one hand and a jar of barley malt syrup in the other. Nose pinched, a big gulp and the taste, sweetly, sickly. I did not like it, but she told me it had everything I needed that day. It was repeated every day, a never ending supply of the stuff in our house. Another perk of the trade.

Funnily enough, malt and malt syrup, are the result of the malting process. The germination process is started by making the barley wet and is spread out evenly on the floor (Malting Floor). The starch contained in the barley is changed into sugar by a succession of chemical reactions. Later the sugars produced will be changed into spirit. Being a non-smoker, the malting floor smells like going into a tobacconist’s shop, all those beautifully concentrated smells rolled into one room. The malting floor smells the same way. So many different smells, but after a while it starts to become overwhelming and just a bit sickly, maybe too much of a good thing,

The malting art consists of finding the right moment to stop the process, you don’t want to stop it too early, but you don’t want to stop it too late also. Afforded to what season it is, malting takes between 10 and 25 days. Constant attention is given to this process. Barley has to be turned over (Topped), regularly to ensure a constant moisture and temperature and to control the germination of the barley grains.

The end of the germination is triggered by drying the germinating barley over a fire (kiln). This oven is often heated by peat. It is the smoke of the peat fire which gives some whiskies their particular flavour.
When the malt is dry, it is grinded to make a kind of coarse flour which is used in the next operation. This flour is called Grist. Malt grinding is done with a malt mill within the distillery itself. Nearly all the distilleries use the same kind of mill, traditionally made in Leeds, England, which is sometimes hard to accept for a real Scot.

The grist is then mixed with hot water in a mash tun. In general terms grist has a 4:1 ratio with water. In this operation, 3 successive waters are used, at a temperature between 63 and 95%. A mash tun can contain up to 25000 litres and has a double bottom with thin perforations to let the sugary wort flow out, retaining bigger parts which will be sold as cattle food. In order to facilitate the process, mash tuns have rotating blades. The waste from this process is called draff.
The first operation, takes about 1 hour, which changes the starch into fermenting sugars. The mix of water and grist looks like Scottish porridge. As most of you already know this sugared juice is called wort. The remainders will be brewed 3 to 4 times, in order to get a maximum of wort.
This is also where taxation of the finished product starts as the quality of the wort is controlled by the excise men, because it will determine the amount of spirit which will finally be produced. This basis of wort quality will be the format of all the taxation levels of the whole distillery

The Wash Back
Once the yeast is added the fermentation of the wort can begin. The action of the yeast on the sugar of the wort will produce alcohol and carbon dioxide. The wort starts bubbling, which will sometimes result in strong vibrations of the wash back, despite its impressive size. Traditional wash backs are made of Oregon pinewood or Scottish larch. However, more and more stainless steel wash backs are used nowadays, because they are easier to maintain.
The result of the fermentation is the same in both kinds of wash backs. However, there are a lot of distilleries tend to think Oregon wood is the best, and even hi-tech distilleries do not believe in stainless steel wash backs

The Wash
As most of the experts and members on HD already know, as a result of the fermentation of the wort, a kind of beer with a percentage of approximately 8% - 10% abv is produced. This is called the, ‘wash’ and up until now, no substantial differences can be seen in the process of making beer to the process of making a first grade whisky.
From this point on, the difference between the processes will become obvious. Hops will be added to the beer to aromatically perfume it, while whisky will go through the distillation process without alterations.

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In conclusion to Part Two:
All of the above processes would have to be recreated by Whyte and MacKay to try and duplicate the bottles of aqua vitae taken south by the Shackleton Expedition of 1909. They have the experience and expense to come close, but close to maturity in a cask today, is a lot further from adulthood in a cask tomorrow. It’s just changing all the time and under the right conditions, must be a great feeling when opening that cask for the first time. What a job…

400 years ago the process was the same as it is today, only the quality of the drink has changed and with modern technology and breakthroughs within all stages of the production, the result is the same, but with every batch, differs ever so slightly. But it had to start somewhere and I like to think that St Patrick, The Celts, The Dalriadic Monks and others of their ilk gave the world a process that we as hobbyists can take from ancestral hands that showed us what to and what not, to do. Be that Scotch, Bourbon, Saki or any other beverage that is made the same way. It is a process that some governments of the world shun, while others encourage. But that’s for another day.

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We move now to the distillation, ageing, cutting and blending process. A process where the making of whisky starts to differ from other beverages, a process that is so different and so diverse from distiller to distiller, yet remains the same procedure to a certain extent. How they done it then and how, after centuries, things have not changed that much.

A process we will look at in Part Three

Thanks Guys… Samahon.

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[cluey]

Thanks.....again

[Slow & Steady]

Again... Love It!!!

S&S

[ct1870]

This is great stuff. I can't wait till part 3, 4, 5, 6, and so on, and so on.

[Samohon]

Thanks again guy's. I'll try and get part three up soon, just been so busy with my build and sweet feed runs. I'll be posting the outcome from that also, which I must say, has really produced a nice drink...

S.